Find Person module - Issues and updates

[zonkmachine]

The Find Person module was added in #4746. It works really well but may need some nip/tuck. The following are suggestions most of which have been proposed already in the original PR thread (#4746). I think the five first suggestions below should be considered ahead of the next release 2026-02-03.

• Translations are being done but aren't pulled back from Transifex with the rest of the strings. @impaktor

• Icons. Find Person uses the default icon at the moment. Idea to reuse other missions icons has been suggested.
  Addressed in Small improvements and a fix #6250

• Repetitious, too many ads. On a new game start in Cydonia you can see as much as eight missions, and two of them being an incident about a malfunctioning delivery drone destroying furniture. There are currently 12 different story lines available. I suggest half the number of adverts would be a reasonable change.
  Fixed in Small improvements and a fix #6250

• To few missions. Write more strings. Will also help alleviate the issue above. Findperson - New scenarios and some tests to give variation to the strings #6251

• When a wanted person has been found and has boarded the ship for transfer home, there is nothing in the mission description that indicates that the mission has a passenger on board (apart from there being an occupied cabin).

---

• The character name now is split in first name/surname, with new methods to use them, to allow some variation in how you address the characters involved. Instead of "He/She's a nut" you could go "Johnson is a nut". If it's about a friend, maybe there is a use case for the firstname. See
  Character - Separate first name and surname #6114

• The Police station could have a list of wanted persons or could give info on people who have done crime and the wanted person could be on this list, literally wanted.

• Maybe a search object has been killed in action or maybe they are just gone and can't be found? Maybe they have moved to another system?

• Variation to existing missions. Instead of fixed roles, (stepsister), make some random character based on family/organisation structure. Maybe extend Character/Names with a function to just give you a random family member (cousin, uncle,...) or corporate member (colleague, supervisor,...). Findperson - New scenarios and some tests to give variation to the strings #6251

• Taxi and Evacuation could have group options. "Our news team needs to be lifted out of Aldebaran".

@robothauler

[zonkmachine]

pioneer/data/lang/module-findperson/en.json

Lines 250 to 257 in 86a10a8

	"INTROTEXT_EVACUATION_FEMALE_1": {
	"description": "",
	"message": "Hi. The {company} is in big trouble. Negotiations with an aggressive market competitor in the {system} ({sectorx}, {sectory}, {sectorz}) system, a distance of {dist} ly, went very badly. Our envoy {wanted} must be evacuated. Communication with her is very limited, so we don't know her exact location. We pay {cash} for this run."
	},
	"INTROTEXT_EVACUATION_FEMALE_2": {
	"description": "",
	"message": "Hello. Call me {client}. I'm employed by the {company}. Our sales representative {wanted} in the {system} ({sectorx}, {sectory}, {sectorz}) system, distance {dist} ly, has come into conflict with some dangerous crooks. She doesn't trust the local authorities, so she's gone into hiding. We pay {cash} if you can find her and bring her back to {domicile} safely."
	},

The title could be changed to 'EXTRACTION' and the icon to 'combat':

[zonkmachine]

I 'low key' looked into what it would take to add an assassination mission via the Find Person module. It's a few lines to just add an icon = "assassination" element to the flavours array, but there are some parts of this that are unsatisfying. The mission list will still say 'Find person', and the onChat dialogue and mission description will also hint at the different origin of the mission. To fix the mission listing to read "Assassination", the easiest way to do this seem to be to register a new mission type.

Mission.RegisterType("FindPerson", l.FIND_PERSON, buildMissionDescription)
Mission.RegisterType("FindAndKill", la.ASSASSINATION, buildMissionDescription)

From there it quickly escalates in complexity to where this may actually be prohibitive. The actual changes to carrying out the mission is where I haven't tested it in game but it may be enough to just tweak the mission objectives to be 'PENDING_RETURN', or whatever signals mission accomplished, on killing the target. It should be pretty simple.

[bszlrd]

I could do an icon. Maybe with a bit of where's Waldo

[zonkmachine]

Yes. Even if we reuse icons from some of the other modules, there will be a need for a dedicated one.

[impaktor]

Repetitious, too many ads. On a new game start in Cydonia you can see as much as eight missions, ...

Aught to be < 1. Player will visit many stations enough to see these.

... and two of them being an incident about a malfunctioning delivery drone destroying furniture. There are currently 12 different story lines available. I suggest half the number of adverts would be a reasonable change.

The more specific the flavor is, the more it will be an eye sore when repeated. (I'm myself guilty, as the News Event flavours are very specific, but I've made them very rare).

Example: "I need to go from X to Y will pay $Z" looks fine even when seeing it often, but "I need surgery in my left pinky because my orange cat thought it was a pizza and need to go to hospital in Y, will pay $Z" would look strange even seeing twice in the game.

The Police station could have a list of wanted persons or could give info on people who have done crime and the wanted person could be on this list, literally wanted.

Perhaps police station has "Inquire about person", and you would get a list of missing people you have active missions for to ask for "Have you any information about X?"

Maybe a search object has been killed in action or maybe they are just gone and can't be found?

Oh, I like that. Would be interesting if some of the missing persons are deceased. Would player travel back to the advert-station and say "condolences" and receive payout?

Instead of fixed roles, (stepsister), make some random character based on family/organisation structure.

I'd just use "relative", easy way out. Sure being more "specific" might be more fun but requires a lot of code and strings, where "relative" or "acquaintance" just fixes it. But that's what I would do.

[zonkmachine]

Aught to be < 1. Player will visit many stations enough to see these.

How many adverts, max/min, should there be from Find Person.

Instead of fixed roles, (stepsister), make some random character based on family/organisation structure.

I'd just use "relative", easy way out. Sure being more "specific" might be more fun but requires a lot of code and strings, where "relative" or "acquaintance" just fixes it. But that's what I would do.

No. I'm testing it here and it works well. Translating simple strings like this should be easy in most languages. You could have groups of people in a separate translatable file, maybe even in different grammatic forms, like the ships, and call from other scripts too. Shouldn't be too hard.

  "FRIEND_FEMALE_7": {
    "description": "",
    "message": "an army buddy"
  },
  "FRIEND_FEMALE_8": {
    "description": "",
    "message": "a colleague"
  },
  "FRIEND_MALE_1": {
    "description": "",
    "message": "a friend"
  },

[zonkmachine]

Added suggestion for groups, for Taxi and Evacuation.

[zonkmachine]

#6250 merged. This closes the issue with repetitions by cutting the number of ads to one third. It also makes the adverts use either delivery or taxi icons. @robothauler this instantly improves things but to me it feels like a temporary fix with the icons. I hinted at combat icon for a more extraction like operation and whatever new 'Find Person' icon @bszlrd comes up with. Maybe people are happy with just these two icons?

[zonkmachine]

Find Person translations are now fixed. @impaktor Thanks!