counter flamer in early game

[Ezio]

game in T1 with no base
what should i build?, assuming my enemy tank rush and only make a horde of flamer tank and cyborg, i tried to make light cannon to counter it but they're expensive so only few could be made,research rush to pod took me some time too

[Goth Zagog-Thou]

In this case, fight fire with fire. Build Flamer Bunkers and Machinegun Towers. When you get mortars, build those too.

[Ezio]

fighting flame tank with flame tank the winner should be the one that have a lot of it, if using bunker it more vulnerable to flame so it's not good, twin machine gun can fight flame tank with ease but it doesn't really good against cyborg

[NoQ]

One damn important thing against flamers is walls. Walls don't burn you know. Mixing walls with MG towers is a good early replacement for hardpoints. Of course, wall effectiveness depends heavily on the amount of space on the map. On a big plain map, your enemy will easily go around your defense, but on a balanced map with narrow chokepoints walls may be very important and effective.

Cannons are certainly a poor choice. For a flamer strategy to be effective in offense, your enemy will certainly want to put them on fast propulsion, which in the early game is a property posessed only by cyborgs. And cannons are certainly poor against cyborgs. Once the enemy reaches hovers, cannons become much more valuable (and probably even more effective than rockets; still, even then they have one bad thing: they're slow)

Machineguns are a much better choice, for they can handle borgs effectively enough.

Another good idea is to mix a few heavy flamer tanks into your army. They aren't effective by themselves, for they can't reach the enemy quickly enough, but they will protect your army in a case the enemy will try to approach, and in this case they will be much more cost-effective than offensive flamers like flamer borgs or light flamer tanks. Anyway, your opponent will try to avoid a direct confrontation with such mix of yours.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

If your units are at least as fast as the enemy flamers are, then you could try to kite them; that is, you could try to keep your own units away from the enemy flamers as their longer-ranged machineguns or cannons target the pursuing flamers as they fall back.

It's also helpful to know that flamer-class weapons only do a measly 10% damage against hard structures, which not only include all forms of hardcrete walls and hardpoints, but also emplacements (not bunkers) and even tank traps. Speaking of, I believe that tank traps allow pretty much anything to shoot through them, allowing longer-ranged units or defenses to target shorter-ranged units from afar without having to worry much about the shorter-ranged units closing in on their position (which should be especially useful for trying to protect your bunkers from flamers). The fact that tank traps are also so cheap is a nice bonus.

[Ezio]

If your units are at least as fast as the enemy flamers are, then you could try to kite them; that is, you could try to keep your own units away from the enemy flamers as their longer-ranged machineguns or cannons target the pursuing flamers as they fall back.

this proved to be useful, thanks

[NoQ]

If your units are at least as fast as ...

One little problem here is that in early game they usually aren't. I didn't found MG/Cannon cyborgs to be of any use against flamer cyborgs so far (i may be wrong). The only real case when this happens is when your opponent overdoes flamer borgs and you manage to get hovers before him; in this case, even simple HMG hovers can effectively crush flamer borgs from a distance. Mortar borgs (grenadiers) can kill enemy cyborgs easily, but they can't fire while moving, which makes them actually slower than the enemy.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

One little problem here is that in early game they usually aren't. I didn't found MG/Cannon cyborgs to be of any use against flamer cyborgs so far (i may be wrong).

If you try to fight flamer cyborgs with machinegun or cannon cyborgs, then you will need to manually keep them away from the flamer cyborgs and let them pick their targets as they're moving (hence the term kiting). You may lose a couple if you're unlucky (or if you have poor micromanagement skills or timing), but this can be really helpful in dealing with flamer cyborgs while keeping your own casualties low. By the way, it seems to me that as a unit takes more damage, it gradually has a lower speed and rate-of-fire. That could be useful in keeping your own units alive (as injured flamer cyborgs start to fall behind), or in finishing off stragglers from a retreating enemy force.

Mortar borgs (grenadiers) can kill enemy cyborgs easily, but they can't fire while moving, which makes them actually slower than the enemy.

I partially agree with you. Due to their longer range, Grenadiers are useful for killing flamer cyborgs from a distance. However, while they can only fire while standing still (making it pretty much impossible to use them for kiting purposes), they can always flee to a safer place, such as behind a gateway protected by hardpoints (and hardcrete walls). If you'd like, then once your grenadiers (and other forces) make it through the gateways, you can temporarily seal off the entrance to the gateway with those inexpensive, quick-to-build tank traps that I mentioned before. (You might not even have to complete the tank traps to seal the area off, since partially-completed structures seem to block off areas.)

[Iluvalar]

machinegun cyborgs are just a bad idea because the machinegunner 'turret' deals far less damage per shot than the twin machinegun at the same rate of fire AND cyborg armor is 50% tougher than viper armor when both aren't upgraded. ...

But the armors does not impact any MG since they all fall under the 1/3 minimum damage condition most of the time.

[NoQ]

however, cannon+flamer cyborgs is a nice combination. and by the way, units operate normally until under some damage threshold like 90% after which they move and fire at a reduced, fixed rate.

I don't see how can this work against a pure flamer borg army. Your borgs will die or fall back almost instantly because of being outnumbered, and cannons won't stand a chance after that. Even though it's certainly some nice combination.

[NoQ]

By the way. Splitting your flamer borgs into small blobs to attack an enemy big blob of flamer borgs might make sense, since it nullifies the effect of penetrating damage.

[Shadow Wolf TJC]

Well guys, do you have any better suggestions for countering flamer cyborgs in a T1 game then? Before you answer with what you think the solution towards effectively countering flamer cyborgs is, please take the time to listen to the points that I'm about to make to support my arguments.

Note: Before I start, I'd like to point out that, for the sake of providing examples, all weapons and armor are assumed to have no upgrades present, unless otherwise stated. I'd also like to say that I'm getting all this statistical information from the guide section of this website. Finally, I'm assuming that fire damage is not affected by thermal armor, and I'm also assuming that fire damage is multiplied by what target it's affecting (such as fire damage from a flamer dealing 130% towards cyborgs, and 10% damage towards hardcrete).

Although the base damage-per-shot of a Cyborg machinegun is only 12 without upgrades, and although the base kinetic armor of a cyborg starts at 12, machinegun damage is multiplied by 140% when targeting cyborgs. Therefore, the base damage-per-shot of a cyborg's machinegun would be about 17 (again, without upgrades) against other cyborgs. While even that may not be enough to breach even unupgraded cyborg armor effectively (meaning that damage-per-shot would become 1/3rd base damage instead of base damage - target's armor), if you then take into account the fact that machinegun cyborgs start with a rate-of-fire of 1 round per .6 seconds, then that would mean that these cyborgs, without upgrades, would deal around 9.6 (17 base damage vs cyborgs X 1/3 from inability to effectively penetrate armor of 12 X 1/.6 from rate-of-fire) damage-per-second, assuming that every shot hit its target.

By comparison, the grenadier's mortar normally does 60 damage-per-shot without upgrades, but this is upgraded to 69 damage-per-shot when used against cyborgs. Although this damage is well above the cyborg's base kinetic armor of 12 (with a minimum damage-per-shot of 57), the grenadier's rate-of-fire is only 1 round every 6 seconds without upgrades, meaning that the grenadier's damage-per-second against cyborgs with kinetic armor of 12 would be about 9.5 ((69 base damage vs cyborgs - 12 from armor) X 1/6 from rate-of-fire). This is also assuming that every shot from the grenadier hits its target.

While the grenadier's damage-per-second is around the same as the machinegun cyborg's damage-per-second, it's also important to take into account their costs. On average, 90 power is required to produce a single grenadier, while only 50 power is required to produce a single machinegunner. (Also, for reference, a single flamer cyborg costs 60 power, and a single cannon cyborg costs 70 power.) Therefore, if I had spent 450 power producing only grenadiers, and another 450 power producing only machinegunners, then I'd end up with only 5 grenadiers, and 9 machinegunners. When used against cyborgs with a kinetic armor of 12, the combined damage-per-second of these 5 grenadiers (which would be about 47.5) wouldn't even come close to the combined damage-per-second of 9 machinegunners (which would be about 86.4). The main advantage that grenadiers have over machinegunners is that they have a longer range than machinegunners (12 compared to the machinegunner's range of 6, and the flamer cyborg's range of only 3).

Again, by comparison, a cyborg flamer without upgrades would deal about 28.2 damage-per-shot (plus another 28.2 from fire damage over 4 seconds, assuming that fire damage is affected by whatever it's being applied to, and also assuming that it ignores thermal armor) against cyborgs (22 base damage X 130%) without factoring in the target's thermal armor. Against a cyborg with a thermal armor of 5 (the lowest that it can go), the cyborg flamer would deal about 23.2 damage-per-shot + 28.2 from fire damage over 4 seconds, making for a whopping 51.4 damage-per-shot in total. If you also factor in the cyborg flamer's rate-of-fire of 1 round every 1.8 seconds, you'd get about 12.9 damage-per-second just from the initial shot damage (and maybe up to an additional 15.67 damage-per-second from fire damage, though I don't know if fire damage adds up, or if the highest value is only counted ). With that in mind, I think that it's safe to say that 300 power worth of flamer cyborgs (5 cyborgs) would have greater damage-per-second vs cyborgs than 300 power worth of machinegunners (6 cyborgs).

If we're going to counter flamer cyborgs, as with countering any other threat, we'll need to look at the weaknesses of the flamer cyborgs compared to other units. Out of all of the weaknesses in flamers in general, 2 stand out from the others: the flamer's short range (of 3 units), and the flamer's extreme ineffectiveness against hardpoints (only 10% damage).

When fighting a group of cyborg flamers, it's important to match or exceed the cyborgs' speed in order to keep out of range of their flamers. Hovercraft can do so without a problem, but if no hovercraft are available for you to build, then you'll need to rely on cyborgs of your own, preferably those armed with machineguns. Also keep in mind that using any units to kite requires a good amount of micromanagement. Failure to do so could mean that the cyborg flamers would close the gap, then put all your machinegun cyborgs to the torch.

When dealing with flamer cyborgs attacking your base, it's absolutely vital that you have hardpoints protecting your entrances. Unfortunately, since a horde of cyborg flamers could simply ignore your hardpoints (assuming that you don't have enough of them) and go straight for your factories, power plants, etc., you'll need to keep that from happening, by quickly sealing off your entrances with something made of hardcrete in order to force the attacking forces to breach your defenses. Believe it or not, tank traps fall into this category, and can be hastily constructed in case of an emergency. You could always demolish those tank traps after the threat is dealt with.

That ends my lecture for now. If fire damage isn't affected by the weapon target modifier, or if the data listed in the guide is outdated, please let me know, ok? In the meantime, on to the individual counterarguments that I have:

machinegun cyborgs are just a bad idea because the machinegunner 'turret' deals far less damage per shot than the twin machinegun at the same rate of fire AND cyborg armor is 50% tougher than viper armor when both aren't upgraded. cannon alone just don't work against cyborgs at all.

FYI, Cyborgs cannot be equipped with the twin or heavy machinegun, though they can be equipped with the assault gun later in the game. Cannon cyborgs are indeed ineffective against other cyborgs (flamer cyborgs included), but their longer range still means that they can still be used for kiting, albeit not as well as machinegunner cyborgs.

however, cannon+flamer cyborgs is a nice combination.

It would indeed be a nice combination to assault bases with, but we're talking about ways to counter flamer cyborgs, and this combination won't do at all.

another utterly false statement, grenadiers can be used to GREAT effect to support tanks in a ''kiting'' fashion. simply place them in hold position stance behind a mass of tracked tanks. keep your tracks in between you and your enemy. move the grenadiers into position, then quickly select a target and issue an attack order. grenadiers by virtue turn super super super quickly, so they will all fire their volleys nearly instantly. as soon as the shells are in the air, issue a move order and out micro your opponent. this works great against masses of cyborgs and light tanks, but is countered later by tracks, so don't invest too much in them.

Against a slower army, grenadiers (and mortars on hover propulsion) are good at kiting, but only against slower units such as half-tracked and tracked units. Enemy cyborgs are just too fast to be kited by grenadiers since grenadiers are also cyborgs (hence why I stated that it's pretty much impossible to use grenadiers to kite cyborg flamers).

[NoQ]

Shadow Wolf TJC, nice one!

One point you seem to be missing: splash damage of mortars and, most importantly, penetrating damage of flamers. The DPS of flamers is directly multiplied by the amount of targets it's able to hit with one shot; that's exactly what makes them deadly, especially in borg vs. borg battles. This parameter is rather complicated though, for it depends on micromanagement and force size.

P.S. Obviously, main purpose of grenadiers is defense/building harassment.

[NoQ]

Enemy cyborgs are just too fast to be kited by grenadiers since grenadiers are also cyborgs

put some hmg scorpion tracks in front of them

Early game is soo early

[NoQ]

Hmm yeah right