Ascus

Absolutely great lists (and list of lists), I think I have a handle on it.

I played Coh at release and am trying to get a handle on IOs vs SO. When I quite there were only SO, no Consignment houses, no salage and no soft caps.

Is there a basic guide on getting started with crafting and slotting. I understand the basics of accuracy bonuses, damage bonues, endurance reduction, attack speeds but not sure how to select IO sets that would work well together.

Also is there a list of IO sets? Currently my favored characters are inthe 18-25 level range (I don't really have a main, play about 5 characters equaly and ocationally play the others for a change of pace)

Finally is there a good guide of what salvage I should be keeping vs dumping in Wentworths and/or Selling to nearest vendor?

All my characters are Science Origin (except for 2 naturals and one Magic)

I have seen a number of Rikti and Zombie Invations, Ghost Ships, and Suoernatural Activities. But I have not seen Troll Rave or Fires since the Winter Event started.

Seriously consider building your own. Not only do you save money, but you get to know your computer from the inside out. Building a computer from parts is not much harder that upgrading one now.

Parts Needed.
Case: ATX (pick one you like, there are 1000's, I like the Antec 900)
Power Supply: 750 watts
Motherboard: All the one socketed for i7s will work
Memory: Sold in sets match to the motherboard and CPU
HD: Pick your size, go with WD black series for gaming SATAs are no brainer hookups
DVD: All the writers work, just pick one you want, bigger names tend to be quieter, not always better.
Copy of Windows: Home Premium is best for most.
CPU: i7 you want.
GPU: Buy to budget.

Optional:
Aftermarket CPU cooler, only needed if plan to overclock, not recommended for novices.

SSD (solidstate disk) hooks up like regular HD, and install your games on those for a tremendous increase in game load times and zoning.

For most installations all you will need is a phillips head screwdriver.

While a Pro will assemble it about 30 minutes, anyone can do it about 2 hours, then install windows. I would say the most difficult parts are putting on the heatsink on the CPU (put on before putting board in case), and putting the board in (get a mid tower for plenty of room). Small cases while nice, are hard to work with and have cooling issues, and with a full size graphics card (like the 5xxx series) it would not fit anyway.

Motherboards now have all the connections you need for sound, network and USB devices. If you need Firewire or wireless, will have to make sure the motherboard has that.

I am no hardware expert, but I cannot bring myself to buy a premade system that does not contain exactly what I want. While I will buy a premade computer when I just need a computer (like for work), but for home I build what I want.

If you really want not to touch it. Northwest Falcon is good to do business with. Alienware is owned by Dell, its better to get one of their XPS systems right now, they are better made. Your paying a premium for them to build it, but they used tested configurations and support it.

I would not buy from Cyberpower mainly because they use economy parts, and you will not get much better support than if you built it yourself and tend to be minimum spec, which adds complications to upgrades. They however are for sale cheaper than a normal buyer can get the parts, and the computers are what they say, so they are a discount "hands off" buyer option.

ps. I see you ordered it, Zombie, How about a customer review? Looks like you got a nice configuration.

What is ideal for mission/story length in time?

I have one story, that is completable in 10-20 minutes total for the 3 missions. I find the mission fun, and actually have played this mission several times at different levels, and found it played very different at level 5 (easy) than it did at 35 (difficult).

I have another that takes about 5 hours to do all the optionals (it can be rushed through in about 15 minutes if you just do required and know what to do). This mission will take a level 1 character to level 12 if they do all the options. Its full of mostly CoV villains so its great for Heroes for a change of pace. I found that usually finished half the optionals before moving on to next mission. So this one is easily too long.

The shorter one seems too short, but is capped because of size, many custom characters cap it. The longer one is less than half the size it could be but fills out all 5 missions and uses large maps with good spawns.

I find myself when looking for AE missions, avoiding the longer ones because I don't want to committed to long stories without a good reference (5 stars stories are not always good, some of the best tend to be 3-4 stars, because someone didn't like it). Yet I hate getting into a story that is good then see it end suddenly, with no followup.

What is a good story length, and what is a good mission times?

At least you got someone to play it. I have a couple out there, that have been played once.

As for the players response, I have found with custom characters, a low level character will have a cake walk through the quest, but high levels will get slaughtered because some of the high level powers do not kick in at low levels, but when they characters are level 30+ they kick in and kick in hard. For instance my #350000, "Incident at Paragon Beach" at levels 5-20 its pretty easy, but at 30+ the second two parts are fairly difficult, especially the last boss (a MasterMind).

Take the feedback, and enjoy it, it was much better than "It Sucked!". Check it out, it may be a little hard and unclear what to do.

Any stats on the Present Drops. I am guessing in the 30-35% range.

As for the Minions, 10% sounds about right, if they are green conned or higher. I have yet to get a candy cane off a grey con Frostling, but have gotten 3 out of 3 canes of green con Frostling spawn (but only twice out of 1000's)

So I always take green to orange cons out for canes and XP, even others abandoned spawns, and leave the red, purple and grey ones for someone else, if another box spawns the prior spawn dies, so it does not prevent someone else from getting next box spawn.

I have found present hunting is a great way to fine tune my travel skills and really get to know the maps. I can now land a super jump on the box usually from full distance, and stop right at the box in superspeed, still working on teleport to the right spot (you can't target the box or your teleport through it), and working on airbreaks in flying to boxes (aka hover). But Definately Superspeed is best (if you know the route), Superjump is best for looking unknown areas. Flying is worst, too slow. I don't have toon with both superjump and superspeed, but I think that would be absolute best, but I have mastered the rocket assisted superspeed jump, for those walls that are just beyond my jump range.

thanks, I was not aware of /stuck. Where does it send you?

Usually I just recall to Pocket D or burn a WentWorth Recall.

Not sure this is correct place. But occationally exiting a mission I am placed inside the transporter and unable to exit outside using a Pocket D pass, which makes a long runto get to next leg of mission.

What causes this. I see some toons spawn inside and run out. but my characters spawn inside and are stuck inside.

Virtue just locked down one of my characters heading to Croatia. Says that character is still logging off, 30 minutes now.

Same issue here. I hope will not cause a rollback on the character, I just transferred all my Halloween salvage to her (8-12 of each piece) and was heading to Croatia to get a new costume slot. "Smoken Ashes" is my toons name on Virtue.

Sounds like good time to avoid Croatia

Being able to select the intro music would be nice as well. Many maps mood could be greatly changed by some different music.

I reactivate my OLD account, and trying to use it to log into forums without success. keeps saying invalid game account.

How long do I wait before the forum registration know I reactiveed.

ps. this is posted from my kids account.

how do I've a custom monster powers from additional sets, such as superjump, Teleport, or Boxing.

How do I know if a mob has alternate skins, I noticed that many Lost Minions have various skins.

Are they any low level female villain NPC?

Great Guide, but only have one warning. You may wish to stay away from using colors as part of your name. Often you will change colors durring the life of your character. Keeping general tones is good, but specific colors is not unless your want to limit your color choices through out the life of the character.

For example a character may start being all pink and "Pink Diamonds" may seem good for ice using characters for the pink crystaline ice. However, later if you wish to change colors, your stuck. "Crystal Carnation" allows a little more flex later. However if you did pick a name, you can later make the color just a focal point, like leaving a pink diamond on chest, or wearing a pink tiara.

Now that we have control of all our power colors, its very easy to overboard monochromatic at first, untill you get sick of seeing the same color. "Green Energy" sounded great for my electric/electric scrapper, but I am getting real tired of seeing green. He now has a recycling logo (green) and every attack is a different color

I've unlocked everything. Is the Outbreak Map in there? I would love to make a follow up mission that goes there.

Also would like the University in Steel Canyon available as a outdoor map.

As for a custom map, I would love to have a hybrid outdoor/indoor map. Outdoor forest/open area with a building, with a single level indoor map.

I would a feature to link mission maps directly, so the player goes map to next map without returning to contact. The transfer point would not unlock until mission completes, and once through, it would exit to AE building and returning would put you at beginning of current map. It would be great for persuing type missions.

The Mission Selection System needs some work. Somethings I would like to see.

After finishing a mission, if you rate 5 starts. you could get a "People that liked this, also liked ,,," list of missions people that rated this mission 5 stars also rated 5 stars.

Also would like to see some way to insure that the mission has balanced mobs, valid customer builds for full XP. Also should have a message for "Reduced XP is in effect for this storyline, for any story that has a mission that does not give full XP.

Some sort to choose, last 24 hours, last week, last month, since last issue, and all time for evailuting stars. Many missions that were 5 star prior to Issue 16 are definitely not now.

Finally the ability to make an authors list and be able to check for stories by people on this list.

I found that giving adding a common name before or following the name gives a better shot at getting the name.

For example I wanted to make a small werewolf character. As you can guess Wolfboy was taken. But William the Wolfboy was not.

I wanted a ice/ice blaster but all the powers were black or darkest grey I could get. I wanted Blackice, Darkice, or something to that effect, without success. So I went with Denver Winter (some of the dirtiest snow I ever saw was in Denver).

My dual blade scrapper, I went with Debbie Dualblades.

I did get my fire/fire scrapper name on first try Smoken Ashes (all the fire is grey)

Bot/Storm - (my quick picks, feel free to steal, hack and mangle as you see fot))
Gadget Galeforce (Gears .Galeforce)
Wendy Windup (Windy Windup)
Theodore Weathergear
- (for bot MM's I think company sounding names look good)
Weathertech
Airpower Assemblies
With the game being out 5 years, expect all the "Blade", "Winter/ice", "Fire", "Power", "Hammer", "Gun", ... names to be gone. You will have to make more unique name

Just getting my feet wet with the MA, and I have a couple how to questions? is there a way to:

Always make two different bosses appear together? (Preferably without killing XP)

A way to trigger ambush on elevator exit?

Have a clue pop up after ALL collectibles have been retrieved? I tired, but the clue appeared after first one was collected.

Use a custom power set on an existing NPC skin?

Add an aura to an NPC skin?

And one for Wish I could have, a way to set the custom abient sound of a map

I think the fact that a single rating can out weigh a larget number of ratings for sorting absurd. There a couple ways to fix this.

All Stories are published with a 1 vote zero stars. so it takes 9 5-star votes to get a 5 star rating.

-or-

Have the rating sort by. most number of 5 start votes, most number of 4 star votes, then least number of two star votes and least number of 1 star votes. That way a new rating will smack in the middle, and stories with more 5 star votes will always rate higher than a story with less no matter how many lesser votes come it.

The first is much more to implement. it just Total Stars / (count + 1)

Having 5 start should mean a number of people have rated it 5 stars not just 1.

I have been looking into the demofile editors and many refer to old posts on this board that have been removed. Is there current information or is editing the demofiles something that is no longer allowed?

It was one of my favorite features when I played CoH a while back.