Matrix Games Forums

Another mini-AAR to show how the patch works.

Period 1955-1958

After a strange start with a failure in the first mission of the X-15 (crew killed), the following missions was success, all of them; Explorer I, Pioneer IV and three X-15 flights.

Period 1959-1962

The budget available in this period, IMHO, it's small, may be a 4000$/season would be better to work.
Nine launches in this period and only a failure, in this game i had a lot of luck, i think. The Mercury program was done (6 flights) with only a failure in Mercury V when the rocket fails during ascent. Crew unharmed. The rest of mission were moon impact, moon orbit and moon probe landing, all of them with success at first attempt.

Period 1963-1966

The critical period.Budget adjusted, but works if you had small failures, with luck. 12 flights in this period, three Mariner probes and all of Gemini program. Only three failures. The first of the Gemini flights (Uncrewed) due rocket failure, the Mariner V, negative lift-off and finally the Gemini VIII, the first manned docking with Agena attempt, negative lift-off again.

After the failure of the Agena dock attempt, decide start with Apollo without more trys of docking. I think this is a error of the game. IMHO You should not be able to buy the Apollo program if you have not gotten a first attempt to dock successfully. However, the program allows it.

Period 1967-1970

Only 11 flights in this period because the Apollo program sucks a lot of money. Was a period of total success, none failure, however, i cannot do the moon landing because forget a small detail. The moon rover must be researched and unknown this point. 8 Apollo flights without a single glitch (very uncommon) being the Apollo VII the LM test in moon orbit.
By the way another question: Why you need the research of moon rover if in the mission you never see the vehicle used?

Period 1971-1974

In the first season of 1973 finally get the Moon! The Apollo VIII lands in the Sea of Tranquility.
After that a couple of Viking missions, only one with success and other two Apollo to end the program with Apollo X.

Decide not wait to Pioneer X reach Jupiter. I think the Pioneer X mission should only have 10 season to complet, not 20. This would be more historical.

That's all.

ORIGINAL: fremen

After the failure of the Agena dock attempt, decide start with Apollo without more trys of docking. I think this is a error of the game. IMHO You should not be able to buy the Apollo program if you have not gotten a first attempt to dock successfully. However, the program allows it.

By the way another question: Why you need the research of moon rover if in the mission you never see the vehicle used?

Yes two very good questions. Wonder if 0.7.15 resolves these. I was disppointed to see I could forget about half of the Gemini missions. I would like to see a few more moon missions after the moon landing that require the rover.

I can speak to these myself in my work on the mission scripts. Right now, we're trying to balance the "program opening" (i.e. permitting the player to start researching components) with "mission opening" (i.e. permitting the player to fly a mission or fly a mission without penalty). Historically, those were on very different timelines - the research on the Saturn rockets began before Gemini had flown at all. This still requires some tweaks under the hood in order to support having certain missions dependent on goals (which can be accomplished from a variety of missions) versus particular missions. The ultimate objective is that it will be very difficult to fly multi-craft docking missions (i.e. any Apollo LEM mission) without having successfully accomplished the Docking goal, but you will have multiple paths to get there.

As far as multiple moon missions, the reality is that the Apollo flight plans got pretty generic after the Lunar landings were accomplished. While there were minor tweaks in the particular scientific objectives and landing sites, NASA had a huge "we got there, now what?" problem with planning for moon missions. The mission plans fell into two types: short range and long range (with Rover). The mission plans in game are basic enough that you can just keep reflying them to your heart's content and you'll track history closely (or at least for seven shots).

ORIGINAL: CowboyRonin

The mission plans in game are basic enough that you can just keep reflying them to your heart's content and you'll track history closely (or at least for seven shots).

Yeah but where's the fun in that? There should at least be several specific Apollo missions in the same manner that there are several Gemini and Mercury missions. But of course they could be part of the next phase considering this phase only goes up to getting to the Moon.

I would add them into this phase though, and have the next phase start with Skylab and preparations for creating a space station. Its the obvious place to separate the two games.