Does Critical Mass end?
- dpm_dpmartin
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Does Critical Mass end?
I understand that part of the appeal of Critical Mass is the ability to partly define your own game, with your own ships and missions. However, after 150+ missions - and a four-strong fleet of just under 300 credit ships, which are shielded-up so well I would have to intentionally become a bit of a sitting duck to get taken-out - I am now starting to wonder whether Critical Mass ends.
For example... if I won the mission for Attack Enemy Planet three times or something like that... would, in effect, all my enemies be vanquished and then my race would be the ruler of the Universe or something like that?
I'm only curious as I'm a person that likes a bit of closure - I got that hit of closure with Slay and, to a certain level, with Conquest... I mean, how many times do you have to take out those Cadet Pilots or Transmitters before you just don't go back to it 'cos it's a little bit 'samey'?
It seems a real shame to leave my Commander festering away on disk just 'cos I might one day lose interest - but there would be no excuse for me to lose interest if I knew there was the possibility of closure... of winning, as it were. To see the screen that says... "You've done it!"
For example... if I won the mission for Attack Enemy Planet three times or something like that... would, in effect, all my enemies be vanquished and then my race would be the ruler of the Universe or something like that?
I'm only curious as I'm a person that likes a bit of closure - I got that hit of closure with Slay and, to a certain level, with Conquest... I mean, how many times do you have to take out those Cadet Pilots or Transmitters before you just don't go back to it 'cos it's a little bit 'samey'?
It seems a real shame to leave my Commander festering away on disk just 'cos I might one day lose interest - but there would be no excuse for me to lose interest if I knew there was the possibility of closure... of winning, as it were. To see the screen that says... "You've done it!"
- dpm_dpmartin
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I'll keep going then...
I'm actually only a few missions away from that - with 100% success rate - so I guess I'll keep on playing to see if what you say is true... I will post a screenshot so others on the Forum can see it - although your reply seems to infer that you've seen it already.
- Sean OConnor
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- dpm_dpmartin
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There's many sides to a coin...
And I do see both sides of the coin too. I wonder, if in a future possible version of Critical Mass, there might ever be a "Campaign Mode" or "Tour Of Duty Mode" to have as an option alongside the "Will The Fighting Never End Mode"..?
Possibly, the missions in a Campaign would not be randomised, but be quite specifically ordered (with logic trees at decision points to change the way the Campaign goes)... people could then design Campaigns where, say, mission 2 always follows mission 1 and mission 1 is where a politician is assassinated and then the war escalates and, finally, you end up invading the enemy planet... or, possibly, due to how bad you've been playing, defending your home planet...
A Campaign Editor could be provided in line with the Mission Editor to create logic trees of missions - 1, followed by 2, if success at 2 - go to 4, if fail - go to 3... just lists and pointers to Missions / Mission files.
Version 5, huh? It'd be really good, Sean, to understand your current focus (under NDA of course!) on your set of games. Congratulations on many of them... some I love... a few I can live without - but I bought the bundle anyway... they really do make the train journeys fly by.
Possibly, the missions in a Campaign would not be randomised, but be quite specifically ordered (with logic trees at decision points to change the way the Campaign goes)... people could then design Campaigns where, say, mission 2 always follows mission 1 and mission 1 is where a politician is assassinated and then the war escalates and, finally, you end up invading the enemy planet... or, possibly, due to how bad you've been playing, defending your home planet...
A Campaign Editor could be provided in line with the Mission Editor to create logic trees of missions - 1, followed by 2, if success at 2 - go to 4, if fail - go to 3... just lists and pointers to Missions / Mission files.
Version 5, huh? It'd be really good, Sean, to understand your current focus (under NDA of course!) on your set of games. Congratulations on many of them... some I love... a few I can live without - but I bought the bundle anyway... they really do make the train journeys fly by.
you are getting close? to 1x10^50? Wow, pwn sauce. (cs moment)
I'm going to break that number down, as much for me as anything. 10^50 is a one with fifty-one zeros.
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
wow. K now. I dont think anyone has made it to mission ten thousand yet, so I'm going to benchmark from there. Lets say you can do a mission in ten seconds. Which is feasible, if you created a mission with no enemies. That way, as soon as you click "End Turn" and the first turn ends, you win. Ten seconds per mission.
Thats one hundred thousand seconds for ten thousand missions. (breaks out TI-91 Supercalculator) One Hundred Thousand Seconds = about Twenty-Seven Hours and Forty-Eight Minutes. Nonstop. Ten-second missions.
(I'm going to try to do this without making my calculator go "E15" because thats too imprecise.)
One Hundred Million Missions = Just OVER 761 Years. Which by itself means you started playing CM Nonstop in the same year as King Henry III Rebuilt Westminster Abbey. Nonstop Cm since then. And thats only One Hundred Million Missions!
One Hundred Million to the power of Six is only 9x10^51 too far, which in these terms isnt far at all.
SO!
761^6 is more or less (calculator cant handle it) 194,226,256,900,000,000 years. Amd tjat number is about Bing Bang Til Now Times A Million.
SO!
Had you been getting close to 1x10^50 Missions, and you had been playing on mission every ten seconds NONSTOP...you would have started (this is tough on my head) nearly a million times LONGER than the current count of the universe - ago.
GOOD ON YA MATE!
...that was hard for my brain to do. Its 3 in the morning
(Let me know where my math screwed up, I'm SURE that that final number cant be right. Though I did have a SuperCalculator to assist me.)
I'm going to break that number down, as much for me as anything. 10^50 is a one with fifty-one zeros.
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
wow. K now. I dont think anyone has made it to mission ten thousand yet, so I'm going to benchmark from there. Lets say you can do a mission in ten seconds. Which is feasible, if you created a mission with no enemies. That way, as soon as you click "End Turn" and the first turn ends, you win. Ten seconds per mission.
Thats one hundred thousand seconds for ten thousand missions. (breaks out TI-91 Supercalculator) One Hundred Thousand Seconds = about Twenty-Seven Hours and Forty-Eight Minutes. Nonstop. Ten-second missions.
(I'm going to try to do this without making my calculator go "E15" because thats too imprecise.)
One Hundred Million Missions = Just OVER 761 Years. Which by itself means you started playing CM Nonstop in the same year as King Henry III Rebuilt Westminster Abbey. Nonstop Cm since then. And thats only One Hundred Million Missions!
One Hundred Million to the power of Six is only 9x10^51 too far, which in these terms isnt far at all.
SO!
761^6 is more or less (calculator cant handle it) 194,226,256,900,000,000 years. Amd tjat number is about Bing Bang Til Now Times A Million.
SO!
Had you been getting close to 1x10^50 Missions, and you had been playing on mission every ten seconds NONSTOP...you would have started (this is tough on my head) nearly a million times LONGER than the current count of the universe - ago.
GOOD ON YA MATE!
...that was hard for my brain to do. Its 3 in the morning

(Let me know where my math screwed up, I'm SURE that that final number cant be right. Though I did have a SuperCalculator to assist me.)
I poop, therefore I am.
- dpm_dpmartin
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No, really... I'm 2 missions away from that number...
Tsk... was a lil' bit of good-humoured sarcasm - as well you know...
King Henry III? I knew his dad, we used to go drinking together and talk about fighting the French... Straylians weren't around in those days - or so I was told.
King Henry III? I knew his dad, we used to go drinking together and talk about fighting the French... Straylians weren't around in those days - or so I was told.
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- Fusion_power
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Last edited by Scuffer on Sat Feb 05, 2011 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- dpm_dpmartin
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You wanted closure... stick it in your pipe and smoke it.
It never ends!
Except in your commander's miserable death... trying to save a planet he might never have seen, saving a population he probably doesn't care about, killing other aliens he bears absolutely no personal grudge against.
Of course, he could simply be in it for the money... some kind of intergalactic mercenary for hire... after all - there are credits.
Game over, man! Game over!
Mission 908... yup, you guessed it, Attack Frikking Radar Base again.
Except in your commander's miserable death... trying to save a planet he might never have seen, saving a population he probably doesn't care about, killing other aliens he bears absolutely no personal grudge against.
Of course, he could simply be in it for the money... some kind of intergalactic mercenary for hire... after all - there are credits.
Game over, man! Game over!
Mission 908... yup, you guessed it, Attack Frikking Radar Base again.