What's your research strategy?

[meeso]

Hello to everyone; i just registered now :)

Well, I think research is very important, and it's taking me sometime to figure out about my preferences. Sometimes researching defensive techs becomes necessary (such as AA when an opponent develops VTOL), some other times offensive techs should be developed, and in the middle, infrastructural tech (such as those of factory modules, research capacity itself, and upgrading weapons) becomes also necessary. It's a whole strategy game in itself! :)

I am sure that such information, regarding general research strategy tips or guidance, would be very very useful for new players, who sometimes find it rather confusing and uncomfortable to deal with all these options while they just want to experience the game. The current user guide does not really enable the beginner to grasp the massive research tree.

What do you think; and what is your research strategy, in general?

Thank you very much, and a very special "thanks" to the godly developers! ;-)
m.

[BulletMagnet]

Code: Select all

10 println("Machine Guns.");
20 goto 10

[XboxJosh]

Code: Select all

10 println("Machine Guns.");
20 goto 10

xD

[Zarel]

With weapon tech, you can pretty much go wherever you wish.

With nonweapon tech, you have some choices, but a few are must-research:

Engineering -> Fuel Injection Engine -> Power Module

Engineering -> Cyborg Factory -> Factory Module

Sensor Turret -> Sensor Tower -> Command Relay Post -> Research Module -> SLDA Mk1,2,3 -> DSLDA Mk1,2,3

[winsrp]

interesting question... I have seen that on multi games, people ignore completely the cannons, and go to the heavy machine guns and mini pod.... make a 25/40 units army with those and try to crush everything in their way...

[BulletMagnet]

MG's are useful against structures and cyborgs, MP's are for the tanks.

[Dylan Hsu]

Power module and some form of T1 weaponry (either cannon or twin/heavy MG) will let you mount an effective offensive. From there, you should set goals for yourself in terms of research - do I want medium bodies and medium cannon? or do I want lancers?

[Zarel]

(Or MRP. MRP makes decent T1 weaponry.)

[Olrox]

My personal preference is to put most of my efforts on research module / power module - Auto-repair rush of sorts.
Because having no need to return your units home for them to get repair is just the thing Also, auto-repairing defenses can be easily unbeatable.

Note that I play on high power levels, usually 4 player maps, free for all & locked teams. I start making a factory (assigning production of 6 trucks), then a research facility, then the base's internal power structures, then additional 2 research facilities and then finally I go out scouting for additional resources with 4 trucks and use the other four to build the rest of the base (starting with HQ to make scouting easier). I build 5 research facilities as soon as possible.

Therefore, usually I occupy only 2 research facilities making those researches. The other ones go for MG research, pointing towards twin assault gun as quick as possible. I often cause very much trouble raiding power generators with 7 units of Twin assault gun bug hover, usually this precedes the end of the game, not by coincidence.
If there's a remaining facility I let it aim for other interesting techs such as cyborg upgrades, cannons (aiming towards HPV) and VTOL.

Usually, when I start a game from T1, I stop researching to accumulate power as soon as I've got auto-repair and assault borgs, or HPV cannon bug VTOL, or borg transport & Super HPV borgs. When I reach about 5000 I start to produce units, usually about 50 cyborgs mixing 25 assault gunners, 15 grenadiers and 10 heavy gunners, or 20 HPV bug VTOLs, or 20 Super HPV borgs & 2 borg transports. After producing one of those strike forces, I restart researching, aiming for laser sattelite and defense upgrades. If I cannot win with the previously produced forces, I keep turtling until I can LasSat the adversaries and then mantain only unit upgrades on research and start producing proportional strike forces.

Until now I've achieved a nice 100% victory rate (started playing at the middle of the last month, about 40 games since then), and I'm happy with this strategy

Regards,
Olrox

[meeso]

hi Olrox,

100% victory ?!!!!! on what level of difficulty do you play. and do u adjust the scale of difficulty of each team or not? do u enable the cheat mod? Because AI is really cheaty you know!

thank you for your reply, and you might be interested to read the research strategy tips for beginners here: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=4118 i thought to give something for beginners because when i started playing, i was kind of lost, especially regarding research. Please give your opinion.

Best,
m

[Olrox]

hi Olrox,

100% victory ?!!!!! on what level of difficulty do you play. and do u adjust the scale of difficulty of each team or not? do u enable the cheat mod? Because AI is really cheaty you know!

thank you for your reply, and you might be interested to read the research strategy tips for beginners here: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=4118 i thought to give something for beginners because when i started playing, i was kind of lost, especially regarding research. Please give your opinion.

Best,
m

That's a 4-player free for all, 4 human players (including me ), no cheat, no mod other than AR. It's 100% victory probably because I didn't play that much on MP (I've been playing Warzone since 2001 but started MP only last month), slight less than 40 games

[Zarel]

Note that I play on high power levels, usually 4 player maps, free for all & locked teams. I start making a factory (assigning production of 6 trucks), then a research facility, then the base's internal power structures, then additional 2 research facilities and then finally I go out scouting for additional resources with 4 trucks and use the other four to build the rest of the base (starting with HQ to make scouting easier). I build 5 research facilities as soon as possible.

...yeah, that's really late for going scouting. And how do you get the power to maintain 5 facilities? Then again, I'm used to med power... But if you have 5 facilities going at once, you need more than 8 resources going for you to do anything else... Most maps don't have that much power.

[winsrp]

by the way, whats the difference between high power levels, med, and low? I'm pretty sure it changes something else than just initial game power.

[Zarel]

Changes the rate you get power for oil.

I'm considering making everyone start out with low initial power with No Bases. Otherwise the earlygame rush is just ridiculous. StarCraft starts everyone out at 0 resources. That makes sense.

[winsrp]

I'm considering making everyone start out with low initial power with No Bases.

Well, if is would be 0, it would kill the hole make the factory first for trucks strategy, and you would have to put a 0 cost on the power generator. If its like 500, then its not that bad, you would be able to build your factory, and send a couple trucks to produce, and make the power generator, but if you screw up and make a couple trucks and some other buildings before the power generator, then you would end up selling the buildings for money.... hmmm not sure on this one.

The no bases part I'm ok... I don't remember the last time I started with bases ...