HINTS AND TIPS FOR "BUZZ ALDRIN'S RACE INTO SPACE" from Interplay by Ken Fishkin GAME TOPIC Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space (BARIS) is a great game of space race simulation. It's also devilishly hard - after 2 solid weeks of playing, I have not yet managed a lunar landing before 1969 on the easiest level (level 1), and I have never won on level 2. This article is designed to share the insights and tips I've developed so far - I'm certainly no expert, but the lessons I've learned may be of use to you. I welcome feedback - I can be reached as fishkin@parc.xerox.com, or K.FISHKIN on GEnie. For the rest of this article, I'll assume you're playing the American side. The tips are applicable to both sides. -) SLOW AND STEADY LOSES THE RACE The single greatest thing I've learned is that you _cannot_ afford to hit every milestone, and buy every piece of hardware. This approach is best for getting you short-term prestige in the first few years, but it will take you a long time to advance to lunar landing capability - you have to buy many programs, and launch many missions. Furthermore, the computer player won't give you any slack time. Which leads me to... -) MINIMIZE MISSIONS It's easy to forget, but you should aim to minimize the number of missions. First of all, they cost money (especially the later missions). Second of all, they tie up launch pads. Third of all, and most of all, you only need one catastrophic failure to severely derail your program. Every manned mission, especially a Mercury mission, is a game of Russian roulette - sooner or later, you _will_ have catastrophic failures. The fewer missions you fly, the greater your odds of avoiding a catastrophe. Finally, you will rarely be able to fly more than 1 manned mission a season anyway, due to the number of crews available. -) WHO NEEDS UNMANNED MISSIONS? With the exception of unmanned docking missions, fly few unmanned test flights - cutting down on these really helped me speed up my program. An unmanned flight is just not worth it - you pay full price for the mission and suck up a launch pad, and, most importantly, delay your program, all for the chance of a _one_ percent increase in hardware reliability. Let's face it, those manned missions are going to be risky, and you just can't get around that: are you really going to schedule _14_ unmanned missions before you launch your first manned Mercury? If you do go the slow-and-steady route, you won't land until 1974 or so, even assuming the Soviets haven't landed by then. -) KEEP MONEY FOR THE FALL Every once in a while, you will get a random event informing you that hardware purchases are 50% off for one season only. Every time this has happened to me, this has been in the fall. This is a _wonderful_ random event - it's a shame to miss out on enormous fiscal savings. -) WATCH FOR FAILURE MODE PREVENTION Every once in a while, you will get a random event informing you that scientists have found a failure in the such-and-such system (Gemini, say), and will prevent it in the future. This means that you get one free missed step in your next mission with that system. This is _very_ valuable. If you get this, scrub any upcoming unmanned mission involving that system - save it for when you really need it, on the next manned flight. -) PLANETARY FLYBYS ARE A TRAP Wow, 7 prestige points for Venus! 5 for Mercury! You already have the Ranger! Easy pickings, right? WRONG. The longer I play the game, the more non-lunar planetary flybys seem a loser. First of all, they still cost money - $15 per mission. In a game where you're always out of money, this adds up. Second of all, the way the missions run, if _any_ mission step fails, the mission fails. The interplanetary fly-bys have a success percentage of only around 60%. This gives you an "expected value" for the Venus mission, the best mission, of 60%*7 - 40%*3 = 3, with an expected monetary cost of $21. Just not worth it. The only planetary flyby that's worth it is the Lunar flyby, because each one gives you 5% more on photo reconaissance, which is needed for Lunar probes and lunar landings. -) DOCK EARLY, DOCK OFTEN Other than direct ascent, any path to the moon requires a docking module. It requires a lot of missions to make docking modules reliable - between 5 and 10, usually around 8. Furthermore, the LM tests, another 3 missions or so, require reliable docking. If you are not going the direct ascent route, then 1) Buy the docking module as soon as you have rockets that can support the payload, and lift early, lift often. 2) As soon as this happens, make sure you have at least 2 launch pads. 3) Think twice about skipping the Gemini program - with it, you can do unmanned docking missions for only $6. Without it, you have to wait for the Apollo, which costs $11 per mission, and requires better rockets. 4) Rather than spreading your unmanned docking missions around through the lifetime of the Gemini, think about delaying your Group II astronauts, and spending an entire year doing nothing but flying unmanned docking missions. You'll have to fly 'em anyway, and this way the Gemini will be up to a nice reliability by the time the astronauts are ready, and you can do a manned docking mission almost immediately. -) SAVE EARLY, SAVE OFTEN I never thought I'd recommend this for any computer game, but I do recommend that you use saved-game cheats for BARIS. The game's one great flaw is that the fatality rates for missions are, it seems to me, far too high. I would guess that around 20% of my US manned missions end in a fatality while historically, the US had a fatality rate of 3%. The problem is that there are many steps, and a failure in any one of them seems about 50% likely to cause a fatality. Here are some common missions and their failure rates in the game. This assumes the Basic model, with all hardware reliability half-way between the "Max R&D" and "Max Safety" ratings - for example, 83% ((76 + 90) / 2) for the Mercury. Further assume that the astronaut bonus cancels out the milestone penalty. MISSION SUCCESS RATE -------------------------------------------- Orbital Satellite 84% Explorer, Atlas Manned sub-orbital 63% Mercury, Atlas Manned orbital 43% Mercury, Atlas EVA 45% Gemini, Titan "D" Duration 32% Gemini, Titan Docking 32% [assume docking @ 70%] Gemini, Titan Lunar flyby 62% Ranger, Titan Lunar probe landing 29% [photo recon @ 70%] Surveyor, Titan Earth LEM test, joint 29% [assume docking @ 80%] Apollo, Titan/Booster, Eagle Lunar pass 25% Gemini, Titan, A-Kicker Lunar LEM orbit 17% [assume docking @ 90%] Apollo, Saturn, Eagle For all the lunar landings, assume docking and photo recon @ 90%: EOR Lunar landing, joint 6% Gemini, Titan/Booster, Cricket, B-kicker Historical Lunar landing 11% Apollo, Saturn/Booster, Eagle Direct Ascent landing 23% Jupiter, Nova Pretty depressing, huh? OK, here's the odds with every mission step at its max possible success rate: EOR Lunar landing, joint 25% Gemini, Titan/Booster, Cricket, B-kicker Historical Lunar landing 29% Apollo, Saturn/Booster, Eagle Direct Ascent landing 37% Jupiter, Nova The odds seem about right for the earlier missions, but much too low for the later ones. For example, even if every possible system is at its maximum possible safety rating, a Historical Lunar mission will experience failure 71% of the time. The problem isn't so much the odds for _success_, though, as the consequences of _failure_, which tend to be much too harsh. The "Manned Orbital" may have only a 43% chance of success - that's not the problem. The problem is that too much of the remaining 57% results in fatalities. Oh well. MISSION SCHEDULING Suppose you have a manned sub-orbital planned to lift off this season. What do you plan for next season? The first thing you might think of is to schedule nothing, and wait until you see the results of the sub-orbital. Don't do this! You will delay your program unacceptably. Instead, consider -) DOUBLING DOWN Go ahead and schedule an orbital for next season. If the sub-orbital works, you're in great shape. If not, scrub the mission - you lose nothing but the launch pad. -) HEDGING YOUR BET Schedule a second sub-orbital for next season. If the first sub-orbital works, scrub the second - nothing lost but the launch pad. If the first sub-orbital didn't work, you'll be glad you have your second shot ready to go. If you have two launch pads and >= 4 crews available, combine these. Make your first launch of next season a sub-orbital, and your second launch of next season an orbital. If the first sub-orbital works, scrub the second, and go ahead with the orbital. If the first sub-orbital doesn't work, launch the second. If _it_ works, go ahead with the orbital - if not, scrub it. -) PULL MERCURY CREWS OUT OF BASIC TRAINING If you recruit your Mercury astronauts in Spring of 1958 they will all graduate Basic Training in Spring of 1960. They can be assigned a mission starting in Fall of 1960. From Spring of 1960 to Fall of 1960, then, you go from having zero available astronauts to seven. This is a waste! Much better is to "pipeline" their availability. In Fall of 1959 (when they are in "Basic Training III"), pull out 2 men. This allows you to schedule 1 mission in the Spring of 1960, while still having 2 missions available in the Fall, and only minimally affecting overall crew s...
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