Total Annihilation/The Defense of Larab Harbor

Narration: ''Using the advantage of surprise, the Arm commander set back the Core line on Thalassean and established a beachhead at Larab Harbor. Meanwhile, however, Core forces on the rest of the planet had had a chance to regroup. They were certain to attack...''

Mission Briefing
Defend Larab Harbor. Preserve the Moho Mine there. Destroy all Core units.

Special Priority The Arm stronghold and supply depot assembled at Larab Harbor must be preserved against all Core assaults. Metal is so rare on Thalassean that the Moho Mine at Larab must be protected at all cost. Should the Moho be destroyed, you will have failed your Mission.

Info Feed We have reason to believe that there is a Core fleet hiding within a hurricane moving toward Larab. Be prepared! The Enemy is sure to target the Moho Mine.

END

Details
Starting units: Commander, Shipyard, Dragon's Teeth, Moho Mine, Jethros, Guardian, Skeeters, Crusader, Samsons, Ranger, Hammers

An Enforcer and Hydra will arrive to give you a headache right away, followed by Searchers and Shadows. Move your Ranger south a little to avoid becoming a sitting duck. Move the Skeeters and Crusader towards the incoming Core naval units. Move some Jethros and a Samson towards the west end of the base to defend against the Core aircraft.

Build a Construction Ship to start production of an Advanced Shipyard. Build subs to defend the harbor from the continuing waves of Core naval units. When the Advanced Shipyard comes online, you want production of Piranha, Rangers, and Conquerors to start up immediately.

During all of this, the Commander should be repairing damage to the Moho Mine, building a Vehicle Plant, and reclaiming metal when your KBots shoot those Core aircraft down. The Vehicle Plant should produce Samsons, then a Construction Vehicle. The Construction Vehicle in turn should build Defenders and Guardians to stop the Core attackers.

The Construction Ship should move from the Advanced Shipyard to reclaiming shipwrecks and building Torpedo Launchers at the entrance to the harbor. Be careful and keep some subs defending the Construction Ship, because the enemy ships aren't going to stop coming just because you want to build something in their path. The Commander needs to work on keeping resources coming in (build Solar Collectors and Wind Generators, reclaim metal), and the Construction Vehicle handles repairs and building defensive structures.

As things continue, you may want to build one or two more Construction Ships to reclaim shipwrecks and keep metal coming in. The balance between building enough advanced units and defensive structures and bringing in enough resources to support the building may be hard to maintain when taking wave after wave of Arm naval units. At this point it's often important to remind yourself that you're building a defense, that the Moho Mine must survive the mission and that this map is covered with Core units.

Keep a lot of ground units available to defend the Moho Mine if amphibious units break through the defenses. Keep Construction units and the Commander available to repair it. Continue building up defenses and let the Core come to you. If the Core attacks seem to stop without the mission ending, send out a group of ships (don't forget the subs to defend them) to hunt down whatever Core units are sleeping out there.

Notes:
 * 1) The ranger may be useless but it's important to have it patrolling to survive until you have the opportunity to reclaim it's precious metal.
 * 2) Some players are not able to build Piranha (playing without core contingency but greyed out)
 * 3) Some players find torpedeo launchers useless as computer takes them out too easily with enforcers, warlords or missle ships from beyond their range.
 * 4) You can get slightly better bang for buck from Crusaders than Conquerors (more damage per second, less metal for the health they have, faster, only downside is less range) so you can save yourself the metal for advanced shipyard.
 * 5) You can use kbot instead of vehicle plant, substituting Jethros for Sansoms in above write up
 * 6) The key is to use Skeeters & Crusaders to take out Searchers, Enforcers, Snakes & Sharks so that your Lurkers are free to take out Warlords (5 or 6 of them will make quick work of Warlord).
 * 7) Must have anti-air units to take out their planes. Defenders & Guardians are handy but extras not needed even on level hard. You can add 10 Jethros patrolling around the mine and another 5 patrolling to the west to protect structures built there.
 * 8) Metal will be scare so using tidal generators instead of solar/ wind is worth it and having metal makers.
 * 9) At least 1 Metal & 1 Energy storage handy
 * 10) Radar & sonar coverage are important
 * 11) If you do struggle on hard try winning on medium to hone your strategy first