Why go Apollo?

[ByronBond]

I just finished my first trial game, losing to the Russkies. I decided to follow the historical American program path (though obviously I could have accelerated some programs), but as I was doing my Apollo programs, it sure seemed to me that the Gemini direct ascent option would have been the easier and faster route. I read in one of the texts somewhere that Gemini was a 'technological dead end', yet in BASPM it is the game winner (I think).

Is the above correct? If so, why go with Project Apollo? Maybe there should be some sort of "bonus" at the end of the game that recognizes long term benefits of the more challenging program?

And a side question if I may - based on ONE play, it seems the game ends as soon as there is a lunar landing. But one of the projects is the Apollo "J" missions with rover. If the game ends with the landing, you'll never get to do that mission right?

Thanks all for your thoughts.

[Nacho84]

Hello NavyGamer,

The game has been designed so that there's no clear winning strategy. That being said, if we find out based on player feedback that certain routes always yield better results than others, we'll certainly fix that in an update. SPM has lots of moving parts and, even though we took great care during the development process in order to balance things, it might be possible that players find ways to play the game that we never anticipated.

Regarding your questions about the J missions: notice that you can skip the regular lunar landing mission and go straight for the J mission, which gives you more prestige. At the moment, if you're on campaign mode the game ends after the lunar landing, yes, though I'm planning to change that for SPM 1.2.0 and allow players to continue. Notice that we're planning to extend the game, so many of the missions that might not seem very useful now will give you the prestige you need once we expand the game by adding space stations, lunar bases and so on.

Cheers,

[ByronBond]

Ignacio -

First, thanks for jumping in an providing the developer thoughts.

Second, I appreciate the explanation as to the intent of the options, your ongoing work to assess balance of risk/reward, and of course understanding why the "J" missions (and others) are there, and plans for future expansions. And I am thinking that you also answered the 'technological dead end' question, because certain programs may or may not lead efficiently to space stations, bases, etc.

[jdkbph]

Ignacio,

Interesting that you should mention possible expansions. I was thinking the same thing... after one quick play-through, I was left with nothing else to do. Except maybe to see if I could do it quicker. But to be honest, I'm not interested in scores or (external) competition or "beating the game".

Being what you might call a space technology and history aficionado, I'm in it for the rather unique perspective it lends to the history. The obvious thing that struck me when I exhausted all my options in the game was that there has to be an add-on or something. Apollo Applications Program/Skylab, Mir, Voyager, Magellan, STS/Buran, Galileo, ISS, Cassini/Huygens, MER, et al... etc, etc, etc.

Is anything like this planned... or better yet in the works?

Also, even after playing through it I'm still not sure whether the intended goal was light entertainment or an in-depth treatment. If the former then I suppose we can overlook things like Al Sheppard on the moon with the golf club in his hand standing in front of an LRV, or the use of LEM when it should be LM, and things like that. But if it's the latter, I might have a few suggestions and some nit-picking corrections (such as the above) for you [:)].

Thanks

JD