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 Happy 2014 Winter Olympics everyone! Hope everyone's countries of choice are kicking rear end and taking names. Tip of the hat to our developers' home country as Poland won gold in the Men's Normal Hill on Sunday with an absolutely incredible jump.   rest of briefing posted:Tractor beams lock on to meteors in space - you can see the counter on your screen. When ready, they target Fang's current location. With the situation on Earth under control and the UCS-LC alliance in tatters, Fang has come to the Moon to ask for amnesty and LC citizenship. The Celestial Council has not granted an outsider citizenship in, well, quite some time. While the Council is mulling over his application, Fang has let us know he's done some work on a new secret weapon. It's some sort of gravity transmitter. Fang says NEO would call it a "tractor beam right out of the Federation of Planets." No clue what that means. I'm always in for testing new weapons against robots, so let's get going!  You start with Fang, 3 Craters with electro-cannons and 3 Super Fighters with AAR. The Super Fighters are your only air cover this entire mission, so make sure they don't die.  As you can probably guess from the briefing and the timer, you need to move quickly and keep moving this mission. Fang isn't meteor-resitant.  Research: Air Rocket Launcher 1 and 2 The UCS know we're coming. Putting a bunch of sacrificial units here in this cramped valley isn't a bad idea. If they can stop us here we'll end up showering our own position with meteors.  Thankfully the Super Fighters can eliminate the air cover and allow Fang to move forward.  And the Craters show up late to all the carnage. Poor Craters.  Don't worry though, I'm sure there will be robots for you to kill later!   With the mobile defenders gone, its easy enough to slip into the base. Just need a few seconds...  Yep! There we go! Fang runs away and the meteors in his homing beacon send very large rocks down on the UCS. You know, with the Unit Transporter and now these meteors, the LC campaign has a real "dropping stuff on their heads" feel to it.  See ladies, I promised you'd have stuff to blow up. The meteors are still smacking the base so we can't go back in. Of course, if we wait too long the meteors will fall on top of us. Like the briefing said, the counter is running all the time unless we go underground.  Not only does Fang have to dodge meteors, he also has to dodge absolutely withering plasma fire. He should probably put "dodged plasma while directing meteor showers" to his asylum application   The !!! FIRE !!! message you see here flashes and is only visible for about half a second before the meteors start falling. We're still working on whittling down this base, but with most of the defenses damaged, destroyed or unpowered at least Fang's no longer getting blasted.  And it's not like his gun doesn't work. While running around in circles in the base I manage to pick off the last power plant. At this point its all clean up. Dangerous, meteor-infested cleanup.  I could just keep doing what I've been doing with Fang to destroy the rest of the base, but it will take forever and these Crater drivers really want to contribute to the war effort.   So I let them blow up the rest of the base while Fang pulls the meteors somewhere nonthreatening. Unfortunately, there are two bases here. Now we'll need to do the same thing again, but in the north west. It's a very novel way to level a base but it's rather boring. Fang can easily dart in and out, and the meteors will level everything without requiring much from you. Still, the dev team gets an A+ for creativity. The LC missions so far have been a refreshing take on the basic mission premises we've seen in the first game.   Unshielding your units when you know you're up against Fang and a bunch of electro-cannons is...unwise. By this point Fang is starting to look pretty rough. His shields can't manage to shrug off every hit.  Thankfully there's a nice little service depot here. And it lets me pull the meteors away from my units. Safety first!  I'm guessing based on this that the UCS have mined out the northwestern base. Why else would they keep on sending Harvesters to die to our force lightning bolts?   Whoa. This base is way more difficult to get into than the first one. All of those buildings, save the power plants have nothing but plasma cannons on them. Fang may be tough, but he can't take 19 or so plasma shots at once. Forget what I said earlier about this mission being easy. If I'm not careful here, Fang will die.  Our Super Fighters make sure I at least don't have to worry about death-by-rocket.  First power plant down!  Sadly, there's still more than enough power in the base to smother me with plasma.  Good thing Fang can use their buildings and rubble as cover.  Two or three showers later, and things are much more reasonable. The far north of the base still has power, but I can start using the Craters to help clear everything out.  See? They're helping! ...While meteors pelt the area just a few meters from them that is. These ladies are drat brave. Do we have some kind of medal to give them?    More !!! FIRE !!!, more electro-cannons, more explosions.   And that's it! We're done. Now get the hell out of there and turn off the drat tracker before you kill everyone Fang!  I'm sure the Celestial Council will approve your amnesty application now. Not only do we have his skills as a general on our side, but we also get his tractor beam system. I suspect we might be able to use this technology in our Weather Control Centers...More work will need to be done, but this could let us counter the strategic weapons the UCS and ED have begun using on Earth.  Secured financing for Alpha Sector?  What the hell does that mean? By the way, I hope your voting for Fang's citizenship Kilija; he's served the LC too well to be forgotten.  A perfect score sheet. No deaths, nothing built (beyond the starting 7 units), and every single UCS structure and unit was killed. You're the best ever Fang. Never go back to Earth.   I guess this is what Kilija's message was referring too. Thanks to our defense *cough* more-like-my-defense *cough* of the Moon, we've managed to push the UCS back far enough that work can begin on SUNLIGHT.   This will be our last LC musical selection. Picture yourself sitting on the Moon while some crazy UCS general runs around in his hovercraft shooting meteors everywhere. axeil fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 07:42
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axeil posted:The LC know we're coming. That... should say the UCS, right?
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Feb 11, 2014 08:16
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Crepuscule Adepte posted:That... should say the UCS, right? Whoops! Fixed it. This is why you don't write updates late at night...
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Feb 11, 2014 08:27
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Surprising. I always used the tunnels for a sneak attack with fang into the center of the base then ran the gently caress away while the meteors fell on the seconds bases head.
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Feb 11, 2014 10:42
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We're certainly seeing some unique and novel missions here. Very neat.
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Feb 12, 2014 04:28
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UCS Hellmaker posted:Surprising. I always used the tunnels for a sneak attack with fang into the center of the base then ran the gently caress away while the meteors fell on the seconds bases head. Do the meteors still hit the surface when you're in the tunnels?
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Feb 19, 2014 22:40
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Glazius posted:Do the meteors still hit the surface when you're in the tunnels? I don't think so. The lore reason is that the homing beacon can't penetrate through Luna's surface when you're underground. In other news, there hopefully should be an update tonight!
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Feb 19, 2014 22:48
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  With the success of Fang's tractor beam, we've been able to push the UCS back far enough that we are now in sight of the Alpha Quadrant. Unfortunately the UCS beat us to the area and we'll need to dislodge them before we can fortify the area and establish the first power stations needed to reactivate the SUNLIGHT system.  Look at that! Believe it or not, this is the first mission in the LC campaign where you'll need to build a base. Yes, we've gone through 5 missions where you don't need to build an actual base.  So let's get building! Remember, the LC power plants now have an effective range. Unfortunately, the F9 command to see the power grid doesn't work for the LC. You can rely on the power indicators from the build screen though. If it says a building will be unpowered it's out of range. The setup I'm showing here is great for this mission. With the Solar Power Plant nestled in the back of the base, it will be very tricky for the UCS to knock out our vulnerable solar cells.   The starting units I've been given are off doing the usual scouting thing. It looks like there are more minerals up to the north and south. Capturing these would enable us to strangle the UCS and win a war of attrition. Allowing the UCS to mine these would give them the upper hand. This will be our first target.  Unfortunately our starting units don't have shields. We'll need to wait for the reinforcements from HQ to get here before we can evict these squatters.  But we need more information before we strike. Where is the UCS base? I'm guessing they're on the other side of this land bridge. If we can quickly seize the land bridge and establish an outpost the UCS will be forced to go right through us to get at the main base.  ...Well, it seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately the UCS had the exact same idea and they were here first. We cannot allow that outpost to remain. It's far too close to us and our position is far too tenuous at this point.  The few Tiger Ps have been cleared out, and our power range just reaches the resource fields in the north and south.  We need to take the enemy outpost as quickly as possible. I muster the LC army as soon as it lands off the Jupiter and order them to take the outpost. If we can catch them early we may be able to overwhelm them.  What good fortune! Note how the UCS Fortress is currently reconfiguring its guns. This means the outpost's power is completely undefended.  We must punish such blunders by the enemy. With the land bridge now firmly in our control, we have control over the only conduit into our base. Good work ladies!  rest of briefing posted:
Normally, this sort of construction would be left to our engineers and scientists on SUNLIGHT. However, the transporters the team needs to get out here is unavailable. The team has given us access to the new Xyrex Power Plant and told us we need to do the construction for them once the enemy is removed.  The UCS has returned to try and rebuild while we move north, looking for the main UCS locations. It's no match for the three Fat Girls I send after it. Still, good attempt by the UCS. If they had managed to rebuild our army would be pinned between two UCS bases with no means of escape. Research: Upgraded Super Fighter We've found what looks to be a side entrance into the base. It's very lightly defended. Much easier to go in this way than wherever the front door is.  See! We're inside the base in just a few minutes. The UCS must have gotten wind of our construction plans as they've built towers around the crater we need to build our structures in. Clever robots. Very clever.  Too bad the towers don't work without power.  With the power cut, the front of the base can't provide much in the way of resistance. A few Tiger Rs and a plasma tower can't hope to stop this onslaught.  With the base mostly neutralized, I order the bulk of the army to fall back to the land bridge. I'm sure the UCS will plan a counter attack. Plus, 3 Fat Girls and 2 Moons should be more than enough to clean up here.  Especially once the last power plant has been destroyed.  Just as I thought, the UCS are attempting a breakthrough. Well, attempting is a generous word. So is breakthrough. Two Tigers ain't gonna cut it here.  We've secured the first crater. Now to find the second. I'm guessing it's in that large unexplored area to the south.   There looks to be a second base down there, but before we get there we'll need to ruin the UCS's mining operation. Well we don't have to, but where's the fun in letting them live? Also, note that the UCS do have stealth technology at this point. Those stealth towers didn't build themselves.  Even the supposedly well-fortified front entrance of the base is a joke. If the UCS had all this time to prepare, where are all the defenses? What the hell is the UCS army doing right now?   drat, take a look at the size of those Xyrex plants. At 16 squares, they have the largest footprint of any structure in the game. In general, you're going to need a lot of room to build them. Once the Xyrex plants and Mines are down we'll be halfway done with our building for this mission. The southern base is set up exactly like the northern one, just colored light blue and reversed. It too falls in minutes.  With that, we can build SUNLIGHT's buildings again. I have no idea why there's a tunnel entrance in that crater. Maybe the UCS were planning on stealing the resources out of the crater. Research: Detector I II and III, Shield Recharger II and III, Regenerator I II and III, and the 1500 PSU shield generator. Basically everything that goes on a Phobos.   With this, it looks like Alpha Sector is ready to go. We're one step closer to completing Project SUNLIGHT. Good job ladies!   The UCS, despite their early successes are starting to take heavy losses. We don't have them on the ropes yet, but I can feel the Luna campaign starting to turn in our favor.  Fang's in serious trouble. The work of ACME Labs may have been lost on Earth, but thanks to his presence on Luna and the cooperation of the Ixchel Research Center, we've begun to work on reverse engineering some of Fang's weapons. Unfortunately, it seems the UCS have discovered the base and have begun shelling Fang's temporary quarters and research lab. This explains the relatively weak and scattered resistance in this mission: the UCS are far too focused on killing Fang and stealing his research. The loss of the research would be a tough blow to take. The death of General Fang would be an unmitigated catastrophe and would be a mortal blow to our cause. Sisters! There's no time for continued discussion and debate over General Fang's citizenship. We must act now! We must save Fang!
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Feb 20, 2014 04:47
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Seems like Fang is getting attacked by enough weaponized robots to turn hope to a four letter word.
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Feb 20, 2014 15:01
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So wait. The Xyrex plants... turn resources into energy? Or they can only be built on resource fields?
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Feb 23, 2014 16:03
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Maybe fluff wise, but in game they're just larger and more expensive versions of the powerplants the other factions get that are hidden deep in the tech tree as well.
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Feb 23, 2014 17:19
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They give the LC a powerplant that isn't dependent on the day/night cycle. The mission descriptions say you have to put the Zyrex plants in special "platinum-rich" craters, but in skirmish missions you can put them anywhere.
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Feb 23, 2014 18:07
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Loxbourne posted:They give the LC a powerplant that isn't dependent on the day/night cycle. Yep. The Xyrex plant was a bone to throw at LC players in mulitplayer. It was way too easy to constantly destroy their solar cells since solar cells are very weak. Of course then they nerfed the LC by giving them a power range.
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Feb 23, 2014 18:11
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  rest of the briefing posted:
Fang's actions with the tractor beam have not gone unnoticed by the UCS. They've found his research facility and have moved in heavy artillery. Their goal is obvious; they will not stop until Fang is dead. We cannot allow this.  Fang's base is fairly well composed. Sadly, Fang only has 4 other units with him: 2 Crusher hRs and 2 AAR Super Fighters.  Similar to Fang's last mission, there's a supply depot you can use for reloading and for giving everyone shields.  Seconds into the mission the artillery starts raining down from the north. Goodbye Fang's base. You were a nice base.  Here are the Unit Tranporters Fang was talking about. They're quite a long hike away. (Ignore the continuity error; I forgot to grab a screenshot of the area until later in the mission)  The destruction of the base has shut down the power around the goodies south of the base. Stupid patch changes ruining our fancy lasers!  Research: The AntimissileThe antimissile will destroy any incoming missiles. It works pretty much the same as the one the UCS have. I'll try to show it off a bit more in this campaign.  Like Fang said, our first goal is to get to the Unit Tranporters. This means breaking into the UCS tunnel system to the west. By now I'm sure the robots have figured out that Fang made it out of the base, so they'll be hunting for us. Unfortunately for them a single Spider isn't enough to stop us.  A bunch of Gargoyles aren't either thanks to our Super Fighters.   This on the other hand... Yikes. That's a lot of firepower for us to counter. Time to retreat!  The retreat spread out the Cargo Salamanders so we were able to pick them off as they showed up. Fang's force isn't capable of going toe-to-toe with the UCS right now. We have to be smart with how we fight.  The UCS has just about finished off the base. Fang's a bit worse for the wear, but he's found the entrance to the UCS tunnel system. We'll need to heal up a bit back at the depot before going down though. Research: Lunar m3  And have the Super Fighters clear out the Gargoyles on the other side of the ravine to ensure we don't get blasted when we get out.  Fang and his escort have made it into the tunnel system. Time to go exploring!  We found friends!    The friends did not like us very much and now we are hurt.  The units down here in the tunnels hit very hard and at this point in the mission you won't be able to take them on. I'm going to try and avoid running into any other patrols from here out. Research: Upgraded Air Chaingun We need to have the Crushers resupply and repair before we head back into the tunnels.  And we run into yet another Jaguar hP   Fang's shields aren't looking too healthy, so I'm going to let the Crushers take this fellow out.  Hopefully that's the last heavy unit we find. There are some Tigers here, but they're not a threat to Fang, unlike the Jaguars.  Two more Tigers and we're out of the tunnels! Thank god. Some of those patrol encounters got pretty spicy.  Fang clears out the token guard outside the tunnel. With these units dead, it should be a straight shot to the Unit Transporters.   Well this is rather nice. After getting roasted by plasma, there are some energy recharge artifacts here so we can get our shields back to 100%. Hooray!   Does this mean the Butterfingers Brigade is back?   Before we get to gravity goodness, we need to move our units a bit closer to the artillery base.  Too close! Too close! I don't want Fang to die in the clutches of a Unit Transporter so I scurry back the way I came and put everyone down.  And then I let Fang handle the bad guys.  Those sure are a lot of Jaguars. I wonder what we can do with them...  BUTTERFINGER BRIGADE BITCHES!   Okay it's actually "Butterfinger Brigade with a very nice assist from Fang" but that's too many words.  The power is down in the valley but the artillery itself is still stand-hey what's that?  More units to pick up and    And with that our base is no longer under siege! We'll still need to destroy the guns but our first objective is complete. Now it's time to show the UCS you don't gently caress around with Fang.   Rebuilding is going very nicely. We've got power and mines and a supply depot and everything a growing base needs to be big and stron...hey wait a sec! Those UCS assholes are stealing our resources  We must stop them! Fang and his team are hard at work killing everything on this plateau.  There. Now we have a nice laser wall and those dumb Harvesters can't get in without walking past our heavily-armed Main Base. Of course a Main Base isn't really a defensive installation. We need it to build stuff too. I think Ixchel has something that can help us... Research: NESTThe NEST is the LC answer to the UCS/ED small towers. Unfortunately, it still requires power, so it's not that useful except in very isolated locations.  Oh poo poo. The UCS did not like us killing their harvesters and artillery base like that. We don't have any actual defenses or units here; they're going to have absolute free reign. I order some Fat Girls from the Main Base, but they're going to take a bit to actually get out on the battlefield. Until then we're utterly helpless.  The wall has been breached. Our Aerial Supply Depot looks like the next victim. Better queue up a new one.   Yep, just like I predicted. At least this should keep everyone in supply. Unfortunately our power plant is now directly in their path and we still don't have any defenses. And yet the UCS is going for the laser walls. UCS attack priority can be silly sometimes.  Thank god. Fang and his escorts have finished destroying the artillery base. Head back down to the base ASAP Fang!  Oh great. We have no power  At least the base is about to get some reinforcements. Yes, that's it. Keep focusing on those laser walls.  2 newly created UCS husks later, we have our base back under our control. Good job Fang. Fat Girl, you showed up way too late to help. Were you too busy eating cake or something?  I'm not about to let the UCS back into the base like that. I've put down some NESTs and rebuilt the laser wall. And I'm researching a more...permanent solution. Research: Medium Defense Building (aka Defender)Hopefully you remember the Defender from the first LC campaign. This is their basic defensive building.  There. Much better. I'd like to see the UCS try and sneak in now.  With the threat to our base extinguished and actual combat units mixed in with Fang and his escort we can start tackling the tunnels. Research: Meteor m1, m2 and m3 and Building Grabber The strategy here is to have Fang draw out the robots.  And then the Fat Girls and Crushers annihilate them. Imagine that repeated another 4 or 5 times and that's how you clear out the tunnels.  Hey look at that! Fang has found cash money hiding under the UCS base. Welp, now its ours.  With the death of this unit we control the area under the UCS base.  I build a couple Moons and have them draw the rest of the UCS forces into the trap I've laid under the UCS base. It works rather well. The tunnels are now ours!  Just in time too, because we're now completely out of money. The map is totally tapped out. I think we'll be okay with 50k+ sitting in the bank though.  I have an idea. A terrible, terrible idea. A sneak attack in the middle of the UCS base would work right? Yeah not so much. Everyone dies except Fang who I wisely kept back in the tunnels. We gain basically nothing except the destruction of some Power Transmitters.  I like this idea better: build a gently caress off huge force of Fat Girls and Moons and just wail on the front door.  See how much more effective that was?  Even though the sneaky option would've been cool, the UCS base was just too well defended from the inside.  It was, oddly enough, rather poorly defended at the gates though.  And with that, Fang's research base is firmly back under our control.  I like that smell too Fang. Although it's kind of hard to smell anything with the Moon having no atmosphere. Still! Yay for victories. The Fang - Deserteur posted:Here is the recorded statement of Fang (UCS) to the Celestial Council of the Lunar Corporation. Fang's request for political asylum was unanimously approved Fang's finally been granted asylum. Sorry you had to strap a meteor tracking beacon to your chest and get shelled by the UCS to do it, but you're now a   The real trick in this mission is that we were unit capped almost the entire time. My losses in the sneak attack would've been much higher but there were only ever a few units for the UCS to actually kill.  With Fang's research and person secure we can continue construction for Project Sunlight. The next phase requires us to seize Beta Quadrant and mine 40,000 credits worth of resources.
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Mar 3, 2014 03:05
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I was going to ask why in the world they built an extremely excessive artillery base like that, but then I realized that I'd do the same thing. Of course I would put up some air defenses. You know. Just in case someone were to accidentally pick up my units and drop them on top of my buildings. The kind of thing that has already happened before. Several times. 
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Mar 3, 2014 22:58
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Poil posted:I was going to ask why in the world they built an extremely excessive artillery base like that, but then I realized that I'd do the same thing. Of course I would put up some air defenses. You know. Just in case someone were to accidentally pick up my units and drop them on top of my buildings. The kind of thing that has already happened before. Several times. Well the UCS did build a bunch of Heavy Towers. Of course they put chainguns on them instead of AAR plasma, making them kinda useless. They also only had power plants and Heavy Towers in that flat area behind the artillery, so yeah. AI base building strikes again! Or you could go with the plot-related answer and say they expected to utterly wipe out the base before Fang realized what was up.
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Mar 4, 2014 03:22
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Why is the interior of the base so lethal? Is everything armed, do the turrets fire 360 degrees?
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Mar 5, 2014 00:31
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Glazius posted:Why is the interior of the base so lethal? Is everything armed, do the turrets fire 360 degrees? Yes and Yes. I do believe turrets are actually limited by the geometry of the building on the few cases where the geometry would cause LOS issues, but those are fairly rare. Almost every building larger than a power transmitter can have at least one gun on it, and almost all of those guns have clear 360 lines of fire.
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Mar 5, 2014 00:59
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Glazius posted:Why is the interior of the base so lethal? Is everything armed, do the turrets fire 360 degrees? Alkydere posted:Yes and Yes. I do believe turrets are actually limited by the geometry of the building on the few cases where the geometry would cause LOS issues, but those are fairly rare. Almost every building larger than a power transmitter can have at least one gun on it, and almost all of those guns have clear 360 lines of fire. Yep. The Earth engine lets you mount weapons on most large buildings other than power plants. They can also aim in a full 360 degree arc so popping up in the middle of a base's manufacturing area is not usually going to let you live for long. Making matters worse, it takes time for units to emerge from tunnels. If you had all your tanks there at once you might be able to make a large dent or come out on top. Instead, there's enough of a lag that the enemy can eliminate each unit as it arrives. Tunnel attacks are the high-risk/high-reward move for this game. They work a bit better in multiplayer since people forget about defending the back of their base against land units. I won a few matches by turtling, secretly building tunnels and then popping up in the enemy's base and knocking out the power long enough to waltz in. I think it's the only RTS I've played online where hardcore turtling actually worked.
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Mar 5, 2014 19:22
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  rest of briefing posted:Thanks for listening. We're all counting on you so much. Health and happiness! With General Fang saved from certain death our attention can turn back to the development of Sunlight. By now the UCS have almost certainly figured out what we're doing and are attempting to take control of the four quadrants before we do. Fortunately our defenses in Alpha Quadrant are holding but their positions in Gamma and Delta are too strong for us to take at this time. Beta, on the other hand is still in dispute. Not only do we need to seize control from the UCS, but we also need to send 40,000 credits to HQ for continued research into the weapon. That's quite a task given the circumstances, but I'm sure we can pull it off. Lets get to it.  We don't start with much, not even a mineral patch. The inclusion of heavy tanks is a nice touch though. Speaking of heavy tanks... Research: Crater m1, m2 and m3 While we didn't start with any resources, there's a nice patch just to the east of our starting location. This should be enough to get things running and let us mount a first assault.  This base set up should protect our Mines from any UCS attacks. The power plant is a bit too forward for my liking, but the terrain did not leave us with many other options.  Our 2 Meteor fighters have continued to scout and discovered a few light UCS units to our southeast. They're barely a threat to our Meteors, much less the base as a whole, however, I'm guessing that they're on the path to one of the UCS bases here.  Our base is established. If you notice I've put a laser wall on the western flank of the base. Given the forward nature of most of the base's critical structures, I'll need to make sure and funnel any enemy units away from these vulnerable structures. This wall is the first step.  The Meteors discover a similar cluster of UCS units in the west. It looks like there's two paths here; west and east. Let's try the eastern one first. Our eastern flank is more exposed than the west, so eliminating this base first would allow me to breathe a little easier.   The UCS is still using unshielded units. This is getting absurd. It's not much of a fight when the enemy is disabled before they can do any damage.  My suspicions were right; it looks like those units were guarding the entrance to the base. Well girls, you know what to do.  The LC ladies have really started to toughen up. They're marching through the front gates, kicking rear end and taking no prisoners. ...Er then again what good is a robot prisoner anyway?  Back at the base, I've extended our wall further south. Now our western flank is completely secure. There's nothing stopping the UCS from attacking here, but I'll at least have a warning.  The UCS base is succumbing to our assault. There's almost no resistance beyond the initial towers. They really need to invest in comprehensive base defense. Or shields. Shields would help. Research: Heavy Rocket upgrade I, II and III  Shouldn't be too much longer now. Power plants are falling base-wide and the defenses have been almost entirely swept away. The crater now lays open to us.   We've moved into the rear of the UCS base and begun hammering their mining operation. We need all those resources for Project Sunlight, you can't have any! Bad Robots! Bad!  Here's a clever tactic. The UCS have noticed our rather stretched supply line and are harassing the Mercury transports. It's quite a long line as you can see from the minimap. The current engagement is occurring in the southeastern quadrant of the base. Our supplies need to fly from all the way at the top of the map down to there with no escort. It's like I'm begging the UCS to shoot them all down.  Of course it also would help if our pilots didn't fly directly over the few defensive installations left standing  Even though we're facing a bit of a supply issue, the crater is now clear enough that I feel comfortable building the Xyrex plants.  Why you little... Guess the UCS wasn't as beaten as I thought. They've managed to shoot this Xyrex plant out of the sky. That's a whole lot of credits down the tubes. Thankfully we've got over 20,000 credits at this point so it's not too harsh a loss and I can order another one without delay.  The blue UCS faction has managed to rebuild a little near the base entrance. Once these structures are destroyed the southeast will be ours...hey what's that?  poo poo. Gargoyles and Bats are attacking our Xyrex plants. Thanks to destruction of our Mercury transports there's no way for us to shoot back as our rocket units lack ammunition.  I just have to sit here and watch them blow up another Xyrex plant. If the UCS sacrificed this base so they could harass my building efforts my hat is off to them. I've never managed to lose two Xyrex plants in under 5 minutes before.  The last of the blue base is destroyed. All we have to do now is cross the canyon and the next base will be ou- Oh. They blew the bridges when they retreated. That's just so nice of them. Especially since we have no way of rebuilding bridges. It's almost like they knew ravines are our only weakness. How the hell are we going to get across now?  While I think of an idea, I build a resupply depot here and ship over every remaining unit from HQ. Even the Unit Transporters. Wait. The...unit...trans...po-I HAVE THE BEST IDEA EVER!  Don't mind us UCS, just blowing up some towers. The usual you know. Oh also note how the game auto-deducts the 40,000 credits once you have enough.  Required listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnJEeHND_lQ -Breaker One Nine. Come in Rubber Ducky. Do you copy Rubber Ducky? -Copy, Rubber Ducky here. Coming through loud and clear. Bring in the Butterfingers. Repeat, bring the Butterfingers. Over and out. -Roger, Rubber Ducky. Hear that ladies? START UP THE CONVOY!  ♬ Come on and ride our convoy, far across the moon! ♬ ♬ It's a great, grand, ole convoy, bringing joy and electro-cannons everywhere ♬  ♬ Ain't she a beautiful convoy, bringin' Moon ladies to the fight! ♬ ♬ Yep, such a lovely convoy, they'll blow the UCS out of sight! ♬  Sadly our convoy joy was diverted for a few minutes when the UCS decided to blow up some solar panels. Clearly they hate the big rig lifestyle we're bringing to the moon.   Take that you metal morons! Now everything has shields. Try getting through that before we blast you off this rock.  With The Convoy finished we can start blowing up the western UCS base. The UCS could not possibly imagine The Convoy so their eastern flank is completely undefended. Research: Guardian tower  After a bit of time the ring of towers protecting the crater falls. Time to build more things!  These power plants are no longer powering anything, but we still have to take them out.  The front of the base wasn't very well-defended either. It's even less fearsome without any power.  Two bases down. Two craters conquered. One more to go.  I'll build another supply base here, solely because I don't want to have to walk back to our first base when the mission is all over.  These Mercury transports have helped me spot a nice weakness in the final UCS base in the center of the map. Do you see it too? That's right. The southwest corner is almost completely undefended.  Send in the air cover then send in...  THE CONVOY   Oh poo poo. Someone doesn't want us having fun out on the roads. Why I bet it's mean, creepy ole Sheriff Lyle!   Nothing a few rockets can't fix though.  Like I said, this side of the base is really, really poorly defended.  Who sticks a research center all the way out there?  Oh no, a UCS attack! Look at those three fearsome Tigers and one Spider. Will they push us back? Spoiler alert: they do not.  There goes the last bit of power to the UCS base. We just need to mop up, build a few things and then head home.  It's just a matter of building the last Xyrex plant and destroying those last four towers. Should only take a minute.    Success! Who would've thought that ferrying units back and forth could be so fun?  We also managed to deliver 12 containers filled with assorted dried goods and a single giant tank of oil  Fang's work on the Moon is almost finished. He's managed to build a new prototype of his ship that is (hopefully) far less explode-y than the last one, but we'll need to move the units between his base and an Ixchel research center that will allow us to put the vehicle into mass production. You know, I hope this new prototype is also impervious to traitors who blow up ACME Labs or this might be a sad mission Just in case the convoy joke didn't make any sense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_%28song%29
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Mar 11, 2014 04:41
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This update may have been even more fun to write than the Butterfingers Brigade one.
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Mar 11, 2014 04:41
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axeil posted:This update may have been even more fun to write than the Butterfingers Brigade one. It did make that impression, yes. You always seem so happy when you get to use the tranporters in meaningful ways.
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Mar 11, 2014 13:54
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Wait, I thought the LC didn't care about bridges because they had hover tech. Or does that not work on the moon?
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Mar 11, 2014 22:01
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Glazius posted:Wait, I thought the LC didn't care about bridges because they had hover tech. Those were some pretty sheer cliffs. Its unlikely that even hover tech could let them get over that.
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Mar 11, 2014 22:16
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Now we need fan art of a Fat Girl with the confederate flag painted on jumping a moon gorge while being pursued by a black-and-white Tiger with a siren.
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Mar 12, 2014 03:03
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The Earth 2150 trilogy is on sale on Steam for just over a dollar if anyone reading this hasn't bought it already - it's hard to go wrong at that price
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Mar 18, 2014 01:56
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 (Apologies on the lateness of this update. Blame  2) rest of briefing posted:I need your help. To finish the project at least 4 units have to survive. All project plans have been stored in my unit. Success! Fang's work has finally paid off. Thanks to the recovery of research materials from ACME Labs and Fang's own ingenuity we have a working model of Fang's alien glider. However, the UCS have again managed to push into Fang's research area. This time there's no hope of saving the base or manning a counter-attack. We're simply spread too thin with the need to defend Alpha and Beta quadrants while preparing for the assaults on Gamma and Delta. We've managed to evac all the personnel, but the plans themselves couldn't make it on the transport. Nor could the prototypes. We've got a small LZ secured in the southeast. It's isolated and defended well enough to hold out until we can spare the resources to extract Fang and the prototypes, but getting there won't be easy.  Fang and the 6 New Hope prototypes are all we've got left here at the research center. There's no LZ, no cash, no resources and no unit construction. If we're going to survive this one we'll need to rely on our wits. While Fang believes saving 4 of the prototypes is sufficient, I'm not so sure. I think we're going to need them all to make it.  Making matters worse, we don't have enough shields to go around. One of the New Hopes will have to go without for the time being. Hopefully there's more along the way. Research: Heavy Rocket Launcher Ladies, say goodbye to your home, the UCS should be moving in for an attack in a few hours. It was a good research base while it lasted.  Fang and the prototypes may be trotting about all fancy, but they don't have any anti-air capabilities. We've managed to pull 4 Super Fighters from the Gamma Quadrant pre-assault force for this operation, but these 4 units are all we can spare. They need to get up there and provide some air cover.  Fortunately the LZ has its own supply center so the Super Fighters can reload if the need arises.  Oh poo poo. Looks like we've found the UCS attack force. Dragon bombers, Jaguar hPs and a smattering of anti-air units. This is more than enough to take out Fang's little group. Or our air support. Quick, head north! You've gotta warn Fang!   Whew. Looks like they made it. Now that Fang and the prototypes know about the ambush we'll need to divert our route. The original idea was to navigate the narrow valleys in the region, but if the UCS have already started marching towards the base we'll run smack into them. We need to avoid them. Since we don't have any Unit Transporters the only other way to go is underground. There's a small tunnel network to the west of the research base. We'll need to be quick to make it there before the UCS attack force discover us.  Too late! The first wave of the assault group is headed straight for us. Time to see if those cannons work...  Oh my. These things burn through UCS armor even better than Fang's cannon. One or two shots to disable a walker and another 2 to destroy it. It's not the controlled sort of test we'd like to run, but I'd say that's a successful demo. The first wave is dead, and after a little bit of travel we've managed to find the tunnels.  Quick! Everyone get inside before the attack comes!  The New Hope task force is safely underground. The anti-air Super Fighters will move to the exit to give us air superiority. Now, there shouldn't be anyone down here but you never know. We'll be proceeding with caution on the off chance there is.  drat! Just what we need, a whole big group of Cargo Salamanders. ...Wait a second. One of the New Hope pilots just pointed something out to me. The lead Salamander has been disabled. If we keep focusing on the lead unit we can probably take them out without suffering too much damage.  Yeah! It's working!  Good job ladies! I don't know if you're inspired fighting alongside the great General Fang or if your all becoming better warriors, but whatever it is keep it up!  Back on the surface dawn has broken. I'm sure the main UCS force has leveled the research base by now.  Looks clear based on what I'm seeing. Good news for us.  Our formation has started to drift in these larger areas. Given the sensitive and delicate nature of these prototypes we need to make sure the weakest units are in the back. And the best way to do that is by using a platoon. Platoons are pretty neat. Basically, when you click the platoon button it turns a group of units into a single cohesive unit. Clicking on any one of them will select them all. They'll generally keep the formation you set for them and they'll also move in step with each other. It's not always the most useful feature, but it's great if you're juggling a lot of units or need to keep things in a strict formation.  Alpha Platoon has found some UCS stragglers. Let's see what those cannons can do!  Yep. They're pretty drat effective. Fang's condition is a bit worrying though, he's been taking the brunt of the attacks to protect the New Hopes. He's a brave guy, but we better be more careful or he's going to become a dead guy. Research: Heavy Rocket Launcher upgrade 1 Given Fang's weakened state I'm having the Super Fighters do all the scouting from here on. I've also re-arranged the platoon to put Fang in the back. If Fang survives it's going to be because of the bravery of the 6 New Hope pilots, not anything he can do.  We've found another small UCS group. This looks like a sleepy patrol. Their fighters aren't even in the air! And what's the best way to deal with patrols? Yes, of course, the answer is pull off one at a time and drown them in a hail of super-hot air.   Looks like there's a more substantial unit headed our way though. I wonder if Alpha Platoon can take care of it? Of course they can!  These ladies are going to be the heroines of the LC. This is exactly what they need to psyche themselves up for the upcoming assault on Gamma Quadrant.  A half-dozen women of the LC going up against one of the toughest armies the world has ever seen. And not only are they winning, but they're coming out without a single casualty! That's a morale booster if I've ever seen one.  The Dragon bombers from the attack on the base finally are headed for us. Looks like they're pulling out all the stops now.  Too bad they forgot to bring an escort. You can't contest our air superiority.  Now to go in and destr-oh you ladies already did it. Jeez, y'all are ruthless.  There it is! We can see the base. Just need to get around this bend and we'll all be safe and sound.   One last desperate attempt to destroy us from the UCS. A bunch of Gargoyles and Tigers can't stop us now.  Not Alpha Platoon.  Not the new Heroines of the Lunar Corporation  No, thank you Fang. You've been quite an asset to us here on the Moon. I know the fighting on Earth is starting to heat up again but I think you've helped give us the spark we need to push these robots off Luna. You helped us get back on our feet and kick some robotic rear end. There's more to winning a war than just shiny toys, ya know? It's all about attitude.   Although, I do admit the shiny toys are rather nice...   A perfect score sheet. Just what I like to see. (I swear doing this mission with no losses is harder than I made it look)  With the new Heroines of the Lunar Corporation making the rounds on Luna to inspire our troops and take command of the New Hope squadrons, I think its time for the assault on Gamma Quadrant. Fang's making preparations to head back to Earth, but I think we've proven that we don't really need him up here anymore. When I took command I was in charge of a bunch of terrified scientists and civilians. But with Fang's help I think I can say they've become the fearsome warriors we all knew they could be. Thank you Fang!
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Mar 26, 2014 03:23
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How much do the New Hopes run us, anyhow?
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Mar 26, 2014 05:26
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Glazius posted:How much do the New Hopes run us, anyhow? 1,100 a pop. Very cheap considering how good it is on offense. Unlike Fang's ship it's made out of tissue paper though so you'll need to make sure they're not taking damage. You can actually stick the New Hope's weapon on other units like we saw in the UCS campaign but I find rolling out a Fat Girl with 4 plasma projectors to be kinda gimmicky and broken so I'm not gonna do it.
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Mar 26, 2014 06:46
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  rest of briefing posted:After finishing off the enemy, start building a mining refinery and two Platinum Power Plants in the crater near each enemy base. It should be easy to find those craters. They are full of resources. You guys know the drill at this point: kill the UCS and then mine the craters.  We've finally got access to the Thunderer heavy bomber. It's not needed as badly as it is in the base game, but it'll be nice to have a more well-armored unit to counter the UCS's new found love of AAP. Research: Thunderer m1 and m2 Unlike last time, we don't need to do a ton of searching to find our base location. That's an absolute treasure trove of resources. Project SUNLIGHT's costs have to be astronomical. These resources alone would probably be enough to build half of the evacuation fleet.  With the base area looking secure I head off through the valley to the west to do some scouting. And look what I found!  New pieces of scrap!  The Thunderers have discovered our southern exit is very narrow. With only two narrow paths out of the base I'm thinking the UCS aren't stupid enough to try a ground assault. And if they are, a few Guardian Towers should dissuade them. We'll need to think about beefing up our air defenses instead of focusing on a traditional defense.   Given that we're surrounded by cliffs and mountains, I think a series of Defenders, Guardians and NESTs will pummel any attempt to break through. We should be able to hold our positions in the valleys quite easily if we have static defenses on the high ground.  Oh good! One of the New Hope pilots has made it out to the battlefield. She'll be serving not only as a beacon of inspiration, but will also be in command on the ground. You can never discount the importance of a good sergeant.  Our ownership of the high ground is already paying off. This Mammoth doesn't have a prayer.  Another UCS patrol, another heap of scrap.  We don't quite have perfect coverage in the mountains. There's a gap here that we're not able to build on. So I'll have our 3 AAR Super Fighters set up shop in this weak point. They'll be able to handle anyone who tries to thread the needle.  Our defenses are set! Time to head for the first UCS base   Wellllllp this is embarrassing. Looks like I was right, the UCS won't be trying a land attack but not because there's a natural choke point. No, it's because the only way out of the base is directly in the path of our attack force  Good thing we can sell these useless towers!  And yet another UCS patrol dies. They're still not using shields. What the hell is wrong with them? Did they forget to pack their shield generators when they flew up here?  With all these defense towers our power needs are a bit higher than usual. I could build another Solar Power Plant and its associated panels and battery or I could just put down one building instead of 11. I'm going with the more expensive but faster option.  Huh. This is funny. Our towers see a bunch of UCS units in the valley below but they can't hit them, try as they might. Likewise, the UCS see the towers but can't hit them. So the two sides are going to sit here lobbing missiles at each other until the run out. Then they'll reload and the cycle will continue.  Our main attack force has joined up with the units holding down the valley. Let's begin the first assault.  We're up against a Fortress but we're throwing out way more damage than they can possibly hope to counter.  One salvo later and it's already down for the count. Shields are your friend Mr. Robot commander!  What the... We're taking fire from the ground? How is that possible...unless they...no. They didn't. They couldn't have. Did they cloak all their units and hide them behind the Fortress!?  Ladies, concentrate all your firepower on that Shadow Tower! It's our only chance!  One less Shadow Tower and yet I still can't see any of their units. Maybe they've fallen back?  Oh right. More Shadow Towers. Keep focusing on them! If we don't take them out we're sitting ducks!  The Shadow Towers and the power plants are down, and would you look at that. The UCS have a few Cargo Salamanders that were sitting there. I assume they were waiting for us to pass by and then hit us from behind. Good thing we noticed those Shadow Towers or we would've fallen for their trap. The UCS is getting much more clever, even if they still won't use shields. I should stop underestimating them.   Of course, since their brilliant trap failed the base has been ripped to shreds and they have nothing to show for it.  Another power plant down and oh ho ho look at this. The UCS trap was even more elaborate than I thought. They had units hiding in the tunnels, waiting to emerge under the cover of the Shadow Towers to ruin our day. This sounds like something I'd try and pull off. Well assuming I was okay with letting the enemy waltz into the middle of my base. I'd never let that happen of course.  With the trap foiled and the base in utter desolation we just need to take out these last two power plants and we'll have the first crater. Research: Air Heavy Rocket Launcher 1 and 2 These Harvesters are all that's left. The first crater is ours!  And with that comes building our mines and Xyrex plants in the center. 2 more to go.   This gate is easy to knock down when there's no power. It looks as if there are actually two gates out of here, this one to the south and another to the east. Let's try going east.  axeil from literally 5 minutes ago posted:Well assuming I was okay with letting the enemy waltz into the middle of my base. I'd never let that happen of course.  I look like an idiot now don't I? It's only a Mammoth and the red UCS base is out of money so it poses no threat though. Boy would I have egg on my face if actual combat units got in there! Ah. Looks like the eastern gate has its own power grid. Well, we know what to do with that.  Bye bye independent power grid. Bye bye first UCS base.  What I assume is the last group of ambush units rush in to try and defend the scraps of the UCS base but it's too late.  With the first base out of the way we can head east. Hey everyone, guess what's to the east!  That's right, its the first annual lunar rocket launching competition. The UCS are putting in a fantastic showing but don't count us out just yet.  I mean, I guess using lightning bolts in a rocket throwing contest is cheating but the judges said it was okay. Incidentally, all the judges are from the LC. Let's move south and hit the next UCS base.  Hmm, a few Small Towers? Hah. I laugh at you UCS.  See. This is me laughing at your pathetic attempts at de- -fe...nse...  Oh god this is bad. They're absolutely coating us in plasma and we're losing units left and right. I think the UCS may have finally found a way to counter us.  Forward! Forward ladies! We can't turn back now.  Reports are coming in from our field commander. She says they're making progress but the losses are horrifying. They've never seen anything like this. I don't know how they haven't shattered completely and run. She must've put the fear of goddess into them.  We're almost there! Set your sights on the power plant. If we manage to topple it we can make it!  Hooray! But we're not out of the woods yet. The purple LC base's shadow tech is down due to the UCS's insistence on using lights, but night won't last for long. There will be time after this battle to grieve for our dead; if we stop now they'll push us back, rebuild and our sisters' lives will be for naught. We must continue forward!  Atta girl! Disabling the UCS walkers as they come off the production line is genius. This is exactly why I put that New Hope pilot in charge on the ground; she's a tactical wizard.  The last of the towers have been destroyed and we've managed to grab a foothold in the entryway of the UCS base.  And quickly that foothold becomes a serious incursion.  And in mere minutes we're deep in enemy territory. There are more UCS walkers inbound but I think we can hold them off.  We've whittled away the defenses and I think we're going to carry the day here. I'm still in awe of that wall of Small Towers. It's...very troubling. Almost as if the UCS commander knew exactly how we operate and planned perfectly for it. Almost as if we had a spy among us...  This is a bit of a problem. We can't reach the last two structures in the UCS base. We've built in the crater but we don't get credit for taking the southern base until everything is destroyed. I decided to have some fun with eliminating these last two instead of building some more air units and letting them take care of it.  Putting plasma projectors on towers is really, really, really unfair.  We've got one more base to go. Guess it's time to drive through more generic twisting canyons.  A Dragon-class bomber? What in the world? Why is it hanging out in this valley? It's much better suited to attacks than assault interdiction.  Looks like the cyan UCS base isn't as clever as it's red or purple comrades. Still, I'm on my toes.   Nothing unusual yet...   Still nothing...although I do really like their use of HQ building as beefier defensive buildings since the UCS variant gets two turrets.  The power is cut. Still nothing. No tricks. Maybe the cyan base is run by the worst of the three commanders? It was all the way in the back behind the two other bases after all. Research: Heavy Rocket Launcher 3 You know, this whole assault has been kind of well... Odd. There weren't any mobile units except for those Repairers and the defenses are nowhere near as robust as the other two bases.  Oh. Oh no. That's where the units went. They're marching right past all my towers and headed for the base itself. And our entire army is on the other side of the map. I take it all back. The cyan commander is the best of the lot. He (it?) knew the base was doomed but decided to take me out at the same time. It's just a race against time now, who's base is going to fall first?  You have got to be loving kidding me. He built a mass of Small Towers too, but this time it's in the back of the base. You know, the area we need to clear out so we can build into the crater. poo poo. There's not enough time to try a more clever approach, we need those towers down now or the cyan army will rout our base. Forward...  The last UCS base is destroyed, but at a terrible cost. Our might army has been reduced to only half its size. We lost a lot of good women today.  Mother Knows Best? You've got some really 20th century tastes for a lady from the 22nd century.  More UCS units are pouring into our base. I don't think there's any way to stop them now. We'll need to do an evac from the final crater.   With the battle won I order all our buildings sold, but it's too late for some of them. The UCS are willing to sit in the base and snipe our extraction teams.  Fortunately for the army, we manage to evac in time. But I'm pretty sure everyone at the base isn't gonna make it.   The game doesn't count the destruction of sold buildings towards the destroyed count. Very odd.  INCOMING TRANSMISSION... code:Our evacuation fleet. Forget Project SUNLIGHT; this is an existential threat to the Lunar Corporation itself. We cannot under any circumstances allow these cannons to come online. Thank goddess Fang hasn't shipped back to Gaia yet. We need him one last time.
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Apr 1, 2014 05:15
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Ouch, the AI almost never plays that smart.
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Apr 1, 2014 07:28
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That was a nice bit of drama to close the mission on. ...but seriously, does the UCS ever remember shields?
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Apr 2, 2014 22:27
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my dad posted:Ouch, the AI almost never plays that smart. Yeah I've never seen anything quite like that. The 5 million Small Tower strategy is really, really effective against my method of going for the power plants and then dealing with everything else. Small Towers don't need power so they can keep pummeling you once the power is down. I can guarantee if they actually bothered to put shields on the towers I would've failed to get in the second UCS base. The firepower was unreal. I think the "ambush" may have just been the AI being weird but I'm shocked they managed to use shadow tech effectively. Glazius posted:That was a nice bit of drama to close the mission on. Thanks! You can do the missions in any order so long as you have all 4 rings done before going to the final mission but I like the on-and-off way I've been playing through things. The Fang missions are all pretty neat while the Ring missions are well...not that exciting.  Mixing it up helps break up the monotony. I remember playing the first time I did all the Fang missions (because of course you do all the Fang missions first when you're a kid). Doing all 4 Rings in a row was so very, very tedious and annoying.Glazius posted:...but seriously, does the UCS ever remember shields? Well we've got 3 more missions to see if they do! I know they have them because I've seen them stick them on buildings I'm attacking but their units are still without them. Maybe I'll try upping the difficulty and seeing if that changes things. Standard difficulty (as you can see) isn't really providing much of a challenge at this point. Of course that will all change with Lost Souls...
axeil fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 05:13
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Earth 2140 is on sale on Steam right now, for 75% off. $1.74 to get the prequel game, pretty dang cheap!
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Apr 6, 2014 01:49
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Captain Bravo posted:Earth 2140 is on sale on Steam right now, for 75% off. $1.74 to get the prequel game, pretty dang cheap! Does the Steam version fix the issues with the AI on modern systems?
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Apr 6, 2014 02:28
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Nope! And has its own little problems. Buy the GOG version which has a dos box version of the win95 version that can be picky but runs great. It can be a great game for sure. Just getting it working is a pain. GOG did great getting it to work, Love to try and get info to start an LP if I can because that game was so much fun as a kid. Hard as balls though.
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Apr 6, 2014 08:29
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Apologies everyone for the lack of updates the past two weeks. I've been pulling insane hours at work and now I'm fighting off stomach flu.
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Apr 16, 2014 03:11
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  Fang's found one last thing before he heads back to Earth; somehow the UCS has managed to bring Orbital Plasma satellites and have successfully placed them in orbit around Luna. These will allow them to use Plasma Control Centers to shoot plasma at us from anywhere on the Luna. Obviously, we cannot allow this. The satellites' orbits are being maintained at three Plasma Control Centers in this region. General Fang believes if we destroy all three Control Centers the satellites will be unable to maintain their orbits and will either crash into Luna or fly off into space. It's not much for a theory, but it's our only shot.  Fang's escort might be small but it's touting some pretty heavy weaponry. 2 Crions, 2 Thunderers, a Crater/Crusher combo and Super Fighters for air defense isn't too bad. Still, to be on the safe side we'll be moving the entire army into this sector prior to engaging the UCS. Research: Heavy Electro-cannon mk1 and 2. Due to this sector's remote location we're unable to do any construction. These units will have to suffice.  We've encountered our first patrol. Still no shields.   Onwards ladies (and Fang!)  See, patrols really aren't effective when you can disable the first unit before it even fires a shot.  It's just too tantalizing a target for our Crions.  This clearing looks...ominous. Proceed with caution ladies!   Enemy artillery! Everyone! Evasive maneuvers! Now! My goddess. They've reinforced the Plasma Control Centers; they must've been tipped off about our operation. We'll need to work quickly to destroy the artillery before the UCS can resupply. Making matters worse, there's some light air cover over the base, negating our air power. Ladies, prepare for an immediate charge on the enemy position!  Whew. It worked. Our losses were horrifying though. We now have 15 land units and a single Thunderer where before we had an entire aerial fleet and over 20 ground units. We'll need to be more careful next time.   With the first PCC destroyed we're a third of the way there. Despite our sobering losses, Ixchel has some superb news for us; they've managed to work out our own version of the UCS's artillery technology. Even more encouraging, they now believe they can re-purpose Fang's meteor homing beacon to work with our existing Weather Control Systems. With these we can finally fight back on level footing!  Our route now heads south. Let's hope the next base isn't covered in artillery.   Another two patrols without shields. Boring.  However, this third patrol is much more interesting. Note the UCS's positioning. They're right in the line of fire from their own artillery! They might be robots, but shelling your own soldiers is still barbaric. We'll need to get a closer look at the base to figure out our best approach vector. Our sole Thunderer should be able to handle the job with its heavy armor.  code: While our entire air force has now been destroyed, at least Valkyrie 1's sacrifice won't be for naught. We were able to break through the enemy lines due to our knowledge of the enemy's artillery positions.  One more base to go. The first one had artillery. The second had artillery and AA cover. What's the final one going to hold?  Other than the loss of Valkyrie 1 we managed to escape that encounter unscathed, although some of the units did get tagged a bit by splash damage from the artillery.  Oh boy another unshielded patrol group!  *insert your own witticism about shields here*  Seriously can't they learn anything about how to do a proper attack? Like going for our high-value units?  Oh poo poo they're gonna kill Fang.  See, this is why you don't give them any ideas. Fang's taken serious damage and will need to lead the rest of the mission from the rear.  Given our complete lack of air coverage, I order one of our quicker units to scout the area ahead. If she runs into any trouble she should hopefully be able to make it back in one piece.  Nothing here. Guess we'll need to keep moving.   Crion shots for everyone! Hooray Crion!  Is this it? Is this the last completely useless patrol group?  I hope so. They're not exactly hard to deal with, but as you saw, one moment of recklessness can allow them to kill Fang and end the whole mission.  Another one!? Wait, this one's different...  Oh holy poo poo. Those are Grizzlies! The UCS must be desperate to save this last facility. There's no other explanation for why they'd risk their most valuable units.  Of course you would think they'd at least shield them...  Welp. Good job UCS. You just wasted all your Grizzlies and managed to kill a whopping zero of our units because we disabled you in about 2 seconds. Even worse, you were so close to the base that we've gotten a clear look at it without needing to scout. I've got a very clever trick planned for this artillery.  It's called "bait them into shooting at Fang, run away and laugh as the shells fall short." Bit of a mouthful but I think it works well, no?  See! That shell isn't even close to Fang.  Or that one.  And now they're out of shells. These Cargo Salamanders would be an issue...except every single one of them are armed with anti-air plasma instead of a mix. Completely harmless.  The last base's walls have been breached it's almost over.  Bye artillery. I will not miss you.  And goodbye Plasma Control Centers! Now to head back home and...hey why haven't we gotten the mission success pop-up yet?  Oh. I guess we have to destroy this laughably defended resupply base then. It would be fearsome if those Fortresses had anything on them other than 20mm chainguns. Since that isn't the case, this should only take a few seconds.  Thank you once again Fang for pointing something out and then letting me do all the work to destroy it. Nah, just kidding, you've been a great help up here. I understand the situation on Earth is rapidly deteriorating though. As much as it would help to have you in command of the final strike against the UCS, we need you back on Earth to coordinate the last resource pushes in the Amazon and Africa.  Everyone still needs to walk back to the LZ though. While we're waiting... Research: Earthquake Generator I and II, 2000 PSU Shield Generator General Fang, we've arranged for your transport back to Earth. The shuttle will depart from Lunar City at midnight.  Take your time to say goodbye to Luna, Fang. I don't think we'll be seeing you up here again. But once again, we owe you our deepest gratitude. to the Hero of the Lunar Corporation!  Pretty much all those losses came from the attack on the first PCC. I completely forgot that they have artillery  This is it! Delta Quadrant is all that stands between us and the deployment of SUNLIGHT. Let's do it!
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Apr 23, 2014 04:45
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Base artillery with a limited number of shells? How's it supposed to get more, if not from the base?
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Apr 27, 2014 06:04
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Glazius posted:Base artillery with a limited number of shells? How's it supposed to get more, if not from the base? Supply units bring in some, just like they do for everything else. Even regular towers can have a limited supply of stuff like rockets, and need refilling.
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Apr 27, 2014 10:46
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