Oblivara sector - sector advancement unlocked early

Build v2.3.0.2798

I am uncertain if this is a bug, so I am reporting it anyway.

I advanced through the sector progression for Oblivara sector at Oblivara station. Before advancing to the next tier, I tried to complete all missions for that level, even though not all missions were required to move to the next level.

When I advanced to the Developed tier, I noticed that the sector progression mission for that tier was already unlocked and available immediately, even though I hadn't completed any of the missions at the Developed tier yet.

My guess is that this is a bug because all missions are located at only a single station. Because I had completed the earlier missions at that station, it was counting them towards the number of missions required before unlocking the next tier, instead of counting only those at the same tier.

This may be fine had I not already completed the earlier missions. Having those count towards the next tier when completed would be understandable.

And maybe this is not even an actual bug if you are only counting completed total missions.

However, if this is not what was intended, I can think of a few fixes for this issue.

Fix #1: Add more stations

I haven't traveled to the other asteroid fields in the sector yet. As I recall, Oblivara has one more field. You could place an additional station there and have some of the missions operating in and around that field.

A third station could be placed in deep space, for excample called Oblivara Deep Space Research Station, where the next level of missions could be placed.

This would spread the missions out and solve the issue of missions at the same station unlocking earily. (Plus if there are more surprises coming for the players, such as researching more anomalies or mysterious objects or stations, this could be a jumping off point for those missions.)

This should also work for Helionis sector, which has 3 asteroid fields.

Fix #2: Add a separate counter for completed missions that gets reset each time a sector progression mission is completed

This should fix the issue of having the missions collected at the same station. It would also let you track the two counters separately for display purposes:

1. Total sector progression missions completed: 15/20
2. Total missions completed to unlock next progression level: 0/4

You would advance each counter separately, but counter 2 gets reset as each level progresses.

While this would be disadvantageous to someone like me, who cleans out the mission lists prior to advancing the levels, it would still let uncompleted missions count towards (2) even if they were for an earlier level.

It would also prevent the progression tier missions from unlocking early.

Also note that the separate counter could let you vary the number of missions to complete before unlocking the next progresion level.

Fix #3: Only count those missions at that progression level towards the total missions required for that level

I hesitate to mention this fix, but it is another approach to the problem. Each mission already has a marker stating what progression level it is for. When counting the completed missions, you could filter the counts by type of mission.

This too should prevent the progression level from unlocking early, as it is only tracking the completed missions by their progression level.

The disadvantage of this approach is that the earlier missions, which may still be listed, won't be counted towards unlocking the later levels.

If this approach is taken, I would recommend display label on the mission itself so the players understand that the mission is exclusive to that tier. For example:

Bounty - Weapons Smuggler

Location: Space

Progression Level: Explored

Again, a display counter can help explain this issue to players.

Total Sector Progression Missions Completed: 15/20

Total Developed Missions Completed: 0/5

Comparison of Fixes - Personal Feedback

While #3 is my least favorite of the solutions, it is a solution, because it would focus on completing missions that are specifically for that level. Earlier missions wouldn't count, even if completing late.

Of the three, I would personally pick fix #2 because while it is a disadvantage to players like me who perform cleanup before progressing levels, it would still let other players use them to unlock the next progression level.