Worst. Mooncrash run. EVER.

[LupisLight]

Just gotta vent about what must be the worst luck I've had in a while with Mooncrash. On my second playthrough, and just unlocked Riley, so I decided to do the brain-uploading escape to get that Kasma order done and unlock Riley's special mission.

I enter the labs via the crater but wind up unable to get up to the Lab lobby because the power is out and the grav shafts are down. After a bit of wandering I remember where the power room is in the crater and fix that problem. Finally I get to Riley's office and get the objective to go back and use Phantom Genesis II on something.

Of course I have to find and scan a Weaver first to unlock that ability, so I make my way back down to typhon containment. Just after I get to the lowest level, I remember that on my way up I had nearly been killed by something I couldn't figure out what on my way up. As soon as I get to that same area I am immediately killed by what I can now see is an electrical arc from a damaged power panel that I somehow missed before.

I restart the sim because I really want to get back to the Brain Uploading mission. Only to have Riley immediately killed by a combination of the Moon Shark and the typhon spore I threw at it to try to kill it. (I heard that Typhon Spores are supposed to be a good way to kill the Moon Shark, but for me they always either fail to do any damage to the Moon Shark, or the Moon Shark destroys them before they get a chance to do anything. Can anyone tell me how to properly use the spores on the Shark?)

After getting over my annoyance over wasting a lot of Sim Points on that Riley, I restart the sim once more, and this time opt to just sneak past the Moon Shark instead. It is all going great until I get to Riley's office and find that the stairs to the workshop are ablaze and mostly destroyed. DANGIT! Now I have to backtrack and waste a few Loop Delays while I search for a GLOO gun to get up there. I finally find one in the Crater's storage room and get up there, then head back down to find a Weaver.

This is where my next difficulty begins. Despite there being a tip to look for a weaver in Typhon Containment, there is no weaver in there. I spend the next little while searching the entire moonbase for a stupid Weaver but can't find A SINGLE ONE. All the while I was running low on supplies and ammo. Finally I decide to just screw this and make my way to the Escape Pods in moonworks. (I wanted to save the shuttle for a different character.)

But of course the game wouldn't make THAT easy either, and I can't get into the Moonworks Escape pods because the doors leading there are locked and I have no idea where the keycard is. At this point I have run out of Loop.Delays and am at Corruption Lvl.3, so I decide I'm finished with this and I'm just going to use the shuttle and GTFO. But the Trams at Moonworks are down as well and I'm fresh out of control modules. So I have get there through the crater. Whereapon I am ganged up on by the Moon Shark and a Technopath and killed.

Sigh. At least I got a lot of Sim Points out of the ordeal. Have any of you ever had one of those runs?

[cuss]

I think we all have. Moonshark if you can't avoid = Lure + Spore.
My Engineer kept breaking bones. I spent half my time listening to crackle, grind noises.

[LupisLight]

Originally posted by cuss:

Moonshark if you can't avoid = Lure + Spore.

Yeah, that combo gives me more luck. I prefer to try and kill the Moonshark if I can, it saves me a lot of trouble crossing the area later, and you get lots of sim points and a free Loop.Delay, which is always nice.

Yeah, broken bones have the most annoying sounds. Earlier today my Engineer had a concussion, and THEN wound up breaking his legs getting into the shipping crate for the Mass Driver. Yeah, that isn't going to be a pleasant trip home...

[cuss]

Originally posted by LupisLight:

Originally posted by cuss:

Moonshark if you can't avoid = Lure + Spore.

Earlier today my Engineer had a concussion, and THEN wound up breaking his legs getting into the shipping crate for the Mass Driver. Yeah, that isn't going to be a pleasant trip home...

Ouch. That's what you get jumping from height. (tehe)
And concussion, I'd forgotten about that. And you can't take Neuromods while concussed. A serious pain in the A early in the game with no blueprint.
Also, I had a similar problem looking for a Weaver. I ended finding one in the first area where you start from. Unfortunately it was corruption 4 and a Nightmare also happened to be there (the big guy knows my moves). No prize for guessing what happened next.

[Lord Of War]

I'm sorry, but... what stops you from copying your successful progression and simply quitting the game and overwriting failed run with the copy?

[RCMidas]

Originally posted by Lord Of War:

I'm sorry, but... what stops you from copying your successful progression and simply quitting the game and overwriting failed run with the copy?

Personal preference. The fact that you have to keep repeating the runs regardless makes a simple copy-paste of save files kinda pointless, especially since you always have a chance to pick up a new blueprint or something. May as well just save-parse the whole deal once you start going down that route.

[cuss]

Agreed. SIM is designed for progression. COPY / PASTE won't advance progress. Play will.

[Lord Of War]

You missing the point: say, you have progressed well and far, prepared food, fixed elevator/teleport, etc, and when you travel to an escape route as another, X character, she dies. Accidentally. Now you can't progress further and hack closed routes.

But, if you have made a copy of your successful run right after entering the location where that X character died, and replaced the "now-ruined run" with a "still-successful run", you get a chance to replay that location and avoid the accident that occurred.

[RCMidas]

No, we get it. It's just that, for some people, the effort involved is not worth it. For others, it is. Comes right back down to personal preference.

[LupisLight]

Originally posted by Lord Of War:

I'm sorry, but... what stops you from copying your successful progression and simply quitting the game and overwriting failed run with the copy?

RCMidas is right. Yeah, backing up saves like that is doable, but not particularly worth the effort IMO. Even successful runs typically don't take that long in the first place. The game encourages you not to waste time with it's corruption level mechanic, which forcibly raises the difficulty and respawns enemies as time goes on.

And even failure is still worthwhile in this game. That failed run of mine in the first post? I got tons of sim points from all that running around and killing enemies, as well as some more neuromods installed, which also carries over between runs. I didn't fulfil the Kazma order I wanted to, but I still got a lot out of the run. Oh, and I reset the sim after that run because the corruption level was too high to be worth continuing, and besides I wanted a new scenario at that point. :-)

All in all, even failure isn't too frustrating in this game. Not enough to warrant backing up saves, as far as I'm concerned.

You are still welcome to do it in your own run, if you want, of course.