Awesome game, glad to play it: questions too

[Jadriam]

Hello to all, and how cool is it to play this? I only got to try a demo YEARS ago and now the whole thing is up to play, in all its glory! I am thoroughly pleased with the game so far, it's very good - even for individuals who don't have a lot of RTS experience like me.

Few questions of course, since i just flew in (wow are my VTOLs tired. /pun)

a: Is is reasonably doable to play defensively in a skirmrish? If so, how? Tank rushing is ok but it's kinda dull against AI, and I KNOW people won't fall for it...

b: I have been a little stuck in a part of the campaign where you first encounter the New Paradigm; I just lost awful lots of units every time, and think improving my ability overall would involve doing that mission fairly well, with a reasonable number of losses (if any) rather than a near-wipeout. I use a group of MG half-tracks, flamers. and tried Mortars w/sensor tanks. fell short quite a few times. I mixed the turret types and did WORSE rather than better. Any methods you find useful? (it goes without saying I always had a few repair turrets with every group and a truck to guard the lz.

[Zarel]

a: Is is reasonably doable to play defensively in a skirmrish? If so, how? Tank rushing is ok but it's kinda dull against AI, and I KNOW people won't fall for it...

Yes. What do you mean by "how?" You just... play defensively.

b: I have been a little stuck in a part of the campaign where you first encounter the New Paradigm; I just lost awful lots of units every time, and think improving my ability overall would involve doing that mission fairly well, with a reasonable number of losses (if any) rather than a near-wipeout. I use a group of MG half-tracks, flamers. and tried Mortars w/sensor tanks. fell short quite a few times. I mixed the turret types and did WORSE rather than better. Any methods you find useful? (it goes without saying I always had a few repair turrets with every group and a truck to guard the lz.

I think you have Heavy Machinegun Viper Half-Tracks at that point - I remember 8 of them was usually enough to wipe out the whole NP base.

If you have mortars, make sure to defend them with HMGs. Mortars are not very good anti-tank weapons.

Mixing turret types really isn't a good idea at this point.

Repair turrets are good. The truck to guard the LZ is completely unnecessary, although I bring the truck, anyway.

[Jadriam]

Thanks for the info, and to elaborate on the first question, i have played some......less that awesome RTS games where a good rush was always faster or less costly than base development with little to counter it. When I asked, I meant suggestions on good units/buildings/turrets to defend with. I like to dig deep and work on eroding the opponent's resources and units, or striking from several different spots at once with multiple unit types. Not the most efficient of ideas in all maps, but sometimes it works very well.

[Zarel]

Thanks for the info, and to elaborate on the first question, i have played some......less that awesome RTS games where a good rush was always faster or less costly than base development with little to counter it. When I asked, I meant suggestions on good units/buildings/turrets to defend with. I like to dig deep and work on eroding the opponent's resources and units, or striking from several different spots at once with multiple unit types. Not the most efficient of ideas in all maps, but sometimes it works very well.

Don't get me started on 2.1 balance or earlier. If you're not using 2.2 or the Rebalance mod for 2.1, there really isn't much strategy in it. People using 2.1 multiplayer without the Rebalance generally use nothing but Bombard pits.

With 2.2 or the Rebalance, good units to defend with are flamer cyborgs. A problem with this is that they need to be micromanaged - flamers usually won't attack enemies on their own. For structures, lancer towers and heavy machinegun hardpoints are usually a good combination. Cannon hardpoints are good, too. Flamer bunkers will protect you against anyone who tries to rush past them, but they won't help against much else, as they're too easily outranged. Long-range artillery isn't much good against tanks, but short-range artillery is decent, and excellent against structures.

In short: Practically everything has its use. For a real generalist weapon, there's always cannon.

[themousemaster]

b: I have been a little stuck in a part of the campaign where you first encounter the New Paradigm; I just lost awful lots of units every time, and think improving my ability overall would involve doing that mission fairly well, with a reasonable number of losses (if any) rather than a near-wipeout. I use a group of MG half-tracks, flamers. and tried Mortars w/sensor tanks. fell short quite a few times. I mixed the turret types and did WORSE rather than better. Any methods you find useful? (it goes without saying I always had a few repair turrets with every group and a truck to guard the lz.

Captain Campaign to the rescue!


Alpha base, Stage 5 if I'm not mistaken.


There are 2 main ways to handle this stage: the brute-force method, and the clever method for those of us strategery-types.


The brute force method is the one Zarel described above. Build a new fleet of tanks, using the heavy-MG blueprints you found on the previous stage. Back them up with some mortars, and sweep the NP base from the bottom (do NOT just charge East from your LZ; the chokepoint you run into will be a slaughterfest. Note: NP is packing cannons and medium bodies, 2 things you don't have yet. This method will work (with sufficient numbers), but it will be costly.


But now for my preferred method...


Start the map by sending in 8of your MG tanks, 1 repair tank, and 1 truck (for the aforementioned LZ defense). Move your 9 tanks to the south edge of the map, and have them mow over the moving scavenger units (if you've played this map a few times, you know where they will spawn). As you are doing this, fly in a couple more trucks, and your mortar tanks (and an optional sensor tank).

Now here's the good part: The NP base will NOT become active until you either A) spot any of it's defensive structures, or B) attack any of their units.

After killing the moving scavs, set all your units to RETURN FIRE mode, and send them East along the south of the map. They will run into another, larger scav force, with a NP sensor tank int he middle of them. If you do NOT hit the sensor tank (just the scavs), the it will retreat all the way to NPs base, but NOT sound the alarm, giving you time to kill the scav base north of where you just fought.

Here's the kicker: that scav base has the Cannon blueprints in it.

When your mortar tanks land, send them south, then east (following the route your MG tanks took), and then position them on the cliff just south of the scav base. have your newly-arrived trucks build a couple MG towers on the ramp downward (the one that the scavs / NP sensor tank just retreated down), and a sensor tower overlooking the scav base. Attach your mortar tanks to it, and let the base fry.

If you are careful, you can grab the blueprints while STILL not alerting NP to you.

With the blueprints, you can now make a viper halftrack cannon tank. Research, make 10 of them, and fly them in.

Move your new tanks all the way around where all of your other tanks so far have gone, and then push them north, with the mortars behind them. The cannon tanks have far more HP than any you have built so far, and will be ideal for meeting the incoming NP command force head-on. With some micromanagement, you can actually not lose a single tank.



NOTE:

The NP base is going to have a LOT of great stuff to research in it... Repair Bay, Command Turret, Medium Body + factory modules, Medium Cannon, and Hardcrete (allowing you to finally make decent defensive structures), not to mention the 40 or so other thigns you can research after those biggies are done. I recommend (after beating your way in past the defensive wall) that you set all of your tanks to hold fire, and manually give target commands to destroy structures, LEAVING THE NP SENSOR TOWER ALONE. You are going to want to milk the timer of this stage for all it's worth for research. I usually end up in "hyper research mode" with a good 30 minutes left on the timer... and you are going to want at least 3 (if not all 5) research facilities at your main base for this.

[Jadriam]

Wow, i actually did most of that when I last tried the mission and cleared it near-flawlessly! I am not surprised someone thought of it first. (two mg units got stuck on a hill during the scav base raid and died, both were rookies though.) All in all I am doing much better. I didn't think of using extra time to research rush though, blast it!

I do have some more problems, like the rebalance mod not loading properly, and utilizing command turrets ( i love them so.) so all in all I think I'm finally getting the methods worked out.

Did i mention i love command turrets in campaign? Coz I really do. I finally got them, and I wanna really master the art of command, since the CTs turned mortars and rocket tanks into engines or death, even on unfit structures and units normally difficult to handle.

Eventually I will be ready for multiplayer! ....or at the bare minimum 4+ AIs in skirmish.

[themousemaster]

Wow, i actually did most of that when I last tried the mission and cleared it near-flawlessly! I am not surprised someone thought of it first. (two mg units got stuck on a hill during the scav base raid and died, both were rookies though.) All in all I am doing much better. I didn't think of using extra time to research rush though, blast it!

I do have some more problems, like the rebalance mod not loading properly, and utilizing command turrets ( i love them so.) so all in all I think I'm finally getting the methods worked out.

Did i mention i love command turrets in campaign? Coz I really do. I finally got them, and I wanna really master the art of command, since the CTs turned mortars and rocket tanks into engines or death, even on unfit structures and units normally difficult to handle.

Eventually I will be ready for multiplayer! ....or at the bare minimum 4+ AIs in skirmish.

Fair warning: CT's in the campaign are awesome. CTs in multiplayer are a waste of resources. They are nice on paper, but any human (and some AI scripts) know full well to rape them first... no biggie when a tank wall is between you and their tanks, but as soon as VTOLS show up, all your commanders will go splat.


Also, if you plan on going through the rest of the campaign, start utilizing the "milk each stage for resources and research time" strategy. I'm guessing your defenses in Alpha 6 (when NP decides to get some retribution for your attack) all went splat, and the only thing that saved your main base was the large number of wheeled units you had sitting around? Since, ya know, you couldn't build any of the better defenses yet . Alpha stages, meh, you can win in Tank to Tank fighting. But as soon as you head to the later campaigns...

[Jadriam]

.....And yes, I knew full well that CTs fall apart against anything with half a brain, but I do like the accuracy boost and organization talents they have. I am a fan of long to mid range combat.

Also, you guessed right; I tried to utilize the few defenses I could but they all did squat, no of them were demolished, but they were all smoking piles of near - gone uselessness by the time I got to take the offense. Good distractions though. I may run through those mission again, to really polish up my strategy - the harder missions will take no quarter, I assume, so i wanna master the dirt-simple bits first. (and maybe some large-scale skirmish. still haven't tried 4+ maps)

[themousemaster]

.....And yes, I knew full well that CTs fall apart against anything with half a brain, but I do like the accuracy boost and organization talents they have. I am a fan of long to mid range combat.

Also, you guessed right; I tried to utilize the few defenses I could but they all did squat, no of them were demolished, but they were all smoking piles of near - gone uselessness by the time I got to take the offense. Good distractions though. I may run through those mission again, to really polish up my strategy - the harder missions will take no quarter, I assume, so i wanna master the dirt-simple bits first. (and maybe some large-scale skirmish. still haven't tried 4+ maps)

Beta and gamma don't do "the same but harder", each of the 2 followup campaigns introduce new ways to kill stuff... if you are having trouble setting up your Tank defenses, then when Planes start showing up with them, you'll REALLY be in trouble.

If you want to redo the first 5 alphas (or at least A-5) to get your research all teched up, trust me, you'll notice a difference; both in your defenses ability to "defend", as well as your ability to recycle all of your now-near-useless units into Cobra-Halftrack-HMG/MC units with all of their prior experience. Fending off NP's initial assault within the first half hour with your own set of awesometanks makes the rest of the stage much more palatable, trust me. The whole stage is an exercise in attrition .

[corey8084]

I've been going through the game not wasting any time "milking" the timer for resources and research and am at A-5 with 25k plus oil, a highly defended home filled with Lancer Hardpoints and Mortar Pits. I use a squad of 8 Lancer Python Tracks and never lose even 1. When NP attacked me, my defenses had no problem obliterating all of them. So far from beginning to A-5 I've lost maybe 20-25 tanks. I don't use mortar tanks, I don't use CT's. My main units are the Lancer's and my Trucks. I've learned how to use my trucks to build a repair doc behind my front lines and have the Lancers set to retreat at heavy damage, because the repair doc is close by, the damaged unit can return to battle relatively quickly. I also, in tight spots, use censors and mortar pits to make an advance when I'm not comfortable with sending in my tanks. It takes a little bit longer but totally worth it when you don't lose a single unit for it. even though I use this tactic, as I said before, I have over 25k resources and probably won't use hardly any of them.

*hint* When you have a new design to make your tanks, recycle everything that is becoming obsolete. This allows you re-use the oil used to make them in the first place and use them for the new ones meaning you use just a fraction of what they should cost.

This is neither a Brute tactic or a highly strategical tactic as mentioned before but a good all around build up.