I am stuck in Gamma-1. Insane difficulty.

[Eugen]

Hello!

Playing on insane difficulty. Version of the game in signature below.

I can't do anything in Gamma-1. I get completely destroyed and my tanks look like they are made of cardboard

I can't use any artillery because it is immediately destroyed by Nexus artillery even if I buld it in the far right corner near LZ.

Ok, I dont have any Tiger tanks. Only Python tracks and Mantis tracks: hero commander with assigned assault guns, tank killers, some cannons (2 heavy, 2 HVC, 3 assult cannons).

There come more and more Nexus scourge tanks with every attack and I can't even leave my base and approach his base without losing lots of my tanks. Therefore my attacks end early and I have to retreat destroying max 1 or 2 fortifications.

Is there any special tactics how to beat the 1st Gamma mission on insane difficulty without losing all of my experienced tanks? What am I doing wrong?

[alfred007]

I can tell you what I usually do.
Generally, I play the whole Beta campaign with just 38 combat units (33 from Alpha Mission, 5 that was given at the beginning of Beta Mission). I don't use the combat units I got with the downed transporter in beta 02 because my special goal is to have 48 hero units at the end of the game. So I concentrate all the experience I earn during the Beta campaign on these 38 units. Of these 38 units, I put 29 into the transporters and recycle 9. The 11 free slots I fill with the heaviest unit I can produce and use them as a power bonus by recycling them in the Gamma campaign.

My first transport contains an experienced tiger hover commander, 7 assault gun tiger hover tanks and two tiger hover trucks. I set the commander to retreat at medium damage. With the two trucks, I build a repair facility and a factory. During that, I move north with my combat group and destroy the first two oil derricks and the cyborgs north of my LZ. I don't move west with my combat group. After the factory is built I produce four more tiger hover trucks and 9 assault gun tiger hover tanks (see above, they will get the experience of the 9 in Beta campaign recycled units). With my first two trucks, I build the two oil derricks and a power generator with module. All the time I repel Nexus attacks from the north and the west, but don't move far away from my LZ. The first produced truck moves on the hill left of the LZ and builds some AA emplacements. The next three trucks are building a wall at the western exit of my LZ. I build walls because I want to gain all the experience by destroying Nexus units by my tanks. But you can also build some defense structures. I place these three trucks behind this wall so that they can repair the wall immediately after Nexus units damage it. With my first two trucks, I build a Command Center and a research facility after the power generator was built. In the meantime, the new assault gun tiger hover tanks had been produced and get assigned to the commander.
Then I move north with my commander and destroy the base in the north. During that the second transport arrives with one more experienced commander, 5 assault gun tiger hover tanks and 4 Ripple Rockets tiger tracked tanks. For the RR tanks, I build a square of four repair facilities south of the oil derricks and place them that way that every RR tank is protected by two repair facilities. After the Nexus base in the north is destroyed I move south with the combat group east of the hill in the middle and destroy the Nexus units that are attacking my wall. Also, I build some AA sites in the north to repel the Vtol-attacks of Nexus. I demolish my build wall, build a counter-battery sensor and attach my RR tanks to it. Then I move west until Nexus artillery attacks me. Then I move back and wait until my RR tanks have destroyed all Nexus artillery.
I think from this point on you are able to kick Nexus' ass by your own.

[Forgon]

Hello!

Playing on insane difficulty. Version of the game in signature below.

I can't do anything in Gamma-1. I get completely destroyed and my tanks look like they are made of cardboard

I can't use any artillery because it is immediately destroyed by Nexus artillery even if I buld it in the far right corner near LZ.

Ok, I dont have any Tiger tanks. Only Python tracks and Mantis tracks: hero commander with assigned assault guns, tank killers, some cannons (2 heavy, 2 HVC, 3 assult cannons).

There come more and more Nexus scourge tanks with every attack and I can't even leave my base and approach his base without losing lots of my tanks. Therefore my attacks end early and I have to retreat destroying max 1 or 2 fortifications.

Is there any special tactics how to beat the 1st Gamma mission on insane difficulty without losing all of my experienced tanks? What am I doing wrong?

Gamma 1 is indeed a difficult mission, primarily because you start cramped in a corner.

Either build repair facilities in your LZ and wait until the third transporter drop provides you with enough units to carefully advance, or immediately conquer the enemy base north and move all your units there. The latter is preferable because

• your units will be safer, and base buildings even more so
• by taking out a cyborg factory, you do not have to fight all the units it would otherwise produce

Nexus' main strength lies in its factory and 4 cyborg factories. The sooner you destroy them, the better.

The easiest strategy to win is to build about 20-30 VTOL Heap Bomb Bay Scorpion VTOLs and annihilate all enemy factories (and, ideally, also their Seraph Missile Batteries) within 10-15 minutes. The numerous AA sites of Nexus may inflict on you the loss of a few dozen units, but only inexperienced ones, and overall less than the output of its factories would if you hesitated. The remnants of your air force should then focus on blowing up enemy units. Using this approach, you should be able to win within less than 30 minutes.

[Eugen]

@alfred007 and Forgon

Thanks! These are very interesting and different strategies you suggest.

One remark to alfred:
Scourge tanks from the west are so strong no wall would stop them. I tried, putting a lot of trucks behind. They destroy a wall section very fast and then kill the trucks. Maybe I should try once more.

@Forgon
This "kamikaze" tactics you suggest (using cannon fodder VTOLS to destroy factories) is also very interesting and tempting/

[alfred007]

@alfred007 and Forgon

Thanks! These are very interesting and different strategies you suggest.

One remark to alfred:
Scourge tanks from the west are so strong no wall would stop them. I tried, putting a lot of trucks behind. They destroy a wall section very fast and then kill the trucks. Maybe I should try once more.

@Forgon
This "kamikaze" tactics you suggest (using cannon fodder VTOLS to destroy factories) is also very interesting and tempting/

You could also use sensor towers instead of walls. They have more hitpoints but the same armour. Maybe they last a bit longer. You can also build a repair facility behind your trucks so that they can't be destroyed so fast. And you should really use three trucks. As soon as a wall or tower is destroyed start building a new.
Otherwise, you have to let them come nearer and destroy them with your assault gun tanks. Stay in motion but don't move west or you will activate the factories. Same in the north, don't move further north than the northern of the two oil derricks stand.

[Eugen]

My mistake was that I didn't know that moving too far away from LZ would activate enemy factories.
Anyway destroying the factories as soon as possible is the main priority.

I managed to win using a suicide VTOL trick.
Before that I produced 27 Bug machinguns to save the experience I had recycled in Beta-11. Then I produced inexperienced Scorpion Heap Bombs and destroyed all cyborg and tank factories.

[Nexusintruderprogram]

i think ill avoid playing insane difficulty for a bit i did try it but got to alpha 5 and got rekt

[nick87720z]

Don't know if it's still time due to some complains about changes between 3.x and 4.x versions. I recently managed to go gamma 1 at insane, though in constant slowdown.

Emplacement artillery duel is possible - just don't let single one to fire alone. If you lost too much, then better build multiple in parallel, by dedicated truck, rather than one after one (of you will waste too much oil before all enemy artillery is down). Mobile artillery is best, because 4 angels barely destroy 1 tank, while emplacement took just 2 rockets.

It's possible to make with sensors instead of vtols. Main base, with tanks factory, may be sneaked so, that you could destroy tank factory without retaliation from hovers (just don't hit at lake patrols). Farthest cyborg factory could be targeted without being shot by cyborgs (though they will chase you to get clear shot). To deal with scourge defences - you may need multiple sensors with each sensor retreating after shoting each next tower and getting hit (unfortunally, artillery ground emplacement don't work anymore with vtol sensor, which has just enough range to spot farthest cyborg factory from your own map side, without getting nearly into base with inferior sensor).

++ 6 trucks may be not enough - I used 9 leopard hovers, but even they sometimes failed for cyborgs raid, combined with bypassing hover patrol. And better use hardpoints - bare wall doesn't takes just 2 scourge missiles, while AG point can take ~3 missiles (4 surely destroy it if hit rapidly).

[Ant1989]

Sincerely, since my last two playthroughs, I stopped using tracks. They are too slow to retreat safely and really vulnerable to missiles anyway. I use a team or two with Half-Tracks and a team with Hover (each one with a commander of course).

I beat the Gamma 1 like that, made the repair facilities near the LZ (if you build many close to each one the tanks gonna use the vacant ones to repair, so it's always good to build two or more each time), and ordered my tanks to retreat at medium (on insane it's almost impossible to retreat on heavy damage, they always die), and waited for my reinforcements. Once I had enough I conquered the northeast base to reduce the cyborg attacks and get most of the oil reserves of the map. Then I went to fight the west base. Yes, Nexus artillery is really hard to deal with, and I usually avoid using CB Towers (because I never learned how to use them and always lost the artillery vs artilery battles), but I heard that it could be useful here. Give priority to assault guns, because there are many cyborgs, and don't forget to use cyborgs yourself.

I also usually avoided using cyborgs because they have very few upgrades to their weapons and are really weak, but they are really resistant to the anti-tank lancer weapons, including the Scourge Nexus use. They are also cheap and faster than the tanks, so they usually arrive first and get started by the lancers. You gonna have the Assault Gunner by the time you get to Gamma 1, it's efficient against the scourges, and cyborg factories are small and you can make one even without moving from the LZ.

[nick87720z]

It was possible to build tank factory around LZ, but then they made 1 tile border around LZ unusable for buildings .

[alfred007]

It was possible to build tank factory around LZ, but then they made 1 tile border around LZ unusable for buildings .

This only happens if you start the Gamma campaign from the menu. I tested it with savegames from me, if you win the last Beta campaign level you can build a factory in the LZ in Gamma 1. Further testing showed that this bug is in the game since version 3.3.0. I opened an issue on GitHub.

[nick87720z]

This only happens if you start the Gamma campaign from the menu. I tested it with savegames from me, if you win the last Beta campaign level you can build a factory in the LZ in Gamma 1. Further testing showed that this bug is in the game since version 3.3.0. I opened an issue on GitHub.

Thanks. Did not know it's bug (It doesn't look so as I assumed it to be defined by map itself).

[nick87720z]

Sincerely, since my last two playthroughs, I stopped using tracks. They are too slow to retreat safely and really vulnerable to missiles anyway. I use a team or two with Half-Tracks and a team with Hover (each one with a commander of course).

This depend, what body you use it with. I made races, during one earlier earlier, with some 3.x (may be 3.1), just after researching antivirus (when finally got retribution body, leaving one tower to use remaining time). Compared hovers and tracks with different bodies and lightest turret. There are results.
- Hover is equally fast with everything, though tiger manages to slowdown even this.
- Collective bodies with tracks as essentially slowest, as supposed to be.
- NP bodies (about mantis, which becomes my choice since beta start) are much faster...
some say, that it rules by engine, but in reality it wins by lower mass (e.g. 450 for bug vs 600 for viper), while engines are same for both NP and Project. Thus, it's necessary to use light weapons to get speed bonus.
At least in earlier versions, when Nexus did not lose irritating squad auto-retreat feature (which forced you to get close with hold-fire until enough units are in range, than target manually to ensure destruction of at least 1 targets) - mantis was the only right way to pursue retreating cyborgs and hovers.
- Tracked retribution is as fast as mantis (or even faster). Vengeance is only worse by rotations speed, which is more like python (this is were mantis excels despite being heavy body).

Though I don't remember if I tested half-tracks (specifically - how it would excel with retribution, which proved to be ebough good even in tracks, like a good dancer in heavy pants).

Also - when fighting group if rocket tanks (of anything with high peak rate of damage), it may be hard, but vial, to force forward move so, that damaged unit is covered by more intact units before obliterated, before full retreat (and be prepared for more cover when enemy launchers recharge). Of course, there must be no enemies at above level, who could shot target in middle of crowd, targeting even units in far back of group.

[themac]

I copied the first gamma sector mission explained in the Warzone guide.
(link expired)