I'm hoping that the pros out there will be willing to give some tips regarding how to micromanage different unit types. I've watched many replays of people stomping me, but I can't figure out what their units are doing differently than mine. In the first battle, I usually have about as many units as they have, but their fleets pretty destory mine, and then I can't recover economically. I know to focus fire by unit type and have units attacking what they are good at destroying, and even kite my carriers, but I don't know what else I can do. I've particularly read a lot of posts talking about bomber micro, but have no idea how I can improve over the AI. Any help would be appreciated.
One thing is to have your Strikecraft in Hold position where they fire continuously instead of making a pass every now and then.
Logically, if strikecraft give up their only advantage (super speed), they should get horribly owned by nearby frigates and especially capital ships with multiple weapon banks.
Other basic stuff is to optimize the position of your Illuminators to fire all three banks.
And micro your Fighters after LRF's when you won't risk losing air or do a hit and run to pop some frigates.
That comes across as contradictory.
I play only SP but I find having targets of priority is a good way to gain the upper-hand. Focus fire on the ships you need to eliminate.. ie. take out a couple of their carriers if you want to give your squadrons a boost, or hit their torpedo cruisers if you're defending a planet.
Also shift-right click the targets you want so you can queue your attacks. While your dealing damage, try to figure out which of your ships are being targeted and pull them back. This draws their ships further into your battle group and also breaks their formation. If you can, try pulling the most damaged ships out of the battle. Either they survive and live to fight another day, OR their attackers follow them far enough away from the battle that their out of commission for a few minutes.
Thanks for that. Though it seems contradictory to have them in hold position when you then say that they will get owned if they are standing still. If he has a capital ship guarding his LRFs, how do I manage the fighters, or is the natural circling the best option in that scenario, and I should put them in hold when attacking unguarded targets?
There are so many tricks to micro, I don't even use them all. One of the most effective is to park your fighters/bombers next to your anti-SC caps (Kol, Advent Carrier, Kortul, Dunov magnetize target), and then once all the enemy SC are in range, you fire off the anti-SC ability. Advent are especially susceptible to this because their SC have very low HP. Level 2 flak burst will kill Advent in one shot. Level 3 will kill TEC in one shot. You need 2 Kols for Vasari though because the HP of each unit is much higher. If you are vasari, make sure to have a skiranta carrier and flaks. Then, when the kortul fires off, your SC will be killing of the enemies SC left and right, and any damage they did do to your SC, you can just repair it with repair cloud.
Strikecraft don't get owned if they hold position.
I'm saying they should. Because it's stupid they are actually more effective when they give up their supposed advantage.
If you park your SC against me, I will notice, and be sure to park a flak frigate under you. You will then see that some amount of thinking is involved with using this tactic.
Strikecraft DO get owned in hold position if an opponent has anti-strike cap-ship abilities or enough anti-strik frigs go after them.
A flak burst from a Kol or a TK push from a Halcyon will annhilate basically any number of of strikes at once so if they're all sitting in one place they all die simultaneously. even if they don't have an anti-strike cap a few flak frigates (garda, defense, or sentinel) can mow down strikes (and fighters in particular) at a terrifying pace if they can just sit there and fire on them non-stop. usually flak frigs have to spend alot of time chasing squadrons and don't get to fire continuously, which is why they have such high burst damage against strikes. they also don't usually get to focus fire on one squadron until its dead, usually they just pick off 1 or 2 of the fighters in the squad and then it flies out of range and starts rebuilding its losses.
if they're circling and making strafing runs (which is what they normally do) only a couple of squadrons will be vulnerable at any given time. its a classical trade-off of offense vs. defense.
if you choose to hold your strikes you need to have an awareness of the counter-units your opponent might deploy. you've got to get them circling again immediately if you see an antistrike cap or flak frigs enter the battle.
The point is that caps and other ships that can't normally target strikecraft supposedly because of the speed can't do so even if they are sitting ducks. They should.
don't worry too much about micro your entire fleet at first, when I was learning WC3 I only take care of my heroes first. In this case, just worry about your Caps then the rest skill will come.
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