Build orders taken from top ranked matches.
Guide Contents
Intro
One thing I noticed between different skill levels was how completely different the opening build order is and how much more aggressive higher level players are. There are of course lots of other differences but this stood out to me as something that could be easily changed if you simply know about it. So I made this guide.
I’ve listed literal build orders from a few games, so of course don’t follow these build orders exactly unless the situation calls for it. After all, if your enemy has no air; of course you should build a bomber before you build a fighter. If you’re alone on a planet, then build orbital.
Skill Level Differences
I’m not a great player myself and mostly enjoy watching games, so perhaps I shouldn’t be giving advice. So if you don’t want to hear it feel free to skip to the next few sections of this guide and make your own observations.
The biggest sin I see from gold rank and below games I’ve watched is setting your first factory to infinitely produce fabbers. This always destroys eco once you’re inevitably harassed by early enemy units and you have no offence. For context 2 active bot fabbers use about the same amount of metal and twice the power as a single factory does to produce units infinitely. So by spamming fabbers you’re going to bottom out your eco and go sub 100% as soon as you’re attacked, and you’ll have no forces to resist or harry your opponent. I’ve never seen a top ranked player start with more than 5 fabbers, and normally it’s only 3. Perhaps you could spam fabbers if you started on a planet by yourself, if anyone has any high level 1v1 games like this please drop a link in the comments for me.
The other issue I see the most is newer players being too defensive and allowing their opponents to take metal from almost all of the map. A good offence is a good defence. The only time you’d want to focus on defence is in a large FFA game where you don’t want to overextend yourself.
B13 1 Planet 1v1
Commander builds: Bot factory, metal, air factory, 3 power, bot factory, 2 power, air factory, 3 power
The bot factory starts with 3 fabbers and then outputs 10 doxes and 1 fabber on repeat. The fabbers grab metal as they push towards the enemies side of the map and build a forward factory after 6 metal nodes.
The air factory goes for 3 fighters and then a scout before repeating fighters
Ptasior 3 Planet 1v1
Commander builds: Bot factory, metal, air factory, 1 metal 3 power, vehicle factory, 5 power, orbital factory
Bots: Starts with 3 fabbers which take metal immediately, then 10 doxes into 2 fabbers infinitely
Air: Starts with 1 scout, fighters forever
Vehicle: 3 cheap, 1 spinner anti air, 2 ant tank, 1 fabber, repeat
Orbital: 2 fighters out of necessity, then 1 transporter
Commander builds: Naval factory, 1 metal, assist factory for 2 fabs, Air factory, 4 power, land factory, 2 power, air factory, 2 power, naval, 2 power, orbital
Naval: 3 fabs, then 5 speed boats (piranhas), before diversifying naval
Air: 1 scout into fighters, occasional bomber and air lifter (pelican I think?) as needed
Fabbers: Take metal and place anti air among metal clusters, builds forward naval base after 12 metal nodes
Land: produces 2 hover tanks (drifters), 1 anti air (spinner), 1 fabber and an inferno which is air-lifted to opponents land area
Be the first to comment