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my dad posted:Why would you needlessly complicate mining? How is it complicating? You only need one of each component and the Taiga never has to move. Turning is much faster than moving a square. You never need a second Taiga to keep the process moving since the speed at which a taiga turns means that boxes never have to wait for more than a second before the Taiga is ready to pick up. The main thing is that the Taiga never has to waste time driving. With two taigas, even if they're synced, you need to spend more money that is absolutely needed. Granted if you want more mines you need another refinery, but the speed at which both taigas spin would make up for the lose from building a second refinery in seconds. The range that an individual mine can collect resources means you don't need to cover an ore field in mines to get the same efficiency. As long as a box is not currently sitting on the conveyor belt, the mine will mine until all resources are depleted and do so without stopping. -e- I don't think the developers really thought of this, because unlike the LC mine which ticks periodically for the same range, the ED mine only cares whether there is box waiting or not. The second the box leaves the conveyor belt, a new one is ready to go. The trick is never letting the mine wait. You can get a single mine to basically act like three as long as you can get those boxes moving. This setup is the fastest way physically possible to do so as it is the only one that doesn't require the Taiga to drive (because it can't). Stretch Marx fucked around with this message at 02:15 on Mar 28, 2013 |
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Mar 28, 2013 02:03
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HBNRW posted:This setup is the fastest way physically possible to do so as it is the only one that doesn't require the Taiga to drive (because it can't). You can actually move the mine to the other side of your diagram to get the same mining speed without having the Taiga boxed in and irreplacible.
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Mar 28, 2013 02:20
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DatonKallandor posted:You can actually move the mine to the other side of your diagram to get the same mining speed without having the Taiga boxed in and irreplacible. If your Taiga gets trashed, you have bigger issues to worry about.
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Mar 28, 2013 02:31
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HBNRW posted:If your Taiga gets trashed, you have bigger issues to worry about. Eh, not really. Finding ways to blow up taigas is what you really should be doing most of the time if you're fighting against the ED. They're quite squishy and the time it takes to replace them is time not spent mining. Taking precautions against this is always a good move.
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Mar 28, 2013 02:44
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my dad posted:Eh, not really. Finding ways to blow up taigas is what you really should be doing most of the time if you're fighting against the ED. They're quite squishy and the time it takes to replace them is time not spent mining. Taking precautions against this is always a good move. We're talking about the AI here. If we were playing against people, I wouldn't do this until I made sure my defences were rock solid to prevent it. But against the computer, as long as you keep it distracted, they'll never go over to your mines or Taigas. If the AI is attacking your economy, then you're probably already knee-deep in poo poo.
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Mar 28, 2013 02:50
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HBNRW posted:We're talking about the AI here. If we were playing against people, I wouldn't do this until I made sure my defences were rock solid to prevent it. But against the computer, as long as you keep it distracted, they'll never go over to your mines or Taigas. If the AI is attacking your economy, then you're probably already knee-deep in poo poo. What difficulty are you playing? The AI builds a ton of light air units and tends to try to go around my AA if possible and targets taigas whenever it can. That said, I'm usually playing skirmish games in Lost Souls, so the AI might have been improved compared to the original game.
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Mar 28, 2013 02:55
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For those interested, this entire series (Earth 2140 trilogy, 2150 trilogy, 2160) is on sale on gog.com for $2.39 each.
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Mar 29, 2013 14:13
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Cythereal posted:For those interested, this entire series (Earth 2140 trilogy, 2150 trilogy, 2160) is on sale on gog.com for $2.39 each. That is excellent news, thanks for sharing. I'll add it to the OP.
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Mar 29, 2013 16:55
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So I have an update ready unfortunately the Internet is out at my house so I can't upload any of the pictures or videos. I'll update as soon as we have Internet again.
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Mar 30, 2013 16:31
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axeil posted:So I have an update ready unfortunately the Internet is out at my house so I can't upload any of the pictures or videos. I'll update as soon as we have Internet again. It's almost a week later and the Internet is still spotty/down. Ugh. I hate Verizon. I'm sorry everyone, I literally have the update already written but I can't upload any of the pictures or videos. It's very frustrating.
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Apr 4, 2013 05:20
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drat it Neo!  No worries, we're still eagerly waiting.
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Apr 4, 2013 13:13
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Poil posted:drat it Neo! If I still don't have Internet tonight I'm going to try to do the update on my tethered 3G connection since I'll be out of town all weekend. It should be an exciting experience. 
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Apr 4, 2013 15:02
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 I have Internet again at my house!  Get comfy and grab the snack/drink of your choice folks, this is going to be a long one. General Fedorov is in a bit of a bind. The LC has fortified themselves on the Japanese islands. Unless we eliminate those positions our holdings in China will be vulnerable. This mission is going to require expert planning and execution to a degree we've not seen.  And why is that? Because two of the three LC bases are inaccessible by a conventional ground attack. Yikes. At least we've got a good mineral field right by the LZ.  The game also gives you a Shipyard for free. Those of you who have been waiting to see naval units, this is your mission. We're going to be doing a lot of naval research and construction.  The Irkutsk is the base naval unit of the Eurasian Dynasty. Not all that impressive but it can mount lasers which should help us clear out any LC hovercraft.  We'll construct another tight base near the LZ. I tried a version of the Taiga trick here with my Mine/Refinery placement.  Upgrades to the Irkutsk will be our first focus. We don't want to send a weak navy against the bulk of the LC army. Remember, LC units can travel on land and sea.  Our scout has managed to find the one LC base that is accessible via land. We need to destroy this base extremely quickly or we'll be overrun. The LC here are still in the building stage, but once they can field a credible army taking the base out becomes much more difficult. For that reason I'll be blitzing the base as soon as I get all my units transferred from HQ.  The LC send a scout force of their own, but it's easy to drive off.  Just to make sure though I build a matrix of Large Towers with a Power Plant to the west to power the one tower that needs more juice.  The first Irkutsk upgrade done, let's do the second.  4 speed and 75 HP from a single upgrade. The Irkutsk is now just as fast as our Pamirs. It's still slower than every combat unit the LC has though.  Our army is ready, time to engage these Moon...ers? Moonies? What do you call someone from the Moon anyway? I've got video of the attack against the LC army here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdGWl6I1Kgk  Our lasers wipe away the LC ground forces and sustained chaingun/rocket fire will neuter the Meteors as well. The base lacks any Defender or Guardian turrets so there's nothing preventing a total sack of the base.  We need to get access to those resources. Charge at the Mines my peasants!   The Irkutsk is fully upgraded. Armor is doubled and speed now exceeds any unit in the ED army.  The Caspian is our next chassis. I'll talk more about it when we've finished researching it.  Things are going quite well in the LC base. You'll notice they've dropped in a Guardian, but with the power out it's utterly useless.  They do manage to wound the base a little. One Large Tower for an entire LC base seems fair though.  1 base down, 2 to go. That wasn't so bad. Shame the rest of this mission is going to be a complete dick to you.  Since we'll need an armada to take on these bases I get to work building a fleet.  The Caspian is complete and it's going to form the backbone of our strategy in this mission. The Caspian (and another unit we've not seen yet) are the only land units in the game that are amphibious. It's one advantage the ED have over the UCS. If this mission was a UCS rather than ED mission it would, for all practical purposes, be impossible. Since the ED have the Caspian it's difficult but still doable if you plan right.  Just like the Irkutsk, we need to fully upgrade before we begin construction.  Aw isn't that cute? The LC are trying to destroy the naval base with a single Meteor.  Meanwhile, the army has found an LC strike squad trying to sneak onto the mainland. We can't allow that.  Good job army!  Um...okay this is a lot less cute. I managed to kill one of the Moons with my Irkutsk but they now can destroy the naval base with ease. This is bad.  Making matters worse, the LC have made note of my weak anti-air defenses and responded with an all-out aerial assault. Fortunately, nothing mission critical is lost but it forces me to re-align my defenses. It looks like the LC will focus on an aerial strike the cripple the base and then use a conventional Moon/Lunar army to wipe us out.  The Moons succeed in taking the Shipyard off line. God drat it.  And they get the Shipyard, right before I'm able to kill them off. This will set production back a great deal   The navy won't let themselves be humiliated like this. Attack the LC base now! I don't care that the fleet is one Irkutsk R against dozens of Moons, you're fighting Eurasian men, you can handle it.  Can't seem the handle Guardians though. On the upside, we have succeeded in finding the second LC base. If you recall from the UCS version of this mission, this base is where we found NEO's HQ. Obviously in this timeline the LC's presence have prevented NEO from setting up shop here. This base will be just as tough to crack as NEO's was. One tactic you could use on this mission is helicopters + tunnels like I did back in the UCS campaign. That's probably easier than trying an amphibious approach, however I've already showed that off and we've not seen how navies work. So consider me a sailor this mission.  The Caspian upgrade is great. We get 150 HP and 4 speed.  One more upgrade left.  A Boyar scout has found the final LC base. It's on an island which makes it even more inaccessible than the one to the west of the LZ.  The Caspian is now fully upgraded. If you notice it has the exact same health as the Siberia now as well as the same mount options. Once you have the TK 111 Caspian you should build it rather than Siberias until you get shields.  And here's our first one, fresh off the assembly line.  No time to marvel though, the LC are coming from the north.  Fighting is fierce but we manage to run them off. Based on this, I'm going to say it's still too early for us to be rebuilding our Shipyard. I've got another idea though.  Alright we've already got 3 Caspians let's keep goin...  ...oh. Units limit.   You guys will have to take on an entire LC base by your lonesome. You're cool with that right? If you can kill a few Meteors it should be a walk in the park.  See there isn't even anyone here. Dunno why you guys were so scare... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgRc7-MqLrY  Oh. Nevermind then.  Based on that (and the fact we're at the units cap) my new strategy is "turtle until the LC run out of money."  It's a very boring strategy.  But it works. Imagine me fending off raids like in the last few screenshots this for the next 30 minutes and you've got the idea.  May as well get some research done while we wait.  The Caspians are rebuilt...sort of. We still probably need more but thrice as many Caspians is a good start.  Shields. They have shields. How the gently caress do they have shields!? They should be out of money by now!   I forgot to build a mining base here after I took out the original LC base. Since the LC can just drop some mines down they... well, did and now I'm paying for it.  There. That looks better. Axeil you're a huge idiot I can't believe you forgot that...  With the LC now starved out, it's time to go over the walls and finish our siege.  This time I work on drawing units out instead of charging in. It works out a lot better.  I'm still pissed about those shields though    Kill the power, kill the base.  Our last upgrade for this mission (because it's literally the only thing left)  With the island base nearly annihilated it's finally time to rebuild our naval yards. Only took an hour.  And now we're going to have boats. We're going to have so many loving boats.  Our Groznys now have upgraded rocket launchers. The citizens of the ED shrug.  Er I mean they rejoice wildly in the streets!   One base to go.  I have no idea why there is a laser wall literally in the middle of the LC base. That makes no goddamn sense. I guess it's an impediment if you use tunnels but then why bother putting your Aerial Supply Depot on the outside?   9 Caspians and 5 Irkutsks. Lets do this.  After we wait for the Caspians to get in the water of course.   Once again the LC airforce engages us at long range, and once again they are shot out of the sky because seriously why would you put your fragile fighters over all my anti-air units?   That's a lot of rockets. The laser units are focusing on the Moons that come into the sea. I've got mad micro skills folks, you better believe it. Targeting 2 separate units at once. Revolutionary stuff here.   The first tower is down. Sadly we're still being bombarded from the other one.  Not anymore though!  Looks like this LC commander learned how to make a compact base. We're under fire literally everywhere in the base but the northern corners.  If we can destroy the power we can win the mission right here. If we can't destroy the power, well then we'll have to rebuild and I'll be very annoyed because this mission has already gone on way too long.  Come on, why are half of you not shooting at anything!?  YES We did it! Good job Eurasians! Now to clean up. Still it's a bit odd that only a single Caspian was shooting there at the end.  Oh. Always make sure you have supply helicopters unless you want to look foolish like I just did.   Cleanup is as exciting as it usually is.  Why thank you General Fedorov, I'm not much of a golfer but I'll take a villa. I think General Axeil has a dozen properties throughout the Dynasty now.  Sadly this brave little Irkutsk can't come with us. The unfortunate downside of building a navy: you can't take it back to HQ with you.  But we can take nearly 25,000 credits back with us!    These are not really the stats of a turtle-y match. 200 destroyed units and 47 lost units. This has probably been the bloodiest battle we've seen yet in the game.  rest of briefing posted:Even now we are sending troops to investigate. They will not expect an attack so deep inside their territory. This mission. This loving mission. I've already played it and it makes what happened in Japan look easy. God drat this loving mission 
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Apr 5, 2013 03:01
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It's a nasty surprise to suddenly have to care about supply, isn't it? The UCS only really need to top up their rockets after major battles (unless you went heavily for 120mm cannon mechs, and who does that?). The LC consider supply transport postings to be pleasant sightseeing holidays. But the ED...
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Apr 5, 2013 08:58
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A true ED general would build a bridge out of corpses and run his tanks across. 
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Apr 5, 2013 16:36
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You can't decommission your navy to get some of the resources back? Bit of a shame.
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Apr 8, 2013 05:54
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 We're in for another long mission. The ED campaign, while being easier than the UCS one involves a lot more drawn-out missions.  Our assault on the UCS is going quite well and we've now made it to a major research base in Canada. At this rate we will be inside what used to be the United States in mere days. But the UCS have three separate, very well-defended research bases here. It's not going to be like an attack on Stanford or ACME Labs.  We're not given very much to start with, so let's get something set up at the LZ.   As I pointed out last mission, the Siberia and Caspian cost the same, but the Caspian is faster and can go in water. For that reason, we'll be using it as our main tank this mission.  I've got a ZK Taiga in position for one of the mining tricks that was shown off in the thread.  poo poo. The UCS have plasma weapons now. We are starting to lose our technological edge. We also have news from the space station. All those carry-over minerals are really helping out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXPCqmWBK2U  Our one advantage is that the UCS still haven't gotten the LC's shield tech. Once that trade happens our laser weapons will lose a lot of their potency.  Our base is done and the mining trick looks to be working quite well.  Since there's a ton of minerals at HQ and nothing to research I start building an army of Caspian Ls.  The ED army has found one of the UCS bases but it looks like there's a naval presence at this base. Good thing I'm building all those Caspians.  There's also a bunch of Gargoyles.  And Tigers and Large Towers with rocket launchers. The attack here is a compete failure. I give lots of credit to the UCS here for finding a great choke point and stuffing it full of rockets.  But the joke is on them. We can build our tunnel entrance outside the base, sneak in and steal the plans and no one will be the wiser.  Hmm. Looks like the UCS have put a few units down here to patrol.  Okay that's a lot more than a few. I think we may need to attack this base after all drat it. The Caspians will move into the rear of the base via the sea. I doubt the UCS planned their rear defenses as well as their front defenses.  There are only a few boats protecting this approach. They pose no threat to such a large group of amphibious units.  The Caspians are ordered to run lights-off and start to thrash the base. They've cut the power to the Refinery and the WPC and VPC aren't long for this world.  Unfortunately they've put a bunch of Large Towers in the middle of the base. This attack force doesn't have enough firepower to take out the towers or the power plant before being destroyed themselves, so I call for a tactical retreat back to our base.  They're chased by some Gargoyles but thanks to their high speed the Caspians are not at risk here.  I manage to sneak a Gruz behind the enemy lines using the passage you see in the northwest of this picture. Hopefully there won't be a bunch of Panther Ps in these tunnels...  We luck out. This tunnel is not connected to the main system. I can wait and bring in enough laser units to deal with any Panthers we run into.  Open the tunnel my Gruz! Let the Panthers come, we are ready!   Oh. I guess the Panthers are off doing something else?   There's our previous tunnel location. I'm guessing the Panthers are still up there, so let's move past there very quickly.   You'd think with all these glowing walls there'd be something interesting here. And you'd be wrong. The data we're searching for isn't here, we'll need to go deeper into the UCS tunnel system.  Eh, at least we get some energy recharge artifacts.  Looks like we've made double the progress on sending materials than what Igor was expecting.  Well poo poo. Looks like the Panthers have found our Tunnel Entrance. This is now a suicide mission for all our Caspians since there's no way out.   But to their credit, the Caspians keep on searching for the artifact. Of course I also didn't tell them their only way out was destroyed. That's need-to-know information and they don't need to know.  They do need to know that there's an ambush of Spider Ps in this room. Fortunately they're all laser-equipped and the Spiders don't have any shields.  A crashed UFO? That sounds like it would be useful... Despite all clever tactics it looks like we'll need to destroy the UCS bases anyway. This is where this mission becomes a slogfest.  The UCS research bases, now aware of our presence begin hitting my base with everything they've got.  To make matters worse, the Panthers have found our Caspian crew and have begun eliminating them.  Oh and the base is getting dangerously close to being overrun by the UCS. All in a day's mission I suppose.  Due to the massive size of this map I've established a resupply base with limited production capabilities right outside the first UCS base. In the event the base at the LZ is destroyed, we'll be able to continue operations from this base. I've also built a bunch of Grozny helicopters. We're going to need air power to take out these UCS bases.  See, look how much more effective that was than using our ground forces. Please ignore the fact that our ground forces have been mostly destroyed due to UCS attacks.  With the power to the base cut, I send in my last half dozen or so tanks to clean everything out.   The Groznys and Caspians have found the second UCS base and cleared out some of the naval screen. This base is enormous though, we'll need a good plan to take it out. Let's see if the other one is any easier to crack.   That's a big NOPE.  We'll be building a simple resupply base here. Just an Aerial Supply Depot and a few Small Towers for defense. We'll be using these towers to help clear the last of the naval screen  Good job towers/Groznys! All the boats are now at the bottom of uh, whatever Great Lake or river we're supposed to be at.  Hey, it's another completely undefended power plant! Wonder what we should do with it...  The Grozny is continuing to build the resupply base.  With the power plant destroyed, our tanks can destroy the Fortresses unharmed.  One more power plant down thanks to the work of the Groznys. But the Large Towers are still shooting our tanks.  Oh that's why. Well what's one more power plant on the kill list?  Good job Groznys! All the survivors can have the food ration of their fallen comrades. Like every other base in this game, once the power is cut it's trivial to destroy.   On the way back to the forward base, I try to destroy some of the Gargoyles around the last UCS base. The Groznys take some damage but they're able to eliminate a few Gargoyles, making the next assault a bit easier.  The main problem with this final UCS base is that we have no land connection. So it's time to build bridges.  And would you look at that...there's an untapped mineral patch here! Igor will be so happy.  The Groznys are softening up the base. It looks large and intimidating but there aren't a lot of defenses on the western half.   We now have 4 different bases on this map. I think that's a record for me.   A concentrated attack is all we need here. I'm getting really sick of this mission guys, let's end it and all go home. Drinks are on me for anyone who makes it.   poo poo maybe I should offer free booze more often. I've never seen ED soldiers tear through a base so fast.  And with the destruction of the last Small Tower there is no threat remaining to our forces. Great job everyone!  A Mercedes? How the hell do they still have Mercedes!?  Hey look at that, another untapped mineral patch. It'd be a shame to leave those here. I build a new mining base there.  Now time to hit end mission and go...wait what? We killed all the UCS scum here! How can there still be enemy uni...  Oh. Oh no. No no no no no   I send down one Caspian L. This better be enough...  I think this mission has already taken something like 2 hours and I really don't want to spend another hour killing units that are trapped underground.  There were a few Spiders hiding right next to where we found the data. I have no idea why they didn't attack when the rest of their brethren did. Maybe they were all in sleep mode?  Oh my. That's a lot of Panthers.  The Hammer of Thor takes care of them. *cough cough* But I think he died in the attack so we'll never see him again. What a shame.  Alright, let's go home everyone.    I decided to show the money score sheet as well. All 5 sides spent around 330k in resources. That's a third of an evacuation ship. I bet this evacuation would be going a lot better if everyone was just working together.  We haven't had a resource collection mission in a while. And I'm a bit confused as to why we're collecting resources when we've already got a surplus. But if Igor says we need resources, then we need resources. To the Amazon we go!
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Apr 14, 2013 19:07
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The silent screams of my browser are a symphony to the Khan's ears. I didn't get far into the ED campaign before I got bored with the game, are you supposed to be getting so many resources or is the game lulling you into a false sense of security?
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Apr 15, 2013 07:45
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my dad posted:The silent screams of my browser are a symphony to the Khan's ears. I think I'm pretty far ahead of the curve. Of course once everyone has shields there's going to be a higher level of investment needed to win missions. Oh and the ED have more technologies than any of the other factions so research costs are extremely high for them.
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Apr 15, 2013 12:25
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So. There are enough resources for everyone to build a ship and get off of Earth, if only they weren't trying to make sure in the face of adversity that they could build a ship and get off of Earth?
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Apr 17, 2013 21:18
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Glazius posted:So. There are enough resources for everyone to build a ship and get off of Earth, if only they weren't trying to make sure in the face of adversity that they could build a ship and get off of Earth? No, I think the idea is that there's only enough resources for one faction to build a ship. Each faction succeeds in its own campaign at the expense of the others.
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Apr 17, 2013 21:32
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I think that was the initial idea, but then sequels happened.
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Apr 17, 2013 21:34
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The idea is that there's only enough resources for one, but... Yeah, they resources aren't exactly calculated with that in mind. As shown in the previous mission, where between all the people there, a third of the price of building and launching the thing was spent in that mission alone. So obviously the only reason why there aren't enough resources is because everyone's spending most of their resources on trying to kill each other instead. ...Which I suppose holds a certain amount of meaning by itself?
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Apr 17, 2013 22:29
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As a Canadian, I'm glad you chose this map to test that out.
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Apr 17, 2013 23:07
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Although the story differs slightly between campaigns, the basic gist of it is something like this: Everyone hates each other completely and utterly. The LC need resources, but don't have a foothold on Earth. The UCS have a pretty good foothold, but don't have enough usable materials in the territory they own to completely build their ship. The ED are still really pissed about the events leading up to this, and control a large part of the world's resources. So the UCS kind of nudges the LC and winks at the Ural mountains, while flying in themselves to nab what they can. The ED freaks out at this (rightly so) and so they spin up their war machine and strike back at the UCS in an attempt to keep them from stealing all the resources. There is a lot more than 2,500,000 resources on earth, but there's less than 1,000,000 resources in the area the UCS controls. Therefore, they have to strike out at ED to try and steal their resources, and the LC needs to steal poo poo from wherever and whoever they can. If the LC had managed to ally with ED at the start, sharing the Dynasty's vast fields of resources in exchange for curb-stomping robomerica, the game would probably be a lot shorter. Or, hell. If everyone had just shaken hands, agreed to help each other out, and built nothing but mines the entire time, there'd be three ships built in half the time. But fat chance of that happening!
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Apr 18, 2013 00:57
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 Friends, today we mine. But before we do that we have to check on the weather. I hear it looks perfect for mining. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KoQpyK5Kz0  Why they need another 100,000 credits when we're so ahead of schedule I'll never know. But an order is an order. Let's get to it.  We start with 3 scouts and no Gruz. Looks like this is another "ship everything in from HQ" mission.  Thank. loving. God. We can finally research guided rockets. Our anti-air capabilities will finally match that of the LC and UCS.   Well looks like the only bridge off our starting island leads to a wall of UCS Fortresses. I think we may need to do some bridge building this mission.  With our first group of tanks and builders from HQ we can start work on the bridges we'll need.  Why didn't they space out the rocket upgrades over a few missions? It's rather puzzling.  Here are the plans for the first of probably many bridges in this mission. The double bridge will give us greater bandwidth when moving tanks around.  Looks like the second scout has found the LC's base here. Let's not go over there.  Once the rockets are fully upgraded we won't have much use for chainguns anymore. Which is good, we shouldn't be using chainguns as our main anti-air defenses 10 missions into the game.  Success! Our last scout has found a mineral patch. Unfortunately it's in the opposite direction from where the Gruz is currently building a bridge. And look at that, the Ted Stevens Memorial Bridge to Nowhere is completed. Too bad there's no reason we'd ever want to send our entire army to this island.  This is a far more useful bridge. So go and build it and I'll forgive the Gruz for building something so idiotic.  More minerals!?  This calls for more bridges! Three different bridges are needed to get from our starting island to this new patch. I think it might be awhile before we get there.  With the rocket research done we can move on to better avenues of research. Like this upgrade to the Grozny. We won't be building any air force this mission as most of our choppers made it back from Canada but it doesn't hurt to have the upgrade.   poo poo. It looks like the LC have found our landing site. Quick, build a resupply base! We don't want a repeat of Japan.  Good job Gruz.  One bridge is finished. We've got 2 more to build on our way to that mineral patch.  I'm curious what's on this large island. Might as well build a bridge with the Gruz that just built the resupply base.  Our first useful bridge is done and now the Gruz can build a mining base. I hope the LC doesn't find it.   Hey look at that! A third mineral patch. This mission expects you to defend 3 different resource fields. There's barely enough in all three to build the bases/bridges you need and get the 100k out. Hope you brought a lot of carry-over tanks!  Our new rockets are supremely effective. Hooray!  One more bridge to go.  The LC have shields. Why don't we have shields? I would like some shields too. Maybe we should steal them...  The bridge to the final mineral patch is finished and the base is ready for construction. I sent along some Groznys just in case the LC try anything funny.  And now all the bridges are complete. I give the ED Army Corps of Engineers my thanks.  The UCS need this bridge to attack our positions. Since we don't need to be aggressive and attack the UCS here I decided to destroy the bridge. Now we'll only have to worry about the LC.  Our last piece of research for today is the Pillbox. It's a shorter, more armored Large Tower. It's great to use in layered defenses since you can put either type of tower behind it without worrying about it taking incidental damage.  A-hah! Looks like the LC did try something here. Thankfully the guided rockets and Groznys take care of that.   I guess I didn't completely neutralize the UCS; they're still harassing the resupply base with Gargoyles. Our final mining base is operational. Let's get these minerals fast and go home. I don't like being sandwiched between 2 enemy armies, even if one can't reach us by land.   Why did the LC only send one Moon after our resupply base?    That's more like it! Still not enough to do any damage whatsoever to the base though.  46% complete. Let's see if we can get to 50% by the end of this mission. That would put us very far ahead of schedule.   The Many Bridges Mine is done mining. And we still need 8,000 CR. Hopefully the other two still have that much left.   Now the First Mine is finished, and we'll need to get the last 2,750 CR from the central mine.  Looks like we got it! If you don't engage the LC or UCS and make sure to have adequate defenses this mission isn't nearly as daunting as it seems. Just remember that you don't have much in the way of resource slack.Oh and I'm getting a yacht from the British Royal Family. Shouldn't that be pretty decayed and gross at this point? It's been over 100 years since there was a Great Britain much less a British Royal Family  We've still got 15,000 in credits sitting at this last mineral field. Since the LC and UCS are no threat I'll stick around a bit and get them.  And there goes the spaceship that will put our progress at 50% exactly, far ahead of schedule. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYp8oCI9Q4Q  With the last mine exploited, it's time to get out of here.   101 kills to 7 deaths. And I think most of those deaths were repairer units. The ED Army is unstoppable.  rest of briefing posted:From the computer data we received from you, we learned of a research complex, wich is a part of this project. Find this structure and destroy it. As I predicted our assault into North America has shown continued gains. We are now inside the territory of the former United States. If the UCS have a research base here, we will raze it to the ground.
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Apr 20, 2013 15:48
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Oh dear, the LC are getting a dangerously high level of research done, hopefully they won't get their most powerful units too soon!
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Apr 20, 2013 19:06
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How fragile are bridges? Is protecting them from enemy sorties ever a concern?
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Apr 23, 2013 03:30
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Glazius posted:How fragile are bridges? Is protecting them from enemy sorties ever a concern? The AI will never intentionally target bridges. They will accidentally destroy them all the time if you engage them while on one, so care should be taken. I've lost Fang while he sat on a bridge and the ED blew the ground out from underneath him. Not fun.
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Apr 23, 2013 04:32
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axeil posted:The AI will never intentionally target bridges. They will accidentally destroy them all the time if you engage them while on one, so care should be taken. I've lost Fang while he sat on a bridge and the ED blew the ground out from underneath him. Not fun. Wait, can't Fang hover as well? Why would being dropped in the ocean cause damage to him?
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Apr 23, 2013 09:57
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Nuramor posted:Wait, can't Fang hover as well? Why would being dropped in the ocean cause damage to him? It doesn't make any sense, but if you destroy a bridge any unit standing on the bridge is destroyed as well. I guess all the debris hitting the tank on the way down destroys it?
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Apr 23, 2013 12:24
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Did Earth blow up?
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May 4, 2013 13:50
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my dad posted:Did Earth blow up? Nope! Had to deal with a bunch of moving stuff last week. This week I'm going to give you guys the ED Bonus Update and our next mission. Sorry about that! I'm working on the update now.
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May 4, 2013 16:26
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 Sorry about the two week delay between updates. I'm moving soon so I didn't have time to update last weekend. Hope the bonus update makes it a little better The real update for this week is coming after this. So just like every other faction, the Eurasian Dynasty also has all their stats in the Prima guide. The structure list is nearly the same as the UCS, the only main difference is the Pillbox, which the UCS obviously does not have. The ED Light Tower also has an extra 10,000 points of energy resistance but that shouldn't make much of a difference since energy resistance is pretty worthless for buildings.    What the ED lack in excitement in their structure list, they make up for in their unit list. Look at all those tanks and helicopters! The ED has the largest assortment of chassis in the game and almost all of them have a good use. We've yet to see the Leviathan, Khrushchev, Ural, Han, Thor OR Volga. Oh, we also can officially see NEO's stats now. His modified Caspian isn't all that much, only an additional 150 HP, light armor and slightly more energy/disable resistance. Good thing he has a robot army with him.  The Cannon is actually inferior to the UCS Grenade Launcher. That's pretty surprising, since the cannon is far more effective in combat. The Heavy Ion Cannon does the most damage in one shot of any single non-Crion weapon in the game. Too bad it can only disable units and not kill them outright.  We'll need to invest in Ballistic Rockets to get the ED superweapon, similar to how we had to invest in Plasma tech for the UCS Plasma cannon. Oh and we don't need to research the center, it comes automatically with the nuclear ballistic missile.  Sadly, we also need to max out our rocket tech to get to the ballistic rockets. But trust me, you want to do that because the ED can mount mobile missile launchers as soon as they have the ballistic rocket launcher tech. It is exactly as awesome as it sounds.  The ED chassis tree is heavily dependent on researching earlier models. Note the dependency between the Ural and Khrushchev, the Leviathan and Irkutsk and all of the different helicopters (Cossack, Grozny, Thor and Han).  The ED Special Tech Tree is almost as barren as the LC one. The only unique bit is the Screamer, which can be used to defeat the cloaks on UCS units.  And finally we have the mission tree. As you can see, even though we're about halfway down the mission tree we've still got over half the missions remaining. Oddly the tree lists Amazon N (the last mission we saw) as a dependency of Great Lakes, when it's actually dependency of Canada.
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May 4, 2013 17:07
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  When we last left our North American invasion we were on the cusp of crossing into United States territory. Today we will accomplish that (and destroy a research complex).  Not much of a start but it looks like there's two possible locations of the research base, in the south and in the east. I'll send some scouts to figure out which one it is.  We also have access to our first heavy weapon, the Heavy Rocket Launcher. It works the same as the other factions'.   Neither scout has found much yet, but that bridge looks promising.  Well promising if we want death that is. Looks like the base is nearly on the doorstep of our start location. I think its probably a good idea to avoid rushing into a Fortress and a million Spider Ps.   The other scout has also found a bridge, but this one is far less defended. Plus it looks like there's a straight shot to the resource fields in the south. I think the Groznys can take care of this without a problem.  Yep. Good job Groznys. The way is clear for the Gruz and the rest of the army to set up camp down south.  Or well, it would be except this area is also on the threshold of a UCS base. We'll need to take precautions.  A half-dozen or so Large Towers should do the trick I think. Of course the UCS has plasma technology now. We can't defend against that at this point.  But hey at least this map is really resource-rich. We've got 100k to work with here, that should be plenty.  The Heavy Rocket Launcher is done, but we don't have any chassis to mount it. Fortunately the game also gives us access to the Volga on this mission. Let's research it so we can deploy the heavy rockets.  This is a much more substantial base than the last few we've seen. But then we've not had a dangerous enemy base in spitting distance in a while either.  Looks like we can't use a bridge to bypass the long way across the lake. drat you engineering realities!   The Groznys encounter a training/testing patrol of UCS plasma units, guarded by a small group of Gargoyles. The Gargoyles fall quickly and without their fighter cover the prototypes are doomed.  With the Volga done we can take a look at it in the Construction Center. It isn't the fastest but has a good pool of hitpoints, and again it can mount heavy weaponry.    Another training/testing patrol is outside the western ridge of the base. The UCS should have invested in stronger escorts.  With the Groznys so close to the UCS base I decide to hit the outer defensive line.  Success! Maybe we can take out the inner defensive line too?  Nope. The UCS have enough interior base defenses to knock out a significant portion of the Groznys. Retreat!  The base to the southwest looks to be out of resources since they're marching their Harvesters to our base.  The Volga has one upgrade available, let's take it.  poo poo. The UCS army and airforce have met us in the field in an attempt to back us out of their base. This is going to be a pitched battle. Well maybe not. The UCS doesn't know much about tactical positioning. Here's a tip: don't fly right into your enemy's defenses if you want to have a successful attack.  The UCS plasma is withering but even 2 Spider Ps can't manage to go up against the entire ED army.   The Power Plant goes down and with that goes the UCS base.  Hey look at that! Some more resources to the west of the UCS base. Why didn't those Harvesters go there rather than suicide run into my base?   The Volga upgrade adds another 150 HP. Now let's upgrade the Heavy Rocket Launcher.  In a stroke of good luck, these Spider Ps are completely undefended from an aerial attack. It would be rude to refuse such an inviting invitation.  Thank you incompetent UCS commander!  It looks like there's a bit more beyond the Fortress and Research Centers. For now though we'll need to knock down that line so we can get to the rest of the base unmolested.  Okay well I guess that's easy when the Groznys can take out the only Power Plant.  Beyond the bridge there are another two Fortresses. They wouldn't do the same thing twice would they?   Yes. Yes they would. Thanks for putting your Power Plants outside of the range of your Fortresses! Oh poo poo. That's a Panther. With plasma and rockets. We uh, may be a bit out of our element here.   One more upgrade left to go on the Heavy Rocket Launcher.  Despite constant harassment from reinforcements the remnants of the attack force are able to take out the Fortresses.  The base is way too well-defended though. Everyone fall back! Er, well everyone who isn't dead. Which is pretty much just the Groznys. Good job dying for the Dynasty everyone else!   The Gargoyles follow the Groznys back to base and proceed to get annihilated by the anti-air grid. Well that will make the next assault a bit simpler.  The Heavy Rocket Launcher is done. Let's build one of these things now!  There's the Volga. It's slow and poorly armored. So why would anyone bother building them?  Because it's an amphibious heavy tank! The perfect compliment to the Caspian.  The Panthers have re-positioned themselves in the ruins of the first Fortress. The Groznys almost end up getting destroyed before the army gets there. Bad Grozny pilots! How hard is it to go to where there isn't anyone shooting at you?  The army can take out the Panthers without much problem.  Due to the heightened threat the Panthers pose to the army I use a surgical strike team of Caspian Ls to take them out. It goes pretty well.  We're getting close to breaking through the base. Just a bit more and we'll be in.  Take the power!  Hooray! No more power in the base! Now to attack the rest of the base and go home with our massive army.  Oh. Right. The army got destroyed in destroying the power plant. Welp, guess I'll rebuild.  After the build I send in the cleanup crew. But there's a tunnel here. That's...curious. I wonder what's down there?  An alien base!? For real?  Well that looks like the base there, but there's no way in from the UCS tunnel system. Good thing we've got a Gruz.  This should be the right spot to build the tunnel.  The last remnant of the UCS army engages in a suicide attack against our eastern flank. It goes about as well as you'd expect.  Looks like there's an approach to the base from the south. Start digging Gruz!  Hmm...what's this? It looks odd.  Alien...spaceships.  Are we going to get an alien spaceship!?Also I got a first class ticket on the flagship of the evacuation fleet. I've also got too many medals now. My uniform is really heavy at this point, I don't like wearing it.  And we get 30,000 credits for Project Exodus. Not bad at all.   Our loss rate was pretty high on this mission. Glad to see the ED army getting back to its roots.  rest of briefing posted:Your orders are to "sniff" around and find out what you can, comrade. New York is the central nexus of the GOLAN system. We have an espionage unit there. Wait...an espionage unit, in GOLAN...is this NEO? Holy poo poo are we going to play as NEO next mission? 
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May 4, 2013 20:51
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I can't help but note that it's only now we qualify for a ticket on the evacuation ships. The ED are leaving a lot of people behind...
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May 4, 2013 22:16
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Loxbourne posted:I can't help but note that it's only now we qualify for a ticket on the evacuation ships. The ED are leaving a lot of people behind... This will in no way come up later. Absolutely no way at all. No sir.
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May 4, 2013 22:25
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Loxbourne posted:I can't help but note that it's only now we qualify for a ticket on the evacuation ships. The ED are leaving a lot of people behind...
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May 4, 2013 22:26
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Loxbourne posted:I can't help but note that it's only now we qualify for a ticket on the evacuation ships. The ED are leaving a lot of people behind... And the player in the ED campaign is the Czar's son. They sure do take care of their family in the Dynasty...
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May 5, 2013 14:50
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axeil posted:And the player in the ED campaign is the Czar's son. They sure do take care of their family in the Dynasty... Eh, considering that the ED Czars are more akin to Mongolian Khans than to any Russian monarchs, I think that being the Czars' son is not really all that rare of a status.
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May 5, 2013 16:09
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