[An Overly Long Post Talking About Lore, Canon, and Headcanon (TM)]

To further it, I'm working on an AE arc where the players can get to infiltrate one of his fortresses and bust his evil plan. Unlikely that Shade himself would be present in the base, though, he'd rather leave it to one of his top generals.

[An Overly Long Post Talking About Lore, Canon, and Headcanon (TM)]

22 minutes ago, McSpazz said:

Great question! You can TOTALLY do this, but there are a few considerations you need to move forward.

1. Why might someone not have heard about your character's organization? This one is very important because, at the very least to start, nobody is going to know about your organization unless you tell them OOC that it does. One thing you mentioned is that you are matched on resources which is a great starting point since that is far easier to work with than infamy. If you establish a reason why your character has flown under the radar, it would go a long way to both not step on any toes of the established canon as well as not demand others react to your character as if they were on par with Lord Recluse.
2. Figure out not just what your character's goals are but also determine what kind of timeline their operational history is. Just as an example, perhaps up until recently you were outsourcing your minions or keeping the employ of your minions secret so that they couldn't be linked back to you. This kind of ties into #1, but this is more so "why are they revealing themselves NOW?"
3. Going forward, your biggest concern is going to be restraining your character from utilizing all of the resources at their disposal to fix every problem. Having a small army at your disposal can be just as effective as your individual character being extremely powerful. Determine what your character's limitations are as well as their organization. Figuring out what they can and can't accomplish at a moment's notice ahead of time can help avoid situations where you're forced to come up with something at the spur of the moment.

 

Hope that helps!

1. Here I can say that Axel Shade, the villain in question, has indeed been laying low because he considers wanton terrorism practiced by so many other villains to be a waste of resources unless it can serve a higher goal. He's just building up forces for his grand plan.
2. Sure, he could have been outsourcing some of his technology to factions like Nemesis or the Council, but again, he doesn't really think wreaking havoc in the city is worth it yet.
3.  I went for Breakout as that character's tutorial, so I can handwave it as him having lost access to much of his organization after he was busted and put in the Zig.

[An Overly Long Post Talking About Lore, Canon, and Headcanon (TM)]

This was an interesting read. With all of it in consideration, I have a question to ask.

I have a redside toon who would normally be the leader of a large organized evil organization comparable to Arachnos or the Council in terms of resources. Minions and other relevant assets would be confined to AE material for obvious reasons, but what I want to know is how to roleplay such an "evil overlord" character without violating points 5 (respect to canon material) and 9 (respect to others' headcanons) too hard?

[Base Request Items]

I'd be up for more 5th Column/Council content: wall pieces, banners, maybe even the Giant Mech Man.

And while we're at it, just faction-specific banners in general. And maybe even faction-specific base room styles.

[Airship Construction Advice]

That's a very sweet ship right here.

[Airship Construction Advice]

Aye.

Actually, the method does work, even on Arachnos balcony pieces... just not in the direction I want them to. And I think I now know why: the editor cares about their lower halves more than the upper ones. And come to think of it, I could actually work with that, I just need to change my approach a bit: make the hull out of the walkable surfaces instead of the undersides.

 

Thanks for helping me, even if indirectly!

[Airship Construction Advice]

Thanks for the advice! Gonna try it the next time I'm in my base.

EDIT: I tried doing that, but the items keep anchoring themselves to the decoy room, meaning all my work gets undone when I delete it.

[Poll: Base Editor Changes We'd Like to See]

One thing I'd appreciate above all else is increasing the tolerance for building outside the base boundaries. As it stands, it's pretty annoyingly hard to build a spaceship when outer hull pieces refuse to align the way I want them to, not to mention it's nigh-impossible to place anything even remotely resembling wings.

[Least favourite map?]

I'm surprised nobody has yet brought up that one room with several layers of water pools from the Fifth Column/Council set. I found it confusing to navigate due to the lighting making it harder to find the stairs leading either up or down, plus it's horrible for glowie hunting.

 

As for entire maps, I don't really like how the Arachnos bases are laid out. I don't even mind the aesthetics or the reactor room, but the fact that it's all just cramped hallways, with proper rooms only appearing as dead ends and containing nonsensical ledges with no stairs or ramps leading up to them.

[What additions to the AE would we like to see? (Within reason!)]

Yeah, that's what I meant. Making modular maps using the library of preset rooms would be enough for me to be happy.

[What additions to the AE would we like to see? (Within reason!)]

On 7/6/2023 at 5:53 AM, UltraAlt said:

Being able to place AVs and collectables.

Even front, middle, or rear don't really allow much control over placing these.

Reason? being able to place them can increase the enjoyability of AE missions.

This, so much this. It annoys me to no end how the spawn positions of everything are randomized. Case on point: I wanted to add some fighters to the Longbow Sea Base map as set dressing, so I set their spawn area to front... but then instead of appearing in the airstrip area as I expected, they started to pop up literally all over the base, including inside the command bunker. Another time, I wanted to place an interactable computer in a certain room in a Fifth Column base, and were quite displeased that I had to look for it in several different places between test runs. Because of that and many other things, I second the wish for more control over spawn locations for NPCs and objects.

 

One other thing I'd personally appreciate is letting the players build their own mission maps. Not asking for anything to the extent of SG base building, but seeing as most instanced maps really are a mish-mash of preset rooms and hallways from a list, I believe allowing the players to take advantage of that would greatly increase mission variety. Even better if we could combine multiple different tilesets per map.

[Where do I start?]

On 7/15/2023 at 2:37 AM, Hyperstrike said:

AE was removed from Atlas Park as it was making it WAY too convenient to never leave the zone.

Places that have an AE:

https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Architect_Entertainment_Buildings#Architect_Entertainment_Station

This list isn't complete and has been altered.
 

AE was removed from Atlas Park.
It's location made it too easy to never leave AP and explore the rest of the game.

Studio 54 and Pocket D both have AE kiosks.

Also, in the upcoming patches, the RWZ location is either changing or going away due to expansion of the Vanguard Base

The AE building in Mercy was likewise removed, presumably for the same reason. Except instead of a different utility building, it was replaced with a smoldering ruin still guarded by Arachnos security drones.

[Attack on Stahlheim]

On 7/15/2023 at 4:56 AM, cranebump said:

I would build up to entering the sub base by using other maps in preceding mishes. Since your organization is unique, and new, I’d probably do something like this:

 

Mish 1: Discovery. the contact sends you to check out suspicious activity, thinking it’s X, but it’s really Stahlheim (Steelhelm?). 
I’d have your new bad guys found working with another group. Maybe doing a tech deal, or possibly raiding a labto steal some key piece of tech.

M2: Investigation. Of course, we know nothing about these guys, so time to see who they are, and what they’re up to (and, like, why are they working with the 5th Column? [just spitballing]). Here, we have our first “oh, sh*t” moment (they’ve improved the Council Bots!).

Here, you might’ve tracking the fleeing from M 1 perps to a warehouse. Mission orders reveal their scheme, or a part of it.

 

M3: Investigation 2: find out how to stop the “oh sh*t” thing. Let’s say we find location of one of their cells. We use this suss out their comms\data hubs. We know we need to hit the lab where they’re building prototype. But where is it? Previous clues reveal they’re in (choose appropriate map). The location data is found here, either on a system, or one someone’s person.

 

M4: Hit the hub. Get the key card. Triangulate secret base location. Probably take out minor boss. Probably a lab map, buy maybe it’s an office? One they purchased legally, using a beard organization. Our second “oh, sh*t” moment. Like they’ve already finished the prototype and are attacking Longbow! (Or whatever).

 

M5: big boss finale. Plus destroy their prototypes and research. Use your chosen big robot map here. 
 

If it were me, I’d probably go with “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and have the hero working with bad guys who’ve had key pieces of tech stolen. Then the hero is also worrying about a possible betrayal by their “Allies.”

 

Thing is, using front companies and providing support to other factions don't really belong to Stahlheim's usual modus operandi. They're not above doing either of that when necessary, though.

 

That said, I do love the idea. Makes for a good way to introduce a new force to the canon setting.

[Homecoming Screenshots Thread]

Axel Shade, my villain-side main, doing his best "glorious leader" impression.

 

As soon as I saw this balcony in the first Bane Spider Ruben mission, I knew I couldn't resist the urge to take a shot like this.

[Attack on Stahlheim]

So! I decided to give the Mission Architect a try and make an arc. Nothing very sophisticated, just infiltrating a very large base belonging to the Stahlheim Empire - a technology-oriented dictatorship bent on world domination who serve as one of my personal lore's main antagonistic factions - and shutting down the superweapon project that's being developed there.

 

At present, I have more or less decided on the first part, using the Longbow island base map. And I know I want to use the Council giant robot hangar for the finale. But I've got a bit of a writer's block in regards to the rest of the arc.

 

Hence, I am asking you for advice:

1. What sorts of locations should I include in an underground facility, and what maps should they be represented with?
2. How could I make the intro mission more unique than just "go inside and kill the boss"? The idea here is that the boss would drop a keycard giving the player access to deeper parts of the base.

[Revive Galaxy City]

Personally, I'd be a for opening the ruined Galaxy City up as a high-level hazard zone. The map's already there, or at least part of it is, as seen in the final missions of Twinshot's and Dr. Graves' respective second arcs. All it'd take is add something going on, likely involving a large-scale battle against the Shivans not unlike what we got in the RWZ... and maybe some Incarnate arc, but I can't say much on that topic.

[Where do I start?]

Just look out for an AE building, enter it, take the elevator in the foyer and click on one of the terminals in the main room. There you'll see a menu which lets you either browse arcs or create your own.

[Architect Entertainment - Content Ideas]

I don't really have any ideas that weren't brought up here before, but I'm gonna list my top five wishes anyway.

1. An option to create custom maps. I don't necessarily mean anything to the extent of SG base building, I'd be entirely content with a selection of premade rooms and corridors to fit together.
2. More control over placement of details like bosses, destructible objects or even Giant Monsters.
3. More power sets to choose from for custom enemies, hopefully including pool powers or just an optional tertiary powerset.
4. The ability to customize enemies' power effects in the same way as for player characters.
5. More clothing options for custom NPCs, especially from enemy-exclusive costumes.

[Homecoming Screenshots Thread]

Up next, a couple postcard-ish views from Mercy Island.

[Airship Construction Advice]

True that... For the two frontal prongs, I have been trying to make do with Arachnos balconies, where their undersides would stick outside, but any attempt to get them in the right position was met with an error. It was supposed to look kinda like the hull of a seafaring aircraft carrier.

 

For the rest, I would probably add Arachnos pipes and walkways to the mix.

[Airship Construction Advice]

Indeed I am. The idea was to cover up the base rooms so that there's an actual exterior instead of having constant see-through interiors.

Sorry for not being online in the game at the moment, but it's pretty late for me.

[Airship Construction Advice]

Everlasting. Forgot to mention that in the opening post.

So yeah, I know building outside the base borders is difficult, but I think I've seen some people pull that off fairly successfully.

[Airship Construction Advice]

Hello, this is probably my first serious post here.

I am trying to build myself an airship as my supergroup base, inspired primarily by the SDF-1 Macross and its derivatives. Problem is, I just can't seem to build any outer plating without the editor returning an error. Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

For those curious, the base's passcode is ARMAGEDDON-29292.

[Homecoming Screenshots Thread]

Local demoness admiring the view of Perez Park while posing as a gargoyle.