Mission+ chapter 8 level 1 cannot be safely completed in Space Explorer mode

[nextghost]

Mission+ chapter 8 (On Orpheon) level 1 (Logistics) cannot be safely completed in Space Explorer mode due to shortage of starting titanium cubes. You need:

• 2 cubes to safely reach the blue flag with Power Captors
• 1 cube for Derrick to mine titanium ore
• 1 cube for Converter to convert titanium ore to more cubes

That's 4 cubes in total, but you start with only 3 cubes. It is possible to complete the level anyway but you risk your grabber or builder bot getting destroyed by lightning while building the first Power Captor near the blue flag.

[hexagonrecursion]

you risk your grabber or builder bot getting destroyed by lightning while building the first Power Captor near the blue flag.

This part of the bug report is not strictly true. The scenario is coded is a way that guarantees a 60 second delay from the start of the level to the first lighting strike. I was able to build a PowerCaptor near the blue flag in 57 seconds in Space Explorer mode.

There is, however, a different problem:

1. PowerCaptor + Derrick + Converter = 3 Titanium cubes
2. There are only two grabbers
3. 60 seconds is not enough for a grabber to make the trip there and back and there again
4. There appears to be no spot flat enough to build a single PowerCaptor such that the protected area touches both the area protected by the ship and the place where you can mine ore (verified with the "show underground resources" debug feature)

Edit: proposed solution

1. Remove one of the three Titanium cubes
2. Add one piece of Titanium ore near the blue flag

Build order:

1. Build a Converter and a PowerCaptor near the flag - this can be done in under 60 seconds by scripting all 4 bots
2. Convert the piece of ore and build a Derrick

[nextghost]

you risk your grabber or builder bot getting destroyed by lightning while building the first Power Captor near the blue flag.

This part of the bug report is not strictly true. The scenario is coded is a way that guarantees a 60 second delay from the start of the level to the first lighting strike. I was able to build a PowerCaptor near the blue flag in 57 seconds in Space Explorer mode.

The player has no way to know about that guarantee without digging through the game data. You cannot expect the player to make strategies based on information they're not expected to have while playing.

[hexagonrecursion]

You cannot expect the player to make strategies based on information they're not expected to have while playing.

Good point. My proposed solution is terrible.

2 cubes to safely reach the blue flag with Power Captors

Would 2 PowerCaptors be enough? The distance from the spaceship to the blue flag is 170 meters. The player does not know the radius of the zone, where the ore can be mined (unless she uses cheats or trial and error). The protection radius of the ship is 50 meters. If we don't want to risk lightning hitting and destroying the titanium cube, each PowerCaptor can only bring us 50 meters closer (because its centre has to be inside of an existing protection circle). Once built, the PowerCaptor can not be moved. This means we need 3 PowerCaptors under optimal conditions. In practice I can't find a way to safely build a path to the blue flag with less then 4 PowerCaptors due to terrain constraints.

Proposed solution 2

Move the blue flag and the ore patch closer to the ship. Close enough to reach with one PowerCaptor

[hexagonrecursion]

Proposed solution 3

Extend the initial lightning storm delay from 1 minute to 4 minutes and inform the player by changing the satellite report from "Detected: fierce electromagnetic storms" to "Detected: fierce electromagnetic storms. Expected time of arrival: 4 minutes"

In my testing 4 minutes is sufficient to build a Power Captor near the flag and relocate the two remaining Titanium cubes into its zone of protection.

Edit:
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/dec7e36b-354a-4ca5-a173-f6be89d7cc09