Arc 253991: "Splintered Shields"

Arc Name: "Splintered Shields"
Arc ID: 253991
Length: Long (5 missions)
First Published: 7/7/2009 04:35 PM
Morality: Heroic
Description: An Arachnos agent makes a daring raid on Paragon City...business as usual, one might think. Or is it?

Notes: I did this one to play around a bit with some of the tools. I expect there will be some objection to the triggered events in Act II but I did use the smallest map in that class. I'm particularly interested in seeing how people take to Act III.

This one does have another guest appearance by one of my own characters: Victor Praetorius/Virtue. I wouldn't have done that if the actual Rogue Isles Villains faction was available in the Architect. I think it's hilarious that we can have Hami Mitos and the LRSF version of Ms. Liberty that uberbuffs herself every ten seconds but not the generic villains and heroes from Mayhem and Safeguard missions. Also on the issue of characters, I'm not really sure I did a good enough job on Dietrich's voice. I think my portrayal of her comes off a bit less arrogant than in the RWZ missions. Arguably that's not a bad thing as the outcome of that should have taken some of the wind out of her sails. Time will tell, I guess, as people respond to it (or not).

[ QUOTE ]
I think it's hilarious that we can have Hami Mitos and the LRSF version of Ms. Liberty that uberbuffs herself every ten seconds but not the generic villains and heroes from Mayhem and Safeguard missions.

[/ QUOTE ]

I most vehemently concur.

Hilarious is not the word I would use but I get the idea.

I won't go into an in depth review, but I wanted to say that this was an outstanding arc. I rated it 5 stars, and I want to share some of the things in it that made it a very enjoyable experience.

Kobushi definitely pulls it off better than Hardcase. I honestly felt for this guy all the way to the end. And to top it off, he doesn't pull a cliche and join longbow, which is half what I was expecting him to do.

Dietrich. You really made her feel like she's grown since the events in the vanguard arcs. You added another dimension to her character that I found completely believable. I found myself annoyed that npc allies don't keep up very well, because I wanted her along, I wanted her to be there with me. It felt cool. Unfortunately, I like to play at breakneck speed, so she did get left behind a few times.

Lastly, the arc made me feel awesome. Sun and Moon is a DB/WP scrapper that is a force to be reckoned with, and all too often, an arc says, "We'll hold off the main force, and you get in there and grab the data! The security's light, so you should be able to handle it," when I would just rather they forgo their own casualties, and let me handle it all. I felt important, respected as a super(even though she's a natural), and Dietrich's line in the last mission was just pure gold.


While Arachnos, Longbow, Knives and malta aren't even close to my favorite enemy groups (curse you web grenade!), I had a lot of fun with this arc, and really got pulled into it.

5 stars, two thumbs up.

I played this arc after "Why We Fight" and just as I suspected Venture is much better when writing serious stuff. Five stars. I'm prepared to play this arc more than once, which I hardly ever do.

I have to throw my five-star rating into the pile for this one, too. I've played all Venture's arcs and this is by far my favorite. As noted, Kobushi is a -great- character and I was actually WORRIED when I "overheard" that he had been killed.

I thought Dietrich's dialog was a bit... softer... than I remembered, but of course Things Changed after the RWZ debacle and by the end of the arc her old spark was back, but mellowed somewhat into a form I appreciated.

And I -loved- this one line of dialog she had, while being held "prisoner":

Guard: Where's your backup, witch?

WMD: I AM the backup --- wait until you see who I came with.

Nice to hear an NPC, especially an authority figure like WMD, praise my character a little bit

My memory ain't what it once was, but a few things that stuck out as worth mentioning...

In one of the warehouse maps, there were longbow and arachnos (and enemy longbow) ALL over the place. It was CHAOS. Which was great, and fit the story... but I managed to get like three patrols on me at one point and had to start gulping inspirations to pull my bacon out of the fire.

Of course if I had been patient (ha!) then I could have worked around the patrols and avoided mass combat.

And in the ship map, at first I thought, "Well this is way too easy! The Longbow agents are tearing everything up before I even GET there!"

But then at the end, when the Arachnos forces arrived... Whoa! CHAOS! The fight BACK to the front of the ship was considerably more engaging.

While I was hoping that Kobushi would survive, I didn't really want him to become "good" to the extent that he wanted to join the PPD or Longbow... I like the idea of a rogue (as in GOOD, caring for the citizens) Rogue Isles cop.

Unlike Hardcase, who does technically look out for the citizens of the Rogue Isles, I actually LIKED Kobushi.

Since I couldn't sleep I did the one thing I hadn't done yet with this arc...squishy-tested it. I used Ms. Gale/Virtue, a level 30 Storm/Electric. She did take a few deaths, almost all of which were due to high spawn density caused by playing on CL2, but I was able to clear the arc with her.

Thanks to the extra Bosses spawning on CL2 (and 4), she even downed a Zeus.

Brachaesnethar pointed out something that had occurred to me while I was writing this: it could be seen as an origin arc for a rogue SoA (or other villain). It isn't; Kobushi is not one of my PCs or an Expy of one. Still, something to think about.

[ QUOTE ]
I have to throw my five-star rating into the pile for this one, too. I've played all Venture's arcs and this is by far my favorite. As noted, Kobushi is a -great- character and I was actually WORRIED when I "overheard" that he had been killed.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll ditto that. I was already liking him after the first mission, and by the end I really felt for him and literally gave a little sigh of relief when I saw the message on the bar for his glowie.

I gave this arc 5 stars as well. My only minor complaint is the custom Malta, they weren't problematic, they just felt a little needless and somewhat under explained, and their costumes didn't feel entirely malta-y. Mind you playing a scrapper I'm pretty at ease with the standard Malta, so I'd imagine for many characters seeing the sappers swapped out was even more of a relief than finding Kobushi

Thanks for the feedback and high rating!

I wanted the RDF units to have more of an upscale/hi-tech look to them than stock Malta. I think Malta's troops should look more futuristic and less like they ransacked a military surplus store.

Recent changes:

<ul type="square">[*]Updated Victor Praetorius' costume to match the PC version (now uses Death Goggles and Guard instead of Cyborg face pieces)[*]Act II rebalanced to make the Longbow/Family fights a little less one-sided[*]Act V moved to an abandoned warehouse, seemed more fitting for the rendezvous.[*]Changes to the Malta Engima Silver faction in "Blowback" propagated to the Malta RDF here, as the RDF is intended to be the "production version" of Enigma Silver's prototypes[*]Small text edits, including a change to the Big Bad's combat dialog in Act V lampshading one of the arc's inspirations, which if anyone's figured out they haven't mentioned....[/list]
Recent comments, names redacted:

<ul type="square">[*]"Great arc, though i find your use of hero-helpers funny given how you yourself tend to ignroe such elements when playing other people's arcs regaurdless, five stars!" (I included the allies because I felt the plot demanded them, not as "helpers".)[*]"This is more like it. 5 stars for you. Stick to the serious stuff. The custom malta were pretty cool but seemed a bit too, I don't know, super-y? One of them shot lightning from his hands. He could at least have some kind of gloves or cybernetic hands or something, you know?" (The player immediately retracted this as he realized the RDF units do use the Banded Robotic gauntlet for precisely this reason.)[/list]

Arc Splintered Shields

[This review took place during some flame threads, and has utterly nothing to do with those.]

I decided to give this a go as it's been described as Venture's best. I wanted to see if it beat Blowback, my favorite so far.

The premise suggests an Arachnos agent troublemaker. The contact is the beastly Dietrich! But... she's being nice to me. I don't really want a contact who demeans me, but I also think Dietrich should be mean. I can't have it both ways. Or...Perhaps she could begin as her beastly self, but acknowledge that someone in Longbow asked for me specifically? Not to railroad your story, but then she could be herself (initially), and I could still feel cool She'd warm to the player soon enough.

I get into the mission, and Longbow assault me. These are definitely not the ones that might have asked for me.

I like the idea of getting to question the bad guy, and not having the assumption I'd use violent means. Special K is a drug?? I didn't realise a cereal and a habit were the same thing. Nice use of friendly ambush (or something similar) to provide more action on the horrid cargo ship map. Thanks for not making glowies required. Interesting and complex string of encounters in the second mission. I missed several of the battles, but healed up the Longbow survivors. Few survivors remained on my second pass through the map.
Martha Kincaid description: divsion -&gt; division

Taggart (Arachnos) is mingling with Malta. Not seen that before. I can see their turf overlapping, but working together? Perhaps you can tell me where there's a precedent for this (I'm sure there's a precedent for everything).

"A.V." Livingston. Heh. I guess acronyms are better than anagrams. Sir Oldsemen will have to wait. AV appeared at Elite Boss level since I'm on lame-heroic difficulty. He chain mezzes fairly easily after my personal forcefield got me through his initial massive attacks. I suspect I just had a good counter-build for this one.

And a very nice finish.

Overall, it is as good a story as Blowback for storyline, better than Blowback for the player feeling involved, but seemed a little less tight on the characterizations. The switching-sides is a good precursor to the Going Rogue release. I sometimes felt more mercenary than superhero. I think that began as I wasn't convinced WMD wasn't hoodwinking me, mainly because she was acting out of character. But ultimately nothing was wrong with the story. Rounded up to 5-stars.

Cheers, airhead

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
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Thanks for the review!

The contact is the beastly Dietrich! But... she's being nice to me. I don't really want a contact who demeans me, but I also think Dietrich should be mean.

I was on the fence with her portrayal myself but the majority of respondents thus far have liked it. I felt she'd have some of the wind taken out of her sails by the resolution of the Vanguard arcs.

Special K is a drug?? I didn't realise a cereal and a habit were the same thing

Ketamine, a real-life drug. It is an anesthetic usually used by vets, but can be abused for recreational purposes.

Martha Kincaid description: divsion -&gt; division

Thanks, I'll fix that once I'm out of this instance...h8 that we can't use the comlink in them any more.

Taggart (Arachnos) is mingling with Malta. Not seen that before. I can see their turf overlapping, but working together?

Not really working together, he showed up and whacked Kobushi for them. The Malta goons were just letting him leave...he wasn't there to mess with them, as far as they were concerned it was an internal Arachnos thing and none of their business.

As for precedent, there's this from the LRSF (Recluse speaking):

[ QUOTE ]

Malta has proven to be an important asset to Arachnos. Their advanced weaponry and skilled personnel are excellent, and they are the perfect mercenaries to use when Arachnos wants to disassociate themselves from a delicate operation.


[/ QUOTE ]

Of course, Recluse goes on with the overstepping-their-bounds-yadda-yadda to explain why you have to go beat them up now.

"A.V." Livingston. Heh. I guess acronyms are better than anagrams.

OK, I'm going to tip my hand now. There's very little chance anyone would actually break the code here. Anyway: if I drive from my home in West Orange to the town of Hanover, I have to go through Livingston first. "A. V." are the letters before "B. W.", as in Bernie Wrightson. And at least according to the online translators I tried, "Kobushi" is a Japanese word for "fist".

The fans over 30 should be able to take it from there, at least.

A recent comment:

• Longbow dialogue in first mission using "him" is confusing, since I'm a her. Victor belongs to "All custom characters";If I reseal the crates why do they vanish? And again Sister Themis, I'm not a guy. Malta? How dumb are you, Livingston? Going to them was kind of out of left field. Ah, the elusive Theseus, needs a hat Nav says "defeat Kobushi" but me and WMD are helping him... Overall a pretty good story. (Fixed Victor's faction and Themis' dialog. Crates vanish in act III just to get them out of the way. The Longbow agents in act I don't know who's coming. You and WMD are not expecting to help Kobushi in act V -- it should be clear from his first two appearances that he's not interested in anything you have to say.)

@GlaziusF

Running this on a high 40s spine/regen scrapper, diff 2 for the boss fights.

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You know, the main reason I hate good ol' WMD is because she likes to establish a sniping position in the middle of the next group over.

I wonder why they haven't had more missions against Arachnos outside of the PVP zones heroside. Villains certainly fight the heck out of enough Longbow.

...well, this is a fine kettle of fish. Judging from the battle dialogue there's something Longbow are willing to kill to cover up in this base.

And you know what that means. BOX SEARCHIN'.

(man, Longbow Eagles up in the rafters should be bannable by international treaty. I figured he was in the geometry until I spun the camera enough.)

Hmm. I'd always seen it as "ampoules" but I suppose that's valid too. I'd say "winners don't use drugs" here but since there's an entire origin where you dip your body into controlled substances it'd kind of miss the point.

Hmm again. Was Kobu running a little wacky stuff on the side, then, and is pissed at Livingston for breaking into his market? Or are those files a Longbow attempt at plausible deniability?

Internal Affairs, huh? ...you know, with all the cop dramas out there you'd figure there'd be one about Internal Affairs, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

---

I'm not sure why WMD's apologizing here. I mean, Longbow on the home turf just by all appearances WILLINGLY turned their guns on a hero. I'd kinda like to find out what the hell is going on there, because if I don't then I'm going to find out ANYWAY, via a Longbow Chaser firing a missile swarm into the shower.

Huh. Is Livingston supposed to come free the second you step in the door? Since his clue is supposed to be him saying hello you might want to just put some Family around him and have him say something about how he's not surrounded, they're just all waiting together. For what? For SPINE IN THE FACE.

Huh. Okay, a bunch of crates of drugs, including one that looks like it was recently opened.

Why's that important?

I can't help but think of the cops who carried a little baggie of crack around with them so they could meet quota for possession arrests.

Interesting: Longbow had no trouble with the Family but the Arachnos patrols that spawned in later wiped them all out. Makes you wonder why Recluse needs villains. I do kind of wish you'd put Kobu a little closer to the back of the ship, though.

Oh. That's an odd little revelation. Well, a ship does go both ways. Stands to reason. I wonder why some random loose-cannon hero is more trustworthy than IA.

Then again this could all be an Arachnos plot to set Kobu up as a martyr. Infiltrate Longbow, start pushing, tip some idealistic naif off, watch the sparks fly.

---

...sure. Rescan the evidence. I can see this is going to go south.

Strangely enough it doesn't seem to, at least not obviously. Map's so very tiny though.

And the "defeat Knives" objective completes when Themis goes down, even though I'm still getting darted and shurikened by her lady friends.

I would actually rather this be on a very slightly larger map, but then again that would have the risk of putting a crate behind something earlier on and Themis would pop up in view of the player anyway.

---

Yeah, this is going to go over well. Even if I stop Livingston and save Kobu, Arachnos PR is gonna have a field day.

Well, the patrols and battles seem to think both of these guys did some coop-flying, so I just turn on my speed booster and find an out-of-the-way handle on the computer.

Huh. No clue from it? Obviously Kobu saw something that made him bolt.

Thanks for the warehouse base, by the way.

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Huh. That's weird. They're after his head? You'd think Kobu would have some usefulness as PR material, but he'd probably fight against that, too.

...um. I just realized something.

Kobu's a bane spider. Got a mace and everything.

Bane spiders are linked together via a giant groupmind web thingy.

A "freethinking" bane spider is up for more than reprimands, he's going to be hunted down and killed just on principle. They did it with Gally's boyfriend in that one Phipps arc/Gunnm tribute.

Maybe he should be a crab? Can you get crabs in this level range? ...yeah, you can. Just checked. Fits his personal mission more too, since the Banes are Recluse's guards and the Crabs are described as equivalent to SWAT units.

I need to wipe out the last of Livingston's Longbow before he counts as defeated. Doesn't seem right. And I took out the Arachnos who were talking about defeating Kobu, but that objective's still there.

Wonder if I missed something.

Ah, yep. Bodybag tucked behind a crate in what was otherwise a dead end. Never even got close enough to hear the glowie. WMD was about 10 feet away from it when she spawned in, and while that probably won't happen all the time, maybe she could say something about the body when she rejoins you?

Those frustrations aside, the custom Malta were pretty nice thematic redesigns with about 95% less frustration. No lingering gun turrets! No white-out explosions taking out the whole blue bar! Takes all the hair-ripping out of those times WMD decides to fly right into the middle of some of 'em to "get in position".

Which she did several times. Still.

---

Storyline - ****. About the only harf here is that Kobushi needs a different model if everything else said about him in the story is true. Maybe a Crab... heck, maybe a Mu Guardian, considering the Crabs are Mako's boys and Kobushi fights for honor.

Design - *****. This is comprised almost entirely of MAD PROPS for the custom Malta. Now if only you could cook up a version of WMD who doesn't aggro the next room as a natural consequence of her AI.

Gameplay - ***. A couple of backtracks over emptiness. The first one was your deliberate creation in the cargo ship, the second was a tiny oversight on my part in the final mission that still drained most of the little victory celebration I had going. (The first probably wouldn't have been as bad if I didn't worry about keeping Livingston with me. After about the third time he got lost pathing through cargo crates I just said screw it and went on ahead.)

Detail - ****. I probably wouldn't be so bothered about this if everything else didn't fit together as well as it did, but one of the pieces of evidence that WMD gives for Livingston's betrayal is a little friendly-fire incident during the first mission, and I never saw or heard anything about that.

Overall - ****. Little missing bits in the story and little frustrations in playing it out. Nothing a little more polish won't help.

Thanks for the review!

Huh. Is Livingston supposed to come free the second you step in the door?

He's an unguarded hostage so he's supposed to come free on approach. Unfortunately the system is considering "approach" to mean "the same map".

And the "defeat Knives" objective completes when Themis goes down, even though I'm still getting darted and shurikened by her lady friends.

If I set Themis to entire-encounter, or the mission to defeat-all, then you have to wait for the Caltrops to time out before the mission will complete. All 894,723,927 Caltrop patches.....

I would actually rather this be on a very slightly larger map, but then again that would have the risk of putting a crate behind something earlier on and Themis would pop up in view of the player anyway.

The next size up from "Tiny" resembles a shopping mall. And I had to settle for the cobweb-ridden Abandoned Warehouse set, too. I really didn't want to put what was almost a non-combat mission on a large map.

Thanks for the warehouse base, by the way.

h8 Arachnos base maps, won't use them.

Bane spiders are linked together via a giant groupmind web thingy.

A "freethinking" bane spider is up for more than reprimands, he's going to be hunted down and killed just on principle. They did it with Gally's boyfriend in that one Phipps arc/Gunnm tribute.

And there are now skeighty-billion player-character Bane Spiders running around with no group-mind baggage. As far as I'm concerned the devs have rendered "Bane of the Heart" Canon Discontinuity with the introduction of the VEATs.

Maybe he should be a crab? Can you get crabs in this level range? ...yeah, you can. Just checked. Fits his personal mission more too, since the Banes are Recluse's guards and the Crabs are described as equivalent to SWAT units.

Don't like the Crabs, and we see Bane Executioners in roles other than guarding Recluse all the time.

I need to wipe out the last of Livingston's Longbow before he counts as defeated. Doesn't seem right.

I thought I had set him to boss-only. I'll check it.

Those frustrations aside, the custom Malta were pretty nice thematic redesigns with about 95% less frustration.

They're the ones I designed for "Blowback", the "Enigma Silver" advanced R&D cell. I repurposed the mobs as the "Malta RDF" (Rapid Deployment Force) and will probably use them in place of Malta for all my arcs.

A couple of backtracks over emptiness. The first one was your deliberate creation in the cargo ship, the second was a tiny oversight on my part in the final mission that still drained most of the little victory celebration I had going.

I tried to spawn as much as I could for the second run-through on the cargo ship. I realized when I did it that some people weren't going to like it, but I wanted to try to make things more dynamic. Most of the feedback on Act II has been very positive.

Not much I can do about missing the glowie. It doesn't make sense to me that WMD would know about it...if she'd found Kobushi before getting caputred she'd have mediported him out already.

I probably wouldn't be so bothered about this if everything else didn't fit together as well as it did, but one of the pieces of evidence that WMD gives for Livingston's betrayal is a little friendly-fire incident during the first mission, and I never saw or heard anything about that.

If you look closely in Act I, the patroling Longbow are hostile to the static spawns and the battle spawns. I did not lampshade this on purpose. If you see it, it's explained in WMD's briefings. If not, you shouldn't be able to tell right there at the scene that any particular bullet-ridden Longbow body was the result of friendly fire. That's the kind of thing that would come out in ballistics reports.

But this is locked at 45-54, right? Do any Arachnos in that level range even USE guns anymore? I remember lots of mace beams and energy bursts... I guess maybe the crabs still have a normal gun in their spider backpacks?

Yep, they do.

Replying to Police Woman's recent review of the arc:

---

Thanks for the review. Apologies for the late reply.

A few notes:

I originally thought "him" was maybe Operative Kobushi, but later I figured out that it was meant to be me ("him" and "he" threw me as my character is female).

Using $himher will almost certainly fail, so I just assumed the Longbow didn't know exactly who was inbound.

I examined a couple of the glowy boxes, which were labeled as optional objectives. They don't seem to do much, but they have some text in the chat box about smashed drug ampules. Maybe they should additionally give a clue?

I didn't think it was necessary to give a Clue, since it would just reiterate what you'd already read. I assume that if the player is stopping to click on Clues he's not being shot at and will have a chance to read the results.

Though it does make me wonder, is drug enforcement actually within Longbow's jurisdiction? (I wouldn't think so, but they're something of Ms Liberty's private army, so probably could do anything she wants them to.)

Their putative mission is to fight Arachnos. That, to me, would include interfering in smuggling to and from the Rogue Islands, almost all of which either directly or indirectly supports Arachnos (it's either being done directly by or for them, or in majority of other cases, the smugglers are paying their fare to Recluse.)

I think I instantaneously got "An apology" clue upon entering the mission; I think this was meant to be awarded when I found Livingston, but maybe was immediately awarded because he was an ally who didn't have any guards.

The latter. He is set to spawn up front, and sometimes he'll spawn right near the door and sometimes further in. Nothing I can do about it really. He should give the Clue on approach but the system takes "approach" to mean "on the same map".

Defeating him also ends the mission, giving me the "Livingston's Story" clue, where he admits some (?) of his men are dirty, re-selling confiscated drugs and such. But he wants me to give him "a little more time" so he can do his own investigation. Yeah, right.

I find it interesting that no one has bought into Livingston's story at all (or at least hasn't said they did). Given WMD's previous appearance I'd expected at least some people would give Livingston the benefit of the doubt at this point. It would not be a stretch, given her prior portrayal, for WMD to do as Livingston says and just indict everyone involved with no regard for the facts. Of course, act III would quickly settle the matter so it's not a big deal.

I thought this was an ambush at first, but I think it just happened to spawn right on top of my head. Or maybe it was a boss AND an ambush or patrol; they had several lines of dialog.

It is a Boss and a Patrol, the latter present to throw off some dialog as a triggered Boss doesn't get any lines on appearance. There was a reason why I didn't use an Ambush here but I can't remember it now....

The PPD are actually Friendly spawns, not Allies...they only get involved if the Knives actually come within agro range.

My only objective is "Hack into the base's network", but this was actually something Dietrich asked me to do only if I couldn't find Livingston; this immediately gives away the fact that I'm not going to find Livingston here (unless he somehow gets triggered later)

After Acts II and III I figured a lot of people would be expecting a triggered surprise.

Is there really a "process" for turning into a Longbow Ballista? I've never heard of such a thing, I thought they were just supers of various sorts that volunteered to join.

Longbow uses a variety of processes to create its Officers, Wardens and the Ballistae. Longbow Warden #7, which is basically a baby Ballista, is described in its /info as being created using technology gained from the Rikti and other energy-using adversaries. I could have sworn "Kings of the Sky" explicitly stated Ballista-1 was a prototype but no matter.... The idea of Longbow manufacturing supers should be upsetting to a lot of people in the canon, but it's not too surprising that isn't covered anywhere.

Dietrich says she gets orders "from the Joint Chiefs", but I don't think this is strictly correct - to my knowledge, Longbow is an organized militia, and not a branch of the US military at all.

Longbow gets training and supplies from NATO (it's in the background page), so I'd expect the US military has some influence over them. Even if it's just "bring him in or the deal's off and you lose our support".

Mission entry popup: "So are two rogue cops" - is this meant to be Kobushi and Livingston? Neither one are, strictly speaking, cops.

Matter of perspective. Longbow to me is more a SWAT team on steroids than a real army and Arachnos Operatives fulfill a variety of roles in the canon, some of which are more or less law enforcement.

Objectives: "Defeat Operative Kobushi" is among my objectives, but based on the background story so far, I'm not terribly clear on why this is necessary.

If Kobushi hadn't already been shivved you'd have had to fight him...it should have been clear from his first two appearances that he wasn't particularly interested in anything you had to say. Kobushi is not a hero. He's not a particularly nice guy. He made it all the way to Executioner rank in the Bane Spiders; you don't do that unless you've gotten your hands dirty. He's just got a very different idea of what "survival of the fittest" means than Recluse and the rest of Arachnos.

The mission is full of "Malta RDF", who seem to be custom characters representing advanced Malta mecha and upgraded sappers (!). They seem to be ALL custom characters; consider mixing in some standard Malta minions to make them feel a little more authentically Malta?

There are TacOps and Gunslingers in the Malta RDF. The entire point of the faction was to provide alternatives to some of the more annoying Malta units. The Neutralizer units are a lateral revision to the Sappers. They deal more damage and they have a Siphon Power debuff, but their big END drain is on a much longer recharge. (They also might have gone to 0 XP in today's patch...I'll have to look into that.)

I also ran into "Omega 12 4-9-0", a Malta boss; I think his name is ever so slightly wrong for a named Malta. Normally they are named something like "<Random Word> <Random Color> #-#-#".

There are plenty of exceptions: Ocelot Male Alpha, Kitty Kat Bravo, others. I had envisioned the existence of Omega cells numbered 1 through 17, each one immediately subordinate to a Director (Omega 17 not having much to do these days, of course....)

On the other hand, mission 2 required some backtracking that didn't seem strictly necessary for the story

It was necessary mechanically. I needed Kobushi to be on the Rogue faction so he'd be hostile to any surviving Longbow spawns. That meant putting him in the Front zone and the triggered Arachnos patrols in the Middle and Back zones so they (hopefully) won't meet him and cause another "friendly fire" incident. I really wish we had more robust faction controls but I don't see that happening any time soon.

Most people haven't objected to the backtracking. A lot have found the fight back out to the front of the ship better than the fight in.

It's a good story overall, though, and my gripes weren't all that substantial. I gave this story arc 5 stars.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. I think this is my best one to date with "Two Households Alike" a close second.

Tangler posted a review to his thread. Replying to a few points:

They are supposed to be available as of the most recent patch. I hadn't actually looked so maybe the patch notes were wrong....

Since there's slim hopes of the filter issues ever being fixed at this point I went in and tried to get this arc running again. This was complicated by the fact that the arc wasn't actually throwing an error in the editor, it just refused to start.

I finally determined that the only hitch appeared to be the name "Captain A. V. Livingston" in act II. I changed it to "Captain Livingston" and now the arc appears to be running again, though I didn't have time to do a full play-through.

It just boggles the mind that we had to put up with this.