A few basic questions for making a mission

gilion

I tried the Foundry long ago around the time that it came out and published a few missions, but never got around the polishing them. Recently I got the urge to make a large battle done right. Im talking about something as awesome as the 20 player Starbase Fleet defense that no one does anymore. Unfortunately though it seems the "budget" is really low and I hit it really quick. So first thing I'm wondering is: what is the maximum number of enemies I can have per map, for both ground and space? I hit the map budget, but even after deleting a few enemy groups I still get a warning in the "things to do" section in the lower left saying I have too many enemies. I know there are farming "missions" that have more enemy groups than I have so am I doing something wrong?

Also, even though I went back to foundry just to make this one large battle, I would like to polish the old missions I have so I have a few questions for those. Like, if I want some NPCs to "wander" what are some good values for that? Since the foundry doesnt program movement paths until you publish a project its hard to get an idea of what to set if I want an NPC to walk vs run. Or would it be easier if I just set a patrol route for them?

Lastly, is there any way to force an NPC to beam/warp in? It seems half the time when I want a ship to warp in at a certain point they will just phase into existence instead.

markhawkman

Well.. friendly units and enemy units are part of the same unit cap.

drogyn1701

The limit for NPC groups is 25 per map. Both friendly, enemy and neutral groups count toward that limit (Single NPC contacts have their own limit, which also 25).

In space, NPC groups scale up the number of ships per group based on how many players are in the party. However, some groups start with more ships. "Weak" groups always spawn two frigates for a one player party, and "Frigate" groups spawn three.

Ground groups always spawn the same number of NPCs.

If you want to make a larger, lengthier battle than that limit allows, I suggest doing it in stages. For example, in one of my first missions I had the player and some friendly NPCs engage a fleet of enemy NPCs. You win, then one of your boffs says "Captain, we've been boarded!" So you go to a ground map and fight some baddies in your ship. When you've done that, a boff says "Captain, enemy reinforcements are coming in!" So you go back out into a new space map and fight another large fleet.

For ground wander speed I suggest 8-10 is a decent walking pace. Higher if you want them to go faster. Like you said it's hard to see if you have a good speed without publishing, so we always recommend you do test publishes to see how it all works.

gilion

Drat, I need to limit myself to like 12 enemy groups? Lame. I wish we could set it to not change the number of ships depending on team size so I can just put the maximum. Ya I know I can make the fight in multiple stages but the point was the have as many ships in one place as possible.

And thanks for the walking values, and for reminding me about test publishes. I forgot that missions need to be reviewed first so I didnt do a test publish because I didnt want everyone seeing an unfinished product.

trennan

gilion wrote: »

Drat, I need to limit myself to like 12 enemy groups? Lame. I wish we could set it to not change the number of ships depending on team size so I can just put the maximum. Ya I know I can make the fight in multiple stages but the point was the have as many ships in one place as possible.

And thanks for the walking values, and for reminding me about test publishes. I forgot that missions need to be reviewed first so I didnt do a test publish because I didnt want everyone seeing an unfinished product.

No you can go up to 25 enemy groups. It's just that Friendly and Neutral groups count towards this. I'm assuming here. As part of this mission you want the NPC's to assist the player, or you want the player to assist the NPCs. In either case, a way to do this and keep a fairly good consistency would be to use less friendly NPCs. Just a stronger group of them. Say your NPC is in a battlecruiser. Then pit it off against 2 of the weaker groups, like a Frigate and a Weak. This way you can have more enemy groups.