Part 24: Inside the Rathole - Part 2

Inside the Rathole

Last time our crew infiltrated the holy city of the COTUC, and snooped around for evidence of their evil deeds. After finding said evidence, they are now tasked with destroying the major landmarks, and securing the SGDS virus labs. But there is a problem with this task - they have no weapons!

Okay, this stage of the mission is pretty tricky, and it'll probably take several tries to figure out how you can solve this. The main issue is to figure out where you can steal weapons and vehicles, and then you need to time the whole thing exactly right. You basically have to divide your crew into small teams, and synchronize their actions. The pause-function is a huge help here, and this mission was almost unbeatable in the initial release. I really don't know how Silver Style expected anyone to win this mission in real-time? Another problem is that some things are scripted to break your cover, even if you aren't seen by anyone. So some amount of trial and error will be required no matter how clever you are. Well, let's break this down...

Our first goal is to procure some weapons.

These crates are in the compound of the bodyguard. They contain some guns, grenades, body armor, and ammo. It's exactly enough stuff to outfit four people, so this will be our first and most important group. You can't just pick up the stuff however! You have to make sure that nobody sees you, and picking up certain crates is scripted to break your cover anyway. Yeah, that's pretty annoying! Another problem is that the weapons and the ammo are in different crates. So you'll have to manually divide the gear while shit is going down and COTUC soldiers run at you. Again, the pause-function is really nice for this, but it's still a hassle and can get you killed.


For now, Helena snags the crate with the armor and shares it with her team.

Let's jump to another team.

The airfield is still guarded and mostly closed off by a sand wall and crawler mines. However, right here is a spot where you can cross the wall! But the area is still patrolled, and you can't just hop into the chopper. If you try that, the guards will destroy the chopper before it can get off the ground. So what can you do?


Going prone in this exact spot, will keep your guys hidden from the guards




The Hind is probably one of the most iconic Russian military vehicles in existence. It has a really long service history, and was featured in more action films than I'd care to count. And it's the god of destruction in this game! Seriously, this baby can sport a massive array of weapons and ammunition, while also having fairly good armor. You still don't want to fuck around with AA units, but everything else will get crushed by it. As always, I'll go into more details during the next base update.

Back to the bodyguard compound.

This Abrams is sitting near our first squad. You can actually enter it without alerting the COTUC, and your cover will only be blown when you move it. That's handy to know, because it saves you some time. There is also a crate with a sniper rifle here, and Akim chills next to it. Picking it up will trigger the alarm, so he has to wait for now. That sniper rifle is also pretty important, because it's the best tool for clearing out the guards on the airfield.

We almost have all the pieces in place now, but there is still one major problem.

Behind our first squad, lurks a unit of eight Knights that's split into two squads of four. You can't take them in a straight fight! They are simply to powerful and will obliterate your soldiers with ease. The solution is to quickly grab the crate with grenades, and throw one into the center of each group of Knights at the same time. That's more tricky than it sounds though. You have to make sure that no one sees you grabbing the crate, and finding the right arc of throw is also a matter of trial and error. My soldiers had a fun time with throwing grenades into the edge of the roof

Okay, now we could start the party if we wanted to. But there is one little thing left - Remember how the COTUC announcer talked about a public execution during the last update?

It's great how the voice actor changes his role during the scene

Doing this gives us two new squad members. But I really have no use for them right now, and Sorana just leads them to the edge of the city where they can all chill behind a rock. This event also has some hidden properties. If you go near it and trigger the initial part of the dialog, a hidden timer will start and the captives will actually die if you don't step in. Saving them will also set off another hidden timer, because the guy will enter the temple and actually checks your story. It takes a few minutes, but your cover will be blown eventually.

So, with all the pieces in place, let's do this!





As soon as the grenades fly, I mash the pause button again and order my units to pick up the crates around. There's no turning back now..


Knights will trigger a rather nasty explosion when they die, so all of them get killed in one mega


Distributing the weapons is really annoying. See, when a unit is unarmed, it will automatically equip a gun from its inventory. But since the gun is empty, it'll then unequip it again. This in an automated action that I can't prevent, and it costs valuable time!


The second squad already has enemies to deal with. Since the turret of the Abrams turns rather slow, Akim has to use some of his precious sniper rounds to save his life.


And the first squad also gets attacked while still shuffling around weapons and ammo


A grenade saves their asses, and the COTUC announcer also alerts the whole city. You'd think that the COTUC would now come running towards us, but that's not the case. A few select units will move to other places in the city, but we're mostly left to deal with what's directly around us for now. That's kind of a let down, but on the other hand the mission would become too hard if all those knights and tanks came for us now.


Akim starts to snipe the guards at the airstrip...


...and the first squad is finally ready for proper combat. A few more soldiers attack them, but it's no big deal now.


Akim is almost done with the airfield...


..and also liberates another plane for us!

The strip has a bit of nice gear, especially a Grail launcher that's guarded by a sneaky knight.

Throwing grenades is pretty much the best way to deal with unsuspecting knights

Since the strip is clear now, we can also snag the chopper.

It's pretty under-equipped, but it'll still be a major asset.

Since all the COTUC units near us are dead now, it's a good idea to rally our squad and pick up all the gear that we can find.

Here are our new friends, Judy Jackson, and Daniel Miller who is an explosives guy. Both of them have a unique skin with an American flag on their chest. No idea why though!

Since the city is alarmed, the T-55 tanks that were guarding the main entrance now patrol the streets around the compound of the bodyguard. One of them happens to drive by, so I'll take the chance and engage it.

Our Hind fires one of his AT-6 missiles. They are an evolution of the AT-2 that the BMP uses, and comparable to a TOW missile. A neat thing about the Hind is that it can sport a quad launcher for those missiles, instead of the single-shot types that we saw so far.




The missile hits the a little in front of the tank, and also shatters the wall that hid my Abrams

But the T-55 only has eyes for the Hind...



While this happens, the rest of the squad clears out any remaining COTUC soldiers in the compound.

Starting with the evil COTUC soccer team.

On the other end of the compound...

..a second T-55 patrol is spotted. I let it drive past and set up an ambush for it.




The Abrams and the Hind form a wonderful "One-two punch" combo

Now it's time to push out of the compound, and attack the knights that guard the main temple.

As I've said earlier, you really don't want to fight knights with your infantry. Aside from grenade ambushes, you pretty much need to use a rocket launcher against them. Their armor can soak up a lot of bullets, and your vest don't fare well against their miniguns.

The knights start to rush my Abrams..

...and most don't get far, as the craters should tell you. However, one made it through, and is exactly where my cursor is pointing at. Now you can also see how effecitve their camo is. Be honest, would you have spotted the bugger if I hadn't told you about him?


Here you can have a closer look at the explosion that they cause. It's pretty strong, and the AOE is surprisingly large. It didn't do much damage to my Abrams at this range, but it still hit.

Another T-55 gets attracted by the commotion.

More combined arms action!


Except that the Abrams misses


There we go.

Since the center of town is mostly clear, I destroy the Obelisk.

I tried my best to gif it, but it ended up looking shitty. Mostly because I couldn't catch the plane, since it spawns in from a random direction/angle. But don't worry, I still have the temple to try again.

Speaking off the temple, destroying it will trigger an event and I don't want that to happen right now. So I put down a marker for my plane, and advance on the lab for now.

It still amuses me that you can blow up fences without alerting anyone


What follows is a pretty fierce firefight, but our team has the advantage of being around a corner.

Now I can safely destroy the main temple.

There we go, captured the plane and how it phased away through a building

Now you can see why I didn't want to trigger this event too early. A squad of knights will spawn, and hauls ass towards the labs. If they reach the place before you, it's game over!

But since I knew this was coming, I had a soldier with a Grail launcher cover the street.

And since the knights explode upon death, the whole squad died in a domino effect! I didn't plan on that happening, but I'm also not complaining

"That was close...Base!"

"Everything OK there?"

"Yeah. We were pretty close to another SGDS epidemic. The labs almost went up."

"Good work guys! The COTUC should be eradicated once and for all."

"We're not done yet. We'll report back when every single one of these wackos has a bullet in his head."

Fine with me! You actually only need to destroy COTUC units that can fight to complete this task. There are monks and some civis around, but you can spare them if you want.


I mainly cruise around, looking for surviving patrols and such.


They really don't stand a chance against the Abrams.


After a while, the Abrams has used up all of its shells and is also in kind of a bad shape.


Luckily, there is a fresh T-55 hidden next to the far entrance into the city.


Yeah, that should be enough to finish what's left of the COTUC.


During the attack on the storage area, I finally capture a moment where a crew member uses the second MG

And lastly I clear the production plant.



I wish you jerks had used the second machine gun so consistently before this mission

"Take THAT you evil bastard! Base?"

"How's it lookin?"

"The COTUC is never going to trouble anyone ever again. Our mission's complete."

"I'd love to join your party but...First you better come home. There's news."

"I don't like the sound of that."




Now you are free to loot the place, but since there is not much left, we're going to skip that.

I'm already looking forward to the next base update, because I'll get to pimp out the Hind with all the guns ever