Difference between revisions of "Aim of the Game"

Revision as of 04:34, 8 February 2016

Goals for Humans

The mission of the crew is to save humanity from the onslaught of The Mush, which can be achieved in two primary ways.

Note: Ending the game while there are Mush alive among the crew will result in a Mush victory and loss for humanity.

A) Return to Sol

The easier option is to return the Daedalus to Sol to rejoin the human rebels in their fight against the Mush, hopefully with some helpful research. This only requires the repairs of the ship's main drive, the PILGRED Reactor, which enables the Commander to steer the ship towards Sol using the Command Terminal.

PILGRED can be found in the Engine Room at the rear of the ship and repairs are mainly performed by Raluca. For best efficiency, Technician characters (or anyone, if Technicians aren't available) should reset Raluca's progress regularly. Once PILGRED is repaired, the Return to Sol action is unlocked in the Command Terminal.

For a generous boost, the Retro-Fungal Serum must be researched and available when the ship sets sail for home. The Serum can be created by conducting Research in the Laboratory. In addition to Zhong Chun's presence in the lab, researching the Serum requires presence of the Mush Genome Disk and the death of one of the Mush.

B) Escape to Eden

The vastly more difficult, but also vastly more -prestiguous option is to colonize a new utopian world named Eden as a new base fo humanity. This also requires the repairs of the PILGRED Reactor, but the crew must also triangulate the position of the wondrous world using 3 Starmap Fragments.

When doing Expeditions, the crew can discover rare alien artifacts; among them the Starmap Fragment. Researching it enables the construction of the Calculator in the Nexus which, if used with 3 of the Starmap Fragments, reveals the location of Eden and enables the ship to navigate there, assuming the PILGRED reactor is repaired.

Goals for Mush

Humans are so weak that you can clearly have fun with them in many ways. It's fun to see them kill each other thinking they have you trapped. Whatever you do, you have two major goals.

A) Destroy the Daedalus

BOOOM! A beautiful explosion. That's what we love. Bodies floating in space among the debris of the vessel.

The Mush have an instinct for destruction that is insatiable, and there are several possibilities to achieve a beautiful result:

Contamination

You start with another Mush, but expanding to more is always good! Contaminate the whole crew, one Anonymush at a time, and NERON will end the game for you by venting everyone into space. It never could stand the dirty Mush.

Pay attention to when and where you extract spores, though. Besides the fact that this makes you Dirty and costs valuable , cameras and other crew members will see you do this if they are in the same room as you. - This is the fastest and easiest way to get caught. A good strategy is to mask your dirtiness and / loss through other activities like repairs, and then team up on a single person until they have become a Mush by being infected with three spores. Coordination between Mush is important. And do not forget to check if there is no camera or mycoalarms when you infect! It would be a shame to betray you and your new companion.

Attrition

Sabotage equipment... destroy the right hardware... cause some misfortune... maybe spread a disease or start a fire. Do it right and the humans may spend more time trying to fix issues than looking for you!

Pay attention where you do it, since many actions can be seen if they are witnessed by other people or Cameras. But also pay attention when you do it, so it will not be obvious that these thing had an unnatural cause, and you were the only person there at the time! (At cycle change is always a good time.) Aim for equipment and materials that are essential to the crew such as frequently used doors, the Pasiphae, the Gravity Simulator and various terminals. But be aware that many items (but not doors) generate a NERON message when they break spontaneously, lack of which can be a dead giveaway of sabotage!

The advantage of this tactic is that it can be rather subtle, as it does not require spores. The disadvantage is that this alone will not win you the game on a decent ship, but rather slow the crew down and distract them for a bit while you enact other plans.

Easier to do when you have Eleesha on your side. Because a competent detective will find you if you overdo this.

Mimickry / confusion

Sometimes the best Mush is the one that seems most human. Accusing others can work for you, depending on the circumstances, but oftentimes just doing your jobs and seeming helpful - except when it really matters - can be all it takes to make others look more mushy. And while humans make mistakes and kill each other in a climate of increasing paranoia, you bide your time and wait for opportunities to present themselves.

Of course good research progress will make circumstances ever harder for you, and while skills like Splashproof and Phagocyte can counter your less human traits well enough, it is only a matter of time until more and more people are shown to be human by contracting illnesses or, if you have that kind of crew, by blunt "Mush testing". So that time is not endless.

The deadly blow

There are many dangers that threaten the Daedalus! It is hard to manage them all at once, and every crew has its weak areas and underrepresented skills. Whether it is because you recruited more helpers, caused enough trouble or just waited for the right opportunity - there may come a time when dropping the disguise and attacking where they are weakest may be enough to cause unrecoverable damage to the crew or their resources. And that is the time to strike.

Whether you go after their only Pilots to let Hunters do the rest, destroy morale by killing every Shrink and Leader (along with Chun), or make off in patrol ships with your pokets full of their last O2 - the possibilities are many. The important thing is that you can identify the weakness to act on it, and answer the question: "Will this KILL the ship before PILGRED can be completed?". (A question that becomes easier if the crew has no more Technicians.)

Because otherwise, you only unmasked yourselves and handed the humans a free, if slightly inconvenient, trip home.

So do not be the Mush who flies off in the Pasiphae on Day 1, just to become a research sample to be used against his partner. But be the Mush who punishes a crew that carelessly leaves the Commander on board while sending its four most active people on an expedition, or leaves grenades and knives lying around in an environment where Phagocyte and Transfer are a thing.

B) Infiltration of Sol or Eden

Another way to ensure a Mush triumph is to infiltrate Sol or Eden when by having the Deadalus arrive there with live Mush on board. If you can stay alive and under the radar until the crew finishes PILGRED - or even do this yourself - you can sabotage the crew's ultimate directive by infecting either the Rebellion or the new colony, ensuring their downfall rather than the ultimate eradication of the Mush virus.

The fungus among us

The high art of Mush infiltration, and definitely the required path to infiltrate Eden, is to make the crew believe they have won and are free of Mush. Besides good mimickry, this requires one or more beta Mush so at least two can be killed, the use of Anonymush and an infected or dead Eleesha.

Of course, the ship being in such a dire situation that the humans are forced to just gamble and hope they got every Mush can help as well.

Surprise, gentlemen!

The other option for a return to Sol is the always looming rush or surprise return, where the Mush themselves - Raluca with some help, or Paola with an opportune trade - finish PILGRED and jump the ship towards their waiting friends before the crew knows what is going on.

While limited to these characters, this is very powerful and should not be ignored by either team.