Outpost 2

"It was cold, dry, nearly airless. But they saw.. possibilities."

"Historical overview: The earth, is dead. As the asteroid fragments landed, the last few survivors departed the solar system, seeking a new home among the stars."

—Outpost 2, Opening Narration

Outpost 2: Divided Destiny is a 1997 Real Time Strategy game developed by Sierra. In the game's backstory, the Earth is threatened by a massive asteroid impact, and all attempts to avert it fail. To avoid extinction, humanity throws its resources into a rushed evacuation program, which would take as many people as possible in cold sleep aboard the resultant starship 'Conestoga', and try to find a new world to colonise. World after unsuitable world was rejected by Conestoga's on-board computer, until, with resources to continue the journey failing, the ship woke a few of its sleepers and asked them to choose between a barely suitable planet it had just found, or press on with the little it had left in the faint hope of finding somewhere better. Choosing the former, they name the planet, a lifeless, Mars-like world, "New Terra", and optimistically name their colony "Eden".

Things go well, to begin with. With Eden established, it grew, and even began to thrive. However, with survival no longer so pressing or immediate a concern, the issue of the long-term direction to be taken arises, and divides the colonists. The initially suggested plan to terraform the planet into a new Earth did not sit well with many, who wanted instead to adapt themselves to New Terra's harsh environment. After a short time these detractors depart with a share of the colony's resources (having argued that two colonies had a better chance of survival than one anyway) and found a splinter colony named "Plymouth".

However, Eden refuses to back down on their plans to begin terraforming. After a short time in negotiation, it becomes clear the two groups' views cannot be reconciled, and in a gesture of disgust, Plymouth shuts down the only satellite connecting them, severing communications between the two colonies completely (although the Plymouth council were unaware that the rough-and-ready communications provision that came with them to New Terra wasn't designed to be powered down once operational). Eden goes ahead with its terraforming plans, but when their experiments go horribly wrong due to an over-ambitious and impatient leader's demands, and Plymouth is threatened by a suddenly and inexplicably active volcano, both colonies are faced with disaster, and the planet just doesn't have enough room for the two of them. Both colonies can agree on only one thing: Extinction is not an option.

Outpost 2, unlike other RTS games, focuses less on the military aspects of the genre and instead requires the player to manage their entire colony. Residences, recreation centers, and agridomes are all part of the colony alongside vehicle factories and mines. Keeping the colonists happy, healthy, and well-fed is essential to keeping the colony growing and productive. Outpost 2 is also notable for its detailed storyline, which is presented in a novella, with one chapter accompanying each mission briefing and two alternative storylines depending on your chosen faction. All There in the Manual, indeed.

Outpost 2 is the sequel to Outpost (although it ignores the events of its predecessor), a game best described as Simcity IN SPACE!. The original Outpost was highly anticipated and well-reviewed before its release, but afterwards it became clear it was missing several advertised features and was not well-received. Outpost 2 has a far, far more complete implementation of the colony-management game from Outpost mixed with RTS elements, as well as taking itself rather more seriously, not to mention an understated but very nice musical score, but suffered from Hype Backlash because it was sold as a sequel. However, the game stands well on its own as a unique twist on the RTS genre.

Tropes used in Outpost 2 include:

• All There in the Manual: The novella, as well as smaller anecdotes to go with nearly every structure and unit's information page in the electronic manual.
• Alternative Continuity: The 'Colony Builder' scenarios implicitly take place on a New Terra where Eden's accelerated terraforming experiments failed, leaving only the odd bit of primitive foliage as a sign they tried and that more traditional, long-term efforts might still be ongoing.
• Apocalypse How: Type 4.
• Arc Words: "Extinction is not an option".
  • Something of an 'unofficial motto' among the colonists, apparently the closing lines of the Conestoga's captain's pre-launch speech.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Savant computer: "Food production in surplus. Power levels optimal. Morale is good. New worker ready. The Blight is approaching!"
• Cat Scare: One early Eden mission has the Blight arrive very early, long before you could have finished all the objectives. However, it arrives at nightfall, and the Blight only spreads during the day, so you have until dawn to finish the mission.
• Combat Pragmatist: Plymouth has worse technology, so they have to steal technology and use ImprovisedWeapons. One of their exclusive weapons is a powerful Action Bomb.
• Completely Missing the Point: Aside from the aforementioned Hype Backlash, many critics panned the game as a bad Command & Conquer imitation despite the fact the game tried to be nothing of the sort. Well, aside from the marketing anyway.
• Construct Additional Pylons: Justified. The reason your base looks like a small city devoted to military production is because it is a small city.
• Cosmetically Different Sides: While each side has a few special abilities, such as Arachnids for Plymouth or Meteor Defense for Eden, both sides use the same tank chassis types and have similar weaponry. Eden, as the "main" colony, has slightly better weapons, though, while Plymouth is better able to handle morale.
• Cryonics Failure: Conestoga was built fast, and with only the bare minimum of testing; this included the unproven cryogenic sleeper technology to transport the colonists. The novellas mention that for a large number of the colonists the hibernation process backfired, resulting in accelerated ageing and reduced lifespans in those affected after revival.
• Discretion Shot: If you lose a colony mission, you get a shot of your colony from a distance as it gets overrun by lava or the Blight. The lava scenario looks just the same as when you succeed, except there aren't any evacuation transports escaping in the nick of time. With the Blight, the game adds a computer representation of the Blight approaching and infecting your colony.
• Dynamic Difficulty: One of the jarring aspects of the game is its research. If you research anything to improve the health/morale of the colony, they will demand it (or your colony suffers quite a bit if you don't build what they want). If you research any disaster warning systems, suddenly said disasters become more prominent. If you research weapons, the enemy will unleash hell on you, and it'll get worse.
  • The more frequent disasters are mainly Rule of Perception, since the computer makes many more announcements when you have disaster warning systems (you get up to two warnings in advance before the disaster arrives--one warning system gives you 5 time units' warning, and a second warning system gives you 10 time units' warning). With all the warning systems, your computer will be chattering non-stop.
• Everything Trying to Kill You: The Blight's progress stirs up atmospheric anomalies such as electrical storms and vortexes, not to mention reawakening and intensifying New Terra's almost dead tectonics and volcanism. Then of course there's the Blight itself, plus the meteor showers thanks to New Terra and the local asteroid belt having been just about to have a rendezvous when the colonists landed.
• Fog of War: Mostly averted. You have a literal satellite view and can see any unit on the map. However, units with their lights off, while slower, do not show up in your mini-map and are hard to spot in the dark.
• Fun with Acronyms: The Disaster Instant Response Team and the Garbage and Ore Recycling Facility.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Eden's terraforming experiments thanks to Nguyen's thoughtless ambition, with shades of Gone Horribly Right.
• Green Goo: The Blight is designed to break apart compounds, releasing water, and replicate itself in said water, until it covers the globe. It just didn't click for the researchers that the provisions to let it spread all the faster made it able to do this to organic compounds - starting with the organic polymers in its containment and the airlocks, moving on to the 'boptronic' (bio-optical) computers and electronics, and finally people.
• Instant Win Condition: If you win the mission, it doesn't matter if the Blight is two feet from your command center and the enemy's tanks are knocking on your door. Justified in that the win conditions include enough transports to evacuate your current population, and loading enough food and metals into cargo trucks ready to run for it.
  • The justification vanishes in later missions, where you don't need to load up, just have your resources in storage. How are they getting it to their new colony?
• Mighty Glacier: The Tiger. Massively armored, dual-turreted, war machine. Slow enough that the battle will probably be over by the time it arrives.
• Mission Control: Your 'Savant' computer system keeps you informed of everything that happens in your colony with impressive efficieny, and becomes a real lifeline when things get hectic.
• Numbered Homeworld: Played straight in the first Outpost game, but the planet is called "New Terra" in the second.
• The Plan: The entire schism between the colonies, according to the novella.
• Reinventing the Wheel: The initial missions require you to rediscover technology that was lost or destroyed during the initial evacuation, such as vehicles. However, once the basics are out of the way, technology developments carry over between missions.
• Slave to PR: Morale affects your birth rate, death rate, and productivity, and is quite fragile at times, for Eden especially. It fluctuates constantly based on random events and the conditions in your colony. Letting people starve will crash your morale like a cow learning to fly, and an extreme drop in morale can do irreparable damage or set you in an Unwinnable situation.
• Sleep Learning: The research tech reports that it is ineffective, but it does give a minor boost to training times.
• Stalked by the Bell: Take too long in any story mission, and the Blight will approach and/or nearby volcanoes will erupt, disabling/destroying anything they come into contact with. You can develop and place special walls to slow down the unstoppable advance of either, buying time to finish your objectives before it destroys you.
• Superweapon Surprise: Eden and Plymouth did not have weapons when they first arrived on New Terra but when they start coming into conflict, they weaponized some of their technology. According to the fluff, Eden's laser cannon is a modified industrial laser torch and Plymouth's microwave cannon comes from technology used to wirelessly transmit electricity.
  • Towards the end of the Eden campaign, you're told that Plymouth has made some "modifications" to their SULV. When they start dropping EMP missiles, that's definitely a "surprise."
• Tank Goodness: Every military unit, most of all the Tigers. Arachnids are the exception.
• Technology Porn: Mostly in text form. So much detail was put into the units' technology, and even the research descriptions.
• Terraforming: Central to the plot, see the Green Goo entry.
• The Virus: One mission requires you to send your tanks into the contaminated Eden colony to gather data. Here, being Stalked by the Bell takes the form of the microbe destroying your robots' brains over time so that they fight against you instead.
• Unusual Euphemism: The novella uses these in place of the usual curse-words. 'Frag' is a popular one.
• Walking the Earth: Both sides have to keep ahead of the Blight and the volcanic activity, building temporary colonies, achieving their objectives and gathering what they can, then moving on.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Both sides. Go to war for starship wreckage? Steal the other side's RLV? Sure, why not.
  • This culminates, eventually, in one colony denying the other access to the starship due to space issues (with Plymouth's ending having them outright steal it from Eden). A last gesture of mercy however, has one of the final objectives for both sides being to raid the enemy nursery so that you can at least take their children with you.