Battle of Ravcor

The Battle of Ravcor was a battle of major importance in the Green Drone War. The crew of the RWI Eclipse, led by Captain Jack Roberts and aided by additional RWI (Redwood Industries) forces led by Captain Jonathan Hunter, successfully stole the ancient monolith known as the Artifact from the sinister GDA (Green Drone Armada)'s fortress on the lava planet Ravcor, albeit at a heavy cost to personnel and ships on both sides.

Prelude
After failing to obtain the Artifact during the Rescue of Craz, RWI Captain Jack Roberts and the crew of his new starship, the RWI Eclipse, were dispatched to the hostile lava world of Ravcor, where the Artifact was rumored to be held by the GDA. The crew of the Eclipse settled in an abandoned underground base that formerly belonged to RWI's main ally, CNL (Crazy North Logistics), before their withdrawal from the planet due to the war. They refurbished the base, began building utility vehicles and various other defenses, and salvaged a nearby crashed CNL Carrier, the Vanessa, for additional materials. At one point, they fended off and later salvaged a GDA Destroyer that chased them away from the crash site.

Skirmishes at the RWI Base
While Captain Roberts was absent from Ravcor to attend a meeting with several RWI officers, his two XOs, Commander Sam Reed of RWI and Commander Craz of CNL, were left in charge of the base as they prepared for their upcoming strike. During that time, a few flights of GDA Falcon-class Fighters poked at the base's defenses, but they were always quickly defeated by the team's collection of fighters.

Sometime later, Roberts returned and led the crew on a sabotage mission to a GDA relay station near the main GDA base. Their objective was to destroy the radar dishes in the area to prevent the GDA from detecting the incoming RWI reinforcements. The team drove several CNL Warthog-class Rovers to the base and were able to destroy the objective, being chased back to their own base by a swarm of GDA Fighters in turn. However, in the midst of the attack on their base, the RWI reinforcements led by Captain Jonathan Hunter and his ship, the RWI Valiant, a Daedalus-class Battleship, arrived and cleared the skies for the team, sending down troops and supplies to aid them in the main ground assault.

Infiltrating the GDA Base
Roberts and the ground team then traveled back to the GDA fortress via rovers. Using a distraction provided by three fighters of Blue Squadron, one of the Valiant 's two V-203 Fighter squadrons, attacking the GDA Destroyer hovering above the base's main entrance, the ground team sneaked in through a small garage in a cave across a bridge over a lava river. From there, they abandoned the rovers and snuck their way through a system of tunnels and into the base. At least one V-203 was shot down in the attack and the others, if any, retreated. Meanwhile, in space, the Valiant and its two escorting Phoenix-class Assault Frigates, the RWI Griffin and the RWI Achilles, engaged several GDA Destroyers in orbit of the planet.

Roberts' team fought through several layers of security drone forces, working their way up the towering base structure to the chamber where the Artifact was being held and rigorously researched by a GDA scientist, Doctor Zimmrich. Along the way, they secured a large hangar bay, which the Eclipse landed in and deployed a squad of RWI marines from the Valiant to assist Roberts' crew.

Eventually, the Artifact room was secured after a fierce firefight. While the remaining marines took the Artifact back to the hangar and stowed it aboard the Eclipse, Roberts and his team covered them until the GDA defenders forced them to retreat. Unfortunately, as the incoming drone units blasted open a blast door, one of Roberts' crew members, former DRF (Drone Reactionary Force) member Papple was caught in the explosion and thought to be dead, although he somehow survived and ended up in a derelict DRF Hive base in an isolated sector of space.

Defending the RWI Base
With their objective accomplished, the crew of the Eclipse fled back to their base and prepared to fend off a massive GDA attack. They prepared their five defense fighters and other defenses inside the base. However, in orbit of the planet, the space battle was not going well for RWI, as the Valiant 's engines had been heavily damaged, leaving it partially immobile. Upon seeing that the Valiant was unable to render aid to the ground troops, the Commander, military leader of the GDA, sent two Destroyers and a large number of fighters to attack the ground base.

While the two destroyers bombarded the base from above with missile turrets and Atlas Superlasers, GDA fighters battled with the mismatched collection of fighters built or repurposed by Craz, Reed, Finn, Finchy, and Bash, as well as the base's own defense turrets. Eventually, after a heated battle, all the RWI fighters were shot down and the base's external defenses were destroyed, and the team prepared to defend against an invasion by GDA troops. They manned their defenses in the rover hangar first, but their barricades and weaponized hover chairs built by Papple were no match for the relentless GDA infantry backed up by a fighter that blasted through the hangar doors and barricades, so the crew retreated further inside the base, boarding up the door and taking up firing positions in the main corridor. Wave after wave of infantry drones poured into the base, pushing the RWI team further and further back into the base.

Roberts quickly ordered the crew to retreat to the Eclipse and prepare to evacuate the planet. Half the team went to the Eclipse while the other half covered Roberts as he wiped the base's computers from the CIC. Then, as they prepared to open the hangar doors to escape, the GDA troops fired at the Eclipse through a shattered observation window, but the Eclipse 's new bubble shield technology kept the ship safe. As soon as the team was aboard and secure, Roberts took off and the Eclipse shot past the GDA Destroyers outside and into space. The base was destroyed by the GDA shortly after.

Defending the Valiant
As the Eclipse entered the orbit of Ravcor, the crew saw the Valiant, the Achilles, and the Griffin locked in combat with a pair of GDA Destroyers. An intense battle followed, but both GDA ships were destroyed with only minor damage to the Eclipse. Once it was clear, the Eclipse crew boarded the Valiant and prepped a few Eitri-class Support Ships in the main hangar. Roberts spoke to Captain Hunter about the Valiant 's status and offered to help repair the ship and repel any attacks until the Valiant 's engineers could bring the engines back online. A total of four more GDA Destroyers backed up by squadrons of fighters attacked the RWI fleet, eventually destroying both the Achilles and the Griffin, leaving the Eclipse and the Valiant on their own. However, the wreckage of the destroyed ships provided the crews enough resources to bring the engines online.

Escaping Ravcor
As the Valiant and Eclipse prepared to leave, they were attacked one final time by a larger ship: the Dreadnaught that belonged to the Commander. This ship was much deadlier than the Destroyers, as it was outfitted with four Atlas Superlasers rather than one. The Dreadnaught targeted the Valiant with its quad lasers and blasted its port flight pod to smithereens, wiping out Blue Squadron's fighters and pilots. A second blow to the ship caused the death of Commander Lock and badly injured Captain Hunter. Despite the newly-inflicted damage, the Valiant was able to jump away with the Eclipse in tow.

Aftermath
The Eclipse and the Valiant both ended up in the Amre System a few jump points away. Roberts and Reed boarded the Valiant at once and spoke with Hunter while the rest of the Eclipse crew either flew the fighters of Red Squadron on patrols or assisted with repairs aboard the crippled battleship. Due to a nebula in the area, they were partially hidden from any GDA scanners but also unable to call for reinforcements, as both ships' transmitters were too weak to broadcast a long-range signal in the nebula.

Nevertheless, the team managed to hijack a GDA transmitter base on a nearby asteroid and call for help. Two CNL Frigates came to reinforce, and the RWI Discovery, a new experimental Venture-class Science Cruiser, came soon after. The Artifact, Hunter, and the Valiant 's remaining crew were transferred aboard the Discovery and taken safely back to Icarus, RWI's capital world. The Eclipse crew, meanwhile, became trapped on the ice planet Demus after a battle with the GDA in the Amre System caused the Valiant to crash-land on the surface, leaving the Eclipse isolated and trapped by the GDA blockade in the system. Meanwhile, the Commander was furious that the Artifact escaped his grasp and executed a subordinate officer for failure.

Behind the Scenes

 * The Battle of Ravcor, as it is depicted in this article, takes place over the course of 'Space Engineers: Colony Lost' episodes 37-42.
 * Though the Eclipse crew fought the GDA on Ravcor a few times before these episodes, for the sake of length and clarity in the article, those more minor battles are not a part of the major battle that occurs in these episodes, and will be covered in a separate article in due time.