ACU Upgrades

[TEA_Downside]

Hi all

Today I have a question regarding the various upgrades available to ACU's and in which circumstances to use them - It's something I've neglected so far.

I've been playing as seraphim and I notice I have 2 gun upgrades, which is the one to go for first? And when should I want to upgrade my commander with this improvement?

I also see a lot of people upgrading their commanders to build t2, why do they do this and not just fire out a couple of t2 engines from a lab? And in what circumstances should I want to upgrade my commander in this way?

[Vee]

You should go for the cheap gun upgrade. The other one is so expensive that it's almost never used. By the time you can afford to pay it the units on the battlefield have become so strong that it would be too dangerous to use your acu in battle.

The gun upgrade works particularly well against t2 land units in combination with overcharge, and against auroras (aeon t1 tanks). It also works well against other faction's t1 tanks though. The main thing it does not work well against is t2 pd.

You would get t2 upgrade on your commander for the following reasons: (1) it gives you the option to build t2 buildings (2) it lets your commander build quicker (3) it gives your commander more HP (4) it gives your commander more regeneration. It's actually quite a good upgrade.

Lets compare a t2 engineer with t2 com upgrade. t2 engineer costs 12.8 mass per buildpower, t2 com upgrade costs 17 mass per buildpower. For t2 engineer you would also have to build a t2 factory of course.

Lets compare t2 upgrade with nano upgrade in terms of extra hp and regen. t2 upgrade costs 0.24 mass and 6 energy per extra HP point. nano upgrade costs 0.33 mass and 15 energy per extra HP point. Note that t2 actually gives more HP per mass & energy than nano upgrade! t2 upgrade costs 36 mass and 900 energy per 1 HP/s regen, and nano upgrade 26.7 mass and 1200 energy per 1 HP/s regen.

So even if you compare t2 upgrade on one axis to the alternative, it's not bad. The great thing is with t2 you get both t2 build options + buildpower + HP + regen and not just one of them.

[Gorton]

You have a "standard" gun upgrade, costing something like 800 mass 24k power which gives you more range and doubles your rate of fire, which is affordable at t1 stage of game. It's very useful against t1, making your com destroy t1 tanks/arties much faster. Range advantage allows it to outrange aurora, and also gives further range bonus against other t1 tanks so you can kite pretty nicely. Also it lets you overcharge at the new range, so you can hit some valuable t2 units without your opponent being able to react fast enough.
Cybran have exactly the same upgrade on their com, and uef has same but instead of double rate of fire it does double damage.
Aeon have gun in two parts: each costing less than normal gun but combined cost more. One part gives range (also higher range than any other com's gun) and other part gives rate of fire x2 .
Other Seraphim gun upgrade is much more costly and I doubt you could get it without strong t2 eco. It makes your com do 400 damage per shot and also make the shot do aoe (area of effect) damage
Upgrading com to t2 gives you lots of buildpower since t2 com has like 5 t2 engies worth of buildpower, and also gives acu more health and more regen; also while t2 engies can be killed pretty easily a com can't be so you will not lose t2 building power somewhere due to that.
Also, com is much safer at t2 because it can make shields + flak to prevent air snipe and also can make t1pds fast to not get overrun by land.

I made this comment before I saw Vees, he is right units are very strong when you can get that gun so it is risky

[Reaper Zwei]

According to the database Seraphim com with double gun would do 1000 dps. Even so t2 is still more useful(and a lot cheaper) than the second gun. Could be interesting to try on a small map though.

One thing to mention is that when you have the nano upgrades the amount of health gained through veterancy is increased. Especially so with the second nano upgrade. so much so that a Seraphim com can get up to 64000 hp.

[TEA_Downside]

Ok so the gun upgrade is good for dealing with t2, so should I upgrade this as a quick and cost effective counter to enemy t2 if they get there with a lab before I do? Or should I upgrade it almost anytime I'm using my ACU on the front line generally speaking?

Thanks for the info so far guys

[ColonelSheppard]

Normally the energycosts of an upgrade are a good indicator of when you can afford it, for more in Detail see

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL ... 4b-3s5vol0
(21 - 24)

[RoLa]

Look at my replay and you know what a gun upgrade can do. I did the aeon range upgrade and i used a lot of oc to kill enemy t2 units. I was in every aspect behind, but killed hords of enemy units.
download/file.php?id=5693

[Apofenas]

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.

[ColonelSheppard]

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

[Lame]

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