Fanning the Flames mission in TA5

[Vid]

With the better AI, I just wondered if anyone has tried this mission and could offer tips beating it without using the bug?

Theres not really a spoiler tag here, but the bug relates to the enemy classification of units and whether it will attack them or not, and is useful to make this a one front fight instead of trying to fight it on two fronts.

Without using the bug, I find it difficult to fight off a double mauler + titan wave at my base early on, while fighting off a titan + warriors/lancers/scouts/sentries at the cargo location early on in the mission.  I know you can tug a constructor across the lava, and use it to setup gun towers over there early on, but the resources don't seem to flow fast enough, or I'm an inept commander(probably the latter).

I know most people focus more on the multiplayer these days, but just wondered if anyone still did the missions and could comment on their experience in TA5.

[Nielk1]

The game has been out 10 years, no need for spoiler warnings for stock play.

[Axeminister]

Yes I have played that mission as early as last week. The very first thing to do is to tell the Recycler to "go to"  the nav named "scrap fields" . Once he deploys just past the scrap fields nav then make three scavengers and three turrets. Put one turret in front of the recycler just out of site from the direction the titans come, and the other two around the second pool close to base. Cap both pools in that area and leave one scav to clean up. Make a tower right at the scrap pool nav. Use local radar to spot archer, kill him then the Titans come. Get the Titans attention (just hit him one time with anything) before the towers get to shoot him and he'll pay strict attention to you. Then make your way over to the hidden turret and between you shooting him and the tower and turret you should kill him. Make sure to use the hill to hide behind, sometimes the Titans stop at the crest of a hill and can't shoot you because their hardpoint doesn't point downward very well. Use this time to kill both titans and build more towers at that nav.

[Vid]

That's payback.

Fanning the Flames involves you being dropped with a scout, tank, and a recycler.
Your orders are to head to nav 1 and recon the area for survivors of the crashed carrier.
There is a tug attached to the scion creature there, as soon as you are in range, or enough time has passed, it takes off for the scion base.

In 1.0, you could simply go up the hill, mortar the enemy recycler, then the game was over, and you could take out the Tug, and put a defense around the creature big enough to kill a tug and maybe a scout or two, the enemy base dies once the recyc is dead, but the tugs are autospawn/autopath.

In 1.2, you could put enough turrets over here behind the hill to secure this area, attack waves usually only got a turret to yellow before they were destroyed, and having 6-8 turrets over here locked it down for 15+ minutes.

In 1.3, AI is better, and usually even with 8 turrets, 1 will die every attack wave... this simply speeds up the rate at which you need turrets to reinforce the scion creature til you can clear a path for the tug to take it to your base.

In 1.3 TA5, AI is even better, and with 8 turrets, the standard warrior/scout/sentry force of 3-4 ships takes out 2-3 turrets, meaning 8-10 turrets will be wiped out in 3-4 attack waves.  Compounding this, I usually see a TITAN path over to the area, and come in from behind the hill adjacent to the carrier, and it took out 5 turrets by itself(or with an attack wave).

While all this is going on, you have to also watch after your own base.  I usually setup 2-3 gun towers at the second scrap pool from the recycler, and when I get a service bay up, put service trucks there.  However they are hit by repeated mauler and titan attacks early on, and if I am away at the crash location, one tower can fall at times....  if I don't get back to rebuild, the other tower is doomed the next run.

To alleviate this, there is something to learn about how the scions act on this mission.  They will only send forces at Defensive or Offensive units, you, or your base.  For some reason, they generally leave tugs and scavengers completely alone.  I can put a scavenger at the third pool with no protection, even tho enemies will funnel into that canyon, they will usually bypass that scav for 5-8 attack waves, and generally only attack it when I am near it on a clearing run.  This can be used to your advantage in knowing that the enemy tugs stop moving when your tug picks up the creature.  Add this that if you move ALL defensive and offensive forces out of that area, and only leave the tug, and you got out early enough... attack waves to retake the scion creature will completely stop.  However that is not really in the spirit of the mission.  After taking and hiding the creature, you can abandon that front.  With all focus back on your base, and a wonderful choke point, you can do a really good turtle and backbuild up to take out their forces.

I recognize that there is a need to either cripple the enemies scrap pools very early(before I even get a service bay or generally a factory out), or there is a need to get gun towers set up by the scion creature.  I've tried taking a constructor across the laval in a tug, but the enemies seem to home in on him and take him out when I arrive and try to build relay/towers.  Or my base gets harassed at the same time.  

I'll usually setup the recycler, pump out 3 scavs, making one get scrap so I can build the third, then put them on pools.   Build a constructor ASAP and build power.  Build another scav for loose.  I mortar that gun spire when I put the third scav down.  Try to get the constructor to get me at least 1 gun tower built before Braddock says I need to recon the crash site.  While the constructor is moving, I built turrets in between.  I take my turrets, scout, and tank over to the crash site, dispose of the hauler, and setup shop, taking out that first counterwave.  I then come back and finish the 3 towers at the base entrance..  

At this point I am generally get stuck.  Until I get a service bay up, those 3 towers are vulnerable to about 3 attack waves of maulers/titans.  On the other hand, the slow flow of turrets is vulnerable as well from continuous attack waves.  I need to find a way to secure my base, so I can ferry a second constructor over the lava and build stronger defenses.  I know what I need to do, it just seems there isn't enough time.

Would it be better to try to take out more extractors early on(or is this just wasting time I could be ordering the constructor to build power/towers/factory/bay).  Would that stop their supply enough to prevent titans/maulers for a while so my base would be secure and I could focus on the crash site.

I've already beat it, just was trying to do it more in the spirit of the mission that I see.  That you need to secure that creature, not clean the area, grab it, and hide it.  I'd like to be out destroying extractors/trying to slow them down, but it seems you need to show the constructor where to build alot, and individually place the turrets in the best spots behind hills to defend.  Not a great deal of time to harass.

[Axeminister]

Darn, wrong mission. Thought I was helping.
All I've ever done to beat the mission you're talking about is to send service trucks on tugs to my many turrets over by the creature. But I haven't played it on TA5 yet. I'm on a savegame on Payback right now and will play this one soon.

[bigbadbogie]

Build longer lines of GTs at your base at the start... say about 5 or 6.

[mag]

on that mission, what I do is send a tug over to the site asap. then after I set up some gun towers at my base, I head over to the site with some turrets.
with the tank and scout I head off the first attack, and use the tug to pick up the creature and take it northeast to the hill by the scion base. there is a cliff there that the tug can go up at the right place. once up on the plateau it is safe. even if the tug gets destroyed the scion tug can't get up there. you might need to give the tug a shove getting up the hill. once the creature is up there you can take care of your base and take out the enemy.

[Vid]

The choke point right around the pool can only hold 3 towers, so put them behind the pool?  They should ignore the extractor, but i'm not sure.  I'll give that a try.

Mag: 
Hiding the creature is how I've already won it before.  I'm talking about "not" hiding the creature, and trying to win it regularly.

[VoodooChile]

i played the single player missions in ta5 last week.

set up that defence point more ahead, close to where the scion pools and spires are.
u can build as much as u want there, it doesnt realy have to be on a choke point.
most important thing is that u keep scavengers close to that defence point to pick up all the loose from the attack waves, that should give u enough scrap to defend the creature.

[Vid]

I do eventually, just takes the constructor a while to get out there.  I'll try to build a tug early and make him scoot out there.
Wonder if I get your forward point setup before I have to go investigate.

[ScarleTomato]

might try tugging the hauler i think pb3 or 4 might have made that impossible though.

i usually send the tank and the scout to the creature immediatley and just wait till the scout tags the hauler then tell them to attack it without having to go over there. I'll get two or three GT's up at the second pool and set my recycler dropoff point to a little ways in front of that pool and just pump suicide scavs there to distract the maulers so i can concentrate on the creature site. (haven't tried TA5 yet, but if what you say is true i might have to pump rats instead of scavs now)

for the creature site id route a few of the rats there, then when im ready to go over there i usually have two tugs ferrying a couple hornet tanks and trucks. Ive found this works alot better than gts as i dont have to worry about power, a dead cons, or a bunker and they're even more effective against maulers than GTs are. Against titans, i'm not so sure.

overall tips though, always have full scouts at all your foward positions so you can get a nice heads up when something big is approaching and be able to give limited attack orders. Use hornet tanks to support or replace GTs. a line of about 6 of those is pretty damn impressive.

[bigbadbogie]

Try taking 10 tugs over to the creature, and get the first one to pick it up.

Once the first tug has picked up the creature, get the second tug to pick up the first tug.

Then get the third tug to pick up the second... etc... until every tug has picked up another one.

Then order all the tugs to drive over the lava. As the bottom one is destroyed, the next one will take its place and continue across the lava until they get to the base.

Hopefully the creature will remain far enough above the lava to not die...

[ScarleTomato]

i did that one to see how it would go, but the tugs raise things in relation to the ground instead of in relation to their own height

[bigbadbogie]

Bugger!

Twas a good idea too.

[Vid]

You don't have to actually go physically investigate to update the objectives?  That would probably allow me to get a few more gun towers up.

*edit*
Got it.  You do have to Physically go over there and get within 200m of the nav... if nothing else.

I placed my gun towers about 2 spaces back from the 2nd pool.  I got 2 or 3 of them up before i had to go investigate.  I had a turret at nav 1 by then, ordered the scout and tank to destroy the tug, and I came in during the last second to delvier the finish.  I put the turret behind the hill, and defended the initial counterattack.  I had a 2nd turret coming, and stayed there til I got a third turret moving I believe.  I went back to base, and upped my gun tower line to 5 towers, built some more power.  I went back to the crash site, as it was under attack,
I got there with 1 tank and 1 turret left.  slowly I brought more and more turrets as I held the crash site myself with the lone turret.  I got it up to 8-10 turrets, and watched as my extractor on the 2nd pool went down to what I assume was Titan fire, as it hit the extractor and gun tower at the same time(assume it was hiding behind the extractor).  After I had 10 turrets, I went home, and rebuilt the scav.  At this point I decided I wanted to hold that 2nd pool, and built what I usually build..   3 gun towers right in front of the pool. 

My turrets were holding strong, down to 8, with 3 in red zone.  I got a factory up, service bay, and armory in short order now with both fronts held.  I built 2 tugs and 2 service trucks, and the ferry went across.  After healing my turrets, I headed back to find my towers holding fine.  I had made another service truck and parked it at my perimeter tower wall.  I built two hornet rocket tanks for extra strength, and the ferry went across again.  At this point the tide seems turned, and the game is mine.  With the rocket tanks and service trucks over there, I didn't hear much more of a peep from the crash site. 
I build 3 rocket tanks, 7 SP stabber Sabers, and 4 APCs for good measure(I had built a training facility sometime after the armory).  North I went while this was building and took out some towers and turrets, coming back for service.  I thought about taking the pools and building towers, but its just as easy to finish it.  Here come my rockets and my sabers, and I spread the rocket tanks out a little so they don't bunch up going in.  In go the rockets to take out the spire, in go the sabers targeted on a warrior.  Rockets pointed at the forge next, as I get in close and order 4 APCs on the matriarch.    All 7 of my sabers go down in flames, but my 3 rocket tanks and 3 of my APCs come out unharmed standing on a scrap rich plateau that used to be a scion base.

I'm not sure if its tactical or just dumb luck with them chasing units across the ferry, then quitting, but I've seen during this(and this may be what the titan did), a wave of enemies head down towards nav 1(south of the crash site), then come up behind the hill(touching the carrier) while another attack wave comes from the front door totaling about 7-8 units.  That was fun to hold off with 5 turrets and myself.

I also tried making my tower line early up around the third pool, but was only able to get 3 towers up, as a wave of 2 titans, 2 maulers, 2 warriors, 3 scouts, and 4 sentries came over to say hi.  Also during the skirmish, my forces failed at the crash site, and the hauler was on the move.