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Star Trek: Bold Expeditions series.

geoff484geoff484 Member Posts: 209 Arc User
The name of the mission is Bold Expeditions S1E1

It's basically a pilot to a series I want to do, but I first want to know if my story telling capabilities are good enough to actually follow through with the series.

There's a big glitch in the beginning, so any tip on how to solve it would be greatly appreciated.

Anyways, enjoy and thank you for taking the time to play it!

UPDATE

I've cleaned up this mission quite a bit and I feel ready to advertise it a lot more, more reviews would be appreciated!

Episode 2 is currently in development as I'm still working out some story kinks.
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Post edited by geoff484 on

Comments

  • minababeminababe Member Posts: 182 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    I'm sorry. I tried to play the mission, but I couldn't get to the Kelvani Belt so had to drop the mission. Is this the glitch you're talking about?
    Post edited by minababe on
    My Foundry Mission--Name: Falling Star | Mission ID: HQIH36HAW | Faction: FED
  • geoff484geoff484 Member Posts: 209 Arc User
    No, that shouldn't have to do with the mission itself, that's weird.

    You couldbt get to the kelvanibelt in the defera sector?
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  • minababeminababe Member Posts: 182 Arc User
    geoff484 wrote: »
    No, that shouldn't have to do with the mission itself, that's weird.

    You couldbt get to the kelvanibelt in the defera sector?

    I couldn't because I had no idea where it was. The mission just said, "Go to Kelvani Belt" without saying where it was located. I was finally able to find it, but just so you know, it's located in the Raveh Sector, not Defera. And I think it's very important that you be very specific when giving people instructions how to get there, like, "Go to the Kelvani Belt, located in the Raveh Sector in the Beta Quadrant."

    Okay, so I'm playing the mission right now, and am posting some of my thoughts live, as I play:

    There are some spelling errors--"Brief with crew", "anomaly", etc.

    If it were up to me, I would have a few NPCs working at the bridge to add some atmosphere.

    The guy who you have to contact on the bridge, who is he? I know he's supposed to be an officer on my crew, but it would really help to label who he is in the dialogue box.

    BTW, in the future, when you want to brief with your crew, there's a cool trick you can use so you don't have to use an NPC to do it. Place an invisible object somewhere, then use it as the mission objective, "Brief with crew." Next, add a dialogue box to it. If you play my mission, "Falling Star," you'll see how I used this technique to conference with my Away Team two times.

    This nitpick is something I have an issue with in general, and Cryptic does it, too. I personally would not put, "sir" when your officers are addressing players. I would put, [Rank][LastName] so that it comes out as, "Yes, Vice Admiral ____," or "Yes, Captain_____," or "Yes, Lieutenant ______." The reason why is that females do play this game, and it's annoying to be addressed as "sir."

    Who is "Hemsil" (or some other name similar to that spelling--can't remember)? At one point, you have someone give instructions to a character named that, and my tactical officer answered, "Aye."

    I notice enemies suddenly appear on the bridge during the mission objective, "Wait to reach Wootsel's orbit." Is that supposed to happen?

    As for the story, I thought it was great! Very Trekkie and has a nice plot twist. I would definitely follow through with this series. (Don't want to give details so I don't spoil it).

    My Foundry Mission--Name: Falling Star | Mission ID: HQIH36HAW | Faction: FED
  • geoff484geoff484 Member Posts: 209 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    I couldn't because I had no idea where it was. The mission just said, "Go to Kelvani Belt" without saying where it was located. I was finally able to find it, but just so you know, it's located in the Raveh Sector, not Defera. And I think it's very important that you be very specific when giving people instructions how to get there, like, "Go to the Kelvani Belt, located in the Raveh Sector in the Beta Quadrant."
    I was thinking that after reading your post earlier
    Okay, so I'm playing the mission right now, and am posting some of my thoughts live, as I play:

    There are some spelling errors--"Brief with crew", "anomaly", etc.

    I'll get on top of it, I had a little too much confidence in myself and didn't use a spell check.
    If it were up to me, I would have a few NPCs working at the bridge to add some atmosphere.

    Good point, it's a little bare.
    The guy who you have to contact on the bridge, who is he? I know he's supposed to be an officer on my crew, but it would really help to label who he is in the dialogue box.

    That's ensign Cooper! But you're right, I need to establish him a bit more in the dialogue.
    BTW, in the future, when you want to brief with your crew, there's a cool trick you can use so you don't have to use an NPC to do it. Place an invisible object somewhere, then use it as the mission objective, "Brief with crew." Next, add a dialogue box to it. If you play my mission, "Falling Star," you'll see how I used this technique to conference with my Away Team two times.

    I didn't think of that until I was way too far into the mission. I actually used that technique for the first objective on the planets surface.
    This nitpick is something I have an issue with in general, and Cryptic does it, too. I personally would not put, "sir" when your officers are addressing players. I would put, [Rank][LastName] so that it comes out as, "Yes, Vice Admiral ____," or "Yes, Captain_____," or "Yes, Lieutenant ______." The reason why is that females do play this game, and it's annoying to be addressed as "sir."


    That hadn't occurred to me. Thank you for pointing that out!

    I'm going to change it to be like this, but i do have a question. I thought they also addressed female superiors in the military as sir?
    Who is "Hemsil" (or some other name similar to that spelling--can't remember)? At one point, you have someone give instructions to a character named that, and my tactical officer answered, "Aye."

    I have nooooo idea, you wouldn't happen to know which part that's in would you?
    I notice enemies suddenly appear on the bridge during the mission objective, "Wait to reach Wootsel's orbit." Is that supposed to happen?

    That's the glitch I was talking about. when you wait to warp to the planet I used a technique I saw on a tutorial to place a friendly and an enemy group that the player can't see, hear, or get to. When the enemy is defeated, the wait is up, since the player doesn't know the enemy group exist it just seems like they're waiting.

    For some reason those groups leak through the walls (I've put up a couple). It works perfect in the Foundry but for some reason they leak through on the live server, if you have a work around for this that would be great!

    That part is supposed to simply be the player waiting for the ship to arrive to the planet's orbit.
    As for the story, I thought it was great! Very Trekkie and has a nice plot twist. I would definitely follow through with this series. (Don't want to give details so I don't spoil it).

    Thank you!

    This was the part I was mostly concerned about!

    The other critique is fantastic and opened my eyes to how I should word things and how to build missions a bit better, but I was afraid the plot might come off as confusing or nonsensical. I was hoping it didn't just make sense only in my mind.

    I will have your mission reviewed in about an hour. I played some of it last night but it ended up getting later than I thought, so I had to call it a night. So far I'm absolutely loving it though, your dialogue is beautiful.
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  • minababeminababe Member Posts: 182 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    That hadn't occurred to me. Thank you for pointing that out!

    I'm going to change it to be like this, but i do have a question. I thought they also addressed female superiors in the military as sir?

    You're probably right. It's just that it sounds odd, so odd that they didn't even use that on Voyager to address Janeway.
    Who is "Hemsil" (or some other name similar to that spelling--can't remember)? At one point, you have someone give instructions to a character named that, and my tactical officer answered, "Aye."
    I have nooooo idea, you wouldn't happen to know which part that's in would you?

    In the dialogue tree with the crew on the bridge, towards the very end of it, there's a line where one of my bridge officers is instructed to do something, but that person is addressed with a name starting with an H. And the tactical officer answers, "Aye, [Rank], or something to that effect. Maybe I misread it, but it seemed as if you may have been referring to a character.
    I notice enemies suddenly appear on the bridge during the mission objective, "Wait to reach Wootsel's orbit." Is that supposed to happen?
    That's the glitch I was talking about. when you wait to warp to the planet I used a technique I saw on a tutorial to place a friendly and an enemy group that the player can't see, hear, or get to. When the enemy is defeated, the wait is up, since the player doesn't know the enemy group exist it just seems like they're waiting.

    For some reason those groups leak through the walls (I've put up a couple). It works perfect in the Foundry but for some reason they leak through on the live server, if you have a work around for this that would be great!

    That part is supposed to simply be the player waiting for the ship to arrive to the planet's orbit./quote]

    Personally, if it were up to me, I would drop it. I don't think it adds much in the way of the story. Is there any particular reason why you want the player to wait to arrive at the planet's orbit?
    The other critique is fantastic and opened my eyes to how I should word things and how to build missions a bit better, but I was afraid the plot might come off as confusing or nonsensical. I was hoping it didn't just make sense only in my mind.

    No, it was fine. :)
    I will have your mission reviewed in about an hour. I played some of it last night but it ended up getting later than I thought, so I had to call it a night. So far I'm absolutely loving it though, your dialogue is beautiful.

    Thanks! I'm glad you like it so far. No rush to review, take as much time as you need. It's kind of a long mission, so I understand.

    My Foundry Mission--Name: Falling Star | Mission ID: HQIH36HAW | Faction: FED
  • theyredeadjimtheyredeadjim Member Posts: 243 Arc User
    According to Memory Alpha, the use of "sir" to address female officers is technically correct:

    memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Military_parlance

    Janeway indicated her distaste for this form of address in the Voyager pilot, but this doesn't invalidate it's usage in general.

    There is no simple way around the issue of how the Captain should be addressed, unfortunately. The use of [Rank] results in players being referred to by their game rank instead of "Captain", and the use of "Captain" may not reflect the correct address for an Admiral.
  • theyredeadjimtheyredeadjim Member Posts: 243 Arc User
    I played your mission through and really enjoyed it. minababe's points are valid, so I won't repeat them. I also had your NPC timer appear on the ship bridge map, so you might also want to look at that.

    At the end of the day, though, I wanted to finish this mission, as opposed to just wanting it to end. That's always the sign of a good story. Once you tweak it, this could be great :)
  • geoff484geoff484 Member Posts: 209 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    Thank you!

    I've been incredibly busy lately, but I should have everything fine tuned by the end of the week.

    Also, I cannot for the life of me figure out them timer bug. I might get rid of that step altogether, just trying to figure out a story reason why the player would reach the planet's orbit in less than a second after observing the anomally
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  • theyredeadjimtheyredeadjim Member Posts: 243 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    I haven't tried it out, but perhaps you could move the timer to the fore area of the oddy bridge map and then block the area off with a couple invisible walls. The player doesn't have a reason to go up there anyway.

    If that doesn't work, I'd just drop the timer. It would be easier to create a dialogue that diverts the players attention while "underway".

    BTW, I have also just released a new mission, and could use an honest review :) It's called "Of Damsels And Distress".

    **edit** Tested timer inside of Ready Room. Two invisible walls and wall with closed door blocking. Worked in Foundry preview. Total Fail in live environment. I'll try the timer in the forward area.

    **edit** Tested timer in front lower area of the bridge, and you can the see the results for yourself, as I have left it published as "Oddy Timer" in the Review area. Unfortunately, some of the combat effects still appear, but it still might work for you. The starting location for this is the same as for your mission.
    Post edited by theyredeadjim on
  • geoff484geoff484 Member Posts: 209 Arc User
    I haven't tried it out, but perhaps you could move the timer to the fore area of the oddy bridge map and then block the area off with a couple invisible walls. The player doesn't have a reason to go up there anyway.

    If that doesn't work, I'd just drop the timer. It would be easier to create a dialogue that diverts the players attention while "underway".

    BTW, I have also just released a new mission, and could use an honest review :) It's called "Of Damsels And Distress".

    **edit** Tested timer inside of Ready Room. Two invisible walls and wall with closed door blocking. Worked in Foundry preview. Total Fail in live environment. I'll try the timer in the forward area.

    **edit** Tested timer in front lower area of the bridge, and you can the see the results for yourself, as I have left it published as "Oddy Timer" in the Review area. Unfortunately, some of the combat effects still appear, but it still might work for you. The starting location for this is the same as for your mission.

    Yeah, I changed it to an invisible object like Minababe suggest, also cleaned up some grammar a bit.

    I tried to play your mission, it's great so far, very smart, unfortunately I'm stuck on the part where you have to reach the water supply. I simply can't trigger the marker. I've even tried jumping onto it and everything lol.

    I'll hold out on my full review until it's fixed.
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  • theyredeadjimtheyredeadjim Member Posts: 243 Arc User
    edited August 2016
    I liked your idea of the timer creating a small pause, but the bridge maps are rather nasty for creating certain special effects, and I gather you didn't like the little bit of flashing on the "Oddy Timer" test map. I'll take that down now.
    Post edited by theyredeadjim on
  • zorbanezorbane Member Posts: 1,617 Arc User
    Hi Geoff484.

    I played the first mission in your series and enjoyed it. The story was very good and in Star Trek terms made sense. Some mechanics you put in there were well done too.

    However I did find a lot of "foundry problems", mostly common things that I see new authors do. I wrote a pretty lengthy technical review on google docs.

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KaoEoY2J-tWj1zunV4mC3foZsDU-cz5GNQndB6uhd-g/edit?usp=sharing

    Let me know if you have any questions in regards to anything I mentioned.
    StarbaseUGC Discord Chat
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    Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - Commander Rihan
  • geoff484geoff484 Member Posts: 209 Arc User
    edited September 2016
    zorbane wrote: »
    Hi Geoff484.

    I played the first mission in your series and enjoyed it. The story was very good and in Star Trek terms made sense. Some mechanics you put in there were well done too.

    However I did find a lot of "foundry problems", mostly common things that I see new authors do. I wrote a pretty lengthy technical review on google docs.

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KaoEoY2J-tWj1zunV4mC3foZsDU-cz5GNQndB6uhd-g/edit?usp=sharing

    Let me know if you have any questions in regards to anything I mentioned.

    Thank you for playing and giving such great feedback!

    I will be smoothing the majority of the things you pointed out tonight.

    P.S. I don't know why but my brain does not like the words "Brief", "Satellite", or "anomaly". 90% of that mission has been spell checking since I first started putting it together, so thank you for the google docs suggestion! Should make things a lot more easier for me.

    Edit:

    Going through your notes, I used the reach marker on the Wotseel ground rather than a kill enemy group objective for the dialogue. I didn't want the enemies to beam in after the dialogue, I wanted them to be there first, the player goes through the dialogue, then fight the enemy group.

    The way I have it now is the enemy group is surrounded by invisible walls, once the walls disappear it allows the citizens to attack. I'm going to make the reach marker bigger, but if you have a better idea how to do this please feel free to share. I assume there is a much easier way but I couldn't find anything online.
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  • zorbanezorbane Member Posts: 1,617 Arc User
    geoff484 wrote: »
    Going through your notes, I used the reach marker on the Wotseel ground rather than a kill enemy group objective for the dialogue. I didn't want the enemies to beam in after the dialogue, I wanted them to be there first, the player goes through the dialogue, then fight the enemy group.

    The way I have it now is the enemy group is surrounded by invisible walls, once the walls disappear it allows the citizens to attack. I'm going to make the reach marker bigger, but if you have a better idea how to do this please feel free to share. I assume there is a much easier way but I couldn't find anything online.

    I see what you were trying to do..hmmmmm

    Not sure... but this might work..

    The first objective would be "Greet the locals", which would actually be tied to a Kill Objective on that enemy group. Since it's the first objective they'll start spawned. You'll still have the invisible wall around them though so they don't immediately attack the player.

    Next add an invisible object the player starts in. Tie this button to two things. A map dialogue pop up, and another invisible object in the same spot. Label the first button "Greet the locals". The map dialogue has the same dialogue you had before.

    For the second invisible object...link the invisible walls to disappear when you use it, and call it "Set weapons to stun". I remember something like that in the dialogue. Now the enemy group will fight the player, and after that you can have the dialogue where the guards "arrest" the player.

    The technical flow would go like this:

    Greet Locals Button -> Dialogue -> Set Weapons to Stun Button* -> Invisible walls disappear -> Enemy group engages the player

    *The Set Weapons to Stun button actually shows up at the same time as Greet Locals but it is "hidden" from the player by the dialogue pop up.

    From a player's point of view:

    Objective: Greet Locals
    Click the Greet Locals button like the objective says
    Read the dialogue
    Set weapons to stun
    Defeat the enemy group
    Complete Objective: Greet Locals
    Guard dialogue

    It you noticed, most of the triggers firing are based off map triggers, not actual objectives. I'm not sure how familiar you are with them but if you want to be able to do fancy stuff in the Foundry you'll need to learn how to use them.

    Now I have something else to say, this time about reach markers. Another problem with using reach markers is that if the reach marker object starts with the player inside it, the player has to exit first and enter it again. I had to do this to trigger the "defeat the bad guys" objective. Making it bigger makes the problem even worse! Just something to watch out for when using reach markers.
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    Foundry Mission Database
    Check out my Foundry missions:
    Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
    Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - Commander Rihan
  • geoff484geoff484 Member Posts: 209 Arc User
    Gah, I should have read your post first.

    I found a work around though, even though the idea you just posted was better.

    I have it so you greet the Wotseel, the walls are set to disappear when that objective is complete and just added the "that is enough!" dialogue to the "speak to wotseel guard" objective.

    P.S. I started playing Improbable Hulk, is that a custom interior or did you modify a pre-existing one? Because I've been messing with ship interiors lately and use Generic Wall 03, but I really like the walls in your's and want to build something a little more similar to that.
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  • zorbanezorbane Member Posts: 1,617 Arc User
    I used pre-existing maps but customized them. If you take a screenshot of what you're looking at I can let you know what I did
    StarbaseUGC Discord Chat
    Foundry Mission Database
    Check out my Foundry missions:
    Standalone - The Great Escape - The Galaxy's Fair - Purity I: Of Denial - Return to Oblivion
    Untitled Series - Duritanium Man - The Improbable Bulk - Commander Rihan
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