Buzz Aldrin's Space Program Manager: AAR

Zombie · October 27, 2016

So there was a little interest in this game by some forum members so I decided to do an AAR (sorta). There are three single-player campaigns you can elect to play: NASA, Soviet space agency or GSA (Global Space Agency). For the first two, whichever one you don't pick, the computer will play against you with that side - for instance, if you choose NASA, the computer will play the Soviets and you will therefore be trying to beat them at doing things. The GSA is a marriage between the two, but here instead of playing against the computer you will be attempting to achieve goals it sets for you.

For the sake of familiarity, I elect to play as NASA. I'm also going to play on easy as it gives more leeway in terms of funding and prestige. As for funding and prestige, these both go hand in hand. For every action you successfully complete you will gain some positive amount of prestige points (conversely, unsuccessful actions will deduct prestige). These points are used as a funding determination every 4 years. This cycle is divided into quarters (4 quarters = 1 year, 4 years = 16 quarters). Do well, and you'll see a funding increase. In order to maximize funding though, you'll need to meet the max prestige level. Finally, I'm going to be following a walkthrough by mreed2 on the Steam forums.

The first two screens you'll encounter are the information screens:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212016_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212021_1.jpg

And now we start to get into the meat of it:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212025_1.jpg

What this screen says is that in order to get the maximum funding increase of $10000 we need 1875 prestige. In the upper right corner you can see we already start with 250 prestige, so we'll only need to get 1625. This is really easy to get - we could just run all 3 X-15 flights and come up with way more than that. For now though, let's continue.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212045_1.jpg

This is the NASA space flight center - I've clicked on the "backhoe" icon to bring up the numbers of each facility on the map. As you can see, we do not have a Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB for short) for some reason and we absolutely need this for putting payloads on rockets and such. Best to build the VAB right away (all you need to do is click on the empty plot at 7 to start construction). Because we will be trying to maximize research capacity as much as possible to make our rockets and components reliable, we'll need to upgrade our SET (or research) center ASAP. Upgrading an existing facility is just as easy as building, just click on it if there is a number next to the building.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212216_1.jpg

As you can see, by upgrading we can have up to 14 researchers toiling away instead of the max of 7. This is what our current facility looks like:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212354_1.jpg

So now you are probably wondering why we aren't building an Astronaut Center yet. Well, since we know what projects we want to start, we also know that neither of them require astronauts. No sense in spending the money to build something and hiring astronauts when we don't need them yet. Let's save that money. The same goes for Mission Control. We aren't going to be sending anything to space (yet), so we can let this sit vacant for the time being. For the rest of the clickable icons on the screen you can see I'm hovering over the $ in the lower left, clicking on it brings up the Public Affairs Office screen.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212359_1.jpg

Obviously, there isn't much to see here as we haven't done anything, but it does give you a refresher on prestige and funding if you forget. If we click on the building icon (with 0/3 next to it), it'll bring up the Headquarters screen:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212414_1.jpg

From here we can click on a stellar object and see what missions we can research and run. This early in the game however, there isn't much we can really open on any object except Earth which has 12. I'm going to leave this alone for the time being as we are not going to open projects willy-nilly without setting up our research team first. It's important to formulate a strategy first, set everything up, and finally open up projects and construct buildings after we know how much money we have to spend. So let's get going on our SET team (that's the icon with 5/5/7 next to it which means we have 5 scientists not doing anything out of 5 total scientists employed and 7 total spaces for scientists). I had to do a bit of reloading to come up with a starting team which have more than 80 in learning potential (the walkthrough basically infers this), and luckily everyone was in the 90's which is incredible:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212449_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212453_1.jpg

From here, we can sort with the top icons, put scientists in advanced training with that big green button, hire more and manage the department. We aren't going to hire anyone yet as we need to wait till our SET building is upgraded (technically, we have 2 open slots so we could hire 2 more, but once you hire, you can't do that again for the rest of the year and there's no sense in waiting that long when our building will be functional in 2 quarters). From the manage department button you can adjust the budget (aka pooled salary) which will directly affect employee morale. If this goes too low a scientist might quit. In my experience, you can leave this at the base salary and morale will be just fine.

As I've said before, we know what project we want to start (it's called Explorer I, or basically the Soviet equivalent of Sputnik), and that requires two pieces: the satellite itself and the rocket to get it into orbit. In order to increase reliability of those pieces, we need to research them, but our scientists are a little lacking in terms of stats so let's train them a little. The guide claims we need to put two of our best scientists into advanced training for space probes (the satellite) and the three remaining into rockets so let's just eyeball this as there's only 5. Now, there's nothing that says we have to send the satellite into space with a general rocket, we can send it on a human-rated rocket and that will work just fine as long as the rocket is powerful enough to lift the payload. The upside to using a human-rated rocket is that we can use it to put men into space later on with greater reliability (aka less failure).

We'll start with the first on the list: Anthony Baldacci - he has a 41.5% skill in Space Probes and 36.1% skill in Human Rockets. Normally, you would probably put him in Space Probes because it's higher, but I can see from inspection that there are other candidates which can cover the Space Probe section so he needs to go into Human Rated Rockets. Let's click on the advanced training icon

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212813_1.jpg

And click on Human-Rated Rockets:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212823_1.jpg

For now, we'll stick him in only a single training course which will raise his skill to 62.5%. That's a barely usable level so we'll probably need to put him in again for another round after this.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212833_1.jpg

Now we can see that he's in training and the Human-Rated Rockets section is highlighted in blue on his profile. Let's put everyone else into advanced training as well:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026212921_1.jpg

That's about all we can do this quarter except look at the hiring pool to see if there's any prospects in researchers. The pool is always 10 and there's no way to make the profiles smaller so I can only show 5 at a time:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026214536_1.jpg

The first 5 are excellent: all have 89+ in learning, and it's learning that we want since we are training a team specifically for one area.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161026214556_1.jpg

The second group doesn't hold much except for the last one: Alexander Call which has 91 learning. Chase is borderline at 81 learning, but I'm going to ignore him as his overall stats are nearly 30 in everything. Sure, we could train him up alongside the rest, but he'll need multiple courses in order to make him usable. This means we'll have 6 possible recruits. The walkthrough mentions hiring 8 so that means we'll need to wait another year before we can hire again which may delay the program. Maybe that's for the best anyway, because when the SET center upgrades I fully expect to fill it to it's max capacity of 14 scientists and I should be able to hire 3 more with learning in the 90's from a set of 10.

Since Anthony will require two training courses to get him up to snuff, that will probably mean that his human-rated rocket stat will be a little bit higher than the rest of the team. If that happens, I'll probably take someone off the project with the lowest stat and put Anthony in his place. Then I'll put that researcher into an advanced training course to raise his stat even higher. This means someone else on the project will be lower, so the process can start all over again until Anthony is the lowest again. At that point, I might take him off that project and put him in advanced training for something like crewed spacecraft which we'll need if we want to open the Mercury project.

Anyhow, stay tuned. I'll have more when time permits. Hopefully this wasn't too boring.

- Zombie

silencer_pl · October 27, 2016

Excellent. Also If I'm not mistaken the person that greets you is the creator of the V2 rockets. So that would make him third RL person in the game.

Zombie · October 31, 2016

Excellent. Also If I'm not mistaken the person that greets you is the creator of the V2 rockets. So that would make him third RL person in the game.

I don't really consider Wernher von Braun to be a true person in the game, he just shows up during the intermission between quarters in a pop-up. I mean, even in the first screen I posted, that shows Dwight D Eisenhower and a real astronaut (probably from the Mercury program). All those flight controllers are real people too as it's from a photo. But they're not really in the meat of the game per-se. I'll have a little more on this on a following screenie.

We left off at the end of 1955.1 (first quarter of 1955). When you end a season you'll always get a bulletin news splash screen:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161030225026_1.jpg

Also there is a screen showing any news from your side or the opponent's side:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161030225033_1.jpg

In this case the Soviets opened up the Sputnik program and the Vostok rocket - that doesn't mean they launched Sputnik, just that they opened up the program. (Actually, there is a little bit of a discrepancy here to real life. A Soviet satellite was first formally proposed Aug 8 1955 (which would be 1955.3), but this was later scrapped because it was too ambitious. The satellite we know as Sputnik was approved February 15, 1957 which is much later than in-game. Although we shall see when they are able to put it into orbit). You can also see we started construction of the VAB. That's it for the news for this quarter. Depending on what's going on, this screen can fill up pretty quick when you start opening up projects, scheduling tests, upgrading facilities, hiring and training.

Next up is a screen which I hinted at before:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161030225044_1.jpg

See? We have the crew of Apollo 11 (Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins) along with John F Kennedy. Those are real people too, but still not in the meat of the game (except for Aldrin of course). This is what perplexes me about this screen showing up 1955.2: The Apollo crew hasn't even been finalized yet (much less Mercury or Gemini) and JFK's moon speech happened on September 12, 1962 which is still 7 years away. This has no business showing up this early in the game. Hell, JFK didn't even take office till January 1961. Basic history stuff.

Anyhow, sometimes you get an informational popup:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161030230008_1.jpg

I mentioned this in my previous post of course. Sometimes these information or warning popups can be excessive (I didn't show the 3-4 warnings the game gave me when trying to end the season without building an astronaut center or mission control). As far as I can tell, there isn't a way to turn these off, you just have to live with them.

So there's nothing we can really do this quarter. Our SET researchers are still in training, VAB is still under construction and the SET center is still being upgraded. Time to end this and go to 1955.3. As always, we have some news:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161030230246_1.jpg

Sometimes you'll get a random bit of good news which will help you (or bad news which might delay you). In this case, we would get an R&D boost of 23.6% this quarter. Good news, unfortunately our SET employees are still in training yet so we can't reap the benefits. Too bad this didn't happen next quarter. We also finished construction of the VAB and upgrading of the SET center. Finally! Just don't ask me why they are using a photo of the VAB for the SET center upgrade...

Our map changed a little with the new buildings:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161030230328_1.jpg

As you can also see, our funds are still increasing so that's good. We'll be spending some on hiring again though. We also have a new icon at the far right: that's the VAB.

I think I'll leave it at this for now and continue on with hiring and showing some more in-game screens next post. Should start to get a little more interesting from here on out as there will always be things going on. Right now, it's an anticipated lull in the storm.

- Zombie

Zombie · November 1, 2016

Right, so we left off at the beginning of 1955.3. Now that our SET center has upgraded we can go ahead and hire some more scientists. (Sometimes when you reload, the game randomizes the stats of the people in the hiring pool. Not sure when or how this happens, but I reloaded a few times till I got the original stats I posted).

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161031233254_1.jpg

To hire someone, just click on their profile and they will be added to your queue. When you have what you want, click on the Hire Recruits button. You'll of course get a confirmation screen:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161031233344_1.jpg

Here again, there isn't much more we can really do this quarter. We have some decent learning capacity SET center folks hired. Their stats are decent, but not many are in the right areas we are concerned with (Probes and Human-Powered Rockets). That can be rectified with training and that unfortunately takes time and money. I think we are still okay though. Time to put an end to this quarter. As expected, warnings pop up again:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161031233649_1.jpg

Yes, I'm sure. Our scientists haven't finished training yet, when they do, I'll open up a rocket program. Are you happy now game? And of course, we can look forward to some news:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161031233656_1.jpg

It's about time. Our SET researchers have finished their training. It also shows we hired some folks too. See those + signs? You can click on those to expand the listing:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161031233719_1.jpg

Very handy button indeed. So next post we can finally open up our first program, assign some scientists to research it, and do some chores to get us ready for probe research. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

silencer_pl · November 1, 2016

Juanita had some courage with those stats to be a candidate for NASA.

Zombie · November 2, 2016

We left off at the beginning of 1955.4 and as promised, we are going to be opening our first program. Now, rockets take much longer to research and get to a decent reliability so we are going to open up a rocket program first, then somewhere down the line we'll open up the probe (satellite). By the time the probe is at a decent reliability the rocket should be similar.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161101222408_1.jpg

As you can see, now that we have a VAB we have a button to open up a rocket program in the solar system screen. There are a bunch of rockets we could use to launch a satellite. Typically, you would pick the rocket with the cheapest cost which will get the job done. This is fine of course, but we want to use something which we can grow with for a while. The more times you use a rocket, the more reliable it becomes. So we'll be opening up a human rated rocket to do the job:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161101222457_1.jpg

This is the Atlas Booster, it's pretty pricey when compared to the other beginning rockets, but it'll allow us to use it for multiple projects before we need to discard it for more powerful variants. The Atlas has some decent stats: 4000kg Sub-Orb payload and 1360kg for LEO (plenty to get our first satellite into orbit). Can't go to the moon with this or send probes to other planets, but good enough for bumming around Earth. Right now, it's reliability is only 3% though so we need to get some researchers on it ASAP. Now that it's open, let's manage the rocket program. Back to the solar system panel.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161101222544_1.jpg

Now there's a manage rocket programs button, so let's click on that.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161101222606_1.jpg

You can stuff a maximum of 4 people to research any project and we have 5 people available. Three of them are trained to be human rated rocket researchers and 2 are for probes. Sticking Sergio in for rockets would be an option, but he's only at 42.9 so the amount of extra reliability he would provide is negligible, besides, he's our best probe scientist so it wouldn't make sense. To assign a researcher to a project, all you have to do is click on a ? in a box and then click on a profile. I always put the person with the highest stat first (not that it makes too much difference if you mix them up, but you never know). It helps that our most proficient researcher is an incredible 80.1% in human rated rockets.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161101222623_1.jpg

With all three on the project our rocket will improve by 24.3% for a total reliability of 27.3%. It's low, but a good start. Let's jump back to our researchers though as we still have 2 guys twiddling their thumbs doing nothing.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161101222756_1.jpg

There's two trains of thought when you see researchers with these stats in the next project you want to open. The first is of course to open up the satellite project and get these guys researching it pronto. Their stat are decent and they should make some headway on it. But opening up projects cost money - the longer a project is open, the more it'll cost. So let's run these guys through another cycle of training in probes.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161101222838_1.jpg

With their learning capacity in the 90's it should help them to get better at probes fast. As you can see, the rest of the crew still is in basic training till the end of this quarter so there isn't much more we can do with the SET team. Ditto for for programs (everything is open that we want open). This means only one thing - end this quarter. First up is reliability increases to our project:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161102004659_1.jpg

Wait a minute, wasn't our reliability supposed to be 24.3/27.3? Now it's 23.7/26.7... hmmm. Well, it's only half a percentage point of difference, we can make that up no problem. Next is the news:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161102004707_1.jpg

Very nice, the rest of our SET team is available for duty. Onward to 1956.1:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161102005051_1.jpg

So that's the end of this episode. Next time we'll be putting those new SET employees into training, hiring 3 more scientists to fill the building up, and building Mission Control. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

silencer_pl · November 2, 2016

Human powered rocket that sounds a little odd, like it was powered by million midgets or something like that.

Zombie · November 2, 2016

My bad, edited my post to reflect that. Pretty funny slip of the tongue so to speak.

- Zombie

Zombie · November 8, 2016

Last episode we ended off at the beginning of 1956.1. First things first, we need to build a Mission Control.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161107225418_1.jpg

Due to being light on available SET personnel to hire last couple quarters it's technically not dire that we build mission control as our programs might be too low to launch (we'll see though: I might be able to shoehorn a couple better prospects in human rated rockets to jump start Atlas). However, it's great to have some decent mission controllers for our first mission and greatness=training=time.

Speaking of SET employees, let's shoot on over there as we have 6 people who are ready to work.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161107225552_1.jpg

The strategy guide/walkthrough mentions that we should have 8 people available: top 6 should go in Space Probe advanced training and the remaining two should go in human rated rockets. Unfortunately we have 6, so we'll have to adjust as best we can. I have the pointer hovering over the Space Probe sort button, so let's click on that to see who is the best.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161107225604_1.jpg

Dennis and Cadin are obvious choices as their skill in probes is in the 50+ range, while human rated rockets are low. Noah is kinda strange - incredible skill in rockets and crewed spacecraft but questionable elsewhere. Right now we need warm bodies to fill the space probe programs we'll be opening up soon so I guess we'll temporarily put him in training for that. I think later on we'll be sending him to be our crewed spacecraft expert. Graham is 43.2 in space probes and 40.8 in human rated rockets neither of which is really high, but like I said before we need warm bodies for probes and his stats don't say much except for that right now.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161107225739_1.jpg

Beyond this, the other two employees are both below 41 in probes, so we should probably stick them in human rated rockets instead.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161107225755_1.jpg

Looks like this worked out for the best as one is 56 in human rated rockets and the other's stats are too low in probes to be of use anyway. So with the training session underway, it's time to see who is available in the SET hiring queue. Now, I could just hire two more people and get up to the quantity the strategy guide points to, but some of our employees have some sucky stats and I'm hoping to score someone decent. Besides, why not completely fill up the SET center?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161107230200_1.jpg

Justin is expensive, but he can moonlight in either space probes or human rated rockets. Since his skill is identical in both areas, we'll use him for whichever program is lacking. Tom's stats aren't much to write home about, but he's the 2nd highest in probes in this class so I'll take him. As a side benefit, his crewed spacecraft stat is actually decent so he'll probably get swapped out for that later on. Last one is Ezekiel. He's basically a good all-around researcher, but his strengths are in human rated rockets, crewed spacecraft and rockets. Young, cheap, and smart, can't ask for anything more. Everyone else in this class aren't good at what we need them to be good in, if I had the room I'd probably hire Kim (for EVA suits) and Rosemary (crewed spacecraft & EVA suits) but alas, we're full.

That's it for the strategy aspect of this turn. Let's end this quarter and see what happens.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161107230815_1.jpg

The Atlas booster is now at 45.7% reliability which is good for only a couple quarters of research. The strategy guide has a value of 40.2 at this point so being 5.5% above that means we're still in decent shape. And now the news:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161107230825_1.jpg

Mission control only needed this quarter to be fully operational, so that means we'll have to hire some mission controllers soon. Current view of the NASA complex:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161107230840_1.jpg

That's it for this episode. Next time we'll hire some mission controllers (hopefully we can find someone to be a flight director!), take a look at some other screens as an overview for what is in the pipes and formulate some more strategies with our SET team. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

Zombie · November 10, 2016

Continuing on with 1956.2. We now have Mission Control built so it's time to hire a crew to fill it.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161108234028_1.jpg

Yes, I know, I know.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161108234332_1.jpg

Looks like a pretty good group if you ask me. We got lucky with Michael Johnson: mid-to-high 50's in everything but Mission Operations (MO). Put him through a single training session in MO and he's gold. Now why would you want someone high in everything? Simple, Flight Directors have to use all their skills when something goes wrong, and stuff goes wrong. A lot. You need high average stats for Flight Directors because the game uses that to calculate if you can sort out the problem or if the mission goes pear-shaped and fails. Now, Michael's propulsion stat is a little on the low side too but I think we might be able to squeak him in a single training session in that as well. Eventually, we'll be training him in every stat during the quiet times. What we really need is another Flight Director prospect we can stick in training when Michael's busy, then trade them off between Flight Controller missions and training.

As for the rest of the lot, all I'm looking for is a high learning capacity and a single decent stat. We have that with Rodrigo and to a lesser extent Jim Power. Jim is borderline bad if you look at his starting stats, but because his learning is high we can train those deficiencies rather quickly. Damien is in the same boat as well, but we can't see that from this screenie. Lemme scroll down and show everyone else.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161108234359_1.jpg

So yeah, Damien has 97 for learning which is incredible so we'd be foolish to ignore him on stats alone. There aren't any more prospects except for Federus. If his stats were a little bit higher in the first three categories, I'd consider him for backup Flight Director, but that would take too much training. Most likely he'll be our Crew and Payloads specialist as his other decent stat is MO. Remember, we can only hire 5 people here and I think we have our team. Let's hire!

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161108234527_1.jpg

Because there really isn't much more we can do this quarter, let's mosey on over to our Headquarters tab and take a closer look at opening an actual mission. First off, if you hover your cursor over an object you can get a general overview of which projects are available to open. In our case, we only have the Earth.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161108234638_1.jpg

For now, we are working to get our foot in the door so to speak and can't really handle many of these programs (except for maybe the X-15 stuff, but that requires at least two astronauts which we are ignoring due to budget). Let's click on the Earth to see these missions in more detail.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161108234704_1.jpg

There are basically 5 categories to pick from. The first (Earth Orbiting Research Satellites) is the Sputnik-like program which we're going to go after in a later episode. Next is Space Planes (X-15), One Person Ballistic Capsule is the Mercury program, Two-Person is Gemini and Three-Person is obviously Apollo. Even though our current rocket (Atlas) is powerful and Human Rated, we still can't do every mission in these categories. But it opens up quite a few. Let's take a look at the first category (all you have to do is click on the pic to open it up).

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161108234720_1.jpg

Explorer I is what all our effort is being focused on as it's cheap, doesn't have astronauts, and is light. If you are looking at the programs and see green or red squares those mean if we have a rocket capable of handling that mission (green obviously means yes, red means no). Those boxes with numbers in them represent cost to open/maintenance cost, min/max # of flight controllers, current/max # of goals and finally min/max # of astronauts. There are so many more things to see and read here, but I'm only touching the tip as we need to move on. Time to click on Explorer I to see what that's all about.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161108234827_1.jpg

In a later episode, we'll be opening up the Explorer program. As you can see, there's two missions in this program a regular and extended mission. LEO stands for Low Earth Orbit - but there are a bunch more acronyms that can go in here depending on the program and mission (Suborb=Sub Orbital, LEO, TLI=Trans-Lunar Injection and TPI=Trans-Planetary Injection). All of these (except TPI) have human-rated variants. We only need 3 flight controllers for Explorer so that's good news as we can train up two of our crew. Finally we can see that both missions have a payload weight of 11kg. Light stuff.

Really, it's overkill that we are using Atlas for this as it has a LEO max payload of 1360kg but the more missions we use Atlas for, the more reliable it'll be. Atlas also has a Sub-Orbital max payload of 4000kg which is hefty. The Biosatellite has a LEO payload of 542kg which is well within our capabilities as is the Frog Otolith which has a LEO payload of 133kg. The reason why we can't launch the Pegasus satellite program is because it's heavy. Really heavy (LEO 9000kg). The next rocket capable of launching that is the Saturn I (which I assume we'll be skipping in favor of the Human-rated Saturn IB). Pegasus will have to be a later mission due to lack of a powerful rocket. So that's an overview of what we'll be seeing in coming episodes.

Time to end this quarter and see how out our Atlas rocket is faring.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161109000007_1.jpg

Nice, a gain of 12.2% for an overall reliability of 57.8. That puts us ahead of the strategy guide which lists the Atlas as +11.0, 51.1% max reliability. Next is the all-important news.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161109000104_1.jpg

So our 2 scientists have finished their probe training. That's good news as it means we can open up Explorer next quarter. 5 SET employees also graduated from basic training so we'll need to put these guys to work asap. Finally, we hired 5 flight controllers. As always, this is how the new quarter looks like:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161109000121_1.jpg

That's it for this episode. Next time we'll be opening up and starting research on Explorer I, assigning the Atlas to be the rocket for the mission, putting those SET employees in training (probably a little bit of strategy in deciding who needs to go where) and probably looking at how far behind we'll be due to the trouble with hiring enough researchers a few quarters ago. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

silencer_pl · November 10, 2016

Jim Power decided to stop shooting aliens and start working with NASA I see. Also those ballistics missions sounds funny like: "We will shoot you in space using this BFG".

Zombie · November 21, 2016

Sorry for the lack of updates, my job was nuts, dealing with spammers on the forums and managing my XCOM/X-COM collection (the usual stuff). Anyhow, we left off 1956.3 which means it's time to finally open up Explorer I, so let's do that first.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120222136_1.jpg

You bet I want to open it. Just opening the probe program isn't enough though, it requires a rocket to get it to where it needs to go.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120222341_1.jpg

If you hover your cursor over the LEO 11KG button it brings up which rockets can fulfill this task. In this case, it rightly points us to the Atlas, so let's click on the button.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120222355_1.jpg

Depending on the mission, you might have more than one rocket capable of carrying out this task (I'd suspect the one with the greatest reliability and lowest cost would be the one to pick). For now though, we only have one rocket which makes it an easy choice.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120222415_1.jpg

Now that the Atlas is assigned to this payload, we need to think about reliability of the probe itself. It starts out at 3% which is pitiful so we should probably get some researchers on it. Pretty easy to do this, just click on the R&D Mission Components button.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120222704_1.jpg

There's only two researchers who are any good at probes right now, so let's pick Sergio and Dennis to start. Both are in their mid-80's for probes which is excellent.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120223203_1.jpg

Just these two scientists are enough to get the ball rolling and will result in a 33.1% improvement this quarter which is fantastic. Later on we can add more scientists when their stats improve. See the blue numbers attached to the Explorer I and Atlas rocket buttons? Those indicate how many scientists are working on each project. Handy, eh? We have 3 idle SET researchers so it's probably a good idea to get them into training. Now, this is kinda where we'll encounter some complicated math - no so much in terms of equations or anything, but more along the lines of determining who needs to go where to fill the rolls the strategy guide mentions. First let's look at who's in training.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120224459_1.jpg

So we have two scientists (Alexander and Barbara) who are still in human-rated rockets training (but they will be out at the end of this quarter). If you are counting with me, we have a maximum of 4 researcher spots for any program (including Atlas which we have 3 already). That means we only need either Alexander or Barbara to fill that last spot. However, I think I'm going to leave both people in this field for now and keep the lowest one in training (Alexander). I'm hoping to train him up in Human-rated rockets as much as possible, then stick him in near the end for a decent reliability increase of the Atlas. With that out of the way, we have some folks in probe training yet.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120224510_1.jpg

So four are still in probe training and we have only 2 spots open for Explorer I. Where will the extra two go? Well, we'll be opening up the Bio Satellite (probe) program probably next quarter, so they can go in there.

Back to the math. The strategy guide recommends 4 people in Atlas, 4 in Explorer I and 4 in Bio Satellite. That's 12 total and he had 13 to play with and suggested putting the last one into Crewed Spacecraft training (good to have because the Mercury capsule needs to be researched). My game is different due to some hiring difficulties so we have to do a little back calculating to see what is manageable.

14 total
-3 Atlas
-2 Explorer I
---------------
9 Available
-2 Human rated rockets (5 total for Atlas, one will be spare)
---------------
7 Available
-4 Probe (two for Explorer I, the rest for Bio Satellite)
---------------
3 Available (yet)

Which is what we have available now, so let's see if anyone can fill a role.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161121003925_1.jpg

Right off the bat we can see that Justin has 58 in space probes, so he's a great prospect for training in that area. That leaves 2.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161121011007_1.jpg

So technically, we should get one of these into probe training if we are going to follow the strategy guide verbatim. Trouble is, neither of these two are decent in probes. So here's my thought: these two are decent in Crewed Spacecraft so let's put them into training for that now. Our probe crew will be one short, but because their stats are so high already, we can swap them around to where they are needed the most. Besides, once Explorer I is above 80% reliability, additional gains from research tend to get smaller and smaller so we can take someone away from there and put him/her into the Bio Satellite program for more bang for the buck. This should probably work. With that headache out of the way, it's time to finish off this quarter. As always, mission component reliability increases:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120230459_1.jpg

An increase of 11% to 68.9% total is excellent (strategy guide says +8.4% to 59.5% total so we are well ahead). Next is the Explorer I probe.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120230507_1.jpg

Remember, we started at 3% reliability so an increase of 34.3% for a total of 37.3% is great (strategy guide says 28.7% increase to 31.7% total). Here again, we are ahead by nearly 6% due to our superior research team. Don't ask me why this is a different number from earlier. I don't recall reloading the game anywhere as this was done in one sitting, not complaining though, it's more. And now for the Bulletin News:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120230528_1.jpg

As expected, our 5 mission controllers have graduated from basic training, the two in human rockets and 4 in probes finished training, and we opened Explorer I. This is the current state of affairs:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161120230559_1.jpg

We made some serious progress this past quarter. Next time we'll be putting those mission controllers into advanced training, opening up Bio Satellite and assigning most of our available SET personnel into appropriate programs. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

silencer_pl · November 21, 2016

Can't wait until first countdown

Zombie · November 22, 2016

Thanks, me too!

I was running the game forward the other day and noticed that the Soviets were able to launch Sputnik pretty early. It's not really a huge issue if they make it into space first, as the game will not end on this condition (or any other space related condition, the only limiting factor is funds). Luckily, my team on rockets and probes are doing such fantastic work that I think I'll be able to sneak a launch in earlier than the strategy guide was able to (maybe as much a two quarters earlier, but the biggest thing holding that back would be the stats of the mission controllers).

One thing I learned is that it's good having those two scientists in crewed spacecraft training till they are in their 80's-90's. Might have to pull someone else off of probes and retrain this stat so I'll have three. Of course, once we upgrade our SET center we can hire some more people and train them in that as well.

Because of the progress and moving up of the launch schedule, I might even build an astronaut center early. Once the Mercury program is in full swing, I don't want to wait till my astronaut crew are out of basic training, or through one round in Fitness (supposedly, the most important stat early on).

- Zombie

Zombie · November 26, 2016

Last time we left off at the beginning of 1956.4, and we have a bunch of housecleaning chores to accomplish this quarter. Let's check up on the Atlas rocket researching team.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124222036_1.jpg

If left alone, the team would net a 7% improvement to 75.8% total reliability (which is nearing the 80% minimum launch threshold). But we have a some researchers idle and 2 of them are trained in human-rated rockets. Let's take everyone out of researching Atlas and put in the most experienced crew:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124222109_1.jpg

Barbara is 71.9 in human-rated rockets which is a great addition to the team. She doesn't add much overall though (remember what I said about the law of diminishing returns)? We're now looking at a 7.6% improvement for a total reliability of 76.5%, which is marginally better, but I want all the warm bodies I can get now so that hopefully the reliability will be enough to launch our first mission in a quarter or two.

We might as well open up the Biosatellite program since there are a few idle researchers with probe training.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124222444_1.jpg

For this play through, we are only going to be running the regular missions as they have the most prestige for the time invested. Sure, we could run both, but the extended mission is one that runs multiple quarters, ties up most of your mission controllers, and doesn't award much prestige during the middle steps (the game back-loads it at the very end of the program). Anyhow, time to assign the Atlas to this program as well:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124222511_1.jpg

Now that we assigned a rocket, the next step is to assign researchers to the project. We have 3 spare SET members which have decent stats in probes, so I'll put the lowest two in this program.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124222750_1.jpg

That's actually a pretty good improvement for only two folks researching. Let's put the remaining probe researcher on Explorer to help that along.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124222822_1.jpg

Now we're cooking with rocket fuel! While doing this, I was deciding whether or not I wanted an extra body on Explorer instead of Biosatellite. I temporarily put in one of those researchers here, but it didn't add much to the overall reliability so I decided against it. Looking back, I think this may have been a little mistake. Really, I should have filled this project with 4 researchers and left the 5th one to work on Biosatellite alone. That would (in theory) help to get this out the door faster. But then you start to wonder: why even bother opening up Biosat if you only have one researcher? It would probably be better to hold off with this another quarter or two while you put two SET members through more extensive training in probes. Then again, even one researcher can make significant progress early in a program's life. I'll leave this as it is for now, but perhaps next quarter I'll toss in another researcher to Explorer (will have to check reliability of the probe vs the rocket to see if the probe will be lagging behind).

Well, with this out of the way it's time to check on the idle SET members to see what we can do there:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124222842_1.jpg

Alexander's human-rated rocket stat is still too low to be useful so let's put him in training for that. Graham's probe stat is on the low side too. We could dump him in Biosatellite and then move someone from that program over to Explorer and it would solve all our problems, right? Not quite. The amount of research power he has is pretty low, but even another single training course in probes would increase his effectiveness. Plus I'd like to have a rotating schedule where the lowest person with that skill is in training until he surpasses someone researching. Then the next lowest researcher would go into training. With this approach, you'll always have your best and brightest researching with the lowest one in training to become the next best and brightest. This is what training areas our SET members are assigned:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124222943_1.jpg

Being in the high 50's to low 60's, they should all be ready to replace someone else on the research ladder. With the SET team taken care of, it's time to head on over to mission control to get that team up to snuff. We're going to need one person in each category to start plus a flight controller. Michael Johnson is our flight controller as his stats are all pretty decent. If (and when) there is a problem during any step in a mission, the flight director needs to have a high average overall rating, and the best way to increase the average is to train the weakest stat as it improves more than higher stats. Michael's lowest stat is Mission Operations (funny how that happened, eh?) so let's put him into training.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124223109_1.jpg

Now to pigeon-hole the rest of the team so they specialize in one area. I looked at Rodrigo first: good at Propulsion and Mission Operations. Well, he's not going to be a flight director, so the best bet would be to stick him into training for propulsion (a quick search confirmed nobody was higher than him anyway).

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124223148_1.jpg

Now it's just a matter of picking a category and seeing who's the best at it, then assigning them into training for it.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124223301_1.jpg

Jim Power will be our Spacecraft systems specialist (all his other stats are lower). Federus will be Crew and Payloads and Damian will be Trajectory & GNC. Assigning this group was simple stuff really. We could have gotten a group where we had to put more thought into the process.

That's about all we can do this quarter (this will be a recurring routine for future quarters as I like to check each each group to make sure they are all doing something and whether they can be put to use elsewhere. As the game progresses, we'll be adopting more responsibility as the Astronaut center will need to be built). Time to check on reliability increases:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124223557_1.jpg

As usual, the increases shown here for Atlas don't match what we saw during the quarter. This must be a parsing bug of some sort, and it's really annoying, but if we stick to the numbers during the quarter we should be closer to the true value (if there even is one!). Explorer is next:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124223606_1.jpg

From this, it appears we are about 10% shy of the reliability of the Atlas so we are going to need to step up our efforts on Explorer so that the two get to above 80% at the same time. That way we can launch somewhat safely. The thing with the rocket though, is that if it malfunctions, you lose the rocket, the payload and prestige; whereas if the probe malfunctions, you'll only lose it (plus the prestige). Both scenarios would require a relaunch, but at least you'll be looking at only one rebuild. So technically we could be a little more lax for the payload (still should be above 80% though).

Right now, my best guess for the launch of Explorer would be 1957.2 with a low probability for success and 1957.3 with a fairly decent chance (might need to hire a tiger team [or two] if things go pear-shaped, but it's certainly possible with our mission controllers and scientists). The strategy guide mentions an Explorer launch of 1958.1 is about the earliest you can manage with a "resonable chance of success", probably because he's putting his mission controllers through a second round of training. I'll know more next quarter if we can risk it. The Biosat is next:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124223617_1.jpg

Right now, it's too early to tell when we should expect to launch this due to the skeleton shift of researchers assigned. It's going to be a few quarters later than Explorer (at least 3) as I'd like to get the mission controllers through another round of training. On the plus side, if there's a successful Explorer launch, the assigned mission controllers will automatically get a small increase in their stats so this will help too. Finally, there'e the Bulletin News:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124223628_1.jpg

Uh-oh, looks like the Soviets opened up the Sputnik program. Assuming the reliability of their satellite starts at 3% like we did, I'm guessing it'll be a while before they are able to launch (maybe 1958.1-1958.3). That should give us plenty of time to beat them to the punch. Lastly, the state of affairs:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161124223634_1.jpg

You might assume that since everyone is in training (or researching) that this quarter will be light on activity. Quite right, this next one should be a quickie: double-check each department and possibly move a researcher from Biosat to Explorer. Our eventual aim will be to launch Biosat by 1958.4 as that will get us more prestige which will get us more $. We should be able to get there without too much trouble. So stay tuned!

- Zombie

Zombie · November 27, 2016

As promised, a quickie tour of 1957.1. First off, let's try to correct the mistake I made earlier. We'll head on over to the Biosatellite program to check on the progress.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161126234314_1.jpg

Right, 12.7% (46.3%). I suppose the question now is who do we want to take off Biosat to put on Explorer? I say we go for broke and remove the best one.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161126234332_1.jpg

So now it's at 7.1% (40.7%) - which translates to -5.6%. I can live with that. Well, time to check up on Explorer:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161126234355_1.jpg

The projected improvement is 14.6% (76.4%), so let's assign the other researcher we took off Biosat to see how much is gained.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161127002740_1.jpg

Now it's 15.6% (77.4%) which translates to a single stinking percentage point (+1%). It's not much, but every iota of reliability we can squeeze out of this turnip before launch is good. There isn't really anymore we can accomplish this quarter, so time to end it. As always, reliability increases (Atlas first).

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161126234523_1.jpg

5.9% (82.3%), let's remember that and compare it to Explorer.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161126234544_1.jpg

Explorer is 16.3% (78.1%) which means it's still 4.2% behind the rocket. But we know that our increases with the probe will be higher (especially now since we have a probe researcher coming out of training this quarter) so any losses might get negated by the improvement a better researcher brings. On the flip side of the coin, we don't have anyone coming into the rocket program this quarter (next quarter we will though). so there will not be a very big increase at all. As it stands right now, it'll probably be a wash (meaning both will be the same reliability). As long as both are above 80%, we'll be good.

I don't want to forget about Biosatellite:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161126234601_1.jpg

Any news?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161126234622_1.jpg

So we'll have some researchers coming out of training this quarter. It's just the one in probes and the two in crewed spacecraft though. I'm probably going to shove those two in crewed spacecraft back in for another round of training, They will be the core researching squad for the Mercury capsule, and we'll add in others to help out later (we need to hire more researchers when the new funding report comes in at the end of 1958.4). The probe researcher will go directly to Explorer if his stats are good enough.

State of affairs:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161126234629_1.jpg

Unfortunately, our mission controllers are not out of training yet so launch of Explorer I will have to be pushed back to the end of 1957.3. No worries, it'll give us another quarter to get the reliability of the rocket and probe higher. Here again, there will not be much going on this quarter except for the aforementioned SET researchers, so it'll be another quickie. The lull before the storm so to speak. I'm trying my hardest to get the launch of Explorer as soon as possible, right now I'm going to try for a firm 1957.3 launch date. No doubt, we'll probably encounter problems during launch, but the reliability of our systems are pretty decent so the limiting factor will be the stats of our mission controllers. There's still money in our coffers and I'll be more than happy to spend some of it on tiger teams in order to achieve a successful launch if the need arises. Besides, the sooner we close out Explorer, the less we'll spend on annual upkeep.

What happens if I get too far ahead of the strategy guide? Well, that's certainly a possibility right now, but I can always toss in my idle researchers into training so that when the strategy guide catches up, my team will be well prepared. Plus, I'm really worried about the Soviets beating me into space. That's why I'm pushing training for crewed spacecraft so much: I want to have Mercury running as soon as possible and I want to have a decent core group of researchers on the project so that all we'll have to focus on is astronauts. Anyhow, stay tuned!

- Zombie

Zombie · December 5, 2016

Back again, let's get all our ducks in a row and proceed with 1957.2. As planned, we have 3 SET researchers out of training, so let's see what we can do there.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204203212_1.jpg

Looks like Justin is now at 77 for space probes which is higher than some of our researchers. Time to check out the Explorer program to see if we can quickly shoehorn him in. First, the current state:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204203324_1.jpg

7.7% improvement to 85.8% reliability, and Justin is higher than two of these researchers. Putting him in and dropping Caden (who only has 75% in probes yields this:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204203444_1.jpg

Nothing. Absolutely no improvement. Well, darn. I thought we could jumpstart the program a bit with some fresh blood, but I guess it doesn't matter much especially when the stats are less than 2% apart. Come to think of it, we really don't need the reliability of the probe to be extremely high, all we want is to get the thing to function at a decent level (hopefully above 80%). How about this: take everyone off Explorer, how bad could it be?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204213250_1.jpg

78.1%? Geez, I can smell 80%. So I mentioned before I'm planning for a 1957.3 launch date of Explorer, we'll get that easily. But maybe we can also launch the Biosatellite the next quarter (1957.4) if we play our cards right. This has a number of benefits:

We can close out the program that much quicker which will save $ on maintenance,
Explorer requires 3 mission controllers, leaving 2 we could put into training. Then we'd be stuck waiting till those two get out of training which would delay us another two quarters. If we went straight to Biosatellite, we could use the full compliment of mission controllers and spend the time afterwards on training them.
Finishing off the program would leave some SET researchers idle, which we could also put into more training.

So yeah, there are some significant benefits doing it this way. Might as well try, it can't hurt. Biosatellite current state:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204215519_1.jpg

With just Noah working on it, the reliability increase is only 6.5% with an end reliability of 46%. What would happen if we put our best and brightest on the job?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204215701_1.jpg

Much better! 18.1% improvement for an end reliability of 57.6%. I'm going to roll with this and hope that we can reach 80% by the end of 1957.4, if not, it isn't a huge deal if we have to delay another quarter. Hopefully our two idle probe reasearchers will be enough to get us to above 80% reliability for Explorer though. *drum roll please*

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204220835_1.jpg

Beautiful! I love it when a plan comes together! This was pure luck, but I like to think of it as careful planning. Anyhow, now that we have the probe programs covered, we should get back to our two idle SET researchers.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204221235_1.jpg

These are our two Crewed Spacecraft specialists. They are already pretty good as both are above 75%. Technically, we could open up Mercury right now and get some decent increases on it, but opening up programs cost money and not only that, but then I'd feel obligated to build an astronaut center and hire some astronauts too which would cost even more. No, let's resist the urge and put these guys into another round of training. When they are done, we can reevaluate the situation. Zeke, you're up first:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204221258_1.jpg

8.6% improvement for a total skill of 87.2%. That's excellent. Tom, what about you?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204221308_1.jpg

10.1% improvement for a total skill of 85.3%. Also, not too shabby. But nowhere near experts in the field yet, so they might need another round. That'll delay opening up Mercury till approximately the end of 1958.4 which really isn't a bad thing as it'll force our hand at waiting a bit to spend more $ when the next funding cycle is determined. So here's what our training folks look like:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204223406_1.jpg

When Alexander (guy at the top) comes out of training for human-rated rockets, he might be able to replace someone on the Atlas rocket. Then we can put someone else into training again which could help when we need to open up our next rocket program (still a way's off yet as Mercury requires the Atlas rocket and it'll be maxed out in reliability by then). Graham is in probe training, and he should probably be pretty good at it when he gets out.

Zeke and Tom are our Crewed Spacecraft experts and are undergoing more training. Two experts do not make a team though, and we need more people good in this field because the Mercury capsule is going to require a lot of research hours to get to a decent reliability (we can't skimp here as all but one mission will have an astronaut's life on the line). With this in mind, and with some researchers being free sooner than anticipated, let's see if we can retrain anybody. Sorted by crewed spacecraft, high to low:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204225459_1.jpg

Zeke and Tom are obviously at the top (Tom is still visible for reference). This is interesting, Noah (who is one of the lowest researchers in space probes is pretty good at crewed spacecraft. He's busy now, but soon he will not and we could put him into training for crewed spacecraft. Nice. The next person with decent skill in crewed spacecraft is Dennis, but he's one of the best probe researchers we have right now and is too important to retrain. He's out of the question, but Alexander is another prospect.

We put Alexander into Human-rated rocket training a couple quarters ago and he hasn't improved much (yet, he will be out of training at the end of this quarter though). There's two things we could do: immediately take him out of training for human rated rockets and put him into crewed spacecraft (which would eliminate any gains he would have made in human rated rockets), or, allow him to finish his training and retrain him in crewed spacecraft the next quarter. We know we'll need him for crewed spacecraft, so on that we could justify his immediate dismissal from training. But we just spent money on training him in human rated rockets for three quarters, and I can't see the benfit of negating that with one swipe of the pen just to gain an extra quarter of retraining in. However tempting that might be, I'm going to keep him in for now, let him realize his gains, then retrain in crewed spacecraft next quarter. Besides, there isn't a rush on researching Mercury right now, so we have some time to plan this out.

With this, it's time to end the quarter. As always, component reliability of the Atlas rocket first:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204231905_1.jpg

With a reliability of over 86%, I would consider launching Explorer now, but it's probably better to wait as the researchers are still making headway on Atlas and it's needed for the Mercury program anyway where reliability is crutial. Speaking of Explorer I:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204231911_1.jpg

Our two lowest researchers are still making headway on this at 4.4%. Overall reliability is still a little low at 82.5%, but think of it this way: the launch will not happen till the very end of next quarter (which is after reliability increases are applied), so even if we figure on a mid-3.5% increase, the reliability of the probe at launch will be something along the lines of 86% which I'm entirely comfortable with. Let's not forget about the Biosatellite though:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204232005_1.jpg

That's a decent gain for only one quarter of researching (top guys in the field however, so I'd expect it). Hopefully we can squeeze some more juice from this orange and get up to that magical 80% by 1957.4.

As always, we have news:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204232019_1.jpg

Our flight controllers are ready (just in time for launch), our two SET researchers are finished in their training, and what's this? An increase of 13 prestige points due to public interest? I'll take it! Sometimes you'll get a random event which happens. It'll be good (like this), better (like increase productivity), neutral (like astronaut training increases for a stat), bad (like losing a researcher due to illness), or terrible (like a reduction in research efforts which may set you back). Luckily our roll was decent.

As always, the state of the complex:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161204232050_1.jpg

So we'll have only a few items to take care of this quarter which is surprising. Two SET folk have finished their training, so we'll need to do a little reordering with them. Obviously, the mission controllers have to stay idle in anticipation of the launch of Explorer I. And not to ignore the big pink elephant in the room, but we first need to schedule the launch of the satellite and assign mission controllers before the actual launch can commence at the very end of the quarter. (Which I'm sure we are all looking forward to, right)?

I'm quite happy with how this quarter turned out. Comparing to the walkthrough/strategy guide, we aren't too bad when looking at reliability. Just threw the numbers into an Excel Spreadsheet to make it easier to compare:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/Reliability.jpg

Can't complain about the Atlas as we are more than 5% ahead of the guide. True, we are a little low on Explorer, but the reliability of the probe itself is the least of my worries. Besides, another quarter of research and it'll be within a half percentage point which is acceptable. The only glaring problem is the BioSat where we are almost 10% behind. We have a better researching team in place though, so it'll be interesting to see how far behind it'll turn out to be. Might not be able to fully catch up, but we will probably get close enough to schedule the launch of BioSat at the end of 1957.4 (if not, then 1958.1 is certainaly doable). Stay tuned!

- Zombie

Zombie · December 9, 2016

First of all, I'd like to dedicate this post to John Glenn, first American in space and former US Senator who died today at age 95. He will be greatly missed by many.

With that said, I have to mention that this post would be too long if I included the actual launch sequence of Explorer I, so I will be posting that shortly.

How come this isn't shorter? Well, there were some little tweaks I needed to make and I also wanted to touch on Prestige too. Let's do that first, time to look at the stats in the Public Affairs Office:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161206231945_1.jpg

To recap, we need a minimum of 187 prestige to get the bare minimum funding level of $4750, and 1875 prestige to reach the maximum of $10000. Right now our prestige is 263 which means if we did absolutely nothing else this pay period (ending 1958.4) we'd end up with at least the minimum funding of $4750. That's good news. However, let's visit the mission configuration screen for Explorer I to see how much prestige a successful launch awards:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161206232016_1.jpg

It'll award 1650 prestige. Add that to our current total of 263 and we have 1913, which is more than enough to get to the max funding (we only needed 1875). If the launch is successful, then we will not need to do anything else for the rest of the budgetary period (assuming no random news of negative prestige happens). Therefore, if I launch Biosatellite before 1959.1 the prestige associated with that will have no effect on funding. (It will still add to total prestige level though which I think may apply to the next budgetary period - we'll have to keep an eye on that). Anyhow, since we are on the screen, we may as well schedule the mission.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161206232338_1.jpg

There are three options: Assemble Now, Assemble Later and Cancel. Cancel obviously closes the window and you aren't scheduling anything. Assemble Later is more for forgetful people (?) as it just postpones the actual assembly of the mission till the end of the quarter. I haven't really found a use for this, I suppose maybe if I needed to do some strategy (aka training) with the mission controllers then this would be helpful, however if you scrub the mission or if you unschedule it later after using the Assemble Now button, it doesn't return the funds back to you, so I don't see the point of this option. I always use Assemble Now, so let's do that.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161206232354_1.jpg

Here's where we can either let the game choose the best candidates for each position (or you can pick them yourself if you click on each box and select someone directly, nice if you want to give a different controller some time at the helm. Heck, if you really wanted to, you could assign the worst person for each category and go with that... if you are a glutton for punishment). There's a nice feature where if you hover your pointer over the box, it'll bring up a tool tip of what the person will be required to do. Check it out:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161206232842_1.jpg

Here, I'm hovering over the Booster box and you can see what he/she will be responsible for. The Booster position is really all about the Propulsion stat. as they are most responsible during launch and ascent. Other missions where there is propulsion in space, or a retrorocket to reenter the atmosphere, this person will see more use. Our core group of mission controllers is quite small and specialized right now, so it's just easiest to let the game pick everyone:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161206232900_1.jpg

Everyone in a specific position are in the low 70's and the flight director is 59.2. That last one may seem a little low, but remember that the game is using an average of all his stats for that number, which is decent. Everything looks good here, so let's continue.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161206232931_1.jpg

Once you confirm, there's no takebacks. The money which is deducted is lost, so you better be darn sure you know what you are doing here, hehe. Time to check up on our two researchers who came out of training. I put Alexander into Crewed Spacecraft training as his starting stat is pretty good. Graham went back into probe training: his stats are still a little low to be much use and we'll need someone with decent stats in probes to help jumpstart the next program.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161206233500_1.jpg

It's unfortunate, Alexander is like our third highest researcher in human rated rockets but we aren't going to be using him for that for a while (maybe later). Yup, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and accept that the game is going to throw you a lot of curve balls so you have to learn to adjust your strategy as best you can and soldier on. All of our researchers have at least 90 learning potential so retraining them isn't a huge deal, it'll just cost money. Are we done yet? Nope. There are two mission controllers idle right now and they should probably go into training so that the next time we launch something they will be more reliable.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161206233625_1.jpg

Damien obviously went back into Trajectory & GNC training while Federus goes into Crew and Payloads. Both will see some good gains from more training. So why am I not leaving them idle so that I can launch Biosatellite next quarter? (Biosatellite requires the full 5 controllers, not three). Well, like I mentioned before there technically isn't a need to launch Biosatellite so soon as we will have reached our max prestige this quarter with just one launch (Explorer I). Will it be launched yet this budgetary period? I think maybe I'll schedule it 1958.2 or so now that we have controllers in training. It also depends on what the Soviets are doing. If their progress is slow on Sputnik 2, I might be able to postpone the launch till as late as 1959.1 (no later though). If they really huff it, they may be able to get in a launch earlier. (You can get an idea of what they are doing by watching the news to see what programs they are opening up. If they open up a new program while another program is in progress you can bet that will be ready to go fairly soon).

Here's the thing though. After Biosatellite, our selection of Earthly probe programs is limited. Pegasus can't be done as we don't have a rocket powerful enough for it (yet). The Orbiting Frog Otolith (first frog in space anyone?) is the last probe we could possibly do with our current Atlas rocket. Beyond that, we need a more powerful rocket to get probes to the moon, the sun, or other planets. The issue is that there aren't many human-rated rocket programs availabe that we can open up without upgrading the VAB first (bigger rockets require a VAB with a higher roofline and bigger doors to fit it inside). Plus, the Mercury program can function quite happily with just Atlas. Eventually we'll need to have some researchers good in the plain "Rockets" skill to get the more powerful rockets we need to carry out these probe missions (not only that, but you can't even open up Gemini without sending a probe to the moon first to scout things out). My thought is to reuse our human-rated rocket researchers and retrain them in the Rockets skill (as they would be just sitting idle due to lack of availabe human rated rockets to research). To this end, let's see what the Atlas program is up to.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207001542_1.jpg

88.9% reliability is actually pretty awesome to launch Explorer I. 94.8% is about as much as we could get just researching it. To go higher you need to launch it - as a successful launch will increase the reliability too (usually a small single digit increase like 2% or so). There's nothing saying we have to research Atlas all the way up to 94.8% reliability: we can use the bonus from a successful launch to make up that difference too. Besides, the law of deminishing returns starts to rear it's ugly head when relibility is high. More people on a project is sometimes a waste.

I fooled around with this idea a bit and came to the conclusion that if I could take two people off Atlas and get away with it, then I would do that and retrain them in Rockets early. Turns out, two of the researchers are decent in the Rockets skill while two are pretty bad. Common strategy would be to take the two with the highest skill in Rockets off Atlas and retrain them in that. But what happens then? You'll have 2 great people working on a rocket and 2 who would be in training nearly forever only helping at the end when they aren't as effective. I want my whole team working on it from the beginning, so I'm going to take the 2 with the lowest stat in rockets and train them on that giving them a chance to equal the stats of the two who are better. Then all 4 will go into rocket training and they should all end at roughly the same competency. If everyone is going into and coming out of training in sequence there will be no downtime, or delays. I mucked around with the researchers a bit more and came up with this:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207002742_1.jpg

The two highest in rocket skill are assigned to research Atlas yet and even with the loss of 2 people the reliability only dropped 0.8%. I can totally live with that. With two researchers idle, we better get over to the SET building:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207002759_1.jpg

As you can see both of these guys are in the low 30's for the Rocket skill which is pitiful. Their learning stat is really high though (96 & 95 respectively) so getting them on par with their colleagues who are still on Atlas should only take one trip through training. Here they are, safe and sound, being retrained.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207002848_1.jpg

So that basiclally covers the strategy aspect for this quarter. I'll leave it right here and continue on with the reliability increases, the launch, news, and the start of 1957.4 next post. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

Zombie · December 12, 2016

As always, we need to wade through component reliability reports before we get to the end of the quarter. First up is the Atlas:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207002926_1.jpg

That's decent reliability for our first launch, how about the Explorer I probe?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207002935_1.jpg

Remember I was aiming for a 86% reliability a couple posts back? Well, we somehow got that and a tiny bit more. So I'm really happy about the rocket and probe with these numbers. Even if the controllers aren't the best yet, we can still make up for that with "tiger teams" if the need requires. What does the Biosatellite look like?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207002944_1.jpg

I'm a tiny bit disappointed with 68.6%, but really it's fine as two of the controllers are in training for a few quarters so that gives us time to get the reliability of this probe higher. If I do launch before 1959.1, at least the reliability will be high enough that we might not have to hire any tiger teams to fix any issues. The money we save there can be put to all the upgrades and hiring we'll be doing next budgetary period. I guess this leaves the launch.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207002951_1.jpg

If you get cold feet, you can still scrub the mission here, but like I said before, you'll lose the money you plopped down to schedule it in the first place. We are good though, so fingers crossed. Here's a nice popup detailing the probe and what it's purpose is:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003017_1.jpg

Kinda cool to see what was actually on these probes. Now we have to decide on how we want to control the mission:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003036_1.jpg

When you are running a lean ship like we are, chancing it by picking "Skip To Outcome" is a tough sell, especially this early in the game. True, we are still a few quarters away from the end of the budgetary season and a bad launch would only set us back a quarter at the most (in terms of reliability), but on prestige we'd be forced to launch Biosatellite to make up the loss (263 current - 200 loss + 1650 success = 1713, 1875 needed prestige - 1713 = 162 to go). That wouldn't be an issue here either as Biosatellite is coming along nicely. The only thing that could throw a spanner into the works would be back-to-back launch failures of Explorer I. I've found the best way to deal with failures is to closely monitor the launch from within mission control. It's tedious (really tedious), to handle it, but there's no other way. So let's Monitor From MC.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003440_1.jpg

This screen is the bane of my existence. I really, really hate it. Everything about it in fact. So where's the "Start" button? There isn't a button with the word "Start" on it anywhere, no, it's that green "Play/Pause" button you have to click on. Fine, semantics. But from here on out, you cannot skip the tedium of watching cut scene after cut scene of each and every step of the mission. It gets old fast. This is especially true when your component reliability is decent because each step will be a success. Sure, it may add a layer of suspense when reliability is low, but it does nothing but waste my time when reliability is high. Did I mention that each step takes forever to resolve? The devs could have addressed this with a new button called "Skip and Notify" where it'll skip the successes and only notify you if there is an issue, or heck, even a fast forward button would have helped. For now, let's just get this over. Step one: Launch Preparations.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003459_1.jpg

Yup, success. Step two: Countdown.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003510_1.jpg

(It was a success, I didn't catch the notification in time). Step three: Launch.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003630_1.jpg

Another success. Step four: Ascent.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003659_1.jpg

(Another success). Step five: Satellite Deployment.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003706_1.jpg

(Yet another success). Step six: Earth Orbit.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003718_1.jpg

Success. Now comes the most hated part: the game takes forever and a day to end the launch and show the results. It's not my computer either, the game just takes it's ever loving time to bring up the success screen. Annoying, and you can't skip ahead, you gotta wait it out. At least it gives me time to go to the fridge and drown my sorrows in a cold German beer. Mmmm, beer. In fact, if you are reading this, go grab a cold one, you deserve it! After a little while:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003727_1.jpg

Finally! It's about time! No failures, and we didn't even get an option to hire a tiger team so we were probably excellent on reliability (or lucky, take your pick). Now we get to bask in our accomplishments and see what goals we achieved.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003737_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207004342_1.jpg

Four of them. That's why it was so much prestige. After some back slapping and beer drinking, we can finally check out the results:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003748_1.jpg

There's a lot to take in from this screen, but to recap we can see the Atlas increased in reliability 4.2% to end at 92.5%. I'm sure our future Mercury pilots will appreciate this. Explorer I also increased 2.6% to end at 89.1%. No biggie, as we aren't going to be running the extended Explorer mission anyway. If we did, it would surely be a lock. We can also click on the "Headphones" button to see if our flight controllers earned some experience.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003801_1.jpg

Yup, 1.7% and 2.6 % (not sure if it's just in their trained stat, or all stats, but I think it's just the one they used the most). The flight director got the shaft I guess. Time for the news:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003918_1.jpg

Oooo, the Soviets opened up Korabl-Sputnik 2 (this is a different "Sputnik" than the one they opened up before). This is the one that compares to our Explorer I so it'll be a while before it launches. However, the plain Sputnik 2 is probably nearly ready to launch now. We achieved some goals, finished a successful mission and, wow, a 14.2% increase in funds to boot. Excellent stuff! Our funds are now at $745 so that gives us a little bit of mad money to play around with this period. Not done yet:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003927_1.jpg

Now we can start on Lunar and Sun probes if we want. But we still have Biosatellite and the Orbiting Frog satellite to work on, so no rush on this stuff (besides, we don't have a rocket capable of carrying out these missions yet). State of the Complex:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161207003932_1.jpg

So that's it for 1957.3 and onward to 1957.4. Looks like all our SET employees are either working or in training so we can't really do much with them this quarter. We have 3 flight controllers idle, but we might just leave them this way and run with what we got for the Biosatellite (probably a 1958.3 launch now). Other than that, I guess we'll be closing out Explorer I and possibly opening up the Orbiting Frog satellite so not much to worry about. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

silencer_pl · December 12, 2016

Well done on successful lunch.

Zombie · December 17, 2016

Back again with 1957.4. Since Explorer I was a rousing success, it's time to close it out so that it doesn't eat up any more of our funds. Let's first go to the R&D Mission Components screen.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215230418_1.jpg

What happens to our researchers if we close the program? You can take them off the project manually by clicking the X in the upper right of their photo box which is pretty easy. There's an easier way though, just head over to the opened programs and click the X on the program picture.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215230500_1.jpg

Closing a program this way automatically takes all researchers off the project and sets them idle. If the program has a rocket attached to it, it doesn't touch the researchers on that which is nice. I'd like to mention that even if you successfully completed a mission, it doesn't mean the game locks you out from running it again. The prestige you get is approximately 90% less than the first time which is quite a significant reduction so running it for prestige alone isn't worthwhile. I will say however that you can run it again to boost reliability of the component and rocket (and may give a small increase to the mission controllers) and this is a mildly viable way of getting higher stats. Trouble is, every relaunch eats up the same amount of cash, so you'll be spending more per unit of reliability than the original mission. It has it's uses.

Time to look at our mission controllers.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231000_1.jpg

The last three controllers were involved with the launch of Explorer I and are now idle. I know I mentioned that I'd be leaving these guys idle until the other two controllers come out of training at which time we'd launch Biosatellite. However, upon further reflection I decided against this. We just put those two controllers into training a quarter ago - if we'd stick the three remaining controllers into training now then they would come out only a quarter after the two. This would delay the launch of Biosatellite by a quarter but it would still end up before 1959.1. In addition, all the controllers would be in sync - both in stats and training. Let's put these three into training too.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231030_1.jpg

Jim Power goes back into Spacecraft systems which is his specialty and Rodrigo Ash goes into Propulsion. Michael Johnson in his quest to be a good flight director takes a course in his lowest stat: Propulsion. That rounds out training. I think it's time to open up the next space probe mission, the Orbiting Frog Otolith.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231130_1.jpg

It's going to cost us some money to open up another program, but hopefully with our funding increase last quarter that will cover it. Let's check the damage.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231139_1.jpg

Ouch. Expensive, but we should still be ok on funds. After assigning the Atlas rocket it's time to look at the reliability of the probe. If you think it's 3% like the other two probes, you would be wrong.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231212_1.jpg

This probe starts out at a base 41.3% reliability which is incredible. Why is it so much higher than the other probes in the category? I suspect that maybe this probe borrows the electronics from Explorer and Biosat, or perhaps the game increases the base reliability as the other probes in the category become better. Whatever the case, I'm not complaining about it. Let's get some researchers on it since there are two idle.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231222_1.jpg

A 13% improvement is a good start. We should be ready to launch this in 1959 sometime, hopefully within the first two or three quarters (at least, that's what my estimate is). There isn't much more we can do this quarter, so let's end it and look at those unreliable reliability reports (hardly ever matches the numbers during the quarter):

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231310_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231316_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231322_1.jpg

Atlas is rapidly nearing max reliability via researchers (we pushed it ahead via launching Explorer I). When they come out of researching, we'll stick them in training for normal rockets, and hopefully our rocket squad will all be on the same page in terms of stats. Mercury will be opened up early 1959 and by then the Atlas should be nearly 100% reliable. Then we'll only need to worry about getting the reliabillity of the capsule up to snuff as astronaut lives will be on the line here. Time for some news:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231334_1.jpg

See? The Soviets did manage to sneak in a launch for Sputnik after all. No worries though, we are ahead of them by a metric mile - however far that is. We obviously opened up the OFO satellite and it looks like our two SET researchers are finished with training for crewed spacecraft (this is for the Mercury capsule). State of the complex:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161215231404_1.jpg

This quarter should be kinda quiet. We'll put those two researchers back into training for crewed spacecraft (I want these two higher than 90% before 1959.1). We might check up on the Biosatellite and OFO to see if there are any strategies we can employ to make other projects go smoother. We might also explore options to expand the SET center early (guide lists this option in 1958.3). My thought is that if the budget allows, we'll upgrade a quarter early to get a peek at the recruit pool in 1958.4, hire anyone with learning in the 90's and then wait till 1959.1 to check the pool again in case we didn't get enough researchers. This should keep us ahead of the game. Anyhow, stay tuned!

- Zombie

Zombie · December 19, 2016

Time to work on 1958.1. There isn't going to be a lot of things going on, but we need to begin preparing for the new budgetary period starting 1959.1 which is a scant 3 quarters away. Ever hear of the phrase: "How much sin can I get away with and still go to heaven"? Well, apply that here but for funds: "How much can I spend and still stay in the black"? Since we currently have way more than enough prestige to get to the highest funding level, spending some money now can help to speed things along later. The task is to spend just enough to make a difference, but not so much that we go into the red for a long time.

What I've learned from this game so far is that I'm never perfect (duh!). I always make mistakes, forget about strategies and manage to bugger things up at every possible chance. I'm good at triage though and the trick is to minimize the fallout. In addition, this game isn't a "set it and forget it" deal, things are always evolving which may require tweaking to optimize performance. Let's check up on the researchers in the Biosatellite program.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155022_1.jpg

So 83.4 % is the reliability with the best and brightest assigned. What would happen if we remove Dennis Irvin from the mix?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155026_1.jpg

Only a loss of 0.4% reliability? I think I can handle that. Besides, we need him elsewhere due to an oversight. Let's head on over to the OFO satellite program we opened up last quarter.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155038_1.jpg

Right now the probe is at 63% reliability. Trouble is, I forgot to leave Noah off this project and put him into training for crewed spacecraft. We need him there because the Mercury program will be opened up early 1959 and he needs to be trained. So to "fix" this, I'm going to take Noah off the project and substitute Dennis.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155120_1.jpg

That substitution actually improved reliability by 0.1%, and left Noah idle for training. So to sum it all up, the only thing that changed is a loss of 0.4% reliability for the Biosatellite and an idle researcher which I consider a win. Since we are on the page, let's click on the Atlas rocket to see how that is coming along.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155126_1.jpg

The projected improvement is only 0.4% which I'd say isn't worth the scientist hours. I think it's time to take them off the project.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155132_1.jpg

The max reliability of the rocket through R&D is 94.8%, and we are less than 2% away. That will be made up easily through successful launches... I count 3: Biosatellite, OFO and the first Mercury mission which is unmanned. Beyond that are the manned Mercury flights which will also add reliability, so the Atlas should be nearly 100% early in that program. My original thought was to take the two researchers off Atlas when the other two came out of one round of training so that they all could go in as a group the next time. But considering the low rewards for leaving the researchers on Atlas, I think it's better to get them in training now. If it comes down to it, we can start the next rocket program with just two.

With all that swapping and moving, we have a bunch of folks who need to go into training.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155235_1.jpg

Anthony and Barbara are going into Rocket training, so let's do that first.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155303_1.jpg

Ezekial, Noah and Tom are left and they are going into Crewed Spacecraft. Do we really need to put Zeke and Tom in for another round of training when they are both in the mid to high 80's? Probably not, but we have the time (and the cash) to eek as much proficiency out of them before we open up Mercury. When that get's opened I want at least three researchers with high stats on the project to start. Here's a look at who are in training yet (2 screens worth):

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155346_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155501_1.jpg

Graham is 73.9% in probes, but he'll be out at the end of this quarter so we can stick him in OFO (probably). Beyond that I think our other two folks in Rockets will be coming out as well. Before we end the quarter, I'm looking at our funds and still see that big green 629 staring me in the face. I'm not sure how much we'll have next quarter, so maybe we should see how much it'll cost to construct an astronaut center.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155544_1.jpg

It isn't too much (500/2 seasons). I think what I'll do is construct it now and it should be ready by 1958.3. Then we can get a free look at the astronaut pool, hire any decent candidates then get another look in 1959.1 when the new hiring season begins. Should be able to get 7 prospects with at least 90 learning in two hiring seasons. Not that we need 7 astronaus for Mercury as it's a single occupant capsule, but I like to cherry pick the best and train the others as backup when the first astronaut is in mandatory bed rest for a season. Plus, I want to make it as close to reality as possible (there were 7 original NASA Mercury astronauts named).

Time to end the quarter. Reliability increases, Biosatellite first:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155646_1.jpg

Cool, can't launch it yet as we have 3 mission controllers in training, but give it another quarter. Next is the OFO:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155654_1.jpg

It's at 62.4% which is still a little low. Not sure if we can get to my projected 1959.1 launch date with this number, but we are still a few quarters away and we have a SET researcher coming out of probes next quarter so it might be close. It depends on mission controllers too. I might leave them idle after the launch of Biosatellite just so we have a crack at the OFO. As always, Bulletin News is last.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155701_1.jpg

Our two controllers have finished training, so I'll be leaving them idle until the next group finishes next quarter. We also have our two lowest researchers in rockets coming out of training, they will need to go back in immediately and the probe specialist has completed training as well. Alexander is finishing his first round of Crewed Spacecraft training, and its 1 quarter between him and the main group so he might get put in for one more session (not sure yet, we'll have to look at the numbers). And yeah, we started construction on the astronaut center. State of the Complex:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161218155713_1.jpg

I'm happy about this quarter overall. We took some steps to even out research while also gaining an employee to start training for Crewed Spacecraft (along with the two experts). That'll jumpstart the Mercury program when it's opened. No giant gains in reliability for either probe program, but we still have 2 quarters of research for the Biosatellite and 4 for the OFO. So next time we'll be looking at our researchers again and probably upgrading our SET center. Further down the line we'll need to upgrade Mission Control as the Mercury program requires more than 5 controllers. Stay tuned!

- Zombie

Zombie · January 1, 2017

Last time we left off at the beginning of 1958.2. I suppose the first thing we should do is check in with the OFO:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231224556_1.jpg

With a reliability of 70.5% already the OFO is looking good but remember that Graham just got out of training for probes. Putting him on the project yields:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231224606_1.jpg

Much better, he brings 2.4% to the table and ups the total reliability to nearly 73%. That's just what we needed, only 7% more reliability till the magic 80% launch threshold. With that kind of increase a 1959.1 launch is well within our grasp. The quicker we launch, the quicker we can close OFO and open up something else.

There are still three researchers idle - time to head over to the SET Center:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231224633_1.jpg

Right off the bat Alexander needs to go back into Crewed Spacecraft training. That leaves 2, and they both go into rocket training. Simple. Time to recap who is in training (2 screens worth):

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231224849_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231224908_1.jpg

Seems odd that we have 8 guys in training and only 6 who are actually working. Thing is, the researchers who are working are really good at their jobs and we're still in the early part of the game when stats need to be trained to be useful. Besides, this is a critical time when we need to get all our ducks in a row because pretty soon astronauts will come into the mix and we don't want to lose any of them due to poor planning. Speaking of planning, I mentioned I was looking at upgrading the SET Center this quarter. Let's take a look at this upgrade.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231225147_1.jpg

$1500 for two seasons and we have $629. Crap, that'll put us into the red especially if we want to launch the Biosatellite. Thing is, right now we are guaranteed the max funding increase of 10000 once we make it to 1959.1 and then our funding trouble will not matter. Going into the red doesn't end the game immediately either, so I think we can foot the bill for it. I think it's important to get the SET Center fully upgraded now because then we'll be able to hire twice if necessary (and it usually is as the pool doesn't always have a lot of prospects with 90+ learning potential).

Time to end the season (I'm leaving the two flight controllers idle on purpose because we need them to launch Biosatellite). First is the Biosatellite reliability which is what we are interested in.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231225220_1.jpg

At nearly 87% it's more than enough to launch, but we are waiting till next quarter due to our mission controllers being in training. The extra reliability of another quarter of research will help to guarantee success too. How about the OFO?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231225226_1.jpg

Yeah, that's a good number. Three more quarters of training and it'll be in the mid-high 80s and then we can launch. Last but not least, the news:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231225231_1.jpg

Excellent, our flight controllers have finished training. And what's this? 85 more prestige points due to increased public opinion? Sure, I'll take it. Too bad this isn't coming in the new budgetary season. Oh well. The Astronaut center is constructed and the SET center is under construction which we know. State of the Complex:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20161231225244_1.jpg

So things are looking good this quarter. We'll be hiring some astronauts, assigning flight controllers to the Biosatellite and finally launching it. Should be an exciting episode, so stay tuned!

- Zombie

Zombie · January 2, 2017

It's 1958.3 how time flies. Before anything else let's check on the Biosatellite:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101231031_1.jpg

Can't see anything wrong with this. Having a reliability of 89.4% should almost guarantee a great result, so I'm going to leave everyone where they are. Since we are only 2 screens away, we might as well schedule the launch of Biosatellite too. There are 5 spots which need to be filled and that's how many flight controllers we have so as before I'm just going to let the computer auto assign the crew.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101231101_1.jpg

A fine looking crew indeed, can't ask for better stats than this. Time to confirm.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101231112_1.jpg

Expensive, really expensive but that's the cost of space. Speaking of space, our astronaut center is built and I think it's a good time to screen the candidates.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101231551_1.jpg

I know, I know! Let me hire!

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233416_1.jpg

Only 3 prospects in the 90's. Not a decent roll. (Do you see why it's a good idea to get as many looks into the hiring pool as you can? You can never guarantee that you'll get what you want the first time through). The stats are nothing to write home about either. As it stands right now I think Amy will be the first to go into space. She has the highest leadership stat (that's basically the stat the game uses to assign the best astronaut to a mission). However, another just as important stat is fitness as the astronaut has to withstand the rigors of launch and reentry. Every recruit is going to go through one training session in that first. Piloting really doesn't come into play yet as the on-board computer will handle everything (I think?). No EVA's either, and these missions are not science-based, just proof of concept.

(As an aside, it would have been interesting to hire Frank as a "throwaway" - basically using him for the entire Mercury program and then sacking him. He's got great Leadership and Fitness and has decent Piloting too all the things we want. He's old, but cheap too. Those are kinda the things we'd want in a disposable astronaut. Don't really have the cash on hand though. Maybe if he's still around in 1959.1 I'll reconsider). Edit: I hired him after the fact, should be a fun experiment!

Let's hire.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233429_1.jpg

This is what we have. Taking everything into account, Amy is the best for the job as we will only need to put her through training in fitness and she should be good to go. The other two candidates will require more training into leadership to be passable. Also, Amy is the youngest so she'll be with us for a while and if she gets too old we can always use her in CAPCOM or something. (Astronauts never die, they just get reassigned to CAPCOM when they get too old, hehe). Hopefully next quarter we'll get 4 more astronauts with 90+ in learning and partially decent stats. They will probably be used for Gemini or Apollo missions but I can't rule out the possibility of giving them a ride in Mercury for some experience.

There isn't much more we can do now but end the month, so let's do that. First is reliability of the Biosatellite:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233550_1.jpg

Nice. I'm happy about that number. Not so happy about the -283.0 but we make that up at the end of next quarter. (Really, the top number shows how much we have, the number below that is the quarterly balance - being in the red just says you are spending more than what you are receiving for that quarter). How about the OFO?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233554_1.jpg

Just barely enough to launch. If we put our best and brightest on it next quarter after the closure of Biosatellite (assuming it's successful) we can probably bump that up even more. I wonder what's next though?

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233612_1.jpg

Not worried about a launch failure on this one (though it's still possible). For this one, I'm only going to show the highlights and not the entire launch sequence. If something happens, I'll let you know.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233643_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233657_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233703_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233709_1.jpg

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233715_1.jpg

That's up to reentry. No problems yet.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233722_1.jpg

Awesome, no problems and a successful end. We achieved two goals as well.

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233733_1.jpg

Not only that, but the reliability of the Atlas went up 3.1% to 96%. We'll be very close to 98% after the launch of OFO and there shouldn't be any issues there for the Mercury program. Let's check on the flight controllers:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233829_1.jpg

Two received a gain of 1%+ from the launch. That's good. On to the news:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233857_1.jpg

The only thing not shown is the SET center upgrade tidbit. Not a big deal, we know about it. State of the Complex:

https://i579.photobucket.com/albums/ss235/Zombie1972a/Buzz%20Aldrins%20Space%20Program%20Manager/20170101233916_1.jpg

Wow, we neary have 4000 prestige. If the government was happy before, now they should be delighted. This is the last quarter before the new budgetary period begins (1959.1) so we'll be doing some house cleaning and deciding what to accomplish to max out funding again. Gotta close out Biosatellite & reassign the best researchers to OFO to eek out as much reliability as possible for the launch of that in 1959.1. We might put the other probe researchers through another round of training to bump up their stats before opening up another probe program (this time it'll be lunar... moon probes). The SET center upgraded and we need to look at the hiring pool to see if there are any decent prospects. As much as I'd like to, I'm not putting the flight controllers through more training - they will be left idle for the launch of OFO. The next few quarters should be interesting, so stay tuned!

- Zombie

silencer_pl · January 3, 2017

For a leader Amy looks little sad (or not happy to be here), now Sharon on the other hand, let's say I would like to do some "science" with her

Buzz Aldrin's Space Program Manager: AAR

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