Mission Title:  A Relic’s Return

Arrival at Kintara Prime

Author: @Armsman
Project ID: ST-HRGENW9BK (on Holodeck)
Mission Faction: Federation/Star Fleet
Mission Type: Space
Mission Location: Regulus Sector Block — The Briar Patch

Mission Description:
Kintara Prime, a newly discovered UFP applicant world that mines and supplies dilithium for the Federation war effort, has requested diplomatic assistance. The Orion Syndicate have taken a 150 year old relic of great cultural signifigance, and the Kintarans want it returned.

Mission Objectives:
*-Enter the Briar Patch in the Regulus Sector Block
*-Travel to the Kintara Star System
*-Do what’s needed to resolve the dispute between the Kintarans and the Orion Sydicate

As always, any Feedback on this mission (positive or negative) is appreciated and welcome.

(This is part one of a larger story.  I am more of an Original Star Trek series (1966-1969) fan; so the dialog will probbably have more of that era’s feel to it.  I integrated feedback and improved the version of the mission now on Holodeck, and am working on the next part – although the recent policy change regarding using previous series Star Trek characters in any form whatsoever may cause a change from the way I originally plotted this story, but time will tell, as I think what I have planned for Part 2 isn’t a Foundry EULA violation.)

The Foundry Live Trailer

Although the Foundry has come to Holodeck, there are still things being pushed over to Tribble for testing, here are some things that hit the patchnotes tonight.

Default TRIBBLE Maintenance and Release Notes – March 30, 2011
We will be bringing the Tribble server down for maintenance to apply a new update.
ST.11.20110310a.21

General:

The floating panels outside of the TOS interior have been removed
The final portion of “Mine Enemy” now works in the TOS interior.
Fixed an issue that would cause auctions to not expire correctly.
The Delta Flyer crafting mission will now work properly while teamed.

UGC:

Removed text that implied there was a system to allow leveling up a foundry character.
Increased the efficiency of the backend publishing process.
Resolved an issue with project importing.
Added text to let players know when auto-saving may take longer than usual.
An auto-save will now trigger before entering preview mode so the auto-save doesn’t trigger while the author is playtest their content.

Your are sent on a Reconnaissance Mission to the Bajoran Wormhole to investigate a possible new Dominion

threat. Upon reaching the wormhole, you discover that the Dominion is the least of your problems, when you are

prevailed upon to defend a colony in an historic battle.

Originally published to Tribble in February to very good reviews:

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Welcome to week TWO!

Hi everyone, I’m Terilynn and I’m back to take on some more of the basics of story-telling for Foundry!

For those of you who have listened to Havrava, NemesisChiken, Altexist and me on PodcastUGC, you no doubt have heard me “nit-pick” over dialogue that I read in UGC missions that I’ve played.

Creating a believable dialogue in the Star Trek universe isn’t as easy as you might think, and I hope I can help you when creating dialogue between NPCs and the player’s character.

To that end, I have come up with a few tips to help place you in a better frame of mind when writing dialogue for NPCs:

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Project Name:  Unholy Alliances I v2.0

Project ID:  ST-HTFTDM6OH

Author:  Soriedem

Language:  English

Allegiance:  Starfleet

Level:  35+

Description:  Slave Action

Slave Action

A contact on Drozana Station has some disturbing information.  A cadre of mercenaries, smugglers and pirates are selling crewmen as slave labor from several vessels they raided from the frontlines of the Klingon / Federation War.  She endangered her life in order to get us this information.  It appears she was abducted for it.  Someone needs to investigate her disappearance.  Someone has to rescue those crewmen and bring those responsible for these crimes to justice.

I welcome all feedback.  Thank you in advance for trying out my mission.

Now it’s just getting ridiculous. Dev after dev after dev … what are we doing!? Well we’re getting to the meat of it! Mapolis, famed Foundry developer, joins us for this latest episode! Also, the celebratory FIRST EPISODE since the launch of the Foundry on Holodeck! And to top it all off, this is the recording of our first LIVE podcast!

Although we were broadcasting rather loudly, and no told me -_- … the recording will be normal sound volume! So give it another listen! And join us next week at www.justin.tv/podcastugc on Tuesday evenings at 9 EST, 8 CST!

Click here to listen to the podcast!
Right click as click Save As to download the file!

Podcast UGC Episode 7 Show Notes

Episode 7 Show Notes
Mapolis!

The Foundry is Live on Holodeck
- Crap Missions?
- Pendra’s Transferer

Review:
- Project Revava by LordOfPit
- Obsession by Arnthebard

Mailbag

STO:
TOS Pack

Starbase UGC Tribble Mission Spotlight Winners!

Next Weeks Episodes to Review will be written here later in the week!

Here are my big Foundry secrets:

1) Walk before you run. Don’t start work on a 10 part megaseries before you’ve released a mission. Don’t release a mission until you’ve gotten the general hang of the toolset (i.e. no “test” missions). Go wild with the tools and break them. Create things you’ve never seen that wouldn’t work in a mission and… delete it. You now have tons of neat ideas that work in many other missions without the pressure of releasing anything. Even Geordi started with model ships before he fine tuned the Galaxy-class. Go crazy, learn from it, and then start releasing stuff.

2) Use the Highlight text tool. I know many players just skip mission essential text and rely on that objective tracker for all their data. They don’t read text. Help make it easier on them by highlighting text.

3) Try to make the new seem familiar; the ordinary seem new. Whether it’s the writing or environment design, you need to have a feel for how your mission will stand out from the pack. Making strange new worlds feel lived in (like the Romulan mining colony in the Featured Series) or familiar things seem brand new (like re-skinning targ to spit acid that another mob uses).

4) Play other Foundry missions. Learning to use the tools from day one was rough. We didn’t even have a tutorial when closed beta started (Zero gave it to us later). That’s part of the reason some of the users went on to make video tutorials. Learn, play, and then you’ll know what to parameters and constraints you have. Some players might give you an idea in their mission: from a clever set-piece to a bit of Star Trek you’ve never gone before…

5) Don’t feel discouraged that you can’t do your story exactly how you wrote. The Foundry tools are growing and, with ingenuity, you can find workarounds that can surprise and astonish even the developers.

6) Accept Criticism. People don’t have to play your mission. They might have their one night off of work and thought yours looked cool. Something about your mission attracted them. You had them at Horta! However, they might love it; they might hate. Just try to release technically polished missions and accept bad reviews as just areas you can ace on the next mission you write.

Best of luck! I hope to see your mission out there!

==========

If lost, also visit the official Star Trek Online Foundry website for some tutorials: some are text-based and others are high-res video tutorials.

Dissent Part I: Walking in the Air

Part one of a five part series now on Holodeck. Now completely revamped from the ground up. Only one map made it intact from Tribble. So for folks who have played it already, it is a nearly completely new experience.

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Hi all,

Tune in at 8pm CT/6pm PT for a live broadcast of this week’s Podcast UGC, featuring Cryptic’s Mapolis!  So, stay tuned for an exclusive interview.

To listen live, go to http://www.justin.tv/podcastugc

There is also a separate chat there that requires a quick sign up and login.

Other site news:

Addition to the posting guidelines:  Do not post links or information about 3rd party software that Cryptic views as dangerous or detrimental to the game, please.

My flagship mission, To Helna and Back, 3 months in the making on Tribble, has now been officially ported to Holodeck! Nine excruciating hours of copy and paste brings you my best work! So please, do give it an official play through, even if you’ve already played it once, and leave your opinions of it in review!

FOUNDRY THE FIRST FRONTIER

So the race is on and all though some authors think it is more important to have somthing of quality. As a budding journalist of the foundry. It’s the first that makes the books. From the man on the moon to “The Cage” to the first foundry mission “Epic Saga”. Well not really epic, more like pointless, but amusing.

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It’s ALIVE!

Foundry is Live on Holodeck!

Presented to the STO Foundry Authors, here is my first tutorial on how I go about creating a mission that uses Sector Space between multiple maps.  The first part describes my planning and design steps, following by building the mission in the Foundry Editor, and wrapping up with publishing and testing the mission.

Additional information about the design tool “FreeMind” can be found here.

The ‘Nemmy’s Sandbox’ mind map can be found here.

Check out Terrilyns WONDERFUL introduction for story basics.

Haven’t heard much out of me lately? Well, that’s because I’ve been slaving away at a means for us to broadcast our podcast LIVE for the masses. And our method maybe a tad… ghetto, but it nonetheless works!

Our podcasting channel is http://justin.tv/podcastugc. It comes with a nice built in chatroom, although I’m sure we can continue to make use of the Podcast UGC IRC chat as we go along.

I’ll be testing the broadcast later on this evening around 7 central, so anyone who wants to join me in the room to test it is welcome to. Hopefully, this new method of having a live show will attract more listeners to the podcast.

MISSION REVIEW : What Are Little Ferengi Made Of

MISSION STAGE : FINAL DRAFT – Tribble

MISSION CODE : ST-TMB6GQFWV

LENGTH : 15-45min

AUTHOR : mygod_itsfullofstars

DESCRIPTION  :  On an edge of unexsplored space, a ferengi trader has discovered the fantastic technologies of a dead civilisation. Starfleet needs you to check out his claims and insure that his discoveries don’t fall into the wrong hands. But from the moment you arrive, nothing is as it seems. In solving the mysteries that will confront you, be prepared to sacrifice yourself for the safety of your ship and crew, and the survival of the federation.

RATINGS OUT OF 5

• Gameplay 4.5
• Trek 4.5
• Design 4.5
• Difficulty 3
• Grind 1.5

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Enjoy!

Before the Explosion of this mission’s popularity, I was reviewing missions and a fleet member told me to go and play this mission. Knowing this fleet member’s taste, I put it on my list. Before I knew it, this mission that was on my to do was gaining popularity from Dev Twitters. I had sent a PM to Jake81nx, asking if he would like one of my reviews. Still I did not play it. Then Stoked covered it. Still I did not play it. Then finally, a StarbaseUGC colleague was of to play it. So we teamed up and of we went.

“I think the Foundry is an amazing tool that has nowhere to go but up.”

Why did I not play this mission earlier is beyond me. Wow, I think I sat speechless for about an hour. It took me a while to believe that this had been created with the same tools we have at our disposal.

“That being said, my lack of UGC experience proves that if I can do it, anyone can.”

So what better way to start my first author spotlight (“At The Captains Table”) then with Jake81nx discussing Foundry and “The Rise Of Darkness”.

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Hi all,

In anticipation of next week, I’ve put up some posting guidelines.  Hopefully, these rules will help us avoid a flood of “Playz my Mizzion!” spam.  Please follow these rules.  Thanks!