Changing enemy groups halfway through a mission?

[Dusty Longshot]

Can it be done?

 

I'm working on an idea that involves having 2 different enemy groups in 1 mission. This is my idea:

• The mission is set in a warehouse.
• The objective is simple: "rescue hostages and escort them out".
• Fairly early on in the mission you encounter some Skulls doing shady stuff. You defeat them and move on to the next area.
• Again you run into some Skulls, defeat them, move on.
• But in the last room where the hostages are held you run into Crey.
• You defeat the Crey and work your way back to the exit running into more Crey on the way.

 

I know I could do this using a story arc having 2 missions. One with Skulls and making it a "find clues" type mission. The other would be "rescue and escort" involving Crey.
But I would like to know if this could be done in one mission.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Retrobytz said:

I'm working on an idea that involves having 2 different enemy groups in 1 mission.

 

Set the main enemies as the Skulls.

You can place an escort NPC(s) in the back of a mission (the number of things you can set in an area are limited), and what type of villain group you want guarding them - they don't have to be the same as the rest of the mission. If you don't want this to show up until all the skulls are defeated, then you would need to make it a "kill all" and set it to trigger when the "kill all" is completed.

Then you chain ambushes onto the completion of the escort and set what kind of villain group they are. They don't have to be the same villain group as the ones set for the mission nor the ones that were guarding the escort NPC.

 

Different maps allow a different number of activated things in the various areas of the map.

 

Set the main mission enemies as Skulls.

 

I would start with setting the escorts first and see how many you can set in the back. If that meets the number you want. Set them up and make the Crey the enemy group.

Setup the Crey ambushes next and set the "Mission goal is created when" to the "escort" completion with - obviously - the Crey as the enemy group.

 

If you want the escorts only to show up after the Skulls are defeated, then I would put the "defeat all enemies" in next.

Then I would go back and set the escort "Mission goal is created when" to "defeat all enemies" is completed

 

Keep in mind the levels of the various villain groups.

 

 

[Dusty Longshot]

Thank you UltraAlt, this is very helpfull.

 

I'll keep the levels of the various groups in mind, but I think the level of the Crey would be leading in this case, which I think are minimum level 30?

Just not sure if the Skulls group would become level 30 because the Crey are in there, or because I set the minimum level of the mission to 30 overall. Not sure how that all works.

Guess I'll figure that out once I start working on the mission.

[Ankylosaur]

The skulls will not level up. Though the crey can level down they will be tough for a lower level. 

 

There is a post somewhere deep in the forum where @Charlie created higher level versions of mobs as customs you can download. He has a skulls group.

 

I'd do the map a little differently...

 

I'd set the map to empty

 

Let's say Front, Middle and Back each support 6 mobs. 

 

In the front and middle I would put 3 skulls in each. You can do this by using a mix of bosses and using destructible objects if you don't want it to be boss heavy. (maybe the shady thing they are doing involves crates or medical stations?)

 

In the back I would put say, 2 hostages and 4 crey. Freeing the hostages triggers groups of crey in the front and middle in the unused spaces using a combo of bosses, destructible objects, and patrols.

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Ankylosaur

[cranebump]

I think Skulls cap at 20. Anky's right. They will not level up. And, unless I'm way off, the PC will shift to the min mish level, which, for Crey is, what, 30? So you end up with outleveled Skulls in the mish's first half, because the PC will assume, at minimum, the floor of the highest enemy's level range (unless you set the mish to cap at 20, then have higher level stuff in it [which would have to be a boss+group?]).  Been awhile since I scripted, but I thought this was how it worked. 

 

In any case, the simplest fix is to use enemies that have some overlap. If you have custom Skulls that do, great. If you're using default enemies, reconsider your first group. Switch to one that has the same levels as Crey (Cot? Council?). Especially if it is not narratively essential that the first group has to be Skulls. You'll know whether they are based on enemy motives.

 

For example, the Skulls are into: (1) the Superadine trade, (2) finding victims to "make their bones" (literally, with the masks), and (3) taking territory from/beating the crap out of the Hellions. How do these motives overlap with Crey (which has an entirely different set of concerns). The initial thought I have, based on your mish skeleton, is that Skulls are working for the Crey in exchange for (money, Superadine, weapons, [fill in the blank]). PC hero gets involved, Crey suddenly appear (because there was an exchange/payment about to take place?). 

 

This reads like Skulls (low level) hired to do some dirty work for Crey (higher level). So my main question on this would be: Why isn't Crey doing this themselves? If there's no good reason for them not to proceed alone, then I don't need a second group. Problem solved. If I have a good answer to the main question, then my second question is this: Assuming Crey's very good reason for not getting directly involved, why did they hire this particular group (the low level one) to do it (the kidnappings) for them? 

 

Of course, I'm making assumptions about your story here. Given the current parameters, it sounds like maybe kidnappings for Crey test subjects. Since it requires a low level flunky/patsy in case things go wrong, the new experiment requires deniability. BUT...the kidnapped must be special, because the Crey show up to stop the Hero from escaping with them (or, they just happened to arrive at that time).

 

Okay, so I'm spitballing, but the point is this: you can always come up with a reason for any group to work with any other. When it comes to AE, I feel like it's a good rule of thumb to use what it gives me, rather than to force it to do what I want. Crey seems to be Group A. Okay, then: (A) what Group B can I use to work with them, level-wise and (B) Why this group? In this way, the technical aspect is solved for me, and I can just press forward creating my missions.

 

tl;dr: Selecting a group that overlaps levels with Crey (on the low end, say, 27-32 or something) is the simplest and easiest fix for potential issues. But consider the question: why isn't Crey doing this kidnapping themselves? You may not need a 2nd group to tell the same story.

 

[Ankylosaur]

Found those custom downloadable mobs: 

 

[Dusty Longshot]

Thank you all. Reading through this helps me setup this mission so much better.