tier 1 unit guide

[Hackfresser]

i got a little time on hands, so i started writing a short unit tier 1 unit guide. so far i have finished a first draft of most vehicles. i'm open to suggestions/criticism...

Vehicles

Stumpy/Raider

Your bread-and-butter unit. Good speed, excellent armor, medium firepower. Effective basically against anything that doesn't fly. This is the unit that other units have to compare to.
Stumpies are slightly faster and cheaper while Raiders have a little more hp. Overall, Stumpies are a bit more efficient.

This unit counters:
Samson/Slasher
This unit gets countered by:
(Leveler)


Flash/Instigator

Faster and cheaper then the Stumpy or the Raider. Very good speed, very good firepower, but fragile. Small numbers of these with good micro beat Stumpies/Raider metal for metal. Big swarms

of these are near impossible to micro well, but due to their high speed and firepower, can still fill a role in raiding, overrunning weak spots in the enemy defence, then wreaking havoc on

the enemy economy.

This unit counters:
Samson/Slasher, Stumpy/Raider (small numbers)
This unit gets countered by:
Leveler, Janus, Stumpy/Raider (large numbers), Bladewings (raiding parties)


Leveler

Riot tank, which means that this unit is very effective at killing large numbers of individually weak units. It does so by having good AOE damage and a projectile that is fast enough to

catch even fleas and weasels.
Slow speed, Good firepower, decent armor. This unit rips through cheaper units like a knife through butter.
Levelers can go toe to toe with Stumpies and Raiders. Here it really comes down to micro: badly microed Stumpies/Raiders will lose because of the leveler's AOE, while Stumpies/Raiders with

good micro can often outmanoeuver Levelers due to their superior speed. This unit has trouble with Samson/Slasher since it can be kited.

This unit counters:
Scouts, Flash/Instigator, (Stumpy/Raider)
This unit gets countered by:
Samson/Slasher, (Stumpy/Raider)


Janus

My experience with this unit is limited. I'd be happy if a good player out there could help me a bit here. So far i have not found a suitable role for this unit.
This unit has great burst damage, but a huge reload time. Mediocre armor and DPS, slow speed and the need to closely micro this unit has kept me from using it to good effect so far. I have

theoretized that small numbers of these could be microed vs Stumpies/Raiders (3 can one-shot a Stumpy) or vs Flashes/Instigator (1 can instantly kill these), but their slow speed is such a

hindrance. Also this unit has a rather slow (albeit homing) projectile, so setting them to the usual fire-at-will will make them waste a lot of their DPS.
If you see these on the battlefield, be quick and decisive about destroying them. Their damage might be intimidating at first, but usually you can kill some before they even reload once.

You have plenty of time to retreat damaged units that cannot take another hit. Their armor is hardly good, and they cant run away from you.
This unit can fire over wreckage, but the amount of micro needed to manage its individual shots could easily be used to find LOS elsewhere.

This unit counters:
Flash/Instigator (small numbers), i guess...
This unit gets countered by:
Stumpy/Raider, Samson/Slasher, Flash/Instigator (large numbers)


Jeffy/Weasel

Light Scout/Raider. The fastest land unit in the game. DPS/armorwise, this cannot keep up with any other unit, but properly microed small swarms of these can evade plasma shots at will, or

just outgun smaller, lone units like LLTs or Flashes if needed. It's main purpose is scouting and raiding though.

This unit counters:
Mexes, Wind Generators
This unit gets countered by:
LLT, Samson/Slasher, Instigator, Exploiter


Samson/Slasher

An AA truck that can also fire at ground targets. Slow, pityful DPS, reasonably armored, good range. This unit is very often used in large numbers, to whittle down enemy unit from a safe

distance. Where the strength of this unit is it's range, the weakness is it's slow speed. Anything that catches up to this will easily beat it metal for metal. (Maybe scouts will not.)

There are two effective approaches at dealing with this unit: Use fast units to get close enough to kill them. Or just take the damage they deal and retreat&repair units that get low on

health.
This is an overrated and overused unit. Proper use of tanks will counter this unit very effectively in many cases. Spamming this unit is easy though and will often lead to good results for

newer players.
This is not to say that this unit should not be used. There are factors that limit the radius of action for mobile units, like dgun-wielding commanders and porc. This is where this unit

shines.

This unit counters:
air units, slow units, stationary units (not HLT)
This unit gets countered by:
Stumpy/Raider, Flash/Instigator, Nanoturret


Shellshocker/Wolverine

This is an artillery piece. It's very high trajectory and slow projectile make this unit useless at attacking moving units, so this unit is mostly useful as a counter to porc.
The main reason to get this unit is it's ability to outrange HLTs, if only by a slight margin. Be careful when positioning this unit since it tends to wander too close and get hit by the

HLT none the less. This unit has about twice the DPS and half the HP of the Samson/Slasher, but it's inferior mobility and inability to hit moving target makes this lose any long range

battles on open ground.
This unit can be put to good use on battlefields clogged with corpses, but getting some cons to suck the metal should take priority in this case.

This unit counters:
porc
This unit gets countered by:
Nanoturrets, anything unit gets close to it


Pincer/Garpike

This light amphibious can move underwater, but not shoot it's weapons when submerged. So unlike hovercrafts, it is useless at fighting sea battles.
This unit is a bit more expensive, slower, and less powerful then the Stumpy/Raider. Overall, the Pincer is slightly faster and efficient then it's core counterpart.

Kbots

Peewee/AK

These light infantry Kbots offer very good speed and very good firepower, given their low cost. Their armor is made of cardboard though.
Given it's high agility, this unit can be microed to evade plasma shots and rockets alike, so small numbers of these will win against Rocko/Storm and Hammer/Thud, metal for metal. The less

this unit is able to manoeuver though, the less effective it gets. Forcing this unit to exchange shots for shots will make it very inefficient.
The high speed and DPS of this unit makes it an excellent raider.
Peewees are more expensive, harder-hitting, and a bit tougher then AKs. AKs on the other hand have a slight range advantage, and also another slight advantage in that Peewees will take a split second to raise their arms before they will start firing. These two traits make properly microed AKs superior to Peewees. They can do a thing i call "soft kiting" - while they cannot truly kite a Peewee, they can still retain an advantage in having more units in range at the same time, delivering superior DPS to the enemy.
Densely wooded areas make this soft kiting impossible to execute. Here, the superior firepower and armor makes the Peewee definitely superior to it's adversary.

This unit counters:
given proper micro and small numbers, anything that's not a warrior
This unit gets countered by:
warrior


Necro/Rector

These units are exact copies in all their statistics. Just the model and the name is different.

[tacho]

<3

[MrCucumber]

I am going to have to say that 7 scouts (about 220M) beats a janus any day of the week.

Also I cannot agree with this guide because micro is a HUGE factor, as my 30 Investigators beat those 20 stumpies that one game, and the next game my investigators were not able to hit the stumpies due to the wrecks protecting them.

I am also sure that 1 scout beats 1 leveler because they move faster then the leveler's turret turn speed, but don't quote me on that.

[dansan]

This is a very helpful guide IMO.
2 minutes reading, and you're up to speed with t1-vehs. Newbies will learn BA basics faster and less painfull this way.

Also I cannot agree with this guide because micro is a HUGE factor

That's right ofc, but that doesn't make the guide wrong. There should be a extra section "microing", explaining why it's so important.

... ah: http://springrts.com/wiki/Balanced_Anni ... ng_With_TA will this guide be integrated into this page?

I miss the arti. ("Only t1 unit to outreach HLT. Only used against that. Dies from almost anything."

[Hackfresser]

Also I cannot agree with this guide because micro is a HUGE factor, as my 30 Investigators beat those 20 stumpies that one game, and the next game my investigators were not able to hit the stumpies due to the wrecks protecting them.

I am also sure that 1 scout beats 1 leveler because they move faster then the leveler's turret turn speed, but don't quote me on that.

so i could condense this guide to "better micro counters not so good micro" and maybe add "better macro beats not so good macro". but i won't.


yeah, arty is missing, as are kbots. will add when i find time.

[albator]

I appreciate the effort, But I dont think you should make this public to newbies cause after reading some lines, I found some things that was wrong or will lead noobs in a bad direction.

Quick question: Do you play 1v1 ? small game ? ffa ? 8v8? 16v16 ?

[Yuri]

It's better than nothing, plus it would improve the horrid BA wiki anyway ...

[Hackfresser]

updated. also fked up the formatting, but im too lazy now.

albator, i usually play bigger games, but try to stay away from dsd. i play smaller games sometimes, but i find them a lot more demanding and i tend to be lazy =)
so, what do you think is wrong?

[Wombat]

well, in theory everything is wrong, becouse all these things said wont be always true. too many factors like terrain, speed bonuses, turret turning speed etc (1 jeffie eating janus <3) but like Yuri said its better than nothing definitely nice lecture for nubs.

i would avoid term 'firepower' btw, dps tells more. but thats detail ;]

EDIT - erm no wait, ak/pw is totally wrong...

EDIT2 - jeffie counters wind/mexes ? :D wtf lol

also janus kills t1 tanks with 2 shots, not 3

[Hackfresser]

well, in theory everything is wrong, becouse all these things said wont be always true. too many factors like terrain, speed bonuses, turret turning speed etc (1 jeffie eating janus <3) but like Yuri said its better than nothing definitely nice lecture for nubs.

well ofc in theory everything i wrote is partially wrong, since it doesnt tell the whole story of how the game goes. but i write this to give noobs some directions, not to confuse them =)

EDIT - erm no wait, ak/pw is totally wrong...

whats so horribly wrong?

[Wombat]

first of all, i can bet my ballz that only about 90% of players can avoid missles with pw, less than 95% can avoid plasma. with >2 its basicly impossible. so even mentioning it is big nub trap, which leads to brainless pw spam against wall of storms.

secondly, hammers/thuds eat ak/pw especially when moving uphill. they basicly massacre them.

whats more, especially in 1v1, this ak hit&run means that core playes gets constantly pushed back, it doesnt always give such a huge advantage (small hills, lack of radar/ lack of awereness make it very hard to use).

also u forgot about leveler which is much better counter than warrior

[Hackfresser]

either your numbers or your grammar are jumbled up, but i get your point.
i cannot agree though. clicking around a bit so that a single peewee runs around a single hammer without taking all the hits is something everybody can do. taking the step forward to micro half a dozen peewees at the same time for the same thing may be hard for the newer players, but once they grasped the concept, they can work towards this as a goal.
remember, its not about avoiding every single shot. if you can avoid half the enemy DPS, you are well ahead. you get 2.3 peewees for the cost of 1 thud.

also you are right, AK hit&run requires room. but most of the time there will be room. in my personal playing experience, AKs almost always rip through peewees. if there isnt enough room for AKs to manoeuver, you're probably better off building thuds anyway.
this soft-kiting thing is advanced stuff that requires serious mouse dexterity though. next update i will include that.

about the leveler - i decided to not to include cross-lab counters in the list. these matchups aren't so relevant. usually you get them when one player builds the wrong lab, so i'd rather write a short comment on how to pick the right lab for the right situation.

[Johannes]

Nobody can reliably avoid hammer bullets with pw that is in shooting range. And you'll lose some dps yourself too when turning, it's just not worth doing. With aks range i guess you can avoid some shots on occasion, but when it takes 20 sec to kill that hammer it's kinda pointless.

I don't know how relevant all this stuff is for a new player, because it doesn't really tell how to progress through the game, when to build what. And how fast building something uses e&m is one of the most important things to learn, you don't touch this at all.

And there's tons of maps where both bots and tanks work.

[Hackfresser]

i can reliably avoid your posts. cheers!

[Johannes]

Sure you can, but why would you?

[albator]

i can reliably avoid your posts. cheers!

i'm open to suggestions/criticism...

Cause he wants to contradict himself ofc

[Wombat]

Nobody can reliably avoid hammer bullets with pw that is in shooting range.

WRONG ! mwahahaha

but rest is basicly true

[very_bad_soldier]

What about some of you uberpros write a unit guide themselfs?

[Hackfresser]

Johannes, your posts all follow the same pattern. don't get me wrong; you are probably a very competent player, if not one of the best. but you don't post here to be helpful to others. you come here to prove something about yourself. that's why i cba to respond to your post.

[knorke]

why not update the wiki?
http://springrts.com/wiki/Category:Bala ... nihilation
has some good pages ie http://springrts.com/wiki/Vehicles