Help me, Obi-wan. You are my only hope

[casperjeff]

thanks for all the tips....

I'll look for some of you online....

[TheFatController]

The best way to learn is to simply watch the replay every time you die and find out what your enemies did to win.

Ideally find some pros to play against and steal their strats.

[Tribulexrenamed]

I play a weekly game of BA with my buddies and I really suck. I HATE resource management in general and am not very good at it (usually get stalled on metal) . My buddies all tend to porch and build giant mechs and crush me...laughingly.....while I strategically build, deploy and attach with many level 1/2 units.....

We may start eliminating level 3 units but still, I need to get better.

Anyone want to do some one-on-one tutorials with me to raise my game up? I'm SURE there are plenty of tid-bits about certain units and specialty things that I just don't know that would help...in addition to basic resource management skills.

Do not listen to some of these noob traps above.

For noobs:There are units that you shouldn't use and some u should use a lot.


Here is a list of superior units that you can easy get by with in most cases.
For noobs this means you need to play with these units only.after learning how to play with these units u can start experimenting with others although in most cases you will find them inferior.

level 1 kbots and vehicles :weasel,Jeffy,flea,flash,gator,storm,Rocko,peewee,Ak,slasher,Samson.
Flash and Gator are USUALLY a must unit at most situations even versus heavier ground units like Stumpies or raiders(yes even in large groups).
hammers and thuds-do not use.If you see a player winning with them it it because he is superior to his enemy not cause hammers and thuds are good(they can be useful at relatively rar,tight situations when the battlefield is clogged up with unit wreckage since they can shoot above them while rockos and storms can't.
Use Rockos and storms in MOST cases.

level 2 kbots and vehicles(a small comment,you wont usually need t2 kbots in BA and on most maps you start vehicles anyway so ull probably play t2 kbots much less and most kbot units are inferior to t2 vehicle units): bulldog,Goliath(need a few to get a big advantage),reaper,
sniper(if u must build t2 kbot direct attack units build zeus for arm and Pyro sumo for core).
you might sometimes want to build a few artillery pieces like the t2 artillery or a Penetrator just to psychologically harass your opponent from a far but don't push it with these units in MOST cases you should either build none or only a few.

T1 air units you should notice are Banshee and Core's t1 emp Gunships.
These too can help out land units and the Banshee can penetrate a defensive line without anti air and move directly into the enemy's base destroying first the anti air installations than nano turrets and construction workers than labs and than solars,mexes etc..
small comment about air:t1 fighters are usually unnecessary build ground AA.
T2 air can be used to rush early t2 gunships,build advanced bombers to bomb enemy important targets such as fusions Berthas,commanders,t3 labs etc(if you see an advanced fusion that is almost always your prime target since its explosion will almost always devastate your enemy and hurt his economy badly cause of the adv fusion's huge explosion upon death)...
You'll need tons of fighters if u wish to stop advanced bombers otherwise build ground aa,it will stop gunships but is generally sucky so you better attack with air before your opponent does :) )
Go air only when there are already solid defensive positions and many land units on the battlefield and you see the enemy has no anti air.
An important fact is that the nuke bomber can kill a commander with one shot,in BA,if you drop the bomb close to the commander but not right on him(it will make him fly and receive falling damage which will do him in).

Do not use Kbots on large maps unless your playing a team game in which you are pretty close to your enemy on the opposing team.
In MOST cases play vehicles.
You can even play vehicles on hilly maps but it requires some skill.
You cant however play kbots on flat maps that are bigger than 8x6 or something and if you see someone winning with kbots on flat maps in MOST cases he is just a much better player than his opponent.

-----
If your a noob use the units above,generally prefer vehicles over kbots,and you will have an advantage over others that don't follow this advice.
-----

As for defensive buildings i say:llt llt and again llt.
All other t1 defensive structures are GENERALLY a bad idea but the hlt can be handy at particular situations but if your a noob don't use it,build units instead)
DO NOT BUILD GUARDiANS- this is a major noob trap,no plasma defensive structures please(build attacking units instead)even if you think you'v built one before and it helped you its not true and you would be much better of with attacking units or ecoing or going t2.
Do not use SAM or its equivalent in BA.
It sucks compared to the lighter missile turrets.
It will cover less land,be easier to bomb and is a single target while a bunch of light missile turrets will confuse a player possibly stopping him from attacking your light missile units and just trying to do as much damage as possible to other buildings while his air units are still alive.
If your enemy sees a single SAM standing be sure he will jump on it kill it in a sec and raep the rest of your base.

As for t2 defensive buildings if you'r gonna porc t2 defenses and you're playing vs a good player he will rape you with air and the t2 defenses are actually pretty easily cracked with a god land army as well,even if u have a doomsday machine.

Noobtrap for t2 defensive structures:do not build the arm long laser defensive building(Annihilator?i always confuse the name with the moving unit equivalent which by the way shouldn't be built in most cases as well)It is shit and will die to land attacks as well as small air attacks just don't build it.
If ur core u can try and build a doomsday i guess but moving attack units are ALMOST always better.

About eco,going for mexes isn't always a good thing since at later game stages when your far off into t2 its better to build energy converter economy than go out and try to capture more mexes since they wont live long enough to actually generate a lot of metal.
To be honst the best advice for noobs concerning economy is this:
WATCH YOUR FREAKING METAL AND ENERGY BARS!!!
do not let them be completely full.
The metal bar should be going from 0 to 20% the nergy bar can be full but if u see u have a huge ass energy income that isnt being used build energy converters since they cost almost no metal.
In BA you don't usually need an E storage since its expensive and will definatly ruin your first minutes of play at ALMOST all cases.
In team games if you want to help your teammates yet push your economy forward,when your done expanding and taking metal spots assign 1-2 construction units to build energy producing buildings and 1-2 to make converters,depending on your e and m status at that moment.

Also:do not build armed mexes or clocked mexes they are shit in ba.
Only build clocked mexes if you want to trap an incoming enemy army in the emp blast of an exploding clocked mex(when it explodes it makes an emp blast stunning surrounding units.You can also self destruct it as the army approaches).

i was a bit harsh on ba but beleive me its to your benefit.use the specified units only fomr now on.as u get the hang of them try sometimes using other units.

suepr mega fail

[manored]

Targeting systems increase the accuracy of all your units, altough thats only really usefull for things such as Long range plasma cannons and annihilators... and the effects are cumulative, altough it probally never hits 100% accuracy.

No. They reduce the "dance" of the radar dots, usually they move around quite far and shooting at radar blips ends up with lots of missed shots. Upgrades make the dots stay closer to the unit so attacks against them are more accurate. It's more useful for PRECISION weapons, not inaccurate ones since with lasers and such a miss means no effect at all while it won't make much of a difference with LRPCs or something where the base accuracy is already much lower than the radar error.


Also the word is "unless" not "unleash".

LRPCs hit a lot more if you have targenting systems tough, at least the last time I tested it.

[Tribulexrenamed]

Yes, theoretically it helps, and increases the odds of a direct hit. however, lrpcs are not really precision weapons, and should be aimed while realizing a bit of scatter will occur.

[manored]

Makes long I dont play BA, but I remember quite well that I used to use then as precision weapons... they hit at least 50% of the shots with enough targenting facilities, and considering their power and range thats A LOT :)

[Tribulexrenamed]

While we are discussing this, i have a question. DO you need just 1 targeting facility in BA/XTA/CA (I know the answers are different for different mods), or the more targeting facilities, the better the accuracy of radar/targetting?

[REVENGE]

As an aside, please don't quote long ass walls of text just to make pointless/troll comment.

[Google_Frog]

In CA the adv radar also act as a targeting facility. Each one decerease radar hover slightly and with 5 you will have basically no hover

[Lolsquad_Steven]

http://www.smuggoat.com/blog/?page_id=33

[NR]Nick left before i finished but what's there might help you.

[smoth]

As an aside, please don't quote long ass walls of text just to make pointless/troll comment.

damnit, there was nice wall of ignored posts and you broke it

[KDR_11k]

LRPCs hit a lot more if you have targenting systems tough, at least the last time I tested it.

Code: Select all

	dir+=(gs->randVector()*sprayAngle+salvoError)*(1-owner->limExperience*0.9f);

What part of that looks like it takes targetting facilities into account?

[Gota]

Funny.

[Saktoth]

Ill tutor you, or anyone, in how to play CA. But not BA, i dont play BA anymore.

Here is a guide on some basic economic stuff, its for CA but most of it is pertinent to BA: http://trac.caspring.org/wiki/EconomyGuide

Targ facs halve radar waver. So 1 cuts it to 50%, 2 to 25%, 3 to 12.5%, 4 to 6.25% etc.

Targ facs do nothing for LRPC's- this is a crazy myth. The LRPC is the last unit to benefit from a targ fac- its more useful for lasers and missiles, since they dont have much AoE, are prescision accurate and they can miss due to radar hover.

As for which units to use- Use jeffies until they stop working then use flash until they stop working then use stumpies until they stop working then use bulldogs until they stop working. Then its bombers, nukes, berthas, etc.

[manored]

Its best if you can antecipate then each unit will stop working tough, else you will have tons of metal wasted against the wrong kinds of walls of porc :) Its also recomendable to avoid assault unleash your economy is bigger or you found a weak spot or etc.

Like I said, I made a test VERY LONG ago and the accuracy of LRPCs improved decently with the help of targentting facilities. Even if it is and was supposed to not work, it did, so either there was a bug or some douglas adams style serie of events.

[BlackLiger]

It's interesting to note that the help request that used a geeky (star wars, more particularly) quote to express it's requirement of aid, got more assistance and less flames than the average ones do.