Ok, so if you're reading this you've probably been stomped at least once. That's fine, you don't need to apply every single advice in this guide, since most of them are very situational to begin with. I'm also not going to address any features that go beyond the vanilla features of the game. So this guide is for people who wanna beat the map and don't care about the optional fluff I added, however pretty much the same advice can be found in the MemBank-Hints as well.

What we're dealing with

The map is chock-full of things that wanna ruin your day, but merciful as I tend to be, I don't throw all of the things at you at once. There's one consistent thing in this map at all times: You're at a disadvantage. Even if you think you're not. If you delete enemy cores too quickly without updating and maintaining your defense, you gonna get your shit kicked in. So the usual "make 4 Corvuses and slay" strat that works so well in the Serpulo-campaign isn't that applicable here. 

Since you're at a disadvantage at all times, guerilla strats are your best friend. Figure out how much mayhem you can cause only with Zeniths loaded with Blast Compound or Pyratite Flares. Instead of taking an entire base, break its critical infrastructure and move on. You can destroy production, the electric grid, ammo supply, cryo- or other conduits. Don't run with your head against the wall and don't send your units into certain death for no reason. Pretty much every enemy base has some backdoor or achilles heel, that either blows up the entire thing or leaves it starved for resources and non-operative. Once you've built up the defenses to deal with the retaliation waves, you can clean up the cores.

Unit Timer

30 Minutes, 90 Minutes, 3 Hours, 4.5 Hours. Those are the times when a higher tier of unit factory gets enabled. Obviously, the trick is to stay ahead of the curve for as long as possible. So, if the enemy is producing T3 Units, you should have T4 set up already. The production times are pretty generous, and just when the Tetrative Reconstructors are about to kick in, you're probably even dealing with T5-Units from waves anyways. Enemy unit production is one of the bigger early-game threats and you're dealing with constant harassment. 

Short tangent on defense-building

Don't be a sitting duck and let units get needlessly close to your base. Take a quick look at (288, 145), where it looks like there used to be a wall before. That's bait. Put your defenses way outside, where the enemy Ripples and Hails just barely can't touch them. The little Naval defense in (287, 97)?  Also bait, move that stuff to the right as far as you can. But in the long run you want to set up some beefy turrets near the ruins at (230, 206). That'll deal with the Dagger spam and Naval units, but keep in mind that Atraxes can climb through the tiny gaps in the wall nearby!

Also, whenever the next tier of units is expected to start production, you should have tweaked your defenses accordingly. Fortresses in the west? Segments. Velas from the east? Plastanium Walls and Tsunamis. Horizons crashing into your production? Tsunamis or Parallaxes as well. Or a combo of both against Antumbra. Naval Units? Slow them down using cryo or oil. Believe it or not, the water units are not immune to burning. Everything that buys you time is usually more useful than raw firepower and thick walls. Since these need to be maintained a lot.

Threat System

This is probably the feature that broke your neck on your first attempt. Whenever you destroy a red core (not a derelict one) on the main land (not the mothership), the waves skip to the next 10th, which is a guardian-wave. The wave timer also becomes one minute shorter each time. So you start with a 20 minute wave timer at Threat Level 0 and 4 minutes at max, which is wave 160+. After Wave 160 guardians will spawn every wave and the combinations are chaotic and random. You'll have to deal with lots of eclipses, if you let it get that far. In other words, the waves are absolutely nothing to worry about at the beginning of the game. But consider them a sleeping giant you don't wanna wake too early.

Strats to deal with the sudden difficulty spikes: 

Only annex territory when you know how to defend it and what to do with it *before* attacking.  Some bases are insanely valuable both resource- and strategy-wise, others not so much. Just ignore those once you've damaged their infrastructure to the point where it's basically a dead factory. 

It's normal to lose a few cores here and there, especially during the harder guardian waves. It's not the end of the world. So if push comes to shove, make sure all your essential production (don't forget about the copper!) is somewhere safe and not in your forward-base. Also, obviously, keep your Thorium reactors somewhere where they can blow up without deleting your entire base. Because they absolutely will be blown up. Personally, I've made better experiences using Differential Generators, because Pyra production is fairly easy where you start. And once you've taken over the volcano base, you'll have all the energy you'll ever need from Thermal Generators (You can put them on Slag for even more efficiency)

The Gigachad strat is to directly attack the mothership. Once the Acropolis in the center of the mothership is destroyed, wave-spawns are turned off. So that's a viable approach for those rich enough to amass a squadron, that can stay in the heat for long enough to damage anything. After that you can easily clean up all the mainland-cores without any consequences or retaliation.

Spawn Points

One spawn point in the north for most ground units, one in the west, mainly for the Risso-family and one in the east, mainly for Retusa etc (the green boats). Flying units can and will spawn at either of these three, very rarely enemies might spawn near cores, but that's nothing to worry about. All of those are pretty difficult to get control over and hold, since the threat-level is actively working against you and you need to conquer a lot of territory to keep them in check from close by. Naval units will not win you the game, for they can't reach the mothership, but they're invaluable for your long-term survival. If you control the large river, even if it's just the beach north of your first core, you're at a huge advantage. You can claim the derelict base southwest of your starting base and use it as a secret naval factory behind your main defense.

Custom Unit Logic

I've made sure units are more evil without resorting to the unfinished RTS-AI. You'll notice most air-units either carrying items or even payload. Polys will camp near cores and seek out damaged buildings to repair, instead of throwing themselves into your turrets. If too many accumulate, they might significantly slow down your offense, since they might be able to outheal your damage.  

Build your walls as close to the water as possible, so Quads and Megas can't drop their explosive payload in front of them. Brydes that are parked in certain places can ease the pressure from flying Velas and Quasars without having to build any turrets that need babysitting all the time. Speaking of, once Aegires' are on the field, you might want to have a layer of plastanium walls in front of your turrets, because otherwise they will fry your ammo supply with their zaps. Wait, that's not custom logic? Oh yeah. So this unit-logic  does not run on world-processors, which means you can target the processors *cough* northeast *cough* and dumb down the units again. That's also the only reliable way of getting rid of the Polys, since other units usually aren't fast enough to hunt them down, before they retreat to the next repair point. They may also lure you into some evil turret-spam, so never target them directly. 

It's not all doom and gloom, though. Since I'm very bad at programming, the logic is buggy as hell. Polys will keep healing burning cores, or neoplasm-infested waterpumps, locking them into place forever. Quasars sometimes don't know when and where to land, so they might just chill on top of your core doing nothing, until you end their misery. Flares, that aren't carrying any pyratite might just suddenly turn around midway through an attack, once pyra becomes available again. It's a mess but it's my mess and I love it.

How to not end up in Overdrive-hell

So once the Planetary Accelerator is filled with its four items in order to activate, all enemy units on the field will have the Overdrive status for as long as it's active. That means higher speed, higher damage, a little bit of passive healing and only 5% less max health. In other words: PAIN! The Accelerator itself will only be even reachable by you once you've got omuras or corvuses, which might take a long time. So your most important goal is to stop the Accelerator from getting items. 

The easiest and most realistic target for that is the copper supply slightly south of the Accelerator. You can fight your way up there using Fortresses and then start a suicide mission with Blast-Zeniths or even Pyra-Flares. All you gotta do is to cut the two conveyors, that move the copper to the two mass-drivers. Nothing more. In order to increase your odds, you should find a way to take out the Meltdown and maybe some nearby Parallaxes. Both can be reached from the other side of the river using Fortresses. It might be a little annoying to outdamage the Segments and Menders, but that's your best shot at having a wayyy easier time in the long run. 

Oh yeah and the time is running. The Accelerator will be done at around 60 Minutes (probably less, didn't check) of ingame time, so about halfway through the T2-Phase. Which means, after 30 Minutes you should have enough Thorium to build Multiplicative Reconstructors and obviously enough resources to build your units. You should also have ditched your Shard for a Foundation, otherwise you won't be able to amass the force necessary to break through to the copper drills. If you're not fast enough to pull it off, look into build orders.

Some more strategic suggestions

• All bases with thick, impenetrable defenses have a backdoor, that's easier to kick in.
• The main Silicon production is near the volcano in the west
• The main electricity in the eastern base, where the Nova family is produced. That base also supplies the mothership with blast compound for its Impact reactors. 
• Nothing can withstand Foreshadows, so it's better to overwhelm them quickly or cut their energy supply.
• In fact, most of the time critical targets (such as the Accelerator in the center) are better protected than their supply chain.
• For instance, the very chonky units need lots of cryofluid in order to be produced. So if you're not able to directly destroy the T4/5 factories, you can render them useless by targeting the cryo-production instead. You can even rid the enemy of their Metaglass and watch them spam T2-units at you in the lategame.
• Only expand when you can afford and maintain it. Your territory means nothing when it's unused or unprotected. The first things to force you out of your starting base will be Titanium and Thorium.
• The spacebar is your friend
• So is Oscar