My first mission - Galaxy Trek

bberge1701

Name: Galaxy Trek
ID: ST-HCXBDTDGR
Author: bberge
Language: English
Allegiance: Starfleet
Level: Any Level

Description:
Galactic Broadcasting System (GBS), producers of the popular holovid series "Space Trek", have contacted Starfleet with an intriguing offer. In order for their actors to more realistically portray Starfleet officers, GBS would like them to accompany your crew on a routine mission so they can observe and learn.

Travel to Starbase 114 to meet with the Starfleet Liason. Starbase 114 is in the Celes System in the Celes Sector of the Beta Quadrant.

duncanidaho11

Added to the Foundry Roundtable liveplay list.

bberge1701

Mission is down for rework.

duncanidaho11

Cool, we gave it a run last night on Roundtable! I've posted a simple link to the playback below (embedding twitch on these forums is weird). Galaxy Trek starts at about 1:19:00.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/296127003

Proviso: we had trouble getting into the spirit of the mission because of the Orville. So there's a lot of shock, discussion, and general "WHY?!" at the start before we move on with a proper playthrough (silly voices and all. ) I think we were all worried then with how the mission would go from there and if it was a prelude to a certain kind of commentary on Discovery found in the nether regions of the internet. But no worries, for what the refence was I think in the end you did a reasonable job with it. It's a great premise for a comedy mission, we just would have loved to see an original take on a Star Trek parody (particularly in the context of STO. Ie. ripping the idea of the STO player captain) rather than a refence to one someone else has created. With what you showed here, I think you have the ability to pull it off splendidly.

The mechanics of the mission worked great (deploying the satellites: very well done) and I was impressed with the flow, balance, and pacing of the mission. This is stand-out work for a first mission (I really hope you continue working with the Foundry.) I think some optional banter between the team when scanning the planet would have helped justify the presence of a full cast in the story (ie. why we got background on all of them at the start) and provided more room for jokes and setting the premise (ie. that these guys are not Starfleet officers) before the Krull arrive. The climax, ending, and choice: very nice.

I'd certainly be willing to give your rework another go (no matter what you do with the central reference). This was a good, well constructed mission taken independently, and even in the context of the complicating Orville nod, I think you handled the material better than a lot of people would (ex. integrating it with Galaxy Quest as a simple and effective bridge between settings.)

bberge1701

Thanks for the write-up! I think I may put the mission back up in its current form, so players can see it the way it is now.

It frankly hadn't occurred to me that the Orville references would be so off-putting. In my mind, it was just a ready-made Star Trek-like TV show that players might be familiar with. I see your point about the number of cast members; I wrestled with that some while I was writing it, and I agree there's more that can be done in that regard. I also agree that more could be done with the actual "mission" portion of the story, and I have some ideas on that. There were also some glitches I observed during your play-through that I'll try to address.

I'm not planning on embarking on an epic series, but I do have an idea for a sequel.

spiritborn

bberge1701 wrote: »

Thanks for the write-up! I think I may put the mission back up in its current form, so players can see it the way it is now.

It frankly hadn't occurred to me that the Orville references would be so off-putting. In my mind, it was just a ready-made Star Trek-like TV show that players might be familiar with. I see your point about the number of cast members; I wrestled with that some while I was writing it, and I agree there's more that can be done in that regard. I also agree that more could be done with the actual "mission" portion of the story, and I have some ideas on that. There were also some glitches I observed during your play-through that I'll try to address.

I'm not planning on embarking on an epic series, but I do have an idea for a sequel.

I think "off-putting" is the wrong word to use as as far as I can tell none of the Roundtable people hated the idea per say. It really boiled down to 3 points there might be players not familiar with the "Orville" series, it was dangerously close to EULA violation and last there wad at first the fear we'd get a lets use Orville to bash DSC kind of mission since people like to do that in comments (though that proved to be false in the end).

My advice is to make the cast more "generic" and keep the similarities to the real life Orville cast to few gags, like having the actress playing the ship's doctor be related to Cassidy Yates (since Yates and the Orville doctor are played by the same actress).
By doing this you should avoid any EULA issues (since it's even futher from the real life actors) and make it more accessble to those with only passing familiarity with Orville (if even that).

jackjas

Mission is targeted for refurnish it

bberge1701

jackjas#4235 wrote: »

Mission is targeted for refurnish it

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm taking it down now.