Strategy:SH0DAN's Economy 101 (Supreme Commander)

From EncyClanPedia

How to start your economy

• Get a good starting build order that will get you to t2 in 5-6 minutes.

Usually it should go something like this:

1. 2 Power Generators
2. 2 Mass Extractors
3. 1 Land Factory
4. 2 Power Generators
5. 2 Mass Extractors
6. 1 Power Generator
7. 2 more factories (1 of these goes to t2)

Meanwhile have 2-4 T1 Engineers build 20 or so T1 power generators, this will give you enough power to work with as you go to t2.

• Reclaim as much as you can.

Get as many engineers as you can collecting rocks and trees (rocks are better than trees). This will ease your way into T2 with enough mass to build a T2 generator.

• Expand to all available Mass Extractors.

This is crucial in maps with lots of Mass spots, it will give your economy a much needed boost to T2.

• As soon as your factory upgrades to T2, build a T2 engineer.

At the beginning its better to save resources and build only one t2 engineer and assist with t1 engineers. Build t2 tanks and MML's and mobile flak (on land maps of course) and use them to harass or kill the enemy. Note that playing against most experienced opponents, turtling up in your base and just building economy simply won't cut it.

• Build a T2 Power Generator and 8-10 t1 Mass Fabricator per generator.

Don't ever build these in a matrix, since its pathetically easy to chain. Build the t1 Mass Fabricators in lines or groups 4-5 spaces apart. I prefer groups of 8 or 10 but most top 100 players do this in lines.

• Build more T2 engineers.

Make sure to set them really building your econ non-stop. Build an extra T2 power generator or two to ease your way into T3.

• Upgrade to t3 and get 5-10 t3 engineers out.

Have them build a t3 economy. Once again don't build a tight matrix, and don't forget to put shields over your economy at this point if you haven't already. If you start running out of space to put t3 Power Generators and Mass Fabricators, you can CTRL-K your t2 generators and t1 Mass Fabricators. I usually build 1 T3 power generator to 1 T3 Mass Fabricators. This nets you quite a bit of extra energy after a while, which you will need if you want to upgrade SCU's or your ACU (building a Mavor or firing a Scathis will also require extra energy).

Cool After your first or second t3 Mass Fabricators, you will want to build a Quantum Gateway and start pumping out SCU's. If you have the space, build 5-10 Gateways and have them all working at once. Otherwise, a Gateway with 10-20 T3 engineers will work well. Have the rally point set some distance away from the gateway, and set 5-10 t3 engineers Assist Ground at that point (resources permitting) to help your SCU's upgrade with RAS's and other upgrades. Note that the SCA UI mod will help majorly for easily upgrading the SCU's that need it.

• After your SCU's start completing their upgrades, you can start building only t3 Mass Fabricators.

Again if you run out of space, you can start self-destructing t3 generators. This is the endgame when you start to spam t3 artillery and nukes. (Boring but it gets there sometimes).

Frequently Asked Questions

When do I upgrade Mass Extractors?

When you have a positive mass flow. I upgrade Mass Extractors to prevent myself from wasting mass. Also, at t2, build mass storage around the Mass Extractors as a further (cheap) upgrade to your t2 Mass Extractor.

What do I do if I'm playing a map with few mass points and little to reclaim?

You'll have to start by building a t1 economy, which is usually not necessary. Set 2 engineers building t1 power generators and 1 building t1 Mass Fabricators (not next to each other so they don't go up in smoke). After that assist with more engineers as necessary.

How do I prevent my opponent from killing my economy?

1. At T1, DO NOT BUILD MATRICES: If you must build t1 Mass Fabricators and Power Generators at the start, build them separately and the Mass Fabricators in small groups to minimized damage.
2. At T2, DO NOT BUILD MASS FABRICATORS AROUND T2 POWER GENERATORS: Build them in small groups separately from the power generators. T1 Mass Fabricators are very very cheap and easy to rebuild, t2 generators are expensive.
3. At T3, DO NOT BUILD MATRICES: Always build your t3 economy so that there's no possible way to chain it. Also, make sure that you build shields over your economy before you get to the t3 artillery spam point.

How to destroy an enemy's economy:

• Chain-able structures. T1 Mass Fabricators take 2 hits from a t1 bomber to kill. If you see your opponent building matrices of t1 Mass Fabricators and t1 or t2 Power Generators, send 3-10 t1 bombers (depending on how good his AA is) to chain his matrices. Airlifting t1 artillery, t2 tanks, t2 MMLs, or t3 bots in or near his base when he isn't looking can do wonders. In fact, one such successful drop, and you probably have won the game if you can crush most or all of his economy.

• T2 Power Generators. Killing t1 Mass Fabricators at t2 is an ok way to retard his econ, but t2 generators are key because they're more expensive, and he can't rebuild or activate his Mass Fabricators till they are rebuilt. 1 Mercy will kill a t2 generator (yay for Aeon!). If you're not Aeon its a little harder, but a group of t2 tanks will have one down in no-time if you can get them there. If your opponent has neglected his AA, Gunships can tear apart t2 generators fairly easily.

• T3 matrices. Kill one or two T3 Generators, and its all over if your opponent has built his t3 economy too close together. The Soul Ripper is your best bet to cripple his t3 econ very early on. T3 bots will also do the trick, as will strategic bombers. Make sure you don't spend more resources going for the econ than he has to spend rebuilding it. (He can reclaim your t3 bots/experimental/whatever).

• SCU's with RAS's are very tough. At this point if you haven't crippled his economy yet, you'll have to go for t3/t4 artillery spam, an assassination with t3 bombers, Soul Ripper spam (10-20 SR's together will probably kill an ACU before he can kill all of them), or nukes.

• Killing builders at any stage of the process will help slow down his economy. If doing an airlift or bombing run, killing the engineers will put a nice dent in his economy, even if he has no chain-able structures.

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