Elite dangerous is gradually building up a lot of unique but rather isolated in-game content. I'm talking about things like the Alien Ruins, the hyperdictions, and also the recent Generation Ships.



While we do get in-game GalNet information about these, newsletters, etc, at least during the "early days" for each piece of content. We don't get anything else. So, a new player joining us today might not realise this content is even in the game - at least, I think this is the case - does Frontier perhaps lead new commanders to content via some other mechanism, like emails .. I know there is a new commander email system as I think I got one accidentally at one point.



Anyway, what would be ideal, I think, is for the in-game mission system to generate a mission which introduces commanders to this content either directly, or indirectly. Imagine a planetary scan mission which sent the commander to an alien ruins site. It might, or might not mention ruins at all, instead the mission might be ostensibly about rescuing an escape pod or scanning a beacon and the planetary scan mechanic would then guide the player to it.. and it just happens to be inside some alien ruins. Imagine the joy/excitement a new commander, with no prior knowledge of the ruins, might feel upon "discovering" them for the first time.



The same could be done for other in-game assets like Mega ships, CQC assets, capital ship docks, Formidine Rift locations, etc.



So, the next Q is how to deliver these missions to players. We don't want these mission types to swamp "normal" missions on the board so..

- I think that once a commander successfully completes a mission for a given type of asset, they would get no more of these. So, they just get one breadcrumb trail to each asset type, and can chose to investigate further, or not.

- I think the missions should also spawn only rarely.

- As some of these missions might be hard for new commanders (due to lacking a ship with a suitable jump range, etc) so perhaps they are gated behind combat, trade, or exploration rank.



Alternatively, the other way to avoid swamping the boards we deliver them another way entirely. Perhaps, as part of the Naval career revamp, these missions are delivered as part of that process. Or, perhaps we introduce a new mission type, a super-power request mission, which is delivered via inbox or Contacts instead and gated behind super-power reputation.