Space Colony Guide

				Version 1.0

				By Allan Mills

				email: Holywhippet@hotmail.com



Index:

1. General Information

   1.1 Colonists

   1.2 Energy and Oxygen

   1.3 Disobedience

   1.4 Needs

   1.5 Gripes

2. Mission Walkthrough


1.1 Colonists:

 Venus - Certainly one of the best. Venus has a wide assortment of skills
letting her work in almost any role. She doesn't have any need more important
than the others and has a strong work ethic so she will always turn up when her
shift begins.

 Tami - Not the worst of the bunch but not too far off. Tami needs to talk to
people fairly often which can be a problem if nobody else is around. However
since I usually use Tami to clean the base up there's almost always someone
around even if you have to go to the social area. Tami generally only moves
quickly when she is sent to a bar or decides to go there herself. You could use
this tactically if you need to get her to a location in a hurry.

 Dean - A dependable colonist with strong medical skills. You'll want to train
him up in something else since on most missions you don't need to constantly
prep the medi-bays. Dean has a strong work ethic like Venus.

 Barbara - Not a bad colonist. Barbara has an assortment of low level skills so
she needs some training to become useful. Her main need is money which is
convenient since it's the fastest need to fulfill.

 Daisy - An average colonist. Daisy doesn't appear very often but she has some
useful skills like nutrient extraction.

 Billy Bob - A fairly useful colonist. Whenever you have Billy Bob you can use
him to process space chickens which provide income and food for your
restaurants. Has a fairly strong work ethic as well.

 Greg - Arguably the worst of the bunch. Greg has a fair number of skills but
he is very high maintenance. His need for entertainment and social interaction
drops at an incredible rate. To make the most of him you need a jacuzzi near
his workplace or an airlock if he works outside.

 Candy - Has potential. Candy starts with few skills so she is generally as
good as you train her to be. I usually train her to match a need on whatever
mission I'm playing. I think her social interaction need drops a bit faster
than usual so keep her close to the base.

 Slim - Very good colonist. Slim doesn't start with many skills either so
you'll have to give him some training. However whenever you order him to go
somewhere inside the base he'll travel using his skateboard which makes him
very fast. As such you can fulfill his needs fairly quickly.

 Slig - Excellent colonist. Kind of like Venus, Slig has lots of skills and a
strong work ethic. He needs to eat fairly often so put somewhere to eat near
his workplace or closest airlock.

 Babette - Very bad colonist. Babette moves fairly slowly and only comes with
one skills - basic oxygen. Train her up in something to make some use of her.

 Hoshi & Kita - Quite useful. This pair needs to be kept together to keep them
productive. They start with basic power and oxygen. I'd suggest giving one of
them an extra level in oxygen and the other two or three more levels in power
then using them to man the consoles. In one mission on the peaceful campaign
you have to train them in mining. This isn't the best use for them as being
outside makes it harder for them to chat to each other which you'll need to do
every so often.

 Nailer - A fairly good colonist. Nailer has an assortment of useful skills,
it's usually best to send him off fixing or mining so he isn't around to annoy
the other colonists. He moves a little slowly as well.

 Charles - Another excellent colonist. As well as having an assortment of
skills he always moves quickly around the base which makes filling his needs
fairly easy. He has a strong work ethic as well.

 Nikolai - Fairly good colonist. Nikolai doesn't appear in many missions but he
does have a handy assortment of skills when he does. He is also a fast learner
when you put him in the library.

 Ashia - No comment. Ashia appears in none of the main campaign missions where
you can control her. I've only seen her in one of the galaxy missions that I've
played as well.

 Vasilios - Close to the perfect colonist. His needs seem to need attending to
only about half as often as the normal colonists like Venus. This makes him
useful as you can assign him a job and forget about him for ages. The only
catch is, he needs an observatory for entertainment. Nothing else entertains
him.

 Bhoomi - Average usefulness. Bhoomi possesses few skills but has one very
useful feature - just about everyone is friends with her. Set her to clean the
base and use her whenever someone has a need for social interaction but all
their other friends are out working.

 Zhang - Usefulness varies from mission to mission. If you need some androids
built then Zhang is you man for the job. He has high skills in cybernetics and
bio research. If you need crops grown or androids built then fine, but for most
missions you don't need either so you'll have to give him some training. Zhang
moves slowly and needs to sleep often. It's best to place a bed and some other
necessities near his workplace. Later in the game I give him some training in
repair and put and engineering repair facility just outside an airlock. He also
learns skills fast in a library.


1.2 Energy and Oxygen

 You need to put down enough oxygen plants and energy sources so that whoever
you have on these duties can have their down time without running out. About 4
upward arrows for both is your minimum target. Power is a bit more of a demand
than oxygen as a rule.


1.3 Disobedience

 Notice how your colonists sometimes won't obey your orders and wondered why?
Here's a list of the most common causes that I've found:

 - If you send them to a piece of equipment with a flashing spanner icon on it,
they can't use it until it has been repaired.

 - Sending them to food/drink equipment which lacks the neccesary resource.

 - All devices have a limited number of people who can use at at the same time
(often only one). If the device is being used when they get to it then they
will walk away.

 - Colonists cannot be ordered when flying around on a jet bike.

 - If two colonists are in external equipment like silicon extractors then you
can't order them directly to talk to each other. Send them inside first.

 - The worst offender is the shift clock. When a colonist's shift clock kicks
in they automatically get an order to go to work. Even if they are nearly
starved to death and have just sat down to a meal they will usually still get
up and go to work.

 - Finally a colonist needs at least basic skills in a job to perform it. Even
things like cleaning the base require training.


1.4 Needs

 Most colonists won't try to fulfill one of their needs until it is in dire
need of fixing. This can cause problems as most of their needs drop down
together and if a bunch of them are at around 50% it will shorten their shift
clock dramatically so they won't work very much. Most annoyingly they will
spend their idle time standing around or sitting on their bed instead of
tending to their needs. It's best to grab anyone with a need under 70% or so
and have them tend to it immediately. If you have a colonist with a fast
dropping need like Greg and his entertainment need then make sure the means to
satisfy it are close by their place of work or next to the closest airlock if
they work outside.

 Don't forget to keep your base fairly tidy as a dirty base means the need to
shower drops faster than usual. The social interaction need is one of the
highest priority needs. If colonists get this in the red they will begin to
speak to any other colonist who walks by. If the other colonist is an enemy
then their bar will drop further and they might get into a fight.

 When it comes to entertainment, each colonist has varying results with
different equipment. To get a good idea what colonists like try clicking on
their skills icon then clicking on psychiatrists report down the bottom. Since
funds and space are usually fairly limited, try to pick something that most
colonits will like. A jacuzzi is generally a good choice as it is effective for
just about every colonist. Be warned that some entertainment equipment will
have no effect on certain colonists, their entertainment need will not be
recharged at all.

1.5 Gripes

 There are a few things about the game that bother me. Why are the top of the
line military robots called commandos? A commando isn't a front line soldier,
rather they are specialists at infiltration and sabotage. Also why do you need
cybernetics, which means a combination of organics and mechanics, to build
androids which are entirely mechanical?

 Finally I wish the game would let you queue commands or at least complete the
current command before reporting for duty. The former might make the game too
easy but the latter almost qualifies as a bug.

2. Mission Walkthrough

 This is a general guide to the plot missions of Space Colony. I've only played
through at normal difficulty so things might be slightly different in expert
difficulty. After the first couple of missions you get to pick if you want to
play the civilian missions or the military missions. Note that any skills you
learn in the early missions will carry over to the civilian and military
missions. However the military and civilian missions are mutually exclusive so
skills learnt in one do not carry over to the other.

Tami's Training
 Rating: Simple

 Pretty straightforward. Send Tami to work on the power, Stig to work on Oxygen
and drop a nutrient harvester out near the hydromorphus for Venus to work on

Cleaning Up
 Rating: Simple

 Place two cleaning posts inside the base and have Tami and Venus use them.
Place a social area and have Stig and Tami use it repeatedly until they become
friends.


Garden of Eden
 Rating: Simple

 Place two weeding posts outside to the north of your base and have Stig and
Dean use them. Place a series of light posts heading north until you find the
marker beacon. Place two jet bikes near the base to help Dean and Stig get to
the weeding posts faster. You might want to place a bed for Dean but this
mission should be short enough that you won't need him to sleep.

Iron in the Valley
 Rating: Simple

 Place two iron extractors up near the iron deposits and send Venus and Stig to
work them. Have Candy on cleaning and have Tami and Dean handling the oxygen
and power. Keep an eye out for green and orange plants that sprout up just
north of your base. If left unattended they will sprout and send out space
wasps to damage your base and your colonists. As soon as they appear send Dean
out to the nearest weeding post (placing one next to them is a good idea). Dean
can also prepare a medi-bay if you need one.

Bob and Boffin
 Rating: Simple

 Place two libraries down and send Candy and Nikolai to study chicken farming.
A place for a chicken farm has been made just SE of your iron extractors. Once
you run out of iron, sell the extractors and place down another chicken farm.
You might be able to fit another chicken farm next to your base if you have
enough room. Billy Bob should produce enough chickens by himself to meet quota
but send Nikolai or Candy out when she finishes training. The wasp producing
plants will keep coming in this mission so have someone go out and deal with
them as they appear. You might need to lay down more oxygen plants and solar
power generators. Don't forget you can sell off the iron you've gathered if you
need more money.

Chicken Farm!
 Rating: Simple

 Depending on how patient you are there are two ways to do this. The faster way
is to send Candy out chicken farming for faster chicken supplies thus faster
credits. The slower way is to send Candy back for more training since she works
very slowly at the moment. The silicon is to the SW of your base but be
careful, if you place the silicon extractor in the wrong position the robot
will walk over the lava which causes a lot of damage. If the robot gets
destroyed you have to sell the extractor and buy a new one. To avoid this,
place the extractor just NE of the lava field. The lava bugs will occasionally
damage it anyway so I recomment building an engineering facility outside the
base and having Venus work in it.

Heat
 Rating: Medium

 At first this mission appears harder than it is. To start with, all of your
colonists needs are fairly low, regardless of what they were in the previous
mission. Pause the game and send everyone off to their favorite activity, move
people around until at least three needs are met each then send them off to
work. Build two space gas extractors over on the gas field near your silicon
extractor. Send your two new guys over to work them. Drop a lava power
generator or two on the lava vents and put three automatic lasers nearby to
guard them. Drop another two lasers just north of your base near where the
wasps keep seeding those plants. No sooner are your starting problems gone than
you hit a new one - all your colonists (except Venus) have the plague. Venus
does have her health drop as well but it happens a lot slower. It appears that
having the plague also makes your colonists needs drop faster as well. To keep
them alive build 3 or 4 medi-bays and have Dean keep all of them prepared. The
problem is you need to get Dean and Candy romantically involved even though
Dean is almost constantly preparing medi-bays. There are a three good ways
around this. The first is having Nikolai study medi-prep so that he can take
over Dean's duties. The second is careful timing so that Dean and Candy date
when they are off duty. The third is basically get your colonists fairly
healthy then take Dean and Candy off all duties and have them date until the
chance of becoming romantically involved gets high enough. I never got it above
50% but they can get involved a lot lower than that. Try at around 30% and try
a few times if it doesn't work at first. Keep in mind that Dean is a workaholic
and won't agree to date if he is on duty so if you need them to date while he
is on duty get him to do the asking. Don't get so caught up with keeping your
colonists healthy and content that you ignore the romance. It doesn't take long
to complete and the mission will take forever if you waste too much time
keeping people healthy and happy. With regards to Vasilios and his
entertainment need, nothing but an observatory will work for him and you can't
build one yet.

Evacuation
 Rating: Simple

 First sell off  the goods you were collecting last mission and buy a set of
advanced pharamacuticals. These will be placed in your medi-bays. Now when
people go for treatment they will be fully cured. The iridium is to the SE of
your base but you need to cross a lava field to get it. You can either replace
destroyed robots by selling the scavenger bunker and buying a new one or
building a robotics factory and building a new robot. However I found setting
Slig to do repairs meant I never lost even my first robot as he kept fixing it.
Part way into the mission your lasers will go offline. This could mean you will
lose your power plants since your laser won’t shoot the lava bugs. It also
means the critters who gave you the plague will come back in and infect your
colonists again. You can now build an observatory for Vasilios although his
needs drop so slowly you'll probably only use it once.

Civilian path missions

Antidote
 Rating: Simple

 Buy a pair of pharmaceutical devices and set Kita and Hoshi to work on them.
Set Mr Zhang to building androids. Place a Space Gas refinery and set Venus to
work in it. Set the androids you build to these tasks in this order: oxygen,
power, nutrient extractor and cleaning. Once you have four, stop building them
until one stops working then build a replacement. Set lasers near all useful
plants on the map. When the bugs start appearing, send Venus or an android out
to the nearest weeding post.

Contract Race
 Rating: Medium

 This one can be hard as you are against the clock and the time limit isn't
that great. You need to place your titanium extractors on the western side of
the map just above and on top of the lights that have now turned green. Be
careful to keep them away from the lasers owned by the other base as they will
wipe out your structures pronto. I don't think you can win an assault on the
other base as their lasers will take yours out before they get fueled with
argon (I never tried though to be honest). You need to drop about six
extractors in total and man them with Stig, Venus, Slim (after a session or two
in the training pod) and whatever androids you can crank out. Put Kita and
Hoshi to work on power and oxygen as you can't sell the pharmaceuticals and
your lasers should stop you getting sick again. Training Kita and Hoshi might
be required as well. Provided you place your extractors close enough you should
be able to edge ahead in the race. If you look up in the enemy base you'll see
some familiar names. They are colonists who will be working with you in future
missions, except for Ashia Green who never appears again in the main plotline.
Placing a couple of lasers might help if you can shoot out the enemy extractor
or robot without getting into range yourself.

Pressure Cooker
 Rating: Simple

 Send all available hands to keep mining titanium; you might need to drop a
light so that they can see all of it since they won't mine anything that is in
darkness. Use the training pod to train up Slim, Kita and Hoshi to the required
level. If you need more cash then sell your titanium. Only after you've
completed the mining badges requirement can you use the training pod for
anything else, prior to that you can only train those three colonists and only
in mining. Afterwards you will have training sessions left over. There are a
number of possibilities to use them on. One is to train Babette so as to be
good at something other than basic oxygen, mining isn't a bad choice. Another
is to train up Mr Zhang, repair is a fairly good choice. You could also train
Kita and Hoshi to be better at power and oxygen and have them staff those units
from now on. Once you have plenty of money buy about 50 argon gas canisters and
build twenty automatic lasers over next to your base near the crashed ship.
That is they should be next to your base and in front of the gap that runs from
the crashed ship to your base. Once they are all armed with argon build another
automatic laser just west of the crashed ship. It will destroy the crashed ship
and let free a horde of protoraptors. These protoraptors will head straight for
your base, thankfully you have twenty automatic lasers which should cut them
down as quickly as they come. Now drop a light and a scavenger bunker just
below where the crashed ship was. Put down about four automatic lasers to the
left of the scavenger bunker - they will kill the nearby protoraptor pods but
there are plenty more. Send someone to operate the scavenger - Venus, Kita and
Hoshi all have the required skill. Don't drop any more lasers further in as
they will kill protoraptor pods which could make you fail the mission.

Welcome to our home
 Rating: Simple

 Set up a half dozen or so silicon extractors and send out pretty much everyone
with mining skills - Slig, Slim, Kita, Hoshi, Nailer & Greg. Keep the others in
the base for other duties. You might want to train up Candy in electronics and
have her turn some of that silicon into advanced electronics since it sells for
more than silicon and you'll need some in a later mission. As you clear space
away, lay down your buildings (ideally large bio-domes) and fill them with an
assortment of entertainment, food and medical devices. Be careful when placing
the tourist port and hotels as these can block your view of internal structures
and prevent you from telling colonists to use a particular device. You'll also
need extra power and oxygen devices to support the tourists who will come.
Don't forget to sell off your silicon extractors and build new ones as nearby
silicon deposits get used up.

Fairway
 Rating: Simple

 Place the golf course early. You do this by selecting a gold tee from the
tourism options and dropping one outside, then you drop a matching hole. Make
five tees and holes then right click to stop. Drop a bio research lab nearby
and assign Mr Zhang to it. He should automatically target the golf holes.
You'll know a hole is ready to use when the little icon next to the flag
indicating it isn't ready will disappear. To finish this objective either wait
for a tourist to play a round or send a colonist out. If a hole seems to be too
close to something else and won't become ready then you can drop more holes.
The five rounds don't have to be in numerical order, you just have to have five
different holes played. So you could place ten holes and complete the objective
when five are ready and have been played. Getting Greg and Babette to become
involved is easy. Just set Dean to handle oxygen and free Babette and Greg from
all duties (use the garbage can to scrap their primary and secondary jobs).
First put both of them in a social area to become friends. Then have Babette
ask Greg to each of the different dating spots until he agrees and you've been
on all of them. Then have Babette pop the question (she has a higher success
rate than Greg). Ask again if it doesn't work at first. Once that is done, send
them back to work. It's a good idea in this mission to continue to build up
your structures and improve your hotel rating, the next mission requires a full
10 star rating but it's possible to get that in this mission. Don't forget to
click the help icon next to each criterion for a list of things that affect it.
Base litter < 3% is advisable for the health criteria. Keep selling off your
silicon to make more money and clear up warehouse space.

The Celensoan Ritz
 Rating: Simple

 If you took my advice and acquired a ten star rating in the last mission then
this will be a snap. The ten star criteria disappears immediately leaving you
to acquire funds which come quickly from selling silicon and tourists. There
are two special events to hinder you though. The first is a small army of slugs
who come from the east and slither into your base. Dropping about fifteen
automatic lasers outside your bridge will annihilate them before they can come
inside. The second is a small army of Fribulans who come looking for some R&R.
These guys will do all sorts of things like soaking in your Jacuzzi and jumping
on your beds. I've even seen them do duties like cleaning and working on the
oxygen controls. There seems to be no way to stop them short of selling off all
of your airlocks. You might not get either visitor though if you can finish the
mission quickly enough.

The Host
 Rating: Simple

 The titanium you need is over to the east. Mining enough within the time limit
is not a problem considering the number of skilled miners you have. Lay down
three argon gas rigs but don’t man them. You don't need any argon this mission
and you can't take any to the next mission. I do suggest training up Venus,
Stig and Vasilious to have several stars in gas extraction since you'll need
plenty in the next mission. Every so often one of the host will decide to make
someone mentally unstable. Send them immediately to a counseling robot or a
detention cell until they calm down.

Rebellion
 Rating: Medium

 This mission has a reasonably tight deadline. You need to take out the
remaining host first then build the missile. The former requires using a manual
laser to shoot the host. However your colonist will only get a few shots in
before the laser and the colonist are blasted. Fortunately you can use a
cryogenic reanimation unit to bring the colonist back after a short time then
send them out again for more shooting. Unfortunately you need to build a new
manual laser each time and wait for it to be restocked with argon. The host
will also drive someone insane every time you attack it. I suggest placing two
manual lasers down near where the host is lurking (near the obelisks). Once
they have argon gas send two colonists with the best laser skills (Slim and
whoever you train up). You'll get more shots in this way if they arrive at
about the same time. Of course since you start with no argon gas you are going
to have an uphill struggle. I strongly recommend sending Venus, Stig and
Vasilious out to extract argon gas since they are the three most dedicated
workers you have. I also suggest maximising your warehouse space for this
mission. The extra robots will make sure supplies get delivered to your manual
laser and your missile silo in a timely manner. Don't forget you have to fire
the missile after you build it.


Military path missions

Is anyone hearing this? Please help!
 Rating: Simple

 You need to create a "path" of automatic lasers leading up to the other base
so as to secure the way for Venus. I recommend placing lasers in pairs and
placing each pair a short distance ahead of the previous pair. Have your
dogbots standing just behind the front pair of lasers. Keep your argon stocks
up and don't try to move ahead too fast, the rock hoppers can take out a laser
with one hit. Make sure you drop some lasers up to protect the other base as it
will get attacked by rock hoppers fairly often. Placing a force field post in
front of those lasers is advisable since by the time they detect the rock
hoppers and get ready to fire the rock hoppers will be pretty much on top of
them otherwise. If you want to you can speed things up by making a path of
lasers leading back from the second base towards your base. Once you've cleared
a path make sure you have plenty of power and oxygen reserves before sending
Venus to the other base via the medi-bay.

Rescue
 Rating: Mostly Simple

 Rock hoppers will be attacking fairly frequently in this mission, both from
rock hopper queens and a number that simply fly onto the map. There is a rock
hopper queen directly to the south of your base guarding some of the iridium
you need and two more just to the west of her guarding the rest. Firstly you
need to make some purchases as you have no oxygen plant and few solar power
plants. Your base is also devoid of everything else it needs. You also need
food and argon gas. The catch is, by the time you make all of your purchases
and have taken care of the rock hopper queen to the south you won't have enough
to buy a scavenger bunker. You'll be short of money for the entire mission if
you don't do something so place a titanium extractor just to the SW of your
base and have Nailer work in it. Titanium sells for a healthy profit and you
can use that money to fund your base. Make sure you set down lasers and force
field posts to protect the scavenger bunker while before you place it.
Regardless of what the tips say, don't bother with the high powered force
fields posts as they are no better than the regular version. Remember that rock
hoppers will come onto the map from the eastern edge so have lasers far enough
away to come online before they attack. You will have more colonists than you
need for this mission so have Mr Zhang and Slim hit the library for some useful
skills. I suggest repair for Mr Zhang and cleaning for Slim.

Moonshaker
 Rating: Hard

 You'll be coming under attack fairly early in this mission and you have a
number of nasty enemies. Firstly buy more argon and drop two more lasers next
to the one SW of your base. Put some force fields around them and a light as
rockhoppers and Protean worms attack here fairly often. You'll also get the
occasional Hyrascus coming from this direction. Next you need to place some
automatic lasers up next to your lava power plant or you can sell it and put up
a lot of solar power plants. Lava beetles and Protean worms attack from this
direction. The east side of your base near your robotics factory will get hit
by Protean worms from time to time. The west side will mostly only be attacked
by Hyrascus. The problem with the Hyrascus is they will only attack if shot at
first but you can't tell your lasers not to shoot them and you can't leave
yourself defenseless. About three or four lasers can usually take down a
Hyrascus before it attacks back. Be warned though, the earthquake attack it
uses is extremely damaging. Another tip is to save regularly and put your
soldiers in position to hit a Hyrascus before it gets close to your base. It
can't attack them and they will soften it up for your automatic lasers. You
should also use your soldiers to take out the Protean worm mothers, there is
one to the east of your base and one to the southwest. There should also be at
least another one to the north somewhere but I've never bothered to go and hunt
it. Have Venus start work on replacing the soldiers ASAP - buy the advanced
electronics but have Nailer and Greg mine for titanium just west of your base.
The titanium is also your best source of money. Have Mr Zhang outside in an
engineering repair facility (if you trained him). Use your remaining colonists
to handle power, oxygen, cleaning and pharmaceuticals. Use a training pod to
train skills if required. Hunt down the Protean worm mothers as soon as you can
get your robots built. They are pretty much the largest threat to your colony.
Keep an eye on the progress of the pharmaceuticals, the stuff near your base
won’t be enough but there is a small patch far to the west which will let you
finish this objective. Don’t get too sidetracked with defending your base, the
pharmaceuticals are your top objective and you won’t be coming back to this
base in later missions.



The Fribulan
 Rating: Hard

 This mission doesn't start with you under attack but it isn't too far off it.
Pause the game and sell off all three medi-bays and the nearby manual laser.
Then buy some food and about ten argon gas cylinders. Place an automatic laser
as far west of your base as you can, you should be able to drop one over on the
other side of a small pond. This is important as it will take out a Fribulan
lung that appears which will then create a Fribulan spitter which can usually
wipe out a number of structures before you can destroy it. Place a titanium
extractor up north near the titanium deposits. Space is very limited in this
mission at first so set Venus to work in the nutrient extractor to clear space
up north for a second titanium extractor. Place a training pod and give Slim
two levels in nutrient extraction then place a second nutrient extractor just
south of your landing strip and set him to work in it. The area west of your
base will be off limits until your colonists all arrive. After that you can
explore it a bit and find that there are acid wings there. Place three hover
mine launchers to protect your turf and place a second titanium extractor to
the south of the titanium deposits there. After a while you'll be told your
weapon systems have gone offline. Soon after those plague bearing rodents will
turn and try to storm your base. You might be wondering how to avoid dying
since I told you to sell your medi-bays. Simple. Sell off all the airlocks
facing to the west of your base. The rodents can't get in and you can just
place an automatic laser or two to snuff them out once your weapons come back
online. Replace the airlocks after they are dead. You will eventually need some
defenses to the north of your base to take out the hostile creatures that start
showing up. Don't bunch them up too much since the Goriloids tend to do damage
in an area. I found two pairs of automatic lasers with a hover mine launcher
worked just fine.

Spineweed
 Rating: Hardest

 Yes that's right, hardest. In the main campaign no mission is harder than this
one in my experience. You will be getting attacked fairly often by the Fribulan
and they can be considered ninjas because their favorite tactic is to shoot out
your light sources so that you can't see or attack their units. This can be
used to your advantage. If you keep placing lights next to the enemy units they
will be busy shooting the lights and not your defensive structures. Your lights
will get shot out very often if you place them in front of your defensive
structures - I've had some die the instant I place them. The near constant
fighting needs close attention so as a result, when you need to satisfy the
needs of your colonists you'll want to do it while paused. You can't leave the
front line unwatched for very long or your defensive structures can easily get
annihilated. You'll want to have four or five titanium mines operating for
money. Make sure you keep all your colonists needs satisfied so they spend as
much time working as possible. Have Mr Zhang and Candy (after training if
required) working on repair. If you have a chance, use your training sessions
to improve some colonists mining skill. Forget the tips the game gives you. The
sentinels aren't much use and the soldier robots aren't required for the final
assault. The hover mines are better at taking out acidwings than the sentinels
since two hover mines will instantly kill an acid wing whereas the sentinels
take a few seconds and their patrol markers get attacked by acid wings anyway.
Basically you want to lay a path of hover mine launchers between your base and
the enemy base. Place the hover mines in groups of three abreast and with every
second group add an automatic laser. Each group shouldn't be very far ahead of
the last one as they will be covering the ones in front until they kill any
enemies in range and generate a full group of mines. It will take a fair amount
of time to reach the enemy base this way and you might get pushed back a bit
from time to time but keep persevering. Once you reach the heart of the enemy
base you'll notice your main target is sitting in the water so you can't build
lasers or hover mine launchers next to it. Just below it however is a small
island where you can drop two hover mine launchers that can. You might lose a
couple due to the spitters that keep reappearing but after a few minutes the
Fribulan mother will go down. Your most dangerous enemy for this fight is the
Ogre (in normal mode, I haven't tried hard mode and they don't appear in easy
mode). The ogre is a bipedal attack machine that fires acid blasts at your
structures. A set of hover mine launchers three abreast can take one out with
possibly losing one. However the ogre will always target your light structures
first and may hide itself in darkness to attack with impunity. Stay ready with
new lights to counter this. When you push far enough into the enemy base they
will stop sending ogres (lack of resources?). The other dangerous enemy is the
spine weed. Just buy plenty of argon gas and lay a defensive line of cluster
bombs around your base. Each bomb should be about 3/4 of a screen width apart.
Make sure the areas around them are lit. All these defensive structures means a
high power requirement so make sure your power operator (Hoshi in my case) is
well trained and have plenty of power structures placed. Using an iridium power
generator can help but they use up iridium fairly quickly. This mission can get
a bit frustrating as sometimes your lights seem to get destroyed without
anything seeming to have attacked them. Just keep selling titanium and keep at
it. Above all, don't place each group of hover mine launchers too far ahead of
the last group and keep them about three abreast or the Fribulans will cut them
down.

Betrayal on Aggerholm
 Rating: Easy

 After the slugfest of the previous battle I was dreading this mission only to
find that from now on out the game is fairly easy. Set three silicon extractors
down south of the silicon deposits below your base. Ignore the deposits to the
east of your base. There are protoraptor eggs just north of the space gas which
is due west of your base. Drop an automatic laser to take care of them and send
your soldiers east. There are more eggs there lit by plants. Use your soldiers
or a laser to kill them as well. There are more eggs in the darkness NE and N
of your base - make sure your get them as well. You should light the path of
your soldiers with lights since they can only shoot what they can see and
protoraptors will attack in the darkness. Train up two people for electronics
and set them to making advanced electronics. Have Mr Zhang on repairs although
not much will need fixing. You could have him work on electronics as well if
you want. Place two argon gas rigs over on the space gas and have two well
trained colonists gathering it. Make sure you place lots of extra warehouse
space for the extra warehouse droids. Sell off the excess silicon. You'll have
lots of space cash in this mission so build up your facilities and build lots
of soldier robots - I built an extra eight.

A Bad Thing
 Rating: Easy

 This mission gives you to option to make some money by grabbing the
protoraptor eggs instead of destroying them. The problem is, a scavenger bunker
costs 5000 credits while the eggs only score you 1000 each and they will start
to hatch before you can get more than five. There are a couple of protoraptor
egg sites marked with glowing plants as well as several that are in darkness.
Sell off any goods you have to spare, hit pause and place lights across the
entire map, except for the areas close to your base since you cleared them in
the last mission. The lights won't fully illuminate while paused although each
time you place one the game will slowly advance. You can still place them in
dark areas provided another light is close enough. Locate all the hidden egg
caches and put an automatic laser next to all of them. If you have enough
warehouse droids they should all become active before the eggs hatch. There is
one location where you can't do this though. Up at the top of the map in the
very centre is a large field of eggs and a single Orox. The Orox has a powerful
beam weapon and he will annihilate any defensive structure you place quite
easily.  To get around this you need to send up all the soldiers you have. I
hit him with a dozen. He will target one of them and when that one gets over
50% damage order it to move away. The Orox won't pursue and will hesitate a few
seconds before picking another target. It's a good idea to surround the area
where the Orox is with some automatic lasers to stop hatching protoraptors from
escaping. Don't put them in range of the Orox itself though. Order Babette to
train in repair a few times and send her out in an engineering repair facility
to help fix your robots. Note that placing all those lights will chew up a lot
of power so you might need to drop some more solar power plants down. Don't
sell the lights, do that next mission when you need the cash infusion.

Death or Glory
 Rating: Easy

 Ignore the doom and gloom speech and ignore the games hints to build up static
base defense structures. The Orox can tear through your base defenses like
paper. Instead your best weapons are soldier and commando robots. The first
thing to do is sell every light and automatic laser you placed in the last
mission. This will give you a nice amount of starting cash. If you have a full
set of twelve robots then drop your first bomb straight away. Otherwise build
up to a full set of a dozen robots. Commandos don't seem to do much more damage
than soldiers but they are quicker so if you need to rebuild your forces, focus
on commandos. A small wave of Orox will charge your base after each missile.
They always appear just north of your base so muster your soldiers there to
meet them. You'll lose a number of soldiers but keep dropping new commando
posts nearby to replace them and send the commandos in to fight. After the
first wave is over, wait for repairs (or not, the game seems a bit twitchy when
it comes to repairing military robots), replenish your strength to a full
twelve robots and wait until you've got more cash saved up to buy more
commandos on the spot. Keep selling off the silicon you are mining but don't
sell argon or advanced electronics as these are used to restock the missile
silos. You can sell off the soldier posts as each soldier dies - the ones with
red lights are unnocupied. You can do the same with the vacant commando posts
unless you want to save money by rebuilding them in your robotics factory. Once
you are ready send missile number two. Note that you can target the missile
next to the enemy base so as to do more damage to the Orox there. Also, if your
soldiers are getting wiped out too fast by the Orox then try dropping a missile
on their heads. Wave three should be no bigger than the first two so drop the
last missile when you are ready.