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Hello SALP! Welcome to my second attempt at running an Infested Planet Planetary Campaign LP: My first attempt fell apart for a couple of reasons. For one, I tried making the narrative too similar to my old Minesweeper LP and I just wasn't feeling it creatively. Two, my old PC struggled to run the game and making SSLPs of each update was draining. Three, well, life was busy and there were other things I wanted to do. I've always wanted to come back and do this is a collaborative thread LP, though, so here I am and I've re-tooled how I want to run it so that this alien slaughterhouse freight train keeps on rolling!
The base version of Infested Planet is a solid game that comes with a campaign mode and a handful of random map challenges. The storyline is a barebones pulp sci-fi narrative complete with forgettable characters and dull tropes, loosely based off of Starship Troopers. The gameplay is what's the real seller here. The game starts slow to ease you into it, but quickly ramps up in difficulty. One the game starts throwing everything at you, it gets downright mean. Mutators respond specifically to your playstyle and preferred loadouts, forcing to be endlessly adaptable. But admittedly, once it's done it's done. The random maps don't offer too much extra variety. But then Rocket Bear started releasing DLC... Trickster's Arsenal was the first one out. This one is fine. It certainly didn't set the world on fire, but the changes were nice. It added a new Ironman mode and some leaderboards, that sort of thing. Importantly, it granted a set of cool-down abilities for use in combat making the marines slightly more durable. To balance this, it also gave the bugs a greater variety of mutators to mess with you. A solid bit of DLC as it made the game feel a bit more balanced. Fewer bullshit deaths, I found. It certainly wasn't enough to keep me coming back day after day, though. Until... Planetary Campaign was released. This really did change how I viewed the game. Infested Planet went from a game I binged through on a weekend to something I've come back on a regular basis for the last few years. Turns out all the dev needed to do was add a Dawn of War: Dark Crusade-esque map to the game and I'd be hooked. Who knew? The map was persistent, with a stronghold you had to defend while fighting back enemy forces to claim their strongholds. You had limited mobile armies, had to manage their morale and attack points, and defend against incursions onto your own territory. Each attack or defense took place on the standard Infested Planet game maps. I love it. And I want to play it again! This time I want to take SALP along for the ride.
First thing's first, we have to decide how difficult we want the campaign to be and how large we want the map. I've played the hell out of this game, so if everyone wants to go largest map and largest difficulty, then let's do it! We might win and we might just be delaying the inevitable! Obviously, individual fights will be done by me. I may win and I may not. You give me bad odds, you increase the chances of me getting my rear end kicked. The decision over what we do on the tactical map I will leave entirely to the thread. So before we decide on size and difficulty, let me go over exactly what you'll be looking at. First of all, the tactical world maps look like some variation of the following at start:  The castle is our stronghold. We start with one:  The hearts are the enemy strongholds. They start with four:  If we capture one of their strongholds, it becomes our stronghold. Critical for survival and advancement and also how we win the game. Once all strongholds are claimed by one side, the game ends. The numbers signify number of defensive bases. During defense, our stronghold has five points to defend. The enemy one listed above would have eight hives defending. The listed noun, "Cluster Bombs", is the technology upgrade we'd win for capturing said stronghold. This is randomized each map. Our armies are represented by the bird icons with stars:  The stars are our morale. If we lose all morale, our army is defeated. Instead of retreating from a lost fight, it disbands. We can lose or gain morale during battle or in the overworld map through a special ability. Our morale can also be spent to spend time building defensive fortifications to slow enemy advances. Neat! Importantly, our three armies are all we get. We don't get more and we need them to move around the map. Keep them alive! The bugs have a variety of army icons to be aware of, the most common being this one:  The act as primary defenses. They cannot attack armies, but they will attempt to occupy empty territories--and if we've fortified them, they will chip away at their defenses. The number represents how many hives we would face during an attack.  These fellows are mobile defensive mutators. They don't attack either. Instead, they rove around the front lines providing buffs to whichever hive group they are currently with. Depending on the mutator they can go from being mildly irritating to extremely dangerous to deal with without liberal use of tactical powers.  Rarest, but most dangerous, are the invaders. They are spawned from enemy strongholds and will actively pursue and attack your armies or bases. Again, the number represents hive strength, so bigger is more dangerous. It is sometimes better to take them on defensively because if you attack, you have to face their hives and the hives of the standard bug defenses. This screenshot was pretty rare for me... I don't often see two spawn at once, so that's a horrifying new mechanic the game showed me while prepping this LP! I mentioned tactical powers just a moment ago. That's a reference to this bar:  These are our strategic abilities! They help give us an advantage against the bugs (supplies permitting).
 This bar gives us some information about our abilities and keeps us apprised of enemy abilities. Mutations gives us information on enemy abilities. We need to know these to counter them, so it's always useful to check what are active. The big "3" is a countdown timer before the bugs change their mutations. They are always trying to stay one step ahead of you, so their mutations will be directly reactive to playstyle. Tactics Power are what we use to power our battlefield abilities--more on that later. Research are the resources you have towards bettering our gear. As you defeat enemies and gather resources, you can spend it towards better tech. But this is about all the information I want to give out just now. The rest, which is more battle-specific, can wait until we actually get into a battle. Sally fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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May 24, 2022 08:48
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THREAD! For your very first choice, you must vote on how big you want this LP's game board to be and how difficult you want the enemy AI. Map size has to do with how many "spaces" are on the board more than anything. For reference, Tiny maps tend to have under 20 squares. I just booted up a new map and it gave me 17. Huge maps start to push 40. Again, just booted one up and it gave me a map with 37 square. The other options, Small, Normal, and Large will vary in between. I will say that Tiny maps, even on harder difficulties, go by real fast. Huge maps can be a bit overwhelming, too. I normally play on Normal or Large maps, but it will be thread's choice here. Difficulty-wise, I believe the Expert difficulty is the same as the base campaign's, if you're familiar with that. Solid challenge, not too overwhelming. This is the lowest I am willing to play at for the LP. It will give us more leeway if bad thread decision's hamper the thread's chances at winning, haha. Veteran is what I usually play at for fun and it gives me a pretty good run for my money. Elite would be pushing me to bring my "A" game to every match. As with map-size, ultimately, this is up to the thread.  Please vote on "Map Size" and "Difficulty"! quote:Table of Contents: Sally fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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May 24, 2022 08:48
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Did you expect anything less than Large and Elite?
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May 24, 2022 09:10
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Given that you're a huge veteran at this game, I'd say a Huge, Veteran map would be ideal.
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May 24, 2022 09:25
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Large, Veteran Don't wanna make every map a grind with huge maps.
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May 24, 2022 17:01
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Large and Veteran so that you have room to show off.
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May 24, 2022 17:45
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White Coke posted:Large and Veteran so that you have room to show off. 
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May 24, 2022 18:19
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White Coke posted:Large and Veteran so that you have room to show off. And how could you forget such memorable characters from the story like General Bug Bait?
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May 24, 2022 20:14
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Normal, Veteran Still procrastinating on getting this.
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May 24, 2022 23:13
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Oh good. Someone to show me how to do it before I FailHard when my LP gets there.
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May 25, 2022 00:37
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Current tally with seven (7) votes overall... Map Size
Difficulty
Gonna let the voting sit open for a bit longer since this will dictate the shape of the LP. Though it looks like it's leaning one way in particular... Strategic Sage posted:Oh good. Someone to show me how to do it before I FailHard when my LP gets there. Ha, we'll see! I've already failed hard once trying to get an LP of this going. I'm hopeful about this go around.
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May 25, 2022 02:53
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Large, Veteran
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May 25, 2022 03:22
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large, veteran
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May 25, 2022 04:46
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I say, let's go Normal, with Elite difficulty. Have no idea what this game's like, I'm looking forward to the gameplay.
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May 25, 2022 12:25
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The Large, Veteran map takes it: (larger version) WELCOME TO BUG WORLD, FOLKS! First thing's first, let's break down what exactly we're looking at. Our territory is nice and centrally located, if unfortified (aside from that single "1" in our northern province). All of our troops are together and surrounding our home stronghold from attack. We have four enemy strongholds to make our way to, each with a permanent ability award should we conquer them. "Grenades" and "Sniper" are an ability and soldier class respectively that I can use in battles; "+1 Marine" starts me with a free extra soldier in combat; and "+2 BP Crates" does the same but for Building Points--all are useful, but I will note that I am always a fan of the flexibility given in combat by having extra points or an extra marine. Enemy-wise, we are surrounded by weak forces--there's only one with "3" hive strength. There's an "Infestation" defensive mutation directly to our west and a "Mimic Nest" off north, though that one is not an immediate threat. I'll let the thread discover what exactly these mutations do through first-hand experience. Got to have some surprises! Critically, we should take note that there are some times abilities available to us in our two northern provinces: "Engineering" and "Turrets". These appear early on in Planetary Campaign maps. If those regions are captured, we gain those abilities without having to unlock their research tier or spending research points. Which leads me to our first item of business:  Oh, hell yes!  This here is our research screen. We start with three techs unlocked and access to Tier 1 techs for purchase--we can only afford one new tech right now. The other tiers are unlocked as we capture enemy strongholds. Note: These abilities do not represent all the techs present in the game. We get a random, limited assortment per Planetary Campaign. We start with Shotgunners, Minefields, and Airdrop.  Shotgunner is... fine. It improves over the standard rifleman in some ways, but not all. They're cheap, which is useful, so if I need a boost of attack it's relatively easy to add one to the team. Spawning with them means we don't spawn with the Guardsmen tech in the game... which is unfortunate. Slightly more expensive, but the Guardsmen are superior in everyway imo. A minor point to keep in mind: Our early game soldiers are less powerful than they could be, so we'll want better soldiers as soon as we can get them.  Minefields are low-key one of the most powerful abilities in the game. They occupy a small area, but when put in the path of a bug swarm they are devastating and constantly replenish themselves. Paired with other techs, the go from being defensive abilities to offensive ones... we don't have those techs now, though, ha! For now, they are a cheap way of defending bases while using soldiers elsewhere.  Airdrop is a solid temporary ability. Costs 8 ammo (we'll explain that once we see combat), so it's a bit more expensive than other abilities, but it can make or break some situations to have. 30 seconds of marine support can be what saves a base under siege or can be that final push needed to capture a particularly dug in enemy capture point. The ammo cost does prevent us from spamming it, though. For now we won't have much else to spend our ammo on, but we'll see less need for this as we get new techs. The following Tier 1 techs are available for purchase. For the sake of the LP, I am going to refrain from offering my colour commentary on unpurchased abilities. Once we have them, I'll either celebrate or whinge. We can only pick one:       Once we've picked a tech, we get the first move of the game. We have two action points:  Remember: A defensive move costs 1 action. Using Fortify? 1 action. Moving an army to a friendly sector? 1 action. Attacking always uses all your moves. For this reason, it's best to use a defensive move BEFORE calling an attack. Just a few things I want to point out on the battlefield:
EDIT: As an aside, these are the two techs we could potentially earn through attacking northward:   Regarding our available movements:  Our southern army's moves.  Our northern army's moves.  Our western army's moves. THREAD, THERE ARE TWO CHOICES THAT NEED TO BE MADE! 1. What tech should we purchase? 2. What actions should we take this turn? Sally fucked around with this message at 05:57 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 26, 2022 16:04
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Do each of the armies have 2 moves, or does the player just have 2 moves to divide over all of their armies? I'm going to assume the latter. I'll change it up in case I've gotten it wrong. 1. Scout 2. Northern Army Fortifies. Western Army Attacks
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May 26, 2022 16:12
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It's the latter. We can move two armies once or one army twice. As attacking ends your turn, do moves before attacks.
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May 26, 2022 16:19
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Can we know what the Engineering and Turrets(2) techs do?
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May 26, 2022 16:44
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Robotics West army fortifies, North army gets Engineering
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May 26, 2022 19:56
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I've always found Grenades to be crucial in early defenses. As tempting as the other boons are, I'd almost say to make a beeline for that hive. Technically, I'm voting North army fortifies, west army advances towards Grenades But if the vote swings too far the other way, I'd at least pick turrets over engineering.
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May 26, 2022 20:13
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mr stibbons posted:Can we know what the Engineering and Turrets(2) techs do? I'm not going to step on Sally's rules here, and he said he wasn't going to comment on the ones he doesn't have yet. But rumor has it that there's another LP of this game going on in this subforum where the answers to those questions reside, and where discussion/questions of the game mechanics could happen if it's something our glorious OP here doesn't want to get into just yet.
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May 26, 2022 20:40
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Medical pod, West army fortifies, North army gets Engineering
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May 26, 2022 21:03
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mr_stibbons posted:Can we know what the Engineering and Turrets(2) techs do? oh crud, they're not in Tier 1... haha, whoops! yes, i am at work so when i get home i'll post screen caps of what each ability does. Or... Strategic Sage posted:I'm not going to step on Sally's rules here, and he said he wasn't going to comment on the ones he doesn't have yet. Step away! I am not bothered by spoilers or mechanical discussion. I am merely going to keep my own opinions on whether or not I think particular abilities are good (read: whether or not I am actually any good at utilizing them, ha). But yeah I forgot to add your LP to the OP, and it was definitely what prompted me to want to try a Planetary Campaign again. Strategic Sage's LP of the campaign is here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3987644&pagenumber=1&perpage=40 Sage is very good at it! Differences in playstyle will likely appear soon... I feel I am more cavalier in how I play. Excellent discussion and analysis of the game is here. I have my own campaign playthrough I was going to add as a supplemental to this, but wanted to hold off on Strategic Sage getting to the end of theirs. For those curious on how gameplay works but don't want to wait for my next update, Sage's LP is a pro-click.
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May 26, 2022 21:49
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Alright. Stepping then. Engineering is stupid-op. It allows you to build structures anywhere on the map, without regard to whether you actually have a marine in that location. It's also cheap to build, and works particularly well for some very cheesy tactics with the previously-mentioned minefield. IMHO having it available nearby is a big stroke of luck. Turrets are a fairly good static structure that fires at enemies in it's range (imagine that). They are also appropriately priced, if not the slightest bit on the expensive side. I use them quite a bit on the attack, but that's likely to be less useful in planetary campaign for reasons to be seen (enemy adapting to what you are doing). There are counters they have that make turrets a lot less useful. ** Note: I am not experienced in Planetary Campaign just yet. Gonna enjoy learning more about it through Sally's misadventures as I mentioned. Also Sally, I would say go ahead and add your link, since all I have left of mine at this point is the high-end random missions, we're past the point of unlocking all the goodies, etc.
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May 26, 2022 22:04
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habituallyred posted:Robotics This seems like the right move.
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May 27, 2022 03:47
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Sally posted:Difficulty-wise, I believe the Expert difficulty is the same as the base campaign's, if you're familiar with that. FYI per the developer, difficulty works differently in the Planetary Campaign than in the Story. I don't think there's a direct comparison here. Everything else you said is right on so far as I know.
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May 27, 2022 04:16
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mr_stibbons posted:Can we know what the Engineering and Turrets(2) techs do? Current vote tallies: Research Votes: x1 Scout x2 Robotics x1 Medical Pod Action Votes: x2 North fortifies, x2 West attacks x3 West fortifies x3 North attacks (x3 Engineering, x1 Turrets) I'll leave it till tomorrow for people to change their minds if they need to, then go ahead with the first move (and I'll stick the first campaign supplemental vid on there). Sally fucked around with this message at 07:07 on May 27, 2022 |
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May 27, 2022 05:56
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Ah. Since you've revealed it, I can mention it. Engineering is... not that good. Auto building structures is not really a huge deal. Maybe if you were going turret or mortar heavy, it could, but sparing a marine to spend 5 seconds building it is a non-issue.
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May 27, 2022 07:26
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Robotics Fortify West, Attack towards WINgineering
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May 27, 2022 15:58
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Drakenel posted:Ah. Since you've revealed it, I can mention it. Engineering is... not that good. Auto building structures is not really a huge deal. Maybe if you were going turret or mortar heavy, it could, but sparing a marine to spend 5 seconds building it is a non-issue. 
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May 27, 2022 16:58
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Engineering is so good with minefields, which coincidentally we started with. I still think we need Medical Pod (for offense sustain) more than the defensive Robotics, but at least robotics comes with some kind of healing. What is not negotiable is being able to teleport land mines anywhere instantly. Don’t gently caress up this battle!
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May 27, 2022 17:43
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Drakenel posted:Maybe if you were going turret or mortar heavy, it could, but sparing a marine to spend 5 seconds building it is a non-issue. What about building them in places that your marines can't get to? Large, spread-out maps when you don't have teleport and/or don't want to keep marines stationed all over the map? I think there are a variety of situations in which it is very much an issue.
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May 27, 2022 20:11
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Alright alright, you don't all have to rush to defend it. I play very differently, clearly. I'm sure the OP's skill can make good use out of whatever we give him either way.
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May 27, 2022 20:32
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Two videos for this update! For the Planetary Campaign updates, I will be posting the videos without commentary. We're going to have a lot of them and having to add commentary will just slow down the LP... besides, after the first view videos, gameplay will likely become a bit same-y for the thread. Fun for me, because I get to play, but less fun for the thread. The real action for all of you will be the overarching strategy of the campaign map. I WILL post screenshot break downs of each video so that you can make informed votes without watching the gameplay, but it's there if anyone wants. This update, being the first gameplay we've seen, is a bit on the longer side. As we get going, reports can be more succinct. I've also added the first Campaign Supplemental video! This one DOES have commentary as I narrate a bit of what is going on. If you're after a thorough breakdown of the game, gameplay, and its mechanics, I am going to highly recommend you check out Strategic Sage's LP of the campaign. I'm just kind of having fun ripping through the campaign on the highest difficulty with my videos. I will, of course, post my thoughts and strategies as they come up, but Sage's LP is far more comprehensive. My gimmick for the campaign is that I'm going to try and go through upgrading as slowly as possible, only one upgrade per video. The campaign is relatively easy and it really holds your hands early on. The last few missions and random generated map missions are far more challenging... but, I'll give my thoughts on those when we get there. This first campaign video covers the first five "training missions" of the game. I don't buy any upgrades for this video. Continue below for Turn 1 of the Planetary Campaign: quote:Research: The western army fortifies. All surrounding territory owned by us is now fortified by +5 fortifications, as indicated by the wee little castle icons:  And it only cost us one morale.  Only two hives, so this will be a small map. Layout here is nice and easy on us. The hive closest to us has not advanced defenses, so we can rush in and knock it down before the second can mobilize. Before we get started, I now have an opportunity to go over the battlefield tactic abilities we have access to--as long as we have enough points:  If I start getting my rear end kicked, we have this to fall back on. I will make liberal use of it if I think our army is going to start taking too much morale damage or a video starts to drag on too long.  Doesn't take a lot of points and it DOES have its uses. Almost essential if we have a bad spawn and there's an enemy missile launcher next to our starting base. That said, it's easy to over-rely on it and burn through Tactics Points that could better be saved for other abilities.  Ideally I am not getting into situations where an army's morale is so low that I need to use this. That said, it's here if we need it. If we aren't will to retreat, then Iron Will is our ace in the hole to survive long enough to get a win or save a demoralized army from an early demise.  A fantastic ability, but also our most expensive. When we start going up against hives in the double-digits or strongholds, the Special Ops squad is highly effective. I will always try to keep enough Tactics Points on hand if the situation arises that we need to use this. I left on pop-up tips and as this is a new game, Infested Planet is going to throw up a few newbie warnings. Once the match starts, it helpfully warns us to watch our morale:  That's not going to be a problem here. The base next to us is a nice soft target. I despawn one of my Riflemen to get back a couple of points and spend everything on making everyone a Shotgunner:   I go ahead and call in the Airdrop for support, but I had forgotten you can't control them so this was a bit waste. One the hive is down, they walk forward into the wall and just kinda stop until they despawn. Ah well. It speeds up the destruction of the hive. Don't want to be sloppy and lose a solider on our first match; we want to keep morale maxxed. As soldiers take ranged damage, they begin to get poisoned. This is shown on the HUD as the sickly green creeping onto their health bars:  Those represent all of the health that will slowly waste away. As such, I peel off the one Shotgunner with a death sentence and send them back to our base to heal. Our un-upgraded bases have a very short range to health soldiers, so the Shotgunner has to be right on top of the point. It only takes a moment to finish off the hive, capture it, and heal all of the Shotgunners. I buy back the fifth marine and make them a Shotgunner too. The Engineering upgrade is on the way to the northern hive. That means it's possible to jump into a map with an upgrade, grab the upgrade, and retreat without having to defeat the alien hives. Very useful if an upgrade is trapped behind overwhelming enemy forces! Anyways, by this point my ammunition has recovered, so I call in the Airdrop to distract its defenses while the Shotgunners attack from below:  I grab the Engineering upgrade, but you don't have to. As long as you win the map, you get the upgrade. Grabbing it lets you use it during the fight, but we don't need it here:   Oh, the enemies DID spawn a mutation in response to the destruction of the first hive, but two hives is too small a force to make any real use of it:  Besides:    (Thanks, tips...) Huzzah! And thus we get one more Tech and Tactics point. Which reminds me that I forgot to pick up Robotics! But first, the enemy gets their turn. Nothing exciting, but they do start chipping away at our brand new fortifications right away:   Anywho, I grab Robotics:  The new territory revealed to us also has a new locked ability we can score early:  Anywho, that was a real easy opening move. We really scored to grab Engineering early on and to start with Minefields. This will give us an early game advantage... at least until the bugs can mass larger armies and start stacking mutations. We should really take advantage of this calm before the storm. We don't have enough Tech points to buy any more research, so for now please vote on our actions for Turn 2: The map as it stands:  Southern Army's moves:  Western Army's moves:  Northern Army's moves: 
Sally fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Apr 13, 2024 |
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May 28, 2022 21:57
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Yay, a fine start! It's fun how the early attacks let you think everything is going to be easy ... Might it be worth putting up a screenshot of what the aliens do on their turn? I didn't know how the northern fortification went from 5 to 3 until I watched the video. Also, did they really sit there with Hive Shells and think 'hmm, out of the one hives we have left, which ones should we protect? Yep, definitely going to protect none of them!'
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May 28, 2022 22:23
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haha, whoops, that's actually something i intended to do and then... well, forgot. hold on!
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May 28, 2022 22:30
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Robotics is really nice. It and Grenades are usually my two basic upgrades when assaulting a tough location.
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May 28, 2022 22:31
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(I've added the enemy turn screenshots and a final "map as it stands" image at the end)
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May 28, 2022 22:36
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Overdose is really bad without any source of healing, and we have only one more turn to get turrets, so let’s move the southern army north to join the western, (we have to move it sooner or later, it’s useless down there). Meanwhile the North army claims turrets.
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May 29, 2022 01:34
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Mzbundifund posted:Overdose is really bad without any source of healing, and we have only one more turn to get turrets, so let’s move the southern army north to join the western, (we have to move it sooner or later, it’s useless down there). Meanwhile the North army claims turrets. North Army fortifies I think the southern army should be held for airlift purposes. And by held for airlift purposes I mean: Airlift south army next to +1marine stronghold
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May 29, 2022 05:27
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