Taking advantage of range
One common mistake I see new players making is not taking full advantage of units’ range. Supreme Commander isn’t your typical real time strategy game; there are many units in it that have significant firing ranges, and it is important to take full advantage of them. All too often I will see a new player plowing full ahead with his army and suffering significant casualties, even though, had he just held them back a little bit, he would have done a lot more damage for a lot fewer losses.
Generally, your units should be shooting at around their maximum range. Aurorae, for instance, have a range of half a kilometer. Many units in the game can’t shoot that far. So you don’t rush your Aurorae in any closer than is necessary for them to be able to shoot at the enemy units. Make your opponent have to do all the work in closing the distance to get his own units within range. This especially applies to tech 1 mobile artillery. They have a nice range on them and can do significant damage before tanks even start coming into firing range. Let them do their work!
The worst mistakes I see being made, though, involve higher tech units with really long range. I’m talking about tech 2 mobile missile launchers and tech 3 mobile artillery. These units have ranges well over a kilometer and can take out base defenses, even tech 2 point defense turrets, without putting themselves in the range of defensive fire. So don’t! You should be perfectly content to park your army outside of your enemy’s range and slowly whittle down their defenses without taking any losses yourself. Make them sally forth to take you on outside of their base and without the added advantage of their defensive emplacements.
I cringe every time I watch a replay that involves a player sending a mixed arms force head-first into the middle of an opponent’s base. Send your tanks in if you must. But your artillery and missile launchers should be on a different hotkey, and should not be sent in to suicide against the base like the tanks. Remember, these long range units are fragile, and will do a lot more damage from a safe distance than if they are up close and quickly dead. It’s all about using your units effectively.
I also wrote a previous post on how to use tech 3 mobile artillery effectively. And don’t even think of sending in your Fatboy any closer than the maximum range of its cannons. That’s just asking for trouble.
April 12th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
So what’s the best way to use groups? Or bookmarks? I haven’t figured that one out.
April 12th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Well, definitely the best way to move in groups is to use formation move. Either hold down Control while giving move orders, or hold down the right mouse button, drag out a formation, and then repeatedly click the left mouse button to cycle through the available formations. As for bookmarks, I’m assuming you’re just talking about the ability to assign groups of units numbers? That’s simply for convenience, so you can easily select them again later just by pushing a button on the keyboard rather than having to locate them all and select them again manually.
April 12th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Bookmarks are where you have an area on the map that you can go to immediately by pressing tab, and set and unset by pressing shift-tab and ctrl-tab, respectively.
Groups are where you hit ctrl-# and can select and go to units on that basis — my question is how people use them effectively, if at all.
April 12th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Oh, and build mode. Useful? Not useful?
April 12th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Huh, I didn’t even realize bookmarks existed. I suppose those could be useful. I’ve become so adept at flicking around in strategic zoom, though.
As for build mode, I dunno, I suppose it could cut down mouse movements, but I’ve heard that getting out of it can be annoying. I’ve never used it. Maybe I should try.
April 12th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
See, this is what I come here for, things like this. I would consider myself fairly new to the game and I only just worked this out yesterday, I was falling for the tap by sending my units the while way in. CydeWeys, you should write up a manual for noobs, with little tips like this, or at least have a part on the front page that clearly organises the different kinds of posts into categories, so noobs can get tips like these, and more experienced players can find the information pertaining to them.
April 12th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Well, that just shut me up, there are categories, I had never noticed that before.
April 12th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Yeah, the people that wrote this blogging software are a clever bunch. They thought of nearly everything.
April 12th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Maybe you should add a “noob tips” tag, as well.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Actually, I believe that tech 2 missile launchers have the same range and tech 2 point defense. It’s been a while since I checked, so I could be wrong. As far as I know, the only unit that out-ranges tech 2 point defense is tech 3 artillery. Which I, for one, never build, since siege bots are so much better.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:29 am
@a_Tick: No, I am very sure the tec 2 missile launchers out range the tec 2 point defences, at least for Cybran, which I play. They certainly start fiering at aproching units first.
April 13th, 2007 at 9:42 am
I hate to break it to you guys, but you’re both wrong. According to the units database, all mobile missile launchers and all tech 2 point defense turrets have ranges of 977m. MMLs can still be used to take out point defenses with impunity though: just send the tanks ahead to draw fire.
April 20th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
There is another technique. You can you deciever as Cybran. Usually, your t2 MLs will be out of range of optical sensors. Make him sacrifice his units just to see you :)
April 20th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
…You can use deciever…