Planetary battle Depth (occasionally made outright impossible by RNG)

[XorUnison]

So yeah, there is this one madly hard planetary battle called Depth, where you only start with 8 robots, and you need to to take one of the 3 bases with them. Despite the fact that the player starts with an EXTREME disadvantage this mission has the terrible habit of saying: "You know what? You won't have a chance this time. You know where the restart button is."

If the difficulty is that high you might actually start without a chance whatsoever I think something's wrong. I'm playing the game on nightmare (which doesn't affect planetary battles by the way), but honestly, some of the planetary battles make the actual space part look like an easy joke even on nightmare.

To elaborate why the RNG (random number generator, that is the behaviour of the AI which is always slightly different) is capable of setting your basic chances to 0%, your 8 bots start in a corner, in a small tube. There is a plant nearby, but it doesn't produce anything. So while the RNG often makes things terribly hard I can mostly think: "Well, if I'd behave perfect I might have still turned it somehow. Maybe I could've sacrificed that one bot here or done this..."
But not when 20 bots storm your starting position right from the beginning. How in the world am I supposed to stop 20 bots with 8 bots in a tiny corner, where I can't produce bots AND I still have to take over one heavily guarded base that's still throwing out high tier bots?

That being said, the mission is at least sometimes possible, though I've never finished it under 40 minutes. Can we get this mission changed at least in a way it can't start impossible? Hard is one thing but if it's impossible then what use is there in bothering to play these planetary battles?
Or did I miss something huge on that map, like a hidden click-here-to-win button?

[strigvir]

You definitely didn't play RNG-based maps if this one is RNG for you.
I wouldn't say it's impossible though. Hard, ♥♥♥♥♥♥, repetitive, boring but not impossible.

[XorUnison]

Originally posted by strigvir:

You definitely didn't play RNG-based maps if this one is RNG for you.
I wouldn't say it's impossible though. Hard, ♥♥♥♥♥♥, repetitive, boring but not impossible.

I haven't encountered any other map where the RNG has really bothered me. There are annoyingly hard things like Landing yeah, but I've seen most maps and it's only on this map so far that the RNG bothers me. Mind you, I'm not saying it's outright impossible, I'm just saying there is a slight chance the odds turn on you in a way that'll kill you right at the start with no chances to get out. In my last attempt RNG decided to suddenly make things ridiculously easy be moving the enemies almost perfectly for me, which just underlines the effect of the RNG on that map.

So... which ones are even worse RNG maps then?

[strigvir]

Originally posted by KNC:

Mind you, I'm not saying it's outright impossible, I'm just saying there is a slight chance the odds turn on you in a way that'll kill you right at the start with no chances to get out.

You mean when you get attacked from both sides? Can't you just pull you robots back so blazers and kellers would end up fighting each other?

Originally posted by KNC:

So... which ones are even worse RNG maps then?

Looks like they were removed from HD. There was the one map in Reloaded where you can't even build a fullstack robot from starting resources and the outcome was dependant at which direction one of the enemies would go at the start. The other one was an hour map with RNG element striking in the 40 minutes mark.

[XorUnison]

Originally posted by strigvir:

Originally posted by KNC:

Mind you, I'm not saying it's outright impossible, I'm just saying there is a slight chance the odds turn on you in a way that'll kill you right at the start with no chances to get out.

You mean when you get attacked from both sides? Can't you just pull you robots back so blazers and kellers would end up fighting each other?

Hehe, no you're misunderstanding something. You start as far in a corner as possible so there's no more going back. So I first get the Blazers in that corner with 10 bots which I almost miraculously manage to fight off without any casualties (stunners), but right after that the Kelleroids come in and their bots were packed a lot better and poof I'm dead (no surprise, another 10 against 8 match and this time my stunners were used for the moment). The blazeroids and the kelleroids went in with the perfect distance to not fight with each other, but also to not give me a break whatsoever. Those were the first armies in the whole game and they went RIGHT into my corner.

Though yes, in theory if I could predict the future I could've send a single sacrifice out to start a fight, but if you do that everytime you'll chip away your 8 bots really fast and that's that then. So if the RNG does that it's either losing bots like this or like that, and losing bots is dying in that mission. And if you sacrifice a bot to start a fight between 2 armies there's no warranty the next armies won't chase you all the way into your corner again, rinse and repeat. If the RNG says so, the end result is your inevitable death either way.

[strigvir]

Why do you take blazers base in the first place? They are the weakest enemies on this map after the first attack on your corner. Moreover advancing to their base forces them to build robots and send them to you, instead of kellers and terrons.

[XorUnison]

I never said I attacked anyone. I hadn't even moved my units yet, both the blazeroids and kelleroids went straight after me absolutely unprovoked.

[John Hadley]

I have only fought the second land battle and I already feel hate towards the RNG. I try the mission one time and the red team overruns the yellow because the yellow sacrifices all his units on me over and over even though I'm just sitting back and not attacking him and red is pillaging his bases right and left. The next time yellow destroys red almost immediately at the start of the game. By the time 10 minutes is gone red is dead and yellow owns like 15 bases. I never killed any red guys so it wasn't something I did to weaken them. The AI just rolls the right dice to steamroll you and it seems like there's nothing you can do except just start the map over and over until you get the right conditions that allow you to win. I'm certain the land battles are going to annoy me enough that I will either just not play the game or choose the option that says dont ever give me these kind of missions.

[XorUnison]

I wouldn't recommend you to avoid those missions all together, as there's nothing quite in the game giving you as much credits per time as ground missions. Actually the ground missions give you more money than any other mission will not costing you a single day. So, if you meet a mission that is stupid, just go back and load the autosave (there's one right before you'd start the mission). Just don't surrender cause you'll be thrown into jail and there will be an autosave for that as well.

The thing is that some missions are almost impossible to win, while there are also a few which are almost impossible to lose, and those are more than worth the time and effort.