Forged Alliance Forever

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-02-04T02:36:52+02:00

I said Seraphim and UEF..... Although I have been quite successful with these tactics with UEF as well, I do know what you are saying.

Statistics: Posted by BRNKoINSANITY — 04 Feb 2014, 02:36

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-02-03T21:00:52+02:00

BRNK: UEF tact missile has attributes that make it far too unwieldy for close range combat; if you fire it close to you it will hit quite a distance further than where you aimed, and often wont deal damage. The seraphim one works much better for this.

Statistics: Posted by Gorton — 03 Feb 2014, 21:00

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-02-01T06:55:44+02:00

Something no one else spoke of, but is REALLY useful...

UEF and Seraphim are both incredibly lethal combat ACUs because you can get t2 + gun + tac missile all at the same time. A t2 ACU builds tac missiles VERY quickly, enough that you can lay waste to tons of mex, point defense, even land a hit on the enemy ACU.

Whether you get gun or t2 first depends on the map and situation, but when you have those two start a t2 pgen and have 2 energy storages. When the t2 gen is done you should be able to get the tac missile upgrade with only a slight (if any) stall. Once you have gun+t2+tac missile really the only effective way to kill the commander is air units, and even then it takes some doing because you have extra health and t2 engineering suite.

You can use the tac missile as a melee weapon, to kill off enemy eco, or whatever you want.... Gun makes your ACU very strong.

If you want to go full frontal attack mode this is a good way to do it.

Statistics: Posted by BRNKoINSANITY — 01 Feb 2014, 06:55

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-29T11:37:26+02:00

All great stuff guys, in particular I've found the YouTube videos linked by Sheppard to be most useful but there's some really good thoughts/ideas. Hopefully I should be able to reflect this in future games.

Thank you all

Statistics: Posted by TEA_Downside — 29 Jan 2014, 11:37

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-29T09:53:37+02:00

The thing about gun upgrade is it gets only really effective with OC. Thats especially true for aeon gun range upgrade. You can get it earlier than other gun upgrades, so normally you have a small window when you can outrange t1 pd, enemy ACU and any other unit. So with enough energy in storage you can smash an enemy army competely and get the reclaim. The attack window with gun upgrade is normally before the building of first t2 pd is finished. Even if it's finished the position can be overrun with enough energy in storage and enough of your own units.

The gun can be also very good at defending a position because all you need is the range of your gun with oc + some t1 pd.

Apofenas wrote:
But this all depends from player's preferences: offense/defense; map: size, amount of chokes, amount of reclaimable mass and energy and its location, terrain and such;

Exactly. I am not that good(rating 1150), but the games i win against higher rated(1200+) players are all on small maps and because my ACU is raping enemy units.

Statistics: Posted by RoLa — 29 Jan 2014, 09:53

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-29T09:02:56+02:00

ColonelSheppard wrote:
Apofenas wrote:RAS and gun for UEF;

w00t, when exactly did you have to make a serious choice about RAS and Gun...?

On such maps as Fields of Isis when you secured your side and don't want to press with ACU, such upgrade is a waste of resources, while RAS will get usefull in the long run; On big vast maps, where ACU with gun may not affect enemy much; In GW if you expect a snipe or don't want to risk, so you stay at base. All in all at those situations where you will not use the gun.

Statistics: Posted by Apofenas — 29 Jan 2014, 09:02

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-29T08:23:45+02:00

Apofenas wrote:
RAS and gun for UEF;

w00t, when exactly did you have to make a serious choice about RAS and Gun...?

Apofenas wrote:
aeon have to chose between t2 and range(to counter hoplites for example)

so suddenly Gun is a counter? thx for agree finally

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 29 Jan 2014, 08:23

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-29T03:01:12+02:00

True. But t2 land factory is more defensive play which will pay off in the long run, while gun is an offensive for sure and it won't pay off if for example gunned com will get blocked at one part of maps while getting attacked by t2 from others. Eventually even having a gun you will have to make your own t2. Sometimes if you are upgrading ACU on the front lines you might get overruned and start getting arty shots and overcharges, so you will have to cancle an upgrade and run(waste of resources), while HQ will most likely be at base

But this all depends from player's preferences: offense/defense; map: size, amount of chokes, amount of reclaimable mass and energy and its location, terrain and such; faction: cybran can't get t2 and gun at the same time; RAS and gun for UEF; aeon have to chose between t2 and range(to counter hoplites for example) and between rate of fire and omni(to counter stealth on cybran com or near hoplites).

Statistics: Posted by Apofenas — 29 Jan 2014, 03:01

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-29T01:03:14+02:00

Apofenas wrote:
According to data base, gun has a range of 30, mongoose - 34, hoplite - 37. It's not that hard to dodge ACU shots with these quick units. You can use mobile shields to block ACU fire and mobile stealth to avoid it at all.

Sorry but this is 45 words of pure nonsense.
Here is an equal statement: "Jesters are a counter to T1 anti-air, because if you stay on max range you can easily dodge the shots." (and this is probably still more true than the g_ you are suggesting)

Apofenas wrote:
As for t2 pd, you can always block it with even unupgraded commander.

yeah, well maybe but let have some quick calculations:

T2 PD: 540 M 3600 E
T2 Engy: 160 M 840 E
T2 Factory 1040M 9300E
-----------------------------
1740M 14.700E (3.000 BuildTime)

GunUpgrade:
800 M 24.000E (800 BuildTime)

Apofenas says: "But, but, the energy costs are higher!"

Sheppard answers: "Yes, my dude, but think about this: Most people tend to have rather too much energy, than too much mass, so if you have 90E too much you could still finish the upgrade before the PD is finished, and use your mass for example on 26,11 T1 UEF arties, which will happily rape any pointdefence in their way."

Spoiler: show

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 29 Jan 2014, 01:03

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-29T00:41:06+02:00

It's not that hard to dodge ACU shots with these quick units.

your opponent still has to realise that
A: that's you're commander on a radar blip
B: You have gun
and C: actually react and move away.

Also, their attention might not be on the front all the time, so maybe they look away for a few seconds and then all their t2 is oc'd

Edit:
I will also add that while microing his own acu and tanks, he probably can not all the time micro the rangebots away from your acu in time

Statistics: Posted by Gorton — 29 Jan 2014, 00:41

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-29T00:06:35+02:00

According to data base, gun has a range of 30, mongoose - 34, hoplite - 37. It's not that hard to dodge ACU shots with these quick units. You can use mobile shields to block ACU fire and mobile stealth to avoid it at all.

As for t2 pd, you can always block it with even unupgraded commander.

Statistics: Posted by Apofenas — 29 Jan 2014, 00:06

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-28T15:22:54+02:00

Like Sheppard *said* the range of the gun on commanders can deal with ranged t2 like mongoose and hoplites pretty nicely as well; your opponent still has to realise that
A: that's you're commander on a radar blip
B: You have gun
and C: actually react and move away.

Also, their attention might not be on the front all the time, so maybe they look away for a few seconds and then all their t2 is oc'd

In battles, it will also be hard to micro their com + units againsts your ans still keep their range far enough away for you to not OC it as well, remember that

Statistics: Posted by Gorton — 28 Jan 2014, 15:22

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-28T15:14:30+02:00

the second gun upgrade really depends on map and opponent.

it can work on chokepoint map where opponent relied a lot on t1/t2 (or aeon/sera t3) rather than t2 pds and where pushing with your commander
can put you in a game winning situation - it makes your com into somewhat of an experimental unit (1000 dps + overcharge)
its especially similar if t1/t2 is used against it as it will crush through all of them and vet up nicely

but it costs 3* as much power as t3 air factory which means in 1 vs 1 you can probably never use it because you will be killed by air or t3 overruning you in places where your commander is not

in teamgames it can work if you get the energy from teammates resource allocation systems and get it up before exp show up on the field

also if gun and t2 commanders meet usually the gun will win early (when both get ~same cost upgrade at ~the same time with close distance between them) and t2 com will render the gun useless if he gets some buildup time

Statistics: Posted by Lame — 28 Jan 2014, 15:14

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-28T14:08:03+02:00

Apofenas wrote:
Com upgrades are pretty expensive energy wise compare to t2 land factory, so you won't get gun very quickly. Gun upgrade gets mostly useless when it faces mongooses, hoplites

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31g0YE61PLQ

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 28 Jan 2014, 14:08

Re: ACU Upgrades

2014-01-28T12:47:39+02:00

Com upgrades are pretty expensive energy wise compare to t2 land factory, so you won't get gun very quickly. Gun upgrade gets mostly useless when it faces mongooses, hoplites, t2 pds and such stuff. Sparkeys and mobile shields are extremely usefull at these situations as well. So sometimes if i have some free mass and not enough power to use it, i just upgrade factory to t2 instead of com. It allows to get t2 defences, t2 infrastructure and gives a flexebility with buildpower even though it gets vulnerable. On some maps you can spread your t2 units to multiple battlefields and win a lot of map control. Though you mostly lose with that tactic on such maps as winter duel, where you can't sneak your units pass enemy com.

Statistics: Posted by Apofenas — 28 Jan 2014, 12:47