|
To be honest, my stance on the UCS is "well-intentioned, but tremendously incompetent".
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2013 07:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 15:06 |
|
|
I forgot I'm going to be at a party tomorrow so I've extended voting until 11:59 PM EST on January 11thCrepuscule Adepte posted:To be honest, my stance on the UCS is "well-intentioned, but tremendously incompetent". That's a pretty fair characterization. I mean, how many convoys have they created now without escort?
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2013 07:33
|
|
|
Two. Two convoys without escort. Is this one going to be as much of a goddamned nightmare as the last?
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2013 07:53
|
|
|
On today's alternate tactics update, "How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Rocket Launcher" or for short, "Moon Dance" If you've been doing previous missions efficiently, not giving ED much time to research, you'll have a unique advantage in this mission. Your missiles will, with a single research, have 100% guiding. Enemy missiles will, on the other hand, have 0% or 25%. This makes the Missile Moonwalk Massacre a very tempting option. Furthermore, it's really not that difficult to beat this mission with only a few shielded units (In fact, I only had 5 shielded Moons and Fang when I played this, all the other Moons were veterans of pre-shield missions) due to the stupidly short range of the laser. Finally, you've probably noticed from Axeil's update that the giant enemy army is divided and scattered around the map. This makes defeat in detail possible. Since your base is already mostly established by the time you arrive, you can produce Mercury supply units on the spot and focus on transporting missile Moons from your base. You should completely ignore the bridges. Instead, send out your starting lunars to search the map for enemy battle groups and the ED base. You should be able to locate the main base pretty fast (or you could just check Axeil's map). Head for the base and overwhelm it's defenses. You will probably have to fight a battle group on the way, though. Do this by keeping Fang and the shielded units in front of your force and keep moving in and out of range. Don't get Fang too damaged, though, you'll need him to survive the Cossacks guarding the base. If ED troops try to pursue you, they'll get blown up by missiles. If they stay there, they'll get blown up by missiles. If they do anything else, they'll get blown up by missiles. The only real threat here is running out of missiles. Their missiles should be almost harmless since you're constantly on the move and your tanks regenerate. Just don't aggro all of them at once, missiles aren't omnipotent. (did I say "missiles" enough?  )If you're having problems with Cossacks focusing on Fang, move all your units into a river. Put all the Moons in one big blob and have Fang run along the river until the Cossacks get out of the Moons' missiles' range, then turn him around and go the other way. Fang will take about as much damage as he regenerates and the Moons will completely destroy the air force. The base shouldn't present much of a problem if you take out the Cossacks and focus on the powerplants. Once it's down, drop a supply center and transfer all the Mercuries there. This will eliminate your most glaring weakness, lack of ammo. Besides, having taken the base out so early means that there's more ore left just for you! After that, seek out the battle groups and eliminate them one by one. You have plenty of time for that, so don't take stupid risks and make sure that you use every advantage you have. Rivers are your friends. They give you plenty of room to dance and ED can't cross water, so you can make most of the enemy force stay out of the fight until it's their turn to die. Just make sure that you stay on the move or you will get absolutely murdered by the hordes of missile Siberias. The only casualties I had were a few shieldless Moons that ran face first into lasers. That's what made me decide that it was time to retire my veterans. You did great girls, now it's time for you to rest and enjoy the Amazon. While it lasts. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2013 13:05
|
|
|
 LC. Look out for #1, and leave the others in the crater.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2013 17:12
|
|
|
.png) ED I trust duplicitous competence more than honest incompetence. At least you can predict getting stabbed in the back.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2013 19:33
|
|
|
I guess convoy escorts are as good an idea as any. I suppose the moon has to get involved with the people below somehow.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2013 09:03
|
|
|
 Who should the Lunar Corporation support? Final vote count:  Eurasian Dynasty: 12.png) United Civilized States: 15 Comedy Option/No Earth-friends: 1We will be sticking with the UCS if given a chance to change our alliance.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2013 22:04
|
|
|
 Another day, another UCS convoy without an escort.  Yikes! Some snark and disdain here from Sombra. I don't think she likes computers.  Here's the UCS convoy. This one is made up of a Mammoth construction vehicle and 3 Harvester Is. Unlike last mission, this time 100% of the convoy must survive.  And here's our ultimate destination. We've got quite a way to go to get there, unlike last time where building a bridge would've solved the whole problem.  On the research front the Regenerator is now available. The Regenerator allows for quick healing of any unit nearby. It's pretty useful and from now on I'll usually park one near the entrance to the base to keep everyone healthy. There are three upgrades but for now we'll stick with just the first version.  Fang has shown up and the convoy will now follow him wherever he goes, just like last time. Unlike last time, I'll be using 2 Meteor m3s for scouts and use the Moons as my strike team. The new energy weapons will let them wallop the enemy.   See? They're blowing up Pamirs even faster now!  Our unit limit increases by 10,000 CR this mission so I take the time to build reinforcements back at HQ, mostly sonic cannon or electro-cannon Moons.  The Phobos will die almost immediately if you are attacked, but they're extremely cheap and fast.  end of Neo's Message posted:days. A hacker named Neo who hates machines? Whoa. His offer is pretty tempting. The chance to re-unite with an old comrade, resources, peace and fancy technology. It'd be easy. The UCS convoy can't fight back.  Just pull the trigger and this war with the ED could be over... But Fang can't do it. He's no traitor. Maybe in an alternate universe he'd be able to throw aside his country and his promises, but not in this one. We will continue on our mission. Neo is a really awesome character and regardless of what you choose here he'll be around for the rest of the campaign. Of course if you don't ally with him he is a massive, massive dick and will make you hate everything. But if you do ally with him it's like having god on your side. You'll see.  Our Meteor scouts encounter another group of ED tanks. These ones are double-barreled and could pose a bit of a problem. But they can't shoot aerial units. I'll use the Meteors to soften them up.   This makes them complete pushovers for the rest of the convoy escort. I don't even know if anyone got damaged here. It's a bit unnerving though. Neo's offer is still on the table even though we're slaughtering his new countrymen left and right. The offer won't be withdrawn until we finish our mission.  The scouts run into some Siberia Rs. Sadly they can fire back, so I pull the Meteors back and have the Moons crush the Siberias. Once again, it's pretty easy. This whole mission is incredibly easy actually. Almost like the designers wanted to make sure the whole convoy survives even if you make some mistakes. To make it so the only way the convoy can be destroyed is if your hand does it.  Yet another ambush for us. These Volgas are heavy amphibious ED units. The Heavy Laser hits just like a regular laser, except harder. Typically you'll only see Volgas used as mobile platforms to launch nuclear missiles. For that reason they're usually high priority targets.  Fortunately these ones aren't carrying nuclear missiles and our air force can quickly knock them out.   We find one final ambush and I was able to get some screenshots of the sonic cannon in action. You see that faint purple circle around the Moon? Any enemy units hit by that circle will take damage. It's extremely easy to take out clustered units but one-on-one the sonic cannon isn't so great due to it's recharge time.  The ambush was right outside the UCS base. Fang could practically see the UCS wall from the ambush location.  end of Sombra's message posted:I think that answered my question all right. You don't, by chance have more friends of his, uh, caliber do you? I sincerely hope the answer is NO! The alliance offer from Neo is null and void. And Neo confirms what we've suspected: that the AIs of the UCS are completely in control now. Let's hope Neo doesn't totally gently caress us over in the coming missions He will totally gently caress us over in the coming missions.   The Mammoth is building and the Harvesters are harvesting. I hope we made the right choice...  The Regenerator can repair the damage from the battle very quickly. This Moon was almost dead when she got back to HQ and in only a minute she's already back to 75% health.   Not much to say on the score sheet. The Dynasty only had 23 units on the field, I think my suspicions about this mission being an easy win were correct. 23 weak units is nothing at this point.  Sheela's base is under attack? We must save her so we can hear more jokes!  And for the first time the UCS will be helping us out. Maybe we made the right choice after all 
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2013 23:37
|
|
|
We're being assisted by an AI-based army potentially against someone who specializes in hacking. I think it's safe to say we're in trouble.
|
|
#
?
Jan 12, 2013 23:49
|
|
|
Crepuscule Adepte posted:We're being assisted by an AI-based army potentially against someone who specializes in hacking. I think it's safe to say we're in trouble. If Neo was that good, he wouldn't have had to flee the UCS in the first place. It does explain the UCS's complete lack of competence, though - all their best officers are running the other two factions. Which may be related to GOLAN attempting to kill them off. The Computer is Your Friend, General Fang. ... I am downright amazed nobody made a Paranoia joke when voting for the UCS previously.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2013 12:28
|
|
|
Ilanin posted:If Neo was that good, he wouldn't have had to flee the UCS in the first place. I thought about it but wasnt sure if anyone would get it.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2013 13:45
|
|
|
Whoa. Okay, this is officially further than I ever got. Cool to see Sheela again. Dammit though, I told you we should've allied with ED. Also, I think it's kinda interesting that the Eurasian commanders so far all seem to have Polish names. You'd think there'd be some Russians or Mongols, but... The unit names are more on the Russo-Mongolian side, though. Gruz just means cargo in Russian (or may be short from gruzovik, cargo truck), Pamirs are presumably named after the mountain range, probably no need to explain Cossacks.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2013 13:52
|
|
|
advokat posted:Also, I think it's kinda interesting that the Eurasian commanders so far all seem to have Polish names.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2013 14:00
|
|
|
  It's time to begin Operation: Save Sheela. Looks like the UCS will finally be helping us out. Thank god. And Sheela still has time to flirt with us despite her imminent doom.    Our base is already pretty well defended. However it is vulnerable to an aerial attack to the north or south so I build some Guardian towers with rocket launchers. They should be able to hold off any lightly armored air units *cough*Cossacks*cough*.  The UCS base isn't as well defended as ours but since it's at the far end of the island I doubt the ED tanks will march all the way down there when we're a much closer target.  Of course, to get in our base the Dynasty will need to move through this narrow canyon. With all those Guardians on our doorstep I think a ground assault is suicide here. The Lunars in this image are going out to scout for the ED base. The earlier we find it, the earlier we can start harassing the Dynasty.  We now have access to the Crater heavy tank. These are the mainline defensive units of the LC army, as the Crater has more HP than any other unit the LC can make. The Crater will help keep us in long assaults. Right now a prolonged offensive will be too destructive to our Moons to be a legitimate tactic. With Crater tanks we might be able to do a successful head-on attack.  One of our Lunars has discovered the ED base in the northeast corner of the map. She is attacked by a combination of rockets, 105mm double barreled cannons, lasers and chainguns.  The ED have finally started combined arms defense. I can't just throw in my air force or Fang and have the towers crumble. Fang moves in after the death of our scout and notices the ED, despite understanding the need for different weapon types on their towers, still haven't mastered the whole "build your walls all the way around your base" tactic. The backside of the base is completely exposed. It'd be rude to not let the Dynasty know about their mistakes, wouldn't it?  Two Power Plants, and a few ED units later, the Dynasty sends in some units that can hit back. Fang retreats but the damage has been done: the ED mines have been shut off from the power shortage. Good job Fang!   The Crater is done but we can only mount a banner?  Heavy tanks in Earth 2150 can only mount heavy weapons (like the Heavy Laser we saw on the Volga last update). We'll need to research the Heavy Rocket Launcher if we want the Crater to be more than a very expensive experience booster.  I am a huge rear end in a top hat. That's the UCS mineral field outside their base. Since they weren't using all of it they won't mind my mine there taking some resources, right? We're all friends here, sharing won't hurt anyone.   All our units from HQ are here and the ED is weak from their mines being shut off so it's time for a true assault. While I'm gathering my units at a rally point outside the valley leading to the LC base, ED Cossacks stumble upon us. But wait, what's that? UCS Gargoyles have come to our rescue! Thanks robot friends  . The rest of the ED defenders have followed the Gargoyles out, making the UCS assistance not so helpful. The battle is pitched but our new sonic cannon units turn the tide when the ED makes the mistake of walking right into them. Foolish.  Fang is at the vanguard of the attack since he has the strongest shields. Good thing too since the ED has repaired its power situation and added lasers to its mines. The rest of the LC attack focuses on taking out the towers while Fang draws their attacks.  Progress has been made but the defenses of the Eurasian Dynasty are starting to wear us down. I order the army to pull back to the base's northwest corner, the same spot Fang used to infiltrate the base.  From this spot the ED defenses can't hit us. We just need to take out the power plant in the corner of the base and the mines will stop firing and allow us to slowly grind away the base. And with the help of our UCS allies this should b-  OH COME ON! Neo has turned all of the UCS units against their masters. And since we're allied with the UCS that means the robots will be gunning for us too.  Some UCS units stay loyal to their programs and engage the traitor units. This should buy us enough time to consolidate our foothold on the ED base.  With the power plant down, the army begins working on eliminating the power-independent Small Towers. However, with their economy in ruins it's only a matter of time until the ED base falls.   The AI for the ED-controlled Harvesters is great. With all these units on the UCS mining fields, the UCS has no way to collect any resources. They'll need to clear the Harvesters before they can recover from the hacking attack.  Our attack continues to push into the heart of the ED base. If we take out the power plants we see there the base will be completely helpless.   Our Heavy Rocket Launcher is done! And with that we add the Crater m1 hR to our unit list. But there are two more Crater upgrades and since we don't need them right now we can get the Craters fully upgraded before we start building them.  The UCS hunts down the few remaining traitor units. I'm glad they dealt with this and I didn't have to divert resources from the assault. If I let up the pressure it'd probably be enough for the ED to bounce back.  I've got two Guardians up in the ED base. The resource field is clear, so I do the sensible thing and drop in a mine.  This is the final push. We just need to destroy the Vehicle Production Center and this mission is over. The ED doesn't have any Gruzs and without the Vehicle Production Center they can't build any more.   The ED launches a desperate attack on our base with the tattered remnant of its air force along with a few stolen Gargoyles. The Guardian towers I built in the northern part of the base pay off here. Without these towers I would've been helpless.  The only thing left in the ED base is this supply center. We destroy it in seconds. All that's left now is mop-up.  One more Crater upgrade.   Not much left to mop-up, just four Small Towers and a Power Plant. Easy pickings.  Hooray we saved Sheela! Everything is hunky-dory. I'll wait on the battlefield until we've finished upgrading the Crater and the Heavy Rocket Launcher though. I'm sure I could go for a quick dip while we wait for the research to finish    I've walled off my resource fields so the UCS can't steal my resources. Sharing is a one-way street this mission   Our Crater upgrades are done. 1,050 HP?  This thing can take a beating. The UCS destroy the last traitorous unit. Whew. Let's hope we don't have to worry about that again.  Our upgraded Heavy Rocket Launcher lets us shoot twice as many rockets, just like it's standard mount cousin. We just need to finish the final Heavy Rocket Launcher upgrade and we can start building some Craters.   All the UCS units are hostile again, and now they're headed right for our base. I think we should listen to our friend Neo and get the hell out of here.  110 units destroyed to only 11 units lost. Fang's the best commander out there. And we collected over 100,000 CR, that'll help out the research and the ship-building.  I stick around in the Main Base to finish up the upgrades and build some units. Here's the fully upgraded Crater m3 hR.  The ED lasers are finally starting to put the hurt on our units. It's time we got a shield recharger to help our units keep their shields topped off.  Our new Crater heavy tank is ready. Isn't she beautiful?   An Ion Cannon? That sounds bad. I'm glad I have overall command after what happened with the UCS units last time. I'm going to tell the robots to change their passwords for this mission. "humanssuck" is a really bad password for your military AI routines.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2013 20:46
|
|
|
Awww. Sheela is so bad at flirting with Fang it's actually endearing. I wonder if that's what the writers were aiming for, or if they just got lucky.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2013 21:18
|
|
|
Is there any kind of terrain manipulation in this game? Building bridges, digging tunnels? The mooninites obviously don't have to bother, but maybe the other factions do?
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2013 21:51
|
|
|
Glazius posted:Is there any kind of terrain manipulation in this game? Building bridges, digging tunnels? The mooninites obviously don't have to bother, but maybe the other factions do? Yes. The basic construction units for UCS and ED can build bridges, dig underground tunnels and raise/lower/flatten terrain. However, they're not very smart about it, so if you don't dig a trench just the right way, you'll have to rescue your Gruz/Mammoth with a well placed "flatten" from another builder.
|
|
#
?
Jan 13, 2013 22:04
|
|
|
Ilanin posted:Awww. Sheela is so bad at flirting with Fang it's actually endearing. I wonder if that's what the writers were aiming for, or if they just got lucky. Pretty sure that's what they were aiming for. Moon-ladies don't have to try very hard in their natural habitat - they are assigned the few men they have by the government.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2013 00:03
|
|
|
axeil posted:
Best part about heavy weapons? Often they can put a smaller weapon on top of them. So you can very well have EU heavy tanks with lasers on top of heavy lasers. Or rocket launchers on top of heavy electro-cannons.
|
|
#
?
Jan 14, 2013 00:43
|
|
|
  So the Eurasian Dynasty is working on some kind of Ion Cannon and we're here to stop it along with the UCS. I've told the UCS robots to change their passwords to a format that is 20 characters long with at least 6-bit entropy per character stored with a different salt for each server and that can't be found in rainbow tables. This should slow down Neo's hacking attempts! Math Nerd Explanation 1. Use a random number generator to generate each character from the list of all ASCII printable characters, stopping at length=20 2. Append a unique string to each password for each AI server before storing it 3. Check the hashed password and make sure you haven't selected anything that would appear in lists of pre-computed tables of hashed passwords, if yes then start over This is complete overkill and it's impossible from a practical standpoint to crack a password generated and stored like this. Yes, I do have a degree in math and took a course in number theory/cryptography why do you ask?  Sadly we don't have a pre-built base this time. Nor do we have a nice easily defended valley to build in.  I'm only lowering down the power plants here since I have no idea what our terrain looks like and I'd like to avoid bad building placement. I'll wait for the Jupiter to land and use my units to scout.  The UCS wastes no time and sends out a small scouting party to look for the ED base.  They find it rather quickly but are cut down almost instantly when they try to march in the front door.  We'll be beginning our research with the first heavy rocket upgrade. This works just like the standard mount rockets.  Our base is mostly constructed and I used a fancy angle to show off how spread out it is. The mines are all the way in the front and are very exposed to an attack. I don't like this since our mines can't shoot back like the ED's. There's a nice ridge to the south (left side of the picture) that should keep any ground units away but we're still vulnerable to an air attack from that direction. Let's fix that.  You can mount heavy weapons on (some) buildings so I throw heavy rockets on the Main Base and Aerial Supply Depot. This should cover our southern flank from any pesky Cossacks.  Here's my solution to the exposed mine issue. ED ground troops will need to move up through this valley to get to my base. 5 Guardian towers should cut any attack off at it's knees. I think the former pilots of those burnt-out unit husks will agree that the valley is a bad way to move up north.  Fang does his harassing thing while I wait for the Jupiter to bring the rest of the army over. I'm going to try to beat this mission without an air force as the map is very tiny and I'm up for a bit of a self-imposed challenge.   Harassment status: smashing success. The ED made a very loose power grid and the destruction of this plant shuts down the Vehicle Production Center. Unfortunately all those rockets hurt so I send Fang back to the defensive line to lick his wounds.  On the way he runs into a very curious unit. This is the Minelayer and it is totally useless against the LC. Why, you ask? Because LC units all hover. Kind of hard to hit landmines when you never touch the ground. They're useful against the UCS (or ED) so Fang has no problem blowing this guy to smithereens.  Ammo upgrades researched, I move to the Special tab to upgrade our Recharger and Regenerator. We saw how useful they've been and with our HQ overflowing with resources there's no reason not to spend a little cash here for the upgrades.  Fang's attack triggers an ED counter and it brings out the Caspian Ion Cannon. The Caspian, just like the Volga is an ED amphibious unit. Unlike the Volga, the Caspian usually mounts an Ion Cannon that can gently caress your day up. The energy weapon attacks a unit's electrical systems and allows ED repairer units to capture the unit. Or pummel you to death while you can't move or shoot back. They're very nasty and if I hadn't already gone 100% shielded I would be doing it this mission. You don't want to lose a strong unit during a retreat because they get disabled. Fortunately the Caspian can't hold up to a barrage of rockets and electro-cannon bursts and it goes down before it has a chance to go after any of our units.  This little Taiga has found a backdoor into my base. I'm glad it's just one puny Taiga L (which can't hurt buildings anyway) since a major attack force would've been a huge setback here. I build a Guardian to block entrance from the south and call it a day on base defense.   This is the UCS's Plasma Cannon. Do you see how fast the Siberia's hp went down? It looks like it lost about a fifth of its health in just one shot. It's a very strong weapon and you should be very afraid of it. It's not quite the insta-kill the ED laser is on unshielded units, but it's far more effective against shielded units. Do not underestimate these little Tiger Ps, they can and will take out a force many times their size without shields. Good thing the UCS is on our side!  Fang has recovered and I've found a weak spot in the ED base. We can dash right into the back of the base and start wrecking havoc, just like we did in Madagascar. News must not have spread about our last battle yet.   GOD drat IT! These robots were supposed to be uncrackable! My math skills have clearly failed me   The UCS traitor army is actually quite strong and the UCS was sending units down to the ED base to join my assault, meaning the ED just got another army for free. I'm going to need to pull back here to make sure they don't waltz right into my base, since we have no defenses in their way. I hate you so much Neo   The retreat ended up being pointless as all the UCS units marched down to the ED base to bolster base defenses (you can see two stolen Tiger II Ps here). I move my army back to their advance position and try to draw out the damned plasma guys.  The plasma guys die surprisingly fast and we're able to move right back into our rear assault location.  BOOM! There go the ED Research Centers. Looks like the Ion Cannon won't be getting off the island. With that the base has mostly fallen, and you know the drill by now: Blow up power plants, then anything shooting at you and finally the rest of the buildings.  The ED-controlled UCS units are very into blowing up the UCS Harvesters. Can't say I blame them. How many missions have I won by crippling the enemy's economy now?  The ED production structures are all gone. Time to advance and take out the mines and defensive line.   They're fighting back pretty hard here. Tons of rockets flying into my units, a Spider P harassing anyone who tries to retreat, more Spider Ps attacking my units, the few remaining Caspian prototypes trying to disable Fang and lasers on the mines are doing a number on everyone's shields. Good thing we used the back door or many of our sisters would've gone to an early grave. The damaged LC reserves are doing a good job of opening a second attack avenue that will divide ED attention. Or not divide their attention as none of the ED units or structures are attacking them, not even the Heavy Tower with a laser on it that only is in range of one of our Craters.  Once the ED mines and stolen UCS units are down the rest of the base falls in under a minute. And we get some Gargoyles to help out, not that it matters much.  Fang's being very cagey about his past with Neo. What's going on here? We haven't seen this mysteriousness from him. Although, Sombra has also been acting a bit odd lately. Fang saw a memo about something called PROJECT SUNLIGHT the other day and when he asked she quickly pushed it under a bunch of other papers. I think the LC leadership and Fang are trying to hide things from each other at this point. Neo is really increasing the strain on this partnership. The Celestial Council is visibly annoyed and after two attacks from Neo who can blame them? Our allies have been unintentionally stabbing us in the back ever since we decided to spurn Neo. We haven't lost a mission due to his shenanigans yet but it's only a matter of time until a large UCS force turns their plasma cannons on us. Once that happens, who knows if the alliance will last.  Our research now turns to the Heavy Electro-Cannon.  The Heavy Electro-Cannon lets us mount a regular weapon on top of the cannon so now we can do 126 damage in a single attack. I think we just found our shock troops! ... I'm not even surprised at this point.   The ED-controlled UCS units are making quick work of the UCS base. It'll only be a few minutes before they head east.  We'll be leaving almost 15,000 CR behind but it's better than risking the safety of any LC sisters at the hands of the evil robot army. I throw what money I can on the Jupiter before I order it back to base. loving robots.   We "won" this mission but I'm still pissed about losing out on those 15k credits. It's almost half of what we collected!   Back at base I finish up the upgrade to the Crater m3 hE, allowing it to do 169 damage. This gal is going right at the front of any of our assaults, I just can't say no to that firepower.  rest of the UCS President's message posted:Destroy the suspected base of Neo in Mozambique, together with all other ED structures. It's about loving time! Also the President of the UCS is your character in the UCS campaign so this is actually the player giving alternate-player a mission. Weird.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 04:30
|
|
|
That is dickish as hell. If you side with the ED, do you get any similar jerk moves pulled on you?
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 05:29
|
|
|
Eponymous posted:That is dickish as hell. If you side with the ED, do you get any similar jerk moves pulled on you? Nope! In fact Neo gives you a hacked army to play with and keep in one mission. The ED path is far, far less of an rear end in a top hat to you than the UCS path even though you have to deal with plasma cannons. Bet you all wish you'd voted differently now, eh? 
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 05:53
|
|
|
I'm curious - does the globe for the mission selection change as the campaign goes on? Like, are the ice caps gone now and the seas rising any?
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 06:03
|
|
|
axeil posted:Bet you all wish you'd voted differently now, eh?
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 06:15
|
|
|
axeil posted:Nope! In fact Neo gives you a hacked army to play with and keep in one mission. The ED path is far, far less of an rear end in a top hat to you than the UCS path even though you have to deal with plasma cannons. If I remember correctly, this actually gives you repair units so you can upgrade your older designs. The ED path is the easy one. (that's why I voted UCS)
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 07:30
|
|
|
Nope. I voted ED. Tis the other awful goons that are to blame. Also ouch, 15k not mined. How much cash/how long till Earth explodes?
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 08:05
|
|
|
The dickish way to avoid having to deal with plasma armadas after you beat the ED is to flatten the UCS base and blow up their units after that. They won't fight back. I'll give my reasons for voting UCS as soon as the campaign paths cross again.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 10:36
|
|
|
Byzantine posted:I'm curious - does the globe for the mission selection change as the campaign goes on? Like, are the ice caps gone now and the seas rising any? Yep! If you compare the globes you'll notice the early missions had lots of snow everywhere (it was winter after all) and the current missions don't. Veloxyll posted:Nope. I voted ED. Tis the other awful goons that are to blame. About 150 days now. The time limit is only really an issue in the ED/UCS campaigns since they're longer.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 14:21
|
|
|
axeil posted:Yep! If you compare the globes you'll notice the early missions had lots of snow everywhere (it was winter after all) and the current missions don't. I'd say that more than 'normal' winter, considering how snow-covered the entire globe was, it's likely the trajectory Earth is following first took it past its normal orbit (resulting in really harsh global cooling), and now we're seeing it fall into its usual orbit then go past as it inexorably plummets into the Sun. Another possibility is nuclear winter due to the nukes used in the '48 war, or perhaps a mix of both.
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 20:13
|
|
|
Nephilm posted:I'd say that more than 'normal' winter, considering how snow-covered the entire globe was, it's likely the trajectory Earth is following first took it past its normal orbit (resulting in really harsh global cooling), and now we're seeing it fall into its usual orbit then go past as it inexorably plummets into the Sun. Interesting. Any astrophysicists out there that have any idea what the orbital decay in the game would look like if it actually happened? Maybe I can do a bonus update in Universe Sandbox!
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 21:01
|
|
|
Have the weather updates been posted or do the LC not get those?
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 21:09
|
|
|
DatonKallandor posted:Have the weather updates been posted or do the LC not get those? Yep. So far we've only had one about the polar ice caps melting, but the ED/UCS have more. I think it was back in update 6 or 7 (whenever the terrain switched from snow to grass).
|
|
#
?
Jan 15, 2013 21:26
|
|
|
axeil posted:Interesting. Any astrophysicists out there that have any idea what the orbital decay in the game would look like if it actually happened? The amount of force required to change the Earth's orbit noticeably would also be enough to core the planet, literally tearing it apart from the inside out. Alien astronomers would marvel at how unique our solar system is, with an asteroid belt in the zone otherwise ideal for supporting life. Physics-wise, the Earth weights about 6 * 10^24 kilograms, and is orbiting around the sun at 30 kilometers per second. That means, to change its velocity by a single meter per second, you'd need to exert 1.8 10^29 joules of energy (assuming close to 100% efficiency). How much exactly is that? Well, the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever made by man, yielded approximately 2.1 * 10^17 J of energy. Detonate a thousand of those, every second, for ten years, and you just might change the Earth's orbit by a marginal amount.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2013 00:42
|
|
|
Hermetian posted:Well, the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever made by man, yielded approximately 2.1 * 10^17 J of energy. Detonate a thousand of those, every second, for ten years, and you just might change the Earth's orbit by a marginal amount. What is this nonsense? Why good sir, I can tell you from watching SiFi movies that a single nuclear bomb has enough energy to reignite the Sun! 
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2013 00:45
|
|
|
I hope most people know the shifting orbit thing is bullshit. I think we are curious about how the Earth would behave if the orbit did get shifted (which it can't).
DatonKallandor fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Jan 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2013 01:01
|
|
|
DatonKallandor posted:We know the shifting orbit thing is bullshit. I think we are curious about how the Earth would behave if the orbit did get shifted (which it can't). In that case, you'd be looking at an elliptical orbit. Cold at the long ends, hot when it's getting close to the sun. The Stefan-Boltzmann law says that, ignoring things like the greenhouse effect and light reflecting off of clouds, the amount of energy the Earth radiates is proportional to the fourth power of ground temperature (in Kelvin). The energy input from the sun is inversely proportional to the square of the Earth-Sun distance. Now, in our boring circular orbit, the Earth has a background temperature of roughly 300K and stays about 150 million kilometers away from the Sun. In order to boil away the oceans, we'd need to hit 100C or 373K--this means the Earth has to close to within 96 million km of the Sun. For reference, that's within the orbit of Venus, a distant 108 million kilometers. This is where we realize our mistake, because Venus is really really hot. As in, 400C hot, much hotter than our hypothetical Earth would be. Turns out that the greenhouse effect is pretty important after all, and black-body radiation by itself isn't that great a predictor of temperature when you have things like ultradense clouds of carbon dioxide mucking everything up. Ignoring that for a second, how cold would it get? Well, assuming that 96 km is the closest that Earth gets to the Sun, and recognizing that our nuclear weapons can't actually add any kinetic energy into the system, the furthest point is going to be something like 200 km from the sun. Temperature-wise, that's 260K, or -13C. So yes, the oceans are going to freeze before they boil, but sometime between those two extremes it's going to be nice enough for Fang and Sombra to go sunbathing.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2013 01:59
|
|
|
Hermetian posted:In that case, you'd be looking at an elliptical orbit. Cold at the long ends, hot when it's getting close to the sun. The Stefan-Boltzmann law says that, ignoring things like the greenhouse effect and light reflecting off of clouds, the amount of energy the Earth radiates is proportional to the fourth power of ground temperature (in Kelvin). The energy input from the sun is inversely proportional to the square of the Earth-Sun distance. Well I just learned a lot about physics. Thanks for all that info everyone!
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2013 02:59
|
|
|
Crepuscule Adepte posted:...Actually, it's been stated that they have at least one friend in an important position, and the only reason that contact really stopped was because allying with the UCS prevented it. Basically, the LC could go to either team. Good points there with the wars (and I guess asking the researcher to defect was since they'd chosen the UCS). The Lunar Corporation is definitely flexible in its choice of allies, but they've made it quite clear they despise the government form of the Federation far more than the UCS. Readingaccount fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Jan 16, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2013 04:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 15:06 |
|
|
axeil posted:Fang's attack triggers an ED counter and it brings out the Caspian Ion Cannon. The Caspian, just like the Volga is an ED amphibious unit. Unlike the Volga, the Caspian usually mounts an Ion Cannon that can gently caress your day up. The energy weapon attacks a unit's electrical systems and allows ED repairer units to capture the unit. Or pummel you to death while you can't move or shoot back. They're very nasty and if I hadn't already gone 100% shielded I would be doing it this mission. You don't want to lose a strong unit during a retreat because they get disabled. Capture units? Oh my. Can the LC do such, too? I mean, lasers.
|
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2013 14:00
|
|
