Champions Online - Tumblr Posts

I've been playing Champions Online again recently. The two main draws at the moment is syncing up with my characters--I find it rewarding to play as a dude that transforms into an astral Lion-Beast as he fight evil--and chatting on an an active LGBT chat channel (usually /Pride). Playing is like going to a gay bar for gaymer geeks, minus creepsters. There's a slight sense of belonging without having to buy drinks.

I'm trying not to get drawn into MMO addiction again, but it is a rather quirky soothing comfort. The powers that be opened a new studio in less expensive part of the country to "polish" the game better. And they've been adding improvements here and there--things people have been asking about for ages: we can now switch characters without logging out, there's a sort button on inventory, certain forms of in-game currency can be traded between characters, etc. Everybody was hoping for a mission builder "foundry," but word is that it's near-impossible with the current game mechanics. But little tweaks are nice.  Right now I log in, do a little mini-mission called an alert and then just idle and do housework while checking on chat.

Power-up Transformations

For most of my characters on Champions Online, I like to create transformation sequences. I create an alias loop and a keybind for each sequence. There's a 15sec cool-down on costume switching, so I try to tie the transformation to a power with a similar cool down and a cool effect or animation, usually an active offense. The following is what I add to my CommandAlias.txt text file and a small keybind file I load for the character I want to have change during battle. The CommandAlias.txt file is common to all characters, but it's possible to load different keybind files to each character. They can both be edited by text editor.

Champions Online\Live\Localdata\CommandAlias.txt (Edit and Save)

alias FS "FS1"

alias revertFS "FS9"

alias FSRevert "FS1"

alias FS1 "setactivecostume 0 07$$alias FS FS2$$alias revertFS FS1"

alias FS2 "setactivecostume 0 04$$alias FS FS3$$alias revertFS FS1"

alias FS3 "setactivecostume 0 05$$alias FS FS4$$alias revertFS FS2"

alias FS4 "setactivecostume 0 06$$alias FS FS5$$alias revertFS FS3"

alias FS5 "setactivecostume 0 00$$alias FS FS6$$alias revertFS FS4"

alias FS6 "setactivecostume 0 01$$alias FS FS7$$alias revertFS FS5"

alias FS7 "setactivecostume 0 02$$alias FS FS8$$alias revertFS FS6"

alias FS8 "setactivecostume 0 03$$alias FS FS9$$alias revertFS FS7"

alias FS9 "$$alias FS FS9$$alias revertFS FS7"

With explanations:

alias FS "FS1" //Creates alias "FS" which points to an alias  "FS1" that hasn't been declared yet. "FS" is short for the name of the character, Fertile Soil so I can tell these alias apart. All the alias names can be changed to whatever you like, assuming they don't interfere with console commands.

alias revertFS "FS9" //Creates an alias "revertFS" which points to the "FS9" alias that hasn't been declared yet. 

alias FSRevert "FS1" //Creates an alias "FSrevert" which points to the "FS1" alias that hasn't been declared yet. 

These previous three aliases are the ones I'm going to use for keybinds. The first two will point to different places in the costume loop and will change each time the loop is called. The first one, "FS", will cycle forward and "revertFS" cycles back.

Here is the loop:

alias FS1 "setactivecostume 0 07$$alias FS FS2$$alias revertFS FS1" //Creates the first step in the loop, "FS1." When this is activated it sets it to the eighth costume. It then changes the "FS" alias to point to the next step "FS2." It also sets the "revertFS" alias to point to this first step. If you want you could change it to point to the last step in this loop to make it actually cycle through all the costumes continuously. I usually set the first-step costume as a low-powered or plain-clothes human.

alias FS2 "setactivecostume 0 04$$alias FS FS3$$alias revertFS FS1"// This next step is just like the first, but chooses the fifth costume and sets up the "FS" to the step after this one. I usually do the costumes out-of-order, adding transitions and steps after the fact.

alias FS3 "setactivecostume 0 05$$alias FS FS4$$alias revertFS FS2"// This next step sets the sixth costume slot (The first one is 0, second is 1, third is 2--It's a programming thing). It then sets "FS" to be the next step and "revertFS" to be the previous step.

alias FS4 "setactivecostume 0 06$$alias FS FS5$$alias revertFS FS3" // And so on... the only thing that changes is the costume slot and the next/previous step aliases.

alias FS5 "setactivecostume 0 00$$alias FS FS6$$alias revertFS FS4"

alias FS6 "setactivecostume 0 01$$alias FS FS7$$alias revertFS FS5"

alias FS7 "setactivecostume 0 02$$alias FS FS8$$alias revertFS FS6"

alias FS8 "setactivecostume 0 03$$alias FS FS9$$alias revertFS FS7" //This is the last costume change. If you wanted it to loop you'd change the FS9 to FS1 and ignore the next alias.

alias FS9 "$$alias FS FS9$$alias revertFS FS7" //This is a dummy alias. Theoretically it's not needed, but it prevents the costume from being changed over and over again. 

Champions Online\Live\TFbinds.txt (Create in the \live folder and load in game via "/bind_load_file TFbinds.txt")

Q "FSRevert"

Control+E "revertFS"

ALT+2 "FS$$powerTrayExec 1 8"

On my set-up 'Q' reverts my character to human, Control+E cycles back one step (In case I accidentally cycled forward before the costume change cool-down), and 'alt+2' uses my alt+2 power and cycles forward in the transformation.

I tend to buy the extra "two account costume slots" so I have lots and lots of slots to use for power-up transformations. Some of my characters have multiple "evolution paths" depending on how I'm feeling which can be toggled with other keybinds. But here is a simple one if anyone wants to copy it.