Overview
To begin with, this is not going to be your run of the mill walkthrough. This is a game aid mostly. To get you started and give you a direction. If nothing else, you can read it over to get an idea of which direction you want to go yourself. This is just the path I took.
The Gut’s
To begin with, this is not going to be your run of the mill walkthrough. This is a game aid mostly. To get you started and give you a direction. If nothing else, you can read it over to get an idea of which direction you want to go yourself. This is just the path I took.
All rights reserved. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. You should not expect the same results. Seek medical attention for any erection lasting longer than 4 hours. No animals were hurt or killed in the making of this guide.
I decided to do this guide because it needed to be done. A lot has changed with the past 2 up dates and this has made a lot of the available information obsolete and out of date. So, to fill in the blanks, I made this. I hope it helps.
I will not be holding your hand and telling you every step to take, or where to turn, what mission to do when, how much money you will have when. You will choose what mission to do when. You will choose where to land…what direction to take. You should plan the order you do the missions in and your routes you take to do them wisely, young grasshopper.
Go in to the scenarios to get a feel for driving the rovers and how the interface and controls work. Find out how to do tests and where your tools are and how to use them. Get a feel for the controls and find a fast way to get through the tests. This is what you will need on the surface…to control the rover in a precise and controlled manner with a high repeatability quotient. LOL…whatever…it works. Me telling you that the robotic arm is easy once you get familliar with it does not mean much to you. When i say…”you just roll it out and back again” may not mean much…..but just go try it and see if it aint right. Practice WILL make perfect and it will make a difference on the surface.
You can drive with the robotic arm in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ position in front of the rover instead of stowing it every time. This is up to you and how safe you feel with it. I provided a pic showing the arm in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ position while driving. Do so at your own risk. Use your save feature!
When doing missions…use the same vehicle as much as possible.
The longer you go without saving, the closer you are to a failure. Believe it! Use your save feature. Now a lot of folks will say this is not real. Tough…the game is not real. We are pretending any way by not having a delay…so get over it. The first time you forget to save and you have a catastrophic failure and you have to re do some missions…you will believe! Use your save feature!!! Nuff said!
Avoid small rocks!! You can drive up on to big rocks, but don’t trust fate to drive over little rocks, mainly in the small rover. The bigger the rover, then the better they can handle the smaller rocks. The big ones never broke my rover…it was always the little rocks. I’m just saying…you’ll see.
I am impressed by how steep a climb these rovers are capable of. Going up is a lot safer than going down a slope.
*WEATHER* Watch the weather. You have probes on the surface at all these sites…..so you can go check the weather BEFORE you launch. Check you conditions! A storm WILL blow you off your chosen landing spot. A sand storm WILL sandblast your rover to a pile of used parts. Hiding behind a large rock and going to control WILL save your rover in a storm. We don’t have wind speed or direction yet even though the weather station says we get it…I am sure it will be included in a later up date, but it is what it is for now. The material your vehicles are made of react differently to different conditions. The frame of your rover is much more brittle at -150 C then it is at -2 C. Logic dictates that the chance of a failure is higher when it is colder.
One more point that relates to weather is time of day. I cover this next in the map section, but it is important here too. As the day heats up, the air starts to move, causing weather. Go to a map early…say 6 or 7 AM. Then go back every hour and watch the weather change and settle if there are no storm warnings. Get a feel for the weather and how it reacts to time of day.
*MAPS* The new space map in control is great for planning your launches. It helps to determine time of day….this is a pretty important piece of information(how long is the martian day?). Also, the launch map provides a lot of detail as you are traversing the planet and planning your route. This with the satellite map and the free fly feature(F key)are essential for planning your routes. Example: Gale crater. You WILL be driving either up or down the walls of this crater. It is up to you which direction you choose. It is possible both ways…I have done it. It was easier going up than down for me, but this is totally based on the routes I took. There may be more than one route to take.
*RANDOMLY GENERATED MISSIONS* These occur all over the planet and you will see them. They will be green markers on the surface. I will explain the markers and waypoints next, but remember the green markers. Generally, they consist of an explore, a picture, and a test of some kind. Sometimes it will just be explore and a pic. As you come across these, switch through your HUD’s to see what appears to complete these missions as you come across them. Do as many as you like. I planned to do only the main missions, but you can’t avoid all of these missions so you WILL be doing some of them. The point is…you have a number of missions to do, and you have some instruments that have a limited number of uses. Make sure you don’t use all of your uses before you complete all your assigned missions. You will make more money completing your planed missions than you will make doing random missions. So plan ahead and do so wisely.
One more point on missions. When doing the main missions and you are in the instrument HUD, you will see all the tests you will need to do in an area. Some test points will be flashing and showing more than one test to be performed in that location. Sometimes the test names will be red, and sometimes they will be yellow. To the best of my ability to be consistant, yellow you have to do both, red is one or the other…or was that the other way around? Any way, just make sure you do the tests that do not require a use first. Save use points for when you have to use them. Example: you see a test site flashing test name in red….probe/apxs…do the apxs first….it will clear the test site, you have not used a probe.
*NAV MARKERS* In the upper left corner of your screen you will see the green bar that has nav, mis, log, ctr. Become familiar with this and use it. In the nav box, you can control what missions you see. You will see what I mean as you play with it and become familiar with it. But once on the surface, click on filter by mission and go from yes to no. You will see that you can see your main mission on yes, but other mission when set to no. These are the random missions. You will see green markers. Click on yes now..you will see your mission in blue. This is an explore mark. Drive over a green mark with your HUD active, you will see it change to a red or yellow mark. Red is a picture. Yellow is a test. As I said before…cycle through your HUD’s to see marks and tests. Trying the scenarios and getting a feel for vehicles will help to understand what I am saying….easier to show than to tell I guess. I’m trying….LOL
*MIS TAB* use this in concert with the nav tab and markers. If you get all messed up with the markers and sense of direction you can use the mission tab. Sometimes it helps. Switching between the main mission screen and the first task can help give direction as it will highlight something different than on the main screen. This may not make a lot of sense right now…but it will later when you’re on the surface and you can switch them and see what I am saying.
The Mission’s
Complete all basic probe missions in all areas except Deimos.
Research EAS.
Complete all basic probe/EAS missions in all areas except Deimos
6090K cash on hand. From this point on your results will be different as you will encounter different random missions with different cash values.
Research EMS, small lander, low gain ant, zero G probe, multi zoom cam. You will need to research a few other cam’s before you get the multi zoom, but it is worth it. Being able to zoom in and get a shot that is well over 2 miles away and save me a drive AND complete a mission AND award cash makes this a worth while investment.
Once you finish your research, go to the lab and build your first lander. Equip EAS/EMS/low gain ant/multi zoon. Your budget will determine what other cam’s you use…but any more is totally unnecessary. Name your new lander or not…I don’t care how you keep track of your toys.
Now do all the small lander missions. What order you do them in is up to you. I honestly don’t think it matters. But the important thing here is to use the same lander on all possible missions on a map.
At this point you will need to go to Deimos and launch a Probe/EAS. You do not HAVE to use a multi zoom cam here. You can save the money and use a lower quality cam, but you don’t need to. I prefer the multi zoom. You can get away with the advanced cam or even the basic cam. It is up to you and your own personal preferences. But you will want to equip more than one cam so it is easier to get the missions done in a faster way. Once you get familiar with the zero G probe and how to fly it…you will see what I mean. You will want one cam looking down, and one looking forward and that is all you really need. Fly near the ground…within 100 meters or so, closer as you get better at it, and pick up random missions as you complete these missions.
When you are done at Deimos, return to the lab and research the small rover and a small thermal generator.
Launch a small rover on to Mars. Equip: EAS/EMS/small thermal gen/multi zoom. Again…this is all the cam you will need, one cam only facing forward, but you can equip all you want. Complete all map missions with the same rover. Yup….it’s a long drive, but it has to be done.
Research: med rover/med thermal gen/mast standard/robotic arm med/soil probe/apxs/RAD/ high power illumination. I also completed research on all the rest of my cameras. This is not necessary, but I figured I may need them and I had the cash.
Start med rover missions. As before…use the same rover on all missions on a map.
At this point I had plenty of cash to go right on to large rover and I skipped the large lander. With that in mind…
Research the Large Rover/lrg rob arm/lrg thermal gen/adv mast. All of your instruments except data retrieval tool should be complete and all your passive’s,cam’s, and antennas should be done too. I also opened solar cell and large rover array just in case I needed them for power.
And now I am showing 4 missions open on the north polar ice cap for the first time….Hmmmmm
Now to launch a large rover on to Mars. When doing missions, I choose to do them in a particular order..you can do them in any order you want. I did them Victoria, Kaiser, Gale, Lyot. So…I launched in to Victoria crater. Upon completion of all the missions in Victoria crater, I now have a budget of 81088K. My large rover costs me less than 20000K even with things on it i do not need. So money is not an issue. Also….all of my vehicles on the surface are all in perfect working order. All are parked and ready for action.
By now, I am sure you can see a pattern emerging. Continue and good luck young Skywalker…your training is over. If you need any more help then you have not been paying attention.
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Thanx