I think I’d enjoy the challenge of trying to make plans that were robust with respect to handling some errors on the part of comrades. It sounds rather difficult!
Similarly, when I dallied in D&D I used to hold my character largely in reserve, keeping memorized spells in hand and holding back in the battles. A failsafe for when my companions failed—be that through distinctly suboptimal character creation or poor tactical decisions. While sacrificing some glory and the appearance of personally dominating the battles it maximised both safety and chance-of-saving-the-world. This also meant that the fight looked and felt more challenging to the players and DM while keeping the actual risk to the party lower than it may seem. This counters the pesky DM tendency to try to ramp up difficulty and do so incompetently, dooming the party to inevitable defeat.
It helps to choose a character that, when given a few rounds to prepare, could singlehandedly handle more than the rest of the party combined and then proceed to heal up all the wounded to satisfactory levels. I love my perfectly designed 3.5 druid!
I imagine with Space Alert at the highest difficulties winning despite allied incompetence may actually end up physically impossible. When it gets to the stage that even with perfect play every character is necessary. The best I could do would be to make sure I handle the most confusing or error prone tasks.
It would be perfect if the difficult tasks also happened to be the most bland—fiddling with power supplies and ammo rather than personally wreaking havoc upon the enemy at every turn. One of the most difficult elements of maximising winning is managing the egos of compatriots. It isn’t uncommon for ego to go hand in hand with incompetence. If I can manage to maneuver the meat-heads of my party into situations that give them glory but are hard to screw up it makes my task of making the team win that much easier!
I expect that if Dwarf Fortress players hadn’t invented that phrase first, eventually Space Alert players would have. :-)
On the other hand it sounds like Space Alert has an actual win condition, not just more and more dangerous ways to lose. The closest I’ve seen to someone ‘winning’ is when they went ahead and dug down to Hell itself and colonized it—building their residential areas in a location that is designed such that merely breaching it is supposed to spell inevitable doom. All to give their dwarves the chance to say “Tonight we dine in Hell!”—and proceed to do so for days on end.
That game sounds like it has a lot of potential for FUN!
I expect that if Dwarf Fortress players hadn’t invented that phrase first, eventually Space Alert players would have. :-)
I think I’d enjoy the challenge of trying to make plans that were robust with respect to handling some errors on the part of comrades. It sounds rather difficult!
Similarly, when I dallied in D&D I used to hold my character largely in reserve, keeping memorized spells in hand and holding back in the battles. A failsafe for when my companions failed—be that through distinctly suboptimal character creation or poor tactical decisions. While sacrificing some glory and the appearance of personally dominating the battles it maximised both safety and chance-of-saving-the-world. This also meant that the fight looked and felt more challenging to the players and DM while keeping the actual risk to the party lower than it may seem. This counters the pesky DM tendency to try to ramp up difficulty and do so incompetently, dooming the party to inevitable defeat.
It helps to choose a character that, when given a few rounds to prepare, could singlehandedly handle more than the rest of the party combined and then proceed to heal up all the wounded to satisfactory levels. I love my perfectly designed 3.5 druid!
I imagine with Space Alert at the highest difficulties winning despite allied incompetence may actually end up physically impossible. When it gets to the stage that even with perfect play every character is necessary. The best I could do would be to make sure I handle the most confusing or error prone tasks.
It would be perfect if the difficult tasks also happened to be the most bland—fiddling with power supplies and ammo rather than personally wreaking havoc upon the enemy at every turn. One of the most difficult elements of maximising winning is managing the egos of compatriots. It isn’t uncommon for ego to go hand in hand with incompetence. If I can manage to maneuver the meat-heads of my party into situations that give them glory but are hard to screw up it makes my task of making the team win that much easier!
On the other hand it sounds like Space Alert has an actual win condition, not just more and more dangerous ways to lose. The closest I’ve seen to someone ‘winning’ is when they went ahead and dug down to Hell itself and colonized it—building their residential areas in a location that is designed such that merely breaching it is supposed to spell inevitable doom. All to give their dwarves the chance to say “Tonight we dine in Hell!”—and proceed to do so for days on end.