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Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space cheats / Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space hints / Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space faqs / Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space solutions Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space hints HINTS AND TIPS FOR "BUZZ ALDRIN'S RACE INTO SPACE" from Interplay by Ken Fishkin GAME TOPIC Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space (BARIS) is a great game of space race simulation. It's also devilishly hard - after 2 solid weeks of playing, I have not yet managed a lunar landing before 1969 on the easiest level (level 1), and I have never won on level 2. This article is designed to share the insights and tips I've developed so far - I'm certainly no expert, but the lessons I've learned may be of use to you. I welcome feedback - I can be reached as fishkin@parc.xerox.com, or K.FISHKIN on GEnie. For the rest of this article, I'll assume you're playing the American side. The tips are applicable to both sides. -) SLOW AND STEADY LOSES THE RACE The single greatest thing I've learned is that you _cannot_ afford to hit every milestone, and buy every piece of hardware. This approach is best for getting you short-term prestige in the first few years, but it will take you a long time to advance to lunar landing capability - you have to buy many programs, and launch many missions. Furthermore, the computer player won't give you any slack time. Which leads me to... -) MINIMIZE MISSIONS It's easy to forget, but you should aim to minimize the number of missions. First of all, they cost money (especially the later missions). Second of all, they tie up launch pads. Third of all, and most of all, you only need one catastrophic failure to severely derail your program. Every manned mission, especially a Mercury mission, is a game of Russian roulette - sooner or later, you _will_ have catastrophic failures. The fewer missions you fly, the greater your odds of avoiding a catastrophe. Finally, you will rarely be able to fly more than 1 manned mission a season anyway, due to the number of crews available. -) WHO NEEDS UNMANNED MISSIONS? With the exception of unmanned docking missions, fly few unmanned test flights - cutting down on these really helped me speed up my program. An unmanned flight is just not worth it - you pay full price for the mission and suck up a launch pad, and, most importantly, delay your program, all for the chance of a _one_ percent increase in hardware reliability. Let's face it, those manned missions are going to be risky, and you just can't get around that: are you really going to schedule _14_ unmanned missions before you launch your first manned Mercury? If you do go the slow-and-steady route, you won't land until 1974 or so, even assuming the Soviets haven't landed by then. -) KEEP MONEY FOR THE FALL Every once in a while, you will get a random event informing you that hardware purchases are 50% off for one season only. Every time this has happened to me, this has been in the fall. This is a _wonderful_ random event - it's a shame to miss out on enormous fiscal savings. -) WATCH FOR FAILURE MODE PREVENTION Every once in a while, you will get a random event informing you that scientists have found a failure in the such-and-such system (Gemini, say), and will prevent it in the future. This means that you get one free missed step in your next mission with that system. This is _very_ valuable. If you get this, scrub any upcoming unmanned mission involving that system - save it for when you really need it, on the next manned flight. -) PLANETARY FLYBYS ARE A TRAP Wow, 7 prestige points for Venus! 5 for Mercury! You already have the Ranger! Easy pickings, right? WRONG. The longer I play the game, the more non-lunar planetary flybys seem a loser. First of all, they still cost money - $15 per mission. In a game where you're always out of money, this adds up. Second of all, the way the missions run, if _any_ mission step fails, the mission fails. The interplanetary fly-bys have a success percentage of only around 60%. This gives you an "expected value" for the Venus mission, the best mission, of 60%*7 - 40%*3 = 3, with an expected monetary cost of $21. Just not worth it. The only planetary flyby that's worth it is the Lunar flyby, because each one gives you 5% more on photo reconaissance, which is needed for Lunar probes and lunar landings. -) DOCK EARLY, DOCK OFTEN Other than direct ascent, any path to the moon requires a docking module. It requires a lot of missions to make docking modules reliable - between 5 and 10, usually around 8. Furthermore, the LM tests, another 3 missions or so, require reliable docking. If you are not going the direct ascent route, then 1) Buy the docking module as soon as you have rockets that can support the payload, and lift early, lift often. 2) As soon as this happens, make sure you have at least 2 launch pads. 3) Think twice about skipping the Gemini program - with it, you can do unmanned docking missions for only $6. Without it, you have to wait for the Apollo, which costs $11 per mission, and requires better rockets. 4) Rather than spreading your unmanned docking missions around through the lifetime of the Gemini, think about delaying your Group II astronauts, and spending an entire year doing nothing but flying unmanned docking missions. You'll have to fly 'em anyway, and this way the Gemini will be up to a nice reliability by the time the astronauts are ready, and you can do a manned docking mission almost immediately. -) SAVE EARLY, SAVE OFTEN I never thought I'd recommend this for any computer game, but I do recommend that you use saved-game cheats for BARIS. The game's one great flaw is that the fatality rates for missions are, it seems to me, far too high. I would guess that around 20% of my US manned missions end in a fatality while historically, the US had a fatality rate of 3%. The problem is that there are many steps, and a failure in any one of them seems about 50% likely to cause a fatality. Here are some common missions and their failure rates in the game. This assumes the Basic model, with all hardware reliability half-way between the "Max R&" and "Max Safety" ratings - for example, 83% ((76 + 90) / 2) for the Mercury. Further assume that the astronaut bonus cancels out the milestone penalty. MISSION SUCCESS RATE -------------------------------------------- Orbital Satellite 84% Explorer, Atlas Manned sub-orbital 63% Mercury, Atlas Manned orbital 43% Mercury, Atlas EVA 45% Gemini, Titan "D" Duration 32% Gemini, Titan Docking 32% [assume docking @ 70%] Gemini, Titan Lunar flyby 62% Ranger, Titan Lunar probe landing 29% [photo recon @ 70%] Surveyor, Titan Earth LEM test, joint 29% [assume docking @ 80%] Apollo, Titan/Booster, Eagle Lunar pass 25% Gemini, Titan, A-Kicker Lunar LEM orbit 17% [assume docking @ 90%] Apollo, Saturn, Eagle For all the lunar landings, assume docking and photo recon @ 90%: EOR Lunar landing, joint 6% Gemini, Titan/Booster, Cricket, B-kicker Historical Lunar landing 11% Apollo, Saturn/Booster, Eagle Direct Ascent landing 23% Jupiter, Nova Pretty depressing, huh? OK, here's the odds with every mission step at its max possible success rate: EOR Lunar landing, joint 25% Gemini, Titan/Booster, Cricket, B-kicker Historical Lunar landing 29% Apollo, Saturn/Booster, Eagle Direct Ascent landing 37% Jupiter, Nova The odds seem about right for the earlier missions, but much too low for the later ones. For example, even if every possible system is at its maximum possible safety rating, a Historical Lunar mission will experience failure 71% of the time. The problem isn't so much the odds for _success_, though, as the consequences of _failure_, which tend to be much too harsh. The "Manned Orbital" may have only a 43% chance of success - that's not the problem. The problem is that too much of the remaining 57% results in fatalities. Oh well. MISSION SCHEDULING Suppose you have a manned sub-orbital planned to lift off this season. What do you plan for next season? The first thing you might think of is to schedule nothing, and wait until you see the results of the sub-orbital. Don't do this! You will delay your program unacceptably. Instead, consider -) DOUBLING DOWN Go ahead and schedule an orbital for next season. If the sub-orbital works, you're in great shape. If not, scrub the mission - you lose nothing but the launch pad. -) HEDGING YOUR BET Schedule a second sub-orbital for next season. If the first sub-orbital works, scrub the second - nothing lost but the launch pad. If the first sub-orbital didn't work, you'll be glad you have your second shot ready to go. If you have two launch pads and >= 4 crews available, combine these. Make your first launch of next season a sub-orbital, and your second launch of next season an orbital. If the first sub-orbital works, scrub the second, and go ahead with the orbital. If the first sub-orbital doesn't work, launch the second. If _it_ works, go ahead with the orbital - if not, scrub it. -) PULL MERCURY CREWS OUT OF BASIC TRAINING If you recruit your Mercury astronauts in Spring of 1958 they will all graduate Basic Training in Spring of 1960. They can be assigned a mission starting in Fall of 1960. From Spring of 1960 to Fall of 1960, then, you go from having zero available astronauts to seven. This is a waste! Much better is to "pipeline" their availability. In Fall of 1959 (when they are in "Basic Training III"), pull out 2 men. This allows you to schedule 1 mission in the Spring of 1960, while still having 2 missions available in the Fall, and only minimally affecting overall crew skill. By the way, the computer takes this even farther - it will commonly yank them out of "Basic Training II". -) ALWAYS BUY THE EXPLORER, AND FLY IT MULTIPLE TIMES You might normally consider skipping the Explorer - it's only used for one mission, after all. However, in addition to the "regular" advantages (fulfills the orbital satellite milestone, dirt cheap, lets you leverage off the Atlas missile), there's one "hidden" use. If you look carefully, most of the space missions have a "hardware power-on" step. That step is rolled against your "orbital satellite" level, which I think is the same as your Explorer level. For this reason, fly the explorer until it's up to 98% reliability, instead of the typical 95% - this 3% difference may not seem like much, but remember that it's going to be applied to virtually every mission you fly for the rest of the game. -) DELAY THE SURVEYOR If you do use the Surveyor, try to delay it until after the Ranger has gotten several flybys, and/or you've gotten manned lunar passes. Regrettably, the Survery requires a photo reconaissance step to be successfull. Without any help, this is only at 55%. It's tough to send your probe all the way to the moon and then lose 5 prestige points because of missing that 55% step. Better, in my opinion, to wait until the 55% is up to 70% or so. It's still risky, but them's the breaks. -) THE COMPUTER HAS A FIXED OPENING It appears that the computer will always try the following opening: Sub-Orbital mission in 1/58 Manned Sub-Orbital in 1/60 Orbital/Spacewalk in 1/60 2-Man craft/docking, in 2/61 The above sequence may seem impossible to duplicate, but it is in fact barely possible. You can do it by 1) yanking the Group I astronauts out of basic in 1/59 2) investing in boosters rather than in the Titan 3) moving all Group I astronauts from Mercury/Vostok to Gemini/Voskhod program in 2/60. 4) Being very very very lucky Each of the 4 missions above is very risky (especially with the rushes) but the computer seems to pull them off no problem. I'm beginning to question again whether or not the computer cheats. For one thing, he never gets "fired". At any rate, once you know his strategy, you can dance around it. For example, you may want to concede that he'll be the first to get a two -man capsule and docking, and go straight for the Titan rocket and the Ranger instead of diverting resources into the Booster. Similarly, you may want to concede the "Spacewalk" milestone, and save the EVA money for later. If you're feeling cocky, you could try to "beat him to the punch" at his own strategy, but I warn you that it's very very difficult - try it, and you'll see. CAPSULES MERCURY The Mercury is mandatory if you want to take a shot on those valuable early prestige boosts. In fact, if you really want to, you can fulfill up to 4 milestones with the Mercury: sub-orbital, orbital, space-walk, and duration "B". However, it's a very dangerous craft - it can only be made 76% reliable through R&D, and has no long-term value. On the other hand, if you skip the Mercury for the Gemini or even the Apollo, you will find your program significantly behind by the time the more advanced capsule shows up - it's nice not to have to worry about a sub-orbital when you're dealing with the Apollo program. I usually buy the Mercury, fly it for 2 missions (sub-orbital and orbital), pray, and then drop it. Depending on your second capsule, the Mercury astronauts can either be transferred directly, sent to advanced training to increase their endurance, or ignored. GEMINI I love the Gemini program. It's not very expensive. If you buy boosters, which are dirt-cheap, you can do a lot of missions with the also dirt-cheap Atlas rocket. Even without any kickers, you can do all endurances up to "D", docking tests, space walks, and earth orbit LM tests. Furthermore, you can take the Gemini all the way up to and including a moon landing. In order to do that, you have to buy the B-Kicker, the Cricket LM, and either the Titan or Saturn rocket. You can either use a Saturn rocket and use a Historical landing, or do an LOR/EOR mission with the Titan. If you can possibly afford it, the Saturn route is the way to go - if you look at the success rate table in this article, you will see that an EOR mission has only around a 6% chance of success! APOLLO The Apollo can be directly compared to the Gemini. For earth orbital missions, the Apollo is clearly worse. For lunar orbital missions, the Apollo is clearly better. For historical lunar landing missions, the Gemini requires a B-kicker and a more expensive LM, the Apollo requires booster rockets. In my experience, this decision is usually made for you - sooner or later, the Gemini will have a catastrophic failure, requiring you to switch to the Apollo. XMS-2 I haven't tried this approach yet. It seems like a loser - it's about the same as a Gemini in capability, but costs far more and weighs much more. JUPITER Ahh, the Jupiter. The capsule of choice for that ever-so-tempting direct ascent route. No messy docking modules, lunar modules, or kickers - just strap 'em in and let 'em go. Well, not so fast. Consider that: 1) Its hugely expensive - unless you have prestige coming in through other paths, and significant amounts of it, it'll take you forever. 2) Before landing on the moon, there are no less than 10 milestones: 2 unmanned [lunar fly-by, lunar probe] and 8 manned [ sub-orbital, orbital, B,C,D, space-walk, lunar pass, lunar orbit]. If you go straight for the moon without chewing up these earlier milestones, you'll be in big trouble. 3) This may just be my luck, but in my experience any failure with a Jupiter mission tends to be a catastrophic one. If you do decide to go the Jupiter route, I strongly recommend the following: 1) invest in both the Ranger and the Surveyor. You'll need their prestige, and you'll need their milestones - since the Jupiter will only fly a few missions (one hopes), its reliability won't be all that terrific, so you really want all those earlier hurdles out of the way. 2) invest in the Gemini. You have to buy the Group II astronauts anyway, as you need the Group III astronauts to staff the Jupiter. Since you now have the Astronauts and the rocket, it's a waste not to invest in the capsule, as it can knock off 6 of the 8 manned milestones. For the price of an A- kicker, it can knock off all 8. CONCLUSIONS In my (limited) experience, the opening game goes pretty much the same regardless of your long-term path: get the Explorer, the Titan, and the Mercury. Knock off the "Orbital Satellite", "Sub-Orbital", and "Orbital" milestones. Generally, I do get the booster rockets - even though the Titan can lift the Gemini, it's more expensive (both to build and to buy), and takes longer to develop. The boosters also let you get more mileage out of the Atlas. After that, the path to take depends on catastrophic failures, Soviet actions, and random events - good luck! Other Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space cheats hints faqs solutions: |