CraterLabs

In one of my supergroups where we're basically attending a school for powered students, the general opinion of the student body so far is that it's weird ChatGPT is getting so much press when someone like Citadel is *right there*, and probably better able to write stuff like this. The robotic student in particular thinks the technology is interesting but, as yet, inferior.

Thanks! I might go in for another pass to see if I can tighten some things based on your suggestions. In particular

I'm a huge fan of the Wizard of Oz books, so I'll be sure to check this one out. 🙂

It is, in fact, a typical story arc! In fact, I'd say that it's dependent on both the current state of game canon, and potentially lets you shake up the status quo of the game world in some not-insignificant ways, depending on how well you do! I wanted this story to have a big impact (even if all AE stories are non-canon.) The "trial" is mostly in reference to the fact that there's a superhero being sued by Josiah Verandi's lawyer and the fact that the story involves investigating the circumstances surrounding that trial, and all the directions it goes in. Don't worry, I've not somehow created a new Cavern Of Transcendence Trial or Sewer Trial or anything like that. Be ready for anything, though!

LIVE in ARCHITECT ENTERTAINMENT, we bring you the latest chapter in The War On Drugs in an adventure that we just had to call: Trial By Frost! Arc ID: 55099 A hero is going on trial for assaulting known Family thug, Josiah Verandi! The hero claims she could tell that Josiah was about to go into a superadine-fueled RAGE and he needed to be hit hard, but his evil lawyer, CATHERINE MAUSER, ESQUIRE, says that this is a ridiculous claim! Help a beloved Galaxy City contact investigate this claim in a story that will go far beyond the court room and into the very heart of the war on drugs! Play through this EPIC HOLOGRAPHIC GAME using Architect Entertainment's BLAST PROCESSING HOLOGRAM TECHNOLOGY in a story that dares to make you face: 4 Insidious Levels of Drug-Busting Mayhem! MOOKS! Celebrated and reimagined, bash your way through classic Mooks straight from Port Oakes, and then clobber newer, sleeker, level-agnostic Mooks who've really put their illicit boxing match fixing habit and Bloody Vicious' insistence on swordplay to good use! Misplaced Destroyer supervillain T-Wrecks, his best bud Tex Wrecks, and their squad The Wrecking Crew! A suspicious candy business OPERATED BY MOOKS!! More collectables than you can shake a stick at, providing you can't shake a stick at more than eleven things! Locate all of the "candy additives" that keep the superadine operation flowing! An incredible power-up that BOOSTS YOU A MINIMUM OF FORTY LEVELS TO HELP YOU FIGHT CRIME! You're NOT DOING DRUGS TO GET THIS POWER! You're *NOT*! The strange cadre of villains known as The Nine Clives! Is it true that there are exactly nine of them? Do they always dress like cats, or just when they're on the job?! A mysterious, and EVIL, lawyer! She's a colleague of Chris Jenkins, so you KNOW she's bad! Wouldn't it be a CRAZY TWIST if she was ACTUALLY A HERO and the hero you were trying to EXONERATE was GUILTY?! *WOW* that'd be crazy! Not this time, though! She's EVIL!!! One off the game's least utilized endgame villain groups STRIKING FROM THE SHADOWS! A truly surprising amount of MOOKS!!! The boost we mentioned five bullet points ago is really more like when you destroy lab equipment in lab maps and get a powerup from that! Seriously, you don't do drugs! Drugs are bad! Don't do them! The Family getting a potential shake-up courtesy of The Verandis! Who are better known as the group who leads THE MOOKS!!!!! Evidence of Collusion! Evidence of Conspiracy! Evidence of... Candy? Valentino Candy Company Mascot, Valentino the Red Cap! VALENTINO THE RED CAP HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE STORY DUE TO CREATIVE DIFFERENCES WITH THE REST OF THE CAST AND HIS PENCHANT FOR SHOOTING US WITH ARROWS WHEN WE AREN'T LOOKING ...and special guest, beloved Galaxy City G.I.F.T. contact Prince Kiros Nandelu, rescued from the rubble and eager to get to the bottom of this mystery! WOW, it sounds like the War On Drugs is gonna be EPIC! Think you have what it takes to smash your way through All Four Levels, all the Crazy Enemies, and the Insane Plot Twists that go ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP... of the HIGHEST TOWER IN PARAGON CITY?! Only one way to find out!! TRIAL BY FROST! Now playing at ALL Architect Entertainment venues!

I'd like there to be multiple ways to end a mission. And the Water Blast power set.

I was a little surprised to see the event was wrapped up today (my fault for not checking the release notes regularly, really), and I was wondering about how those things get scheduled, and if it might be viable to start it a couple days later so that it could last a few more days into the new year. I don't know if it's more of a technical "events have to end on certain days of the week, and going an entire extra week would be too long" kind of thing (which is fair), or if it was just a day that was picked to wrap it up (which, again, fair), so I thought I'd check on it.

Okay, I love the new Elite Bosses and the badges they drop. I do, however, have a teeny thing I feel weird about: One of my favorite things around Halloween was hunting Unseelie fey for the Ghost Touched badge. They were basically the rarest Halloween monsters (I think they only ever naturally spawned around Jack In Irons which was a really nice nod to the folklore surrounding him, but that's another topic.) Having the new Unseelie Elite Boss showing up from regular Trick Or Treat doors is a nice way to showcase them, but I wound up accidentally earning the Ghoust Touched badge for defeating 20 Unseelie for fighting them. On the one hand, I think they should totally count toward that badge (why wouldn't they?). On the other hand, I feel like it's a little weird that this super rare enemy spawn is now easier to find as an Elite Boss through trick or treating than it is to find the regular minion versions of them. It's making the Vorthos and Melvin sides of my brain argue with each other and I'm not sure how to reconcile them.

I've got a comfortable "solo play" build for my Super Reflexes/Street Justice tanker, but I've been looking into getting a secondary build that's better for teams and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on what make good sets for that combination. Potentially complicating matters is the fact that the character heavily dips into the Fighting and Teleportation sets as well, and as much as I love Cross Punch and Combat Teleport I may need to start killing some darlings.

Took me a second read to grok the distinction between the baseline set bonuses and the proc itself. I'm new to proc management as an active endeavor, is it fair to assume that proc'll just trigger naturally often enough to get those three stacks? (I figure twenty second duration happening six times a minute works out to that, though I've got a knack for shooting myself in the foot with that kind of assumption)

That's pretty handy! So you recommend getting SL to about the low 40s, more common energy types to low thirties, and toxic and psionic bring up the rear (or at least that's how you play it whether or not it's a recommendation). When you say hitting the cap, I thought the cap was closer to 90% for Tankers. Or do you mean a different cap?

With the understanding that a higher damage resistance is better than a lower one, once a SR build gets its defense more or less handled what should the targets be for Resistance? I'm new to using Mids, and trying to navigate the enhancement bonus options and some very rudimentary Googling is not producing many discussions on general Tanker resistance values. Also, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 5 being "You don't *need* it but it makes things a lot easier" and 10 being "Don't leave home without it. If you've been Tanking without it in SR so far you're doing it wrong and got lucky. You fool. You foolish, foolish fool", how essential would you say Tough is for the whole SR Tanking game?

While I think the primary purpose of a Dominator is the crowd control and debuffing, I keep feeling like if I just changed my builds enough I might have something approaching a kind of status-effect reliant scrapper or maybe a weak brute. Trying to play to that strength tends to lead to a very dead Dominator... but not always, and the successes are just common enough to make me think a close-quarters variant of what I typically do has some merit. Having said that, I'm bad at regular builds and slot optimization in general, so this kind of theoretical construction feels like it's probably beyond me. Think it's doable?

I know in my head it's not most efficient way to do it, I tend to prefer KB to KD. Maybe I can benefit from that ranged defense if I pick up something along these lines.

I can't do that just now, though I might be able to download Mids later tonight and try to get an export then. I've never quite gotten Mids to "click" for me. Whenever I try it, it just looks like I'm manipulating enhancements and things like I'd do in the game, even though I know a lot of people swear by it as a planning tool. I don't have any particular goals in mind at the moment beyond "keeping up." Ideally the character can lock down, or at least slow down, enemy groups while closing in to focus on individual targets with melee capabilities and more specific crowd control options, letting the Singularity handle stragglers. Has a kind of "rough and tumble" feel to the combat progression. That's fine and fun while soloing, though when teaming with fully slotted incarnate friends it feels a little bit like "Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit" if you're familiar with that, with most groups wiped out before any locking down is even called for. So ideally, I'd be trying to build more of a focus for fighting the larger individual threats. -EDIT- Mids downloaded, and I've added an export to the top post! Technically the export is incorrect in that 1) it automatically assumes level 50 or highest level possible for all enhancements, and that's not the case for me yet since I was holding off on doing too many upgrades until after I had a more concrete game plan (and didn't see until too late that this was an option that could be changed in the menus), and 2) I don't have an Interrupt Time enhancement in Rest, I have a Recharge Reduction enhancement in Rest, since it was placed before the changes to Rest happened.

I just hit level 50 after over a year of taking my sweet time checking out as many story arcs as I could. and mostly not giving too much of a care to my build, but now that I'm 50 and having some friends inquiring about me tagging along on task forces I was wondering what I should do to start polishing the build up when I decide to take my first real respec. There's a lot of places where I've already got plans to completely throw out what's happening now (Pulverizing Fisticuffs feels like it should be swapped out of Mind Probe for something else entirely, for instance, and I'm considering just dropping Telekinetic Thrust since I barely use it outside of Ouroboros), but I'll also say that I've had a pretty comfortable ride getting up to 50 with things more or less as they are. Having said that, build optimization is something I've never been able to wrap my head around, and while I'm cozy here at my post-50/pre-incarnate set up, it's probably time to do more. Here's what I'm using at the moment, unfilled slots and all: EDIT: Here's the export from Mids! This Villain build was built using Mids Reborn 3.0.5.6 https://github.com/Reborn-Team/MidsReborn Click this DataLink to open the build! Astra Dynamic 1: Level 50 Mutation Dominator Primary Power Set: Gravity Control Secondary Power Set: Psionic Assault Power Pool: Teleportation Ancillary Pool: Primal Forces Mastery Villain Profile: Level 1: Crush (A) Damage Increase (3) Accuracy (3) Recharge Reduction (5) Immobilisation Duration IO (9) Endurance Reduction Level 1: Psionic Dart (A) Entropic Chaos - Accuracy/Damage (5) Entropic Chaos - Chance of Heal Self (7) Entropic Chaos - Damage/Recharge (7) Entropic Chaos - Damage/Endurance (9) Entropic Chaos - Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 2: Lift (A) Damage Increase IO (11) Accuracy (11) Recharge Reduction (13) Knockback Distance (17) Empty Level 4: Gravity Distortion (A) Damage Increase IO (13) Accuracy IO (15) Recharge Reduction (15) Slow IO (17) Range Level 6: Propel (A) Force Feedback - Damage/Knockback (19) Force Feedback - Accuracy/Knockback (19) Force Feedback - Recharge/Knockback (21) Force Feedback - Recharge/Endurance (21) Force Feedback - Damage/Endurance/Knockback (23) Force Feedback - Chance for +Recharge Level 8: Teleport (A) Time & Space Manipulation - Endurance (23) Time & Space Manipulation - Range (25) Time & Space Manipulation - +Stealth Level 10: Mind Probe (A) Pulverizing Fisticuffs - Accuracy/Damage (25) Pulverizing Fisticuffs - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (27) Pulverizing Fisticuffs - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 12: Mental Blast (A) Decimation - Damage/Endurance (27) Decimation - Accuracy/Damage (29) Decimation - Chance of Build Up (29) Decimation - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (31) Empty Level 14: Crushing Field (A) Damage Increase (31) Ascendency of the Dominator - Accuracy/Control Duration (31) Ascendency of the Dominator - Accuracy/Control Duration/Endurance/Recharge (33) Ascendency of the Dominator - Accuracy/Control Duration/Endurance (33) Ascendency of the Dominator - Control Duration/Recharge (33) Empty Level 16: Dimension Shift (A) Immobilisation Duration IO (34) Endurance Reduction (34) Immobilisation Duration (34) Empty Level 18: Gravity Distortion Field (A) Hold Duration IO (36) Essence of Curare - Accuracy/Hold (36) Essence of Curare - Accuracy/Recharge (36) Essence of Curare - Accuracy/Hold/Recharge (37) Empty Level 20: Telekinetic Thrust (A) Damage Increase Level 22: Drain Psyche (A) Touch of the Nictus - Healing/Absorb (37) Touch of the Nictus - Healing/Absorb/Recharge (37) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Healing/Absorb (39) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Endurance/Healing/Absorb (39) Touch of the Nictus - Accuracy/Endurance/Recharge (39) Touch of the Nictus - Chance for Negative Energy Damage Level 24: Psychic Scream (A) Damage Increase IO Level 26: Wormhole (A) Disorient Duration (40) Accuracy (40) Range (40) Empty Level 28: Teleport Target (A) Interrupt Reduction Level 30: Fold Space (A) Empty Level 32: Singularity (A) Damage Increase (42) Hold Duration (42) Call to Arms - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (42) Empty Level 35: Psionic Lance (A) Sting of the Manticore - Damage/Endurance Level 38: Energy Transfer (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage (43) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance (43) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge (43) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance (45) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance/Recharge Level 41: Temp Invulnerability (A) Endurance Reduction (45) Resist Damage Level 44: Psychic Shockwave (A) Empty (45) Accuracy (46) Empty (46) Empty (46) Empty Level 47: Subdue (A) Empty (48) Accuracy (48) Range (48) Empty Level 49: Conserve Power (A) Empty (50) Empty (50) Empty (50) Empty Level 1: Brawl (A) Damage Increase Level 1: Domination Level 1: Sprint

Please don't remove the St. Martial exit! I like St. Martial and hate Mercy Island! Don't make me go there. -EDIT- Didn't see the notes from Faultline saying that he'd reworked the lobbies so that the old entrances wouldn't be removed. Thanks!

I've always had a completionist streak a mile wide, so when I wind up playing in a way that causes me to outlevel a contact who's content can't be redone with Ouroboros, it always vexes me so. Unlike detective or broker contacts, regular contacts won't give progress if you're merely on a team with someone doing missions for them, so there really isn't a way to go back and finish filling up that relationship meter. Recently, this problem was addressed for Warzone contacts who basically have the same four or five missions over and over. In a way, it's narratively and mechanically fitting that they can't be outleveled since their concerns in the PvP zones are ongoing and since everyone exemplars down to their levels again anyway, so a player who just checked in to Bloody Bay or Siren's Call once before won't have to worry about never completing the relationship bars for the contacts there. They have a unique method for dispensing missions, though, so it's understandable that a similar approach would be hard to develop for task pool contacts like Meg Mason (who to date I have not successfully remembered to approach while within the correct level range) or Borea or the various First Ward faction-dependent pool contacts. Theoretically a "forced exemplaring" mechanic like exists for task forces could fix the issue for them, but I don't know how reasonable it would be to apply that to contacts who wouldn't give it normally. Other contacts like the City Hall origin-centric contacts that existed before the Galaxy City tutorial present other challenges. They offer missions for a small handful of levels that traditionally are super easy to level through. Their missions aren't bundled as story arcs (though they sometimes have thematic elements that progress like plots). I don't know if it would be viable (or even wise) to bundle their missions together in some way similar to story arcs (a "Joining the FBSA" set of origin-specific missions has a certain appeal...), but I certainly wouldn't mind a way to "redo the old starting missions", as it were, especially for the times when I started with their missions and accidentally agreed to a DFB run before I was done. Ultimately, none of what I'm talking about would be a necessary, crucial, or even meaningful-to-most-players change, but it's something that's been rubbing me the wrong way ever since Live. Thought I should mention it. 😉

I always liked how the ones from while the game was live suggested that you were good at partying. The post-live ones tend to emphasize our staying power, and that's totally warranted (especially a few years), but in the spirit of some of the classic ones... Lit Mirthful Hilarious Extreme Toast of the Town

While part of me prefers to just sort of stumble upon exploration badges over time or, occasionally, look at odd geography to see if it has an associated badge, I think I really like this. Since pretty much all the badges have interesting lore associated with them, I look forward to seeing them! Except... since I have so many exploration badges already, will my well-traveled characters miss out? Guess I'll have to roll a few inquisitive alts.

So, I read this and I got kind of excited because I thought that a lot of my issues with the update to the Teleportation power pool and free gift of the Long Distance Teleport power were going to be addressed since the changes 1) made me lose my original destination spots for Long Distance Teleport and regulated me to settling for the Base Portals in most zones, and 2) made my dedicated teleporters basically just as good at navigating inter-zone travel as everyone else's free power (which, hey, great QOL change for everyone else, but shouldn't my Flash-but-for-teleportation-instead-of-superspeed have a bit of an edge?) I'm a little sad to see that there wasn't some modification to bring those options back, or possibly the ability to modify destinations. (Though I still wanna stress that I think Combat Teleport is amazing!) Ahh, I love these! Does the "hover buff will cancel if you move" clause include moving the camera to get a better look around, or is it just physical character movement we're talkin' about? Thanks for all the great work!

So I finally got a Stalker to level 50 (got her to level 49 back on live, nice to finally finish this). Mostly I just play by myself with occasional supergroup teaming and task forces for fun, so detailed power optimization is something I've never really looked into (I've tried using Mids a couple times, but I just get kinda baffled by how what I do there is supposed to be different from when I do it in the game). I'm not actually sure what my level-by-level power selections were like I see in most of the builds that people have here, but I was wondering if anyone could see any, like... massive red flags from the following powers (I've got a few notes in the margins next to them for things that I'm thinking about as I move forward, or for other purposes. Most of these powers have a set of Single Origin or Invention Origin enhancements in them, though I'll note exceptions when they pop up) Staff Fighting - (Right off the bat-shaped staff, the lack of Placate in this list is probably glaringly obvious. For some reason it just never... felt right? It's definitely on my list for adding once some other powers get removed in a respec since it fits not only the generally agreed upon methodology for competent fighting but also the character concept. Nothing fancy here, though it's worth noting that while each power in this set tends to follow the basic set of SO enhancements, I've usually got one per power that's unique based on whatever rider effect the attack carries with it) Mercurial Blow Precise Strike (An Endoplasm Exposure (+Acc/+Mez Hami-Origin) enhancement is here, now that I'm a high enough level to actually face off against the Hamidon.) Guarded Spin Assassin's Staff Build Up Eye of the Storm (I've slowly purchased four of the Assassin's Mark set and put them here. They're all attuned (which I'm led to believe is the preference for people who team at lower levels or do flashback systems a lot, right?) though I've not yet had a chance to pick up the +Chance To Build Up enhancement. Not sure if this is the best set for it, but it's been all right so far.) Serpent's Reach Sky Splitter Ninjitsu Hide (Accidentally gave this a second enhancement slot, which I certainly intend to rectify when I do a respec) Ninja Reflexes (Kismet: Endurance/Recharge has found a home here for now.) Danger Sense (One single lonely Luck Of The Gambler (+Def) sits here, attuned.) Caltrops Kuji-In Rin Kuji-In Sha Smoke Flash Blinding Powder (A Lysosome Exposure (Acc/Def Debuff/To-Hit Debuff Hamidon Origin) Enhancement is sitting in a slot for this.) Kuji-In Retsu Inherent Fitness Stamina (Mentioned only because I wound up slotting it. I'm like eighty percent sure that's a rookie mistake, but it was such a nice early fix for End problems, and became a home for some spare Efficacy Adaptor enhancements I acquired that would probably have a better home over in Kuji-In Retsu or something) Leaping Combat Jumping (Put Springfoot here on a whim. I figured hey, what not?) Super Jump (Possibly something I could trade away since I mostly rely on Ninja Run to get around. But I also know that the times when I prefer Super Jump to Ninja Run are times when I REALLY prefer Super Jump to Ninja Run.) Spring Attack (While this is mostly just for flavor, I've kept it for a while for its (admittedly limited) utility as both a means to navigate through tricky places that standard jumping and flipping won't reach. and also as a way to contribute more to the task forces where the rest of the team is wiping out huge cadres of enemies largely before I can finish my first Assassin's Staff attack. Also, this is home to a single Eradication enhancement which felt like a better deal back at level te.e) Body Mastery - (While the shurikens and exploding shurikens available in other ancillary pools tempted me, this set wound up feeling more in tune with the "spirit" of the character. Plus this had fewer powers that messed with my existing flow of moves or required a redraw animation after use (not that that stopped me from getting Laser Beam Eyes...) Superior Conditioning Physical Perfection Laser Beam Eyes (This is one of the only powers where I've actively said "I think it's less fun when I play with this." It was a nice addition to the character's flavor since she's reportedly known for terrorizing the crooks of Talos Island with a deadly glare, so playing it as a semi-psychic ability that goes along with the rest of her training felt appropriate, but it didn't click initially, and I wound up wishing I'd picked Focused Accuracy instead. Ironically, by the time I picked up Focused Accuracy, the power wound up growing on me a bit both as an extra way to finish off runners and also as a compliment to Caltrops or Kuji-In Sha since they also trigger a redrawing animation. So while this power did quickly hop onto my list of things to remove, I got a soft spot for it over time.) Focused Accuracy So, are there any quick course corrections or fixes that jump at to you? I probably don't need anything in-depth since I don't have a Mids-evel breakdown to make it easier to flip through. The More Than Just A Ninja guide seems to suggest either a straight up damage focus via Musculature or Cardiac and Agility to focus on defense and endurance mitigation... I think I'm leaning toward Musculature between the three, but if/when I respec and de-slot Stamina I might want the extra endurance help.

Aye, I like that band. They didn't always break, though. Sometimes I showed up from behind them like I was part of the act.

Okay, trying to puzzle through it right now. So far I'm at... /macro_image "Teleportation_Pocket_D" "Pocket D VIP" "powexec_name Teleportation_Pocket_D" ...which creates a button! Alas, the button is nonfunctional. I'm guessing the command to teleport to Pocket D has a different name than its icon. I *can* replace the powexec command with the popmenu command for LRT, which isn't a perfect solution, but at least it'll get me to Pocket D even if not the VIP Club.

Aye. I meant to look into making macros today but work kinda got in the way. Hopefully over the weekend I'll be able to figure it out.