1.) is it possible to use a map twice. As in, use two spawn points each linked to a different part of the mission. I have had problems with this in the past, anyone have success?

2.) I need someone to ask all of the questions of a NPC before they can continue on. problem with this is, buttons cannot appear after specific questions are asked. Thus, if they ask the right one that points to success, the dialog ends. Granted most people ask questions in order, but you know you have that one person. any work around for this.

3.) is there anyway to 'turn off' the circles. I want someone to find the objective. Don't worry it is a smaller map, but its the pricipal of the thing

4.) any news on actually diabling the mini map without the fuzz on the entire screen?

5.) does fire do damage?

6.) does anyone know what special characters STO accepts? (alt codes) I've got a small list, but...
atl 0223 ß
alt 0188 ¼
alt 0189 ½
alt 0190 ¾
alt 0167 §
atl 0164 ¤
alt 230 µ
alt 253 ²
alt 0186 º
alt 263 •

thanks

1.) No, you cannot use a map twice. However, you can dupolicate a map which will give a 1:1 copy.

2.) Hmmm... This is a bit complex. You could create an immensely complex dialog tree but, honstly, is this a good idea?

3.) Sure. Just uncheck "waypoint" in the objective box.

4.) You could place a view plattform very, very high obove ground so that they cover the map.

5.) No. But damage volumes might come eventually.

6.) You have to try that. I wouln't use these in in mission descriptions or the mission name.

Thanks for the answers, I appreciate it.

about number 2.

I have a script about an investigation in which objectives appear as the discussion goes on. It works but like I said, if they ask say, question 3, then it would complete the dialog and they would not be able to ask question 1 & 2.

I'm wondering if anyone has a failsafe for this. I was thinking that before 'success' is reached, an away team member would ask "captain, I suggest you ask all of the questions before we continue," with the buttons 'go back' and 'continue'

Each question asked, provides a vital piece of information which will play a part in both the mission and the overall plot line.

thanks for your help.

As far as I can see it. No, right now you cannot hide/unhide buttons within a dialog.

Ending a dialog as a failure will just minimize it. You can trigger thing by dialog but only when it finishes by success.

Now, how could you do it? The easiest way I see right now would be, to create "Talk to NPC Contact"-objectives within the storyboard. You can then trigger the appropriate question with each objective. That way, the player has to get through every question.

Or you could make an "Interact with Object" objective and assign several invisble object to this. Each invisible object in fact starting the question about a topic. The advantage would be, that all the question would be displayed right away (albeit as interactions) and you would only need one objective.

1.) is it possible to use a map twice. As in, use two spawn points each linked to a different part of the mission. I have had problems with this in the past, anyone have success?
You will need to copy and paste maps to reuse them again, unfortunately.

2.) I need someone to ask all of the questions of a NPC before they can continue on. problem with this is, buttons cannot appear after specific questions are asked. Thus, if they ask the right one that points to success, the dialog ends. Granted most people ask questions in order, but you know you have that one person. any work around for this.
Have each successfully answered question lead to a menu that has all the options but the one last answered. That's one way of getting all the questions you want asked.

3.) is there anyway to 'turn off' the circles. I want someone to find the objective. Don't worry it is a smaller map, but its the pricipal of the thing
yes. Go to the story editor and have "show waypoints" set to disabled or false.

4.) any news on actually diabling the mini map without the fuzz on the entire screen?
You can wide, flat building blocks really high on the map to "cover" the minimap. The minimap takes a literal bird's eye view of a map and adding those flat building blocks will obscure it all.

5.) does fire do damage?
No. Everntually this would be desirable but it's likely that you'd add an invisible volume that damages cahracters, making anything damaging potentially.

6.) does anyone know what special characters STO accepts? (alt codes)STO accepts very few non-romanized characters (last I checked, cyrllic characters don't work and most unicode non-roman characters don't either).

2. yeah you can do that now with the dialog, with how Darren_kitlor said. I have some very dynamic dialog in a few of my missions that is similiar. I'll have a dialog with multiple answers and have them loop or repeat previous questions that weren't asked yet. Thats the easiest so far. I'm still working on getting the dialog options to pop up depending on what part of the mission you are on to work. The options are there, they just haven't worked right for me yet.