Legendary Campaign Log - Good Guys Campaign (Complete)

Well, i am having a good campaign (middle February) in Festering the Skies using your rules #2 and #3. I still attack other human factions in diplomacy missions to upper level and in Legacy of the Ancients.

I fully agree with you that like it is now, is basicly cheating to steal resources and aircraft to other human factions and loss only 6 diplomacy (it is almost free), and don’t do teleport when airborne. It is sad that to have a challenge, players must do this kind of house rules to contorn bad programation from devs.

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January 24

Quiet day. Our four Manticores spend it scanning POIs around the globe. We spend most of our accumulated resources on some new Phoenix Bases and facilities.

January 25

Citadels and Tyrant Alphas.

We finally get to do a vehicle recovery mission. It’s annoyingly slow and difficult due to the game’s stupid pathing bugs (one empty 5-foot square was designated as impassable for some reason, meaning that I had to drive all the way back around the way I came). But hey, free Armadillo.

One more scavenging mission. These have gotten pretty easy since I started bringing vehicles along.

January 26

One of our scout teams clears a Haven Defence and a Nest. Fire weapons are fun.

We hit 50 reputation with Anu. They order us to go kill a bunch of NJ soldiers for standing in the wrong place. I wish you could tell them to go screw themselves, but apparently it didn’t occur to the devs that anyone might have a problem with this sort of murder mission.

January 27

A couple of Haven Defences pop in Europe and Africa. Only our scout team is in a position to reach them, but the Scarab comes up trumps again. Setting Pandorans on fire continues to be extremely entertaining.

The Pure Bionic Fortress mission happens to be right next to my A-team, so I decide I might as well do it. It’s harder than the last time I did it a few patches ago, but still pretty underwhelming. The giant swarm of Spider Drones is the biggest problem. The Pure soldiers themselves don’t do much apart from use Neural Disruption repeatedly, which is irritating but not all that dangerous. We get no resources of any kind, and don’t get any weapons either, despite there being a bunch on the ground. (Seriously, it’s supposed to be a fortress, but has nothing in it?) I dunno. It’s just not a very satisfying mission.

Thoughts

Everything’s pretty easy at the moment, though I’m expecting things to get a bit tougher once the Behemoth shows up again.

Research is still a bit slow (lab count is only 7). I should probably stop getting Phoenix Bases and just build more labs instead.

3 Likes

Seems unfair to include that mission. It describes the NJ as being a roaming “Deathsquad” or something. I was under the impression we’re attacking “terrorists” under the banner of NJ basically, and if that’s the case then a preemptive strike may perhaps be warranted. Debatable really, unless my impression of that squad is wildly off (a group that goes around terrorizing havens?).

Seems like a fun challenge though. I’ve already done things very similar to this and all I’ve really found is that early raiding of aircraft really does just make the game significantly easier/faster (by weeks) but overall, it’s not NEEDED to beat the game, no.

Interested in seeing which day this ends on!

If we believe Synedrion, yeah. Given how murderous Synedrion are, I’m not too inclined to trust them.

Anyway, you have to draw the line somewhere, and for me, personally, the “we’ll pay you to go kill these guys from another faction” missions are the point at which I get off.

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January 28

New evolutions. Acid Sirens and Myrmidons.

B-team does a Haven Defence. Half of the battle is spent staring at a red “Pandoran Activity” message while nothing happens and my computer’s hard drive spins frantically.

We get 75 rep with Synedrion and . . . it’s the Polyphonic Tendency mission, a.k.a. “go murder NJ”. Sigh. That’s what I get for not going Terraformer all the way. Now I can’t get Allied with Synedrion either. Oh well, NJ has the best anti-Pandoran tech anyway.

Our A-team does a Haven Defence and we run into our first Scylla. Our troops don’t have any armour shredding weapons, but War Cry makes Scyllas into a joke and it flails around helplessly for 3 turns while we peck it to death.

January 29

We activate the base down in Antarctica in preparation. We still can’t get an aircraft down there and it’s getting annoying.

Fifth Manticore is produced. We fit this one with laser guns, just as the Behemoth shows up again. Our interceptor squadron heads for it but at this point the Geoscape goes crazy with haven defences and we’re busy sending teams all over the place.

Our Australia base gets an attack warning. I put my A-team there to defend, but the attack never happens. I guess the Lair I just took out was where the attack was supposed to come from.

January 30

Behemoth squishes two Havens in a row. We’ve got a bit of a problem this time. The Behemoth isn’t sending out many flyers and it’s not infesting Havens, meaning we’ve got no way to disrupt it. All we can do is watch it destroy stuff.

We’ve explored most of the globe at this point. My B-team is flying around trading in the Americas, while the rest of my soldiers are in Europe/Asia/Africa waiting for haven attacks or Behemoth flyers to show up.

2 Likes

January 31

New evolutions – Myrmidon and Brute Primes.

Behemoth squishes a third Haven in a row. This is getting irritating. There’s nothing we can do except pick off the odd flyer and hope it stops soon.

Another Lair, another base assault. Tactical missions are pretty easy at the moment.

February 1

The two Seeking Dr Symes missions pop. Our A-team does one and a pair of scout teams does the other, revealing the To Antarctica mission. We don’t have enough range to get there, but luckily New Jericho just finished research on the Fuel Tank module – we build one and now my B-team can just make it. They head south.

We take advantage of the resources to start a bunch more Research Labs…

February 2

The Behemoth destroys a fourth haven, then a fifth. Again, nothing we can do. At this point it seems to get bored of wiping out the human population and heads for the Mediterranean for a nap.

B-team does “To Antarctica”. Now that I’m in the the area, I’ve got a chance to do a special haven mission that I got a while ago, the “Hand of Merlin”. It says something about investigating an old lab. We send my B-team there and—

OH COME ON. We’re expected to murder a bunch of Synedrion guys? Seriously? SERIOUSLY? What the hell was wrong with the people who coded these missions? Did they just pick completely random factions for the enemies?

No, **** you. We evacuate. Merlin can go screw himself, we’re not killing a bunch of people just to tick off his sidequest. We pick off one more flyer, but other than that there’s not much to do on the Geoscape but respond to the odd Haven Defence and fly around and trade.

Thoughts

This whole episode has really emphasised just non-interactive the Behemoth is. If it decides not to send out flyers, but just destroy havens one after another, there’s literally nothing you can do. It gets quite frustrating after a while. We had to sit around watching it smash five Havens one after the other.

It feels like a wasted opportunity on the part of the devs. If you wanted to give the player ways to slow down the rate of haven destruction, you could allow the player to make raiding attacks against the Behemoth, picking off flyers from the cloud. Or you could use your aircraft to help havens in the Behemoth’s path evacuate. Or fight delaying actions to let civilians get away. There were so many ways they could have designed this to let the player have some input. Instead all you’re allowed to do is hang around waiting for the Behemoth to send out a flyer or infest something, and pounce as soon as it does.

5 Likes

It always sends out flyers, though, so that’s not really an issue. It also tends to infest a couple of havens eventually rather than stomping them, which gives you a way to disrupt it and get faction rep.

I actually like the fact that the Behemoth is so titanic that there is literally nothing you can do to it directly. It puts the weakness of what remains of humanity in its proper perspective.

February 3

The evolutions this time are more acid throwers. Arthron Dragons and Chirons, as well as an upgraded Tyrant.

Haven defences and base defences all day. The Anu haven defence is plagued by performance issues and the game jerks along at 3 frames per second while minutes drag by on the Pandoran turns. The others are smoother.

The Behemoth goes under water again. At this point we’re pretty much just waiting for research to complete. We start a few more labs.

February 4

Yet another Haven defence by one of my scout teams. Turns out there’s a Scylla. I decide to fight the battle out, and hilariously, my Infiltrator, Sniper, and Heavy actually win by taking out all six of the Scylla’s legs and causing it to bleed it to death.

We hit our first Citadel.

Pretty short on resources. Only real income is coming from trading.

February 5

Masked Manticore research finishes and we start building one. It should be ready by the time the Behemoth shows up again. We run more few Haven Defences and Pandoran bases in the meantime.

We’re zooming through the NJ research tree. 12 Research Labs active, 4 more under construction.

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February 6

Evolutions. Maniac Alphas, Marksman Alphas.

Nothing much happens all day. There’s a Haven Defence but I can’t be bothered to run it.

February 7

Base defence, Haven Defence, Lair. These are getting pretty tedious.

Running low on resources. I can’t really afford any new tech. It’s expensive killing Pandorans.

February 8

The Behemoth shows up. Yay, something different! We load up our Masked Manticore – it’s time to kill us a Behemoth.

The mission is long and requires quite a bit of thinking. The Behemoth stomp is the hardest part to deal with – there’s one nasty moment when our entire team gets dazed just as a poison Myrmidon flies in to hit us. Luckily the one it picks on is my heavy, he disables its torso with a Bash with his single action point, and from that point on no-one is really in danger of dying. Lots of tricky situations, but the Behemoth goes down with no casualties.

There’s a nice video with the Behemoth collapsing, the three factions all throw victory celebrations, and . . . that’s it, I guess? No rewards or anything, just a “yay, you won” message.

And we’re now out of tech. Back to trading and grinding.

Command Fortress finishes. Synedrion whine about it and threaten to declare war. It’s really annoying how the game tries to present Synedrion as well-meaning when they keep acting like total psychopaths.

There’s one last Scavenging Site in Antarctica. We run it, suffer through more performance issues, and that’s pretty much it for the day.

Thoughts

Well, that’s Festering Skies done, I guess. The Behemoth mission was pretty cool. I actually had to think a bit, and the variety was fun.

On the bad side, now that it’s over, I’m noticing that like Legacy of the Ancients, Festering Skies has the problem of being completely un-integrated into the main story. The flyers and the Corrupted Haven missions are tied to the Behemoth ONLY. Which means that now the Behemoth’s gone, so are they. So no more Corrupted Haven missions (which is a shame because they were fun) and no more air battles (which means all those air-to-air weapons we researched and built are now completely useless). Why not have the flyers keep on spawning from Pandoran bases? There doesn’t seem any obvious story or gameplay reason that it’d be impossible.

Oh, and just like Blood and Titanium, you get no rewards for “completing” the DLC. Which is lame.

I’m not honestly sure the DLC is really worth it, now that I think about it.

4 Likes

February 9

Upgraded Arthrons and Abaddons. Except, whoops, the Behemoth is dead, so where are these Abaddons going to be coming from, again?

Haven Defence, Citadel, Citadel, Haven Defence, Haven Defence, Nest, Base Defence. This one day of game time took me about 5 hours of play time. Some of the missions are a little harder, some a little easier (the Base Defence is annoying due to the deployment rules) but by this point in the campaign this is less like a war and more like pest control.

February 10

Trading and waiting. Last Research Lab finishes, we’ve got 17 in total now. That should be enough.

Advanced Technician Weapons finishes so I build a bunch of Rattlesnake turrets. Normally I’d be building a bunch of Scorchers at this point but Advanced Lasers is boringly overpowered so I figure this run’s an opportunity to vary things up a bit by just using NJ tech for a change.

February 11

Yet another Haven Defence, yet another Lair, yet another Haven Defence, yet another Nest.

We finish Centralised AI. Synedrion whine some more. I hope we can reach the final mission before Syn and Anu decide to start trying to murder everyone.

3 Likes

Have read all your entries but not done the Math. 17 Labs by this date for real without raiding etc… ?

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It’s very doable if you focus on aircraft/labs and only build tactical gear as and when you need it. I’ve never built a single assault rifle, for example – I just use scavenged Bulldog/Deimos rifles.

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17 labs? is there really need for so many? I usually end with 10, sometimes 11 or 12.

Labs are how you win the game. The more labs, the faster you win. There’s really no such thing as too many.

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Everyone has their different approach to the end game. Isn’t that that the openness of.PP?

Yes, for sure, but you need to obtain resources for these labs… Doesn’t it prolong campaign, because you lack the resources before some point? :slight_smile: Unless you go to end mission with just the weapons you have on your disposal while not waiting for plants to manufacture better pieces of equipment.

I’ve never really felt as though I’ve needed any special equipment for the final mission . . . it’s honestly pretty easy so long as you don’t trigger the gatekeepers too early. So the instant the final research is done, I head straight for the final mission with whatever I’ve got on hand.

February 12

Evolutions. Tyrant and Bane Primes, and the cannon Scylla.

Another Haven Defence, and we take out another Lair.

February 13

We finish Advanced Missile Tech. We’ve got all the pre-requisites for the NJ final tech, but we need to wait for the Command Fortress to finish building before we can research it.

Two more Haven Defences and another Lair. These are just tedious now.

February 14

We finish Citadel research and clear out a couple of Nests.

The Command Fortress seems to have gotten stuck. It’s been six days and the building progress has been at 29% with ‘2 days left’ for something like 3 days. I think the game’s bugged out.

Thoughts

Well . . . this is looking like a very anticlimactic end. The Command Fortress won’t finish building, meaning I can’t get the New Jericho ending, meaning I can’t finish the game.

I’m not sure there’s any point in playing any longer. I’ve been waiting to see if it gets unstuck and finishes on its own, but it’s not happening.

It’s going to be really telling if, after all this time, the reason for the end of the campaign is “game unwinnable due to bugs.”

How many of their havens have damaged facilities?

Not many . . . I think about 4 or 5 out of 29 total? They’ve been protected pretty well.