EXPLODING PLANET, arc 22784. A four mission Heroic story arc

[sponazgul]

Colleagues,

 

I appreciated the positive feedback on arc 65297 -  Allegedly, Your Death - so I thought I'd share an AE story arc that's similar in scope (in that I wanted to make an AE story arc for a certain heroic archetype.)

 

EXPLODING PLANET probably works best with relatively tough characters, but I've run it with low level characters (carefully, but I know the maps so I have an advantage from someone bringing in a low-level character cold.)

 

I tend to discourage teams or bumping up your team size difficulty, unless you are prepared to fail the second mission (I don't want to explain why that might be.)

 

Missions can be failed, specifically the final one, but you've been told that the planet is going to explode. (It's far less likely to explode on you if you run it again.)

 

As always, I enjoy getting feedback on these, and I'm making plans to try out other folks' AE arcs.

 

@First of Equals

Edited December 16 by sponazgul
Noticed a typo, changed Your to You

[Kyksie]

Pretty good, solid writing with several fun touches, plus a nice hidden reveal. There are two timed missions which can be failed, but they're not hard and you're warned before you hit accept.

[sponazgul]

3 hours ago, Kyksie said:

Pretty good, solid writing with several fun touches, plus a nice hidden reveal. There are two timed missions which can be failed, but they're not hard and you're warned before you hit accept.

 

I greatly appreciate you doing the play-through and the feedback here, much obliged!

[Clave Dark 5]

Agreed: I said much the same in my comment: cute idea, well realized with fun touches along the way, and good costume work. 

 

I would however complain about map choices, just too big!  Or the first and the last anyway, iirc.  I failed the last one trying to find the last collectable.  I was playing a pretty bullet proof tank and had some Invisibility as well so there was no concern for my health, and ended up circling the map I dunno how many times in the last say eight minutes and could not find it.  Some of that is my bias however, I prefer smaller maps when I can to (as I see it) keep the story line streamlined and zipping along.

 

It's a fairly small quibble overall though.  I've seen some real animus towards timed missions on these boards before, glad that seems to have died down.

[sponazgul]

1 hour ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Agreed: I said much the same in my comment: cute idea, well realized with fun touches along the way, and good costume work. 

 

I would however complain about map choices, just too big!  Or the first and the last anyway, iirc.  I failed the last one trying to find the last collectable. ...

 

Clave, thanks for running the arc! I appreciate what you're saying about the first and last maps being large. Both missions though are easier on replay (that's cold comfort for someone doing it the first time) since on replay you know the objective for mission one and the same can be said about the last mission once you've done it once or twice -

 

Spoiler

Everything happens in the final room - the Data Stealing Drone, the contact beaming in to warn you about the communication array, the communication array is in that room, and the three crystals are there. You might have to take the tunnels into the back part of the room though.

 

 

I'm sorry the final mission ended in failure - I wish that I could increase the time on that final mission, but the next increment is 30 minutes, and that's just too much time, since I want to make you feel like the planet is about to explode. As it is, when I run the arc I try to see if I can beat my record for the fastest successful final mission run. 

 

I probably need to do some looking over maps, to see if I can find a smaller map for mission one, that gives the impression of some kind of conflict in progress, and I'm sure I can use a smaller Rikti tunnel map, as long as it can support all of the objectives in the final, high-stakes mission

Spoiler

(well, not that high-stakes, the most important thing was done in mission 4)

 

Thanks again, I appreciate the feedback and the details on success/failure. I'm glad you were using a bullet-proof tank, which is somewhat thematic for the mission overall.