Rej72380: I tried my damnest for the past two days to clear ARM mission 7, the one where you have to defend a lone Moho mine from enemy assault, The enemy seems to be coming much faster than I can build units to hunker down with. Some help is greatly appreciated so I can finally win this mission and move onto the next one.
Defense of Larab Harbor?
Yeah, that one is a 'gotcha' mission, each step of the Core assault a perfect storm designed to wipe out or circumvent your previous defenses: initially Shadow bombers, Searcher scouts and Enforcer destroyers, followed by more Enforcers and Missile Frigates, Shark sub-killers w/ an amphibious Croc rush, followed by Snake subs, with the final attack coming from a bomber squadron supported by a fleet of Warlord battleships and Shark sub-killers.
Land defenses alone cannot withstand that. Your navy is key. But you still need land for AA support (Skeeters are less effective at AA than Defender towers or Sampsons). Radar is important for early warning, but so is sonar.
Get your energy economy up and running (always maintain positive net energy income). Solars work ok, but tidal generators are better (and tidal generators spaced close together block amphibious tanks & leave more room on land for towers). The Moho mine supplies a decent amount of metal, but you can augment that using Metal Makers as well if you want (it is good practice to learn how to bootstrap yourself into a metal maker economy for later scenarios, and hotkey MM to easily turn them on/off depending upon your metal/energy needs). Soon you will be able to reclaim wreckage too.
On land all you need is a single Vehicle plant. Build a couple of Construction vehicles and start covering the shoreline with Defenders and Sampsons. A few radar towers and metal makers on land is good too. Don't bother with heavy shore defenses, as building them just screws up your metal economy and your own navy will handle that.
At sea, your commander should be used for ballooning your energy/metal maker economy and/or assisting the shipyard. Let your navy do the rest.
Build order:
Build 1 Construction ships and ~4 Crusaders ASAP for basic defense, followed by more construction ships, then Skeeters and finally subs. Put up some sonar and reclaim any sunken metal and/or repair damaged ships. Keeping up in metal is key: you can build new ships often faster than repair damaged ones. A single torpedo launcher defending each entrance to the harbor (backed up by your navy) is enough. After that, all you need to win this scenario are to maintain a functional navy of about 6 destroyers, 6 subs, 4 skeeters, and 3 construction ships (2 for repairing/building and 1 to reclaim metal). The Ranger missile ship you start with is pretty much useless for this scenario and should be reclaimed for its metal.
Vectoring the right ship(s) towards the right enemy is how you win. Sonar is important to know when an attack is imminent & Skeeters to scout out what it is so you know how to respond:
- Destroyers & Skeeters vs Missile frigates (you'll need to exit the harbor and chase them in the open sea to kill them)
- Destroyers & Subs vs Enforcers (these often come into the harbor, so you can gank them with your entire fleet)
- Destroyers vs Snakes (if you are unprepared, they can overwhelm a damaged navy)
- Subs vs Warlords (at ~24 min a bunch of battleships will converge on the island at the harbor entrance, you'll need to exit the harbor to kill them)
- Destroyers & Torp Launcher vs Sharks (these prowl around and will sneak into the harbor looking to kill your own sub fleet)
- Subs & Torpedo Launcher vs Crocs (and Destroyers to kill any that actually reach land).
After each attack wave, replace/repair any losses as quickly as possible. Each thwarted enemy attack will strengthen your navy, as you reclaim more and more metal.
At some point, you'll probably have enough ships to safely exit the harbor to preemptively search out the enemy. Use forward placed sonar to quickly locate them. Never send out your own subs out of the harbor alone except vs Warlords. Your own destroyers OTOH on the open sea are pretty survivable, as they are fast enough to be able to escape if they get in trouble. Just don't leave the harbor completely undefended.
Hope this helps.
