"You are sent to secure Trimble space for a top secret science facility that is developing a new warp core that would make Transwarp Conduits obsolite."
Final Rating: 2 Stars
Synopsis: You beam down to Deep Space Nine and Admiral Landry briefs you on the situation.
After warping into the Trimble system and speaking with Doctor Yun, you fly out to investigate the detection grid satellites. Right after your science officer confirms that the satellites have been sabotaged, a distress signal comes in. Klingons have attacked the station and beamed up Doctor Yun.
You disable the lead ship and beam aboard to find the good doctor. Once on the bridge, you take out the crew and beam back to your ship with the doctor.
The science station explodes and sensor scans show the explosive was of Starfleet origin. So the story is either incomplete, or there's a sequel coming.
Problems with the mission: There's a lot of misspellings. Right in the blurb: it's obsolete not obsolite.
The Mission Accept window told me to talk to Admiral Landry at DS9, the Mission Tracker told me to travel to the Kinjer system. That was a bit confusing.
There's something wrong with the turbolift door. It didn't glow, but a small nearby thing sticking out of the wall did. I had to get close to it, rather than the door, to use the turbolift.
When I destroyed the final wave the I.K.S. Drang was destroyed as well, so I ended up beaming over to a ship that wasn't there.
I get that the author was giving me the choice to sneak around or engage the Klingons, I really like that I had the choice, but having groups of them all standing in the corners of the room looked really odd.
A lot of times I had to click a choice, then it would complete the mission objective, then I had to select that choice again.
Final Thoughts: The "Go to Full Impulse" & "Warp to the Trimble System" scene was a nice idea, but it just didn't work. My ship moved forward and then bounced back to the start which ruined the whole effect.
There is a good story here, but it's hidden under too many flaws.
"We've just received a distress signal from the USS Gertrude that was accompanied by a quarantine warning from Captain Sho'ru. You must investigate immediately!"
Final Rating: 4 Stars
Synopsis: You're briefed on the situation and asked to meet Doctor Sy-no in her lab so that she can accompany you to the Gertrude.
Arriving at the doctor's lab, she asks you to help her with some last minute calculations, since apparently her assistants are all on vacation already. Once that's completed you all beam back aboard your ship and warp to the USS Gertrude.
On approach, sensors show an unidentified ship undock from the Gertrude and warp out. Since they're too far away to catch you decide to scan the disabled ship instead.
Beaming into a safe spot you try to help a dying engineer, she's suffering from a massive fungal infection. You do what you can for her, then you restore life support and move on. And that's when you encounter the infected crew. Afterward you find a large spore colony, download information from the computer and then head to the bridge.
You clear the bridge of hostiles and speak with the captain, who's just barely holding on. He explains all about the spores and the fungus. You decide to beam back to your ship before you, and your officers, become infected as well.
Once back aboard your own ship the fungus speaks to you, but you destroy the USS Gertrude to keep it from spreading.
Problems with the mission: The cloaked ship is a completely unnecessary addition, unless the intent was to set up for a sequel.
After reading the science officers logs why did the crewmen beam in right in front of the door? If they weren't supposed to have beamed in then they should have appeared just around the corner.
Final Thoughts: Because of the name I suspected this mission might be a comedic one before it started. After it began, and I saw that it was a serious story, I wasn't sure what was going to happen, until my security officer said; "What are those crewmen doing in the hallway?" Then everything became clear.
It's a simple story that we've all seen many times, but it was done well enough that it merits 4 stars.
Oh and, was Doctor Sy-no hitting on my captain? Is that why the mission ends with him leaving her lab?
After reading most of your reviews, I have to come to the conclusion that most of them are pedantic and not particularly relevant to the intent of the missions themselves. This is a time where use of the English language is not particularly respected, however, these missions are also not intended to be Shakspearean theater. These are intended to be fun and in the spirit of Star Trek. Taking the missions so seriously as to pick apart word usage and grammar as a means to damage the story that is being conveyed is not reviewing, it is purely attacking the authors.
I would recommend stepping back, taking a reality check and looking at many of these missions again as a normal Star Trek fan, or even as a normal gamer. I haven't seen any use of leetspeak or any other inappropriate language to the environments that would suggest that these missions are all bad or even medeocre but, based upon almost all of your reviews, they appear to not be worthwhile running them. Criticizm is fine as long as it is constructive but taking it too far in this kind of an environment with amateur authors designing what are, for the most part, excellent missions is more destructive than if they had all written garbage.
Instead of all the pedantic whinging about grammar and spelling, or even uses of wordplay (long history of wordplay in Trek lore by the way) perhaps taking the missions in the spirit of a Star Trek game might be more enjoyable for everyone involved. This seems more like a power struggle between amateur critics and amateur authors without any appearance of a resolution than anything else.
If they know that the station's been infiltrated it just doesn't make sense to have them stand there and wait to be killed. They should stick together and actively search for me. I know what you're going to say; "But then there'd be too many enemies attacking the player(s) all at once." It's your job as the author to make sure that doesn't happen. Find a way to explain it. Perhaps it's a small station with a limited number of security personnel or maybe have the player hack in and disable the internal sensors so station security can't find them.
Having the enemies split up and then just stand around waiting to be shot is a series of tactical blunders that makes them look like complete fools.
Just because the devs have done it that way doesn't make it ok.
Wrath of Khan is my favorite Star Trek movie and I could probably recite the entire script by heart. A lame misspelling does not a play on words make.
Ya know Falcon, I am not even going to respond to you, because you are just being you.. and there is nothing that I can say or do to change that fact. Your review is more for my humor now than helpful, and I am not sure that is what you want.
I think that your responses are well spoken, but misplaced. I have played all of the missions in this story thread on both Federation and Klingon side and the story arc is extremely well thought out and cohesive, one to the other.
As a writer myself, I have been working with Miles to create a fully fleshed story that will withstand anything put up by STO. You seem to be looking for Shakespear in a MMO, and you are looking in the wrong place. After looking through your reviews, I realized that there was not one single positive review for any mission you have tested. As a reviewer, if you are going to point out problems to their spelling, grammer, missions in general, then you should also be big enough to offer up the solution to the problems you are revealing.
There were several discrepancies in what your review put forth. You added things into the review that were not in the missions, you misquote several times what is said in the missions, and it appeared as though you did not read everything through, just skimmed along as you went. That is not reviewing the missions, it is criticizing the author of the mission.
When you put out a Foundry mission, let me come try it out. I am a reviewer myself and would love the opportunity to see what you are capable of. You tear down down other people for having the courage to create a new mission...do you carry that same courage within you? Only time will tell.
"OMG ENGLISH IZ HARD! You should totally lower your expectations, because it's not like everyone can be expected to put effort into their writing or consistently capitalize or punctuate or any of that fancy stuff GAWWWWD"
People asked for reviews, and they got them. If they just wanted praise without criticism, well... that was dumb.
In conclusion, PROOFREAD YOUR #%$^ MISSIONS or better yet, have someone else do it for you! Or is the statement you want to make with your creative effort "I'm-a just gonna throw up any old half-***** thing on the Foundry, because no one reads the text or cares about anything but fast easy xp anyway"?
"OMG ENGLISH IZ HARD! You should totally lower your expectations, because it's not like everyone can be expected to put effort into their writing or consistently capitalize or punctuate or any of that fancy stuff GAWWWWD"
People asked for reviews, and they got them. If they just wanted praise without criticism, well... that was dumb.
In conclusion, PROOFREAD YOUR #%$^ MISSIONS or better yet, have someone else do it for you! Or is the statement you want to make with your creative effort "I'm-a just gonna throw up any old half-***** thing on the Foundry, because no one reads the text or cares about anything but fast easy xp anyway"?
Proper use of language is always important regardless of what language it is. If you can't get your point across because of distractions from masses of mispelled words or poor syntax, the story will be confusing and less enjoyable. As this is the Star Trek universe, your second point is also incorrect. Most players actually do like the storylines and are not merely interested in blasting levels to VA, we want to live in Star Trek here.
"OMG ENGLISH IZ HARD! You should totally lower your expectations, because it's not like everyone can be expected to put effort into their writing or consistently capitalize or punctuate or any of that fancy stuff GAWWWWD"
People asked for reviews, and they got them. If they just wanted praise without criticism, well... that was dumb.
In conclusion, PROOFREAD YOUR #%$^ MISSIONS or better yet, have someone else do it for you! Or is the statement you want to make with your creative effort "I'm-a just gonna throw up any old half-***** thing on the Foundry, because no one reads the text or cares about anything but fast easy xp anyway"?
Not sure this is directed to me or not, but I agree... I do. However, he is using semantics, while not understanding the purpose of what was going on.
It's a review it is what it is... it's nothing more then entertainment for me. I have read the reviews, the ones that mean the most to me are the players... not the people who prop them selves up to be something they are not.
I would suggest you take it as advice on how to make your mission better, but it seems you're not going to. That's unfortunate.
Sometimes "this pun is lame and not nearly as clever as you think it is, get rid of it" is the most honest and helpful thing one can say.
And if the reader fails to understand what you're trying to convey, or the purpose of an element (like guards) being present, consider what you can do as an author or mission creator to make it clearer.
I would suggest you take it as advice on how to make your mission better, but it seems you're not going to. That's unfortunate.
Sometimes "this pun is lame and not nearly as clever as you think it is, get rid of it" is the most honest and helpful thing one can say.
And if the reader fails to understand what you're trying to convey, or the purpose of an element (like guards) being present, consider what you can do as an author or mission creator to make it clearer.
What I mean is no matter how I do things, it will be a gaff on someone... So I opted for the speed and flow of the mission versus explaining away every move. That was my option...
Also who is to say there is not a "Nutara" nebula... I could have called it Nebula 82A12... and then is that a misspelling? No I named it the name I wanted... and made it similar enough to put in a little humor... and forgive me for being silly, could it have been more clever sure... but I wanted to be subtle.
I do take in criticism, when I feel it is a valid and something I agree with, I disagree and feel Falcon went to a place he should have not gone.
Proper use of language is always important regardless of what language it is. If you can't get your point across because of distractions from masses of mispelled words or poor syntax, the story will be confusing and less enjoyable.
That's what I'm saying - and yet you turn around and say that to insist on it from this game and these players is pedantic and asking for too much. I disagree. No one is asking for Shakespeare here, just proper decent English grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc etc - as you'd find in any published Trek novel, filmed script, or Cryptic-made mission.
As this is the Star Trek universe, your second point is also incorrect. Most players actually do like the storylines and are not merely interested in blasting levels to VA, we want to live in Star Trek here.
And I submit that the "normal gamer" who you suggest as the (much lower) standard that we should be using does not care about those things. Nor should they be writing Foundry missions, IMO; or, if they do, they should not submit those missions to be reviewed by someone with higher standards and expect praise. I think we should be looking for the above-average.
People who say "it's just a game, it [proper English] doesn't matter" or "it's just the net" or "it's just _____" bother me. Not only does that imply contempt for the medium and audience in question - it's not worth your best effort, and neither are the people there - it denies you a chance to practice those skills until they become effortless. Once you learn the rules, it's actually harder, requiring conscious effort, to NOT spell and punctuate correctly - such as when I want to use chatspeak or whatever to make a point.
When you get to my mission, please do point out spelling, grammar, and other such errors. As someone who likes to write short stories and fanfiction (but is not a professional writer, or ever had any formal learning on writing outside of standard school classes) I'm wanting very much to know where I made those sorts of mistakes.
That's what I'm saying - and yet you turn around and say that to insist on it from this game and these players is pedantic and asking for too much. I disagree. No one is asking for Shakespeare here, just proper decent English grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc etc - as you'd find in any published Trek novel, filmed script, or Cryptic-made mission.
And I submit that the "average gamer" who you suggest as the (much lower) standard that we should be aiming for does not care about those things. Nor should they be writing Foundry missions, IMO; or, if they do, they should not submit those missions to be reviewed by someone with higher standards.
Currently there are well over 800 published missions, there is room for everything from the kamakazi powerlevelliing missions to cerebral puzzle solving.
The way the quoted post was written, I had actually understood you to be stating the proper English didn't have a place in a game. It is good that we can agree that proper use of the English langage is important to get the point across however, not everyone has the same level of education or had thought ahead to pre-write the script before creating the mission. Remember, this is a new system and this mission is one of the earliest of the long ones that Zonerie apparently written on the first or second day after release of the foundry. Perhaps there was a bit of overexcitement in releasing the content but keep in mind that the STO folks also have typos in their missions on occasions and the grammar has been, on occasion, rather challenging to read.
Allowances must be made between professionals and amateurs writing these missions and saying who should and should not write missions is inappropriate and will have an adverse effect on foundry missions as a whole.
Currently there are well over 800 published missions, there is room for everything from the kamakazi powerlevelliing missions to cerebral puzzle solving.
The way the quoted post was written, I had actually understood you to be stating the proper English didn't have a place in a game. It is good that we can agree that proper use of the English langage is important to get the point across however, not everyone has the same level of education or had thought ahead to pre-write the script before creating the mission. Remember, this is a new system and this mission is one of the earliest of the long ones that Zonerie apparently written on the first or second day after release of the foundry. Perhaps there was a bit of overexcitement in releasing the content but keep in mind that the STO folks also have typos in their missions on occasions and the grammar has been, on occasion, rather challenging to read.
Allowances must be made between professionals and amateurs writing these missions and saying who should and should not write missions is inappropriate and will have an adverse effect on foundry missions as a whole.
Falcon did not hammer me on my grammar or my typos, which I DO have and I change them when found. Falcon pointed out the "Flow" of the mission which is semantics, why I did this not that. He has his opinion, and I have mine on how it was done.
Sure I do agree that I could have done things more fleshed out. I could have written a novel on the way things are or should be. Yes, I agree I could have written down why the guards are placed the way they are placed....
However, that is not what the review was. It was in depth on a single point. "Why the guards are at the end of a dead end, Falcon did not understand this, why I did it and left out the context of you needing to scan objects that are central to the story line.
I answered, "Well because it is NOT a dead end, it was the placement of an object required to scan." I walked away from the review not as it being constructive. I walked away and I see others have as well as it being a bias attack, if it was not, then that is how it felt to me.
Also let's not even claim I do not take criticism because I do. I update my missions as often as I can to fix anything people find. I bow down to your skills with the English language, because I am just a regular joe... I am just a guy without help, just a word processor, who is trying the best he can.
You I see feel that people like me should not even try, which in my opinion is arrogant and wrong, but that is just my opinion.
Just to let you know, I will continue on, and I will keep trying and I do take what I can from those who help to make it better.
As you edited your previous post after I posted, I will put this in a new reply.
I honestly find your statement rather arrogant and somewhat apocryphal in that I wasn't criticizing the language alone. The following statement is a good example of what I am attempting to point out.
If they know that the station's been infiltrated it just doesn't make sense to have them stand there and wait to be killed. They should stick together and actively search for me. I know what you're going to say; "But then there'd be too many enemies attacking the player(s) all at once." It's your job as the author to make sure that doesn't happen. Find a way to explain it. Perhaps it's a small station with a limited number of security personnel or maybe have the player hack in and disable the internal sensors so station security can't find them.
Having the enemies split up and then just stand around waiting to be shot is a series of tactical blunders that makes them look like complete fools.
Just because the devs have done it that way doesn't make it ok.
Wrath of Khan is my favorite Star Trek movie and I could probably recite the entire script by heart. A lame misspelling does not a play on words make.
There are limitations in the capabilities of the foundry itself and those will limit what can be done, and how things are done. The preceding quote is what I was referring to as pedantic. I am sure that you are aware that each author will do things differently and each author is going to make their own decisions. Nitpicking that there are guards at the end of the corridor is pedantic, particularly in that the STO writers have used that particular system themselves on several occasions.
This mission was also written in a specific order and though it can be done out of order, that doesn't mean that one should intentionally do so. People as a class are sheep, individuals are not and are generally capable of following simple instructions assuming that the player bothers to do so.
As I said in a prior post, there is plenty of room for variety within this game system and taking into consideration that Daniel Stahl used that his previous mission "Prison Break" which was the prequel to Qapla' in a staff meeting as well as it being reviewed on STOked. I think that says a lot more than this particular review.
I also have to say that I went through and read the majority of the reviews written by this particular critic and they all came across pedantic nonsense, not necessarily because of the grammar, but because of picking on irrelevant minutia rather than looking at the story as a whole.
As this discussion is derailing the thread, I think it is best to drop it now.
Arriving at the doctor's lab, she asks you to help her with some last minute calculations, since apparently her assistants are all on vacation already.
It might not be extremely "Trek," but I'm of the opinion that having the Captain involved with mission objectives makes the mission more entertaining. If you just arrived at the lab and Sy-no handed you a shield, it would've been very un-fun. Pointless, actually, and I wouldn't have had to create that whole environment.
Speaking of which, I'm surprised you made no mention of the environments...
The cloaked ship is a completely unnecessary addition, unless the intent was to set up for a sequel.
It is. As is the final bit of dialog about examining the readings for answers about it all, and Sy-no's foreshadowey comment at the end, "but you destroyed them all, right?"
After reading the science officers logs why did the crewmen beam in right in front of the door? If they weren't supposed to have beamed in then they should have appeared just around the corner.
If I put them around the corner, then the player would not get ambushed. Since the Foundry doesn't allow for patrol waypoints, I couldn't make them appear elsewhere and wander in. It's a necessary hack, due to Foundry limitations.
Because of the name I suspected this mission might be a comedic one before it started. After it began, and I saw that it was a serious story, I wasn't sure what was going to happen, until my security officer said; "What are those crewmen doing in the hallway?" Then everything became clear.
Oh and, was Doctor Sy-no hitting on my captain? Is that why the mission ends with him leaving her lab?
Do you consider that a good thing, or a bad thing? I tried to keep the dialog in the Science Lab light-hearted enough to go along with the title (which is one reason why Dr. Sy-no is hitting on you), but if it's too ambiguous then maybe I can tune it a bit.
I wonder if you picked up the mission before I reworked the final dialog? There's an ending conversation with Dr. Sy-no that explains returning to her lab. Which was done as a necessary workaround due to Foundry limitations. In order to start the mission on ESD, it has to end on ESD. No way around that (to my knowledge) without changing the starting location and first map transfer.
As an FYI for a continuation of this little saga, I'm planning for 1-2 more missions to continue investigating the Fungus zombies. Dr. Sy-no will become a recurring character (as may her assistant, Valtna) and you will be returning to the abandoned base on Sandal IV.
As for the cloaked ship that got away... due to some limitations of the Foundry's costume creator, I may have to remove that from this mission and rework the story arc that follows to omit them. I'm unsure what to do about it yet. Banging my head against things the Foundry can't do is frustrating.
Currently there are well over 800 published missions, there is room for everything from the kamakazi powerlevelliing missions to cerebral puzzle solving.
The way the quoted post was written, I had actually understood you to be stating the proper English didn't have a place in a game. It is good that we can agree that proper use of the English langage is important to get the point across however, not everyone has the same level of education or had thought ahead to pre-write the script before creating the mission. Remember, this is a new system and this mission is one of the earliest of the long ones that Zonerie apparently written on the first or second day after release of the foundry. Perhaps there was a bit of overexcitement in releasing the content but keep in mind that the STO folks also have typos in their missions on occasions and the grammar has been, on occasion, rather challenging to read.
Allowances must be made between professionals and amateurs writing these missions and saying who should and should not write missions is inappropriate and will have an adverse effect on foundry missions as a whole.
In the first post of this thread, Peregrine_Falcon stated exactly what his rating criteria would be for any missions submitted to him in this thread for a review:
My goal for this thread is to help Foundry authors to improve their stories by providing critical reviews, to provide some advertisement of their stories, and to help players find good stories and avoid bad ones.
So if you'd like to have your Foundry mission reviewed by someone who pulls no punches, by someone who will help you to improve your story by tempering it in flame, and by someone who has some professional writing experience, then you've come to the right place. Feel free to post your mission review request here or by forum PM.
To clarify: I'll be reviewing, rating and criticizing stories based primarily on the writing. While I will point out things that violate Star Trek canon, when I see them, it won't affect my rating of the story. I also won't be down rating missions based on bugs or mechanical problems. The Foundry is too new and we're all still learning what works and what doesn't, mechanics wise, for that to affect a review.
Therefore, anyone submitting a mission for review to Peregrine_Falcon (and I submitted my first Foundry mission as well, and recieved a very high rating whiich honestly did surprise me (link)) knew EXACTLY what they'd be getting; (and I for one DID want to see how someone who can be (if you look at a lot of his forum posts) very critical and demading (but states his reasoning when doing so), and staes his mind as to what he likes and doesn't like, felt with regard to the work I'd done); so, to ask for a review, and then criticize the reviewer because you don't like the results <--- That's a bit disingenuous.
In the end, review IS just the reviewers personal opionion; and it's up to the person who requested the review to analyze it, and if he/she's so inclined, take what he/she sees as valid, and at the same time, disregard what he/she might feel is invalid. Also, if so inclined post a response to the reviewwer regarding some of the points raised in the review.
But to just come out and criticize the reviewer for the criteria he bases his reviews on, and the manner in which he conducts reviews when he states UP FRONT and BEFOREHAND what his criteria for, and manner of his reviews will be...again, uncalled for, and imo bad form.
If you don't care for the reviewer's criteria, or manner in which he conducts reviews, don't ask for one from him. And, if you gthink you can do a good job of reviewing, start your own review thread - don't berate someone for actually taking the time to do something you requested of him.
^^^^^
(And the above would be my stance even if I had received a 1 star rating; again, I ASKED for the review; and Peregrine_Falcon was kind enough to oblige - if you aren't able to take criticism - especially when you know the judging criteria beforehand; don't submit your work.)
I agree, however I did not ask for Qapla! to be reviewed, after what I seen from my first mission, I felt the reviewer was more on the attack than being helpful.
In the first post of this thread, Peregrine_Falcon stated exactly what his rating criteria would be for any missions submitted to him in this thread for a review:
Therefore, anyone submitting a mission for review to Peregrine_Falcon (and I submitted my first Foundry mission as well, and recieved a very high rating whiich honestly did surprise me (link)) knew EXACTLY what they'd be getting; (and I for one DID want to see how someone who can be (if you look at a lot of his forum posts) very critical and demading (but states his reasoning when doing so), and staes his mind as to what he likes and doesn't like, felt with regard to the work I'd done); so, to ask for a review, and then criticize the reviewer because you don't like the results <--- That's a bit disingenuous.
In the end, review IS just the reviewers personal opionion; and it's up to the person who requested the review to analyze it, and if he/she's so inclined, take what he/she sees as valid, and at the same time, disregard what he/she might feel is invalid. Also, if so inclined post a response to the reviewwer regarding some of the points raised in the review.
But to just come out and criticize the reviewer for the criteria he bases his reviews on, and the manner in which he conducts reviews when he states UP FRONT and BEFOREHAND what his criteria for, and manner of his reviews will be...again, uncalled for, and imo bad form.
If you don't care for the reviewer's criteria, or manner in which he conducts reviews, don't ask for one from him. And, if you gthink you can do a good job of reviewing, start your own review thread - don't berate someone for actually taking the time to do something you requested of him.
^^^^^
(And the above would be my stance even if I had received a 1 star rating; again, I ASKED for the review; and Peregrine_Falcon was kind enough to oblige - if you aren't able to take criticism - especially when you know the judging criteria beforehand; don't submit your work.)
Firstly, I have no missions in the foundry (way too many moving parts for me) which means that I am basically neutral in this. What I see is not a refusal to pull punches, what I see is honestly nitpicking on the minutia while ignoring the broader storyline. I have also run a couple of the missions that have been reviewed by perigrin and though I do honestly agree with his points on grammar and syntax, some of the other points are exactly what he promised not to do. He hasn't taken into account some of the limitations of the foundry for example.
Nitpicking on putting guards (who are guarding military supplies) at the end of the corridors makes no sense. Guards guard, that's it since they weren't hired for their intelligence. They don't run off into the distance at the first sign of noise except for specific plot reasons. Also, the mission states the goals fairly clearly but if you don't read them, you might end up bypassing the first jail and going around an entire moon to hit them out of sequence, this seems to be a foundry limitation more than anything else though I have no personal experience in creating missions.
You are of course entitled to your opinion as I am to mine but since I have no real reason to cover either side other than I want more well written missions which means not chasing off those who are actually putting effort in other than 10000 ships in a single spot for grinding. Nothing wrong with the latter but there also needs to be some thought put into the storylines. The reviewer himself speaks of "tempering in fire" but I submit that there is more than one meaning to the word 'temper".
It might not be extremely "Trek," but I'm of the opinion that having the Captain involved with mission objectives makes the mission more entertaining.
I don't know about Trek, but it certainly was in keeping with the stereotypical absent-minded professor. You show up and they throw you a pair of gloves and have you help them complete something while they chat for the audience. The puzzle was well done and fun.
Speaking of which, I'm surprised you made no mention of the environments.
I purposely removed all unnecessary praise from your review so as to avoid accusations of favoritism or the kissing of an aft-section. Little did I know that a completely different discussion would blow up while I was gone instead.
Anyway, both the lab and the beam down point aboard the USS Gertrude were very well done. I also really liked the grand entrance the second wave made onto the bridge.
Do you consider that a good thing, or a bad thing? I tried to keep the dialog in the Science Lab light-hearted enough to go along with the title (which is one reason why Dr. Sy-no is hitting on you), but if it's too ambiguous then maybe I can tune it a bit.
I thought it was good that I didn't know what was going to happen before it happened. That's a problem that I have, having read so many books and seen so many movies. I can usually tell you how the movie's going to end after the first five minutes.
However, if you want more players to pick up on the fact that she's hitting on the captain, you might want to make it a little more obvious.
I wonder if you picked up the mission before I reworked the final dialog? There's an ending conversation with Dr. Sy-no that explains returning to her lab.
I ran the mission just an hour or two before posting the review. It's possible that the pop-up dialog simply didn't pop up. I think I've seen a thread about that bug.
I agree, however I did not ask for Qapla! to be reviewed, after what I seen from my first mission, I felt the reviewer was more on the attack than being helpful.
So, no I did not ask for it.
I have a message from you that I received on April 6th where you asked me to review them both. I would not have done so otherwise.
And to everyone in general:
When I'm reviewing a mission I'm much more nitpicky that I would be if I were simply playing it.
I do not attack authors, I attack stories. And I do so for the sole purpose of helping the author to improve his story. That is the entire point behind a review and the purpose behind being a critic. To help people to improve their stories by pointing out every single flaw in them.
To improve the stories by tempering them in fire.
Finally, if you're reading this and you do not like my reviews, then feel free to stop reading them.
Upcoming Reviews: Inception of Deception & Red Dominion
I have a message from you that I received on April 6th where you asked me to review them both. I would not have done so otherwise.
And to everyone in general:
When I'm reviewing a mission I'm much more nitpicky that I would be if I were simply playing it.
I do not attack authors, I attack stories. And I do so for the sole purpose of helping the author to improve his story. That is the entire point behind a review and the purpose behind being a critic. To help people to improve their stories by pointing out every single flaw in them.
To improve the stories by tempering them in fire.
Finally, if you're reading this and you do not like my reviews, then feel free to stop reading them.
Upcoming Reviews: Inception of Deception & Red Dominion
I stand corrected, I did ask you, so I got what I got... I learned my lesson. Won't happen again.
I've got a tricky situation with my mission, once it's rebuilt and given the finishing touches. I don't want certain things in the mission spoiled, and I also need to figure out if the "custom costumed" ship fight is working right, which I can't do since I can't change my character's level and get a group in the Foundry.
Also, I take it that in order for someone other than myself to review/test the mission, I need to publish it? ._.
After about 12 hours of work over about a week I finished my first Foundry Mission.
Mission: Siege of YR318
Mission ID STHJSH6CJP
Faction: Federation
Description: Starfleet Intelligence has requested our help with a situation developing in Klingon Space.
Our covert monitering station in the Otha System has been discovered, and is under seige. Break the blockade and evacuate personnel.
"Someone is attempting to infiltrate Starfleet from within, can the Federation weed out spies before it's too late? Intense ground and space battles are sure to arise, but who is the right target, who is the biggest traitor and who are the Knights Templar?"
Final Rating: 2 Stars
Synopsis: After picking up some new crewmen at Wolf 359 you meet with your ship's counselor on the bridge. As she's explaining that something is trying to kill her, you're all suddenly attacked, on the bridge, by several large animals.
While you're investigating how that happened you're informed that a disease sample, that affects only Tellarites, has been stolen from bio-storage and been spread throughout the ship. The doctor reports that she can synthesize the antidote, it'll just take some time. So now you have something more pressing to investigate.
Instead you decide to go down to Deck 10 and meet with the new crew members. Once there you discover that the new crewmen have attacked others and are trying to take over the ship, a virus is trying to seize control of the ship's computers and something is blocking all communications.
After defeating four groups of "Bad Feds", you speak to a Vulcan and a Borg who are working together to take over your ship, and eventually, the Federation. Upon refusing to surrender you deactivate 4 groups of Borg, several of their devices and find a bomb. The Borg warp into the system and you head to the bridge.
Once on the bridge you participate in fleet action between Starfleet and the Borg. Your engineer informs you that the Vulcan that was helping the Borg has beamed off of your ship onto a small station, before the large bomb aboard your ship detonates, he transports it over to the Vulcan's station.
Your ship is heavily damaged and you're not sure who you can trust so you decide to warp to a system outside of Federation space. Once there you're welcomed by the commander of a hidden repair base who knows you, but you don't remember him. To be continued...
Problems with the mission: At the beginning the ships counselor calls me Vice Admiral Falcone Sir. She really should just call me Captain or sir, but not Admiral and not both.
Everyone on my bridge was named UGC Contact. I didn't mark down for this as I've seen it in a lot of missions and suspect that it's a Foundry bug.
Mission Objective: "Defeat Bad Feds"?
Why am I fighting both Starfleet and Terran Empire personnel?
About halfway through the mission misspelled words suddenly became very commonplace.
The Tomato Surprise ending should have had at least a little bit of foreshadowing.
Final Thoughts: There is an epic story here, but it needs work before the players will be able to see it. The biggest problem that I had was that, instead of being the captain, I was lead around by the hand, I felt that my bridge officers were telling me what to do.
In addition to reworking the bridge officer dialog to minimize the appearance of them telling me what to do, a little foreshadowing of the ending would go a long way toward making it look like I'm the captain that's in control of this situation.
Comments
The Trimble Conspiracy
ST-HBE9NTRG3
by chrislove
"You are sent to secure Trimble space for a top secret science facility that is developing a new warp core that would make Transwarp Conduits obsolite."
Final Rating: 2 Stars
Synopsis: You beam down to Deep Space Nine and Admiral Landry briefs you on the situation.
After warping into the Trimble system and speaking with Doctor Yun, you fly out to investigate the detection grid satellites. Right after your science officer confirms that the satellites have been sabotaged, a distress signal comes in. Klingons have attacked the station and beamed up Doctor Yun.
You disable the lead ship and beam aboard to find the good doctor. Once on the bridge, you take out the crew and beam back to your ship with the doctor.
The science station explodes and sensor scans show the explosive was of Starfleet origin. So the story is either incomplete, or there's a sequel coming.
Problems with the mission: There's a lot of misspellings. Right in the blurb: it's obsolete not obsolite.
The Mission Accept window told me to talk to Admiral Landry at DS9, the Mission Tracker told me to travel to the Kinjer system. That was a bit confusing.
There's something wrong with the turbolift door. It didn't glow, but a small nearby thing sticking out of the wall did. I had to get close to it, rather than the door, to use the turbolift.
When I destroyed the final wave the I.K.S. Drang was destroyed as well, so I ended up beaming over to a ship that wasn't there.
I get that the author was giving me the choice to sneak around or engage the Klingons, I really like that I had the choice, but having groups of them all standing in the corners of the room looked really odd.
A lot of times I had to click a choice, then it would complete the mission objective, then I had to select that choice again.
Final Thoughts: The "Go to Full Impulse" & "Warp to the Trimble System" scene was a nice idea, but it just didn't work. My ship moved forward and then bounced back to the start which ruined the whole effect.
There is a good story here, but it's hidden under too many flaws.
Fungus Among Us
ST-HFE4YRMSW
by Borticus
"We've just received a distress signal from the USS Gertrude that was accompanied by a quarantine warning from Captain Sho'ru. You must investigate immediately!"
Final Rating: 4 Stars
Synopsis: You're briefed on the situation and asked to meet Doctor Sy-no in her lab so that she can accompany you to the Gertrude.
Arriving at the doctor's lab, she asks you to help her with some last minute calculations, since apparently her assistants are all on vacation already. Once that's completed you all beam back aboard your ship and warp to the USS Gertrude.
On approach, sensors show an unidentified ship undock from the Gertrude and warp out. Since they're too far away to catch you decide to scan the disabled ship instead.
Beaming into a safe spot you try to help a dying engineer, she's suffering from a massive fungal infection. You do what you can for her, then you restore life support and move on. And that's when you encounter the infected crew. Afterward you find a large spore colony, download information from the computer and then head to the bridge.
You clear the bridge of hostiles and speak with the captain, who's just barely holding on. He explains all about the spores and the fungus. You decide to beam back to your ship before you, and your officers, become infected as well.
Once back aboard your own ship the fungus speaks to you, but you destroy the USS Gertrude to keep it from spreading.
Problems with the mission: The cloaked ship is a completely unnecessary addition, unless the intent was to set up for a sequel.
After reading the science officers logs why did the crewmen beam in right in front of the door? If they weren't supposed to have beamed in then they should have appeared just around the corner.
Final Thoughts: Because of the name I suspected this mission might be a comedic one before it started. After it began, and I saw that it was a serious story, I wasn't sure what was going to happen, until my security officer said; "What are those crewmen doing in the hallway?" Then everything became clear.
It's a simple story that we've all seen many times, but it was done well enough that it merits 4 stars.
Oh and, was Doctor Sy-no hitting on my captain? Is that why the mission ends with him leaving her lab?
I would recommend stepping back, taking a reality check and looking at many of these missions again as a normal Star Trek fan, or even as a normal gamer. I haven't seen any use of leetspeak or any other inappropriate language to the environments that would suggest that these missions are all bad or even medeocre but, based upon almost all of your reviews, they appear to not be worthwhile running them. Criticizm is fine as long as it is constructive but taking it too far in this kind of an environment with amateur authors designing what are, for the most part, excellent missions is more destructive than if they had all written garbage.
Instead of all the pedantic whinging about grammar and spelling, or even uses of wordplay (long history of wordplay in Trek lore by the way) perhaps taking the missions in the spirit of a Star Trek game might be more enjoyable for everyone involved. This seems more like a power struggle between amateur critics and amateur authors without any appearance of a resolution than anything else.
Ya know Falcon, I am not even going to respond to you, because you are just being you.. and there is nothing that I can say or do to change that fact. Your review is more for my humor now than helpful, and I am not sure that is what you want.
Because that is not what I need.
As a writer myself, I have been working with Miles to create a fully fleshed story that will withstand anything put up by STO. You seem to be looking for Shakespear in a MMO, and you are looking in the wrong place. After looking through your reviews, I realized that there was not one single positive review for any mission you have tested. As a reviewer, if you are going to point out problems to their spelling, grammer, missions in general, then you should also be big enough to offer up the solution to the problems you are revealing.
There were several discrepancies in what your review put forth. You added things into the review that were not in the missions, you misquote several times what is said in the missions, and it appeared as though you did not read everything through, just skimmed along as you went. That is not reviewing the missions, it is criticizing the author of the mission.
When you put out a Foundry mission, let me come try it out. I am a reviewer myself and would love the opportunity to see what you are capable of. You tear down down other people for having the courage to create a new mission...do you carry that same courage within you? Only time will tell.
"OMG ENGLISH IZ HARD! You should totally lower your expectations, because it's not like everyone can be expected to put effort into their writing or consistently capitalize or punctuate or any of that fancy stuff GAWWWWD"
People asked for reviews, and they got them. If they just wanted praise without criticism, well... that was dumb.
In conclusion, PROOFREAD YOUR #%$^ MISSIONS or better yet, have someone else do it for you! Or is the statement you want to make with your creative effort "I'm-a just gonna throw up any old half-***** thing on the Foundry, because no one reads the text or cares about anything but fast easy xp anyway"?
Proper use of language is always important regardless of what language it is. If you can't get your point across because of distractions from masses of mispelled words or poor syntax, the story will be confusing and less enjoyable. As this is the Star Trek universe, your second point is also incorrect. Most players actually do like the storylines and are not merely interested in blasting levels to VA, we want to live in Star Trek here.
Not sure this is directed to me or not, but I agree... I do. However, he is using semantics, while not understanding the purpose of what was going on.
It's a review it is what it is... it's nothing more then entertainment for me. I have read the reviews, the ones that mean the most to me are the players... not the people who prop them selves up to be something they are not.
Sometimes "this pun is lame and not nearly as clever as you think it is, get rid of it" is the most honest and helpful thing one can say.
And if the reader fails to understand what you're trying to convey, or the purpose of an element (like guards) being present, consider what you can do as an author or mission creator to make it clearer.
What I mean is no matter how I do things, it will be a gaff on someone... So I opted for the speed and flow of the mission versus explaining away every move. That was my option...
Also who is to say there is not a "Nutara" nebula... I could have called it Nebula 82A12... and then is that a misspelling? No I named it the name I wanted... and made it similar enough to put in a little humor... and forgive me for being silly, could it have been more clever sure... but I wanted to be subtle.
I do take in criticism, when I feel it is a valid and something I agree with, I disagree and feel Falcon went to a place he should have not gone.
And I submit that the "normal gamer" who you suggest as the (much lower) standard that we should be using does not care about those things. Nor should they be writing Foundry missions, IMO; or, if they do, they should not submit those missions to be reviewed by someone with higher standards and expect praise. I think we should be looking for the above-average.
People who say "it's just a game, it [proper English] doesn't matter" or "it's just the net" or "it's just _____" bother me. Not only does that imply contempt for the medium and audience in question - it's not worth your best effort, and neither are the people there - it denies you a chance to practice those skills until they become effortless. Once you learn the rules, it's actually harder, requiring conscious effort, to NOT spell and punctuate correctly - such as when I want to use chatspeak or whatever to make a point.
Currently there are well over 800 published missions, there is room for everything from the kamakazi powerlevelliing missions to cerebral puzzle solving.
The way the quoted post was written, I had actually understood you to be stating the proper English didn't have a place in a game. It is good that we can agree that proper use of the English langage is important to get the point across however, not everyone has the same level of education or had thought ahead to pre-write the script before creating the mission. Remember, this is a new system and this mission is one of the earliest of the long ones that Zonerie apparently written on the first or second day after release of the foundry. Perhaps there was a bit of overexcitement in releasing the content but keep in mind that the STO folks also have typos in their missions on occasions and the grammar has been, on occasion, rather challenging to read.
Allowances must be made between professionals and amateurs writing these missions and saying who should and should not write missions is inappropriate and will have an adverse effect on foundry missions as a whole.
Falcon did not hammer me on my grammar or my typos, which I DO have and I change them when found. Falcon pointed out the "Flow" of the mission which is semantics, why I did this not that. He has his opinion, and I have mine on how it was done.
Sure I do agree that I could have done things more fleshed out. I could have written a novel on the way things are or should be. Yes, I agree I could have written down why the guards are placed the way they are placed....
However, that is not what the review was. It was in depth on a single point. "Why the guards are at the end of a dead end, Falcon did not understand this, why I did it and left out the context of you needing to scan objects that are central to the story line.
I answered, "Well because it is NOT a dead end, it was the placement of an object required to scan." I walked away from the review not as it being constructive. I walked away and I see others have as well as it being a bias attack, if it was not, then that is how it felt to me.
Also let's not even claim I do not take criticism because I do. I update my missions as often as I can to fix anything people find. I bow down to your skills with the English language, because I am just a regular joe... I am just a guy without help, just a word processor, who is trying the best he can.
You I see feel that people like me should not even try, which in my opinion is arrogant and wrong, but that is just my opinion.
Just to let you know, I will continue on, and I will keep trying and I do take what I can from those who help to make it better.
Cheers.
I honestly find your statement rather arrogant and somewhat apocryphal in that I wasn't criticizing the language alone. The following statement is a good example of what I am attempting to point out.
There are limitations in the capabilities of the foundry itself and those will limit what can be done, and how things are done. The preceding quote is what I was referring to as pedantic. I am sure that you are aware that each author will do things differently and each author is going to make their own decisions. Nitpicking that there are guards at the end of the corridor is pedantic, particularly in that the STO writers have used that particular system themselves on several occasions.
This mission was also written in a specific order and though it can be done out of order, that doesn't mean that one should intentionally do so. People as a class are sheep, individuals are not and are generally capable of following simple instructions assuming that the player bothers to do so.
As I said in a prior post, there is plenty of room for variety within this game system and taking into consideration that Daniel Stahl used that his previous mission "Prison Break" which was the prequel to Qapla' in a staff meeting as well as it being reviewed on STOked. I think that says a lot more than this particular review.
I also have to say that I went through and read the majority of the reviews written by this particular critic and they all came across pedantic nonsense, not necessarily because of the grammar, but because of picking on irrelevant minutia rather than looking at the story as a whole.
As this discussion is derailing the thread, I think it is best to drop it now.
It might not be extremely "Trek," but I'm of the opinion that having the Captain involved with mission objectives makes the mission more entertaining. If you just arrived at the lab and Sy-no handed you a shield, it would've been very un-fun. Pointless, actually, and I wouldn't have had to create that whole environment.
Speaking of which, I'm surprised you made no mention of the environments...
It is. As is the final bit of dialog about examining the readings for answers about it all, and Sy-no's foreshadowey comment at the end, "but you destroyed them all, right?"
If I put them around the corner, then the player would not get ambushed. Since the Foundry doesn't allow for patrol waypoints, I couldn't make them appear elsewhere and wander in. It's a necessary hack, due to Foundry limitations.
Do you consider that a good thing, or a bad thing? I tried to keep the dialog in the Science Lab light-hearted enough to go along with the title (which is one reason why Dr. Sy-no is hitting on you), but if it's too ambiguous then maybe I can tune it a bit.
I wonder if you picked up the mission before I reworked the final dialog? There's an ending conversation with Dr. Sy-no that explains returning to her lab. Which was done as a necessary workaround due to Foundry limitations. In order to start the mission on ESD, it has to end on ESD. No way around that (to my knowledge) without changing the starting location and first map transfer.
As an FYI for a continuation of this little saga, I'm planning for 1-2 more missions to continue investigating the Fungus zombies. Dr. Sy-no will become a recurring character (as may her assistant, Valtna) and you will be returning to the abandoned base on Sandal IV.
As for the cloaked ship that got away... due to some limitations of the Foundry's costume creator, I may have to remove that from this mission and rework the story arc that follows to omit them. I'm unsure what to do about it yet. Banging my head against things the Foundry can't do is frustrating.
In the first post of this thread, Peregrine_Falcon stated exactly what his rating criteria would be for any missions submitted to him in this thread for a review:
Therefore, anyone submitting a mission for review to Peregrine_Falcon (and I submitted my first Foundry mission as well, and recieved a very high rating whiich honestly did surprise me (link)) knew EXACTLY what they'd be getting; (and I for one DID want to see how someone who can be (if you look at a lot of his forum posts) very critical and demading (but states his reasoning when doing so), and staes his mind as to what he likes and doesn't like, felt with regard to the work I'd done); so, to ask for a review, and then criticize the reviewer because you don't like the results <--- That's a bit disingenuous.
In the end, review IS just the reviewers personal opionion; and it's up to the person who requested the review to analyze it, and if he/she's so inclined, take what he/she sees as valid, and at the same time, disregard what he/she might feel is invalid. Also, if so inclined post a response to the reviewwer regarding some of the points raised in the review.
But to just come out and criticize the reviewer for the criteria he bases his reviews on, and the manner in which he conducts reviews when he states UP FRONT and BEFOREHAND what his criteria for, and manner of his reviews will be...again, uncalled for, and imo bad form.
If you don't care for the reviewer's criteria, or manner in which he conducts reviews, don't ask for one from him. And, if you gthink you can do a good job of reviewing, start your own review thread - don't berate someone for actually taking the time to do something you requested of him.
^^^^^
(And the above would be my stance even if I had received a 1 star rating; again, I ASKED for the review; and Peregrine_Falcon was kind enough to oblige - if you aren't able to take criticism - especially when you know the judging criteria beforehand; don't submit your work.)
Now can we all stop arguing and let this thread carry on being what it was intended for?
So, no I did not ask for it.
Firstly, I have no missions in the foundry (way too many moving parts for me) which means that I am basically neutral in this. What I see is not a refusal to pull punches, what I see is honestly nitpicking on the minutia while ignoring the broader storyline. I have also run a couple of the missions that have been reviewed by perigrin and though I do honestly agree with his points on grammar and syntax, some of the other points are exactly what he promised not to do. He hasn't taken into account some of the limitations of the foundry for example.
Nitpicking on putting guards (who are guarding military supplies) at the end of the corridors makes no sense. Guards guard, that's it since they weren't hired for their intelligence. They don't run off into the distance at the first sign of noise except for specific plot reasons. Also, the mission states the goals fairly clearly but if you don't read them, you might end up bypassing the first jail and going around an entire moon to hit them out of sequence, this seems to be a foundry limitation more than anything else though I have no personal experience in creating missions.
You are of course entitled to your opinion as I am to mine but since I have no real reason to cover either side other than I want more well written missions which means not chasing off those who are actually putting effort in other than 10000 ships in a single spot for grinding. Nothing wrong with the latter but there also needs to be some thought put into the storylines. The reviewer himself speaks of "tempering in fire" but I submit that there is more than one meaning to the word 'temper".
I purposely removed all unnecessary praise from your review so as to avoid accusations of favoritism or the kissing of an aft-section. Little did I know that a completely different discussion would blow up while I was gone instead.
Anyway, both the lab and the beam down point aboard the USS Gertrude were very well done. I also really liked the grand entrance the second wave made onto the bridge.
I thought it was good that I didn't know what was going to happen before it happened. That's a problem that I have, having read so many books and seen so many movies. I can usually tell you how the movie's going to end after the first five minutes.
However, if you want more players to pick up on the fact that she's hitting on the captain, you might want to make it a little more obvious.
I ran the mission just an hour or two before posting the review. It's possible that the pop-up dialog simply didn't pop up. I think I've seen a thread about that bug.
And to everyone in general:
When I'm reviewing a mission I'm much more nitpicky that I would be if I were simply playing it.
I do not attack authors, I attack stories. And I do so for the sole purpose of helping the author to improve his story. That is the entire point behind a review and the purpose behind being a critic. To help people to improve their stories by pointing out every single flaw in them.
To improve the stories by tempering them in fire.
Finally, if you're reading this and you do not like my reviews, then feel free to stop reading them.
Upcoming Reviews: Inception of Deception & Red Dominion
I stand corrected, I did ask you, so I got what I got... I learned my lesson. Won't happen again.
My first is finally published. Hopefully your tips helped. I hope you enjoy
the story as much as I did creating it.
Please put me in your Queue.
In the review section. Published today
Mission Title: Omega Directive Revisited
Subtitle: Part 1 - The Investigation
Time: Approx. 1.5 Hours
Level: 31+
Thanks for your time, I look forward to your review.
Respectfully,
New information, mission no longer in review category, can be found under new.
Thanks.
Yeah. When I finally get my first mission out I can only hope that he only has a problem with my grammar. That's something that is easy to fix.
Also, I take it that in order for someone other than myself to review/test the mission, I need to publish it? ._.
Mission: Siege of YR318
Mission ID STHJSH6CJP
Faction: Federation
Description: Starfleet Intelligence has requested our help with a situation developing in Klingon Space.
Our covert monitering station in the Otha System has been discovered, and is under seige. Break the blockade and evacuate personnel.
Feedback would be appriciated.
Cheers.
Inception of Deception
ST-HRRZXD9NC
by MrJohnnyX
"Someone is attempting to infiltrate Starfleet from within, can the Federation weed out spies before it's too late? Intense ground and space battles are sure to arise, but who is the right target, who is the biggest traitor and who are the Knights Templar?"
Final Rating: 2 Stars
Synopsis: After picking up some new crewmen at Wolf 359 you meet with your ship's counselor on the bridge. As she's explaining that something is trying to kill her, you're all suddenly attacked, on the bridge, by several large animals.
While you're investigating how that happened you're informed that a disease sample, that affects only Tellarites, has been stolen from bio-storage and been spread throughout the ship. The doctor reports that she can synthesize the antidote, it'll just take some time. So now you have something more pressing to investigate.
Instead you decide to go down to Deck 10 and meet with the new crew members. Once there you discover that the new crewmen have attacked others and are trying to take over the ship, a virus is trying to seize control of the ship's computers and something is blocking all communications.
After defeating four groups of "Bad Feds", you speak to a Vulcan and a Borg who are working together to take over your ship, and eventually, the Federation. Upon refusing to surrender you deactivate 4 groups of Borg, several of their devices and find a bomb. The Borg warp into the system and you head to the bridge.
Once on the bridge you participate in fleet action between Starfleet and the Borg. Your engineer informs you that the Vulcan that was helping the Borg has beamed off of your ship onto a small station, before the large bomb aboard your ship detonates, he transports it over to the Vulcan's station.
Your ship is heavily damaged and you're not sure who you can trust so you decide to warp to a system outside of Federation space. Once there you're welcomed by the commander of a hidden repair base who knows you, but you don't remember him. To be continued...
Problems with the mission: At the beginning the ships counselor calls me Vice Admiral Falcone Sir. She really should just call me Captain or sir, but not Admiral and not both.
Everyone on my bridge was named UGC Contact. I didn't mark down for this as I've seen it in a lot of missions and suspect that it's a Foundry bug.
Mission Objective: "Defeat Bad Feds"?
Why am I fighting both Starfleet and Terran Empire personnel?
About halfway through the mission misspelled words suddenly became very commonplace.
The Tomato Surprise ending should have had at least a little bit of foreshadowing.
Final Thoughts: There is an epic story here, but it needs work before the players will be able to see it. The biggest problem that I had was that, instead of being the captain, I was lead around by the hand, I felt that my bridge officers were telling me what to do.
In addition to reworking the bridge officer dialog to minimize the appearance of them telling me what to do, a little foreshadowing of the ending would go a long way toward making it look like I'm the captain that's in control of this situation.