test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
"Worlds of the Federation"...now live!
admirison
Member Posts: 8 Arc User
My fifth Foundry adventure is now live and ready to play. I'm really excited about this one -- I started working on it a while ago, took a break over the summer, and have been finishing it up over the past month or so.
Want to visit a secret base on Titan? Fight crime on Venus? Take down a Klingon warship from the inside out? Then Starfleet needs you for this mission.
"Worlds of the Federation"
ID: ST-HSLDXH7KJ
Faction: Starfleet
Level: 31+
Door: Starfleet Academy
Playtime: ~75 min.
Starfleet Special Projects, an elite division tasked with developing and testing advanced new Federation technologies, has an assignment for a skilled captain and his senior staff: explore the worlds of the Sol system without the use of a starship. What could go wrong?
And as a reminder, the (almost entirely unrelated) "Alliances and Alignments" is still seeking reviews in order to qualify for standard rewards.
"Alliances and Alignments"
ID: ST-HCJ2IS7ST
Faction: Starfleet
Level: 41+
Door: T'iokol System
Playtime: ~45 min.
The Romulan Republic, struggling to carve out space for itself in the galaxy, seeks an alliance with an old client state of the Romulan Star Empire. But when negotiations hit a sudden wall, it is up to Starfleet to set things right -- even if it means confronting two demonic enemies.
Want to visit a secret base on Titan? Fight crime on Venus? Take down a Klingon warship from the inside out? Then Starfleet needs you for this mission.
"Worlds of the Federation"
ID: ST-HSLDXH7KJ
Faction: Starfleet
Level: 31+
Door: Starfleet Academy
Playtime: ~75 min.
Starfleet Special Projects, an elite division tasked with developing and testing advanced new Federation technologies, has an assignment for a skilled captain and his senior staff: explore the worlds of the Sol system without the use of a starship. What could go wrong?
And as a reminder, the (almost entirely unrelated) "Alliances and Alignments" is still seeking reviews in order to qualify for standard rewards.
"Alliances and Alignments"
ID: ST-HCJ2IS7ST
Faction: Starfleet
Level: 41+
Door: T'iokol System
Playtime: ~45 min.
The Romulan Republic, struggling to carve out space for itself in the galaxy, seeks an alliance with an old client state of the Romulan Star Empire. But when negotiations hit a sudden wall, it is up to Starfleet to set things right -- even if it means confronting two demonic enemies.
Author, "Facing the Past" and "Stepping Over the Line" (a duology), "Venus Unveiled", "Worlds of the Federation", and "Alliances and Alignments"
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
Is it possible you are searching with a Klingon-aligned character? This is a Federation mission and KDF characters can't search for Federation missions. (And vice-versa.)
I just found it using one of my Federation characters.
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
As a baseline, I was using a Mirror Ha'apax Warbird with a mix of blue and purple BOFFs. I have the Jem'Hadar space set on the Warbird and the Jem'Hadar ground set on my main character. Most of the other equipment on my Warbird is at rank XI.
Ah... A MU Ha'apax, you've said enough
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
I keep telling you I'm an STOL noob... only NOW you believe me. :P
If you have problems finding this mission tomorrow, try to contact us ingame
I call it, the Stoutes paradox.
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
-- I think a mob or two spawned above the ceiling because my guys were firing at the roof for a minute or so.
-- Was the Klingon ambassador meant to appear behind the force field? Because he didn't show up.
The dialogs are well-written, although I had some trouble figuring out what they were talking about re: the Elachi and the Tal Shiar because I'm still on my first toon and haven't gotten that far in the STO storyline (maybe put into the "A&A" mission description what story mission you should have gotten to by this point). And the battles are deliciously chaotic, as good battles should be.
And I don't know what the guy's problem is who spent 2 hours plus playing it. He must be a slow reader: I did it in about an hour, though I wasn't timing it.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Really? Hurling insults? Is that really necessary? Just state your experience. Mine was quite different and it had little to do with reading speed, I can assure you. As stoutes observed, my ship may be a bit crippled for this mission.
Thanks for the review! Yeah, there are some occasional glitches on that caves map; I've tested it over and over and over again and everything seems to appear just fine about 95% of the time, and the other 5% there are little bugs like that
Most of the missions I make assume you've played through all of the episode arcs ingame; I should probably note that in the mission descriptions ("Venus Unveiled" refers several times to the mirror universe mini-arc, and obliquely to the Deferi quests). I do wonder if the devs plan to do anything more with the Elachi...I just figured it would be fun to make them fight the Fek'Ihri
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
No, it wasn't necessary and I'm sorry. That came out way wrong.
@admirison: I've gotten up to "The 2800" sub-arc from the Cardassian episode.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
If you've played "The Other Side", you should be covered w/r/t any plot spoilers or references in "Venus Unveiled" (which I believe is level 41+).
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
If anyone wants to play this mission and write up a short review, or even just give a rating, I'd love to get some more feedback and hopefully qualify it for standard rewards so I can get a better sense of whether people want to see more of this story.
Thanks!
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
As soon as it gets republished I'll feed you a detail review. (I should probably set up a thread for these.)
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Last I checked, a few of my missions hadn't been republished, and I think "Worlds" was among them. It should be back up soon. Thanks for your interest
Ah, thank you!
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
I tested this using the USS Bajor NCC-97238, a Galaxy-class exploration cruiser with a semi-canonical budget loadout.
I'll be doing remarks map by map as I go through them. "Convo" will be shorthand for "conversation". With typos, the changes I make will be in red.
The mission description is well-written and eye-catching, but it needs to clearly state where the entry door is. I forgot where to go in the two minutes it took me to get to Starfleet Academy from picking up the USS Bajor in the ESD shipyard. Now, I admittedly have a brain with holes big enough to fly a Voth city-ship through, but it was annoying to drop and restart because I couldn't remember where to go.
The mission acceptance dialog has a similar issue. These kinds of directions should be given out-of-character. There is no obvious transporter room on the Starfleet Academy map, so you should give clearer directions. For example, "Walk through the door to the right of the Exchange counter in Academy Building #4, take the first right, and enter the door at the far end of the hall."
Cryptic map "Starfleet Academy":
Not much to say here. Just the place you go to enter the mission. Once you figure out which door to go through (see previous notes), the map transition is well-marked and not likely to be confused with any other mission. (Kinda hard to get more clear than "Begin Mission: 'Worlds of the Federation'." ;P)
Map "British Columbia":
Side comment: Never seen anyone try a black Rigelian before. Interesting choice.
As a rule, I dislike maps that just have one minor thing to do on them ("go here" in this case) and then transition. You could easily remove this map and not affect mission flow. In fact, it would make a little more sense to beam straight to a transporter pad in the Special Projects building instead of having me land outside in the rain. :P SPOILER Except it turns out later that this is a plot point. Ya fooled the heck out of me.
Map "Starfleet Special Projects":
Map feels a little empty and could do with a little more NPC activity and/or greebling. The big room at the end in particular has a bunch of guys just kinda standing around.
Convo with Lloyd Rose:
-- Love the little Trek history nods in this conversation.
Convo with Rowam:
-- Good job with the alien costume. Familiar enough to be recognizably Vorta but clearly a very original character. (Granted, Vorta's pretty simple as aliens go.) I'm also amused to see that in your JJverse reference you've apparently got a much better sense of scale than Abrams' scriptwriter. (100-kilometer maximum range for beaming a grapefruit, indeed...)
-- Continuity error: Dating. Where Rowam says "in just a year or so Deep Space 9 was shrugging off polaron blasts and blocking Jem'Hadar from beaming", etc. There were actually four years between first contact with the Jem'Hadar in "The Jem'Hadar" and the Second Battle of Deep Space 9 in "Call to Arms".
Map "Armstrong Reserve (Sol IIIa)":
Ok, for a second there my suspension of disbelief went and cried in a corner because I thought I'd beamed straight onto the lunar surface. Then I looked up and noticed the hexagon patterns and realized it was a hab dome. This is a nice-looking map. Buildings in intelligent spots, great backdrop use.
Convo with the nutjob in the east:
-- Side comment: Conversation made me chuckle. What a nutter.
-- The science boff call seems to have used the one on my ship instead of my away team. I recognize the purple alien as the default for shipboard (that's bugged beyond our control).
Convo with the alien child:
-- Side comment: Very creative world-building here.
Map "New Xinjiang (Sol IV)":
Map is a little on the empty side. I'd expect the estate grounds in particular to have a bit more activity.
Convo with Alisa Skye-Wong:
-- Bit of a setting issue, but I think they eventually settled on Earth specifically having abolished money, not the whole Federation. Kasidy Yates was human, but she ran cargo for profit. And, as I have said many times, there's a lot more than just humans in the Federation (remember especially that Ferengi are Fed-playable in this game). Some dialog options for nonhumans, or for non-Earthborn humans even, would be a nice RP addition on this map.
-- Minor point when Lloyd Rose joins the conversation. I'd have preferred an option more like, "I'm sure there's a better use of Starfleet's time than doing household chores." The complainy option seems childish. But you made up for that in spades with the sarcastic remark about not calling in an orbital strike. I about died!
Objectives comment: Nice job doing two parallel objective chains. But you probably should've put a rear gate in the compound's wall.
Map "Imdr (Sol II)":
This is an excellently constructed map. The super-bright light really adds verisimilitude that we're 40,000 kilometers closer to the sun.
Side comment on the scenario: To quote Carth Onasi in Knights of the Old Republic, "You'd think people would be a little more tolerant of others in this day and age. I guess stupidity and ignorance will never go out of style."
Comments on the set: Is the console to the left of the door of the Orions' shelter supposed to be sunk into the ground?
Comments on the solution: I would have preferred to just arrest Amroosh for incitement to riot and attempted hate crimes. This isn't really a "both sides are at fault" situation. It's more of an "American Muslims post-9/11" situation. In my head Eleya called for Starfleet Security to beam in and grab him the moment he was out of earshot. (Especially considering one of the default prompts on the next map.)
Map "Tsehegi Center (Sol VIa)":
This is a good map. I wandered around for a while looking at it and reading the various default prompts. The shout-out to the EU in particular was amusing.
Convo with USS Fortitude captain:
-- Side comment on the scenario: The idea of fully holographic crews has been floated in STO before, and I have to say, I don't really like it. If you have the power supply, computer capabilities, and programming expertise to generate enough holograms to completely crew a starship, then you have enough resources to just automate the ship without the intermediate step of walking what has to be done through another layer of programming that then has to physically move to operate a control panel. Because at that point the ship is already essentially an artificially intelligent unmanned drone anyway. About the only areas the concept isn't inherently redundant, and not in the engineering safety sense of the word, are damage control and boarding actions.
-- With that said, the concept of holograms going on strike is made of win.
Side comment: Those Klinks aren't gonna know what hit them. "Qapla'," indeed.
Map "I.K.S. Cho":
Some excellent fighting on this map. Good mix of all the KDF species, not just Klingons.
Map "Kuiper Belt (Sol System Outskirts)":
Extremely well-thought-out story dialog here. Also, very pretty map, and some nice fighting.
Something that it would help to add would be to spawn blinkers with minimap markers at the center of your space reach markers, because despite your having put most of them on the same level of the y-axis ships can spiral up and down during combat. ("Beacon Blink FX Icon" is the name of the asset I'm referring to.) It also helps point people in the right direction in the event of bugs like the "markers out of position on the minimap" that turned up at the start of season 8.
Map "Neptune Orbit (Sol VIII)":
Good opening fight, but again, it would help to put a blinker on the USS Spear and tach grid interactables. And you're doing an extremely good job of tying together the various sub-stories in the mission.
Side comment: You've noticed the other problem with all-holographic crews. They can be TRIBBLE by one guy, whereas you need to turn a significant portion of a starship's crew traitor (at minimum, the command staff and bridge crew) to get a manned starship to change sides.
Top-notch story dialog, too. I particularly like this Tellarite admiral.
Map "Position Charlie (Deep Space)":
That was a very challenging fight, even for the flying brick wall that is the USS Bajor. I had to pop Hazard Emitters several times and even use my Rom rep cloak at one point. Those Hirogen mobs with the transphasic torpedoes really hit a weak spot in my build.
Map "Hunter Escort":
I like the looks of this map. Good detail work, and the smoke is a good touch.
Regarding the Hirogen captain impaled on a spike, using the default dialog prompt has the nasty side effect of making the button say "Talk to". However, I can't really think of much in the way of other things to do that would be clearly visible.
Map "Starfleet Special Projects (Sol III)":
Excellent map with good puzzles and triggerwork.
Final score: 4.5/5. 50 dil tip.
Pros: An excellent thinking man's mission with lots of puzzles, with just the right amount of combat for seasoning. High concept and overall terrific story dialog. It really picks up in the second half: Admirison masterfully ties every last plot thread into one cohesive ball of yarn. (Okay, that metaphor needs work.
Cons: Maps can be a little empty on occasion, and there's a couple pieces of dialog that IMHO need work. In particular, as previously mentioned I think the solution chosen for the xenophobes on Venus is a bit unlikely. Also, a general quality-of-life suggestion: add blinker objects to your space reach markers and so forth since they're not all on the same plane. Finally, the description needs to clearly state where the entry door is.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear
LOL. And you're welcome.
— Sabaton, "Great War"
Check out https://unitedfederationofpla.net/s/
Federation Mission - Alliances and Alignments
Author: admirison
Allegiance: Federation
Project ID: ST-HCJ2IS7ST
Report Start
Summary: This is a good combination grind and story mission. The map designs are good with several challenging battles throughout and well written story dialogue. If you like a good combination of long, tough battles and good story dialogue then I would recommend this mission to you, although not on Elite level.
Below I mentioned I recommended changing the interact dialogue to be triggered dialogue. While this is not actually an issue it should be considered by authors as an alternative. If the dialogue is not required for the player to complete the mission then they do not have to trigger the dialogue. If they do choose to read the dialogue and it is not needed as a reminder of something then it will disappear after it is completed. This removes the multitude of interact icons on the mini-map and the compass.
One last thought on the dialogue portion of this mission. Since this is a heavy battle oriented mission combined with a story you should consider giving the player the ability to summarize each line of dialogue. To do this I recommend adding a "Skip Dialogue" button which provides the player with a summary of the specific information they need to carry on with the mission.
Below are a couple of things I noted while playing the mission that I wanted to let you know about. Everything in this write up should be seen as suggestions on ways I felt you could improve certain elements of the mission. They are yours to do with as you see fit.
Mission Description: This is a well written description but needs a little more story to draw the player in and make them want to click the 'Hail' button. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this description.
Grant Mission Dialogue: The grant dialogue is well written. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue.
Mission Task: Consider adding the sector block to the initial task. This will help the player find your mission start point. I noted no spelling errors with this task.
Mission Entry Prompt: This is a good use of the prompt. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this entry prompt.
MAPS:
Gobodo System: This is a good map design with well written story dialogue. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue or any issues with the map.
Gobodo Station: This is a good map design with well written story dialogue. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue. I noted one item to consider changing:
-This is not necessarily an actual issue but more of a preference. Consider changing the interact dialogue to be triggered dialogue. From this point forward I will note the maps where I see it and will cover this more in depth in the summary above.
Garid System: This is a good map design with several challenging battles and well written story dialogue. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue or any issues with the map.
Garid Surface: This is a good map design with well written story dialogue. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue or any issues with the map.
Salleroy System: This is a good map design with several challenging battles and well written story dialogue. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue or any issues with the map.
Starbase 877: This is a good map design with well written story dialogue. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue. I noted one item to consider changing:
-Interact dialogue vice be triggered dialogue.
Ravio System: This is a good map design with several challenging battles and well written story dialogue. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue or any issues with the map.
Ravio Surface: This is a good map design with several challenging battles and well written story dialogue. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue. I noted a couple of items to consider changing:
-Consider changing the map name to "Ravio Command Center".
-Consider moving the enemy mobs away from the spawn point. It makes it difficult to read the initial dialogue once you spawn if you are being immediately engaged.
-When talking to Ambassador Qa'caQ towards the end of the map he does not appear behind the force field. There is a bat'leth there but I do not see the Ambassador.
Ravio Orbit: This is a good map design with several good battles and well written story dialogue. It is a good wrap up to the story. I noted no spelling or grammatical errors with this dialogue or any issues with the map.
End Report
Thanks again for authoring and for giving me the chance to review your work. While I generally do not like grind missions the addition of the story made it more enjoyable for me. You did a good job developing this mission and I look forward to playing/reviewing more of your work in the future.
Brian
This critique report also filed 12/29/2013 on forum posting for: In depth mission reports upon request.
Member, Shadowbroker
Not linear