Power Problems (In-game)

[r34ch]

Hello, I'm new here but I want to ask for a few tips

I'm in alpha campaign last mission, and my power is really low, it only increments in units of 4, do building use this power to run? I've built 5 factory's and a few defences and since its the last mission it would make sense to sell off all that stuff, but is there any point? Will i get power from it?

In the Playstation version I flew through the game on normal, never lost a single mission and only used the one save block, I got to the gamma campaign and gave up, the controls are to ridiculous on a PS controller.

Anyway, I mass Heavy Tanks to soak up damage, Lancers to deal with towers and other tanks, and bunker busters to annihilate the bunkers, thing is no matter how I advance I keep getting slaughtered and my power income is so slow that it takes 20mins to fill a transport, I only have 2hours for this mission.

Any tips? mainly on power conservation and increasing it.

Cheers a bunch, I sound a right n00b.
btw, ace work on this! Such a classic of a game, im glad you've revived it!

One last last thing, do you plan better 'console' controls? i.e. Fps, ping etc displayed in the corner of a screen or something?

[Kamaze]

Did you miss to setup more powerplants?
One powerplant can only 'run' 4 oil derriks.
If you build more oil derriks than having 'powerslots' you won't get anything from them.
(The derriks without power don't move)

And no, buildings don't 'eat' power resources

[themousemaster]

Ahh, the days when I played the campaign... ;p.

To answer your first question:  Nothing requires power to run.  Power is just the "money" of this game, so once something is built, it's thre for good (in other news, repairs cost nothing, so saving a red-health tank is very financially sound).


As far as your strat, in the Campaign, Bunker busters are mostly worthless.  True, they eat bunkers for lunch, but other than that they are a waste of finances.  If you really want to destroy bunkers in the campaign, use mortars/howitzers; they are effective vs vehicles too, so once they've taken down structures, they still have worth (just keep them behind your tank line).  Keep a sensor tank (or a truck to build sensor towers) with your force so that you can spot enemy structures to bomb from outside of their range, and if they send units at you, have your heavy tanks deal with them.



As for shortages of money, the trick is to not finish stages as fast as you can.  If the objective is "destroy everything", then what you do is destroy everything but a sensor tower, then let your money tick away until the 5-10 minute mark, researching the whole time.  Then, kill that last tower.  Note:  It is EXTREMELY RECOMMENDED that you make a save game before doing this (like, leave a single sensor tower, but save before waiting an hour afterwards) just in case some unexpected twist (that you wish you had more time for) comes your way...

If your force is already ready to go when the mission starts, you won't have to wait 20 minutes to amass it.

Lastly, in really tight cash situations:  in any "away mission", before finishing it, recycle all of your defensive buildings to get 50% of the power back from them.

[r34ch]

lol yea i'm usually a 'straight-past-the-campaign-into-multi-player' type person, but I've always been determined to finish the campaign from the PS1 version and with sharper graphics and better controls why not? Out of all the games I've ever played only this RTS had a decent story line and a multitude of options, too many RTS's just give you everything from the start and every mission is 'blow up this many tanks'...

Also I read the guide on saving power and it confused me a bit with its wording so I was just clearing up the buildings eat power thing, also thanks for the repair tip, thought it drained power too.

I've started from the start of the mission again and have sold everything i don't need inc defences and cyborg factories(don't ask). Now spammed a ton of vehicles inc bombards and a few radar pythons. Think ill be grand this time, x4 many tanks as before,

cheers for the replies!


ps how do you select all the same type?

[DevUrandom]

There are key combinations like CTRL+V which select all VTOLs. Possibly there are others for the other propulsion types.

[Giel]

There are key combinations like CTRL+V which select all VTOLs. Possibly there are others for the other propulsion types.

CTRL+Z selects all units with the same name as those you already selected.

[lav_coyote25]

http://members.shaw.ca/kgmetcalfe/manual/manual.html

__________________________________________________

http://members.shaw.ca/kgmetcalfe/manual/page33.html

http://members.shaw.ca/kgmetcalfe/manual/page34.html

http://members.shaw.ca/kgmetcalfe/manual/page35.html

[r34ch]

Ah cheers only seen that page now,

btw beat the mission easy enough, just spammed everything

[astral]

Hey again,

[if you're new and don't want spoilery stuff, don't carry on reading.]

I'm currently fighting the collective on level 15 or 16, but I'm totally stuffed because I just don't have the power to get a big enough attacking force together. Does this mean that I should start over?

I get to a point where I've taken out their first small base up north, but then I get hammered, because :

a) I'm out of power after only starting with around 5000, and making the force to take out the first base has left me with nothing.

b) I can't wait it out and then attack near the end of the 2 hour period, because for every unit I make which takes a lot of time, (once the power has ran out and builds up slowly.) the collective's aircraft are just bombing them, so they never increase.


Yeah I could make loads of anti-aircraft stuff, but if I do that, then I'm out of power to make units and my base just gets smashed up by their land forces instead. So do I have to go right back and build up power? This also brings me to this, which I find really confusing :

I remember at least one level where I didn't have a time limit, so that means I could just build up a crazy amount of power doesn't it? Or does it cap off at a certain amount and stop growing? Surely it does, because if it didn't I could just carry on building up power until I had whatever amount I wanted couldn't I?

So basically : should I start again to build up more power, and does the power actually stop growing and cap off at a certain number?

[ouch]

a small correction here... Repairing takes power to do.

that goes for the repair structure, the unit turrets, autorepair, and yes even vtol pads.

[themousemaster]

I'm currently fighting the collective on level 15 or 16...

You'll have to refresh my memory.  What is the exact objective of that stage?  Is it the base-stage where you are finally told to "get the VTOL tech", or is it one of the away missions?

[astral]

Hey again, I got it in the end. After having a really frustrating time on the level I was stuck on and a few after it, I've finally started realising how you sometimes have to go back and get your forces ready for the next level, and also on away missions, to often return to the lz with just enough time left, leaving you to research and build up forces once you've completed the main objective.

You'll have to refresh my memory.  What is the exact objective of that stage?  Is it the base-stage where you are finally told to "get the VTOL tech", or is it one of the away missions?

It was one even earlier than that. The mission where [spoilers!] you have to repel several attacks and then wipe out the first base north, and then the one further north after it. One of my problems was that I was paying too much attention to the 'repel assaults/attacks' request, and I was spending loads on building defences. Eventually to win the level I made no defences (land attack repelling anyway, I just needed several anti-aircraft defences.)  whatsoever and just stationed my units as defences in several areas. Then to do the mission I didn't even use them as defence in the end, I just attacked with everything from the off and wiped most of the bases out in the first 15 mins of the 2 hour mission. This also taught me that it's not often what forces you attack with, but where you choose to attack, and I found several weak points then hammered them.

The most recent mission I did was to capture the NASDA (I think that's the name) base before the Collective can use it, and I also had a real bad time there, until I went back to the previous level and build up forces again, then it was done on the 1st attempt.

I also had no idea just how addicted and obsessed with this game I'd eventually become. I'm way more addicted than I remember being when I had this on the PS1. Next I'm just looking forward to the next mission that's not an away one, so I can use my VTOL's in battle for the first time, plus all the other stuff I've now got. Awesome game.

[Purple Monkey]

You know you can use your VTOLs on away missions to. Just remember to also bring a truck to build re-arm pads.

[astral]

You know you can use your VTOLs on away missions to. Just remember to also bring a truck to build re-arm pads.

Yeah, I was playing a couple of levels where I was getting bombed regularly though so I decided against it. I just got to a level where I can use them now anyway, so it's cool.

[themousemaster]

You know you can use your VTOLs on away missions to. Just remember to also bring a truck to build re-arm pads.

This is just a personal opinion, but I recommend against using VTOLS in most (ok, all) away missions.

Examinations of enemy bases will show that they all tend to be heavy on the AA, much moreso than they are on the anti-land turrets.

To be in any way effective, you have to bring a lot of planes (and sometimes, some suicidal scrub ones), but that means also needing a lot of rearming pads, and most LZ's don't have the space for rearming pads, defenses, artillery, AND a repair bay.


The only away missions I used planes on is the very final one, and that's mainly because ***pseudo semi-spoiler*** it's not like there are going to be any later stages anyway, and the final level is one of the few without a timer, so you can build stuff on 2/3 of the map if you want ***/pseudo semi-spoiler***