Some questions from T4 Noob looking to play this game.

[Kuu Lightwing]

Hi guys!
I recently bought both SupCom and SupCom: FA games in steam (in fact, FA is currently downloading back at home) and then while browsing the web I found out that there are FAF community that still plays this game and seems to be suprisingly active for such an old game. I completed SupCom UEF campaign (on Normal, though) and started Cybran one, but it seems like campaigns are quite a differnt game - they mostly teach you to turtle up while repelling incoming attacks and then cracking a pre-built fortified base.
I also watched some Gyle casts and they are awesome and those games are really interesting to watch. However I watched a LuXun POV gameplay and while it's impressive, I simply don't understand what he is doing, building and how can he do stuff that fast and at the different places alltogether. The thing is that I'm a complete RTS noob. I played some RTS before and in fact I came to play SupCom because I was playing TA earlier, but I was too young and silly and my only strategy was to turtle up in my base, build an army and throw it at enemy. That's it. No scouting, no expansion, and it hardly worked even vs AI and I've never played an RTS vs a player. That's it, I'm an Experimental RTS Noob - I'm so bad at RTS so I'm afraid that even the beginner players will annihilate me without a trouble. There are a lot of good tutorials, but they mostly teach you the strategies, while I seem to lack mechanical skills required to play RTS - giving orders to your units fast enough, scouting, altering build queues, managing tacticle missles and so on. When I play I seem to focus on one thing too much and can't manage different things at once.
So, the main question - is this as bad as it seems to me or it's just a regular problem each beginner has? How to get rid of it? On casts it didn't look too hard, but on POV it feels impossible, but should I really play like that at first, or it's just pro player madskillz?
Second thing is most people say that I should have a factory constantly producing engineers. While I understand what the build capacity is, I don't know what to do with those given that all the guides say that engies shouldn't stay idle. Sure, a huge pack can assist the factory, some go reclaiming, some help upgrading the mexes, but, again, it's too much stuff to take care about at the same time. Well, campaigns make you too limited in resources so the question about how do I get enough mass income to utilize that build capacity is not that valid, I guess.
Other thing is do I spam only T1 engineers? I heard that T1 ones are the most cost-effective solution so I guess the answer is "yes", but what with T2/3 engies? I guess I should make some, but how many is that some?
It also looks like I should produce T1 and T2 units by massing factories and T3 units by massing engineers assisting the factory, is it correct?

Sorry if those questions are really stupid, but I guess since it's a newbie forum I can ask those here.

[Vee]

Lu_Xun is a really fast player, you don't need to be that fast. I am quite slow and I try to compensate by finding more efficient ways to do things. The biggest point here is to use hotbuild. It lets you do twice as much. Then you have a lot of small tricks to save a few clicks, like assisting a factory with another factory instead of manually duplicating the build queue. Once you play the game a few times, you set up a routine, so it becomes automatic. You know the initial build order, then some engineers on power spam, some engineers on factory spam, etc.

What to do with engineers? Well the most important thing is to grab mass extractors & important reclaim, so do that first. Second is building your base. If you have engineers left that you don't know what to do with, just give them an attack move order to reclaim. Massing factories also works for T3 units, you don't need to assist (but you can).

The best way to learn is to download FAF and press the ladder button. Don't be surprised if you lose the first 5 or even 10 games, after that you'll be matched with players on your level and you'll learn quickly. If you lost on a map, watch the replay of your game, and see why you lost. Then watch a replay of a pro game on the same map, to see what is possible.

[ColonelSheppard]

It's a normal problem of beginners, i suggest you have a look here:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3058#p30314

Especially the the first 4 Replays there might give you a quick crashcourse on basic multiplayer gameplay.
Trying to play like a 2k+ player, is well, nice if you can do it, but most cant, i think it's way better to have a look on some higher medicore players at first, maybe you wanna watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozRcglfzicU
(PGEN = Energy/Power-Generator, MEX = massextractor,in case you havent heard that yet)

About higher tec engys: Yes, T1 is most effective, but not that more effective, so that it would be completely useless to have more higher tec engys, just remember that you might wanna build agressive units out of your higher tec factories rather than a lot of engys.

Since the a not-so-recent-anymore patch, you can build cheaper factories after you have your first higher tec factory (there are 2 types of factory in the upgrade list then, one is cheaper) the cheaper factories are mostly as efficient as engys and much more resistant to small atacks. But they cannot build as long as you dont have one of the expensive factories, think of them as "support facotries" so you normally want to build one of the "HQ-Factory" on a save spot and then you can build remote factories everywhere and you may or may not support them with engys.

hf playing bro, feel free to ask if you have more question, and wellcome to FAF

[da_monstr]

Hello and welcome to FAF!

First of all, do not be afraid to ask questions, most people around here are helpful enough.
Do not worry about being unable to play the game well, we have a saying here, "no one was ever born smart".
My reccomendation to any new player to SupCom would be to play the campaigns to get the feel for units and general gameplay, and then play a few skirmishes against the AI. When you can beat the hard AI (which is really bad to begin with), you should be able to get into 1v1.
Make sure you watch these: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 4b-3s5vol0
Then, you can ask people in the lobby to train you, we have a team of personal trainers here: viewtopic.php?f=40&t=1614
But I guess any relatively high-rated player can train you, if they are willing.
And do not worry about being unable to understand why LuXun does things the way he does, he is one of the top players.

Engineers have been altered almost a year back. Now, T2 and T3 engineers have similar build power/cost ratio to T1, which makes them more viable to spam, but no one does that, since people are all used to the old way of doing things. Not to mention that it's still best to make a swarm of T1 engies to reclaim the wrecks from the battlefield. Most people prefer to make 2-3 T2 and T3 engies as first units after upgrading their factory and then make more as need arises.
To produce T1, you spam factories. After those same changes that changed engineers, there has also been introduced a new concept to factories: HQ factory and support factory. HQ factory is still as expensive as previous tech upgrade, and support factories can only be upgraded, when you have a HQ of the corresponding tech avaliable. However, they are much cheaper, and can be used to upgrade all of those factories that used to produce T1 spam. Or you can do things the old way, just have one HQ and assist it with engineers to make T2 and T3 units. Please note the Steam version of the game does not have these improvements. In that version, you should only have one higher tech factory and have it be assisted with engineers. You should only have multiple factories for T1.

I hope answered at least some of your concerns. Good luck playing and learning the game!

[Cuddles]

And don't for get to scout.

[da_monstr]

And don't for get to scoot.

Fixed ^^

[ZLO_RD]

When I was noob on the ladder so I lost 10 games in a row, after checking replays I noticed 3 main things: 1) build at least 4 land factories and make t1 tanks for 6 min or more
2) ACU can move from base after 2-4 factories completed, use it to secure expansions/your half of map
3)take at least half of the map or 40%, t4-t3 is better than t1 but if you give your opponent whole map then he will have 5 times more units, or just get t3-4 faster himself

[Kuu Lightwing]

Oh my, so many replys!
Thank you guys! I'll definitely watch those replays, but it looks like I need to download FAF client first. As far as I understand it will work with steam version of the game, so that's no problem and it looks like I should go for FAF straight ahead anyways. Hotbuild is a part of FAF, right? And that UI in those tutorial videos is GAZ_UI? I watched those vids, BTW, but I guess I will try it again since I played the game a bit and able to understand more stuff.

BTW, should I play original SupCom campaigns for anything other than storyline/lore, or it's better to play FA campaign to get that basic understanding? As for AI, I managed to just wreck normal AI in a small map, just with T1 landspam. It was rather unchallenging. Is hard AI way smarter than normal?

Didn't know about support factories. So, it's an alternative to a single T3 assisted by engies? And lemme guess, its cost/buildpower ratio is the same as engineer's? I guess you still need an engineer swarm to make an experimental or nuke or T3 arty...
Oh, and BTW, I read about engineering drones and field engineers, but I didn't see anyone using them on Gyle's casts. And same for Mantis repairing/assisting mechanics... Maybe Gyle just don't pay attention to that, but I didn't even know that is possible (unlike Salem class having legs which I learned from his casts )

Scooting, yes, I know that it's important, and radars too, but I'll probably forget to do so when lots of things happen simultaneously. Gosh, you RTS players are awesome since you can do so much stuff at the same time...

As for taking map control, I do understand that it's important, but it kinda terrifying realizing that you need to defend such a large area. And, those captured mexes, most players seem to not make any static defences to do that job, relying on mobile units(and still often lose them sometimes) I guess it's more effective to rebuild it if it's taken down than trying to fortify each mex placement.

[Kuu Lightwing]

Oh, and one more thing. I don't think I'll become a top player anytime, I just want to play epic games and have fun. Maybe I'll bring my friend into game, too, he used to play it before. Generally, I'm more of a casual player. However, unlike Team Fortress 2 which have a distinct competitive community and pub players, it looks like it's more like the same for SupCom. Am I right?

[Vee]

You have different niches in FAF. There is the main competitive 1v1 players, then you have the main team game players, and players who play on a specific map (setons, rush me more, thermo, etc), and players who play with specific mods (survival, phantom x, blackops, coop, zone control, etc.). In each of those niches you have players who are good in them, though the top players are probably the top in any game mode. Of course you also have tons and tons of casual players, but there isn't a strict separation.