Mars. The Greek god of war and the blood red planet. There couldn't have been a more appropiate place for uncovering the origins of this... material that we fabricated into such amazing weapons.
When we left in some ways we knew more, and in some we knew less. But we sure did further the legacy of Mars. - Jason "Grizzly One" Bates

While Grizzly One is actually wrong about Mars (It's the Roman god of war, not greek) he wasn't wrong about it's legacy.
In this mission we will experience for the first time, full combat. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

You begin with General Collins explaining to you how this is the most important mission ever (Oh, you're sooo naive...) and that after forcing you out of the Moon, the soviets established a base on the surface and are well fortified.
They detected your landing so they have scout units searching for you and your forces, so you must establish your own base before they control the planet.

Your starting forces consist of a Recycler (An actual Recycler, not the training one you got on the previous mission) and a new production unit, the Factory.
While your Recycler is the cornerstone of any army, most of your offensive units will be produced at the Factory.
You have three starting locations with geysers to place your garrison: North-East, North-West and South-West.
You can choose any of these, but consider this - North-West has more scrap nearby (Faster production), North-East has fewer entrances (Easier defense) and South-West is closer to your next objective (faster mission time).
As I said previously, all of these are viable, but I always choose South-West. Geyser location has no significant importance.


Deploy your forces and build 3 scavs and a tank at the factory. You will be raided by two CCA Fighters, which you can easily destroy with your companion.
After that, you'll have to fend off more and more attack waves, but don't worry, they're not hard. Just keep pumping scavs and tanks (you can also get a few turrets to defend your base if you want.)

After a few failed attempts by the CCA to overtake your base, you'll be informed by Corporal Buzz about an object that SkyEye (your satellite) picked up on the surface of the planet nearby to the south, along with a fighter escort party keeping an eye on it. DO NOT INVESTIGATE BEFORE CORPORAL BUZZ TELLS YOU TO: This will TRIPLE the escorting units.

You have aproximately 2-3 minutes to investigate it. It's an alien relic, and General Collins is pretty clear: whatever that thing is, HE WANTS IT. By now you should have between 6 and 10 tanks/light tanks and a few turrets. Keep the turrets defending the Recycler with half of your offensive units, and take the other half to claim the relic. Before you go to the nav beacon, it's recommended you build a Tug at the Factory. You should encounter some resistance, but the puny CCA squad is no match for your tank battalion.


Now that the relic site is secure, order the Tug to pick up the relic and your offensive units to protect said Tug.

"Commander, this is hauler tug 1. We got the cargo!"




Now the race is on: you have to bring back the relic safely to your own base. The best way to do this is to order the Tug to Recycle (It's the most direct way to get him near the Recycler) and your offensive units to protect it. If you're too slow or lose all your units, the CCA will send their own Tug to take it, and if it reaches their base, you lose. Meanwhile you also have to take care of your own base because the CCA will send more and more attack waves after your production units.

Once the conga line / escort party reaches your Recycler, you won. Enjoy the peace while it lasts, because now the game becomes harder and harder each mission...

While the mission is pretty straight forward and an easy transition from defense missions to offensive ones, here's a few fun things that you can check out:

- General Collins informs you of a CCA base and advises against attacking it. You can totally disregard his orders and destroy their Recycler, crippling their attack waves, turret placement near scrap fields and mainly their tug. He takes it light-heartedly, but also warns you that if you disobey him again- well, you can imagine.

- Bored of waiting for your tug? Don't have the scrap to build one? Just snipe the CCA one, and drive it yourself! Just be careful, you will have to rely 100% on your units to cover you.

- As I said previously: If you want a challenge, you can just rush to the crater to find around 8 Fighter units instead of 2.

- On the minimap, to the upper right, you can find the "Face of Mars"[en.wikipedia.org]. While it's not relevant to the mission, it's still a cool detail, isn't it?