1 min up to an hour
Posts by Jason
-
-
Interesting. I imagine if it's beta it's been pushed into an update recently. It hasn't been made public.
We've passed your post to Sebastian to make him aware.
-
Okay, I imagine it'll be implemented similar to the Quint vehicle. What Sebastian wants to be careful of is to not make the game too easy. A dual functioning vehicle does that, but like the Quint could be balanced in some way.
-
We can only wait for further actions.
I'm not sure what point your making re your mva rollover and the staging area. For me 20 minutes isn't bad at all for a chief
-
Sebestian explained that units do this when it can't access the location directly via convential route.
It used to throw an error but that often left calls left unable to be resourced. If the OpenStreetMaps engine doesn't have a route then MissionChief cannot do much more.
If you go onto the OpenStreetMaps website and route between your station and where the job is, does it successfully complete it?
-
Well, this is certainly our thoughts but was the most common vehicle requested for the EMS side of the game. It's odd they don't finish jobs though.
Eventually we can look at missions for it but it ultimately is an ambulance minus the transport ability. They should finish a job unless transport is required.
-
There are plenty of suggestions that can make this game better, I agree. However what's realistically possible and can be done in the Sebastian puts aside for this game is limited.
We can only collate these and try and get an answer as to whether or not they are possible.
The staging area is something that has been requested in the past and implemented. It's new. We have explained before Sebastian is monitoring how it goes before making further changes. It was designed based on the suggestions within the German community and built for them. With any feature made for them Sebestian presents it to us and we decide if it's suitable for the US community. We could have said no to the staging area as it wasn't precisely as requested but personally I find it does the job well for the most part.
We don't take it personal, we are just slightly frustrated that we see the same complaints again and again that's already been answered. I figured if I provided some numbers it would show how small MC is compared to its sister game. Ultimately I would love to see many of the features requested put in game but as with everyone else we can only patiently wait
-
Makes sense. The dispatching software I use in my job by default shows newest jobs at the top
-
The issue isn't that Sebestian doesn't like the ideas, it's the fact he needs to spend time working in the right places within his company.
A few days ago I found out that MissionChief, in a 24 hour period, had about 285 players. That's a daily average. The German version has 11,000 daily approx.The Dutch version was about 450. The Dutch version is almost identical to the German version but MissionChief is far different in terms of its content; that was the intention because firefighting in the US is very different.
We've give Sebastian some updates and he's done them but they've not often yielded any change in player numbers. Slowly the games seen an increase over the last few months (was only 100 in a 24 hour period in about April).
The updates will come but the German game is 34x as popular. From a business perspective, working on MC more (which is what you're suggesting) would make the other product suffer.
So I won't be bringing Sebastian around to the real world as he's running a business in the most logical way. Do you want me to tell him to let his popular German version sit on the back burner while he works on a game he makes a financial loss on? If so I would question who needs bringing back to the real world
-
Probably a translation issue. I had never tested it so never knew it cancelled all of them.
I'll add to our translation list
-
Friends from across the pond, does such vehicle exist in America? Pump (water) and rescue role?
-
TUTORIAL #1 | Getting Started
Firstly, welcome to MissionChief. A free-to-play web based emergency dispatching game. The objective? Deal with emergency calls of various nature as they are presented to you, using the resources you have available.
At first glance MissionChief can appear quite complex; it does indeed have many features available for you to enjoy the game. But, despite appearances, the game is very easy to learn and this guide will talk you through the various options in game to get you on your feet.It is broken down into a few sections. Open the spoiler tab below each heading to read.
1. Concept
I felt its best I break down what’s actually involved in MissionChief as there are a few key parts.Now the obvious key part is the missions; Emergency calls (be it Fire, EMS or Police) will generate and you need to send suitable resources to these. But where do these come from?
They come from stations and you choose where the various Fire, EMS and Police stations are going to be located. You can do this anywhere in the world but be mindful that you need to complete an infrastructure, so you may need to send units from one town/city to another when you start expanding for larger incidents as your one fire station may not have the resources to deal with it. Therefore I recommend you build one central base and then expand outwards when you build (we can talk about this more another time, however). The only rule is that the station is accessible by road. That means you can make up the locations and you don’t have to base them off real world station locations, unless of course you want to!
Lastly, the type of units and where they go is also down to you. From a fire engine, to HAZMAT, to aerial platform trucks; you pick which stations they are based in.
What do you get from all of this? Credits. This is what you earn from jobs but is needed to build and expand your infrastructure. You start with some credits but these will go down. It can sometimes feel that there is a slow start but it doesn’t take too long before the pace picks up.
The alternative to Credits is Coins. Primarily coins are purchased with real money and allow you to use them as an alternative to credits. There are a few features which only accept coins initially (available with credits when you rank up) but these are for multi-purpose units and are not required for playing MissionChief (an alternative unit is available). In summary you can play MissionChief purely on credits and coins are only there to speed things up should you desire. You will never be stuck at any particular point where you are required to pay with coins to continue.
2. Interface
Before we start doing anything its best we go through the main interface of the game. While it may be tempting to jump right in to building your first base, understanding where to find the various options and features are will help you in the long run.This is main game window and what you see here does not really change in terms of it's layout. Additional windows overlay over the main game screen but you can close these by pressing the small ‘X’ at the top right hand corner of each window.
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/MqxE0SB.png]
Within the image above I have labelled the key areas of the main game window
- Map Search
- Toolbar
- Map
- Incident List
- Station/Units List
- Alliance Chat
- Radio Messages
Map Search
When you first sign in to your account you will see a large green arrow pointing to this box. Typing a location in here (ie a town/city) will take you to it. As said earlier you choose where your first base is going to be. If you want have a play around feel freeToolbar
This is where you access most of your core options. We’ll go through them in detail another time but from initial glance you can see this is where your current balance of credits and coins is. This updates as and when credits/coins are gained/spent.Map
This map displays your units and incidents. You won’t see icons yet as you don’t have any units/incidents/stations. We’ll soon change that later. You can drag this map with the Left Mouse Button, zoom with the scroll wheel (or use the buttoms at the top left). There is no right-click interaction on this map.Incident List
Also looking quite empty currently, this is where all of your incidents are displayed. The green buttons at the top are filters although without any incidents it’s difficult to explain how they are work currently. Incidents appear row by row when they are displayed.Station/Units List
This is a ‘tree’ or list of all your buildings and units. Again another empty box for now but soon we will be adding our first fire station which will appear here.Alliance Chat
When you join an Alliance (Multiplayer group that you can work with) you can chat with other players in this box. We’re not in an alliance for now so it will remain empty until we joinRadio Messages
This is a live time window which, row by row, updates with the latest status update for a unit. For example, when they clear from a job they will become available and it will show the relevant status number for that. Refreshing the page will clear this. It isn’t entirely important to monitor this, however useful should you want to wait for a particular unit to come away or arrive at a job.Once you’ve had a play around with the interface we’ll get ready to building our first fire station.
3. Building
Missions rely on the availability of a certain number of bases existing before they will appear. No fire station, no fire calls. The primary ‘service’ within MissionChief is the Fire Department so the tutorial will focus on this; however you will find that the principle of the game works the same for Ambulance and Police for the most part. As you expand and have multiple fire stations, EMS bases and police stations you will see more complex calls appear in your incident list. A link at the bottom right hand corner of your main game window titled ‘Possible Missions’ explains the incidents and what is required should you want some further reading.Once you have decided on a rough location on the map you want to build a fire station, you can click the ‘Build a new building’; This will be highlighted by a large green arrow if you’ve recently created your account. It will then reveal the following;
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/khuKzaQ.png]
You will see a blue marker has appeared on the map. Move this by left clicking and holding the left mouse button on it, dragging it to your desired location. Zoom in as far as you can on the map to ensure it is placed exactly where you want it. As I’ve said before you need it to be near a road so the fire trucks have something to drive on to get to their emergency calls.
Once placed, select from the drop down titled Building Type and choose ‘Fire Station’. After, type a name you want to give your first fire station. You can change the name later if you wish.
Select a fire engine type from the drop down. Currently they serve the same role/purpose so make no difference which you pick. They just have a different appearance (the type 1 being bigger) on the default unit icons.
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/7fjEPpv.png]
Once decided and happy with everything click ‘Build with 100,000 credits’. The alternative is using 30 coins as mentioned before.
Your game window will now update and a red and white marker will have appeared on your map. Hopefully this is where you chose your fire station to be (if not you can click on it and delete/refund it to then place it again - you have 24 hours to do this).
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/6QvilOl.png]
The tree of your emergency services infrastructure has also begun in your Stations/Unit List. You can see your fire station listed, then below that the fire engine within it. You are ready to deploy to your first call which usually appears straight away. With a call waiting that will take us to the next section, deployment!
4. Deployment
So as you can see our first call has come in (or in my screenshot I’ve already got two!).[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/uXQhrYy.png]
Deployment is relatively straight forward. Click ‘Dispatch’ next to the incident you want to deploy and this will bring up a window;
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/3gtBIVv.png]
To break down this window, quite simply the red striped bar at the top left is the status bar. Above that is the mission icon. When the mission icon goes from red to green the mission has all the resources it requires and once the bar is empty the mission is completed. Any additional resources that are not at scene but required to complete the mission will appear in a red box (not visible in this picture). The deployment screen won't tell you what units you require until the first one gets there.
The column on the right lists your deployable units with the unit at the top of the list being the closest unit. However, This may not always be the most appropriate unit to send but we will cover working that out at a later date. For now I can assure you that your first missions only requires one fire engine. You most definitely have one and it should display in the list on the right.Tick the box to the left of the unit. The green box with a 2 in it tells you the unit is ‘Status 2’ which means available. The distance is how long away it is in minutes and then it tells you what fire station it is coming from. With the unit ticked, hit the green button that says ‘Dispatch’ (either at the top right or bottom left). Your window should now look something like this;
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/cBEHePL.png]
The unit has moved to the left side of the window now. On this side you will see the units responding/en-route and those on scene. Quite simply when the ETA of a responding unit reaches 0 seconds they have arrived on scene. Press the ‘X’ on the top right hand corner and you can see your fire truck driving to the incident (to note, once a unit is at a station or incident it no longer appears on your map anymore. Only units driving somewhere appear on the map).
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/4QBXiN6.png]
Hopefully it shouldn’t take too long to get there. Once all the required units are on scene and no further are required the icon will go green and the progress bar will start going down. You can see the top incident is working its way to be completing completed.
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/WTVEjfS.png]
That is it. You have resourced your first ever call and completed it too. By this point I imagine you have some more calls outstanding as they continue to come in. You can continue to work through these to build your credits up. No doubt you’ll be keeping your fire truck busy, so keep working hard so you can earn more credits to expand your stations and fleet!
There are alternative ways of deploying units to a job, which can be done by opening the window for a specific unit (by clicking on it on the map or from the units list). In a similar way it will display the closest jobs to that particular unit. You can deploy by which ever way is easiest for you.
5. Finally
There are a few important things I felt need mentioning as they are likely to be useful to you as you start.Mission Speed
You will find the missions appear at quite a rapid rate (at least quite rapid for someone who’s still quite new) and you may be more comfortable of the calls slowed down a bit. Thankfully MissionChief allows you to choose how fast (or slow) the calls come in in aid of your style.To change the Mission Speed, from the toolbar locate Profile, then Mission Speed from the drop down. You can then select how often the calls generate. You can change this whenever so if you demand is getting too much and you can’t keep up, drop the speed a notch or two until you catch up. There is a cap on the number if missions you get and this increases based on the number of fire stations you have.
Alliances
I 100% recommend joining an alliance if you are going to be playing MissionChief a fair amount. I won’t go into full details of what you get but the basics is that you can request other neighbouring players for assistance with your jobs, just in case you don’t have enough fire trucks etc.
MissionChief allows you to delete a building and give you a full refund if done so within 24 hours of it building. After this you lose your money. Most Alliances build their emergency service bases based on real world locations and players split themselves up over districts, towns/cities etc. I would recommend looking early to see if there is an Alliance you may want to look at joining early on before you build your infrastructure too much as the alliance that might interests you most might not be building anywhere near you thus unable to help. I will explain joining an alliance in another tutorial along with it’s all it’s benefits but to get you started you can find this under the Alliance tab and click on Alliance List.That concludes my getting started tutorial. I understand it is quite detailed but hopefully those who learn games quite quickly can skim through to get what information they need to know. I will be covering expanding your stations and the additional vehicles you might get within the next tutorial soon.
Written by Jason - Sep 2016
-
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/2kWxfse.png?2]
Recommend the GameSome players may already be aware of this already, however for those that don't maybe pleased to know of a way to obtain coins, for free.
Simply sharing a special URL and inviting your friends to come and play MissionChief will get you on your way. Each person you recommended to play will earn you 2 coins for every level they complete. The first level only takes 2-3 missions to complete so it's extremely easy to start earning and they will soon add up!
To get your URL so we know which account has invited the player, go to; Profile > Recommend the Game
Here you will find various ways of using the URL. Of course you can use it anyway you want, be it on social media such as Facebook, to your own web page or in the signature of your emails - the choice is yours! As long as your friend who has been invited to the game signs up having followed that URL you will receive the coins.
If you need any help then let us know!
-
Slight update on my setup;
- 29 Fire Stations (+3) - 34 Fire Trucks
- 3 Ladder Trucks
- 6 Fire Officers
- 5 Utility Trucks
- 3 Heavy Rescues
- 2 CSV's
- 2 HAZMAT's
- 1 CARP
- 2 Water Carrier's
- 1 Mask Unit - 1 Fire School
- 3 Hospitals
- 3 Land Ambulance Stations
- 7 Ambulances - 1 Air Ambulance
- 7 Police Stations (+4)
- 16 police cars
[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/bPDwR07.png]
- 29 Fire Stations (+3) - 34 Fire Trucks
-
Interesting.
I do think seeing more events happening in water is a good idea to take forward, although I imagine it'll be quite a bit of work. The world is 71% water on the face of it, shame not to use any of it.
-
Noted.
For the majority of players from across the pond. RNLI is a lifeboat charity, deployed to those who have got into difficulty in water. UK has a coastguard which is for Search and Rescue.
Being an American game I'm not sure if the Coastguard in the US takes on the role of the RNLI of there is a separate charity or similar that takes on the role?
You'll need to provide some examples of what HART is as well.
-
I can confirm the EMS Fly Car has been added to the game. 4,000 credits / 20 coins to purchase.
See the Facebook update for more details; https://www.facebook.com/missi…423263887/665592926932468
-
@leutmatho, your idea you have posted is noted by the team. I can see others are also interested in the idea. I have simply advised others why your idea may not appear in game 'straight away'; as the suggestion given was your idea wouldn't be listened to.
-
exactly. this game hasnt chnged much over that past years... very minor changes.
That is all down to it's lack of success in comparison to the German and Dutch versions. When Sebastian and SH Play created those, they very quickly got a large number of players taking interest. Sebastian even appeared on TV in Germany to discuss the company and the games he has worked on with the company.
Additionally the reason why there are separate games is so that those wanting to play a US version of the game didn't have to rely on the German/Dutch based missions and units and instead have their own; hence why we have MissionChief. Sebastian is German and has good knowledge of German firefighting so has been self-efficient in setting up those versions. When it comes to America, Sebastian does not have any knowledge of American firefighting or units so has had to seek information from staff to get where he has now.And that is why MissionChief is less detailed than the other games. It's been harder for Sebastian and his team to create the units, translate the game properly and quite frankly is a nightmare to manage all 'in-house' (ie within the development team). I guess we can all agree that it's probably due to the lesser detail it could be why MissionChief hasn't been as popular as the other games?
Either way, Sebastian has to divide his time based on the best interest of the business he works for. It's important to remember this isn't a side project someone does on the side of a full time job or college; it's what puts food on the table for a family and a roof over their head.
I can't get the exact figures of how many people play each game, but if you consider the activity of the forums for both MissionChief and the German/Dutch version it gives you some idea on why MissionChief isn't updated as regularly and how popular each one is. It's not an accurate reflection in any way but I'm sure the way the numbers are stacked isn't any different.
Posts Members Post per day MissionChief Board 2,353 202 4.74 German Board 149,411 7,084 128.03 It would be an illogical decision to spend an equal amount of time on MissionChief when it's return isn't anywhere near as good as the other games. Especially when you consider MissionChief is a free-to-play game at it's core.
I mean, the alternative I guess is to close MissionChief down and re-release it when it has more units/missions in it? The rate it's updated wouldn't be any different nor would it speed anything up so it's best off staying going and it's worked on as and when possible with the community ideas thrown in. Personally I'm quite happy to see it build up as it is but a single person can only do so much and they need to make the right decisions for their business as a whole. That is the same with any game company. That will obviously leave some people unhappy but presuming the decision is made with the best interests of a majority then really that is the best you can do.
If you believe there is a way a sole developer can better spend their time to be more efficient on MissionChief without having any impact on the development of the two primary games then PM me. However, I think Sebastian does well in juggling them as he does currently.
The best way to see what you want quicker is to get this game to be more popular anyway you can. Get your friends on-board and playing. The more active players the more time can be spent on MC. Continue saying what you want to see as the more active everyone is here giving their opinions on idea helps also.
-
No, but Rome was built over a very long time with the input of all romans. Misisonchief is much the same way. Also, there was a long period where all of us romans were disregarded. Not everyone trusts you yet. Make sure that we do!
Rome is still being built!
MissionChief unfortunately, unlike Rome, only has the hands on building power of one person. The rest of the MissionChief staff are moderators and while we collate the requests and push those we think would benefit the game more, this isn't something we can influence any further. Some of the team have access to translating the game but it isn't that straight forward without knowing some German so takes a bit of time. Also, changes can't happen over night and the developer has their own plans for the game also. Therefore ideas that are put forward may take months to see being looked at while others may appear sooner. I would like to think the community would recognise the recent increase in updates Sebastian has been doing with more to come (one within the next 24-48 hours). I understand that some players maybe disappointed not to see a recently suggested feature being added but fear not, it may not be long before it does.