n00b Q - getting to grips with mechanics

[Penetenziagite]

I hope you guys don't mind me posting this here; just started playing the game a bit more seriously and I have the following things I cannot do:

I can't get a factory that is churning out tech 1 engineers to have those engineers automatically assist my tech 3 factory...
I tried every alt ctrl shift combination, looked on the forums, the wiki.... and I just can't seem to get to it.....

Also, how do you guys deal with grabbing a tech 2 or tech 3 engineer to built something; I usually have 3/5 of em and I somehow always grab just that one that is actually building something already, causing mayhem and disrupting everything.... apart from hot-keying all my builders I don't know how to deal with this, suggestions?

I'm afraid that where I live does not allow me to play online with a decent ping, but I'm working on it...

[Zock]

I can't get a factory that is churning out tech 1 engineers to have those engineers automatically assist my tech 3 factory...
I tried every alt ctrl shift combination, looked on the forums, the wiki.... and I just can't seem to get to it.....

It's not possible. Closest is to set a patrol from factory and hope that the engies assist sooner or later but that's not really the best idea.

Also, how do you guys deal with grabbing a tech 2 or tech 3 engineer to built something; I usually have 3/5 of em and I somehow always grab just that one that is actually building something already, causing mayhem and disrupting everything.... apart from hot-keying all my builders I don't know how to deal with this, suggestions?

Either remember which engies are important and which ones are free for orders, or just take a look what the engy is doing before giving new orders. There is no special trick.

[Penetenziagite]

Thanks for your quick reply Zock, so it is just a case of really micro managing things? which is ok, just as long as I know

[Zoram]

Either remember which engies are important and which ones are free for orders, or just take a look what the engy is doing before giving new orders. There is no special trick.

I find the "inactive engies" window to the right quite useful for that purpose. It sorts them out by tech so it's easy to find T2/3 engies that are free of orderes. (Although the feature is broken at the moment, but I've been old it'll be fixed)

[Ionic]

The way the pros get their engineers assisting factories is as follows:

Do an attack move from the factory to where you want the engineers to clump

Have one engineer assigned to assisting the factory (Will be referred to as Boss)

Make all the clumped engineers assist the Boss

The good thing about this is, your engineers won't run around crazy each time you double click all the engineers on screen to make all the new ones (and old ones) re assist the Boss.

PM me in FAF and I will help you with this or any other questions.

[Penetenziagite]

The way the pros get their engineers assisting factories is as follows:

PM me in FAF and I will help you with this or any other questions.

Thank you so much for the offer, unfortunately my internet will not be able to allow me to play smoothly online (I think anyway). But in May I'll be back in Europe and I will most def. have a go. Reason why I am trying to get better is because each year me and my mates have a LAN party, and each year we play 2v2v2 on Gentleman's reef - and each year I get destroyed (games last 3+ hours). But seeing a replay from Gyle's channel got me interested, looks like I never reclaimed trees, didn't built enough workers and always rushed for an experimental way too early in the game, breaking my eco.

anyway, one of these days I will see if my internet is able to cope (I seriously doubt it) tnx for the help.

Ooohh one last question, the map Gentlemen's Reef has four neutral tech 2 pgens in the center, is it viable to rush for those and try to capture, what would be the best strategy to achieve this?

[nine2]

assign keyboard shortcuts... i have something like this:
F1, F2, F3 - select nearest idle t1/t2/t3 engy
shift F1, F2, F3 - select all t1/t2/t3 engies

usually its because i need a t2 engie... so i hit the F2 to get the nearest idle one. If I'm not happy with that I shift-F2 to highlight them all on screen ... then I manually select the one I am interested in.

[Col_Walter_Kurtz]

The way the pros get their engineers assisting factories is as follows:

PM me in FAF and I will help you with this or any other questions.

Thank you so much for the offer, unfortunately my internet will not be able to allow me to play smoothly online (I think anyway). But in May I'll be back in Europe and I will most def. have a go. Reason why I am trying to get better is because each year me and my mates have a LAN party, and each year we play 2v2v2 on Gentleman's reef - and each year I get destroyed (games last 3+ hours). But seeing a replay from Gyle's channel got me interested, looks like I never reclaimed trees, didn't built enough workers and always rushed for an experimental way too early in the game, breaking my eco.

anyway, one of these days I will see if my internet is able to cope (I seriously doubt it) tnx for the help.

Ooohh one last question, the map Gentlemen's Reef has four neutral tech 2 pgens in the center, is it viable to rush for those and try to capture, what would be the best strategy to achieve this?

Isn't that a 7 player map?

Anyway just drop off some engineers with a transport and reclaim the pgens for an early mass boost. Make sure you have engough power to spend that mass on upgrades in your core base.

[Vee]

Use a hotkey or the right hand side menu to find idle engineers then select t2 engineers. That shows you where idle t2 engineers are.

[Penetenziagite]

tnx for your help gents! playing the CPU for now, can't believe how I played this game for years without the knowledge I have now.
guys at the LAN will be in for a surprise ....why is it that gentleman's reef is not being played any more? is it just an awkward map or?

oohh one last q, when you take over a building (tech2 power station) it seems you need to invest power to achieve this, but I can't find out how much power? In some games my eco really falls flat on its face when I try to take over the power station in the centre of gentleman's reef.... I am trying to smooth my build...