Frequently Asked Questions about Mission Design

What's the best way to make an Object Defend goal which is actually challenging? Traditionally in COH, when you get one of these, you have to beat down the spawn around it (which attacks the object right away) and then a few ambush waves. I tried setting up something similar last night, but the spawn ignored the object in favor of hitting me, and then the mission was completed before the ambush wave arrived (which also ignored the object). Or is this simply not something we can mimic using the tool right now?

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You'll be able to see by the placement of the glowies and their labels what that map thinks is front, middle, and back. It's rather simple to change to a different map and Test the same mission to determine the placement parameters for that map.

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Note, this does not work for all maps. There are a few indoor maps that seem to define front, middle, and back differently for objects than they do for critter spawns.

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Hmmm, time to create three sets of three patrol groups each of different factions and see where they land.

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But be warned: every custom critter takes about 6.5% of your *total* mission file space. You're not going to be able to get more than about 14 custom critters into a single mission arc - 15 if they all stand in a phonebooth and don't speak.

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Please clarify; 14 per mission? or 14 per arc (14x5=70 total)?

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Definitely per arc. I created a new arc and imported my gang which has 9 units in it, and hit 70% before I had even edited any text.

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But be warned: every custom critter takes about 6.5% of your *total* mission file space. You're not going to be able to get more than about 14 custom critters into a single mission arc - 15 if they all stand in a phonebooth and don't speak.

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Please clarify; 14 per mission? or 14 per arc (14x5=70 total)?

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14 per arc.

That is why some people have split their story up between two or three mini-arcs.

Hey, movie makers only get 2-3 hours to tell a story, and, if the story doesn't fit, they make sequels or trilogies.

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But be warned: every custom critter takes about 6.5% of your *total* mission file space. You're not going to be able to get more than about 14 custom critters into a single mission arc - 15 if they all stand in a phonebooth and don't speak.

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Please clarify; 14 per mission? or 14 per arc (14x5=70 total)?

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14 per arc.

That is why some people have split their story up between two or three mini-arcs.

Hey, movie makers only get 2-3 hours to tell a story, and, if the story doesn't fit, they make sequels or trilogies.

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Damn. So I guess I wasted the last couple weeks designing a dozen new factions, over a hundred costumes, and planning out plot arcs tying them all together. lol@me

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But be warned: every custom critter takes about 6.5% of your *total* mission file space. You're not going to be able to get more than about 14 custom critters into a single mission arc - 15 if they all stand in a phonebooth and don't speak.

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Please clarify; 14 per mission? or 14 per arc (14x5=70 total)?

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14 per arc.

That is why some people have split their story up between two or three mini-arcs.

Hey, movie makers only get 2-3 hours to tell a story, and, if the story doesn't fit, they make sequels or trilogies.

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Damn. So I guess I wasted the last couple weeks designing a dozen new factions, over a hundred costumes, and planning out plot arcs tying them all together. lol@me

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Join the club, and shout in my thread about double filesize limit. =p

I was planning for a 5-mission arc that would include 10 custom bosses and 2 allies, which uses up almost my entire filesize. Plus I wanted a new gang in there.

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Wow. Sounds complex. I'm sad that you cant apparently decide which rooms things spawn in. I guess you just have to use the existing spawn points. One of my biggest motivations in using the MA was to place stuff in those rooms that never have spawns.

Oh well.

Lewis

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14 per arc.

That is why some people have split their story up between two or three mini-arcs.

Hey, movie makers only get 2-3 hours to tell a story, and, if the story doesn't fit, they make sequels or trilogies.

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Unless they've lifted the 3 arc cap, that seems like a very serious problem.

-D

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Excellent write-up, Arcanaville! That answered a lot of the questions and the lingering confusion I had after toying with the MA last night.

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With Powers, I couldnt give a critter say Firebreath, Frostbreath, Laser Eyes, & X-Ray Vision for example?

Has to be set powers, like I was building a hero/villain?

If thats case, then they should let us lvl them like ourselves, that could help us pick the powers we want them to do.


JJ

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Wow. Sounds complex. I'm sad that you cant apparently decide which rooms things spawn in. I guess you just have to use the existing spawn points. One of my biggest motivations in using the MA was to place stuff in those rooms that never have spawns.

Oh well.

Lewis

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What I find odd is that there used to be room / areas that had spawns that you just don't see anymore (mailroom in the office building for example). I wonder if the Dev version allows for actual placement where ours does not?

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With Powers, I couldnt give a critter say Firebreath, Frostbreath, Laser Eyes, & X-Ray Vision for example?

Has to be set powers, like I was building a hero/villain?

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Yes and no. Custom critters can do things (right now) that we cannot in our wildest dreams. I made a Dark Blast/Dark Armor EB as my first custom last night. On Easy, he had a few blast and one or two armors. On Hard, he had half the blasts and some of Dark's toggle controls. On Extreme, he had every damn NPC Dark Power from those two sets. And you'll notice that not all NPC sets are exactly like ours. His Dark Blast set gave him the ranged Dark heal on top of things like Blackstar. Add that to DA's Dark Regen, and you're looking at a tough customer.

So far as your example, you can't necessarily mix that many different powers, but you could probably give him two, plus all the other powers available from those sets.

Was kind of hoping for a "pick from this list" myself as well. Maybe we'll get it later. But right now, you can still make some extremely potent combinations.

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I haven't read anywhere about giving Epics to NPCs. Is this possible or still on the shelf?

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"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."

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But be warned: every custom critter takes about 6.5% of your *total* mission file space. You're not going to be able to get more than about 14 custom critters into a single mission arc - 15 if they all stand in a phonebooth and don't speak.

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Please clarify; 14 per mission? or 14 per arc (14x5=70 total)?

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14 per arc, 14 total. It has to do with how many character definitions can fit into your 100K arc file limit.

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14 per arc, 14 total. It has to do with how many character definitions can fit into your 100K arc file limit.

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Let's say I want 4 different looking minions with the same powers just alternating costumes; is there a way to make this take up less filesize just by specifying different costumes, rather than creating 4 unique minions. Or would each minion need to be created and listed in the file seperately (and need a unique name?), even if everything else is the same?

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14 per arc, 14 total. It has to do with how many character definitions can fit into your 100K arc file limit.

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Let's say I want 4 different looking minions with the same powers just alternating costumes; is there a way to make this take up less filesize just by specifying different costumes, rather than creating 4 unique minions. Or would each minion need to be created and listed in the file seperately (and need a unique name?), even if everything else is the same?

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Currently, each custom critter specifies everything about itself in the mission file; they don't share blocks of information with any of their brethren.

In your specific example, it actually wouldn't help much to share powers but change costumes, because costume information is by far the bulk of the information stored about a critter. Each costume segment is named and colored individually.

The case where sharing information would help a ton is if critters could share costume data, and you wanted a team with the same costumes but different powersets (like the CoT Possessed Scientists). You could potentially get a whole faction defined in the mission file using the same amount of space that's currently taken by two critters.

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I haven't read anywhere about giving Epics to NPCs. Is this possible or still on the shelf?

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Not currently possible. You can select Primary and Secondary Power Pools, plus add Flight to a mob, but no APPs or PPPs, at least not at present. Also, currently no other travel powers like Hover, TP, SJ, SS, CJ, etc.

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I have a question that i haven't been able to find an answer for. How do you make a mission fail if the boss get's away?

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Levels 50s...(31 and counting)
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Corruptors(1)

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14 per arc.

That is why some people have split their story up between two or three mini-arcs.

Hey, movie makers only get 2-3 hours to tell a story, and, if the story doesn't fit, they make sequels or trilogies.

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Unless they've lifted the 3 arc cap, that seems like a very serious problem.

-D

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Depends. You can still make more than three arcs, but only three can be published at a time. If one of your missions isn't getting good ratings, you can republish it after an edit, or pull it down entirely (and loose ratings) in favor of something that's hopefully better.

Additionally, if a mish makes it to Hall of Fame or Dev's Choice, you get a slot back for more publishing.

But if you just want to make a mish that you only want to run with your friends or SG, don't publish it. Just save it locally and run it in Test Mode whenever you want.

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Gah, this filesize limit is really neutering all my plans. side note: Can different critters share the same name?
for example, 3 minions named "Bob" all with different costumes? or 3 minions named "Bob" all with different power sets?

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Another problem i have, the end boss in my last mish is suppose to be a EB but keeps spawning as a Lt. how do i fix that?

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Levels 50s...(31 and counting)
Blasters(5), Controllers(5), Defenders(1), Scrappers(9), Tankers(3),
Peacebringers(1), Brutes(2), Masterminds(2), Stalkers(1), Widows(1) &
Corruptors(1)

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14 per arc.

That is why some people have split their story up between two or three mini-arcs.

Hey, movie makers only get 2-3 hours to tell a story, and, if the story doesn't fit, they make sequels or trilogies.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless they've lifted the 3 arc cap, that seems like a very serious problem.

-D

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Depends. You can still make more than three arcs, but only three can be published at a time. If one of your missions isn't getting good ratings, you can republish it after an edit, or pull it down entirely (and loose ratings) in favor of something that's hopefully better.

Additionally, if a mish makes it to Hall of Fame or Dev's Choice, you get a slot back for more publishing.

But if you just want to make a mish that you only want to run with your friends or SG, don't publish it. Just save it locally and run it in Test Mode whenever you want.

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This is like being given $100Million to make a movie, then just before filming you find out you can hire no more than 10 actors, and no wardrobe changes either. Doesn't make it impossible, but you just eliminated the vast majority of stories ....

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There was a "Reflection" power pool in addition to Flight that apparently could be added to a mob's power set. How does it differ from Flight?

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There was a "Reflection" power pool in addition to Flight that apparently could be added to a mob's power set. How does it differ from Flight?

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From what I've seen, it just makes them translucent and glowy like Shadow Shard Reflections. I used it for some ghosts.

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It seems you can't make basic mission objectives trigger from something happening - like having a find object objective trigger when you find another object (going from clue to clue).

Is there a way to do this, or can we just not do it?

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