The screenshot archive can be found at:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pastorek/RFG/Session 6/
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There's only one story mission left to complete in Oasis so that's where I'm starting.
A raid is forming along the road so I'll help them first since it'll lower the EDF control and raise morale.
Again I used the EDF's own weaponry against them. When I entered the vehicle I unlocked another cheat. After this mission I'll go check them out.
I NEVER cheat in multiplayer video games and I rarely cheat in single player games unless I've already beaten them or want to bypass a tedious part. Cheating spoils the game and if I'm paying hard-earned money for it why would I want to ruin the experience? The cheat I unlocked is something called "Cool Turrets" and when I tried to activate it a warning message popped up. It seems like this "cheat" is cosmetic, not practical, so I'm not sure why it'd be such a terrible thing if I activated it but I won't.
I decided to stick around to destroy the smokestacks littered around this area. Of course I gained the attention of the EDF which eventually sent a tank to kill me. When I electrocuted the tank's driver the tank stopped and its turret auto-rotated back to the "home" position, but I couldn't get in until it did and while I had to wait I was shot to death. Lame.
Drove through a gas station. Weeeeeeeeeeee.
EDF crates everywhere.
I can't start the story mission with my EDF alert level at anything other than green, so I might as well have some fun.
I've totaled three cars in less than 10 minutes. HIGH SCORE.
The story mission is about acting as a decoy. We're going to attack a chemical plant as a diversion while other operatives steal EDF intel. My job is to block EDF forces from advancing.
Clearing the 4 soldiers out of the garage was easy enough, now I have to head west to a choke point where some Red Faction vehicles have choked it further. I'll be guarding this point.
I stole the one APC that came by and I'll use it to defend the second point. Again, the arc welder came in quite handy at clearing out the APC crew.
I'm the only one providing any kind of serious support so of course the EDF slipped through. I managed to use the APC's momentum to ram one of the lighter cars into a ditch but it didn't stay there for long.
The EDF is converging on the garage so why not defend it directly? It'd save me the trouble of running all over the place like an idiot. The rocket launcher has proven itself useful as an anti-vehicle AoE weapon.
I'm able to drive this large flatbed truck and I thought I was supposed to use it to travel to the next part of the mission, but instead I was supposed to continue defending the garage. I guess I strayed too far and autofailed the mission. I'll try it again knowing that I should just keep turtling at the garage.
I set up these trucks as movable barricades. I've done this in other games and as long as the vehicles are durable they make good bullet shields. In this case I really don't have much choice but they'll provide cover until the EDF shows up and I can use theirs.
Like clockwork an APC crashed into the front of the barricade, which was the heavy flatbed truck, giving me time to electrocute the crew. Based on this it is likely that the others will follow suit.
By sending more vehicles to this location they keep bolstering my blockade. Maybe I'll start a junkyard when I'm done here.
I ran out of ammo for the arc welder and these vehicles are too close together to use the rocket launcher "safely" so I'm going to commandeer the roof turrets of one of these APCs. This one happens to use an anti-vehicle energy ball turret, similar to the tank's main gun but it fires faster and is less powerful.
Done and done. Most of the vehicles exploded right at the end so there's a pile of salvage for me to collect.
As you can see all of the rear lights of this ambulance are the same graphic but they're simply colored differently. This is a trick video game designers use to utilize the same graphic multiple times since it's much faster and easier to simply recolor a minor graphic than to completely create a new one. They're such minor details anyway that it's not game-breaking, although some sticklers may think otherwise.
I completed another hostage mission and now it's time to clear the EDF out of Oasis. I'll get the third arc welder bolt while I'm here since I can afford it.
So I was right. This rifle does automatically send bullets to nearby targets, but at the cost of decreased damage. That follows the laws of conservation of momentum because some of the bullet's total momentum is used to alter its course, implying that it doesn't just magically fly to a target at full force.
This story mission involves me defending Oasis from the EDF withdrawal. Like a bully losing a fight, they're destroying everything in their path while they leave Oasis and it's my job to destroy them first. I commandeered the first tank into the sector. I thought about using my weak, damaged, weaponless, light truck against an armada of tanks, but I think this'll be more practical.
I had to abandon the first tank after taking out a number of other tanks and transports. Luckily another is nearby so I'll take it. It uses a quad tread arrangement similar to the Mammoth Tank from the Command & Conquer series, although that tank had two barrels and missile pods. If I'm not mistaken, splitting the usual two treads into four independently-driven units reduces the mechanical stress on each tread assembly, which would be ideal for a very heavy vehicle.
Victory. +200 salvage too.
I unlocked a jetpack. That'll come in handy with this rough terrain.
I'll do a nearby gunning mission so Jenkins'll drive me to a safehouse. He was rambling about how we should live, eat, and eventually "become" our cars, how the EDF should go back to Earth, how everything non-Martian has "GOT to go", etc. I'm beginning to wonder if he's Red Faction or a freelancer who falls under the "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" clause. In any case, I'm glad he's on our side. On our way back to the safehouse we passed by a building partially sunken into the ground and with a large breach in its side. I'll check it out when I'm done here.
Bah, not enough salvage to afford the jetpack. Time for some grindin'.
This is that building I saw earlier. It's clearly abandoned and it's the site of a demolition mission, no less.
"Given enough explosives ANY moron can blow up a building. Don't YOU want to be that moron?"
There's an EDF base nearby with lots of targets. I'll attack that next since I need salvage and to clear the EDF's control out of The Badlands.
I cleared out the outermost guard post and used it as a sheltered vantage point to clear out a guard tower just inside the exterior walls of the base. I knew a single rocket couldn't destroy the tower so I instead focused on destroying the mounted turret facing me.
With the turret destroyed nothing was firing at me when I used a nearby EDF transport to ram through the exterior wall. I bailed out quickly and used the rocket launcher to bring down the guard tower.
I guess this means I can't leave on the horse I came in on. I can contemplate my lack of an escape vehicle later, right now I have to deal with the soldiers firing at me.
I destroyed two barracks' and now I'm trying to outrun a gunship. I'll head over to a transporter mission so I can use that to get back to a safehouse and reload my weapons before I attack the next structure.
The transporter mission disappeared, but a convoy is passing through and all I need to do is steal a vehicle and take it to a safehouse. Different means, same end.
The truck was easy enough to steal, but the entire way back an EDF transport was firing potshots at me. With no way to defend myself and driving an obnoxiously slow vehicle that was constantly being whittled away, I was holding my breath the entire time.
I completed 35 Guerrilla actions and unlocked another sledgehammer upgrade. I'm not sure how a sledgehammer can become more...powerful. The entire principle of a sledgehammer is to put a massive, solid chunk of metal at the end of a long radius to create lots of striking power through high tangential acceleration and there's not much one can do to improve that principle. I suppose a heaver sledge or a lighter handle would increase its efficiency.
The last mission I have to complete to afford the jetpack is a demolition mission which only gives me a propane tank and 3 bullets. Like I did long ago in Parker, I'll use the propane tank as a battering ram and place it inside the center of the smokestack where it'll do the most damage.
Bingo. Now I'll go buy the jetpack.
It allows me to fly short distances into the air before "running out of fuel" that replenishes itself when I'm not using it. To activate it I press the space bar to jump and then press it again while I'm in mid-air to activate the pack.
Look Phobos (or Deimos, I'm not sure which), I can fly too!
