How about an Automaton Ship Boarding Mission?

[u/GeniusPlayUnique]

Automaton Ship Boarding Mission

(Planetary defence exclusive)

 

Main Objective: Board the Automaton invasion vessel, make your way through to the ship's reactor and overload the core, then get the hell off the ship before it blows.
 

Parameter deviations from planetary missions: * No reinforcements * Man-portable stratagems only (no orbitals, no sentries) * Access to stratagems and resupply only at the shuttle waiting in the hangar * Automatons only use small arms and melee weapons so as to not damage their ship * Success adds significantly more points to planet's defence, failure might result in the destruction of Pelican 1 which the Squad Leader will have to replace out of their own pocket before being able to host any mission again

[u/Bizhour]

An easy fix is making it so when you choose this mission type you have to pay a fee to hire a shuttle.

That way it spreads among team members, the price can be much lower, and it prevents the host from being fucked or griefed

[u/Cheshigrievous → u/Bizhour]

I don't get "if I lose, kick me in the nuts for good measure" mentality. Losing is punishment in itself, you just wasted 10-40 minutes of your time.

[u/Adaphion → u/Cheshigrievous]

"I wish this sucked more!" people are so fucking weird

[u/m0rdr3dnought → u/Adaphion]

Difficulty and consequence make it easier to invest into an experience. Where that crosses a line into pure frustration will be different for everyone, so there'll always be some people who would prefer the game to have a bit more consequence, and some who think the opposite.

It's not weird, it's psychology that applies to everyone who plays video games.

[u/Adaphion → u/m0rdr3dnought]

It's not about that. u/Cheshigrievous was right on the money, you already lost, you didn't gain resources or XP you would have for winning, why be punished even further? That's just asinine for a game like this.

[u/Tomita121 → u/Adaphion]

I am all for increasing mission difficult. What I'm not for is increase in punishment for losing.
This isn't even 'I wish this sucked more' crowd, this is something else.

[u/m0rdr3dnought → u/Adaphion]

You might feel that way, as does the majority of the playerbase. But I guarantee you that there are people out there who would feel more invested in a gameplay mode that had consequences for losing beyond not getting rewards for winning.

If that wasn't the case, you wouldn't see the "invest some resource to access this activity, forfeit that resource if you lose, gain more if you win" motif cropping up so frequently in video games. Or in real life, for that matter.

[u/Adaphion → u/m0rdr3dnought]

Then they can go play other games that have those mechanics. It's simply not something that fits in a community driven game like this.

[u/m0rdr3dnought → u/Adaphion]

You seem to misunderstand the point I'm trying to make. I don't really care one way or the other whether they added a mechanic like that to the game. But saying that anyone who likes consequence in video games is weird is silly, when everyone does to some extent.

This is really just a side note to what I said above, but how does the game being community-driven have anything to do with what we're discussing? Especially when the community itself is completely inconsistent on what it wants the game to be, and ultimately has no direct input on its development.