Mission Three: Operation Metal Shark

Time to get busy with naval units! At the start of this mission, though, your focus should be on repairing the damaged structures around you and rebuilding your economy. Begin by having the naval factory build a few engineers, which can repair the power generators and rebuild mass extractors.

Here’s a tip: when you rebuild a structure over the site of a destroyed structure of the same time, your construction time will be cut almost in half. For example, have your ACU construct an air factory on top of the ruined factory near the power generators, and it’ll go up in no time. This only Your initial threats here will come from the air, so construct a few Interceptors to patrol the base, and have your engineers make plenty of anti-air defenses, as well.

When you have your base well defended, make another naval factory and start cranking out subs. Subs will be one of the best anti-naval units you can build, and will be able to take out the enemy frigates to the south without being detected. As soon as Arnold begins yelping about how hard he’s being hit, though, start making a few frigates, as well; they’ll protect you from the air assault that’ll be coming your way. Note that you earn the right to build Tech 2 power generators after Arnold bites the dust.

Sure enough, a group of gunships will arrive and begin pounding your base a few minutes later. You should be able to repel them if you built enough anti-air defenses. Next up is a wave of attack boats; your submarines will make quick work of them, if you have around ten of them. The third wave will first consist of air, then naval units from the south. The gunships in the first wave will pound most of what they encounter in the bay, so be sure to have Tech 2 anti-air turrets built on the shoreline!

Recover Arnold’s Black Box

After the map expands, start taking over the small islands to the south of you. The largest one has no defenses save some anti-air turrets, so if you send over a couple of Tech 2 engineers, they’ll be able to capture all of the structures, saving you the time of building them.

Your goal now is to recover Arnold’s black box, which is on the island to the southeast where he detonated. You have to head out and recover it! The island itself is not your problem, as it only has an anti-air turret; the waters between you and it, however, will be dense with ships and planes, while the island has four torpedo turrets scattered around it.

If you defeat the defenders, your engineers can capture most of the structures on Arnold's island.

Begin by queueing up a number of torpedo planes, along with an obviously large number of subs and frigates. When you have the torpedo planes ready to go (around 25 would be good), have them attack the torpedo turrets around the island, focusing on the two to the northwest of the island. When they’re down, you can sweep the rest of your ships in close to the island to finish off the boats while your planes take down the remaining two turrets. Just keep in mind that the boats and planes are refreshed fairly often from the northeastern corner of the map, so you’ll want to have a goodly resupply of your own ships. Go ahead and build a pair of naval factories in the deeper waters to the south of the main base, near the southeastern island under your control, but be sure to defend them with torpedo launchers.

When the defenders are mostly wiped out, get an engineer or two onto the southeastern enemy island. If you wish, you can start the process of capturing the enemy structures here, or you can simply destroy them and rebuild when you take control of the island. Either way, nab the black box, but be sure to have the southern naval factories built first, each with four or five Tech 2 Engineers assisting it.

Destroy The Aeon Commander’s Main Base

When you have the black box, things get tricky. The map expands to the east, and the Aeons will reveal that they have Tech 2 naval units in play, which will far outclass your own navy. You need to immediately upgrade your naval factories to Tech 2 and start building cruisers and destroyers. Each of your bases should have a ton of anti-air, as they’ll constantly send those tough gunships your way. It couldn’t hurt to have an air factory or two pumping out interceptors, either, and have them patrol throughout your various bases. You should also gain access to an air staging facility around this time; building them in the path of your interceptors’ patrol route will let them land for extra fuel and health when they’re damaged.

With the Tech 2 naval units at your disposal, you can start defending yourself against the predations of the enemy. Note their attack routes and station the bulk of your defences in those spots. Note the presence of a small island to the northwest of their main base; it has some air staging platforms, as well as anti-air defenses and a couple of stationary artillery structures. The artillery will fire on your ships if you attack the enemy’s naval yards, so taking out this area should be a priority. You can do so with as little as ten gunships; just fly them over, have them knock out the anti-air as soon as possible, then wipe out the rest of the structures. If you bring over a T2 engineer to this little island, you can start making your own structures.

A large force of destroyers will be able to hit the enemy commander from the shore and kill him.

The final assault on the base should take place with a mixture of destroyers, cruisers, and submarines, with around 20 or 25 of each type of unit being ideal. Although the destroyers are billed as being partially anti-submarine units, they’re somewhat poor at the role, at least on this map; it’s better to simply rush enemy subs (and there are a lot of them roaming around) with subs of your own. Before you approach the island from the west, though, be sure to target the torpedo turrets there with your T2 ships. They’ll rip up any submarines that get close, so deal with them before moving your ships up to the coast of the island.

Your long-range fire from your ships will succeed in taking out most of the structures there. You can also focus on eliminating the naval bases to the north if you don’t want to have to deal with sub attacks. Either way, if you approached with enough units, you should have enough left to pelt the commander with rocket attacks from the coast when he comes into view, assuming you have an infinite number of spy planes flying over the island to allow your ships to spot him.

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