The Unofficial C&C Strategy FAQ - Part 6 Release v7.0 Last Updated: April 19, 1996 20:44 BST Written by: Roger Wong roger@powhq.nildram.co.uk http://kublai.pacificrim.net/~solaris Continued from Issue 56 [2-4] Special Units =================== [2-4-1] Airstrikes ---------------------- Reload: 12 minutes. Weapon: multiple napalm bombs Level: Tech ?; GDI 5 Andrew Griffin (buggy@adam.com.au) Available for GDI forces after all SAM sites are taken out. Slow recharge rates means you won't be using it too many times a mission. Phil Lochner (decker@megaweb.com) If the enemy rebuilds the SAM sites, the Air Strike option is still available. It recharges faster than the Ion Cannon, but it takes time for the aircraft to reach their target, so timing assaults with Air Strikes is important. Depending on the mission, one or two A-10s will zip down and drop fire bombs around the target area. These bombs can do mass damage to enemy troop stockpiles, destroy buildings, level Tiberium fields, or harass the Construction Yard. Coordinate the strikes with other attacks for maximum effectiveness, but try not to rely on Air Strikes to take down SAM sites, Obelisks, or Gun Turrets. I usually use them to clear out the twenty or thirty soldiers which meander around the Hand of Nod.. Tucson Luke Loh (tlloh@zip.com.au) Airstrikes are available in Multiplayer Missions. They come in crates. see also [5-3-8], AIRSTRIKES *2-4-2* Nuclear strike -------------------------- Reload: 20 minutes Weapon: nuclear warhead Level: Tech 7; Nod 13 see also [5-3-1] NUKES Single player nukes are two to three times more destructive than multiplayer nukes. Andre Pang (ozone@zip.com.au) Feeling nasty? Directly target the weapons factory. It'll take it out in one hit, and seriously damage all other buildings around it. Or, if your opponent has only one deposit of tiberium next to his base, nuke the tiberium and watch his eyes widen. Otherwise, if you see lots of full silos, nuke there. $3000+ down the tubes. Lars Pedersen (lk2648@mail.krull.dk) To do the most damage, direct your nuclear strike to the base of the building you are attacking. The center of the building is where the sand stops and the building begins. David Brandt (dbrandt@origin.ea.com) In team play, have your teammate lay a nuke at the same time and place as when you lay one. Will take out anything in a huge area. Ian (nstn1738@fox.nstn.ca) Just like a real small-yield nuke, buildings are relatively big, unprotected targets and get vaporized. Armored units, because they are low to the ground, airtight, made of metal, and very heavily protected, are much less vulnerable to radiation/heat effects. [2-4-3] Ion Cannon --------------------- Reload: 15 minutes Weapon: ion cannon Level: Tech 7; GDI 14 Phil Sykes (phil@sykic.demon.co.uk) GDI's special 14 & 15 + tech level 7 weapon: Advanced comm. center (2800 - need comm. center) is used to recharge it. It stops recharging if you are low on power! The weapon will destroy from full health: Five troops Light tank Flame tank Gun turret Obelisk tower (VERY useful) Stealth tank Tiberium silo Wall (WASTE!) One patch of tiberium. Terrence (tantoli@iscs.nus.sg) When a SAM site is out of its protective shell and firing at an aircraft, a single hit will take it out at full health. Also can take out both a Flame tank and an artillery unit side by side at full health by targeting the Flame tank. The secondary explosion from the flame tank will finish off the artillery unit. Targeting a group of troops with a flame thrower will result in further damage to the group. Again, due to secondary explosions from the flame thrower. Lee Yu Tang (ytlee@pl.jaring.my) When compared to NOD's nuke attacks, GDI's most powerful weapon the Ion Cannon may seem pretty weak in many people's eyes. It needs more than one shot to take out some of the units and buildings with heavy armor. There are 2 buildings that for certain will fall prey to one blast of the Ion Cannon which are the Obelisk of Light and the Power Plant. ---------------------------------------------------- Chapter [3] Important information not in the manual ---------------------------------------------------- There is important information missing from the manual! *3-1* What are the keys? ---------------------------- G : Guard Area This will cause a selected group of units to go into guard mode. In this mode, units will scan with binoculars for enemy units, and move to attack any that come within their sighting range. X : Scatter Units This causes a selected group of units to scatter. Useful when infantry is under attack by tank treads and incendiary missiles S : Stop Unit Causes a unit to stop dead in its tracks. Very useful when one of your units is braindead and begins to wander nonchalantly into the guns of the enemy base. F7-F10 : Map Bookmark System Use CTRL+F7-F10 to mark a spot on your map, then use F7-F10 to jump to that spot at any time. -# : Team Creation Mark a group of units as a team using either using your mouse button and shift key or the bounding box. Then use CTRL and a number key (0-9) to assigned the selected units as a team. 0-9 : Team Selection This selects a team as active. TAB: Open/Close Sidebar Opens and closes the sidebar. Use it when you need to see more tactical map. H : Home unit Selects your construction yard, and centers the tactical map around it. N : Next unit This is almost a useless command. It runs through the internal lists of units, selects the next one, and centers the tactical view around it. R : Resign I bet you didn't know that all your units carry suicide demolitions. Hit 'R' and find out. In a multiplayer game, your civilians and technicians actually do a large amount of damage when you resign. Position them by the enemy before resigning, and maybe you'll take a few of them with you. : Homing This will center the tactical view around the currently selected unit or building. -# : View team Centers the tactical view over a predefined team. Multiplayer Options ------------------- A : Alliance Select an enemy unit and press 'A'. From that point on, your troops will treat that enemy as a friend and not target them. This only works one way. The other side is still welcome to blow you to smithereens, so they must also ally with you to complete the team effort. Allying with an enemy is also useful when you want a deep strike operation into the heart of the enemy base, but don't want your units to slow down and fight. Such operations might include recon or engineer infiltration. Pressing 'A' for a second time will negate the previous ally command. Cursor Modifiers ---------------- Bill Elliot (belliot@ftw.mot.com) SHIFT : Select Additional Units Holding down the shift key will let you select additional units to a group of selected units. For examples, to select your six advanced guard towers to fire on the four flame tanks approaching, SHIFT - click click click click click click. Bingo, six selected towers ready for orders. CTRL : Force Attack Holding down the CTRL key will turn your movement cursor into the target crosshair. This lets you target friendly units, trees, and empty squares. ALT : Force Move Holding down the ALT key will turn your movement cursor into a movement only cursor. Subsequently moved units will move instead of attack. This is how you get your tanks to squish enemy infantry instead of blowing craters around them. CTRL+ALT : Guard Area or Unit Holding down CTRL+ALT turns your cursor into a defend cursor. Selected units will patrol around a building or unit and protect it from attack. [3-2] What is that colored bar? ----------------------------------- The colored bar represents the current power output. The blue marker represents the current power usage. When you use more power than available, your base experiences blackouts and brownouts. A green bar represents a surplus of power. A yellow bar represents a brownout A red bar represents a serious blackout. Facilities that totally shutdown during power outages are Obelisks of Light, Advanced Guard Towers, Communication Centers, Advanced Communication Centers, Temple of Nod. During blackouts and brownouts, other buildings serve at a diminished capacity. It will take longer to produce a unit, and so forth. A brownout seems to cause production to drop to 50% of normal. A blackout seems to cause production to drop to 10% of normal. Mr. P / Powersource The power scale is logarithmic, not linear. [3-3] What is a blossom tree? --------------------------------- Scott King (sking@one.net) They serve as replenishing centers for tiberium. After you harvest all of the tiberium from around a tree, it will grow back around it. Whenever the blossom tree releases spores, it damages any units directly next to it. [3-4] How do I view the radar? ------------------------------------------------- Vance Hampton (VHAMPTON@ti.com) There are two different radar maps, one long range and one short, and you can cycle through them by clicking the Map button -- provided, of course, that you have a communications center. [3-5] How do I suspend or cancel build commands? ---------------------------------------------------- You can suspend or cancel build commands by clicking with your primary mouse button on the unit icon that is currently being built. This will turn the unit icon gray to signify that the building has been put on hold. From this stage, clicking with your primary button will resume building, and clicking with your secondary button will cancel the build order. *3-6* How do I manage multiple barracks? ------------------------------------------- Stuart Loh (stuloh@acay.com.au) If you build more than one Hand of Nod or barracks, or more than one weapons factory or airstrip, you can double click on one to select the primary building. Troops and vehicles will arrive out of this building. If you are NOD and capture GDI barracks, GDI only units will come from the barracks. Common units such as bazookas and minigunners will come out of your primary building. The same applies to airfields and weapons factories. *3-7* Can I run over walls with mammoth tanks? ------------------------------------------------- Contrary to what the manual and the cutscene videos imply, it is not possible to drive over walls with a mammoth tank or any other unit. @~To be continued in Issue 58 where we'll have some tricks and @~tips.