Carrier Command: Gaea Mission

The knackered karrier

I once sang medium-to-high praises of the 2021 Carrier Command 2, inspired by the Amiga/ST original and released under the resurrected Microprose brand. Back then I also learned there was another Carrier Command reboot, called Carrier Command: Gaea Mission, from 2012. It was released by Bohemia Interactive, perhaps best known from the Arma series.

Gaea Mission has a bad reputation, so I avoided it for a while. Now I saw it at a reasonable price at Steam and got hold of it. 

There's a choice between Campaign and Strategy play formats, I'll concentrate on the Campaign. It looks like the Strategy game would have been more similar to the original, but after doing the Campaign I'm too tired to continue with it.

The Campaign begins with a silly Halo-esque planetfall and FPS-sequence, where you escort Essi the specialist to the abandoned enemy carrier. Compared to much earlier games such as Half-Life 2 and Halo, this sequence both looks basic and plays basic. The characters are clumsy puppet-like figures whose eyes keep wandering. Fortunately these interludes are quite short, but they also tend to appear at key story points.

"Essi, it's getting messy... haha!"

After picking up the carrier, things also pick up. The original Carrier Command paraphernalia is basically all there, but it's all far more automated.

You take the carrier from one island to another, while guiding amphibious Walrus and flying Manta-type vehicles to the command center, neutralizing the island. Winning islands increases your production network, but also adds blueprints for new equipment you can then produce.

Driving around for a while it is obvious the FPS-intro suffers from being shoehorned into a world meant for vehicle scale. Had the story started with the vehicles, the reputation might have been already much better.

As the game advances, more real time strategy elements arrive on the table. You can manage multiple units at one time. Fortunately Gaea Mission is not a Command & Conquer kind of RTS, but something surprisingly close to the 16-bit original.

Different small screens convey parallel things while on the map screen

At the beginning, the game elements are spoonfed in small quantities, and the islands involve more or less storyboarded events. You can still pick routes quite freely, and especially after acquiring the airborne Manta, it's possible to recon the island and shoot critters before invading with the Walruses.

After conquering a few islands in a tutorial spirit, the world begins to open up and you can choose where to go with your carrier, and manage the production and defenses of the different islands.

Some of the islands have different rules, and it may be impossible to invade an isle before acquiring some tech that enables entry. One island even had an absolute ban on airborne units until all air defenses had been neutralized. And I really mean absolute, the Manta will be fried when lifted up to the deck.

Driving the Walrus back to the carrier

The islands are generally attacked in the same way, break down a few sub-centers and then transfer the command center to your side. This repetitiveness is to be expected from a Carrier Command, and those who were misled into thinking this is Halo-meets-RTS, may be disappointed.

There's an abstract "barge" that delivers the goods produced on the islands. The instructor says there may be situations when it's faster to use the carrier to get the goods. This sounds strange as the carrier takes good time between islands in (supposedly) accelerated time, whereas the barge travels great distances rapidly while in real time?

A Walrus muddles through

The interface and transitions between views are very smooth on a 2020s computer, which helps make the experience bearable. Sure, the environments don't look that flashy by today's standards, and there are a bunch of tiny environmental glitches, but it ain't all bad. 

Weather and visibility change dynamically. Despite the storyboarding the islands do feel like simulated environments where tactical alternatives are also possible.

Just as in that newer game, grass and trees appear to be completely impervious to weapon fire. This is a pity, as some of the buildings and other equipment can be brought down.

The island overview from a Manta is one of the more enjoyable things

Considering this game doesn't have to carry the weight of a multi-player mode, one would expect the play to be better thought out. 

As many have pointed out, the AI, especially pathfinding, is not good. The Walrus amphibious vehicles take any excuse to get stuck and have hard time navigating bridges. The solution: Just don't use the AI expect for very obvious routes and the few parallel operations you may need.

However, even this doesn't always help. Often the best approach would be to let the Walruses sit near the enemy base entrance, and concentrate fire on the enemy. However, the non-player controlled Walruses insist on being "clever" and engage the foes. This most often results in the destruction of the Walruses as they waffle about and lose the enemy from their FOV. What could have been an M1 Tank Platoon-esque tactical triumph, is reduced to an uncontrollable, chaotic skirmish.

So far the best approach has been to take just one Manta, approach manually from the outskirts, eradicate opponents with the gun one by one, dock to repair/reload, rinse and repeat. Occasionally the ridiculously maneuverable carrier can be taken to vicinity and the opponents may be blasted with the deck guns.

Sometimes the Manta can be used to observe whether the deck gun bolts hit their targets. If not, adjust a little, fire the gun again and quickly switch to Manta view. Nice.

The carrier interior has quite a lot of detail

When the enemy carrier finally appeared, I got almost instantly blasted to pieces. After reloading I managed to just about survive and limp back to the proximity of the stockpile island.

There are some discrepancies between the narrative and what actually happens in the game, so I'll elaborate:

I got the impression that meeting the enemy carrier and getting bashed was a story event and I wouldn't see it again until at the end of the game. The reality is the carrier attacks you every now and then and you need to have a technique for repelling it. Had I known this I could have avoided the near death scenario.

Uh oh

Just save the game each time the carrier appears. It's necessary to face the enemy carrier so it can be shot repeatedly with the plasma deck gun just as soon as it appears from the fog. The enemy carrier is visible on the map, but only if you zoom out enough. This helps greatly in planning the run.

It might be useful to have your back against the island. If the carrier overtakes your rotation speed, it could still get stuck to the shoreline. This is a good opportunity to shoot at it.

Or you can try to circle around the island and avoid the altercation entirely. Launching mantas and walruses against the carrier is almost certain to get them destroyed, at least until they are sufficiently upgraded.

Back to the drawing board

As far as atmosphere and intriguing situations go, Gaea Mission at least occasionally delivers. The campaign escalates nicely and there will be more gear and weapons to try out.

Apart from the FPS parts, Gaea Mission plays quite well. Just don't be very optimistic about the computer-controlled help.

Some have claimed the program crashes, with Linux/Proton I have not encountered such a thing in my 20 hours of playing. Maybe some Windows environments are prone to crash the game, and the Proton config evades these.

But, near the end there are couple of videos that relate to the game story, and these refused to play. A test-screen like image was shown instead, and there was no dialog. These were quite crucial to the resolution of the "plot", but I'm quite indifferent to the omission. But, just so you know. (The videos are at Youtube, no big problem.)

There's a possible bug where if you repair a command center self-destructed by the enemy, and you save the game and quit, then it may be the island never falls into your hands as you continue the game. The solution is not to save the game until the island has been properly transferred over to you. Huh.

By the way, I hear the Carrier Command 2 has received a number of updates, so there might be some motive in going back to check that game...