Part 21: Andes

The final mission of the LC campaign. The game will dynamically set the credits needed in this mission based on how much you need. Kind of neat.



Good lord. Our base area is absolutely enormous. It's going to be very tricky to establish a strong defense. Fortunately we only need 30,000 CR so a bad defense might not totally screw us here.



We've got 65,000 CR at the resource pile at our base so we won't need to search for the big patch. Thank goddess for small miracles. I don't think I could manage to defend two bases given how poorly this base is situated.



On the upside, we've already got a defensive line established in the east. Unfortunately it's just laser walls and Guardian towers that are in a bad position to actually shoot anyone. We'll need to work on it while I send some scouts out.



Tiger 20mms? Aren't those a bit obsolete right now? They can't even manage to take out our Lunar scout.





I would've been blown off the planet if the UCS hadn't chosen that exact moment to upgrade all their towers. That's an unbelievably strong defense. Good luck if you actually need to go on the offensive this mission, I don't see any way a ground force can break into that base.



The ED Base looks more focused towards unit production. I'm sure these aren't the only facilities they have, but the pillboxes got all my scouts before they could see deeper.



Here's what will become our southern defensive line as viewed from inside our base. The towers will go on the outside of the laser fence to make sure there's no friendly fire.



A scout finds a very diverse mix of ED units. It looks like they're heading off to the UCS base. Good, let them deal with those terrifying towers.



If you do need to mine the middle field, here it is. This is the largest field on the LC side of the campaign, possibly the largest in the entire game. It's going to be very contested.



Yeah so it turns out those ED units weren't headed for the UCS base, they were headed for ours! Also what's that one unit in the back? We haven't seen one like that before.



Oh holy fuck that's a ballistic rocket launcher. These are the mobile platforms I was talking about for the ED superweapon. Fortunately this one doesn't have any ammo or we'd be in deep shit without any SDI lasers. Of course, since they have ballistic rocket launchers, that means they have the ammo. My nightmares of nuclear annihilation have come true. I start building SDI lasers around anything important and hope that it's enough.



The rest of the attack force wasn't so scary though. Good job everyone!



Remember those 20mm Tigers from earlier? Yeah looks like they're headed to our base too. And they found a backdoor. Why don't you fight each other ED and UCS!? You're supposed to be hated rivals.



Of course unshielded Tigers are even easier prey than the heavy tanks the ED sent after us.



Uh why did one of our laser walls just blow up? That's a bit odd. I send the army over to investigate.




Oh because there was an ED attack force out of sight range. Wait a minute though, our sight range is greater than the range of the ED's weapons. Why did no one see the attackers when they took out the laser walls?



Because of this little asshole who crept into our base. Dynasty Noise Generators are used to block your radar and confuse your units. They won't accept any commands when the noise generator is in range and the unit will not appear on your radar. They're very annoying but I'm glad to see the ED step up its game for the last mission.



20,000 credits to go ladies. Just hold on a bit longer.



The counter to the Noise Generator is the Detector. Remember the detector from way back at the start of the game? We finally have a use for her. The detector will let us see any of these cloaked units on our radar. It may also prevent the communications jamming but I'm not sure on that one.



Our detector has found another noise generator. I decide to demonstrate the Crion against it.




Pretty effective don't you think?



My fear of the ED's nuclear missiles has me build six WCCs. Once they're charged up I'll send in a Mercury and bury the base and their Missile Control Centers in a storm of meteors.



That's a lot of lasers!



Oh. The Crion shot it and it died. Good job Crion! I knew there was a reason I built you.



Here you can see the communication block. Any unit that cannot receive orders has that blue shading on the screen. Thankfully the Crion has such a long range he can shoot the noise generator while still under my command. Or maybe my sonic cannons going berserk did it. Who knows!



It's 4:30, why does that Solar Battery say it's discharging? Unless...



I am a total fucking idiot. All the SDI lasers and WCCs have overtaxed my power grid. The Solar Power Plant can only generate 1000 power but we need 1470. And night is going to fall in a few minutes which means:




Blackout

Yes, on the very last mission of the game I fucked up my power management so badly my base blacked out in the middle of the night. This is the real downside of the LC. With an infinite power range it's very easy to overextend yourself. And since the Solar Batteries act as auxiliary power if you overload the grid you'll never figure it out until nightfall. We will need to build another Battery and hope we can make it until morning.

At this moment I stand a very real chance of losing this mission. A powerless LC base is a sitting duck. It's very vulnerable to an air force flying in and taking out the back of the base.




The Battery is coming down. In the second screenshot you can see just how wide open our base is right now. The only things working are those with lights, which would mean my mobile defenders and those two Defender towers.



And look at that. A group of Cossacks have discovered one my my scouts. Great.



They kill her and head north. If they attack the power plants we're fucked. Or the refineries. Or really anything except my mobile defenders.



We get power back, but it's not going to last.



Good job ED. You attack the only place on the base that has a chance of stopping you.

I've got a video of this idiocy too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiAHtXB7ulI



The battle looks very impressive from this ridge.



Sorry ED, the one time you needed Major Wlad to show some creativity he failed completely.



Still, it's midnight and we're at 8% charge left. This is going to be cl-



Or not. We did it! Catharsis is complete!




I send Fang back to the transport for HQ. Everyone else will be pulling out soon enough, but he wants to see the last transport ship take off for the space dock.




We "lost" again but we finished Catharsis so who gives a shit!




There goes the last ship bound for Catharsis. We did it. We really did it!



For once Alia, I hope you're right. Mars is going to be a chance for humanity to get started on a new foot.



Fang looks up at the ship streaking skyward. There's rumors he stepped out of his craft right as the ship disappeared and grabbed some of the barren, desolate dirt at the LC base. Of course, he denies any violation of Catharsis protocol and claims no illicit dirt was brought on board.

Fang wasn't grabbing dirt to take along though. He was just burying the dogtag of his old friend Neo.

There's no time for long goodbyes to the planet Fang! The ship will launch in a few days and Sheela is already begging Fang to come see her and go swimming. Fang's attempts to explain the ship doesn't have a swimming pool have fallen on deaf ears. And Sombra's invited Fang over for dinner in her quarters on the first night of the voyage. He's a popular guy.

Here's the LC ending cutscene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlT9-z6hOig

Of course had we failed, this is the video we would've been greeted with:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB-0UfYWoW8

Pretty dramatic. I'm glad we didn't screw up since being on a planet that literally exploded would probably not be a fun time.



Now that the LC campaign is finished we need to move on to one of the other factions.

What campaign would you like to see next: Eurasian Dynasty or United Civilized States?

Voting Procedure

Same as last time, please vote by putting the faction name in bold along with their logo.

Here are the logos for reference:

UCS

ED

Voting will run until 11:59 PM EST on January 24th (that's Thursday). I need a few days break from the game so I don't get burnt out thus the rather long vote window.