This could be done on a 6 months or year basis, much like the epic arcs. Right now, it seems they are locked out for the lifetime of the character once achieved, as it’s been for a long time. With the advent of Alpha characters, who are able to run them, it’s put a level of difficulty in place for repeating them, but alt characters allow for infinitely running them any way, though faction gains are spread over different characters.
To prevent abuse allowing very fast faction gains, it would still need a cooldown timer, much like epic arcs, but there’s no longer any real good reason to leave them forever locked out of running once completed.
I can support the idea in general, but yeah, I’d also be concerned about the faction standings. You can gain a lot of standings in such a quick burst, but most people seem to forget it’s even a thing. Though I guess the usefulness of standings has been eroding over the years, so maybe it’s alright.
I’d be in favor of that being part of a bigger COSMOS update (I imagine the fossilized code would need to be replaced to allow the cooldown.) imo, COSMOS is actually interesting enough to deserve being a “career” for anyone who wants to do it full time. It’s far more interesting than incursions, even though it was only ever half done being developed.
As they stand to gain more than epic arcs, I’m all for putting COSMOS on repeat of 1 year.
As for another method, which would be far more involved.
Add in COSMOS-type rewards from a new Cosmic Anomoly class, in which you can find stranded/disabled/in trouble NPC researchers? In high security systems, using the local R&D factions, in low/null/WH then an appropriate pirate faction… treat as a standard mission in terms of ISK reward, does not progress towards storyline missions nor gain LP, with a small chance at offering a CORP-suitable COSMOS type reward, such as the various T6 storyline module BPCs.
If done in WH space, potential exists for storyline ‘T3’ mods down the road, while opening up a class of missions through anomalies for production-centric characters and those running ultra-tight fits.
Going ‘blablah’ and saying not to, obviously you didn’t read the rest. This is already possible using Alpha characters, so the suggestion simply helps cut down on the Alpha clone churn.
The other solution given was only as an alternative for those who wish to scream ‘standing balance’, as the same solution can be achieved multiple ways.
I think 6 months would be enough - do people actually care about standings nowadays?
A bigger problem is finding and tracking these missions. The epic arc generates a nice long journal entry, the same could be used for COSMOS too. Another thing I think would be useful if the agents “in the middle” would refuse to talk to you until you at least start the chain. This is based on my experience:
I found an agent in space and talked to him.
I got a request for a mission item, and the timer started.
I had to google to find out how to obtain that item.
then backtrack the chain to it’s starting point, to begin it properly, all while a mission in the middle was counting down.
By the way we can only do the COSMOS missions once, but we can obtain 3 pilot licenses proofs, that we need to do the first actual mission.
Your all in error I have done many of the cosmos missions multiple times, you just need to know when it can happen.
And the secret is… cosmos is tied to expansions, each time we get one, the timer is reset.
I do this so often I have all cosmos materials pre placed so I don’t have to run to jita and back, when the expansion hits. I jc to the area and burn the missions and restock for next time, jc home and go back to work. So now that you know I expect some competition next time. till then fly safe.
If that’s true now, I’m confident it didn’t used to be. Though I’m feeling the tinge of a memory (which means it’s probably not a real memory) where they reset completion on a patch once, so maybe they accidentally left the script in every patch? Don’t be surprised if that stops happening now that you’ve mentioned it.
