Quick tips

Brian, (my name is also Brian) hah, The never stop scouting part is critical... I recently played a match where I was the first one out, and red had a golden opportunity to go right into the hole in Green's defenses, but failed to do so.

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Always build an orbital radar, even on 1 planet games. If I see you without it, the SXX and anchor bombardment are the least of your worries.

I agree.. Such a quick low costing building can provide such a huge benefit to your defense / offence

Combot Fabbers are amazingly metal efficient. With power cycling it is easy to rush T2

That was a few patches ago, they won't help with advanced or much of anything except repairs. They can technically still assist with things they can build, but mines are already so cheap it hardly matters.

Rule #1: BUILD MANY FACTORIES!!!
In many other RTS games, you are only required to build one unit factory, but in this game you need to build at least six in your starting base, and continue to build more. Focus on attack rather than defence.

For me, this is not working.

I'd say a quick tip for beginners is to area build all the metal extractors on the planet with your first fabber. You can over build with subsequent fabbers, but just to make sure you always have metal in the mix, also, it's a cool strat to follow defend him constantly with units from your first factory and see how far he can make it. Mostly for new people trying to maintain economy.

I agree with almost all the tips here, but would also say this.

If you lose a game, watch the replay. I consider myself a fairly experienced player, but i always learn after watching a replay.

I love the Attack Planet command followed by Patrol Planet command given to bot factories. While this won't stop air from running around the planet, you can slowly gain planet visibility this way and mop up with vehicles once you know what your opponent opened with.

Great tips thread, which got me thinking; should there be a menu page for things like this in-game? I feel like it could help new players out far more than the current video tutorial, which really doesn't explain things like stringing commands, using continuous build mode, priority queue, etc. Most of these things are essential for playing the game effectively, and aren't immediately apparent. That's why I think there should be a help section dedicated to them, so players who are new to the game / genre can get engaged in gameplay sooner, instead of fumbling around and getting run over by the AI

What hotkeys do people use?

I use L to switch the factory to continuously build, but don't really use any others.

I would consider that hotkey as vital, what other hotkeys do people use that they consider vital?

These are the ones I always use...

T - Track selected unit/s
F - Select all idle fabricators in view

CAMERA
Tab - Jump between planets in system
SHIFT+[number] - Set camera view
ALT+[number] - Jump to set camera view

UNIT SELECTION
CTRL+[number] - Set selected units to control group
[number] - Recall control group selection
CTRL+Z - Selects all units of type you currently have selected

Below are 2 I used to use until they've been changed in one of the recent builds. Would love to know what select commander has been changed to

Spacebar - Jumps to overhead system view
C - Select Commander (in shared army games this will select all commanders so try to avoid using it in that case, otherwise you'll usually end up cancelling other peeps orders)

From having that tutorial discussion a few months ago, I would again suggest that these tips and more like them, including basic gameplay tips, are used on loading screens, system editors, lobbies, main menus, or easy ai skirmishes , or a subset of these to ease new players in.

it's probably mentioned in the tutorial... so i apologize in advance

if i build a transporter, it seems that it would be useless to build another on the same planet, for any reason?


and, after i get both transporters rotating on two planets, how do i send vehicles through the archway?

they just pile up on the 'threshold'

The tutorial video needs to be replaced, it's from ages ago and is missing quite a few key features that should be mentioned in it

is there a users manual or something that tells how to send units through the transporter, and work all of the fiddly bits of the other non-intuitive things?

everything i know from TA works just as expected... it's all those newfangled space toys that stump me!

Some more stuff:

• T1 + T2 extractors are placed in paralell. Don't forget to place T1 "under" your newly built T2 when you conquer a new planet. If you are hurting for metal and have free spots, T1 is a lot more metal effecitve then T2.
  
• There is no energy cost for buildings/instead. Instead Fabbers and Factories take a fixed amount of energy while working. Higher tiers are more effective, but still cost more due to thier much higher build rates.
• Early game the flame tank is the bane of bases and comanders that have nowhere to run, so flame on. Mid game they are decent meatshields for your army.
  
• Few things beat air units in area control.
• Vehicles are the backbone of any ground force.
• Bot's are cheap, often amphibic and fast - but more fragile then wet tissue paper.
• Even a Navy in a lake is still a formidable foe and can control big areas.

This doesn't work when trying to upgrade buildings like building a bunch of t2 miners over t1 ones. Is that a bug?

It does work in general.

There is sometimes an issue if you have "Build preview show all" enabeled and anotehr unit already has a queued order for that extractor.
Then you cannot queue up that build on those spots (again), it must be the first order.

Also it might be you have a support commander with the same color (I got this as red faction), so you mix up thier spots and yours.