Now that we have all four players for this, could I request that we each have until late on Monday to equip, deploy and talk tactics with our teammates before play commences? The rest of the weekend is looking pretty full-on for me...
You had me worried for a while there - my two remaining guys were both badly injured, and it wouldn't have taken much to finish them off...<br /><br />Over to you to choose the next field of battle.
Oh dear, that went spectacularly wrong - one horribly off-target Autocannon blast and umpteen chain-reaction explosions later, all but two of my guys and precisely none of yours are dead! Do you mind if I concede...?
No, it's just that if they're all dead it isn't possible for you to make a move until they've reanimated again, which means it automatically defaults to my turn again. This happened repeatedly after you'd committed them all to attacking the big group, which meant that eventually the turns simply ran out.
Actually, since I raced through my later turns in Reanimator (owing to killing off all the zombies on each of my goes), and Impregnator was such a bust, how about you set us up with something before The Assylum has run its course?
I'd forgotten about the weak walls, to be honest!<br /><br />Mind you, it was close at the end and my last few aliens nearly got splattered. <br /><br />NB it's not looking hopeful for me in Reanimator...
Oops! Evidently just taking up a defensive position (however strong-seeming) and staying there doesn't cut the mustard vis-a-vis aliens/weak walls! Lesson learnt...<br /><br />Let's let our games of Assylum/Reanimator play out, then maybe set something else up.
Hmmm...I don't think there's another where one side knows the enemy's whereabouts at all times, but advanced mode allows both sides to "hear" units who are moving/shooting in nearby squares, and the alien in...well...Alien can hear the Nostromo crew members from considerably further away. And then there are alternative unit types who have other supernatural abilities: the angels, for example, have a Doctor Who thing going on (super-fast, deadly at first strike, indestructible, but can't move if in any enemy's line of sight), and the zombies, while slower, reanimate after a random number of turns. Happy to set something up if any of that sounds intriguing.
So ends the extended cat-and-mouse as it was always going to - you definitely had the upper hand for most of that game! Where shall we two meet again...?
Allow me to hand you your first SF victory! My guy was severely injured (and therefore slow) after being shot the first time, and with turns beginning to run out I was left with no choice but to chance my diminished action points on the next shot being a miss...<br /><br />More than happy to be your sparring-partner for some future missions should you be up for it.
Well played, Drakester- a deserved win to round off our tour of the three-player games, which I've thoroughly enjoyed Just let me know if you'd like me to join you for future missions. :-)
Cheers Chris, it definitely went down to the wire!<br />When I saw you'd set one of my guys on fire (also adjacent to another of my troops) my heart sank.<br /><br />Sure, set up a game of your choosing for me to accept
Good, close game! Your use of death grenades ensured it all came down to that final shootout; pity Android Whatshisface chose that moment to disgrace himself...I dunno, you just can't trust AI...<br /><br />Another game of sommart?
Thanks a lot Cpt, that's very much appreciated! And a relief that SF can continue thanks to people's generosity. (And yeah, the Patreon website is a whole bunch of crap :( I'll start looking into alternatives.)
Hi Stephen, thanks for getting me back in after an extended hiatus.<br />I'm extremely relieved that the much-feared closure didn't happen. <br />I've subscribed on Patreon just now. As an aside, I find Patreon not the most user friendly platform!
Hi Chris. I've had a look; the mission doesn't take into account whether any units escaped, it only checks that there is an egg on the escape hatch. <br /><br />Actually, it looks like there's a bug: if the player escapes with the egg as Drakester did, the egg disappears so it doesn't get counted! I'll fix it. I'll change it so that a player wins if they have unit that has escaped while carrying an egg.
Hi @SteveSmith, I'm puzzled as to why this was a draw: by my reckoning, Drakester, as the only player to have a unit escape with an egg, should have won.
Superbly well played, Drakester, particularly after fending off most of the Alien onslaught! I think you've got this; just remember to select Escape when standing on the escape hatch. In the meantime, I'll set up what I think will be the only three-player showdown the three of us haven't yet done...
I knew when your troops smashed the very top right section and killed my sniper up there that I couldn't win. Same when I lost the very left 2 lower snipers in the smoke. Thought then I can't win but give you full entertainment! :)
Thanks a lot for the offer Rost, but I'd prefer to go through normal channels rather than send out my account number etc... Maybe one day, assuming WWW3 hasn't wiped us all out, things will return to normal. Glad you like the game though. And I wish I was only 45! :)
I am already 45 years old. I played Laser Squad with a friend on Sinclair ZX Specrtum while visiting my grandmother in the village. those were great times. This game allows me to take a few minutes away from the daily hustle and bustle. An little but important part of my life<br />I am currently unable to access patreon.com to support the project. But if Steve sends me the bank account or card number, I can try to make a transfer.
Good news everyone! Thanks to the generosity of two new patrons Dijon_p and Hansolo, Stellar Forces will be able to continue for now. I'm very grateful to all the players who make monthly monetary contribution to the game. It still doesn't quite cover the costs, but I don't want SF to disappear so I'll make up the shortfall for the time being. Hopefully more new patrons will sign up which will ensure it can continue in the long term. If you enjoy playing SF, spread the word!
6 new patrons would still only bring in $144/year, still leaving me short. However, it's a step in the right direction and I could look to cut costs by changing to a cheaper domain name etc...
Thanks a lot Rabid! And especially thanks back to you for being such a great patron and supporting the game constantly since 2017! Without you it would have closed a lot earlier. Only Henry's Cat comes (very) close to your record and generosity, and a lot of players owe you both a lot of thanks.
Quite the game of cat-and-heavily-armed-mouse in its second half, that! It did seem like the only way I could break the deadlock was by taking an almighty risk: I had no idea whether you had sufficient ammo/APs to finish me off once I was out in the open...
To get down to raw figures, it costs me $234.36/year to run, made up of $27/year for the domain and $17.28/month for the server. In total, current Patreon's contribute $7/month = $84/year, leaving a shortfall of almost exactly $150/year.
Of course, it would be remiss of me not to pass on my thanks to all those who are currently contributing to the running of Stellar Forces. In no particular order:-<br /><br />* Henry's Cat / Le Chat de Henri<br />* Rabid<br />* Robsraiders<br />* Chris1977<br /><br />So much thanks to you for helping keep Stellar Forces going for as long as it has. Without you, it would have closed years ago!
Do you guys want me to set up Alien Containment again (same sides)? According to the mission description, the only side that should be destroying computers is Marsec; the Rebels are defending them and the Aliens are simply trying to get the hell out (move to the edge of the map and select Escape). So another side destroying computers meant that Marsec won by default.<br /><br />If I don't hear back by Monday I'll set up the next three-player mission.
Hi all,<br /><br />After some deliberation, I'm afraid I may have to close down Stellar Forces. It will be a massive shame as it's been running for over 15 years now and I've really enjoyed it as I hope others have too. Without wanting to go into details, my financial circumstances have changed. Nothing major, but it's getting very hard for me to justify the cost of running the game without cutting back other household outgoings. I don't want to sound mercenary, but unless I can bring in enough donations to cover the costs, I'll probably have to close it down in a couple of months.<br /><br />If it does have to close, let it be known that it's been a great adventure, and I never thought it would last this long. It was always my dream to run my own online game, and you could argue it has outlasted a lot other games which had far more resources and money behind them. I've had some amazing exciting games and chatted to some great people. It's gone through many changes, some big, some small, but it's always managed to keep going thanks to the you, the hundreds of players who've come and gone. And if the worst does come to the worst, maybe one day it will start up again.<br /><br />Thanks all,<br /><br />Steve
Sorry, you're right. I missed the "-3 Player", and I was looking at the standard Alien Hordes! You're also correct about the alien blood; it doesn't affect weak walls.<br /><br />Let me know if you want me to change any settings to see if it improves the mission.
The walls are set to "weak" according to the description, but none of them ever appeared to be destroyed. Come to think of it, though, the only explosions were caused by Aliens snuffing it, so are walls of any strength immune to explosions of this kind?
Hi Chris, thanks for pointing out any errors. However, I've had a look, and this doesn't seem to be the case? To clarify, there are 3 levels of wall strength - indestructible, strong (where a grenade etc.. will only destroy one layer of wall) and weak, where a grenade will destroy all walls within its vicinity. The walls in Alien Hordes are set to "strong". <br /><br />Was there a case of a grenade exploding but not destroying any walls in this game? If so, I'll have a look into it.
That one seemed a bit one-sided, @mirkiov and @Drakester, and as you'll see I've already left Steve some thoughts about how to even things up. That said, if you don't mind my pointing this out I do feel a temporary truce between your two sides would have enabled you to cull my numbers in pretty short order in the first couple of turns (cover is not plentiful outside the base). Anyway, I'll set up another three-player contest for us...
Hi @SteveSmith, not that it's ruining the gameplay or anything (at least not from the Aliens' perspective!), but the mission description says that walls are weak when they're actually set to "indestructible". Not sure which way it should go (weak walls would offer the humans less cover, but also stop them getting quite so hemmed-in by Alien walking bombs, so it's hard to gauge which option would be better/worse), but either way whatever the walls do needs to match the description.
Someone didn't choose the correct side even though I made it clear in my post. If I create the game again I could see it happening again. What I'll do is just create it again at say 6pm and anyone can enter and hopefully we can get the same teams/opposite sides, if not we'll just play it once more and end it.
I remember we used to have mini competition with this mission with 200% creds and it became a game of hide and seek with Sterner which usually ended first turn. It went on for sometime until one side gained two victories in a row. You, me, Rabid and Socrates wasn't it? I thought let's try with 150% to see if each game would last longer! Everyone up for another, swop sides? Home and away kind of thing. Peter and I to hide Sterner this time.