Darmian

Right. Scratching my head here. Go talk to Apex about starting his TF, and he says this: "Good to see you're here with a team, Character. My name is Apex, I'm in charge of Vanguard's operations against Praetoria. As you may or may not know, we've got ourselves into another invasion. Looks like people just love to attack Primal Earth, huh? First it was Rikti, now it's Praetoria. Their first attack was on Terra Volta, and it was bad, Character. Everyone from the Freedom Phalanx was there, fighting tooth and nail against the Praetorian. But, for some reason, everyone but Statesman had all of their abilities drained to the point of being useless. Eventually, Statesman was forced to retreat, and the Praetorians shut down Terra Volta for some time. That's the odd thing, though. They could've blown it up, but they just chose to shut it down for a time... which means that whatever they wanted to do, they did in that time. This is where you and your team come in, Character." Okaaaay. So WHEN did the Praetorians attack Terra Volta if Statesman was still alive? Does "Who Will Die?" happen parallel to the start of the War? Is the attack on Terra Volta mentioned anywhere else at all?

Trouble with that is you might get four Manticores (not that you can make him, headpiece is unique). I tried something similar with a home built supers team, and got 3 of one guy and one girl, rather than one of each.

No, they can't just push a button and turn an AE into a "real" arc...or can they? It's still just doors! You write an AE, get an external door assigned rather than the green code beam, which is just a door, and bingo! (Yes, I'm simplifying but even so.)

If your gang does decide to run a team in Praetoria do NOT get XP enhancers/buffs, you'll outlevel the contacts too fast and miss half of all the cool stuff.

Well, it depends what you want! 5 missions per arc/slot is the max, but you can go for a Part One, Part Two and so on (I did this) that either just continues the story or works like a contact telling you to come back when you're the next viable level for their missions.

@Take Oneexperimented with the Synapse TF witih "Clockwork Rising", to see if a lot of the extraneous malarkey could be cut from it.

Happy trails!

I'm not part of this group, but perhaps sticking a query in to them might help 🙂 Yes, plenty will have done what you're doing, but these peeps were doing it old school!

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.