Mission 05: The Evacuation

Ok, firstly onto what the Mission Introduces, gameplay style of the mission. This Mission introduces you to the Firebat (YAY BROOD WAR ONLY UNIT :D), however as i stated on the previous mission unless you fork out the cash they are really dire, especially against anything but lings, however if you do fork out the cash they are really powerful against zerg, they make excellent tanks and roast lings for breakfast. Just remember you marines are infinitly better, so don't make any firebats other than the 2 you are given.

The only other thing this mission introduces is the Mercenary Compound, basically when the mission begins a countdown begins and when it is up you can summon in the mercs, basically if I don't primarily state it call in these ASAP, skipping a round of unit production if necessary, they are simply your best troops and are worth it, they also produce instantly.

This mission is primarily an escort mission, the colonists are evacuating on the slowest truck possible (and indeed the weakest :D) and go whenever they want and not when you are ready, this leads to the weird scenario that the only difficult escort is the 2nd, instead of the last wave, which is stupid imo but ye.. inevitable.

Mission Objectives:

Main: Reach the Colonist Outpost

Escort Colonists to safety (50)

20 Colonists can't die

Bonus: Recover the Chrysalis (3 Zerg Research)

Achievements: Do not let a Colonist Truck be destroyed on Normal

Do not salvage or lose a structure on Hard Difficulty.

You Start with 2 firebats and 2 medics, and you see the colonist base to the west. It contains 1 CC, 1 Mercenary Compound, 1 Refinery, 1 Supply Depot, 1 Barracks with Tech lab and 4 SCVS.

These will eventually be yours, now an interesting thing you can do if you want to make the mission a little easier, is wait 5 minutes at the start with your firebats, the cooldown on the merc compound starts when you start the mission, so then you can automatically call in 6 troops and the mission goes alot smoother this way, regardless when you enter the zone with your firebats proceed west to the compound.

You have to fight zerglings and just attack-moving into them should kill them easily, if your medics get focused by zerglings, PULL THEM BACK!!!!!!, you don't want to produce any medics for the first 2 waves of escorts, and it is imperitive you don't lose one to a stupid zergling attack at the beginning. There are 2 cash rewards north of the road to the compound, 1 is gas and 1 is minerals, pick them up! and then proceed to the green mark on the ground.

Once you do this you get access to your base, put all your scvs on minerals and send your 4 man squad north of your barracks and slightly west and there is 1 100 mineral cash reward on the ground, pump marines and scvs exclusively.

Here is a somewhat flexible Build Order.

17 Supply Depot

24 Supply Depot

31 Supply Depot, Barracks

38 Supply Depot, Barracks, Reactor

44 Supply Depot, Engineering Bay, 3 Scvs in Gas

55 Supply Depot

61 Supply Depot (Constant), Reactor, Barracks, Attack Upgrade

73 - 2 Bunkers (1 at each choke already with a bunker)

91 - Armor Upgrade, Cut Scvs (you want extra to repair the bunkers, hence the late cut)

Macro (You may want to make the last Barracks a Reactor, but you will run out of Minerals before you can really make use out of the reactor though, so just 2 reactor, tech lab and no addon barracks are perfectly fine.)

Ok, so a few things, getting the normal achievement is pretty easy: the only time you will likely fail this is on the first/2nd waves. It's a similar story with the bunkers and the other achievement, basically the first 2 waves are much harder than the rest because you have a very limited force and only begin with 4 scvs (Seriously wtf...).

This is also the first mission that really taxes you to multitask, you have to constantly move your mobile force and macro, the build order above has lots of steps at similar times because basically they are good timings between waves to do stuff, a perfect player (not me) could do all this micro and have a better build order, but I try to be as simple as possible with the build order. If you find yourself getting supply blocked or just overrun just select your units with the convoy and right click the truck, they will follow it, just switch back when they get attacked.

At the end (after getting the chrysalis Bonus objective) Your money will spike, just don't worry about it, you want some spare minerals to repair the bunkers, if you run out of minerals just leave around 200 minerals in the bank for repairs.

Onto the actual Mission, at around 24 Supply the 1st Convoy truck thing will move out, take your entire force and rally your barracks to your units and produce on the way. Take an scv with you aswell, move up the road just staying around on the convoy, you will get shown that there is a bunker on the Road, Ignore this and continue to move up the road, a first stream of zerglings, and a Hydralisk will attack you.

Take them out but keep ahead and around the truck, pick up the Gas cash reward on the left side of the road and when you reach the path heading east another wave of zerg will attack you, take it out quickly and get the 1 mineral cash reward (DO NOT GO FURTHER IN AND TAKE THE OTHER YET).

After this RUSH AHEAD of the convoy and u will see another bunker, if you want the achievement send in your scv and repair it and take out this attack force quickly, after this there is a Hydralisk on the right side of the road next to a chrysalis, take it out along with some burrowed zerg and pick up the chrysalis and the 2 mineral cash rewards on either side of the road. Put 6 Marines in that bunker and leave your scv here. Make your way with the rest of your force back to base.

Hopefully you should have both your sets of mercenaries at your base or at least before the next convoy sets out, as soon as you have 6 marines (or 4 marines and 1 Marauder) head with them straight to the first bunker with an scv. The Rest of your force should be with the convoy.

Remember this is the hardest wave to Escort, make sure you bring an extra scv to repair the truck (this is optional, I didn't need it but if you want to be safe do it). Keep your Moveable force around the truck when you are moving, continue to rally all your unit producing structures to this force. On this wave the 1st choke gets attacked by 2 waves of zerglings (with the occasional roach/hydra).

After the 1st wave ends, ignore the next wave with your attack group, (your bunker can take care of it (DONT BE AFRAID TO STIM INSIDE THE BUNKER)) and rush again to that middle path, you will be hit by a wave of zerglings before you reach the path, and another once you reach the path, I think you get hit by mutalisks here after you go past the path along with a 3rd wave, remember you have a bunker at the third choke, don't rush to it until you have dealt with the waves from the middle path.

Once this escort is dealt with, you are through the worst of it, it's not that the waves don't get tougher, it's just you end up with like 80-100+supply for the rest of the waves so nothing can really stop that force the zerg send at you. Immedietly send 2 additional scvs, 1 to each bunker area, and make a second bunker (Don't block-off the south ramp entirely). Put in 6 marines (4 marines, 1 Marauder if you want) to each bunker. Also start producing Medics from your tech labbed Barracks from now on.

Just a small note on upgrades, mostly in these missions it doesnt matter what you upgrade first (until you get your research option) but if you are using lots of bunkers in missions it is more important to upgrade attack first for your infantry than armor.

Now, with your more substantial force, hopefully reinforced with a second set of war pigs and hammer securities (probably halfway through the escort on the marauders) move out, again there are 2 waves of zerg coming at the bunker, but this time there is a wave that unburrows on the left side of the road, take them out swiftly but DO NOT fall behind the convoy, zerglings will be streaming in from the east passage, take them out safely and keep up with the convoy, A final 2 waves of zerg will come streaming in from the north bunkers, and an additional force will unburrow directly north of these Bunkers.

Once dealt with it is time to get the chrysalises, Go to the Middle path heading east, and well head east and follow the path round to the south (DO NOT GO FURTHER EAST - there is a large Zerg base there) The Chrysalis is in the middle of the field, zerg forces will unburrow to defend it, just take them out with ease and head back out to the Road.

Now head to the south bunkers and head down the ramp, go further west and you hug the treeline and you will see the final Chrysalis, there are more zerg than before defending this, quite a few roaches but they should be no problem for your pretty large force. Grab the Chrysalis and head back to escort the convoy, which should be just about leaving.

During all this Matt Horner will be like ZERG HAVE ENTERED THE ATMOSPHERE, basically this means they will be raining zerglings at your convoy from above, this sounds scarier than it actually is, Basically in this 4th Escort you have the occasional 4 zerglings spawn from the sides of the road along with 2 waves of enemies from each path. (Note that the south and north bunkers have banelings attack them, these are suicidal zerg units that blow up and do massive aoe damage to both infantry and structures, focus these down if you want but they should never break your bunkers). This is a pretty easy wave really, just escort it and you will have 1 final wave to deal with.

This time Matt Horner is like WE HAVE DETECTED UNDERGROUND ZERG, these are basically Nydus Worms, these are a Zerg Structure that transfer units between them, on the campaign they actually spawn units, in multiplayer they are a cool way for zergs to transfer their units across the battlefield.

Again, this sounds much more dangerous than it actually is, there is only 1 dangerous Nydus Really, and it is only a Danger if you let it. Again, like the previous 2 escorts, you get 2 waves of zerg per path. You get a few of the dropped zerglings like in the 4th Escort but you also get Nydus Worms, take out the first Nydus Worm, which is at the bottom of the South Bunkers with marines from the overfacing cliff above it. (Just on the Road basically).

After this QUICKLY get ahead of the convoy to the middle path, STIM IF NECESSARY, do not hold back on stimming if you are far behind. A Nydus worm spawns in the path, take it out asap then run straight to the north bunkers, again stim if necessary.

Now a Nydus worm will spawn on the North path, DO NOT take this out. You don't need to take this out at all, just keep all your units on the right side of the road where a final nydus will spawn, THIS IS THE ONLY DANGEROUS ONE, take it out asap and then just sit back and finish the mission.

After finishing the mission you will gain access to the Ship's Laboratory and Research, I'm going to make a separate post about research options, which are optional and which are mandatory in a separate post.

Basically though you somehow should have 4 protoss research and 6? zerg research (I guess saving the rebels in the 3rd mission grants you 3 research). Which means you can choose between fortified bunker or Shrike turret, I would go with Fortified Bunker myself, but it really doesn't matter.

Onto the Armory and you have now unlocked the Firebat Upgrades

Firebat: Incinerator Gauntlets - 40% Bigger Aoe Damage

Juggernaut Plating - +2 Armor.

Basically if you want to actually use firebats, these 2 upgrades are mandatory, they turn them from nitpicky niche fighters to AWESOME TANKS, that take ALOT to kill. I would personally advise against taking their upgrades, unless you exploit the bug I told you about in mission 03. They are useful though if you get both those upgrades, if you don't like firebats, just ignore them: they aren't necessary for any mission other than a late mission, and thats only because you get them for free :D.

You should have 110,000 credits. I would go for Stabilizer Medpacks from the medics and skip firebat mercenaries. You don't need them for the next mission and having more efficient medics is just essential really. Definitly you want this upgrade, if not now then the next mission. Alternatively, if you want the firebat mercenaries, take the Combat shield upgrade for marines and buy the mercenaries.

Onto the next mission and Tosh O: :).