Rushing
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A "rush" refers to pushing out an early attack, especially in a two player game. In some games, this is at heavy expense to the mid and late game or even crippling your economy in the hope of an uncontested victory; for example the "three-pool rush" (or even worker rush) in Starcraft, or a "Guardian rush" in Dawn of War, both of which will lose you the game if unsuccessful. This is not necessarily the case with TA however, though if the player on the recieving end of the rush can successfully repel it they can come out with an advantage.
In the original TA rushing was conducted by using assist-build to pump out a number of flashes to masticate an uprepared enemy base.
A succesful rush has to be planned from the first second of the game. You should have more than one unit moving to attack before the end of the first minute. If you choose slightly stronger of faster units, an attack that starts before two minutes might be successful.
Watch your units and watch your economy. Attack from multiple directions to divide you enemy's defensive strength. Focus on metal extractors, wind if you see it, and power. Keep solar collectors closed to starve your enemy of energy.
And when your first ends, have another on the way.
For example: in OTA I rush a vehicle plant with 2 solars and a mex, build 3 weasels, move towards the enemy base (almost always opposite my start position) divide weasels into 3 attacks grouping each one 1,2 or 3 whilst my comm starts expanding. I then micro the weasels :) works well enough.
If you are on the receiving end of a rush the way you can gain an advantage is by reclaiming the metal from the attacking units. However, one of the biggest dangers of being on the receiving end of the rush is the amount of time you spend handling it. To this end a quick thing to do is to set a constuction unit on patrol around your base to suck up the metal - this will also repair partially damaged buildings etc. If you end up microing your con-unit, any advantage you get from reclaiming metal will be gone - the next attack will arrive before you've had any advantage from the metal you reclaimed. Another useful function is the reclaim area function. click reclaim hold and drag and your unit will reclaim all in that green circle! :)
In AA, a good anti-rush tactic is building a LLT near the center of your base early on, and adding others near metal extractors and energy plants as necessary. Since units in Spring can't fire through each other, this prevents your enemy from microing their rush units to keep them on the other side of your first factory (or a block of other structures) from your Commander. Keep doing this throughout the game to discourage raiders, but don't try to cover your entire base. Keeping some fast mobile units in reserve to respond to raids is a much better idea. (Cite: SwiftSpear and Lathan's discussion in this thread.)
Mod Specific Notes
As a Strategy, Rushing is generally effective in most balanced mods. Cases where Rushing may not be effective include Optimus Prime's Final Frontier, among others.
