Does 2 minutes of research time matter?

That's a little close to home.

True, but still a little close to home.



But seriously though, there are still a lot of players that don't get turrets. I'm on a quest to teach the playerbase how properly interact with turrets from both sides.

I win way too often by just controlling ground like a boss. I did it twice this afternoon.

But then, there are larger games (an hour ago in bootybay with Amatoxin, BitterJesus, Kyro, etc) where I am pleading with my team to move up. They see an offensive turret farm and they're like, "oh well that gives me some time to sit here and suck my own cock" instead of "holy fuck, those turrets are getting blown up really fast, I better go protect them!"

So it's really a twofold problem of players being unable to defend against turrets, but also being unable to effectively synergize with them offensively.

 

Actually, I used to research physics all the time prior to fission being broken. Then again, it also used to have a cooling value of 12, but now it and coolant have been nerfed to a value of 8 so maybe not.

Everybody's talking about all their comm strategies... I used to do that. Nowadays when I comm I'm pretty carefree, I'll research whatever and do what I feel like. In any given game if somebody were to ask me what my research plan was I'd tell them 'meh' or ask them 'why, you want something silly?'. The only things I'm adamant about are:

1. absorbant is terribad
2. You shouldn't bother getting heavies on certain maps
3. composite is very expensive
4. do not, under any circumstances, demand targets from me every ten seconds for the entire duration of the round. I hate you. I don't care that you're a blind, whiny baby that can't survive without targets. I have other things to do, I'm a very active commander. It is highly likely that your target demand is preventing me from finishing a forward rax or VF, or that I am currently being chased by some vehicle. This isn't even relevant it just pisses me off.

I just realized half/most of that list is directly opposite of what JustGoFly thinks.

Spartacus, if there were a million research trees I would open a million trees. :D

 

I kinda feel the same. I think you can win with pretty diverse research, if you can get everyone on-board at the right moments. But some choices are safer than others.

In open maps I still think Physics is a pretty good tree.

 

Absorbant is good for rushing UGL APCs. It's light & cheap, so it's literally the perfect armor for rushing early vehicles. It's just good luck that it's in the same tree as UGL.

But trying to get people to rush UGL APCs is like herding cats. And if you manage to herd them, you find out that they don't know how to be cats. /facepalm

I know, right?

"Tahrgotz, nao!"

"I'm kinda busy comming & being a legitimate player."

 

Gotta agree with Spartacus. Beat Spartacus and then your ready for me ! hahaha

He is a tough mofo because he and his friggin turrets are a squad all by themselves. If his whole team is pushing south he'll be up north taking out everything you own there. Once he gets a UG MG up he's pretty safe pushing UG Missile turrets to take out your refs or buildings.

I use lvl 1 turrets to defend main, but they are only a jeep/apc/light tank deterent. They are not much against med/heavy tanks. If I have a team full of nubs I'll research UG Turrets from the start. It gives them to confidence to push forward and they love to cower behind a turret.

Also reacting to UG turrets by starting research on UG turrets will be your doom. I agree with Spartacus, it is tough to get your engies to build UG turrets even when you drop and point those players at the turrets. A good engie will keep asking for turrets when you get to UG level 3. On canyon once my team were mostly nubs and they were getting beat soundly. I told three of them to stay together and start building upgrading MG turret one at a time. They completely stopped the push. A decent team does not need you to research UG turrets to take advantage of Spartacus's strategy.

It seems obvious that when you see him dropping upgraded turrets you should research turrets, but he's already got a four minute leap on you and you are starving your team of heavies nukes. One nuke tank will ruin his day.

So here is one way to beat Spartacus and his turrets: Screw Chemistry - go right into Physics - get Reflective, Fission, extended range, and HMG for the apc's. Then Mech and go right for heavies, then nukes. You only need one nuke tank to clear his handy work. You'll lose 3/4 of the map, then gain it all back. Lots of mods to that for example you could get Compo while in Mechanical, or Gas (Gag) turbine. Above is the fastest way to nukes but may not be the best path to keep from losing tanks. Let me know

Absorbant is a good begin game armor, and better than regen. Only issue with Absorbant is you have to support your tanks with repair bays. Once you start getting hit with BIO you better have compo ready. So wouldn't compo just be right from the start ?

Regen sucks against missiles and begin game you have a lot of grens on foot. On a big open map where you can maneuver it USED to be good, but maneuverability is not what it used to be.

You need to develop three strategies - begin, middle, and end game. Lots of teams fail on end game. The trick is to learn how to go through all three without a lot of extra research. I still think spending a bit extra time to get ONE good Armor, One good engine, HE and BIO weapons is worth the time it takes to research Chem, Mech, Bio which gets you all the way up to heavies without researching electrical and physics. BUT your team will call you shit for the slow bio engine. So vets get 3Phase and nubs play better in Bio Engine, which is good enough reason to stick with those three until you start rolling heavies - on a choke point map. Vets can manage in Bio engine on choke point maps and fewer nubs lose tanks.

Like I said - lots of variants to the research path. You might want to write down the one you like the best. Stick it on the side of the monitor so you can choose what to do without thinking. This enables you to focus on your team, building, and not getting caught with your pants down. Modify it as you try new things. I tend to experiment when my team is stacked.

Turning a loss against a better team into a win, without exploiting rocks! A good research path can achieve that.

 

So, what are you guys discussing now?

I don't think it's the same thing as 2 pages ago.

 

Don't you know the Empires forums rules?

 

Apparently im the only person that thinks that giving your guys a good edge against the enemy is pretty damn important.

Also gotta love the whining about teams refusing to rush ugl. Up yours as well.

 

Take this Pikachu armor and head to Pewter City Canyon to get the Boulder Badge Turret Badge!

It's not just getting them to build the turrets. It's working with active turrets.

Turrets suck. They need constant protection because they are immobile. Your infantry have to use their mobility to prevent the enemy from exploiting turrets' immobility weakness.

You have to decon enemy walls to give the turrets clear line of sight. You have to flank the enemy so they can't sit behind a rock and mortar the turrets. You have to constantly pressure UGL APCs so they can't do strafing runs through the farms. It's a lot of work and players suck at it.

Honestly, I'd prefer that one BE heavy is forced to use nukes. The alternative is a loadout that is more likely to kill my NF heavies.

Turrets aren't super useful in endgame, so if my farm gives my team one less BE heavy to fight for 60-90s, then it's worth it.

Yeah, I haven't quite cracked the end game thing. I get how to research good endgame tanks, but you need more than just that.

Oh yeah and NF heavies are fucking horribad (I sound like Freak...). Guided needs a huge buff (+++ damage, ---missile speed).

Erm, that's kind of the entire goal of every commander.

It's obvious what you want to do. It's not obvious how to accomplish that.

At least we're not shitposting. I wish you could say the same.

 

We finished discussing research timing - moving onto tactics YES 2 minutes of research time does matter, especially against a better team. Your job as COM is to do EVERYTHING at the same time and lead your team. DO IT ! DO IT ALL WELL without any lag in research !

I think end game requires com or good squad leaders to show leadership and push their team/squad. Most players are happy enough to go head to head and fight for an hour. When a better tactic is to flank the team and ninja a rax. But we all know this. Buildings are a great distraction that enables your team to steam roll the opponent while they focus on the rax. Stick a rax in the middle and the opponent will naturally attack the building while your riflemen/grens run them over. This is why Spartacus likes to put down so many rax's. Also if you are under heavy attack with lots of money spam buildings until your engies get one up. Focus them on that one. All this should be well known.

IMHO upgraded turrets are only useful to relieve your team of being riflemen. UG MG is hugely powerful. UG ML is not so powerful. Put down on UG MG turret and your team should then only be engie and grenadier. That starts the steam rolling. Engies can get closer to buildings and throw grenades when protected by a UG MG. Grens can be there shooting at people and buildings too. No need for riflemen - who are useless when it comes to taking down buildings.

Once they nerf HE we'll switch to Extended Range. We did a decent job of NF heavies beating a decent BE team last night with Rails. I used to hate rails but on NF Rails with dual Bio seems to be a better balance against BE dual HE. It's not equal but better than single HE and dual BIO or dual missile against their dual HE and single BIO.

Even though some folks said shooting dual BIO at the same time is the same as shooting one bio, and it should be linked to two mouse buttons, upon testing this it is only slightly better to use single bio shot with time between each shot. Difference is 1 plate when you shoot 1 at a time, and wait between shots or shoot different sides of the opponent tank. Dual BIO shot together will take off three plates after a fair period of time. Keep pounding with Rails and dodging and you have a fighting chance against BE. On a long narrow map it acts like ER, so you have a range advantage. You must have protected repair bays though since the refill rate for rails is ridiculously slow. You have to change you heavy stripping off armor to re-up the ammo. So aggressive BE will still kick your ass since you'll get caught on repair bay with your shorts down. Since it requires more button presses and time to link bio to two buttons it IMHO is not worth the time and will reduce your ability to get the rails firing. It saves bio ammo, but you are less likely to run out of bio before you run out of rails. More experimentation is needed though.

Single bio is about 3/4 as good as dual bio missile, which is another reason BE is so OP against NF.

LazyBum Chemistry has UGL, so most research that first, which is also why Absorbant is frequently used. Also HE research is mandatory before going meds or heavies. But like I previously said don't rule out Physics as a start tactic against turrets. Let me know how much rage you endure from your team

Lastly - you're too good a player for you to COM. You should be squad leading and let us lower skilled players do the commanding.

 

So a question I once toiled with is would it be better to stick to as few trees as possible to get a decent setup early, even if it meant you research multiple armors/engines later.

I now take the long research path and expect the opponent to beat me to mediums when they believe the answer to above is YES. Grens easily eat up mediums. We starve them of resources, then we win. APC's at begin game are always a good idea, even if you take the time to research all the trees to get your favorite armor and engine. End game is what is most important. APC's can turn a begin game strategy into an end game strategy, when done well. But you have to focus on the long research path regardless of how helpless your current state looks.

I occasionally completely change strategy for one map based on 1) number of nubs on my team or opponent team, or 2) opponent COM, or 3) current state of progress. If we are playing like shit I may research turrets. You really just have to make it to heavies and then it is up to the talent of your team.

Occasionally I will sit in spec waiting for the game to start so that I don't have to com. Some players actually wait to stack and the cool ones wait to counter stack.

As for people commenting on your research and everything you do - that gets better as you learn what the top players like you to research. I tend to comment to help the COM if I think they need it and if they are sometimes open to it. Some players take it as an insult and say "Don't tell me how to play". Those in the field know what they need. There are still guys who will go right for mediums with no weapons, and skip APC's. And they wonder why they lose games so frequently. I tell my team the plan, and they are welcome to make changes if they know more than I do.

Agreed about nukes vs dual HE on Brenodi. But binding two HE to one key and shooting turrets at a distance is going to hit one explosive on target. Given the high armor rate you can get closer. I still agree nuke research rush may not be great. More importantly nubs will just donate nuke tanks to the enemy.

But on the small round map, you know some of us will always spend first four minutes getting Upgraded turrets and chase your team around the map. You are not likely to make it to heavies before you're beaten. I might try the Physics path once to see if it has any benefit on a different map. I do recall one game where the opponent pushed four nuke tanks and our heavies didn't live long enough to take any of them out, and our base was pummeled. Although it could have been the grens on foot doing a good job of defending the nuke tanks.

Lets play against each other sometime and we'll talk afterwards and compare notes.

 

So the best way to win is to be on BE, amirite?

 

The only reason I find it interesting to COM is to find solutions to the problems the opponent COM has thrown at me. Mostly it is just boring and redundant. I'd rather be in a tank or pushing with a squad.

Upgraded MG turret will beat nubs every time. Most of the other COM's know everything posted here, so they too can be a challenge. Many COMs make small mistakes that cost them the game. For example I think it's silly not to build turrets in main. It's your best way to stop APC's from destroying your base. The challenge there is to cover all the hiding spots with walls or turrets. Once you get on the defensive you have to turn it around or you're doomed. Walling yourself in will give you some time to recover, and if your team listens to you - that will save you.

Then you have to spend some energy on defeating a ninja attack. If you can shore up main, and keep research going you will be tough to beat. I try to spend time on targets until my team gets some momentum. If they get stalled, I'll spend time helping them, so that is important too.

Do you know how to watch ALL of your buildings with one key press ?
Select all of your buildings holding down the CTL key so they are all highlighter then press CTRL F1. That assigns them to the F1 key. If you suspect a scout is in your base you can see what he has just hit.

Most COM's that enjoy a decent match will tell you their secrets. Then it becomes a game of com skill, and help their team push. I love team wins rather than one player wins. So get the hell out of the COM vehicle and do what you do best - lead a squad

 

No you should be on NF. I'll take that crappy BE team.

What team always wins Tank Training ?

 

My team because my DU APCs are teh bawmb, nub.

 

BE? NF if a bunch of kill-whoring vets who realize that the map is relatively pointless join BE just to screw around, though. But since when has vehicle training ever served as a metric for actual gameplay?