Search the Community

I picked up this game a while back, played it a while until I got to the moon, then quit till now. Decided to revisit this, started a new game and everything was backwards and unknown and I had trouble getting back into the swing of it. Anyhow, you can hire 3 types of people: SET Center (these are basically your R&D folks), Mission Control (these folks keep an eye on the rocket in the control room) and finally Astronauts - the folks that (hopefully) go into space. Each person has a profile with their stats (abilities in percentage points) as well as minor personal information (name and age mostly and a "stock" photo of someone). This can sometimes lead to funny profiles: Erik Gomes is 26? Really? He looks like he's in his 60's! It's also really annoying as you can't relate to anyone on a personal level if it's all made up. Another issue is that the breadth of stock photos isn't that large so you'll most likely see someone in your next campaign again (this time with a different age and name). That's about as far as it goes to mix things up. These stock photos aren't of anyone who actually played a role in the space program either, unlike, say, Hearts Of Iron III where they are all real people. (I liked this aspect as you'll be able to recognize a person just by their picture or name and instantly know what their general role and approximate stats are). Imagine my surprise when I was screening potential astronauts and came across the man himself (correct picture and name too, though the age is off): So I found that interesting and am wondering if there are more fellow astronauts too? Time will tell. I hired him on the spot though. This particular campaign I really went into the red and ended up painting myself into a corner financially (game ends if you mismanage funds). Sadly, Aldrin never made it back into space. Sorry! I started a new campaign the other day and so far it's going swimmingly good: I beat the Russians with the first satellite in space, the first "man" in space, and the first "man" in orbit. I use the term "man" loosely here as that's what the game's terminology is, but in my run, both humans were female. I love this aspect as NASA never allowed females as astronauts till much later and here I am putting 2 different females in space and orbit. I didn't actually plan this to happen either, the gals just had better stats than the males in the pool I started with. I also was able to beat them with the lunar probe missions as well. Currently, I just finished the Mercury program culminating in a joint orbital flight (2 males this time, saving the gals for the moon and for "gimme" missions that aren't really dangerous). I'm probably going to try for the moon with the Gemini program instead of Apollo. As I found out in an earlier campaign, the Apollo program is safer but requires a metric ton of R&D to get you there. Gemini is inherently more dangerous but allows you lunar access with your current system. Not sure how this will pan out, but with my astronauts on the line I'll have to bring out the expendables until most of the dangerous stuff has passed. I found out a few things in the American campaign: it's a good idea to spread your resources between a couple different projects to start with. X-15 and Earth/lunar satellite launches allow you to gain some prestige while keeping everyone busy and you can schedule one or the other every month until they are finished. Staying ahead of the Soviets is priority-one. Funding and financial considerations need to be scrutinized a bit. For instance, even though your astronaut training center can hold 7 people, you really don't need anymore than 3 to start out with so it's best to delay hiring until your prestige level increases and you have the cash to cherry-pick the good candidates. Another thing to look at is the salary of your hires and their age. If you are hiring someone that's 40+ years old and a salary of $50+ you aren't going to get your money out of them as they will retire before younger employees. I try to hire the cheapest person with some decent stats to start with and hopefully they will be on the younger side. Another stat to look for is their learning capacity. The higher this number, the quicker their stats will increase through training. If you find someone young, with a couple decent stats in the high 50's to low 60's and a decent learning number, you can train up any deficiencies and they will be able to moonlight in a different capacity should something happen. (SET and CAPCOM folks can't die, but they can retire and they may be needed elsewhere depending on what's going on). So, yeah. I've been enjoying this game a little bit more. Will keep you updated and maybe create a AAR if I finish this off. - Zombie