Author Topic: "On the Run" attempt  (Read 3647 times)

Offline pente

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"On the Run" attempt
« on: April 09, 2019, 06:33:04 AM »
I decided to challenge myself to beat On the Run without any vehicle refitting: all starting vehicles must be destroyed, and their replacements built. I played on Normal instead of Hard because there simply aren't enough workers on Hard to staff everything you need to staff. One still needs to research and build a garage, even though it won't be used, because "Construct a garage" is an explicit mission objective.

Right away it was apparent that on Normal you start with more people or population growth is higher, because I had no trouble finding the workforce to staff two smelters from very near the beginning, and I had a vehicle factory running non stop from as soon as I could build it, eventually supplemented by a second one. Everything was going very well, and was on pace for victory until the Eden scouting wave showed up.

I had been planning on destroying my starting vehicles after I had completed the other objectives so I could get full use out of them, but didn't realize that when the scouting wave showed up all of my vehicles would go hay-wire and start wandering all over the map. It was chaos as I had to hunt every where to find my starting vehicles and destroy those (and not the ones I had built), simultaneously as Eden attacked. In the end I lost a few combat units, two spiders, and one cargo truck with metals in it, along with a lot of mining time as I had to build new mining cargo trucks.

With mining re-established, I had to frantically sort through my surviving vehicles, figure out which ones belonged in northwest vs southwest, and determine what vehicles I had left to build. I would have liked to have built decoy units but I simply didn't have the resources to do so. The last thing I built was a scout, and I only managed to get the metals for it just as the main Eden attack force was entering range of my vehicle factories:



Thankfully it finished just barely in time to escape the emp / thor's hammer. I was still checking to see which objectives remained when I realized that I needed to fill one more cargo truck with food. I managed to load it up and get it out just as the tigers arrived:



I watched the base get destroyed while waiting for "Mission Accomplished" to show up, but it didn't. Had I missed another objective? I checked the list:



"Construct a garage" strikes again! The garage had been destroyed before the cargo truck of food had made it to the northwest. If only I had built that garage, which I had never planned on using, in the corner where it would have been safe. Oh well, it is close enough to a victory for me. :D

(Incidentally at one point one of my vehicles had wandered over the garage and a message had printed that it had been refit, contrary to my experience on my previous attempt where I was unable to refit any vehicles.)

Offline Vagabond

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Re: "On the Run" attempt
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2019, 09:32:06 PM »
Thanks for the detailed writeup. Check the other thread for a fix for the vehicle encryption / garage issue.

I'm really glad the vehicle haywire command worked properly. That was fun to program and test. It is supposed to be a game ending effect, so nice job salvaging the game.

There is a way to delete mission objectives with triggers. I may revisit and try to delete the garage victory condition after all compromised vehicles are refitted (or destroyed). There is no reason to lose the mission like you did since the garage had served its purpose. I think I had trouble getting the victory condition delete to work or something back then.

I've beaten it on hard before, (and I'm not a crack player, although I had the advantage of making it) so it is possible. You might need to reorganize your research and construction to favor higher morale to get the population up faster. I also print the objectives out and put them in front of me for easy reference. Probably a sign that the victory conditions are too complicated!

Since the garage is used so little in the rest of the game, I wanted to try highlighting it in this scenario and Evacuation Under Fire and the 4th one of this series that isn't completed yet.

-Brett

Offline Bobn8r2

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Re: "On the Run" attempt
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2020, 10:23:01 AM »
hey I cant find that 3rd evac transport in the first mission,whats up with that?

Offline Vagabond

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Re: "On the Run" attempt
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2020, 07:08:06 PM »
@Bobn8r2,

I think you are playing Evacuation Under Fire. You should be able to construct or restore a vehicle factory to build an evacuation transport.

Thanks for playing the mission.

-Brett

Offline Bobn8r2

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Re: "On the Run" attempt
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2020, 09:12:32 PM »
when I try to build anything in the northwest corner it sends that scramble signal to all my vehicles,maybe I a going about it all wrong.I get all the objectives completed except for the 3rd evac transport,and I would be happy to build another one if I knew how to avoid setting off that scramble dode  from eden

Offline Vagabond

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Re: "On the Run" attempt
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2020, 04:26:51 PM »
Try to build your CC in-between the 3 fumaroles and then connect to an existing vehicle factory via tubes. (The briefing is rather long winded, but tries to tip you off to this being the right location).

Would be better to create a separate thread if you don't mind to discuss this mission.

Hope this helps.

-Brett