Beyond All Reason
Beyond All Reason
I did. I was trying a new econ strategy. Also purposely kept myself closed in, as if I had teammates taking all the other spots. Wanted to practice econ with low resource availability. But I didn't have teammates taking the other spots, so they took them all. I should have been on a much smaller map instead of letting them take 80% of a big one. So, even though yellow didn't really do anything, Red had too many resources to overwhelm me with.
Beyond All Reason
Gotcha.
I've been meaning to ask, how do I know which energy producers to build on each map? There was one where I built a small amount of windmills and was overloaded with energy. Another map I built a ton and was energy starved. There was no visual queue to indicate what I should build?
I've been meaning to ask, how do I know which energy producers to build on each map? There was one where I built a small amount of windmills and was overloaded with energy. Another map I built a ton and was energy starved. There was no visual queue to indicate what I should build?
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Beyond All Reason
In the top right, there is a wind speed indicator. It will tell you the percentage of time when the wind will be below 6 or something. I don't know what the magic number is when you should or should not build windmills though. I normally build them if it's less than 10% of the time though. There is a number up there for tidal forces as well. Whatever that number is, that's what you'll get from the tide generators.
Beyond All Reason
One big thing is that if you are TOTALLY out of power, don't build windmills, b/c they cost power. You'll stall out for a while. Basic Solar Collectors only cost metal.
Beyond All Reason
Do have to go ahead and put it out that I'm going to be flying back to the Bay this Friday. So I will be out for that night.
I know, sorry!
I have Saturday night free though!
I know, sorry!
I have Saturday night free though!
Beyond All Reason
I'm open to moving to Saturday.
Beyond All Reason
I think I will be free Saturday.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Beyond All Reason
Looked at houses up in wine country - found a decent one. Back I think around 6p pst.
Beyond All Reason
I'm figuring out early game econ. . . Just played a few games on a small map against a medium and a simple. Then I played one against 2 mediums. I easily won the medium and simple games. I 'think' I could have won the 2 mediums, but my commander got caught by heavy artillery while collecting metal. But I was doing a solid job of holding them back, while also increasing my output. There were a few times where I thought they had me. But my defenses held. I was in their bases a couple of times wreaking havoc. They never made it into mine. They DID get some bombers through and they took out a bunch of my resources. So I stalled a bit. But once I had more fusion up, I was able to restart my push.
But as far as early game econ that lets me pump out units fast, and expand:
I used to use my commander to wander around and build extractors. I'd have to build turret defenses as well to keep the bad guys off my stuff. Now I just spam windmills and converters. I'm building energy storage as well to catch it when I go over. I will queue up a ton of windmills with my commander, and then insert converters when my energy starts creeping up to full. Doing this, I was able to keep a steady stream of units coming out of the factory. I was able to build plenty of base defenses (turrets and AA), then start using my units to protect my constructors as they expand to grab more metal spots.
The last game against 2 mediums would have been a very satisfying win. Too bad I lost track of my commander.
But as far as early game econ that lets me pump out units fast, and expand:
I used to use my commander to wander around and build extractors. I'd have to build turret defenses as well to keep the bad guys off my stuff. Now I just spam windmills and converters. I'm building energy storage as well to catch it when I go over. I will queue up a ton of windmills with my commander, and then insert converters when my energy starts creeping up to full. Doing this, I was able to keep a steady stream of units coming out of the factory. I was able to build plenty of base defenses (turrets and AA), then start using my units to protect my constructors as they expand to grab more metal spots.
The last game against 2 mediums would have been a very satisfying win. Too bad I lost track of my commander.
Beyond All Reason
Sorry about missing last night. I spent the whole day/night with my kids.
What is your early game build order?
How can I tell which energy producer to build on a map without building one to see? For example: One map I build windmills and was overflowing energy. Another map I had even more windmills and struggled for energy the whole time.
What is your early game build order?
How can I tell which energy producer to build on a map without building one to see? For example: One map I build windmills and was overflowing energy. Another map I had even more windmills and struggled for energy the whole time.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Beyond All Reason
The build order is still, and probably will always be, pretty random, sort of.
As far as wind vs solar. Windmills are cheaper to build, but have a variable output based on wind speed. In the upper right corner of the screen, you can see the current wind speed. If you hover over it, it will tell you the percentage of time the wind will be low enough that solar is the better investment. Last night, I saw the first map where that percentage was 0%, which means only build windmills during tech 1 phase. Advanced solar collectors shouldn't even be used. The highest I've seen that percentage was about 15%. Except a moon looking map where there was no wind at all. ALL of the games I've watched, people are heavy on the windmills. But they still build solar too. I don't know the math, so can't tell you exactly what ratio you should be building based on wind speed percentages. If it's less than 10%, I build all windmills. If it's over, I do about 10% solar.
My initial build order is:
mex
mex
1 windmill
mex
Bot factory
3 more windmills
help the factory finish the first constructor
turret
turret
start a huge field of windmills (shift + alt)
While the windmills are being built, if I see my energy nearing full, I will hold the space bar and tell my commander to build a converter. Holding space bar and issuing a build command doesn't wipe out your whole build queue. Your bot will immediately build what you told it to, then go back to the order you had previously set. I keep this going as long as I can.
My factory, I do:
Con
scavenger (the guys that run around healing and collecting things, but can't build anything)
Con
units on repeat
First con that comes out helps the factory.
Scavenger is sent to scavenge
Once second con comes out, they start building windmills and converters as well. Will throw in turrets as my base gets bigger. When I have about 20 units, I start heading out for more metal spots.
Of course, at some point, you have to start reacting to what the AI is doing. Add AA if you see planes. Pull the commander out to take care of a larger glob of bad guys, then suck up all the metal, etc. But I try to keep energy and metal flowing, obviously. Oh, I will add energy storage as well. I build one somewhat early because it reduces the amount of time I have to baby sit it. There is a longer time between needing to inject a converter into the build order. And when I do, I will add two or three, then back to windmills for a while.
Very early, I build to construction towers near my factory. This helps speed up unit production and eats the resources coming in so there is no waste.
When I have at least 4 con towers and a lot of resources (storage is near full), I start my T2 factory. All the extra resources in storage help complete the build with no stall because I'm out of something. The con towers near by assist so it goes up quick. Then I spam con towers around both factories.
After I have a couple fusion plants up, I start reclaiming the windmills. This provides needed metal and allows me to build more fusion and t2 converters and the con bots around the factory help. Being able to spam T2 power and converters really provides a huge jump in resource production. Spam more con towers, then build advance fusion.
Yes, things are clustered together, so you are super vulnerable late game as if one goes, they all go. But, you SHOULD be cranking out units at a very high rate at this point and pushing.
Things not mentioned: Anti nukes. I build it when I remember to.
T2 AA - I often forget to build it at all if I don't see planes. Then they decide to send some and I take a hit.
The hardest thing for me to learn is "Never stop building power and metal". I often get sucked into the micro of controlling my units and fighting with them. When done, I have a ton of new units to fight with, and repeat. Problem is, the AI is always building more econ. So eventually, they are producing units faster, or bigger than me, and then it's "oh shit. Gotta catch up." and it's very hard at that point because they are just a stead stream of annoyance. So it's the ABE's of BAR. Always Build Econ.
OHHH something else I've started doing. Building con towers out near the front lines. I can use my units to push an enemy away, then I pull them back and park them near the con towers. The towers heal the survivors. If the battle is close enough, the reclaim the metal too. They will heal turrets, etc. They have a very long range. I have their coverage areas overlap so they can heal each other when needed.
As far as wind vs solar. Windmills are cheaper to build, but have a variable output based on wind speed. In the upper right corner of the screen, you can see the current wind speed. If you hover over it, it will tell you the percentage of time the wind will be low enough that solar is the better investment. Last night, I saw the first map where that percentage was 0%, which means only build windmills during tech 1 phase. Advanced solar collectors shouldn't even be used. The highest I've seen that percentage was about 15%. Except a moon looking map where there was no wind at all. ALL of the games I've watched, people are heavy on the windmills. But they still build solar too. I don't know the math, so can't tell you exactly what ratio you should be building based on wind speed percentages. If it's less than 10%, I build all windmills. If it's over, I do about 10% solar.
My initial build order is:
mex
mex
1 windmill
mex
Bot factory
3 more windmills
help the factory finish the first constructor
turret
turret
start a huge field of windmills (shift + alt)
While the windmills are being built, if I see my energy nearing full, I will hold the space bar and tell my commander to build a converter. Holding space bar and issuing a build command doesn't wipe out your whole build queue. Your bot will immediately build what you told it to, then go back to the order you had previously set. I keep this going as long as I can.
My factory, I do:
Con
scavenger (the guys that run around healing and collecting things, but can't build anything)
Con
units on repeat
First con that comes out helps the factory.
Scavenger is sent to scavenge
Once second con comes out, they start building windmills and converters as well. Will throw in turrets as my base gets bigger. When I have about 20 units, I start heading out for more metal spots.
Of course, at some point, you have to start reacting to what the AI is doing. Add AA if you see planes. Pull the commander out to take care of a larger glob of bad guys, then suck up all the metal, etc. But I try to keep energy and metal flowing, obviously. Oh, I will add energy storage as well. I build one somewhat early because it reduces the amount of time I have to baby sit it. There is a longer time between needing to inject a converter into the build order. And when I do, I will add two or three, then back to windmills for a while.
Very early, I build to construction towers near my factory. This helps speed up unit production and eats the resources coming in so there is no waste.
When I have at least 4 con towers and a lot of resources (storage is near full), I start my T2 factory. All the extra resources in storage help complete the build with no stall because I'm out of something. The con towers near by assist so it goes up quick. Then I spam con towers around both factories.
After I have a couple fusion plants up, I start reclaiming the windmills. This provides needed metal and allows me to build more fusion and t2 converters and the con bots around the factory help. Being able to spam T2 power and converters really provides a huge jump in resource production. Spam more con towers, then build advance fusion.
Yes, things are clustered together, so you are super vulnerable late game as if one goes, they all go. But, you SHOULD be cranking out units at a very high rate at this point and pushing.
Things not mentioned: Anti nukes. I build it when I remember to.
T2 AA - I often forget to build it at all if I don't see planes. Then they decide to send some and I take a hit.
The hardest thing for me to learn is "Never stop building power and metal". I often get sucked into the micro of controlling my units and fighting with them. When done, I have a ton of new units to fight with, and repeat. Problem is, the AI is always building more econ. So eventually, they are producing units faster, or bigger than me, and then it's "oh shit. Gotta catch up." and it's very hard at that point because they are just a stead stream of annoyance. So it's the ABE's of BAR. Always Build Econ.
OHHH something else I've started doing. Building con towers out near the front lines. I can use my units to push an enemy away, then I pull them back and park them near the con towers. The towers heal the survivors. If the battle is close enough, the reclaim the metal too. They will heal turrets, etc. They have a very long range. I have their coverage areas overlap so they can heal each other when needed.
Beyond All Reason
Lots of good info there.
I also didn't know that about windmills Troy, thanks.
I also didn't know that about windmills Troy, thanks.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Beyond All Reason
Picked up where I left off the other night. Lost the first game against 2 medium. Again, my commander got caught out too far.
Won the second game. Early pushes by them did take out some of my outer base defenses, but never any infrastructure. But that left a lot of metal for me to pick up and funded a fast recovery. They never got into my base again. Each time they would push, I'd hold and scoop up the metal. They hit tech 2 about the same time I did. But at this point, I'm out producing them. They push a couple more times, I hold and clean up the metal. Came VERY close to losing my commander again while he was out picking up metal. It occurred to me that I should have tech 1 scavengers out collecting instead of my commander. But at that point, I had enough metal and units that I started my pushes. On my first push, I took out the yellow commander, 90% of his base/econ and started hitting red. Took out a lot of stuff, but not sure how much. Second push, cleaned up stragglers and pushed red from two directions. Took him out. I wouldn't say it was a hard fought win, but it wasn't super hard either. The AI is becoming predictable, so that's making the wins easier too.
I was on a tree heavy map, so that provided a ton of early game energy allowing me to over produce converters boosting my early game metal income. But they were doing the same. By the time I pushed, they had cleaned up all their trees too. Just pointing out, don't ignore the terrain.
Also, it was an 8x8 map, so pretty small. But it allowed me to really test my small base skills. I did expand, but only took about 20-25% of the map. I could have taken more, but wanted to test my small base skills. So it was more about keeping them out of areas as apposed to moving into them.
Won the second game. Early pushes by them did take out some of my outer base defenses, but never any infrastructure. But that left a lot of metal for me to pick up and funded a fast recovery. They never got into my base again. Each time they would push, I'd hold and scoop up the metal. They hit tech 2 about the same time I did. But at this point, I'm out producing them. They push a couple more times, I hold and clean up the metal. Came VERY close to losing my commander again while he was out picking up metal. It occurred to me that I should have tech 1 scavengers out collecting instead of my commander. But at that point, I had enough metal and units that I started my pushes. On my first push, I took out the yellow commander, 90% of his base/econ and started hitting red. Took out a lot of stuff, but not sure how much. Second push, cleaned up stragglers and pushed red from two directions. Took him out. I wouldn't say it was a hard fought win, but it wasn't super hard either. The AI is becoming predictable, so that's making the wins easier too.
I was on a tree heavy map, so that provided a ton of early game energy allowing me to over produce converters boosting my early game metal income. But they were doing the same. By the time I pushed, they had cleaned up all their trees too. Just pointing out, don't ignore the terrain.
Also, it was an 8x8 map, so pretty small. But it allowed me to really test my small base skills. I did expand, but only took about 20-25% of the map. I could have taken more, but wanted to test my small base skills. So it was more about keeping them out of areas as apposed to moving into them.
Beyond All Reason
Been playing a bunch of online games. Win and lose. In the bigger 8x8 games I just try to stick to my frontline in the lane not get bummed out when backline rolls me late game. Or we win, both are fun.
I can't play tomorrow but could go Saturday night.
I can't play tomorrow but could go Saturday night.
Beyond All Reason
I'm in for tonight and/or tomorrow night.
Beyond All Reason
I don't know. I told my youngest we'd watch a movie this weekend. If I can get her to move it to tonight, I'll be in tomorrow. If not, I'm probably out. I won't know until after her lacrosse game tonight.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Beyond All Reason
Getting my ass kicked tonight. There are no games where half the players aren't 25+ skill. Last game, I was laning against a 30+ dude, and behind him was a 25.
Beyond All Reason
Won this game, but my rank keep dropping, and dropping, and dropping. . . I'm a 9 now.
Beyond All Reason
Ha - it goes up and down - spend your ranked games wisely if you don't want to drop in the "OS" rating! You can host unranked smaller games - and all the way up too.
I think I was a 19 once but have lost a few since then and fallen far off.
Once you figure out how to rename the game names you are better than most users.
Seem like when you get a 1 OS player on your team, you can and maybe should just leave. That's often just people trolling - or so bad at rts games it's the same thing.
I think I was a 19 once but have lost a few since then and fallen far off.
Once you figure out how to rename the game names you are better than most users.
Seem like when you get a 1 OS player on your team, you can and maybe should just leave. That's often just people trolling - or so bad at rts games it's the same thing.
Beyond All Reason
No matter if we won or lost, I was dropping in ranks. Didn't seem to matter if we had a 1 or not. I'm just guessing it's comparing my performance to the top tier players and concluding that I suck. Or, I get hammered by the top guys and struggle all game and it concludes, this dude didn't do anything, so he sucks. I'm not sure.
So playing unranked games will help my score? Or just lets me practice?
I'm also in discord and ready to go if/when anyone else is.
So playing unranked games will help my score? Or just lets me practice?
I'm also in discord and ready to go if/when anyone else is.