I'm an unregistered newb. Help.

I am in containment. I seem to have collected too few souls and will need to start over. Oops. But here is the real problem:

I was researching various things (eg. Darwinians, grenades, squads, etc.) by setting them as priorities, but the research seems to have stopped. I am trying to research laser, but over the last ~some long period of time~ (I would prefer not to think about exactly how much time I spent on what appears to be a lost cause) no reasearch has happened. At all. The bar just sits there, empty.
Any explanations/solutions? It was going slowly before, but it was happening...

Another question: If I "Reset Location," do I keep technologies that I got while I was in there for the first time? I think I should, as I am not starting over the whole game, but I do not know what technologies are removed when you reset their parent areas. NOTE: I do not mean the officers that you "find" in a box, but the "grenade 2.0" type research that the professor guy makes. Sorry if none of that was near correct terminology, I do not quite know any of said terminology.

FedKiller, on Nov 5 2005, 08:40 PM, said:

I am in containment. I seem to have collected too few souls and will need to start over. Oops. But here is the real problem:

Yeah, that can be a pain.

FedKiller, on Nov 5 2005, 08:40 PM, said:

I was researching various things (eg. Darwinians, grenades, squads, etc.) by setting them as priorities, but the research seems to have stopped. I am trying to research laser, but over the last ~some long period of time~ (I would prefer not to think about exactly how much time I spent on what appears to be a lost cause) no reasearch has happened. At all. The bar just sits there, empty.
Any explanations/solutions? It was going slowly before, but it was happening...

Here is how research works: when you capture a control tower, you gain a certain number of research points. Over time, those points are applied to whatever you have selected to research. Thus, if you are not capturing control towers, you cannot gain research.

FedKiller, on Nov 5 2005, 08:40 PM, said:

Another question: If I "Reset Location," do I keep technologies that I got while I was in there for the first time? I think I should, as I am not starting over the whole game, but I do not know what technologies are removed when you reset their parent areas. NOTE: I do not mean the officers that you "find" in a box, but the "grenade 2.0" type research that the professor guy makes. Sorry if none of that was near correct terminology, I do not quite know any of said terminology.
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You will keep your research, as well as any buildings that you have captured. Thus, you will keep your officer, and any other research that you have done.

xander

OK, I'll get around to starting over, then... I have all of the incubators, etc, so I should just be able to set up a Squad on each Island, beat everything up, start an engineer, and take the souls to the incubator no problem. Right?

Yep. That's the idea at least.

FedKiller, on Nov 8 2005, 11:28 PM, said:

OK, I'll get around to starting over, then... I have all of the incubators, etc, so I should just be able to set up a Squad on each Island, beat everything up, start an engineer, and take the souls to the incubator no problem. Right?
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Indeed, however remeber that the souls will float away after a bit, so it is generally best to take out one patch of virii, collect all of the souls before they float away (using as many engineers as possible), then go onto the next patch.

xander

Getting lasers to your darwinians as quickly as possible saves a lot of headaches. They'll defend against virii with ruthless efficiency and with some engineer support, you can continuously build up their population.

Having to start over a level from not recycling enough souls is indeed a pain, but if I've reached a point where it is no longer possible to finish the level, why let me keep playing? Twice now I've restarted over only to find when it's too late I didn't catch enough enemy souls. I think it's a really bad playability issue. The game should at least do one of two things:

1- warn me this has happened
2- end the level and report a mission failure

But not what it does now:

3- let me play on for another hour or so blissfully unaware all the work I am doing will be for nothing.

I'd purchase the game and play on, but not if its going to be doing this to me. This is unfortunate because the game is otherwise really neat.

Containment is the only level which acts like this, the others are always reachable. Containment was changed in the 1.3 patch, however that hasn't been released on the Mac version yet.