Plymouth Campaign. Mission 10, Hard

[Hidiot]

Ok, so this is basically the single hardest map the campaign has to offer, and I still can't get past it.

Heck, I've cheated a bit to get to the next two missions and I found those to be a breeze, thoroughly raping Eden in the last mission and finishing in 550 marks, without once restarting.

But mission 10... I've tried a number of things, and nothing seems to work for the 400 marks you're given before being swarmed. Direct assault failed, disabling all mines didn't help, attempting to sneak in the two tile wide undefended space on the right border of the map always fails due to a unit coming in range of my attack units (needed to take down the Thor GP and a Railgun GP.)

And I don't even see a chance of managing to surreptitiously capture the second set of scientists, or the wreckage parts.


So, advice, full-length walk-through videos and other helpful materials would be very appreciated.

[Sirbomber]

Hahah!  You need to know the secret to beat this map!

Turn your lights off.

No, seriously.

Edit: They'll still swarm you after you've stolen all of their stuff though, so have your escape route ready.  Also, if you run out of time you get swarmed, too.

[Kayedon]

I remember once upon a nightmare after about 4000 restarts I managed to whoop their asses...

I'm currently on Mission 9 on Hard (I'm wayyy too lazy to actually play it... That, and too busy) but once I finish that I'll play it (without exploiting) and see what I can come up with.

I remember I came up with a choke point...

[Hidiot]

How exactly does turning your lights off help? In what way? Because it sure doesn't stop them from attacking anything that is close enough, or that enters a guarded area.


EDIT:

I finally managed to win this stupid map, without ever turning any lights off. I probably got lucky, though.

I managed to capture a considerable amount of panthers from the top-left mining route, which had a lot of EMP panthers in it (yay luck!) and then I proceeded through the top-most entrance to their base. Big fight ensues and I enter a dangerous phase, where I choose to blow the tokamak nearby for no real reason, as AI units get EMPed by severe tokamak EMP for about as much as normal EMP lasts. I managed to fend off and sent the uber supernova panther to one of their CCs.
Because of the casualties suffered, reinforcements had arrived and were already on their way. I blow some more GPs and blow the second CC. blowing more GPs to get to the advanced labs, simply EMPing one of the rail GPs for the top-most lab, for my evac transport to move in (not enough room to do much else, because of a Thor GP close-by). Then I gathered everything back at my entry point at close to mark 400.
Stole the wreckage and surprise! The panthers on the mining routes simply stop (more yay luck).
Managed to safely send my essential vehicles back to the starting area. The map was essentially won, so I tried to fend off the 3-garage worth of Eden payback. To my surprise, I won that fight too.

Remaining army: 2 EMP lynx (one in bad shape),  1ESG lynx, 3 RPG Panther, 2ESG panther (one at half HP), 1RPG Tiger and 1 EMP Tiger. All of them, unless specified in decent shape.


Ok, I think I stumbled upon a bug here. Mainly those panthers on the mining route that simply stopped where they were.
Because I wanted to have my revenge on Eden on this map, I decided to go for total wipe-out. So, I sent my ESG lynx to wear down the remaining idle enemy panthers. To my surprise, they wouldn't go after my ESG unless I attacked two of them at the same time, or after a lot of shots. They would not even chase the lynx very far before returning to their group.

Still, this map is made of pure annoyance.

[Sirbomber]

How exactly does turning your lights off help?

After awhile, they will notice you again unless you duck into a dark region.

Something else you'll want to do is split your forces (I have the Panthers and Tigers attack the Spaceport and the Lynx attack the southeastern part of the colony) so if Eden's defenses start rushing one of your groups, have them pull back and send in the other group to distract the AI.

[Hidiot]

I see. I wasn't using two groups at the same time to move them back and forth.

Still, I managed to win it. Been editing my previous post while you posted with more detail. I might have found a bug in this map, too.

[Sirbomber]

Hmm, interesting way of doing it.  I initially attempted a similar plan but abandoned it when I noticed that anything I disabled with an Eden EMP weapon was only disabled for about half the time it should have been.  That, and it distracted me too much from my objectives.

Besides, that's the only mission where stealth is a viable option, so I figured I should just go for it.

[Hidiot]

I just tested your theory and I am sad to report that turning lights off is not the trick.

It's just that the enemy Guarding Rectangle leaves a space of 2 tiles undefended on the right border of the map. You can easily check it by sending a microwave lynx with its lights on through that space.

[Sirbomber]

Maybe so, but it works elsewhere, so...?

[Hidiot]

Where elsewhere?

[stillhere]

i know this is old but ive been playing the campaign on hard again and just yesterday finished this level extremely easily.

i immediately headed to Edens largest entrance.  you can destroy the acid cloud and emp turrets and Eden apparently doesnt care.  at this point my entire army is fighting the little force they have located at their cc geothermal.  Eden didnt have any emp units at that spot and my supernova lynx took out the geocon and 5 units.  after that they only had 3-5 lynx in their base and they all attacked individually so no issue, and i was pretty much set after that.  general guidance for the rest of the map that i did were

1) to get around thor turrets send a spider first wait for thor to attack it then rush in an emp lynx
2) stickyfoam units can attack the ground infront of railgun turrets and kill them with no damage taken.
3) destroy the garages before you acquire any of the objectives
4) in the beginning do not attack the mining cargo trucks: if i attacked them as they returned to base, then and only then would the 20 panthers defending the mines come to attack me
5) another reason it worked so well is that eden doesnt actually start with a defense force in his base, he builds one up till mark 400 (i used the other nova to take out the other vehicle factory)

at the end of the level i had 5 spiders, 2 laser panther, 1 nova panther, 1 sticky lynx, 1 sticky panther, 3 rpg tiger, 4 rpg panther, 1 rpg lynx, 2 emp tiger, 1 emp lynx, 1 esg tiger, 3 esg lynx, 2 esg panther, 4 micro lynx, and 7 eden cargo trucks.  of that only the lasers were damaged (red/yellow) and one micro lynx had half health.  everything else was 95-100% health and reinforcements came after i obtained all objectives.  oddly enough i finished right at mark 400  

[Hidiot]

I guess that could also work, and is probably the best way.

For the most challenging map the campaign throws at you, I guess it should be ok to keep any advice on how to beat it.

[CK9]

I use a slightly similar tactic to still:

I get the gp's damaged to the disabled point (but don't destroy them) then take out the CC's and garages.  After I have a foothold in that main area, I set up ESG fire at the entrances while making my way toward the objective buildings.  I don't get done near as fast, but I also don't have any obsticles on my way back to the checkpoint.  Last time I did this, I think I was left with a single RPG tiger just under half health (missed a garage)

Anymore I get so bored I use the old weapon-distance modifier for microwaves and let them pound the eden units, lol