First Demo Mission Walkthrough

The opening scenarios in the Sanctuary: Shattered Sun demo teach fundamentals you will reuse across every faction match in the Dyson Sphere. Enhearten Media designed these missions as a gentle ramp: secure Flux income, keep your commander alive, produce units from factories, advance with attack move, and reclaim wrecks after skirmishes. This walkthrough focuses on the first demo mission patterns that trip up new players — even veterans of Supreme Commander sometimes lose because they ignore power grid brownouts or chase kills with their King-Piece.

Read the demo guide for Steam install steps (app 2375120, July 21 2026) and the controls reference for hotkeys before following this page. Confirm your PC meets system requirements so stutter does not masquerade as difficulty.

Mission Overview

Typical first scenarios ask you to establish a foothold, destroy a forward enemy presence, and survive counterattacks without losing your commander. Objectives vary slightly by faction tutorial, but the economic spine is identical: extractors on nodes, power connections, factory queues, and combined-arms pushes. The three factions — EDA, Guard, and Chosen — use the same control layer with different unit emphasis. Beginners should pick EDA for forgiving industrial throughput.

Your King-Piece commander is not a disposable hero. Losing it ends the game instantly. See King-Piece mechanics for ability timing; in mission one, keep it behind your main line with a small escort rather than using it to snipe individual units.

Phase 1: Power and Flux (Minutes 0–5)

The first minutes are economy, not combat. Locate nearest resource nodes and place extractors before scouting deep into the map. Sanctuary uses a streaming Flux model — income and spending happen in real time with no traditional stockpile ceiling. If consumption exceeds production, structures brown out and factories slow. Read Flux Economy for recession warnings.

Power checklist:

1. Place extractors on marked nodes and connect them to your starting grid.
2. Watch the Flux panel: gross income, gross expenditure, and net Flux should stay green before you queue heavy construction.
3. Avoid assigning every engineer to vanity structures while net Flux is negative.
4. If energy dips red, pause lower-priority factory queues using Orders UI toggles from the controls guide.

EDA players can afford slightly wider expansion; Chosen should tighten build orders; Guard often needs early radar before drone spam. Use the faction picker if undecided.

Phase 2: Factories and Unit Composition (Minutes 5–10)

Once net Flux stabilizes, add or upgrade factories and begin unit production. Do not single-type spam — Sanctuary simulates projectiles and armor profiles, so mixed groups outperform blobs. A common first-mission composition includes direct-fire tanks, a few mobile shields or repair units if available, and scouts to extend vision.

Factory tips:

• Hold Shift when clicking unit icons to add five copies per click in the Construction UI.
• Enable infinite build only when you truly want a loop; otherwise one-shot queues prevent accidental overspend.
• Pause production temporarily if a power spike threatens shields during an incoming raid.
• Stagger engineer assignments so multiple expensive structures do not drain Flux simultaneously.

If you forget batch queueing, you will fall behind AI schedules that assume steady reinforcement. Practice Shift-clicks in an empty scenario restart until muscle memory sticks.

Phase 3: Attack Move and the First Push (Minutes 10–15)

When objective markers highlight enemy forward positions, advance with Alt + right-click attack-move rather than plain right-click move. Standard move orders ignore threats; attack-move lets units engage while traveling. See How to Use Attack Move for formation attack-move with Alt + right-drag.

Push checklist:

1. Group units with drag-select; filter engineers out via Selection UI before ordering an assault.
2. Queue attack-move waypoints with Shift so staggered groups arrive together.
3. Keep scouts ahead to reveal ambushes around terrain folds on the sphere surface.
4. Hold commander and fragile support one terrain layer behind the front.

If units trickle in one-by-one, reset the push: regroup, queue waypoints, and commit again. Trickle defeats are the most common first-mission failure mode after economy stalls.

Phase 4: Reclaim and Sustain (Mid-Mission)

After the first firefight, the battlefield is littered with wrecks. Right-click wrecks to harvest them for alloys — often the difference between affording the next tank wave and stalling. Our reclaim guide explains routing engineers through salvage paths efficiently.

Reclamation ties directly into Flux recovery after overspend. If you spent heavily on the opening push, wrecks inject alloys without waiting for extractor saturation. Skip reclaim and you may lose the mid-mission counterattack for lack of metal.

Reclaim tips:

• Send engineers or combat units with reclaim orders immediately after fights end.
• Prioritize large wreck fields from armor engagements over scattered scout debris.
• Do not reclaim under active artillery fire — batch salvage when the lane is secure.

Phase 5: Commander Safety and Closing Objectives

Final objectives usually require destroying a structure cluster or holding a zone after a counterattack. Before overcommitting, reposition your commander to a powered rear base with escape routes. If the mission introduces weather control or turret lines, solve vision and shields before adding more factories.

When energy falters during the climax:

1. Toggle off alloy furnaces temporarily.
2. Pause non-essential factory queues.
3. Reclaim wrecks from the previous wave.
4. Push again with attack-move once net Flux returns green.

Faction-Specific Notes

Faction	First Mission Tip
EDA	Expand extractors aggressively once power is stable; industrial throughput forgives minor overspend.
Guard	Wall with cheap drones, reclaim wrecks, then transition to heavier units — see Guard guide.
Chosen	Fewer, stronger units — every loss hurts Flux; micro attack-move carefully.

When You Fail — Reset Plan

If the mission ends abruptly, you likely lost the commander or hit zero army during a counterattack. Replay with this priority order: power first, Shift factory queues second, attack-move third, reclaim fourth, commander safety always. Compare your run with the demo review and revisit controls if camera friction slowed your responses.

Related Pages

• Demo Guide
• Controls & Hotkeys
• System Requirements
• How to Beat First Mission
• Flux Economy