SupCom FA Campaign

[Slartibartfast]

So I finally got this game, and am having a hell of a time with the fourth campaign mission - operation meltdown. No matter what I try, my base gets overrun in about 15 minutes by tech 2 tanks. Anyone have any advice?

 

[CrackNova]

Build 1 or 2 land factories and start pumping out engineers. Use your acu to reclaim most of the mass and build some extractors towards the north. Also make sure he stays close enough to your base so that he can cover you from any attack coming from the north. He should be around the #2 area until you can get some additional T2 units to help him defend it.

Enemy engineers will be dropping all over you and try to take over your extractors/buildings, right at the begging you should have two come from the west of where your ACU started, capture them. Build a land factory and build 10-20 T1 units with them, I believe T1 tanks. They are very good for the beginning and are much stronger then your units.

Once you get to T2, build a T2 power gen and a shield over your base and start pumping out T2 units. I was cybran when I played that level and made the T2 rocket bots. About 10 will help you out nicely since they have good range and you can keep moving them out of your enemies range. If your playing as UEF you can build the gattling bots and use them the same way. Also don't forget to get some T1 AA, about 1 or 2 AA towers and 5-10 AA units.

When you completed your T2 power gen and shield, move down to the #1 spot and build a shield, then a power gen, then T2 point defense and T2 AA defense. Build walls in front of the T2 point defense to take some hits if your shield goes down. Then build more T2 power gens around that shield so you won't run out of power. About 3-5 T2 point defense and 3 T2 AA will be able to hold that spot indefinitely.

Move your land and AA units to the #3 spot with about 5-10 T2 engineers following behind. You will also have a special ability allowing you to call in a strike made up of 3 T3 Bricks and a few other units. You can use that to clear the northern area of attacks while you build up your second outpost. For me the second outpost was the same as the first, but then I doubled it up. Once you get both these up start focusing on your base. You should have also upgraded some of your extractors to T2 by now (don't forget to build mass storage around them).

After you have your #1 and #3 spots defended, you can build up your base and focus a bit more on AA. The mission gets significantly harder after you clear out your enemies base so you should get to T3 and build some experimentals before clearing it out. If you want to you can cripple it, but don't destroy it. Once I got experimentals I usually build a few more defenses at the #4 spot and build mass/energy farms in the clearing south west of the map.

If you get a T2 power generator quickly at the beginning (say 6 min in) you can use your commanders overcharge ability and destroy the incoming waves with ease.

I've marked the area that should be well shielded in a red rectangle. Thats where your main base should be and thats where you should have a couple of shields because you will be hit pretty hard by air. You should also get some T2 AA defenses in your base.

The last hint I can give you is don't forget radar at the beginning. It will let you see where the attacks are coming from and you can move your ACU in the proper spot. This also lets your defenses and units shoot at enemies long before they get into range of sight.

Oh and before you're about to complete your first objective and destroy that base, save the game. You will probably fail the first time around once the map expands.

 

[N3mi5is]

I just downloaded this off d2d yesterday, and this campaign is alot harder than I remember vanilla supcom campaign being.

 

[Slartibartfast]

Thanks for the tips, Crack. I totally didn't think about capturing the Seraphim engineers. Actually before reading your post I found a good strategy: T1 gunships (also playing as Cybran). The AI doesn't send any AA units in with their attackers, so the gunships can pick them off pretty quickly.

The warning about destroying their base is a good one: I tried it once with 7 exp. gunships, and they got wasted pretty quickly.

This campaign is definitely harder than the original SupCom but I'm digging it. I like the frantic pace.