Here is Sunrider Mission 16 completed in Hard Mode, without selling the WishAll for an extra $10,000.
The hardest part about this one for me was not the PACT Supports per se, but the fact that dangerous enemy reinforcements show up very far apart from each other, making it difficult for your Kinetic cannons to be in the right place at the right time. For this reason I decide to endure the rockets from the first 2 battleship reinforcements that arrive in the level, and continue to the right so I can intercept the IronHog reinforcements and the stuff that follows. Also, the stuff you want to hit is often a bit shy of the 100% hit mark in this level, so I often used the Gravity Gun to help give the Paladin and Seraphim a little boost.
Turn 1: This is a long and difficult mission if you don't have the extra cash from selling WishAll, so I suggest that you keep trying the first turn until you can shoot down all the initial pirate units right away... or at least get it down to 1 destroyer left. I needed a 75% Alliance Cruiser hit and 2 95% Paladin hits. (I guess I could've upgraded Paladin's accuracy another notch instead of the Seraphim's...) You need Sunrider missile damage mk7 to one-shot the first battleship with a rocket, and by using Aim Down on the Pirate Bombers the chance that the Phoenix will get hit by counterattacks is quite small. On my first recorded attempt both of them completely missed! Don't worry about the PACT Supports doing business; other than them there's only a few weak ryders so your defense nerfs shouldn't hurt too much.
Turn 2: As you can see, even without upgrading non-Sunrider missiles I have just enough firepower to shoot down the first Carrier on Turn 2. Note that if the Carrier spawns 2 Mooks instead of a Bomber it'll actually have a little Flak protection, so make sure you deal with those somehow if that happens. FlakOff instead of Repair if you need to. You can probably end the mission here by using the other rocket on the Carrier, but I want to save 1 for the next mission that comes right after. And of course, cash!
Turn 3: I use All Guard to fend off the battleship rockets. The chances of them getting through with a good Flak formation is pretty low, and I never saw both of them getting through at least. After that the Turn 4, 5 and 7 reinforcements are the more dangerous ones so I make a beeline for those, then take out the 2 north battleships last.
This is a finely tuned strategy designed to reduce the utter chaos that often defines the first few turns of this mission, and even has a couple of tricks I've never used in any mission until now. When trying Mission 16 Hard for the first time, I highly suggest selling the WishAll to give yourself more leeway, then try this challenge after you've gotten more of a feel for things.
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