Is competitive 1v1 fun? Should it be?

I would rank very, very low on the list, I'm just too clumsy and slow, can barely manage more than 1 base efficiently

The ladder is all single planet maps (well almost), so one base is all you need

Also I win loads of games usually with much lower APM than my opponent, you might be better than you think- especially if you use all the tools the PA UI gives you to make life easier. My recommendations for lower apm players (apologies if you know all this):

1: Always use continuous build on your factories (there is a mod to set this on by default btw). If you need a specific unit you just 'ctrl + click' it and it will be made once without interfering with the continuous queue.

2: Use factory commands to help- if you want to stop your opponent expanding to a metal field, take a factory, hit patrol and drag a patrol circle over the metal field and leave it running. All units created will inherit the patrol order and go annoy anything that goes there without you doing a thing.

3: Similarly use factory rally poitns to help. I like to set my factory way points along the path I'm expanding along- that way there are always units close by to my fabbers making them much harder to snipe.

4: Area commands and line build commands are just great. At the start of a game I tend to get an early fabber making approx 50 pgens using line build. That sorts out power for most of the game. When expanding, the area build for metal extractors is spot on (some players like to control the order the metal extractors are built in, however I've found that 99% of the time it selects the order I would have anyway so I'd rather save the clicks).

5: Scouting- make a few air units (scouts or fighters) and use a planet wide area patrol to get them to scout everything (use an area patrol command and drag off the edge of the planet to apply to the whole thing). The beauty is you don't even need to follow the scouts as you'll get notifications when they spot anything

Essentially once you have all this set up, you can concentrate on your attacks rather than base managing. Also remember you can issue commands to a factory whilst its still under construction.

Like I said in my post, I have had games with titans etc. I'll play some more tonight.

However, this is something I was going to touch on in my original post but didn't and some others have, the screens you have posted are from the maps which I find lead to more T2 etc, especially the ones with water. I think it's that dam small map that's 90% csg that's the worst.

Not really, even the small map with no water region can still allow the players to reach the T2.
In this kind of planet, I often see players build slammer against the dox spam, or leveler to counter the T1 tanks.

I just play a custom game of 4 players FFA, and it is a random generated map.
So you are right, it is no problem at all to provide the random generated map in current technique.

But I feel the random generated map is no very fair.
I get a lot of metal spots near my landing position, and I won the game easily.
Now I think this is the real reason why Uber don't use random generated map in 1vs1 game.
Because it is much more difficult to generate a map with random and fairness.
I think Starcraft 2 also uses the fixed map in 1vs1 ranked game.

I am not sure whether it is possible to generate random map with symmetry.
Or at least the metal spots should be fair for every player.

The random maps can by symmetrical so that would make them fairer. PA *used* to use random maps, however once they released the new map editor with hand placed features, they switched to fixed maps.

I'd personally be up for games on random symmetrical maps as I think being able to judge a map quickly is a skill, and one that rewards experience.

I find 1v1 ranked a great way to pop my ego when i feel it is getting too big.

Winning might be fun if it weren't for the reason I win was that the opponent thought building 20 air fabbers and rushing t2 air while massively stalling power is a valid strategy. Those that don't follow such strategy usually defeat me.

I've deployed this strategy successfully before lol As below though this is for commander assassination with T2 gunships.

I played 4 ranked last night, won 2 and lost two. I think the only reason I won the two is because quite a few people don't seem to play assassination. In both cases I felt I was on the losing end but managed to assassinate the commander with very few units.

The ones I lost, first I messed up my eco early on as I was half texting and half paying attention. The second game, it was a map I had barely played before and I had trouble with it as I was going naval but ground was a valid strategy too and my battleships didn't want to fire at the tanks on the shore, do ship guns have a minimum arc/range?

Didn't really have a lot of fun whether I won or lost.

If you want to use battleship, please make orbital scout or T2 radar.
Otherwise, it can't fire blindly.

I believe there is no minimum range of the ship gun, but the angle of ship gun is limited.
You can use move command to change the direction of battleship,
But I think it is not important to control their direction, the guns can aim to enemy automatically.
Just keep distance and avoid the return fire from the enemy.

I never adjusted to the commander energy production nerfs, I always, always stall energy.

A big reason why t2 is rarely seen in high level play is because units are too fast. If you want to rush t2, which should be a viable option, your fabbers will die quickly since offensive units can kill them so fast.

T2 factory prices should be reduced by
1000 metal. Units should cost a lot. Not the thing that builds them.

But this may lead to another situation.
Everyone just rushes to T2, then the T1 units may become useless.

For navel units, this is not a problem since T1 submarines can counter all T2 navels.
But for vehicle, bot, and air units. I think it will be the problem.
T2 tank > T1 tank
T2 bot > T1 bot

Ah, that's easy to fix with a tweak to build order. What I currently use (may not be best but works for me)....

With com, factory, mex, pgen, factory, mex, pgen, pgen, pgen, factories...

First factory: 2 fabbers (vec) or 3 fabbers (bot as they cost less to run but build slower). First Faber gets any start metal not built by com, then radar and then constant pgens. Second and third fabs go expand metal.

I find once you get about 4 factories up getting an energy storage helps avoid e stall.

That build shouldn't stall at all.

Really good stuff in here. Thanks!

new PTE is out, 87070!! Now to try out @cdrkf's stuff!