Mission name: Blackout
Player House : Plymouth.
Enemy House: Eden
[Story] Diary of John Brunswick dd/mm/yyyy, Assistant in Department Of War.
It's not going well. At this time we have been pushed back to our last stronghold. What once was our main production colony, now has turned into a defective heap of burning metal. Almost everything is broken: the buildings, the units and most of people's will to fight.
It's not over, but it soon can be, we're short in resources and our leftover units can't take much damage anymore. I don't know for how much longer we can hold out. The High Counsil is in disarray, some even are thinking of surrendering, others want to fight back until the last man.
But surrendering isn't an option.
I hear many critics: "Even if we wanted to, how would we attack Eden then ?", "If we have barely enough units to defend our last stronghold, let alone we'd have enough to attack one of Eden's colony's.", and so on...
They're right about the fact we'd lose in a full-scale frontal assault, but maybe there's an option to be sought elsewhere.
Stealing. That's what it comes down to. Moving in with a small group under the cover of darkness, a darkness created by night and enforced by an EMP blast that might buy us just enough time to remain hidden from the radar until we have established some defensive capabilities. "So we just move in and steal their colony ?" someone yelled at me in the Counsil meeting, "Yes" I answered him, "In a way." Eden has a strong line of defences at their bases close to ours, but they don't send much protecting units along with their convoys, as they don't expect us to attack those. But we will have to if we want to turn this situation. In sector 7G has been a lot of activity the last days, a well established Eden colony is planning to set up a mining base in the region, and the convoy is waiting for a storm to subcede. If we could intervene and use some high-tech unit to override the Eden units' software, we might be able to make them fight for our cause.
"Why build a Command Center when there are driving around dozens of them for the taking ?"
//
What it comes down to:
You start out with a limited group of units, with their lights off. (Mainly consisting out of EMP units and Spiders). But also some RPG/Microwave units (no Stickyfoam or ESG as they might damage the 'wrong' units) to weed out the protecting units of the convoy.
About that EMP blast, there are several ways to fill this in:
a) An EMP-missile is built with the last resources that we had, and comes falling down on Eden's Colony at the start of the game. (The colony is not equipped with an Observatory or Meteor Defense (yet), so there will always be an impact)
b)You use some Supernova units to destroy some Eden Tokamaks to ensure the colony's communiaction is off. Just park Some supernova's between them and make them go boom.
About the captured units, among them a ConVec carrying a CC, and another one with a Structure Factory, and a Robo-Surveyor and a Robo-Miner. (Cargo Trucks you can go and steal at the main colony's mines, as they are not guarded).
Now I don't know what is the most interesting, I know that even if I capture an Eden ConVec which was carrying an Eden CC, if I'm Plymouth it'll always turn into one of Plymouth's CC. So if it's ok and realistic(?) enough for you that this happens, I'm fine with that.
Else you must let both houses be 'Eden', only the player will think he's 'Plymouth', as he starts out with some Plymouthean units, but as he captures and builds his CC and Structure factory, he'll see he's building Eden buildings, which may give a cool effect too.
About the map, I can imagine the group being located at the left-bottom of the map (SW), and the Eden Colony in the upper-half of the map(N). And the Eden convoy would move from the colony to a mining beacon in the SE.
Intercepting could happen at some different locations. If you'd incorporate a Stickyfoam you could isolate some protective units of the convoy. Destroy the units protecting it, capture all the others with EMP and spiders, and build up a colony.
That's it. My fingers hurt. Sorry for eventual plot-holes, you can always write those out...
Greets,