Part 102: Moon
This is it comrades! Today is the day we blot out the sun!
General Fiodorow has received the Sunlight self-destruct codes from an ED mole inside the LC's organization. All we need to do is get him near the Sunlight Control Center and he'll be able to take care of the rest. Easy right? :heh:
It looks like they're not even trying to defend it.
Here's our strike force. General Fiodorow and five escorts. Thankfully for us the 5 escorts are UFOs similar to the one Supreme Dynasty General Axeil stole from the UCS at Area 51 earlier in the war. I'm sure we've all seen the battle reports and know how much of a wallop they can pack. Imagine the destructive power of five of them!
Oh shit. Not even seconds into the mission and the LC are having their Weather Control Centers bombard us with meteors. We need to get out of here quickly.
Oh you've gotta be shitting me. They've mined the only escape route.
I'm going as carefully as I can but there are giant rocks falling from the sky right behind the General and his escort. Pick up the pace!
Whew. Just in time.
Maybe it's not all bad. The LC have left a supply cache here for us to raid. I'm able to put shields on three out of the five escorts. I'd have shielded Fiodorow too but his craft already comes with shields thankfully.
And they've also left a complete map of the surface. Wow. This is going to be so easy.
Maybe not. LC first responders are here and they mean business. Fortunately one little Moon can't do much to our task force.
4 on the other hand...
General Fiodorow is lucky to escape with his life. As you can see his craft was badly damaged and disabled in the fighting. What you can't see is just how badly the damage was. One more blast and this entire mission would've been for naught.
Thankfully he's able to take advantage of the supplies.
Our UFO escorts will need to take a more active escort role now to prevent any further mishaps.
5 NESTs are nothing against the might of the UFO!
Another minefield? Great. At least there aren't meteors falling on us this time.
Careful everyone. We can't afford to lose any of the escorts this early.
Shit. More meteors. You two, go ahead and see if the LC have planted any traps.
A NEST and more supplies. We at least can get the other 2 UFOs shielded.
This is going to be quite the dash. We can't let the general get hit by any of these meteors.
We made it! And we're right next to the Sunlight Control Center, but with no way in the crater we'll have to keep going.
Oh we'll need to dodge more mines.
Careful General. There is no straight path through here.
(Restart count: 5
Fuck this mission)
We've made it to another quiet zone. Hopefully there aren't any more mine fields to navigate.
OH COME ON
And now they're sticking units right on the other side so we can't do our "slowly send everyone across" strategy as their AI will take over and they'll dumbly plow right into the mines.
Yes, that's it come here.
I really hope one UFO can hold off all these Moons...
He can, barely. Meanwhile Fiodorow sat back there and got pelted with meteors like a moron. Time to carefully drive through a minefield again.
(Restart count: 15)
Meteors and Fat Girls. What are they gonna add next? Artillery?
I should shut my god damned mouth.Fat Girls, Moons, New Hopes, Artillery, Meteors and Mines. In one spot.
(Restart count: 18)
I'm just gonna let the meteors handle these units. That'll teach the LC from wantonly spraying meteors everywhere.
I move Fiodorow back as far as I can. His ship is damaged and there's calamity ahead. So, which one of you lucky escorts want to go take care of the artillery?
Congrats escort 1, you win the "run around in circles drawing artillery fire" prize. You must've really fucked up somewhere.
For every artillery base there has to be a supply depot or they'll be unable to reload. My strategy here is to destroy the supply depot and pray like hell that the LC don't rebuild it.
Okay. Now to run around again to deplete the reloaded guns.
(This mission is just so much fun guys!
Don't you all wish you could've played it?)(Restart count: 25? 26? It all started blurring together around now)
Fuck. Well it's been an honor serving with you Escort 1 but I can't possibly navigate you out of that small spot with 3 artillery shells coming for you.
Hey! Stop that! I am not having you kill Fiodorow after dealing with all that artillery bullshit.
The Guardians are being neutralized by the escorts. But we have a tunnel there that Fiodorow can go in so all's well right?
No. No it is not. Fuck this part fuck it fuck it fuck it. The orange tunnel is the only one that actually exists in the mission, I added in the two blue ones. Why did I do such a thing? A few reasons.
First, note that there is a mine in front of the entrance. That means you need at least one living Escort to take the hit from the mine so you can get in. Guess how often all the escorts got killed? Add another one to the restart count.
Second, there's a Moon that pops up the second Fiodorow gets close. And he usually can kill him because Fiodorow is defenseless (except against air units).
But most importantly,
THE ORANGE TUNNEL DOESN'T WORK
Yes that's right. The last mission of the game is impossible to complete. I have no idea why it doesn't work, but Fiodorow sat on it for an hour looking like an idiot while I scrambled around trying to figure out why it wasn't working. I restarted and tried not destroying anything. Still didn't work. I restarted and destroyed everything. Nope. I restarted, and used console commands to destroy Sunlight, thinking that would at least let me show you all the ending. Nope. I restarted, tried to spawn a Gruz and build a Tunnel Entrance but couldn't get it to spawn.
Finally I restarted, found a command to switch to the LC, which apparently is a thing you can do, and manually built a tunnel entrance on top of where the orange one is. Hooray! Except when Fiodorow tried to use it he exploded when he exited the tunnel entrance
So finally I built two on the side and if this didn't work I was going to start looking for ways to teleport Fiodorow down there because this had been going on for something like 2 hours at this point. Somehow this actually worked. I have no idea why but it did.
If any of you are playing along with this use the following procedure to actually get past this
-Press enter
-Type "Cheater 1" without the quotes
-Type AI.local 3 to switch to the LC
-Save the game
-Load the game so the Build bar shows up in the UI
-Build Tunnel Entrances
-Type AI.local 2 to switch back to the ED
-Save
(Restart count: too many)
Hey look we're in the tunnels! Yep. No console cheat shenanigans going on here.
And we deal with mines again, because hey why not, you just spent two hours trying to fix this mission, you already know you're gonna put up with the bullshit we throw at you.
I swear to god Fiodorow if you drive over the mine...
There's a bunch of Moons over there, but since we're much smarter than the game we're going to avoid going that way.
Here it is, the antechamber. Just one last obstacle to hurdl-
MORE MINES!
Why...
Why...
What did I do to you Moon Project?
One of the escorts drove over a mine.
I don't even know.
I really, really hope there aren't more mines down this access tunnel.
NO MINES! WHAT A HAPPY GLORIOUS DAY!
Now let's blow this thing and go home.
Thanks General Shakt. I just wanna get off this damn rock.
But not before watching the final fireworks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xatsx-ipQL4
The Dynasty is victorious. I'm sure there is much rejoicing back on Earth. But we can't rejoice for long. We still have to finish building the evacuation fleet. I hear Supreme Dynasty General Axeil is making the final preparations now.
But I do wonder one thing, what happened to our spy in the LC? And how did they build this giant cannon anyway?
Epilogue
INCOMING TRANSMISSION - origin: LC High Command posted:
V IGOR BITITOFF - DOUBLE AGENT
The following recording was discovered in an antique Salyut capsule by an LC deep space explorer
It is the 21st day of November in the year 2150 AD. The latest world war is raging on the planet. Alliances are formed and later broken, with neither side capable of getting the upper hand in the conflict. Time is becoming critical for all sides, thus the bitterness of the struggle for Terra's last remaining natural resources.
The originally pacifist Lunar Corporation has proven itself at least as battle worthy as the other two superpowers. This has focused UCS attention toward the Moon. While Eurasian Dynasty troops engage in massive operations on the North American continent, the UCS, acting on direct orders from Golan, has launched a blitzkrieg attack on the Moon. The order was given after UCS intelligence services furnished worrying reports of several new developments.
It was reported that deep below the majestic lunar mountain range, the LC stumbled across the remnants of an alien culture. The LC anthropologists immediately began collecting and analyzing the foreign artifacts, in order to discover more about this strange race's physical and cultural characteristics. Apparently the ruins were an abandoned military base. The size of the burnt-out fission generators raised a significant question for the researchers - what did the aliens need with such gigantic quantities of energy?
A pilot involuntarily came across the answer when her reconnaissance plane was suddenly shot down, even though there were no enemy units in the vicinity. It turned out she was brought down by the alien's automatic defense system. The LC blasted into the area with rocket charges and discovered the reason for the Alien base's huge reactor capacity - a gigantic energy cannon pointed right at the Earth. The aliens' lunar base was just an outlying defensive position, set up in case mankind ever decided to start exploring the cosmos. Why the aliens left was still unclear, but the members of the Celestial Council of the Lunar Corporation saw right away the cannon's strategic potential. With the artillery support the alien weapon promised, the LC could go from third wheel to absolute victor in the upcoming
climactic battle. GOLAN, the de-facto head of the UCS, knew all about what was going on, since the LC were unable to knock his reconnaissance drones out of action.
The final act in the largest play in history has now begun. Who will win the race against the Apocalypse? I know not. For as I record these last lines my oxygen supply is steadily running out and I can do nothing to prevent my impending death.
Before I was exposed as a traitor, I was Director of War Research for the Eurasian Dynasty. I pray that the ED perishes along with the planet, for somewhere out there they are waiting for us, and the only chance for a peaceful coexistence will be if Vladimir and his reign of terror are finally put to and end.
I am getting sleepy ... I ... look ... forward to my next ...research topic .... life .... after ... death ... will ...
The capsule was totally destroyed by a hit from a meteorite. The body on board was identified as Igor Bititoff, alias LC agent IANUS.
Sadly this leaves us with more questions than answers. Why would aliens build a giant cannon and point it at Earth? Where did they go? How did GOLAN find out about Sunlight in the first place?
And what of the Evacuation Fleet? Will everyone on the planet be able to escape? Regardless, it's important for us to remember that Time is ticking away...
That's it for The Moon Project! Next time we'll get started with Lost Souls, which has a much more focused plot than the other two games. Unfortunately, due to the linear nature of Lost Souls I won't be able to hold any votes on which campaigns to do first. Maybe I'll think of some other things to vote on so we can get some more audience participation.