Most of what you see in the pathways external is old stuff, from when Cobra first got here. He's come a long way in a few short months. Having Pec on his staff was a mistake, that fortunately he no longer has to live with. He asked for some help, I can't, my plate is full. He's new to being in a mod and very new to leading one, give him a break and some patience.
Cobra if you are fredding then it is my advice to Fred the missions yourself, and then have a few people that you trust play the missions separately, and not in campaign form. What you need more than fredders is a solid tester. You've shown that you are willing to try to learn almost anything, that's a bonus, put what you have learned to use, and go to town on fredding. Get a good alpha tester, someone who will tear your missions apart and force you to fix them, and you cannot help but become a better fredder.
Learn to seperate mission dialogue from story dialogue, and when you initially build your missions don't include the story dialogue, but have an eye toward creating areas where it can take place, and make sure that you note the amount of time that it takes for a ship to go from point A to point B, if this is your "story dialogue time" That way you know how much time you have to work with. Start small, first few missions should be relatively easy...let's just get our feet wet and do some story stuff missions. After that, you can make themn increasingly more complex, but keep an eye on the pace of the missions, and allow it to increase in tempo with each successive mission.
To be honest, you lack focus, so let's concentrate on that. When you are building missions,
of things will enter your head that will be "neat". Don't do them. Stick to the story that you have written. You will have different ideas for the story, don't do them. Leave the story as it is, until you talk to someone who knows the story as well as you do, and then...don't do them. Wait a week or so before implementing story changes, they may sound good at first, and then when you have redone the story to include them, you find that
of the time "neat" means "corny"
This is the hardest one....take your time. there is no need to rush, especially as a new fredder.
My serious recommendation to you is, fred it. You will become a much stronger fredder for it. Don't overplay the missions that you have done, it gets boring. play it until it is finished, then don't play it for a few months, and when you no longer remember how the mission is built, play it. It's a different feeling than you get when playing it during construction. You are new to that mission when you do this, and you will feel what your players will feel when they play it.
Have fun making your mod match your dream for it.
