Samuel_Tow

You know... Something funny just occurred to me, and that's really just me becoming aware of a specific personal bias:

Almost all of my Stalkers are women. Seriously. I have one who's not - a grey alien - and all the others just kind of are. Sure, some are aliens, some are robots, some are mutants and so forth, but they all have one defining characteristic - they're all small, skinny and light in physical appearance. The first time I became aware of this was when someone suggested that I make a giant mech character of mine Super Reflexes and my brain blue-screend at the prospect. Whaaat? But it's big and heavy and big and... Fast? Does not compute! *crash* *cold reset* So, what were we talking about?

It occurs to me that my brain is hard-wired to associate physical appearance with physical ability to quite a significant extent, as I mentioned earlier. What this results in is that if I want to make a fast, agile character, then I almost invariably create one that's small and light, and let's be honest here - the female model in City of Heroes is FAR superior at making small and light things than the male model is. If you try to make the male model too "light" it just comes off as deflated, and if you make a male character very small, he looks shrunk down more so than short. Not so for the female model. Females start FAR shorter than men to begin with and they don't lose as much of their verisimilitude when they're made skinny, though that's probably because I've grown to accept pop model "super-thin" as a legitimate body shape.

So... Yeah, I find myself making my Stalkers smaller, my Brutes bigger and my Scrappers somewhere in the middle. And I didn't even realise I was doing it

And just because I couldn't get a good night's sleep thinking about it, here's a fourth and final (for the moment) member of F Squad:

Intelligence Officer Lexxy

After the devastating conclusion of the second AI Rebellion, the scientists of the future finally accepted the basic sentient life cannot be created and discarded without ethical ramifications. The Earth government banned the production and research of sentent, self-replicating androids, though what few androids had survived the Rebellion were instead inducted into human society as a gesture of good will. Experimental Variable Platform Research Android Series 315, unique ID tag LXXY1182837, was one of these. A female body shape android, "she" was offered the human name Ala Naraa, but the android instead chose to retain its own original identity, assuming the name "Lexxy" as a reference to her original ID tag.

Lexxy found herself in a world which permitted her to exist, but which still saw androids as both monsters and aliens, shunning them from society and conspiring to prevent their ability to self-reproduce, leaving many androids feeling like they were citizens in title only. Rather than resort to the same violent methods of her predecessors, Lexxy instead opted to appeal to human kind's sense of justice and morality, spending many years campaigning for androids' rights to vote, reproduce and assume civic duties. Through her tireless efforts, Lexxy became an ambassador of peace, spearheading a spirit of tolerance and acceptance that saw not just androids fully integrated in human society and given their full set of inalienable rights, but also opened the door to the trans-species citizens who would one day share Earth alongside humans. Many of the higher ideals of the future's society can be traced back to this one single android who touched the hearts of whole world and reminded everyone that we're not so different after all.

As one of the oldest surviving androids at the time and a great contributor to world peace, Lexxy was one of the first people offered a position in F Squad at the time when it was still being formed. As F Squad was a primarily military venture, Lexxy ended up undergoing significant upgrades to her frame to accommodate enhanced strength and durability, as well as a wide variety of various purpose equipment. Her stated role in the F Squad is one of diplomatic relations, serving as the first contact correspondent when interaction with the past is necessary and employing her vast experience in diplomatic negotiations to ensure that violent conflict is always a last resort and never a first response. And even though Lexxy is fully capable of defending herself, she has always favoured stealth as a means to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. With engineer Gax's supercharged cloaking device technology, Lexxy is able to withdraw from a violent situation, gain access to figures of authority in order to appeal to them directly and, if absolutely necessary, remove them with the smallest amount of bloodshed possible.

Though Lexxy never aspired to "become human" as was the slogan during her campaign of acceptance, she did retain her original human simulacra face, in her words "out of a sense of nostalgia."

*meta-game*
I really think the best way to go for Lexxy is as a Kinetic Melee/Something Stalker. I'm not quite sure what that "something" might be, but I'm thinking possibly Super Reflexes. In truth, I wrote her biography around the concept of a Stalker, so naturally, that's what first best, but I'm open to suggestions.

Once again, thank you for the suggestions and I look forward to hearing what I could fix on this one final member

On the subject of the fake exit in the first mission, this was actually something I noticed immediately as I came in. I wondered why a pink cave entrance was doing in Oranbega, and inferred that either it's just decoration to depict where the monsters came in from, or I would have to use it at some point later in the mission.

So the counter started and I skipped all the Minions of Igneous on the way, believeing I didn't have time to fight them, unaware that they gave a time bonus. How I was supposed to infer that with no instructions, I do not know, but 2 minutes is not enough to fight four spawns of 5 Pimicites. I ran back to the entrance, noticed I had a minute and a half and decided to fight the last spawn there. In the process, Caption dialogue happened that I couldn't read because I can't fight AND read fast enough to beat the caption fade. However, upon checking my NPC tab, I found that it said the Igneous had blocked the entrance. "Aha! So THAT'S what that tunnel entrance was for!"

I made it out of the mission with time to spare, about 30-40 seconds or some such.

I'm finding that while there ARE instructions, they show up in captions that appear when I'm fighting so I can't read them. Here's a pro-tip, guys: Caption boxes ARE NOT a form of voice over. They're not a source of information I can absorb into my brain without taking time away from what I'm doing, and when I'm fighting for my life, I can't do that. Don't treat caption boxes like you're putting voice overs that take no extra attention to listen to.

In fact, when giving instructions, put them in clues, if possible. Just short, simple clues of a single sentence across two lines of text. I don't need to sitcom levels of conversational discourse because I CANNOT READ FAST ENOUGH.

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Overall, upon reflection, I found the "SSA" to be too short and WAAAY too gimmicky for my tastes. It's a decent distraction, make no mistake. Definitely something I'll do again on both sides. But as something I have to PAY for? I'll stick to World Wide Red, the Eternal Nemesis or Division: Line. Or if we want to be fair to the SSA's expected level range, I'll stick to Mercedesh Sheldon and Keith Nancy or alternately Dean and Vincent.

I seem to have unintentionally written in an unspoken "they changed the world in some way" prerequisite for joining F Squad, so I could easily take someone who has done something more for society which has ended up having military applications and thus inducting said person into F Squad. Like... Whoever worked on the original genetic engineering programme that made people live for hundreds of years and have superior strength and super healing abilities.

I'd need a concept, a costume and a story for that, though, and I'm not really sure if I want to add another one right now. Plus, I'd need some way to differentiate said character from the others, and I already have a man, a woman and a giant robot

To my eyes, Kinetics is interchangeable with Energy Melee in terms of concept, so it's just a question of which style of attack animations you prefer visually, and which matches your concept more closely. However, they're both manipulation of energy, so almost any concept for one will work for the other.

Think of it in terms of the Rikti society - technically, they HAVE a military, it's just that it doesn't do a whole lot most of the time, and every time it has to do something, it gets saddled with the Battalion or the Coming Storm or Cthulu or some such.

Mostly, I emphasise military backgrounds for all the characters because they've been cherry-picked from the military, as F Squad is, at its core, a military unit. Sure, the error in time might be something as simple as Thomas Edison choking on a cherry, but then it may be something as unpleasant Earthy is suddenly invaded by crab aliens from the negative zone, or the Nazi conquered Stalingrad or something major like that which requires serious application of military force.

You do have a good point in the broader sense, though. I could and should probably introduce a more civilian member of the team somewhere down the line.

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Generally speaking, the future is a utopian paradise exactly BECAUSE these people dedicate their lives the harsh, all-consuming military and so defend their world. It's a little like Praetoria in that some need to sacrifice their lives for the good of the many, only unlike in Praetoria, people choose to make that sacrifice instead of having their choice made for them, and the safety and freedom of the common folk is always the top priority.

*edit*
And thank you for the kind words This idea really kind of exploded all on its own once I started thinking about it...

I have something of an odd (for me) idea - making my own hero team similar to how I've made villain teams. I do, however, want to run their looks, stories and AT/powerset combos past you guys, to see if I didn't do something completely stupid in my haste to design four characters within the span of an afternoon. So, here goes:

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Over a million years into the future, mankind will transform the Earth into a living paradise. There will be no diseases, no hunger, no poverty, no hardship. People will live for hundreds of years in comfort and peace, blessed with healthy, strong bodies, and what threats the scum of the universe pose will be dealt with swiftly and decisively by the Earth Defence Force - an army of veritable super soldiers armed with the unimaginable technology of the future.

At least, that's what was supposed to happen, until history started eroding right from under us. Somehow, events in the past would alter, causing chain reactions which had disastrous consequences for our idyllic future. In response, a time machine of unimaginable power was constructed, able to detect these changes before they had an effect on the future. To correct these errors in the timestream, an elite team of the world's best, most resourceful agents was put together. This new team was called the F Squad, and their mission was to travel back in time, correcting the past to preserve the future.

For years, the F Squad kept the perfect future safe from errors in the timestream, until something in the early 21st century went horribly wrong. History was changed so completely that even the future's mighty time machine could barely react in time. The whole of F Team was scrambled to correct the past, but by the time they existed their time portals, the future was gone completely, the machine which powered their time travel devices had never been built, and of the 20 members who left future Earth, only three appeated on the other end. They are trapped, now, in our time, looking for the error which erased their time from existence in the hopes that rectifying it will return heaven to Earth.

The surviving three are:

Commander Ren Tarara

In a future world defined by technology so advanced that it might as well be magic, Commander Tarara is one of the few remaining "pure human" soldiers in the Earth Defence Force. Born a super human, Tarara inherited her entire family tree's most powerful genes, bred into mankind over thousands of years of controlled evolution. Through years of gruelling training and intense hard work, she excelled in all physical activities, besting even heavily cybernetically augmented super soldiers at their own game, proving once and for all the superior human genetics would always have a place in society. A veteran of almost 100 years of front line service before she was drafted into F Squad, the commander is hardened warrior, dauntless in the face of mortal danger, relentless in the fight to defend her world and a living inspiration to the men and women she commands.

Though she has often been singled out as the greatest hero of her entire world, the commander remains humble, insisting that anyone in her place would have done the same. She leads the F Squad with bravery and honour, unyielding to her enemies, but fair to her team-mates. Even in the darkest hour, even when all seems lost, the members of F Squad can always take solace in the fact that their Commander will stand strong and tall, and that she will never give up the fight.

*meta-game*
I'm really not sure what to make Tarara as. I want her to be your typical "super man" build - very strong, very hard to kill and with very low-key, low-effect powers. I was thinking of maybe going with a SS/Inv or a SS/Regen Brute, just because I don't have one, but I'm starting to think that I don't want to make her quite the absolute strongest. I suspect - when that comes out - that a Saint Justice/Regen or a SJ/Will Scrapper might be more appropriate. Willpower is hands down the coolest set for "natural" type characters, even if Tarara gets her powers from long-term genetic engineering, and Street Justice seems like the closest Scrappers have to super strength without actually using Super Strength. Still thinking about that.

Engineer Tillin Gax

When he was still a young cadet, Gax had the misfortune of being on the front lines of the disastrous First Wave of the Vree invasion. The invulnerable insectoid aliens tore apart most of the first response force, leaving very few survivors, Gax being one of them. Though the aliens were later pushed back by the full might of the Earth Defence Force's heavy artillery, Gax was still left with a mangled, torn up body. Though the medicine of the future was fully capable of repairing his body, good as new, Gax chose instead to have his body augmented with prototype cybernetics and modified through experimental chemicals. After seeing the appalling casualties that Earth suffered in the First Wave, Gax was determined to do everything he could to ensure he could do something about it if such a disaster ever happened again. And when the future's scientists had done all they could to him, Gax simply continued the work himself, learning most of Earth's sciences within the span of roughly 80 years.

Gax proceeded to help advance the future's science by leaps and bounds, developing the robust system of non-invasive cybernetic augmentation via sub-cellular deposition that later became the standard enhancement procedure for the Earth Defence Force. He also pioneered numerous physique enhancement chemicals which could give a human soldier super-human strength, durability and reflexes without any of the debilitating effects of previous generations of treatments, though the extreme cost of these made them restricted to just special operatives, with field soldiers being outfitted with the more conventional cybernetics.

Gax was drafted into F Team for his tremendous intellect and analytical thought, which helped greatly in resolving some of the more complex problems of temporal displacement, as well as for his comprehensive knowledge of the history of technology, giving the team a good understanding of local technology regardless of what time period they ended up in. Serving as the F Squad's chief engineer, Gax has also done much to enhance their equipment, and not too rarely, enhance his squad mates, as well, save for Commander Tarara who simply refused any augmentation offered to her. Though Gax usually serves as the F Squad's brain, his physical prowess is not to be underestimated, as the sum total of enhancements he has done to his own body make him a formidable soldier in his own right.

*meta-game*
I honestly don't know what to make of this guy. At first I wanted to make him a Stalker, because... Then when I made him, he didn't really look the part for a Stalker, so I got to thinking... Scrapper, maybe? He has the glowing green gauntlets because I was thinking of maybe making him Kinetic Melee/Something, like Electric Armour or Energy Aura, but I just don't know.

Heavy Weapons Expert Irina Seth, pilot of "Gunny"

Though still a VERY young child, especially by the future's standards of longevity, Seth is one of the few people alive who can pilot the Mk. 9 SuperTerran heavy assault Battle Mech platform, which she has nicknamed "Gunny." Though the future's medical technology is unimaginably advanced and able to cure nearly any ailment, there are still some conditions which are beyond even their level of expertise. Though an unfortunate combination of factors, Seth received a genetic lottery dud. Born with an inoperable defect of her nervous system, the young girl was left almost completely paralysed from a very early age. Though cybernetic augmentation has enabled her to walk on her, her body is still extremely weak, collapsing from fatigue from even a short walk. Normally, Seth would have been labelled an invalid and placed on society's welfare programme, the young girl had other plans.

What she lacked in physical strength, Seth more than made up with in spirit and ingenuity. After years of honing her skills at virtual mech simulators, Seth was finally allowed to pilot a real mech, an old deprecated Mark 9 Terran Assault Pod, in the qualifying rounds of Earth's then popular "Robowar" sporting event. Everyone was sceptical of the chances a small, crippled, untrained girl in a legacy mech stood against the professional soldiers and athletes that the competition attracted, but Seth proved them all terribly wrong. Playing her old mech to its strengths, she won the first ever Robowar she featured in, wiping the floor with the Earth Defence Forces' finest, both embarrassing and impressing a large number of high-ranking generals. After cleaning out the Robowar tournament three times in a row, the Earth Defence Force was finally forced to enact new legislation so that they could offer Seth a position on the force.

Seth rose through the ranks quickly, being appointed as training instructor of mech combat within a month of her enlistment. Until her arrival, mech pilots, selected from among the ranks of ordinary soldiers, fought as they would on foot, failing to utilise many of their mechs' actual strengths and hampering its mobility with on-foot tactics. Within a year, she had transformed the army's mech core from a slow, lumbering artillery role into the fast attack mobile fire support role that it eventually assumed within the armed forces. Seth's amazing achievements, reached by the age of just 16, made her a prime candidate for the F Squad, for which she was given a brand new, state of the art Battle Mech with which to act as heavy fire support for the team on especially dangerous missions. Though still very young and quite sickly, Seth has proven able to survive even the heaviest of battles and pull her team-mates out of seemingly impossible disasters alive and mostly unharmed.

*meta-game*
This one pretty much HAS to be a Brute, but what kind? I already have two SS/Inv Brutes, so that's out of the question, but what else is there that can simulate a heavy mech? I was thinking of maybe compromising a little and going with EM/Inv, since Invincibility kind of plays up the "big tough thing" card, but I don't know. And for this one, I don't even know what travel power to give her. For the rest I can kind of wing it, but for this one...

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That's all I have for the moment. If I think of any additional characters, I'm sure I can have them suddenly pop out of the time stream

More than anything, though, I hope to hear your opinions on their costumes. What should I improve, what should I change, what works and so forth? Almost as important are their powersets. I want to actually MAKE these characters, and I'm pretty much sure I want them all to be melee, but what melee AT do I give to each of them and which powersets do I pick from that AT?

Any help on the matter is appreciated, and thank you for your time

Having seen you quote me, I suddenly realise that I should have proofread my own post. My spelling is atrocious! And I can't even edit it now that you've quoted it

Oh, here's one thing about punctuation - I will never put an ending full stop on a sentence that ends in an emoticon, simply because I treat the emote like a punctuation mark

The original faces showed up for a brief period during I21 Beta. Something about the editor was borked, and EVERYTHING was suddenly available - the old faces, the old Pointy Ears head, the old jackets, everything. They patched that up in, like, a week, at least since I saw it.

The old faces aren't sufficiently different enough from the new ones to constitute brand new faces, I don't think, though the one old old man face was a bit distinct from the three new old man faces. I don't necessarily want to argue against adding them back to the game, but to my eyes, they looked like the same faces with slightly different graphical settings, as the bump maps on the old ones were kind of garbage.