Unused Units

[wildferret]

Which units have you (almost) never used or rarely ever used? This applies to any mod, XTA included.

In my case, I have never used the Arm Juno radar jammer/anti-radar weapon (not quite sure which mod). I just cant see the significance of the anti-radar weapon, and it seems useless to prevent radar coverage of your base, since your enemy will be searching for you visually most of the time. Anyways, its too costly to use on any map other than speedmetal, and its impractical there anyways since your base location is obvious.

How about you? Which unit(s) do you rarely (if ever) use?

[rattle]

The comm.

[iamacup]

play the game


you will find out which are completely useless

[jackalope]

BA's geothermal plasma (core)

[Forboding Angel]

^^

Bohemoth, in case you're wondering

[LOrDo]

Those weird radar kbots in AA and BA.
Why build those when you can just have spys?

[PauloMorfeo]

Which units have you (almost) never used or rarely ever used? This applies to any mod, XTA included.
...

That makes me laugh so much when i remember the so many people that saw, and still see, some, oTA as the only way. OTA balance where the question would be completely the other way around: «what units are not actually useless».

[Strategia]

RFLRPCs (Vulcans/Buzzsaws). Far, far more expensive than regular LRPCs and take an order of magnitude (!) longer to build. They require an enormous amount of energy to keep firing. They could be useful in some situations, but it's better to just spaem gollies or bulldogs, that way you use the same amount of resources but have invested them into mobile units that can attack anywhere they can reach and can actually evade stuff (like a nuke).

Juno. I mean, I don't even know precisely what it does, and if it works like I think it works (removes radar jamming) I still wouldn't build it.

Tech-3 units. Gantry stuff. Horrendously expensive, takes forever to build, and will be the focus of the enemy's attack from the moment he/she spots the gantry being constructed.

Mobile radar jammers. But that's just me, if you micro them good they can be very useful; I just suck at micro so if I built them they'd either get creamed by the enemy's defences or stay behind my own since they can't follow the line of "attack" orders I give.

Starburst rocket launcher trucks (Merl/Diplomat). Stupid, I know, but I believe in the head-on charge, I'll break through eventually. For artillery, I use Morties :)

Targeting facilities. Expensive. Resources better used in spaeming moar gollies. We don't need no accuracy when we can just crush everything in our path.

Crawling bombs. Why invest resources into something that blows itself up? I prefer units that actually gain experience from attacking and that, you know, actually survive the battle.

Radar jammers. I'm pretty safe behind my defences, and if they attack with artillery, I send in the tanks.

Depthcharge launchers. Either I don't worry about the water at all, or I build torpedo launchers and floating HLTs.

Reapers. Just spaem gollies, to hell with Reapers.

Weasels. Damn things die when you fart on them.

Dragon's Teeth. Defences ftw, and if they rush through, they still have my tanks to deal with, and some light defences spread through my base.

DT guns (Dragon's Maw/Dragon's Claw). See above. No DTs, no point in building DT guns.

Sea/air transports. Comnaps are quite impossible to pull off against any somewhat experienced player, and if my units can't get somewhere in a straight line, they either go around or I send in the navy/airforce/amphibs.

Commando (lvl2 capture Kbot). Why should I? Just spaem gollies.

Banishers. Just over 1/3rd the health of a Gollie, just spaem gollies. :)

Any sort of nuke. If you're not playing on a metal map, they're extremely wasteful, easily countered and just not worth it compared to the equivalent cost in mobile units.

This all from a BA 4.5 standpoint.

[DemO]

Core nuke at 20 mins is win tbh.

[DemO]

And gollies arnt everything, it can be a much better investment time and cost wise in several situations to mix units, and particularly use things like banishers (which i find to be extremely effective at doing a lot of damage whilst keeping your forces and themselves relatively harm free)

Your approach at the moment would seem to be spam units, mindlessly point them in the direction of enemy base and GG because they are powerful units. This works where you have a dominant economy in a lot of cases in average team games, but eventually it becomes more interesting, more rewarding and will improve your skills to try some nice unit combinations. Good players will likely see that you spam only gollies and make an equivelent counter to at the very worst slow your progression, if not stop it completely and take the advantage.

[Machiosabre]

Core nuke at 20 mins is win tbh.

so are 99% of the things in strategia's post tbh

[Strategia]

And gollies arnt everything, it can be a much better investment time and cost wise in several situations to mix units, and particularly use things like banishers (which i find to be extremely effective at doing a lot of damage whilst keeping your forces and themselves relatively harm free)

I just took "spaem gollies" as a concise example; of course, I don't start spaeming gollies right from the start and usually I never even get to building any reasonable amount of them; lvl1 Kbot swarm w/ Morty support ftw :)

Your approach at the moment would seem to be spam units, mindlessly point them in the direction of enemy base and GG because they are powerful units. This works where you have a dominant economy in a lot of cases in average team games, but eventually it becomes more interesting, more rewarding and will improve your skills to try some nice unit combinations. Good players will likely see that you spam only gollies and make an equivelent counter to at the very worst slow your progression, if not stop it completely and take the advantage.

Yes, I do send in my units, and I suck at micro. I do however try to keep my units from mindlessly rushing into instant death; if I encounter defences that are too powerful, I pull back and wait for the swarm to grow large enough to break through. And I do use unit combinations (to a certain extent), I use pretty much all types of lvl1 Kbots on land (AKs to soak up damage (or divert fire, more like it), Thuds and Storms for medium-range fire), and at sea, I try to use a healthy mix of lvl1 and lvl2 units. The only sea unit I don't build is the carrier, mainly because I don't use much air units and I don't worry about nukes. After all, on any half decent map, building a nuke pretty much ensures your loss unless you're winning anyway. It takes a very VERY long time, enormous amounts of resources, and like with the Gantry units, as soon as the enemy spots it, you're going to have to deal with swarms upon swarms of units whose only objective is to take it out.

Well, the Banisher part may not have been entirely true; I don't use Banishers all that much, but if I actually went lvl2 vehicles instead of lvl2 Kbots, I would mix them in with my Gollies and Tremors, with a relationship of roughly 5:3:1 or 5:2:1 for Gollies, Banishers and Tremors respectively.

However, I prefer Kbots for their versatility and comparative cheapness. Also, the lvl2 Kbot lab also builds one unit which can justify going Kbots alone; the Morty. It's cheap, builds not really much slower than any lvl1 Kbot, outranges most defences and is spammable enough to be mixed in with the lvl1 swarm.

Basically, it's like this:
-lvl1 swarm: Soak up fire, hunt for mobile units, make quick excursions from the main force to take out mexes.
-Morties: bomb enemy defences into dust.
Morties outrange even HLTs, and if they aren't clustered too much they can take out an MRPC at a very reasonable comparative cost ratio.

So basically, what I'm saying is that instead of "spaem Gollies" (which is concise and recognizable) my behaviour is more like "spaem lvl1 and Morties". (Also note the lack of the word "spam", which is replaced with "spaem", which in itself was meant to be slightly sarcastic.)

[tombom]

Reapers are better than Goliaths at skirmishing, Goliaths at assulating. About half your post I can understand your view on and only one would I outright say is a waste. (the Juno) I'm sure it has a few uses but it's not something I'd ever really build.

[Strategia]

Reapers are better than Goliaths at skirmishing, Goliaths at assulating. About half your post I can understand your view on and only one would I outright say is a waste. (the Juno) I'm sure it has a few uses but it's not something I'd ever really build.

Again, I don't really use tech2 vehicles. Also, the Reaper may be better at skirmishing, but I will still always send in tech1 units with the Gollies, they may be less effective than Reapers at skirmishing for a comparative cost but heck, you haven't won the battle when you win the skirmishes on the way to the enemy, you win when you break through his lines and blow up his fusions.

Also, the Juno; exactly. I'm sure it's good for SOMETHING, too, but until I know WHAT it's good for I consider it a waste of resources better used to build mobile assault units.

Again, if it works like I suspect it does, and it removes the jammer effect, I probably still wouldn't build it. I don't take mobile radars with me on the attack force, so why should I worry about jammers when I just shoot everything in sight?

[rattle]

Crawling bombs. Why invest resources into something that blows itself up? I prefer units that actually gain experience from attacking and that, you know, actually survive the battle.

Atlas+Crawl = lolies

[hunterw]

i think i use every single unused unit in strategia's post

except for juno. juno =

[Strategia]

Crawling bombs. Why invest resources into something that blows itself up? I prefer units that actually gain experience from attacking and that, you know, actually survive the battle.

Atlas+Crawl = lolies

Atlas + Crawl = lol + two units that never come back. :)

i think i use every single unused unit in strategia's post

except for juno. juno =

RFLRPCs? Weasels? Gantry units? Targeting Facility? Commando? I'd love to play you.

[Neddie]

I even use the Juno on occassion.

[tombom]

I even use the Juno on occassion.

How? What possible use is there for it that can't be negated by scout planes or EMP missiles or something similar?

[Neddie]

Massive Porc. I used it once in AA 2.11, and once in AA 1.48...