Leviathan99's MASSIVE New Episode:"Yesterday is Tomorrow"

System

Hello!

I've just posted my third Foundry mission, second on Holodeck.

This one, I think, is huge. Lengthy. Referential.Lots of optional dialogue and paths along the way. Tons of Trek lore. Full of puzzles. Is a great way to get your Nausicaan kill accolades. And has some plot twists and a story that draw from tons of Trek material.

Name: Yesterday is Tomorrow
Project ID: ST-HNCZPAE54
Faction: Federation
Level Restriction: None

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FYI... I tuned some of the mobs down because it turned out to scale up to "nearly impossible" on VA normal difficulty. Also clarified where to go since it seems some people read the green text saying to go to Vulcan and missed the text saying to go to the monastery on Vulcan.

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This is probably one of, if not the best mission, I've played in the game. The maps look great, the story is amazing, and the combat is intense, but in a good way.

The only issues I've had so far is that on the return to the monastery, the first wave keeps getting suck under the map. This is making it impossible for me to finish. I know it's not something you planned, but it does need some kind of fix.


Edit: I was able to finish the mission. Amazing ending. Great job on the whole thing.

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That had to be the best foundry mission I have played so far! I will keep my eye out for any other missions you make because you seriously need to go to work for Cryptic A few bugs and quite long but in the end you really got to know the characters and story well, amazing none the less.

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I'm having trouble with pathing on the last map myself. I'm about to just tune the mobs down to a very easy difficulty.

I'm finding some pathing issues in the Foundry are unavoidable but I don't want to penalize players for that so I'll just nerf the last three fights.

Edit: So difficulty revisions are incoming. I'd suggest dropping and reaccepting in 15-30 minutes to make sure you don't get snagged.

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And fixed draft published. The pathing issues are difficult to negotiate with custom maps but making the last mobs easier should help.

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And if you encounter the two ghost NPCs... Know that I'm revising them out now. Ha.

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A great mission, pulling together lots of pieces of Trek lore from various eras (and trying to reconcile the different versions of the late 20th and early 21st century). Some good sympathetic characters and a fine antagonist. I found myself getting angry during the final confrontation, only to be cautioned by my Vulcan bridge officer to calm myself, in case the Stone entered play. And after the conclusion, and the senseless waste of it all, I found myself sadly echoing Kirk as I beamed out: "Let's get the hell out of here."

Now, the downside - there were times when I felt like the plot existed to service/show off certain Foundry tricks, rather than flowing naturally. And it was a little heavy on the text, even for someone who loves to read. The writing was good, but when every single person goes on for pages and pages...

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I liked it very much, the story was compelling and the links to Trek lore were nice. The characters had personalities and the pacing were good. The finale was particularly excellent.

The automated turrets were surprisingly ominous!

Had some issues in the Temple with BOFFs are enemies falling through the floor, but using shooter mode and blasting down to them seemed to fix it. I'd give it another pass for spelling errors, the most notable was the objective 'Nefeat Nausicaans'.

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On the opening dialogue, there are multiple typos. The two I remember include 'sleeper sheep' and 'cyogenic'

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And my trailer is live.

http://youtu.be/ymjS2kLyJ74

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Sweet, I made the trailer!

Hope you get a ton of plays, the mission really is quite good.

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Upgraded trailer. Easier to read testimonials and voiceover added.

http://youtu.be/BEOLO76X1Hg

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Tested on a copy and republished.

The bugs are fixed. Pathing works. The new Foundry bugs reported don't affect this mission. We're 100% go now.

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Put some screenshots up. They enabled IMG tags on this forum.

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Aquatic workout tank:


The crew:

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My standard away team posed on my vulcan ground map:

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I've just played through this mission on my Vice Admiral character. It absolutely blew me away! I've played several really outstanding missions that give a really good "I am in a Star Trek episode!" feeling in a way that the official missions generally don't, but Yesterday is Tomorrow feels more like a feature film. Or perhaps an epic two-parter like The Best of Both Worlds. Very well done, Sir, my compliments.

I'd like to make a couple of comments or suggestions, although they are pretty minor. If you haven't played the mission yet, tiny spoilers may be in the following bullet points.

-I got killed a couple of times fighting the enemy boarding parties. At one point - going to the bridge to confront the Villain - there are two enemy groups quite close together, and it's entirely possible to pull both at once. I should probably emphasize though that there were no insurmountable encounters.

-A trio of Miranda class starships seems a little light for Vulcan's defense fleet, even if they are ULTIMATE BATTLESHIP MIRANDAS! It also would have been nice to see the Nausicaans fighting and blowing up stuff in Vulcan orbit as opposed to sitting about

-The final objective - legging it all the way from the battle site to the door - seemed a little pointless until I thought it through. We can't speak to the ship and then beam up, because when we click that end mission button we're going to end up back where we zoned into the mission - Vulcan's surface. Perhaps rather than have us run down there to complete the mission, we could speak to the elder who brought us here. We have to run past him anyway to get to the door, and it would be nice to let him know that:

"The situation is contained, although I think quite a lot of your monastery got blown up. Sorry about that. Also, we totally forgot to scan the people in stasis for any interesting viruses or bacteria, and since they've been through the transporter a couple of times it's pretty likely that if there were any they'll all be destroyed now. So, uh... sorry about that. We'll be off now."

And it puts you conveniently close to the door!

Overall, my points are minor and even considering them this remains one of the absolute best foundry missions I have played so far, and therefore one of the best missions in the game. I recommend it unreservedly to anyone who enjoys story-driven missions, feeling like a starship captain or shooting Nausicaans. You should probably like dialogue too as there is a fair amount (note, however: I did not find it excessive or unnecessarily verbose at any time).

Thank you, Leviathan99 and once again Well Done!

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High praise. Thanks! :-)

The sequence in the Cargo Bay plays out differently depending on what you choose. The hardest version is if you don't allow James or Jenny to come down but it makes the end fight easier. I agree something could use some tweaking there but I haven't figured out what.

The Mirandas as Vulcan's defense... Hm. Could probably stand some explanation. Honestly, it's so long that I didn't want to tack too many objectives on but maybe some debris to indicate a battle would have added something.

I like the suggestion. One of my big things is that I try to make missions circular for that very reason. You have to end up where you started in a Foundry mission.

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A very good mission, a few bugs, but very good.

Lets see as the evaluator thing cut me off. A few suggestiong

• If you don't let one of the two into the cargo bay, you can't access the final room. The last console won't allow you to continue.
• The Ferengi should have said (I think) that the hooman had the lobes for business, not a head for it.
• The nausican ambush in the hallway on the cargo ship ambushes you from both sides, although probably intended I couldn't survive. This one is just a point.
• The end, although different was a bit anti-climatic. I don't really know who I would adjust it, but it made me feel that it was somewhat lacking. I agree with an assessment earlier in this thread, that I wanted to leave after it was done.

I still a very well done mission, thank you for publishing it.

Edit:

Another interesting point of view. Were this canon (not cannon) it would make an interesting evolution for the difference between the Terrain empire (mirror mirror universe) and the federation. He didn't leave in the sleeper ship and started empire building with led to the terrain empire. Just a thought I had while playing the mission, and I thought I'd share.

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I think some debris and even a little fighting in orbit between the enemy forces and a few genuinely light Starfleet combatants (who are basically just there to explode) would have added to the feeling of a Vulcan under attack. Additionally, perhaps a bridge officer reference to the sector defense fleet being on their way but still several hours away to explain why the homeworld of one of the UFPs charter members can be under attack and not filled with a hundred starfleet ships yet

I didn't realize the cargo bay section had proper branching paths (or at least as branching as the foundry will allow). That's also pretty impressive, I have to replay the mission now!

As regards the ending taking us back to the starting location, I've had a couple of missions recently place me a couple of systems away when I click end mission, and then boot me out at Spacedock. You can't get away with that unless the last line in the mission is "Computer, end program".:rolleyes:
But I do think that if you want to have us run back down to the doors, have us initiate a conversation with the Vulcans there since we have to run past them anyway. I think they'd probably like to know why everything is broken, and you can even have someone say something dramatic to tie up the mission!

Ooh, finally: Whether or not you want to put a direct sequel together should be based on whether you have any related stories that you want to tell (I don't think EVERY mission has to end up as part of a 123 part series:p ), but I would certainly like to see some of the characters you introduced in this mission pop up later on.

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The penalty for getting the crew bio puzzle wrong is a bit too much imo. Captain Level ground mob for each wrong answer.

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I've made some small fixes throughout, added debris, and adjusted the ending with what should be a very nice surprise, foretelling a mission I eventually plan to do.

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Here's a leak from the follow-up, work-in-progress.

I'm doing a couple of versions of this and may publish one version as a roleplay map if there's interest.

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I found this searching foundry, had no idea this thread existed. I was huge on the AE in CoH (even won the contest) and have been a big modder and writer for years and years, so I'm looking to finally get into writing for the Foundry.. but I don't really know the limits of the foundry, length wise, for individual missions or the scope they can be so I decided, I will check one out.

The description caught my attention. I am a huge sucker for fish out of water stories, especially those involve people traveling forward in time into the unknown (some of the ideas I had were along these lines but dissimilar to yours in other respects - from what I can tell).

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to start this. The instructions just say "Go to mount Saleya monastery on Vulcan". So I'm like, okay.

Half an hour later, I've run up the hill to the temple, to every single house, to every NPC I can find and I have found no way to actually start this mission. I even tried flying around orbit, and seeing if there was an entrance from sector space. No luck. I would love to do this mission, but I can't even find where to enter. I'm... deeply annoyed. It will not affect my final score, but..

Please provide better instructions for the dumb amongst us, sir.

I'm going to keep looking, so maybe I fill figure it out, but feedback stands on this issue.

EDIT: Okay yeah, turning around when you beam down. This seems logical, but I still suggest pointing that out in there somewhere. Most people don't turn around when they beam down and see a huge zone in front of them, nor are there any helpful markers on the map to tell us *Best Kal Reegar voice* "There's a door, right behind you!" when I heard "Mount Saleya Monastery", I assumed it was that thing up on the hill.

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I added this to the quest description text in green a couple of weeks ago. I'll see if I can add it to the mission tracker but the space for text there can be limiting.

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Leviathan99 wrote:

I added this to the quest description text in green a couple of weeks ago. I'll see if I can add it to the mission tracker but the space for text there can be limiting.

I had pressed J and looked at the green text. I read it a couple times, so unless I'm completely blind, it wasn't there. I will run the mission again later and see where the inconsistency on my end came from, then let you know.

Also, I sent you an email.

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"Travel to the Mt. Saleya Monastery on Vulcan in the Vulcan Sector of the Sirius Sector Block."

All it says, even on Vulcan, so I had no idea I should turn around. I didn't even know that door was there before o.o

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Going to take a look right now.

When did you pick up the mission? If you picked it up when I first posted this thread, you'd have the version without any fixes.

Anyway, looking now...

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Just checked. When you pick up the mission it says "Travel to the Mt. Seleya Monastery, located just behind the beam-in point, on Vulcan in the Vulcan sector of the Sirius Sector Block."

That is in the initial pick-up text but not in the Mission Journal description. You would not see this if you've had the mission sitting in your journal for more than a week and a half or so.

I DID squeeze in the words "behind beam-in point" into the mission tracker text just now. AND I added the full text about where to find the door into the mission journal entry.

So it would have been in the pick-up dialogue but I've added it to what you see in the mission tracker and journal. As always with fixes (and I wouldn't expect you to know this), your version won't be fixed unless you drop and reaccept. (This is actually why official Cryptic missions force you to drop them when they get fixed, I think. Basically, it seems all mission data is stored on your character and you can have obsolete versions of missions if you don't drop and re-accept.)

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I think I was simply tired and not paying attention to the bottom, of the initial pickup, but it really should be in both. Glad to see that fixed.

Anyways I dropped a pretty large review/feedback in your mail, maybe it's helpful, maybe it's not. Either way I enjoyed myself and I'm looking forward to part 2.