Space Colony Campaigns: Setting Conditions & Actions

In addition to a planet and a crew, every mission needs goals and events. Goals can include things like acquiring resources, cultivating relationships or simply surviving. Events are the happenings that help or hinder the player from meeting those goals—things like supply deliveries, tourist liner arrivals, alien attacks, meteor showers and so on. This section describes how to create different types of goals and events using the Campaign Editor. You can then build on these basics to create challenging campaigns.

To add a new goal or event to your campaign, begin at the Mission Plotting screen, which is actually titled with the map number but which looks like this. (Refer to the main Campaign Editor page if you're unsure how to get to this point.)

Click the New button to open the Conditions & Actions Screen, which looks like this.

Conditions and Actions are set together and may also include a date/time trigger. For example, a condition, such as acquiring a certain amount of resources, could trigger an action, such as winning the game. Or reaching a certain day and time (condition) could trigger a meteor shower (action).

Here are examples of how to set different types of events. After these examples, you will find a link to descriptions of all possible Conditions and Actions.

Setting a Win Condition

1. Under Conditions, click one of the lines that say "Acquire Resources". This brings up a new screen with buttons for the different resource types.
2. Click the Base Nutrients button and use the up/down arrows below to set the number at 5. Then click OK. This brings you back to the previous screen, where you now see the condition "Acquire Resources: Base Nutrients 5".
3. To specify what happens when the player acquires those 5 units of base nutrients, click Win under Actions. Then click OK.

This brings you back to the Mission Plotting screen, where you now see the line: "Day 0, 0:00, Win, Acquire Resources: Base Nutrients 5". This means the player will beat the mission when she stockpiles 5 units of nutrients.

Setting Multiple Win Conditions

1. Assuming you have already completed steps 1-3 above, click on the line describing the existing win condition: "Day 0, 0:00, Win, Acquire Resources: Base Nutrients 5". This brings you back to the Conditions & Actions screen.
2. Scroll down the list of conditions and click on Base Litter (14^th in the list). Then click OK. This brings you back to the Mission Plotting screen.
3. Again, click on the line describing the existing win condition, which now reads: "Day 0, 0:00, Win, ....". This brings you back to the Conditions & Actions screen.
4. Scroll down the list of conditions and click on Credit Balance. Use the up/down arrow buttons to set the number of credits at 10000. Click OK then click OK again to return to the Mission Plotting screen.

You should now see the line "Day 0, 0:00, Win, ....". If you move your mouse over the ellipsis (....), you'll see all three conditions needed to win: Acquire Resources: Base Nutrients 5, Base Litter and Credit Balance 10000.

IMPORTANT: You may only set one Win action per mission, so all the conditions required in order to win must be grouped together with the same Win action (as in the example above). Conditions for losing a mission may be grouped together in the same way, or they may be set as separate events.

Setting a Win Goal of Survival

To set the win condition as survival for a certain number of days, follow these steps:

1. On the Conditions & Actions screen, use the up/down arrow buttons to set the Day and Hour to the numbers you want, for example, Day 14, Hour 0.
2. Under Conditions, click Auto (or just click nothing and Auto will be set by default).
3. Under Actions, click Win. Then click OK. This brings you back to the Mission Plotting screen, where you now see the line: "Day 14, 0:00, Win". Now when the player runs the mission, Survival appears in the briefing under Objectives, and the survival countdown hourglass icon is displayed at the top of the screen during game play. If the player makes it to day 14 without losing her bridge or all crew members, she wins.

Creating a Time-Triggered Event

You can set other events to occur at particular days and times. For example, here is how you would trigger the arrival of a second personnel shuttle on Day 3:

1. On the Conditions & Actions screen, use the up/down arrow buttons to set the Day to 3. (You could also set the hour if you wanted.)
2. Under Conditions, click Auto (or just click nothing and Auto will be set by default).
3. Under Actions, click Operatives Arrival 1. Then click OK. This brings you back to the Mission Plotting screen, where you now see the line: "Day 3, 0:00, Operatives Arrival 1".
4. In order to complete the set-up, you must also select the personnel you want to include on that shuttle. On the Mission Plotting screen, click the People Availability button and then use the buttons to the right of each colonist's name to set the ones you want to Arrival 1. Click OK to return to the Mission Plotting screen.

Use the same type of set-up for any other event triggered by the game clock (i.e., set Day and Hour, choose Auto from the Conditions list and then choose the event you want from the Actions list).

Creating an Ongoing Condition

For conditions you want active throughout the mission, such as weed re-growth rates, protoraptor attack settings, etc., just leave the Day and Hour settings at 0, choose the Auto condition and then choose the condition you want from the Actions list.

If you want that condition to change partway through a mission, just set two separate events. For example, set "Day 0, Hour 0:00, Target Rodents Off". Then set "Day 3, Hour 12:00, Target Rodents On". This will prevent your colonists from killing rodents at the start of the mission and then enable rodent killing midway through Day 3.

Click for complete lists of Conditions and Actions. Or click to return to the Campaign Editor page.

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