Part 93: Trucks

Unlike every other update so far, I'm going to open with the music and insist you listen to it. Why? Because it's going to give you a very good idea what this campaign is all about.






And this campaign

is

about

rocking

out







Ready? Okay let's go.























We're treated to a very cool automated fly-by of the ED HQ. Neat!




Greetings comrades! Welcome to the Mobile Commandos! Our commander is Tsugai Shakt, who you may remember as our CO from Updates 54 (Australia), 57 (Red Rock), and 58 (New Zealand) in the original Earth 2150 campaign. We've been assigned to lead his Mobile Attack Commandos (MAC or Mobile Commandos) into some of the most dangerous missions the Dynasty can offer. We are still in the early stages of the war, probably at about the time of the first ED forays over into North America so there's plenty to do.

Like I alluded to between updates, the ED missions are nothing like the UCS or LC campaigns. You can almost think of them as challenge maps. They're usually fairly tricky and have unorthodox mission goals. In light of this, I will be playing every mission in this campaign on hard difficulty. As we saw last mission of the LC campaign, the AI is much more brutal on the advanced difficulty levels, and after using it in this first mission of this campaign I think it really helps to make the missions shine.

Our goal in this campaign is not to construct an evacuation ship or to destroy/create Sunlight. Instead, our focus is more selfish. Our goal is to be promoted as high as possible by receiving medals. To accomplish this, we will receive career points from accomplishing different mission objectives.

The medals we need to earn are:




Our primary HQ gives us a helpful counter that lets us keep track of how many career points (CPs) we need to advance to the next medal. You'll also notice there are absolutely no resources here. We're supposed to be in a very secret and remote location of the Dynasty where resources are nonexistent. To fund research and construction we'll receive grants from General Shakt along with our CPs. We can use this money for research and unit construction.



The ED, like the LC have 3 separate HQs. This is our research facility.



And this is the recycling plant. Unlike the LC, the ED recycling plant will give a random amount of resources back, as indicated by the "money back for utilized unit" header up top. You're still usually better off using them as cannon fodder but if it gets up to 75-85% it can be worth it to ship old units over.



Our first mission is to escort a convoy through LC-occupied territory. Don't groan, this is going to be more exciting than you think.




First hard-mode difference: all of the trucks have to survive. In normal you can get by with only 4 of them.



While this looks like a pretty good base, only the Supply Depot, Power Plant and LZ are under our control. There are no resources on the map so everything we do here will have to come from HQ. And currently HQ has no resources. That means if all our units die on the map, we lose the mission.

Fairly high stakes for the start of the campaign, don't you think?



We don't want the trucks leaving any earlier than they have to, so let's block the entrance.



Remember how the General hinted to us about helicopters? Yeah. You better hope you listened.



Our Groznys encounter a squad of LC scouts. And they look mean. Fully upgraded Moons with sonic and electro-cannons are waiting to ambush us. These ladies can put a world of hurt on our Pamirs. Better hope you brought air support or the mission is going to be over before it starts.



The Khan himself requests that we clear out the LC infestation. You don't have to do this, but it's worth a good number of CPs and resources. Plus, I love a challenge.



First patrol destroyed without a scratch.



Let's do some more scouting. Looks like we've got a supply cache here.



And another LC patrol up here.









Now we can keep on-hey what the fuck are you guys doing!? DON'T LEAVE THE BASE IT'S NOT SAFE YET!

Fortunately for us they stop right where the first LC patrol was.



More scouting. Someone sure went to town with this bridge. Can't just have a straight span, noooo you have to put a million turns and offshoots in it. Worst civil engineer ever.



Looks like we'll need to cross the mad scientist bridge to get to the base.



Oh fuck. An LC air patrol. With anti-air rockets.

Run Groznys!



Yes, run back to all the Pamirs!



That worked out pretty well I think.

LC Patrols - 0
ED Scouts - 3



Okay we lost one Grozy but who's counting. I'm not.

_{shit we needed that one...}



Ah, glad to see the morons driving the trucks have decided to move forward without us giving the all-clear.



There's a squad of Lunar Rs here. That's an uh, unfavorable match-up against Pamirs.





Very unfavorable.



Oh hey look at that there's another bridge here that wasn't built by an insane person. But it's rusted away. What, normal bridges aren't good enough?



For whatever reason there was a single Super Fighter guarding the other side of the bridge. No clue what she was doing, but she's gone now.



Hello, welcome to the bullshit part of this mission

So right about now, the LC base that General Shakt talked about decides they've had enough of this and attack our base. We have no resources. We have no Gruz. And all our units are dependent on constant re-supply. We have no way of rebuilding anything that gets destroyed, notably the Supply Depot and two Boyar supply helicopters.

So, let's figure out how to save the base.

Anyone have any ideas?





If you guessed "lure the fighters away from the base by using the Boyars as bait" you win a fabulous prize!



Our ambush has trapped the LC attack squad.



But we lose another Grozny.



Thankfully the four remaining are more than enough to take out the single Meteor still harassing the base.



And now they can take some time to repair, take a nap, have a cigarette, whatever the hell pilots do when they're not shooting things.



We've cleared the way up to the Engineering Monstrosity. The truck drivers are smarter than I give them credit for. I wouldn't wanna drive over that thing either.





Another small squad of LC fighters falls victim to our bait and ambush strategy.



That's the last of them!



Even more good news, our scouts have confirmed the rest of the way to the base is clear.





I promise hope like hell the bridge is safe.



Bridge status: safe.



And the convoy rolls into the base like it's no big deal.



Huzzah! Money! And career points!

We could leave the mission right now, but there is that base the Khan wanted destroyed...





Back at HQ, General Shakt believes 5,000 = 15,000 + 6,000. I, uh, won't correct his mistake.



We have a ton of research available to us but unlike the LC and UCS campaigns we're really limited in what we can research. Right now I'm going to focus on getting the Siberia out there along with rocket launchers.

Since by now you probably have a pretty good idea of the tech tree, what pieces of tech should I focus my research on? Air Units? Ground units? Lasers?

Research: Siberia mk. 1



The commander of the base is so happy with our escort that he's given us 2 Russlia AARs. These are unique Anti-Air units that are only available in this mission. Should be enough to take out most moderate sized air forces.





While I move everyone back to our LZ, the Groznys hunt down the last of the LC units. There were 2 more ambushes but both were well off the main trail.

Research: Rocket Launcher



The LC base is wayyy up here in the northwest. It's pretty small. I think we can take it!



Our Pamirs are able to blast right through their NESTs.



Unfortunately, there is a steep incline which keeps us from getting into the base. We can target this Main Base, but not the rest of it.

Hm...

I have an idea.



GRUZ TIME! DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG DIG



And just like that we're in the LC base. The spectacularly undefended LC base.

You could also try using the Groznys but the Main Base and Supply Depot are both armed well enough against air attack that you'll lose a good chunk of your air force doing it. And since we've only got 2 Groznys left it wasn't a strategy I could entertain.





Great work Mobile Commandos! I'll take those 5 CPs.



Before we end the mission, I'd like to point out that there are 2 Minelayers just chilling at the Research Center. I'm moving them to HQ in case we need them.





Make no mistake, this mission was a hard one. To come out of it with only 8 losses is amazing.



We've received an urgent distress signal from one of our field agents. His vehicle has been disabled and is currently stranded near the Arctic Circle. He's carrying valuable UCS intelligence and we cannot afford to lose this information...or the agent. But mostly the information.

Suit up Mobile Commandos, we're going on a rescue mission.