Hey helixfungus, as usual thanks for playing. Let me know if you have any of yours that need my review.
Regarding your feedback -- that first one is a newbie mistake! I'll have to fix that asap.
You make a good observation regarding the map that is the ship interior but outdoors. Originally I had combined that map and the one after it, but I ended up ripping them apart because I was worried that boff pathing would get messed up, especially since there is ground combat later in that map. I just left it as is after that.
Helix, just finished your latest. I really liked the plot, maps were pretty good, and I loved the bridge-based combat that reminded me a lot of Purity I. The downside was that for some reason I found the volume and severity of the typos really distracting, especially on the first few maps. I'm pretty bad at isolating them but I think it might be a good idea to give it a solid review. Thanks for trading!
I would like to offer up my new mission 'Blast to the Past' - no reviews so far.
Here's my review of RE's Orders 1&2
ORDERS 1:
Great use of tech to create interactive scenarios. Equally great use of puzzles. Shame about the 'environmental' issues on map 2. Same issues prevent building interiors on some maps I like. State-changing floor issue lost my Boffs. I'm trying out invisible wall floors on Blast2thePast. beaming back up) Hope to find a reason to use it before you go and beat me to it if you didn't already.
There is a tree branch growing out the wall near sickbay area, and security officer sitting in brig was still there on ground map after the beam down.
Like how you used the reacher to put optional objective into mission box.
I managed to avoid all the natives (except to cloak and have a nosy)
I enjoyed the story so far and interesting use of MACOs.
Great stuff. Really enjoyed this so far. 4 STARS from me.
ORDERS 2
4 STAR wonderful stuff. My poor Engineer. Though I did order him, should I not be taking responsibility for his actions? Oops, anyway.
Great city map - very smoggy and atmospheric. Nice use of distance and far off buildings.
I highly recommend using neutral mastiff squads when poss as replacement NPCs to avoid the beam-in effect during NPC animation changes (Though they will attack non-fed and non-KDF)
The artillary shell stuff - wonderful. The door to the lab i was trapped in didnt close tho. I could leave any time.
Fantastic roof-top gameplay and secret agent sneaky play.
Overall loving it. Waiting for part 3. And thanks for the DOFF assignment reminder.
A Review of "First Cause, Then Effect", a foundry mission by RogueEnterprise So I was looking for a mission of yours that I could review, and then I remembered that
I had actually played this one not too long ago. I wasn't keeping notes then, but I felt
that I should play it again so that I could write up a review for it.
Edit: This won't be the only one of yours that I will review btw.
_______Main Review________
This was a fun, well-thought out mission that has an engaging story. It really felt like I was playing through a TNG episode! Great care was taken to make sure the whole time-loop scenario worked flawlessly.
There is not a lot of combat to found in this mission, but what's there provides a challenge; with sometimes interesting results. It also never feels out of place in relation to the story.
All in all, I can see why this one was spotlighted, and would recommend play-thoughs except that it looks like everyone found it already. I still recommend a play-though anyway.
_____For the Author_______
These notes will cover my impressions of the maps in this mission. I couldn't actuall find any faults that I thought needed correcting which is good news since this is a spotlighted mission. I've heard that editing one of these is a little problematic
Map 1:
- Good map design. Well done.
Map 2:
- Well done.
Map 3
Nice trigger work, especially with how you presented the Klingon surprise attack.
Map 4:
- This seems familiar...
Map 5:
Nice trigger work, and good story telling here.
Map 6:
- Well done.
Map 7:
- I don't know why, but things seem different this time....
Map 8:
- Challenging combat here, and good dialogue.
Map 9:
- Challenging space combat here, and a good mission ending.
Hey guys, just a quick reminder that my queue for review trading is currently empty. Feel free to post a review on any of my missions and I will be glad to return the favor. Check out the OP for details!
give speech map - A neat scene. Strange to put it funerals so early in the story... of
course I have to fake having played pt II a moment ago, so it's not so strange after all.
Solid interior map, customized very well. Smart use of dialogs, but I would have compose the
speech while I was standing in front of the crowd.
I did not find that ship's wall to match starfleet ships interiors, but... I use them too
because the most good looking wall does not appear no more in foundry editor preview... side note,
somebody will have to shake tacofang until it gives us some more ship's walls...
Storywise I found the explanation on why the two prisoners could not be beamed up to be
shaky: how come that I cannot beam them up but me and my team can beam down ?
Terlara streets- a fun map... and is almost better than the Rooftop bit I have seen in
the previous ones... The cortical stimulator bit seems a bit odd... those smoke explosions
are way too strong... almost as you decided to give the thing a comic effect as a relief,
and I am almost sure you did not...
Overthrow map - Cool continuation of city map...but how does my away team to blend in
without being noticed by the crowd ? You should hide them behind something in the
scenery...up to you though.
Trifecta map - The holoemitters are quite cool... Nice custom map. Really mean it... those
two store buildings are really neat... I never got the chance to build one myself,
eventually when the preview plague will end I'll make one all mine.
The flashback bit was EXCELLENT, albeit I found the overall picture to be twisted and
difficult to follow.
The final space fight was extremely troublesome, nice use of various
mobs, but the holo trick began to be a little bit stretched when I had to shoot Tholian
ships. On this matter, there is a problem with the Voth enemy squad, there is a spawn of a repair ship that makes the Voth mob to reappear even after the "scan ship remnant" dialog appears. I'd use another enemy, but I agree Voth mobs are way tougher than anything else...
For the Ready room map, BRILLIANT use of dialog trees to build the final report.
I am not sure of the message at the end of the 3 parts, seems that it has to be "you can't
have a correct/legitimate/ethic use of violence" if this is the case, then I like it, and I
think you should insist on this topic, maybe with a 1 parter with different story.
I wrote this before I realized there was the "epilogue" bit, so... now I understand better
the story. Never played that though...
5 stars
For the exchange I propose "The Caitian Gambit" part 1, by helixfungus, still in review
Hey guys, I wanted to revive this thread as I seem to have more time for playing missions recently. Be sure to check out the OP and follow the process there!
Just finished playing Orders Part II, and I thought it was very well made. Definately interested in how this ends. I left an in-game review as requested in your opening post.
Description: The Omnitabula, an ancient orb containing vast amounts of knowledge rivaling the Federation's Memory Alpha is the key to finding Xausea, the orb's place of origin and the potential site of a great assembly of knowledge akin to the Preserver Archive.
But when the orb is taken by an illusive and wicked force known only as Enigma you must use any means at your disposal to take it back before the discovery of a lifetime is lost forever.
Hey Starfarer. Apologies for the very long delay! I played the first 2/3 of your mission a week ago and finally got around to playing again today.
Your maps are nothing short of amazing and incredible. I can't say enough good things about it. It's also very well written with the convenient little dialogue summary button, which I admit I used copiously.
Unfortunately I couldn't complete the mission. The final space battle on what I assume was the final map was impossible. My friendly support died quickly and I had to take on what I assume were 4 Voth battleships on my own, then saw that the final objective was to fend off 6 groups on my own. My suggestion would be to tone down the first battle, then have reinforcements spawn in again to assist for the next battle.
If you make the mission complete-able I will definitely finish.
Hey thanks for the feedback Rogueenterprise! Glad to see that you liked the maps!
I went through and toned down that particular battle. The ammount of enemies has been reduced from 4 cruisers and 1 battleship to 2 cruisers and 1 battleship. An extra friendly fighter wing has also been added to give the player a some more back up. The friendly NPC's will now respawn for the second fight as requested. I tested the mission with these changes myself so I know that the mission is completeable now.
The mission should now be at version 1.03. Hope you like the ending!
I really appreciate that you found the time to play it! It was a fun ride making it, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel nervous about how it would be recieved by you and others from time to time. Glad to see that it is doing well so far, despite some goofs on my part.
Hey there, I just finished 'First Cause, Then Effect'. Very nicely done! The invisible walls in space I found distracting, but I do understand their necessity given the complex nature of your maps. It doesn't detract from the story in any way, ...I'm just weird about exploring.
I noticed much creative use of foundry resources as well. My favorite was probably the cargo slabs that were adeptly made to resemble an interlocking bay-door behind the shuttle. At any rate, I hope you can enjoy my mission as much.
You're welcome to have a play of it. It's called 'Picking Up The Pieces [Part:1]' (yes, parts 2 & 3 are done, but still pending reviews for a full publish)
Hey Solastrius, apologies for the delay in getting to your mission, but I just played it tonight and had a great time. Thanks for taking the time to play mine!
You're quite welcome. Sharing stories is the entire point of the foundry (in my opinion), so it's always nice to get another play-through. Expect to trade with me some more once I have the time.
So...for some reason I gave this one a 4 star and no comments way back when...but I figured that since past me's an idiot (I rated it an easy 5 this time) a more current review of Cause and Effect is in order (though I imagine that after roughly the 50,000 mark you probably had a good idea of how well you did with this mission. )
Like a good magic act, I'm trying to work out how you set dying as an objective (think I'm on the right track, but that just speaks to how well some of the objectives are used for this mission.) Both space and ground maps have very well balanced, clean level detail which is very well suited to the STO engine. It very appropriately displays setting without ever becoming too cluttered. Technically, this is an incredibly well done mission with proficient (if a little flat) dialog. It's a textbook example for the STO foundry.
But...despite how well it plays it never really grabbed me (which I think is why I left that original 4). There's a certain feeling of inevitability once you're knee-deep in time loop 2 and the particular structure of this mission becomes very plainly evident (as compared to the original episode, and I must add that it was a fitting reinterpretation for STO). It still feels like a technical exercise even when you're dealing with important plot points with the potential for personal reactions (ex. your own death, a certain character's betrayal). Thus when absolutely everything is said and done, you're just left with a more manageable sequence of events without a strong feeling of significance. This time, you just win, the anomaly goes away (and at a certain level it had no importance to begin with except for enabling this given plot to happen), and that would have happened the first time if the KDF hadn't implausibly thrown an armada at you (simply to provide the necessary "fail" condition for the Foundry.)
What it reduces to then is that the technical brilliance of Cause and Effect comes at some small expense to its story telling. All the pieces are there, they're well established, and they fit well together. But despite that smooth integration it still feels a little mechanical. However, when that's all you can complain about (and something you can also level at the source material), you're still planted firmly in excellent territory.
Now, what I've got line up on the sacrificial altar (for whenever) is my second mission: Entropy. FED/ROM, level 51+, and it just came out of review with positive reactions so far. Never the less, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. There are some parts I really like and others which I'm tempted tear down and start all over with. An experienced second opinion (particularly when it comes to mission structure, flow, cohesion, and balance) would definitely be appreciated.
Post edited by duncanidaho11 on
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Just gave 'Own Worst Enemy' a play-through and I don't feel cheated for the time. Once again an awesome mission, held back only by a few technical hiccups.
I loved how you used codes to match the models of the mirror ships and even worked it believably into the story-flow of the mission. A foundry limitation threw massive cube wreckage into my face after defeating my assimilated counterpart vessel, but that isn't something you can fix while still having the vessel fight like the Borg, sadly.
Let's see... On the 'Borg Space' map during 'Not Quite Right / Decelerate from transwarp', The code entries do not always match the results in dialogue e.g. Hydra becomes Virgo and so on. The mirror ship that is disabled also failed to become visible for me. Minor things, but I'm sure they weren't intended and thought you should know.
As far as the intended design goes, I didn't care to play out dissecting a Borg with my character and found it considerate that you included a 'just rip it out' option that I much appreciated. I think my only criticism would be that it seemed a bit unlikely that Ollen would have ended up near the warp-core in engineering after barricading himself inside a small crew-quarters with no alternative exits, using tons of debris.
All in all though, it was definitely a 5-star work for it's many high-points which I'm sure plenty of other players have already commented upon. (I wouldn't have rated it so highly if I did not genuinely believe so) Thanks for authoring yet another entertaining addition to one of my favorite online games.
Now, onto my next recommendation for you: (still in the review phase)
Picking Up The Pieces [Part:2] ST-HATMUG78N
...This one picks up where the first leaves off - after the icy planetoid is dislodged from it's trajectory in the
Quantum Slipstream distortion. If you like it, feel free to recommend it to others. I could definitely use the reviews to finalize the publishing process on this one.
Not my favorite of your missions, but I still gave it 4-stars. Even your lesser stuff seems to outclass most of the other missions I review. I did very much enjoy the sense of urgency of fleeing from the Baryon Sweeper.
Nonetheless... Hiring mercenaries to do dirty work, using spies to sabotage hostile forces from within, employing energy weapons to have unsuspecting enemies shot in the back and then fleeing the scene of a battle once the tide begins to turn... these are all tricks that one might expect from the Romulans, Orion raiders or perhaps even Ferengi - but not from any self respecting, Klingon war-party. I half-expected the second in command of the enemy vessels to kill their leader in ritual combat and take her place, but such an event never happened within the span of your story.
This uncharacteristic behavior was the only reason I wasn't comfortable with rating it higher, though I wanted to because it was an enjoyable diversion. At any rate, thanks for the authoring.
My final recommendation to submit for your approval (for now) is quite predictably, the 3rd installment of the 'Picking Up The Pieces' series.
Mission I.D. : ST-HTGR4TIXI
In case you decide to play it, I'd like to thank you now for your time. It is surprisingly difficult to bring attention to a new foundry mission, let alone find people who care enough to play one. Perhaps I'll have cause to create a trading missions thread of my own before it's over with. I'm somewhat impressed that you are still honoring this one considering how many plays your missions have already gotten.
Anyway, I do hope you have fun seeing the conclusion of the story.
Hey Duncan, I finished Entropy today and left you a review.
I'm not really using this thread to give detailed feedback, but since you asked, I can give a bit. I liked your maps, characters and story, and there is a lot of optional stuff to do that gives a lot of flavor to the mission.
I did think your staccato dialogue could use some polish (e.g., not everyone's dialogue needs to be short and clip back and forth, it makes for a lot of extra clicks), and I think the mission was a smidge too long and verbose to really be efficient.
Thanks for trading, I'll be getting to the next missions soon!
I did think your staccato dialogue could use some polish (e.g., not everyone's dialogue needs to be short and clip back and forth, it makes for a lot of extra clicks), and I think the mission was a smidge too long and verbose to really be efficient.
Thanks! Its something I'm working on with each episode. My first longer was and (in some areas, in hindsight, where it didn't need to be) more verbose, so I should be hitting closer to the right balance with the next one.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
Comments
Regarding your feedback -- that first one is a newbie mistake! I'll have to fix that asap.
You make a good observation regarding the map that is the ship interior but outdoors. Originally I had combined that map and the one after it, but I ended up ripping them apart because I was worried that boff pathing would get messed up, especially since there is ground combat later in that map. I just left it as is after that.
I wrote my very first Klingon foundry mission
"The Claws of Stovokor" by helixfungus
which of course is a redshirt as of now
Since you owed me 1...be my guest and play it for trade and leasure...
Let me know if you do the third part of Orders pallie !
Here's my review of RE's Orders 1&2
ORDERS 1:
Great use of tech to create interactive scenarios. Equally great use of puzzles. Shame about the 'environmental' issues on map 2. Same issues prevent building interiors on some maps I like. State-changing floor issue lost my Boffs. I'm trying out invisible wall floors on Blast2thePast. beaming back up) Hope to find a reason to use it before you go and beat me to it if you didn't already.
There is a tree branch growing out the wall near sickbay area, and security officer sitting in brig was still there on ground map after the beam down.
Like how you used the reacher to put optional objective into mission box.
I managed to avoid all the natives (except to cloak and have a nosy)
I enjoyed the story so far and interesting use of MACOs.
Great stuff. Really enjoyed this so far. 4 STARS from me.
ORDERS 2
4 STAR wonderful stuff. My poor Engineer. Though I did order him, should I not be taking responsibility for his actions? Oops, anyway.
Great city map - very smoggy and atmospheric. Nice use of distance and far off buildings.
I highly recommend using neutral mastiff squads when poss as replacement NPCs to avoid the beam-in effect during NPC animation changes (Though they will attack non-fed and non-KDF)
The artillary shell stuff - wonderful. The door to the lab i was trapped in didnt close tho. I could leave any time.
Fantastic roof-top gameplay and secret agent sneaky play.
Overall loving it. Waiting for part 3. And thanks for the DOFF assignment reminder.
A Review of "First Cause, Then Effect", a foundry mission by RogueEnterprise
So I was looking for a mission of yours that I could review, and then I remembered that
I had actually played this one not too long ago. I wasn't keeping notes then, but I felt
that I should play it again so that I could write up a review for it.
Edit: This won't be the only one of yours that I will review btw.
_______Main Review________
This was a fun, well-thought out mission that has an engaging story. It really felt like I was playing through a TNG episode! Great care was taken to make sure the whole time-loop scenario worked flawlessly.
There is not a lot of combat to found in this mission, but what's there provides a challenge; with sometimes interesting results. It also never feels out of place in relation to the story.
All in all, I can see why this one was spotlighted, and would recommend play-thoughs except that it looks like everyone found it already. I still recommend a play-though anyway.
_____For the Author_______
These notes will cover my impressions of the maps in this mission. I couldn't actuall find any faults that I thought needed correcting which is good news since this is a spotlighted mission. I've heard that editing one of these is a little problematic
Map 1:
- Good map design. Well done.
Map 2:
- Well done.
Map 3
Nice trigger work, especially with how you presented the Klingon surprise attack.
Map 4:
- This seems familiar...
Map 5:
Nice trigger work, and good story telling here.
Map 6:
- Well done.
Map 7:
- I don't know why, but things seem different this time....
Map 8:
- Challenging combat here, and good dialogue.
Map 9:
- Challenging space combat here, and a good mission ending.
Well done!
__________________________________________________
_____End of Review_____
Since this is a trade thread, I would like to submit A Routine Mission for your reviewing.
Thanks for trading!
Vanilla Ground PvP information
Play it (or by extension, any of my Orders series), then leave me a note with which mission you'd like a play on and I'll get on it!
Thanks Rogue
give speech map - A neat scene. Strange to put it funerals so early in the story... of
course I have to fake having played pt II a moment ago, so it's not so strange after all.
Solid interior map, customized very well. Smart use of dialogs, but I would have compose the
speech while I was standing in front of the crowd.
I did not find that ship's wall to match starfleet ships interiors, but... I use them too
because the most good looking wall does not appear no more in foundry editor preview... side note,
somebody will have to shake tacofang until it gives us some more ship's walls...
Storywise I found the explanation on why the two prisoners could not be beamed up to be
shaky: how come that I cannot beam them up but me and my team can beam down ?
Terlara streets- a fun map... and is almost better than the Rooftop bit I have seen in
the previous ones... The cortical stimulator bit seems a bit odd... those smoke explosions
are way too strong... almost as you decided to give the thing a comic effect as a relief,
and I am almost sure you did not...
Overthrow map - Cool continuation of city map...but how does my away team to blend in
without being noticed by the crowd ? You should hide them behind something in the
scenery...up to you though.
Trifecta map - The holoemitters are quite cool... Nice custom map. Really mean it... those
two store buildings are really neat... I never got the chance to build one myself,
eventually when the preview plague will end I'll make one all mine.
The flashback bit was EXCELLENT, albeit I found the overall picture to be twisted and
difficult to follow.
The final space fight was extremely troublesome, nice use of various
mobs, but the holo trick began to be a little bit stretched when I had to shoot Tholian
ships. On this matter, there is a problem with the Voth enemy squad, there is a spawn of a repair ship that makes the Voth mob to reappear even after the "scan ship remnant" dialog appears. I'd use another enemy, but I agree Voth mobs are way tougher than anything else...
For the Ready room map, BRILLIANT use of dialog trees to build the final report.
I am not sure of the message at the end of the 3 parts, seems that it has to be "you can't
have a correct/legitimate/ethic use of violence" if this is the case, then I like it, and I
think you should insist on this topic, maybe with a 1 parter with different story.
I wrote this before I realized there was the "epilogue" bit, so... now I understand better
the story. Never played that though...
5 stars
For the exchange I propose "The Caitian Gambit" part 1, by helixfungus, still in review
hell...
Thanks for trading! My queue is empty once again.
Just finished playing Orders Part II, and I thought it was very well made. Definately interested in how this ends. I left an in-game review as requested in your opening post.
If you have the time, could you please try this?
Omnitabula: Awakening
ID: ST-HESR65VWI
Author: starfarertheta
Language: English
Faction: Federation
Level Requirement: 51+
Door: Risa
Description:
The Omnitabula, an ancient orb containing vast amounts of knowledge rivaling the Federation's Memory Alpha is the key to finding Xausea, the orb's place of origin and the potential site of a great assembly of knowledge akin to the Preserver Archive.
But when the orb is taken by an illusive and wicked force known only as Enigma you must use any means at your disposal to take it back before the discovery of a lifetime is lost forever.
Your maps are nothing short of amazing and incredible. I can't say enough good things about it. It's also very well written with the convenient little dialogue summary button, which I admit I used copiously.
Unfortunately I couldn't complete the mission. The final space battle on what I assume was the final map was impossible. My friendly support died quickly and I had to take on what I assume were 4 Voth battleships on my own, then saw that the final objective was to fend off 6 groups on my own. My suggestion would be to tone down the first battle, then have reinforcements spawn in again to assist for the next battle.
If you make the mission complete-able I will definitely finish.
I went through and toned down that particular battle. The ammount of enemies has been reduced from 4 cruisers and 1 battleship to 2 cruisers and 1 battleship. An extra friendly fighter wing has also been added to give the player a some more back up. The friendly NPC's will now respawn for the second fight as requested. I tested the mission with these changes myself so I know that the mission is completeable now.
The mission should now be at version 1.03. Hope you like the ending!
Again, thank you for playing!
There were two things I've noticed:
1. I stumbled a bit on the first sentence in the grant mission dialogue:
"Sir, we've received tactical reports that the small Klingon base on near the Xaratine system has been... "
It seems there is either one word to much or something missing in that sentence.
2. It's Xarantine system not Xaratine system.
Other than that an excellent and very enjoyable mission.
I noticed much creative use of foundry resources as well. My favorite was probably the cargo slabs that were adeptly made to resemble an interlocking bay-door behind the shuttle. At any rate, I hope you can enjoy my mission as much.
You're welcome to have a play of it. It's called 'Picking Up The Pieces [Part:1]' (yes, parts 2 & 3 are done, but still pending reviews for a full publish)
The mission I.D. is: ST-HMJCL5JHK
Just check out this link for a full plug and some screenshots:
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1203796/picking-up-the-pieces-re-release-trilogy
Thanks for your time.
Like a good magic act, I'm trying to work out how you set dying as an objective (think I'm on the right track, but that just speaks to how well some of the objectives are used for this mission.) Both space and ground maps have very well balanced, clean level detail which is very well suited to the STO engine. It very appropriately displays setting without ever becoming too cluttered. Technically, this is an incredibly well done mission with proficient (if a little flat) dialog. It's a textbook example for the STO foundry.
But...despite how well it plays it never really grabbed me (which I think is why I left that original 4). There's a certain feeling of inevitability once you're knee-deep in time loop 2 and the particular structure of this mission becomes very plainly evident (as compared to the original episode, and I must add that it was a fitting reinterpretation for STO). It still feels like a technical exercise even when you're dealing with important plot points with the potential for personal reactions (ex. your own death, a certain character's betrayal). Thus when absolutely everything is said and done, you're just left with a more manageable sequence of events without a strong feeling of significance. This time, you just win, the anomaly goes away (and at a certain level it had no importance to begin with except for enabling this given plot to happen), and that would have happened the first time if the KDF hadn't implausibly thrown an armada at you (simply to provide the necessary "fail" condition for the Foundry.)
What it reduces to then is that the technical brilliance of Cause and Effect comes at some small expense to its story telling. All the pieces are there, they're well established, and they fit well together. But despite that smooth integration it still feels a little mechanical. However, when that's all you can complain about (and something you can also level at the source material), you're still planted firmly in excellent territory.
Now, what I've got line up on the sacrificial altar (for whenever) is my second mission: Entropy. FED/ROM, level 51+, and it just came out of review with positive reactions so far. Never the less, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. There are some parts I really like and others which I'm tempted tear down and start all over with. An experienced second opinion (particularly when it comes to mission structure, flow, cohesion, and balance) would definitely be appreciated.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I loved how you used codes to match the models of the mirror ships and even worked it believably into the story-flow of the mission. A foundry limitation threw massive cube wreckage into my face after defeating my assimilated counterpart vessel, but that isn't something you can fix while still having the vessel fight like the Borg, sadly.
Let's see... On the 'Borg Space' map during 'Not Quite Right / Decelerate from transwarp', The code entries do not always match the results in dialogue e.g. Hydra becomes Virgo and so on. The mirror ship that is disabled also failed to become visible for me. Minor things, but I'm sure they weren't intended and thought you should know.
As far as the intended design goes, I didn't care to play out dissecting a Borg with my character and found it considerate that you included a 'just rip it out' option that I much appreciated. I think my only criticism would be that it seemed a bit unlikely that Ollen would have ended up near the warp-core in engineering after barricading himself inside a small crew-quarters with no alternative exits, using tons of debris.
All in all though, it was definitely a 5-star work for it's many high-points which I'm sure plenty of other players have already commented upon. (I wouldn't have rated it so highly if I did not genuinely believe so) Thanks for authoring yet another entertaining addition to one of my favorite online games.
Now, onto my next recommendation for you: (still in the review phase)
Picking Up The Pieces [Part:2] ST-HATMUG78N
...This one picks up where the first leaves off - after the icy planetoid is dislodged from it's trajectory in the
Quantum Slipstream distortion. If you like it, feel free to recommend it to others. I could definitely use the reviews to finalize the publishing process on this one.
Not my favorite of your missions, but I still gave it 4-stars. Even your lesser stuff seems to outclass most of the other missions I review. I did very much enjoy the sense of urgency of fleeing from the Baryon Sweeper.
Nonetheless... Hiring mercenaries to do dirty work, using spies to sabotage hostile forces from within, employing energy weapons to have unsuspecting enemies shot in the back and then fleeing the scene of a battle once the tide begins to turn... these are all tricks that one might expect from the Romulans, Orion raiders or perhaps even Ferengi - but not from any self respecting, Klingon war-party. I half-expected the second in command of the enemy vessels to kill their leader in ritual combat and take her place, but such an event never happened within the span of your story.
This uncharacteristic behavior was the only reason I wasn't comfortable with rating it higher, though I wanted to because it was an enjoyable diversion. At any rate, thanks for the authoring.
My final recommendation to submit for your approval (for now) is quite predictably, the 3rd installment of the 'Picking Up The Pieces' series.
Mission I.D. : ST-HTGR4TIXI
In case you decide to play it, I'd like to thank you now for your time. It is surprisingly difficult to bring attention to a new foundry mission, let alone find people who care enough to play one. Perhaps I'll have cause to create a trading missions thread of my own before it's over with. I'm somewhat impressed that you are still honoring this one considering how many plays your missions have already gotten.
Anyway, I do hope you have fun seeing the conclusion of the story.
I'm not really using this thread to give detailed feedback, but since you asked, I can give a bit.
I did think your staccato dialogue could use some polish (e.g., not everyone's dialogue needs to be short and clip back and forth, it makes for a lot of extra clicks), and I think the mission was a smidge too long and verbose to really be efficient.
Thanks for trading, I'll be getting to the next missions soon!
Thanks! Its something I'm working on with each episode. My first longer was and (in some areas, in hindsight, where it didn't need to be) more verbose, so I should be hitting closer to the right balance with the next one.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!