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Once upon a time, in the Year of Our Lord 1993, Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space was released on the timeless storage medium, the floppy disk. It was a pretty cool game, especially for a space nerd. And as I was not a space nerd at age 2, I discovered this game quite a bit later. Still, it held up decently well and was fun, despite its age. In 2014, Slytherine got their hands on the rights to Buzz's name, remade the game, and slapped a big-ol' Slytherine price-tag on it, giving us... The Game So, what is this poo poo? Well, you start in 1955 as either the USSR or US space program, and you try to get to the moon before the other guy. There's also a GSA (Global Space Agency) mode where you're not competing and you can go further into potential future-missions, but I haven't messed with it much. We'll see at the end of the first space race if there's enough interest (and effort) to go back and do another playthrough as the GSA. How is all this done? It's pretty abstract, this is no KSP:  This is your space center, handily numbered because I am in construction mode. The cosmo(astro)naut center is where you manage your intrepid space explorers, which looks like this:  Your cosmo(astro)nauts all have stats, which affect various mission parameters and determine how often poo poo Goes Wrong and how good of a chance you have of going all Apollo 13 and saving yourselves when poo poo does, inevitably, go wrong. But we all know that the real heroes are the steely-eyed missile men (and women) in mission control! Your mission control staff also have stats which play a big role in determining failure rates and recovering from those failures. Finally, scientists are also staff which have to be managed, and have stats which affect their research speed. All of your staff can be placed in training to raise their stats, and they also raise their stats by doing stuff. The real magic happens in the Headquarters, where we choose programs and allocate scientists to do R&D for those programs. Here's what the programs screen looks like:  From there, we can choose a particular program (Sputnik, for example) and a particular mission. In the case of Sputnik, that is standard or extended. For manned missions you get a ton of different options, like various tests you can do to make things safer (or not  ). So, how do you win? You start programs, do R&D, finally launch the mission, pray it doesn't fail, and then rake in your sweet, sweet prestige. Prestige (the star icon at the top of the space center screen) is what you live and die on in this game. Prestige determines the amount of funding your stingy bureaucratic overlords deign to grant you at the end of each 4-year period. That funding, of course, is what allows you to train people, maintain your space center, build rockets, buy fuel: all that stuff you need to, you know, go into space. You win by being the first space program to land a man on the moon (and bring him safely home), but you'll never get there without running a hell of a lot of other missions first. And there's a lot of options! Besides dicking around in Earth and Lunar orbit, you can send probes to Mars and Venus. So with all that said, let's get into the format of the LP.The Let's Play This game lends itself really well to a collaborative LP. I am going to be the head of the space program and you, my fellow Goons, will be the bumbling, bickering, bureaucrats that decide my policy in the least efficient way possible. Now, there's a lot of micromanagement in this game, mostly with staffing. Because I want you guys to be arguing over the fun stuff, like whether to make a Mars probe or a spaceplane, I will handle the boring, less important details. If you guys are interested in handling the astronaut training, since those guys are the heroes and all, that'd be fine, but otherwise I'll handle staffing. Basically, you'll give me rough guidelines about how much of the budget to spend on R&D staff and I'll take care of the details. As for Mission Control, there's a minimum number for various programs, so I'll always be sure to have it staffed enough for the programs you are planning (and let you know if it will be a problem). I'm not planning to do this in a totally democratic, #vote Option A style. If this LP gets a lot more attention than I expect it to, I might have to work out some system to make it less chaotic, but for now I just intend for you guys to argue about what you want to do and I'll pick the option that has the most support. I really think bickering Goons will make for a very realistic space program bureaucracy, so I am hoping that the chaos of decision making will add to the enjoyment. Feel free to get in-character as 1950s missile men (or generals or what have you) if you want. Is that everything? I think that's everything. Let me know if you have any questions. So let's get this show on the road! After saying I'm not going to make this totally democratic, I'm starting out by being totally democratic (this will be rare). You have your first decision to make! Who will we be?  The Soviet Space ProgramOr  NASAHistory of the Soviet Space Program January 1955 January to June, 1955 June, 1955 to March, 1957 Samolety fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Oct 29, 2015 |
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Oct 23, 2015 05:43
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| # ? May 4, 2024 21:31 |
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We won it once. With God as our witness we'll do it again
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Oct 23, 2015 07:46
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Samolety posted:bumbling, bickering, bureaucrats The Soviet Space Program
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Oct 23, 2015 08:42
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Comrade we must make it to space no matter the cost. If thousands of dogs must be sent to Venus, it's a small price to pay.
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Oct 23, 2015 08:51
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I want see much bad faked of Russian typed English in thread tovarieshch.
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Oct 23, 2015 09:00
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All the way.
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Oct 23, 2015 11:15
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leads world in glorious triumph of Soviet Science!
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Oct 23, 2015 11:40
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Let's do it soviet style and do every single program at once.
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Oct 23, 2015 12:36
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Jumping on the goonwagon!
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Oct 23, 2015 12:38
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Yeah, this really is the only way to go.
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Oct 23, 2015 14:24
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For the glory of the USSR comrade! And catastrophic failures
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Oct 23, 2015 14:59
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ДLL HДIL MФTHЗЯ ЯЦSSIД! (Found on the Memorial of the Unknown Astronaut)
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Oct 23, 2015 15:07
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benjoyce posted:
This physically hurts me.
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Oct 23, 2015 16:51
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Zero grinder posted:
Please try not to cause terrible accident that kills many of top scientist in 1969.
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Oct 23, 2015 17:32
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Landslide win for ! I'm happy, I prefer playing the Russians anyway. The Soviet Space Program - January, 1955   : Здравствуйте, Comrades. I am General Vasili Kuznetsov, and you idiots are my ticket to a cushy office in the Kremlin. It seems that our glorious leader, Khrushchev, has decided that space is really cool and we should probably go there before the Americans catch on and go there first. He has sent me to this godforsaken patch of desert to make sure we get something in space before America does. I am quite sure that once we get something in space, I can go home to Moscow and drink vodka in my new office, so let's get to work! Welcome to our glorious space center! As you can see, there are patches of dirt where a lot of our buildings are supposed to be, like, for example the one that lets us build rockets. So, that's a problem. I recommend that our first order of business be to construct the missing buildings that will be required to run our space program. As you can see, we have $18,500 at our disposal (which is obviously not the actual amount of rubles we have on hand, but some weird abstraction that the budget committee came up with, don't ask me) and are currently making $2,173 per season. I have calculated the cost of the constructions, and they are as follows: Vehicle Assembly Building - $800 - 2 seasons to build - $250/season maintenance Cosmonaut Centre - $500 - 2 seasons to build - $175/season maintenance Mission Control - $300 - 1 season to build - $150/season maintenance We can also upgrade our current buildings. SET Centre - $1000 - 2 seasons to upgrade - $400/season maintenance increase - Doubles our scientist capacity which is a really big deal. Headquarters - $500 - 2 seasons to upgrade - $250/season maintenance increase - Allows us to have 7 projects open at once, up from 2. This could probably wait. And do not worry, Comrades. Though it is annoying as hell to work around the construction workers, we can continue working while upgrades are underway, so upgrades will not cause any interruptions to our program. Speaking of programs, let's get to the part you assholes have all been waiting for. We need to decide how we're going to get into space so we can all leave this drat desert and go home. Here are our options.  Note: The top dollar amount is the cost to start the program, the bottom one is the required maintenance/season. The headphones icon is how many mission controllers are required to operate this mission. The faceplate is how many cosmonauts are required. The circles icon is how many goals can be accomplished by this program. First, we have the humble satellite, which is where we should probably start if we're going to get a piece of metal into space before the Americans do. There are three satellite programs available to us, currently. Sputnik 1 is a little ball of metal that we hurl into space, and it goes beep beep beep and impresses everyone for some reason. This is the fastest way to accomplish our first few goals*, and should probably be where we start. *Goals are the milestone events like first object in earth orbit, first human in space, etc. Getting to goals before the Americans do gives us maximum prestige. Sputnik 2 is a larger satellite which carries a dog. We launch it, it goes beep, but we also get to see how living things react to space before we send a man up there (there might be like, radiation or some poo poo, I don't know). It costs more and has more opportunities to go wrong, and would require a slightly longer R&D phase than Sputnik 1, but would accomplish more goals at once. We could probably still beat the Americans to space if we started with this program, but it might be tough. Also, spoiler alert: the dog dies. Korabl-Sputnik 2 actually uses a (theoretical) Vostok manned capsule to carry a lot of animals and experiments into orbit. This requires a much larger rocket than the other two. If we choose to go with this route instead of the others (we can, of course, go with this route after launching the others, they are not mutually exclusive), will probably will not get an object into space before the Americans do. However, all the research we put into this satellite will go directly into improving our manned launch, if we choose to go with the Vostok design for our manned launch. Next, we have the various options for getting a cosmonaut into space. This is a pretty big deal that I am sure Comrade Khrushchev will want us to accomplish before we go home, so we should probably start working on one of these along with a satellite program, if we choose to run one of those.  The main debate about how to get a man into space revolves around whether to use a spaceplane or a ballistic capsule. This is the spaceplane route. It would require the same rocket and a very similar cost as the ballistic route, but might be harder to accomplish. However, the craft would also be reusable, which probably counts for something. The PKA Spaceplane is currently our only available project here, and it is roughly equivalent to the proposed Vostok craft.  Next, we have the one--crew ballistic capsule. This design is probably the simplest way to get a man into space, but is not as reusable as the spaceplane design. The Vostok is the only proposed design in this category. It gets a man into orbit and brings him back down again. No muss, no fuss, we all go home and drink vodka.  Finally, we have the two-crew designs. These are prohibitively expensive, and they seem rather pointless to me. Why bother getting two men into space when one will be plenty? I guess they can test "longer duration" missions, which seems ridiculous to me. Obviously this "space race" will end with a man in space. Still, we could technically afford the Voskhod option, though it would put an incredible strain on our budget. Some idiots have also proposed a three-crew design, but the cost is over twice our current cash reserve, and it is entirely pointless. These morons were even suggesting that it could go to the moon! The moon! Can you imagine? What foolishness. By the way, I can hire two more scientists, which will increase our upkeep budget for scientists by $100/season. Still, it is probably a good idea to stay on top of R&D if we want to stay ahead of the Americans. Remember, we can have two programs open at once, currently. So maybe we should work on a satellite and one of the manned designs, simultaneously? Who knows. I'll be in my office. Call me when you figure out what we're doing. Samolety fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Oct 23, 2015 |
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Oct 23, 2015 18:34
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I'm pretty sure the last game stalled out because we tried to use space planes. Which is why we'll do it better. Also Sputnik 1.
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Oct 23, 2015 19:01
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The buildings seem rather cheap to put up and are vital, so we should probably build all three (if that's possible). Hire more scientists because knowledge is power, upgrade the SET Center for the same reason and start working on Sputnik I to get some early glory, then also start working on Korabl-Sputnik 2 as a good milestone between what Sputnik I will accomplish and what our later manned flight will do.
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Oct 23, 2015 21:03
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Having a development advantage was pretty huge in the original and probably is here too, so hire more scientists and upgrade the SET Center. Mission Control and the Vehicle Assembly Building are vital, so they should be built in short order. I think we should start the Cosmonaut Centre now, since training may take quite a while. Program-wise the Sputnik and the Korabl-Sputnik 2 sound like good steps up to the Vostok. Does this game have space mission footage for the missions like the original BARIS had? The CD version had quite a bit of footage to show in missions.
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Oct 23, 2015 23:16
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Top priority should be constructing any and all buildings related to training manpower and researching If we get Sputnik 1 going we can have something impressive to show immediately, which will surely increase our budget once Moscow sees the potential for beeping metal IN SPACE. Also if possible we should keep all our infrastructure a good ways away from the launchpad.
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Oct 23, 2015 23:49
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Go with Sputnik 2 and shoot Лайка into space! Also, add as much research capacity as you can.
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Oct 24, 2015 00:03
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Training buildings are probably the most important thing get those first.
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Oct 24, 2015 00:05
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Lacedaemonius posted:Top priority should be constructing any and all buildings related to training manpower and researching This
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Oct 25, 2015 20:48
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The Soviet Space Program - January to June, 1955 January, 1955  : Greetings comrades. In accordance with your suggestions, I have ordered a construction of all possible buildings. Work proceeds smoothly. Furthermore, I have ordered the start of the Sputnik 1 and Korabl-Sputnik 2 projects and assigned scientists to each.   Finally, I have hired two new scientists, and ordered an upgrade to the SET centre. Things are progressing well. We shall be home in Moscow by Christmas! March, 1955  : News, comrades! Our capitalist counterparts have begun work on their own simple satellite program, Explorer, and have also begun work on a manned spaceplane concept. The fools, spaceplanes are a trap and will never lead anywhere. Our true Soviet superiority shall soon shine through when Vostok is complete. Wait. What? WHAT?! The, MOON?! Are you kidding me?! Comrade Khrushchev wants us to go to the moon! And we don't even yet have an object in space! The hubris, the arrogance! ...Fine. If it is the moon he wants, the moon he will get. How hard can it be to get to the moon, anyway? Work proceeds on the buildings and the new scientists continue their training. The new mission control center is completed and I order a full complement of 5 controllers. June, 1955 : Welcome to Summer, comrades. If only we were enjoying it in Moscow instead of this atrocious Kazakh desert. Our scientists have finished their training, and all of our buildings are complete! I have also begun development on the rocket which will be required to launch Sputnik. However, we have a situation. This is our current budget. Maintenance costs are taking their toll, and we are barely in the green. We have to survive on this budget for the next 3 years, so we have to decide how we are going to spend our money for now. Keep in mind that once the Sputnik launch is complete, we can close the program and take the maintenance cost out of our budget, giving us more money to work with for other projects. Our current projects are as follows:  The R-7 Sputnik booster has a full complement of engineers. Development has just begun, but we expect good progress. The rocket should be ready to launch in about a year, or earlier, if we want to risk a failure.  Our other three engineers are currently working on the Sputnik payload. It is currently at 53% reliability, and we have hit diminishing returns on our development. We estimate an 11.6% reliability improvement over the next season. Reliability of 80% or above is considered a "safe" launch, but we could always launch earlier, though we would be risking failure. The Vostok spacecraft is currently at 12% reliability, and is on hold due to a lack of available scientists. We have not yet begun developing a rocket capable of lifting the Vostok.  The Vostok booster program would cost $5,250 to open, and would cost us $525/season in maintenance (putting us in the red). Furthermore, the Korabl-Sputnik 2 program will require 9 controllers to launch. We can currently only support 5.  Upgrading mission control to a point where we could hire enough controllers would cost $900, and the maintenance would put us in the red.  Finally, while neither of our currently planned missions require cosmonauts, we will want highly trained cosmonauts when they are required. The simplest manned mission will require 3 cosmonauts (2 in mission control and 1 in the spacecraft). Salary and training costs are relatively low, so we could probably afford to hire cosmonauts now and begin training. We could also hire new scientists in January for a similar salary-cost as the cosmonauts. More scientists will allow us to continue development on the Vostok capsule. Well Comrades, once again I leave the decision in your hands. How shall we proceed from here? Samolety fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 01:16
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Alright, if we've hit a bit of a money snag, the best solution is to get more money, and getting more money is probably most easily accomplished by getting Sputnik out there ASAP and using what we have available to start preparing Vostok. Get some new scientists to progress the Vostok program a bit. We can get the cosmonauts later, if they're not needed right now, then it's wasted money to just let them sit around. Training is overrated. Aside from the new scientists, I think we should just hang tight for a bit, keep that cash flow positive just in case. We can splurge more when we get Sputnik out there or once we get closer to the next money injection.
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Oct 26, 2015 01:27
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Here's what I think we should do next: 1. Concentrate researching the sputnik to the point where it's safe launch. 2. Put any spare scientist on the koralb-sputnik. 3. Hire the 3 best cosmonauts and start training them. 4. Wait to hire more scientists for after the sputnik launch. While our cash flow may be having some issues now we still have some decent reserves, which we should employ to get the sputnik on orbit and start preparing for future missions.
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Oct 26, 2015 01:47
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Reliability be damned. If we can get >70% probability of success on both the rocket and the payload, that gives us a better than 50/50 shot of everything working. Crushing the Americans so early in the Space Race will guarantee that they never catch up!
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Oct 26, 2015 01:48
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I bet we're so close to the red because of all the construction we're undergoing. Once all the buildings are complete, will we have any more room in the budget? I don't trust this "Michael Hilton" character, he sounds like a god(loving?) fascist and enemy of revolution! I vote we send him to the Gulag and have him replaced. I like to look of tovarishch Dyuzhenko, I bet he can bring us to space faster than the capitalist dog we have now. Actually, salaries seem pretty cheap in general. If we can onboard any other talent we'll be in space and back to Moscow that much quicker! As for Sputnik 1, I vote we bring on any spare talent we can and give it 2 seasons so we have a ~75% success rate. Letting the Americans lead the race is bad but if our first launch fails it'll be disastrous!
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Oct 27, 2015 02:14
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The Soviet Space Program - June 1955 to March 1957 June 1955 : Greetings, Comrades. It seems you all have different ideas on how to deal with our budget shortage. With your suggestions in mind, I went with my best guess.I hired Misha Dyuzhenko, but waited to hire any more cosmonauts. Furthermore, Comrade Michael Hilton was questioned by the KGB as a possible counter-revolutionary. Our comrades cleared him of all charges and stated that he defected from the United States out of love for our glorious system of Communism, and he is a party man of party men. Finally, Comrade Lacedaemonius, while Sputnik 1 (the payload) will be above 75% success rate in two seasons, the booster will only be at around 35%, which is practically begging for failure. January 1956 : Greetings, Comrades. The rest of 1955 was entirely uneventful. Summer is over, and it is now "cold as balls" once again. As this is the start of a new year, I was authorized to hire a new complement of 7 scientists and engineers, who will be joining our R&D team shortly. Otherwise, progress continues on the Sputnik booster. The Sputnik payload is above 75% reliability, so I transferred the scientists to the Vostok capsule.March, 1956  : Our cosmonaut and the new scientists have graduated from basic training. The mission controllers have also graduated from the advanced training I put them in. As the Sputnik booster rests at about 50% reliability, I put the controllers in for one more round of training. I have placed the new scientists on the Vostok capsule and on the Sputnik payload, to continue improving its reliability. One scientist had no program to be placed on, so I sent her into advanced training.March, 1957 : Well Comrades, another year, and it might finally be time to launch our satellite. The mission controllers are out of their second round of advanced training and ready to work. The Sputnik module is at 85% reliability.  The Sputnik booster is at 77% reliability.  Chief Designer Korolev believes we have a good chance of success.  The mission controllers are well-trained and ready for work. So, I ask you, comrades. Are we ready to launch?! Also, which configuration should we launch?  The difference here is that the regular mission lasts one season, while the extended mission lasts 3. A successful launch of the extended mission will receive the same prestige as a successful launch of the regular mission, so don't worry about it failing a season in and us missing out on our glory. The extended mission has the potential to earn us about 400 extra prestige over the course of two seasons. If it fails during the extended seasons, we will take a small (~50) prestige hit, but keep all the prestige from the successful launch. The main cost of the extended mission is keeping the project open, which costs money. And finally, should we use Tiger Teams? If something goes wrong with our glorious Soviet engineering and our mission is in danger of failure, we can call in the aid of a specialized team to increase our chances of solving the problem. We can expect them to increase our chance of solving the problem from somewhere in the 50% range to somewhere in the 70% range, but they do not come cheap. The cost of a Tiger Team will be around $2000, which is how much it would cost to launch another mission. Of course, we would save the prestige from a failed launch, though the hit for a failed Sputnik launch is only about 200. If they succeed, it would probably be worth the cost, but that is not guaranteed. Well comrades, I eagerly await your decision.
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Oct 29, 2015 18:42
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Soviet engineering will prove superior - launch an extended mission, no Tiger teams! How could we fail with a flight director as illustrious as Jim loving Power?
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Oct 29, 2015 18:49
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Also, let me make sure I was being clear. Tiger teams are only hired when something goes wrong, and they then improve the odds of fixing it. If nothing goes wrong, we never hire a team.
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Oct 29, 2015 18:52
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Extreme launch everything, also gently caress fixing the mess
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Oct 29, 2015 19:03
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Extended launch! No Tiger Teams! We don't need to hire some rabble to "save" us
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Oct 29, 2015 20:10
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Samolety posted:Also, let me make sure I was being clear. Tiger teams are only hired when something goes wrong, and they then improve the odds of fixing it. If nothing goes wrong, we never hire a team. Eh, while that does make them sound more appealing, I really don't like that minor jump by around 20pp. ~85% chance, maybe, but for an early project like this, we might as well just take the risks and try again if we poo poo the bed.
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Oct 29, 2015 20:11
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Extended mission and no Tiger Team.
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Oct 29, 2015 20:12
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definitely no Tiger team, but I question the value of an extended mission. How much of our manpower would we have to divert in order to manage the craft? The goal is to put different shiny objects in space before the Americans, not keep them in space forever. For all we know, the Americans could have a shiny object capable of LEAVING THE SOLAR SYSTEM and the fewer shiny object scientists we have the greater the risk.
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Oct 30, 2015 00:08
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