Hi,

first I need to thank you for your work, I really enjoy playing your missions. I write this to give you feedback how I experienced the playability of this mission.

I just completed Mission 2 and some of the story goals felt a little strange. (Warning to the fellow reader: this may contain spoilers!)

When the goal "build 10 pumpjacks" occured I thought the following goal would be to deliver oil to the space port base (since my own base had enough oil).
But after that the new goal was "build laser turrets". So I just had build a third base, containing some pumpjacks without electricity and without connection to my main base, and I didn't need those pumpjacks, so I just left them alone for the rest of the mission and focuses on my main base.

I would suggest a goal to deliver some oil to the spaceport, so I would be forced to keep the pumpjacks working.

I have a feeling, that the missions design goal was to defend three little bases (laser turrets would help), but I took a little bit more aggressive approach:
My first base was the northern base where I needed flamethrower turrets to defend it. But when the goal was to expand to the other bases, I first destroyed the biter nest on the southern part of the island, so I didn't need any defenses there. The Behemoth worms were no longer an obstacle once I got poison capsules. In the end I transfered my coal powered power plant from the nothern base to the westen and the eastern base, reducing my pollution in the north. So when I got the final goal "kill biters", there were no longer any enemy nests within my pollution cloud.

I also would have liked to deliver some solid fuel to the southern base, instead of only having to put it into my inventory for no obvious reason.

But enough of my nitpicking.
I really liked the idea of the soft time limit of the expanding pollution cloud from the space port.

Hi, thank you very much for feedback and yes you re right! I know about these issue and if you explore map closely, there is the "Space Port" railway station nerby the borders of the northern wall which was builded for collecting the oil from the player. In initial it was planned to export oil directly to station, but I realise it is taking too long to get that point (also in that time my knowledge of LUA were poor). So I decided to simplyfy it by collecting only Solid Fuel.

The mission 1,2,3... should take you only few hours (maximum 5h), but some people make it in 1-2 average. But when you progressing new and new missions, the difficulty become higher and higher and you spend more hours of playing. ;)

I will be glad, if you post here another feedback from other missions. I really like reading the player experiences from my mod and this is helping me balance the mod better (even so far I do not plan to do much changes in actual mod, but it will help me with the planning for the future missions) :)

Thank you for working on this mission, I was surprised by the amount of thought that went into each mission design and challenge. It did remind me of RTS missions from way back then.

(SPOILERS)

I played this mission Twice. earlier this year with mods, and last month going vanilla.

How I played it:

My first time playing it (modded-blind) I followed the road to the northwest ruins. I started in the base with the least resources and for some reason, I assumed the game wanted me to do something massive because of the engineers multiple rockets base and the pollution cloud. so I invested way too much in trains and defense infrastructure and had to fight my way to the 3rd ruins north.

My second time playing this mission I explored both the west and the east ruins, I decided the east have more resources and closer to Iron expansion so I went there and the game was much easier. I did not need to expand to the 3rd ruin north. I pushed all the biters bases that are between me and the Engineers main base south just so I don't worry about biters flanking me.

My feedback based on my vanilla playthrough

• Expanding to the additional Iron/copper patches near the starter ruins (the ones infested by biters) was annoying because there is a tanky BIG WORM in each of them. I threw a lot of turrets and ammo it way (before any upgrades) with no hope of defeating it any time soon. I did not bother with the copper one at all. but with the Iron one. I killed all the nests and small warms. I ignored the Big worm and decided to build a mine right under its range since they don't attack non-military structures. I really think it existing this early in the game was unnecessary.

• the side missions in mission 02 just forced tasks that limit the player freedom on how to advance next (Building turrets - laser - killing biters - having crude oil etc)

(in compression to mission one (I guess this is a mini mission 01 feedback):
A) Find the factory -> Get a car.
B) Fix the oil -> get badass deffenses.
C) Build Grenades and push biters .... (I feel like this one should have been just pushing biters and let the player tackle it however they like)
D) Clear the outposts -> Get more resources (build 2 train stations was unnecessary either. at my second play through I just cheesed it and didn't need to expand to the outpost because I didn't spend resources on trains and pushing biters)
E) Build a Tank and kill some biters (End Goal)

• The end goal for mission 02 was in a similar tech level as mission 01. one with a tank, the other with laser.

what I think this mission could have been:
this is a major redesign Idea of the mission and I understand released missions will not be changed forever but it's just for ideas.

win condition:
The spaceport is running short on resources. It needs the player to build some outposts to provide a constant stream of basic resources until they are able to launch X amount of rockets to space.

lose condition:
- the player is dead
- the spaceport is compromised (the rocket silo is destroyed)

how the scenario played:
the spaceport has a station/trains at the north, that input and output resources depend on what the player delivers.
the spaceport is being attacked by biters at the south, and the player is unable to access the south zone, the player can provide resources to maintain the deffenses.

milestones along the way:
each time the player supplies a constant stream of resources to the train station, some of the resources will go toward the rocket, while others will go to military equipment production to aid the south wall. any extra will be sent back to the player as a reward for his delivery.

[player delivery] --> [subfactory goes online] --> [south wall get reinforced] --> [extra production rewarded to the player]
iron plate --> ammo production --> turrets at the north get ammo --> extra ammo go to the player
copper plate --> Turret production --> replace any dead turrets --> extra turrets go to the player
stone bricks --> wall production --> replace any dead turrets --> extra turrets go to the player
green circuits --> Repair packs production --> repair wall --> maybe reward the player with one-time bonus of Electric Smelters to ramp up production
coal (required for plastic) --> Grenades/Mines --> replacing south wall mines --> extra grenades/mines goes to the player
steel --> AP Ammo --> second set of turrets at north wall get feed with AP ammo --> extra ammo go to the player
crude oil --> advanced oil processing --> flamethrower turrets at north wall go online --> give the player a Tank or supplies that help them expand faster to deeper more dangerous ore patches.

the scenario should make the player focus on doing massive smelting arrays and building an effective train network to deliver those goods. while trying to help the player with some side arms as a reward to aid with his defending their own base and expanding. the player will have to decide what resources go to the station to reach the end goal. and what resources to keep to themselves to expand.

if the player wait to unlock trains research (which will make all the above rewards trivial at all time) give the player enough starting supplies to build their own train network at the start before they get access to advanced weapons.

at the end the player can either secure a few outposts and turtle to the end goal. or keep expanding more aggressively to finish earlier.

Currently, I am at mission 09 Spark (I love the easter egg that made me smile and felt nostalgic for some reason) but I am really not a fan of expensive resources or research. thanks for the 80+ hours of fun.

Hi. Wow, this is huge feedback. Thank you! The ideas are great and I really like it!
And yeah, you actualy right with changes what you re telling could work better in these missions. The truth is Im also not satisfied with current state of actual missions. The problem is I done them almost year ago and in that time I was lack of experience in LUA. Now its little bit better but still is not perfect in my side :D. I do not expect I will do changes any time soon because I have less free time now :-(

But if you want, you can do changes for your own and you can tell me how it works (if you know LUA) and send me what you have done. :D

Hi GreenFlag. I do not know LUA. I gave the file a look and WOW, that is a lot of work. I appreciate the work you've done and I understand how tedious it is to alter codes from long time ago.

(SPOILERS! Ahead)

my favorite missions so far was when you limit an aspect of the game and let me figure away around the problem.

• Mission 01: Return - low starting resources have to expand (at least if you want to finish the mission early)
• Mission 05: Offensive - Similar to 01 but you are encouraged to expand using trains and somewhat limited space. (this mission encouraged me to learn more about circuit networks. it was the first time I automated one train to get all resources, note for other readers using a circuit network is not required to win and of the scenarios. It felt good 😊.)
• Mission 06: Firefly - to expand mining a player can only use roboborts, it encourages the player to build a "mall".
• Mission 07: Hijacked - I liked the concept, the destroying the trains part was annoying and required a lot of reloading. the armdealer/black market thing was confusing to me, and the mini factories around the map wasn't helpful by the time i found them, I play way too slow. but other than that the idea was cool, and the more the player finish tasks (freeing outpost) the more resources they could get which felt very rewarding.

mission 8 concept is cool. the downside was the jump from base 2 to 3 was a huge downgrade. before I leave base 2 I already had (Chemical Science pack) automated, and I hand-fed the rest of the (production science pack) just to arrive at base 3 which only had Automation and Logistic science packs. It was like starting all over. and whatever science pack bonuses I found in chests weren't enough to smooth the ride.

I think mission 8 is an easy fix by just adding Military and Chemical sub-factories to the final base. and my tip to the player would be (buffer your science packs and take it all with you to the next base because biters will eventually nest next to your walls and worms will artillery the defenses from far away, its hopeless with out artillery to keep the warms away)