| Mission index (for /m param): | 033 |
| City name on PC: | Santiago |
| Map and level files (PC): | map007.mad, c007l005.dat, |
| PC Campaign: | Church of N. Ep. mail 08 |
| Citydrop code name: | Serpent's Egg/Not One Of Us |
| First objective: | Vanquish the desecrators |
Receive our blessings, Son of Light.
By working where our foe is weakest, we have begun to establish our Church. The Syndicate is therefore attempting to regain control in a number of vulnerable cities.
Already, the Syndicate has begun to undertake covert operations in Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, Santiago and Tripoli. Those who challenge the Church of the New Epoch must join us or perish.
Syndicate agents have been sighted in Santiago and Tripoli. In Buenos Aires, the Syndicate has regained control of its garrison in an action which spilled the precious blood of your brothers and sisters stationed there. The Nine also believe that EuroCorp has planted a saboteur in our mission in Johannesburg.
Your Acolytes must ensure that no EuroCorp operative succeeds or ever returns to the Syndicate. Do not rest until you have cleansed these places of the Syndicate's sickness.
The day of reckoning draws closer with every new mind we recruit. And those who wish to survive the Cataclysm must believe.
Be brave, Acolyte. And be brutal. It is the only way.
Virgil
There is pleasure in stealing the souls of machines.
- The Book of Cataclysm.
Mission
A thousand hymns disciple, kind of reminds me of the marines get down, and give me a thousand hymns. You must kill the remaining Eurocorp personnel, who fled from Buenos Aires. Make sure not a single Eurocorp soul stirs when you are through.
Although powerful, don't buy the Launchers just yet. Just sell any scavenged equipment, and begin the mission.
When the mission starts, leave HQ and walk along the road to the temples where your targets are. Kill any Unguided who hinder you along the way. Once there, draw the Eurocorp personnel out of each temple by firing at the sentry drones. Be careful, they have KO Gas, and drop Explosives. When you have killed them all, leave the place..
Debriefing
Another mission successfully completed, for your efforts you should have researched the Clone Shield, and Legs level two.
Of the Mail 8 missions, Santiago is the easiest, Buenos Aires is probably the hardest, and Tripoli is easily the most annoying. I'd recommend the order Santiago - Johannesburg - Buenos Aires - Tripoli.
You'll want to have either Pulse Lasers or Electron Maces researched by the time you get to Buenos Aires. Ideally you want Long Range Rifles researched as well, but I didn't, so it's not impossible without them.
If you can survive the start of this mission, the rest should be relatively easy.
Both the Syndicate and the Unguided will attempt to kill your Zealots shortly after you arrive. Get out of the IML link rapidly, kill the first two Unguided, and then retreat, letting them run into and fight each other. Odds are you'll have to kill some yourself - LR Rifles, as ever, help to thin the crowds out. By now you should be using at least miniguns for close-in work.
Survival having been taken care of, it's time to go on the offensive.
Note that your mission objective does not require you to take down the Unguided, so only engage those which are in your way. It is worth taking out the ones who patrol around the outer city, because they may interfere while you are fighting Eurocorp, but ignore the ones in the centre. Likewise, you want to draw the attention of any flying cars that are around and kill them off before you attack fixed targets, because it is always better to be attacked by your enemies one at a time.
The Syndicate installation here is comprised of two groups of Operatives each backed up by a Cerberus IFF. The IFFs will go down to a round of LR Rifle fire - there are two of them, so you'll need to wait for a reload. Some people have reported this gets the Operatives to attack you - if so, you have it easy. Just retreat, reload your rifles, and shoot them down. If they don't come out, you're going to have to trigger their trap. It's the normal thrown KO-gas affair, and they'll do it twice, one for each building. If you have an agent with modified legs, I'd suggest sending them in to trigger the trap and then running them out again. If you don't, pick a volunteer.
Once you've avoided the knockout gas, killing the operatives should be quite simple, as there aren't enough of them to pose a threat.
Prophecy transcript
Resolution uncertainty: Very low
New research: Automedikit (always)
New weapons: none
Possible loot: 5x High Exlosive, 4x Pulse Laser, 4x Electron Mace, 4x LR Rifle, 4x Agents
This level has a lot of enemies on it, but if your agents are up to the latest mods, they're not a large threat.
Mods will also be required due to gas trap near the temple which you're asked to clean out of Adversaries. These Adversaries have High Explosives, of which some you should be able to pick up if you've taken care of the Cerberus IFFs.
Tech ex machina
All you can get on this level is a collection of weapons. Well, you could go for 4 Agents, but you'd have to increase your persuasion power very fast - they attack you soon after start.
There is little benefit in reaching central area of the level (via IML Train). The enemies there have the same weapons as in outer ring. Interestingly, all the Unguided there will get stuck near IML Station if you leave them to their random walking paths. Shooting at them may "unstuck" a few.
Some Unguided groups are following a leader. If you kill that leader, they will just stop, and keep standing still until you get in their shooting range. That makes them easy persuasion targets.
You were blessed by this premonition from Santiago episkopy, please do not reply.
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