SC2 Campaign: How do you get all the upgrades and missions?

[IskatuMesk]

nou

[Xelxiuz]

You could always just float a gigantic air force over the areas where the hybrids can't reach you and bone the hell out of whatever comes your way.

[Cliff747]

I know now that the research or money bug works. And as Xenon says it's based on the total number of excess samples you have sold. So if you start too early you don't get as much money. If you start when it's first avable you only get 180K but if you have completed 23 missions you get 250K.

On a side note it will be years before I get all the achivements if ever. As soon as the game speed reaches FAST I lose. I just spamed the Dominion Roundup achivement but lost the game because I consuntrated on getting all the Drop Pods and lost my base.

[Maglok]

Shot a way through hard so far, just stuck on the achievement in the Odin mission with shooting 5 bases and keeping him healed to 30% at least.

[Cliff747]

Where's the fun!! I know you guys are used to playing at faster speed but I'm not.
Even the simplist missions are no fun if you have to work so hard just to get the achivement.
I just played 'Outlaws' at Hard and finally won at 9:58. I've never been good under the clock so it was not much fun.
Here's hoping other missions are better without the pressure of the clock.

[IskatuMesk]

Shot a way through hard so far, just stuck on the achievement in the Odin mission with shooting 5 bases and keeping him healed to 30% at least.

I don't usually bother with achievements but here's a few tips;

Attack pre-emptively. Preferably with tanks. On Brutal I was having a lot of trouble with the northern base just outright killing him because he'd charge up the ramp like some gun-ho Amerikan-- oh wait.

So I'd pull out all the Wraiths I had (around 6-8) and cloaksy them and snipe any raves I saw then pester sieged shit, while pushing the ramp with ~6 tanks and 1-2 Diamondbacks (all I could afford, I was making a CC at the recently cleared expansion up there and then TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT IT FFF), which was sufficient to lure out most of the dudes in the front and kill them all.

I had invested in Merc Vikings and such for specific instances such as this where I just needed the guns right here right now. I also had science vessels which I kept next to the Odin where ever he went, but they run out of mana very fast so also needed scvs.

The base after that with that freaking BC beside it and the planetary fortress killed everything I had in all of my attempts but eventually pushed through. I played pretty badly this mission and often ended up floating 1k minerals because I was micro-ing my tanks and shit to keep them alive.

That base is tough. The planetary fortress and merc tanks are your big threats - I pre-pushed with tanks to get rid of that guy on the ledge and put some deeps on the PF. Once the PF is down that's good to go. Mesohorner warns you about BC's in the next base but there's only like 2-3 of them and they don't aggro at once - easy compared to the other bases. My vikings easily took care of those.

It's tough but I can see it being doable. Now the Loki, I gave him one poke, lost half of my guys, never touched him again.

Where's the fun!! I know you guys are used to playing at faster speed but I'm not.

Honestly the game's no fun at slower speeds. The challenges default to normal and I can't change it, and dear God it's a slideshow. I'm just sitting... waiting for something to happen... :\

[Xenon]

I have it on "slower" most of the time. What idiot decided to remove the gamespeed hotkeys?!

I'm also having trouble getting the 8 hours achievement. I totaled my mission times and they're 6.5 hours; do you have to do all of them?

[Maglok]

No you just have to finish the campaign, you can get away with 19/29.

@Mesk: I get in trouble after and during base 3. I did throw science vessels at the problem, but the energy sucks. Still gonna retry again mabye tonight.

[Mr.]

I have it on "slower" most of the time. What idiot decided to remove the gamespeed hotkeys?!

I'm also having trouble getting the 8 hours achievement. I totaled my mission times and they're 6.5 hours; do you have to do all of them?

Yeah, I was pretty annoyed about the gamespeed hotkeys, especially when it randomly decides to set it to whatever.

Anyway, to get the eight hours achievement, you need to actually start a new campaign, play it on normal (or hard or brutal, I imagine), and finish it with eight hours mission time. So I'm not sure, based on what you said, but if you're trying to take an existing playthrough, and replay each map to cut down the time, I don't THINK that would work.

When I did it, I didn't finish all of them. So if you started from the beginning, and beat it in 6:30, on Normal, then I have NO IDEA why you wouldn't get it.

On that note, I've heard of a Feat of Strength you can get called "Hot Shot," for qualifying for a league with an undefeated record. Except, I actually did that for 1v1, and I got no such achievement.

Also, if you want to get the "Outmatched" Achievements, all you have to do is spam reapers and confuse the hell out of the AI. That's all I did, and it worked fine for me for 2v2 Insane, and 4v4 Very Hard.

@Mesk: I get in trouble after and during base 3. I did throw science vessels at the problem, but the energy sucks. Still gonna retry again mabye tonight.

What I did on that level (and most levels) was spam vikings and banshees. You get powerful anti-air, and powerful anti-ground, both of which are flying. Especially if you've upgraded them in the Armory. Also, having SCVs that repair twice as fast helps, too. Back them up with some science vessels, heal your dudes, and heal Tychus, too. They'll probably run out of energy but hey, every little bit. (Also, regenerating metal kicks ass)

[Xenon]

When I did it, I didn't finish all of them. So if you started from the beginning, and beat it in 6:30, on Normal, then I have NO IDEA why you wouldn't get it.

I did farm a bit for the research bug, not sure if that and the time in the Hyperion counts. Much worse for me would be if it totals real time since I often use the slower speed...

Of course, the units you have available depend on the mission order. I tried to consider this in my latest playthrough.

[Mr.]

It probably does count time spent replaying a mission, but I don't think it counts time in the Hyperion.

I'm not sure about game speed. It might be real time, I'm not really sure, and I have no idea how to find out.

As for the order... When I did it, I skipped the Tosh and Horner missions entirely (or as much as I could), because I never ended up using reapers, goliaths, ghosts, wraiths, thors, or diamondbacks. But I played the Colonist missions so that I could get the Vikings, and did all but the last Zeratul mission to get the research points, for things like the tech reactor. And you get marauders, medivacs, siege tanks and banshees playing the artifact missions. What more do you need?

[RazorclawX]

Basically if you do it right you won't have Vikings, Thors, or Ghosts/Spectres. Not unless you can do their missions very quickly (and I usually don't)

[Mr.]

You can't just play straight through the artifact missions, so you HAVE to do some side missions. It's really just choosing which units you want to have. For me, it was vikings.

[Krazy]

So apparently, if you beat the game on normal, and then go back and replay some missions on hard, and then restart a new campaign, it doesn't register your previous campaign's completion for the "beat all missions on x difficulty" thing.

I think the secret mission is an issue here. I didn't get the "beat all missions on normal" because I didn't unlock the secret mission. This secret mission is seriously going to screw up my achievement getting :/

[Mr.]

Can't you go back and unlock the secret mission after beating it the first time?