Homeworld: Cataclysm
Cata's Lost Saints Strategy and Tactics
Written by WraithCLS
E-mail: volcomstoner2689@gmail.com
Last Updated: July 31, 2006
You can get all this info, game recordings and more from the continually
updated CLS website (http://freewebs.com/catals). Since it's in html and not
notepad, it will most likely be easier to read as well. Click on the link "Open
Strat" to get to the html form of this guide. If there are any unanswered
questions, if you need something clarified, or if you want me to write out a
strategy or explain a tactic just send me an e-mail.
Contents
I. Basic Strategy
a. Intro
b. Ship Class Descriptions
c. General Strategy
d. Typical Game Settings
e. Special Abilities
f. Common Commands
g. Miscellaneous Tips
h. Glossary of Common Abbreviations/Nicknames
i. Research Dependency Charts
i. Somtaaw
ii. Beast
j. Simple Starts
k. Silencio's 3 Basic Ways to Win
II. Advanced Fighter Tactics
a. Silencio/Wraith's Initial Wave Setup
b. Wraith's Dogfighting Tactics
c. Blossom
d. Formation Shifting (FS)
e. Un-Formating and its Benefits
f. Riki's Multi Formation Tactics (Micro-Forms)
g. Battle Ball (B-Ball)
h. General Ideas of Efficient Dogfighting
III. Advanced Frigate Tactics
a. Multibeams
b. Ramming Frigates
c. Hive Frigates
d. Ion Array Frigates
e. Defence Field Frigates (DFF, DFG)
IV. Super-Capital Ship Tactics
a. Destroyers
b. Dreadnoughts
c. Heavy Cruisers
d. Carriers
V. Command Ship Tactics
a. CS Maneuvering
VI. General Tactics
a. How to Deal With a Beast Rush
b. All About Crystals
c. Effective Missiling
d. Generic Starting
e. Somtaaw vs Somtaaw Counter Strategies
VII. Online Etiquette (The Unwritten Rules)
VIII. Beast Build/Research Orders
a.Four Worker Crystal/Early Mass Fighter
b. Early Crystal Processing
c. Carrier/Infect Turtling
d. Mid/Long Range Multi-Research Rush
e. Fighter/Infect Rush
f. Processor/Infect Rush
g. Processor/DFF Rush
h. Wraith's Fighter/Frigate Rush
i. Riki's Fighter/Frigate Rush
j. Mass Fighter Rush
k. Cruise Missile Rush
l. FFA Processor Strategy
m. FFA Beast Swarm
IV. Somtaaw Build/Research Orders
a. Mass Fighter Strategy
b. Fighter/Mimic Rush
c. EMP Strat
d. Maur's Crystal Rush
e. Armor Hive Rush
f. Riki's Adv Eng Strat
g. Riki's Energy Cannon Strat
h. 4 Mod EC Strat
i. 4 Mod Advanced Armor
I. Basic Strategy
a. Intro
This was written to help those who are relatively new to Cataclysm to become
better players who can contend with the veterans. So have fun and the best of
luck to you!
Before you start a game you must first familiarize yourself with the 2
essential types of units that restrict (or enhance) your fleet.
The first is Resource Units, or RU: These are what you build your ships with.
To tell how many RU you have take a look at the lower right hand side of your
screen. Think of this as money that you have to buy ships with and pay out to
hyperspace. In most games you will start out with 4000 RU, to increase this
number (which you will definitely want to do) use Workers to harvest asteroids
or salvage crystals (the second option is not available to you right off the
bat, you must research a certain technology first).
The second is Support Units, or SU: This number restricts the size of your
fleet. You get a certain amount of SU to start off with, and can build
additional Support Modules to increase your total number. Each ship in the game
(excluding Command Ships and Carriers) take up a certain amount of SU, and you
cannot build any more ships once you have reached your limit. If a ship dies,
you get the corresponding SU back, so it is not an exhaustible amount; unless a
Carrier, Command Ship, or Support Module gets destroyed in which case you must
rebuild that ship to regain the SU. This number is also in the lower right
corner of your screen during gameplay. It is represented by the number of SU
taken up by active ships, then a slash, followed by your total number of SU
possible (ex: "SU: 244/400"). The following is a table of all the ships that
give, rather than take up, SU.
Ship Amount of SU Given
Somtaaw Command Ship +70
Beast Command Ship +65
Somtaaw Carrier +40
Beast Carrier +96
Somtaaw Support Module +10
Beast Support Module +15
Somtaaw Hangar Module +20
b. Ship Class Descriptions
First up I will explain the uses and importance of each class of ship.
COMMAND SHIP AND CARRIERS
The Command Ship (CS) is the most vital ship you have. In almost every game you
play you will be given one of these to start out with. Its importance comes not
from firepower so much as the ability to build and expand your fleet. If your
CS and all carriers are destroyed you lose the game. So the whole game will be
based around defending your own CS while attempting to kill your opponent's.
At the beginning of a game your CS is limited in operations and can only build
recons, workers, and research modules (if you are Somtaaw) or recons, workers,
and processors (if you are Beast). For beginners, it is recommended to get used
to Somtaaw before attempting to play Beast as Beast is tricky to get skilled
with and even most veterans still aren't much good with it.
So what good is the CS again? Well its your base of operations and technology
research for the entire game. So to use it wisely you will need to get your
workers harvesting to earn you some Resource Units (RU) to build those research
modules, which will gain you the ability to create different and improved ships.
Carriers are in are in a way, mini-Command Ships. They can also build any ship
that does not need to be built externally (destroyers, processors, other
carriers, etc.) as well as provide you with 40 SU (for Somtaaw Carriers) or 96
SU (for Beast Carriers). The Somtaaw Carriers also have the ability to build 6
additional Support Modules just like the Command Ship (which can build 12), the
Beast Carrier on the other hand simply gives you a flat 96 SU and no additional
Support Modules can be built. If your CS is destroyed and you have one or more
carriers out, you will not lose the game until the carrier(s) are destroyed as
well.
Carriers are in are in a way, mini-Command Ships. They can also build any ship
that does not need to be built externally (destroyers, processors, other
carriers, etc.) as well as provide you with 40 SU (for Somtaaw Carriers) or 96
SU (for Beast Carriers). The Somtaaw Carriers also have the ability to build 6
additional Support Modules just like the Command Ship (which can build 12), the
Beast Carrier on the other hand simply gives you a flat 96 SU and no additional
Support Modules can be built. If your CS is destroyed and you have one or more
carriers out, you will not lose the game until the carrier(s) are destroyed as
well.
FIGHTERS
Fighters are useful throughout the game, and are especially important at the
beginning. They are your main defense and attack until you have researched
enough technology and built enough SU to produce frigates. Acolytes, when
upgraded with missile technology, can launch 2 semi-powerful missiles at any
target you desire. This special ability makes acolytes worth your while to make
even later in the game. Fighters should be used to attack enemy fighters and
enemy worker operations. Without missiles they are relatively weak against
bigger ships such as the CS.
Mimics are also included in this section. To learn more about them see the
Holographic Emitter special ability section below.
CORVETTES
Corvettes are basically heavy duty fighters. The only attack corvette Somtaaw
can build are ACVs, which are simply two acolytes slapped together. Beast on
the other hand can build 4 types of corvettes of their own (Cruise Missiles,
Heavy Corvettes, Missile Corvettes, and Multigun Corvettes) as well as the
Somtaaw ACV if it is infected, retired, and researched. These ships can inflict
massive damage on frigates as well as larger ships such as the destroyer if
used in large numbers (i.e. 20+).
- Multiguns (multis) are especially good against fighters. They also have nice
attack power against other ships as well.
- Heavy Corvettes are super-armored but have less firepower than Multiguns.
- Missile Corvettes can be built quickly but have slightly worse accuracy then
both Multiguns and Heavy Vettes.
- Cruise Missiles can be used to infect enemy ships up to the size of a
processor (once upgraded with infect ability). They also deal out a significant
amount of damage to Super-Capital class ships (i.e. CS, Carriers, etc.)
- ACVs can split into 2 acolytes at any time to increase their speed. They also
can be upgraded with an EMP charge which temporarily disables ships so they
can't return fire or hyperspace.
MCVs are also included in this section. To learn more about them see the
Holographic Emitter special ability section below.
FRIGATES
Frigates deal out more damage than both corvettes and fighters, and will often
be your main attack fleet in combat.
- Ramming Frigates (rammers) can be used to ram crystals out of dangers way, as
well as deal out a decent amount of damage to Capital and Super-Capital class
ships.
- Multibeam Frigates (MBF) are great against fighters and un-armored corvettes.
- Hive Frigates (hives) are very effective against other frigates, workers, and
if used correctly can also kill fighters quite well.
- Ion Arrays are the Beast's main frigate. It can only target one ship at a
time but its ion-cannon inflicts tons of damage on Super-Capital class ships.
It is weak against ramming frigates and fighters though.
- Defense Field Frigates (DFF) deflect a percentage of enemy and allied (but
not your own) shots within a certain radius. It also will detonate a nearby
siege shot and weaken its explosive power. Press "TAB" in game to see its field
sphere.
SUPER-CAPITAL ATTACK CLASS
These ships are the largest and most powerful vessels in the game. They tend to
be rarely seen because they take up so much SU and RU that they are usually not
worth building, and they are not terribly hard to destroy (with mass fighters,
vettes, or frigs) or distract (with even just a single rammer).
- The Dreadnought (dread) is the Somtaaw's biggest buildable ship. It has huge
attack power and good armor and can't be infected (only damaged) by infect
weapons. It has a special ability called repulse, which, once researched, can
be used to repel fighters or frigs or even siege shots.
- The Destroyer is about half the size of a dreadnought, but still packs a
punch. This is more commonly seen than dreads, but is often difficult to build
one anytime in the early game.
- The Heavy Cruiser is the Beast's only ship of this class. It carries 4 large
ion cannons, 5 large rail-gun turrets, and also has the same ability to infect
as the Beast CS and carriers.
NON-COMBAT
These are the workers and processors. Workers are necessary for building ships
to attack/defend and are therefore necessary to win. Usually you will start the
game with about 3 of these which is not enough to support you in terms of RU
the entire game. Workers are relatively weak and can be destroyed easily so
they need to be protected with a high priority.
Processors (procs) can actually be used in combat as they sport 4 medium
rail-guns as well as 4 repair beams when researched. They are used mainly as an
extension of your CS/Carriers as a drop-off point for workers ready to give you
the RU they've harvested. This allows your worker operation to be as far from
your CS as you'd like while still receiving the RU your workers harvest.
MICRO-SHIP
Leeches and Sentinels make up the micro-ship class. Leeches cannot be detected
on non-upgraded Sensors Managers (SM) and once attached to a target, begin to
slowly leech away their health. Once a recon or sentinel is upgraded with
Advanced Sensors, enemy leeches will appear on your SM.
Sentinels are slower, heavier micro-ships that are effective at killing enemy
fighters and once upgraded can erect a force-field around friendly ships,
effectively stopping certain types of attacks in accordance with the type of
force-field. It takes 12 to completely surround a target in a force-field.
c. General Strategy
HARVESTING
High priority must be given to the defense and management of your worker
operation. It is a good general rule to have at least 8 workers by the 10
minute mark of a game, and have 10-16 workers by the 15 minute mark. Try to
have a processor by about the time your workers start harvesting the second RU
patch, though this is not necessary. Another good idea (with exceptions of
course) is to have one processor for every 8 workers following them around. You
can use the guard function ("G+left mouse drag"), though I strongly recommend
manually following your workers (with the processor[s]) using the move function
("M"). Position the processor slightly below and behind the harvesting workers
and attempt to keep it in that relation the entire game. Another good idea is
to keep your workers harvesting in the same asteroid cluster as it is then
quicker for each of them to unload their RU.
RU MANAGEMENT
New players often complain about running out of RU. To avoid this, do not build
everything at once. Stagger your queues. For example, at the start of a game
build a few workers and maybe two research modules but don't build anything
else until you have more RU. Let's say you want a carrier, an armor module, a
siege cannon, and 6 more workers, do not try and build it all at once. Build a
few workers and the armor mod, then go on to the carrier and lastly the siege.
Also make sure you have enough workers/processors to support your strategy. If
its a long range game, more workers is better (maybe 14-18). If its a short
range battle, its a waste of RU to overbuild workers so stick with a smaller
number (8-14). At the start of each game start harvesting immediately with
whatever workers you get automatically, and turn your CS around to face the
harvesting workers. This puts the unload points (which are located on the front
of the CS) closer to the workers and makes it faster for them to drop of their
loads.
You can also get mega doses of RU from salvaging crystals. But you must be VERY
careful because crystals are highly volatile and if someone blows one up near
your fleet everything near it will be destroyed or heavily damaged.
Small crystals take 2 workers to salvage and supply you with 6000 RU. Large
crystals take 4 workers to salvage and supply you with 10000 RU. If a worker or
the crystal is damaged the salvaging process is slowed (i.e. it will take
longer to retrieve the crystal). If a worker is destroyed while moving the
crystal to the nearest processor (or carrier/CS) the rest will stop and wait
for you to bring another worker in to takes its place.
EARLY ATTACK VESSELS
Don't solely focus on research and harvesting at the start of a game, but also
focus on building up fighters to use in an attack or in defense. If you are
caught off-guard, everything you had just been working for may be lost.
BE AGGRESSIVE
Once you've got the basics down, you will want to start taking the fight to
your opponent. Defense alone will never win you a battle, you must also be
aggressive. A good thought to keep in mind is, whatever you hate the most of
people doing to you (examples: people keep attacking your workers incessantly,
those dang rammers keep moving my processor!, or perhaps you keep getting
rushed early in the game) do that same thing to your opponent.
Good targets are enemy workers, processors, half-built carriers/dreads, or
fully built carriers. Each of these is a serious loss, so keep up the attacks
and try to take them out.
FORMATION SHIFTING (FS)
This is an easy to learn and quite effective dogfighting tactic. Simply put
your fighters in wall formation ("F9") and then attack the enemy fighters. When
they get close, keep your fighters selected and hit sphere ("F10"). Then every
2-4 seconds switch back and forth. So basically you are hitting "F9, F10, F9,
F10, etc."
d. Typical Game Settings
For most players, and pretty much all the veteran players, these settings - or
something very similar - will be used for each type of game.
Note: Most players (especially the most skilled) prefer to play on the default
maps Close Quarters (CQ) and Armed For Burial (AFB). This is because:
1) they are not custom maps and therefore reduce the potential lag of a game
2) they come with the game and therefore everyone knows them
3) they are well made with a good amount of RU and crystal dispersal
e. Special Abilities
This includes all the upgrades unique to each ship that allows it to carry out
a Special Ability, and a description of what it does.
FORCE FIELD - This is a Sentinel special ability rarely used because sentinels
cannot shoot while in force-field mode. Force fields take a long time to
research and in practicality are not very effective as enemy ships can just fly
right past it to get their shots in.
To use this special ability, select 3-12 sentinels and right-click a friendly
ship. It takes 12 to fully encompass a shielded ship.
HOLOGRAPHIC EMITTER - This will let you build and use Mimics. These ships are
controlled through telemetry from your CS or Carrier (this fact isn't really
significant). You can mimic small/medium asteroids as well as fighters with
Mimics, you can also mimic large asteroids and frigates with MCVs (you need to
have researched linking technology for these). When you mimic an asteroid, your
mimic will not show up on enemy sensors unless they have an recon or sentinel
nearby with advanced sensors upgraded on it. They can see it visually though
and will suspect a moving asteroid with an engine trail so try to be sneaky
with it (try moving your mimics across the top of the map where they usually
aren't looking). If you mimic a friendly ship, the enemy will see that ship
both on their sensors and visually. If you mimic an enemy ship, the enemy will
see it as their ship on sensors and visually, but obviously won't be able to
command it. If you see a suspicious unit and believe it is an enemy mimic, use
the force-attack command to destroy it manually (explained in the Common
Commands section below).
To mimic an object, select your mimic(s), then right-click on an empty portion
of space, hit "Special Action" (selecting the mimic and hitting "Z" will have
the same effect). A menu should pop up, put your cursor over "Select Mimic," a
sub-menu should slide open, now click on a category, such as asteroids (most
commonly used and most effective). Then move your cursor onto "Mimic" and
left-click the type of asteroid or ship you want to imitate. A quicker way of
doing this is to simply select your mimic or MCV and right-click on the object
you want it to mimic (but remember Mimics can't take the shape of large
asteroids or frigates, and MCVs will split into 2 Mimics if you try to imitate
a small asteroid or fighter).
It takes 2 Mimics or 1 MCV (upgraded with quantum explosive charge) to destroy
a worker. It takes 4 Mimics (with quantum) to destroy a small crystal and 6 to
destroy a large crystal. These ships are very powerful, but they do their
damage by auto-kamikazeing, so they can get expensive to use en masse in
battles.
REPAIR SYSTEMS - This is a very useful technology unique to workers and
processors. Once upgraded with repair systems, workers can be told to repair
any friendly or allied ship you desire; the more workers you have repairing a
ship, the faster it repairs.
To use this special ability, select the workers you want to repair with, then
right click on the friendly or allied ship you wish to repair. The workers will
fly over to that ship and begin repairs immediately.
Processors' repair systems cannot be controlled, they simply repair anything
damaged that flies next to it within a certain range. To use this repair
manually you must move the damaged ship(s) to either side of the processor. The
processor has 2 repair beams installed on each side.
SALVAGING ABILITY - This is a required technology for salvaging crystals and
stealing enemies' ships. To salvage a crystal you must also have crystal
processing researched and upgraded on a nearby CS, carrier, or processor. To
salvage an enemy capital ship, the ship must first be damaged below 50%, then
brought back to your CS for takeover.
To see how to salvage a crystal see the RU Management section above.
To salvage an enemy capital ship, select the workers you wish to use, then
right-click on the enemy ship you wish to salvage. If the ship is of an
unsalvageable type or not damaged enough, you will get a message in the lower
left of your screen saying so and your workers will stop moving. Each ship
requires a different amount of workers to salvage it. If you attempt to salvage
a ship or crystal and you didn't use enough workers, a message will pop up in
the lower left of your screen saying you need more workers to salvage it.
ADVANCED SENSORS - This isn't technically a Special Ability, but I put it here
because it is very useful to have. Once researched and upgraded on a recon or
sentinel, you will now be able to spot enemy mimics and leeches within that
recon/sentinel's sensor range. It is always a good idea to make sure you have
at least one recon near your workers and one near your CS to spot inbound
mimics.
REPAIR BOTS - This also isn't technically a Special Ability, but I thought I'd
explain what exactly it is here. These are tiny micro-ships (you can hardly see
them but they are there after you research them) that you don't have to build.
They fly around your upgraded non-combat, capital, and super-capital class
ships fixing damaged components, battle wounds, etc. which slowly increases
your health. This is the rough Somtaaw equivalent of the inherent Beast
auto-repair.
CRYSTAL PROCESSING - This technology can be upgraded onto your processors,
carriers, and CS so that coupled with workers (and salvaging) can bring in
crystals to harvest. To learn how to salvage a crystal for processing see the
Salvaging Ability section above or the RU Management section for more details.
MISSILE LAUNCHER - This is a required technology for the construction of
dreadnoughts, destroyers, and missile corvettes, but the Special Ability
pertains to acolytes. Once upgraded with missile launchers, missilytes
(acolytes with missiles) are now equipped with 2 missiles each and can fire
them at whatever target you choose. Once they fire though, they must dock onto
a carrier or CS in order to reload and fire again. Missilytes are perfect for
worker strikes; it takes 4 missilytes to kill an unarmored worker - definitely
worth it. In large numbers missilytes can even take out carriers or deal heavy
damage to other super-capital ships in just one pass.
E.M.P. WEAPON - This is a nice Special Ability that is underused in my opinion.
The downsides are that it takes awhile to research, an annoying amount of time
to recharge, and is only available to ACVs - but its upsides can be tremendous.
EMP will disable any unit for a certain amount of time. The bigger the unit,
the shorter amount of time it is disabled. The more ACVs you use to shock the
target, the longer it is disabled. When a unit is disabled, it cannot be
ordered to move, it cannot shoot, and it cannot hyperspace. A nice strategy for
killing large ships or even workers is to send in a group of ACVs with EMP
ability and shock your target, then unlink your ACV, put them into sphere, and
missile your disabled target. Meanwhile your target can't escape through
hyperspace or run away, neither can it shoot back. You can also use EMP on
other fighters ("ctrl+E") while in combat, you must retarget the enemy fighters
after using it though.
To use EMP, select the ACV you would like to use and then right-click the
desired target. If you want to EMP more than one target (e.g. an enemy fighter
wave) use "ctrl+E," this will tell each ACV to shock the target nearest itself.
LINKING ABILITY - This technology allows you to build ACV and MCV, which are 2
acolytes fit together or 2 mimics fit together, respectively. You can build
fighters faster this way by building both acolytes and ACVs, then once the ACVs
come out, unlink them (right-click, then hit "Special Action", then "Unlink";
or just hit "shift+~"). You now have built your acolytes twice as fast!
REPULSOR WEAPON - This Special Ability is available on fully upgraded
dreadnoughts. It recharges fairly fast and when used, will send out a growing
sphere of energy that repulses nearby enemy ships. It even does a minor amount
of damage (e.g. it will kill near hive frigate swarmers). It also can deflect
siege shots, and if done right (this is very tricky) can even send the shot
flying back at the one who fired it.
To use this just select your dreadnought and go to the Special Action menu like
all the other Special Abilities, or just hit "alt+R."
INFECT WEAPON - This is an awesome Special Ability available only to Beast.
Once researched you can upgrade all carriers, heavy cruisers (HC), cruise
missiles, and your CS. You can now infect things like a limited version of what
you saw in the single player campaign. Your CS, HCs, and carriers can all use
an infect beam, which lances out and infects fighters, corvettes, frigates,
processors, and workers. Cruise missiles with infect will subvert the enemy
capital, corvette, or fighter class ship it hits. You can only take over a ship
if you have enough SU available to support it. If you do not, all it will do is
inflict minor damage to the enemy ship. If used on an un-infectable target
(i.e. carriers, dreads, CS, etc.) it will inflict massive damage equal to
something like 15-20% of its remaining health.
To use the infect beam, just select the ship you want to infect with, then
right-click on the ship you want to infect. If the target is out of range, your
CS or carrier will attempt to move within range to infect it and will keep
trying until you give it a new command or the target is destroyed.
CLOAKING ABILITY - This technology is necessary for cloaked fighter production
and can also be upgraded onto ion array frigates. Both of these ships, once
upgraded, will have a brown bar below their health when selected to show how
much cloaking power it has left (which will recharge when the cloak is turned
off). Once cloaked, they will not show up in enemy sensors or on their visual
screen until uncloaked or until they run out of cloaking power. Unfortunately
both the ion array and the cloaked fighter must uncloak before attacking. They
can both be spotted if the enemy has advanced sensors nearby. This is useful
for sneaking up on enemy worker operations.
To turn on a ship's cloak, select the ship and either turn it on by
right-clicking and going to the Special Action menu, or just hit "ctrl+C."
f. Common Commands
Force Attack - "ctrl+shift+left mouse drag"
This is used to shoot objects that you can't attack by simply
right-clicking or "ctrl+drag." For example: flying asteroids (enemy mimics),
enemy leeches, ramming crystals out of the way with a ramming frigate, force
moving (covered in the Open Strategy - CS Maneuvering Guide), rock busting (see
Open Strategy - Online Etiquette)
Special Action - "Z"
This is for shooting crystals or other units that you can't simply
right-click on with missilytes (select missilytes, fly toward crystal, put them
in wall, hold "Z" then left-click on crystal, hit "Fire Missiles").
Kamikaze - "K"
After ordering a fighter/corvette or a group of fighters/corvettes to
attack something, you can then kamikaze them into their target by hitting "K."
g. Miscellaneous Tips
These are just a few extra tips to keep in mind as you are fighting:
Keeping ships docked - To keep a limited amount of fighters or corvettes docked
inside your CS or carriers, click on the red x-in-a-circle in the systems
manager ("S") of that ship. It will be located directly beneath the picture of
that carrier or CS. Once docked you can release them from your hangar by
de-selecting the now green +-in-a-circle, or by selecting the ships on the left
side of the systems manager and hitting "launch all." Hitting "launch group"
will launch everything in the selected group (e.g. 20 acolytes) and hitting
"launch one" will release only one unit of the selected group.
This is useful if you don't want your opponent to see how many fighters you
have, or for keeping ships that are soon to be upgraded inside the hangar so
that once that technology is researched, they are all instantly upgraded and
ready for departure.
If you want to shoot a siege, or you just find that enemy DFF really annoying,
all it takes is one MCV with quantum to blow up any DFF.
Don't ram a Beast CS or carrier unless you have researched infection vaccine or
your rammer will become infected.
Focus on destroying your enemy workers and CS, make that a priority over simply
turtling.
It takes 4 missilytes to kill an unarmored worker, 5 to kill an armor 2 worker,
and 6 to kill an armor 3 worker.
It takes 8 missilytes to blow up a small crystal, 13 to blow up a large crystal
(without kamikaze).
It takes 2 mimics with quantum to take out an enemy worker.
Don't build too much simultaneously if you are low on RU.
Don't let your fighters go into formations like delta or broad, use only wall
and sphere (FS) until you are used to everything else, then you can move on to
different types of dogfighting/formations.
Constantly be going through a mental checklist:
1. Check my combat situation: Am I currently in a battle? (If so I need to
concentrate on winning it.) Are any ships currently on a strike mission? (If so
I need to concentrate on getting them through.)
2. Check my workers: are they close to a processor or CS? Are they all
harvesting?
3. Check my Research: Am I researching something in every module?
4. Check my Build: Am I building something to attack with? Do I need to build
more workers?
5. Check my enemy: Am I scouting him with recons, mimics, or leeches?
6. If I can check off 1-5, start over again at 1.
Crystals make large explosions killing/damaging everything in its vicinity.
Keep workers away from them, ram or blow them up before you get close with any
ships.
Don't forget you can usually hyperspace ("J") your CS or any other
Capital/Super Capital ship if it is in danger of being destroyed.
If you are overwhelmed in numbers, you can kamikaze ("K") what fighters you
have for maximum damage.
h. Glossary of Common Abbreviations/Nicknames
acos - acolytes
adv sens - advanced sensors; a ship that has advanced sensors
afb - Armed For Burial map
aggy - agressive tactics
b/n (or) bn - between
bball - battle ball (a dogfighting technique)
beastie - Beast
bounts - bounties
car(s) - carrier(s)
cq - Close Quarters map
cs - command ship
dest - destroyer
dread - dreadnought
dff/dfg - defense field frigates
dffa - diplomacy free for all (FFA with allies turned on)
dread - dreadnaught
EPA - emergency power allocation (in the systems manager of beast)
ffa - free for all (no allies, every man for himself)
fitters/fights - fighters
frigs - frigates
fs - formation shifting
hc - heavy cruiser
heavies - heavy corvettes
holo - holographic emitter research
IAF - ion array frigate
intie (or) int - interceptor
ions - ion array frigates
kaf - king and fools (a type of map)
km - kilometers
mbfs - multibeam frigates (often misspelled "mfbs")
mim(s) - mimic(s)
missilytes - acolytes upgraded with missile technology
mod - module
multis - multigun corvettes or multibeam frigates (use context)
noob/newbie - someone new to Cata; or just someone who isn't all that skilled
proc - processor
repulse - repulsor weapon
ru - resource unit(s)
sents - sentinels
sm - sensors manager
start - the opening moves of a strategy
strat - strategy
su - support unit(s)
sw - siege wars (a type of map)
taaw - Somtaaw
tech - technology; researches
turtle/turtling - a strategy where you just sit back and play defensively,
building up RU and ships
vette - corvette
works - workers
worker op - all the ships included in your harvesting group (usually just your
workers and procs)
xtal - crystal
i. Research Dependency Charts
NOTE: This is muuuuch more clear and useful if viewed from the CLS site. The
address for the Basic Strat Section is
http://freewebs.com/catals/basicstrat.html. Because of this I'm not including
it in this text file right now.
j. Simple Starts
SOMTAAW WEAPONS STRAT
Start:
Harvest: send your 3 workers off harvesting, whenever a worker comes out of
hangar start harvesting with it immediately
Build: 3 workers, hangar mod, engineering mod
Research: nothing yet
Orders: turn CS to face workers, send out recons to scout enemy position
When Engineering is built:
Research: support systems
Build: weapons mod
When Hangar is built:
Harvest: dock one of your original 3 workers, start harvesting with your
new one
Research: fighter drive
When Fighter Drive is researched:
Build: 10 recons, 10 acolytes, 1 worker
Research: linking
When Support Systems is researched:
Harvest: make sure all workers are harvesting
Research: afterburner
Orders: move CS slightly closer to workers
When Weapons Mod is built:
Research: missile launcher
Build: processor
Orders: put a recon between you and your opponent to watch for his first
attack wave
about 20 seconds after that:
Build: 2 support modules, 3 more acolytes
Orders: turn/move CS so that it stays facing and near workers
When first support module is built:
Build: 3 more acolytes, 2 more recons
When second support module is built:
Build: 2 more support modules, 3 more acolytes, 2 more recons
When processor is built:
Orders: move it to the next RU patch (will be near the closest small
crystal)
When Afterburner is researched:
Build: 1 ramming frigate
Research: holographic emitter
Orders: turn/move CS so that it stays facing and near workers
When the last acolyte is built:
Orders: put all your fighters in wall formation and send them at your
enemy's workers, use Formation Shifting (FS) if you encounter the enemy
fighters, otherwise use sphere and wall to kill workers
Build: 2 more support modules, 1 worker, 2 acolytes, 1 recon
When Linking tech is researched:
Research: frigate drive
When ramming frigate is built:
Orders: move your rammer towards that closest crystal and then ram it
safely away (force attack it)
After this its up to you, though I suggest the following general guidelines:
After your workers start moving to that second RU patch follow them from about
15km away with CS
Keep building fighters to attack/defend with, and use the missiles you will now
have on your acolytes as well as your mimics to kill enemy workers
Keep researching stuff (in weapons mod a good order after missiles is: quantum,
advanced ion, energy cannon, etc)
Have 12 workers total by 14 minute mark, more if you like
Get your carriers soon so you can build frigates faster
Once you have a decent amount of RU, build your armor or adv eng module (get
advanced sensors first in adv eng mod)
SOMTAAW ARMORED FIGHTERS STRAT
Start:
Harvest: send your 3 workers off harvesting, whenever a worker comes out of
hangar start harvesting with it immediately
Build: 2 workers, hangar mod, armor mod
Research: nothing yet
Orders: turn CS to face workers, send out recons to scout enemy position
When your Hangar module is done:
Harvest: dock one of your original 3 workers, get your new worker harvesting
Build: engineering module
Research: fighter drive
When Armor module is done:
Harvest: the worker you told to dock should be coming out about now, get it
harvesting
Build: 1 worker
Research: armor level 2
When Fighter Drive is researched:
Build: 2 workers, 9 recons, 13 acolytes
Research: linking technology
When Engineering Module is done:
Research: support systems
When Support Systems is researched:
Harvest: make sure all your workers are harvesting
Build: 1 worker, 1 processor, 2 support modules
Research: afterburner
Orders: dock all your fighters onto your CS keeping them inside the hangar
through systems manager
When your 8th worker is built:
Orders: undock your worker through systems manager and get it harvesting
Build: 3 acolytes, 2 recons, 2 more support modules
When Armor 2 is researched:
Build: 4 acolytes, 2 recons
Orders: undock everything by deselecting the circle under your CS in
systems manager, move your new processor into position near your workers
Research: armor level 3
After this its up to you, though I suggest the following general guidelines:
After your workers start moving to that second RU patch follow them with your
processor, and make sure they all go to the same patch, you don't want your
workers all over the place
Keep building fighters to attack/defend with, a good time to attack is right
when Armor 2 is researched and you have undocked your fighters
Keep researching stuff (in hangar mod a good order after linking is: frigate
drive, destroyer drive, advanced fighter drive, etc)
When Afterburner is researched build a ramming frigate ASAP and force attack
the crystal endangering your workers to move it out of harm's way
Have 12 workers total by 13 minute mark, more if you like
Get your carriers soon so you can build frigates faster, use lots of rammers on
your enemy's CS and workers, they can be devastating in large numbers and cause
major RU lag for your opponent if you ram his processor
Once you have a decent amount of RU, build your weapons or adv eng module (I
suggest your adv eng first so you can get hive frigates as well as rammers)
SOMTAAW HIVE STRAT
Start:
Harvest: send your 3 workers off harvesting, whenever a worker comes out of
hangar start harvesting with it immediately
Build: 3 workers, hangar mod, engineering mod, 5 recons
Research: nothing yet
Orders: turn CS to face workers, send out recons to scout enemy position
When your Engineering module is done:
Build: advanced engineering module
Research: support systems
When your Hangar module is done:
Harvest: dock one of your original 3 workers, get your new worker harvesting
Research: fighter drive
Orders: move your CS a bit closer to workers
When Fighter Drive is researched:
Build: 9 recons, 13 acolytes
Research: frigate drive
Harvest: get your new worker harvesting
When Support Systems is researched:
Research: afterburner
Build: 1 worker
Harvest: make sure all your workers are harvesting
When your Advanced Engineering module is done:
Research: microship technology
Build: 2 support modules
When your first support module is built:
Build: 1 processor
When Frigate Drive is researched:
Research: destroyer drive
Build: 1 worker
Orders: make sure all your workers are harvesting and your CS is facing them
When your fighters are built (you should have about 19 recons and 13 acolytes):
Orders: send your fighters to your enemy and attack, begin harvesting with
your new worker
Build: 1 acolyte, 2 support modules
When Afterburner is researched:
Research: repair systems
Orders: your processor should finish being built around now, move it to the
second RU patch
Build: 1 ramming frigate
After this its up to you, though I suggest the following general guidelines:
Make sure all your workers go to the same second RU patch, you don't want them
harvesting all over the place
Keep building fighters to attack/defend with, focus mostly on building
Acolytes, you shouldn't need too many more recons
Keep researching stuff (in hangar mod a good order after destroyer drive is:
linking technology, advanced frigate drive, advanced fighter drive, etc.)
When you finish your ramming frigate, force attack the crystal endangering your
workers to move it out of harm's way
Make sure you build more workers if your enemy is far away, if your enemy is
close, 8-10 workers total will be enough, but make sure you rush at him
Build hive frigates as soon as you can, once you have 2 or 3, send them at your
enemy's workers
If your enemy is far away, wait a bit longer before rushing
Get your first carrier as quickly as you can so you can build hive frigates
faster
Once you have a decent amount of RU, build an armor module (it will help your
frigates stay alive longer)
k. Silencio's 3 Basic Ways to Win
Written by Silencio
There are 3 basic ways to kill an opponent in cata - this might seem like very
basic stuff, but imho a lot of people forget to bear this in mind:
1) Kill their workers/stop their ru income. This allows you to whittle down
their existing force without them being able to replace it, and eventually win.
Drawbacks:
a) This usually costs you a lot of money.
b) Killing an ru opp means that you have committed a sizeable force on the
other side of the map - if your opponent is already at your cs, you will
probably not have many ships at your cs.
c) Killing workers is rarely instant - it often takes several minutes to
destroy an ru opp, during which time they're still harvesting.
d) Killing their ru opp doesn't instantly mean your opponent has no money -
they will normally have cash in the bank, and can often get more by simply
cancelling a building carrier/all building support modules.
e) As a general rule, you shouldn't commit many ships to stopping an
opponent's harvesting if they've got within 20 km of you.
2) Kill their carrier(s) or cs, to reduce their SU capacity and abillity to
reinforce. This means that they won't be able to replace casualties, and you
should eventually win by weight of numbers. Drawbacks:
a) Carriers, and especially the CS, can take a lot of punishment. Killing
the carriers doesn't actually greatly reduce the damage your opponent is doing
to you, and attacking the CS doesn't reduce the damage your opponent is doing
until you've actually destroyed it. If they focus on killing your ships whilst
you concentrate on carrier/cs, you will normally lose.
3) Kill their fleet. If you can take down their fleet whilst still keeping
yours, even if they have cash and cs/carriers then you can kill their ships as
soon as they're built, preventing them from rebuilding. Drawbacks:
a) This is dependant on distance - you need to have a fairly tight grip on
your opponent to make it impossible for them to re-establish a fleet.
b) You need a good mix of ships (ideally frigates) to pull this off,
ideally including several mbfs to guard against them stacking mimics.
c) If you have lost/damaged your cs/carriers in getting to this point, you
need to keep them at a safe distance.
In general, 3 is greater than 2, which is greater than 1. If you kill your
opponent's ru opp, and take down 1 or both carriers, but he has a large fleet
and you don't, you will normally lose. Personally, I think far too many people
focus on killing workers, and then lose because of 2) or 3). 90% of my wins in
1v1 games come because people obsess about killing my workers, and continue to
send large groups of fighters to attack them even when I've reached their CS
with mine.
II. Advanced Fighter Tactics
a. Silencio/Wraith's Initial Wave Setup
Scenario: 1v1 game; you and your opponent are 2 spaces from one another on
Close Quarters; you both hit early armor as your initial strategy; inexorably
you will both have a wave of fighters approaching each other at about the same
time; for the sake of proving this tactic's worth both waves will have 18
recons and 18 acolytes
Step 1 - Keep good reconnaissance of your opponent so you will be able to
target-select when you need to.
Step 2 - When your fighters are ready (for the sake of this scenario we will
use 18/18), put them in wall, then select the top row and put it in group 1,
select the second row and put it in group 2, etc. (usually each row will have
4-7 fighters, but make sure you don't get one group entirely made up of recons
as it will travel ahead of the main group), repeat this until you have all your
fighters in groups (throw the odd numbers into the last group). In this
scenario you should have 6 groups of 6 (exact numbers don't matter but you
should have about 5-7 groups).
Step 3 - (Putting them into claw formations before you start your attack
frustrates your opponent when trying to target recons.) Now before or while
moving them to your enemy put them all on aggressive and put each group into
claw formation (do it quickly as you don't want the group to separate).
Step 4 - Alright, so now we have your group of 36 fighters heading straight at
the enemy's group of 36 fighters and yours have their recons targeted. Now
right after they get within firing range (after, NOT before, as they are less
accurate in sphere so you'll want to get a few shots off before changing
formation) put all your fighters into sphere ("F10").
Step 5 - Once your fighters have reached the full extent of sphere formation
begin to split your groups into claw ("1+F8, 2+F8, 3+F8, 4+F8, etc.").
Step 6 - Now because your fighters are on aggressive tactics, if you have more
pressing matters to attend to then you can leave that battle be until it is
resolved.
That's it! Yes it looks complicated laid out like this but it really takes no
time at all once you get used to it.
b. Wraith's Dogfighting Tactics
If you have read "Wraith and Sil's Initial Wave Setup" then you already know
most of this tactic. Steps 1-3 are just a repetition of that strat.
Step 1 - Keep a recon on your enemy so you can see what he is up to.
Step 2 - When your first wave is ready to go, start assigning hotkeys to groups
of 3 recons and 3 acos. (Obviously if you have more recons than acos your
groups can't all be exactly 3 recons/3 acos, in that case just make a few
groups of 2/4 or 1/5. But make sure you have at least one acolyte in each
group.)
Step 3 - Put each hotkeyed group in claw formation. (Just press "1+F8, 2+F8,
3+F8, etc.") Then select all your fighters, put them on aggressive tactics and
move them towards your enemy.
Step 4 - Pretarget recons. This step is optional, but if you have your opponent
under surveillance and you are able to target all of his recons first, then do
so. Recons can be taken out very quickly if pretargeted like this, and they
also have faster (and therefore more accurate) shots. Because your fighters are
on aggressive, once the recons are destroyed they will start killing the acos
too.
Step 5 - Right as your fighters hit the enemy fighters, start sphere-ing each
group. ("1+F10, 2+F10, 3+F10, etc.")
Step 6 - Then put each group in wall (or claw) in the same manner, basically
blossom (i.e. switching each group from sphere to wall [or claw] and then back
to sphere). Its a bit more precise than simple blossom though, see note below
for an explanation.
Alternate Step 6 - If you can't spare the time and attention this requires,
just leave each group in claw, and put one group in sphere. This will usually
perform fairly well against most players.
Note:
To get the desired effect of avoiding what are known as "attack runs" or
"fighter passes", you must spend a bit more attention to your blossom. To
simplify matters I will explain how a single group should behave. As the
mini-claw begins its attack run it will fly directly towards the enemy but then
as the two waves meet, the mini-claw will veer off and fly away for a short
time before turning around for another pass. We want to get rid of the part
where it veers off, we want your wave to continuously be facing your targets.
So as soon as your wave hits the enemy wave, you'll want to sphere them. This
will keep the fighters' guns facing their targets. Sphere, though, is an
inaccurate and slow moving formation so we don't want to keep the fighters in
it for long. In fact we aren't even going to let them complete their sphere,
but rather you will want to put the group back in claw (or wall) right before
it completes its sphere. This will have the effect of placing your fighters
behind the enemy's as they continue their own attack run.
The trick to this is getting a feel for the rhythm of blossom. If you blossom
too quickly your fighters will have terrible accuracy. On the other hand if you
blossom too slowly your fighters will be stuck in sphere for too long and will
ruin the flow. The idea is to have them in claw (or wall) most of the time, I'd
say maybe 75-80 percent of the time they should be formating to claw or wall.
The other 20-25 percent of the time they should be formating to sphere.
After a few games you should be able to master the rhythm and get each group to
always be behind your enemy's fighters.
You can pick up an example keystroke and cata-recording here:
http://freewebs.com/lostsaints/Wraiths_Fighter_Recording.zip (16.9mb ZIP
containing 2 MOV digital recordings, 2 cata-recordings, and a TXT readme file)
If you get a slow download speed you can try this link:
http://ebonyaura.com/Wraiths_Fighter_Recording.zip
c. Blossom
Written by Momo, Excerpt from Cata-Bible
Blossom (momo's fave)
Select 6-8 groups of 5-7 ships, hotkey the groups 1-8, now when you come up
against the enemy fighter wall, you attack in the F4-wall and as they begin to
shoot through the first pass, switch to sphere, let them spread out... now as
quickly as you can, select each group and put them into wall, then cycle back
to group 1 and start over with sphere. This creates a little vortex of constant
firepower. Here is the exact sequence of key-pressing (just for clarification)
1, f9, 2, f9, 3, f9, 4, f9, 5, f9, 6, f9, 7, f9, 8, f9, 1, f10, 2, f10, 3,
f10....... you get it :) each group changes formation about every 2-3 seconds,
(it takes that long to cycle through the 7 or 8 groups) I have been
experimenting with group sizes and mixed fighters in group... I haven't noticed
any apparent changes when using mixed fighter groups vs non-mixed fighter
groups. For those with the intelli-point mouse, try setting your extra left and
right buttons to F10 and F9.
d. Formation Shifting (FS)
Formation Shifting, or FS, is a simple and usually quite effective dogfighting
technique that takes advantage of the unique qualities of the sphere formation.
To execute FS, simply select all your fighters, put them in wall, and right
before they enter combat hit sphere ("F10"), once they reach full sphere then
hit wall ("F9"), then as they begin to come together hit sphere again. It's as
easy as that.
Here's why it works: When you enter sphere from wall your fighters begin to
flip and accelerate to the perimeter evading a good percentage of enemy fire.
Also slower ships (e.g. damaged ships) will move as fast as the fastest ship
when changing formations.
Basically your ships keep moving and rotating while always pointed at their
target.
e. Un-Formating and its Benefits
You may find yourself in the situation of having your fighters form themselves
into one big delta or broad formation which is VERY ineffective (happens on
botched bombing runs as well, e.g. you order an attack on a worker but it
hypers before you get there), but you don't know how to get them out of that
formation other than taking painstaking time and effort on reorganizing them
into smaller formations.
The cause of this is the grouping nature of fighters and corvettes that the
programmers built into the game. Whenever you tell a group of fighters that is
not currently in a formation to attack something, and they go and destroy it,
they will immediately form themselves into whatever group they feel like and
begin flying around in circles. This can be very annoying at times and the
standard solution (docking them) only works 25% of the time. Usually after the
dock order, if you give them another attack order they will just go back into
whatever groupings they were previously in.
The solution: Select the desired fighters as well as your CS or a carrier. Hit
parade formation ("F12"). Then immediately order them to attack or move or
whatever you want them to do. This will effectively take them out of any
formation and each fighter will fly on its own. (I like to put my CS is group
0, that way to unformate my fighters, group 1, all I have to click is:
1+shift+0, F12, 1, then give another attack order. Altogether it takes a second
or less, depending on how fast you move your fingers.)
It is better to simply prevent this though, which is just as easy as the
solution. All you have to do is make sure you order your fighters to move or
attack something else immediately after they're done with their previous
attack, bombing run, etc.
Now other than just dissipating a giant delta, what good is a group of
non-formation fighters? Well actually it is quite effective against those nasty
Formation Shifters. The reason for this is that if one fighter gets damaged, it
only slows itself down, not an entire formation. This style of dogfighting has
a tendency to deal damage more broadly than other styles and wastes less shots
than FS. With formation dogfighting each formation will follow a single target
till it is dead so you have 5 fighters shooting at a single enemy and many of
those shots are wasted after it is destroyed. In a non-formation dogfight, the
shooting is more spread among all the enemy fighters. This tactic is not so
good against superior quality fighters as they won't incur many losses, just
heavy damage. But it works great in equal-class combat.
The major problem with this tactic is the tendency for the fighters to group
together on their first pass, sometimes the fighters in the back will actually
be shooting their own allies. Also if they are all grouped together, and the
enemy kamis, it doesn't take much to destroy the whole group.
So here's how to approach a dogfight using non-formations. Select all your
fighters, mix of the recons and acolytes, and put them in wall. When they get
near the enemy wave hit sphere, then as fast as possible, un-formate them
(select them with CS and hit "F12") then quickly order them to attack again.
This spreads them out, un-formates them, and sets each to an initially
different target.
f. Riki's Multi Formation Tactics (Micro-Forms)
Written by RikimaruCLS
One thing I'd like to add to fighter battles is the use of multi formations
works quite effectively. After you break into the sphere and start to micro
manage your fighters, it works well to have fighters in different formations.
Some people like miny claws(f8) some like miny walls(f9), and i know a few
players who use a custom formation. When I start to micro mange my fighters
right after I go into sphere, I find it works best to have a few groups of
recons/acos in miny claw formations, a few groups in miny walls, 1 groups of
around 6 fighters in a sphere, and 1 groups of about 7 or 8 fighters in a
custom formation. Have your sphere target there biggest group of fighters. This
will constantly attack their biggest force always leaving one of their fighters
in the pack hurt, slowing down there biggest attack force. Having one set of
fighters in a custom formation is effective because the fighters don’t turn.
They'll keep attacking fighters but the wont swoops though and do a full pass
and then have to turn around, like when 2 recons are battling. This saves you
time and allows you to hack away at their biggest group of fighters. I take my
remaining smaller groups of miny walls and claws, and have them fighter there
smaller groups. Let your small groups go to work and don’t really bother with
them, concentrate on killing there biggest formation, or if they show a wall as
there coming at you, attack there clutter or recons.
One thing I forgot to say is how to set up your custom formation. First have
the 8 fighters go into a wall. Then hit F10 to have them go into a sphere.
Right as they start to shift into a sphere, hit F11. This makes your custom
formation like a half/sphere half/wall formation that works very nicely.
Note From Wraith: Putting every 2 alike fighters in broad is also a good
tactic for the mid-game dogfighting when you don't have the concentration to
focus on blossom or other complicated styles.
g. Battle Ball (B-Ball)
If you have played Cataclysm for any length of time you have probably seen
someone use this tactic. It looks like a compact ball of fighters, but when you
try to attack it with your own, it just runs away shooting backwards at you as
it goes. This is what is called a Battle Ball (or "bball") and is a common and
very effective tactic among Cata players.
When to use this tactic:
This is not super effective against other fighters though if the enemy is not
paying attention it can be devastating. When using it against other fighters,
you must be careful to keep as much distance as you can between the enemy
fighters and your own while also keeping them in firing range.
This tactic is best used to combat enemy Workers while trying to keep out of
range of their processor (get too close and he can sel-destruct the proc and
kill your entire wave). Fly to just within firing range of the farthest worker
from his proc, your fighters will attack it automatically. If he tries to move
his proc towards you to self-destruct it, just keep flying away from it.
You can also use this tactic against enemy Carriers and their CS. When using it
on Carriers, put the bball above the enemy Carrier, if you put it below it will
waste time killing support modules. If you are using it against a Command Ship,
stick the bball directly behind his engine. He has no guns that can swivel and
aim at that particular area. Not only is it a blind spot, but shots to the
engine do more damage than anywhere else on the CS (this is "because" the
engine causes interference with the shields of the Command Ship).
Believe it or not, but this tactic can also be utilized against Multibeam
Frigates. The bball's firing range is slightly farther than the Multibeam's ion
range, so if you stay just beyond the ion range you can take out enemy
Multibeams quickly. It just takes a bit of micro-management to keep the bball
at that perfect range.
How to make and control a bball:
First, make a bunch of fighters. Any type of fighter will do and the more the
better.
Take one fighter, put it into a group (lets put it in group 1 for this
example), and make sure it is on neutral tactics ("F3").
Then select all the other fighters, sphere them ("F10"), put them on aggressive
tactics ("F4"), and then order them to guard group 1.
Now you can just give move commands to group 1 which will move your entire
bball around wherever you want it to go.
Notes:
If your opponent manages to destroy group 1, the rest of your fighters will
break off into a large sphere which spoils the whole point of this tactic. To
help avoid this from happening, try making group 1 larger. Putting 2 or 3
fighters in neutral broad formation and assigning them to group 1, it decreases
the chance that the enemy will be able to mess up your bball.
On that same note, if an enemy tries to use bball on you, one option is to try
and kill that center fighter. Try using a mimic or a missilyte to kill it. Also
you can just avoid the bball as the bball only works effectively if it is being
attacked, so if you just run around it then you can avoid the danger.
Keep in mind that damaged fighters move slower than healthy ones, and a
formation only moves as fast as its slowest member. So if you have any fighters
that are yellow or red, dock them or kami them into something - you don't want
a slow bball or your enemy's fighters can just over run it.
Processors are probably the most dangerous enemy of the bball. If you can get a
processor to within 6km (5km for armored fighters) of the enemy bball, all you
have to do is scuttle the proc and the fighters will die.
h. General Ideas of Efficient Dogfighting
The following are the basics that make up effective dogfighting. They are just
to keep in mind or even to create a style of your own.
Things to remember:
1. Find a good size ratio when micro-forming. You want the formations to be big
enough to kill at least one fighter in a single pass, yet small enough so that
when a fighter in that formation gets damaged it doesn't slow down too many
others.
2. Keep your fighters moving, experiment to see how different transformations
between formations affect your own fighters' accuracy and evasive action.
3. Remember that even on aggressive tactics fighters are sluggish to respond to
enemy presence so to fight most efficiently, have your attention on the battle
at hand and direct inactive groups so that they are always attacking.
4. If possible recons should be taken out first, but not at the expense of your
own squadron, so be alert for decoys.
5. If there aren't many recons, try focus your fire on a small group of
acolytes on the first pass (maybe 5 or so) so that way you have a high chance
of knocking out a chunk immediately.
6. Pull a decoy of your own; if the enemy is going after recons first, send a
few in another direction and let your acolytes pick off the chasers.
7. If you can't outmass or outskill your opponent, try to outclass them with
superior tech. The following upgrades are in order of effectiveness against
other fighters: Stock>Advanced Fighter Drive>Armor 2>Energy Cannon
Advanced Drive coupled with Armor 2 is a good match for Stock with EC. But EC
with armor is deadly, but also hard to get early. Later in the game when
everyone has all the tech, dogfighting isn't as crucial.
8. Remember that kamikaze is always an option when you are outnumbered or
outclassed. Be careful to let your fighters separate a bit before Kamikaze-ing
though, or else you might end up kami-ing 5 acolytes on one enemy recon.
9. Always be aware of the size and tech of the approaching enemy's fighter wave
before engaging it. If you are outnumbered by a large number it might be best
to pull back a bit and shift the battle closer to your CS where you can push
out fresh ships as reinforcements.
10. When you think you might lose a battle, use any trick you know to make the
most of your loss. One good one is to shift the battle near a crystal and
missile it, or if you are a crafty one, post a few mimics near each crystal
between you and your opponent to try and catch him near one.
III. Advanced Frigate Tactics
a. Multibeams
Multibeams. What are they good for? Let's explore their uses for a moment. They
are the most expensive of the three frigates available to the Somtaaw race, and
they seem relatively useless against capital and super-capital ships don't
they? Well actually they are quite effective against any ship if used right.
Best Against: Fighters, Sentinels, Hive Frigate Swarmers, Cruise Missiles
Weak Against: Large Numbers of Hive Frigates (1 Hive will beat 1 Multibeam, but
barely), Ramming Frigates, Large Numbers of Beast Corvettes
A single multibeam frigate is no match for a squadron of 10 or so fighters, it
will tear them to shreds in no time. The more multibeams you have the better
they are against large fighter swarms, mass sentinels, and those pesky hive
frigates.
You must be careful when battling hive frigates though, hive frigates must not
be underestimated (they rarely are) and a talented player will swarm the
multibeam farthest away from the main group so to not lose as many swarmers to
beams. To avoid this keep your multibeams relatively close together when
fighting groups of hive frigates and move them in close to damage the frigates
themselves.
When protecting yourself from large swarms of fighters spread your group of
multibeams out a bit more to cover more ground and slow waves of missilytes
before they get to that unsuspecting carrier of yours.
Say your opponent is rushing with an armor/advanced engineering strategy and
starts to pump out large numbers sentinels, now you just happened to do a
frigate rush yourself and you have access to multibeam frigates. Build plenty
of them and keep them near your CS and between the enemy CS and your workers,
but out of range of his CS guns. This will be effective against those annoying
sentinels that your CS's guns can't reach and also will help protect against
future enemy hive frigates that are out to smash your workers.
Multibeams are far from useless when it comes to capital ships, and when you are
done killing those nasty hives your opponent vehemently attacked you with you
can begin to take out his CS and other big ships using this tactic taken from
the Cata-Bible:
(Multi-beam Formations)
Here is another micromanaging technique that can really dish out some damage to
an RU op. Create a bball of multi-beams by selecting 2or3 at a time and setting
them to guard a second group of 2 or 3. Then bandbox select the frigates and
move them a short distance. They will begin to bunch up together but unlike
strike-craft, they will remain on the horizontal plane. Then by maneuvering
them beneath a CS or into an RU op (in F4 aggressive). Click a target to
attack. Then press the cancel orders key (The tilde) and press F4 again. This
will force all the multi-beams to fire at once (with more beams than usual)
continue this pattern for maximum damage effects to single targets. This is the
only multi-beam formation I suggest using. Note: from 1_Alpha When in a large
brawl with MBFs, in numbers of 16-30 try setting them to f4 aggressive then
switching formations from sphere to wall and back every 5 seconds or so. This
works really well when you are attacking a group of destroyers or other
'concentrated fire' capable ships. The constant movement and rolling of the
MBFs will have them, more often than not, rolling out of harms way.
b. Ramming Frigates
Written by Maur and Wraith
Ramming frigates are peculiar. They are limited in their usefulness, as they
cannot take out fighters without self-sacrifice, and cannot focus on a single
frigate with any more than 2 of themselves. However, they easily take out
multibeams 1 on 1 - you just have to micro it so each rammer you have goes
after a separate multibeam - and can be useful for incapacitating a hive's main
guns by moving it out of the fight. Beside that, they absolutely murder IAFs.
However, they are more useful in other areas.
Rammers have two main uses. One is for RU op disruption. Keep a rammer off to
the side as you enter a CS/frig fight with another, then order it to attack his
processor. It'll ram the proc out of the RU patch and disrupt his RU flow.
Two is locking CSs into place and slowly breaking it into small chunks. CSs,
being what they are, have two special properties. One, they're huge. They can
have around 10 rammers on it at a time. Two, they don't get pushed around by
the rams (actually they can move it if there are enough of them, but due to the
fact that the speed they push is directly proportionate to the mass of the
target - and the target's current velocity - it takes many rammers to see a
noticeable effect). Instead, ramming their CS freezes it in place (i.e.
immediately disables the CS' rotation capabilities). In very small numbers,
rammers stop CSs from moving/turning at all. Meaning, unless their CS is
already pointed directly at you, they can't turn to fire a siege. Though if all
the rammers happen to be off the CS, readying for another strike, the CS
regains its ability to turn around until it gets rammed again.
Rammers are actually one of the most effective ways to dislodge enemy rammers
from your CS. This is especially useful if you need to fire that siege you paid
good money for. All you have to do is order one of your rammers to attack the
rammer lodged on your CS, once it hits they will both be knocked backwards,
effectively disabling each other for 10 seconds. No damage will be done to
either rammer.
Beyond a siege, this also raises interesting possibilities. Stick a few rammers
on a CS, and it's frozen. Therefore, your CS can get under it and pound it with
little resistance. Also, people completely devalue rammers as damage dealers.
If you have a few hives out, the hives will almost always be targeted first,
while the rammers remain content to destroy the CS undisturbed. If you have
enough distractions about, they'll never be targeted. For the ultimate melding
of these two uses, stick 5-10 rammers on a CS and move the frig fight away from
it. With luck, their carriers will follow you. At which point, not only are
your carriers there, but you have 4 extra CS guns to focus on whatever you
will, and the frigs the enemy builds from his CS have to travel before they get
into the fight.
Just remember not to try that vs the beast CS. If you don't have infect
vaccine, they're toasted before they deal damage, and if they have infect, you
just gave them several free frigs. If you want to murder their SU count, send
them hives, not rammers...
To use rammers most efficiently against enemy cap ships (particularly the CS)
don't simply order an attack and forget about them. First off break them up on
their first attack run before actually right-clicking to initiate the ramming.
This prevents friendly rammer blockage where they all hit each other and you
don't get hardly any stuck on the first pass. Putting them into sphere or claw
as you near the enemy works fairly well, you can also try the custom sphere
demonstrated in the Cata-Bible, though personally I feel that is usually a
waste of time. If you have the time to micromanage your rammers, once they
dislodge from their target hot cancel, wait till they stop mocing then order
them to attack again. This stops the rammer closer to its target, giving it a
significantly faster practical recharge rate (10 seconds recharge + 2 seconds
movement VS 10 seconds recharge + 6-10 seconds movement the old way). It can
also be a good idea to hammer ram once each on your first pass. That is, cancel
and retarget for each rammer right after its initial impact. This is actually
slightly more damaging then letting the cutting beam just sit there.
Little known fact about upgrading rammers: when upgraded with advanced ion
cannons, the cutting beam on rammers do 3 times the damage, this gives the
triple-frig strats a slight edge against armor-frig strats.
Don't ignore the rammers. It's for your own good. >_>
c. Hive Frigates
Written by Maur
Hive Frigates
Hive Frigates are useful investments against any ship whatsoever, despite the
common misconception that they can't do damage to fighter swarms at all. Yes,
multibeam frigates are better against fighters. However, hives can pull their
own vs any kinds of ship.
VS Fighters
One relatively unknown micromanagement vastly increases hive frigate usefulness
vs fighters. What you need to do is tell each hive to swarm separately. That
allows the squads of swarmers to break off from each other and pick a separate
target. Killing speed goes way up. Yes, hives are not as effective as
multibeams. Yes, hives can easily be killed by 20 missilytes or concentrated
fire. However, if you don't have multibeams available for building, and you
have a bunch of spare SUs, you might as well queue them up for building.
Besides the help they give, they can always come in use for a frig battle later.
Another trick you can use is to scuttle the frig as a large number of fighters
passes by. For a good example of how close the fighters need to be for the
blast radius to affect them, they need to be within a hive frigate's length.
Any further out will only damage them, or won't affect the fighters at all.
Be warned, however, that hives are VERY vulnerable to mimics/MCVs. If the
enemy mimics are mimicking something, and you don't have adv. sensors in the
area, you cannot send the swarmers at them. You can only use the hives' main
guns (via force-attacking). With quantum-charged mimics, it only takes a few
to kill a hive. And if they're dumped on you in the middle of a fight, you
won't have time to issue separate swarm orders. This is why, if you have hives
out, you should also, at the very least, have a few sents out.
VS Frigates
Despite a hive's frigate-killing profession, other frigs can give them
nightmares. Multibeams, for instance. If they are in numbers greater than 10
and you do not have significantly more hives than they multibeams, you lose.
All one has to do is scuttle to wipe our your swarmers, and then your following
swarmers will be shot down faster than they can be rebuilt. If you cancel the
swarm to rebuild within the safety of the hive, they get free hits. You lose
anyways, although perhaps not as quickly.
You can address this problem somewhat by swarming frigs further out from the
center of the multibeam pack, to have less beams trained on your swarmers. But
it only helps a little at best. Rammers are the only frigs that are effective
vs multibeams. Thus, if you fight large numbers of multibeams, do not depend
solely on hives.
When fighting other hives, just remember to focus your hives' main guns at the
same target your swarmers are firing at, and to scuttle a hive when it's about
to die to destroy enemy swarmers.
VS Capital Ships
There are two main differences to remember when fighting capital ships as
opposed to frigates.
First, they have a blast radius even when you kill them. Some swarmers will
die in the blast. Always remember to swarm another target when a capital ship
is about to die and finish the former target off solely with main guns to
minimize the effect. This rule does not apply to CSs, for obvious reasons.
Second, large capital ships cannot turn around at all. Always maneuver your
hives behind them to both avoid enemy fire and to gain the "hitting from
behind" damage bonus.
One last tip to remember in all cases is that their main guns actually do
decent damage, despite what you might think. Always have them focused on
something, rather than sitting idle. Even if the fight gets scattered (from
rammers or whatnot), you can always keep firing on a static target (ideally, a
building carrier, or the CS itself) just to be doing something. Use judgment
on when or where to do that, however.
d. Ion Array Frigates
There's not much to be said about these guys. They are very powerful against
super-capital class ships such as enemy Command Ships. They work best in large
numbers - makes them harder to successfully attack.
Their main weakness is ramming frigates and mimics/missilytes. To defend
against rammers you'll need something like infect or cruise missiles nearby, if
you don't have any of that then just make sure you have a nice big wave of
fighters. To defend against mimics and missilytes, build a few multigun
corvettes. If you can't make any of these than just keep some fighters nearby.
IAFs have powerful self-destruct explosions that will kill most fighters nearby
- similar to a processor scuttle. You can use this tactic against large waves
of missilytes or mimic dumps.
To kill an enemy CS quickly, position your IAFs behind the enemy's engine. This
way they don't waste time destroying modules but start downing his health right
away.
In certain cases if you have Cloaking Ability researched you can try and sneak
an IAF or two around to the enemy's worker ops. Two IAFs can kill an unarmored
proc pretty quickly. But remember that you can't continue cloaking a ship after
they beginning their attack, so wait till they get close before ordering
attacking.
e. Defence Field Frigates (DFF, DFG)
Description:
Defence Field Frigates (DFF or DFG) are available to the Beast race in
Cataclysm. They do not have any offensive weapons but do continuously emit a
spherical defense field that has some useful properties.
DFFs have two main uses. First off the defense field has the ability to deflect
incoming projectiles, energy cannons and plasma bombs. The field has a radius
of 6000 meters (6km) and will do its best to deflect all enemy and allied shots
that pass through, though it will not affect your own shots. One DFF alone
cannot deflect everything shot in its direction but if you increase the number
of DFFs nearby the chances of deflecting each shot will be raised. I've found
that bundling 4 DFF together will deflect 90-100% in most cases. The
effectiveness of deflection is only increased where friendly defense fields
overlap, so try to keep your DFF close together.
The second unique ability of DFFs is their ability to both detonate and weaken
siege shots. This is the Beast's main defense against the dreaded Somtaaw Siege
Cannon. If a siege shot passes into a defense field it will detonate right then
and there. The more DFFs present at the siege's detonation, the less powerful
the the explosion. Again, 4 DFF is a nice number to have as it will greatly
dilute the siege's power.
Suggested Tactics:
- Accompany your waves of fighters with a DFF or two to significantly decrease
the effectiveness of enemy fighters during dogfights.
- During FFA games or long range 1v1/team games, keep 2 or 3 DFF hanging around
your CS in case someone fires a siege at you. Move the DFFs in the direction
the siege shot is coming from in an attempt to detonate it before it reaches
your main fleet.
- If you see someone about ready to power up their siege cannon, try hypering
in a DFF. The timing is tricky but if you get it right you can detonate the
siege shot right as he shoots thus destroying his CS.
- It is actually possible to completely nullify a 100% siege explosion with
enough DFF. I'm not sure of the exact number off DFF required but it's
somewhere around 7. If you get enough of them, the siege explosion won't even
kill a recon.
- DFF are cheap to hyperspace so use it liberally. It's a lot more efficient to
hyper your DFFs a few times to escape danger than to rebuild them.
Weaknesses:
- DFF have very low health and can be destroyed extremely easily by Somtaaw
missiles or mimics, or just pushed out of the way with a ramming frigate.
- It only takes one MCV upgraded with quantum explosives to take down a DFF and
without armor it doesn't take too many missiles either. So keep some fighters
hanging around nearby to help defend DFF in key positions.
- DFF have strong defenses against projectiles, energy cannons and plasma
bombs. Unfortunately it has no defense against well-aimed ion cannons or
missiles. Try not to have your DFF alone in space at any time, always have
something around to help defend it whether it be fighters, vettes, or an IAF or
two.
IV. Super-Capital Ship Tactics
a. Destroyers
Destroyers are the Somtaaw's over-reaction to the Beast Ion Array Frigates
(IAFs) and the next step towards the Dreadnought.
The Destroyer carries 2 large line-of-sight ion cannons which are its majority
of anti-capital firepower. To give a sense of scale, these ions do 65% the
damage of a Dreadnought ion and 33% the damage of a Beast Ion Array. But
considering the Destroyer has 2 ion cannons and has a slightly farther range,
it ends up doing approximately the same damage as the Beast Ion Array.
It also carriers 4 large line-of-sight projectile launchers with can be
upgraded to seeking energy cannons. These guns are the Destroyers best defense
against enemy fighters. Each shot does the same damage as a Command Ship
railgun but their fire rate is much slower (only 12.5%, or 1/8 the speed of a
CS' guns).
The Destroyer also packs one last punch with 2 seeking missile-launchers. These
weapons are its corvette killers. They each do just slightly more damage than a
single Dreadnought missile, but then again, the Destroyer only has 2 and the
Dread has 6.
The major attribute that places the Destroyer on a higher level then the Ion
Array Frigate is its armor. The Destroyer has 40000 health whereas the IAF has
only 11000. The Destroyer can take a much larger pounding then the IAF and is
less affected by rammers. Whereas a single Ramming Frigate will disable an IAF,
it takes more than one to fully paralyze a Destroyer and the Destroyer also can
shoot the rammer while being rammed.
Many skilled players will tell you that the Destroyer is a useless ship these
days and does not belong in any skilled game. This is mostly true because of
the relative ease of killing a Destroyer with rammers and fighters compared to
the SU and RU cost (38/3000 respectively) of making one.
On the other hand, it isn't an outrageous RU price and can be made without
researching EC and therefore can be used effectively if one is built early in
the game (all it takes to build a Destroyer is Destroyer Drive, Missile
Launcher, and Advanced Ion Cannon). Building Destroyers late-game is almost
always a bad idea because when everyone has armor 2 or armor 3 and enough RU to
build a rammer or two, then the Destroyer becomes relatively useless and takes
up often much needed SU.
There are two situations where I have found building a Destroyer early in a
skilled game can be useful:
1. When rushing a Beast mid-range.
If you decide to rush a Beast player in a pre-emptive attack (possibly because
you suspect him of a turtling strategy) then throwing in a Destroyer to support
your missilyte and mimic attacks can be very useful. If you are attacking
constantly with missilytes and mimics (and kami-ing the acolytes after they
fire missiles) then you should have enough spare SU to build a Destroyer.
Destroyers cannot be subverted by infect which makes it one of the only safe
large ships to use against Beast.
2. When rushing a Somtaaw close-range with a weapons strategy.
If you find yourself rushing another Somtaaw and you have attacked using a
weapons strat (most likely missilytes and/or mimics) then go ahead and research
Advanced Ion Cannon as well. If you skipped Linking then you should be able to
build a Destroyer fairly early. If you find yourself with extra SU and maybe
your opponent has decided to run and your mimics aren't making it to his CS,
then building a Destroyer can be most useful. Just send it after his fleeing CS
and shoot him right in the engine, it will do more damage then most people
would expect.
b. Dreadnoughts
Dreadnoughts are the largest ships the Somtaaw can build. They require nearly
7000 RU and take up a whopping 80 SU to support. You need not only Adv. Dest.
Drive, but also EC, Adv. Ion Cannon, and Missile Launcher researched. Basically
these babies are hard to pump out, but the harder something is to obtain, the
better the reward right? Well... let's take a look at what they can offer.
Here is the Dreadnought compared to some other favorite Taaw ships.
Dreadnoughts
Weapons: 6 Large Missile Launchers, 4 Large EC Turrets, 2 Large Ion Cannons
Speed: 240 m/s
Best Against: Command Ships, Heavy Cruisers, Destroyers, Carriers, Swarmers and
Siege Shots (w/ Repulse)
Weak Against: Ramming Frigates, Mass Missilytes, Attack Bombers, Mass Beast
Corvettes
Positive Attributes: Cannot be Salvaged or Subverted by Infect, Repulsor
Weapon, High Armor (70% Max Health of Taaw Command Ship)
Cost: 6800 RU 80 SU
Build Time (not in seconds; relative to each other only): 300
Hive Frigates
Weapons: 2 Medium LOS (Line Of Sight) Cannons, 5 Swarmers (1 Small Cannon each)
Speed: 390 m/s (Swarmers 1100 m/s)
Best Against: Lone Multibeam Frigates, Ramming Frigates, Hive Frigates, Worker
Ops
Weak Against: Mass Multibeam Frigates, Mimics/MCVs, Hive Frigate Swarmers
Positive Attributes: Swarmers are effective against most ships
Cost: 575 RU 20 SU
Build Time (not in seconds; relative to each other only): 60
Missilytes
Weapons: 2 Small LOS Cannons, 2 Small (damage mult. x7) Missiles
Speed: 825 m/s (Without Adv. Drive)
Best Against: Heavy Cruisers, Dreadnoughts, Carriers, Destroyers, Worker Ops,
Recons
Weak Against: Multibeam Frigates, Multigun Corvettes, Proc or Ion Array Scuttles
Positive Attributes: Cheap, Quick to Build, ACVs can be split into 2
Missilytes, Fast (can reach far targets quickly)
Cost: 75 RU 2 SU
Build Time (not in seconds; relative to each other only): 12
Ok, so from the above chart we learned that the Dreadnought's main use is
against the larger super-capital class ships. On the flipside, on its own it is
almost defenseless against Ramming Frigates and large numbers of Missilytes.
The most important aspect to realize here is the effectiveness of Rammers
against Dreads, it takes but one to almost disable your Dread and push it out
of the battle. Most strategists would say, "Oh, well then all you need to do is
accompany your Dread with a guardian wave of strikecraft or Multibeams to
protect against Missilytes; throw in a rammer or two as well to knock off enemy
rammers." While this seems like a great idea, and if taken in the extreme
(maybe 12 Multibeams to kill any enemy fighters and maybe 4 Hives or a few
rammers to kill enemy rammers) the Dread itself becomes near invincible. Here's
the problem with this, you've just used up most of your available SU guarding a
ship that moves at the slow pace of 240 m/s. Sure you'll kill anything that
comes near it, but you're gonna have one hard time putting that Dread to much
use if you have to chase his CS around. Meanwhile, if your enemy simply ignores
the Dread and begins an assault on your CS with faster ships, you are helpless
to defend.
So if Dreads seem so helpless on their own despite their massive anti-capital
firepower, and require so much just to defend it, why build one? Well in small
team games (and long range 1v1) it usually isn't a good idea to build a Dread
(though there are some good exceptions to this rule). They just take too much
valuable RU and SU (as well as research time) for such a slow moving behemoth
which most skilled players (both Beast and Taaw) can take care of with relative
ease. The games that Dreads will really come into play are FFA games, mid-range
1v1, and against Beast players using Proc Strats.
The uses of a Dread in FFA games can be hugely important. In any FFA game with
skilled players, at least a few are bound to go for an early Siege Cannon
(doesn't even have to be early, they'll build one eventually). The most useful
aspect of a fully upgraded Dread is its Repulsor Weapon which can: deflect
Siege shots, kill Swarmers, push fighters/vettes and even frigates out of the
battle. It also recharges relatively quickly. Now if you position your Dread in
a good position b/n you most valuable assets and your enemy's Siege, then they
either won't fire it or you can deflect it right back at them. In FFA games
where there might be 5 Siege Cannons on the map, all potentially aimed at you,
the Repulsor Weapon is invaluable. It also makes a great anti-Swarmer tactic
which can be most effectively used with Multibeams or other Hives in taking out
enemy Hive Frigates.
In mid-range 1v1 games, there are a few strategies where you start with a
weapons mod and are able to pump out a Dread combined with mass Sentinels or
fighters. Using this strat can take advantage of an opponent who is rushing
with Hives or mass fighters. Be sure to grab Repulse as soon as you can or
enemy frigates will rip you apart. Here's a tip when using anything with Ions
against Hive Frigates: leave the hives to your own frigates or fighters, Ion
shots aim for the center of the Hive Frigate which (when the Hive is turned
sideways) will go right through the arch and do no damage at all.
A third scenario may arise when it is a good idea to build a Dread or two and
that is when fighting a Beast player 1v1 or in a developed FFA game. Since
Beast on their own cannot build Ramming Frigates, Missilytes, or Mimics,
attacking with a Dread and a few guardian fighters can be deadly. The best time
to do this is if the enemy Beast attempted to pull a mass Proc strat, stick a
grip of Rammers on his Procs and then attack his workers and CS with your
Dread. You may want to consider an alternate strategy if the enemy Beast has
done a Bomber/Vette swarm. Large numbers of fighters (especially Attack
Bombers) and Multigun Corvettes will rip even your Armor 3 Dread to pieces in a
matter of minutes without taking much damage to themselves. The best case here
is to throw in a few procs yourself and go full out Multibeams (but this is
another tactic entirely).
c. Heavy Cruisers
Heavy Cruisers (HCs) are the Beast's largest buildable craft. In firepower and
style it is comparable to the Somtaaw Dreadnought (Dread). However, they are
not identical. The Beast HC has a different weapons arrangement and the ability
to infect enemy ships which brings even more potential firepower to the
battlefield.
Ignoring Infect, this is a general comparison between the Beast Heavy Cruiser
and the Somtaaw Dreadnought.
Heavy Cruiser
Weapons 6 Large EC Turrets, 4 Large Ion Cannons
Cost 6500 RU 70 SU
Max Health 85000
Dreadnought
6 Large Missile Launchers, 4 Large EC Turrets, 2 Large Ion Cannons
Cost 6800 RU 80 SU
Max Health 90000
While the HC lacks Missile Launchers, each of its Large Ion Cannons do 150% the
amount of damage of each Dread Ion Cannon, and as the HC has 4 of these babies,
and the Dread has only 2, you can see where the HC excels. Large Ion Cannons
like these are best against Super-Capital Class ships; though its possible to
hit frigates and even the occasional fighter with them, they will end up
missing half the time wasting their firepower.
The HC is weakest against mass fighters/vettes or Missilytes. Also, a couple of
rammers with Infection Vaccine can also render an HC helpless. Just like the
Dread, it is usually not the best idea to rely, or even waste time and RU on
making one of these in most game situations. It takes up a whopping 70 SU which
can usually be better used on 5 Ion Arrays or 14 Multiguns.
All that being said, there are a few circumstances where HCs can be invaluable.
The HC is more used than the Dread due to its ability to infect. Its infect
weapon not only captures enemy frigates or strikecraft, but can also seriously
damage any Super-Capital Class ship. Remember that each infect shot does a
percentage of damage to the targeted Super-Capital ship, so just imagine having
2 HC, 2 Carriers, and your CS all firing their infect weapons at an enemy CS
all at once. In less than a second you can reduce the enemy mothership to well
below 50% giving you a significant edge in the ensuing battle - even if you
don't have armor yet. Also, with a fleet of say 3 HC, 2 Carriers, your CS and a
wing of Multiguns to shoot down mimics, you can become near invincible. You
will have 6 separate infect shots to steal enemy Missilytes, Multiguns to nail
incoming Mimics, and 3 HC to down any larger vessels that challenge you. But
you also must watch out for that pesky Siege Shot...
This brings us to another reason not to waste money on an HC. As Beast you
cannot research Armor 2 or 3 until you have infected and retired the
appropriate Somtaaw ship. This means if you are playing a skilled Somtaaw, then
he will be on the lookout for possible infects on his armored ships and he will
do everything in his power to stop you from retiring one. If your HC does not
have Armor, and is pitted against a Somtaaw with armor or even a mass corvette
swarm from a hostile Beast, it will take little time to reduce your HC to
floating space debris. So in other words, make sure you have at least Armor 2
before deploying your HC(s). The best ship to infect to gain Armor tech is a
Somtaaw processor, this does not have to be retired once infected, you can
begin researching right off the bat.
All in all, I would consider the HC to be potentially superior to the Somtaaw
Dread, but there are almost always faster and more cost effective strategies
you can pull as Beast.
d. Carriers
Carriers work as miniature command ships. That is, they can build and house SU.
They can't build externally excepting support modules, but they can build any
fighter, corvette, frigate class ship as well as Workers. They also assume the
role of flagship if your Command Ship has been destroyed, meaning you can still
play so long as you have at least one Carrier left on the field.
The Carrier's main use is fleet expansion and mass building. A single Somtaaw
Carrier adds 40 SU to your total right off the bat. You can also build up to 6
support modules on one with each support module adding 10 SU each - so a
Somtaaw Carrier with all 6 support modules built will give you 100 SU. That's a
lot of room for a lot of ships and makes Carriers very important for bigger
fleets. A Beast Carrier gives a total of 96 SU, but you cannot build support
modules on them.
The second use mentioned - mass building - is also key to good fleet
management. With two Carriers operational you can build
frigates/corvettes/fighters in 3 places (1 CS + 2 Carriers)! Assuming you have
sufficient RU, this means you can build your fleet 3 times faster than you
could with just your CS alone. This coupled with aggressive tactics can give
you the edge in battle. If you have researched Linking Technology, you can
build Acolytes and ACVs in both Carriers and your CS, then un-link the ACVs
once they have been built. In this fashion you can build Acolytes (maybe even
with missiles) super fast.
Don't underestimate the Carrier's attack capabilities. It is not only to be
defended at all costs - you can use them very effectively in your attacks.
Stick both your Carriers behind the enemy CS, their 4 medium guns will do a
significant amount of damage. Also try storing up Mimics and MCVs inside the
Carriers and then unleashing them on your opponent's CS. This can deal out
tremendous damage and the enemy will most likely not see it coming as they
cannot see you have built Mimics until it is too late.
Carriers are weak against enemy Mimics and Missilytes. To defend against
Mimics, try keeping some sort of anti-fighter ships nearby (e.g. fighters with
EC, Sentinels, Multibeams, Multigun Corvettes, etc.). If you do not have any
defense nearby and cannot hyper your Carrier and you see an incoming wave of
enemy Missilytes, move your Carrier straight up. If you can manage to get the
enemy Missilyte wave to shoot their missiles at the underside of your Carrier,
your support modules will soak up most of the damage buying you time to deal
with the rest of the fighters.
V. Command Ship Tactics
a. CS Maneuvering
BASIC CS TACTICS & INFORMATION
Important Gun locations
Somtaaw CS prominent gun configuration
- 3 guns topside, 1 on nose
Beast CS prominent gun configuration
- 4 guns underside
ADVANCED CS MANEUVERING
Moving without changing pitch and yaw of CS (force moving)
- This is used when you want to move your CS quickly without having to wait for
it to turn and also is used to keep your guns trained on the enemy while moving
with or away from them.
- The directions are easy: simply force attack (shift+ctrl) a ship/object
(recommend: enemy CS, half built proc or carrier, or a carrier in parade
formation) and then proceed to move your CS as normal.
Flipping/Circling/Twirling
- This is used when you are in a somtaaw/beast CS battle. (your main guns are
dorsal or ventral and your opponent's main guns are the opposite)
Flipping:
Scenario: You are beast, the enemy is somtaaw, your are heading towards each
other straight on. You are attempting to force-move above his CS, but he is
also force-moving upwards because he knows the power of the beast belly guns.
He is currently winning because he has his nose and top guns firing, but you
have just your front two. Objective: Flip over so your belly guns are facing
his underside. Execution: 1) Cancel any current CS order (~). 2) Move CS almost
straight down and slightly towards enemy CS. 3) Once your CS is at
approximately 15-25 degrees tilted downward, order it to attack the enemy CS
(or an externally built ship if the enemy is not in range) and then order it to
move up and over the enemy CS. If executed correctly your CS should continue to
tilt downwards while chewing away at enemy with its new guns. To keep your CS
upside down, cancel (~) the attack order when your CS is tilted about 135
degrees (180 being completely upside down), wait a few seconds for it to stop
moving* then order it to attack again. Your CS should now stay in this upside
down position until it stops attacking.
*Sometimes your CS will not stop tilting, what you would do in this situation
is hit cancel and then order it to move in a direction so that the line it
makes when u hit Caps Lock looks like it is protruding straight out of your CS,
then once your CS is moving along that line without tilting in any way hit
cancel once more and then start attacking again.
Circling: There is another method I made up called Circling. Many skilled
players will be on the lookout for a beast flip and will either flip themselves
or move below you which would be devastating. The trick here is simply not to
cancel any orders made to your CS after the initial flip has begun, your CS
will continue to flip and if done correctly you should be able to circle around
the enemy CS keeping your guns trained on him the entire time.
Twirling: This is a tactic where you can put your CS in a barrel roll or a
partial barrel roll bringing otherwise useless guns to bear on your target.
This is the trickiest of them all and if anyone knows of an easier method
please contact me at my listed e-mail address or leave a post in the forum.
Execution: order your CS to move >90 degrees to one side or the other and about
maybe <5 degrees up or down, immediately force attack something and tell it to
move forward. This doesn't work 100% of the time, but does work most of the
time. You can also do this by firing a siege cannon behind you as u are tilted
upward, though I doubt you'll ever be in this situation when you have a siege
cannon...
Alright, being the dunce that I am I have figured out a much simpler way to
barrel roll. Move straight down. Once you are going directly down cancel and
move sideways. Once your CS is moving only forwards force attack something (or
just attack an enemy) and you will barrel roll to one side. When you want to
stop just hit cancel and attack something as soon as it stops moving.
SOMTAAW CS TACTICS
Where to be in CS to CS battle:
VS Somtaaw - (Quick Easy Maneuver) Facing towards enemy CS, have your CS
slightly below and to the side of enemy CS. This puts all 3 top guns and your
nose gun within their firing radius. The enemy should only be shooting back
with his nose turret. If you are too low, then his 2 belly guns might be
shooting at you as well. Also being in this position but perpendicular to the
enemy CS works just as well if not better as his nose gun cannot hit you.
(More Difficult Maneuver) Roll your CS so that it is tilted about 45 degrees to
one side and then position it down and to the side of the enemy CS. You'll see
Sleet pull this off if you ever get into a CS to CS battle with him.
VS Beast - (Quick Easy Maneuver) You'll want to be parallel but slightly below
and significantly in front of enemy CS. This lets your top 3 and nose guns fire
on enemy, while he will only have his two lateral belly guns trained on you*.
(Note: To get desired effect, you must be in EXACTLY the right spot, this can
be very difficult as the enemy may be trying to reach the same position as you.)
*There is actually a glitch where the front guns on both CS cannot fire close
range, it will look like they are firing but they don't actually hit anything
so in this case sometimes to beast won't be doing any damage at all.
(More Difficult Maneuver) Use the flipping technique to situate your CS above
the enemy's. This puts you in a perfect place for a mimic dump as all the
mimics will hit his CS and not any SU modules. This is my favorite beast rush
killer technique.
Limited RU fighter swarm defense:
- This is used when your CS is being swarmed by fighters or drones but you
either have minimal RUs or no defense fleet.
Option 1) This is the most effective option: if your hangar mod is gone, then
start building a new one but pause it right after its being built. Unless the
enemy is b-balling you, then the hangar mod will be destroyed by the enemy
fighters' shots and will create a large explosion killing unarmored fighters
and severely damaging armored ones. Keep doing this until all enemy fighters
have been blown up. If the enemy is b-balling your engine or SU mod, simply
turn your CS to face them; unless your opponent is micro-managing his fighters
(which requires valuable attention) then they should start shooting at hangar.
Option 2) If you still have your hangar mod then a secondary option would be to
create a processor using the same tactic as described above. Processors do have
a fairly large blast radius, but not as big as the hangar mod and won't do much
against armored fighters.
Option 3) Somtaaw's Weapons research module makes quite a boom as well, and
would be more effective than the processor technique except it is more unlikely
to be hit by stray fighter fire.
Option 4) This is the BEST but most unlikely option: siege cannons do the
absolute most damage when they explode and will kill even armored fighters if
they are close, though it is unlikely that this will save you if you are so
late in the game as to have researched siege cannon.
BEAST CS TACTICS
The Beast rush is hated by Somtaaw players everywhere and if executed correctly
and early enough can give you the win. Beast CS have 2 added bonuses when
fighting CS to CS battles: 1) They have 4 belly turrets as opposed to 3 dorsal
guns on the Somtaaw. Although Somtaaw CS's do have a nose gun, it is less
accessible then the Beast's. 2) Beast have infect weapon which can do serious
damage if used on enemy CS (z+right-click).
Where to be in CS to CS battle:
VS Somtaaw - This one is either straightforward or tricky. If you are doing an
early rush and the somtaaw does not yet have armor or energy cannons, then
simply get directly on top of him but perhaps slightly towards his engine so
that his nose gun cannot fire. If done correctly with the addition of the
infect weapon, his CS will die well before yours. The other method is a bit
more tricky and needs to be used later in the game when the Somtaaw CS has more
tech but if you master it is very effective in early rushes. What you need to
do here is use the flipping maneuver explained above except reverse it (when it
says "up" go "down" and "towards" would be "away"). It's hard, but profitable,
once mastered it is difficult to beat.
VS Beast - Simple: make sure you get on top of him before he gets on top of
you. Though all the previous flipping/twirling techniques can come in handy in
different circumstances.
Limited RU fighter swarm defense:
Option 1) Infect them (best and most annoying defense, plus it gives you
potential tech upgrades).
Option 2) Unfortunately the only external modules on a Beast CS are Support
Modules and their explosion radius and damage is extremely small. So the second
option is the same as Option 2 on the Somtaaw tactics: begin the production of
a processor and let it be destroyed
VI. General Tactics
a. How to Deal With a Beast Rush
Using Weapons Mod
Written by Wraith
There are many different unique methods to defeating a Beast Rush, this is
simply the strategy that I use most often and with which I have only lost twice
(to Bonsaiguru (umpaloo) and MadOne_X_). The following assumes you are in a
corner spot and a beast is rushing you from a side spot on CQ.
Initial Build: 3 workers, 4 recons, hangar, engineering module
Later in Game Build: 1 processor (begin building it as soon as hangar is done,
but pause it as often as needed to finish workers, fighters, etc.), weapons
module (start this shortly after your processor, pause this as needed to avoid
RU lag)
Fast Rush Research Order: fighter drive, linking ability, frigate drive;
holographic emitter, support systems, (afterburner if its a frig rush, repair
systems if not); quantum explosive charge, missile launcher
Slow Rush Research Order: fighter drive, linking ability, frigate drive;
support systems, holographic emitter, afterburner, repair systems; missile
launcher, quantum explosive charge
This is very much a play-it-as-it-goes tactic; that is, you need to be able to
respond to different rushes with different counters.
When fighting a...
Rusher with lots of early fighters: Delay your weapons mod for longer than you
would normally think necessary. All you really need is quantum explosive charge
- it takes 4:10 to build a weap mod and research quantum. Use your available RU
to counter his fighters with your own. Kamikaze if you risk losing workers, you
must keep your original 6 workers alive for at least as long as it takes to
harvest your first patch.
Non-aggressive rusher with few early attacks: This almost always means one of
three strats (frig rush, proc/infect rush, or cruise missile bomb with infect).
In this case, don't build recons, focus on maintaining a small garrison of
acolytes only. Use your available RU to get 6 workers, and early proc and a
semi-early weapons module (researching missile launcher first). If his workers
are easy targets, kill them with missilytes, otherwise ignore them (do not send
mimics out, you'll need every one of them later).
Very aggressive rusher with constant small-wave fighter attacks: This is
usually followed by the rusher positioning himself between you and your second
RU op (and the small crystal). In this case, build a medium amount of fighters
for defense and dock damaged workers for repair (don't let him kami-kill a
worker, hyperspace it if you are afraid of it being destroyed). You will have
to work with the RU given to you from the first patch only, any worker op you
try to send through to the second patch will be infected or destroyed. That is
not a problem if you are careful, once your first patch is harvested, dock
workers onto CS for later use (if it is a straight 1v1 fight, go ahead and
retire them all). Then go ahead and rush right at your opponent. (You can do
with only five workers in this case, but six is usually better.)
NOTES:
dock one of your first three workers when your hangar is built
rush at your opponent as soon as your processor finishes
begin building mimics as soon as holographic emitter is researched; keep them
all docked
the major points that make this work: don't overbuild workers (no more than 6),
don't overbuild fighters (mostly acos, and no more than you need for minimal
defense), rush at your rusher (don't let him get to your base, rush at him way
before he gets to you so he can't get at your workers), and stockpile
mimics/mcv/acolytes/acv (put priority on mcv and mimics) - always be building
these, if you are out of SU then its time to dump
flip your CS upside down and go high above the beast; try to get your guns to
fire on his engine
unleash your hangar contents often so it would be a waste for him to
self-destruct a proc or frigate
only unleash your hangar contents when your hangar is close to his CS; if you
launch everything while there's some distance in b/n you guys, then he will be
able to shoot down a lot of mimics before they hit
don't worry too much about killing his workers, I rarely even attack them
unless he leaves them completely open; you'll want to focus all your firepower
on his CS
if he builds IAFs, kill them as soon as you can; your CS guns will make short
work of them, you won't usually have to waste a mimic dump just for a frigate
when launching your hangar contents, quickly order an attack on his CS with
everything selected; then select only acolytes and acvs, unlink them, put them
in sphere and right click on his CS to launch missiles; then kami them into his
CS
so long as you rushed at him (rather than vice versa), you should be able to
keep your workers alive and keep the mimics/mcvs/acos/acvs pumping
continuously; only build SU when you absolutely need it; since you will be
releasing your fighters often, your SU will be freed up after they kami
if for some reason you had to self-destruct your proc, or he has infect and is
sitting in your workers' path, then just dock your workers and wait till you
get repair, or retire them for extra RU
Using Armor Mod
Written by Maur
This is all assuming the rush is from a spot next to you. If it's further off,
you have lots more leeway.
Play normally up till when you get your fourth mod (or when the 'normal' armor
start gets its fourth mod, if you get yours later). At that point, abandon the
fourth mod in favor of a processor. Go mimics second in eng instead of rammers,
and go linking, obviously. If you want, you could cancel your 8th worker to get
a proc early (or another mod - I recommend weap, and research quantum
immediately before your mod gets blown off).
Now, if you're lucky, the beast will *not* have harried you in efforts to
reduce your fighter # before you get armor. If you have, well, you can't
exploit your biggest advantage. Either way, your workers should be safe, unless
you're stuck in a corner and the beast rushed to your second patch. If so, send
your workers off to the middle spot past the beast and do your best to maneuver
your CS in between them. Under no circumstances do you allow him near your
workers if you can help it.
Upgrade your CS to armor before you get near him, obviously. It will be close
if he rushed ASAP. Now, the beast will likely try to get above you and pound on
you with all 4 guns. Even when you have armor, it will be close. It doesn't
really matter what ships the beast is building, so long as you kill any
dfgs/ions as soon as they're built.
If you have your initial group of armor fighters, you're in luck. Send them
around to the enemy proc and bball. Kill most of his workers... if he went
ions/dfgs, he'll be screwed. If he went fighters, he'll still be able to get
some out. You can't do anything about infect except ensure that he doesn't get
to use it on anything other than your CS (or your acos - yes, you should be
pumping acos/mims/acvs/mcvs as much as you can). Do take note that beast can
infect building procs and convert them - kind of useless, as the tech won't
finish researching by battle's end, but don't be surprised.
Alright, the meat of this all is CS positioning. If the beast plays normally
and just tries to get above you, angle yourself down. If he's angled up more
than slightly, angle down steeply and move up early as well. Anyway, the point
is to be able to get all four of your guns on him while he can only get 2 on
you. If you angle down and move in front + slightly below him, you can hit him
with all 4 of your guns, while his back 2 are inactive. This concept (called
'broadsiding') is what allows you to fight back a CS rush, lack of this concept
is what invariably makes the rush deadly, and it's to the good luck of taaw
players everywhere that beast players fail at CS micro. It's not 'i got your
workers!' (although that helps), it's not 'whoa omg mimic dumps' (although
those really help), it's 'will he deal half the potential damage to me or not?'
Sadly, all beast players are probably going to get a lot better micro-ing their
CS now that this stuff is out, but regardless, do your best to keep your guns
on them and theirs off you. Then mimic dump (despite dealing half damage, it's
still a lot) the CS (or frigs - kill those first), you may want to kami your
acos into their fighters to free up SU, and perhaps spin your CS to distribute
damage among all your mods and confuse IAFs.
Once you realize just how fundamental that is, you'll also understand why I
don't really care about what your exact build order is. I still prefer armor
first, but it doesn't matter as much as I sometimes make it second. I figure
25% damage to your CS > somewhat less than 50% more damage to his CS (yeah,
your mimics do 2x, but nothing else does)... but weapons works too. It all
depends on what your start is.
b. All About Crystals
Crystals have large explosions and do a devastating amount of damage to nearby
ships when they are destroyed.
The explosions dissipate over distance so to give an idea of what to expect in
a game:
- Small Crystals' explosion will kill a recon within an 18km radius. It will
kill an unarmored CS within a 1km radius.
- Large Crystals' explosion will kill a recon within an 18km radius. But will
kill an unarmored CS within a 2km radius. The large crystals do more damage
than the small as you near the center of the explosion.
Crystal explosions will also deflect passing siege shots. This tactic can be
especially useful if an enemy has obtained a Siege Cannon before you have a
chance to defend against one. Just try to maneuver a crystal between you and
his CS. Then when he fires his siege, blow the crystal as it starts to get
close. If you time it right, and your opponent has remained at the same
altitude as the crystal, then you can sometimes send the shot flying right back
at him.
What It Takes to Destroy a Crystal
Type of Unit For Small Crystals For Large Crystals
Stock Acos/Ints 16 all successful kami 25 all successful kami
Missilytes 6 missilytes + kami 9 missilytes + kami
8 missilytes no kami 13 missilytes no kami
Ramming Frigate 4 hits + self-destruct 7 hits
Stock Mimics 7 11
Quantum Mimics 4 6
Stock MCV 3 5
Quantum MCV 2 3
Cruise Missiles 3 5
c. Effective Missiling
Missilytes (acolytes upgraded with missile technology) are wonderful units, and
if used well, can inflict massive amounts of damage.
One of the earliest uses of missilytes will be to either pop a crystal or smash
some enemy workers.
When missiling workers:
- If you have a relatively large force (20+), send half your fighters up above
the enemy worker operation (op), and half below. This will make it harder for
the defender to kill all your fighters before they get within missiling range.
- Do not put them into any formation yet, just let them fly.
- Well before you get near your opponent, begin to assign your fighters to
different groups. If it is early in the game, assign them in groups of 4. If it
is later in the game and you know they have armor or multibeams/EC to shoot
down your missilytes, then assign them into groups of 5-7.
- As you get closer to your enemy, he will no doubt send whatever he has at
your fighters in an attempt to destroy them before they get to his workers. The
following are solutions to different common situations that may arise:
--- If he has a wave chasing your missilytes then select the group nearest the
back of your missilytes and kami them into the pursuers, this will slow them
down and take out a few as well (kami the recons if you can as they are faster
and will catch up to damage and slow your missilytes).
--- If he has a wave coming head on from his CS, then target them with the
missilytes but as they pass retarget the workers as quickly as you can. The
effect of this will be to damage a few enemy fighters as your own wave
continues closer to the enemy worker op.
--- If he has any processors nearby then make sure to stagger your attacks
(i.e. send in groups 1 and 2, then after they kill their targets send in 3 and
4, etc.)
--- If he has 1-3 multibeams nearby, ignore them. Multibeams are often
overrated when it comes to nailing fighters. Most of your waves will slip by
unhindered.
--- If he has 4+ multibeams, then attack two groups to each worker (rather
than 1 group to each worker).
- Right before your missilytes get within missiling range put that group into
aggressive and wall ("F4+F9"). This will greatly raise your missiles' accuracy.
- So your keystroke will be something like this: "1+rightclick a worker,
2+rightclick a worker, 3+rightclick a worker, 4+rightclick a worker, (then when
they get close) 1+F4+F9, 2+F4+F9, 3+F4+F9, 4+F4+F9"
When missiling crystals:
- Early in the game, without any upgrades except for missile technology, 6
missilytes can blow a small crystal.
- Select six missilytes and force attack ("ctrl+shift+left mouse drag") a small
crystal. When they get about 10km away put them in wall ("F9") and then hold
"Z" and left-click the crystal. A menu will pop up, hit "Fire Missiles".
- Once the missiles are launched put the group in sphere ("F10").
- Once they are spread out a bit, kamikaze them into the crystal ("K").
When missiling Somtaaw carriers:
- Don't put missilytes into formation until the main part of your wave is about
8km away from the carrier. Then put them all into wall (if they are close
together) or sphere (if they are more spread out).
- If your wave for some reason is spread out over a large distance, then split
it up into halfs or thirds and put each into a wall about 8km away from their
target.
- Right after you stick them in wall, put them on aggressive tactics as well to
improve accuracy.
- Always aim for the top of the carrier. Move your wave up above the target and
then fly down on it to unleash missiles. The SU on the underside will soak up a
lot of damage if the missiles hit those instead.
When missiling Somtaaw CS:
- Use the same formation tactics for carriers (i.e. wall and aggressive).
- Aim as best you can for the engine as it will do 1.4 times the amount of
damage. To do this, have your angle of attack be just above and behind the
enemy CS.
- If your target begins to rotate and faces his hangar towards your incoming
missilytes, quickly move into sphere formation which will attempt to spread the
fire out and away from the volatile hangar which might destroy your whole wave.
When missiling Beast CS and carriers:
- Use the same formation tactics as above (i.e. wall and aggressive).
- Aim for the engine.
- Stagger your waves (send them in in groups of 5-20, depending on your total
amount). This will reduce the effects of the infect weapon.
- If your fighters get infected, do not panic or try to self-destruct them
unless you are VERY careful (sometimes if you are rushing you might
accidentally scuttle your whole wave). Instead, let them be infected and kami
your acolytes that have already unleashed their missiles into the infected
fighters.
When missiling hive frigates:
- Don't use wall for this one as sometimes all your missiles will go right
through the gap in the hive. Use sphere instead.
Missiling Facts
To destroy a... It takes...
(assuming every missile hits its target)
Small Crystal 6 stock missilytes + kami
5 EC missilytes + kami
8 stock missilytes no kami
Large Crystal 9 stock missilytes + kami
8 EC missilytes + kami
13 stock missilytes no kami
Unarmored Worker 3 stock missilytes + kami
4 stock missilytes no kami
Armor 2 Worker 5 stock missilytes
Armor 3 Worker 6 stock missilytes
d. Generic Starting
In most games you will not know the exact layout of your enemies and allies and
therefore you cannot predict exactly what strategy will be most effective.
Because of this it is handy to have a generic start laid out so as the game
progresses in the first few minutes, you can then decide what strategy you want
to execute without the usual repercussions (i.e. having to cancel a certain
research module to begin building a new one giving you a slow start to the
game).
Here I have laid out a good start for both Somtaaw and Beast for the map Close
Quarters. These starts will work on most maps, though the number of workers may
change based on how many you start with. On Close Quarters you start out with 3
workers and 5 recons.
Somtaaw
Build:
2 Recons
3 Workers
Hangar Module
Engineering Module
Armor Module
Weapons Module
- Queue these up in this order, then hit "B" to begin building.
Advanced Engineering Module
- Begin building this, then pause it immediately. The reason for queuing
all these mods is to throw off your opponent if his first recon sees you (he
won't know what strat you are doing) and also to open you up to any strategy
you desire once you get a feel for your tactical situation. The reason for
pausing this mod is that there are almost no strategies where you build the
Adv. Eng. mod right from the start, and if you build all 5 mods you'll run out
of RU too quickly.
If you see your opponent sitting right next to you, then decide quickly on your
course of action. If you decide on mass fighters, cancel the modules you don't
need (or pause them and cancel them as your RU run out), and continue on your
mass fighter strat. If you decide to go armor or weapons, cancel the
appropriate module and/or workers.
For armor users: A decent guideline to follow will be 8 workers and one proc
before your second RU patch. To get your armor module without lag, pause your
engineering mod at about 60% completion and build only 2 workers and 0-3 recons
from the start.
For weapons users: 7-8 workers and a proc by second RU patch works well. Begin
building recons and acolytes together once fighter drive is done. Build a proc
once all your workers are out.
Beast
Build:
2 Recons
3 Workers
1 Processor
- Force attack your processor and move your CS up above your harvesting
workers. If you see an enemy close and want to rush, begin moving your CS
towards him and let your proc finish. If your nearest enemy is far away, pause
your proc, then once your CS is situated, cancel it and queue up a few extra
workers.
Research:
Fighter Drive
OR
Support Systems
- If you are about to start a game with a larger number of players (4+),
then its a generally a good idea to grab Fighter Drive on EPA as your first
research, and then rush the nearest enemy. If there is a low number of players
(4-), then researching Support Systems with EPA is probably the better route.
This way you have a better start for turtling, but are also open to almost any
other strat (e.g. proc rush).
After Fighter Drive, it is recommended to get Support Systems. If you chose SU
as your first research, then your second research will vary depending on what
strat you decide upon.
EPA:
It's usually a good idea to use EPA on your first research, or if you decide to
rush, then you can use it to speed build your processor and your initial
workers.
Don't go too far below 90% if you are rushing. If you decide to turtle, then
you can be more lax with your EPA usage.
e. Somtaaw vs Somtaaw Counter Strategies
NOTE: This is muuuuch more clear and useful if viewed from the CLS site. The
address for the Som vs Som Counter Strategies is
http://freewebs.com/catals/counterstrategies.html. Because of this I'm not
including it in this text file right now.
VII. Online Etiquette (The Unwritten Rules)
Even with the initial patch fixing the Hyper Siege bug and a few other glitches
in gameplay, there are still a few exploitable properties in the game which the
developers of Cataclysm would have fixed in another patch but due to the
relative disinterest in the game, it is no longer officially supported by Relic.
This page includes a list of the remaining exploits which the Cata Community in
general frowns upon and some might even call cheating.
Though only LRS has actually been "un-officially" banned, the other exploits
should be extensively avoided by honorable players, but as it is difficult to
avoid some situations (e.g. CS below map), it is best not to overreact to an
opponent using the glitch as it might be an accident rather than a purposeful
abuse of the bug. It is recommended to simply request that the player
discontinue his exploit and make clear what he is doing.
Most of these other than LRS do not make a significant difference in the
outcome of a game and a concurrent loss should not be blamed on any of these
bugs.
Long Range Swarming (LRS)
This is loosely defined as letting your swarmers get too far away from their
respective hive frigates, or purposefully sending them over great distances.
The programmers did not intend for a player to be able to send his swarmers
across the map and kill unsuspecting ships (e.g. worker operation) who have no
way of predicting or defending such an attack.
Some players draw the limit when you can't visually see the swarmers and the
frigates they originated from on the same screen.
Others may expect more discretion from their opponent and draw the line at
something like half that amount.
To be on the safe side, just realize that the hive frigate is a single unit and
their center of focus should generally be on the same target as their swarmers.
Try your best to follow the swarmers with your frigates and you should be fine.
The following is a link to a discussion with a programmer of the Homeworld
series and his thoughts concerning LRS: Relic Post Who said
"If it isn't listed in the key bindings, then it's a bug.
I envision a reasonable maximum swarm distance to be about 5 km.
Michael"
What to do if you are accused of LRS:
Courteously apologize and immediately select your hives, hit cancel ("~"), and
then target something else within range or move your frigates closer to their
swarmers' target.
Moving Your Command Ship or Fighters "Off the Map"
If your new to Cataclysm, after a few games you've probably heard someone yell
something like, "Your below the map! Get your frickin CS back on!" Don't panic
if you don't know that the heck they are talking about. What they are referring
to is the fact that one of your ships (usually your Command Ship, or "CS") is
outside the sensor/movement limit of a map. Once a ship is above or below this
limit, it no longer shows up on anyone's sensors manager and it makes it
effectively impossible to target without visual contact. It also makes it
impossible for your opponent to maneuver his CS below yours giving you an
unfair advantage.
This is easily defined by the grey lines on your sensors manager ("SM"), or by
hitting move ("M") and seeing the point where you can't move your cursor any
farther.
How to detect a recon above or below map: Select any unit and hit "M", if
there is an out-of-bounds recon nearby you should see a yellow line (on your
visual monitor, not SM) starting at your level and going up (or down) to a
point off the map; the enemy recon is at the end of this point and you can go
kill it.
What to do if you are accused of going beyond the map's limits:
If the accused unit is in combat, select it and hit cancel, then move it back
onto the map.
Hyper-Hive
This occurs when a hive frigate's swarmers are released and are in the process
of attacking an enemy ship while the frigate itself enters hyperspace. This can
also result in your frigates getting stuck in hyperspace so it is usually not a
good idea.
What to do if you are accused of Hyper-Hive:
It is better to simply not hyper-hive in the first place, but if you do it
accidentally and someone brings it to your attention, just be courteous and
tell them you will try not to do it again.
Personally, to be on the safe side, I simply never hyperspace my hive frigates
once they have entered combat, this protects against the hyperspace glitch as
well as prevents against hard feelings.
Rock Busting
Rock busting is when you force-attack asteroids with the intent of destroying
them and disrupting your opponent's RU supply.
This issue doesn't come up very often, but a number of players feel it is a
poor tactic and might not play with you if you rock bust often.
Personally, I don't really get over-annoyed when people use it on me because in
a "real" space-combat situation you would be able to shoot at whatever you
like; though I don't ever do it myself.
Force Mimicking Capital Ships and Crystals
There is a glitch which allows you to mimic the nearest salvageable unit
(including destroyers and crystals) using an MCV and the salvage hotkey.
This has been called illegal by some including the Cata-Bible, but I don't
think it matters at all. No one ever uses it and it doesn't really have any
potential for any kind of cheating.
Upgrade + Order Bug
If you don't know what this is, good. If you do know what this is, then do not
use it. It is best to have universal etiquette guidlines even though there are
no official hard and fast rules concerning bugs like this. To avoid conflict
during gameplay, simply avoid all these exploits.
VIII. Beast Build/Research Orders
a. Four Worker Crystal/Early Mass Fighter
START
Build - 1 worker, 1 processor
Research - fighter drive
Action - scout for enemy, but try not to lose recons, find them and dock
recons; turn on EPA for research; force attack processor to move above workers,
then cancel the proc build
AFTER FIGHTERDRIVE
Build - que up recons and interceptors, make sure you have about 4-5 more
interceptors qued then recons as they build faster
Research - support systems
Action - turn off EPA right before fighter drive finishes; move one full worker
directly under CS, when the other two are done unloading select that one worker
and hit H; keep all fighters docked from now on except for some recons to kill
enemy scouts
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS ARE DONE RESEARCHING
Build - start building SU mods immediately; keep building recons and
interceptors, putting a priority on the ints, MAKE SURE YOU ARE ALWAYS BUILDING
FIGHTERS
Research - salvaging ability
Action - turn EPA on for build; keep killing scouts! and make sure your
fighters are docked!
AFTER AWHILE MAYBE AROUND 3:30
Build - once your RU begins to fail you, que up max fighters and 1 SU and see
how much that gets you in the cost compared to current RU, if it is close then
good, if it is over then build another SU, if it is under then cancel recons or
reduce them
Research - won't be done with salvaging ability yet
Action - once you have about 50-54 fighters (approximately half should be
recons, the other half ints) then undock them all and hurry to opponent staying
out of crystal explosion range, when you get close split the ints into one
group and the recons into another and kill any defending fighters that attack
you, but stay away from any processors, now move your ints back and move your
recons in (b-ball is nice for this) blow up any rammers trying to move the
crystal and this will stalemate your opponent - he can't move or blow the
crystal with 26 recons there and he cant move harvest with his workers on
either of those three patches, once he begins to move to an adjacent RU patch
then move your recons in to attack workers and if he blows his processor then
move your ints in next
AFTER SALVAGING ABILITY IS DONE
Build - a few fighters, not very many, maybe 6 ints 2 recons
Research - Crystal Processing
Action - turn on EPA for research, your health should be quite high now, around
90%; move 4 workers+CS to nearest RU patch watching crystal scrupulously with
fighters, save RU for now
AFTER CRYSTAL PROCESSING IS DONE
Build - start building a processor and workers, once you get the first crystal
then build more fighters as well
Research - get adv sensors and then the rest is up to you and your
circumstances though a good idea might be: cloak, destroyer drive, infection,
frigates
Action - move your CS close to the crystal with 2 workers but watch it VERY
carefully for mimics, retrieve the crystal and resume harvesting, the next few
minutes will be focused on defense and harvesting, get about 3 procs out and
plenty of workers for crystals and backup RU op, and keep the fighters pumping
too, then resume your offensive against the enemy
well there it is, it works very well in team battles to disable one guy early
so u can focus on double teaming the other
good luck, it takes some practice to get timing down though
b. Early Crystal Processing
START
Build - 1 worker, 13 recons, 1 processor
Research - salvaging ability
Action - scout for enemy; turn on EPA for research; start rushing at an
opponent aiming so you will pass by a small crystal on the way (this will
ultimately be a fake rush, but it may panic your enemy which is always good)
AFTER YOUR FIRST WORKER IS BUILT
Build - nothing more yet
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send your new worker ahead of you towards the closest small crystal to
harvest at that RU patch (you will be sending your processor here soon); kill
any enemy scouts with your recons
AFTER YOUR FIRST PROCESSOR IS BUILT AND SALVAGING ABILITY IS RESEARCHED (SHOULD
BE ABOUT THE SAME TIME)
Build - nothing more yet
Research - crystal processing
Action - turn off EPA right before salvaging ability finishes; position your
processor directly behind your CS; your original 3 workers should be filled up
with RU about now, make sure they dock on the processor and not your CS; once
all 3 original workers have relinquished their RU loads, send them forward to
harvest with your 4th worker; send your proc with them (all 4 workers and your
proc should now be harvesting in an RU patch near a small crystal)
WHEN YOUR CS HEALTH REACHES 75 PERCENT (AROUND 2:30)
Build - nothing more yet
Research - nothing more yet
Action - turn EPA on for research; keep rushing straight at your opponent,
hopefully he will think you are rushing and run away or he might start
preparing for a close range battle that will not be fought
AFTER ALL 18 RECONS ARE BUILT (AROUND 4:00)
Build - nothing more yet
Research - nothing more yet
Action - keep killing all enemy scouts; send your recon wave towards your enemy
and take out what fighters you can; rebuild whatever recons you lose (if you
have an ally this is a fine time to reinforce them, you will have quite a float
of RU from now on); upgrade the two emptiest workers, you will use these two to
harvest that small crystal
AFTER YOUR 2 WORKERS ARE UPGRADED
Build - recons if you have spare SU
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send the two workers to the patch of RU right next to the small
crystal; send your processor over there as well
AFTER CRYSTAL PROCESSING IS FINISHED
Build - 1 processor, 2 workers, recons if you have spare SU
Research - fighter drive
Action - upgrade your processor; when it is done upgrading harvest that small
crystal; use EPA to research fighter drive and upgrade your CS and your two
remaining workers
AFTER YOUR FIRST CRYSTAL HAS BEGUN BEING HARVESTED AND FIGHTER DRIVE IS
RESEARCHED (SHOULD BE ABOUT THE SAME TIME)
Build - build any interceptors you have SU room for
Research - support systems
Action - kamikaze any fighters you see with your recons; send your newest
worker to a near RU patch to begin harvesting
if this is a 1v1 game and you have been killing all his scouts, then your
opponent may not realize you are crystal harvesting yet; keep on rushing at him
but don't get closer than 15-20 km of his CS
AFTER YOUR SECOND PROCESSOR IS BUILT
Build - as many interceptors as you can
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send your newest worker to harvest alongside you fifth worker; send
your processor to your 2 new workers; when your processor gets close, send
those two workers to grab the nearest small crystal and then order your second
processor to begin moving towards your enemy
you are going to try to crystal bomb your opponent; if he is skilled he will
most likely foil this plan by blowing up the crystal or one of your workers
before you get close; this does not matter much because the purpose of this
crystal bomb is merely to divert his attention from your original 4 workers
harvesting all the large crystals in the middle
use any EPA you can to finish support systems; after that don't use EPA for the
rest of the game, it will take awhile to re-heal your CS back to full health
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS IS RESEARCHED
Build - go ahead and queue up a dozen support modules
Research - if its a 1v1 I recommend cloaking ability; if it is a team game then
grab advanced sensors first so you can see mimics easier
Action - focus on your crystal bomb; kami any fighters you can scramble into
his acolytes
NOTES:
after advanced sensors and cloaking ability, I would probably grab plasma bomb
launcher and destroyer drive followed by beast infect weapon; with all your RU
you can mass fighter the heck out of your enemy
due to having a very limited number of fighters in the early game, this
strategy is probably best used in a 2v2; the 4 worker mass fighter/crystal
strat is probably better for 1v1 because you get lots of fighters before
harvesting crystals
the reason for not researching support systems and fighter drive before crystal
processing is that it is actually impossible for a somtaaw to get enough mimics
or any missilytes to that first crystal before you are harvesting it; you are
basically guaranteed that first crystal, its the rest of the game that is the
tricky part
they may try simply kami-ing your workers, you can't let your workers die,
especially the ones in the middle; remember you will be loaded with RU so
hyperspace when you need to
you can start reinforcing your ally as soon as your original 3 workers give you
their first RU load; this strat requires very few RU in the first 8 minutes of
the game
for team games (best in 2v2) a nice tactic is to give your ally enough RU that
he can send a wave of fighters to guard your crystal bomb; that way together
you can make sure the bomb gets through to your opponent
sometimes I like to research infect weapon right after support systems, then
once my CS is upgraded I just keep hypering near the enemy's workers and
infecting them
c. Carrier/Infect Turtling
This strat is a nice start for FFA games, but is also effective when you are
not near an enemy in a team game.
Start
Orders: Get your workers harvesting, move your CS just a bit in opposite
direction of harvesting workers, after you've gotten everything started turn it
so that the side the workers come out of is around 8km from the harvesting
workers
Build: Start a processor, 5 workers, and 2 recons
Research: Support Systems
EPA: Research until right before SU is almost done, then turn it off (should
put you at 90-92% health)
As each worker comes out immediately get it harvesting with the rest.
Your processor should finish building just before your original 3 workers fill
up with RU. At this point move your CS another few km away and move your new
proc in a convenient spot near your workers. But make sure that the original 3
workers dock on your processor, not your CS (which would cause unnecessary RU
lag). If you see them starting to dock onto your CS just move them near your
processor and hit "H".
After Support Systems has been Researched
Research: Destroyer Drive
EPA: Once your health increases a few percent, go ahead and use EPA on research
until Destroyer Drive is about 80-90% done
Build: A few more recons to kill scouts, you won't need many (maybe 10 or so);
you won't need more workers or processors for awhile (you should have 8 workers
1 proc before Destroyer Drive is done)
After Destroyer Drive has been Researched
Research: Infect Ability
Build: 1 Carrier, once you get everything situated at next RU patch you can go
ahead and make 2 more workers
You must keep a constant eye on the near crystal, keep your recons close by to
watch for mimics. You will probably have infect before your enemy can get
enough through to blow up the crystal, but if he gets a few missilytes or
mimics through, let him blow it and just make sure your workers are out of the
blast range. Then move back in, the next 3 patches of CQ are unhindered by
crystals once that is taken care of.
The Rest of the Game
Suggested Research Order: (After Infect) Fighter Drive, Advanced Sensors, (then
if enemy is far away, to steal tech/processors) Corvette Drive, Cruise
Missiles, (but if he is closer) Frigate Drive, Defense Field, then whatever
else fits your combat situation
Suggested Build Order: (After first carrier) Build another processor before you
get your second carrier, use your 2 infect weapons to steal enemy fighters for
defense, once you get Acolytes, build them rather than Interceptors; slowly
build up your worker numbers, don't try to build too many at once though, stop
anywhere between 16 and 24; after your second carrier is done its a good idea
to build plenty of processors for defense of workers and/or your attack
Suggested EPA: (After Destroyer Drive) Use EPA on researching Infect if you see
your enemy attacking with large numbers of fighters early, otherwise use your
EPA very sparingly until you get Repair Ability
Suggested Orders: This is a turtling strategy, but all that means for beast is
that you don't rush. Once you've got your second carrier you should have plans
for your major assault, whether that be with repair procs, frigs, or mass
vettes, you will need to attack after your second carrier or the Somtaaw will
begin to overwhelm you.
Things to Keep in Mind:
The tactic that makes this strat effective is the defense that a well-organized
combination of neutral procs and 3 infect weapons can offer. To maximize this
opportunity, keep your workers in 1 or two groups with more than 1 proc nearby.
Also keep your carriers and CS within infecting range around the edges of your
worker op.
Don't overbuild fighters while in the first stages of your game; the enemy
fighters you will capture with a few auxiliary interceptors/recons should be
ample defense for the first half of your game.
Because this strat relies heavily on infect and proc guns, it requires little
RU which means that once you begin your main attack, your worker op won't be as
important as it was before. So prioritize accordingly.
In the first half of the game your workers are very important so if the enemy
breaks through hyper them one by one to save them. The 100 RU to hyper is by
far worth the 650 RU to remake plus the RU lag that comes with missing it.
Once you begin your main assault (after you have some taaw tech and your second
carrier), try and focus on building larger ships such as frigates and
processors rather than fighters. The larger ships are more RU efficient and do
not need to be mass produced to be effective, which requires much RU.
Variation:
One common variation to this strat is to research Infect before Destroyer
Drive. You will want to do this if your enemy is closer than you expected and
may attack early with fighters or missilytes. If you go this route, then you
will want 2 procs before your first carrier.
d. Mid/Long Range Multi-Research Rush
This strategy works for any range on CQ.
START
Build - 6 workers, 2 recons, 1 processor
Research - support systems
Action - scout for enemy; turn on EPA for research; begin moving your CS
towards your opponent
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS IS RESEARCHED
Build - nothing more yet
Research - fighter drive
Action - turn off EPA right before support systems finishes; send your new
worker behind you to begin harvesting at original patch; wait a few seconds
(until your CS health reaches 92 percent or so) then turn EPA on build
AFTER YOUR FIRST PROCESSOR IS BUILT
Build - nothing more yet
Research - nothing more yet
Action - turn off EPA; send your processor back to your workers immediately;
your original 3 should be filled up with RU soon, make sure they dock on the
processor and not your CS
AFTER FIGHTER DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - 1 interceptor, 2 support modules
Research - cloaking ability
Action - keep rushing, post recons near the crystals you pass by to watch for
mims; send your workers back to harvest as soon as they are built
AFTER YOUR FIRST SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - 5 interceptors, 2 recons
Research - nothing more yet
Action - try to kill enemy scouts before they see you
AFTER CLOAKING ABILITY IS RESEARCHED
Build - nothing more yet
Research - advanced sensors
Action - turn EPA on for research
WHEN ADVANCED SENSORS IS HALFWAY DONE
Build - nothing more yet
Research - nothing more yet
Action - turn off EPA
AFTER YOUR LAST WORKER IS BUILT
Build - 4 interceptors, 1 recon, 2 cloaked fighters, 2 support modules
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send the last worker back to harvest at original RU spot
AFTER ADVANCED SENSORS IS RESEARCHED
Build - nothing more yet
Research - frigate drive
Action - upgrade your recons and send a few back to your workers; it's likely
that your opponent will be attacking you with his first wave soon, use your
best fighter tactics against him; if he has armor 2 on them, then don't engage
them with your fighters, instead build a second processor and blow your first
one on his armored wave
AFTER YOUR THIRD SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - 4 interceptors, 1 recon, 2 cloaked fighters
Research - nothing more yet
Action - if your opponent hasn't attacked yet, send what fighters you have at
him
AFTER YOUR FOURTH SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - queue up a bunch of fighters and keep at least interceptors pumping all
the time
Research - nothing more yet
Action - keep rushing, and keep good recon of his command ship, try to spot any
mimics he has before they get sent off
AFTER FRIGATE DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - keep interceptors building
Research - advanced ion cannon
Action - make sure your processor is following your workers
Mid-Range Research Order 1: support systems, fighter drive, cloaking ability,
advanced sensors, frigate drive, advanced ion cannon, beast infect weapon (then
depending on your situation research what you think would be best)
Mid-Range Research Order 2: support systems, fighter drive, cloaking ability,
plasma bomb launcher, advanced sensors, beast infect weapon, destroyer drive
(then depending on your situation research what you think would be best)
Long-Range Research Order 1: support systems, fighter drive, cloaking ability,
advanced sensors, destroyer drive, frigate drive, advanced ion cannon, beast
infect weapon, plasma bomb launcher, defense field
Long-Range Research Order 2: support systems, fighter drive, cloaking ability,
advanced sensors, frigate drive, advanced ion cannon, salvaging ability,
crystal processing, beast infect weapon
NOTES:
always keep good recon of your enemy so you can tell when he sends in attack
waves or mimics
when using IAFs, don't send in one at a time, but wait until u have two or
three and a contingent of fighters to defend before attacking
you will have cloaking ability before IAFs, so try cloaking one or two and
sneaking them around to his worker op
when you are low on RU, focus on building interceptors rather than all three
fighter types; interceptors are the most economical in terms of price and
firepower
don't overbuild SU - you won't need more than four support modules before you
get frigates; any more than that is a waste of RU
your workers are crucial for any of the four research orders; protect them at
all costs, which means if you have to scuttle your proc and build a new one, do
so
you don't ever need to move your CS close to your enemy's; keep it at a safe
distance, let your fighters (bballs) and frigates do the damage; keeping your
distance will thwart any mimic dump attempts
if you pick one of the research orders with destroyer drive, you might consider
making a secondary RU op (with a proc and 4-8 workers); if you manage this you
will be able to make mass fighters later in the game
e. Fighter/Infect Rush
This strategy assumes you are next to or near your opponent.
START
Build - 2 workers, 6 recons, 1 processor
Research - support systems
Action - scout for enemy; turn on EPA for research; begin moving your CS
towards your opponent
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS IS RESEARCHED
Build - 1 support module
Research - fighter drive
Action - turn off EPA right before support systems finishes; send your new
worker behind you to begin harvesting at original patch; wait a few seconds
(until your CS health reaches 92 percent or so) then turn EPA on research again
AFTER YOUR FIRST PROCESSOR IS BUILT AND FIGHTER DRIVE IS RESEARCHED (SHOULD BE
ABOUT THE SAME TIME)
Build - 8 interceptors, 4 recons
Research - beast infect weapon
Action - turn off EPA right before fighter drive finishes (for most games you
won't use EPA anymore); send your processor back to your workers immediately;
your original 3 should be filled up with RU about now, make sure they dock on
the processor and not your CS
AS YOUR ORIGINAL 3 WORKERS BRING IN THEIR FIRST RU LOAD (AROUND 3:00)
Build - 2 support modules
Research - nothing more yet
Action - if you are rushing a corner spot, try to head off your opponent by
going in between him and his crystal; if you are rushing a side spot then just
keep charging right on at him; in either case, send your fighters in to scout
around, do some damage to his workers if you can; kami-ing to kill workers can
be deadly this early in the game so you might want to try that if it looks like
he can kill your fighters easily
AFTER YOUR SECOND SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - 4 interceptors, 3 recons
Research - nothing more yet
Action - if your opponent tries to run, do your best to intercept him and kill
his workers with fighter waves, you can't let him get too far ahead of you or
your infect won't be able to damage his CS
AFTER YOUR THIRD SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - 4 interceptors, 3 recons, 2 support modules
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send in another wave of fighters; again, kami if it looks like that
will do more damage
NOTES:
your original 5 workers should be enough to keep your fighters pumping so
(especially in 1v1 games) there is no need to build more than that
realize that your main firepower is your CS's infect weapon, and your
opponent's main firepower is in mimic and missilyte dumps, so keep some
distance b/n your CS and his - you might even stay completely out of weapon's
range and just infect his CS whenever you recharge; you can use whatever
fighters you can make to bball his engine
once you have sufficiently crippled his RU income, use your fighters either to
bball his CS or put them in aggressive tactic mini formations (e.g. every 2
fighters in broad or every 3-4 fighters in claw) and keep them near your CS -
use them to shoot down his mimics when he dumps
don't worry too much about your workers, if you manage to kill his and he
manages to kill yours then you should still win; use what fighters you have
left to defend against mimics and just keep using infect on his CS
don't overbuild SU - only make more support modules if you need them for future
fighters; if you just sent in a wave to attack then stop building support
modules for a bit, SU will be freed up when your wave dies
another option is to research fighter drive before support systems and use EPA
on build for a short time after fighter drive is done; you'll be able to get
nearly a dozen interceptors and a number of recons out very quickly and
surprise your opponent early on; if you decide to use this you'll be about 30
seconds behind on research and a little behind on SU but you can make that up
simply by playing carefully
f. Processor/Infect Rush
This strategy assumes you are next to or near your opponent.
START
Build - 2 workers, 2 processors, 4 recons (don't build more than 4 until you
get support systems)
Research - support systems
Action - scout for enemy; turn on EPA for research; begin moving your CS
towards your opponent
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS IS RESEARCHED
Build - 1 support module
Research - beast infect weapon
Action - turn off EPA right before support systems finishes; send your new
worker behind you to begin harvesting at original patch; wait a few seconds
(until your CS health reaches 92 percent or so) then turn EPA on research
AFTER YOUR FIRST PROCESSOR IS BUILT
Build - nothing more yet
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send your processor back to your workers immediately; your original 3
should be filled up with RU about now, make sure they dock on the processor and
not your CS; turn off EPA (it should be off for the rest of the game in most
circumstances)
AFTER YOUR FIRST SHIPMENT OF RU (AROUND 3:00)
Build - 2 support modules, around 4 more recons
Research - nothing more yet
Action - if you are rushing a corner spot, try to head off your opponent by
going in between him and his crystal; if you are rushing a side spot then just
keep charging right on at him
AFTER YOUR SECOND PROCESSOR IS BUILT
Build - 1 processor
Research - nothing more yet
Action - if your opponent tries to run, do your best to intercept him, you
can't let him get too far ahead of you or your infect weapon will be useless;
send your second processor ahead of you, but dont let it get in range of your
opponent's CS guns yet; on the other hand, if your opponent manages to get a
wave of fighters too big for your dozen recons to handle, then send your second
proc back and scuttle one on his wave (using the remaining one for your
workers); unless he has an ally, your workers should be relatively safe after
his first wave is dealt with (remember to keep an eye out for mimics coming out
of his CS, kill them as soon as you see them)
AFTER BEAST INFECT WEAPON IS RESEARCHED
Build - queue up another processor, build recons if you think you need them
otherwise use all your RU for procs right now
Research - it's up to you to decide on your research from here on out, if this
is a team game and you know you are going to beat your opponent, then
researching salvaging ability and crystal processing would be a smart idea; if
it looks like an even fight or your opponent keeps running, then researching
ion array frigates might be a good plan; if he has sent his workers off and
turned to fight you, then researching corvette drive and bio-warhead to create
cruise missiles would be a nice idea - you can use a missile or two to infect
his proc, and use any more you make on his CS (they do quite a bit of damage)
Action - upgrade your CS; at this point you should be very close to your
opponent unless he has already decided to run away; if he runs, just chase him
and build up your procs keeping them near his CS (preferably behind his
engine); don't give the procs attack orders, keep them on neutral tactics and
only give them move orders - they will shoot at anything that comes near; if he
runs, try to use your infect on his CS (if you have a choice between infecting
his CS and infecting something like a proc, his CS takes priority); if he turns
to fight you, then keep your distance form his CS, staying just in gun-range,
but not getting too close; keep your procs between you and his CS so they can
shoot down any mimics he sends at you; if you know how to maneuver your CS
well, then flip it so your belly guns are shooting at his engine; if you aren't
so good at maneuvering your CS then just go high above him; if he also tries to
get above you, then let him and dive down, your top guns will do a decent
amount of damage and you don't want to be so close to his CS that his mimic
dumps manage to get all the way to your CS
NOTES:
this strat works fine in short range 1v1 games, in team games make sure you
have your ally keeping half an eye on your workers - you need them for procs
realize that your main firepower is in your infect weapon, and your opponent's
main firepower is in mimic and missilyte dumps, knowing this, keep some
distance b/n your CS and his, placing your processors in that space
remember to keep your processors on neutral tactics and don't give them attack
orders, this is so that they will not single out any one target to shoot at,
they will shoot at any target in range (including those pesky mimics); if
positioned well, 3 procs coupled with your CS should be able to take out any
mimics he throws at you
don't self-destruct your procs, a lot of beast players sacrifice their proc in
order to kill enemy mimics, this puts you down the 1100 ru it cost to make that
proc and it lowers your defense against future mimic attacks, only
self-destruct if it is absolutely necessary
g. Processor/DFF Rush
This strategy assumes you are next to or near your opponent.
START
Build - 3 workers, 2 processors, 2 recons
Research - support systems
Action - scout for enemy; turn on EPA for research; begin moving your CS
towards your opponent
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS IS RESEARCHED
Build - 1 support module
Research - frigate drive
Action - turn off EPA right before support systems finishes; send your new
worker behind you to begin harvesting at original patch; wait a few seconds
(until your CS health reaches 92 percent or so) then turn EPA on build
AFTER YOUR FIRST PROCESSOR IS BUILT
Build - nothing more yet
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send your processor back to your workers immediately; your original 3
should be filled up with RU about now, make sure they dock on the processor and
not your CS; turn off EPA (it should be off for the rest of the game in most
circumstances)
AFTER YOUR LAST WORKER IS BUILT (AROUND 2:35)
Build - 2 support modules
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send your new worker behind you to harvest with the rest; if you are
rushing a corner spot, try to head off your opponent by going in between him
and his crystal; if you are rushing a side spot then just keep charging right
on at him
AFTER FRIGATE DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - 1 processor
Research - defense field
Action - if your opponent tries to run, do your best to intercept him, you
can't let him get too far ahead of you or your defense fields won't be able to
work with your CS
AFTER YOUR FIRST SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - 1 recon
Research - nothing more yet
Action - nothing more yet
AFTER YOUR SECOND PROCESSOR IS BUILT
Build - 1 processor
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send your second processor ahead of you, but dont let it get in range
of your opponent's CS guns yet; on the other hand, if your opponent manages to
get a wave of fighters too big for your handful of recons to handle, then send
your second proc back and scuttle one on his wave (using the remaining one for
your workers); unless he has an ally, your workers should be relatively safe
after his first wave is dealt with (remember to keep an eye out for mimics
coming out of his CS, kill them as soon as you see them)
AFTER DEFENSE FIELD IS RESEARCHED
Build - 1 defense field frigate, 2 support modules
Research - it's up to you to decide on your research from here on out, if your
opponent runs away from you keep chasing him and research something like
fighter drive and cloaking ability or plasma bomb launcher, using your fighters
under the protection of a couple DFFs you can murder his workers or bball his
Command Ship; if your opponent turns to fight you, you might try researching
infect weapon and keeping your distance, or grab advanced ion cannon and build
frigates rather than more processors
Action - at this point you should be nearing your opponent unless he has
already decided to run away; if he runs, just chase him and build up your procs
and/or frigs and/or fighters keeping the processors near his CS (preferably
behind his engine) and your DFFs within your proc jumble; don't give the procs
attack orders, keep them on neutral tactics and only give them move orders -
they will shoot at anything that comes near; if he turns to fight you, then
keep your distance form his CS, staying just inside your gun-range, but not
getting too close; keep your procs between you and his CS so they can shoot
down any mimics he sends at you; try and get your CS high above his and place a
DFF or two right under your CS to block his CS shots
NOTES:
this strat works fine in short range 1v1 games, in team games make sure you
have your ally keeping half an eye on your workers - you need them for procs
and any frigs you decide to build; 6 workers you will find will keep you
supplied with plenty of RU so long as you build only one or two things at a
time and only build support modules when you need them
realize that your main firepower is your CS guns protected by DFFs (or if you
happen to research attack bombers or IAFs, then these would be your main
firepower), and your opponent's main firepower is in mimic and missilyte dumps,
so keep some distance b/n your CS and his, placing your processors and DFFs in
that space
remember to keep your processors on neutral tactics and don't give them attack
orders, this is so that they will not single out any one target to shoot at,
they will shoot at any target in range (including those pesky mimics); if
positioned well, 3 procs coupled with your CS should be able to take out any
mimics he throws at you, and the added protection of 2 or 3 DFFs will deflect
nearly all shots fired from his CS, but remember - one MCV with quantum can
take out a DFF so hyper them if need be (its much cheaper - only 200 RU - to
hyper then to build a new one)
don't self-destruct your procs, a lot of beast players sacrifice their proc in
order to kill enemy mimics, this puts you down the 1100 ru it cost to make that
proc and it lowers your defense against future mimic attacks, only
self-destruct if it is absolutely necessary
its very likely that your opponent will target your DFFs with his mimics, if
this happens, go ahead and hyper them one at a time when they are in danger of
being destroyed, a DFF coming in and out of hyperspace still gives you a
defence field, also try to keep the DFF near your Command Ship so your CS guns
can help shoot down mimics that have your DFFs targeted
h. Wraith's Fighter/Frigate Rush
This strategy assumes you are next to or near your opponent.
START
Build - 2 workers, 2 recons, 1 processor
Research - fighter drive
Action - scout for enemy; turn on EPA for research; begin moving your CS
towards your opponent
AFTER FIGHTER DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - 8 interceptors, 1 recon
Research - support systems
Action - turn off EPA right before fighter drive finishes; send your new worker
behind you to begin harvesting at original patch; wait a few seconds (until
your CS health reaches 92 percent or so) then turn EPA on build
AFTER YOUR FIRST PROCESSOR IS BUILT (AROUND 1:50)
Build - nothing more yet
Research - nothing more yet
Action - turn off EPA; send your processor back to your workers immediately;
your original 3 should be filled up with RU in 30 seconds or so, make sure they
dock on the processor and not your CS
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS IS RESEARCHED
Build - 2 support modules
Research - frigate drive
Action - send the fighters you have (you should have 16 fighters) to attack
your enemy's workers, use FS to avoid CS fire, kami a worker or two if he has
fighters to defend; if you are rushing a corner spot, try to head off your
opponent by going in between him and his crystal; if you are rushing a side
spot then just keep charging right on at him
AFTER YOUR FIRST SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - 5 interceptors, 3 recons
Research - nothing more yet
Action - if your opponent tries to run, do your best to follow him and kill his
workers with fighter waves; just keep chasing him, if he runs thats ok because
your frigates will have a clear shot at his engine
AFTER FRIGATE DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - 3 interceptors, 3 recons
Research - advanced ion cannon
Action - turn on EPA for research
ONCE YOUR CURRENT FIGHTER BUILD IS DONE (YOU'LL HAVE 6 RECONS/8 INTERCEPTORS)
Build - 3 interceptors, 2 recons
Research - nothing more yet
Action - turn off EPA (for most situations you'll want to leave it off for the
rest of the game); send your new wave of fighters back to your workers to
defend; if he doesn't seem to have many fighters himself then use them to
attack his workers instead
NOTES:
this strategy works well for mid-range games as well
research defense field as your next research and begin pumping out IAFs as soon
as possible; don't send them ahead, rather wait till you get near your opponent
to attack; don't build too many fighters, use most of your RU and SU for
frigates, build only enough fighters to defend against mimics
don't attack from above or his CS will kill your frigs quite quickly
realize that your main firepower will be your IAFs, and your opponent's main
firepower is in mimic and missilyte dumps, so keep some distance b/n your CS
and his - when I use this strat I stay completely out of weapons range, or I
dive far below him and chew him up with my two top guns; you can use whatever
fighters you can make to manually guard your frigates and CS against mimic
attacks (i.e. don't use the guard command, but rather keep them hovering near
your frigates out of enemy weapons range)
you will need to keep your workers alive for this strat to work; 5 is enough so
don't build more, but it would be wise to send some fighters back to guard your
workers against mimics and missilytes
don't overbuild SU - only make more support modules as you need them
after defense field is researched make one or two DFF and stick them near your
IAFs; after that you can research what you think is best; if your opponent
keeps running then grabbing infect would help greatly once you catch up to him
i. Riki's Fighter/Frigate Rush
Open:
Build - Processor, 3 workers, 5 recons
Research Hanger - support systems, fighter drive, frigate drive, advanced ion
cannon, defense field
Epa on Build until 2 workers are done (processor will be just about done too)
then switch it to research. Keep it on research until fighter drive is done
researching. Your cs will be at about 83-85 percent health. Build some
interceptors and if you notice your enemy building up fighters to send at your
workers, then send them back to your processor. If he attacks your ru op just
hyper your workers one at a time as needed while your processor and fighters
kill off their force.
Build Support modules as you rush at him so when your research is done you can
start pumping out ions. When your command ships meet you can send your ions to
hit his cs. Try to aim them so they hit him in the tail of his CS and start
knocking down his health right away opposed to beating down his modules. CS
positioning is key in this rush, you want to be above him so 4 of your guns are
hitting him but keep enough space so if he undocks mimics your cs can shoot
most of them down. Ions are great because you can scuttle them and they'll kill
a bunch of mimics or fighters nearby. Pump out defense field frigates when the
research is done so that his cs guns won't hurt you near as much. Scuttle your
ions right before they die to kill any fighters or mimics he may have.
This is one of the best beast rushes in my opinion because it takes their focus
off your command ship. They'll get really focused on killing your ions. If they
ignore your ions they wont last very long. If they try to kill your ions then
at least your CS isn't taking nearly as much damage. If you keep your CS
pounding on theirs then you should win.
j. Mass Fighter Rush
START
Build - 1 worker, 3 recons, 1 processor
Research - fighter drive
Action - scout for enemy; turn on EPA for research; force attack your processor
with your CS and move your CS above your workers; once positioned hit cancel
for the CS and cancel the build order on the proc
AFTER FIGHTER DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - 11 interceptors, 5 recons
Research - support systems
Action - turn off EPA right before fighter drive finishes; wait until your CS
health reaches 92 or 93 percent then turn on EPA for build until your recons
are built, then turn it off again
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS IS RESEARCHED
Build - 2 support modules
Research - cloaking ability
Action - send what fighters you have at your enemy; kill any workers you can
but focus on annihilating his fighters first
AFTER YOUR FIRST SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - 5 interceptors, 3 recons
Research - nothing more yet
Action - turn EPA on for build; your first wave should be just about at the
enemy by now, focus on micro-managing them but don't forget to check your build
and research often
AFTER YOUR SECOND SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - queue up as many interceptors and recons as you can (keep the
interceptor queue about 2 or 3 higher than the recon number - ints build faster
and are stronger in combat)
Research - nothing more yet
Action - this is a micro-managing strat, so make sure you are constantly
checking that your researching, building, etc.
AFTER CLOAKING ABILITY IS RESEARCHED
Build - queue up some cloaked fighters with your ints and recons; your first
wave should be dead by now so you probably won't need much more in terms of
support modules; start building a processor and another worker
Research - plasma bomb launcher
Action - turn off EPA for now; once your first cloaked fighter is built send
what fighters you have at your enemy; again, kill what workers you can but
focus mainly on his fighters
AFTER FIFTH WORKER IS HALF BUILT
Build - keep interceptors and cloaked fighters queued up; build another support
module
Research - nothing more yet
Action - turn EPA to build again
AFTER YOUR PROCESSOR AND FOURTH SUPPORT MODULE ARE BUILT
Build - 4 interceptors, 2 cloaked fighters, 1 recon; when SU is freed up by
your second wave getting killed then queue up more fighters (putting priority
on interceptors, then cloaked fighters, and lastly recons)
Research - nothing more yet
Action - turn EPA off; send your processor down to your workers and start
rushing with your CS
AT 7:00
Build - keep your fighters building
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send in what fighters you have (will be your third attack wave)
AFTER PLASMA BOMB LAUNCHER IS RESEARCHED
Build - cancel all recons and cloaked fighters, build only attack bombers and
interceptors for now
Research - beast infect weapon (this would be my first choice as it will help
in the ensuing CS battle, on the other hand if it is a team game then you might
consider destroyer drive or salvaging ability instead)
Action - keep rushing at your opponent
AROUND 8:45
Build - queue up all 4 fighters as much as you can (at around 8:45 you will
receive a large dose of RU from 3 full workers to your proc)
Research - nothing more yet
Action - keep rushing; in 30 seconds or so (9:15-9:25) send in what fighters
you have
NOTES:
when building fighters with limited RU put priority on interceptors and attack
bombers first, then cloaked fighters, and lastly recons; that is, if you only
have 300 RU or so left and you don't have any almost full workers then don't
build recons or cloaks for awhile
this strat's power comes from your ability to outproduce fighters early in the
game; to take advantage of this you need to smash his fighters before going for
his workers - don't let him get any sort of advantage in terms of fighter
numbers, keep up the pressure
attack bombers are very very powerful against slow moving ships, once you get
close to your opponent and have dealt with whatever fighters he has, build as
many bombers as you can and bball his engine
this is a tricky strat that is easy to mess up but almost impossible to beat if
executed well; this means don't forget to always be researching, building, and
harvesting
don't overbuild SU - this is very important, you won't need more than 3 support
modules until far into the game (maybe the 10 min mark you'll need a fourth
mod); if you keep up the pressure you may not even need more than your 3
original SU
don't be intimidated if your opponent goes armor (it is unlikely they will once
they see a beast right next to them, but its possible); in this case you just
need to be very aggressive in the first 7:00 minutes of the game taking out as
many of his fighters as you can before he gets armor (6:00-6:45 for most armor
strats); armor 2 cannot beat vastly superior numbers
if your opponent is more than one space away from you, a nice little tactic is
to research salvaging and crystal processing as you rush (after plasma bomb
launcher); it will take awhile to research without EPA, but it can payoff in
the long run as your opponent will be too busy with you to notice
k. Cruise Missile Rush
This strategy assumes you are next to or near your opponent.
START
Build - 1 worker, 10 recons, 1 processor
Research - support systems
Action - scout for enemy; turn on EPA for research; begin moving your CS
towards your opponent
AFTER CORVETTE DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - 2 support modules
Research - corvette drive
Action - turn off EPA for now; if you are rushing a side spot send your new
worker behind you to begin harvesting at original patch; if you are rushing a
corner spot then send your new worker ahead of you to next patch; wait till
your health repairs back to 92 percent, then turn EPA on research again
AFTER YOUR FIRST PROCESSOR IS BUILT
Build - nothing more yet
Research - nothing more yet
Action - turn off EPA (for most games you won't use EPA anymore)
use your recons to scare your enemy, once he sees how many you have he might
suspect a mass fighter strat and then he will be unprepared for your cruise
missiles; try not to engage in any fighter battle you will lose, however if he
begins assaulting your workers you must defend them as best you can; try
kami-ing your recons into any waves you can't defeat soundly
if you're rushing a side spot then send your processor back to your workers
immediately; if you're rushing a corner spot then place your proc right behind
your CS; your original 3 should be filled up with RU about now, make sure they
dock on the processor and not your CS
when rushing a corner spot: once the original 3 workers dock onto your
processor, send those 3 workers and the proc to the next RU spot ahead of your
CS (there should already be a 4th worker harvesting there); the reason you do
this is because you won't have interceptors and keeping them close to your CS
will help protect them
AFTER CORVETTE DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - nothing more yet
Research - bio-warhead
Action - if you are rushing a corner spot, try to head off your opponent by
going in between him and his crystal; if you are rushing a side spot then just
keep charging right on at him
AFTER YOUR SECOND SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - 5 or so recons (keep building them until you are able to make cruise
missiles)
Research - nothing more yet
Action - if your opponent tries to run, do your best to intercept him, you
can't let him get too far ahead of you right now
AFTER BIO-WARHEAD IS RESEARCHED
Build - 5 cruise missiles, 2 support modules, a few recons
Research - beast infect weapon
Action - keep all cruise missiles docked for now, you will use them as a
somtaaw would use mimics
NOTES:
your original 4 workers should be enough to keep your missiles and recons
pumping (especially in 1v1 games) there is no need to build more than that
realize that your main firepower here is your cruise missiles and your infect
weapon if you can get it in time, and your opponent's main firepower is in
mimic and missilyte dumps, so keep some distance b/n your CS and his - for this
strat I like to flip not quite upside down and situate my CS behind the enemy's
engine; this accomplishes two things: one, when I release my cruise missiles a
majority of them will hit his engine rather than being wasted on modules, and
second, it puts good distance b/n me and his hangar so my CS belly guns can rip
apart any mimics dumps
don't over worry yourself with his RU op; of course try to do what damage you
can though, try to pull some tricks on him; for example he doesn't know whether
you have infect yet or not, so release 1 or 2 cruise missiles and pretend like
your going for his workers, he'll probably hyperspace or run, both causing RU
lag; cruise missiles can also take out workers quite quickly - two cruise
missiles will kill a worker
you need to manage your RU well, don't build support modules unless you need
them; stop building recons once you enter combat with his CS; make sure your
workers dock on your proc and not your CS
you will finish researching infect weapon at the 10 minute mark, if he ran then
you can try to infect his proc/workers with your cruise now; if he stayed to
fight then use your CS infect weapon on his CS
another option is to research fighter drive before corvette drive and grab a
5th worker; this will give you better worker defense and another option if he
decides to run; on the other hand it will delay your cruise missiles by a
significant amount of time which might spoil the surprise for some skilled
opponents
l. FFA Processor Strategy
Goal: To obtain a large number of upgraded processors (with repair and if
possible armor) and 2 carriers with infect ability.
Research Order:
Support Systems (EPA 100%), Infect (EPA 75%), Destroyer Drive (EPA 25%),
Fighter Drive, Advanced Sensors, Corvette Drive, Bio-Warhead, (Research Repair
Ability as soon as you get it.)
Build Order:
Start - 5 workers, 2 processors
After Dest Drive is researched - 1 carrier, 1 processor, 1 carrier
Slowly be building up your worker number (ultimately aim for 16-22)
After your second carrier - build as many procs as you can, keeping two in
good position near harvesting workers
After you get Cruise Missiles - build a few and sneak them up and around
the edges of the map to attempt to steal his proc or workers with repair
ability (time is less important then making sure your opponent doesn't notice
you trying to steal his tech).
Method: To make this strategy effective you will need 9-12 processors for
attack and 2 procs at your worker op. This strat is best against Somtaaw as
they can't infect your procs so you may want to change your build order if
there are only Beast players left. To attack the enemy CS, put your procs in
neutral claw formation, then order them to move (not attack) right on top of
the enemy CS. When they get near, un-formate them (group them with CS and hit
F12) and keep them surrounding the enemy CS. This will keep their guns firing
on everything in sight, including any mimics he tries to pop out, while also
repairing each other. Move your CS and carriers in at the same, keeping a few
SU aside to capture his ramming frigates, otherwise use your infect on his CS
and carriers (or if he has any, dreads too).
m. FFA Beast Swarm
Goal: To obtain the ability to mass produce (i.e. 2 carriers + 1 CS) multigun
vettes, attack bombers, acolytes and/or interceptors (also useful but
unnecessary: recons, missile vettes, heavy vettes, cloaked fighters); Defense
Field Frigates are also a semi-important part of this strategy. You will also
need a sizeable RU op to sufficiently supply bursts of mass building (probably
18+ workers with 2 procs). And to state the obvious, any Somtaaw tech that
applies to your fighters/vettes can contribute greatly to this strat's
effectiveness (e.g. adv fighter drive, armor 2, EC, etc.).
Warning: This strategy can be very RU demanding and many players will be
tempted to go for crystals to get the RU, this is almost always a bad idea,
especially in FFA as it wastes research time for a relatively small gain. Good
harvesting management should do the trick for most of the game.
Suggested Research Order: Support Units, Fighter Drive, Destroyer Drive,
Corvette Drive, Multiguns, Plasma Bomb Launcher, Frigate Drive, Defense Field,
Infecting Ability, Missile Launcher, Heavy Vettes, Cloaking Ability, Advanced
Ion Cannon, etc.
Use EPA on research as much as you safely can. Try never to go below 80% health
excepting in the first 10 minutes of the game. If you sense a coming battle is
inevitable, stop using it altogether.
Build Order: You can use either a mass fighter start, or the FFA Processor
Strategy as a guide for your opening moves. Of course you won't want more than
2 or 3 procs and you can't rely solely on mass fighters so once these
strategies begin to specialize, break off and follow the set research order
above.
As a general guideline, you'll want 6-8 workers and 1 proc by the time you get
to your second RU patch. After that slowly build up workers building one at a
time. Once you get your carriers out, make sure you get at least 18 or more
workers and 2 procs ASAP.
Method: This strat is not necessarily confined to FFA games; it is also an
excellent choice in double Beast 1v1s (though in that case you'd probably want
an earlier infect). When mass-building your "swarm," focus mostly on Multiguns
and attack bombers, next highest should be Acolytes/Ints, then Missile Vettes
and the rest. To make this strategy most effective you will want to
micro-manage your "swarm" of fighters/vettes and concentrate your fire on one
enemy ship at a time when going against capital class vessels using wall and
sphere formations as best you can. When fighting other swarms of
fighters/vettes, un-formate your group and try to keep the battle near your CS
so you can reinforce your losses. Use your Multiguns to target enemy fighters
while your missile vettes and attack bombers should focus on your enemy's
corvettes and DFFs. As an added trick that is especially helpful against
another Beast trying the same thing as you, throw in a few DFFs with your
swarm; this can be the deciding factor in equally matched battles.
You will be amazed at how fast you can take out enemy Heavy Cruisers, Carriers,
and Ion Arrays. For enemy CS, b-ball is always an excellent choice.
IV. Somtaaw Build/Research Orders
a. Mass Fighter Strategy
Written by Rikimaru
There are many great strats out there used in cataclysm. Most strategies
involve a certain build/research order from the start. Some players will often
do the same strat every time, even when positions don't suit them well, thus
hurting their teammates. This strat is a basic open strategy that allows you
more time to talk with allies, scout enemy positions and to keep your options
open for what you are going to do. It gives you a strong enough defense to
protect yourself from other strats, and on the other hand you could also be
extremely aggressive and offensive minded with this strat. It’s extremely
useful in bigger team games where much of the teamwork is often undecided in
the beginning of the game and this helps you not dig yourself into a certain
strategy.
Open: 14 recons, 5 workers, hanger and eng modules.
Research: Fighter drive and support systems.
Build: Acos as soon as research is done. 5 support modules when support is
researched.
Keep building recons and acos non stop till at least the 7 min mark.
Harvest: when the first RU batch is ready to be dropped off, dock one of your 3
original workers 15 seconds after hanger is finished. This allows the RUs to
flow constantly with no halt to your build.
Research: after fighter drive is done you have a choice; you can either go adv
fighter drive (I usually do this) so that your fighters will be faster and more
accurate or you can go linking so that you can have a mass swarm or if you plan
to break into a early weapons module (like wraith does) then going linking with
weapons is very effective. Your third option is to just research frigate drive
followed by destroy drive going for an early carrier. Most players wont go
right for the early carrier anymore, since its easy to sneak adv fighter drive
in there and get a carrier like 2-3mins after you enemy does if he went for
carrier right away.
7 min mark: at the seven min mark you should have roughly 50 fighters, 30recons
20 acos, something of this sort. You will have hanger and eng modules, and 8
workers. This is where you will have to make a decision in your game. There are
3 modules left for you to choice to build next. At around 7 min mark I like to
build a processor. Having a processor is never a bad idea and if you build one
at 7 min mark it allows you to build another one before you can build your
carrier so it wont hold you up getting 2 processors. Having 2 processor is
never a bad idea either. Mostly at the 7 min mark you need to "read the
defense" and figure out how you plan to attack it. If your being rushed you
would most likely want to build a 3rd module in there so you can defend
yourself better. Either weapons to get mimics and mbf. Or a adv eng to get
hives and sents. You could also go armor but I would recommend weapons or adv
eng. If your not being rushed, I like to get ahead quick with RUs. I will
usually try to quickly get out 14 workers and 2 processors so when my ally is
trying to build carriers and other expensive ships, I can constantly attack him
and try to run him into RU trouble.
Strats to watch out for:
- I think its hardest to do this strat when you enemy goes armor fighters. His
fighters will be superior to yours and he will have an extra module than you.
There’s a few ways around this. If you enemy is close to you, you should attack
him before the 6:30mark in the game, that’s roughly when he'll get armor, if
you can force a fighter battle before then you should be ok. If he keeps his
fighters docked in his CS waiting for armor as your fighters approach his CS,
immediately attack his workers. Theres a trick to it though, you know he'll
start hypering his workers as soon as he can, 1 by 1 so he wont lose any, so
after you get a workers about half dead, kami a few fighters into it real quick
so that he wont have time to hyper it. If you can get like 4 workers it really
puts you at an advantage. Another way is to build an early processor, let him
send his fighters at you, you send yours away at his crystal, if he goes for
your fighters u kami on a crystal killing your fighters and his better equipped
fighters, if he goes for your workers as you send your fighters away, then you
send your fighters at his workers, and scuttle your processor on his fighter
(risky) but if it works its great, and attack his workers with your fighters.
At that point he will have 1200 less RU than you because he build an armor
module that got him nothing so far, and you have 1200 RUs that you can put into
making him pay for it :)
- When your enemy is close and goes linking/missiles.
The trick to defending against this strat is don't send all your fighters after
a group of 10 or so acos, cause if you do, he'll be sending 15more missile acos
at your workers. So send small groups of fighters after his small separated
groups of attackers. Try to attack his fighters before they get close to your
workers, making his missiles useless. Once you kill enough of his fighters and
get higher number fighters than him, wont be a bad idea to send your fighters
at him trying to kill some of his workers causing him RU lag. If hes sending
non stop missile acos at you, and you defend well and then attack his RU op and
manage to get 3 or 4 workers, which he'll have no more than 8, he'll be
struggling to keep up the rest of the game.
b. Fighter/Mimic Rush
Written by Rikimaru
Open: Hanger, Engineering, 4 workers, 10 recons.
Research:
In Hanger - (Fighter-linking-advfighter-frigate-advfrigate)
In Engineering - support-afterburner, holograpghic, repair, salvage.
Build: as soon as you can in the game build acos and keep building recons. When
you get around 10-15 recons and about 5 acos, (if your enemy is doing armor)
send them to attack. You can keep sending small groups of fighters to attack
your enemies fighters to try to kill them out before he upgrades to armor.
Remember that you are attacking at his cs and in smaller groups of fighter, by
the time ur 15recons 5 acos get there, he’ll have more fighters than you, so
don’t hesitate to kami on his fighters. When he does however get armor, the
trick is to try to outnumber his fighters. That’s where the linking comes in.
Build: as soon as your hanger is done start building a processor. When you get
up to 7 workers don’t build any more workers. Keep building acos recons and
acvs when you can.
Move: When your processor is done or even a little bit before, start moving at
your guy. When your half way there start building a weapons module. Keep the
attack up on his fighters till the 6:30 mark when he gets armor, then try to
out number him. As your moving in on your man, don’t go right to his command
ship, send your command ship to his 2nd ru patch. You know his workers have to
go there, and if you time this right, you will arrive there before his workers
move. So if he sends them there anyway, you should be able to destroy them with
your cs. If he sends them away this will create ru lag for him. Either way he
will have some sort of ru lag. If he went armor, that means hes got armor, eng
and hanger modules already build. He has to build a processor to stay with his
workers. And to be very effective with the armor strat he has to build an adv
eng module to get his hives. With all this stuff he has to build, you will more
than likely get the first rammer out. Sometimes you’ll get 2 out before he gets
one out. I like to hit his cs with the first rammer making it easier for me to
get cs position on him. Then I like to throw my 2nd rammer at his processor to
cause more ru lag.
As silencio said, people put way to much ru into killing workers. The great
thing about this rush is you don’t even have to kill the workers. You rush to
there ru spot forcing them to move workers and then you stick a rammer on there
workers for more ru lag. So the cost of you causing them ru lag is very cheap.
Hanger 1000
Eng 1000
Armor 1250
Processor 1100
Adv Eng 1350
Rammer 650
Total 6350ru. That’s what they need just to do there strat.
Half the time they’ll be so pressed for ru that they wont even bother with the
adv eng.
Research: when your weapons module is done, the first thing you need to
research is quantum explosive. Mimics are very important in this rush. After
that you can research what you please. I suggest getting Mbf’s is the way to
go, but some players will go for missiles. When your cs meet here is the
situation. You are going in with weapons hang and eng, he has armor eng hanger
and probably adv eng. He has armor. So if you both trade off cs’s hitting each
other, it helps him more. He will probably rely on hives to kill you frigates,
you will rely on mimics and mcv’s to kill his. Getting under his cs is very
important in this rush. That also wont allow him to build a carrier. You only
build 7 workers though, so its critical that you that you micro manage your
workers well. He may have build more workers than you as you were moving at his
cs, but the ru lag you create for him will cancel that out. If he floats off
trying to get you to chase him, sending your friages and rammers out away from
your cs is a bad idea. It will be to easy for him to shoot them down. So keep
him in close, if he does get away, you could always move at his workers. Once
you get close to him, unleash non stop mimics on him.
Key points to remember:
1. Attack his fighters early
2. Once he get armor “play the numbers” meaning outnumber his fighters
3. Micro your workers well
4. Cause him ru lag by moving your cs to his ru patch.
5. Stick the first rammer on him and get under his cs.
6. Hit him with multiple mimic dumps.
c. EMP Strat
Written by Rikimaru
This emp strat is fun to toy with when you bored of armor and missiles. At
first I use it as more of a defensive strategy. I'm told that momo had a emp
strat very similar to mine so if there very much alike I'll give him credit for
it too.
Open: hangar, weapons, 3 workers 5 recons
Research Hanger - fighter/linking/frigate/destroyer
Research Weapons - EMP/missile launcher/Multibeams or quantum charge
Build: engineering at roughly 1:10 mark, if your in a middle spot this can be
delayed till 1:30. Build armor module at around 5mins. Keep building workers
and since you are getting a late carrier you could always think about building
2 processors.
Build acos and recons until linking is done researching, then just build acos
and ACVs. Remember that you wont have adv fighter drive. So you want to keep
your fighter near your CS until you get linking. Or attack your enemy early
before he gets adv fighter. Now when EMP is done researching, I like to build
up a huge amount of ACVs and try to sucker the enemy to attack. I try to get at
least 25 ACVs. If your being rushed you want to try to meet your enemy half way
to get him away from your workers. Use your ACVs to kill his fighters/frigates,
then when the time is right, unlink your ACVs and try to missile his hanger or
just missile his carrier itself. This will put you at a huge advantage. Now
either dock your acos so they can get more missiles or use a bball. Now you
want to pump out multibeams/rammers, with a combination of mimic dumps and
missiles. Also after you get your carriers out, I normally like to throw a
destroyer in there.
Another idea you might want to do if your being rushed, if you have enough
force to protect your workers, send your ACVs at your enemy's workers. He'll
throw fighters at them and you should be able to easily take them out with emp.
Then if you have enough ACVs, go to his processor and emp it. Then unlink and
missile the processor. Kill off the processor then the workers are unprotected.
Tips:
1. After you get around 12 workers I like to start moving at the enemy.
2. If he’s rushing you, you either have to get his processor or missile his
carrier.
3. If you get bum rushed early, move to your next RU patch sooner and ram your
crystal in there way to slow them up.
4. If you don't want to waste time upgrading your fighter to get emp and
missiles heres the trick. Before you get emp, keep all of your fighters as acos
and don't link any up to ACVs. Then when emp is done researching, link them all
up to ACVs and there emp will start charging without ever having to upgrade.
Keep them as ACVs and when missile launcher is done researching, you can unlink
and they will already have missiles.
When Engineering finishes, build Armor.
Dock worker after Hangar finishes.
At 2:25 (plus or minus a few seconds), build Adv. Engineering
Build workers sparingly in the beginning; above all, keep a constant fighter
build going. Do not incur RU lag. Play around with the strat to get a feel of
when to build them.
You will need to dock workers to keep a constant build. However, you only need
to dock one to reduce your RU lag to 5-15 seconds.
There will be a large gap between when your SU maxes out and when support
modules become available. Start the weapons module before that happens (but
without incurring RU lag) and let it finish during that lag time
When frigate drive research finishes, queue 2 fighters and build a processor
when your next support module finishes
When your processor finishes, move it to the crystal and upgrade it to armor 2
before crystal harvesting research is finished.
Move two salvage-able workers to the crystal before crystal harvesting research
finishes.
You will begin harvesting the crystal at 11:45/11:50 optimally.
Tips:
- Above all, do not do this in a 4v4. Your crystal WILL be kamied.
- If you know you will be swarmed (by a single player), feel free to throw
fighters away after Adv. Fighter drive is finished. Your SU are limited for a
while, you won't be able to keep building more after a certain point.
- You are at the mercy of a missilyte rusher. Kami when needed.
- The 6000 RU you get from the crystal runs out faster than you think, as you
have few workers. Continue building them even when harvesting.
- Do not expect to harvest crystals the entire game. Build many workers,
despite your ability to harvest crystals.
e. Armor Hive Rush
Written by Rikimaru
Note: I’ve played with and against sil many times and this is as accurate of a
description of his strategy that I can give.
Open:
Build - Hangar, Armor, 4 workers. Build Eng mod at 1:10 mark.
Research Hanger - fighter drive, adv fighter drive, frigate drive, destroyer
drive
Research Armor - armor 2, armor 3
Research Engineering - support systems, afterburner, holo, repair, salvage
After fighter drive is researched you can either go for an early carrier and go
straight to frigates, this is good to do in long ranger battles, or you could
go linking in a close range battle if you planned an early rush. I believe sil
usually goes adv fighter drive.
Start building recons and aco’s once fighter drive is done researching until
you get roughly 20 recons 20 aco’s. Dock fighters before armor 2 is done
researching and then undock them.
Build support mods when research is done. Build a rammer to ram your xtal when
afterburner is done.
At 4:40 mark start building adv eng mod. When adv eng is 2/3 the way done start
building your processor. You should have 7-8 workers at this time. Once the
processor is done, rush at your enemy. Keep building workers and sending them
back until you have at least 12. After first fighter battle continue making
acos and recons. Silencio generally makes 3-5 rammers to ram xtals out of the
way and then send at your processor/workers. This is a great tactic because for
those worker killers, they'll generally ignore them and send their fighters at
your workers. Then you can pound on them with rammers. If they do however go
for your rammers this keeps their fighters busy and off your workers as you now
move closer to their command ship and their workers. If they went missiles it's
necessary to make sure you stay up on fighters because you don't want them
getting close to your workers.
Generally make Weapons mod around 10-12 min mark somewhere within that time
period. It really depends on how close your opponent is to you. When you arrive
at your enemy's CS you want to be able to make mbfs.
Build Carriers as soon as research is done and start building up a few hives
before you get to you enemy. Building up hives as you arrive to your enemy is
key, if you get to him and you have 5 hives and he has none you're already in
good shape. If you keep your workers alive this rush will almost always win.
You start pumping all 3 frigates when your carrier finish and usually the guy
your fighting will have tried to kill your workers and used so much of his ru
for his fighters that he wont have adv eng or weapons or the other will usually
be missing.
Key for fighters: the key for your fighters is not to kill your enemy's
workers, its to keep his fighters off your workers and to make him waste more
RU on building more fighters to kill your stronger armor fighters. Then you hit
his processor with the rammers and cause RU lag and start pumping out rammers
multibeams and hives. You can even throw in some sents.
Building up a fleet of frigates will ultimately cost you less than continuously
pumping out fighters because once you reach your max su you'll have extra rus
that you can't spend so you'll end up having plenty of rus. So even if your
enemy keeps going after your workers, if you can build up a big enough force of
frigates you'll be able to overwhelm him.
Micromanagement of Frigate battle: generally when your Command Ships first meet
in battle you want to start killing your enemy's frigates. Hives are great for
this. If your enemy is doing a similar strat or also has hives then you want to
go for his hives first. If you can kill the majority of his frigates (usually
hives) then you can turn your attack power to one of his carriers. He won't
have enough force to stop your frigates and he'll eventually lose a carrier.
Once this happens you'll be able to outbuild your enemy with your carriers and
you'll have more su. Next start in on attacking his CS with your frigates but
have your hives make sure that he doesn't mount up a force of frigates himself.
So keep swarming the new frigates he builds as your rammers and multibeams hack
away at his CS. It's very important to include the multibeams in this strategy
because they provide protection to your hives from mimics/fighters. Use your
command ship to hack away at either his frigates, his CS, or a building carrier.
f. Riki's Adv Eng Strat
Written by Rikimaru
Open:
Build - Hanger, Adv Eng, 4 workers. Build Eng mod around 1:30.
Research Hanger - fighter drive, linking tech, frigate drive, destroyer drive
Research Adv Eng - microship, repair bots (but maybe sneak crystal harvesting
in there if you've researched salvage already)
Research Engineering - support systems, afterburner, repair, holo, salvage
Build armor at around 4:40-5:00. Keep building up workers until you have at
least 12.
Build up about 15-20 acos and about 15 recons. Keep them at your cs. What your
enemy does now will effect how you should play it. If he went weapons you
should attack his fighters further away from your workers so he can't missile
them. If he went armor then you can wait for him to attack your workers then
just hyper them one by one as needed and pound his fighters. He wont have armor
2 until about 6:30 and his fighters wont get to you until about 7:15 that's
providing he sends them straight at you right after he undocks. Even if this
happens, you will still have about 3-4 sentinels out ready to fight. When he
comes close in for your workers just have everything attack his fighters, your
processor/acos/recons/sents/CS. If he goes for workers you hyper them as needed
and his fighters won't last long against all your firepower. If he goes for
your fighters then he'll kill a good amount providing he has armor but your
sents will turn the tide and you can keep sending in fighters since the battle
will be taking place at your cs. Build support mods as soon as you can so
you'll have a high su max. Start building up some hives too. After your enemy
loses the first battle and doesn't get any workers, he'll need to start
rebuilding his fleet. This is when you want to rush at him. You'll already be
building up hives/sents/rammers/acos and he'll just now be getting through with
some of his key research. So now the once completely defensive strategy turns
into a full blown offensive attack. Your commandship should arrive at your
enemy about the time you get armor 2. Use all your force to start pounding away
at his cs. If he starts to build up frigates use your hives and sents or your
sents and acos to keep killing them. Always keep your rammers on his cs beating
down his health and I generally like to use sents to kill their frigates and
keep my hives hitting their CS/carriers. Once your fighting in the CS battle
you shouldn't need all that much ru. Hives are expensive in the SU category so
you'll have max SU at one point and will stock up on rus. So even if your enemy
keeps going after your workers and gets some of them you should still have
plenty of money to finish him off. If his workers are near, you can send a hive
or two to kill some of them or simply stick a rammer on his processor to give
him ru lag.
This starts out as a defensive strategy with the trick being to sucker your
enemy into attacking your workers where you pound most of his force. You
constantly keep building up and you stock up on frigates before entering the
battle giving you an easier time killing off your enemy's frigates early on.
Then you rush at him with this huge force.
g. Riki's Energy Cannon Strat
Written by Rikimaru
This is more of a 1 on 1 strat but feel free to try it in team games. The
reason I'd consider this more of a 1 on 1 strat is because you don't get EC
until around 10 mins, and when you do it's still very easy for an enemy to
counter by kami-ing his fighters or by a processor scuttle. After the 10 mins
of research you need for EC, you'll still need about 4 more mins to research
something else in order to be a greater threat. Someone who does a more common
strat like missiles or armor would be more flexible in helping an ally or
killing workers.
Open: hangar, weapons, 4 workers 5 recons
Research Hanger - fighter/adv fighter/frigate/destroyer/linking
Research Weapons - EC/missile launcher/quantum/adv ion cannon
Build: Eng mod around 1:30. Dock a worker when hangar is finished. Build Armor
module at 4:40.
I usually build up to 20 recons and 25 acos and keep them docked and ready to
release when EC is done. Now this strategy can be the most "economical" strat
used. After the 10 min mark you will have the best fighters for the rest of the
game until he can you. If he goes armor then you'll have superior fighters for
a long time. So you'll want to cause fighter battles. Every battle you have and
win, he loses RU while you gain them. You're making less fighters because your
winning all the battles and you have fighters left over. He has to keep pumping
out fighters just to keep you off his workers.
Another key part to this strategy is around the 13 min mark you'll get armor 2.
So you'll have armor 2 fighters and EC. So now your opponent will really be
wasting RU if he keeps battling with fighters. Keep building up workers until
you get at least 15. I normally build my processor when I have 7 or 8 workers.
I usually make my adv eng mod around 10 min mark and research microship
construction when it's finished.
Now say your up with fighters but you got rushed, you have about 15 that you
could openly send to his workers, you might get 1 worker at most. His processor
will kill then off and he'll just hyper his workers as needed. Instead of
wasting your advantage of having the fighter superiority, I'd dock them and
keep them in the CS battle pounding on frigates or bball his CS. I like to pump
out hives rammers and multibeams added with some sentinels and maybe mimic
dumps. Your hives will have EC so if he went regular armor hive rush yours
should own his. The rest of how you play this out is really up to the player.
Things to watch out for:
If your opponent attacks before the 10 min mark you'll only have adv fighters
but he'll be attacking at your CS with your processor and CS shooting at his
fighters too so you should be ok. Watch out for xtals since your fighters will
probably be docked. It's harder to pull this strat off when your enemy is
closer to you but I find it works great long range.
h. 4 Mod EC Strat
Written by Wraith
Though this strategy may not technically be considered a 4-mod strat by
everyone, I classify it as a 4-mod for two reasons. First, you build 4 modules
way earlier than any written 3 mod start. Second and most important, you get
the benefits (the effective technologies) from all 4 modules at the same time.
This means that unlike a weapons start followed by an armor mod where you get
missiles on your first wave and armor on your second, this strat gets you your
weapons tech and armor 2 at the same time allowing your first wave to have both
upgrades.
START
Build - hangar mod, engineering mod, weapons mod, 2 workers, 5 recons
Research - nothing yet
Action - start harvesting and all that jazz
WHEN YOUR FIRST WORKER IS BUILT
Build - pause engineering module
Research - nothing yet
Action - get the worker harvesting
AFTER HANGAR IS BUILT
Build - 2 recons
Research - fighter drive
Action - dock a worker
WHEN THAT WORKER HAS DOCKED
Build - unpause engineering module
Research - nothing more yet
Action - nothing more yet
AFTER FIGHTER DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - armor module, 15 recons, 1 worker
Research - frigate drive, support systems, energy cannons
Action - nothing more yet
AROUND 4:00
Build - 1 worker
Research - nothing more yet
Action - dock an almost full worker near your hangar, make sure the rest of
your workers are harvesting
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS IS RESEARCHED
Build - nothing more yet
Research - afterburner, about 10 seconds later research armor 2
Action - nothing more yet
AFTER FRIGATE DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - 1 worker, 2 support modules, 1 processor, queue up as many recons as
fit into your SU
Research - destroyer drive
Action - make sure all workers are harvesting
AFTER YOUR SECOND SUPPORT MODULE IS BUILT
Build - queue up more recons (keep them building), 2 support modules
Research - nothing more yet
Action - dock an almost full worker near your hangar, make sure your CS is
positioned in an efficient harvesting location
WHEN YOUR PROCESSOR IS BUILT
Build - 1 worker, more recons
Research - nothing more yet
Action - send your processor and any empty workers to second RU patch
AFTER AFTERBURNER IS RESEARCHED
Build - 1 ramming frigate (you may have to decrease your recon queue in order
to build this)
Research - holographic emitter
Action - send a small wave of recons (4-10) to your crystal, dock the rest in
your CS (make sure you undock your 9th worker which will be finished around
this time)
WHEN CARRIER DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - 2 support modules, 1 carrier, more recons and maybe a few acolytes if
your RU supply can handle it
Research - linking technology
Action - move your CS towards second RU patch, send your ramming frigate to
push the crystal, keep a sharp eye out for missilytes or mimics near that
crystal
AFTER ARMOR LEVEL 2 IS RESEARCHED
Build - 1 worker, a few more fighters
Research - armor level 3
Action - upgrade your processor and CS to armor 2
AFTER ENERGY CANNONS IS RESEARCHED (AROUND 9:50)
Build - a few more support modules
Research - missile launcher
Action - undock fighters, send them off to attack, the small wave of recons set
to guard the crystal can be sent with the wave or docked to be upgraded, make
sure all your workers are harvesting
NOTES:
this strat sucks short range, don't try it unless you're playing a mid-range or
long range game
this strat works best in corner spots on CQ; it works alright in middle spots,
but you may encounter a small amount of RU lag when moving to second patch
this research/build order gives you the earliest possible EC as well as armor 2
on your first wave; I generally have about 40 recons and 6-10 acolytes by
10:00, this can slaughter any enemy wave no matter what the size (so long as
you use good dogfighting tactics)
if the above instructions are followed to the letter on CQ you should not
encounter any RU lag, if you seem to be running out of RU just pause your
processor or armor mod or cancel your recon queue for a few seconds
not only will you have super early EC with armor, but you will also have a
large worker force and an early carrier to boot; once you get your first
carrier out go ahead and build a second proc and a bunch more workers
once your first carrier is out, mass build missilytes; you should be able to
easily overpower your enemy from a distance; once you get your second proc out
go ahead and rush in for the kill
weaknesses? of course, all 4 mod strats have weaknesses, fortunately if you
keep a sharp eye out for missilytes and mimics in the first 10 minutes of the
game your worries should be over; one problem might be an armored fighter
attack before 9:50, if this happens just try to stall the wave until you have
EC or if that doesn't work go ahead and blow your proc, it won't be a big loss
i. 4 Mod Advanced Armor
Written by Wraith
Though this strategy may not technically be considered a 4-mod strat by
everyone, I classify it as a 4-mod for two reasons. First, you build 4 modules
way earlier than any written 3 mod start. Second and most important, you get
the benefits (the effective technologies) from all 4 modules at the same time.
This means that unlike an armor start followed by advanced engineering where
you get armor on your first wave and follow later with a hive frig rush, this
strat gets you your microship tech and armor 2 at about the same time allowing
you to rush quick with a powerful force.
Also, the strategy laid out below is specifically designed for close range
games on CQ. Feel free to change some stuff around to suite your circumstance's
needs.
START
Build - hangar mod, armor mod, advanced engineering mod, 2 workers, (don't
build any recons)
Research - nothing yet
Action - start harvesting, turn your CS, etc. and retire two recons
AFTER HANGAR IS BUILT
Build - nothing more yet
Research - fighter drive
Action - dock a worker
AFTER FIGHTER DRIVE IS RESEARCHED
Build - nothing more yet
Research - frigate drive, armor level 2
Action - nothing more yet
AFTER ADVANCED ENGINEERING IS BUILT
Build - engineering mod, 1 worker, 4 acolytes
Research - microship technology
Action - nothing more yet
AFTER ENGINEERING MODULE IS BUILT
Build - 10 acolytes, 1 worker
Research - support systems
Action - dock an almost full worker near your hangar
AFTER YOUR SEVENTH WORKER IS BUILT
Build - 1 processor
Research - in about 10 seconds frigate drive will be researched, go for
destroyer drive now
Action - make sure all workers are harvesting
AFTER SUPPORT SYSTEMS IS RESEARCHED
Build - 2 support modules, queue up more acolytes and a few recons
Research - afterburner
Action - dock all fighters onto your CS, have your CS face your workers then
force attack your processor and begin moving towards your opponent
AFTER ARMOR LEVEL 2 IS RESEARCHED
Build - 2 more support modules
Research - armor level 3
Action - cancel move order on CS, move your new proc back to workers and make
sure they all dock on the proc not your CS, upgrade your CS to armor level 2,
undock all fighters, send them to attack opponent
AFTER MICROSHIP TECHNOLOGY IS RESEARCHED
Build - 2 support modules, 1 worker, queue up some sentinels and acolytes but
keep them docked in your CS
Research - phased telemetry
Action - once your CS is upgraded order a move towards your opponent, upgrade
your proc to armor level 2
The rest of the game: Just rush your opponent with sentinels and acolytes.
Build a carrier as soon as you can. Send that 8th worker along with your proc
to the second RU patch. If you are rushing to a corner then you will be sending
that stuff ahead of your for team games, but if it's a 1v1 then send your
workers behind you.
NOTES:
this strat allows you to begin amassing sentinels very early so when you get to
your opponent you are prepared with some powerful ships
if your opponent chooses to run from you and you can't catch up, go ahead and
build hive frigates, otherwise stick with sentinels and fighters - hives take
up too much SU
don't worry about your opponent's workers, you will overpower him with your
superior technology and armor, if you want you can stick a rammer on his
processor to disrupt the flow of RU, but otherwise focus all firepower on his CS
leeches will be available quite early as well and they are cheap and quick to
make so use them if you have the spare SU; slip some over to his processor or
workers and watch them cause panic
don't fret too much about your own workers either, if you can keep 4-5 alive
you will be fine for the production of sentinels or hives
this strat's only real weakness is the late rammer, which shouldn't be a
problem if you can use your first wave to kill anything that might endanger
your workers or the nearby crystal
