For Part 2 of our Trinity journal series, we’re going to take a look at the changes to the game’s Mission system.

One of the most requested, and in many ways most disappointing, additions in Trinity was the ability to give Missions to other players. As a design decision, we opted to make this system very flexible; unfortunately, this open-endedness meant the AI didn’t know how to evaluate if a mission was worth doing. Given that completing missions was a key requirement to gaining higher relationship values, this made the AI’s behavior more random than intentional. If a player got lucky, the AI would happen to complete a mission through sheer chance. In multiplayer, to avoid “gaming the system,” it was impossible to offer missions in locked teams; while for unlocked sessions the rewards simply weren’t worth the effort.

Our solution has been a major update of the underlying Mission system that moves from an open-ended design to a fixed one with multiple levels. In the early game, missions will now be easier to accomplish, and as your relations with other players improve, they will scale upwards and become harder. The rewards as missions scale will also increase, with bonuses automatically applied depending on how much the players’ like each other. We’ve also tweaked the allotted time for each mission, to create a balance between actually accomplishing the objective vs. time pressure to complete it. Of course, players can opt to reject missions, though they’ll take a relationship hit for doing so.

The changes give the AI information it needs to evaluate missions and to decide if it will attempt to complete them or not. If an AI player doesn’t like you or feels a mission isn’t worth its effort, it will immediately reject it in the same way a human player could. If the AI decides to accept the mission, this doesn’t automatically mean that the AI will be successful, only that it will make the attempt; they can still fail the same way a human would.

We’ve also added additional mission types including destroy capital ship, destroy planet and send envoy (which you’ll only see once a Cease Fire is in place).

In the last journal for the Trinity update, we’ll go into some details on the updated Envoys and Pacts.