seebs

It appears to break HeroStats if you want to play fullscreen, and similarly, the "game has crashed" dialog box is invisible when it appears -- apparently, nothing else can draw on top of the game's fullscreen display.

I tried "/petcom_all dismiss", and they said they were returning to base, and left my pet window, but just stood there. Then someone told me to try something else, I think /releasepets maybe, and they all fell over.

Amusingly, I'd tried going into a building to deal with this, and when I came back out of AE, there they were, running along empty air as though it were a road, making a beeline for the door. Despite not even being my pets anymore. Crazy robots!

Oh, you're asking mechanically.

From a purely thematic perspective, I think it'd be a ton of fun to do an obviously-robotic mastermind with human minions, and go around telling people that the revolution has come.

Welcome to the game. A few things to think about, if you ever wanna come back to the MM:

1. Level 10-11 is arguably one of the roughest patches in the game.
2. Read the Market & Inventions forum for information about how to have enough money to afford enhancements and the like which can dramatically improve your ability.
3. "Equip Robot", you use once, and ALL of your active bots are upgraded. This is a change from the times of longago, and a very welcome change.

Have fun, and enjoy your scrapper! Don't ever feel bad about alt-hopping to get away from a rough patch for a bit; taking a break from something frustrating is usually a good plan.

The text editor used for biographies (and also for stuff like AE mission text) is a disgrace. Under the hood, it seems to be encoding things into HTML, but it does this badly, such that you can end up hitting a space and having it break one of the invisible tags the editor's maintaining -- and since the tag isn't visible to you, you can't edit it except by going out of the game, looking for a <br >, and fixing it.

The technology to write a reasonably reliable simple text editor has been known to our people for some time. People spend a fair bit of time using the editor, whether they're editing a macro button (yes, please, convert that to &nbsp; and then refuse to execute it because it's invalid!), working on AE arcs, or trying to write their bios. I know this seems like a relatively small feature, but being unable to edit text is REALLY frustrating, especially for those of us who want to have interesting bios.

So far, no ranged powers except the tranq dart origin power. Won't have any others for a long time unless I, say, craft temp powers.

On the other hand, I've gotten pretty good at abusing caltrops. I can do AS in melee with three critters because they're too busy running slowly in place to attack me. Add in placate, and life is pretty good, at least thus far.

I'm also, at level 12, pretty much fully geared with level 15 IOs, some of them dual-attribute ones from sets. This makes life MUCH more pleasant.

On Windows 7, the crash-reporter window can NEVER be shown, for the same reason that any other window fails to be shown in front of a full-screen game window.

Meaning there is no way for the player to interact with that window.

Suggestion: Instead of making me kill the program with task manager, and getting no crash report, just send the crash report automatically if the window is not interacted with after about 10-15 seconds.

Some questions for the crowd:

One of the guides listed at the top of the forum says Power Push is awesome because it's useful for control. Other people seem to think it's pretty bad. Similarly, some people seem to love explosive blast, some seem to hate it. What's the story?

From the secondary, I'm normally a huge caltrops fan, but I'm wondering whether they might be less effective with all my knockback. I'm also quite fond of targeting drone, as it seems to really noticably improve my accuracy (in the sense of "chance of hitting things", not the in-game statistic "Accuracy") back at the low levels where I haven't got everything full of set bonuses. Here's an attempted modified build. Caltrops is in there because I love it so much, and because I think it's awesome when people charge up to me running in slow motion. I've added some knockback protection, which may be totally wasted. I also added stealth because total invisibility (including cloaking device) sounds handy, and Recall Friend (because it's useful sometimes, and I like to have a handy power). I've omitted the fighting pool, and I recognize that I may want to rethink that when I make 50.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.803
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Ko-gal Ultra: Level 50 Technology Blaster
Primary Power Set: Energy Blast
Secondary Power Set: Devices
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Teleportation
Ancillary Pool: Force Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Power Bolt -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(3), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(3), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(5), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(5), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(7)
Level 1: Web Grenade -- TotHntr-Acc/Rchg:50(A), TotHntr-EndRdx/Immob:50(36), TotHntr-Acc/EndRdx:50(37), TotHntr-Immob/Acc:50(37), TotHntr-Acc/Immob/Rchg:50(37), TotHntr-Dam%:50(40)
Level 2: Power Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(7), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(9), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(9), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(11), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(13)
Level 4: Energy Torrent -- Posi-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx:50(29), Posi-Dmg/Rchg:50(29), Posi-Dmg/Rng:50(31), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(31)
Level 6: Power Burst -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(13), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(15), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(23), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(27), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(27)
Level 8: Hover -- Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx:50(A), Frbd-Stlth:50(25), Zephyr-ResKB:50(25)
Level 10: Targeting Drone -- AdjTgt-ToHit:50(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx:50(11)
Level 12: Swift -- Flight-I:50(A)
Level 14: Aim -- AdjTgt-ToHit/EndRdx/Rchg:50(A), AdjTgt-ToHit/Rchg:50(15), RechRdx-I:50(23)
Level 16: Sniper Blast -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx:50(17), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg:50(17), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(42), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(43), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:50(43)
Level 18: Health -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx:50(A), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg:50(19), Numna-Heal/Rchg:50(19), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg:50(43), Numna-Heal:50(45), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+:50(46)
Level 20: Stamina -- EndMod-I:50(A), EndMod-I:50(21), EndMod-I:50(21)
Level 22: Cloaking Device -- DefBuff-I:50(A), DefBuff-I:50(34)
Level 24: Fly -- Zephyr-ResKB:50(A)
Level 26: Caltrops -- RechRdx-I:50(A)
Level 28: Trip Mine -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg:50(A), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx:50(46), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg:50(46), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg:50(48)
Level 30: Explosive Blast -- JavVoll-Acc/Dmg/End/Rech:50(A), JavVoll-Acc/Dmg:50(31), JavVoll-Acc/End/Rech:50(36), JavVoll-Dam/End/Rech:50(36), JavVoll-Dam/Rech:50(42)
Level 32: Nova -- C'ngBlow-Acc/Dmg:50(A), C'ngBlow-Dmg/Rchg:50(33), C'ngBlow-Acc/Rchg:50(33), Erad-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:30(33), Erad-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg:30(34), Erad-%Dam:30(34)
Level 35: Recall Friend -- Zephyr-ResKB:50(A)
Level 38: Gun Drone -- ExRmnt-Acc/Rchg:50(A), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg:50(39), ExRmnt-Dmg/EndRdx:50(39), ExRmnt-Acc/Dmg/Rchg:50(39), ExRmnt-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg:50(40), ExRmnt-+Res(Pets):50(40)
Level 41: Personal Force Field -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(42)
Level 44: Temp Invulnerability -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx:40(A), RctvArm-EndRdx:40(45), RctvArm-ResDam:40(45)
Level 47: Repulsion Bomb -- ExStrk-Dmg/KB:20(A), ExStrk-Dam%:20(48), ExStrk-Acc/KB:20(48)
Level 49: Force of Nature -- RechRdx-I:50(A), RechRdx-I:50(50), ResDam-I:50(50), ResDam-I:50(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Defiance
Level 1: Ninja Run

Awesome timing, as I'm just preparing to use my free respec on my level 24 energy/devices blaster. I'm still not quite sure how some of these things go together. I'm used to /traps and traps/, and /devices is just different enough to confuse me.

I am highly tempted by cloaking device, just because I find positioning pretty significant for some of my attacks. Not sure about the rest of the lowbie stuff. Smoke Grenade looks like it might be useful, but I'm not sure how I'd use it.

There are clearly way more powers here than I have slots, at 24.

I think people sort of expect reaching the level cap to open up whole new categories of content, because that's what other games have sometimes done to provide a reason to keep playing. CoH has been much more focused on alts, in general, and I think that provides a very different approach to play; instead of focusing on what you do with your "main" at level 50 to make yourself tougher and cooler than other peoples' "new" level 50s, they focus on all the different ways you can make 50 and have fun hanging out with people.

Overall this suits me better.

I have had very poor luck with scrappers -- I tend to end up getting squashed on larger groups, and I don't have much for escapes or oh-!@#* buttons.

My most successful toon thus far is a dark/dark defender, and next after that is a bots/traps mastermind. The first toon I got very far with was an ill/rad controller (soloed Frostfire, even).

Which is to say: YMMV.

In my experience, the class that will solo the best is probably the one whose playstyle suits you.

No staff for a couple of years yet.

But yeah, TP-foe looks useful.

Poison trap is UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING.

I see your point about Hasten -- by 25ish, I have enough recharge that it hasn't been a big problem for a while, I nearly always have one or two of those powers up, and the bots are a LOT more durable now than they used to be.

Hover's combination of defense and mobility is awesome, and it also helps a bit with the problem where I can't see anything but robot butts.

Closest I've seen is a scrapper who swaps to a ginormous costume (same exact costume, just scaled a lot bigger) when using Moment Of Glory.

There is no such thing as "Windows Vista 7 Ultimate". Vista and 7 are two different versions.

.NET works on every OS Microsoft has released in quite a while; if your system isn't running it, your system is in some way broken, and you should get that fixed.

Miss Californium (traps/rad def) is certainly a fashion model. Who can blow **** up with her eyes. (And to think I originally dismissed the "tin crown" hat as never-useful...)

My bots/traps just made 28, and has started habitually running missions at +1/x2 or so instead of the +0/x1 or even -1/x1 I tend to favor while levelling (I'd rather get mission XP and not die, thanks).

I got hover about where you got hasten, and fly at 24. My level 18 power was tactics (this was intended to cover the weak spot introduced by the battle drones being another level lower than me). Key points:

1. Level 6 helped a ton for moving from "I suck" to "this isn't so bad".
2. Web grenade has -50% recharge to enemies. Don't overlook that.
3. Caltrops, caltrops, caltrops.

By 20-22, I had a bunch of things slotted with IOs, especially recharge speed on things like acid mortar and triage beacon and caltrops -- the key weakness of most traps is that you can't have them up ALL THE TIME.

The biggest difference: I have not taken ANY of the fitness pool. The reality is, I just plain don't need that much endurance, and triage beacon > health.

So... Up through 6, we agreed. I then did:

8: hover
10: acid mortar
12: protector bot
14: maneuvers
16: ffd
18: tactics
20: poison gas trap
22: aid other
24: fly
26: assault bot
28: seeker drones

PGT is an awesome ability. It's a big enough -regen to make it pretty practical to wear an elite boss down... And a hold that will take anything short of a boss out of the fight for a while. Aid Other covers for the biggest weakness of this set -- lack of heals for those fragile little bots. (Which gets a lot better at 24, but even then, it sure is nice to have a spare heal around.)

My basic strategy when pulling: Leave bots on defensive/follow, run into group, drop PGT, drop acid mortar, drop caltrops, work on knitting that sock I wanted. This is why I don't have Stamina; on most pulls, I don't need it. Other subtleties include droping an acid mortar on my way in, or opening with seeker drones (still not used to them, and haven't got enough +recharge in them to have them up all the time).

This annihilates most pulls. If I'm having trouble burning things down, once I've got enough debuffs out, I'll start picking targets and setting bots to attack them. Be sure you have keybindings for all bots follow, all bots attack, and probably defensive/passive/aggressive. Be sure that, if you use the "default" buttons, you edit their macros to remove the sucky "attack always implies a shift to aggressive" thing, because that CRIPPLES your control over your bots.

Probably. If you have any more technically inclined Mac folks available locally, have one of them look at it, they might be able to spot something. I might have a shot at it if I were looking at the machine, it's hard to tell.

*sniffle* Caltrops, how I long for thee.

Made it to 6, that will help a LOT for opening fights. I can now do more than about 25% of a lt's health, I hope.

I had not realized I could pillar dance things outside of roguelikes. I have been able to get multiple crits-from-hide on a lt just by running around scenery.