Now why would they chose a noob like me?

[terje439]

This will be a "what the heck is the noob doing"-AAR.
I bought the game yesterday, and have so far been sacked twice in 1973 since I was nowhere near a lunar landing.
I will be playing the campaign game on normal (lowest) difficulty.

Feel free to comment/laugh/ridicule as you see fit.

Oh, also worth noting, I did not read the PDF-file (aka manual), just having a go at things and will see where we end up.
Also, I have never really read up about the space race, so although alot of the rockets and satelites etc may sound familiar to you, I have only heard about a few [:D]



Terje

[terje439]

1st Quarter 1955 (from now on written 1Q55)

Although the nations of the world all agreed that I was the only logical choice for conquerring space, and that they should all unite behind my efforts, they really had no clue as to what was needed.

I. My research facility is way too small, so I upgrade it. I want more geniuses working here.
II. There is no place for my pilots/astronauts to work from, so I build them a cot.
III. They also forgot that I need groundcontrollers to control my spacecrafts. Another cot built.
IV. They even forgot that I needed to build my rockets. Had to build a spaceship-building-cot as well.
V. Since the text on my PR building tells me that upgrading it does "something", I upgrade it. It also helps that this peticular upgrade is free.

[terje439]

1Q55

I am told that I should check the PR building. Since I am oh so obedient, I do so. I have two goals, 1 short term and 1 long term.

Long Term - Moon landing (aka Neil Armstrong).
Short Term - These vary from game to game. THe thing is that not fulfilling them will give alot of negative points, while fulfilling them will give alot of plus points. If I manage both, I get 2x400 points, which is really close to the 1000 points needed in total to max out the next budget I get.

The budgets are given for a few years every time, so managing to fulfill the points needed to max out the budget makes the game alot easier (not that I still haven't failed miserably in the past two attempts though hehe).

[AbeSimpson]

Ok, disregarding. [:D]

[terje439]

1Q55

Well, it is about time we open up some research programmes. We need rockets, and then something to put in our rockets. We decide to open two rocket programmes right away, although that might bite us later on as we have used a LARGE portion of our budget now.

[terje439]

1Q55

Then we start some more research, this time some stuff to put in our rockets, and a high tech aircraft.

[terje439]

2Q55

Not much goes on this quarter, I look at the research progress, and then I hire two ground controllers, so I can start training them up to the level dictated by the short term mission I recieved at the start.

[terje439]

3Q55

Again a slow turn, we hire one pilot/astronaut so we can get him skilled enough to pass our second short term goal, and we also add three scientists. The screenshot below is taken BEFORE we do this, so in the end our positive cash flow is a mere 143$ per quarter.

That is the thanks I get, I agree to take man into space, and the governments do not give me the funds I want...

[wolf14455]

subsribed [:D]

[terje439]

4Q55

Well, the research on our rocket and on our satelite is going really well, but I prefer to keep working on them so that the chance of something going wrong is reduced.
One of the ground controllers we hired actually was skilled enough at start to allow us to pass our first short term mission. That was easy [:D]
But as they are not skilled in all aspects of their work, we will give them advanced training for the time being. THe plan is to have them at 90+ in all skills before long.

[terje439]

1Q56

Although we could try to launch the Sputnik satelite now, I want to keep working on our rocket first. If we launch and something goes wrong, the programme is set back quite a bit (after all, would YOU try to take off in the same rocket that just exploded on liftoff 3 months ago??)
The three scientists we recruited are distributed on our three research programmes to help speed things up.

[terje439]

2Q56

The reliability on our project is rising, but I do not want to risk anything just yet, so we will let another quarter pass. And ofc, do we have enough ground controllers? I think not, so I order 3 more (a total of 5 is all that can fit in their cot at the moment). That means that we are now at minus 9$ per quarter. Oh well, not everything is ment to make a surplus I suppose. We also have mroe than adequate funds for the time being, so I am not worried as funds should increase shortly.

[terje439]

3Q56

Well, we could have launched by now, but our recently aquired ground controlers are still working on their SATs. We ask the professor how he feels about the X-15 project.

[terje439]

4Q56

We decide that the X-15 will fly this quarter, while relocating the scientists working on it to work on the Sputnik satelite and the Sputnik rocket.

The X-15 flight had a calculated chane of success of 82%, so 4 times out of 5 everything will be just fine.

[terje439]

More later, right now there is CW in WoT.
Feel free to post in this AAR, or as stated at the beginning, laugh at, point out flaws etc etc. I promise not to let my feelings get hurt [:)]



Terje

[terje439]

1Q57

We decided to hire some more staff, so we hired 6 more pilots and 6 more brainiacs this turn. That brings our economy down to showing a quarterly loss of 470$, with 7209$ in the bank. More than enough. I hope.

We decide to keep working on the Sputniks, and send the X-15 on a new mission this quarter. I am not too happy with my ground crew though.

[terje439]

2Q57

Well, the X15 did well last quarter, so we will send it up for its last mission. Although I could keep flying these missions, they would not really add anything to our space programme except for tiny ammounts of prestige. Too few points to be worth the consumation of workers on the ground, so if the next missions performs well too, we will scrap the X-15, as we have no further use for it.

We now have one "spare" person in the ground control section, so I send one of them off to school.

[terje439]

3Q57

Well, the X-15 programme is closed down as the last mission too was a success. Nothing more for us to gain there. But the clock is ticking, and we need to start aiming at that large yellow cheese in the sky. Only...We are not allowed to open any Lunar programmes just yet. We need to place a satelite in orbit first.

So, there is no doubt anymore, the Sputniks are to be sent up this quarter!
With research almost complete on them, our rocket research is switched to the larger (MUCH!) Proton rocket.

[terje439]

4Q57

There is no champagne to be found on the base. There are however alot of angry managers yelling at their subordinates. The Sputnik launch was a failure!

Now we have to do more research on the Sputnik components, what a waste of time!

[terje439]

1Q-4Q58

With the setback suffered during the Sputnik launch, we send our people to school. The main reason is that we are now low on funds, and cannot afford another launch just yet. So for now, we train our people and hope for better days.