Darmian

Fair enough.

Which we DO appreciate! Especially as there is a Praetorian themed CC due later in the year that until now actual Praetorians could not have attended!

I'm going through contacts then, alphabetically, and seeing what's missing, and frankly what's incongruous. Like, why the hell is there a Longbow Officer as a contact halfway through the Arachnos contact list?

Apologies if I'm simplifying it a bit, but it's easier this way than trying to type it all!

I get you, but the whole thematic point of it is to extract the soul of something dead, not kill a redlining minion with it. I'd prefer a version that let's you use it on ANY dead thing that isn't a fellow player, like a dead enemy!

My experiment with the lawyers that you met was slightly different than yours, in that I wanted the player to experience things getting out of hand as innocents got caught in crossfire.

I've replied as well, @DougGravesin your other thread.

Having them all with the same name is fine. The large name you give them in their bio screen, for example POLICEMAN ALPHA, just set that once and don't worry about it. Go to the bottom of the screen and click on the save path, then when you see where POLICEMAN ALPHA is written, for the next one you change that to POLICEMAN ALPHA2. Now you have two variants of POLICEMAN ALPHA. The player sees two different minions with the same name, the internal game engine sees them as separate entities.

If you don't have them as an actual mission objective though they may not follow you even if you chose that option. AE can be peculiar that way. Just a heads up. And even if they do once, there's a good chance they might not on a second or third test.

Now, civilians...oy. Well, similar to the above except, as I mentioned elsewhere, you assign them powers but give them nothing in those powers. You'll have to experiment yourself on whether you want these as friendlies/rogues/enemies. Even if Rogues or enemies they won't be able to harm you, however an Ally set to aggressive WILL attack them if they are Rogue/Enemies. You can't make one of the Loyalists a boss, but you can import all of them to a custom group with a boss you've made for them. So create a boss for your Loyalists (or whatever name you want) as above. Then click on ""My Enemy Groups" in the tabs of the AE creator screen. Scroll down to the one you want, like so: Hit edit. and you get to this screen: Make sure "Standard" is checked and sideways click until you get to "Loyalists". Then selecting one (not the random!) lets you add them to your new custom group. Then using either "Save" or "Save as..." ringed in red above, save the group. All done.

Making a custom enemy group is simply making a custom group. You simply assign them as enemies in the mission. 1. Create a minion, pick out their basic powers you want, design their look and when you get to their "bio page" Name them, using the section I've marked "New enemy Group Name" and name the group you want them attached to, making sure that the option on the right is set to "New", this will store the minion as a member of your newly named group. 2. Create a lieutenant. Follow the same path as before, except this time instead of filling in the name in the "Enemy Group" section simply scroll through the list on the right until you find the named group you previously created with the first minion. Then save your lieutenant under that. 3. Create a boss. Follow the same path again as for number 2, and then the same for 4 and 5. 4. Create an EB. 5. Create an AV. Check Charlie's instructions for having multiple minions with tweaks to their looks/powers but the same name. It's all in how you use the save path for that.

What are you defining as midsize for a City Map? Personally I'd look at Unique Maps/City Map 01 or City Map 03, for decent sized. (One appears to be Kings Row and the latter looks like part of Steel Canyon*) Now, spawn points on outdoor maps are a PITA. But you'll see that as you test. As for Police? Well, you can rename/recolor the Rogue Isles RIP into a custom group for yourself if needed, or, what many of us do, build your own. It's just a matter of variety with minions/Lts/bosses etc. Re-read Charlie's comments on the save path if you want different ones with the same names rather than a mass of cloned cops. If you set up police as allies then they appear singly, and you have to set them to Follow, and you need to decide are they Aggressive/Defensive/Pacifist etc. Civilian mobs aren't a thing. Oh dear god I wish they were. There being no civilian mobs is why you ran into a weird bunch of lawyers in one of mine. Had to make them, and custom set them to have no powers (choose a power set - you can't not - but no powers in that set.) * City Map 02 is a long narrow strip that people seem to like for farms but is IMO mostly useless for an SFMA arc.

Writing an AE for the first time is testing testing testing. And still getting it wrong, I know I did! Charlie's guide is a great outline starter, some lovely ideas in there. I don't agree with all of them but they're a solid jumping off point. Some curiosities. You can set a battle to have only one side, which is handy for spawning an enemy that won't wander around like a patrol, and doesn't need to have a boss.

Hi @DougGraves. As far as I can see Flower Knight is not in the AE. I then had a go at making a version, but some of her look seems custom built to her. Her face isn't in the list. The design on the back of her robe isn't available and her bracers are not either of the two currently in the selection. I did hash up an approximate, and I've attached it here if you want a look or want to tinker with it yourself.Flower Knight.critter That file just needs to be copied into your critters folder in Architect where you have Homecoming/COH installed. You can easily check by looking at the save path for a custom critter then dropping it in there.

Are we including contacts that are missing too? Or even contacts and or/named characters that should be either elsewhere in the lists or for example only appear as a contact but should also appear as a boss/person? (I can't find my earlier notes to myself on stuff so started going through the lists from the beginning! Starting with contacts and seeing who is missing from those.)

OH THE HUGE MANATEE! Ahem.

@DougGraves, @Ankylosaur is prolific, puts the rest of us to shame! So do dig in to his stuff and enjoy! I particularly enjoyed Robolution, an AE that deserves more love! Check his sig for the arc numbers.

Absolutely agree. Sometimes there's a range within an arc though, simply because there are gaps in the things available to us as AE writers. Sometimes you can hand wave it away, sometimes it jars. We all do our best. As an example, in the very first mission of Dark Deeds in Galaxy City: Part One I use 1960s era Arachnos troops, for narrative reasons, but they only exist in a narrow level band, so that first mission has a lower level cap than the following four. Hopefully a story is strong enough to hold it together!

As someone who mains Gold a lot, sure, a refugee status would be interesting and cool to see. However, as is there's an existing thread dangling that is never resolved, and at the least could give something akin to tip missions/radio missions. You cross the Rift, whether to Red or Blue, and you get the speech about attaining power or showing Primal that not all Golds are bastiches...and that's it. A speech. There's nothing after that even follows this up, no integration throughline at all. Ok, the Rogue Isles slyly fakes a history for you and sticks you on the Destined Ones list, but there's a missed opportunity there. And when I mentioned this elsewhere people talk of the "Praetoria-lag" the playerbase was getting. I've searched and can't find the players doing it. There's plenty of talk from the OG devs saying the players are sick of it though, just damn all from actual players. So, rant over. I like this idea above. I'd also like follow through for the Rift Speech.* *Mind you, I'd also like more pre War arcs added because Praetoria is just cool.

While still voting yes, I agree entirely with this statement. However, I also entirely disagree with this part:

Everything is political. Not all political action has a downside. This one does not either. I'm voting yes, with the giant caveat that there are more immediate things to fix/update with COX than this.

Having Ninjas that looked like the Praetorian Syndicate would be cool. Sure, we could go for Tsoo, but that's not far off the original really.

Maybe, but as a Gold Standard it should at least be aimed at.

Always with us. RIP.

I was playing a bit with the escort mechanics, and Martins leads you to a vacant spot, and then is confused why there's nothing there because he has a map that has that spot marked.