Research Myths: I Can't Believe I'm Writing This

I pub a lot and I'm seeing some really sketchy research from some players that I wouldn't consider noobs.

Here's some pretty blatant misconceptions. It's mostly from NF's perspective because I only have like 5 hours of BE comming.

• Money
  
  • Money has a lot of, erm, money. Your research needs to exploit that. The only pieces of research that are balanced by cost are compo, heavies & arty. I don't like arty, but heavies & compo are excellent.
    
    • Don't get
      
      • Absorbant/Regen
        
      • Mediums
    • Do get
      
      1. Compo Armor
         
      2. Biodiesel & BioML (NF) or 3phase & Rails (BE)
         
      3. Heavies
      (in that order)​
  • The first step is non-negotiable. The second & third are less essential, but are still tremendously attractive because they give you endgame tanks with just two trees.
• Reactive
  
  • Reactive gets a bad rap because it's heavy and gets raped by the all-too-common bio. For an early game armor, it's an excellent tag team with 3phase. It's HP/weight is surpassed only by compo. If you're getting 3phase early and you want compo later on, get reactive until then.
    
    • Don't get
      
      • Absorbant/Regen if you start with 3phase
    • Do get
      
      • Reactive almost any time you start with 3phase
  • This is a big deal because 3phase is still a very common starting engine. In the early game, bio is rarely present because BioMG sucks and grens are the predominant anti-vehicle weapon. Since Reactive's high HP makes it strong against missiles and its bio modifier makes it weak against bio, it's the perfect early game armor.
• UML
  
  • UML is not a good starting 2-slot missile. It's a long range building killer, so you can think of it as a more versatile alternative to nukes. It's unremarkable against vehicles. BioML and Homing are better alternatives.
    
    • Don't get
      
      • UML as your first missile
    • Do get
      
      • BioML or Homing as your first missile
  • I think UML's staying power has to do with its popularity in past versions. That leads me into my next point...
• Chemistry
  
  • Chemistry is a bipolar tree. Improved Detonation Compounds is OP as fuck, but the rest of the tree is shit. I used to rush Absorbant-UGL-Turbine-Meds-HEC, for early UGL APCs and early not-shit Meds (!). However I stopped doing that pretty quick because absorbant is just too weak against good grens. I sure as hell don't do Absorbant-Coolant-UML-Meds-Heavies. I have seen regulars do exactly that in the last month.
    
    • Don't get
      
      • Absorbant when enemy grens aren't braindead
        
      • UML when you don't have a missile
        
      • Coolant when, erm, just don't get it
        
      • HEMG when... wait you don't actually get this, right?
    • Do get
      
      • Electrical for big maps
        
      • Biology for more cramped maps
  • Chemistry is worth researching for Improved Detonation Compounds and that's literally it. UML is a nice just-because missile after you already have a good anti-tank missile. Absorbant is (rightfully) cheap as dirt. If you want to win, get your armor/engine in Electrical or Biology.
• Cod
  
  • Yes, it's the prototypical pubber FPS, but it's also a remarkably decent low pop com map. But people don't know how to research for it. Cod doesn't have enough res for expensive buildings like VFs or expensive vehicles like heavies. So don't research for heavies!!!
    
    • Don't get
      
      • Heavies
        
      • Mediums
        
      • Anything that would be useful on a Heavy or Medium
    • Do get
      
      • Turrets
        
      • Superlights
        
      • APC-friendly research
  • If Money is on one side of the spectrum, Cod is on the other. It's small enough that you really don't need vehicles at all. Hobbes has to whine a lot to get me to drop him a VF for his "boom-APCs" on Cod. Instead, get turrets. Cod is one continuous chokepoint and it's small. That means you'll have a respectable turret density before you hit the limit. But don't take my word for it...

I don't mean to patronize regulars with basic pub research tenants. My intention is to level the playing field so matches aren't fucked because of a non-noob failcom.

 

I wished people would know how to drive a coolant engined tank so people would stop crying about someone researching it (rapidly tap W while being at top speed). It's still the best engine for heavies in-game yet no one is capable of using it right... which is the only reason not to research it except you go for artillery.

And reactive is still shit. Yes it is good for LTs and MTs but late game you will need more armor for your heavies. When you encounter another heavy with you having bio armor you can switch the damaged side with a new one and let the damaged one regen meanwhile. With reactive you obviously can't and you have less armor/weapons because of its weight. If res income is low I would go for reactive, otherwise it is a waste of time if you prepare for HTs with HE CNs or BioMLs..

 

I respect your effort.

But yourself, you've played this "non-noob failcom" for a lot of times, ironically, due to improper research path.

You need to listen to your field vets. Research is something that a regular field player knows better.

*Missing gif*

 

I don't play any more but if I still had time I'd probably use this as a starting point.

Research has always been the worst part of commanding for me because I never know whats good to get (I don't drive tanks)

You're doing a service spartacus, good job.

 

Looks like someone was really fucking bored lol

 

I felt this way for the longest time....Then I Learned how to to use it.
Reactive is great early to mid game...even late game with the right team.
Put on 1 weapon and max out your plates. Travel with a buddy. You will do less damage but you will almost never over heat.

Reactive +3phase + gren armor upgrade = lols

 

I really think that the vulnerability of Reactive to Bio is being overstated. It's an extra 25% damage it takes from Bio, that's honestly not a lot.

 

In my experience, it's quite noticeable.

My problem with reactive is that it is great early game, but by the time you've researched your second weapon for mediums it is inferior. I personally don't want to then take the time to research another armor before I can compete in the race to heavies.

Spartacus, don't tell me what to do! I know what's good and what isn't, but I get tired of researching the same things all the time! I'll research HE MG if I feel like it, and you can't stop me, guns can't stop me, and JGF can't stop me, and... um... NOBODY CAN STOP ME

On a serious note, this is a great guide for those getting back into comming for this version. It's pretty much spot on for the best research. Another note I have is don't bother researching heavies on crossroads when you're NF, unless you have the best crack team of NF heavy drivers there ever was. It is a waste of money on a map that already has few resources.

 

Bioarmor+coolant/bioengine+gren armor+3weapons

Yes you have more hp with reactive but you are useless offensive on your own or in even numbers against other tanks. The objective with heavies is to push and destroy things, not to turtle. If you are going to solo take out buildings in a open map you should rather use a jeep as engineer. Not as a heavy...

And you don't heat with coolant if you use it right. You do with Bio Diesel but the overheated status only last a bit more than HECN can fire shells.
Also you can still turn with both engines so you still are able to use fully regen'd armor while hiding the weakened side so it can regen back up.

You are right with early and mid game. But if you require serious battle tanks you cant rely on heavy armor.

 

Mega Response Post, engaged.

Next time we play, you're coming and you're getting hemg. It's decided.

This wasn't meant to be a guide. It's more of an emotional outlet for me.

I saw Compo-3phase-physics-blah-blah-chemistry-mediums on Money less than an hour ago. I'm going to need therapy.

Lol, who puts reactive on heavies?

Regen is great if your team can use it (and if you get other Bio stuff!), but it's surprisingly hard for noobs to excel with.

We can't rely on noobs to properly use regen for the same reason that we can't rely on them to properly use coolant. The potential is there, but noobs don't pick it up fast enough.

Absorbant is great for UGL APC rushes. Get a bunch of coolant engies in dirt-cheap UGL-Abs APCs and it's rape time. But if you can't get your team to rush APCs the moment the research finishes, the you blow the early lead that Absorbant gives you.

If your team doesn't use UGL APCs until enough time has passed in which you could've gotten reactive-3phase-UGL APCs, then rushing Absorbant was worthless. That's why I don't rush Absorbant-UGL-Turbine-Meds-HEC anymore. I couldn't get my team to use the early APCs and meds. By the time they got in the right vehicles, the enemy had superior longer-research versions on the field.

UML is fine for BE if they already have HEC because they can use salvo to supplement HEC in heavies & meds.

As you said, it's a little harder to use as your poster-child 2slot weapon. In my experiences, it doesn't feel powerful for noobs like homing or BioML feels. That leads them to do stupid things like get std cannon on a med because they can't use UML. But I'll admit that my UML entry is probably the weakest of the five in this post. UML isn't worthless.

Unfortunately, it's not as much of a race as it should be.

That's the biggest flaw in my Money research methodology. It allows the fastest heavy path in the game, but I often find myself reminding the team that we have heavies. They keep pushing APCs.

It drops Reactive's effective HP/weight lower than absorbant's. So you're actually spending more for an armor that's less effective.

Bio is just too common to rely on Reactive past early meds.

 

Hell yes.

 

Some people apparantly do which is a tradegy. But I dont have any against MTs with reactive+coolant/3phase/bioengine+2 weapons. It makes MTs a bitch to take out and also doesn't require loads of resources which means if the team gives a shit about tanks you will have about 10 MTs on field and they are not to joke with.

Remember old emp_escort with meds and bio-ml... yeah it is that badass.

 

Anyone else love being an absorbent heavy? Cheap as fuck weapon boats that are still just survivable enough for hit and run.


In theory

 

Nicely done Spartacus. Creeper and I just finished a bunch of testing. I have a completely new plan which I will prove NF is way OP once you know how to use the differences between a NF heavy and BE heavy. Once I show one NF heavy will eat up two BE heavies and I get some of the guys to follow this tactic, I'll post it here.

PS: BIO ML will remove FOUR layers of Absorbant, Compo, Reactive, Reflective armor over a 15 second period. BE gets two less layers on a fully outfit heavy compared to NF. I read somewhere that Bio ML takes twice as long - 30 seconds, but really it does all of it's damage within 15 seconds. HE and ER are no where near as powerful as bio. There is also a tactic I'll test out which will fucking destroy BE early. More on this once I get to prove it out.

 

The speakeasy called, they want their moonshine back.

 

Lol, someone has been drunkposting again...

 

If you rewatch the skrim of yesterday you will see me shooting 3 guys in a row with behr. Thus point is proven behr is really really op and shoot be nerfed.