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Operation Vanguard - a combat scenario

A lore-driven survival-combat scenario with missions for single- and multiplayer - PROTOTECH READY



“There are more glorious jobs than maintenance – but at least it’s far from action”

You are part of a team of maintenance specialists that have been assigned to field test the freshly repaired heavy frigate I4 Merula in the Silas System. The Crew of the Merula has been on shore leave and you are the only people on board when news come in of a massive attack underway against the system. The Akhinnae Empire seems to be under attack and you are in possession of a massive arsenal – the question is whether you will be able to use it effectively to help to repel the attack.

What is this?
This is the second part of a scenario series that aims to combine games like Wing Commander and Space Engineers. This time you will be steering a frigate that aims to bring you a “submarine hunter” feeling. You will get straight “Search and destroy” missions and save allied ships against the enemy while trying to stay alive. You will constantly need to make repairs and scavenge what is left of the battlefields around you to keep in the game. But you have a save haven in the game – an abandoned maintenance dock that will help you to repair your ship and unwind between missions.


Who is this for?
“Operation Vanguard” is aimed at teams of 2 to 4 players but can be played as single player as well. The less people there are in your team, the higher the difficulty will be.
Playing this scenario in single player is absolutely manageable but it will be rather difficult. Save often and make sure to repair your ship as well as possible.
This is a scenario for the seasoned space engineer player. If you do not know how to punch in FTL jump block coordinates or how to find steel plates in a conveyor-equipped ship, this scenario is NOT (yet) for you. Having experience with utilizing scripts such as WHAM from Whiplash also helps.
THIS SCENARIO IS FULLY COMPATIBLE FOR USERS WITHOUT DLC – while the hero ship loads in with all the DLC, there is a non-DLC blueprint version ready to be loaded in so you can repair the ship easily without the DLC the more it gets damaged. For everything else you should not need a DLC – see more information on this in the scenario guide.

How to play it
The I4 Merula is your home and your combat base at the same time. You will receive your briefings here in the small mess hall area, sent over by sector command. They will include the coordinates of your next mission area. Use those to jump to the mission area. Get a bearing of the situation and be ready for attacking drones and larger units at any given time.
In many missions, you are required to protect allied ships or stations. You might find additional information or resources on these allied ships or on wreckage, so take a look and board them after the fight.
Some missions require you to initially board a ship and have a talk with the NPCs on board. Read their texts carefully and look for additional instructions.
ATTENTION: There are two action relays in the ship, the communication relay (channel 79) and the command relay (channel 47) – make sure to only use the command relay channel when asked by NPCs to do so as it triggers mission commands and could prematurely start missions you still need time for.



Finally, get back to the Merula and repair and rearm your frigate before starting the next mission. In-between missions you should jump back to the space dock so you can take advantage of the facilities there.




You can find the manual for this scenario here: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3342480453
First Steps:
(1) you will need to join the available Imperial faction first in order to properly spawn.
(2) Take ownership of the Merula
(3) Go around the ship and familiarize yourself with the controls on CIC and move her around for a bit to get a feeling
(4) Make sure you decide whether you want to use the non-DLC projector or the DLC projector for repairing
ATTENTION: when you load the scenario in and press the next button to get to your current mission, make sure the mission number is your actual mission (starting with "Mission 1") - for some reason the script has a hickup from time to time after loading"
ATTENTION: Right now, some of the mission coordinates from the briefing screen can be accidentally two-liners. They still work but they clutter the FTL jump menu unnecessarily. Circumvent that by removing the break in the briefing text before adding the GPS coordinates to your GPS log.
This World comes with OPTIONAL mods. You can remove them, but they are adding much to the atmosphere of the scenario.
The world comes with a NON-OPTIONAL mod:
AE NPC Dummies - Interactable NPC Blocks by SEModder04 and Æ
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2289675817

Special Thanks to to Whiplash for his brilliant scripts (as always)!






“How do winning conditions and mission conditions trigger?”
There are none. This is “just” a world with things placed in a story-telling order. The mission will “start” when you chose to jump to the next coordinates.
“Akhi.. Hakhu… what the heck?!”
Akhinnae – it’s my own world, with lore, language, history – I am a nerd, you know?
“DLC split the community, why do you use them here?”
I understand the argument, but I do not agree with it. I use the DLC because the give me the vanilla possibilities to use decorative freedom that I would otherwise not have. You are free to use the world without the DLC and I will not change my old worlds and blueprints so they can still be used without DLC. For new content, however, I chose to use all available DLC.
This world has been made fully compatible with non-DLC users! See the Scenario guide for more information.


I will always publish all my Space Engineers work for free - but you can support me if you want - via
Patreon [patreon.com]