The Space Game: Missions

Harvest resources, expand your operation, and survive waves of enemies, all in real time. It doesn't sound like anything special, but The Space Game: Missions is mesmerizing. You'll build beautiful, sprawling, weblike structures, and then watch as they tear apart enemy fleets and send repair bots swirling through their hubs and spokes. It's intense, and at times quite challenging.

TSG: Missions has a solid tutorial, a fantastic interface, multiple difficulty levels, and a ton of optional missions. If you're going to add another casual game to the already crowded strategic defense genre, this is definitely the way to do it.

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Comments

At first it looks a lot like Harvest: Massive Encounter which I absolutely loved (and paid Steam $10). I'll have to check this out!

mrwynd wrote:

At first it looks a lot like Harvest: Massive Encounter which I absolutely loved (and paid Steam $10). I'll have to check this out!

Yep, the developers cite Harvest: Massive Encounter as one of their inspirations.

Very enjoyable - laid back

That setup from the screenshot is adorable. ONE power station for THREE THELs? Keep an ear out for a *thip!* sound, as that will be your battery going dead in about 2 seconds.

I like the game but I feel like there's so much room for depth. Matter-burning power plants that produce more energy but eat up matter, stronger and more expensive nodes, different kinds of weapons, etc. It's good, but it could be so much more.

Game-dizzy and don't have time to try this. It looks so intriguing, though!

Wowzers. I spent a lot of time with the original. I think this is actually a sequel, or an expansion, or something. The original game is here. That's also linked from inside the game itself. The link inside the game is broken; it points back to itself.

EDIT: Link fixed

I remember spending quite a bit of time with this game during lectures...the only downside to this game is the unfortunate impossibility of saving progress.

I found that my progress didn't save on the games homepage but it did when I played in newgrounds.

That setup from the screenshot is adorable. ONE power station for THREE THELs? Keep an ear out for a *thip!* sound, as that will be your battery going dead in about 2 seconds.

I like the game but I feel like there's so much room for depth. Matter-burning power plants that produce more energy but eat up matter, stronger and more expensive nodes, different kinds of weapons, etc. It's good, but it could be so much more.

So true on all counts. One fully upgraded power station and a battery isn't enough to power a THEL. I usually skip them altogether. Missiles and pulse lasers is where its at.

That was one of the disappointments for this new version. There are no new weapon types and they didn't balance the THELs to make them any more viable. It would have been nice to have 3 varieties of missile launchers, rail guns, ppc's, longer range pulse lasers (at more energy drain), shotguns etc.

Oh and I absolutely detest that mission where you protect a moving target. Well, not really detest but it is really hard.

edit: and this game is so much better than Harvest:Massive Enounters.

This is pretty cool. I'm only a handful of levels in.

fangblackbone wrote:

That was one of the disappointments for this new version. There are no new weapon types and they didn't balance the THELs to make them any more viable. It would have been nice to have 3 varieties of missile launchers, rail guns, ppc's, longer range pulse lasers (at more energy drain), shotguns etc.

The THEL is a decent backup weapon, but since you can't turn it off or control it in any way (other than maybe to put it on its own node and then sell the node when you need) you need to make absolutely sure your base can handle the energy consumption. Batteries won't cut it since the THEL will fire at EVERYTHING. About six fully upgraded power stations seem to do the job but that's a huge investment. Over a long enough period of time they're more economical than missile launchers, but I don't know if any of the missions actually get anywhere close to breaking even.

Yeah but, that fully upgraded THEL is roughly 2000 minerals. With 6 fully upgraded missile launchers, I only use about 3000-4000 minerals for missile ammo during the whole mission. Of course missile launchers take much longer to build and upgrade than THELs.

And since missiles are AOE, they are much better at taking out masses of motherships.

Yes, but HYPOTHETICALLY, if you played for like, 5 hours, the THELs would cost less.

Yeah. I think they do have a survive as long as you can mode.

The game really bogs down on my laptop.

mrwynd wrote:

At first it looks a lot like Harvest: Massive Encounter which I absolutely loved (and paid Steam $10). I'll have to check this out!

Okay, you did it. You made me buy Harvest: Massive Encounter. Not impressed. It's kind of okay for a while, but the whole concept of a game that you can't possibly win is impossibly frustrating for me. Seriously, are you some kind of masochist or something?

I like The Space Game so much more. It has the same kind of source/sink gameplay mechanic, but there is an actual end to each encounter.

[quote=fangblackbone]

Oh and I absolutely detest that mission where you protect a moving target. Well, not really detest but it is really hard.

I am finding that mission to be impossible. Any tips on beating it?

Teeldarb wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

Oh and I absolutely detest that mission where you protect a moving target. Well, not really detest but it is really hard.

I am finding that mission to be impossible. Any tips on beating it?

The ship travels in a straight line; build along and defend that line rather than the ship itself. I used a number of upgraded pulse lasers and missile turrets snug on either side of the travel path, recycling irrelevant weapons behind the ship as needed for resources.

Just can't manage to beat the last of the 3 mining levels on normal.

I am finding that mission to be impossible. Any tips on beating it?

To beat that mission I make a big cross laying on its side. the tips of the cross are missile launchers. Along the main shaft of the cross are 2 pulse lasers and a repair bay. The key with the missile launchers is to not get them to far apart from each other so they can help each other out. However, the enemies roughly come from only 3 positions (NNE, E, and SSE) and the hope is that the missile launchers at the cross tips will put a serious dent in the enemy ships before they get to the traveling ship. This is especially effective against the tightly packed groups of mother ships.

6 missile launchers, 3 pulse lasers, a repair bay and 2 power stations is enough to beat the mission. The pulse laser nearest the start will eventually be salvaged and repositioned further down the cross.

Here's a diagram:

IMAGE(http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9641/spacegamestrat.png)

Thanks for the tips; I finally beat that mission. Working on the ones with the huge mysterious/unknown mother ship now.

I enjoyed the game for a while, but kinda over it now. But the OCD part of me is forcing me to try to complete it ...

fangblackbone wrote:

Awesome image

That's awesome. I love that we have a flash game with enough depth that someone took the time to make a diagram explaining strategy intricacies.

I finished that mission this morning (mission 2 out of 6 jumpgate protection missions I think) and here's what I did. Weapons wise, I took a different approach. Instead of using missile launchers I used THELs and lots and lots of power stations and batteries.

At the beginning, instead of building nodes to extend out Eastward, I started building power stations. At the end I think I had about 8-9 power stations, 2-3 batteries, and 4 or 5 THELs. You must maintain a balance of power stations and THELs as you grow. I also built 3 pulse lasers at the 10-20% mark but recycled those later when they were out of range of the enemy.

I used nodes to put the THELs out towards the spawn points so that the Motherships would start to be fired upon even before they parked and started attacking the ship.

The enemies come in the same waves each time, so you can remember for instance that there are X mother ships that show up at 10% of the way through and another wave of equal size soon after.

After playing the mission a few times and paying attention to how far along the ship traveled when you hit 25%, 50%, etc. you can start to also predict where the ship will be at a certain percentage/time. Notice that by the time it reaches the end, the ship will travel approximately two screen widths.

Thanks Yoyoson =)

I like your strategy too. It seems simpler. That and on higher difficulties, I've found I have to use THELs because missile launchers have large gaps in between barrages. The other side effect is that mining yields less at higher difficulties so launchers are starved for ammo and more missile launchers that are used to offset higher enemy health takes longer to build and may not be able to be built on missions with fixed resources.

THELs are too slow against masses of motherships though. That's where the AoE effect of the missile launcher really makes a difference.