So I just bought sup comm

[BlindSite]

Who has any info for me, in regards to dos and don'ts at a basic level. Yeah I realise its a steep learning curb and this is my first RTS. So I'm learning as I go. Anything you can gimme will help.

[HarryB]

The only things I can say is play the campaign first to learn the basics. Once you're comfortable with the controls, play skirmishes with easy computers until you get use to the economy.

[Pltcl Sniper]

get a powerfull economey, then build 2 or three shield generaters then, NUKE NUKE NUKE!

[BlindSite]

What is a good economy though, cause like, I don't know what size to build my units, I'm kind of used to Age of Empires II, that was the last RTS I played where I could build three catapults and about ten dudes and use my brain to beat the comp. I know that won't cut it.

I know about needing air, sea and ground units to be truly effective and that defense is a pretty big deal as well. I'm just not sure on scale, any ideas about how much energy vs mass i need build and storage, though I know it'll change will help.

[HarryB]

Since is whatever you can find, take as much as you can get and base your economy off of that. Energy can be built when needed but mass is a finite source so your economy should work around it.

[BlindSite]

Since is whatever you can find, take as much as you can get and base your economy off of that. Energy can be built when needed but mass is a finite source so your economy should work around it.

As far as base size goes, should I try to spread it out a bit, or keep it tucked in and insular, I know there's bonuses for factories near mass thingoes but I've heard of shit can all blow up together?

[HarryB]

Up to you. Compact bases are easier to defend, but large ones suffer less loss if something goes to shit.

[BattleWhack]

The ideal situation would be to have several tight bases spread across the map. However, what I usually do is have one or two "main" bases, but I put token land/air defense around distant mass extractors to discourage idle threats.

[vecdran]

Watch the game tutorials too, they introduce the more advanced aspects of the controls and such that I seriously doubt you would figure out by yourself.

[CaptCommy]

Press F12. (Hotkey list, lots of good stuff)

[SWATJester_os]

Things I found useful:

Build till you hit the unit limit. Send out sporadic harassment attacks.

Build multiples of each factory, 4 or 5 or so.

Learn how to set factories on repeat orders.

Make sure you have some engineers assisting on larger projects (I usually have about 20 engineers assisting my various factories.)

Commander should build 3 mass extr. at the start, then Pgen, then begin a factory.

Note that factories can queue up units before their finished being built, so have the factory queue up some T1 engineers: at least 2 or so, then land units.

Once you have an engineer, set HIM to build the rest of your infrastructure, like other Pgens, factories, etc.

Once you have an engineer, your commander should immediately begin building some T1 PD and T1 AAA. This should prevent quick rushes.

As for building design: The most efficient way to do your economy at T1 is to have diagonal strips of Mass Fabs alternating with diagonal strips of Pgens. It should look like this:

PMPMPMPMPM
MPMPMPMPMPM
PMPMPMPMPMPM
MPMPMPMPMPMPM

Where M is a mass fab, and P is a power gen. This ensures each Pgen and each mass fab have 4 of the other kind of unit surrounding them. This maximizes economy.

Do not upgrade all your Mass Ext. at once. It took me forever to figure out that while a Mass Ext. is upgrading from T1-T2-T3, it's not producing mass.

When you have huge surplus economy, you can consider upgrading your commander: the best things for him are the build suite (lets him upgrade to T3 construction, and he works as fast as 10 engineers combined, almost instant build), the Building assist drone (if available), and the resource allocation system (makes him produce equivalent to a T3 mass fab and pgen.)

If you EVER have more than +5 mass and you should be building something. Surpluses are the DEVIL.

The exception to this is energy. Always have at least 2000 energy on hand to be able to operate your T2 mobile shield gens.

Always expand outward, even if you think you can't keep it.

Build your PD and AAA in clusters together. A good idea is to start with 2 T1 PD's and a T1 AAA, like this: (P is PD, A is AAA)

Enemy comes from this way ----> P
-------------------------------------> PA

You want your PD to be closer to the enemy than AAA because ground units will want to attack your AAA, and they'll get hit by the PD first, air units will have to pass into your AAA range to be able to hit anything.

Once you have some T2 engineers, build a T2 AAA first, Then a T2 PD, then another T2 AAA and a T2 shield gen and then a T2 Radar. Send a T2 mobile shield gen around it at first, until the T2 shield gen is complete.

Your defensive strongpoint should look like this:

Closest to the enemy is T2 PD, next is T1PD, next is T1 and T2 AA, next is Shield gen and radar, next is T2 AA and mobile shield gen. Feel free to expand more PD and AAA as necessary.

PPASA
PPARM


Build recon planes. They occupy the enemy AAA long enough that your bombers have longer survivability.

Use T1 scouts and fast attack units (mech marines etc.) for the same purpose for ground attacks. Give them a whole shitload of move orders around in the enemy base so they're just running around batshit insanely fast, the enemy turrets will go nuts trying to keep up.

Hmm, what else have I learned.

Oh yeah: Navy rules ALL. If you're playing a naval map, concentrate on your naval units and point defenses. Spam attack subs, have at least 2 factories making nothing but T1 attack subs, they are DEADLY. Set them in patrolling packs of 5-10 and just have them patrol the water for shit.

First person to get cruisers near an enemy base generally wins, as long as they have enough subs to protect them from enemy subs, and interceptors to protect them from enemy torpedo bombers.

A good strategy offensively on water maps: First 2 naval factories make only subs. Dominate the water with these. Third factory techs up to Tech 2, makes cruisers (or destroyers depending on faction, whichever is long range tactical missles). Fourth factory alternates subs and cruisers. Fifth factory makes just cruisers. Air factories 1-3 make nothing but interceptors. Air factory 4 and 5 make nothing but torpedo bombers.

Your subs should go in first and clean out any enemy subs. Your cruisers should follow behind, concentrating on taking out infrastructure: T2 and T3 pgens and mass fabs if possible, also, make taking out T2 and T3 PD a priority, these can fuck your cruisers up in an instant.

Your interceptors will be guarding your cruisers. Their cheap so who cares if they die.

Torpedo bombers to take out any enemy cruisers they may encounter, and to kill any T2 torpedo launchers or sonar.

Torpedo launchers SUCK until T2, when they get marginally better (3 torpedo spread = pretty kick ass).

Walls = cheap and beneficial. Even human enemies will let themselves be forced into them, rather than taking the time to blow holes around them.

Don't forget you can build AAA on water.

Don't forget to use amphibious units if you have them. Hover tanks = awesome surprises on water maps.

Build tactical missile launchers and defenses. The defenses are basically to stop enemy cruisers. However, the tactical missiles are largely ignored, and basically rape whatever they hit in 1 hit, and have decent range. You can set them to auto build, and then rapid fire them at whatever comes near them, up to 5 at a time. Great for taking out T3 units and softening up experimentals, as well as defending strongpoints.

Other uses for experimentals:

Don't forget you can use the Aeon UFO as essentially a base kamikaze tool. Set it to attack something at the back of the base, preferably a commander. It will use its laser and rape a whole bunch of shit in the base, and when it gets shot down it will crash and blow up half the base. Hopefully you kill the commander too, nuking half the base as well.


Consider using your commander as a portable nuke, if you're not playing assassination.

Also consider using support commanders as mini nukes. By then, you shouldn't need the resources.

If you can actually finish building the mavor, its a game winner. To help build it, Build a shit load of AAA around it first, as well as shield gens, and PD. I mean, a SHITLOAD. Put T2 mobile AAA and some ground units around it too, as well as mobile shield gens for added protection. Also build tactical and strategic missile defenses too. Have at least 10 engineers working on it, any support commanders you have as well. Make sure your commander has the building drone upgrade, and the build suite tier 3 upgrade, this will DRASTICALLY cut down on time it takes to build it.


Monkeylord are cheap experimentals that can be spammed in groups of 5 or 10. They're pretty much awesome.

Remember, don't stop making harassing strikes on enemies economy. In a high tech turtle game, you will beat him by making him have to rebuild parts of his economy, while yours continues building forces.

Don't just hold onto units when you hit the unit limit. Send those fuckers out to die, who cares if they die.

Don't worry to much about micro, you don't need to micro your forces much in this game.

Thats about all I have for now.

[BlindSite]

Wow, thanks dude, I just reread that twice to take it all in, big, big help for sure.

[Scraps]

Personally I take battleships over cruisers.

[CoMmEnT]

You should always be building something somewhere.

Make sure to setup build queues within your factories. Set waypoints as a dump to scan how many forces you have at that present moment.

Just because you have T3 doesn't mean that should e the only units you build. Neglecting T1 and T2 units will get you destroyed b/c there are some good fodder units at that point.

[mg23]

Find chokepoints in the outskirts of your base. Generally I look for valleys and place my gun emplacements on top of the hills above the valley or in the valley behind my dragon's teeth. At those points, create a few defensive walls of dragon's teeth like this:

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD DDDDDD

DDDDDDD DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

The enemy will have to travel through these alternating walls to get through, and by the time they do your gun emplacements will have obliterated them. It's helpful to build shield generators at your front lines as well, since often times you'll encounter the enemy using artillery to destroy your walls. ALWAYS have some form of a bomber at your disposal simply to take out units that are outside the range or view of your gun emplacements.

If you haven't noticed, I'm an extremely defensive player, and I firmly believe the Cybran to be the best in this area. They have quick and deadly point defenses that can kill large groups of units in seconds.

[CaptCommy]

Okay, so here is some tips I've found from watching top replays and the few ranked games I tried:

Best build order is along the lines of mex, pgen, mex, pgen, mex, pgen, fac, pgen. Build about 5 or so engineers, and go econo-raping. Take as much metal as you can as fast as you can.

For those of you who love Cybran, their unique advantages are few and far between. Stealth is pretty much useless, sadly, since omni-sensors rape. However, they do have a few tricks. Their TacMissle is the best one in the game BY FAR. It's a great anti-ship and experimental weapon. Their T2 mobile arty is also great stuff.

The monkeylord is probably the best experimental in the game. Fast enough, lots of weapons, and stealth. Cheap as hell too. The other two experims aren't really that great, sadly.

Loyalists, while being the coolest looking T3 bots, aren't the best. Missle defelction kicks ass, but other than that, they're a little lacking. Still, if they're spamming missles, it's fun as heck to watch.

Tips for trying to win as UEF (Good luck):
Your T3 bombers suck. They try to lead their target a little bit, like the T1's do, but they don't have the same flaming bombs, so they miss more often than not. It's a silly glitch, but it totally rapes the unit.

T3 gunships, how I miss thee. They used to kick ass, and now have been nerfed. Not really worth much of anything anymore.

As said before, your PD sucks. Don't use it that much IMO.

The Mavor is a near impossibility. Don't try it in a serious match.

Crap, I have to run. More later probably

If you really want to win, play Aeon. T1 hover tanks are ridiculously overpowered.

UEF, while supposedly the turtle race, suck. Their PD's can't hit shit, especially their tier 2 ones. Lobbing projecticles is cool and all, but they have absolutley no lead on them.

Arty does not always arc as high as you want it to. Make sure you don't build it right infront of a mountain, or it'll do shit for you.

[Lusty_Muffins]

I usually build my base in small operational clusters.

Main base can be whatever you want according to your preferences and the advice given above. I usually follow the M,PG,M,PG,M,PG,F,PG rhythm at the beginning and then I take whatever I need and build it in a close cluster far enough away from the main base. The clusters should be roughly the size of the shield bubbles provided by whatever tech shield gen you use. And stick a missile defence system in each cluster as well. Examples:

- Build nothing but Mass Fabricators and T1 PG's in one cluster with a T2 Shield Generator in a cluster.

- T2 or T3 Power Gens with 1 or 2 (overlapping) T3 shield gens.

- 4 Factories lined with T1 or T2 PG's.

- Large groupings of defense structures (still not a fan of T3 AA...missiles just don't do it for me in this game. I stick to the T2 flak cannons)


And if you're in range of your enemy use your heavy artillery installations! They kick ass. Just set 'em and forget 'em and they'll keep the enemy rebuilding their defenses for until the round ends or they take out your artillery.

And remember, if something says it "consumes obscene amounts of energy" it's no big deal. You can make a shit-tonne of Power Generators whenever you want to back up any unit.

I'm still kinda new to the game and haven't played around alot with the experimental units so I have no input on those. I also haven't given much attention to the stealth generators because they don't seem that great unless you can constantly keep taking out their omni-sensor arrays.

[PsychoMantis]

Will this game be playable on this rig? I tried the demo and skirmish runs fine, but the demo campaign mission lags a bit; perhaps I just need to fork the cash over for another stick of ram.

AMD 3200 64 bit
Geforce 7600 256 mb
1 gig ram corsair 3200

[HarryB]

The ram is fine, it's more of a problem with processing power. The game only really runs fine on dual-core systems and video cards that came out either this or last year.

[mg23]

Will this game be playable on this rig? I tried the demo and skirmish runs fine, but the demo campaign mission lags a bit; perhaps I just need to fork the cash over for another stick of ram.

AMD 3200 64 bit
Geforce 7600 256 mb
1 gig ram corsair 3200
That's pretty much what I have, and it runs fine for me. Although I don't play with more than four people at a time, and I tend to play smaller maps.

[Lusty_Muffins]

I have similar specs. Faster 32-bit CPU but a much older card (6800 256MB). Just turn ALL the settings on ultimate-low except resolution (and I run 2x AA).

I get a very nice FPS until my GPU's forced to render 1000+ units....which is why I play with only 1 or 2 people.