Suggentions for Missions and Story Lines, Mission and Story Line suggestions

Yeah, good points. Could he have possibly served with Mal somewhere before Serenity Valley? That might require some rewrites. I'm also thinking back to the pilot, where Joss talks about creating the moment that allows Mal to shoot Dobson. Could we create some sort of moment where Tarring crosses a line from a manipulated chicken into a more villainish character? I'm trying to think of something that would affect Mal really personally in this story. There's Xiao, Mal would probably take anything directed against her pretty personally. He's really protective of his crew. Could Tarring maybe be manipulated into some sort of attempt against one of Mal's crew?

Do any of those ideas spark anything?

Xiao may be the key. There was a plotline that didn't really result in anything about an unknown ship shadowing the Runner; perhaps they could take a few potshots, wound one of her crew. Or the recon mission to Waelen (not yet public except via the mod files themselves)----Xiao gets out of that one without a scratch, but perhaps she shouldn't. It would make more sense to attack the base if they take some kind of actions against Mal or Xiao while they're scouting.

I think that sounds pretty reasonable to me.

When it comes time to write the story which reveal's Chang's plans and cements Mal's departure from his company, it seems to me that it shouldn't be a matter of Chang acting behind Mal's back; that would be a rehash of the Tarring story. Instead, Chang should be acting right in the open, but simply not telling Mal the whole story.

This would give us at least 4-5 missions where Mal is helping Chang prepare for his private little war, without realizing what he's doing. Things could proceed from there.

Idea: Chang's been doing a bit of piracy on the side to fund his private army. Best of intentions, nothing too sinister, but enough to raise a few red flags for Mal.

Once Mal wises up and quits, Chang informs him that he knows too much, and that, regrettably, he has to put a small bounty on Mal's head. Not big enough to attract real attention, but enough to save face (even though he privately suspects Mal won't talk). This could cause some problems down the road.

A scene I just thought up, for early in the mod.

Ha, ha! I love it! And, informative to the player at the same time.

The initial scouting for a re-terraform effort on Shadow could be a Col. North mission, since that would be an Alliance-backed effort. Obviously re-terraforming would take quite a while, so the spob would not need to show any change until Part 2; but the initial scouting could be in Part 1. We enforce it being the latter half of Part 1 by putting it on the North string, too.

Each time I play through, this particular desc bugs me a bit. I get what it was trying to do, but I just don't feel it works quite as well as it should. For one, the "twist" about the prank.....a mylar strap spanking? Just feels like it could be something more clever. For another, Fritz's response makes him look like an idiot.

The name "Jad Zen" kinda bugs me. Alternatives?

One thing that doesn't sit right is the fact that the player is suspicious of Tarring for so long...and he really is the bad guy. The lack of a twist bugs me.

I'm not suggesting we alter Part 1 extensively, of course, but I think tweaking a few things here and there to make it more ambiguous might be worthwhile.

Especially if we eventually learn Micha was the one setting Tarring up. Not because he doesn't have issues, but to put the additional blame on him for something she and Chang were doing. Such as the proposed piracy?

The Snowbank missions don't proceed fast enough to guarantee the player will finish them before the end of Part 1. Therefore we should look at making Fritz's involvement in the last few conditional.

Another thing that kinda bugs me is that for now we leave the player ship-less after they finish the central storyline. We may want to extend by one desc to introduce the new ship, so that they've got something to finish their other missions in.