Mission 04 - Point Custer

## 04 - Point Custer

Colburne's forces discover the fate of the 12th Fleet...

## Belligerents

* United Federation

* Unknown Invaders

## Commanders

* Benjamin Colburne

* Unknown Praetor

## Forces

* Light relief force, including Hurricane Fighters and Orca Corvettes.
* Pasteur-class support vessels and Kutuzov Command Ships.
* UFN Trinity.

* Basic Drone vessels, including Spears and Twinblades.
* Automated defenses including Aegises and Pillboxes.

## Objectives

* Reach and relief (or reclaim) Point Custer.
* Recapture the Bifrost Gate.
* Eliminate any hostile alien forces.

* Hold the captured Human facility.

## Casualties and losses

Substantial
Severe

## Involved Characters

* Benjamin Colburne
* Greg Leskovski
* Sterling Buckner *(Briefing only, later presumed KIA)*

*Point Custer* (titled after the Federation Caribou base of the same name) is the fourth mission in Chapter 01 - Hostile Visitors in the Five Nations campaign.

## Setting

On their way to Point Custer following the victory at Bear Rock, Benjamin Colburne had AIDA replay the last transmission from the Federation base, which was Admiral Sterling Buckner signaling the evacuation of the Caribou System, including ordering the 12th Fleet to assist in evacuation efforts and protect, as Buckner's forces stayed and held Point Custer themselves.  AIDA reported there were no communications from Point Custer since then, but identified some unknown signals from within the base, which Colburne concluded it had to belong to the unidentified attackers.  While Greg Leskovski hesitated to investigate, believing Point Custer was indeed overrun, Colburne decided regardless to advance and intervene, hoping to find any survivors.

## Late?  Or Lucky?

As Colburne's forces arrived at the fringe of Point Custer's perimeter, even reactivating a fringe mining facility whose resources were almost all run out, AIDA informed of unknown signals surrounding the Bifrost Gate, the main wormhole generator leading to the Sol System, but the Gate's main power sources were malfunctioning, most likely sabotaged by Buckner's forces in a last ditch attempt to prevent enemy access to Sol before being overrun.  Colburne's forces eventually spread out to look for survivors but could only too few of them, including a stranded Hurricane fighter squadron and some Engineer Shuttles along with an Icarus cargo ship, whom also received the distress call.

Eventually, Colburne's unit did come across a wreckage field of several destroyed Federation vessels, Colburne grimly concluding they belonged to the 12th Fleet.  AIDA identified one of the vessels as the UFN Orion - Admiral Buckner's flagship.  Colburne ordered all units to set up and prepare a counter-offensive to reclaim Point Custer from the unknown invaders.  However, the resources at the fringe mining facility were too few to sustain an offensive, forcing Colburne to salvage and recycle the wreckage of the destroyed vessels, including the Orion.

Eventually, the unknown invaders and Colburne's forces clashed in which, despite being clearly shown the invaders were technologically superior, Colburne's forces prevailed and pushed back towards Point Custer, where the invaders even established what was apparently their manufacturing facility.  Colburne's mustered forces cleared it out and reclaimed the base, eventually starting to repair the generators and reboot the Gate itself, in preparation for their departure to Sol.

## Walkthrough

The player will start with the UFN Trinity a few Hurricanes, some Orcas, a Pasteur, an Icarus and about three Engineer Shuttles.  Right to the left is the base the player is meant to rescue, with only two small metal asteroids (only 500 metal each) to mine, meaning the player, for the moment, can only field a maximum of four Engineer Shuttles.  As the player starts with 150 Helium-3, building the Merchantport is a must to the player, as it allows the construction of not only additional Pasteurs (that are available in this mission) but also the Kutuzov, which deploys into a Command Station, opening up expansions and construction radius for defenses.  In the meantime, the player should send a Hurricane to the southwest of the metal asteroids where they'll encounter a trio of Hurricanes that can and should be rescued.  As the Kutuzov is ready, the player should deploy it as close as possible to the wreckage field to minimize the Icarus' travel distance between the Mining and Command Stations.  When resources allow, a Medical Station should also be built to acquire at least another Pasteur, so both can repair friendly units as well as each other.

Eventually, the Sylons will activate and start sending forces against the player, particularly Twinblades and Absorbers (and Glooms in Hard difficulty), as well as squadrons of Spears to harass the mining lines.  While the dense asteroid field means that the enemy ships can only come from one entrance, to the south, the Spears *can* fly over obstacles, so the player should have a wing of Hurricanes on stand by, and at least one Pasteur ready for repairing the defenders.  The player should focus resources on acquiring upgrades at the Research Center and a few additional Orcas and Pasteurs (particularly with the Plante Battery upgrade, that grants them additional energy capacity) in the meantime.

When the player musters a small strike team, the march to at least the southern entrance to the asteroid field should start, using the Trinity and it's abilities to spearhead the assault.  The player will come across a considerable number of Twinblades, Spears and even some Pillboxes (one behind the cover of Support Centers) that must be dealt with before reaching and reclaiming the mining base (with even a Ship Factory) to the south.  While resource and time-consuming, the player will want to station a second Command Station at this mining base, in order to at least build some KEIKO Sentries at the entrance.  This mining base is also important as it has a substantial amount of Helium-3 in the area, which allows for fielding more Pasteurs and researching upgrades.

The Sylon base to the south is mildly guarded by local Twinblades, Absorbers, Glooms, and Pillboxes (and some Leech Mines in Hard difficulty), but a notorious vulnerability is that both it's Helium-3 and Metal asteroid Fields are directly to the northeastern asteroid field, meaning they are vulnerable to raids from Hurricane fighters and in direct range of the Trinity's Flechette missile ability (though it takes two uses of the spell each to effectively kill the working Labors).  Attacking the workers or the close by the Refineries will draw out the defenders even when the attackers are moved away, so the player should use this to bait the defenders out - especially the Glooms - and pick them off with the main attack force.  As the defenders are taken apart, the player can move into the Sylon base to finish it off.  It's recommended to attack right at the southeastern entrance as it's lightly guarded by a couple of Pillboxes (and Leech Mines in Hard difficulty) and the player should have fielded about 4-6 Pasteurs at this point to assist with repairs.  The northwestern entrance is accessible and only guarded by an Aegis, but it's tight space makes it hard to establish a firing line with the Orcas.

Note that while the Haulers are permanently cloaked and the player can't detect and destroy them, they don't need to be destroyed, either, only the structures across the neutral white Federation base.  When enough Sylon structures are gone, the mission is won.