Elite: Dangerous - Passenger Missions - A Case of the Long Haul?

A look at passenger missions, one of the more anticipated mission types. Some thoughts and speculation on when they will arrive, and what they will contain.

[antduude]

Only passengers. Myself, the boy, two droids, and *no questions asked.*

[langispente]

Once again, another winner! Hope the voice is on the mend.

[pryzmgaming]

I love how you take wild speculation and make it sound plausible :)

[emergencytacos]

Imagine having to bring troops from an outpost down to a planet to supplement the trrops for a war going down on the surface

[kakabixlis]

Another great video mate !!i hope we get the passenger missions at some point really!!I want to wish you ro get well soon and feel better!

[TheMarcHicks]

I must say, ObsidianAnt, that customizable avatars does lend itself to the very strong possibility of 2nd tier NPC's in the not too distant passengers & crew (I hope), but also just in general encounters as well!

[andresgamba]

You got the sore throat from the mighty jingles :0 . He is a Youtuber who went to egx with the cold. Also, great videos, mate! Keep em up! :)

[Foxiol]

Hope Frontier don't go the "easy way" and make "passenger missions" the same as transport/trading/smuggling missions.

I mean they first should force the player to own certain kind of ships (like the Dolphin, Orca or Beluga) so you can make that kind of service, then make us feel like we are doing something different than carrying something to point A to B.

Trading or smuggling doesn't feel like a job (you are not forced to have certain ship or forced to do anything...you are like a "freelancer" while doing everything on your own) and this should feel like it is a job and that is when the whole "liners" thing comes in.

It would be nice to have or sign some kind of contracts in the game with certain stations/systems so that will force you to do or follow a certain path in an specific order like a bus following a route picking up people in the way.

That's the only way I can think of this working...maybe signing "timed contracts" (weeks or months of routes through some systems) so then you can have specific "missions" or better said "customers" that follows that route. Then they could add the typical random stuff (examples: interdictions by pirates trying to hunt some of your passengers like "VIP's", or Imperial ships trying to steal your customers to make slaves out of it...etc) in those systems with better security or not you will feel safe or not...and that is the point.

They should encourage tasks in the game, and make them feel different from one to another, if not carrying people to one place to another will feel like more of the same.

Just my 2 cents.

[TheMarcHicks]

I am also hopeful that, if passenger missions are divertable in an organic fashion, then all the other missions will become that way too. I am also hopeful that we can start seeing the shift towards branching, multi-layered missions!

[JohnEGOGaming]

Beyond simple transport passenger missions I would love sight seeing missions that take you across the galaxy.

[Platepriest]

another great video from you sir, tho you forgot the link in the description as promised, hope your voice gets better soon.

[Charlie_Rowe]

HOLY SH*T! Obsidian got Ray Winstone to narrating his video. :)

[emotown]

I'm not sure why we would need to meet the passengers or know their faces - we don't get up close and personal with any other cargo we transport. All I'd ask for is passenger transport to be part of a deeper missions structure generally.
"There's an old guy, a teen and a couple of droids looking for a ride to Alderaan for 17000 credits - what could go wrong?" sort of thing.

[williamarthurfenton]

Well, I think it's rather easy to infer that passenger missions will be very like cargo missions. Pick up passengers from the bulletin board, "3 passengers looking for transport to Hill Hub" they plonk into your cabin module (probably like cargo modules, class 1 is x2, class 2 x4, class 3 x8-- or whatever the numbers are)-- you take them there, complete mission and they vanish from the cabin. Mission complete.

How else would it work? The only small difference being that if you dump them into space you get done for murder, and if you don't take them in for ages you get done for kidnapping.

[TheMarcHicks]

I am hoping that passenger cabins won't *only* be available for passenger liners, but that you will need the largest ships (combat, explorer, trader or liner) to fit more than 1 or 2 decent cabins. Aside from that, you might be able to have a middle road between proper cabins & stasis-a cargo area fitted with life support could be used to transport a decent number of people-cheaply-to a destination, without the risk of being sold into slavery (though said life support could also be a requirement for transporting live animals or slaves too, as was the case in Elite II & Elite III).

[AstroPsych_]

Here's my idea for passenger missions: I think you should be able to pick up passengers like you pick up trade goods/cargo. Instead of a cargo rack, size 2 and up compartments can be fitted with passenger cabins. Passengers pay much higher than cargo, and don't require buying. You get a slight pay up front, and the rest of the pay on arrival at the destination. However, the final pay decreases drastically over time, and every detour or combat engagement further decreases your pay. If you take a round-about route and do some light bounty hunting while there's passengers in your ship, they'll pay far less on arrival, and you may find it harder to pick up high-paying passengers due to bad reviews. The passenger missions could also be involved in the powerplay system, so that instead of just transporting the licenses and legislation, you might transport a Federation speaker to an Alliance system to incite rebellion and unrest, or a willingness to leave the Empire and join the Federation.

[sjparkinson]

The missing ships could also be the Krait, Mamba & The Hunter, but those may come later in 1.6. They never said they would only have thirty ships so we could get more. :)

I'd love to see them as Alliance ships along with the Panther Clipper.

Get well soon.

[armholeeio]

Could have exploration missions, charted to take a survey team out to a new system and drop them off on a newly discovered world. Be good to bring them supplies and bring back rare goods/artefacts and if it goes tits up it could lead into rescue missions

[SeekerLancer]

I do hope that it's coming soon, but I'm not as confident. They confirmed on the forums that it's not coming for 1.5 at the very least. I imagine when it is added it will be for the base game as well. I can't imagine they'd make it a Season 2 feature since the transport ships are still part of the base game.

I'm looking at it positively, that the delay probably means passengers will be a truly new gameplay mechanic and not just a modified version of hauling cargo.

That said... it's possible that the new passenger ships aren't in 1.5 at all which makes you wonder what we're in for.

[KarlBarbosa]

Is it confirmed which ships will be able to fit high end passenger cabins? Trying to figure out if the Federal Dropship will have the capability seeing as the name implies it should be able to deliver vehicles or troops somewhere.