Roadside Research Survival Guide: How Not to Get Executed
Playing a disguised alien clerk sounds hilarious until a government agent pulls a gun on you for forgetting how to blink.
The absolute hardest part of Roadside Research is pretending you are a normal human. Your cover is paper thin. Every weird move you make draws heat from the local authorities and the terrifying Men in Black who randomly inspect your store. I have been flattened by traffic, shot in the face over a bad camera angle, and blasted to pieces because I messed up a fake sneeze. Surviving the daily retail grind requires intense paranoia, careful price manipulation, and knowing exactly how to handle high pressure interrogations when the feds show up. I am going to teach you how to survive your shift without ending up as a smear of extraterrestrial goop.
Managing Heat and Gas Station Hazards
Keeping your base suspicion low is the only thing standing between you and a gruesome death. You have to balance making maximum profits with acting completely mundane. Here is how you keep the feds off your back while still bleeding your customers dry.
Don't Become Extraterrestrial Roadkill
I cannot stress this enough. Stay out of the damn road. When you are out pumping gas for customers, it is incredibly easy to step too far into the street. The drivers in this game do not give a shit about pedestrians. They will plow right through you. Getting flattened kills you instantly. Sure, you respawn, but your mangled alien corpse leaves a massive puddle of highly suspicious colored goop on the asphalt. Cleaning that up while human customers watch is a total nightmare and spikes your heat level instantly.
Sneaky Price Gouging
You have the power to change the prices of your stock right from the start. Greed is good, but human customers will completely lose their minds if you double the cost of a soda overnight. The trick is making subtle adjustments. Bump up the cost of chips and drinks by a few cents every single day. As long as you avoid slapping a ten dollar premium on a candy bar all at once, they will blindly hand over their cash without raising your suspicion meter.
Hiding Your Alien Blunders
Sometimes you screw up. You take a photo of a target right as an agent turns the corner, or you accidentally use an alien laser gun in broad daylight. If your heat gets too high, you need countermeasures. Stashing your highly illegal alien tech until you absolutely need it is a good start. If things are really spiraling, you will need to save up for the Brain Washer Barrier. It drops your base suspicion by thirty percent by confusing the hell out of anyone who walks near it.
The Interrogation Mini Games
Eventually, the agents are going to show up and pull you aside for a little chat. These interrogations are high stakes skill checks to see if you can emulate basic human bodily functions. The pressure is intense, and messing up means they pull out a gun.
You have to pass these specific tests to prove you are a pathetic meatbag. If you miss three skill checks during any of these tests, the agent will kill you.
The Cost of Failure
If your nerves crack and you fail the mini game, the agent executes you on the spot. Your surviving alien buddies then have to scramble to fight off the feds using whatever laser guns or memory wiping tech you have lying around. It is absolute chaos. Your team loses precious research points, your store gets covered in alien blood, and you set your entire operation back by days. Stay calm, click accurately, and remember how to fart. It is the only way to survive the shift.
