A non-cheating way to achieve no-fog
I was playing some 2v2 ranked ladder games with Wuped two days ago and he taught me some excellent strategies that he gave the okay to pass on to all of you. If you don’t recognize the name, Wuped and his partner ktachuck are currently ranked #6 on the 2v2 ladder, so they’re obviously doing something right. The main strategy I’ll be focusing on is how to achieve an effective no fog of war without cheating. And pay attention, because this strategy applies to all games, not just 2v2 ranked.
Wuped’s strategy is very simple. Rather than using expensive radar, he just uses scout spam. A lot of scout spam. On a map like Fields of Isis, it takes about eight unassisted air factories (fewer if you use engineers to assist) to spam scouts and achieve total visibility coverage of the map. Just set the factories to building scouts on repeat and give them a patrol order over the enemy base. The cost per tick of making eight scouts at once is 8 mass and 320 energy, although you can get away with less if you don’t want the full eight: on 5×5 maps, for instance, you won’t need more than two or three. Note that these costs are significantly less than the cost of an omni radar, yet the coverage they produce is a lot better. Omni only lets you see radar dots, and not even those if your enemy is using stealth. Scouts, by comparison, let you see everything.
But the beautiful thing about scouts is how they let you save resources. Once you see everything your opponent is doing, you can custom tailor your defenses to what he does. If you don’t see him building any serious air force, for instance, you can save tens of thousands in mass by not having to build unnecessary SAM missile launchers. You can also have lots of resources on ground defenses as well. Visual reconnaissance is simply much, much better than radar.
You may be wondering, won’t your opponent just shoot down the scouts? Yes, they will. But scouts are very cheap and expendable, and they are much, much cheaper than anything capable of taking them out. And remember that scouts have a long vision radius, so even if they get shot down at the outskirts of the enemy’s base, you can still see everything inside it. To stop the scouts from getting through, your opponent would have to build multiple SAM missile launchers a good ways away from his base along the flight line. And when he does this, just redirect the scouts. On a map like Fields of Isis, you can even use an off-map flight route and have the scouts pop in on the map behind the enemy’s base. There’s no way to stop them. It would cost an extraordinary amount of resources to really seal off all of the scouts, and if your opponent does end up doing this, it’s good for you, because he’s spent far, far more resources just to stop your scouts than you spent on the scouts in the first place.
I present the replay attached to this post as a good example of scouts in action. Granted, our opponents weren’t particularly skilled, and they did fall to a quick Soul Reaper (well, they disconnected first in an attempt to avoid the loss, but didn’t, hehe). But it shows the scout strategy very well. It’s definitely something you should remember and integrate into your arsenal. In Supreme Commander, intelligence is key, and getting effective no-fog over the entire map is by far the best form of intelligence.
Download the replay of this match (v3255).
June 26th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Not #6 anymore 2v2 ranked just got reset but I have a shiney new avatar… Also only problem I ever have with scout spam is unit limit );.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
So, is flying the scouts off screen and then back on screen behind the opposing player’s base not considered cheating? It seems most on the GPG forums have a negative opinion of this tactics.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Lol I watched the replay. Interesting.. I wonder how soon we see everybody using this tactic. :)
June 26th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
I’ve always used single-factory scout spam on custom 3v3s and above (first waypointed into the backlines to catch those sneaky drops). Hmm…might be worth it to upgrade that a bit =P
June 27th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Cool, Cybran will take a bit of a hit from this. It might scare some people, when seeing the sky swarmed with scouts. (when I some some, I mean first time players :P)
June 27th, 2007 at 2:06 am
I can’t help but think this technique is a bit cheap. It’s certainly not exploiting, but I would probably just refrain from doing it and keep my conscience clean :-)
June 27th, 2007 at 2:25 am
I don’t see how it is cheap… I am simply making scouts and sending them at the enemy using a built in feature of supcom(patroling waypoints).
June 27th, 2007 at 3:16 am
And off course your opponents can do the same and it will be like playing with full los.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Nothing wrong with scout spam (although radar always remains a must imo), but combining it with off-map moving is lame though (anything combined with that is lame :) ).
June 27th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Yeah, on Emerald I always set a factory to pump out scouts with waypoints sweeping the entire map. It was funny when someone tried to drop UEF T2 engies behind my base and build alohas - I captured them with my ACU, giving me access to his T3 arty and SCU shields to protect my already cloaked ACU >:D
However, one minor drawback to this method is that by constantly feeding the enemy’s SAMs with scouts, you let them gain veteran bonuses. I can imagine they’d quickly get to vet level 3, which almost doubles DPS - so it could backfire if you’re planning on an Aerial assault/SAB drops.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Cattletech: Veterancy level 1 (50 kills) grants a 25% DPS increase and veterancy level 3 (250 kills) grants a (non-cumulative) 50% DPS increase. This isn’t really a big deal. The game would have to go on for a long time before you fed hundreds of scouts per SAM missile launcher to your enemy.
June 27th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
There is nothing wrong with this technique. Scouts are meant for scouting, spam or not. I’ll start using it soon for sure. Off screen flight is not my favorite but i like it when it works hence i’m not mad at all when someone else is using it. Can we get a poll on that maybe?
June 28th, 2007 at 4:11 am
Well, I did say it was minor. But hundreds of scouts, on a turtle map like Isis, is definitely possible, especially if you have 8 factories cranking them out.
Oh, and one other minor advantage this technique has is that if your opponent neglects to build refuel pads, they’ll eventually run out of fuel chasing the scouts.
June 28th, 2007 at 4:12 am
…by they I mean the interceptors, of course.
June 28th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Another advantage of this technique is if they don’t have constant scouts they will not notice your strat bombers/transports on radar.
June 29th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
The most important thing here is you are always prepared for what the enemy is doing and you aren’t wasting resources for things that they aren’t doing.
They have no Air factory? Why do I need expensive sams?
Of course you can see all their weak spots and exploit them. It’s simple intel power.
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:46 am
Been doing this since beta :/
Guess I am not so far behind in general gameplay as some say I am.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
hay i have a problem, supreme commander works good but when i play it theres so much fog i can’t see.
November 20th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
First off Great Tactic. like it,
Second all is fair in love and war, when a tactic yeilds a clear advantage in war no matter what it is or how it works, use it. If you think your emimies wont you are a fool.
It is a matter of winning/survival, if you want it you will do what it takes to get it.
The only exception is of course a exploit/game flaw(cheating), but GPG takes care of most of them.
Thanks Wuped