TrekBBS Armada - The Foundry

[Timelord_Victorious]

Noname Given wrote:

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I like it so much, I wrote one called "A Relic's Return" (link); and honestly, I used a spell checker, and proofread what I wrote, so I doubt you'll find any spelling errors (as of this posting it has 3 plays/reviews, and you need 5 to get a mission out of 'Review for Inappropriate Content' status, so if anyone's interested in trying it, and doesn't see it, you might have to "Become a Reviewer" to see it if it hasn't gotten past 5 plays on the Live server.

Hey, played your mission today. But I was disappointed... Why did it end so suddenly? Surely there was room for more content in this mission? It stopped right when it was getting interesting.
Can't judge it fairly before I play the rest of the missions as this was just the opening act clearly.
If the conclusion is as good as the setup it will get a good review by me though.

In other news, I can only recommend the Raptor trilogy. That is an outstanding mission on feature episode level.
Play it, rate it. That guy deserves being spotlighted.

[Dancing Doctor]

Parallel Intersections by Foxrocks was really good as well.

[Jim Gamma]

Been playing through Admiral Murphy's set - "Deep Space 11" and "The Jem'Hadar Alliance". It's extremely good, if you can get past the blatant Mary Sue character...

[Noname Given]

Timelord_Victorious wrote:

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Hey, played your mission today. But I was disappointed... Why did it end so suddenly? Surely there was room for more content in this mission? It stopped right when it was getting interesting.
Can't judge it fairly before I play the rest of the missions as this was just the opening act clearly.
If the conclusion is as good as the setup it will get a good review by me though.

In other news, I can only recommend the Raptor trilogy. That is an outstanding mission on feature episode level.
Play it, rate it. That guy deserves being spotlighted.

The reason was a current Foundry authoring/design limitation. As an author you can't return a player to Sector Space, and then set a second 'door' to another star system in the same mission; (there are Dev made missions in STO that allow that and I wanted thbe same 'functuionality' for my story), thus I figured, once you've discovered a possible system to check for the Orion Syndicate base; I'd end the first mission at that point; and start the second mission at the system you need to go check, in effect making you travel through sector space like you would normally for a STO Dev made mission encompassing more than one system.

(Also, I was part of the Foundry closed beta, and while I did compleetely plot out the overall story; I also figured this was enough to give the basic Foundry tools a good test. The only real pain is, since they don't have any export or import utility; I had to copy this mission over from Redshit to Tribble manually when the beta went Open on Tribble; and then transfer is YET AGAIN manually on to the Holodeck/Live server after the Foundry Beta finally went Live there. It's also the reason I waite dto start work on the next mission in the series as I didn't wamntop to have to do another manual export/import of a second mission.)

Also, originally, I had the story plotted and planned out over three Foundry missions total; but due to feedback (public and private while it was on Tribble), and the fact (and I do understand why) many players hate multi-part missions; I have adjusted things so I can finish the rest of the story (without sacrificing anything) in the next mission, which currently has the working title: "A Relic's Return (Conclusion)"

Its definiately going to be longer than "A Relic's Return"; and I do hope when I have it up and available (and I will post when it's up and ready for STO players to run); you'll come back and give it a go. (And I hope of course you like the whole story once you've played thorough and experienced it; but as I said at the end of the first part - "Any feedback, positive or negative, is welcome and appreciated.")

I am also happy that you liked the story's setup so far. Overall, I feel it's been very well received by the STO community, and I was concerned that maybe I had too much exposition in a lot of areas, or that a lot of players might not like some of the stuff I had 'their character' say; but I tried to stick with a neutral/compotent tone for any7 Player's character dialogue, and most commentors have responded favorably to that aspect so far.)

But, in the end, thanks again for giving it a playthrough, and I hope you like the conclusion once I have it up amd available.

[Timelord_Victorious]

Ok, that's understandable. But maybe (if constructive criticism is alright) you can do something about the mid mission ending?
Right now it feels like the mission stops dead without even beginning.
Maybe you can built in a mini climax or something to give it an actual chapter feeling instead of stopping in midsentence.
There needs to be an "emotional" end to it.
I am the last one to say don't use the biggest WTF cliffhanger ever, but give us a cliffhanger or a teaser to the next part.
Also I know you can't get back to sector space, that's why so many authors build missions like:
ESD, get mission, talk to some guy, call ship, whooosh I am on the other side of the galaxy.
That feels stupid, I agree.
I'm gonna tease you with my solution which of course isn't the same as what you describe as your intention:

[Timelord_Victorious]

The Foundry Dailey mission is online now btw.
I guess this makes it very easy to level with UGC missions alone.
You get XP additionally to kills and level specific loot (I got a rare HD beam rifle yesterday). Apparently the level specific badges don't work properly, so don't pick them as your reward to be on the save side until the issue is resolved.

So it get's a lot more interesting to level a new toon with hundreds of new missions.

Then again, the exploitation of that system has probably already begun.
In addition to missions named "Kill Stuff" we now get "Enter system to resolve mission" so doing 3 missions in the row for the XP and loot is done in as many minutes.
I really hope the rewards are tied to the missions length and complexity somehow.

[DarkHorizon]

Timelord_Victorious wrote:

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Apparently the level specific badges don't work properly, so don't pick them as your reward to be on the save side until the issue is resolved.

Yeah, found that out after I claimed mine yesterday - no emblems for me! The patch being applied right now is supposed to be fixing that - no idea if I'll get my emblems retroactively. Still, it means that my waiting list of Foundry episodes I have been building up in my mission pane will start to go down, and be more useful - although I did end up reaching two Borg top-level accolades (i.e ones that grant a passive) during one of them yesterday.

For the record, yesterday's missions: "Worst of All Worlds" - poor dialogue, concept interesting but let down by execution in places; "The Feint" - enjoyable, if slightly repetitive at points, with a bit of an annoying puzzle halfway through (also, write down the location of the mission - there's no indicator in the mission listing); "Conjoined" - brilliant, lots of fun, nice explore-y mission rather than combat, one particular effect I'd love to know how it was done.

Timelord_Victorious wrote:

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Then again, the exploitation of that system has probably already begun.
In addition to missions named "Kill Stuff" we now get "Enter system to resolve mission" so doing 3 missions in the row for the XP and loot is done in as many minutes.

Cryptic is apparently already cracking down on those sorts of missions - there is at least one thread on the official forums of someone complaining that their publishing rights have been recinded because they made grind missions. Plus, they've reduced the effect a ship explosion has, to stop those "here are five hundred enemies; they'll kill you, but you'll wipe them out blowing up" missions - it'll only affect five ships now. Which is more than enough, quite frankly.

[Timelord_Victorious]

Apparently the bug with the emblems is a space issue. YOu can claim them while you are on the ground. According to zone chat.

[Ronald Held]

Is it better to spend the time to create a mission now or play others and get a feel for their strengths and weakness in construction and execution?

[Timelord_Victorious]

Why not do both?

[Freman]

Being a writer, I would love to make a few of these. Unfortunately I took a look at the program, and couldn't make heads or tails of it. Ah well.

Playing through The Lost Traveler right now. Pretty good, light on story and has a few spelling mistakes, but damn, it sure gave me some ship combat experience. lol

I wanna try some of the GRD Foundry missions. How do you find them from in the game?

[Timelord_Victorious]

GRD?

The tool set is confusing at first and it takes practice to master all it's abilities.
But to get the basics down I suggest playing around with it and/or take a look at these: http://starbaseugc.com/index.php/unc...deo-tutorials/

One of the most helpful tutorials if you want to get that extra flavor into your mission most authors most certainly lack: http://www.youtube.com/user/kirkfat#p/u/11/SyW6t3HwZgI

[Freman]

GRD = Ground. I saw the abbreviation used on the STO Foundry Missions website.

[Timelord_Victorious]

Pure ground? No way to tell. Most missions are a mix of space and ground in some way. Unless the author says so in the desription you just have to play it.
If you want to gain ground experince I would recommend playing a fleet action. There are a few which are purely ground combat.
If you want to use them for training ignore the objectives and just fight at your own pace.
Those missions are Breaking the Planet, The Dig and DS9 Siege.
Not exactly sure at what level you unlock those.
There is also the Starbase 24 Fleet action, it's a space scenario but leads into a solo/team instance where you have to fight Klingons that continue to spawn. If you can hold your ground there you're pretty much ready to face anything later on.

[Timelord_Victorious]

Apparently the quality authors are all Federation or is it that much harder to write for Klingons?
Played 3 KDF missions today.
Another accidental trip to the mirror universe was pretty light on story (find a way back home and run around a lot) but had the best dialog and was generally fun. have to look up the name of this one again, though.
"To mock a Killing Bird" had a good immersive story but was lacking in technical aspects.
"Hornet's Nest" keep your fingers away from this one. Author has a good grasp of the foundry's technical abilitis but absolutely no story telling sense.
We literally forgot what the mission was about while we did it and ran into a cliffhanger without any idea what just happened and why.