Frequently Asked Questions about Mission Design

I can't seem to find Anti-Matter anywhere. It might just be me being stupid but i couldnt find him at the ticket vendor or in the list of baddies. Was he added in MA at all?

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"I just can't sit any other way than this. If I sit the way other people do, my reasoning ability drops by 40%"
~L

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I can't seem to find Anti-Matter anywhere. It might just be me being stupid but i couldnt find him at the ticket vendor or in the list of baddies. Was he added in MA at all?

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Well see, they tried to include him, but since all of the other content in MA is made of matter...

(Sorry, couldn't resist a physics joke.)

I noticed this myself, he and his cronies are definitely absent.

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"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...

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I can't seem to find Anti-Matter anywhere. It might just be me being stupid but i couldnt find him at the ticket vendor or in the list of baddies. Was he added in MA at all?

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Well see, they tried to include him, but since all of the other content in MA is made of matter...

(Sorry, couldn't resist a physics joke.)

[/ QUOTE ]So I went to this Italian restaurant the other night, and it was kind of an open buffet deal, right? Well, I looked over the selection and noticed the pasta sitting right nest to the antipasti, and hit the deck! >.>

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he and his cronies are definitely absent.

[/ QUOTE ]I haven't looked, but I played an arc the other day with Tyrant in it.

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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

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he and his cronies are definitely absent.

[/ QUOTE ]I haven't looked, but I played an arc the other day with Tyrant in it. [/quote
Yeah Tyrant is there, in his own section called Tyrant Followers or something (by himself though, strangely), and you can unlock all the other Praetorians and their minions, but not Anti-Matter.

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"You don't lose levels. You don't have equipment to wear out, repair, or lose, or that anyone can steal from you. About the only thing lighter than debt they could do is have an NPC walk by, point and laugh before you can go to the hospital or base." -Memphis_Bill
We will honor the past, and fight to the last, it will be a good way to die...

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he and his cronies are definitely absent.

[/ QUOTE ]I haven't looked, but I played an arc the other day with Tyrant in it.

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Well there are many of the praetorians in MA but i'm just wondering why anti-matter wasnt involved. Out of all of the FP i decide to make an arc revolving one of them end up picking Positron and i wanted to invlove AM in it

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"I just can't sit any other way than this. If I sit the way other people do, my reasoning ability drops by 40%"
~L

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he and his cronies are definitely absent.

[/ QUOTE ]I haven't looked, but I played an arc the other day with Tyrant in it.

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Well there are many of the praetorians in MA but i'm just wondering why anti-matter wasnt involved. Out of all of the FP i decide to make an arc revolving one of them end up picking Positron and i wanted to invlove AM in it

[/ QUOTE ]I realize that Antimatter looks different from Positron, but could you just set Posi as an enemy-aligned Boss objective, and copy/pase Antimatter's name/bio onto him?

You'd have the right model, powersets, and text, only missing the correct textures.

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http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt

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he and his cronies are definitely absent.

[/ QUOTE ]I haven't looked, but I played an arc the other day with Tyrant in it.

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Well there are many of the praetorians in MA but i'm just wondering why anti-matter wasnt involved. Out of all of the FP i decide to make an arc revolving one of them end up picking Positron and i wanted to invlove AM in it

[/ QUOTE ]I realize that Antimatter looks different from Positron, but could you just set Posi as an enemy-aligned Boss objective, and copy/pase Antimatter's name/bio onto him?

You'd have the right model, powersets, and text, only missing the correct textures.

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Yeah but you don't have his minions. I fairly certain Antimatter was the first group pack I bought last week but now I can't find them either.

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It is better to ask forgiveness than permission.

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The "invalid level range" thing is a validation bug that had several of us ripping our hair out. It's all pohsyb's fault It should be fixed sometime in the next patch or three.

The most common cause is using a battle where the second group restricts the level range of the mission, but currently that check is not being made correctly. Swapping the order of the groups may help. There are, however, other more esoteric things that can cause it.

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It happened to me when I used Council (1-54) but the first group I put in (which I later changed) were only Ascendants, and they were 20-54, so the mission "set itself" to 20-54 (even though I later went in and made sure my custom groups had enough levels to cover all 1-54 ranges). I ended up just hand-editing the level range of the mission to 1-54, and wouldn't you know it worked? :P That may or may not work for all of you though.

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"Superman died fighting Doomsday because he allowed his toggles to drop, and didn't beat Doomsday before Unstoppable wore off, sad really..."

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I realize that Antimatter looks different from Positron, but could you just set Posi as an enemy-aligned Boss objective, and copy/pase Antimatter's name/bio onto him?

You'd have the right model, powersets, and text, only missing the correct textures.

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You know what i just had the best idea for what you just said i have on the first mish where you have to investigate some psy clockwork and recover a clue for Posi's disappearance and the clue you find is a piece of Posi's armor, i was going to have antimatter as a resource to find Posi but now im going to make it so that AM uses that piece of armor found to make an entire suit to gain Posi's full power.

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"I just can't sit any other way than this. If I sit the way other people do, my reasoning ability drops by 40%"
~L

So,

Is there a way to get an AV to spawn singly by itself, or must it be accompanied by something? I created a custom enemy group that only consists of the AV in question (she is her own "faction" and she is Rogue as well). Most of the time 2-3 copies of her spawn, and that doesn't work. I tried adding one of those little arachnos Cruise Missiles as an underling (the things that just fly toward you and blow up) to take up "space" and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Is it just semi-random how many spawn with the boss, or is it determined by map, or both? I can't get it to stay consistant at all. The structure of the mission depends on her being alone, as she's not part of the main villain group the mission uses.

Any tips?

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"Superman died fighting Doomsday because he allowed his toggles to drop, and didn't beat Doomsday before Unstoppable wore off, sad really..."

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How do I make an optional objective display on the nav bar? Any time I set something as optional, it won't show up top. But I know pohsyb accomplished this in an arc.

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If you leave the singular and plural text of an optional collection empty, nothing shows in the Nav. If you actually put text in those blanks, the MA assumes you want it to show, and that text will show in the Nav whether the collection is optional or required.

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In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

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How do I make an optional objective display on the nav bar? Any time I set something as optional, it won't show up top. But I know pohsyb accomplished this in an arc.

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If you leave the singular and plural text of an optional collection empty, nothing shows in the Nav. If you actually put text in those blanks, the MA assumes you want it to show, and that text will show in the Nav whether the collection is optional or required.

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So I need to put text in BOTH of the fields, even if one is irrelevant? I ask because it's usually something like "Defeat Council base leader (optional)," so having one for plural would be pointless, unless of course the system requires me to fill that field in to display it.

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So,
Is there a way to get an AV to spawn singly by itself, or must it be accompanied by something? I created a custom enemy group that only consists of the AV in question (she is her own "faction" and she is Rogue as well). Most of the time 2-3 copies of her spawn, and that doesn't work. I tried adding one of those little arachnos Cruise Missiles as an underling (the things that just fly toward you and blow up) to take up "space" and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Is it just semi-random how many spawn with the boss, or is it determined by map, or both? I can't get it to stay consistant at all. The structure of the mission depends on her being alone, as she's not part of the main villain group the mission uses.
Any tips?

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What I did was create a faction that had only the boss, elite boss or archvillain and picked "boss" from that. When I had to pick his minions, I picked an existing group. What you want to do is leave your AV in a group all by herself, then make ANOTHER group that consists of nothing but your fillers and set that as the group to spawn with her. You could probably even name them the same if you change the save path.

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How do I make an optional objective display on the nav bar? Any time I set something as optional, it won't show up top. But I know pohsyb accomplished this in an arc.

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If you leave the singular and plural text of an optional collection empty, nothing shows in the Nav. If you actually put text in those blanks, the MA assumes you want it to show, and that text will show in the Nav whether the collection is optional or required.

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So I need to put text in BOTH of the fields, even if one is irrelevant? I ask because it's usually something like "Defeat Council base leader (optional)," so having one for plural would be pointless, unless of course the system requires me to fill that field in to display it.

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If you only have one, you don't need a plural, but I suspect that if you DON'T have a plural and end up with more than one, nothing will show up. If you're positive you're only ever going to have one, you only need the singular text filled in.

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How do I make an optional objective display on the nav bar? Any time I set something as optional, it won't show up top. But I know pohsyb accomplished this in an arc.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you leave the singular and plural text of an optional collection empty, nothing shows in the Nav. If you actually put text in those blanks, the MA assumes you want it to show, and that text will show in the Nav whether the collection is optional or required.

[/ QUOTE ]
So I need to put text in BOTH of the fields, even if one is irrelevant? I ask because it's usually something like "Defeat Council base leader (optional)," so having one for plural would be pointless, unless of course the system requires me to fill that field in to display it.

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If you have 1 boss you would only need the singular filled in.

If however you have multiple collections with the same name, use the plural, for example "Bookcases to search"
then in the singlular for each, you can put "search the last bookcase" So when the player gets down to the last one, it'll change over to the singular text in the nav.

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How do I make an optional objective display on the nav bar? Any time I set something as optional, it won't show up top. But I know pohsyb accomplished this in an arc.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you leave the singular and plural text of an optional collection empty, nothing shows in the Nav. If you actually put text in those blanks, the MA assumes you want it to show, and that text will show in the Nav whether the collection is optional or required.

[/ QUOTE ]
So I need to put text in BOTH of the fields, even if one is irrelevant? I ask because it's usually something like "Defeat Council base leader (optional)," so having one for plural would be pointless, unless of course the system requires me to fill that field in to display it.

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If you have 1 boss you would only need the singular filled in.

If however you have multiple collections with the same name, use the plural, for example "Bookcases to search"
then in the singlular for each, you can put "search the last bookcase" So when the player gets down to the last one, it'll change over to the singular text in the nav.

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I know that. What I'm asking is, do I have to fill in BOTH fields to have an optional thing display on the nav bar?

I have, for instance, a mission that has two boss fights. One is required and one is optional. On both, I only filled in the "singular" field. One says "Defeat raid leader" and the other says "Defeat base leader (optional)." The optional one is not set to be a required objective for the mission. As a result, it will NOT display on the nav bar.

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I don't believe you can set optional objectives to display in the Nav bar.

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I don't believe you can set optional objectives to display in the Nav bar.

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pohsyb did it, and I've seen it in a couple other arcs here and there.

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do I have to fill in BOTH fields to have an optional thing display on the nav bar?

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Apparently you do. I just tested this circumstance with collections, and if your optional collection has only one item, if you only fill in the singular text that text doesn't show in the Nav. But if you fill in both text fields (putting anything into the plural text you want) then the singular text shows.

So to get optional objectives to show in the Nav, you apparently have to fill in both even if your objective happens to be only one thing.

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[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]

In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)

Hmm... Well, that's definitely very nice to know. Thanks, Arcana.

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do I have to fill in BOTH fields to have an optional thing display on the nav bar?

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Apparently you do. I just tested this circumstance with collections, and if your optional collection has only one item, if you only fill in the singular text that text doesn't show in the Nav. But if you fill in both text fields (putting anything into the plural text you want) then the singular text shows.

So to get optional objectives to show in the Nav, you apparently have to fill in both even if your objective happens to be only one thing.

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Good, that's basically what I wanted to know.

Guess I'll be updating my arc to involve all the new optional stuff today.

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Also, re navbar text, I found something interesting.

Objective 1 Plural: Clues Left
Objective 1 Singular: Search the Computers!
Objective 2 Plural: Clues Left
Objective 2 Singular: Find the radar console!
Objective 3 Plural: Clues Left
Objective 3 Singular: Find someone who knows something!

This will always show "Search the Computers!" when one of the objectives is left, not any of the others. It seems to default to the first one listed in order on the details screen.

Too bad, too, it'd be neat to provide a clue to what was left when you were down to the last item.

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"I think you're confused. This is /b, not /b/."

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What I did was create a faction that had only the boss, elite boss or archvillain and picked "boss" from that. When I had to pick his minions, I picked an existing group. What you want to do is leave your AV in a group all by herself, then make ANOTHER group that consists of nothing but your fillers and set that as the group to spawn with her. You could probably even name them the same if you change the save path.

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Ah hah. So you're saying make another custom group with some fillers (lieutenant probably, and a minion or two) and name it something else, and have it spawn with her "group" (of which she's the only one) just to clarify? I hadn't thought of that at all. Of course all of this would be simpler if you could simply tell it "group to spawn with" (or whatever the field is, I forget) to "none" then it would only spawn the one character. When you say "picked boss" you mean that's the group you used for the boss, right? That's what I did. I guess the only difference we have here is you used a SECOND custom group to "spawn with" the boss...have I got that right? By the way, Hi Sam, I've always been interested in your posts, even when I don't agree, they're always informative.

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"Superman died fighting Doomsday because he allowed his toggles to drop, and didn't beat Doomsday before Unstoppable wore off, sad really..."

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So to get optional objectives to show in the Nav, you apparently have to fill in both even if your objective happens to be only one thing.

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Do you think that's a bug, Arcana, or intended behavior? *glances around for Pohsyb*

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"Superman died fighting Doomsday because he allowed his toggles to drop, and didn't beat Doomsday before Unstoppable wore off, sad really..."

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What I did was create a faction that had only the boss, elite boss or archvillain and picked "boss" from that. When I had to pick his minions, I picked an existing group. What you want to do is leave your AV in a group all by herself, then make ANOTHER group that consists of nothing but your fillers and set that as the group to spawn with her. You could probably even name them the same if you change the save path.

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Ah hah. So you're saying make another custom group with some fillers (lieutenant probably, and a minion or two) and name it something else, and have it spawn with her "group" (of which she's the only one) just to clarify? I hadn't thought of that at all. Of course all of this would be simpler if you could simply tell it "group to spawn with" (or whatever the field is, I forget) to "none" then it would only spawn the one character. When you say "picked boss" you mean that's the group you used for the boss, right? That's what I did. I guess the only difference we have here is you used a SECOND custom group to "spawn with" the boss...have I got that right? By the way, Hi Sam, I've always been interested in your posts, even when I don't agree, they're always informative.

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When you create a boss, there are two major categories you need to fill up. Boss group and boss NPC from that group, and then boss spawn group - the group that spawns with the boss. Those don't need to match, and indeed in my arc they almost never did. I kept spawning my made-up bosses with Crey and the Freakshow.

So if you want only a boss and only one copy of her with just filler NPCs, create one group that has only boss in it, set that as the boss group, then choose your boss from it. For boss spawn - the enemies that spawn with the boss - pick your filler group and pretty much leave it be. That will spawn one boss and only one boss of exactly the NPC you picked, with a group of variable size and variable selection of your filler group. If you only have one Seeker Drone minion for the entire group, you will always get a boss with a spawn of variable size of Seeker Drones around her.

In general, I find it's good practice to keep your unique bosses in their own unique group to prevent them from accidentally spawning in regular spawns with bigger teams. For bosses you override (pick a stock NPC and re-write his or her bio) that's less of a problem, as you'll be seeing those NPCs in combat anyway, they just won't have the unique's name,

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