[b]TL;DR[/b] A forgotten space station has started broadcasting a distress signal. You investigate and find a holographic Vex friend that triggered the broadcast. This space station, called “Station 7” was a black ops site for simulating combat with enemies of darkness during the end of the Golden Age and into the Dark Ages. The Drifter's crew helped to "obtain" Vex tech and provide security at the facility. There was an accident and containment was breached. You clean things up and re-establish a Vanguard presence. Within the space station is a social area, a customizable firing range, and a horde activity. There is a holographic sweeper bot vendor, holotokens, and new equipment. Taking concepts from Festival of the Lost, Dares of Eternity, and Iron Banner, you can get activity-specific benefits for using the gear and equipping the cosmetic/flair items. You can use holotokens to make purchases at the vendor or use to improve your horde mode experience prior to starting the next level. [b] Introductory Quest[/b] The Vanguard have received a distress signal from what is thought to be where a space station built towards the end of the Golden Age was last reported. Zavala asks you to investigate and report back. As you approach the location, you detect distortion in the fabric of space time. As you approach the distortion, you experience a brief shimmering and a bright flash of light. When your eyes adjust, you see a large structure rotating in space. This structure is a space station which is like the Resolute from Lost in Space. There is a large rotating structure that generates the gravity and a docking platform for ships to land and depart. You take a closer look. It is covered in growth, like the infestation of the Glykon (Presage mission). You try to radio to Zavala, but the bubble of space and time that surrounds the structure is interfering with your communications. You also notice ships frozen in a sort of stasis field with active thrusters flying away from the structure. You refocus on the distress signal and trace it to the command center at the top of the structure, so you land at the docking level a few levels below. In order to get to the command center, you need to restore power to a lift system. You make your way to the engineering deck and see a glowing, blue-tinted light. It looks like a Vex, but as if it was a hologram. It shoots at you and takes out your overshield. You quickly react and dispose of this Vex creature. You continue through a series of conduits and reconnect some circuits to restore power, then make your way to the command center using the lift. When you arrive in the command center, you find the source of the distress signal. You hit play and a holographic communication starts. Someone who is dressed as a scientist is claiming to be doing research under the order of a black ops team during the Golden Age. He mentions the name of the facility to be “Station 7”. They were researching Vex simulations after discovering an artifact and managed to successfully create simulations. There was an accident where the simulation breached containment and most of the humans stationed there were killed or fled. You hear something being knocked over, turn around, and see a familiar face. The Drifter reveals that he too received the signal and that he was part of a crew that was hired to retrieve the tech and provide security while it was researched, and reverse engineered. Fortunately for them, they were off doing other work when the breach occurred. He came back to try to figure out what happened. You work together and set up a way to establish a secure channel back to the Vanguard and inform them of events so far. You and the drifter go through some of the documents and holodisks to learn that this place was planned to be training site to prepare for fighting enemies of the darkness. Station 7 works by simulating realistic combat in multiple environments that is contained in a special space/time bubble. Station 7 was programmed to enter normal space/time once every month for 24 hours to send and receive data and supplies. The station consists of an armory deck, a combat simulation deck, and a social zone in the command center. [b]Station 7 – Armory – Firing Range[/b] The armory deck is where you will go to in order to experience the firing range. This destination node would support a fireteam of up to 3 guardians. The layout consists of a few terminals, a switch, and a portal. You use the terminals to configure the range, you use the switch to save the configuration and activate the portal, then you step through the portal to access the range. Here are the terminals you can interact with: Environment Terminal – Select an environment such as the barren lands of Europa, the swamp of the Throne World, or a replica of the tower. Species Terminal – Select the species you would like to engage in combat. Bungie could keep it simple and spawn in a minor, major, and boss mob dummy, or give you control such as if the mobs should be still or fight back. Modifier Terminal – Select modifiers like you would see in Nightfalls and other activities such as Arc Singe, Grounded, etc. When you are done configuring the simulation, you would interact with a lever. This both saves the config so it will be the same on future visits and spawns an instance that is accessible through the portal. Another switch could be added to reset the configuration. After you step through the portal, you will be in the environment you selected with the mobs you selected. The mobs could use the same texture, or Bungie could add a custom texture that makes the mobs look sort of semi-transparent, like the bots in the VR game Holopoint. Bunge could also turn this into a game you could play with your fireteam to see who can score the most points in a timed activity. [b]Station 7 – Holocombat – Horde Activity[/b] The combat simulation deck, or “Holocombat” is where the horde activity takes place. When selecting this node on the director, you have a few options you can choose – Normal Mode, Chaos Mode, and Firewall mode. Normal mode is the three-person variant of the activity and uses matchmaking. Chaos mode is the six-person variant and uses matchmaking. Firewall mode does not use matchmaking and allows you to bring up to 5 other guardians in a lobby into the activity. Regardless of the mode, the number of mobs scales up based on the number of people in the fireteam during a level. The way the activity plays is sort of a mix of Prison of Elders and Vex simulations. There is an infinite number of levels that use a prefabricated scenario and are randomly selected from level to level. Each level will consist of a waiting area, three waves of enemies, and a boss encounter. The environment may vary and the mob that spawns might not be the one you expected. You could get Taken mobs on Mars for example. There is no checkpoint system, so you go as far as you can each time you start the activity. Bungie would need to determine the best way to handle rejoining if a disconnect occurred. After completing the boss for the level, a portal, teleportation beam, or elevator will be accessible to continue to the next level and next waiting area. Each waiting area consists of a rally terminal to recharge your abilities, super, and refill your ammo. A display will show the location and enemy type that you will be fighting and there will be a barrier that separate you from the arena. After 20 seconds, the barrier will drop, but if all players approach the barrier, they can start it sooner. For the first 10 levels, there is no darkness zone. At level 10 and beyond there would be a darkness zone, you start with 2 revive tokens, but you will have the opportunity to earn more by killing champions, bosses, and another way I will cover later. Each person will have a limit on revive tokens they can hold at a time. Bungie can tweak the difficulty at various tiers if needed. Bungie could also look at allowing players to use a revive token on themselves. What Bungie activity wouldn't be complete without a vendor and reputation system. Get ready to meet the Holosweeper Bot. This bot is in the command center after you complete the introduction quest and your first holocombat activity. After each level, you will be rewarded with reputation, glimmer, random equipment, and a holotoken. Holotokens are used to purchase things from the vendor and during the activity using a terminal. As you get further and further, you get more rewards. The goal is to ensure the best rewards come from staying in the activity longer instead of being able to farm just the first few levels and restart. In the waiting area, you can purchase things prior to the start of the wave to assist you later. This could include an ammo drop, revive token, traps, explosive barrels, holographic allies (Vex, Cabal, and Fallen buddies) and other things to help you fight or survive. A new set of gear and weapons will be introduced. This gear will function like the Festival of the Lost masks, giving you more bonuses when fighting in the activity after unlocking the improvements through combat. Wearing multiple pieces of this gear could provide bonuses at 3 and 5 pieces equipped. Having an emblem from the activity will also boost rewards and reputation gain. With a horde mode activity, there is typically a survival mode which is what I’ve described above, but there are also implementations that contain an endurance mode. With an endurance mode, the darkness zone could be removed, and you keep fighting through levels until your team decides to call it quits and leave.