The Space Game: Missions Crazy Difficulty Walkthrough? page 2

Thanks to JBirdman, explodingferret and Orakio for the help.

Yer welcome. :)

And explodingferret.. love ya, but image-cropping FTW!

Crazy Final Mission (2 or 3 BIG Mothers) not sure if this is any use to anyone but it worked for me (some say it didn’t for them) both on Hard and Crazy – On crazy I lost a few lasers and missiles but pulled through – the beauty of this solution is that there is lots of room for error as far as placement is concerned, call it brute force and ignorance if you like…meanwhile I’m struggling with Defense 3/3

I don’t know why everyone is having problems with the second supership mission. I found it WAY easier than the first – Beat it on my first try by spamming level 3 missile launchers (~16 of them) and four level 3 pulsers on each side to delay the ships a bit. The first one I ended up doing with just level 3 pulsers and repair stations.

Any tips for Mission 8: Last of the miners, in Crazy mode? :)

Originally posted by Lunfear:

Any tips for Mission 8: Last of the miners, in Crazy mode? :)

Nevermind, got it! I just went 100% miners and finished the mission before they could kill me off. XD

wow, if its too boring for even tasselfoot,then half of us r screwed….

Indeed; I find it to be an incredibly boring game. I’ve only bothered to play the 3 levels needed to get the easy badge. I don’t know when I will be able to work up the will power to play all 21 levels essentially twice.

The game has some exploitable flaws in that the ships always attack the nearest building. For the WTF unidentified ship levels, I just continuously built relays (20m) outside my defenses. The main ship just fires its laser at them, and provided the laser defense I have is shooting down all the missiles, rebuilding the relays in time is cake.

This also led to another sweet glitch where the ship was using it’s laser, it got locked on to a relay I had not yet placed. Sweet because it never destroys it (unless you place the relay), and all the missiles target the unplaced relay as well. This means the only things attacking were the smaller ships released by the main ship, making the level fairly cake. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out how to ALWAYS get that glitch to work.

P.S. Thanks to Fendall for the key tip on the Weapon 2/6 mission, being to keep the missile launchers far away from each other. That combined with 7/8 repair stations made it fairly easy.

Hmm, explodingferret purposely posting Orakio screenshots without HIS permission. You’re lucky he doesn’t know about this, or does he?

The trick that I found for the UIO missions that make them fairly easy is with the repair stations. The UIO will always target the repair ships before the actual repair station. If you build a line of about 5 repair stations closest to the UIO with 7-8 fully upgraded pulse lasers behind them, they will never be destroyed. The UIO will switch between repair droid on the stations, while the other stations replenish their droids. Build 4-5 upgraded missile stations behind them, and a large power grid with 4 or more upgraded batteries and the UIO will fall pretty easily. The first UIO mission took about 6 minutes with letting the pulse lasers kill all the normal enemy ships.

On the final UIO missions do a symetrical build of the same, but put most of the missile launchers on the side of the double UIO. The defense will generally fall apart if you have two UIOs pounding on the repair stations.

Originally posted by ParalysisTerror:

Hmm, explodingferret purposely posting Orakio screenshots without HIS permission. You’re lucky he doesn’t know about this, or does he?

The screenshots were linked to publicly and are posted publicly on a public site. Why shouldn’t I link to them again on the same site they were linked to before?

galaj’s method works very well on response 3, though it was a close call on response 4 (left repair drone barrier broke, and all pulse laser destroyed near the end). And relay spam didn’t work for me even on response 3 due to insufficient metals. Didn’t dare to try response 4 with that method.

galaj’s method worked flawlessly for me on response 3, and markhh’s method worked for me on response 4 well enough that I only saw 2 ships.

Nearly complete. 3 Warp missions and Pro Miner left to do on Crazy. Thanks Orakio, JBirdman, Fendall.

Special thanks to zamininc. Without you I couldn’t have finished the other 17 missions on Crazy. Profit indeed.

I had a hell of a time with this game, but I came up with some good techniques. Here are some tips for the ten levels I think are the easiest to explain and play. Why walk you through these ten levels, you may ask? Well, if you complete these ten on normal, hard, and crazy; you will have finished 30/41 of the levels needed to get all the badges!

Please anyone, tell me if you have better ways, particularly for crazy difficulty (which I haven't tried some of these with yet).

Images: See the following post.

Scroll down for images to go with these ten levels, and other levels I can be bothered to capture images of.

General tips:

Upgrades:
- Upgrade to level 2 (which is to say, upgrade once): solar stations.
- Upgrade to max level: missile stations, and mines ONLY when you're speed-mining the whole level.
- Don't upgrade: everything else.

Best weapons
- Use this: To beat these.
- Basic lasers: Fighters, Rings, Missile ships, small amounts of Swarmers (on hard or greater), missiles fired by Missile and Mother ships. Use a wall of lasers, at least 5 (good enough for red fighters). For tougher enemies use two-layer zig-zag walls.
- Missile stations: Missile ships (bit overkill usually), Swarmers, Exploders, Mother ships.
- Pulse lasers and THELs: They're rubbish at everything.

- If you don't upgrade things and they are not damaged, you can sell them at full value. This means that if you have the time, building a repair station actually effectively gives you minerals.

- Big blobs of basic lasers are a LOT better than you think. Best thing about them is you can sell them at no loss.

- The important thing to note in mining levels is that each enemy wave is timed after you have mined a certain amount of minerals.

- The easiest 10 missions in my opinion are the 8 main missions (through the middle of the "map") and the first two Response (repairing) missions.

Mission 1, 2, and 8: Goal is mine 1/3 (Mission 8 is: Last of the miners)

- Two level 2 solar stations (and one energy relay so all asteroids are in range). Three solar stations on mission 8.

- Place a mine. Turn all mines off. Put fast mode on. Place pretty much as many mines as you can fit on the screen. Every asteroid should have at least three mines in its range. If it's on mission 8, upgrade them all (you can do it on fast). I built 20 on hard, 21 on crazy, all upgraded.

On normal or hard you can now turn the mines on and win. On crazy missions 1 and 2, build some basic lasers in the path of the enemies. On crazy mission 8, you should put it on SLOW, then turn the mines on, then build a missile station between the solar stations. Upgrade it (all the way to max) the moment you can afford to do so, then put it full speed back on.

Mission 3: Goal is mine 1/3

- On mission 3, enemies arrive distributed from a whole side of the screen. Because of this, the start of mission 3 is the hardest bit of all the mining missions. Most of this is relevant for crazy difficulty; on other difficulties you can just follow the instructions for missions 6 and 7.

- Start with two level 2 solar stations (build the second straight to the right of the first) and six or so mines. Now build a repair station just next to the starting solar station and a missile station between the solar stations. Once you can afford to, turn off the mines and upgrade the missile station once. Now turn on the mines, put it on slow, and keep building mines until you hit 20% mined. The enemy wave will now come, so sell the mines. Build an energy relay off towards the right, and two more coming off it at angles: these will tempt enemies close together, making it easier for the missile station.

- Repair, do mining to 40%, then the next wave will come. Sell the mines. On crazy it's Rings at 40% and 60%, so you need to build a BIG wall of basic lasers -- I made 12-16 of them. At 70% there's swarmers; just upgrade your missile station and don't bother with lasers. After this: pause, mine everywhere so you'll finish before the next wave.

Mission 4, 5: Goal is survive 5 minutes

- Mission 5 on crazy is a bit different. You start out with a LOT of minerals, but you need to get a lot more mining done at the start so you can survive later. Also, start off with two extra solar stations and a maxed mining station.

- Start out with the three level 2 solar stations, an energy store, and a repair station. Get a wall of at least five basic lasers (this is enough on normal, probably not on crazy) blocking wherever the first wave comes from.

- Once they're done get about 12 mines, and keep buying basic lasers as more enemies come in. For mission 5, or 4/5 on crazy, build a missile station and upgrade it asap. Perhaps build another repair station too.

- The rest of this level is hectic and hard to guide, but basically just keep moving those walls of basic lasers to intercept the enemy waves. It's really incredibly important you don't let stuff through to your middle section. Remember to pause.

- You should have a long thin wall of basic lasers, and once the first (red) enemies are all dead, you can start to sell the oldest bits of your wall. You might need to move your repair station.

- Make sure to keep about 12 mines -- that gives you enough mineral income. Preferably do not let anything get destroyed, you can't afford that!

- If it looks like things are going badly, sell things that are vulnerable, then start building long chains of energy relays for enemies to follow.

Mission 6, 7: Goal is mine 1/3

- Enemy waves start in tight formation from the bottom-right and then progress slightly clockwise each time.

- Start out building five or so mines, and upgrade your starting solar station to level 2.

- When you hear the alert noise; pause, sell all your mines (or turn them off if appropriate, THEN pause), the build as many lasers as you can afford (eight for me), saving enough for a repair station behind it. Then put it back on fast. See the next post for images of suitable laser placement.

- Sell off your basic lasers and repair station and mine again. Once you have the spare minerals, build another two level 2 solar stations and an energy store.

- After this point it's mostly up to you, but I tend to get a maxed-out missile station when I can afford one, turning the missiles off until there are swarmers and motherships (and the exploders on hard difficulty and above). That's usually enough to beat everything on normal. On crazy you need to add another missile station. It's a long mission. :/

- Mission 7 is basically the same, but you start off with more minerals and stronger enemies. Just build more solar stations and bigger laser walls! Exploders first come at 30%, so you best have an upgraded missile station by then. Massive swarmer crowds at 80%, make sure you have a second missile station by then.

Response 1, 2: Goal is repair the outpost

- These are incredibly easy. All the enemies blindly go for the outpost without paying any attention to your stuff.

- Pause, build this, then put it on fast. Ignore the minor damage you take from time to time.

- Response 2, basically the same but also add a maxed missile station as shown here.

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You should have no problems with the medium badge and half the hard badge now, and have a better idea of how to do the rest of the game.

All these images are taken on crazy difficulty, and they all come from successful level attempts.
The basic idea in each should work on other difficulties, of course.

- Mission 8 crazy
Also useful for missions 1 and 2.
Image captured right at the beginning. Have placed the mines and upgraded all of them. About to put it on slow and upgrade that missile station until it's maxed, the moment I have the minerals. Then I can put it on fast and win. :)

- Mission 3 crazy
Preparing for first wave (just got rid of all the mines).
Preparing for second wave.
After final wave.
The final picture is unnecessary, just wanted to see if I could beat the final wave with this layout instead of speed-mining. I could.

- Mission 4 crazy
As you can see, the first lot of red enemies has nearly finished, and I can sell the stuff on the right, get a few more lasers on the left, and start building up a missile station in time for the exploder enemies

- Mission 5 crazy
Pic from right at the end of this level. I've given up on mining at this point but you can see plenty of exhausted asteroids. My main defence is just two maxed missile stations. If possible I turn them off when rings or Red fighters come, because the lasers are better against those. Also note the sacrificial energy relays at the bottom: they're to halt the progress of the Mother ships, give my missiles more time to lock on.

- Mission 6 crazy
After first wave.
At 37%. The missile station has been turned off so far, and my laser defence is just ridiculous overkill.
At 77%.

- Mission 7 crazy
After first wave. Notice I've started build repair stations and lasers off of energy stores. That seems to work better.

- Response 1 crazy
Note that I've clustered stuff to the right, even on the crazy difficulty where things start from the bottom and go clockwise. This is because the exploders come from that way. :)

- Response 2 crazy

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The other eleven missions:

- Defence 2 crazy
Just when the first mother ships arrive. Same layout as Defence 1, so take note.
The repair setup here is way overkill.
Believe it or not, that missile launcher hasn't been turned on yet. I only needed to turn it on for the Mother ships.
After this pic I built some laser clusters in the direction the mother ships were coming from, to do a reasonable amount of extra damage.

( More images coming soon. )

I went with this one for weapon 2/6 crazy

There used to be 4 basic lasers on the bottom of the rightmost generator (cause some of the fighters leak at the first wave). I upgraded the missiles to max before the first mother ships wave, then just added the big tree of basic lasers and those repair units as I went. Thanks for the guide so far, explodingferret, it’s really helpful.

That’s a nice strategy! I like any way that uses basic lasers :D

I notice you have the badge now… congrats!

I’ll get back to doing the rest of the maps at some point as soon as I can… but I’m playing some fun games at the moment, and term is starting at the university where I work…

Wow, you guys have made the extended details of how to beat Space Game: Missions. To you, Explodingferret, I like to thank you for your useful hints and tips. Although I beat the game with the help of Thok’s strategy, but, oh well. At least you guys did the best. :)

Originally posted by JBirdman:

First I’d like to give credit to Tenet. This is basically his strategy that I saw in the comments. Nice going Tenet, worked like a charm…

“Hint on finishing the last “boss” fight missions on any difficulty level: Use a upgraded power station placed on the frontline to absorb the death ray, with some a few L3 pulsars right behind to destroy the purple missiles. Have MANY (10-15?) healing stations within range of that Station, but make sure the station is still the “closest” to the monster. Use max-level missile bases to deal the actual damage, and level-2 power stations to ensure it all doesn’t rune out of juice. No other weapon types, just missiles and pulsars. You can adapt this strategy and scale it up for the 3 boss final fight."

This setup is very simple, and very effective. If you kill both Superships before about 5:30 game time, the third Supership doesn’t show up, and that = win. My mission took about 4:30 minutes. The whole structure was created before any heavy fighting occured, with all units fully upgraded by the time the first Supership started using its beam weapon on the solar station. It leaves you with plenty of minerals left over for missiles, I never had to recycle a single unit. The only unit I lost was the left-side solar station, and that was right before final victory.

Total number of units:

Solar Station: 10, including the starter
Energy Store: 2
Repair Station: 11
Laser: 8
Missile Launcher: 14

Notes:

1) Your number of relays will probably vary due to your placement of the other units. If you notice a unit not being powered then just add a relay where needed.

2) The key is keep the right and left Solar Stations closest to the Superships, respectively. They have a lot of health and that’s where you want the enemy fire directed. Occasionally you will see spawned ships attacking other things but they never come close to killing anything.

3) I’m sure you can change things up if you really want to, as far as the number of particular units. Placement is not really important as long as everything is able to get powered up. And the Energy Stores never really fluctuated much, they always seemed to be at/near maximum capacity.

4) Start the mission out on slow to give yourself time to build everything as fast as possible before the enemy starts attacking

That’s about it, have fun. :D

Thanks for the link info dragonshield!

..now if only I can figure out how to do Mission 2/6: Jumping to warp :P

This helped me out a hell of alot. Also, I decided to dub it the Titan Wall of Doom. Because it’s big and awesome and nigh impenetrable, except on Response 3. Due to the considerably fewer minerals given to you, you have to leave much of your units un-upgraded. However, the supership usually spends more time shooting at your generator, and even if it succeeds, it still gets fatally distracted by the dozens of repair ships moving place to place like nervous little ants.

Why necro?

galaj, there’s a small problem with your Response 3 strategy: Sometimes, the UIO decides to focus on one repair droid to the exclusion of all others – and then my batteries decide to try to repair that single droid at all costs. It slowly drains my energy, forcing me to mass build/upgrade solar stations to keep up, which in turn takes precious minerals from my missile stations. I only got through the level because for some reason, the UIO edged close enough for the pulsers to be in range, so when they weren’t busy killing its offspring, they targeted the UIO. Beforehand, only the missiles hit the UIO, and at that only occasionally. Still, it was a close shave – 205 energy, 45 minerals at the end.

This helped me out a hell of alot. Also, I decided to dub it the Titan Wall of Doom. Because it’s big and awesome and nigh impenetrable, except on Response 3. Due to the considerably fewer minerals given to you, you have to leave much of your units un-upgraded. However, the supership usually spends more time shooting at your generator, and even if it succeeds, it still gets fatally distracted by the dozens of repair ships moving place to place like nervous little ants.

Its true! that huge thing got so distracted by the repair bots it couldn’t tear down the rest of my wall on crazy! i actually got through without getting completely torn down for once!

Towers: 14 missile bases (12 upgraded once, 2 recycled), 10 solar stations (main 2 full, 8 upgraded twice), 10 repair stations, 7 pulsars (4 full, 3 upgraded twice and destroyed), and 2 energy stores.

ended with 453 energy and i broke even on materials (after i ran out i let the lasers do the work).