Mission Four: Operation Mainframe Tango

You have a limited amount of landmass to worry about here, but you do have an Aeon base to your southwest. It’s across a body of water, so you don’t have to worry about land units, but you will need to build up some naval and air defenses. Begin by cranking out a few T2 engineers and having them build mass extractors, then start repairing the structures in your area and building new ones. You’ll want a sonar station in the water, and more anti-air units scattered around the base. If you start running out of mass, task one of your engineers to reclaim the destroyed factories to the north or south of your base until you get in the clear again.

The initial waves of attack will be air-only, but eventually you’ll be facing off against naval units. We’re no big fans of torpedo launchers, so we hung back and had our engineers help the naval factories build a dozen or so submarines and five or six destroyers to defend our installations. Don’t hesitate to send the submarines out to engage the enemy before they’re in firing range of your destroyers. If you weaken the enemy destroyers with subs, they’ll be much easier to take out when they come in range of your destroyers, thus saving a bit of health for them. Subs are cheap enough to be almost disposable to you, anyway. While you’re building your fleet, have around 20 or so interceptors start patrolling over your naval factories and out to see a bit, as the enemy air attacks will get slightly heavier. You can self-destruct them when they run out of fuel and build them again, or suicide them into the enemy base.

Recapture the Network Node

The Aeon commander has set up shop on the southwestern spit of land here. After building up your fleet a bit, you can begin the process of taking her out. Don’t forget to transport an engineer to the northwest to grab the mass points there.

A destroyer fleet will be able to snipe out the bases near the node.

When you have at least ten destroyers in your fleet, along with a few frigates and perhaps 20 subs (to protect your destroyers), start moving out. Your destroyers will be able to fire on the enemy torpedo launchers from well out of their range, so start disabling them, then moving on to the naval factories. Feel free to have a few scout planes assist your destroyers to extend their range of sight a bit. There’ll be a couple of enemy destroyers and cruisers near the coast of the base, but if you rush in with your submarines they should go down quickly.

With the coastal defenses out of the way, bring your ships up to the coastline and start shelling away, taking down the T2 point defenses first, since they’ll be able to hit you.

When the bases are out of the way, you can transport over a couple of T2 engineers. Before you capture the node, you may want to build on the mass points and build a few dozen gunships at one of your air facilities, parking them on the western side of the map. Have a few T2 engineers loaded into a transport, as well.

Defend the Western Network Node

When you capture the network node, another will appear to the west, and it’ll soon come under attack from the Aeon. Quickly fly over your gunships to help ward off the attackers, and don’t forget to move over your submarines and destroyers as quickly as you can. The narrow river will probably cause some problems for you, so move the subs through first, take out the cruisers, and park them on the north side of the new network node. The destroyers are more problematic to move, since they will often insist on very slowly crawling across the land to reach their destination. Feel free to let them do so if you like.

When the node is secure, all the buildings there come under your control. Land as many of your T2 engineers in a transport inside the base and start building T2 anti-air defenses; also upgrade the land factory here to T2. You can build T2 shield generators now, if you wish to do so; they’ll help improve your defensive capabilities. Anyway, the first big charge here will be of air units towards the eastern side of the node base, so be ready for it! After that, you’ll have to deal with some ground units, but you should weather the storm well if you still have some T2 point defenses built.

Capture the Remaining Network Nodes

When you defend the node from attack, the map expands again, revealing another pair of network nodes, in the northeast and the northwest, as well as the main Aeon base in the center of the map. Don’t attack the main base!

A stealthy approach to the nodes can definitely work.

You’re allowed to either attack the forces surrounding the nodes, or attempt to capture them stealthy-like, by approaching them with an engineer and a T2 stealth land unit in a transport. If you moved your destroyers to the west, it’s easier to simply attack the land units near the northwestern node and then fly up an engineer to capture it.

Dealing with the northeastern node can be problematic if you moved most of your sea units to the west, but you should be able to capture it without alerting anyone if you use the stealth unit trick. Just load a T2 mobile stealth unit onto a transport, follow it up with an engineer, then move them towards the extreme northwestern corner of the map, scouting the area with a plane first to see where to avoid the enemies. If you fly over them, they’ll pursue you, so stick to the eastern edge of the map, offload the units, and capture the base.

BEFORE you do so, though, be sure you have at least ten or fifteen gunships under your control.

Destroy The Aeon Commander

When you capture the last network node, you’ll have 30 seconds before an EMP burst disables the bulk of the Aeon base. When it does, all of its defenses and units will cease responding, allowing you to sweep in with your gunships and attack the Aeon commander directly. She’ll blow up, which seems likely to also destroy your mainframe, which is what you’ve been trying to avoid...but whatever! Mission completed!

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