Shard_Warrior

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So uh....about that coming storm.....is that still coming....ever?

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I remember reading in a post or another interview that the coming storm story wasnt going to be address until i15 or i16 when they do more story stuff, because they were going to do more with the rikti invation story too.

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Perhaps the Fifth shall return and defeat the Rikti?? /e hmmm...

Status Reports
Star Strider Force
Name: Jade-Star
Global Contact:@Jade-Star
Reporting on Assignment: Zone Defense
Star Strider Force Unit: Triumph
Time/Date Location: Founders Falls 02:45 EST 11/21/08
Level of Alien Threat: [High]

Report Details:

Having volunteered for night patrol this week, I finished my coffee as I glanced over the latest status reports on my computer. There was a lot of Rikti activity this past week... I knew I would have to be careful out on patrol.

Finishing my coffee, I slipped into my costume and headed out. It was late and the base was quiet, except for the sounds of Mini Miss Foley snickering and giggling as she watched Kenny vs. Spenny on the TV. She knows she isn't supposed to stay up so late, but I had to go out on patrol and didn't want to scold her.

I wasn't out long when the alerts starting coming in that the Rikti were invading Founders Falls. I was in Steel Canyon at the time so I quickly flew over to Founders Falls. By the time I got there the war walls had already been taken down and Rikti motherships were carpet bombing the zone. I could see a group of heroes gathering near Numina and Infernal to repel the impending assault troops. I decided to help evacuate civilians before joining them.

A Rikti bomb exploded very near the ICON shop and several civilians were wounded. I quickly healed them and got them inside where it was safe. As I walked outside, Rikti assault forces had started beaming in. Three of them landed within feet of me and I was quickly outnumbered. The plasma rifle that shot me hurt, but only temporarily as I healed myself. Seeing that I was an empath, the Rikti started in for me. They hate healers like me. I make their job harder. I found myself quickly outnumbered by more than 20 Rikti, but thankfully a group of patrolling heroes came by and assisted me.

Our impromptu team rejoined the main hero group at Numina to help repel the rest of the invasion. The Rikti threw several heavy assault suits at us, inflicting serious hero casualties. I did what I could to keep everyone alive, but there were too many of them.

The battle went on for what seeemd like forever. Thankfully, the war walls came back online and prevented any further ships from coming in. With that, the Rikti retreated from the zone.

I remained in Founders for several hours afterward, helping with triage at the hospital. Overall casualties were heavy, but could have been much worse.

I returned to the base at 05:15 hours to find Mini Miss Foley asleep on the couch. I switched off the TV and gently picked her up, carrying her to her quarters. Thumb in mouth and her precious Longbow Barbies wrapped up in her arms, she looked so innocent. Sometimes it is hard to remember why I became a hero. Looking at her sweet little face, I remember why.


Analysis of Current Situation:

There were many civilian and hero casualties. Too many. I can't help but be reminded of the devastation that came during the first Rikti War and wonder if we are learning from our past experience?


Suggestion of Action:

To date our strategy has been defensive. While we are succeeding in repelling the Rikti temporarily, we are doing little to prevent them from returning. I suggest we formulate an assault on their mothership. It's time we took the fight to them.

Does anyone else think it might be helpful to separate out the functional item requests from here into a "Functional Base Items We'd Like to See" thread?

Several have posted here requesting SG message boards, Arena terminals, trainers, costume contacts, etc.. To me, those items are more functional than they are decorative and would most likely take a lot more time to develop.

Perhaps it might be more useful to Sunstorm to have those listed separately?

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we've had 1000 threads already with nothing done frankly ive more then lost hope in seeing any of this actually get live.

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We've also never had an "official" base Dev assigned as the Developer for the Base community either. Perhaps you might give him the opportunity to get settled in? For all you know, adding existing in-game items is already done and in QC testing for i14. Instead of complaining about Sunstorm not answering your specific question, why not try to work with him to help make bases more fun?

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even with sunstorm here whos ducking the question on why we couldnt add items already in game to this issue.

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This was already answered numerous times elsewhere. They had intended to have much more in terms of bases (revised editor etc.) but found they needed to focus on getting PvP (which like it or not is a base related issue) working the way they wanted first.

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i have no hope that this will change.

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I do.

I'd love to have the ability to create a base that has/resembles any of the stuff you find in Arbiter Sands' base at the the end of the Faultline story arc.

The submarine bay and catwalks in there are seriously cool.

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Excellent Suggestions

I'll ask Ex Libris to sticky this thread.

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Yay! Thanks Sunstorm!

P.S. First post after Redname!

Sorry... had to do that.

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Jade-Star
Global Contact: @Jade-Star
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Mutation
Super Rank & Super Group: Founding member and Officer (Recruitment and Public Relations), Birds of Prey

I'd love to see wall decorations that are large windows to provide a feel of overlooking an existing zone landscape. So for instance, if you imagine your base being in Atlas Park, you can add "windows" that simulate overlooking Atlas City Hall etc.

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I'm sure we would have sks open, but dont quote me on that.

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I quoted you

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I will be running the ITF twice tonight with the first team forming at 7:30. Send me a global tell to save a spot @turbo_starr

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Can I bring a Mini?

[u]Status Reports[u]
Star Strider Force
Name: The Incredible Mini
Global Contact: @Jade-StarV2
Reporting on Assignment: Triumph, Galaxy City
Level of Alien Threat: Low

[u]Report Details:[u]
Puny Rikti invade Galaxy City. Mini get mad, smashed puny aliens.

[u]Analysis of Current Situation[u]
Rikti smashed.

[u]Suggestion of Action:[u]
Mini smash more Rikti.

Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: The Incredible Mini
Global Contact: @Jade-StarV2
Level Classification: 50
Origin: Science
Super Rank & Super Group: Officer, Birds of Prey

Welcome Sunstorm! Nice to have you with us and I wish you the best with your new assignment.

I have a question I hope you may answer;

1. Are there any plans to allow for coalition members to participate together in base raids? It would give additional meaning to groups being in coalition with one another if they could help each other during a base raid.

Best of luck to you with the new job and I look forward to reading your posts!

Welcome aboard Sunstorm! Glad to have you on board!

<ul type="square"> [*] Group Name: Birds of Prey[*] Server: Triumph [*] Side: Hero [*] Approximate Size/Cost: ~ 12 million prestige [*] Hurry before we upgrade again after i13! [/list]

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no problem. will hopefully be there tonight barring any unforeseen work issues.

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Yay! Az will protect my Minis from Turbo pinching!

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Hope the second run went well, yeah I was knocked out soon as I logged off and didn't wake up until I was late for work, lol.

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Turbo was pinching my mini the whole time...

Status Report
Star Strider Force
Name: Shard Warrior
Global Contact: @Jade-Star
Reporting on Assignment: Atlas Park 11-17-08 02:14 hours
Level of Alien Threat: [High]

Report Details:

I should have known it would happen. For the fourth time that night, I was awakened by my pet Rikti monkey wanting to be let out. I knew it was not a good idea to let him eat five boxes of twinkies before bedtime, but he enjoys them and I don't mind spoiling him every now and again.

Still half asleep, I groggily slipped into my gear and set out for a walk on the streets of Atlas with monkey in tow, gleefully sniffing and snorting as he followed some unknown scent trail. The air was brisk and cool in the clear moonlit sky. The streets were quiet, save for the scattering Clockwork hunting for for spare parts and the occasional Hellion spouting their usual bravado and propoganda.

Having rounded Argosy Industrial, monkeys' scent trail led us around the pond in Prometheus Park when the war walls came down. Alarm klaxons began sounding. Even monkey knew what that meant, losing all interest in his beloved scent trail and cowering at my feet. I scooped him up onto my shoulder and headed for City Hall where I knew there would be civilians, even at this time of night. As I made my way there, several heroes began entering Atlas; some heading toward Argosy Industrial to clear unexploded ordinance the Rikti motherships were dropping, others gathered at City Hall for the impending assault troops.

It was not long before Rikti troops began teleporting to the surface from their dropships, including at least three waves of Heavy Assault suits. Our group of heroes were able to evacuate the civilians and repel the attack. Casualties were thankfully light, but we were lucky this time.



Analysis of Current Situation:

I have seen this tactic before. During the war between my homeworld and the Rularuu, Rularuu assault forces would randomly attack our outposts throughout the system. Their choice of targets did not always have a military significance, while others were extremely important to our strategic defenses. Further analysis indicated the Rularuu were using this strategy to test our response times, troop deployments and defensive capabilities in order to plan a larger assault.

Some have speculated that this is what the Rikti are doing. However, my instincts tell me that they are up to something more. These incursions have been taking place for a long time. They know our resolve in fighting them. We have met every attack, and they have gained valuable tactical knowledge on our capabilities.

So why do they continue?

The Rikti are smart. They are also cunning. Over the past months we have seen the capabilities of their weapons and the size of their forces. Were the Rikti to have attacked us in full force, there is a real chance that we would have lost a long time ago. Yet they haven't come in full force. What are they waiting for?

Something tells me we are witnessing the events in an elaborate game of chess. Each Rikti incursion is but another move and counter move of the pieces on the board in their grand strategy for victory over Earth. What that strategy is, I do not know, but I am certain there is one... and we will be in real trouble when they decide to reveal it.


Suggestion of Action:

Further study of Rikti assaults needs to be performed. It may appear the attacks are random, but my instinct tells me there is something more to this than simple retaliation. We should infiltrate the crashed mothership in order to obtain tactical information.

Thanks for posting the questions to us Ex.

Base Repricing
1) How will the repricing of bases affect you personally?

The repricing will have a big impact on me personally. As our sole base architect, I will be able to expand our base into something that our members will have fun a lot of fun with. That said, it also puts a tremendous burden on me to spend my time farming/gathering necessary IO salvage or influence to buy said salvage in order to craft items. As leader of our group, I would much rather see our members spend their time using salvage to craft IOs for their characters since they will get much more use (and fun) out of them than they ever would our base. I will not be asking any member of our SG to sacrifice salvage for base needs.


2) Will you dismantle your base to gain the additional prestige from the repricing?

Yes. It is not that I want to, but the design I have come up with will basically require it. Were the editor a little more flexible, I would not have to. Either way, I will be dismantling the existing base.


3) How long would this process take you if you were to engage in this practice?

At least 8 to 10 hours. We have a lot of prestige to mess with after the pricing changes, so it will take some time to decorate all the new rooms.


4) What are the positive and negative concerns regarding repricing?

On the positive side, I am very happy to see these changes. This is something that was discussed at length during CoV BETA and I specifically remember the developers saying they knew pricing was too high. They wanted to err on the high side and come down rather than starting too low and having to raise costs. It is unfortunate it took this long to see that, but it is where it is so hopefully the pricing will lead to more people having fun with bases.

On a negative note, having seen many of the elaborately designed bases around the game, I can see the amount of work that went into them. Asking people to destroy their base in order to get any price benefits was not a good idea.


5) How will this feature affect you long term and short term?

In the short term, it is going to cost me quite a bit of influence in order to gather all the salvage we will need from the marketplace. Again, I will not be asking any of our members to sacrifice influence or IO salvage for the base when it is much better spent on their characters.

I can't say what the impact will be long term. It is my hope that IOPs will return (bug free) and that we can get into doing some base raiding. Other than that, I know our members who are into the RP side of things will very much enjoy the new space.



Base Salvage Exchange to Invention Salvage
1) What is the negative effect on your base for this feature implementation?

This is a negative in several ways. First, it is putting a lot of the weight of funding the base in terms of buying necessary salvage on my shoulders as the sole base architect. Yes, this is my choice, but you should also be thinking that players spend more time with their characters than they do bases. Prior to the change, base salvage had no real value to members who were happy to donate it. Now, you are asking them to choose between personal IOs or base construction. I don't believe that is fair to ask of anyone.

IMO the removal of base salvage was totally un-necessary. If the "salvage found" message was confusing (which I highly doubt), then change the message to be less confusing. Removing base salvage to fix it just creates new problems. As a player, I will want to keep IO salvage for my characters, especially with Dual Builds in i13, instead of sacrificing it for base construction.

Second, the required salvage for some of the recipes makes no sense. A teleport pad is a basic base item. One of the recipes should not require rare salvage items. To be honest, that is very silly.


2) What is the positive effect on your base for this feature implementation?

To be quite honest, I can not think of anything at this time.


3) How long will it take you to adjust to learning this new system?

Not long at all. I'm already familiar with crafting.


4) What side effects to this system do you currently see from transitioning the old to new system?

Other than making it much more expensive and more tedious, nothing.



5) What security concerns do you have regarding this change?

With dual builds, new powersets and new IO sets coming in i13 (and future issues), I really can't see anyone wanting to store valuable IO salvage in the base racks for anyone to take. I will bet money that most people who have more open permissions on storage will lock it down now come i13. Our group is most certainly going to have our salvage locked down.


Additional Notes:

1. The 30 salvage limit on the racks is too low. We are a small group and between any IO salvage people are willing to part with, event salvage etc. this will be filled quickly.

2. In the future, please take the time to review the many stickied posts in the bases forum. You are all smart enough to pick out those things which are good and will make bases much more fun and exciting. It also does not give the community that warm fuzzy feeling when people put the time and effort into collating lists for improvements and ideas only to have them ignored.

3. I have no doubt that more items will be added and a better editor built down the road, but please consider that the existing system is very limited currently. Adding in a few dozen new items will go a long way.

4. Please, please keep in mind that while your goal is to get more players into base PvP, there is still a good portion of your playerbase that has no desire to ever engage in PvP. Again, you are all smart enough and talented enough to find a happy medium someplace.

Thanks again for posting the survey Ex. If you need any clarification or further info, please do not hesitate to ask.

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because *right now* the devs are finishing off I13 and giving us means to expand bases.

What better time to say "so in this larger base, my new empty rooms you're letting me buy, it's time I had a refridgerator." or pool table. coat rack. treadmill. stereo speakers. drum kit. suitcase. gelatinous cube. whatever you want.

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I'm guessing that we'll see a lot of this stuff after i14 or i15 is released. I never did see the difficulty in adding existing in-game items to the editor. We'll just have to wait and see.

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# Hanging SG Logo Banners (Arachnos uses these types of banners everywhere)

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You can do this in i13 now. The base I have on Test has banners hanging from the ceiling in the middle of rooms and hallways.

I'm sad to see you go Lighthouse.

Thank you for all your efforts over the years. I know that your support has always been there for player events and anything to make this place fun for all. Thank you for all you have done for this community and for the game.

I wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors and may your life be filled with happiness and joy.

Drop Ship raid?? I'm there!!!


Star Strider Forces Registry
Name: Shard Warrior
Global Contact: @Jade-Star
Level of Classification: 50
Origin: Natural
Super Rank &amp; Super Group: Founding member and Leader, Birds of Prey

Interesting. I'm curious, what is this for Ex?

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P.S. Oh, and actually with the addition of a beacon for Pocket D, isn't the number now 12 telepads?

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No.

IIRC there are 21 beacons heroside. If you have 11 telepads, you will have 1 with only 1 beacon, so the Pocket D beacon can be added there.

You're correct though that people should not be assuming everyone has level 50s running around to farm salvage/prestige/inf for the group. I've been messing around on the test server with rebuilding our base there and while it is a whole lot cheaper than it has been (finally), it is still going to require a lot of work for new and existing small groups to get where they would like to be.