The old door knob to my room door didn’t have a keyed entry, and I wanted to have a keyed entry to my door so that I can lock my room while I’m away. The door is the standard 1 3/8 inch thick and the door knob had the standard 2 3/8 inch back set, so all I had to do was go out and buy a regular keyed entry door knob for replacement. I just went to Wal-Mart and bought the least expensive one there is since I didn’t really care how it looks as long as it works.

The tools I needed for the process were two Phillips screwdrivers, one of them being very thin and the other being medium sized. Removing the old door knob was a little bit tricky since it had no visible screws, but after doing a bit or research I found instructions on how to replace these knobs. To remove the door knob, you first have to find a little slot on the stem on the interior side of the knob. Once the slot is located, use a thin object (I used a small screw driver) to push into the slot and pull on the interior knob at the same time. The interior knob will come off as shown in the photos below.

To remove the interior knob, use a thin object (a small screwdriver) to push into the slot on the stem.

The old door knob with the interior knob removed.

The next step was to remove the rose cover (the round part that’s flush against the door on the interior). For the knob I was replacing, I just had to use a small screw driver to pry it loose because the cover was just clipped on with some wires on the inside. Removing the rose cover reveals two screws and the rose insert, and it’s pretty straight forward after that. After removing the screws, I pulled the door knob out from the exterior side and the rose insert fell out from the interior side. The knob is a bit different than the more (presumably) modern designs that I’ve seen before, but it worked regardless. With the door knob removed, I removed the latch and the door was ready for the new door knob.

The rose cover to the knob I'm replacing can be pried off with a screwdriver.

The old door knob after the rose cover was removed.

The door with the old knob removed. Only the old latch remains.

Parts of the old knob from top to bottom: the exterior knob, the rose cover with the screws, and the interior knob. I forgot to put the rose insert in the picture.

The latch can be taken out by removing the two screws.

Installing the new door knob was a simpler process as it didn’t have a rose cover or slot on the stem. I just put the latch in, connect the interior and exterior knobs through the latch and put two screws in from the interior side. The new knob fit so well that I didn’t even have to replace the striker plate. After testing out the locking mechanism and the keys, the job was done. Here is a photo of the new door knob.

The new knob, with the latch and exterior portion installed.

The new knob, installed and working.

As I’ve said in the beginning, I’m far from handy, so it just goes to show that a bit of research helps a long way for these kind of things. As I’m living away from home, I’ll probably have to fix various things from time to time, and I’ll probably have to learn on the job just like this time. Thanks for reading.

A few months ago, the 5 year old 17 inch Norcent LCD in my home started acting strangely. Pushing the power button will cause the monitor to light up for a split second then it’ll go dim. In the first few days, the monitor will eventually stay lit after turning it on or off many times and it would work for the day, but we had repeat the process the next day and things progressively got worse. I did some research online, and in particular I found this very handy article. The symptoms or my monitor are consistent with a back light problem, and this seems to be common problem with LCD monitors. I confirmed the problem by shining a light onto the monitor after it went dark. The monitor was displaying the signal, but there was no back light. The cause of the problem can be a faulty back light bulb or inverter board, and if it’s the inverter board the likely cause is bad capacitor(s). Given that our LCD was 5 years old and made by a bottom-tier manufacturer, I wouldn’t be surprised if the problem was just some bad capacitors so I decided to try and repair the monitor. After all, I am an electrical engineering student, and although electronics is not my specialty, I have soldered before and this sounded like an easy repair. My family bought a new monitor to use, but we kept the old monitor around until I had time to deal with it.

The old Norcent LM730, ready to be taken apart.

These four screws secures the stand to the monitor. It took me 40 minutes to figure out that they are there.

To repair a LCD monitor, first your have to open it up by removing the stand and back cover. It’s recommended to do the dis-assembly on a soft surface so that there’s less chance of damaging the screen. The back cover is often clipped into the front with plastic clips and secured using screws. The Norcent I was dealing with had four screws on the corners that was visible. I removed the four screws and tried to pry the monitor open with a flat blade screw driver (not recommended if you don’t want to scratch the outer casing, but I didn’t care since this was an old monitor) and spent 40 minutes at it, but something was holding down the back cover near the bottom. Eventually, I discovered that the stand was also fastened into the LCD by four screws, but these screws are hidden underneath two plastic covers that had to be removed. I was feeling pretty stupid at the moment, but I continued on, removed the four screws and took off the back cover. The lesson here is that to make sure you remove all the screws before trying to pry open the back cover.

After much effort, I finally popped off the back cover to reveal the protective casing and all the goodies inside.

Removing the back cover reveals a protective metal casing sitting over the circuit boards of the LCD. For my monitor, the protective casing can be removed by releasing two screws on the left and then sliding the cover to the right. However, removing the casing proved to be more complicated than that as two connectors when through the casing at the bottom. The wider connectors is for the front panel controls, while the narrow black connector is for the speakers. The wide connector was relatively easy to remove, by the speaker connector took a lot of fidgeting mainly because the socket on the circuit board was loose, and therefore I dare not pull too hard on it. It took me about 10 minutes to unplug the cables and remove the casing.

The Power/Inverter board removed from the rest of the monitor.

With the protective casing gone, I got a good look at the two main circuit boards of the monitor. The larger yellow board on the left is the power supply and back light inverter board, and the green board on the right is the Analog to Digital converter. At this point, it was time to inspect the circuit board and components for any abnormalities. For radial electrolytic capacitors (the tall cylindrical objects in the picture), the tops should be flat and nothing should be leaking out of the capacitors. From my inspection, I found one capacitor on the power/inverter board that had a bulging top, and I assumed that was the troublemaker as everything else looks fine.

Found the culprit. The bad capacitor is the one with the black marking on top.

The bad capacitor was a 16V 1000uF radial capacitor. If you don’t have any capacitors on hand, you can buy some from local electronic stores (those that cater to hobbyists) or from online sources. Luckily for me, I actually had some capacitors left over from my undergrad electronic labs, and in my collection was a 1000uF capacitor rated at 50V. The voltage rating of a capacitor is the maximum voltage the capacitor can be used under, so in many cases it’s okay to replace a capacitor with another one with a higher voltage rating, provided they have the same capacitance. The 50V replacement capacitor was a fair bit taller than the broken 16V, but it looked like it would still fit under the protective cover, and the good thing was that the two capacitor had the same spacing between their terminals. That means I only had to straighten the wires on the replacement and it should plug right back in.

To remove the bad capacitor, first I had to remove the circuit board so I can access its underside. The power/inverter board was fastened to the front monitor by several screws which were easily removed. There were also a couple of connectors to the back light that have to be disconnected, and it’s important to note down the orientation and location of the connectors. It’s also important to keep track of all the screws that have been removed.

At that moment, I suddenly realized that I didn’t have any soldering tools at home, so I went to a local hardware store and bought a $10 soldering iron and $4 worth of rosin core thin solder. A $10 soldering iron probably won’t be too reliable, but I didn’t want to spend too much money on this repair. The soldering iron worked well enough though, although it does take a bit of time to heat up.

The two capacitors: the smaller one on the right is the bad one, while the larger one on the left is the replacement.

Back to the task at hand, removing the bad capacitor is a pretty straight forward job. All I had to do is used the soldering iron to heat up the solder on the underside of the board and wiggle the bad capacitor out on the topside. This is much easier to do if you have something to hold the circuit board in a vertical position. Since this particular capacitor wasn’t located closely to any other component, I didn’t even need to use any solder sucker or solder wick. After the bad capacitor was removed, I put in the replacement which slid right in as the two capacitors have the same distance between terminals. The board clearly indicates which side is positive and which side is negative, but it’s always important remember which way the capacitor should go in as electrolytic capacitors can blow up if inserted in the wrong direction. The striped side of the capacitor is always the negative terminal. Resoldering the capacitor was pretty easy as well; I just melted a dab of solder onto each wire and let it form the bond with the board. I then snipped off the extra wire from the terminals of the replacement capacitor and that’s all for the soldering.

The replacement capacitor soldered back on to the board.

The repair board mounted back into the monitor.

All that was left to do now was to reassemble the monitor and test it. Having learned from my mistakes during dis-assembly, I took much less time to reassemble the monitor. All I had to do now is to test if my hard work had actually fixed problem. First I just plugged the monitor into the wall plug and turned it on to see if smoke will come out. Thankfully, nothing of the sort happened, and the “no signal” message displayed on the screen and it was clear that the back light was working. I then connected the monitor to my computer, and the screen displayed without any problems. The monitor was fine once again and all it took was $15 worth of equipment and a bit of elbow grease.

The old Norcent LM730 is displaying once again! In case you are wondering, I drew the picture displayed on the monitor.

Looking back at the process, taking apart the monitor was definitely the hardest part of the job. That was mostly because I was unfamiliar with the monitor’s construction and I was also being dumb. The soldering part was quite easy by comparison. Despite having shaky hands, I managed to complete the job without any problems. Then again, I did spend a couple months doing hardware testing in a co-op job and the kind of soldering I had to do there was much more difficult than this job (I got my work done, but killed a lot of test boards in the process ). Overall, replacing a capacitor in a LCD monitor is pretty simple repair that almost anybody can do with a little bit of research and equipment. I hope this post will be some help to people facing a similar problem. Thanks for reading.

General Info

Panorama of UBC’s central area on Main Mall.

The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a large public research university located in Canada with campuses in the Metro Vancouver area and Kelowna, British Columbia. It is the oldest university in the province of British Columbia, having been created in 1908 by the University Act. With over 50,000 students in total, UBC is one of the largest Canadian universities and also one of the most well-known. UBC tends to rank well in publications, usually in the top three within Canada and the top 40 in the world. By most publications it’s a pretty decent university to attend.

The view to the north, with greenery, the sea, the mountains, and the blue skies.

Campus and Weather

UBC’s main campus (which I attended) is located on the University Endowment Lands at the western tip of Vancouver, near Point Grey and to the west of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. The campus is surrounded by the woods of Pacific Spirit Regional Park, has access to beaches and the sea to the west and north and views of the North Shore Mountains to the north. In other words, UBC occupies the best piece of real estate in the entire Metro Vancouver region.

The Point Grey campus is a big place. Walking at a brisk pace, it takes about 15 minutes to go from the southernmost point to the northernmost point. The walk is fine during the days when it doesn’t rain, but it becomes hassle when it rains or snows. Vancouver has a really nice summer that’s usually sunny, but unfortunately most students go to class during the fall/winter/early spring where it rains almost constantly. It doesn’t rain hard, but there are frequently showers and gray skies. In the snowier regions of Canada, a lot of universities have underground tunnels connecting the buildings, but that’s not the case in UBC, so rain or shine you’ll have to walk outside. When it rains, walking becomes an exercise in avoiding puddles, and when it snows it becomes an exercise of trying to stay upright. Fortunately it doesn’t snow very much in Vancouver, but the rain is unavoidable. It really pays to invest in some good rain gear if you are planning to attend UBC.

The chemistry building. It’s one of the oldest buildings on campus and the few that has the classic architecture.

The Koerner Library, one of the most recognizable buildings in UBC. It’s one of the newer buildings with lots of glass and metal. Looks pretty decent.

The UBC campus is beautiful in that there is a lot of greenery and woods and is close to the sea. Vancouver is a pretty good region for gardening and there are a lot of flowers all around campus in the warmer, sunnier months. In the summer, the Rose Garden is an especially good place to visit; you can get a view of the sea and the mountains in addition to the many varieties of roses. UBC is also quite nice during early fall with the the bright colored leaves of the deciduous trees. Compared to the trees and flowers, UBC isn’t quite as good when it comes to the architecture. Since the campus is less than 100 years old, it doesn’t have many of the old, classical buildings that you find in universities with more history. There are a few newer buildings such as with lots of glass and metal which aren’t bad, but there are also a good number of 30-40 year old buildings that are concrete-bland and/or are beginning to show their age. As a whole though the Vancouver campus has a pretty good environment, especially when it’s not raining.

The Civil Engineering Labs. It gets my vote as the ugliest permanent building on campus. I know it’s supposed to be an utilitarian warehouse, but what’s with the “Rusty Hut” look? No offense meant to civil engineering students or staff though.

Student Demographics

In terms of student demographics, UBC follows the trend of many major universities in that it has a bit more female students than males. This is true for most faculties with the major exception of Applied Science and perhaps Forestry. Based on my personal experience at UBC, nearly half of the student population consists of Oriental Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc.), with most being Chinese. Chinese people like to go to universities, and Metro Vancouver has a significant population of Chinese people. White people make up the next largest group at around 30-40% of the student body. The third largest group is probably the Indo-Canadians, as they have a sizable presence within Metro Vancouver. The rest of the student population is made up of all the other ethnic groups, including Southeast Asians (Filipino, Malaysian etc.), Middle Eastern, and blacks. It is a very diverse student body, and there are a lot of multicultural organizations and activities on campus.

UBC Engineering

Panorama of UBC’s engineering area from on Main Mall.

As an engineering graduate, I should write a few words about my own faculty. The Faculty of Applied Science is the third largest faculty in UBC, behind Science and Arts. It is one of the few faculties/schools in the university that is still male dominated, although more female students are choosing to join every year. Even though “Applied Science” is used synonymously with “Engineering”, the faculty also includes the School of Nursing and the School of Architecture. However, the engineers are the mainstay of the faculty. There are six departments of engineering (electrical and computer, civil, mechanical, mining, chemical/biological, and materials) plus a slew of other engineering programs (engineering physics, geological, environmental, integrated and biomedical).

The Kaiser Building, the headquarters of UBC Engineering.

The engineering buildings are located near the south end of the UBC campus along Main Mall and East Mall. The main engineering building is the Fred Kaiser building; this is where the administration offices and first year student services are located. Most of the engineering department have their own building, and engineering courses are also often scheduled in the neighboring buildings such as the Forestry Science Centre, the Dempster Pavilion (belonging to computer science), and the MacMillan Building (belonging to the Faculty of Land and Food Systems). If you’re walking down Main Mall from the north, you know you are close to engineering territory when you see the Cairn, a large, white block of concrete with the letter E painted in red on its three sides sitting on the grass in the middle of the mall. The Cairn is the symbol of UBC Engineering and has a storied history. It is probably the most vandalized object on campus, and is described as a “sacrificial anode” so that people do not vandalize other engineering property. Every time the Cairn is desecrated, the Engineering Undergrad Society will sent a few students out to clean and repaint the monument.

The Cairn standing in the middle of Main Mall. It still carries marks (the blue paint near the base) from the last attack against it.

The Cheeze, headquarters of the Engineering Undergraduate Society. It’s actually the oldest building on the Point Grey campus.

The Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) is of course the undergrad student society for UBC Engineering. Members of the EUS (and their associates from departmental student societies) are quite easy to spot on campus as they frequently wear the Engineering Red jackets emblazoned with badges. Members can be found hanging out at the Cheeze, a small former cheese factory that’s located in between Kaiser, the McLeod building (electrical and computer) and CEME (civil and mechanical building). As with any self-respecting engineering student society, the EUS works hard to support UBC Engineering students and to organize social events. There are quite a number of events through the school year, including Engineering Week, the E-Ball dinner-dance, and Christmas Caroling around campus. This should dispel any notion that engineers are a group of boring nerds. Nerds? Maybe, but certainly not boring. To further add to engineering’s lively reputation, the EUS is also known for pulling various stunts over the years, and the trademark stunt is the hanging of a Volkswagen Beetle shell off of various objects. The most famous incident occurred in 2001 where a Beetle shell was hung off of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. However, in 2009 several students were caught in the act by police when they tried to pull the stunt on the Iron Worker’s Memorial Bridge in Vancouver. That probably put the stunt off for a few years, but it’ll make a comeback once the heat dies down. Of course, I don’t really know since I’ve never been an active member of any student organization. To learn more about the interesting history of the EUS and the Cairn, you can visit the hEUStory wiki.

In regards to the academics, all first year engineering students take the same core courses. Students go into the departments/program in their second year and take up specializations/options in their third and fourth years. Based on personal experience and what I’ve heard or read, the Faculty of Applied Science generally has a lower admission average than either Science or Commerce. On the flip side, engineering programs generally have heavier course loads. All my friends in science usually took four or five courses per term while I took six or seven, and I didn’t go for any minors or honours options. Like most decent university programs, UBC’s engineering programs are not cakewalk, and any student should be prepared to study at least a bit in order to pass. At the very least, students should study for quizzes and exams as they account for the majority of the marks. Assignments are a good way to study, but there’s a limit of how much work one should put on them since they are usually worth 0-10% of the final grade.

One advantage of being an engineering student is the option to enroll in engineering co-op. UBC Engineering runs a large co-op program and more than half of engineering students participate in co-op. Enrolling in co-op will usually extend one’s degree by a year (or at least eat up all the summer vacations), but the advantages are numerous. You receive 16-24 months of valuable work experience that you can put on your resume, have the chance to meet people and build up contacts, and make a decent chunk of change. The pay for engineering co-ops is pretty decent; much better than what you would get if you worked in a grocery store. Finding the first co-op placement is probably the most difficult part of the process, but it isn’t that hard especially if your expectations aren’t too high. Once that first work term is under the belt, it’s much easier to find the next placements. As a co-op graduate myself, I highly recommend enrolling in co-op.

The UBC Bookstore. Look at all other options before buying textbooks from here.

That’s about all I have to say about the university that granted me my bachelor’s degree… in concise paragraph form. Below are various random bits of trivia, advice and fun knowledge related to UBC that I’ve come across:

• Regarding textbooks: Don’t buy any of the optional textbooks. “Optional” in most cases means “useless”. Actually, a lot of the so-called required textbooks are pretty useless as well, and you should wait two weeks into the term to see if you actually need to buy that textbook.




• If you are going to buy textbooks, don’t buy them from the campus bookstore if you can help it. The campus bookstore is almost always the most expensive place to buy textbooks. You can buy used textbooks (the bookstore actually runs a textbook classified website), buy it from online vendors like Amazon, buy cheaper paperback or international editions, buy older editions (works sometimes). Even if you don’t want to buy second-hand or online, you can probably find your textbooks at a cheaper price at the Discount Bookstore that’s located about 400m to the east of the campus bookstore, just outside of campus boundaries.




• Last piece of advice regarding textbooks: don’t bring them to school unless you want to study or your professor/instructor/TA told you to bring them. Textbooks can be very heavy and carrying them for a long time can hurt your back.




• Food within the UBC campus is not cheap, but less expensive food can be found just outside of campus at the Village (where the Discount Bookstore is located). The Village just to east of University Blvd. and Westbrook Mall. Walking there is pretty easy when it’s not raining, but not as easy when it is. The number 99 B-Line bus and some of the trolley buses stop nearby though if you don’t feel like walking.




• There is actually a lot of free food on campus if you know where to look: just attend the recruitment presentations from various companies and there is usually free food. Being the member of certain clubs and organizations also gives you access to food as well.




• Interesting fact: There are four Starbucks, two Tim Horton’s, and a slew of other coffee places on campus. You won’t have to go far to get your coffee fix at UBC.




• Another fun fact: UBC is known for producing beauty pageant winners in the Chinese community. To date UBC has produced five Miss Hong Kongs and three Miss Chinese Internationals. Does that mean UBC has a lot of attractive Chinese females? Possibly. Given there are over 45,000 students on the Point Grey campus and a large number of them are Chinese, it wouldn’t be a surprise. Don’t take my word for it though.




• An interesting website for any current or potential UBC student to visit is the Office of Planning and Institutional Research (pair.ubc.ca). In this website you can a lot of data about UBC’s financials, faculty, students, and perhaps most importantly historical course grade data. You can find out the statistical distributions of grades for courses from 1996 onwards, and you can use this data to tell which courses are easier and perhaps even which instructors give higher marks. Whether if that’s of any use or worth the effort is up to you.




• Places one should visit as a UBC student: The Museum of Anthropology, the Nitobe Memorial Garden, the UBC Botanical Garden, and the upcoming Beaty Biodiversity Museum. Entrances are free for UBC students but not the general public (not sure about Beaty since it hasn’t opened yet). Other than the places that require admissions, any student should take a stroll or a campus tour around UBC on a nice sunny day.




• More photos of UBC can be found in my gallery.

It’s recommended that you try to play the game without any help first and only read walkthroughs when you need some pointers. The TA single player campaign isn’t that hard even on the highest difficulty, so you’ll probably be able to beat it after a few tries. This walkthrough assume that you know the basic terminology of TA, so you are not going to see any definitions on what is a Kbot etc. Without further ado, here’s the walkthrough.

ARM Campaign

CORE Campaign

ARM Campaign

Mission 1 – A Hero Returns
Select all you units, and make them move to the Galactic Gate. It doesn’t get any harder than that. On the way your forces will encounter some Core Kbots, but you should just ignore them and move on. You will win the mission when one of your units reaches the gate.

Mission 2 – Core Kbot Base, Destroy It!
There are only three entrances to the section that you start in, so split up your forces to cover them. Build some solar collectors and metal extractor and then build a Kbot lab. The Core can only produce AKs which can be easily taken care of by any units you churn out. Gather up a sizable group of Kbots and send them to the lower right region of the map to take out the Core base. Once you destroy the Kbot lab you win the mission. The base is only lightly defended so you shouldn’t have much trouble. Actually, you can probably just build a few solar collectors and take the commander into the base and D-gun everything.

Mission 3 – Spider Technology
There are two ways to play this mission. To play safe, start off by building the usual power generators and metal extractors and then build a Kbot lab or Vehicle plant. Start churning out a sizable group of units. At the same time, build laser towers on the river crossing near where you start and to the north since Core attacks come from those directions. While you are building your base and forces, make sure the Spiders are back on the top of the hill and have them fire at Core Kbots that are nearby. Once you have 15-20 units, move them north to clear the right side of the river of all Core units. When that’s done, escort the Spiders back to your base past the starting point of the mission and you’re done.
If you don’t feel like doing all of the above, you can just try to guide the Spiders back at the start of the mission. Have the Spiders fire their paralyzer laser at any enemy units and make sure they keep on moving. Chances are at least one Spider will make it back to the starting point.

Mission 4 – Core Contamination Spreads
This mission is tougher than the first three missions, but it’s still pretty easy. Start with the usual compliment of resource and production structures. You probably want to build some laser towers to the north and west of your starting positions as the Core attacks will come from those directions. Keep churning out units and repair any damaged towers. You want a good number of missile and rocket units as the Core base is staffed with quite a few light laser towers. You have access to some level 2 units in this mission, but they aren’t really useful, so stick to the basic level 1 Kbots and vehicles. When you have about 30 units, advance them toward the Core base (located on the hills in the upper left) and have a construction unit build radar towers along the way. Use your missile units to target the red blips on the radar map so you can take out the enemy laser towers from outside their range. During your attack, continue building units just in case your first wave gets destroyed. You win the mission when every Core unit and structure is wiped out.

Mission 5 – The Gate to Thalassean
This is the first tough mission for the Arm campaign. On hard difficulty, the computer player has a lot of production plants, and will make efforts to expand and control more territory. Due to their production prowess, the Core will send large waves of units at you. The Core base also has quite a few Gaat Guns which are a pain to attack against. This sounds pretty bad, but this mission is beatable. The key to winning this mission is to take control of the two hills south of your starting position. A portion of the Core base is located right over those hills and their attacks will come mainly from that direction. When you start, build up some resources and a production plant. Build one or two construction units and then some combat units. When you have built about 15-20 combat units, take everybody you have (including the commander) to the south and take control of the two hills. While you units are fighting off the Core attacks, have your construction units build Sentinel heavy lasers on the hills. Two on each hill will do very nicely. When the heavy laser towers go up, the Core will have no chance of getting that position back. Make sure you have enough energy production to power those laser towers though. Once you are firmly in control of the chokepoint, you can start on the attack by sending units to take out the Core base. To minimize losses, you can choose to build a Guardian on top of one of the hills and start shelling the Core base. The Core base covers most of the lower section of the big land mass you start on, so be prepared to destroy a lot of stuff.
To win the mission, you must capture the Galactic Gate, which is located on an island in the lower left corner. The island is guarded by some heavy lasers and missile towers, plus a few Kbots. There is also a torpedo launcher there. It’s probably best to use your Skeeter boats to take out the torpedo launcher from outside its range. The quickest way to take the island is to build up a force of Triton amphibious tanks and send them in, along with your commander, to take out all the resistance. Once you have control of the island, capture the Galactic Gate.

Mission 6 – Beachhead on Thalassean
You get to build naval units in this mission. At the start, destroy all the AKs who are shooting at your commander. There’s no point capturing one since Kbots are not very useful against ships. Build metal extractor on metal deposits and put up some wind generators for energy. After that, build a radar tower and then a shipyard. Have the shipyard churn out some Lurkers and Crusaders, plus one or two construction ships. Meanwhile, take you commander to the southern part of the island to take out some more AKs and claim metal deposits. Metal is scarce on this planet and naval units are expensive, so you need every drop of metal you can get. The Core will first show up with some Searchers, which can easily be destroyed. The real attack begins when the Enforcers and Snakes start showing up. The enemy will approach from all the directions but mainly they will come at your from the east into the little harbor that you have your shipyard in. If you have produced enough naval units, you should be able to fend them off. If an enemy ship or sub come too close to shore, D-gun it with your commander. Have a construction unit guard the shipyard to increase production and have another construction unit reclaim any wreckage. After a while, the computer player will start using its missile frigates to take out your structures. Take a group of Crusaders and Lurkers out to hunt the frigates down, along with any remaining Core units. Once all the Core units are destroyed, you win the mission.

Mission 7 – The Defense of Larab Harbor
The main goal of this mission is keeping your Moho Mine alive. If the mine gets destroyed, you lose. Start the mission off by moving your Jethros in front of Moho to stop the first wave of air attacks. Move your ships to near the edge of the harbor as some Searchers, an Enforcer, and a Missile Frigate will show up early. As with the last mission, have your shipyard produce some constructions ships, and then set it to churn out Lurkers and Crusaders. You have access to the advanced shipyard in this mission, but it’s more cost effective to build level one naval units. On land, have your commander build a Kbot lab or Vehicle Plant to produce a construction unit and some missile units. Use the construction unit to build missile towers around the island to defend against further air attacks. The Core will continue to send Enforcers, Missile Frigates, Snakes, and Sharks against you, plus columns of Crock tanks for amphibious invasion. Your subs can easily destroy the tanks when they show up. As with the last mission, have a construction unit guard the shipyard and reclaim any wreckage when you run low on metal (which you probably will). Also take care to repair any units or structures damaged during battle. Near the end of the mission, about ten Warlord battleships will pile up at the edge of the harbor. The Warlords are much more powerful than your Crusaders, but they are defenseless against your Lurker subs, so take your wolf pack of subs and rip the Warlords apart. Once Core runs out of units, the mission ends.

Mission 8 – The Gate to Tergiverse IV
This is a pretty long mission, since you need to build up to a pretty big navy before you can attack the Core emplacements. Start off by building the usual resources, and then a shipyard. Have the shipyard produce one or two construction ships. After that have the shipyard produce a couple of Lurkers and Crusaders. You also might want to build some Skeeters for air defense, as the Core will probably try to bomb your shipyard. If you want access to level two land structures, you’ll need to build a Kbot Lab or Vehicle Plant, but they are by no means necessary. Use your construction ship to build an advanced shipyard, and start working on some Conqueror cruisers. Conquerors are a good choice for this mission because they have the longest range cannon out of any Arm ship and they can hold their own against enemy vessels. As with all the mission in this world, metal is hard to come by so reclaim wreckages. The Core doesn’t have a lot of naval production capability so the attacks aren’t too bad if you built up your navy. Once you have a good number of Conquerors and Lurkers, send them north a bit so they are beside the bigger island directly north of your starting position. Have your commander build a radar tower on the island. With the radar in place, use your Conquerors to shell any red dot your see on the mini-map. The Core islands have quite a few Gaat guns and missile towers, so moving in close with the ships can be costly, but with Conquerors you can shell everything from distance without fear of much retaliation. There’s the odd Punisher on the islands but they shouldn’t cause too much trouble. When you clear the large island with the vehicle plant, move the Commander up and build another radar tower. Again, use the Conquerors’ long range guns to destroy everything. The Galactic Gate your have the capture is on the northern side of the big island in the upper part of the map, so don’t target those red dots. Send your Lurkers out to clear the sea of any Core presence. Once you clear the big island of all its defense structures, walk the commander over there, D-gun any remaining opposition, and capture the Galactic Gate.

Mission 9 – The Hydration Plant
This is the first mission where you get to play with air units. Actually, the only units you can build are air units, so you don’t have much of choice. At the start, destroy the Pyros near the gate and then capture the radar and the solar collector. You don’t have to worry about land attacks since you are on a big hill that most land units can’t climb, though some missile and rocket units might be able to hit the edge of your base. Build some solar collectors and metal extractors and then an Aircraft Plant. You also might want to build some light laser towers to ward off any Core aircraft that may come by. Once the aircraft plant is complete, build about six Freedom Fighters. The purpose of the fighters is just to get rid of the Core air force on the northern half of the map. Forget about building the Atlas since it’s actually safer to walk you commander over to the Hydration Plant. Meanwhile, you can use your commander and destroy any Core units that are standing near or trying to climb your hill. Once you have your half dozen fighters, walk your commander over the hill directly north or your starting hill. D-gun the laser tower on the hill and do whatever you wish to the radar tower and solar collectors. Now keep going north and the commander will be right in front of the Hydration Plant. At this point of time the Core Avengers will probably start attacking your commander, so take your fighters and destroy the Avengers. Use the commander to D-gun any nearby patrols and then capture the Hydration Plant. You don’t have to destroy everything to win this mission.

Mission 10 – The Bromid Maze
Start off with the usual resource structures and then build an Aircraft Plant. Leave the Zippers in the upper left corner since moving them will draw attention of Core’s air force. Build some construction aircrafts and have them seal off all the entrance to your starting section with dragon teeth. When that’s done, build a few Defenders on the nearby hills to take care of any air of land units the computer chooses to send against you. You have access to Brawler gunships in this mission, and they will make the battle a lot simpler and quicker. Just produce about 15 Brawlers (with the Advanced Aircraft Plant) and take them through the Core base, destroying it piece by piece. If the Core fighters are giving your gunships trouble, fly them back to your base and hopefully the Core aircrafts will follow them back home to be destroyed by your Defenders. The Core doesn’t have an Aircraft Plant in this level, so their air force is limited to what they started with. Kill all the Core units and structure to end the mission.

Mission 11 – The Gate to Barathrum
Start of by building resources and then a Vehicle Plant. Produce some construction vehicles and Samsons. Use the construction vehicles to build some defenses to ward the early land attacks launched by the Core. Meanwhile, get an Advanced Aircraft Plant as soon as possible. Once the advanced plant is up, start producing a swarm of Brawler gunships. A swarm of 8 gunships will be able to ward of any ground assault the computer launches at you. Once you have about 20 Brawlers, send them north to wipe out the Core base. Target the missile units and laser towers first when demolishing the base. Take care not to destroy the Galactic Gate as you will fail the mission if you do.

Mission 12 – Barathrum!
Welcome to the lava planet. Anyways, guide you commander through the path out of the lava lake, building metal extractors and solar collectors along the way. At the end of the path, D-gun the laser towers that greet your commander. There are quite a few lava pools around your starting area, so there are only about four land paths to your base even if you claim the whole upper left section of the map. Build up a few clumps of Defenders and Sentinels to handle the Core ground attacks. Aid your defensive structure by putting some Peepers on patrol. Now all you have to do is produce a swarm of Brawlers and some Hawks to handle the Core aircrafts that you might come across. When you have your swarm, take them to the upper right corner and destroy everything except the Moho Mine. Remember that you need to capture the Moho Mine to complete the mission. After raiding the upper right, take your swarm straight south to take out the remaining Core resource structures. Once those are gone, the computer player is a dead duck and you can just mop up the Core base. Once the enemy base is completed destroyed, take your commander to the upper right and capture the Moho Mine to finish.

Mission 13 – Landown’s Interface
You have the southern half of the map all to yourself and you won’t be attacked by ground units in this mission. However, the Core has quite a large number of Rapier gunships at its disposal, so some good air defense is vital. A few clumps of Defenders plus some missile units should do the trick. On hard difficulty, the Core base will have some Punisher plasma cannons near the edge of the giant cliff in the middle of the map, so don’t build too closely to the cliff. Even though no ground unit can scale or climb down the giant cliff, this doesn’t stop the computer from producing a large number of land units and piling them against the cliff. These units can be ignored until the end when you demolish their base. Build the resources necessary to support two Advanced Aircraft Plants. Have one plant produce Brawlers while the other produces Hawks. Once you have a nice swarm totaling about 30 aircrafts, send them north to take apart the Core base. You might want to target the upper right corner first since all of the computer’s air units seem to be lying there. The computer has no aircraft plant so it cannot replace lost aircraft. Demolish the base piece by piece, and finally destroy the large number ground units that are piling against the cliff.

Mission 14 – The Heat Increases
The Core attack of this mission will mainly consist of Roach crawling bombs, so you need a large perimeter of missile towers/units with spotters to take care of these guys. A column of Reaper heavy tanks will pay your base an early visit, so make sure you’ve got enough energy production to power the commander’s D-gun. Use your Zippers to distract the slow tanks while your commander D-guns them. Once the Reapers are gone, the Core attacks are pretty pathetic. Take your time to churn out a nice squadron of Brawlers and Hawks, and take them to the upper right corner and destroy everything other than the Galactic Gate. The Core base has a number of Gaat guns and Can Kbots, but they should be no match for your gunships and stealth fighters. Once the map is clear of Core forces, capture the gate with your commander.

Mission 15 – Rougpelt
Destroy the Pyro at the gate and build one or two solar collectors. A number of Core units will arrive on scene shortly so you want to make sure you give them the proper reception via the D-gun. Repair the Zipper and take your two units on a southeast direction. On the way, you might want to build some radar towers to see where the Core units are. D-gun any Core units that get in your way. The Advanced Radar Tower that you have capture is located on the bottom right of the map, and it’s guarded by three light laser towers. Destroy all the laser towers and any nearby Core units, and then capture the radar.

Mission 16 – Stockpile at the Abutment
The map for this mission is similar to Mission 13 as there is big cliff in the middle of the map. However, there is a land path down the cliff so you should expect both air and ground attacks from the Core. Building a nice number of Defenders backed by Sentinels should take care of any ground advances. Make sure you have spotters to increase the effectiveness of your defenses. At the start, build a Vehicle Plant after the initial energy and metal production facilities to produce a construction vehicle and some Samsons to ward off early air attacks. Once your have established yourself, you have some choices regarding how to take down the Core base. You have access to fusion reactors and the Big Bertha long range plasma cannon on this level, and you can choose to build these and slowly but surely take out the Core structures one by one. Otherwise, you can just stick to the tried-and-true formula of building lots of Brawlers and Hawks. The last thing to note is to watch out for the meteor showers which can damage and destroy some of units and structures. As always, repair/replace any damaged units and structures when you can.

Mission 17 – Fortress at Brooban’s Isle
Here’s a naval-type mission for a change of pace. Try to claim the three islands at the bottom of the map as soon as possible. Metal deposits are scarce so you should try to get Moho Mines and Fusion reactors when you can. Have your shipyard constantly produce Lurkers and Crusaders. A small group of these will ward of early Core naval attacks. You might want to build some Skeeters for anti-air capabilities as well. Get an Aircraft Plant going and get to an advanced airfield. The Core has a lot of shipyards on this level and they will send fairly large fleets consisting of Executors and Warlords accompanied by Snakes and Sharks. You’ll want half dozen Lancet torpedo bombers to help you take on the massive ships. There will be some Crock invasions as well but you should be okay if you have some subs in the water. Once you have established yourself, churn out a swarm of 7-8 Brawlers accompanied with some Hawks. Send this swarm to raid the upper right and upper left corner to kill off the computer’s Moho Mines. The Core shipyards are located on the upper left corner as well so taking them out will leave the computer dead in the water. The main island with the Silencer is guarded by Gaat Guns, torpedo launchers, and a lot of Punishers, making a ship attack costly. However, with a swarm of Brawlers and Hawks the defenses don’t stand a chance. When attacking the main island, make sure you set your planes to either “hold fire” or “return fire” as they will automatically shoot the Silencer if set to “fire at will”. You probably shouldn’t destroy the nearby fusion reactor as the explosion might take out the Silencer. Once you clear the map of anything that can shoot back, take the commander to the main island (set him to hold fire as well so he doesn’t attack the Silencer) and capture the Silencer. As with any mission on Rougpelt, watch out for meteor showers.

Mission 18 – Vengeance!
This is a short and pretty easy mission. You don’t have the build anything in this mission, but you might want to build some solar collectors if you plan to use the commander’s D-gun a lot. The captured Peewees will be killed pretty quickly, but some might escape if you select all of them and make them move back to the rest of your forces. Wait until the Core forces come to you and destroy them. The most dangerous opponents in this mission are a number of Can Kbots armed with heavy lasers. They are pretty slow however, and their laser has a short range, so you can take them out using your rocket and missile units from a distance. Move south in to the Core base and destroy everything. There are a couple of light laser towers but they should be no match for your forces.

Mission 19 -The Motien Ramp
The hardest part of this mission is getting established. You can either receive a heavy meteor shower at the very start of the game or some Vamp stealth fighters may start attacking you before you have any good way of warding them off. The meteor showers are really heavy in this mission, and a shower on your base can destroy most buildings/units you have. Of course, the meteor shower might also help you by destroying the Core’s base. Anyways, the point is that you might have restart a few times before you get it right. The Core also has an Intimidator cannon that it uses throughout the mission. To avoid getting shelled, build your important buildings behind the hill north of your starting position. The computer will also send fairly large groups (10-20) of Kbots and vehicles to attack you, plus some Rapiers, so you need some static defenses to beat off these attacks. Try to get a good group of Brawlers and Hawks really quickly to help defend your base and destroy the Core base. There’s a fusion reactor on the southern part of the Core base that you should probably take out first. This will bring the Core production plants to a halt and stop the Intimidator from firing. The computer’s construction plants are nearby, so be sure to destroy those. If all goes well, you should be able to produce a fairly good swarm of aircrafts to take apart the Core base. Once you clear the map of all opposition, take the commander to the upper right and capture the Galactic Gate.

Mission 20 – DUMP
On easier difficulties, you can get access to aircraft by capturing the Core construction Kbot wandering near your starting point. Getting aircraft is by no means necessary for this mission though, as the Core resistance is very light. The most notable things are a couple of Reapers and Goliaths, plus some Diplomat rocket launchers. All you have to do to win is build up a force of about 20-30 level one Kbots and/or vehicles and sweep the map. You’ll probably want to build some metal storage on this level since there are a lot of high values wreckages littered all over the place, and there are no metal deposits.

Mission 21 – Welcome to CORE PRIME
You start on a nice elevated position on the upper part of the map. Since the whole planet is covered in metal, resources are not really going to be a problem. Start off with the usual complement of structures and then a production plant, preferably the vehicle plant since the Construction Vehicle has the better build speed. Meanwhile, have you commander take out the Pyros stationed nearby. There are only two ramps into the area you start on, so have your construction vehicles seal off both ramps with Dragon Teeth. Some level one Kbots or tanks might pay your base an early visit, but your commander should be able to dispatch them with a few sprays of the D-gun. When the ramps are sealed, work your commander to the upper part of the area and capture the metal extractors and solar collectors. There is a Core construction Kbot wandering in the area as well, and you can capture it if you want access to Core units. The Core base is sprawled all over the lower section of the map, and they will send a lot of ground units at you. The ground units will either come up the middle ramp (the ramp on the left) or pile up against the wall. To handle the Core attacks, build some heavy defenses on the middle ramp, consisting of some Defenders, Sentinels and Guardians. Once you have a fusion reactor online, you can also build an Annihilator on the ramp, which will pretty much make the Core ground attacks a lost cause. You should be able to get at least two advanced airfields running in a pretty short time, and have them continue churning out Brawlers and Hawks. Put some Hawks on patrol around your base to defend against Core air attacks. They can also act as spotters for your defenses on top of the ramp and they can lend at hand at taking out Core ground units. When using Hawks on patrol, set them to “hold position” so they don’t fly all over the place after attacking an enemy. Once you have a big aircraft swarm (~30), send them off the rip apart the Core base. If you see many of your aircrafts are damaged, you can bring them back to your base, repair them, and send them out again. The Core base contains many buildings. Target the production plants first, along with anything that shoots at your planes. Eventually you will wear the Core to the ground and win the mission.

Mission 22 – Battle for Coordinate 6551:447
There will be no ground attacks in this mission, and there’s no opposition on the bottom half of the map. The only things that might attack you are some Rapiers and Vamps, but the Core only has a small number of them. For this mission, you can do the classic Brawler plus Hawk combo and wipe all the Core units off the map, or you can build a Big Bertha cannon and shell everything to oblivion. The ideal location for the Bertha is on the middle hill of the row of square hill that is closest to the water channel. Make sure you have some air defense around your Bertha since the Core aircraft will likely attack that position. There are two water channels that run horizontally across the map, and each of these channels has two ships and a submarine. The easier way to get rid of the subs is just to move the commander beside the water and D-gun the sub as it passes by.

Mission 23 – Crossing Aqueous Body 397
Even though this is meant to be a naval mission, you can actually skip the shipyard altogether and concentrate in producing aircrafts. To combat the Core ship attacks, build two Guardian cannons in the middle pier, plus a group of torpedo bombers. Brawlers and Hawks are pretty effective on ships too if you got some on hand. The Core will also send a lot of Crocks at you. The best way to combat this is by sealing off all the ramps in your section with dragon teeth. Any Crocks that pile up against the shoreline are easy pickings for your torpedo bombers or the D-gun. When you have a large number of Brawlers and Hawks, send them up north and wipe out the Core base. If the mission doesn’t end after you destroyed to Core base, there is probably a few Crocks, subs, or Roach bombs in the water. You can build some naval units to take them out, or you can build an Atlas and load your commander on to it so that you have a flying sonar. Find the units hiding in the water and have the torpedo bombers take them out.

Mission 24 – Breakthrough to Central Consciousness
There’s no need for you to expand past the row of metal walls on the north. Have some construction units seal off all the gaps with Dragon Teeth. You should probably also take out the patrolling Pyros nearby. For defenses, build a couple of Defenders and Sentinels on top of the northern walls. They should be able to stop any ground attacks the computer launches at you. The Core doesn’t have much production capabilities in this mission so you’ll have ample time to build up a good swarm of gunships and stealth fighters and take them around the map. The Core base has a large number of Gaat Guns and there are a few Doomsday Machines as well, but they should be easily defeated by your aircraft swarm. Once you clear the level of any Core presence, move the commander on top of the dome in the centre of the map.

Mission 25 – CORE PRIME Apocalypse. Free at Last!
This is the last mission of the Arm campaign but it’s not as tough you would expect for the last showdown. At the start, move your Jeffys around a bit so the rest of units can take out the approaching Roaches. Proceed to destroy the light laser towers stationed on the two ramps into your section, and also all the Core units on the next “step” north of your starting area. Once you have completed these tasks, build some defenses around the two ramps into your section. There’s no need to expand beyond the bottom section of the map. The Core will continue to send ground units plus some Rapier gunships against you, so you’ll have to build and fend off attacks at the same time. Once your defenses are up, start building some advanced airfields to produce Hawks and Brawlers. Get some Hawks out first and use them to patrol the first “step” above your base. Remember to set your patrolling Hawks to hold position so they won’t fly all over the place when attacking. You’ll probably want to build some air repair pads nearby so your patrolling planes will automatically go for repairs. The Core base consists of many buildings that explode and lots of defensive structures, so your first attacking swarm may get destroyed. Keep pumping out those Hawks and Brawlers and send out a second or third wave to mop up the base. When attacking the Core base, you should try to take out the production plants and construction unit along side anything that shoots back. The Core has an Intimidator on this mission, but the cannon don’t seem to be used at all. You might want to build a long range plasma cannon of your own to help with the demolition. When you find the Core Commander, take him out with about half a dozen Brawlers or your Bertha. You don’t want too many planes near him since your planes will be killed in the resulting explosion. When the Core is finally and utterly defeated, move your commander on to the Core symbol on the dome at the top of the map. The galaxy is now yours!

CORE Campaign

Mission 1 – The Commander Reactivated-
This is a simple sweep the map mission. Concentrate all of your units’ weapons when attacking enemy units. Keep your Storm(s) to the back of the pack since they have the longest range out of your units. There is only one path to follow so there’s no way you’ll get lost on the map. Along the way, your task force will meet some Jeffys, Peewees, Flashes, Stumpies, and Rockos, all of which you should destroy. Once you reach your commander and take out the last Arm unit on the map, you win the mission.

Mission 2 – Vermin
Start off with two solar collectors and two metal extractors then a vehicle plant. Meanwhile, expect attacks by Peewees from the north and the west. You can build some light laser towers there to help them fend you off. Once the vehicle plant is up, have it produce Instigators and Raiders, plus a few Slashers for long range support. About 30 vehicles should be enough. You’ll probably want to split your vehicles into two waves because the Arm base has narrow entrances. Once you have your vehicles, send them up the northern path, and then take a left, then go through the opening in the south. Each of the entrances of the Arm base is guarded with a Light Laser Tower and some Hammer artillery bots. There will also be some Peewees that have been produced. Basically, the strategy is to send your tanks in for close combat, while your Slashers stay behind and pelt targets with missiles. Other than the base, there are also a couple of Rocko rocket bots on top of the ramp near your starting position. Destroy all the Arm unit and structures and you’ll win the mission.

Mission 3 – Ambush!
Don’t worry about the various vehicles and planes that you can’t control. They will get killed at the start and there’s not much you can do about that. There’s only one entrance into your starting position, so make sure you put some strong defenses around it. Two or three Light Laser Towers plus some missile and rocket bots will do. Kbots are the better choice for this level because there will be some climbing involved, and Kbots are better at scaling the slopes. You might have noticed that there are a couple of Hammers and Rockos on top of the walls surrounding your base. You can take them out by putting some Storms a few body lengths away from the wall. The Arm doesn’t have any production capabilities in this level, but they do have quite a few units and they have the advantage of having an elevated position. However, if you produce enough Kbots, it’s still pretty easy to win this mission. Just move your army and clear the map of any Arm units and you’ll win.

Mission 4 – Enough is Enough
The best position to build your base is the hill to the right. Move you commander up the slope and kill all the Peewees that are standing there, and then take out the two laser towers guarding the ramp. Put some defense around that ramp and you won’t have to worry much about Arm attacks. To get your other starting units up the hill, you’ll have to take the path in front of the hill and have them go up the ramp. Keep your units along the southern side of the wall or else they’ll be picked off by the laser towers on the northern wall. Once you have a Kbot lab, have it produce one or more Construction Kbots. Use the Kbots to build some Pulverisers near the boundaries of your base. This will take care of all the patrolling Flash tanks and also some nearby laser towers. After establishing your base, all you have to do is crank out lots and lots of level 1 Kbots. The Arm base is situated on the large hill in the middle of the map. Depending on difficulty, the Arm also might have expanded to other areas of the map. The base has quite a few Light Laser Towers and some Defenders, plus the various Kbots and vehicles that computer might have produced. There isn’t much strategy as to how to attack the base. Just send waves of about 15 Kbots at the Arm base. Keep your Thuds to the front as they have the most armor and keep your Storms and Crashers to the back a bit so they can pick off targets from long range. Once you destroyed everything other than the Galactic Gate, capture the gate to end the mission.

Mission 5 – Barathrum!
The Galactic Gate is situated at the peak on a large hill that takes up most of the map. D-gun the Peewees that greet your commander and move south. At the foot of the hill you’ll find some metal deposits where you can start building your base. The Arm presence on this level is pretty pathetic, so all you have to do is crank out some level 1 Kbots or vehicles and send them up north to clean out the Arm base.

Mission 6 – The Cleansing Begins
This is the first hard mission of the Core campaign, as the Arm will make aggressive efforts to expand their base and control more territory. To beat them, you’ll have to be more aggressive and control more territory then they do. You should start off with either a Kbot Lab or a Vehicle Plant as your first production structure. Build some construction units and then continue to produce fighting units. The plan is to slowly edge forward from your position, claiming resource spots and building defensive structures as you advance. For the southern half the map you can just build missile towers, but once you get close to the Arm base, you’ll have to make some Gaat Guns and Punishers to ward off the heavy Arm attacks. The Arm attacks will get more and more dangerous as the game goes on and after a while you’ll be facing attacks from Bulldogs, Fidos, and maybe some Merls. Keep on pressing while claiming more territory, and make sure to have some units spread around the map to take out any enemy construction vehicles that are trying to build resources. If you press forward quickly, the Arm will not be able to expand by too much, which makes their base much easier to attack. You have access to aircrafts in this mission, so you can choose to build some bombers to take out the Arm production plants. 6-7 Shadows should be able to take out any structure the computer has in one pass. Once the Arm production capabilities are gone, mop up the base with your bombers and/or land units. If the mission still doesn’t end, then you’ve probably missed a metal extractor lying in the map somewhere. Eradicate the Arm presence and you’ll get the victory.

Mission 7 – Pulling the Noose Tight
This is a pretty easy mission as the computer has no production capabilities. Some Zippers will pay your units an early visit, so take good care of them with the D-gun. There will be very few attacks if any from the Arm, so you can sit back and build up a nice army. Vehicles are a better choice here as you want some Diplomats to take out defensive structures from afar. Make sure you have some Slashers in your attack force as the Arm does have a few planes patrolling around. The Arm base is surrounded by a lava moat and only has two narrow entrances. Use Diplomats to take out the static defenses near the entrances and send you vehicles in. There are a couple of Bulldogs and Merls in the base, but they can easily be destroyed by your forces. Once everything that can shoot back is destroyed, have the commander capture at least one Moho Mine and destroy anything left over. You need to capture at least one of the mines to win the mission, so don’t destroy them all.

Mission 8 – The Gate to Aqueous Minor
Here’s another fairly easy mission. The Arm base is located on the northern part of the map. There are only two land paths into the base and each path is guarded by two Sentinel towers. The Arm does have production facilities on this level, but for some reason the computer doesn’t use them. There will be very little attacks from the Arm, and you can take your time building up a good swarm of vehicles. The Arm does have a couple of air unit, so have some missile units/towers around in case the aircrafts come south. Once you have a nice swarm of vehicles consisting of some tanks, Slashers, and a few Diplomats, send them up north. Take out the Sentinel lasers with your Diplomats and any aircrafts with your Slashers. Once the path is clear, just send your tanks in to take over the base. When you have full control of the map, send your commander up north and capture the Galactic Gate.

Mission 9 – The Purgation of Aqueous Minor
You get to play with naval units for the first time in the Core campaign. Start the mission by getting rid of the Peewees stationed near the Galactic Gate. Start with the usual resource structures and then put up a Kbot lab. Have the Kbot lab make one or more Construction Kbots in order to make use of the geothermal vent on your island. You also might want to construct some Storms or defensive structures in case of an early attack. Once you got your base up and running, build a shipyard and start cranking out Enforcer destroyers and Snake submarines. Your opposition consists of a few Skeeters, Lurkers, Crusaders, and Rangers. As long as you keep producing naval units, the Arm shouldn’t pose much of a problem. There also some Rockos on the island in the lower right corner. When you have a good number Enforcers and Snakes, send them around to clear the map of any Arm units.

Mission 10 – The Gauntlet
Your second Core naval mission is a pretty easy one as well. The only attacks the Arm will mount against you are some amphibious tanks and a small number of fighters and bombers, both of which can be easily countered. You should get a shipyard and then an advanced shipyard constructed, and you’ll also need a Kbot Lab and Advanced Kbot Lab to get access to higher level land structures. . The shipyard can be used to exclusively make Snake subs after turning out some initial Enforcers and Construction Ships. Have the advanced shipyard produce a few Missile Frigates and a few Executioners just in case you run into one of the patrolling ships. After you have all your units ready, just have your Missile Frigates target and red dots on the map. Make sure you keep your frigates in a position where they can run away as some of the enemy structures/units (especially the Guardians) will shoot back from long distance and are more than capable of taking out one of your expensive ships. Any ships or subs that attack can be handled by your own pack of ships and subs. When you destroy all the Arm units and structures, build (if you haven’t already done so) an Envoy and send it to northern most part of the map to pick up the win.

Mission 11 – Isle Parche
Although this mission takes place on a naval map, you actually don’t need to build any ships to win this mission. This is because for the first time as Core, you have access to your advanced aircrafts, which contains the Rapier gunship. The Arm has no production capabilities and they won’t attack you for quite a while. Take your time to build up and produce about 7-8 Rapiers. These should be more than enough to fight off any naval attack the computer launches at you. You also want to put a few Vamps in the air and build some missile towers on your island since the Arm does have a couple of air units. Once you have 15 Rapiers and half dozen Vamps, you can just go south and start demolishing the Arm forces. Make sure you put all your planes to “Hold Fire” or “Return Fire” or they’ll rip up the Zeus you are supposed to capture. Once you killed all the surface structures/units other than the Zeus, you can build an Atlas and fly your commander over to what’s left of the Arm base and capture the Zeus. If you want to kill every possible enemy then you can build a few torpedo bombers to hunt down all the subs in the water, but you only have capture the Zeus to win.

Mission 12 – A Traitor Leads the Way
This is your final mission on Aqueous Minor, and it’s pretty easy as with the other missions on this planet. You still have a lot of time to build up so get Mohos and Fusions up as soon as possible. Unlike the last mission you can’t build advanced aircrafts, so you’ll have to stick to naval warfare this time around, and also have to use Kbots to get advanced resources. Your starting island is pretty small so you’ll have to build a compact base. Build one or two Punishers on the northern tip of your island to help your navy defend against Arm sea attacks and also have a few missile towers to handle any enemy aircraft. Once you have your advanced shipyard up, produce some Missile Frigates and then Executioners. You should also build a good number of Snake subs to protect your base and ships. Use your Missile Frigates to take out any stationary targets, and use your subs, destroyers, and cruisers to handle the Arm naval units. The Galactic Gate you have to capture is on the upper right corner of the Arm base, so as long as you stay away from that spot you can happily shell away at the Arm base. The Arm does have a shipyard, but it doesn’t seem to be used much. Once you cleared the map of Arm resistance, take both your commander and the Zeus to the Galactic Gate. Have your commander capture the gate and then move the Zeus beside the gate to end the mission.

Mission 13 – Rougpelt
When the mission starts, destroy the Zeus(es) that greet your commander at the Galactic Gate and capture the nearby windmill to provide some extra power for the D-gun. The sea on this map is crawling with enemy subs and torpedo launchers, so taking a dip isn’t a good idea. Instead, move south and capture the Peeper and Atlas airplanes that are sitting on the ground. Make sure you keep your Atlas alive or you’ll lose the mission. Load your commander on to the Atlas and transport him straight east. The Advanced Radar Tower you have to capture is located on the bottom right corner of the map, but trying to land there would be a bad idea due to the nearby defenses. In the middle of the trip there’s a small island with a radar tower that you can capture to give you an idea of the enemy’s position. Once you land on the right side of the map, walk your commander to the south. The base is only lightly staffed with a few Kbots and some light lasers, so you shouldn’t have much trouble. D-gun any resistance you meet along the way and then capture the radar tower.

Mission 14 – Scouring Rougpelt
The toughest part of the mission is keeping the base you’ve captured, as there are no metal deposits on this map and you have a large perimeter to defend. Your group will start right beside a Light Laser Tower so finding the base shouldn’t be too hard. Destroy the pathetic defenses that the Arm has set up around this outpost and capture everything else. You’ll probably want to build a few more solar collectors since you’ll have to rely on metal makers on this level. Use the Kbot Lab you’ve captured to produce some construction Kbots and then stick to rocket/missile bots, and a few Peewees for spotting. Keep you defenses on the elevated ring surrounding the base for best firing position. There’s no real point building missile towers since a meteor shower will probably come along and destroy them. The remnant Arm forces will come at you from the south and the northeast. They don’t have that many units but out of those there’re a few Bulldogs and Fidos which you should watch out for. The computer also has a few Brawler at its diposal, but the gunships usually come one at a time, so you should be fine if you have some missile units up and running. Just keep fighting off the Arm attacks and they’ll eventually run out of units. If the mission doesn’t end, send a pack of Kbots to sweep the map and take out any leftover Arm units (probably the Eraser jammer vehicles).

Mission 15 – Xantippe’s Abyss
The Big Bertha (or Berthas if you are playing on hard difficulty) you need to capture is half way up the right side of the map. It’s guarded by two laser towers and a Kbot. The Arm is at the north of the map over the “Abyss” and it is staffed by stealth fighters and many missile units/towers, so it would take quite a large air assault force to destroy everything. Thankfully you won’t have to do that. The quickest way to win is just to capture the Bertha(s) and then use it to take out the Annihilator. You’ll either have to build lots of solar collectors or at least one fusion plant to power the big gun(s). Other than the Bertha outpost, there’s no Arm presence outside of their base. The Arm won’t attack very much, but when they attack it will be with Bulldogs and Merls, so you should have a few units ready to handle them (or just stick with the D-gun). Once you capture the Bertha(s), send a few planes out to find the Annihilator, and then target it with your Bertha(s). You’ll hit the Annihilator eventually and win the mission. As with any mission on Rougpelt, watch out for those pesky meteor showers.

Mission 16 – Departing Rougpelt
You’ll probably have to restart this mission a few times, since a lot of the mission depends on luck. If you are unlucky, half a dozen Brawlers will pay you a visit about a minute into the game, or a huge assault of Bulldogs and Fidos backed up with Spiders and Merls will come your way really soon. This is of course caused by those damned meteor showers, which can wake up units that are supposed to be idle. If you get a decent start, get a Kbot plant as soon as possible and crank out one or two Construction Kbots, 8 Crashers, and then turn out Storms and Thuds. The Crashers are for fighting off the Brawlers which, unlike other missions, will all show up at about the same time. You’ll also want to build some static defenses. Missile towers are cheap and have long range, but they don’t do much damage and might get destroyed by the meteor showers, so you should try and get some Gaat Guns up to combat the armored units that the Arm will send against you. Make sure you put Dragon Teeth around your static defenses as this will protect them against the many Fidos that the Arm has at its disposal. Even without unlucky meteor showers, the Arm onslaught will come way before you can put up advanced structures, so just concentrate on cranking out as many Kbots as possible. The Arm will also hit your defenses with Merls, so you’ll probably want to group your AKs to try and hunt them down. If you manage to survive the big attack, you’ve pretty much won the mission, as the Arm has no production capabilities on this level (although on hard there are some construction bots that might try to build factories) The “pyramid” that the Galactic Gate is situated on is guarded by a few Sentinels, but you can use your missile bots to take them out from a safe distance. Once you mop up the remaining Arm forces, capture the Galactic Gate the end this tough mission.

Mission 17 – The Lost Isle
This mission isn’t too difficult if you are quick to build up. Start the mission by setting on the foliage on fire so they are easier to clear away. Space is at a premium here on this map, so be prepared to clear away lots of trees in order to build anything. Have your commander plop down some solar collectors and metal extractors on nearby deposits. Two Arm Rangers will pay you a visit very early into the mission, but they come close enough to shore that your starting units should be able to take them out. Once you get some rudimentary resources up and running, build a shipyard. Crank out a Construction ship and then continue to produce Enforcers and Snakes. By this time the Arm will start sending down some Tritons from the north, but your Snakes and Enforcers should easily be able to turn those into scrap metal that you can salvage. Until you get some Moho Mines up, you’ll probably have to rely on wreckage to keep production going. Build some more resources up on your island and then try and get an Advanced Airfield. Use your Advanced Airfield to produce about 8 Rapiers, which will make defending your island so much easier. If you are quick, you should have your Rapiers ready when Arm Millenniums and Conquerors come knocking from the west. To win the mission, all you have to do is destroy every single Arm carriers (called Colossus), so if you want a quick win, build up some Rapiers and/or Titan torpedo bombers to do search and destroy. If you feel like taking out everything though, be prepared to build up swarms of Rapier and Vamps. The island directly north of your island has an Advanced Vehicle Plant producing Tritons among other things, and there are also some shipyards nearby. In the lower part of the map, there’s another shipyard behind a long island that’s staffed with many Sentinels and patrolled by Hawks. There is also an airfield on an island in the lower left corner, plus various structures scattered across the map. Try to kill all the shipyards first so you won’t have to worry about defending your own island, and then pick everything apart with your aircraft swarm.

Mission 18 – Slolam Pilago
Your only real choice in terms of units for this mission is aircrafts, since many Arm Lurker subs are patrolling beside your island, so you won’t be able to build a shipyard for quite a while. There won’t be much in terms of attacks from the Arm, and the computer doesn’t have any production capability, so you have plenty of time to tech up and get a good swarm of Rapiers and Vamps going. From that point, all you have to do is clear out island after island of Sentinels and Defenders until you get to the main island with the fusion reactor that you have destroy. The main island is staffed by quite a few Sentinels as well, and there’s an island to the west with some parked fighters, energy storage, and light laser towers. Once you destroy the Fusion Reactor, you should win the mission, but for completeness’ sake, destroy everything else before you take out the Fusion.

Mission 19 – The Vebreen Fleet
Your goal in this mission is to stop any Arm ship from crossing some latitude (horizontal line) somewhere north of your island. At the start, split your ships into two groups and send them to guard the two waterways past your big island. Use your Searchers for spotting and keep them on the move so that the Arm has a harder time hitting them. Meanwhile, build up some resources and a shipyard. Have the ship yard produce one or two Construction Ships and then lots and lots of Snakes. You want as many Snake subs as possible to clog up the water ways. To help stop the Arm ships from getting past your island, you can build some tidal generators between the gaps of the small islands. An added benefit to this is that you’ll get a nice energy surplus. On land, use your Construction Kbot to build at least four missile towers around each of your Punishers, because the Punishers will come under attack by Brawlers and other aircraft near the end of the game. The Arm fleet will initially send just Hulks, which are unarmed. Eventually, some Crusaders will show up and near the end you should expect charges by various Arm level 2 ships including Conquerors and Millenniums. Remember to always get in the way of the Arm ships so they can’t get past your line of defenses. Once you kill all of the Arm fleet, you’ll get the victory.

Mission 20 – The Gate to Aegus
This is another mission where you have a lot of time to build up. You can just stick to aircraft for this mission, but you can build ships if you want. Make sure you build a few missile towers around your base because Arm will send some Brawlers and Lancets at you. The Arm doesn’t have much production capability, so like many other missions, all you have to do is build a good swarm of Rapiers and Vamps. The Arm’s base is mainly staffed with Defenders plus maybe one or two Annihilators, all of which should fall easily to your gunships. Once you clear all the surface opposition, take you commander to what’s left of the Arm base and capture the Galactic Gate.

Mission 21 – Aegus- Empryrrean’s Guardian
There is a time limit for this mission, but it’s very long so you probably won’t have to worry about it too much. Take your bottom group of Mobile Artilleries away from the sides of “trench” and Dragon Teeth and use their cannons to kill the nearby Light Laser Towers. Your group on the top should also take out all nearby opposition. Now bring your top group down towards your Mobile Artilleries, and watch out for the Bertha that keeps shooting at you. Once you consolidate your two groups, there are two ways to play this mission.
Option number one is just to charge straight to the Galactic Gate, which is located in a crater near the middle of the map. There’s a reason why you are given so many vehicles to start with. Before you do that you should probably build a few solar collectors to power the commander’s D-gun. You only have to capture the gate to win, and don’t have to destroy the rest of the Arm forces. Your group of vehicles should be able to punch through into the Arm base and take out the Annihilator (present on harder difficulties) stationed near the crater entrance. From there, walk your commander into the crater. The crater is surrounded quite a few Guardians, but none of them can hit your commander if you move the commander right in front of the Galactic Gate. You’ll probably have to have some guards to deal with the Arm units that might come and interrupt the capture process. Once you capture the gate, you win.
Option two is to play it out like a normal base building mission. Take all your units into the trench on the right of map. Build your base there and the Bertha will have trouble hitting you. You should definitely capture the Moho Mine there to get a good metal income. You have access to only land units in this mission, and vehicles are probably the better choice since they are more powerful, even though they might have a little bit of trouble getting out of the trench. You’ll probably have to build a lot of heavy vehicles since the Arm does have Guardians and an Annihilator. A team of Diplomats accompanied by a mobile radar and jammer can be used to take out Arm structure from a distance. Try and tech up quickly and get a few Doomsday Machines up, which will pretty much stop any Arm attacks. You should also put jammers around your base so the Bertha will have even less of a chance of taking out your structures. You’ll have to be quick as the Arm does expand their base and they have more resources than you, so the longer you take, the more defenses are going to stand in your way. Expect a long and drawn out battle if you are going to play this way. Once you are able to control the map, capture the Galactic Gate with your commander.

Mission 22 – A Big Empyrrean Welcome
This is the second capture-the-Bertha mission in the Core campaign, but this time the big gun will try to nail your commander every step of the way. Start of by warding the off the nuisance attacks by Peewees and other Kbots. Once the coast is clear, walk out of the initial area and build a few solar collectors (which are the only thing you can build) behind a hill to the east of the map. You need these to power your commander’s D-gun, and putting them there will make them relatively safe from Arm patrols. Once you have your energy source set up, start moving toward the bottom of the map. Make sure you take a zigzag path or the Bertha will hit your commander. Destroy any opposition that your group meets along the way. When you get close enough, the Bertha simply can’t hit you. Capture the Bertha and you are done.

Mission 23 – The Fortress Falls
You’ll have to establish your defenses quickly in this mission, as Arm attacks will start very early. Take out the Zipper patrol at the start of the mission. The Vehicle Plant should probably be your first production structure, as the Construction Vehicle has the better build speed (you can’t use ships since there isn’t much water). There are two land paths between the upper and lower sections of the map, so make sure you build some heavy defenses on those paths. One or two Punishers backed up by some Gaat Guns and Pulverisers should do the trick. Always remember to put Dragon Teeth in front of your defensive structures to make them more resistant to damage. Use your Punishers to destroy any Arm structures on the hill side. You should also have Slashers and/or Pulverisers scattered throughout your base because the Arm will send Freedom Fighters, Thunders, and Brawlers at you. The Arm will also have at least one Bertha, but it won’t fire unless you try to build an Intimidator. Throughout the game, keep a lookout for Arm construction units that try to build stuff in your territory. When you get your defenses up, it’s time to get some Advanced Airfields going to produce massive swarms of Rapiers and Vamps. Once you have a good size swarm ready, send them to one of the upper corners and go along the top, taking out all of the computer’s resources and production plants. Once those are down, you have pretty much won. Wipe every single Arm unit and structure off the map to end the mission.

Mission 24 – Surrounded and Pounded
You start on a big mesa in the middle of the map and there are a lot of hostile units around you. The first thing you should do after getting some resources up is to put two radar towers on opposite sides of the mesa to know where the enemy is coming from. After that, you should get a Kbot lab up and crank out some construction bots and Crashers for air defense. Have your construction bots repair your starting units and then build Pulverisers around the edge of the mesa in order to take out incoming Brawlers and also land units. Your forces should remain on the mesa when defending against most attacks, but send your units down the slopes if you see Merls. After fending off the initial attacks, it’s time to get an Advanced Airfield up and running. Once you get a good squad of Rapiers and Vamps in the air, it’s over for the Arm. Just take your swarm around the map and take out any Arm units you see. The computer doesn’t have any production capabilities on this level so once you kill all their units, you’ve won.

Mission 25 – Empyrrean’s Final Stand
Start the mission by running into one of the lower corners of the map so you are out of Arm’s radar coverage. Your first production structure should be either a Kbot Lab or Vehicle Plant. Produce some construction units and then some fighting units, preferably units with missiles or rockets because of their longer range. Compliment your units with a couple of missile towers for backup and you should be able to fend off the first few attacks. Keep your commander nearby in case your defenses get overwhelmed. The Arm attack will start small with less than 10 units, but very soon they’ll start sending twenty-plus land units of all types down south every minute. To withstand this onslaught, you need to build quickly and get an Advanced Aircraft Plant as soon as possible. A squadron of 15 Rapiers will make short work of any land based attack the computer sends against you. The Arm doesn’t seem to have air production capabilities, but they do have a number of Brawlers, Hawks, and Phoenix bombers that they will send against you. You need to watch out especially for the Phoenixes since they deal tremendous damage to large structures. You should spread some missile units throughout your base to defend against the air strikes. A couple of Vamps on patrol will help as well. In between warding off attacks, take the time to get enough resources up to support at least one more advanced airfield. From that point on, the only thing you have to do is churn out tons of Rapiers and Vamps and use them to wreck havoc on the Arm base. Many of your planes will be shot down in the process, but eventually your swarm will overwhelm the Arm defenses. The Arm commander is also hiding on the map somewhere, so make sure you take him out as well. Destroy every single Arm vermin to claim the final victory for the Core.

Without further ado, here are the instructions:
(Note: tutorial done using Photoshop CS. Older version may not have some of the filters needed.)

Step 1: Create a new document.

Step 2: Make sure that you have a dark grey or black as you foreground colour. Using the paint brush tool, choose a brush with 100% hardness and appropriate size to paint the shape you want. You can see here I just painted a random shape.

Step 3: Pick the dodge tool, and pick a round brush with 0% hardness and brush randomly on your shape so there are some lighter areas.

Step 4: Now select your shape by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the base layer (since we only have one layer at this point). Go to Filters–>Liquefy, and move your mouse in a circular motion to swirl the different shades of grey together.

Step 5: Go to Filters–>Artistic Effects–>Plastic Wrap. You?ll get something like the picture below. You may want to experiment with the settings a bit to get the look you want.

Step 6: Here?s the final step. Click on Image–>Adjustment–>Hue and Saturation (or just press Ctrl+U to bring it up). Check the “colourize” box and put the Saturation slider to maximum. Now play with the Hue slider to get your desired colour. For this example I picked the classic slime green.

And there you go, you made some slime!

Alternatively, you can skip step 4 and the slime you end up with it is a little less detailed, but a bit more “gooey” looking as shown by the picture below. You can be the judge as to which method is better.

Finally, thank you for visiting and reading this tutorial.

Here are the instructions:

Step 1: Create a new layer in your document. Now make the shape of your blade with any tool you like. In the picture I drew out a path with the pen tool.

Step 2: Now turn the shape into a selection. If you used the pen tool, just right click and the option should appear in the context menu. Now fill the selection with either a solid colour or a gradient. Pick a really vibrant colour, such as bright greens, blues, yellows or pink. I chose pink for this example. I also filled the selection using a gradient from white to the pink. It’s up to you what method you choose.

Step 3: Apply outer and inner glow to the blade layer. For the outer glow use the same colour you picked for the blade. For the inner glow pick a slightly lighter shade of your choice colour. You might need to mess with the blending options of those effects a bit depending on you background colour.

Step 4: Create a new layer above and Ctrl+Click the base blade layer. Now on the new layer set colours back to the default black and white. Go to Filters–> Render–> Clouds, and then go to Filters–> Render –> Difference Clouds.

Step 5: Now go to Image–>Adjustment–>Levels or click Ctrl+L. Now move the middle slider around until you see little “lightning bolts” or “cracks”. You may have to use the Difference Clouds filters a few times to get satisfactory results.

Step 6: It’s time to change the blending option of the cloud layer. Experiment to see which option looks best. For this example I used Soft Light.

Step 7: Repeat steps 4 through 6 until you get enough “bolts” on the blade.

Step 8: To add some transparency effect, change the opacity of the base layer (the one with the fill or gradient) to around 90%.

Voila, you just made yourself an energy blade.

Please note that this guide was written for the years that I took the provincials (2004 and 2005) and will not be updated with new info. The exams probably have been changed since then so some of the specific strategies might not be applicable anymore, but the general test taking strategies still apply.

If you go to a regular secondary school in British Columbia (and also the Yukon Territory) and study the regular curriculum, you’ll probably come to a point where you have to take some grade 12 courses which are accompanied by a provincial exam at the end of the school year. These exams are currently worth 40% of your final course mark and are therefore, extremely important. Screwing up on an exam probably means that you have screwed up your final mark for that course. Not only that, since most post-secondary institutions look at the marks of provincially examinable courses, doing badly in the exams may mean loosing a scholarship or maybe even loosing the admission offer. No wonder a lot of students are so stressed out about these exams. The exams create a lot of pressure for these “unfortunate” students. It’s even worse if you have to take several exams at the end of the school year, since you’ll have to prepare for each exam that you write. Many students choose to hire tutors or go to special seminars in order to prepare themselves, which is fine, but if you have managed to enroll yourself into some grade 12 courses, then you should at least have what it takes to prepare yourselves for these exams. The goal of this guide is to give you some information and tips regarding the exams if you happen to have some questions and you can use this guide without having to pay me or leaving your own home. You just need a computer with an internet connection and a little bit of time to view this website.

So you might be thinking, “Who are you to talk to us about these exams?” Well, I confess that I’m not some professional researcher who spends hours looking at data to give you a super-technical analysis of the provincial exams. I’m really just a student who has graduated from high school in BC. In other words, I used to be one of you. I may not be a professional, but I have had my experience with provincial exams. In my final two years of high school, I took a total of seven provincial examinations, and I managed to survive. Not to brag, but actually I probably scored better on my exams than the majority of students in the province, since I got A’s on all my exams. I say this so that you, the readers, know that I at least have some knowledge regarding how to succeed in these provincials and that you know that I’m not just making up everything in this guide. Now that I have “proven” my credentials to some extent, you might be wondering why I wrote this guide. I wrote this guide to help you because I’m such a nice guy and I currently have a lot of free time on my hands, so I might as well practice my writing skills.

Now that we have gotten the questions out of the way, I’ll go into more in-depth detail about this short guide. The seven provincial courses I took are:

Biology 12
Chemistry 12
English 12
French 12
Geography 12
Physics 12
Principles of Mathematics 12

In this list are some of the most popular provincial courses available at the time of writing and chances are you’ll be taking at least one of the courses in this list (mostly likely English 12 since it’s mandatory). I have given each subject its individual page which contains information and tips that apply specifically to that exam. Each page will have a short course description, my overall impressions of the course and exam, the exam description, analysis of the exam, and tips and tricks for getting a good mark. There is also a page with some general info and tips that applies all exams.

I write this guide based on my own experience at the exams and the content in this guide reflects my personal opinion. I try to write this guide using language that most can understand and also try to insert a bit of humour here and there so you won’t get bored. Some of you may be really talented students and might laugh (I don’t mean at my highly sophisticated jokes) when you read this guide, but please realize that not everyone is as smart as you and some people actually need the help. A lot of the tips and advices in this guide are just common sense, and many of you can figure them out by yourself. If you found this guide to be helpful, then that’s great. If you didn’t find this guide helpful, then that’s too bad, but thanks for visiting and good luck on your exams anyways.

Please note that the information in this guide applies to grade 12 provincial exams that are similar to the 2004 and 2005 provincial exams and these pages may or may not be updated (mostly likely not) for future changes in specifications by the Ministry of Education. This guide does not cover the new grade 10 provincials. You may also have taken a course that is not in the list above and want some information about that course. In these cases, since I haven’t taken and probably never ever will take that course, I feel that I’m not really qualified to give you help. If you have questions that are beyond the scope of this guide, there are some other resources you can turn to, such as the Ministry of Education’s website, your counselors and teachers, private tutors, summer courses, special seminars and presentations and many more.

Thank you for visiting this website and hopefully you have found this guide to be of some help.

Click the links on the navigation bar or the links below to choose which version you would like to read. Note that the navigation is for the HTML version you see here. The Flash version has its own navigation on its page. I made this guide as comprehensive as I could, but Big Two is a card game with no definite rules and varies from place to place, so most of the knowledge in the guide comes from the back of my head. When played with a small group of friends, Big Two can be very fun and a great way to pass up some free time. The purpose of this guide is to help people learn how to play this game. So if you don’t already know the rules and want to learn a fun and enjoyable card game, take a look at this article.

Contents:
Introduction
Origins
Common Rules
Chinese Way
Viet Way
TJ’s Tips