i guess im still not wquite rdy for this...
on mission 14 (where u have to " rescue.." the scion leader) whatever i try as soon as i setup 1/2 turrets and/or 1 guntower the site where the scion leader is get's swarmed with hovertanks of all kinds, and 2 maulers
decimating my force of 1 scout 2 sabres (1 of them me being the pilot), 2 turrets and 1 guntower in les then 20 seconds....
i need some help here cuase i cant figure out howto do this one...
my buildorder or. playing on this map
deploy recyc/ build 3 scavengers, deploy 2 scavenge 1/ build constructor / build power / build relay @ front pool / build 2 guntowers @
front pool
build tug / build power / order sabre + scout + tug w/ constructor to the crash site / scavenger is done with scavenging by now, so i recycle him/
build 2 turrets and send them to the crash site / drop contstructor near crash site and build a relay + guntower (also killing the tug b4 that) / deploying turrets
mere moments after that the whole squad of scion vehicles arrives and decimates me, and everything around it. picking up the scion leader shortly after and losing me the game... any idea's ;D?
How much time has passed from the moment you are dropshipped to the time they swarm you? Perhaps you are taking too long?? You might want to use a stopwatch (or keep an eye on a clock in your room). Usually I just take several turrets to the crash site (via the lava pond) while I stay at base and defend it. Otherwise there could be something wrong and they are swarming you too early (similar to idle dispatcher from earlier 1.3 builds). I haven't played this mission in TA5.0/5.1 so I'll have to see myself.
Build a factory quickly and make a bunch of Sabres.
Take them over to the crashsite and use them to destroy the big Scion attack force.
You might be taking too long usually I head over to the base when Braddock says they are picking up activity at the crash site and will send over several turrets and my starting units usually those will hold out until I can tug my constructor over there and build two gun towers which locks up the place nicely. Once the Maulers start coming I keep rebuilding the Gun towers as needed it worked for me anyways you will need more than two turrets though they send units 5-6 at a time and two turrets won't last very long against them.
On my run through, the scion leader area wasn't a point of interest at all. It helps if you get on the cliff face and pot shot the matriarch, for when that is dead, the haulers won't know what to do when they spawn and the scion leader area as a point of interest drops to nothing at all. Just keep in mind any units going toward the leader are now concentrated on your base! Also after the recy dies, hit any pool you find. As soon as they can't make maulers, they go on standby for the rest of the mission. Send a few waves of sabres with SP into the base and shout your MUAHAHAHAs as you decimate all.
I'm assuming you are playing on TA5, but general strategy will work for most any version. Although each version has a slightly different attack strategy and the effectiveness of your defenses will vary by this. What version are you playing?
There is a "cheap" way to beat this mission, and then the honest way which has gotten harder since TA5.
in reply to blue leader... you have to go over there within 2minutes or so after braddock makes that announcement or you fail the mission if memory serves. (the cut off for investigating the crash site happens then but all you have to do is reach the nav, not engage the Hauler to update that part).
This mission was made more difficult because of the AI being redone a little in TA5, so that it generally empties the base of units when it sends attacks out against you. If memory serves, the enemy starts with a titan, 2 maulers, and a handful of hover... or they build maulers later on. I don't recall them rebuilding Titans, but its possible.
You have two issues to face in this mission.
Issue #1.
You must secure your base because there have been times that they have sent a titan and 2 maulers at my towers... which will drop if you have 2, and might drop if you have 3 towers even. 4 will usually solidify your base, but you can't fit 4 in that narrow canyon. Hovercraft may also wander along the ledge and outrun the gun tower blasts and slip in behind them to your base. That is a little rare though.
Issue #2
You must prevent the enemy hauler from moving the object(read that sentence very carefully and you may figure out the cheaper way of doing this mission, but its also posted somewhere on these forums). There seems to be a little variance in the attack pattern but that may be because I play different versions or because my ship was at a certain location when an attack came(note that sometimes attacks start off homing in on YOUR ship.. so that could be why the attack force is larger for you at the crash site).
Really... a pair of hornet-equipped Rocket tanks positioned well and a pair of Gun Towers will hold off any attack at the crash site, but the problem is holding the crash site until you can ferry those across the lava. The hornets pack the punch for maulers/titans, and gun towers can just mop up hovercraft.
Normally when I do this mission, I get 1 scav out and collect 20 scrap real quickly, then sit it on a pool with its brother scav, and go destroy one of the gun spires while making a 3rd scavenger. I bring that 3rd scav up to the north pool which is in enemy territory. The enemy will eventually attack this scav, especially if you encounter the enemy in your ship up here at the scav. However most of the time as far as I can tell, they will merely bypass it as long as they aren't engaged in a fight near it. Try it a few times.. if it keeps dying and you don't think its justified... don't do it, but it allows you a little faster access to towers and eventually sabres or chain gun modified turrets if you wanted to go that route.
Now with your scavs set, make that constructor as soon as possible, and put down some power, 2 if you can. As soon as it gets that second one down, start walking that slow constructor north and eventually put a relay bunker close to your two closest extractors and eventually we will be putting a row of gun towers here at least 3 wide, if not 4-5 wide. While the constructor is walking, you can be making turrets(or a tug if you like). Send turrets over to the nav beacon at the site ahead of you, so they are closer when the time comes to deploy them. Unless you want to move a constructor/treaded or do this mission the cheap way, I don't advise building a tug early on.
It's a real rush to get even 2 gun towers and a few turrets out by the time braddock comes on the radio, but this mission is all about speed at the beginning. Hopefully if all goes really well, you got 2(would like 3) towers up at your base and made it over here with at least 2 turrets here or on the way. I've did it with less than that though. Don't ever stop making turrets until you have this site secured. At the crash site, you want to put your turrets down in the valley or ditch there. Do not put them out in the open, as they are prey to lancers outranging them and completely destroying them(I think this was seen more often in a previous version... 1.1? maybe.. I don't see lancers as much in TA5). Shortly after you destroyed that hauler, there should be about 3-6 hovercraft incoming(at least this is how it plays out for me). Hold them off and keep bringing in turrets, while your 3 gun towers hopefully hold up at your base. Most of this mission is just trying to get one front fortified enough to go check up on the other front.
It will take a lot of turrets(around 8+ well placed turrets) to feel comfortable about leaving your position at the crash to come back home for any length of time. After the turrets start holding, you may want to head back, upgrade your extractors, build a little more base while replacing downed turrets. Eventually you either want to keep sending turrets over to hold that line(gets expensive), or ferry over a constructor, some service trucks, and a rocket tank or two. You can also lead some scouting expeditions north of your base and whittle away at the enemy extractors which are pretty lightly defended until you attack them for about 30 seconds... at which point backup usually shows up for them when I play.
If you ever get to the point where you have 4 solid towers at your base holding that one entry canyon, and you get either towers, rocket tanks, or lots of turrets/service trucks over to the crash site, you should be in good standing to win the mission. However I've noticed the mission is random sometimes... whether its because attacks focus on your ship and this can cause pathing/attack strangeness, or some other reason. I've seen a titan come in the back way(head south towards the nav beacen, then east to the crash, then north behind the hill on the backside of my turret line) of the crash site one time and wipe out 6 turrets... and then I never saw a titan attack the crash site in any other playthrough. I just kept seeing turrets going down slowly while I flew across the lava and found a nearly dead titan way down inside the crash site southeast of my turrets with the crashed ship destroyed.
*edit*
after further investigating, I've noticed some things about this mission.
1. After the matriarch dies, it no longer matters if the hauler steals the scion creature... I've let it steal it and drive right into their base and the mission still plays on. It seems the fail script is scion creature being with X distance of matriarch.
1a. The enemy hauler seems unable to pickup the creature on its second attempt, but attempts 3+ it can successfully pick up the creature.
2. The gun spire that is over close by the crash site is what encourages most of the enemy forces to go raid that side when they do raid it. Once this gun spire is taken out, enemy waves to the crash site diminish considerably, leading me to believe that units near the crash site are just barely in the radar range of that gun spire and therefore the enemy is seeing ISDF units in its radar range and going after them. However the Scion do occasionally rebuild this tower(at least until the builder near it is dead).
3. The enemy seems to start with one titan, and after the matriarch dies, they only seem to send 1-2 maulers + 1-4 warriors + 1-4 sentries at a time. However if you let them control 5 pools + have their matriarch, then you may see a few titans late game.
4. After securing your base, and securing the crash site.. winning is not too hard from this point. Two of a certain assault craft + my sp stab/chain saber killed all 5 extractors, their turret guards, 4 gun spires, 2 healers, and a few builders in just a few minutes. After their resources were cut off, the scion base almost shut down completely. After waiting for ammo to come back up, a third assault craft joined in the base assault which also lasted only a couple of minutes.
Build 3 scavs, let the first scavenge. Delpoy scavenger 2 and 3.
When the first scav gets hit by the Gunspire, deploy it and be ready with your wingmen to take out the Gunspire. Build a 4th scavenger to pick up loose. (Now you have 3 pools and 2 more that can easilly be taken later on.)
Get a cons to the 3th pool and build 2 GTs, and quickly send the cons back to base.
Build a tug and 2 turrets. Send the turrets to the nav near the scion leader before you start moving (so you'll arrive together), have the tug carrying the cons follow you as well as your 2nd tank.
Deploy the turrets before you reach the scion leader, that way they are deployed before some stuff gets triggered.
Get the cons to build a relaybunker and 2 or 3 GTs as soon as it reaches some green squares.
Now you may want to race back to your base as its going to be seeing some heavy Scion units.
Guard your roaming scavengers or you'll be building scavs to create loose scrap, do not recycle scavengers cause you dont need them, in the end its more costly than just keeping it around. (It can save scrap if you have upgraded pools but need more scrap than you have pools, by building the scav when the scrap comes from upgraded extractors and recycling it when the scrapbar hits the recyclers scraphold.)
Mission has been won .... 8-)
Is your constructor named road runner? At best I can get 2 scavs settled on pools, a third scavenging, the 4th to the north pool as I take out the gun tower, a constructor made, two power made, and just as I get the constructor to the 2nd pool from the base and plant a relay bunker, then a gun tower.... braddock usually comes on the air.
I'll have to keep trying.. at best I can get 2 towers, a relay, and 2-3 turrets, no tug by the time he comes on the air. However my towers are south of yours by a mile, and I don't have the tug built.
Just did the first bit of the mission, and I must say I did build 2 cons.
(http://members.ziggo.nl/red_spot/mission1.jpg)
(http://members.ziggo.nl/red_spot/mission2.jpg)
(http://members.ziggo.nl/red_spot/mission3.jpg)
(http://members.ziggo.nl/red_spot/mission4.jpg)
This was the first mission I saw a Mauler in...
I actually stopped and went "COOL!", and then it ate my GT and I went "AHHHH!" and ran for my turrets. Love those little horsies of death... :)
I get two pools and a GT or two up to cover the Recy and then start sending turrets across the lava to the Scion Leader area. I'm there when the Hauler shows up the first time so it's not an issue.
One trick is to NOT set up your turrets out in the open. Set them up on the backs of the little hills and under the wreck, so that the Lancers can't just sit there and eat them. All they need to do is have line of sight to the Scion Leader, to take out any Haulers... the guards for the Hauler will try to maneuver to get the turrets and hopefully fall into the crossfire you've set up.
Another trick is to let the Scion Leader bounce further into the wreckage, and it seems like a few times I was even able to shove it with my tank while it was bouncing around after being dropped by a Hauler.
Once you get a good setup of turrets around him I just leave him there and start eating Scion Extractors. I munch my way around the map building defenses here and there until they have none left.
-Av-
thx for all the replies :D
getting the 3rd pool up north is gonig to be an issue since theres a SPIRE defending it... mortar might help.. but i doubt it'll outrange it
i usualy have 2 guntowers up at the 2e pool before braddocks starts talking, i DID however completly forget about turrets saving all my money on the guntower and hualer... i'll try n work with turrets some more, as i dont remeber the maulers showing up when i had no structures build
sure this'll help alot :D
"y im playing the 1.3 TA5 i rly love the new AI, much more difficult :P"
also not 2 forget that this is the mission where u get to "pick" your side... (it actualy took me 2 years to figure out i COULD make a choice... by giving the tug to shabajev) its not a big event, but for anyone who has not found it yet, they did miss one very cool trigger :)
Mortar or MDM will reach it. Also, there is a trick where you can fly up to it and get under the lung and kill the lung. Directly under it is the blind spot of the spire (oversight or what I don't know) and you can take down the power without much burden. Those spires were never really worth the price; you have to have at least 3 in a small area to have any sort of defense, and that's granted before the assault tanks show up.
Spires are wonderful versus light/no armor. However like a minigun, their damage seems to be affected quite a bit by armor.
Usually you can approach a spire going full speed, and nudge a little left or right when it spots you to "graze" the first shot off you and take only 1-5% hull damage in a sabre. After that, the next shot usually hits me fully for 15% or so. For the third shot I'm usually under the lung, and its only a matter of timing/luck if I am fully under the lung when the shot fires. Once under the lung you cannot be hurt until you destroy the lung when the spire will sometimes get a last shot off as you destroy its power.
The other option is to mortar it from 210~ range, using targeting and aiming as high as possible. The standard mortar range is only about 215-220 on flat ground, so this is really stretching the range... but the MDM can bounce. I prefer the lung destruction option though as its faster, albeit more dangerous.
There are two ways to "cheapen" this mission if it keeps getting to you. Let me put them in spoiler tags.
Hmm, I guess spoiler tags don't work.
#1 Proceed as normal with getting two towers up near your pools, and make sure you build a tug and have your scout and tank with you when you head over. Send the tug over to the site early if possible so its there before you get there. Once braddock talks... move yourself and your 2 offensive units over to the site and destroy the hauler. Use your hauler to pick up the alien object. Have your hauler head east(towards/beyond the crashed ship a little ways, or possibly north. The idea is to get the hauler a little further away from the scion base(namely the gun spire). Now leave the hauler asap and head back to base. If done correctly the hauler will be out of radar range so no scion ships will see it and come to kill it, and the scion hauler will no longer move to the crash site as you have the object. I've did this a few times on TA5 and it does work, but can be tricky. If you leave the hauler in the middle of a counterattack, it can still be targeted(should be common sense there though). You want the enemy to never really "see" the hauler, but you want it to pick up the object so the scion hauler halts in its tracks. After this is done, you can completely forget about your hauler and focus ALL attention on your base and that narrow choke point canyon.
#2 Destroy the enemy matriarch(mortar from rugged terrain that has some flat spots above it). It is light-moderately difficult to climb this wall at times if you've never really did a good bit of a wall climbing, but its not really hard at all. Once up there, empty your mortars into the matriarch. If you are in your stock tank the mission gave you, then you will need to resupply as beginning tanks don't regenerate ammo most of the time and usually have a smaller ammo capacity for some reason. Once the matriarch is destroyed, the scions loose their second way to win. They started out with #1 kill your base/you or #2 get the scion creature. After the matriarch is destroyed, it is impossible for the scions to win by #2. They will still try for the creature, and can take it back to their base, but it will not update. This means you can disregard guarding the creature and let the enemy take it into their base while you focus all attention on that one choke point again.
Quote from: Shadowsun on August 21, 2009, 05:16:31 PMgetting the 3rd pool up north is gonig to be an issue since theres a SPIRE defending it... mortar might help.. but i doubt it'll outrange it
I normally take care of that spire near the 3rd pool at the very start of the game, after you deploy your recycler. Get your 2 extractors up first, then make a scav for that 3rd pool. Hop out of your Sabre and switch with the AI that has the Scout. Now you are in the Scout and you have 2 AI Sabres, more cannon power. Get the scav to deploy on the 3rd pool and while you're doing that, get the Sabres near the Spire, but out of its range. Now when the Spire has its attention on the scav that's deploying. Hit the Spire with the 2 Sabres. You can join in the pummeling if you want, but you don't have to. You can keep the Sabres at their fullest attention by hitting their attack button consistently, maybe once or every other second. This is tactic I've discovered a long time ago. You can do the same with Scavs so they can keep scavenging ahead of their scav timing abilities. Anyway, by the time the Sabres destroy the Spire, your 3rd pool is damaged, but it's still running, so now you've got 3 pools sucking up scrap once every second (yellow) to 60 scrap, instead of 40 scrap every second (plus green at the slower rate). This can help you build front base defenses while also building turrets for the crash site much faster at the start of the game. The 3rd pool will eventually get lost to the Scions, but at least you got some build time off of it.
I tried this one today and yes, the AI for some reason now sends a TON of units over to the 'creature' a few minutes after the initial Hauler is destroyed. It's almost as bad as the Idle Dispatcher effect was in Thin Ice...
A few more spoilers, maybe... :)
You can get a decent base up and running without leaving the Dropship. The first time I tried this I had four turrets across the lava before Braddock started talking. This delays the incoming Sentry and Warrior attacks but NOT Braddock telling you there's activity. It did help but not enough so I abandoned that tactic.
I then rushed a base setup and had two GT's up before Braddock told me to get over there, but then I didn't have much in the line of turrets to send over. A Cons, Comm Bunker and two GT's costs 190 scrap and takes too long...
Whenever I run into this sort of thing in BZ2 it means I have to rethink my usual play style. I like building bases so I hate to NOT put up GT's and such but this time...
I deployed the Recy and kicked out two Scavs, one to plant and one to grab loose.
Sent the Scout and Sabre to the far nav by the 'creature'.
When the loose was gone I deployed the second scav.
All the time I'm kicking out turrets. Lots and lots of turrets. This is where two pools and 40 scrap turrets works out well... :)
I had five turrets guarding my base, sending any more across the lava to the far nav.
The minute I saw the Scion Hauler show up on radar I told the Sabre to toast it and my turrets over there to attack it (gets them closer).
When it's dead I take one last look at my base, cross my fingers, and head over there. I set up my turrets and keep pumping them out to drop points in a line as far back down the depression as I can. When the first attack wave shows up they don't stand a chance as I've got tons of turrets sitting there.
This worked well, but it was a close call back at the base when the Titans showed up. I mortared them from the high ground and just got a few GT's up in time.
After that it's all down hill for the AI. Toss chain to your far turrets. Build lots of power. Move forward, taking the third pool by any of the Spire eating methods outlined earlier. Once that one's down I like to eat all of their pools in big circle, building GT's to pin them in their base. I like a Treaded Rocket Tank with hornet to just eat everything nearby. Between the dual shadowers and the hornet you can take out pretty much anything you see, just make sure you have a Service truck behind you to top off your ammo.
Like a lot of missions, once you get a base up and running and past the initial onslaught it's pretty simple...
-Av-
IF you are lazy/ frustrated with losing/ just plain don't have the time.
game.cheat.bzbody
:evil: :evil: :evil:
Mortaring their matriarch or hiding the creature with your tug are more fun than invincibility.