Energy to mass

This is how I play, I pick up all the mass imy drop zone and a few PGs and get my bot fact up, every bot I get is sent off in another direction, spamming shift click mex, I try to get each to take around 4-6 in 4 different directions

the next bots are sent out along with them to assist, I start building 2-3 AA, radar, and a laser tower and pelter on the outter "arms" of each expansion, once this is done my bots head out again, to spam more mex, but barely defend these and im now to "busy" (IE, Lack of Micro/macro skill) at the same time my main base is getting some AA and pelters.

then I rush T2, I know im still going to expand slower, so I need t2 mex quicker, every time I upgrade 2 mex to T2, I build a new T2 Bot factory and spam stompers or slammers (50/50) all the while I have a group of around 4 adv bots and 1 t1 fabber building t1 def and once in a while t2 lasers, you can put up 4-5 pelters and an adv radar really quick and keep raiding parties at bay, each arm will gain around 4 pelters, and 2 adv laser towers to keep raids away and slow down any major attacks, my main base is now going to hold around 8-10 pelters total and at least 1 holkin

also you can notice rather quickly if someone is going tanks or bots.....that dictates if go more laser or pelter, but I always mix the two.....most people seem to go for tanks in pub matches.


if they turtle, get a forward base with pelts and lasers, adv radar and 2 holkins, its enough to take out any of his outer fringe mex and push them forward and creep the heavy guns closer and closer while amassing more T2 bots..... stompers are great for crushing turtles, 140 range, great damage, can hit buildings well and kite pretty well at 11 speed.

I find this type of gameplay really fun....I also have a lot of fun in 2v2 when my ally is an expansion type player, the combo works pretty well, able to snag up econ, and can do a decent job at holding them...also expanding defense stations on your mex arms, gives you places to fall back to, sometimes they kill the outer arm,and take your 2 mex, but the next one behind is pelting them and keeps them from building on the mex, and you can go back out and rebuild

well, you can Turtle or you can Expand.
is better expand, so you will have more map, Intelligence, Eco, Units.
when I was Noob, I turtle like a boss in Vannilla SupCom, but I lose the game(or the AI kill each other)
P.S. I that game they throw against me 2 GC (AI), if was a player, he/she would throw something like 50 GC
so don't turtle you will be digging its own grave

I come from SupCom.

I am a porc/turtle.

I think there is validity in turtling, especially if it is a viable strategy.
I find the metagame in SupCom quite interesting.

- Turtle vs Tech
- Expand vs econ (upgrading mex)

All of these options are actually quite viable. I have watched many replays, one where Zaphod casted where you see a player turtle and another one expand and take map control.
A turtle buys his time to mass up and army.
The map control player tries to crack the turtle.
I find this really interesting and enjoyable.

I also find expansion to be exciting and rewarding.


It's a bit of game balance I think.
In order to make the game fun, expansion should be a better long term strategy so all players don't just hide.
But cracking a turtle who is massing an end-game army is also interesting.


I think it is about adding depth to the game.
By entirely focusing on all-out expansion, it may be more intense of a game, but that doesn't necessarily mean we have depth.

i generaly aggree turtling should be as viable as expanding .. the thing is though non of them is a 100% guarantee of winning .. debating about what is more fun is rather pointless there are simply people that play more defensivly ..
does that mean they won´t build up their eco though? no! .. it just means they risk less
sometimes i think people think of the extremest examples only .. just building constructors and towers but no army or stuff like that .. that would be suicide..a turtle slowly but surely builds up his army and base while the expander or rusher may send wave after wave to die .. units that would be considered wasted by the turtle
a turtle does actualy expand as well .. just slower .. a turtle can bite too and it does hurt

as for metalconverters or metalfabricators? .. .. rather not .. not a 100% no .. but rather not ..

Turtling is not a strategy, it is a lack of one. When there are no visible options for attack, the only other thing to do is to build up. Players will do this of their own accord for lack of scouting or experience. It is not something the game has to enforce, nor should it.

when you turtle you invest much Metal(Mass in SupCom) in static units, you aren't attacking and killing the enemy.
returning in the metal thing, I like the idea to make a T-1 Metal Maker that use a lot of energy to produce less metal than a Mex.

I feel that's a rather narrowminded view of turtling.
What turtling does is buy you time.

Speaking from Forged Alliance...
Don't have air surpriority? Then you must turtle enough so they can't snipe your Com.
If you don't have air superiority, then any fighters you have are going to die to an ASF deathball.
You need to buy yourself time to re-prioritize your production.

You sacrifice mobile firepower in the short term to gain a tech advantage.
In order to stay alive, you have to build turrets because static defense is more cost effective than mobile if they enemy is coming to you.

In PA, you build less tanks, less bots to get up your orbital tech.
You hide behind your defenses while you have less firepower on the field.
You sacrifice short term map advantage for long term tech advantage.
It's a long term play that in this game will get you to, guess what? A new planet, so you can get more long term eco.
That's turtling.


Please don't dismiss turtleing as "not a strategy".
Just because it is not your style of play, doesn't mean there is no strategic thinking, calculation and sacrifice involved.

It really depends on the game on how viable to want to make it.



Take SC2 for example.
Terrans turtle, zerg expand like mad.
I'd like you to try to and explain why that is "not a strategy" to actual pro gamers.

I have to agree there, but I'm also pro E=MC^2 though. IMO, it shoudl be possible to "Generate" all the metal you need to survive and prosper, but it should be expensive to do so, requiring massive reserves of energy. Perhaps you can turtle and get your first T2 off to another planet and build your energy reserves there. This allows Turtling on the main planet where the majority of combat takes place, while still allowing for a turtler to have the mass required to build. It's just a thought of course, but there needs to be a cost(And a fairly high one in my opinion) to doing Energy to Mass conversions.

If anything energy to mass converters are actually worse for turtlers and casual players. For obvious reasons it can't be more efficient than building mex and will just end up being a noob trap that puts you further behind a competent player that knows how to play efficiently.

Very true that it can be a newbie trap.
In SupCom, I used to do mass converters, but then I got better.

I think one element of strategy is the ability to mass up a great amount of units.
Let's say the enemy has a very superior air advantage and you are contained in your base behind your AA turrets.
Part of a viable strat is to "die slow", especially in team games.

What this does is allow you to buy time for whatever strategy you have in your back pocket or just to soak up damage so your allies can strike back.
A mass fab, while less efficient than mex, allows you exactly that strat.
You essentially have a slower "bleed" time on your opponent gaining the econ advantage.



And yes.
I fully agree
Expansion > turtle = must

But turtle is also a valid playstyle.


Zaphod, how many FAF games have you cast where it's tech vs spam?
Is the spam player not being aggressive and holding map control?
But the tech player, while in a smaller area of the map, still has a fighting chance.
In SupCom vanilla, it would be by building mass fabs, in FAF it's upgrading mexes and getting RAS.
All this is to buy time so you can tech up, mass up your ASFs, ball up a critical number of strat bombers to snipe, or retool your production to have a better unit composition.

Think of how boring a game would be if there was only 1 viable strat and that was to spam and be aggressive?
Does tech vs spam not bring a very interesting additional layer of meta to the game?

Well in Supcom tech vs spam works for investing in higher tech units that cause you to cede map control that you later win back with superior units that have favourable confrontations. Your opponent must then either push hard to overwhelm you with low tech before you gain traction or tech up to match your superior units. In supcom ceding map control to tech eco instead is not as effective because t1 mex are so efficient. I like it this way.

Counter point however you can pull off stuff like this (game below) which I also like as an option and a possibility, but it shouldn't be as efficient as expansion and map control (which is more difficult and deserves a higher reward imo).

Although I generally against this I would like to see this on metal planets (only). There It makes more sense then building mexes (with mexes your are reclaiming - destroying - the planet). And since metal planets are tired toward turtlers anyway (with narrow passage ways, canyons, north and south pole that are unpassable, features providing "natural" walls, etc) I say go. The official explanation could be that metal planets have an internal antimatter reactor so huge, antimatter to matter converters are able tap into that antimatter and convert it into matter, but they require huge amounts of energy to do it.

I like this idea. I'm far from a turtler but there is defiantly room for a more macro orientated economy as opposed to the micro/macro one now. What I mean by this is anybody can click a little a macro an infinite base but the controlling of this territory is extremely micro heavy.

There just needs to be fine balance like in ta and this will work. Not so practical in early 1v1 games by essential in 20 player games.

I watched a game of supcom last week. Lets just say I have never played it and have no knowledge of the game but I have watched maybe 10 casts. My favorite been a game with voodoo and tag_rock( I think) These seemed like very good players. Anyhows tag_rock took control of the whole map. 6 big islands versus the one( I think)And they guy with one island won. This made for a great game. If this happened in pa. 99.9999% of the time gg would have been called within 10 minutes.

I'm behind on watching my games.
Do you know who was the caster?

Pretty sure it was zaphodx1. Couldnt possibly forget his sexy Northern English accent.

Personally I'm quite fond of both turtleing and expansion.

I used to turtle in supcom when playing against friends so we could force more epic battles, with nukes flying everywhere and experimental units by the dozen.
However there's a lot of room for skill and finesse with raiding and expansion tactics and that's enjoyable to.

I'm all for energy -> metal converters if for nothing else than to give a use to gas giants. If they're going to give more power than solar panels then I'm not exactly sure what else you could do with it.

There are two ways to turtle

1. Playing on the defensive. Buying time for something to happen that will give you an advantage that allows you to take control of a larger area. Most people are fine with this. It can work and isn't boring.
   
2. Surrounding yourself with turrets and not expanding when given the opportunity. This is what people don't like. This is what lots of people think when they say turtle. I imagine everyone has come across someone like this. You know you will win, it just ends up being a waste of time.

Depending on the game being played. If (for instance) it's a 40-player game, you can always skirt round them, and let somebody else deal with them. With the potential flowfield pathing, it may be easier (or rather, there may be more alternative ways, rather than just throwing waves of units at the defence) to break through.

@liquius, in TA and Supcom #2 was not a sure victory. I've won my fair share of games with 2% of the map.. rush high end resources than air/nuke.

I'm thinking something like 2000 energy gets you 10 mass. It's not viable until you've got a good ecom, this would allow someone to retreat to a moon and rebuild an army. Furthermore it would allow the player that pushed the person of the planet to become an ecom god.

I like basing to nuke or long range arty with an expansion.

2000 energy for 10 metal income is pretty cheap. Getting that income from mexes is 1000 metal(3.33 mexes) while it is 1500 metal in basic power plants(3.33 powerplants) and only 1080 metal in Advanced Power plants(0.2 or a fifth of an Advanced power plant).