TPSC Campaign Walkthrough

Note: If you do not like a strategy, please DO NOT remove the whole text of it, it might be useful for other players. Instead, you can provide an alternate strategy or add some additional notes in an existing strategy.

Another note: The following strategies are obsolete as the new economy system is introduced. Changes will be made once the author has multiple successes with these missions, preferably with three or more players.

Tech Recommendation
I would recommend following this guide by DefilerRulez91 on which armory upgrades and lab researches are great to have. Additional comments are made below.

During the early phase of the campaign playthrough, prioritize on getting Combat Shield and Stabilized Med-Packs first as Marines and Medics are going to be your main army at this phase. These upgrades can improve the survivability of Marines greatly with extra 10 HP on each Marine and faster heal by Medics. After getting these upgrades, focus on getting Stimpack and Concussive Shells next. Stimpack is needed for obvious reason and Concussive Shells slow down a group of units unlike in melee games. The Bunker upgrades can wait since the enemy attack waves are not that dangerous in first few missions, and getting Missile Turret upgrades are not recommended unless the chat is dead set on playing Air version of All In in the beginning.

After The Dig mission is available, prioritize Dual Fusion Welders, Fire Suppression System, Maelstrom Rounds, Shaped Blast, and Orbital Command. The first two upgrades stated can be a life-saver to help all your structures survive longer. Siege Tanks are way too cost-effective on both offense and defense. Bio army and Siege Tanks are the bread and butter army, you can never go wrong with this composition except on some interesting missions. Having one of the anti-air support units (Vikings and Goliaths) fully upgraded is recommended too as the enemy capital ships can be quite scary for Marines.

By: NaturalHomemadeNutella

Zero Hour
This mission is easy but for the achievement "The Best Defense" which the chat needs to destroy 8 Hatcheries. It is advised to just defend a single point by limiting your military operation to the high ground. Salvage the two Bunkers at the bridges with and move your army to the high ground. Build two to three Bunkers at the ramp to sufficiently defend the base. Build more Barracks and remember to build add-ons on them. Keep training Marines and Medics while defending the ramp. Rescue the squad after they are revealed.

Once the third stranded squad has been revealed, it's time to move out all your army except the one inside the Bunkers. First, attack the Hatcheries at the south of the third squad (southwest of the minimap). Maximise the damage output of the army by using !step (eg. !step forward 5) command. Remember to not use offensive stance as all your Marines inside the Bunkers will be so excited to leave the Bunkers unless there's a player with an army who's tasked to defend the ramp.

At this point, do not spam attack command as it will cause your newly trained units to keep moving toward the enemy base, which might get ambushed by Zerg units one by one.

After destroying 3 Hatcheries there, attack-move toward the nearest bridge to regroup with your newly trained units. After that, move toward the enemy's northwestern base to destroy another two Hatcheries. And then finally attack the last 3 Hatcheries by attacking the northeastern base. The success of attacking this base will depend on how many units you have left from the previous assault and how effective you use !step commands to maximise the damage output of the available army.

By: NaturalHomemadeNutella

Safe Haven
Units that are helpful in this mission: Siege Tank (The Dig), helps strengthening base defenses.

This mission can be very difficult as the success will depend on how many units are committed to destroying the 3 Nexi and how well they are positioned before having all colonies getting blasted by the Mothership. Defending should not be a problem as the Protoss will only send a few units toward the base. It's recommended to play this mission after The Dig, the mission where you unlock Siege Tank which can be very helpful to defend the base from ground units.

Usually, the first 2 Nexi can be destroyed easily with only a few Vikings by eliminating any air units around the Nexi and then landing the Vikings on the high ground. The high ground locations are marked on the minimap so this should not be a problem. Be mindful to clear all the air units around the high ground including colossus before landing.

Starting the mission by letting the player who controls the initial Starport to add a reactor. Having 5 Vikings should be enough for destroying the first Nexus. Bio army production should not be neglected as this army will be used to assault the Nexus point at the southwest of the minimap. Every time the Mothership destroyed a colony, it will warp in terror fleet to destroy the colony ship on the next colony. Saving these colony ships are crucial as the civilians will leave some resources cache will be available for the chat to pick up after the ships are saved, which helps chat to build more army and increase the success rate of this mission.

The Mothership will be preparing to blast the first colony at this point. After the timer bar on the Mothership has reached less than 50%, try to cease all the attacks and move the army to the second colony. Two Carriers will be sent toward the second colony and having 6 to 7 Vikings is ideal to defend the second colony, and remember to type !focus massive (!x m) to focus on the carriers.

The assault on the second Nexus should be similar to the first assault with more Vikings. Prepare to fend off the second terror fleet if the Mothership is blasting the second colony halfway through. Expand once the second Nexus and the surrounding units have been destroyed.

At this point, one player should start massing up Vikings at the base to ensure that there's a sizeable force left to destroy the Mothership after destroying the third Nexus. 12 Vikings are enough to destroy the Mothership with the help of Missile Turrets. Remember to !yield some Vikings to the attacking players as the third Nexus is defended by a couple of Carriers.

Keep training more Marines, Medics and Marauders and rally them near the perimeter of third Nexus. The ideal time to attack the third Nexus is when the Mothership is halfway to the fourth colony, any later than that will probably end with a defeat. The Marines will get stormed here and there but with enough Marines, Medics and Vikings, the third Nexus should fall easily.

And now the boss fight, a cheap trick to activate the Vortex ability early is to send 10+ Marines to attack the Mothership first. This will disgust the Mothership for sending a pathetic force to attack it by flushing the Marines into space toilet and warp-in units. These units except the Carriers will attack the main base. Defend the base with Vikings that the chat masses up in base and Marines in Bunkers. Once the reinforcements are gone, it will all end up to how many Vikings and Missile Turrets are left to defend the last colony.

By: NaturalHomemadeNutella

Haven's Fall
Units that are very helpful in this mission: Siege Tank (The Dig), allows chat to defend waves with ease.

A lot of players actually prefer this mission as the counterpart is a timed mission but for me, this is actually a pseudo-timed mission as leaving too many colonies being infested will result in chat getting overran eventually. I will definitely recommend completing The Dig first before Haven's Fall.

A common strategy is to mass Vikings to destroy the infested colonies and prevent the colonies from getting infested while mass up a ground army to attack the enemy bases, In chat, this can be difficult to execute as the initial units assigned can be all over the places. As such, it's recommended to use !yield command. Always add a reactor to the Starport to train more Vikings faster.

To attack an infested colony, ensure that one of the players has enough Vikings first to kill any air units in the vicinity of the infested colony. Once it is done, either attack the colony with the ground army or land all the Vikings, the former is recommended as you can't lift a nearly destroyed Viking with chat commands.

Something worth noting is that once a colony is infested, it won't get infested again after it has been destroyed. So if you get tired of saving the colony over and over again, why not just wait and attack right after it's completely infested.

Do not drag too long to attack an infested colony or the chat will get risked being overrun. It's recommended to attack an infested colony once Horner announces that another colony is being infested.

By: NaturalHomemadeNutella

The Devil's Playground
Units that are very helpful in this mission: Viking (Haven's Fall/Safe Haven), Banshee (Supernova), these units allow players to win the mission without using any brain cells, provided that chat have these units in the first place.

If you have a really huge delay, I would actually not recommend you to join the game at all as this mission can be really annoying for some people (especially when some people actually give up because of SCVs getting barbequed again and again).

The only hard parts in this mission are that players think they should be more economical and there are way too many commands to type in order to move every unit to high ground and lift/land the Command Centers. For the latter, the command to move all the SCVs to high ground is !go b1 +. To lift a Command Center at the low ground, type !lift cc a2 (All low ground mineral patches are marked stating with "a"). To land, you can simply type !land cc a2.

Keep in mind that any army control commands will affect lifted structures and the recently lifted structure will be landed first once the respective command has been issued. I would advise everyone to be patient and calm while playing this mission as any negative emotions can lead to domino effects. Remember to always train units to defend the Command Centers and the SCVs.

Fortunately, the difficulty is on Hard so there's a timer that might be blocked by the TPSC Toolkit. It's recommended to type the commands mentioned above, along with move all your army to the high ground at 30 seconds left before the lava surge. A siren can be heard when there are 30 seconds left. For those with huge delay, it's recommended to keep an eye on chat messages often. If someone types !go b1 + in chat, it's best to do the same and move your army to the high ground too with !m b1.

DO NOT lift the Command Center at the main as you still need a constant income of gas, and it's really risky if all of the Command Centers got fried. Long-distance mining will do the trick. if the chat does not have enough minerals to build another Command Center.

As such, the Command Center that the chat will get at T2 is mainly used to mine the mineral patches. Always have some units to defend it as losing it will drag the game longer, the chat just wants to finish up the mission and get to the next mission as soon as possible. Build another Command Center if you want to end the game quicker, just ensure that both mining Command Centers are defended.

The safest path to mine is mine A2 -> kill everything along the path to A3 (not the Brutalisk but you can try) -> mine A3 -> defend and mine the middle of the map (A1, A4, A5) -> attack e1 -> mine A8 -> attack E2, E3 and E5 -> mine the rest of the mineral patches (A6, A7) -> attack e4

The best economical way to win this mission is to actually build up a sizeable bio army. Zerg attack waves are very annoying to deal with and to stop them permanently, just destroy their bases with around 40 supply armies consist of Marines and Medics. Reapers and Marauders are great additions to the army. Remember to stop training units when the minerals counter reaches 6000 AND the total chat's supply army reaches 80.

Resources pickups can be picked by simply typing !a to allow the units to pick up the nearest resources thingy or use !stance offensive to allow the units to pick up anything within the units' visible range.

By: NaturalHomemadeNutella

Cutthroat
Units that are very helpful in this mission: Siege Tank (The Dig) because they are very cost-efficient units, Ghost/Spectre (Ghost of a Chance/Breakout) for cheesing, Hercules (Third Zerg Research) for yolo doom drop cheese

Not many players have actually completed the contract. All units have to be fully committed to attacking Orlan's bases. Spider mines will be used to defend the base which can be laid by Vultures in defensive stance.

Unlike The Devil's Playground, you really have to be economical in this mission. This can be done easily with decent micro to save units that are nearly dead, but you can't really do that in chat. The trick is how to destroy all Orlan's mining bases as early as possible while not being so dead. The army composition is pretty simple: 8 Marines, 5 Medics, 2 Marauders and enough Vultures to have a bike race. The depots that created mineral crates are marked on the minimap, so don't forget to visit them often.

Start the game by adding a tech lab on the barrack and a reactor on the factory. Train some Medics and Marines before attacking Orlan's bases. Vultures will be given by Mira Han at some points. It's ideal to lay all the mines at the southern approach as the enemy's attacks will begin there. Train some Vultures once the dialogue about the present has started.

Each enemy wave will be sent to attack at a different location: South, South, North, North, South, North

Unlike the other Brutal guides, I would recommend starting the assault on the southeastern base since the third attack from the north can be defended easily once both southern bases have been destroyed in quick succession. Still, don't hesitate to build one or two Bunkers at the northern approach.

You should begin the assault after having 6 Marines and 3 Medics total, along with some Vultures. Tell everyone in the chat that you're gonna attack so that the whole army will be fully committed to the assault. Keep training more units while attacking the southeastern base. Once you have destroyed that base, pick up some resources and immediately attack the southern base.

Again, pick up some resources nearby after destroying the southern base. Regroup at B1 to defend the third attack from the north. Around this time, the chat should have expanded at the southeastern mineral patches and landed the Command Center at the main to the southern mineral patches.

Attack the northern base after the enemy attack. You should now have a huge amount of time to pick up the scraps all around the map after destroying all the three bases and this should be chat's top priority. Make sure the base is defended with Marines in Bunkers while the army is all around the map to pick up the scraps to buy some more time before the main base gets overwhelmed and obliterated. Lift one of the Command Center and land in on the northern minerals patches if necessary.

The rest of the missions should be easy after finishing the contract.

By: NaturalHomemadeNutella

Supernova
Units that are very helpful in this mission: Vikings (Safe Haven/Haven's Fall) for protecting Banshees from air threats, Science Vessels aka SV (Fourth Protoss Research) for free repairs, Goliaths (Welcome to The Jungle) as the anti-air option for ground army

Ah yes, another resource management intensive mission. Ideally, I would recommend to go for Banshee/Vikings/Sci. Vessels air composition if you have access to both SV and Tech Reactors. Otherwise, I would recommend standard bio army with Siege Tanks and Goliaths.

If you guys are not having Automated Refinery, chat will have a lot of difficulties in getting enough gas, as having SCVs mining gases can be risky since minerals patches will be mostly gone and there are still plenty of vespene available inside the refinery. Moreover, people are more likely to just migrate the Command Center after the mineral line has been mined out. Still, without Automated Refinery, I would recommend going for the standard ground army instead as those units cost less gas.

Air Supremacy
For air army, Having 8 Banshees with 2 SVs are enough to take over the first (technically second) Protoss bases in the middle of the minimap. After the first three waves from E5 have been decimated, type !focus detector (!x d) and !a e4 should be enough to wreck havoc but remember to pull back the Banshees to defend against the triple Immortals attack at your newly landed bases in B2.

Once E4 is secured, land all your bases at E4 and build two more Starports, build around 8 Vikings and 6 SVs for air superiority. Ideally you might need Vikings and Banshees in 1:2 ratio, but having more Vikings never hurts, as in the end they will be used as meat shields for Banshees. I wouldn't recommend mining B4 unless you have enough army to split up and defend both bases.

If the army size isn't that good once you have mined out B3 and B5, and the wall of fire is slowly consuming E4, just attack E3 and land all your structures there. Your SCVs might die horribly because there is no safe path there, so get a Medivac or two first to load them up. Get more army until the wall of fire is going to eat away your structures. Lift all the structures and land them at T1 and meanwhile attack-move to the very northeast corner. Attack T1 once the army reach the corner. Use !focus command wisely to ensure that you can destroy the temple.

Otherwise, if your army size is great, attack E2 and secure the last Protoss artifact. Be careful of storm as it can take out stacked Banshees super easily. Move all your structures to E2 and keep building up your army. It's recommended to attack T1 once the wall of fire almost reaches E2.

MMM Army
Super easy to control with automated tanks sieging. Start the game by adding Tech Lab to Factory and Barracks. After that, train two to three Siege Tanks along with Medics, Marines and Marauders. Build two SVs too if they are available. Build a Bunker and man it with Marines at B2 before attacking E4. Once E4 is secured and all structures are landed there, train more units with addition of Goliaths, which specialize in destroying enemy air units. From here now on, attack E2 after dealing with an enemy wave and the rest is pretty straightforward.

By: NaturalHomemadeNutella