*WARNING* Another Spoiler Question

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

In Story Mode... Regarding the Virus; is the Death of various colonist predetermined... or if I act fast enough, can they be prevented?

Advanced Thanx!!!

[Eternie]

Personally I think it's a bit of both. I think some are predetermined, but others could be saved if your prepared. What being prepared means however is a bit of guess work that possibly only dtt would know. (I know he answered that before ... but don't know in which thread or screenie )

Maybe you'd need to have found the locations beforehand so allow fast travel. Also have completed any other quests first. So that you can take care of that as quickly as possible

Not sure I need a spoiler on this ... but anyway.
Between the martian colony invasion and the disease outbreak I lost 24 Npc's who's bodies I now have in a special graveyard

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

Ack... that sucks! I spent a good deal of Yesterday building a graveyard myself. I currently have one buried, and 5 in my backpack :`(... awaiting their Memorial.

For future reference (Re-Plays) I'll try to remember the sites they are sending me to, and be better prepared. I dislike losing people :(.

But thanx for the info... good to know. And we'll see if DTT can add to this.

[Eternie]

Unfortunately you don't get to see the Virtual names of the deceased once placed.
It is important to get the training you can from all specialised VIP's trained onto a normal npc's to keep the skills in your colony. I think any Vips that you can no longer allocate as a trainer are candidates to pass away. So the earlier you can get some of their skills passed to others the more chance you have of keeping all skills.

For me there are quite a few VIP's that have master skills that I cannot get to do anything and I've more of less finished all quests apart from launching the ending.

[dtt.scanner]

I think there are only 2-3 who are slated to die, the rest can be saved. The main thing is to not let a lot of time pass. Most who get sick will be able to treat themselves while they are awake, so the ones who die will only die in their sleep, because their health will decrease and they won't medicate themselves while sleeping. That means if you can perform the last leg all in one day, you will have a minimal number of casualties.

If you don't make it in one day, you may be able to save some by standing next to the storage unit and summoning the sick colonists to you if their health gets too low. They may take time to heal themselves before going back to bed. You can maintain a vigil like this during the night to possibly give yourself extra time.

You will want to have hundreds of med kits/health elixirs stockpiled, but the colony should be good about making them automatically up until that point. Have Allen, Pleiades, and the other Nurse assigned to the Medical stations so that you get good production and treatment. I've never really figured out how the med stations operate, but I do know that they will stockpile meds if all of them are being worked... the processor will automatically process the plants needed to make the drugs, but you can make more if needed.

Make sure all of the Follower types are well stocked with health in their inventory. You should lose NO followers from the virus if you do it right. The 2 who you take with you, you can keep alive yourself, since they won't sleep until you do.

If you activate the last leg of the quest early in the morning when everyone first gets up, you should be able to finish before nightfall and have the cure in time to keep the majority from dying. A fast plane helps, and yes, if you scout the map in advance and locate the alien ships, you can cut down a lot of time... but a fast plane can get you to the markers in good time. Most of the ships are guarded by tough creatures, like packs of lions or boars, so be ready for a fight if you Fast Travel.

A few who get sick early are going to die no matter what you do. Save before completing each leg of the quest, and try to start the next quest in the morning. Save again in a fresh slot when the new quest has a good start. You may want to start that whole quest line over once you go through it, to see if you get a better result, but it's a lot of work to reset to an earlier save.

The best time to train off skills is when you first accept a new colonist. Most of them will not be occupied until you activate the next quest sequence. Your blank followers should be used as templates to save specific skill sets. Pick one or two VIPs to be a holder of skills that you don't plan to use, but don't necessarily want to delete. Re-train the other VIPs to give them better hand-to-hand fighting skills (since most do not have weapons). The few who do have weapons, train them up as best you can in those weapons, even if it means overwriting their original skill set, along with a useful colony skill set. Weaponless VIPs can be farmers, workers, doctors, procurers... and the ones with weapons can be trained to be guards. Your best fighting colonists will be the non-VIP colonists, since you can train and equip them with the best skills, weapons, and armor. You don't want to lose them, as they are much stronger defenders than turrets.

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

I'll definitely keep that in mind for my next play through. Fortunately, I do tend to wait until morning before taking missions; but that's just so I don't get tired and hungry. Though I was also taking injections so I could go a bit longer. :).

However... Unfortunately I also tend to waste the end of the day (Late into Night) with Maintenance and such.

I "Believe" the worst is over... but I was left with 28 Dead; most from the Mars Colony... though, at least, 8 from My Colony :(. Services will be tomorrow!!!!

{Is it 'Sick' that I'm looking forward to seeing the completed Holo-Graphic GraveYard?!?} =D

[Eternie]

Looking forward to the Holographic graveyard is probably more contemplative and respectful for the passing of those "friends and followers" ...
Have you prepared a speech?

Thanks dtt I knew you would have the best advice.

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

LOL

[dtt.scanner]

I don't count casualties in the Martian Colony. I think the ones that make it to your colony are always going to be the same set, and will survive up to that point.

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

A New Question... but still Spoiler Content.

Okay... I've just made peace with the Puja. I would like to build a Monorail to the Village (where I'm currently staying, for the moment)... and another to the City (which I'm assuming is on the other side of the wall). However... if, perchance, I am going to get a mission to build said Monorail, I don't want to Break anything by building it too soon (before asked). So... my question is: Am I going to be asked to build a Monorail to the Puja... or is it safe to build one now (because I won't be asked)?

Advanced Thanx... As always :).

[Eternie]

I've never been asked to build a monorail to them ... but did in one play through.

Had rails going between my colony, martian camp, martian colony and puja colony nearest to the martians. Had thought about also looping the other end past earth camp on the way to desert ... but then lost the momentum to keep going.

[Gladi8er65]

As far as i recall, you will only get quest to build monorail one time and that is the one that goes to martian camp.

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

Thank you both... it's kind of what I figured... but better safe than sorry (Knowledge over Theory) :).

Originally posted by Eternie:

...Had rails going between my colony, martian camp, martian colony and puja colony nearest to the martians. ...

I was thinking about something similar, but also including some of my further out mining sites.

Originally posted by Eternie:

... but then lost the momentum to keep going.

But this is my concern (grin). That first Monorail was a major undertaking; but had to be done. This one could just turn into a Billion Dollar incomplete Eye-Soar :). But they look so good when (if) they're completed - LOL.

Either way... As always, Much Thanx for the Info!!!

[dtt.scanner]

I wish I had taken pictures of my double monorail when I had it running. Food for motivation. I may have to build another one. The trick to a good monorail is to have several shorter tracks... regional loops, that service the periphery, and link them to a central loop. That way you don't really ever have to wait that long for a train. If you make loops, then the switching station can house both ends, and you can get on going either way to get back to the main loop from anywhere on the regional loop, so it cuts all the wait times in half. The main loop can be a double loop with trains going both directions, so the regional switching stations will have 4 lines passing through... two end stations for the regional loop and two pass-through for the main loop. The regional loops would be a single line, but since you can get on going either direction, it still is not a long wait (usually). You can make those double stations also, so you can put in spurs to mining sites off of the regional loops.

It is very difficult setting up a train station with 4 lines if you don't have a system for identifying the joints.

This is really only necessary if you want to be immersive and never fast travel. I have played that way before, and it is definitely a harder play-through. Monorails come in very handy then. You can carry an extra end station while you are laying track, so that you can plop it down and ride a train back to town and back to where you left off, instead of having to walk the line.

Just food for thought. This is more suitable for the adventure maps, since they are easily divided into a central area and regional loops, with the lines connecting all of the NPC towns.

In the Story mode, there are a lot of points of interest, but very little in the way of towns to connect.

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

Yeah, Okay.... That just made me Dizzy!!!

I do agree that Story Mode lacks real necessity for an intricate Monorail; the truth is .. I just like the thought of one, but I usually just Fly to the Mines Farthest away... and drive to the closer ones. However... I like the sound of the Monorail you described; if not for this game... then when/if I play Adventure Mode.

But a couple of question (and for the sake of communications, I'm going to use Story Mode as an example):

1) When you say 'LOOP'... what exactly do you mean? I'm thinking like... for instance... the Monorail starts and Stops at Earth Colony, but has one or more stops (stations) along the line. As such...it departs from Earth Colony (1), continues to (lets just say 2 other stations) Station 1 (2) and Station 2 (3), then ends at Earth Colony (1)... and then reverses and goes to: 3, 2 and 1. Is that correct?!? (I hope that made sense).

2)

Originally posted by dtt.scanner:

The trick to a good monorail is to have several shorter tracks... regional loops, that service the periphery, and link them to a central loop.

When you say "LINK", do you mean an actual connection; or jump off one Train (at a station) and jump onto another?

3)

Originally posted by dtt.scanner:

...so you can put in spurs to mining sites off of the regional loops.

Define 'SPURS'

I'll leave my questions at that; for now (grin). I probably will not build such an intricate Monorail in my current game; but I am hoping to utilize this second rail as more than just a Single Line Round Trip.

As well, I like the thought of what you mentioned for Adventure mode, and the various towns throughout... When that time comes :).

[Eternie]

I know in my story mode game the monorail going from the sinkhole to martian camp and on to Martian colony took ... ( I'm guessing ) about 8 - 10 minutes. That if I had the train working continuously I could be waiting quite a while. Especially as to get on the Train you have to click on it whilst it's in the station and hope the cursor isn't on the station rather than the train. ( I've missed some trains as I clicked badly ).

A missed train isn't a large issue though, as by opening up the phone menu clicking on monorail and turning off the rail line puts the train back into your inventory. Probably allowing you to take the same train with you onto another monorail track.

For a spur I'd assume DTT means that say from my line from sinkhole - martian camp- Martian Colony. I could have a second line starting at martian Camp going to Earth camp as a spur and call it the Earth camp spur. ( that would be my understanding at least )