| Mission index (for /m param): | 019 |
| City name on PC: | Johannesburg |
| Map and level files (PC): | map022.mad, c022l004.dat, |
| PC Campaign: | Church of N. Ep. mail 22 |
| Citydrop code name: | Day Of The Damned |
| First objective: | Seek and destroy the leader of the uprising |
Hark these words, Apostle.
The Great Church at Johannesburg has been desecrated by a swarm of Unguided ones. One of their
number, Rene Galact, is visibly directing the throng. He must be destroyed in the name of all that is
holy.
There is an unforgivably large Unguided presence in the city. The raised mall and concourse in the south-west of the
city is now the outcasts' fortress. A great victory will be born from the destruction of all those who
would hide behind its irrelevant walls, and the Church will roll ever closer to the Final Day. It is
written in the Codex, Disciple.
Go with fire and serenity.
Virgil
To take one life is sin. To take a thousand is religion.
- The Book of Cataclysm.
Our great church in Johannesburg has been lain to ruin by the unguided in the area. Their leader, Rene Galact, must be obliterated in the name of all that is holy.
You can finally say good-bye to the Electron Mace, and buy yourself some Plasma Lances; upgrade your acolytes also.
You will notice there is a bank in the area. Go and rob it, and test out the power of the Plasma Lance. Now proceed to your target. You will have to kill loads of Unguideds and vehicles on the way there. Retreat to heal if you have to. When you get to the target, take out the two sentry droids from the ground, and draw out some of the Zealots. Be careful, they will throw grenades, which are lethal. When the area has been secured, eliminate your target. Then quickly run to base, before the mob catches you.
That should have been easy enough, considering the power of the Plasma Lance. You should have some money from the bank, and researched Arms Level three. Your perfect Acolytes are almost complete..
You should definitely have the plasma lance researched by now, and there's lots of cars (which the plasma lance is murder on) in this mission so it'll come in very handy.
Link your zealots up and head north. You'll run into a bike, shoot it down with plasma lances. An unguided attempts to attack you from behind, kill him with rifles and grab the trigger wire he's carrying. Now, set up at the crossroads just south of the raised area with the unguided. You'll be attacked by a series of bikes, none of whom are any match for your plasma lances. Once you've killed four or so, advance north a bit and a flying car will attack you, lance that too.
If that didn't provoke the nearby Unguided to rush you, snipe one with a rifle. Either way, you'll now be attacked by disorganised clusters of unguided, retreat and snipe - but don't miss, because many are armed with plasma lances. Once they stop coming, walk around to beneath the south-east corner of the base and engage the flying car that attacks there. Now march in to the compound, picking off any remaining zealots with rifles and the remaining flying car with plasma lances. Try and stay away from buildings; buildings collapsing are one of the few things that can kill your zealots in this mission.
Take out the Cerberus IFF and the patrolling Unguided on the nearest corner of the raised area where Galact is, then lob a nuclear grenade up the elevation at the remaining units. If you're lucky their deaths and the chain explosions from carried HE will kill Galact, but more usually he'll be the sole survivor. Kill the IFF at the top of the ramp, then get Galact to chase you back towards the IML. Kill him at some point with LR Rifles, then continue to run to the IML so that you can end the mission before you have to deal with the large unguided counterattack which has just materialised.
Prophecy transcript
Resolution uncertainty: Medium
New research:
New weapons: none
Opponents: 71 Unguided, 5 Police officers
Possible loot: 1000k cr, 4 Trigger Wire, Launchers, Plasma Lances, 1 Nuclear Grenade
There will be some specific needs for this mission. Make sure all your Acolytes Have LR Rifles for shooting Unguided foot solders, Plasma Lances for shooting cars, and Clone Shields. Also make sure one carries two High Explosives. Automedikits will also help.
Crushing hoverbikes
Your first task is to eliminate all the hoverbikes with Unguided. If you won't do it now, they will harass you during tense moments, likely causing you to fail. This mission is not easy - you will likely do many tries before succeeding, and you need to eliminate as many risk factors as possible.
So exit IML Station, and use any strategy you want to destroy all the hoverbikes. Each has one Unguided inside, with Launcher.
After you exit the Station and reach any street, an Unguided with Trigger Wire will spawn there, and mine the entrance to the IML Station. Single detonation isn't a threat for you if you have all v3 mods, so just kill him and detonate the wire.
Reaching desecrated Temple
Now you need to enter the Unguided sector. You may try doing it normally; you'll soon notice it isn't very easy. Plasma Lances and Lauchers, plus enemy which has higher ground, plus you are the one on the move - your odds are not that good. Placing a lot of Trigger Wire would work better, but is tedious and prone to mistakes. So we will use yet another strategy.
Equip Clone Shields for all your Agents, and then run towards the Temple where mission target is. But don't go inside the temple - instead, go behind it, to the corner of the map. There, in that corner, you're safe. Deactivate Clone Shields and wait for your energy to regenerate completely. And I mean completely - you will soon need to use your Clone Shields again, and this time it will be for a longer period.
Now your task is to plant a bomb to the Temple, and quickly escape. But escape where? IML Station is a bad idea - after the target dies, there will be Unguided reinforcements landing there. It would be nice if you had a higher ground, and if you didn't had to move while the Unguided will be comming - get the advantage which previously was on their side. Doesn't that sound like characteristics of the research complex which you were defending a few missions ago?
Plant two High Explosives next to each other (one will not destroy the Temple), immediatelly put Clone Shields on and escape. After the Temple falls, Satellite Rain will be triggered on that place. So leave it fast, head towards the Research Complex. The Trigger Wire explosion while leaving the Unguided complex won't do much harm. Don't use supershields, you need all the energy you've got for your Clone Shields.
Confusing the reinforcements
Go up the ramp, and hide inside the entrance building of that complet. Now you're double hidden - with Clone Shields, and with the building. Stay there, with Clone Shields on, as long as they will last. When they deplete completely - wait until your weapon power regenerates, or until you see that first Unguided are clearly headed to you.
But let's stop for a while. I owe you a little explanation. What exactly did we just do?
Well, after first of the Unguided near the Temple died, Satellite Rain was triggerted there. It killed your mission target, if he wasn't dead yet after the Temple fall. His death triggered spawning of seroious Unguided reinforcement - 4 armored flying cars. with a lot of Unguided inside. Normally, these are landing to unload the Unguided and then everyone rushes towards Your team. This is something you can't normally survive.
Fortunately, if you have Clone Shields on, the reinforcements can't target you. This causes only two flying cars to unload the solders, and makes some of them run a bit before returning close to the cars. And they will stay there. When your Clone Shields are depleted, the Unguided reinforcements will not notice you all at once immediatelly, but each foot solder will check for your presence at intervals - meaning they will come to you separately, in a row, one at a time or in small groups. That is managable, especially when you're standing on higher ground with LR Rifles. Flying cars will not come at you at all, until you get close to them.
Stand and snipe
So stand on the ramp and snipe. When noone else is comming, go to the corner of the research complex closest to Unguided complex, and snipe a few more Unguided from there. When that is done, start luring more groups by shooting near them (you don't even have to be close enough for the bullets to actually reach them), and escaping back to the ramp.
Continue with that, and soon the whole cmoplex will be clean. There will be even a flying car waiting for you. Evacuate to IML Station to complete the mission, then take the flying car.
Bank robbing
That car will be useful for cleaning up around the Bank. Fly there, and float on a place which is hard to reach. Snipe the Unguided. Most have LR Rifles as well, but your car is tough enough to take few shots. Two Unguided have flamers - but they won't hurt you while you're in the air. The two closest to the bank entrance have Plasma Lances. You may better kill these from foot, fighting against Plasma Lance from a car is not a smart idea.
Going to the front of the bank will trigger Stasis Field defences. Instead, go from behind. Shooting the building will alert 5 Police officers nearby - but they will come to you one at a time, so just snipe them from your higher ground. Then make the Bank fall. You will find 2 suitcases, 500,000 credits each.
Final activities
After that, go through the level collecting weapons if you have slots for them (Trigger Wire is quite expensive, but you can also take Launchers, and there is a Nuclear Grenade on a female body where the temple was). That's it.
Tech ex machina
Near the building protected by the police, there are 4 guys with Clone Shields and Flamers. The Policeman within the flying car doesn't have any weapon.
Do you remember that frustrating level with burried bombs? There is one on this level as well, in a center of a building. Well, actually there are 4 bombs at corners of the building, and just the trigger point is at the center. Make sure you avoid it - even modded agent with a supershield active won't survive 4 bombs, and with the building falling as well, even the lucky ones will die.
There's a car parked at the beginning, near exit of the IML Station. It is occupied by a civilian, so you can't use it. But interestingly, if you bring that car down, few seconds after an explosion will happen at the point where the poor driver body is. The explosion resembles the buried mines, and you can't pick up anything there.
You were blessed by this premonition from Johannesburg episkopy, please do not reply.
⨁ Start point
⨁ Unguided citizens
⨁ Unguided with Trigger Wire spanwning in IML Station
⨁ Buried mines with proximity trigger
｜― Trigger Wire traps
⨁ Police officers
⨁ Flying car with Police
⨁ Flying cars with Unguided reinforecements
⨁ Research complex entrance building
⨁ Bank (1M credits)