Part 86: Under Fire
rest of the briefing posted:
- First you should help me get near the transporters. Then I will activate them. The easiest way should be through the tunnels under the UCS base.
- Next, you should use the Unit Transporters to destroy the UCS artillery. The best way is to pick up some enemy units and drop them on the artillery.
- When the artillery is destroyed, you should help me rebuild my base and destroy all remaining enemy forces. We have to deal with the UCS base on the southwest and all the units in the tunnels.
Let's rock.
Fang's actions with the tractor beam have not gone unnoticed by the UCS. They've found his research facility and have moved in heavy artillery. Their goal is obvious; they will not stop until Fang is dead. We cannot allow this.
Fang's base is fairly well composed. Sadly, Fang only has 4 other units with him: 2 Crusher hRs and 2 AAR Super Fighters.
Similar to Fang's last mission, there's a supply depot you can use for reloading and for giving everyone shields.
Seconds into the mission the artillery starts raining down from the north. Goodbye Fang's base. You were a nice base.
Here are the Unit Tranporters Fang was talking about. They're quite a long hike away. (Ignore the continuity error; I forgot to grab a screenshot of the area until later in the mission)
The destruction of the base has shut down the power around the goodies south of the base. Stupid patch changes ruining our fancy lasers!
Research: The AntimissileThe antimissile will destroy any incoming missiles. It works pretty much the same as the one the UCS have. I'll try to show it off a bit more in this campaign.
Like Fang said, our first goal is to get to the Unit Tranporters. This means breaking into the UCS tunnel system to the west. By now I'm sure the robots have figured out that Fang made it out of the base, so they'll be hunting for us. Unfortunately for them a single Spider isn't enough to stop us.
A bunch of Gargoyles aren't either thanks to our Super Fighters.
This on the other hand... Yikes. That's a lot of firepower for us to counter. Time to retreat!
The retreat spread out the Cargo Salamanders so we were able to pick them off as they showed up. Fang's force isn't capable of going toe-to-toe with the UCS right now. We have to be smart with how we fight.
The UCS has just about finished off the base.
Fang's a bit worse for the wear, but he's found the entrance to the UCS tunnel system. We'll need to heal up a bit back at the depot before going down though.
Research: Lunar m3
And have the Super Fighters clear out the Gargoyles on the other side of the ravine to ensure we don't get blasted when we get out.
Fang and his escort have made it into the tunnel system. Time to go exploring!
We found friends!
The friends did not like us very much and now we are hurt.
The units down here in the tunnels hit very hard and at this point in the mission you won't be able to take them on. I'm going to try and avoid running into any other patrols from here out.
Research: Upgraded Air Chaingun
We need to have the Crushers resupply and repair before we head back into the tunnels.
And we run into yet another Jaguar hP
Fang's shields aren't looking too healthy, so I'm going to let the Crushers take this fellow out.
Hopefully that's the last heavy unit we find. There are some Tigers here, but they're not a threat to Fang, unlike the Jaguars.
Two more Tigers and we're out of the tunnels!
Thank god. Some of those patrol encounters got pretty spicy.
Fang clears out the token guard outside the tunnel. With these units dead, it should be a straight shot to the Unit Transporters.
Well this is rather nice. After getting roasted by plasma, there are some energy recharge artifacts here so we can get our shields back to 100%. Hooray!
Does this mean the Butterfingers Brigade is back?
Before we get to gravity goodness, we need to move our units a bit closer to the artillery base.
Too close! Too close!
I don't want Fang to die in the clutches of a Unit Transporter so I scurry back the way I came and put everyone down.
And then I let Fang handle the bad guys.
Those sure are a lot of Jaguars. I wonder what we can do with them...
BUTTERFINGER BRIGADE BITCHES!
Okay it's actually "Butterfinger Brigade with a very nice assist from Fang" but that's too many words.
The power is down in the valley but the artillery itself is still stand-hey what's that?
More units to pick up and
And with that our base is no longer under siege! We'll still need to destroy the guns but our first objective is complete. Now it's time to show the UCS you don't fuck around with Fang.
Rebuilding is going very nicely. We've got power and mines and a supply depot and everything a growing base needs to be big and stron...hey wait a sec! Those UCS assholes are stealing our resources
We must stop them!
Fang and his team are hard at work killing everything on this plateau.
There. Now we have a nice laser wall and those dumb Harvesters can't get in without walking past our heavily-armed Main Base.
Of course a Main Base isn't really a defensive installation. We need it to build stuff too. I think Ixchel has something that can help us...
Research: NESTThe NEST is the LC answer to the UCS/ED small towers. Unfortunately, it still requires power, so it's not that useful except in very isolated locations.
Oh shit. The UCS did not like us killing their harvesters and artillery base like that. We don't have any actual defenses or units here; they're going to have absolute free reign. I order some Fat Girls from the Main Base, but they're going to take a bit to actually get out on the battlefield. Until then we're utterly helpless.
The wall has been breached. Our Aerial Supply Depot looks like the next victim. Better queue up a new one.
Yep, just like I predicted. At least this should keep everyone in supply. Unfortunately our power plant is now directly in their path and we still don't have any defenses. And yet the UCS is going for the laser walls.
UCS attack priority can be silly sometimes.
Thank god. Fang and his escorts have finished destroying the artillery base. Head back down to the base ASAP Fang!
Oh great. We have no power
At least the base is about to get some reinforcements.
Yes, that's it. Keep focusing on those laser walls.
2 newly created UCS husks later, we have our base back under our control. Good job Fang.
Fat Girl, you showed up way too late to help. Were you too busy eating cake or something?
I'm not about to let the UCS back into the base like that. I've put down some NESTs and rebuilt the laser wall. And I'm researching a more...permanent solution.
Research: Medium Defense Building (aka Defender)Hopefully you remember the Defender from the first LC campaign. This is their basic defensive building.
There. Much better. I'd like to see the UCS try and sneak in now.
With the threat to our base extinguished and actual combat units mixed in with Fang and his escort we can start tackling the tunnels.
Research: Meteor m1, m2 and m3 and Building Grabber
The strategy here is to have Fang draw out the robots.
And then the Fat Girls and Crushers annihilate them. Imagine that repeated another 4 or 5 times and that's how you clear out the tunnels.
Hey look at that! Fang has found cash money hiding under the UCS base. Welp, now its ours.
With the death of this unit we control the area under the UCS base.
I build a couple Moons and have them draw the rest of the UCS forces into the trap I've laid under the UCS base. It works rather well. The tunnels are now ours!
Just in time too, because we're now completely out of money. The map is totally tapped out. I think we'll be okay with 50k+ sitting in the bank though.
I have an idea. A terrible, terrible idea. A sneak attack in the middle of the UCS base would work right?
Yeah not so much. Everyone dies except Fang who I wisely kept back in the tunnels. We gain basically nothing except the destruction of some Power Transmitters.
I like this idea better: build a fuck off huge force of Fat Girls and Moons and just wail on the front door.
See how much more effective that was?
Even though the sneaky option would've been cool, the UCS base was just too well defended from the inside.
It was, oddly enough, rather poorly defended at the gates though.
And with that, Fang's research base is firmly back under our control.
I like that smell too Fang. Although it's kind of hard to smell anything with the Moon having no atmosphere. Still! Yay for victories.
The Fang - Deserteur posted:
Here is the recorded statement of Fang (UCS) to the Celestial Council of the Lunar Corporation. Fang's request for political asylum was unanimously approved
The war of 2140 was pure hell. I was never too interested in politics and getting drafted was the last thing I expected. Since the machines did all the work, hardly any UCS citizens were what you would call battle-ready, so the army was made up mostly of college grads. The losses suffered in the first few months of the war were horrendous. GOLAN miscalculated and we paid the price - in blood. But it was worst for the cyborgs. Half machine
and half human, the official version says that only the bodies of volunteers were used. But that's a lie. After the war they all disappeared suddenly and all inquiries into their whereabouts ran into a stone wall of silence. At about this time the first NAIOS (Neuronal Architecture Independent Operating System) were unveiled. Black cubes big enough to house a human brain and some interfacing electronics, they were capable of running all battle machinery by themselves. Human recycling resources - that's all we are to these damn AI's. Of course I should mention that I can't prove any of this.
I don't know who won back then and frankly, I don't give a damn. The press, not surprisingly, gushed on and on about the glorious UCS victories, but I never attached much weight to propaganda. Like I said, I'm apolitical, even more now than before. CAD - Computer Aided Democracy - that's what we call it. What good can come out of it?
Neo started out as a console jockey but later got his radio-controlled drones into battle. We were in the same unit and experienced a lot of shit. Around the end of the war he threw in his lot with the ED, probably because his shenanigans were discovered. He managed to stash away tons of hardware for his "plan". I have no idea what exactly he was planning, but on a few occasions he implied he was onto something pretty hot. "Man, its just like the X files" he once told me. Then he kept calling me Scully. Most of the time I couldn't understand what he was talking about - he's sort of a walking dictionary of phrases, old films, books and that kind of stuff. We're talking mostly index, but he sure had a photographic memory. He could see or hear somebody or something once and never forget it. That's why the inspectors never managed to find any incriminating evidence on him.
When war flared up again, the Defense Ministry pulled the glider out of their hat like a rabbit. AREA 51 had basically been known since the last century. The only thing new was that those UFO freaks were right after all. Since they were unable to build in a NAIOS, a real live pilot was needed. Now, I'm not the best flying ace around - Rickenbacher had a dozen more kills than me. But these days the old guy needs at least a full tumbler of bourbon to stop his hands from shaking. For the last ten years, I've never been without my gun. I know I'm paranoid, but when I see what happened to my old comrades I realize I've been lucky. I experience no joy in killing, but neither do I recoil from it. I am a professional soldier and I do my job - that's it. Do I know what a human life is worth? Of course I do - 1.65 credits! That's what a .50 ACP bullet for my pistol costs. At least that's the price at current UCS exchange rates. And this is why I want to remain here ....
PLEASE!
Fang's finally been granted asylum. Sorry you had to strap a meteor tracking beacon to your chest and get shelled by the UCS to do it, but you're now a
The real trick in this mission is that we were unit capped almost the entire time. My losses in the sneak attack would've been much higher but there were only ever a few units for the UCS to actually kill.
With Fang's research and person secure we can continue construction for Project Sunlight. The next phase requires us to seize Beta Quadrant and mine 40,000 credits worth of resources.