[April Fools 2017] Strategy Guide for CSC America

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Disclaimer: The following announcement is an April Fools joke as originally released at 12:00 AM UTC on April 1st, 2017. I made all of this up; CSC America was not released today and it will probably not be for a long time. Please do not take any of this seriously.

Strategy Guide for CSC America

Originally released in 1987 and remade in 2004, CSC America was a revolutionary RTS that introduced its genre to characters with personality traits. These traits would affect how the characters acted in various tactical situations. Today, the beta of CSC America's third remake has released. It includes many changes to both the Commonwealth Fleet and the Ares Orthodoxy. As its development moves forward, I will be documenting it from time to time. In this game, you control a Commonwealth Star Carrier with several ships under your command and various characters to pilot those ships. Each character is randomly assigned some character traits.

New Commonwealth Ships
  • Athena-class super gunship: Fast-moving and slow-turning. Eight 12-ton armor segments protect this ship; the four side segments resist ion damage and the four front and back segments resist plasma. The ship's Ninja shield generator provides amazing stealth when it has at least 50% hp. The Athena's main weapon is the Sniper howitzer, which is like the thermo cannon but has a very long range. It also uses NAMI's new M6 Hydra missile, which splits into 12 small armor-penetrating thermo missiles.
  • Victoria-class bomber: Armed with a NAMI mine launcher and an EMP burst cannon, this ship specializes in badly disabling its target while laying down a deadly ring of mines. While it excels against slow targets, it lacks an effective defense against gunships. Furthermore, its front and back segments are very weak.
  • Draco-class destroyer: The Draco uses a special point defense device that releases a cloud of thermo fragments to stop both missile and beam attacks. Its main weapon is the Fang cannon, which launches shells that can target specific armor segments. Each of its armor segments specializes in resisting a certain damage type.
  • Legionary-class cruiser: The Legionary specializes in rapidly firing missiles that travel in unpredictable paths. It uses a special shield that absorbs damage based on the hp of the underlying armor segments. A special device protects the ship from missiles by taking control of them. The Legionary also carries special armor patches that apply certain damage type resistances to armor segments and a device that automatically applies these patches.
  • Your ship, the America-class Commonwealth Star Carrier. Designed by Morge E. Romogisato (of Looming Menace and Hector's Ark fame), it carries four wTVd0 Blasters and its P1000 Hexarc armor absorbs 999 points of laser damage.
  • Futureon-class Releasenought: Its Futurefire Releasewitzer fires stealthy [Future] shells at high [Release], its shield strongly resists [Future], and its armor always reflects [Release]
New Ares Ships
  • Thanatos-class dreadnought: Beware this ship's three Rapier pulse cannons, which are efficient Katana star cannons with device disruption capabilities. Its shield emits energy projectiles from its field and its armor segments release explosive fragments, though all of them have relatively low max hp.
  • Kratos-class destroyer: Carries a heavy positron cannon that deals double damage to any armor segment with less than half of its max HP remaining. This ship uses a special shield that may annihilate matter projectiles in its field without taking damage. Its armor reflects energy projectiles, but has a major vulnerability to matter attacks.
  • [Future]-class [Release]: This ship carries a special device that allows it to [Future Release] everything in a 20 ls radius. Its shield can [Future Release] upon collapsing and its armor absorbs energy damage to power up its Future Releasitron Cannon
Character Traits
  • Reacts very poorly to friendly fire
  • Reacts very poorly to seeing a friendly ship get destroyed.
  • Avoids attacking friendly stations at all costs
  • Flees immediately upon being attacked by an enemy, refusing to obey any further commands
  • Always attacks certain objects (i.e. Taikon Ventures stations).
  • Always loots certain objects (i.e. destroyed Taikon Ventures stations).
  • Prefers to use a slam cannon and performs poorly with any other weapon.
  • Prefers to use XMH armor and gets angry when forced to use something else.
  • Randomly decides to switch installed devices (i.e. A howitzer) for other devices (i.e. a slam cannon)
  • Secretly works for the Rogue Fleet
  • Is secretly controlled by a human
  • Is secretly controlled by The Computer
  • Incapable of moving in a counterclockwise path
  • Cannot aim fixed weapons correctly
  • Is a bit too lax with tracking weapons; too cautious with unguided ones
  • Unable to set FireRateAdj on each specific weapon
  • Always replies with "[Future Release]"
Missions
  1. An easy first mission where you learn to give scouting and attacking orders. There is an Ares outpost and it is sending out some scout squadrons to wander around the system in search of your CSC. You start with nine Centurions, three Centurion/Xs, and a full inventory of spare armor and devices. The strategy here is send a few Centurions to search for and destroy the scouts, and also one Centurion/X to destroy the outpost.
  2. In this mission, you learn how to create and manage squadrons. There are many Sandstorms and a few Chasms circling the system, and you have to destroy them all before any of them can discover your location. Your starting resources are the same as in the last mission. To win this level, assemble three squadrons with three Centurions and one Centurion/X each, and then send them on patrol at least 150 ls away. If your ships get badly damaged, order them to return and repair their armor.
  3. In the third mission, you learn about maintaining your ships and deploying the Britannia-class heavy gunship. The system here is filled with Ventari colonies and a few Ares Communes, and you start with the regular setup plus twelve Britannias. For each Ventari colony, the best strategy is to order a group of four Britannias to destroy it, loot all of its treasure, and return to your ship. Since you will have some ships with damaged devices, you should replace those devices using what you have in your inventory. You may also on your ships any equipment that you looted from the Ventari. Finally, send your Britannias and Centurions at the Ares Communes.
  4. In the fourth mission, you learn about transporting supplies and using the Aurochs-class mine layer. The CSC America is low on supply and the Ares Orthodoxy is sending ship parts to its shipyards to speed up production. You will have to defend incoming Scarab resupply freighters while laying minefields in front of the Polar freighters.
  5. In the fifth mission, the Ares Orthodoxy sends three Phobos-class dreadnoughts to destroy the CSC America. The mission is currently unwinnable because a bug causes both stargates to spawn directly next to the player and the gunship AI is terrible at fighting capships.
  6. In missions six to ten, you defend Point Juno, Point Pallas, Point Hermes, Point Less, and Komoro Station, each in random order.
  7. In the secret bonus mission that you can unlock by completing mission five, the CSC America must clear the Sol System of its 1,000,000,000 Future Release tickets before time runs out and they all collapse into a black hole.
  8. In this awesome throwback mission, you control the Earth Fleet and lead an invasion against Mars. This mission is easy
  9. Ending: The Commonwealth loses wins
Tips
  • The Centurion is generally terrible at fighting Ares ships
  • Britannia squadrons have a tendency to collapse due to friendly fire
  • The slam cannon is better than the TeV9 blaster
  • An AutoSentinel can destroy a Charon Frigate
  • If you fail a mission, the Commonwealth will just send in the COMSOC and their Star Eaters to do all the work for you.
Planned Expansions
  • Ares Wars: The Gene Wars - In this expansion, you control the Ares fleet to destroy the Commonwealth while discovering almost no new lore about the mysterious Ares Orthodoxy. This expansion also introduces ten new sovereigns, each with their own lack of in-game story.
  • Syrtis Trek - A pilgrim from the Syrtis Conclave goes out to singlehandedly destroy everything in Human Space after experiencing horrible nightmares
  • Luminous, Luminarc, Luminacreon - Why is Luminous not as threatening as the Ares despite having infinite computing power?
  • Hexuminous, Hexarc, Hexacreon
  • Malina
George's Developer Commentary

Disclaimer: April Fools! It is now April 1st in the UTC zone! Everything you just read was part of an elaborate joke. CSC America was not released today and it will probably not be released for a long time. Please do not take any of this seriously.
Last edited by 0xABCDEF on Sun Apr 02, 2017 7:47 am, edited 4 times in total.
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how do i port my mass effect saves to csc america
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0xABCDEF
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Easy! Just run the TransPort utility on command line and follow the instructions in the /help command
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digdug
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ah you beat me. :) I was going to announce my Battleships Forever complete conversion for CSC America :D
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This was too good, I've made it global, so everyone sees it now. :P
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What?! April Fools 2017 is over and all of this was a joke? You mean that CSC America was never released in the first place?! Not even Transcendence 2.0, Anacreon IV, or Domina & Oracus Part V? I guess it was all just a dream.
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