I’ll start off by saying I’ve just covered the tutorials and beginner levels so this may change on later difficulties but I’ve noticed you start with random ingredients every time you start a new campaign.
This is fine for some of them as their goals are just about making profit so the balance isn’t effected that much, however for others that rely on you curing certain aliments, it can be a big swing either for or against you.
For example take the campaign ‘King of the non-prescriptions’, it sees you needing to cure 5 base illnesses, painkillers, antihistamine, cold, cough and rash. The other ingredients and their cures are made somewhat irrelevant by this fact as their only purpose would be to make money rather than directly effect the outcome of the goals. This leads to people (or at least myself) re-starting the level over and over again to get favourable starting ingredients to give myself an advantage, as I want to do as well as I possibly can.
In the picture below I got unlucky and had two “useless” starting ingredients not working towards the goal.
After a few re-rolls however I managed to get 2 of the 5 as starting ingredients giving me a huge boost.
I feel this behaviour of having to constantly restart to get an edge wasn’t necessarily intended as it isn’t really a positive one and can get quite annoying. I feel if there was a little more scripting to the starting ingredients (at least in this scenarios where they count for a great deal) that it would limit this behaviour.
In this case having it scripted so that the scenario started you with 1 of the 5 ingredients needed (chosen at random) and then had them staggered with 1x explorer, 3x explorer etc.
In the case you mentioned, King of the Non-Prescriptions, the starting drugs don’t hinder you much really. Both of my starters were unrelated and I still managed to master it with a year to spare. As it happens the unrelated starters were really easy to get to level 2/3 and gave me a great money boost allowing me to throw explorers and scientists at the problem, so it sort of balances out.
I don’t know if I can agree really, the randomisation spices things up a bit, I think it depends on the scenario.
I agree… the big issue is if your starting ingredients arent very profitable, then you are left with a loan and rushing to higher tech/ingredients to survive.
It is not if they align with the quest objectives, as if you start being profitable, you can throw more researchers/explorers at the problem, and making 5 lines is very quick after that.
I agree that the randomness is a little bit too, eh… random.
In the 500 of each mission that you mention, I started with 1 of the required, the next was found in a 2x forest. Then I had to hire a bunch of explorers to get into the higher areas AND I had to research deserts before I could get the last 3, and then the only deserts I could use were 4x and 5x. As I also had one of the required actually costing me $20 each tick to make (because the AI had the market), I had to take out a huge loan to afford the production lines, the explorers, and the researchers.
I had no way in hell to make master because of this, because having to wait for the research to complete on 2 things, before being able to get my last ingredients, take too long. And then having to do it while researching the most basic machines to have a chance in hell at making a profit or even fit some of the lines (and being able to upgrade the drugs), I was watching my money roll backwards until I got the better machines and could upgrade the non-relevant drugs to carry me over while I waited for the explorers and researchers.
By the time I got the final two ingredients I built double lines, tore down some of the completed lines, and just burnt through money towards the end to get it done before the last timer ran out.
When I did King of Non Prescriptions, I started with 1/5 ingredients. However, 2/5 of the needed ingredients were 5 Explorer, 2/5 were desert. This made it so there was no chance of getting Master. Will one day have to try again for it. The randomization does make the game more replayable, but CAN cause issues for specific scenarios like this.
I got Master first time on this mission, and I had to research Desert for 2 of the 5 ingredients. It was tough, and I completed it with literally a few days to spare… but with a little ingenuity it is possible. I was constantly repurposing my production lines to stop production on cures I had “completed” so I finished with 5 lines outputting the last drug I needed.
Personally I quite like the randomness, the more random the better! Looking forward to taking on the more advanced stuff… at which point I will more than likely change my currently chipper tune!
Looking forward to taking on the more advanced stuff… at which point I will more than likely change my currently chipper tune! 