^ Some good ideas. They're a little different from what I usually put out, which sort of revolve around characters in the story (aside from Mordus). Would you be interested in starting a separate thread and HoF? Billy Goat's Themed Solos
I could link it to the navigation on the right (like Limb's challenges)
Edit: Or even better: Challenges of the Billy Goat
Sounds intriguing, but this was more an idea for the weekly solos. I think I neither have the ideas for an ongoing challenge series nor the quality to maintain a HoF like the original 
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Sounds intriguing, but this was more an idea for the weekly solos. I think I neither have the ideas for an ongoing challenge series nor the quality to maintain a HoF like the original
haha Ok, I'll see what I can do in the weeks to come 
Vanilla is the New Black
"This is for all you new people. I only have one rule... everyone fights no one quits. You don't do your job, I'll shoot you. Do you get me?" (♪)
This is an Alliance themed series that focuses on Alliance grunts and weapons. Follow the mission parameters.
Global mission parameters: Armored Compartments not permitted. Geth Scanner not permitted. Screenshots or Video required, video preferred. Alliance personnel are expected to uphold the tradition of honor and integrity. Violation of the Systems Alliance Uniform Code will result in court martial. Wartime breaches of protocol are punishable by hanging.
Mission 1 - Backwater Station (♪)
After a misunderstanding between a new soldier, an Admiral, and his daughter, our soldier's assignment is guarding a largely automated listening post on Ontarom. Not much to do here. Not even decent scenery. Just sand.
Alert: Geth vessel detected in orbit. Multiple objects detected on atmospheric entry vectors.
"What are the flashlight heads doing here?" the soldier says, while opening the weapon locker and removing a Lancer. "Why are there only smoke grenades in here? And why do they say 'Best if used by 2176'?!"
Location: Ontarom (Dagger)
Enemy: Geth
Parameters: Human Soldier with Lancer. No frag grenades.
Mission 2 - Hearts and Minds (♪)
The Alliance routinely sends personnel on "outreach" missions to colonies in order to lend technical expertise and drum up good will. They are also a source of intelligence. Cerberus has been mounting a serious PR campaign in the colonies, and riots have not been uncommon.
While our Engineer puts the finishing touches on on an irrigation VI, a local farmboy trots out with a case and enthusiastically opens it. "Hey look what I bought from a Turian! It's a grenade launcher!"
"Geez, watch where you point that thing, kid! What possible use do you have for a Falcon, anyway?"
"You know those pyjaks are always getting into the soybeans. That Turian said this will make 'em think twice!"
Just then came the distinctive report of mass accelerator weapon fire from the town. Our Engineer's omnitool lit up with an message:
Cerberus sympathizers have fired upon local law enforcement. Assist local forces in neutralizing these criminals.
"Jimmy, I'm going to need to borrow your Falcon."
Location: Benning (Ghost)
Enemy: Cerberus
Parameters: Human Engineer with Falcon and Hornet. 50 Tech Kills required.
Mission 3 - Force Multiplier (♪)
There are still things the Alliance can learn about training biotics. To that end, some personnel are sent to Thessia to be trained by Commandos. When they return to Arcturus, they become instructors in the Alliance's martial biotic training school.
Our Adept is one such individual and is still there when the Reapers arrive. The Asari will need all the help they can get.
"Why do you insist on carrying two weapons, human? You are the weapon."
"I like to keep this one for close encounters."
Location: Thessia (aka Goddess)
Enemy: Reapers
Parameters: Human Adept with Phalanx and Scimitar. 20 Headshots required. Disruptor and Incendiary Ammo not permitted.
Mission 4 - A Bug's Life (♪)
According to Alliance records, the Collectors were destroyed in 2185. This was based on intelligence from various sources, including Shepard's debriefing and data taken from the SR2. However, the Alliance has lost contact with a facility on Sanctum that it had recently liberated from Cerberus. The distress signal, which was cut short, seemed to imply the facility was attacked by Collectors. A team was sent to investigate. Our Sentinel pulled up the communications log from a damaged console while the others checked the perimeter.
"Glacier to Variable. We are...[DATA CORRUPTED] ...Request extraction."
[DATA CORRUPTED]
"...we aren't gonna last seventeen hours! Those things are gonna come back in here, just like they did before!"
"Stow it Hudson!"
"Whatever was here is gone now. Just these weird bug things on the windows."
"Don't touch those, man!"
"Relax. I bet they squish like any other bug."
"Oh ****! You pissed them off!"
"Ahh! Get them off me!"
Vital readouts for the rest of the team then showed only flat lines.
Location: Sanctum (Glacier Hazard)
Enemy: Collectors
Parameters: Human Sentinel with Hurricane. 25 Tech Kills Required.
Mission 5 - Boom Stick (♪)
After Shepard secured Krogan support for the war, the Alliance began shipments of materiel and arms to Tuchanka. Our Vanguard was tasked with delivering one such shipment to a Krogan clansman posted to a ground to space cannon facility.
As the supplies were being transferred, the facility's sensors lit up like a well-calibrated Turian holiday tree.
"Wraaah! Looks like the Reapers are trying to crash our party. I hope you know how to fight, Princess."
"Don't worry about me, I'm a biotic. And I have my standard issue Avenger."
"That puny thing! Ha ha ha! Here, try a real man's weapon," the Krogan said as he handed our Vanguard a Claymore.
Location: Tuchanka (Giant Hazard)
Enemy: Reapers
Parameters: Human Vanguard with Claymore. 75 Shotgun Kills and 20 Headshots Required.
Mission 6 - Angel of Death (♪)
Cerberus has evolved from an Alliance Black-Ops group, to a pro-humanity cabal, a terrorist group, and a liability the Alliance does not need during the conflict with the Reapers. The brass want something to be done about it.
Intelligence suggests that members of Cerberus leadership are meeting on Noveria. Our Infiltrator has been tasked with eliminating them.
"This is the insertion point. Spy sats show a blizzard in the area, and visibility is extremely limited."
"They'll never know what hit 'em."
Location: Noveria (White Hazard)
Enemy: Cerberus
Parameters: Human Infiltrator with Avenger and Suppressor. 75 Pistol Kills and 20 Headshots Required.
Mission 7 – Call Down the Thunder (♪)
Twelve hours ago, stealth drones detected a Collector Cruiser in the Euler system. The Alliance has received a distress call from the civilian militia on Benning indicating the Collectors are attempting to grab as many remaining colonists as they can. The nearest naval asset, SSV El Alamein, was directed to assist, although they only had a single N7 asset aboard. Task Force 37 is currently “steaming” towards Euler, although they are several days out.
As the rain pings on the roof of the ramshackle prefab turned make-shift command post, the colonials are startled when a figure appears at the door.
“Somebody call for an exterminator?”
Location: Benning (Ghost Hazard)
Enemy: Collectors
Parameters: Human Infiltrator with Crusader. Four Personal Gold Medals Required.
Mission 8 – Malicious Scripts (♪)
“As if connecting the reactor control terminals to the extranet wasn’t enough, you were running Galaxy of Fantasy on it! I can’t imagine how many Turian regulations you are breaking. I’ve got it nearly back to spec though.”
“Fuel reactor control is boring. Besides, the Hierarchy is about to recognize that I’m the next Vakarian and post me to the frontlines.”
“Is that why you carry a Viper inside a fuel depot?”
“What about you, human? Compensating for something with that M99?”
“I was caught in a field without a weapon once. Not the field, it was literally a soybean field. Decided I was going to keep the biggest piece of iron with me I could.”
The Turian shook his head and started “I heard this joke…”
Our engineer cut him off “That’s strange. There seem to be some unusual runtimes in memory…”
Over the hum of the machinery came an unmistakable stuttering sound.
“Geth! They’ve brea…” the Turian shouted, before taking a rocket to the face.
Location: Cyone (Reactor)
Enemy: Geth
Parameters: Human Engineer with Saber OR Viper. 50 Tech Kills and 20 Headshots Required.
Mission 9 – No Kassa For Alarm (♪)
“The Geth are our allies, and yet we are in the Terminus Systems with a team out looking for a Geth Hub to destroy. But you’re 3 Laws Safe now, right Smiley?”
“Reference: Earth fiction. Asimov, Isaac. Formalized in Runaround. This is an imperfect analogy. However, the Geth are allied with organics against the Reapers and their proxies. Hostile platforms contain Reaper code and are not true Geth.”
“Talk about malware…” said our Sentinel. “Now I have a question about Geth dreams and sheep.”
“That topic would be irrelevant. Alert: perimeter motion sensors activated.”
“Those pieces of junk are overly sensitive. Probably those damn crab things.”
“This one will investigate.”
Location: Arvuna (Hyda)
Enemy: Geth
Parameters: Human Sentinel with Locust. 50 Biotic Kills and 20 Headshots Required.
Mission 10 – Fists of Fury (♪)
After surviving trial by fire on Thessia, our Adept awaits the MSV Ascension on Sur’Kesh, for transport to the Alliance fleet. The relative peace offered time for reflection.
“…and I am proficient in creating Shockwaves.”
“Shockwaves? Don’t make me laugh! Shockwaves are only appropriate for brutish Krogan fat-heads! Now you will show me what you know. If you can land a single blow, I will bow and call you Master. Begin!”
No matter the attack, the Asari flowed around it gracefully, visibly amused. Finally the Master performed a single biotic kick, sending our Adept flying 10 meters.
“Hahaha. Your shockwaves are amateur at best. And your so called biotic fu is really quite pathetic. But I asked you to demonstrate what you know, and you did. Not a single thing! Your training begins tomorrow. I will forge you into a weapon, and stone will fear your fist!”
The tranquil air was pierced by a klaxon. “Cerberus units have entered the base!” Our Adept’s fist began to glow.
Location: Sur’Kesh (Jade)
Enemy: Cerberus
Parameters: Human Adept with Wraith. 50 Melee Kills Required.
Mission 11 – Hybrid Synergy (♪)
Our Vanguard was transferred to Menae with a group of Krogan during a lull in fighting on Tuchanka. But not before a skirmish with Cerberus resulted in a souvenir. Some of the Turians were impressed, the Krogan, not so much.
“Lot easier than toting that Claymore around.”
“Ha Ha Ha! What a puny shotgun for a puny human!”
“Yeah laugh it up. This thing is wicked with some good ammo.”
“Spirits, Collectors are attacking the air field!”
“Hrmph! It was only a matter of time before they sent a worthy enemy against us! Krogan and Turians will defeat them. Human, you and your toy shotgun can guard this hill in the rear.”
Location: Menae (Condor)
Enemy: Collectors
Parameters: Human Vanguard with Talon. 25 Tech Kills and 25 Biotic Kills Required.
Mission 12 – Reap the Whirlwind (♪)
For singlehandedly stopping a Geth raid on a listening post, our Soldier received a promotion to Operations Chief. Unfortunately that was short lived, as some comments about an Asari matriarch resulted in a minor diplomatic incident.
“At least I’m not stuck at the ass end of the galaxy anymore,” our Soldier thought, while combing through the wreckage of the downed shuttle. “And I always wanted to see London. Dirtier than I imagined though.”
The pilot and the rest of the squad didn’t make it. All of their weapons are non-functional. Except for Tex’s Typhoon.
Rescue shuttle inbound. Just need to survive for a few minutes...
Location: London
Enemy: Reapers
Parameters: Human Soldier with Typhoon. 10 Waves Survived Required.
Wow guys! I'm stunned.
*A tear, rolls down cheek*
These challenges look absolutely awesome! It seems that you'd like the Themed Solo challenges 2.0 to stay around for a little while! Well, I would love to incorporate these into the weekly series (spacing them out a little, of course). I think the 2.0 series can easily hit another 21 weeks with this support and motivation! I have a few ideas up my sleeve as well! I guess I won't fully retire once Destiny comes out, after all If you would rather they be put into separate mini-series, please feel free to let me know! I'm looking forward to these!
Wow guys! I'm stunned.
*A tear, rolls down cheek*
These challenges look absolutely awesome! It seems that you'd like the Themed Solo challenges 2.0 to stay around for a little while!
I'm fine with both options.
Nice job kaxas.
But isn´t there missing something at the end of 3b?
"...and defend it until he can..."
I expected something big to happen. Like raising to Salarian Jesus and bring doom upon the Reapers 
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Nice job kaxas.
But isn´t there missing something at the end of 3b?
"...and defend it until he can..."
I expected something big to happen. Like raising to Salarian Jesus and bring doom upon the Reapers
He'll respawn in 3 days, don't worry.
Added another 6. You hit each faction 3 times, and use each vanilla character twice. I tried to set it up so the playstyles are a little different between the two missions with the same character. The idea is that they are the same character, but if you want different builds you have two of each character laying around anyway so it might save you respecs.
All of the weapons are supposed to be Human. Cerberus ones are technically Human if not Alliance, but should make a little sense in context.
I suppose which class has the most similar ones is up for debate. I suppose hypothetically you could play both missions relatively similarly if you meet the criteria. I did not want to make parameters that would require a huge amount of grinding.
That said, I think the last three might get kind of tricky. I would like some feedback on the location, factions and parameters. 1-6 is supposed to be fairly straightforward, but 7-12 are not. Some notes on what I was thinking for each:
Mission 1 - Basically the no-frags rule was to try and prevent grenade spam and push to the CS / Combo spam style. Which incidentally was why the weapon is Lancer. I guess it isn't all that enforceable except with an in-game screenshot showing no frags. The enemy is Geth because they don't have barriers and they aren't organic.
Mission 2 - Similarly to 1, this might lend itself to combos, but is actually supposed to demonstrate stagger weapons against Cerberus. Hornet is equipped so you get a little better DPS for Atlases, but players probably won't go SMG the whole game like they might with Hurricane.
Mission 3 - Power centric Adept against strength, ie barriers and armor. The weapons are light, and the medal requirement is what I consider a wrinkle rather than a complication.
Mission 4 - Aliens. A little more than a wrinkle with the parameters as the medal goal is Tech kills on a Human Sentinel. However, there are still a couple different ways to accomplish this. Hurricane is there to make up for the wrinkle, and was chosen partly for interaction with Swarms.
Mission 5 - Should be straightforward. Idea is a bit of cooldown restriction against a faction where you can't charge completely willy nilly. Map is somewhat favorable even though it is the hazard version.
Mission 6 - Covert ops. I wanted to feature the Suppressor since it is allegedly born out of an Alliance program. Avenger is there only if you run out of ammo for an Atlas. I didn't want to give a high DPS gun so that people would stick with the Suppressor.
Mission 7 - Now you are in full Terran Ghost mode. AC is your Tactical Nuke power. I originally wanted to put a Killstreak requirement, but I don't know if that makes for too much grinding. It is irritating if you blow a Cobra and don't get one. I want input on that.
Mission 8 - You did stagger, now you get hitscan weapons on the Engineer against targets with small heads. The weapon choice is between power and precision with lower encumbrance on the side of precision.
Mission 9 - The idea was to use a power style against a non-ideal enemy. The weapon is precision with headshot bonus, but without particularly high DPS. Enemies have small heads.
Mission 10 - Melee human adept. You get the Wraith if you want an omniblade and hopefully to make this one not completely frustrating.
Mission 11 - Now the parameters are somewhat intrusive. But I limited it to 25 Tech so as to not make it a complete PITA, and I know it is doable. I give the Talon to try and make it more fair. Want some thoughts on the combo of map and faction. It is supposed to be the second hardest, it might be the hardest.
Mission 12 - I hedge the first one towards combos, but now we are going to go straight up machinegun. Frags are a go. This is the only one with a survive requirement, but it is Soldier v Reapers which I think should be doable.
^ I agree fully and capn and I have discussing some possibilities Stay tuned!
Do you guys have any opinions on the missions wrt difficulty? Would adding a killstreak requirement to 7 make sense or just be a pain?
Do you guys have any opinions on the missions wrt difficulty? Would adding a killstreak requirement to 7 make sense or just be a pain?
I think you should add it. Especially having ACV for that run. It may be slightly tricky on Ghost, since it's a larger map, often with split spawns, but I don't think it'll be too hard to cluster a few enemies together for the killstreak.
I think the difficulties are perfect. They get tougher as the series progresses which works! None of them seem grindy.
Originally I was thinking AC would be banned from the series, then add it into one mission for fun.
So I was wondering if people think for M7 that AC should simply be authorized but not required? That would be with a killstreak requirement added (sort of persuasion to use AC but not mandatory).
What level killstreak medal should it be? I was thinking only silver, but I don't know.
I don't really get why people don't like AC. I am also curious if people would even run it in most of these if it was legal since Geth Scanner or Grenade Capacity is what everyone runs for the speedrun hall of fame, for instance. Except perhaps on Geth.
9 rockets vs. collectors gold makes a significant impact on the game. Nuke w5 once, w6 clean up once, w7 once (for triple scions), w8 thrice and w9 once and you've gotten rid of a decent amount of wave budget just by using rockets on praetorians and scions (they are worth more to the wave budget than their equivalent enemies in other factions). You still have 2 rockets, that can be used on obj waves and clean up. All that's left are basically some abombs, some troopers, and may be one crab and/or a couple of scions. It kills the 'challenge' aspect to an extent IMO.
Ideally, I would like the missile usage restricted only to obj. waves but that is a bit hard on someone new to soloing. I liked the no-rockets on non objective waves or no-scanner restriction in the Outlier series, as it certainly increased the difficulty by a notch.
I agree that the scanner provides a huge advantage to the player too, but all it does is give you situational awareness, and not 3 rockets that can totally wipe out spawns.
Ok ok, you convinced me. I suppose it would be more consistent with past challenges with no AC. I'll change the parameters on 7 since it is Collectors and they end up with less units anyway.
edit: And since you brought it up, should there be a restriction on Geth Scanner? Are less people likely to even try the solos if it is banned?
I am totally fine with no-scanner rule. It'd definitely spice things up a bit. And I liked most of the challenges you came up with and so, I might give them a shot. I can't speak for others though.
9 missiles? That ain't nuff against Collectorture.
9 missiles? That ain't nuff against Collectorture.
Heh. I try to save a lot of missiles for 8.
Heh. I try to save a lot of missiles for 8.
I'd rather missile glitch than play against Collectors. But then again, I dunno (don't care to look up) how to missile glitch.
Stop me if this is too cheesey...
System Alliance Awards For Meritorious Service
Colonial Service Medal - Complete Mission 1 and 2.
Tech Specialist Badge - Complete Mission 2 and 4.
Biotic Specialist Badge - Complete Mission 3 and 5.
Sharpshooter Badge - Earn Gold Headshot Medal in 5 missions.
Alliance Cross - Complete Missions 1 through 6.
Marksman Badge - Qualify for Sharpshooter, and complete Mission 6 and 7 in less than 70 minutes combined.
Tech Expert Badge - Qualify for Tech Specialist, and earn 4 personal gold medals on Mission 8.
Biotic Expert Badge - Qualify for Biotic Specialist, and earn 5 Waves Survived on Mission 9.
Close Combat Expert Badge - Complete Mission 10 and 11.
Star of Terra - Complete All Missions
*****
I borrowed the medals from the achievements, but modified the last one. I guess maybe they could be shrunken more to take up less space in the HOF (already cut them in half). Or could just drop it. They are split up such that half are supposed to be for the first block, and half for the second.
BTW capn, since you're not permitting scanner and AC V, I would suggest a ban on the usage of incendiary cheese too.
I really like the medals idea capn Great job!
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