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I was inspired by a recent Friday Facts to create my own scenario much like the campaign. A good campaign really pulls an entire game together, and it's been my favorite part of all the RTS-style games I've played in the past (Star Craft, Age of Empires, etc). So, after a few hours of coding and a few more hours of testing later, I'm happy with how my first one turned out. If you enjoyed the campaign and want more Factorio with story-based objectives, then you might like this scenario!! Below is the introduction...

"Commando; You have been selected from the 2nd Ranger Division of the Engineering Corps because of your outstanding excellence in improvisational skill tests. The biter infestation has spread to our immediate vicinity and we are lacking a functioning geostationary artillery sattellite to keep 'em back. We've got the ammuntion, but we need a gun! Your mission is to drop into the abandoned industrial district, fight your way to Ares Shipping Outpost, retrieve the heavy artillery, and send it into geostationary orbit. Shipping logs indicate that there is a large inventory of rocket components that was left in the shipping railyard. Use them to complete the mission! An automated adjutant will be accompanying you on your mission. Godspeed Commando and good luck!!!"

As far as I know, there haven't been many player-made scenarios (I only found this one but it's very outdated- viewtopic.php?f=36&t=17009&p=157642&hil ... io#p157642). A big part of why I decided to make this was so that I could inspire some other players to make their own scenarios. I'd love to see a campaign/scenario library as vast and diverse as the modding library, so if you have some imagination and decide to make one, please post it!!!

The download is at the bottom of the page. Godspeed Commando!!

---Notes---
To play the scenario, put the unzipped file in one of the following folders. There is no difference in playability between the two locations. Some folders may be hidden so make sure to check "Hidden Items" under "View" on the file explorer toolbar.
C:\Users\"Your name"\AppData\Roaming\Factorio\scenarios (It will show up under "User Scenarios" in Scenarios)
C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Factorio\data\base\scenarios (It will show up under "Mod Scenarios" in Scenarios)
(I have Windows 10 so I'm not sure where it would go for other operating systems.)

Estimated play time: 3-5 hours depending on skill level and rushing (It's most comparable to level 2-New Hope; the scenario with the trains)
Don't pick up the iron chest in Ares Shipping Outpost before you complete the required research!!!
Don't lose any rail wagons with rocket parts OR the artillery turret!! You only get one shot!!
Take out the small surrounding biter bases early before they get too difficult to deal with later, the enemies evolve as you progress through the scenario.

Feel free to open the "Control" file and modify anything (Biter evolution, starting items, limited tech, etc.).
English only! Sorry! Insert more language files in the locale folder to play in your language.

If you do end up doing a full playthrough and don't mind answering a few questions, please do. (It'll make any future scenarios a lot better. )
-How long did it take you to finish?
-Enemies- too hard/easy?
-Starting base- too much/little structure in the starting base to let players build their own base?
-Features- some things you didn't use or felt like it was missing?
-Bugs- any ways to cheat past the objectives that make the game play trivial?
-Was the scenario fun?

I have a few more ideas for other scenarios in the future. Some features I'd like to add...
-Multiplayer campaigns
-receiving shipments of resources from allies
-fortifying a mine and holding out against the biters until evac arrives
-fortifying along an enemy railway to stop shipments from going through

Looks cool! Any time a map starts with laser turrets I immediately gobble them up and go on a map PURGE. Life gets so much easier when you clear out a border or two.

Why not publish this as a mod? (to make installation easier)

jonathanpaulson wrote:Why not publish this as a mod? (to make installation easier)

Thanks for the suggestion. I just uploaded it under "general mods".

jonathanpaulson wrote:Why not publish this as a mod? (to make installation easier)

Can you explain how that's possible please? Does the mod portal recognise scenarios now, and know to put them in the scenarios folder?

I played this for 18 hours util the finish and liked it a lot

Do you have any plans for updating this to 0.17?

This was my first custom scenario and it took me 5 hours to complete. The early game seemed really difficult with the constant biter attacks - I could barely get enough ammo to keep the turrets operational whilst constructing my base. Once I was able to get enough ammo/grenades I could clear some of the bases which made the scenario too easy since the biter bases never respawned and I never needed to leave my base to get more resources. As a suggestion, there should be an extra ~20 rocket resources in the trains in case some of the materials get stuck in splitters (It took me a minute to find 10 missing ingredients).

First, thanks for all your effort, this looks awesome. I just tried this out in .17, extracted to "C:\Users\*user*\AppData\Roaming\Factorio\scenarios", and just got errors when I loaded it. So presumably, some issue with .17. Just informing.

I just finished installing and extracting the file into the scenario folder, only to try to start playing and get this:

Error while running event level::on_init()
__core__/lualib/story.lua:11: bad argument #1 of 2 to 'pairs' (table expected, got nil)
stack traceback:
[C]: in function 'pairs'
__core__/lualib/story.lua:11: in function 'make_helpers'
__core__/lualib/story.lua:44: in function 'story_init'
...Data/Roaming/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:5: in function <...Data/Roaming/Factorio/temp/currently-playing/control.lua:4>

Is it something on my end? I'm not very good at reading code.

I'd love to see if this will be expanded upon