Help, I'm new!

[ColonelSheppard]

1. The functions of FAF
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1.1 News Feed, ChatMessage
1.2 Find Games
1.3 Leaderboards & rating
1.4 Replay Vault & Live Games
1.5 Mapvault
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2. Ingamelobby
3. Learning SupCom, reaching an average skill level
4. Galactic War
5. FAQ - Gameplay
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pictures are spoilered
PM me in the lobby or in the forums if you think something should be added/you want to add something or if you simply have more questions.

[ColonelSheppard]

Welcome to the FA community - we're glad to have you!

FA is an incredibly deep game to learn, and it will take time and commitment to improve your skills. If you venture online after only playing singleplayer, you'll likely feel overwhelmed. However, there is a lot of information out there that you can use to quickly get up to speed and hit the ground running in multiplayer!


1. Getting started
You need the Suprem Commander - Forged Alliance stand-alone expanison not the vanilla game, either:
- retail version (unpatched, fully patched, beta patch are equally supported, FAF does it's own patches)
- steam version

The second thing you need is the FAF-Lobby. Execute the setupfile and follow the instructions. If you start the Lobby the first time you have to create a new account. Note that you need to pick a valide E-Mail adress in oder to activate your account, after that the E-Mail is only needed for password resets.

Usefull Links:
Connection Problems Troubleshoting
Reporting Technical Issues
FAF Wiki: http://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
Unit Database: http://www.faforever.com/faf/unitsDB/
Forums: index.php


2. The FAF-LobbyClient

The NewsFeed
Let's go over the functions and tabs of the Lobby. If you start the Lobby, you will be in the "What's new?" section, check out the latest news and announcements here. On the right side, forum activities and new SupCom-casts are listed.

The Chat
Going through the tabs from left to right the Chat is the next one. it is not resticed to SupCom only and you can discuss god & the world there, however here are the exact chatrulse.

The Chat.PNG (139.61 KiB) Viewed 317197 times

1) Chatline
You can auto-complete names by pressing tab after writing the first few letters.
2) Current chattab/chatwindow
The current chatwindow, joins/leaves are off by default but can be enabled in the options menu.
3) Chattabs
These shows all avalible chats, "Sever" gives you technical informations and is normally not needed.
4) Searchfield
You can search for players here, you dont have to enter the full name.
5) Playerlist
List of all players online. White is admin/moderator, blue is friend, grey is normal user and dark grey is IRC user, means a user that is connect over something else than the lobby for example mibbit.
- Rightclick in oder to get options like "add friend", "view stats" or "ignore/add foe"
- Doubleclickin oder to send a PM.
Please also note that FAF uses oneway-adding, means if you add a friend he will be on top of your list but he gets no notification about that, he has to add you himself.
6) Avatars/Devision/Rating
The left one of the two symbols, is achived by playing 1v1 ladder, these symbols might look different depending on what Theme you use. If you move your mouse over the symbol, the global rating of the player will be shown.
The right one is an avatar, avatars are achieved by playing in Tournaments or doing other things for the community, if you mouse your mouse over it shows you the name of the avatar.

[ColonelSheppard]

Find Games
The third tab from left hand side is the "Find Games" - tab. Go here to host an join games or search a ladder game.

Important
Please don't call your games "EU only" or under "100 ping" or "quadcore only" that's total bullshit, SupCom needs a ping of 450 to run correctly as long as the connection is stable, also due the fact that Suprem Commander only uses one core for the main simulation, in some cases dual cores even do better than quadcores. Also if you finished a game always leave over the score screen and not with Alt-F4 or "Return to windows", not leaving with by the score screen can cause unpredictable bugs in replays and desyncronisations.

Find Games.PNG (204.83 KiB) Viewed 317201 times

1) Create Custom Game
Click here to create custom games, a window will open where you can preselect the map, and choose a game title. Your game titel should contain usefull information such as: "2v2" or "new players only".
You can host normal games by clicking "Forged Alliance Forever" or you can host Mod-Games by clicking one of the other buttons. Each button has a small description if you move your mouse over it.

2) 1v1 Automatch/Ladder
Click one of the faction symbols (or the very right for random faction) to search for a 1v1 game on a random map against someone in your skillrange.
With the "Select maps..."-Button you can set preferences for maps you want to play. If you don't choose maps there "your preference" will be the 15 most chosen maps.

3) Open Games
In the big window on the right hand side you can see all open games, while public games are displayed with a map preview, private games, secured with a password, are displayed with a grey symbol (7). If you move your mouse over the picture you will get more information about the players already inside the game.

4) Gamequality
Gamequality should show you if the game is balanced, however games can be balanced in lobby better than outside of it. So my tip is to just ignore this value.

5) Name of the Game
The name of the game or game titel give you important information, often you can find phrases like ">1000" or "be good" in the titel. This is reffering to your current skill/rating. Note that you will probably be kick from the game if you ignore the restrictions mentioned in the game titel.

6) Additional Information
Below the gametitel you can find the name of the map, the amount of players already inside the game, the played mod (if it is a modded game) and the name of the host.

8) Missing map
If you miss the map it will autodownload once you join the lobby. If someone changes to a map which you do not have downloaded yet, you have to leave the lobby and rejoin as soon as the games-list has updated.

Hosts will sometimes ask you to rejoin for a variety of reasons (for instance connectionproblems), don't start a discussion, just comply.

[ColonelSheppard]

Leaderboards & Rating
The FAF-Lobby is using the TrueSkill system in order to rate players, look here for more information.

Spoiler: show

Lobby (3) - Rating.JPG (298.07 KiB) Viewed 375707 times

1) Options
Select "Ladder" to open the league system, "Global and Matchmaker" to see the trueskill ratings or "Ladder map stats" to view some statistics about the current ranked maps.

2) Search for Player
You can search for certain players here, note that you have to enter the exact name and also that players will not be shown if the did not play for some time.
If the players you search could not be found page one will open.

3) Highlighted player
By default, you will your see your self marked blue in the ladder, if you search for a player the player you searched for will be marked blue.

Important things about rating

• The global rating is not an highscore, it's a possibility to balance games. You are not good because you have a high rating, you will be high rated if you are good. Always keep this in mind when playing custom games, I see too much people "unranked" by setting the gamespeed to "adjustable", because they "dont want to lose points" or play "just for fun". Again rating is no freaking highscore but a possibility for everyone to have fun. The only thing you accomplish by playing unranked games are unbalanced games and frustration because you will be heavily underrated at some point.
  
• The rating is trueskill, not ELO, and it's not a single value but a curve, look here to learn more.
• Modded games or games with non-default settings are not rated
• Game that had desyncronisations are not rated
• Special maps that have nothing to do with the actualy Suprem Commander gameplay, such as survival maps, 3v1 maps or i. e. "zone controll" are not rated, if you find a map that is rated, while it should not be, talk to a modrator.
• Games that are disbanded before (60*Number of players) seconds are not rated, the game counts as disbanded as soon as all left, or one team or one player won.
• Global rating IS NO ranking but a possibility to balance games

[ColonelSheppard]

Replay Vault & Live games
Every game you play is automaticly saved online and offline, additionally you can watch live games with small time delay to prevent cheating. Click the "Replays" tab to show them or check out the links posted below.

If a game was played with a non-featured mod, you have to have this mod avalible, otherwise there will be desyncs or other unpredictable problems.

Live Games

Spoiler: show

ReplaysLive.JPG (168.99 KiB) Viewed 375776 times

1) Tab-select
You can select here if you want to look livereplays, browse the localt vaul or the online vault. Currently "Live Games" is selected.

2) Active games
All ative games are shown (also private ones). The picture on the very left is a small preview of the played map and time reffers to the time when when the game started. Games with friends playing are marked blue.

3) More informations
If you click a replay, a list with all players in the game will appear, note that disconnected players will no longer be shown in this list. Click one of the names to view the livegame or rightclick for more options.

4) Gamemod played
On the very right you can see the mod played in this game. "FAF" is a normal game, 1v1 Ladder is a ranked game etc...

Important things about livereplays:

• Livereplays will sometimes stop if the player you clicked leaves
  
• You cannot save livereplays, you have to download them from the online vault when they are finished, note the map or players in order to find it again or just have a look on top of the Vault a few seconds after the game is finished.
  
• if the game stops at some point it could be because the game is paused and you have to keep your time delay

Local Vault
All games you play are automaticly saved on your local computer under:
C:\ProgrammData\FAF\replays. You can start them from anywhere with a doubleclick.
Note that the replays are not "Clouded" so they are only avalible on the computer te game was played.

Spoiler: show

ReplaysLocal.JPG (199.92 KiB) Viewed 375776 times

1) Tab-select
You can select here if you want to look livereplays, browse the localt vaul or the online vault. Currently "Local Vault" is selected.

2) Daily folder
Replays are sorted by days in the FAF-Lobby (not in the filesystem), click on the a specifc day to see all game played (3). Right click the game to get more options, leftlcick to start the replays. You should be able to view any version, anyway very old versions might cause problems when opened.

4) Played mod: "faf" is standard


Online Vault
All games you play, or anybody else plays are automaticly stored on the FAF-Sever, there are different ways to acess them, either through the lobby or this link

Spoiler: show

ReplaysVault.JPG (145.81 KiB) Viewed 375776 times

1) Tab-select
You can select here if you want to look livereplays, browse the localt vaul or the online vault. Currently "Online Vault" is selected.

2) Replay
The list on the left side shows an overview of the replays of the last 200 games played. You can start a replay by clicking it, note that the lenght of the replay might not be correct.

3) Search/Filter options
The top right hand conner offers filter options, you can apply multiple filters at the same time in order to find a certain replay

[ColonelSheppard]

Mapvault

In the map vault you find every avalible map for Forged Alliance, please report broken maps.

Spoiler: show

Mapvault.JPG (159.79 KiB) Viewed 375781 times

1) Search tab
You can search for mapnames here, you dont have to enter the full name

2) Map Summery
Gives you a map preview and some gerneral stats, click it for more information

3) Download button
You can also redownload maps here if you think they are messed up on your computer for whatever reason

4) Mapupload
Upload your own maps here, check out the Subforum for maps for more informations on how to create maps.

[ColonelSheppard]

Gamelobby
Once you hosted or joined a Game you will get thrown here.

Overview

Spoiler: show

FAF Lobby.jpg (416.25 KiB) Viewed 375730 times

1) Rating
This shows you the rating of the player using this slot. If the rating is white, it's quite sure that the player is at this rating, if it is grey/nearly not readyable, it is not sure, means that the play could play significantly better or worse than it could be expected when seeing the certain rating. Look the wiki for more informations about rating.

2) Name of the Player/Free Slots
If you click another players name you can send him PMs, if you click a free slowt you can occupy it. If you are host you can kick players, add AIs or Close slots.

3) Team
Often the teams are autoformed depending of what slots you are, if they are not autoformed you can select it here.

4) Ping
SupCom needs a stable Ping of 450 in order to work correctly. If you have "nill" to another player you are not connected to him. This can often be sloved by rejoining the game. Yellow ping can be ignored. People with a ping significantly higher than 450 will probably make the game lag.
Important: The host has to see all pings green, if there are yellow pings, both players have to rejoin, or the game wont start. (Yellow ping means two or more players do not have connected to each other but have connected to you.

5) Ready up
Game can only be started if all players pressed the "Ready" button.

6) Mappreview
Click the "Large Preview" button below in order to see mass spots.

8) Observe
Become an observer.

All following options are only avalible if you are the host.

7) Observers
Observers are not allowed by default, if you want to allow observers: Click the green field next to it.

9) Auto-Teams
The server will balance the teams for you, but you still have to have the right team settings in the game options (Top vs. Bot, Left vs. Right etc.)

10) Random Map

11) Default Settings

12) Chat
/whisper Playername, makes you whisper a player, if you click the speach bubble you get additional options.

13) Gamesettingsoverview
Can be changed by pressing the Gameoptions button (14)

15) Start Game
When everybody readyed up ("x'ed in") the host can start the game.

Options

Spoiler: show

FaF Lobby options.jpg (436.15 KiB) Viewed 375730 times

1) Mappreview

2) Mapinformations
AI-Markers are nessesary to play with AI, Custommaps sometimes contain more informations in the Trivia part.

3) Mapselection
Can be filtered by using the options at (4)

5) Auto-Teams
Players will automaticly put to a team, depending on the slot they are using.

6) Settings- AI-Settings
Dont thinks about this if you play PvP, if you want to play vs. AI and learn more about this settings or want to play against better AI go here:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1109

7) Gameplay settings
Move you mouse over the Options the recive more information.

Unit Manager can restrict certain units off the game.

[ColonelSheppard]

Gameplay Basics

1) Your first game
First of all: I really suggest you to play the inbuilt tutorial of Forged Alliance first, you will learn some UI basics that are needed for everything later.
If you have problems with the Economy gohere.

2) Playing vs. AI
Some people say that it is easier to learn the game when play vs. AI, i dont know if this is true, but at least it is way less frustrating to not get flamed by other frustrated players

3) Getting used to multiplayer meta & tactics

These tutorials will launch a little replay explaining some aspects of the game.
These will assume that you know the basic commands of the game.If it's not the case, please do the tutorial of FA first.

You can change the speed of the replay with the - and + keys of your keyboard.
You can pause them using the pause key of your keyboard.
You cannot resize the text in a replay, you have to that in a normal game.

In order to view the instructions texts, please click on the name of the player in the top right hand conner. You can then open the chat with "ENTER" and review the comments in the chat.

You can also click the little camera icon before the line of text in order to center the view on the point of interest described in the following text.
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Getting Ready for War (ZIP, 4 replays// Economy, buildorders and basic gameplay)
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Point Defences (Learn more about stationary Defence in Suprem Commander)
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Basic Reclaim Knowledge (Learn more about reclaiming mass in Suprem Commander)
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Commander Blocking (Learn about blocking the movement of Commanders, and preventing units from chasing you!)
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Micro (Learn about the basic mirco of land units: Dodge, flank and kite - How drive your opponent crazy!)
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Overcharge (Learn about the strong Commander ability "Overcharge")
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Seleens (Learn more about the sneaky T1 scouts of the Seraphim, Masspointsblocking and how you should use them yourself.)
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Bonus Replays (Playing with beginners and explaining their mistakes in the chat & Tutorial blooper: How to fail at making a airmicro tutorial)
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All in one (ZIP)

The Cheat Menu i'm using to spawn units in my replays is opened by Alt+F2, noticed that some UI mods may cause mailfunctions of this hotkeyand you might want to try deactivating them first if it is not working. Also cheats have to be enabled in the game lobby.

4) Personal Trainer Team
viewtopic.php?f=40&t=1614

5) More Tutorials
http://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?tit ... ing_SupCom

6) YouTube Tutorials (a playlist with tutorials from several people)
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... 4b-3s5vol0

[ColonelSheppard]

FAQ:

How to report people or offensive behaviour in general?

Talk to a modrator, the white players in the chatlist (not AeonCommander, fafbot or Ze_Pilot) or send private message to the IRC modrators group in the forums.
Do NOT post in forum or cry in chat.

When should i upgrade to tech 2 mex?

T2 mex need 3:45 minutes until the are rentable, so basicly when you are sure that you will not lose within the next 4 minutes, in most cases you won't upgrade extractors before minute 10
check out the "Economy 101" in the tuturial tab of the FAF-client

How many engineers should i get to speed up my factory?

At t1 none i think (maybe one or two if the would idle otherwise), on t2 and t3 it depends from the mass you have, it's not uncommon to have like 10 assisting a t2 factory or 20+ assisting a t3 factory. But due the new patch it's now also possible to tech up all factories instead of building T1 engineers to assit.

As soon as i can get t2 engineers, should i kill off my t1?

NO! Normally players get only 1 or two t2 engines to be able to build t2 buildings but support them with at least 5 t1 engines, you should never destroy your units, only if you REALLY, really, really need the mass.
Note: due the 3624 patch building multiple, higher tec engys is now more viable, however thats doesnt mean you should destroy your lower tec engineers.

How many factories should i get in 1v1?

I would say on most maps at least 6 t1 factories for the beginning.

When should i get 4, 5, 6 and 7?

After you build the initial 2 or 3 with your commander, just take one or two of your engines and plan a bunch of factories to be build, dont forget to start building units in it as soon they are ready.
You might need more factories on some maps, just build as many as your mass allows, dont upgrade mexes to get you mass off build more factories instead or upgrad them. (at least in the early game)

The first online game i played, i upgraded my acu, to have a shield, it lost me the game, so when should i upgrade my acu?

There are multiple upgrades for acu, for different parts of the game: gun upgrade and t2 upgrade are good in early game , however it costs much energy and you should make sure to have at least + 200 to do it, shield needs way more you should not do it without assist of your team or a tec2 pgen
in gerneral: if you look at the energy needed and the energy as the current income, you have you normally get a good impression of when you should upgrade certain stuff.

Should i make say heavy tank armies or should i get some mobile artillery aswell and other tanks?

Build about 1 arty per 4 tanks, and dont build t1 bots (light assault bots = LAB) after the initial raiding, they shouldn't be in you later armies as they have too low health points.

Im also a big fan of air units, but i find i need t3 to start doing some real damage and to get air dominance.
So should i jsut build up interceptors then upgrade to t3 slowly?

Well, no. T1 and T2 air are incredible strong, if you are Cybran you got the light gunship on T1 or a gettho gunship or the guided missle as Aeon. Air is strong at all levels.
Well...
maybe not on t1 for UEF but let's face it.

Is it important to priorities one type of unit (Iike air over land) or should you build air and land evenly?

In 1v1 you will often have to focus on land and see air more like "support" on smaller maps and the other way round on bigger maps. However i've seen people doing heavy airplay on all maps already so basicly if you got a good idea on what to do you can choose freely, as a noob however i would recommend you to focus more on land than on air.

Say i was on setons and i was at the back, should i worry about navy and land or just provide air support?

You dont have to care about anything else, get air dominance and everybody is happy. If you won one of these big airfights you can got for stupid air-ground stuff. (Like if you are 50 ASF ahead or something) but don't forget to switch back to ASF after some bombers or Gunships. Alternativly you can go for restorers if you are Aeon to provide Groundsupport AND airdominance.

How do you get that many engeneers in late game?

Just having 1 or 2 factories spamming them all over the time. However since patch 3624 this is not as important anymore as it once was, for the reasons mentioned above.

I'm watching this video on youtube about voodoo and in one of his factories he produce 115 engines, is that a good thing to do?

In later game yes maybe, early not.
Also you shouldn't try to instantly learn from real 1v1 of voodoo as you will just get overhelmed, but thats just a personal impression.

I get draws for won games!

1. Leave over the score screen
2. Wait a few seconds before leaving,
3. Fix possible connection errors
Score problems are always a user-side problem.

[Flynn]

Dear Col. Sheppard

I have a question. As we all know, assisting a factory with engines is more efficient than building a second factory. But if I want interceptors AND bombers I find it is quicker to build two factories each with assistance than to build 1 factory making 1 interceptor and 1 bomber with mass assistance of engines.

Please explain this.