Its long to those who are paid minimum wage

I was really enjoying this mission, right up until "Extraction of Steel" (which was a really fun map to look at and run around) where, I'm guessing, a combat between my crew and the klingons standing near the Trademaster killed two of the Trader contacts I needed to talk to to progress? Anyway, that prevented me from completing the mission, but I was impressed by what I did see. The maps and dialogue up to that point were excellent.

This has been a problem with the foundry since the start. Contacts aren't protected from death, and certain types of AOE (DoT3 weapons, warp core breaches) hit them. And since they're always level 1, even a little damage is almost guaranteed to be lethal.

A lot of authors have come up with ways to handle it, like having contact dialog be an interaction with an invisible object instead of the NPC itself, having contacts appear only when enemies are killed, or in one case I noticed a second identical contact beam in when the one I was dealing with died.


Edit: In this one I noticed the solution is to look at the map and see where the enemies are. One member of the group near the merchants is off to the right just as you beam in. If you engage him first, the rest will come to you and away from the contacts.

This is a good catch - NPC contacts probably should be set to unkillable (or at least a check box under their properity to make them unkillable) - which many are in the regular game. I will pass this forward for a possible fix.

Yeah when you get too it make a KDF one too so I can try it out since I do not do fed side missions.

Good story and an overall exciting mission. The ground combat was brutal though, some of the groups just beamed in on my head. Not sure if that's a bug or was intended.

Played on Advanced, definitely not for the faint heart I would have liked a few less Lt./Bosses.

One of the slave girls was still called UGC Contact. The constant screenshake on the surface was getting old fast.

Looking forward to part 2.

The Foundry team is investigating the death of NPC contacts. Thanks again for the heads up on this. I will let you know what happens - for now I just moved the two NPC contacts that died the most farther back to avoid them being more in the line of fire.

I think I saw video on foundary tricks about caging in NPC contacts with invisible walls so that enemies cannot target them. Then sink the trigger for the conversation at the NPC's feet.

Disclaimer: I have not designed a foundary mission. Just watch the videos for ideas. (I can never make up my mind on what I want to do.)

It's a badly needed fix. Please make sure they know it's a problem both in space and on the ground.

Honestly if this is what it takes to get some attention to the problems of the Foundry then I really wish more Cryptic/PWE employees would make a mission.

Thanks. We've been asking for this fix since closed beta, if I recall correctly. It would help a lot of people who face the same issue.