Plymouth Cold War Revisited

[lune]

After wasting my time on numerous attempts on Normal, I found out that this map is indeed unwinnable.

If you build a residence, nursery and university and rely on defenses (4 laser guard posts) + your pathetic remaining lynxes, you will eventually get whittled down by incessant attacks by stickyfoams and starflares. Then you can have fun watching your base get raped. And, as if to spite me, my colony only made a net gain of 1 colonist after all this time.  (thumbsup)

If you try any other alternative, such as building research lab and trying to research and build repair vehicles or building a vehicle factory early to build another cargo truck, you will get raped even earlier due to a lack of defenses. Anyway, your whiney, frail colonists would not last long without a nursery and university.

Possibly one of the worst made and tested scenarios I've ever seen in any game, let alone one included in an 'official release'. Might as well label it with 'playable on Easy only'.

Share your stories of failure or success at this map. No cheats.

[DarekStar]

its not impossable iv beeten it you just have to move real fast and get a VF to reinforce your units.


and when i say fast i mean realy freaking fast

Leviathan fast-(witch iv only done once how do you do that seed man)

[Arklon]

On hard it's impossible. I've done it on easy and normal though.

[lune]

How fast is fast?

You can't get a VF and a research lab running at the same time for long due to a lack of colonists. And resources are too scarce for you to build those and have enough laser posts. I tried, and I got raped by stickyfoam + microwave lynx + starflare because I only had one laser post. And, again, you must consider the fact that you don't have enough of both resources and colonists to run a nursery and a university, so your colony will die out in no time even if you survive the attacks.

Moreover, it involves a lame amount of saving and reloading to make sure that your units take as little damage as possible in each attack. That's no way to properly play a game.

So, care to delienate your non-cheating strategy or strategies to beat the map on Normal?

[BlackBox]

Well I suppose I will step up seeing as I was the person who created this mission.

I will agree that it was not tested nearly as thoroughly as it should have been (was under real time pressure to get the release out, since it was released with a game patch), considering the problems (not possible on hard, crashes when you attack the Advanced Lab in the end of the game).

I will give a brief explanation of the AI (as accurate as I can, I don't have access to the source code at this instant so I can't verify):
Every 10 marks a time trigger fires which causes an AI wave to (possibly) get sent. (I believe there was a random chance of this happening, this chance goes up as the difficulty does).
This chance gets even higher after you get an SF operating if I remember correctly.
The AI gets (kind of) harder the longer the game is running.. sending flares after a while and other unit types if I remember correctly. This was based on how many "waves" were sent already.

The main trick to keeping the AI away (at least when I tested it), is by keeping them away from your base. This can be done with laser GPs and other objects as "bait" a fair distance from your main base. (The AI is dumb and will simply target the closest object). If you build GPs far enough away, they will attack the GPs (you need to be sure that there is enough firepower at one point to kill the attacking units quickly enough though, and also be sure you are repairing the GPs, you can't afford to lose any).

Eventually if done right you will reach a point where you are able to send units at the enemy base. The AI is especially flawed here as it never reinforces the guard groups with better unit types (or attempt to match your units). Killing the few units there will allow you to attack the advanced lab.

Unfortunately, there is a flaw where the game will crash (thanks to lack of testing :-/). If you cause the game to crash you have essentially won this mission.

I believe the source code is posted in the file forum (I did release it, so I know there are copies floating around out there). You're welcome to modify it and make the mission work better if you feel that you can think of a good way to do so.

[lune]

That's not the problem, though. Believe me, from playing a lot of old games, I was willing to give your map a lot of chance. I also have quite a bit of experience making maps for other games, although those involved no actual coding.

I had a good basic colony running, with 4 laser guard posts that defended it very well, a nursery and a university to keep my colony running. Even then, I had to idle my SF. The biggest problem was the inability to reinforce my units. The 4 guard posts worked very well against everything except starflares, for which I needed my units. The problem was stickyfoam made it impossible to keep all of them alive for long. Eventually, all of them were dead and I couldn't help my base. And, like I said, in the meantime I only gained 1 additional colonist, so running a VF and a research lab was a pretty distant prospect. Not to mention I was terribly short of resources. In my 2nd attempt, I even tried building walls to help my units and my defenses, but to no avail. All other strategies fared even worse.

I think the biggest problems are 1)not enough colonists 2)units are too weak compared to the enemy's (w/o micro, 1 enemy microwave lynx can destroy 1 laser lynx before dying when all 4 units are firing at it) 3)not enough starting resources/mine yield is too low while being too far from the smelter.

I'm still waiting for a tangible strategy that I can use to beat it on Normal.

[op2rules]

Yea All I got to say is normal should be hard and there should be something between. I mean I got easy first try no problem I'm sure you all did after that you just start with too little. Especially for someone who sucks like me

[Norsehound]

I thought the map was OK... found the fixed moral a little strange (since I also suffered from the lack of workers problem), but otherwise I was able to pull out a win...

....almost, since I've been stopped by the crashing bug when I get up to attack the base.

I also found it surprising that the AI didn't take a southern route to attack my refineries down there. It would have been an interesting problem to deal with, and completely logical from a Plymouth standpoint.

Are there any plans to revise this CG in future?

:op2:

[lune]

I just tried it again after a year of not playing. Almost got a garage up this time to help my units survive, but then at this point the waves started coming much too frequently... and then they came with EMP.

That was the end, obviously. I wish there was a replay video or something where people can verify they've beaten the map on Normal and what strategies and tactics they used. As it stands, I'm going to call the map impossible on Normal without some sort of godly Korean Starcraft skills.

[Highlander]

I was pretty sure I had beaten this on Normal, but looking through my old computer I couldn't find any evidence of it.

So, I decided to give this a try again. After a few restarts just to get the feel of it, I got pretty far before the AI's Adv Lab took a blow and I won..

So is it possible to do this on Normal ?

Unless a disaster screws over the AI, I think it's very improbable.
You can pretty much hold your own until Mark 600 or so... but after that you will have not have the resources to deal with the increased size in waves. GP's will hold up until then, but when RPG's start rolling in, you need mobile units as backup and the problem lies in getting those.

After a couple of games with game speed pretty much 3 or 4 at all times, my guess is that your initial population simply is too small. At least I'm struggling to get above 20.
With that small amount of colonists, you sooner or later have problems running the very basics of your base, not even counting the part where you actually have to start building stuff from your SF or your VF. Personally I had to idle Nurs + Uni to actually get GP's out.

My theory is that the initial population is too small. If it was increased to something like 25-30 it might be possible to pull this off. Your still looking at a slow game with a huge amount of micromanaging though.


======================================================

What I did, was to reset the game until I got a 3 bar in the Southwest corner and used that for ore income. Reason for that is that while you may spend twice as much time getting back and forth between mine and smelter, you still get more ore in the truck per run. One possible setback of this, is the late arrival of the SF. (To avoid Pathfinding problems, I manually guided the truck back and forth)

Once SF was up, I get residence, nursury and university up, placeing buildings to get closer to my mine. At this point I set up another smelter closer to the mine, to avoid wasting time on the truck going back and forth and to stabilize ore production. Once that was ready buildt, I got a Vec Fac kit going in the Struc Fac and got that up asap.
From there I got one more convec before idling the VF again. (Permanently as it would prove later). Then I got up 8 GP's to defend my base. Time was of an issue when getting the first 3 GP's up, so I had to sacrifice to of my most damaged laser lynxes at this time. Leaving me with 2 undamaged lynx' (1 being my Railgun).

From there on, the GP's pretty much handled the inc waves until the RPG's started showing up.


For defense, I let my Railgun lynx deal with incoming attacks, moving back wards and using range to shoot down inc attacks.

As for the base, as already mentioned I had to idle nurs + uni to actually produce anything in factories. Often I would have to leave my agridome off aswell due to population shortages. So, for my part, the population is the limiting factor to this scenario.

[Sirbomber]

If population < 30 people stop having kids.  I think.  You might want to confirm that with Hooman.  Point is; yes, you need more people.

[lune]

I was pretty sure I had beaten this on Normal, but looking through my old computer I couldn't find any evidence of it.

So, I decided to give this a try again. After a few restarts just to get the feel of it, I got pretty far before the AI's Adv Lab took a blow and I won..

So is it possible to do this on Normal ?

Unless a disaster screws over the AI, I think it's very improbable.
You can pretty much hold your own until Mark 600 or so... but after that you will have not have the resources to deal with the increased size in waves. GP's will hold up until then, but when RPG's start rolling in, you need mobile units as backup and the problem lies in getting those.

After a couple of games with game speed pretty much 3 or 4 at all times, my guess is that your initial population simply is too small. At least I'm struggling to get above 20.
With that small amount of colonists, you sooner or later have problems running the very basics of your base, not even counting the part where you actually have to start building stuff from your SF or your VF. Personally I had to idle Nurs + Uni to actually get GP's out.

My theory is that the initial population is too small. If it was increased to something like 25-30 it might be possible to pull this off. Your still looking at a slow game with a huge amount of micromanaging though.


======================================================

What I did, was to reset the game until I got a 3 bar in the Southwest corner and used that for ore income. Reason for that is that while you may spend twice as much time getting back and forth between mine and smelter, you still get more ore in the truck per run. One possible setback of this, is the late arrival of the SF. (To avoid Pathfinding problems, I manually guided the truck back and forth)

Once SF was up, I get residence, nursury and university up, placeing buildings to get closer to my mine. At this point I set up another smelter closer to the mine, to avoid wasting time on the truck going back and forth and to stabilize ore production. Once that was ready buildt, I got a Vec Fac kit going in the Struc Fac and got that up asap.
From there I got one more convec before idling the VF again. (Permanently as it would prove later). Then I got up 8 GP's to defend my base. Time was of an issue when getting the first 3 GP's up, so I had to sacrifice to of my most damaged laser lynxes at this time. Leaving me with 2 undamaged lynx' (1 being my Railgun).

From there on, the GP's pretty much handled the inc waves until the RPG's started showing up.


For defense, I let my Railgun lynx deal with incoming attacks, moving back wards and using range to shoot down inc attacks.

As for the base, as already mentioned I had to idle nurs + uni to actually produce anything in factories. Often I would have to leave my agridome off aswell due to population shortages. So, for my part, the population is the limiting factor to this scenario.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. But how did your GPs deal with starflares quickly enough before each of them blows at least one of your GPs up? I find that I need units for that, but units get into a rather sticky situation and die much more quickly than before once the stickyfoams show up. And with the lack of reinforcements, that means I become a sitting duck.

But, yeah, population is indeed a fatal factor. The death rate seems to outstrip the birth rate, and the lack of residence in the beginning means that the population would drop too quickly in the beginning for you to have a critical mass to survive.

[Hooman]

If population < 30 people stop having kids. I think.

I'm quite sure that's false. I've seen no code that "turns off" population growth. At worst, your death rate will be higher than your birth rate, and the point at which that happens depends largely on morale. I believe you can get a growing population even with as few as 8 colonists, but it may take a very very long time.


Running the population simulator, with 4 workers, and 4 scientists, and morale at 50-70, it does indeed grow. However, after 1000 marks it will only grow to 12 people. With morale at 100, it will grow to 21 in the same amount of time. If morale is at 30, then after 1000 marks, you will still only have 8 people. If morale is 0, then you will eventually die, no matter how big your initial population was.

[Sirbomber]

Let's just create a hacked save for PCW where you start with more people, units, buildings, etc.

...Any ideas how we could go about doing that?    

[Hidiot]

Recoding the mission, seeing as it's been often claimed the source is still floating around?

[Sirbomber]

What does that have to do with hacked saves?

[Highlander]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. But how did your GPs deal with starflares quickly enough before each of them blows at least one of your GPs up? I find that I need units for that, but units get into a rather sticky situation and die much more quickly than before once the stickyfoams show up. And with the lack of reinforcements, that means I become a sitting duck.

If you have a lynx ready to deal some initial damage, the flare will usually follow that one. Then you can just lead it between your GP's and it'll die.

Other times the flare seems to target other GP's or something else - unknown. Then my GP's will finish it of as well.

Often enough the flare will take down a GP though. So I would just have to rebuild it.

[Hidiot]

What does that have to do with hacked saves?

Nothing, it just seems easier.

[lune]

Ok, that was my last try. Almost got a VF up this time and my colonists were actually multiplying, but by then all my units were near death. Repeated microwave + starflare + stickyfoam in groups = butt rape.

I think my ass is too sore to ever try this again.

[CK9]

Anyone try making a bottle-neck so that you can get multiple shots at a single target?  If you angle them right, you can get 4 or 5 los GP's firing within a wall, and only one of the enemy units can have a chance of firing back.  If you have an insignificant unit close to the opening, you can lure the stickies to stop the lead unit in its tracks.

[Highlander]

Ok, that was my last try. Almost got a VF up this time and my colonists were actually multiplying, but by then all my units were near death. Repeated microwave + starflare + stickyfoam in groups = butt rape.

I think my ass is too sore to ever try this again.

How many people did you have ?

[Sirbomber]

Anyone try making a bottle-neck so that you can get multiple shots at a single target?  If you angle them right, you can get 4 or 5 los GP's firing within a wall, and only one of the enemy units can have a chance of firing back.  If you have an insignificant unit close to the opening, you can lure the stickies to stop the lead unit in its tracks.

AI-controlled Microwaves/Lasers/Scorpions(?) will attack any walls in their way.  Strange that no other weapons will though...

[CK9]

From my experiences with AI-controlled energy weapons is that they only shoot a hole in the wall if there isn't an opening within x-tiles (not sure about the range, though)

[Hooman]

I believe it was the same weapons that get a 4x bonus against walls.
 

[Sirbomber]

Yes.  But still, you'd think the AI would be smart enough to blow up any walls in its way, regardless of the type of weapon on the vehicle...