Who Do You Think Is Supposed To Win?

[Arklon]

Doesn't matter if you want to view Eden as the bad guys. They are quite a few steps ahead of Plymouth in technology, and the possibility that Eden are the colony to escape New Terra is quite likely opposed to the opposite scenario.

Plymouth is extremely desperate. And they have spiders. Perhaps what's left from Plymouth's unfinished starship program could be hastily finished, though marginally.

[CK9]

The projections were made taking resources for structures and units out of the space program resources more than likely

It wouldn't take much to scrape together enough metal from the structures....

[Psudomorph]

There is no question for me that there are enough resources on New Terra for more than one starship.

As a personal challenge to myself I have completed both campaigns while launching enough modules to build a total of 6 starships for a grand total of 1200 passengers. (I didn't want to go any higher because it would involve multiple spaceports, or holding modules in trucks).

I suspect that even on hard mode you could complete at least two starships.

So in other words, there are more than enough resources to evacuate as many people as necessary before the blight consumes the planet.

I see no reason why both colonies couldn't have survived.

I just love imagining the look on Eden's collective face when they realize that plymoth has simultaneously kicked and saved their behinds.    

[Prometheus]

There is no question for me that there are enough resources on New Terra for more than one starship.

As a personal challenge to myself I have completed both campaigns while launching enough modules to build a total of 6 starships for a grand total of 1200 passengers. (I didn't want to go any higher because it would involve multiple spaceports, or holding modules in trucks).

I suspect that even on hard mode you could complete at least two starships.

So in other words, there are more than enough resources to evacuate as many people as necessary before the blight consumes the planet.

I see no reason why both colonies couldn't have survived.

I just love imagining the look on Eden's collective face when they realize that plymoth has simultaneously kicked and saved their behinds.  

awesome accomplesment.

As for what prevented Eden's escape after you win as Plymouth, you have to take out a good portion of their base to get to their space port.  Kinda silly that you had to steal the RLV.  By the time I stole it I could probably have build several starships with the resources I had stored up.

It's possible that one of Eden's outposts was able to finish building their starship after Plymouth destroyed their main base.

Also If they both got away the war would likely continue.  The struggle to survive would have left lasting divisions between the colonies.  Eden would be pretty pissed about the RLV and all the collateral damage Plymouth caused.  

[dm-horus]

The answer is: HUMANITY. It doesnt matter who wins as long as someone does. Considering elements of both factions make it out, they all win.

This question is like "Who wins: Orange Juice or Apple Juice?" or "Who wins: A hammer from Michigan or West Virginia?"

This is really splitting hairs, here.

[Highlander]

If there are 2 outcomes to a question, a 3rd won't answer the question ?

I mean, the topics asks for our interpretation of who wins of colony A OR B, then the answer can't be C (C = Humanity in horus' case)

 :lol:


Regardless, I still agree with you Horus, it doesn't really matter does it ? Humanity survives in either case.

[Savant 231-A]

Regardless, I still agree with you Horus, it doesn't really matter does it ? Humanity survives in either case.

Yeah, but there is just some differences.
 If the "bad" dudes escape, the humanity will be bloody(kill each other, nuke each other) and won't care about anything, but if the "good" dudes escape, humanity will peacful etc.

[Ro@m]

There is no question for me that there are enough resources on New Terra for more than one starship.

As a personal challenge to myself I have completed both campaigns while launching enough modules to build a total of 6 starships for a grand total of 1200 passengers. (I didn't want to go any higher because it would involve multiple spaceports, or holding modules in trucks).

I suspect that even on hard mode you could complete at least two starships.

So in other words, there are more than enough resources to evacuate as many people as necessary before the blight consumes the planet.

I see no reason why both colonies couldn't have survived.

I just love imagining the look on Eden's collective face when they realize that plymoth has simultaneously kicked and saved their behinds.  

Very nice theory,makes you wonder.....

[Psudomorph]

Regardless, I still agree with you Horus, it doesn't really matter does it ? Humanity survives in either case.

Yeah, but there is just some differences.
 If the "bad" dudes escape, the humanity will be bloody(kill each other, nuke each other) and won't care about anything, but if the "good" dudes escape, humanity will peacful etc.

In a way, either faction escaping without the other could be considered bad.

The two colonies seem to represent a split in overall ideals, let us for the sake of simplicity refer to them as Aggressive (Eden) and Passive (Plymoth).

Eden's aggressive nature, essentially unrestrained by the more moderate elements that left their colony for plymoth, has a tendency to take larger risks, and try to alter a situation by brute force.
This is the kind of thinking leads to a far stronger colony, but also one with more potential to stumble, blinded by arrogance, and their mistakes are all the more devastating because of the power they put into things.

Plymoth on the other hand seems to me to be more passive, not really wanting to make the first move, perhaps a bit more introverted (This is probably why I identify with Plymoth better than Eden). While they are able to deal with trouble when it comes, their passive thinking can leave them unprepared for trouble when it comes, and possibly slower to respond to it when it does.

Evidence for this separation abounds in the story and even in the game.
Eden prefers to develop more powerful weapons and attack with them, plymoth prefers to hinder attackers (EMP, Stickyfoam) or even to capture attacking weapons and use them to reinforce defenses (Spiders).
Eden creates a complex system to shoot down meteors with a giant mazer beam, plymoth just grins and bears it.
Eden's residence focuses on holding more people, plymoth's residence focuses on better protecting its people.
Eden taps dangerous geological forces (magma well), Plymoth just makes do with normal mines
Emma even mentions and summarizes the philosophical differences at one point in the novella.

In short, I contend that neither colony is the best choice to continue humanity on its own.
There are children from the opposite colony on the starship either way, and the fundamental makeup of humanity in the form of the gene bank remains unchanged, but never underestimate social pressures. The philosophy of the winning colony could take many many generations to fully dilute back to moderate levels after being strengthened by its success at saving humanity, and opposing viewpoints weakened by the loss of many of their powerful voices. I think it would be dangerous for humanity to seek a new home with that level of viewpoint restriction.

In fact, the original reason that I first attempted to build more than one starship was that after playing both sides, I considered it unacceptable that either of them be destroyed. Granted that I exploited weaknesses in the game in order to do so (Mines not drying up, and the trick of building multiples of a module before it gets removed from the build menu upon launch), but that is beside the point because real life has even more alternatives, and it is far harder to be restricted to one path. I don't like being forced to choose between two extremes, both of which I know to be wrong. There is always a compromise that will give a better result, even if some preconceived notions have to be bent or broken in order to do so.

[White Claw]

You guys might also be missing out on the fact that it's a game. Just because you can build 12 starships in-game doesn't mean that was how the novella was to be interpreted. In order to make the game fun and challenging, you get to wage high level war with many vechs. You frequently fight battles with far more vechs than are hinted at in the novella. The scale of everything is a little bloated for gameplay.

It wouldn't be much fun if you could only build 12 units and had to save every last scrap of metal to build the starship. Actually, it might be fun to try, but to limit the entire game to this sort of gameplay would not be fun in the long term.

If you read the novella, the question of "Who wins" reads differently than if you look purely at the game.

And to agree with Horus, the point is that there are two factions that cause eachother to rush and compete. You might have more resources available to a single colony, but you're putting all of your eggs into one basket. If the blight over takes the single colony, everybody loses.

[Nightmare24148]

Well in the novellas, Convecs can become Command centers and Cargo Trucks can carry weapons :-P.

But yeah, I also think that there is just enough resources for another one, as Axen Moon wouldn't then try to gather everyone for one last desperate gambit after Plymouth takes off. Remember he assembles the leftover Eden people too...in both campaigns.

[Flameoftheabyss]

And don't forget Plymouth is the one who converted their RLV program into ballistic missiles...

Ah, but they did that only because they were desperate. Eden was the aggressor.

Anyway..

I consider the Plymouth Campaign to be canon, simply because the story is much better than the Eden Campaign story.

In any case, on who is the good guy, Plymouth as a whole are peace-loving people. The same cannot really be said about Eden.
Eden was also the aggressor, Plymouth the victim.
I think Nguyen wanted to declare war but didn't live to see it happen.
After Nguyen, it was Echo, who became leader with the people of Eden's support. So they can't be all that good.

Also, I think the Plymouth story is the 'Good Ending'. Plymouth and Eden forget their differences and launch half of each into space, and the Savants got their mighty Planetmind... presumably, if New Terra doesn't blow up first.
Of course, there's no guarantee that the spaceship would ever make it to a new world, considering that Plymouth launched a half-a**ed (sorry, can't think of a better word for this situation) spaceship and have to perform the final touches and tests in space...

In contrast, Eden managed to build a proper spaceship in their Campaign. But did they bring the Savants with them? That wouldn't be so good an ending for the Savants. But then again, maybe they were responsible for the blight.

[Sirbomber]

For the love of God, if I see one more "LOL EDEN IS EVIL" post I'm going to go to your house and murder you while you sleep!

When I read this thread, all I see is people talking about the PLYMOUTH story.  How about you play the Eden campaign and read the story? Then maybe you'll learn that Plymouth raided Eden, kidnapped Eden scientists, and stole Eden technology after Eden had tried to negotiate a peace treay between the two Colonies. Now who's evil? Eden is not made up of Nazis, again if you read the Masters are a minority group who in the end are defeated by Axen with the help of the legitimate government of Eden.
How can you say that Eden started the war, when Plymouth is the rebel colony? Neither colony is "peace loving" or "war hungry". But again, all you play is the Plymouth campaign and ignore the Eden campaign. Plymouth attacks Eden more than Eden attacks Plymouth.

The Eden Story is infinitely better than the Plymouth Campaign.  Eden's story has actual stuff happening while the Plymouth Story is about Emma and her broken computer. The Plymouth ending is the "good ending"? There is no "good ending" or "bad ending" in OP2. Either you win the mission, or you lose and your colony is doomed. Besides, "I LIEK IT BETUR LOL" doesn't make it the real story.

Actually, it is the EDEN story in which the Eden and Plymouth survivors band together.  The Plymouth ending mentions nothing of the sort, and we are in fact led to believe the war is still being fought on New Terra as Axen has to manually take control of Plymouth's defenses before they get owned by Eden.

Who cares about whether the ending "is good for the Savants"? This is about people, not machines.  Eden doesn't even get into all the boring details about the Savants (thankfully).  Besides, in either starship, a bunch of Savants are needed for the Command Module, so it doesn't matter how many get left behind and how many don't.

And this should blow your little Uberchristian mind into millions of tiny pieces:

Axen laughed and shook his head.  "A computer getting religion? I thought only humans were prone to that form of mental illness."

God did not "smite" Eden. God has nothing to do with Outpost 2. And even if God DID smite Eden, isn't God supposed to be loving and forgiving? The God I remember doesn't run around blowing stuff up becasue he feels like it. So please, leave all your fake Christian Zealot crap out of this.

I'm really getting tired of seeing all these posts trying to show how Eden should lose because they're evil when they aren't and, no matter how you look at it, Eden has better technology, meaning they can build a better starship faster. Eden wins.

Besides, I'd think you'd all WANT the Eden story to be the real one, because then Axen gets to kill Echo Van Dozier (AKA Hitler Junior).

[Psudomorph]

Some points I would like to make:

-None of them are necessarily evil, and the aggressor is always the other colony if you play the campaign games.

-I have read the Eden story, and I indeed liked it quite a bit, but not as much as the Plymoth one. When I read a story, and I imagine this is true of many others, I tend to try to empathize with the characters by visualizing myself in their situation, and for me personally, nerd that I am, the plymoth story of a scientist talking with her computer resonates more deeply with me than tales of political intrigue and heroic derring do. Once again, it is a problem of the two colonies each having a different way of approaching life.
I can understand different people liking the Plymoth or Eden story better, because the "attitude" of each story resonates better with their personality. Some people here probably find Emma talking with Frost to be excruciatingly boring, wheras I can think of few things I would prefer to do.

-The Master's ideas are not entirely bad. Being choosy about genetic makeup of children would help considerably for a small band of humans trying to survive. I think the fact that they took the idea so far, to the point where it threatened humanity, is yet another testament to the lack of a moderating Plymoth viewpoint. The Masters represent the worst Eden could become without Plymoth balancing their worst tendencies, a group that would be willing to abandon humanity for the sake of rushing forward to a "next step" without regard for consequences.

This is not to say that the people of Eden are bad though, they are just a little too "gung ho", which is easily misinterpreted as evil. The people of Plymoth on the other hand would end up stagnating without Eden to push them forward.
The attitudes of Eden and Plymoth have always and will always exist in humanity. They represent different overall attitudes that different people have towards forward progress. The split between the colonies reinforced both attitudes by physically separating the people who felt differently (separating the Sirbombers from the Psudomorphs if you will.   )

-It is always possible to have a good ending or bad ending. The good ending is whatever makes the person playing feel better about their accomplishments. Granted there is no good/bad ending explicitly coded into the game itself, but a good/bad ending can definitely exist in the minds of the players, and that doesn't make it any less real.

-You don't care what happens to the Savants? It seems like they are at least as sentient as humans, and if not yet, then they will be when they have taken over New Terra. If they really are sentient machines as suggested, then I think their fate matters as much as the fate of any human would. I don't think you can write the Savants off as non-sentient computers unless you have some inside info I don't know about.

-I am assuming the part about religion refers to something that someone edited out of their post, or a deleted post, because otherwise most of it appears to be a complete non-sequiter. If you are reffering to the post on the first page, then I think Brazilian Fan already nipped that potential *hitstorm in the bud.

-Eden definitely has better technology (In keeping with their progress-oriented attitude I might add), and is technologically better equipped to build a starship. From a strictly utilitarian view they are the best choice to get humanity off New Terra, but that doesn't mean that we can't sympathize with the ideals of another colony, or question whether the loss of one or the other colony might not prove to humanity's disadvantage in the long run.

-It is no surprise to me that people see Eden as evil. Their attitude is one of aggressiveness, progress, not taking no for an answer, etc. Eden is the very essence of many tendencies that people dislike, and may consider "Bad". Thus it is easy to label Eden as "evil", when merely they are just one extreme of the vast spectrum of attitudes found in humanity. They are not evil, they are just the kind of personalities that some people find off-putting.

Eden v. Plymoth
-To the people who dislike Eden enough to want it destroyed, I say that without Eden, humanity would quickly stagnate. Our technology and infrastructure would expand more slowly on the new world, and we probably wouldn't do anything too interesting. We would survive, but not thrive, and it would be boring as hell. Eden contains humanity's impelling force, the drive that makes us want to go out and seize the day, conquer the universe.
-To the people who want to see Plymoth destroyed, I say that without Plymoth, Eden will eventually overstep itself and be severely damaged in the process. Their technology and colony would quickly expand once they reached a new world, and it would look to everyone like nothing could stop us now. Then something would go wrong. Most likely it would be in the form of war breaking out between two or more ideologies, or maybe another disaster related to scientific development. Similar disturbances will continue to hurt the new colony. Their development would be of the "two steps forward, one step back" method.
Plymoth contains humanity's stabalizing force, the group that says "Lets wait a minute and think this thing through first".

[Sirbomber]

About the religion thing, I've been keeping most of this in for a week because I didn't want to post in an inactive thread and just wanted to get it out.

Who said anything about destroying Plymouth?  Not that they don't deserve it (stupid Mic rushers). But you forget that Plymouth's children go with Eden (or Eden's children go with Plym) so the balance is restored and it doesn't really matter in the end.

It's okay to label the Masters as evil; they are Nazis. Look at them and look at the Nazis. The Masters. The Master race. They're all about genetic purity and purging humanity of inferiory genes through warfare.  Under the Masters (Plym story) Eden becomes a police state with Echo as the dictator (Hitler). Any disenters mysteriously vanish (sent to the labor/concentration camps).

Sixteen-year-old Echo Van Dozier thought that "Echo" was an excellent name for a clone.  She was a clone, she liked to remind everyone.  Most people were, the good people anyway.  The colony couldn't afford to carry any dead weight, so they pulled only the best genetic material from the Gene Bank to make only the best people.
Of course, some people still elected to have babies the old-fashioned way, but Echo thought that was silly.  The babies didn't turn out too bad, since usually both of their parents were superior clones, but why try to improve on perfection?  This random mixing of genes, hoping for something acceptable to come out of it, was just madness as far as she was concerned.

She volunteered at the Nursery as frequently as possible, and she got to see all the babies.  She thought it was obvious that the clone babies were better: healthier, stronger, more active.  Why other people couldn't see that, she didn't understand.
But she'd already decided to attend the University, study medicine, child development, and genetics, and make the Nursery her life's work.  Someday she'd be in charge of this place, and then she'd find a way to break people of this gene-mixing notion.  There'd be nothing but clones when she was in charge. 

She'd find a way.  She was sure of it.

And why should I care about the Savants? They're unemotional machines. It thinks emotions are "abstract". Why should I feel sorry for them when they don't even know what sympathy is? Besides, most people agree that the after the Savants become infected they want to destroy humanity. Look at all the OP3's.  All of them have the infected Savants as major villains, not "designers of the new world" they thought they'd be. Think of it this way: You can put them out of their misery.

I've never trusted Artificial Intelligence anyways. Though I must admit, when she says "You have failed; our colony is doomed"... Sexy. Don't deny it.    

[acid101]

Eden pwns! eden launches in edens story anywayz

[Highlander]

Sirbomber  (thumbsup)


I think people makes a mistake in their interpretition on the topic title. It doesn't say "Who do you want to win", it says".

All plymouth has going for going for them is EMP missiles(which is countered by Eden) and some extra Morale buildings.

Eden has better weapons, more ways to utilize their surroundings(Magma Refining, Heat mining) and a huge cost saver in their RLV. (Would be nice to see how much is actually saved there ?)

[Nightmare24148]

Well their ways of living are reflected in game mechanics too:

Eden has heavier weaponry, more advanced stuff, usually cheaper stuff, less research times, Advanced Residences, but more unstable morale, higher costs for morale stuff and social/civic stuff, etc.

Plymouth on the other hand has things to adapt, heavier buildings, less research times for socio-civic topics, less costs for those stuff, and a more stable/healthy morale - on the other hand their machinery and general costs are higher, and their weapons are more of adapted things, not direct damage. Same with their EMP missiles.  

[Sirbomber]

Eden has ... more unstable morale ...

Actually, Hacker told me awhile ago that Eden has a built-in morale bonus.
[size=0]I'm not quite sure if he made a mistake, but that's what he told me.[/size]
But it doesn't matter HOW their weapons and morale work, nor are we discussing who "deserves" to win.  We are talking about who is supposed to win.  New Terra has very limited number of Rare Ore mines.  Eden compensates for this with the use of Magma Wells.  They have the resources to build a starship. Plymouth doesn't, no matter how you look at it.  Just because you can build 10 starships in game doesn't mean you can in the story.

[Tellaris]

Thats PLYMOUTH, Sir.   Eden has the normal morale (because they can buy it)

[Savant 231-A]

But it doesn't matter HOW their weapons and morale work, nor are we discussing who "deserves" to win. We are talking about who is supposed to win. New Terra has very limited number of Rare Ore mines. Eden compensates for this with the use of Magma Wells. They have the resources to build a starship. Plymouth doesn't, no matter how you look at it. Just because you can build 10 starships in game doesn't mean you can in the story.

Oh come on, on the whole planet just soo little ore, that is dumb. Here on Earth you have soo much "rare" ore that you can eat it .

And yes, Sirbomber, I think that weapons indeed count. From a mine - smetler location, enemy sends a patrol, they detect this patrol, and send interceptors. NOW weapons and body of vechs WORK. Just like in the campaign. If they win, they got the mine and the cargo in the cargo truck. If they loose, they wasted ores.
This or any else example shows this.

In any case of danger or Paranoia, a human is to do everything, I mean Everything, to save himself and his closest. Including everykind of weaponry.
I belive, if the war between E and P escalated to a further level, i'l think we'l see Nukes. But more likely they drop them on the battlefield, not on colonies.

 

Eden compensates for this with the use of Magma Wells. They have the resources to build a starship. Plymouth doesn't, no matter how you look at it.

Wrong. Plymouth can do something. Human will , courage and morale. Outpost is a micro-managment game, everything you do in the game, ticks the morale (kinda of) If Outpost2 was real, i think that plymouth develop more advanced tech, about i won't talk too much...

Don't you see, that when E advances, P advances, and as P advances, E adances right behing him. And that could go to eternity, but the game is too short.
I think this Phenomenon is called evolution. A "inside" will or just a adaption to everything around you.

You think "box" like. Everything that you SEE in the game, you understand, but what you DON'T see you can't understand. When discussing about these topics, I don't take  this game AS a game. When discussing about these "deep" topics I think the game of as a reality. How people will react, how will this affect their brain. How will it affect their thinking about everything around them.
 

[Sirbomber]

Thats PLYMOUTH, Sir.   Eden has the normal morale (because they can buy it)

I never said I believed him, but that is what he told me.
It was awhile ago anyways.

And Savant... We're talking about a GAME here.  Outpost 2 is not alive.  It doesn't matter what Eden and Plymouth MIGHT do if the game were longer because it isn't.

[Tellaris]

Remember that in the storyline (somewhere,  I can't remember if it was the story or in breifing) that many of the rich deposits where already infected by the blight, and as such, are unusable.   Remember, the stuff also travels underground far farther then it does on the surface.   So more mineral deposits are unusable.

[Psudomorph]

And Savant... We're talking about a GAME here. Outpost 2 is not alive. It doesn't matter what Eden and Plymouth MIGHT do if the game were longer because it isn't.

 :blink:

Have you no imagination at all?

I think half the fun of a game, or for that matter a movie, book, etc. is to imagine in what directions it could go if extended under such and such circumstances.

I think it is this ability to imagine things beyond what is set in front of us that results in a great deal of human progress in the world. If nobody had ever thought beyond the ending of OP2, we wouldn't have a bunch of people trying to make OP3.

Games/books/movies are vessels by which humans can explore possibilities within a limited scope using controlled variables. It is only natural, once they have finished exploring a story, for a person to expand the scope in their own mind, and alter the variables of the story in a variety of ways to explore further and in different directions then the original storyline explicitly stated.

Stories are things to be explored, not read and recited verbatim.

[Hooman]

Yes, Plymouth gets a morale bonus. It's set in Morale.txt.

DIFF_EASY  100
DIFF_MED  92
DIFF_HARD  83
DIFF_EASY_PLY  110
DIFF_MED_PLY  100
DIFF_HARD_PLY  92

The numbers are essentially morale multipliers. After calculating the base morale value using your current colony conditions, the value is sort of multiplied by these. The morale effects from events are added after this. So if you had perfect colony conditions, and no events had occured that affect morale, and if you were playing on Hard, then Eden would have stable morale at 83, and Plymouth would be at 92.

Note that the highest morale level is at 90, so to keep it up there on hard for Eden you'd need a consumer goods factory producing stuff to get there using the event portion of morale, or from other events which you usually have less control over, and tend to take longer to complete (like researching a new topic).