Take time during multiplayer games to scout your enemy's mothership. Take note of what he is building so you can counter his efforts effectively. Tip: If you use scouts for this purpose, and you want to retreat them, just hit the D key, rather than trying to use the long-range sensors. This will send the scout home for docking, but more importantly, it's a lot faster than moving via the map. Scouting is equally as important in the single-player game. Often you'll want to investigate the potency of that red enemy blip on the long-range sensor map. Scout the position, pause the game, and investigate the enemy's fleet. Take note of the type of ships involved, and construct your own defenses accordingly. Preset Tips It's easy to run out of preset keys, since there are only ten of them. In fact, it's easy to use over half of them for salvage corvettes alone (0 for the entire group, and then other numbers for subgroups, which can be sent to different enemy ships). Be Consistent Decide how you are going to assign presets, and stick by your decision. For example, you could assign all resource units to 9, repair units to 8, salvage corvettes to 7, and so on. Unless you like stress, try not to be haphazard. Add new units to existing groups like so: Hit the preset number (for example, 4), hold down shift, select the new units, and reissue the preset (Ctrl-4). Try to leave one preset key open for the chaotic times when you need to move only a few units to a particular position. This is especially important during micromanaged battles. Use the E key If you have multiple fleets and not enough presets, you can focus the camera on a fleet and hit E to show a list of all friendly units onscreen. Selecting units from the list (you can use the shift key here, too) is a slower way of choosing portions of your fleet for specific tasks. Reassign Frequently Another way to deal with the scarcity of presets is to reassign them frequently, depending on which fleet is performing the task you are working on. Whenever the battle is not raging, you should scout, research, and build... but also, you should reorganize. Double-Tapping Preset Keys If you hit a preset twice in a row rapidly, the camera zooms to that preset group. If the group is split, the camera will zoom to some piece of the group. In any case, this trick ought to be something you do every five seconds or so, just to keep tabs on where your ships are, what they're doing, and if anything is attacking them! Moving With the Attack/Dock Shortcuts Whenever you can move your units without using the M key, do so. One nice way to move towards the enemy is to attack the enemy, even if you have no intention of actually carrying out the attack. Your units will move straight towards them, even if the motion is off the horizontal. A nice way to retreat your units is to hit the D key, even if you have no intention of actually docking. The units will retreat to the nearest repair ship, which will usually be behind them. While your units retreat, you can switch to the long-range sensor map and move them to the actual destination. |
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Definitive ship and resource management strategies
Masterful movement and combat methods Comprehensive unit information Detailed campaign walk-through Proven multiplayer tactics Requires Adobe Acrobat 3.0 or higher click here for more info... |