Operation Spearhead - Manual

This is a guide for my Space Engineers Combat Scenario "Operation Vanguard"

Introduction

“There are more glorious jobs than maintenance – but at least it’s far from action”


You are part of a team of maintenance specialists that have been assigned to field test the freshly repaired heavy frigate I4 Merula in the Silas System. The Crew of the Merula has been on shore leave and you are the only people on board when news come in of a massive attack underway against the system. The Akhinnae Empire seems to be under attack and you are in possession of a massive arsenal – the question is whether you will be able to use it effectively to help to repel the attack.

In a nutshell

What is this?
This is the second part of a scenario series that aims to combine games like Wing Commander and Space Engineers. This time you will be steering a frigate that aims to bring you a “submarine hunter” feeling. You will get straight “Search and destroy” missions and save allied ships against the enemy while trying to stay alive. You will constantly need to make repairs and scavenge what is left of the battlefields around you to keep in the game. But you have a save haven in the game – an abandoned maintenance dock that will help you to repair your ship and unwind between missions.



Who is this for?[/b]“Operation Vanguard” is aimed at teams of 2 to 4 players but can be played as single player as well. The less people there are in your team, the higher the difficulty will be.
Playing this scenario in single player is absolutely manageable but it will be rather difficult. Save often and make sure to repair your ship as well as possible.
This is a scenario for the seasoned space engineer player. If you do not know how to punch in FTL jump block coordinates or how to find steel plates in a conveyor-equipped ship, this scenario is NOT (yet) for you. Having experience with utilizing scripts such as WHAM from Whiplash also helps.
THIS SCENARIO IS FULLY COMPATIBLE FOR USERS WITHOUT DLC – while the hero ship loads in with all the DLC, there is a non-DLC blueprint version ready to be loaded in so you can repair the ship easily without the DLC the more it gets damaged. For everything else you should not need a DLC – see more information on this in the scenario guide.

How to play it
The I4 Merula is your home and your combat base at the same time. You will receive your briefings here in the small mess hall area, sent over by sector command. They will include the coordinates of your next mission area. Use those to jump to the mission area. Get a bearing of the situation and be ready for attacking drones and larger units at any given time.
In many missions, you are required to protect allied ships or stations. You might find additional information or resources on these allied ships or on wreckage, so take a look and board them after the fight.

Some missions require you to initially board a ship and have a talk with the NPCs on board. Read their texts carefully and look for additional instructions.
Finally, get back to the Merula and repair and rearm your frigate before starting the next mission. In-between missions you should jump back to the space dock so you can take advantage of the facilities there.

Missions

Missions in General
Missions are received as task descriptions that lead you to a mission area where you normally face enemies and additional tasks. Nothing forces you to actually follow the instructions but deviations defeat the purpose of this scenario. In order to get a mission you either go to the mess hall in the lower aft section of the Merula or into the command pod in the Maintenance Dock.
A mission starts with you pressing the green “NEXT” button in the briefing room and reading the mission description. You will get a set of GPS coordinates in the briefing – make sure to note those down in the GPS menu. (ATTENTION: due to the formatting of the briefing, the GPS coordinates might be in two lines. To avoid this, remove the line break in the briefing before making the GPS coordinates permanent in the menu). Should you accidentally press onto the next button twice, you can go back one mission with the “BACK” button.


Go to the CIC and access the ship’s systems. Find the jump block and punch in the next mission’s GPS coordinates. Jump the ship to the mission area.
In some areas, you will find enemies very close by. In those cases, calling for action stations and preparing to get some distance between you and the enemy will be a prudent course of action.

Mission types
There are the already known rescue and combat missions and now there are investigation missions and combat support missions as well. Enemies can be already there or approach during the mission, even in waves. Pay attention to signals.
Rescue missions
You will receive the order to get to a civilian target and save them from imminent attack or talk to the crew NPCs in person to see what they need.
Combat missions
Find and destroy enemy bases, fighter drones, capital drones and even mining stations on asteroids. Remember to use your cruise missile.
Investigation missions
Sometimes, you will need to check wreckages for additional clues, resources and GPS coordinates. Be wary of traps!
Combat support missions
Now, you might meet fellow Imperial Fleet ships that want you to accompany them to their combat tasks. Talk to their crews in person to find who the Commanding officer is and get your instructions from them.

The Merula

Overview
The Merula is your home for this scenario. If she is lost, the game is lost. That being said, the frigate is a tough and versatile combat ship that has a lot of staying power. The Merula has an impressive array of weaponry, including three “Geyser” type advanced turrets, a cruise missile PMW system, forward artillery and artillery turrets. The Merula has two jump blocks with a jump range over 1000 km that should being you directly to each mission.

The Merula is A Velites Class heavy Frigate designed for long term frontier patrols. She is not perfect and has flaws that are specifically designed for this scenario. The ship has a good acceleration but is less agile in other directions – there are significantly more vulnerable portions of the armour and the cramped quarters are not the most easy to navigate.


CIC
The CIC (blue lights) will have protocols readily available for your convenience. The Action Stations button will bring weaponry, repair systems and batteries online, while the AI offensive system will engage the ship’s search-and-destroy mode and the defensive system will remove it from the area if encountering enemies. Should you run into trouble unprepared, the repair protocols will kick in if damage occurs. Via the CIC screens you can monitor the damage levels of your ship as well as the ammo reserves. You have a reset button that will disengage all AI protocols if you
want.

Programs
The Merula has several programs in the Programmable Blocks that are vital to immersive gameplay but can be deactivated for performance – only the NR-Block is vital for switching between mission displays. Apart from that there are these scripts on the Merula:

• WHAM and LAMP from Whiplash for the missile
  
• Turret Slaving Script from Whiplash for the Geyser Turrets
  
• Fancy Status Displays by Ekuah for the systems overview
  
• Autodoor script by Whiplash for the doors

Repair and Combat Systems
The Merula has some basic production capabilities but will rely on the dock’s facilities for larger repairs. The Merula can produce new ammo and replacement parts aboard, though, and store a significant amount of materiel in the cargo holds as well as in the automated repair system.
The Merula has several Artillery turrets, Assault Turrets, a Missile Turret, several gatlings and three PMW “Geyser” Turrets that are fragile but pack a massive punch. It has two forward facing artillery guns and a PMW made first strike cruise missile. The lower side of the Merula is much tougher and will be useful to take a beating while getting out of a combat zone. All key systems have redundancies and there are no centralized power- or cargo sections to maximise combat readiness when damaged.

Missiles

The Merula has a missile bay that uses Whiplash’s missile system in the front. The ship is readily configured to fire missiles and construct additional missiles – one at a time. The missile itself is not overly powerful but can be used effectively as a first strike weapon even against capital ships.

Take the following steps to use the bay properly:
• (1) Press the Missile Prep button in CIC
• (2) Get into the missile control seat or the frontal combat seat in the CIC and follow the instructions on the upper left
• (3) Press the FIRST of the two programmable block symbols in the quick slot bar to lock on. Sometimes, the PB symbols will be available on the second page of the quick slot bar.
• (4) Press the SECOND of the two programmable block symbols to fire one missile.
• (4) Missile lock indicators in the cockpit will tell you if you lose missile lock.
• (5) in order to close the missile bay off for combat, press the secure missile bay button in CIC



The missiles have their own targeting cameras and will maintain lock on the target after firing on their own.
If the missile construction grid is active and you have enough resources, new missiles will be produced one at a time.

Survival and difficulty

Survival – reaping the spoils of war
In the beginning, the Merula has only a few rounds of ammo to barely get by from mission to mission. The same goes for repair materials and ice. You are not supposed to mine but to salvage wrecks and enemy ships to gain more material. In later missions, you will be given supplies by NPC ships or requisition supplies from civilian ships – but keeping your ship intact and having enough bullets to shoot with might be a hassle in he first half of the scenario. Look especially for Cobalt, Magnesium, and to an extend for Nickel as well if you take a look at enemy wrecks.
Enemy difficulty
The enemy comes in different shapes and forms – there are small harassing drones, active missile drones, heavy artillery drones and the larger ships. Not all types act the same way, though. Each ship type might have up to four versions that behave differently, from ramming to overloads, from speed to tactics. There are some larger boss-type vessels in the scenario that you want to watch out for.
Enemies might also not immediately be there but approach the mission area at a later stage. Watch out for approaching signals.
Enemies have limited ammo and are Keen AI drones – they can be tricked, exploited and kited. You need to decide how much of that you want and how much you consider cheating 😊
Additionally, there are no spawners, everything is pre-placed.

Exploiting
You are not supposed to mine, to grind off functional and crewed friendlies or their stations – the game might not even break if you do, but the scenario is not balanced against that kind of behaviour.

Multiplayer vs Singleplayer

This game is balanced for up to four people. Some people steering, some people shooting, steering drones and some people running around fixing holes – but it can easily be played by a single player as well. In this case, it is suggested to rely more on the AI systems and adapt them to your liking. Leaving the Merula for salvaging while the AI System is on defence might, for example, be prudent.

Modding & DLC

Playing without DLC

The preplaced grids in this scenario almost all use DLC blocks to a varying degree. If you do not own any or only some DLC, this scenario is ABSOLUTELY PLAYABLE for you.

You will only interact on a regular basis with the Merula and the maintenance dock. The Merula has two projectos - one with the DLC version and one with the vanilla non-DLC version ( I think there are two lights I did not find that can be ignored) - if you activate the second one, you can reprint all damaged sections of the ship without any hassle even without the DLC,

If you play with other that have the DLC you are missing, you could also ask them to weld something up for you.
However, YOU DO NOT NEED ANY DLC for this scenario to be downloaded and played.

Playing with mods
This scenario should work with a plethora of different mods, from new blocks to new mechanics. It has, however, not gone through extensive testing.

Mods that should be perfectly fine: block mods, QOL mods, graphical enhancements

Mods that could work but interfere: hostile modular encounters, block modification mods
Mods that would possibly make the scenario not work properly: mods that degrade or damage blocks, like environmental threats, etc. – everything in this world is pre-placed manually and does not spawn in, so it can be damaged even if you are not around.

Lore of the Game

The Akhinnae Empire is a single-species realm that has been spacefaring for three hundred years now. Fifteen High Houses control most of the Empire’s day-to-day business and answer to the Emperor or Empress of the High House of Fayal.

The Silas System is a remote system that has been claimed by the Crown primarily for their resource rich asteroid belts and because SIlas I, the only planet of the system, has a breathable atmosphere.

You can find more lore about the Houses and the Empire aboard the Merula and with NPC ships.