Part 33: Great Lakes

The LC have set up shop in the Great Lakes, where development of the Plasma Cannon has reached the final stages. We merely need to get a prototype on the battlefield and research will be complete.



Sadly, we need to research the Plasma Cannon before we can utilize it.



Almost immediately after the Albatross arrives the Night Barons encounter a group of LC units. 3 Electro-cannon Moons and 1 Sonic Cannon Moon. This could be trouble since we don't have any shields.



They take out one of our Small Towers with ease. Fortunately they didn't bring any anti-air defenses, making it easy for the Night Barons to take them out.



Oh wait, they did bring some anti-air cover. But we all know how vulnerable those Meteors are.



These Large Towers will be strong enough to protect us from any LC incursions. The LC do not make another strong attack for the rest of the mission.



The Plasma Cannon is done! UCS News has the details.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjSPg1nGrxg



We'll put the Plasma Cannon on the Spider as well. 100 damage is incredible, even if the LC do have shields on this mission.



I send the Night Barons out scouting and it looks like there's another ore field just north of our base. We might be able to make NOAH I very happy this mission.



Even better, it's the site of the LC's mining operation.



And now those Moon hippies will wither on the vine.



Pro tip: if you're going to counter-attack an air force that destroyed your economy make sure you send units that can actually shoot air units.

The LC's over-reliance on energy weapons will spell their doom this mission.




Our Plasma-equipped Tiger and Spider are ready. We've succeeded in producing a prototype, now we just need to find someone to use it on.



We've got a lot of credits coming in so let's get the Spider fully upgraded.



Unfortunately for our new plasma units, the LC base is extremely far away (remember where we started on that escort mission? It's hard to reach by land). Instead we'll have the Night Barons lead the attack again.



One Meteor is insufficient air coverage.



If we knock out the LC power they'll be crippled. Our earlier attack on their mines have shut down their ability to rebuild.



That's one Solar Power Plant down. Unfortunately they have another one that's much more protected.



But it's vulnerable to the southeast. Time for the Night Barons to do their thing.



Bet you wish you had built some anti-air units eh Fang?



We only have the Solar Batteries to worry about now. The Batteries can still give some power to the base so we won't truly be safe from counter-attack until they're gone.



Our upgrade of the Spider is complete. The Spider now has a fair amount more HP than the Tiger. It's not quite tough enough yet though, so we'll need the final upgrade.



The Solar Batteries are gone. All we have to do now is take out the Defender tower and mop up.



Cleaning time begins!



Now that the threat from the LC has been neutralized, I set up a small mining base at an ore field I discovered to the west. NOAH I will be so happy with us.



And if one mining base is good, two is better right? We're going to get very caught up with Project MARS now.



Cleaning is pretty boring to be honest. Wait, we have a transmission coming in!



So Fang wasn't the commander for the LC on this field. This makes more sense now. We know how much he worried about air attacks even though he constantly insulted the ED's air force.

An unconditional alliance? I'm not sure that's a thing Korlan/Maj. Win Su. But I like having the LC threat neutralized. We're going to be able to send so many damn credits back to base.



The Spider now has twice the HP of the Tiger. The Tiger's superior armor makes it the better choice against physical weapons, but the Spider is a great counter to the LC's energy weapons. Unfortunately, without shields they'll only last marginally longer.



While we wait for the Night Barons to return, let's finish researching the Plasma Cannon. This upgrade will double the damage.



Ah that's better.



Spiders are primarily used as support units. I think with the higher HP of Spider units we'll be using them more frequently as our repair unis. This Spider needs to upgrade all the Spiders for their new chassis and upgraded plasma cannons.



Our next piece of research is another upgrade for the Harvester.

Breaking News: the first rocket carrying materials for the construction of our evacuation ship (and not materials for creating the space dock) has launched! NOAH I will certainly be pleased now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWs0ulIyZtU



The new version of the Harvester isn't faster or tougher than the old version. But this version can mine twice as fast as our older versions.



The Panther is the UCS's first heavy tank. It'll form the backbone of our army once we get all its weapons mounts.



I've sent this Tiger repairer around to upgrade all our Harvesters. Isn't the Harvester III much nicer than the old versions?



Unlike the LC, the UCS can already mount weapons on their heavy chassis. The Panther as you can see starts with 900 HP and 75% armor. To make things even better, it's only a little bit slower than the Spider and Tiger and the standard rocket launcher gives the Panther a sub-weapon mount. These things are death to air units. Once we have a few of these we won't need to worry about aerial attacks on our land units again.



Once again, we'll upgrade the chassis as much as we can before we build any. It's not as critical an issue as it was for the LC campaign since we can upgrade our units, but with no immediate threat to our forces there's no reason to rush things.



We've hit the target NOAH I wanted us to reach when he sent us that nasty-gram a few missions ago.



The next version of the Panther speeds it up by 1 and adds another 150 HP. I really can't overstate how much I love the Panther. It's absolutely incredible. And just wait until we can throw some Plasma Cannons on it



We're done in the Great Lakes, so let's pull out and take nearly 100,000 CR with us . I'd say this mission was a massive success wouldn't you? We have a potential alliance with the LC after negotiations failed earlier, and we got more than 10% of what we need for Project MARS in one mission.




The Lunar Corporation didn't even have a chance. We also kept everyone alive this mission. I don't think we've had a real mission without losses in a while. Stanford Lab III doesn't count.



The LC and UCS are engaging in negotiations in India. The LC have promised us the plans for their power shield technology after the alliance is finalized. We need those shields so the Eurasian Dynasty's lasers will stop murdering us.

I like that I got the Moon in the background of this shot