Enemy Intelligence

Enemy Intelligence is the third and final msision in the first mission pack of the Nova Covert Ops campaign.

Background
"I am not the man my father was. I wish to serve a greater good. I think we have that much in common."

- Emperor Valerian Mengsk

With the Dominion forces evacuated from Borea, Nova met with Emperor Valerian Mengsk, who offered her his ship, the Griffin and his Covert Ops Crew in exchange for her loyalty. She accepted, and Valerian brought in her new weapons and technology specialist, Reigel. He attempted to use a device to stimulate her neural inhibitor to help her regain the memories she had lost, which gave her memories of Tarsonis City after it had been destroyed by the zerg. Nova and her squad then mobilized to infiltrate the Defenders of Man base on the planet.

Mission
"Some will die so others can live."

- Defenders of Man Technician

Nova and her Special Ops forces arrived on the planet, and swiftly attempted to garrison the structures surrounding their landing site. However, their appearance attracted the attention of the feral zerg nearby, and they were attacked. Nova's forces were able to repel the zerg long enough to secure the surrounding structures. During the battle, a Defenders of Man prisoner transport carrying members of Prometheus Company and Field Response Theta crashed nearby.

With the surface secure, Nova descended into the Defender of Man's base. She discovered a monofilament blade in their armory, and tested it against the Defenders' guards. She entered the coms room, and discovered her presence was noted. The technician in charge received orders, which he considered to be extreme, but moved to carry out. Nova continued in the facility, and discovered they had begun to evacuate, and had activated a psi emitter. Feral zerg began to pour into the facility, attacking the remaining Defenders of Man and Nova alike. Nova still managed to slip past the Defenders of Man, and made it into their command room. There she discovered the Defenders of Man were planting psi emitters on planets to attract zerg to them, with the intent of discrediting Emperor Valerian. She stated that they had to be stopped

Walkthrough
The first section of the mission is largely about creating a solid defense while pushing out to secure the garrisons. There are three approaches to the player's base, and unless going for achievements, the primary focus at the beginning of the game should be establishing a series of bunkers and siege tanks to ward off attacks. They will initially only attack from the north, but will quickly also push from the east then the west. Bunkers and siege tanks should be established before this happens. Jump jet upgrade siege tanks will be useful here, as they can stay on the high ground for the initial attacks and not be damaged.

In later stages and on harder difficulties, the enemy will send guardians against the player. These should be taken out using either marines or Nova, as her snipe can one shot them. While super stimpack is helpful, giving marines the range upgrade is more helpful should the player be having trouble with guardians, as it will allow bunkers to more easily hit them.

Nova's loadout for the first stage should be the sniper rifle, stealth and range upgrade, as she can then outrage the sunken colonies, sniper guardians and overseers, and pick off key targets. This will be helpful as Nova will be the primary means of which the player pushes out. In addition, ghost academies can auto-build nukes, so building 2-3 will allow the player to have multiple nukes ready to clear out garrisons. If patient, Nova can clear most of the map on her own while the majority of the army can be used to defend the core base.

The second phase involves using Nova with a monofilament blade. She can use a dash attack to go through groups of enemies, but this will still trigger their sight range if it's passed through. The player's loadout will be automatically switched to stun grenades, which will turn off the sight range of ghost when it's used on them. In addition, unlike The Escape, gun turrets in this section can be destroyed.

In the later stages of the second section, the zerg will appear. Kill units outside of the sight range of the ghosts, and use stun grenades to prevent units from firing or repairing as the zerg push through them.