Does anyone use combat fabrication units?

Don't they heal very quickly, and have really good range however?

According to http://www.nanodesu.info/pa-db/62165/table/builders.html

Basic Combat fabs have 2x build power, but cost 2.7x more (and build time is based on cost) I think that's a significant enough inefficiency to more than make up for roll-off time, but I haven't tried it. Of course if space is at a premium, the build power and range could be worth it.

Advanced Combat fabs, however are a pretty good deal, 2x build power at 1.35x cost.

Their power/metal consumption is identical to that of bot/vehicle fabbers too.

Hmm... We could start seeing them being used like FARKs soon.

They're not cute enough to be FARKs.

For combat fabbers to be effective enough, units would have to be made of actual armor instead of paper. Just another reason to increase overall unit hp.

What the fark is a FARK?

http://totalannihilation.wikia.com/wiki/FARK

I use them all the time . There good its just I see alot of players dont know how to play this game. I see too much turtling, no expansion, no use of units properly, and when to leave planet. But guys will get better with sure experience when they keep playing. At least I hope.

We need to help them to transition from turret turtling, to unit turtling with area command patrols.

Then they can use their shield, as a sword.

The main problem i have with combat fabbers is that my units are already too squishy to even bother having a few in the army. The units I would like to be healed die the quickest ( anti air)

derp

I've started mixing t2 combat fabbers in with my bot army to put up portals right ontop of the enemy base, then I can get my tanks all close and personal very quickly.
Not sure how useful as healers they are, most of the time combat seems pretty binary.

I have found they are only worthwhile combined with Vanguards. A Vanguard being repaired will soak up a lot of damage. Also the fastest way to kill a Vanguard is to reclaim it (unless you want to trade Vanguards). The only problem with this is the amount of micro involved.

Once I reach advanced vehicles I tend to mix them in. Generally at a ratio of 1 combat fab per 10 vehicles.
Especially with vanguards (although also with levelers) they do a fenomenal job of keeping stuff alive.

They also work great on keeping a defensive line up (walls/turrets/artillery).

But in larger quantaties (from 5 upwards) they can drain your eco something fierce.

They're not very helpful when they're at the fronts lines of an army and are the first to be destroyed. I think Uber was going put more work into formations and put certain units at different spots in a formation, like putting the combat units in the back and the infernos in the front.

I only had used T2 combat fabricators flocking behind T2 fabricator in mid to late game, if you had overproduction of power you can build structures at insane speed.

Ditto. I'll build 100 or so T2 combat fabs and group 3 or 4 of them to each T2 factory. When you have 5-6 factories you can spit tanks out like crazy. They are also fantastic to group to nukes and anti nukes (or anything you need built 10 seconds ago) provided you have the resources.

They don't shoot, so I don't use them...

However, I'm not very good at the game anymore so that's probably not a good reason to ignore them

Yes they're key units in my armies, as well as base defence repair. I always have at least two so that they can repair each other. Deffo need the economy to support them though, otherwise they'll tank it fast!

For the record, T2 combat fabbers are less efficient than T2 fabbers. You can also set fabbers on patrol mode between two buildings, and they will aid in construction with both, as you would expect.
So I don't see any real advantage to using combat fabbers inside a base. As for combat, I use a few of them to make vanguards that much more tanky in my vehicle armies.