A Quick Map for Collecting the Passive Accolade Badges (exploration and history)

[Rylas]

Hello fellow accolade junkies! If you're like me, you like to grab your passive accolades as quickly as possible for your toon (Atlas Medallion, Freedom Phalanx, TF Commander and Portal Jockey). One of the ways I like to make this go more quickly is to grab the exploration and history badges for all of these at once. Below is a map I follow to collect these badges in one quick trip around Paragon City. 

 

What this guide is not:

This not a fully comprehensive guide to collecting ALL the badges required for all 4 accolades. Mission related achievements and hunt badges will not be covered here. This is also not a guide for how to collect these badges on the villain-side (though if someone wants to collaborate on that, I'm open to working up the map for that).

 

What this guide is: 

This hero-side guide will show you a fast and streamlined path for collecting exploration badges and reading plaques, with as few trips through Ouroboros or base portals as needed. In fact, just having the Ouroboros badge is all one needs (and perhaps a travel power). 

 

Useful items:

Having a travel power will help with getting through this course as quickly as possible. Depending on your travel power, it's possible to get all the badges in just over 13 minutes. Other things that can help will be temp powers such as the Jump Pack (if you're using Super Speed), and stealth abilities if you're trying to run through high end zones at a low level. 

 

The Map:

 

The Step by Step (refer to map for locations):

Start: Get yourself to Brickstown by taking the train there or using a base portal. You'll be dropped off at pretty much the same spot, so either works. 

1. Head south to the first Scholastic plaque. 

2. Head to the southeast corner of the zone for your next Scholastic plaque. 

3. Use Ouroboros to travel to Founder's Falls and make a very short trip north for the third and final Scholastic plaque. Congratulations! You've already completed the Scholastic badge. 

4. Hop on the train to King's Row and travel southeast to the power lines for the Keen Sighted badge.

5. Go southwest to the middle bottom of the map to find the Summoned badge.

6. From there, head northwest a bit for a Pupil plaque.

7. Then head far north for another Pupil plaque. 

8. Go through the Independence Port tunnel, and just southwest on top of a building is the Vigorous badge. 

9. Shortly northwest of there is an Authority plaque.

10. Further northwest on the bridge is another Authority plaque.

11. Travel down the bridge and into Terra Volta and travel south (speedsters will want the jump pack for fastest results) for your third Authority plaque. 

12. Another Ouroboros quick trip to Talos Island will get you the fourth Authority plaque by the Talos statue. 

13. After going through the Skyway tunnel, head to the northeast corner for the Purifier badge. 

14. Take the tunnel to Altas Park and get to the top of the Atlas statue for the Top Dog badge. 

15. Northwest of there, you'll find the third Pupil plaque. 

16. Head into Perez Park, then go west by southwest for the fourth Pupil plaque. 

17. Travel north to Steel Canyon, use the southern tram station to quick hop over to the norther tram station and then west for the Nimble Mynx badge.

18. Go to Boomtown, head north by northwest for the Regal badge (inside a tunnel)

19. Use Ouroboros to get to Echo: Galaxy City (portal behind the main building), travel east and read the last Pupil plaque. 

20. Southeast of there, on top of a building, is the Brawler badge.

21. Head back to the Ouroboros portal and go to Echo: Dark Astoria. Travel east and read the final Authority badge. 

 

And there you have it! All exploration badges and plaques you need for your passive accolades are done. 

 

Why not just use base portals for all of these?

Good hypothetical question, hypothetical reader. I tested using a route like this against using the base portals, and the amount of load times, reliability of a portal power being up, and/or using a mix of base and Ouroboros portals was just not as fast. Even when the base portal exploit was available it still wasn't faster. By avoiding loading screens as much as possible, this has been the fastest route I could find (so far) that allows for Ouroboros portals to recharge between uses and not backtracking to areas you've already travelled. 

 

Thanks for reading!

I hope some of you will find this as helpful as I do in cutting down the grind for accolades. If anyone decides to find a more efficient path, please feel free to share it and I'll be happy to make updates. 

 

Special Thanks! 

@GraspingVileTerror for a huge time saver on the route. You knocked off a good chunk of time. 

@AboveTheChemist for catching a graphic error. 

 

Special Special Thanks! 

@AboveTheChemist for creating an amazing pop menu tool for running the route. This is especially helpful for learning the route on one's first few attempts, keeps track of what you've done, and makes everything all that much easier to accomplish. Make sure to check out his post further down the thread. 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Rylas

[GraspingVileTerror]

I think I would still recommend people use the Base Portal from Perez to Steel Canyon.  That's a LONG walk.

Although . . . even without Base'ing, wouldn't it have been faster to head to the South Tram and pop out at the North Tram for Steel?

[Rylas]

3 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

I think I would still recommend people use the Base Portal from Perez to Steel Canyon.  That's a LONG walk.

Although . . . even without Base'ing, wouldn't it have been faster to head to the South Tram and pop out at the North Tram for Steel?

 

Oooh, the tram hadn't even occurred to me. Great idea. I'll test that out; the tram would still outpace using a portal for that stretch.

[AboveTheChemist]

This is a great idea, and quite cleverly implemented. I think it would translate well to a popmenu, including a progress tracker. If that is of interest just let me know, I am happy to help and could even work up a quick prototype.

 

One minor editorial note: Item 3 in Founders' Falls appears to be missing the symbol indicating whether it is a badge or a plaque.

Edited June 8, 2021 by AboveTheChemist
clarification

[Rylas]

3 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

This is a great idea, and quite cleverly implemented. I think it would translate well to a popmenu, including a progress tracker. If that is of interest just let me know, I am happy to help and could even work up a quick prototype.

 

One minor editorial note: Item 3 in Founders' Falls appears to be missing the symbol indicating whether it is a badge or a plaque.

 

Hey Thanks! Great catch on item 3. 

 

My familiarity with popmenu's is minimal. What exactly were you thinking?

[iBot]

Nice write up... you win a cookie! (Not actual cookie and may not be exchanged for any item of real value) 😆

[AboveTheChemist]

2 hours ago, Rylas said:

My familiarity with popmenu's is minimal. What exactly were you thinking?

I'll put together a quick prototype tonight, take some screenshots, and send you a PM. 

[GraspingVileTerror]

I look forward to a Redside version.  Granted, the level-gating of the PvP zones does complicate it a bit.

[Rylas]

3 hours ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

I look forward to a Redside version.  Granted, the level-gating of the PvP zones does complicate it a bit.

 

The only time I'm on the red side is when I need to get my PPP unlocked, so I'd be ill-suited for finding the best route to get the badges there. That said, if someone wants to work on finding a good path, I'd be happy to build out the map and write up the step-by-step.

 

I'll update the post to reflect that this is blue side only.

[AboveTheChemist]

With Rylas' blessing (and helpful feedback), I have implemented this as a popmenu that includes a progress tracker for the relevant exploration badges and history plaques as well as an overall progress tracker for all the badges required to earn the blueside stat-enhancing accolade powers. Installation and usage instructions, as well as some screenshots of the menu, are available in the spoilered section below.

 

Installation, Use, and Screenshots

Spoiler

The menu file (attached below as passiveblue.mnu) should be placed in:

 

<CoH Root Folder>\data\texts\English\menus

 

passiveblue.mnu

 

The menu can be accessed in-game using one of the following methods:

 

from chat: /popmenu passiveblue
via keybind: /bind <your_key> "popmenu passiveblue"
via macro: /macro <macro_name> "popmenu passiveblue"

 

The Badge / Plaque Progress submenu (see screenshot below) tracks progress for the exploration badges and history plaques that are the focus of this mod. Exploration badges can be tracked individually, but history plaques cannot. Therefore each history badge will only appear as complete once all its individual plaques have been clicked.

 

 

The Accolade Progress sub-menu (see screenshot below) tracks all badges related to the four blueside stat-enhancing accolade powers. Once all the exploration and history badges necessary for these four powers have been earned, this portion of the popmenu can be used to track the remainder of the progress towards earning the accolade powers.

 

 

The Detailed Help sub-menu (see screenshot below) contains instructions for menu use and a key for the different symbols seen within the menu.

 

 

The heart of this popmenu is the last two sub-menus, which cover the step-by-step process for collecting all of the exploration and history badges required for these four accolade powers (as detailed in the top post of this thread). Due to menu length considerations, I divided the collection process into two sub-menus, Brickstown to Talos Island and Skyway City to Echo: Dark Astoria. The basic idea is that the user clicks each step in sequence to collect the badges/plaques in the recommended order. Clicking each step will place a thumbtack indicating the next destination along the sequence, except in the case of clicking a travel via Ouroboros step, in which case an Ouroboros portal will be opened in front of the player.

 

Note that the Ouroboros Portal power is required to use this popmenu. If the player does not possess the Ouroboros Portal power (which is granted by earning the Entrusted with the Secret badge), then the menu steps will be greyed out until that power is earned. If the Ouroboros Power has been recently used and is not yet recharged, then the steps that involve travel via the Ouroboros portal will appear greyed out until that power recharges.

 

A screenshot of the first collection sub-menu is shown below.

 

 

If there are any questions, comments, or if anyone notices any errors, please let me know. Thanks!

[Aurora_Girl]

@AboveTheChemist this is INCREDIBLE work! I do have a question: I don't have that folder you've mentioned to install your file into. My root>data folder is completely empty, so I'm unsure where to put the file.

[AboveTheChemist]

3 minutes ago, Aurora_Girl said:

@AboveTheChemist this is INCREDIBLE work! I do have a question: I don't have that folder you've mentioned to install your file into. My root>data folder is completely empty, so I'm unsure where to put the file.

Thanks! If you don't have the folders I mentioned, you can safely create them yourself.