Friday, February 22, 2008

Tabula Rasa - Mission Management

One of the common questions that floats across the new player channels is how to find the logos damage. Players state they can see it on their radar, but they just can't get to it. Learning how the mission management system in Tabula Rasa works will go a long ways towards accomplishing complex objectives, as well as perhaps aid in zone navigation.

Currently Zed Blogtest is sitting in Palisades checking out his mission log. Couple of things to note is that players can have up to 30 concurrent missions, and that the missions are largely sorted per battle zone. However, it is possible to get a mission in one battle zone, such as Wilderness, that needs to be completed in another battle zone, such as Divide. The Liaison Receptive missions are a good example. Each Liaison Receptive will send a player to the next level appropriate zone, and often tell players how to get to that zone.




Zed's going to take a look at his Lurking in the Shadows mission. Here he finds that he has already completed one of the mission objectives which is checked off, and the next objective is highlighted.



Zed checks out one of his completed logos missions, Logos: Area. Although Zed isn't instructed on where to return to, he remembers to talk to the Alia Das Liaison Receptive.



Zed then checks out his progress on Targets of Opportunity. The catch with some missions, such as the ToT, is that all of the objectives are not listed from the start. Zed will have to explore the Wilderness a bit more to find out what all he has to do to complete this mission set.



Okay, so how does one get missions anyways? Most missions are found inside bases and control points, but not all. For example Zed can see a Corman Doctor with a radio over his head outside of a base.



As Zed gets closer his contact now shows on the radar in the lower right hand corner. Players need to keep an eye on the radar since not all contacts will be out in the open. The general rule of thumb is that if you see a radio icon? Check it out.



Zed's taking a break on Memory Hill, so lets take a moment and see how the radar works with missions that are already obtained. Each mission has a checkbox on the right hand side of the log window. Zed's going to mark Lurking in the Shadows.



Lurking in the Shadows now has a bright green check box, and a yellow arrow has shown up on the radar in the lower right hand corner.



A quick check of his map and Zed knows where he has to go to get this Proctor Fulgore.



Not all missions have map points as Zed will demonstrate with Treelurker Samples.



Treelurker Samples is a hunt mission which can be accomplished anywhere treelurkers are found. As such there is no radio marker indicating where players should go hunt.



This doesn't mean that Zed shouldn't check his map. Treelurkers probably hang around trees, so Zedd should probably head to one of the forest sections.

Some missions will tell you a region of the zone to hunt in, so when in doubt, check the map anyways.



Zed's radar is fairly useful. Zed has a mission to speak with an elder atop Memory Tree Hill. When Zed is below the level of the elder, the radio icon on his radar displays an arrow pointing up. That way Zed knows that his target is above him, so he should keep climbing.



Zed's radar will also indicate when objectives are below his current location. Currently Zedd can clearly see a body he needs to check out atop this waterfall, but there is another radio icon he can see.



In order to get to that second radio icon that wasn't directly visible Zed finds himself signing up on an introductory spelunking course.



It is also possible for radio icons to show multiple different directions depending on the zone geography. As Zed's radar currently shows, he can see the mission to check out that body atop the falls, as well as the mission to check out the miner under the falls.



One of the factors that is commonly overlooked in Tabula Rasa is that players can have up to 30 missions at one time. Basically, the idea is to not get hung up on any one particular mission. If you don't have the level for the mission, come back later with a better team, or with better weapons and armor. If a mission seems to be bugged? Just move on.

Most missions can be dropped and accomplished at a later date as Zed will now demonstrate. He's going to do the River Recon mission which had him talk to the body in front of himself. Now Zed has to report back to Sgt. Witherspoon.



Zed's decided he really doesn't want to see Sgt. Witherspoon right now, so he radio's in that he's going to abandon the mission.



Next time Zed's back in Alia Das, he checks up with Outpost Commander Rogers who hands him the job of reconnoitering the river.



A quick check of the map, and Zed is back to the waterfall...



Where... oh bugger... Zed's going to have to search that body again. Wonderful.


Word of advice. Not all missions can be completed. Some missions will fail. Zed's not high enough to solo Cater Lakes which is one of the first zones players will encounter with a split objective mission. In split objective missions players can have one or two choices on how to complete the mission.

In Crater Lakes the player is given the choice of allowing a fellow soldier who suffered under Bane medical experiments the chance to go free, or the choice of turning the fellow soldier over to the AFS Medical corps. If the player turns the fellow soldier over to the AFS, they will fail the go free mission, and vice versa. Currently there are no known long term in-game consequences to the various split objective missions, so the choices are currently largely up to what each player wants to do.

No comments: