Mystery Troops

"I think those people attacked us with some kind of portable LASER! This is quite surprising. The only laser I know of is in Tragan University in Cariston. It was used to teach the more prodigal students the values of lateral thinking. And to scare undergrads. I never imagined it was possible to create a weapon out of it! The one I saw weighed a ton and required more power than entire factories. If it can be made portable...!"

- Floyd

Overview
The Mystery Troops are a neutral faction that engage the player's forces briefly in the Northern Frontier. They carry weapons that penetrate armor with ease. Coupled with the fact that they have -type attacks, players are cautioned when deploying tanks as their front-line defense.

It is later revealed that they are Installation 17 scientists sent to look for various resources.

History
The Mystery Troops are first encountered in the Level 41 missions "Mystery Troops 2" and "Mystery Troops 3", where a group of Laser Technicians and Laser Jeeps engage the player's forces. Perkins and Floyd are present to witness the conflicts. After finishing the hidden mission "Mystery Troops 3", Perkins finds that the enemy weapons had melted his boot, the only evidence that what he and Floyd had seen was not just a hallucination caused by the heat of the desert. They bring news of their encounter to Lt. Morgan and Sgt. Ramsey, who have mixed feelings about the topic, the latter more aware of the threats of a hostile, advanced people.

Intrigued by the sheer advancement of the weapons and their armor-piercing capabilities, Floyd executes a plan to steal one of the laser weapons from the Mystery Troops in the Level 43 mission "Gun Envy". After Sgt. Ramsey steals the weapon from a small Mystery Troop platoon, Floyd eventually finds a way to operate it, however, it malfunctions and the player is forced to destroy it. Because this leads to a dead end, there is no further mention of the Mystery Toops in the story until the Level 48 mission "First Contact".

Players later find out, beginning with the mission "First Contact", that the Mystery Troops are actually Installation 17 scientists, a research branch of The Empire tasked to design laser weaponry. Aurora, one of the two head administrators of Installation 17, goes to the player's Outpost personally and requests numerous goods and resources, like Iron, Concrete, and Lumber (needed to keep Installation 17 running) after hearing of the Outpost's assistance to the Frontier towns who are suffering from raids by the Silver Wolves.

See More:

 * Aurora
 * Chuck
 * Archibald

Enemy Units
Note: In later missions, players are able to use these units in mission battles, however, Laser Jeeps and Tanks do not have immunity to Cold Environment, so players will have to be careful when deploying these units in the Eastern Wastes or outside the interior of Installation 17.