Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager: Soviet Moonlanding Speedrun Guide

This guide runs through the quickest route to a soviet Moon Landing.
The Best I have managed is 1963.2, and I can pretty consistently get a moon landing before the end of 1963.

This will also get you the ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’ Achievement

This does rely on reloading saves if things go wrong, though if you want to do an ironman run this route will still work for you, you just need to take longer and get higher percentages before launching.

Staff
Always hire based only on their Learning Capacity (The number next to the light bulb icon) this shows how quickly they will learn and is more useful than their initial skill levels

Staff Numbers
SET, We need 12 SET Staff to reseach at full capacity
4x Human Rated Rockets (HRR)
4x Crewed Spacecraft
4x EVA Suits
but I hire 14 so I can keep training and rotating out the lowest qualified staff member

Mission Controllers(MCC)
we need 5 up to the first budget review, 10 for the second to do the Vostok Launches, then 13 for the LK-700 missions. There is a risk here if any staff member leaves late on you will need to get a poorly trained replacement in. You could avoid this by upgrading the mission control centre again and hiring 2-3 more but I found this wasn’t worth the extra expense.

Cosmonauts
This is one are I have been quite conservative about. Technically you only need to hire 3, one to act as CAPCOM the other 2 to fly the vostok and VK-700 missions. However to run back to back VK0700 you need 2 crews due to the rest season. Additionally Cosmonauts seem to be at greater risk of being sacked / leaving / getting killed by random events which given the time they take to train can be a killer late on so I always start with 6 train them all the way through.

Missions
I usually use the ‘skip to outcome’ option for all missions, if it fails check what stage the failure was, then reload previous autosave and monitor from Mission control, using 1 tiger team when the failure comes up. If it still fails or there is a second problem later that can’t be passed without a team then revert again and scrub the mission.

Funds are too tight in this run to buy too many teams, and you can’t afford the loss of reliability or cosmonauts. Either Fly an easier mission that will boost your current craft, or wait a season for extra R&D and try again.

The Programs you need for this run through are:

You need to do an Earth Orbiting Satellite to unlock Lunar Probes and this is the cheapest / easiest early game mission.
The Luna Rocket takes a bit more work than the Sputnik, but since we need it for the Lunar Probe researching it from the start save us time and money running 2 rocket programs.

A Lunar Probe is needed to unlock manned Lunar missions, Luna 2 is cheaper to open / run but takes a 10% reliability hit if you haven’t done any lunar probes prior.

I will talk about this in more detail in the Step-By-Step section, but basically this is a cheap shortcut to Vostok.

This program gets us the Man in Space, man in Orbit and Extended Duration 1 Goals we need for the moon landing missions. Also this gets our Prestige over the max needed for the 1962.4 Budget Review

Our Moon Landing Spacecraft and rocket. LK-700 is more difficult to research than the Soyuz lander but has 2 big benefits:

1. Its Cheaper overall, by over ₽20,000
2. There are only 3 components (Rocket, Spacecraft, EVA Suit) vs 5 on Soyuz so we save research time / expense of extra SET staff

For each of the programs you need the following Mission controllers, Target your training to get the best skills in each category.

Flight controllers use all of the skills, so to train them send them on a course for their weakest skill. There is no benefit to training any of the other Mission Control staff outside of their speciality

Sputnik 1
Propulsion 1
Guidance 0
Systems 1
Crew 0
Mission Ops 0
Flight Control 1

Luna 3
Propulsion 1
Guidance 1
Systems 1
Crew 1
Mission Ops 0
Flight Control 1

Korabl-Sputnik 2 / Vostok
Propulsion 1
Guidance 3
Systems 3
Crew 1
Mission Ops 1
Flight Control 1

LK-700
Propulsion 1
Guidance 4
Systems 2
Crew 2
Mission Ops 2
Flight Control 2

Construction
Build VAB and Mission Control
SET
Send Staff Member with highest ‘Rockets’ Skill on Rockets Training course
Recruit 2 Staff with highest Learning Capacity
Open Program
Earth Orbiting Research Satellites – ‘Sputnik 1’
Assign all 4 SET Staff to Research

MCC
Recruit 5 staff with highest learning Capacity

Construction
Upgrade SET Centre
Open Rocket Program
‘Luna’
SET
Take everyone off Sputnik payload research
Assign the 4 best rockets people to the Luna Rocket research
The 2 remaining staff go on Sputnik research

Construction
Build Cosmonaut Centre
SET
Assign the newly trained engineer to the ‘Luna’ Rocket, replacing the lowest trained rockets staff member, who moves onto the sputnik research
MCC
Send all on training, Follow the Luna 3 requirements

• Propulsion 1
• Guidance 1
• Systems 1
• Crew 1
• Mission Ops 0
• Flight Control 1

SET
Hire 7 Staff with Highest Learning Capacity

Cosmonaut Centre
Hire 6 Cosmonauts with highest learning Capacity

SET
Re-Assign Personnel
Highest Rockets on ‘Luna’ First, then highest Space Probes on ‘Sputnik 1’ Next
Remaining 6 – 3x Train on Human Rated Rockets, 3x on Crewed Spacecraft
MCC
Second round of training for MCC Personnel

Skip the next few seasons, nothing to do

SET
Second round of HRR / Crewed Training
Schedule Mission
Sputnik 1 Regular
Cosmonauts
All Train on Leadership

Open Program
Lunar Probes – Luna 3
Close Program
Sputnik 1
SET
Assign the 4 staff to Luna 3 research
MCC
All go on training

Skip the next season 1957.4, nothing to do

Cosmonauts
All Training, Leadership until 80% then Piloting / fitness to 60
Open Rocket Program
‘Vostok’
Open Program
Earth Orbiting Research Satellites – ‘Korabl-Sputnik 2’
We are using this as its cheaper than the Vostok, but lets us research the same craft. Plus the launch gives us the ‘Vostok Uncrewed Orbital’ Goal directly without the penaly for skipping suborbital

SET
Remove all from ‘Luna’ Rocket
Assign 4x best trained in HRR
Assign 4 best crewed spacecraft SET to Vostok research
Remaining 2 back on ‘Luna’ Rocket

Schedule Mission
Luna 3

By this point you should have 4000+ Prestige, more than needed for the next budget review

Close Program
Luna 3
Close Rocket Program
Luna
SET
Send 4 on continuous EVA Training until 90%
Remaining staff, 1 on HRR 1 on Crewed
MCC
Send all on training

Upgrade MCC

MCC
Hire the 8 Highest Learning Capacity recruits
Cosmonauts
All on Training

Construction
Upgrade VAB

Schedule Mission
Korabl-Sputnik 2
MCC
Leave Staff member with highest Crew skill unassigned, other 3 send on training for: Guidance, Crew, mission ops. These 3 aren’t needed until the LK-700 Missions.
SET
2 free Personnel replace lowest HRR / Crewed researcher as appropriate. Newly freed SET goes on training. Repeat this pattern for the rest of the game. If any of the EVA Staff complete training, send them on another EVA Course until they are needed

Open Program
One crew capsules – Vostok
Close Program
Korabl-Sputnik 2
Schedule Mission
Vostok Suborbital Flight
You can try skipping straight to Orbital Flights, but you get a -20% penalty for not doing ‘man in space’ first.
Cosmonauts
Keep the highest leadership candidate available, send the other 3 on training
Ideally they want 85% Leadership, 60% Piloting and Fitness at this point

Schedule Mission
Vostok Orbital FLight
SET
The HRR Team should be freed up now, or next season from the Vostok rocket. Set them all on HRR Training
Construction
Upgrade – VAB
This is the last construction / upgrade needed

Schedule Mission
Vostok Orbital Flight Duration Level 1
SET
Crewed Spacecraft team should be available as Vostok is maxed out, Send on Training as appropriate.

Close Program
Vostok
Close Rocket Program
Vostok
The game will nag you each season about not having a rocket program, but just keep clicking okay
MCC
Send on training as required for LK-700 program

• Propulsion 1
• Guidance 4
• Systems 2
• Crew 2
• Mission Ops 2
• Flight Control 2

Cosmonauts
Resume training, looking for Leadership 90, Piloting + FItness 80

SET
Send HRR team on training

Open Program
Two crew capsules – LK-700 Earth Orbit
SET
If any of the EVA Team have graduated, assign to EVA Suits
Highest crewed to LK-700, then any remaining to EVA Suit

MCC and Cosmonauts
Another round of training

Open Rocket Program
LK-700
if you have funds, depending how many tiger teams you have needed, otherwise open next season

MCC and Cosmonauts
Another round of training

MCC and Cosmonauts
Another round of training
If any cosmonauts have reached 90/80/80 on Leadership/piloting/fitness you can send them on an EVA Course
This is the last round of training before the rush to the moon. If you managed to start the LK-700 research earlier, you may be able to start those missions now for an even earlier win

Schedule Mission
LK-700 Uncrewed suborbital
This is a really touch-and-go mission as both rocket and spacecraft will be around 60%, but if successful they get a good reliability bump

Schedule Mission
LK-700 Orbital Flight
Spacecraft and rocket are more reliable now, but we are taking a penalty of -10% by skipping ‘Uncrewed Orbital Flight’

Open Program
LK-700 Direct Ascent
Schedule Mission
Lunar Landing (Direct Ascent)
Again we take a 10% Spacecraft penalty for unachieved goals. If you can’t get this to go then ‘Uncrewed Lunar Orbital Flight Test’ will reduce the penalty to 5%
For this mission, go ahead and get tiger teams in if you need them, no point hanging on to those Rubles!

And there we (Hopefully) go, a Soviet Moon Landing just as Johnson becomes US President.