Plymouth Campaign Help

[Luke]

Hi guys,

So I'm playing the Plymouth campaign, I'm pretty sure it's mission 10. It's when you have to invade the Eden base, and bring two evacuation transports worth of scientists (by placing them next to two different advanced labs) as well as two cargo trucks worth of starship parts (by placing them next to the spaceport) and bring them back to the rendez-vous point.
I'm having trouble doing this. This Eden base in particular is home to loads more vecs than I have, and if any of my vehicles enter the base, every one of the Eden vecs attack, and even my entire force is no match for their army.
Here are the strategies I have tried so far:

1. Hitting them from one, two, or three sides at once, far from where I need to sneak in my trucks or transport to get in and do their job (a diversion, essentially), which hasn't worked because of the micromanagement needed to guide each transport and truck to all three locations at the same time. I don't have enough vecs to do more than one attack, even with all my forces combined.

2. Attacking from the long ridge spanning the north end of the Eden base. I can reach their guard posts, and potentially sneak an evac transport through, but it's nearly impossible because their base is so packed together and their vecs are everywhere.

3. Sitting around and reprogramming as many of their vecs as I can (primarily the ones they send to their mines and back in the northwest and southwest of their base). I can get quite a few this way but it's still not enough to survive an attack on their base. I don't think the mission was meant to be won this way anyway. Even if so, eventually at some mark every vec in the Eden base leaves their own base to attack.

So what do you guys think? I'm not looking for a baby-step walkthrough, or else I would have looked one up. I was mostly curious as to what strategies have worked for you guys, or what would be especially interesting is if this mission can be won in different ways. Thanks for your help! :blush:  

[Brazilian Fan]

Act fast. Use your RPG-like weapons to destroy GPs and to fire at enemy units at a safe distance. Rush into their base. Primary targets: Command Centers, Power Generators, Vehicle Factories and Garages. Not that difficult.

[Luke]

The immediate problem though is the vehicles they already have, not the fact that they might make more. Once I enter that base, or lure them out, there is just too many of them (even from the start). Either way though, I'll try that.

Also, taking out a command center will disable guard posts, right? That would be essential if that was to work (as the advanced labs are surrounded by them).

Could you explain to me better how that would work though? Anybody else have other ideas?


 

[Brazilian Fan]

Also, taking out a command center will disable guard posts, right? That would be essential if that was to work (as the advanced labs are surrounded by them).

Nope, GPs are still active when you destroy the CC, they just do less damage.

I will describe why to destroy some structures first:

    CC: Your best target, disable most buildings.
    Power Generators: Because GPs are not disabled when you destroy a command center, you should destroy all power generators to completely disable all GPs (except when the enemy still have a CC). Other Structures
    Vehicle Factories: Do I need to explain?
    Structure Factories: Target this or the enemy's ConVec, so they can't build more GPs, CCs, Power Generators...
    Garages: When you finish stealing the cargo, Tigers will come out of all Garages still standing. Better destroy before they show up.

Also, try to not destroy any Social Structure, as they still consume power even if they are CC-disabled

[White Claw]

I haven't played this mission in a while but here's what I remember...

I captured as many enemy units as I could that came out of the base. I set up ambushes far out to pick off the convoy after it got all strung out. If I couldn't capture a unit, I just destroyed it quickly to minimize damage. (You can build up a lot of EMPs lynx this way.) The cargo trucks are useful for bait later.

While I was doing this, I forward deployed a couple of "smash and grab" units (mostly lynx and one of my supers) to the bottom right power and another super and some cargo trucks to the top left. I basically ran in to take out the toks as quick as I could.

I also worked my ambush group (most of my force) up toward the top left of the base to capture those units as well while I was destorying the power. I think I spent quite a while at the top left working my way into the base while setting up an ambush. When units would come to meet me, I just retreated into my ESG & EMP barrage I set up at the bottleneck. Bottlenecking and setting up a layer of ESG helps a lot to soften forces up.

Whatever units I ended up with, I basically worked my way from the top left into the base to get to the CCs blowing up vech factories and garages on the way. I never bothered with structure factories as I didn't stick around long enough for them to rebuild much. Even if they get up another guard post or vech factory it won't make much of a difference. I didn't spend any time on the Agridomes or Residence, etc... Waste of time and occupies any power the computer manages to get back up. Also, grab scientists from the top right first, then the bottom Adv Lab so you don't have as far to run when it's time.
 

[Prometheus]

I recently replayed both the campaigns and had real trouble on this one.  As Brazilian Fan said you have to act fast.  The patrols by the mines aren't that important.  you have to move in and start your attack immediately.  use your RPGs to take out the GPs, they out-range the towers.  You should probably save at this pointAs soon as you start attack buildings inside the walls all their units will charge so move in everything you have.  Use your emps to disable as many of their units (conentrate on their most damaging units like THs) as you can while your units pound them one at a time.  

This is a key trick to RTS games that many people don't seem to get.  If you allow the units act on their own they will each pick a target, but a damaged unit does the same damage as healthy unit.  You can defeat even a slightly numerically superior force if you pick off one unit at a time starting with their most powerful units, reducing your enemies firepower in the process.  Your EMPs will amplify this.

You will probably take massive casualties in this battle but destroying their initial response will leave them with very few vehicles in the base.  collect your surviving units and go for buildings in this order:
Power Generation
CCs
Vehicle Facs
Garages

Once their power and CCs are down the GPs will be worthless so no need to destroy them.  Make sure that you kill the garages then collect the loot and run for the waypoint (where you started).  If you've taken out all their garages there won't be any response force to deal with once you get all the items.

[Tellaris]

For dealing with the enemy army, use your ESG/EMP combination.   Put the ESG, and have it shoot the ground at maximum rage, about halfway down their front door.
Make sure you destroy the guardposts first!   Keep doing this, and lure the Eden vecs right onto the mines.   You'll kill the lynx easily, and the Panthers will go fairly fast.   After that, you just walk right in.

Try using the Supernovas to take out the power plants (You CAN just sneak by the GPs, they arn't all that well placed.   Just figure out their ranges and move on in.)   Use your army to whack the CCs.  After thats done, elimanate ALL garages.   Then, grab your stuff and leave.   Victory is yours!   (If you destroy all power plants, you do not have to worry about GPs, and can simply torch what you want where you want when you want.)
Killing the Vehicle Factories is redundent.   They can't do anything after the CCs are dead, but the garages can still spawn the Tiger intercept army either way.   So all garages *MUST* be destroyed.

[Luke]

Ok it looks like I am going to act right away instead of waiting around and reprogramming the units that leave the base, because I am under the impression that they will have a lot less vehicles at the beginning of the mission than when I have been attacking. I tried again last night and managed to destroy the two tokas and the CC. It's a little more complicated because I don't have supernovas (guess I didn't manage to research them last mission. Do you guys think it would be worth it to go back to a previous mission (if I can) and research those novas so I can beat this mission?)

Also I am definitely going to try the ESG-EMP bottleneck. I'm playing on 'Normal' too, does that make a difference in how many vehicles Eden has already built?

Let me know your thoughts, I'm going to try again tonight. This is one tough mission.

 :op2:  

[Brazilian Fan]

The differences between difficulty levels are generally less food/ore/colonists/vehicles, time to complete the mission and number of enemy vehicles and structures. I strongly advise anyone playing the campaings to research every possible topic before completing the mission, as you can have an advantage on the next mission.

[White Claw]

You can defeat even a slightly numerically superior force if you pick off one unit at a time starting with their most powerful units, reducing your enemies firepower in the process. Your EMPs will amplify this.

Agreed. You have to micromanage like crazy. Concentrate your damaging units on one enemy vech at a time (I put them all on one hot key). But make sure you selectivly target your EMPs so they shoot who you want (i.e. the heavy units). I also just let the ESGs lay carpet fire as already discussed. I focus not only on killing their TH first, but also their EMPs because the EMPs can take your units out of the fight almost as well as if they were simply destroyed.

 

[Brazilian Fan]

I focus not only on killing their TH first, but also their EMPs because the EMPs can take your units out of the fight almost as well as if they were simply destroyed.

Except that they are not 'properly' destroyed.

[Luke]

You guys were totally right. I went in and trashed Eden, no problem.
This time, I attacked right away, from the northwest corner of the base. They didn't have many vecs at all since it was so early in the game (and they were producing more and more as time went on, which made it so difficult before). I did it without supernovas too. I'm so proud of myself, if you haven't noticed.  

The ESG / EMP bottleneck combo was a great idea. Also, as I was attacking from the northwest corner of the base, I was nice and close to the tokamak which I attacked until its hit points were in the red. I positioned most of my units out of its blast radius, and when enough Eden units were close, I blew the tokamak and attacked while Eden was EMP'd.

So happy to move onto the next mission! Thanks for your help guys.

 :op2: Luke

[Brazilian Fan]

Hey yo, no prob    

[White Claw]

No sweat. I should play the Plymouth campaign again. It's been a while...    

[Luke]

It's been fun, this is the first time I've played it for years. This is the first time that I've taken the time to really enjoy the novellas between missions, too. I don't know why I love this game so much.  

[Nightmare24148]

Same reason I play it over and over and over I guess...

[White Claw]

It's because it's a well built game with a well developed story. It's not any kind of ground breaking, eye popping, mind bending blast-o-rama. It's not even very random in terms of computer assults or campaign gameplay. But it offers good, clean, believable and intersting gameplay thats difficult to learn, challenging to master, and makes you feel in control.  

[Flameoftheabyss]

I strongly advise anyone playing the campaings to research every possible topic before completing the mission, as you can have an advantage on the next mission.

Also do mention that by taking your sweet time, remember to keep the population in control.
I once took my sweet time and let my population spiral out of control, and when I reached mission 12, I started with 500 colonists and had to set the speed to 1 and spam Agridomes tightly packed around my SF to avoid losing immediately (I had to load once). Even so, nearly 100 of my colonists died. Not that I wasn't too happy to see them go.  :rolleyes:
It was the first time I played, so...

In any case, for mission 10, it depends on the mode you're playing.
On Easy, you can come knocking on the front door and leveling the whole base without a problem. Or you could try being novel and sneaking in your RPG Lynxes between the patrols and crevices and take out all their Tokamaks (bottom right of the map has a huge defensive hole).
Normal is more or less the same as Easy, IMO.

On Hard, you need heavy micromanagement, and work very quickly, before they get to build a huge army and prematurely end your campaign. Frankly, I don't have the micromanagement skills to pull off the Hard Mode missions; I need to set the speed to 1 when it comes to such situations, and keep pausing.