Assignments

Corporations - the funders of the Perpetuum Project - are offering missions and assignments to every participating Agent for a certain amount of money. Assignments can only be accepted while docked into a terminal.

Assignments have two main purposes: they always provide you a certain amount of money, and you can also earn the trust of the contractor corporation. Improving your relationship towards a corporation is a key factor of gaining a higher facility ratio on terminals.

Completing missions of the same contractor corporation will result in an improvement of this relationship, allowing you to accept missions of higher level with of course higher rewards. Old missions do not go away when you get access to higher level missions, but repeatedly doing the same mission may cause it to become unavailable for a while – they only need so much of one kind of help at a time!

This relationship can also get worse. Some assignments could be beneficial for your contractor, but could conflict another's interest. Completing such assignments will result in a decline of relationship and you have to rebuild you reputation by executing beginner assignments again. Such possible declines are noted on the assignment brief.

Training assignments
Contractor corporations offer assignments especially for rookie Agents. These assignments are easy to complete and perfect to practice everything you've learned during the tutorial.

You can find them in the assignment window highlighted with light blue. Complete them all - you get valuable rewards after each one.

Regular assignments
Assignment types vary, requiring different preparation and equipment. A nice way to check their difficulty is to check their level - 0 is the easiest.

Combat assignments
Military recon - You won't even have to pull a trigger. Put on a scanner and create some images of the enemy robots.

Bounty hunting - Your only task is to kill the designated type and number of enemy robots in a marked circle. Weaponry and ammunition recommended.

Destroy & recover - It's a combination of bounty hunting and transportation: you have to kill your targets, take out their loot and deliver it to a terminal.

Recon and recovery - Combined recon and loot recovery. Create scan images of the targets, eliminate them and bring back their loot.

Special bounty hunting - The target is usually located on a spot that is hard to reach. Prepare for one hell of a trip.

Industry assignments
Geology assignment - Equip a random geoscanner device on your robot, purchase the required charge type, travel to the marked destination and search for the mineral.

Harvesting plants - Harvest the given plant type in the marked area.

Mineral exploitation - Use drilling equipment to exploit the required amount of material in the marked area. When you're done, you have to deliver the minerals to the contractor at the terminal.

Skilled exploitation - The marked area where you have to dig is usually guarded by enemies. You might need to bring armed assistance with yourself if you want to succeed.

Logistics assignments
Transportation - The least complicated type, where you have to deliver a package from one terminal to another. After accepting the assignment, the target package will be transferred to your private storage. Move it to the cargo hold of your robot, bring it to the target terminal, and click on the deliver button.

Retrieval - You are requested to transport a large package from one terminal to another. The route leads through dangerous places, you will need additional Agents to defend you on your way.

There's no such thing as a safe assignment. When you notice enemies on your way and you don't have the proper equipment to defend yourself, try to ask for help to avoid losing all your belongings before reaching the finish line.

Assignment parameters
Each assignment has its unique serial number and codename. You can open one by double clicking on it in the assignment list. After a short description, the exact objectives are highlighted with yellow. Click on an objective to open the assignment map that shows you the targeted area, which will be indicated as a red circle on the radar screen. Note that fulfilling mission objectives in areas that are NOT the targeted area may not have any effect on completing the mission!

When you reach the deadline without completing the mission, it will fail instantly.

Most assignments have only one designated terminal where you can deliver target items, but at certain cases you'll have the opportunity to choose between two or more terminals. Favoring a delivery point instead of the opposing one will have a negative effect on your original relationship with the ill-favored party.

Private transport assignments
The private transport assignment system is a Syndicate-controlled process, where you can have your items transported to a different terminal by fellow Agents. The interface for accepting and managing private assignments can be found under the second main tab of the Assignments window.

To create a transport assignment, first you need a SynSec container, which is available from the market. After you unpack the container you can start putting in the items that you want to get transported. The size of the container will be the sum of its contents, so avoid creating too large containers that noone will be able to transport.

Submitting a container
If you are satisfied with the contents of the container, right click on it and select "Submit for private transport assignment". In the next window you need to set the following parameters:

Target zone and terminal: set the terminal where you want to send your container.

Deadline: set the time in days during which the assignment has to be completed.

Reward: set a NIC reward, which the accepting Agent will get when the assignment is completed. The reward will be paid by you of course!

Collateral: set a collateral amount which will be paid to you by the accepting Agent, in case the container gets destroyed during the assignment. It is recommended to set a collateral amount which roughly equals the value of the container's contents.

After you submit the container, the relevant assignment will appear for the public under the available assignments list in the Assignments / Private assignments window. Assignment owners won't see their assignments in the available list, but of course this is what the "My assignments" tab is for.

There you can see the status of your submitted assignments, and you can also cancel them here, but only if they haven't been accepted yet.

Accepting a private transport assignment
This works very similar to normal assignments: under the available assignments list you can see all the assignments others have submitted, from all around Nia. All important parameters can be seen here: the source terminal where you need to pick up the container, the target terminal where it needs to be transported, the deadline before this needs to be done, the reward and collateral amounts, and the size of the container. If you doubleclick an assignment you can also open up its information window, just like for normal assignments.

Pay special attention to the container size and the collateral amount.

Before accepting the assignment, make sure you have a robot with a large enough cargo hold that is able to transport the container.

When you accept an assignment, the collateral amount will be deducted from your balance as an assurance for the assignment contractor. When you complete the assignment, this collateral amount will be paid back to you fully, together with the set reward. However, in case the container gets destroyed, you won't get it back, but the contractor instead.

You can also abort an assignment in progress, but in this case only half of the collateral amount will be paid back to you.

There is no limit to the number of parallel private transport assignments you can accept.

Trial accounts cannot accept private transport assignments.

Retrieving a container
Assignment contractors are able to retrieve a container when the set deadline has expired and the assignment is still not complete. This can be done by right-clicking an assignment in the "My assignments" list.

Retrieval can only be completed when the container is located at a terminal, so if it's in transit on the terrain at the moment of retrieval, you have to wait until the Agent holding it enters any terminal.

The retrieval process completely reverts an assignment, the contractor gets the container and the submitted assignment reward back, and the accepting agent gets the full collateral amount back.

Advice for contractor Agents


 * If you have a lot of things to transport, create many smaller containers. Large containers can only be transported by Agents who have large enough robots, and an assignment with a too large container may not get accepted at all.
 * Though you can set beta and gamma terminals as assignment targets, these probably won't be too popular due to the associated risk. A high enough reward can help with this of course.
 * It's recommended to set a collateral amount that equals the value of the container's content, but a high collateral amount in itself limits the potential Agents who will be able to accept the assignment.

Advice for accepting Agents


 * Before accepting a transport assignment, check and double-check that you have a robot with a large enough cargo hold that can transport its container.
 * Pay attention to the assignment deadline. Although a retrieved container will not make you lose anything, accepting an assignment that expires in 5 minutes could make you run the distance for nothing.
 * Assignments involving beta and gamma terminals are of course risky, there are warning popups for these.
 * If you abort an assignment you accepted, you will only get 50% of the collateral amount back!

Mission Sharing
how it works?