@biass thank you for devoting some of your time and brain power to commenting on my post. This is a huge part of what I love about this game, that the better players also love this game so much that they're willing to help their potential competition improve, just because they also want to still be challenged by this game.
I have a few comments responses to a few of the things I said, and I want to make sure that you know that it's not out of a lack of appreciation for the insights you've provided to me. Despite all the talk about attention/APM, this is a very cerebral game and I think that you'll appreciate that I almost enjoy thinking and talking about the game as much as I enjoy playing (at this point, maybe more, because playing is still often quite frustrating). So when I say "ya but", please don't assume that I'm being dismissive and not considering your arguments: I'm only trying to continue having the discussion because it's both enjoyable and helpful.
On the subject of air patrols / attention / APM... I've said in previous posts how this game in some ways reminds me of another passion of mine: music. In the sense that there is a skill component (APM) and a theoretical component. What's different about playing this game and playing a musical instrument is that playing this game for the first time is a little like picking up a guitar for the very first time and trying to learn "Flight of the Bumblebee". You really should just try and learn "Louie Louie" first or some other dumb schlockey song that you'll never want to be caught dead playing in front of humans (I would) because you're not ready to attempt "Flight of the Bumblebee", just like I'm not really ready to learn how to micro Inties at this point. You're right, patrolling Inties is the wrong way to play, but if I want an opportunity to learn the things that are critically important for me to learn at this early stage, I have to put something out there because otherwise I'll get stepped on, and if I focus on microing Inties right now, I won't be focusing on what I should be focusing on, which is paying for them in the first place. And yes, I understand that all things in this game are related, that proper air play IS a critical component of an economy, in the sense that I'm not concerned with acquiring mass so I can build big shiny things, I'm concerned with acquiring MORE mass than my opponent so that I can beat him with whatever I do have, even if it's just LABs. So I do get it, and I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm only saying that in order for me to learn, I have to get in a game, and it's unrealistic to expect to be able to improve on every aspect of my game, in every game, so I'm focusing on the things that I think are more important, like building T1 mex's and spending my mass. I think I'm getting pretty good at that, and the more I commit that to muscle memory, the more I'll have time to do things like micro air.
Concerning my comments on tech levels... I think I was making the point that it's a mistake to assume that higher tech means "better", and that if you're losing battles at T1, the solution is to upgrade to T2. It often is, but it's often not. Like you said, he had no build power and was overflowing mass even when he was behind me by 20k. Maybe if he had built more T1 factories and found out how to hit me where I was weakest, he might have been able to catch up with me on mass acquisition, or even surpass me and build a T2 or T3 army that would make short work of my T1 spam. Acquiring mass via map control and spending it on T1 units has been the single biggest change to my game from my days of playing vanilla SupCom vs AI, addicted to the pause button and turtling on 4 mex's until I could afford to build a few T3 units. So again, you're not wrong that I'M wrong, I'm just trying to relate something to new players that really helped me to correct an approach to the game that I had that was just absolutely wrong, and that I see all the time among the low-rated players I play.
Factory count - Arma's "bible" says a 2:1 factory to mex ratio is a good place to start. I don't just blindly try and build factories to satisfy that as a rule, but at the same time it did introduce me to the idea of spending my mass.
Supreme Scoreboard - the problem with Supreme Scoreboard is that the unit count and unit limit seem to be broken. I've inquired and whoever I spoke to seems to agree that it's not working properly. Maybe I need to look into that more. There is clearly some very useful information there.
Yes, reclaim is definitely one of those things I'm trying to figure out. I don't think I'm doing it right. Part of it is the mechanics of factory attack-move orders, the speed at which engineers come out of the factories, the fact that I get distracted by something else and then before you know it I have 15 engineers all going to the same place that doesn't have that much mass to reclaim. And as I said, I hadn't played this map in a little while, since I really started to reclaim more, and so I kind of panicked when there didn't seem to be a ton of mass reclaim around. I can honestly say that reclaim is at the very top of the list of things I would like to improve on.
"You shouldn't focus on your army movements or stuff like that so early on"
Mmm, that's a little bit of a contradiction there. If I don't need to focus on army movements at this point, why do I have to focus on micro'ing air?
"and its also why strange stuff like adding engineers to your army or whatever also don't matter"
I admit that the exact ratio of tanks to anything else could be refined, but I would argue that, in the right proportions, spending mass on things other than tanks really is just like spending mass on tanks. Scout bikes increase range, which will theoretically cause me to lose less tanks. MAA softens up bombers and gunships while my Inties are on their way to deal with them, which will theoretically cause me to lose less tanks. Artillery adds range and DPS, which will theoretically cause me to lose less tanks. LABs add speed, which allows me to quickly raid unprotected mex's, reducing the amount of mass my opponent can spend on tanks, which will theoretically cause me to lose less tanks. And engineers can reclaim mass, build defensive structures, and will likely be closer to a recently raided mex or a good place to build some forward unit production, which will all theoretically cause me to lose less tanks. A tank that didn't die because another type of unit gave me a slight advantage in one aspect over an opposing force of pure tanks is a tank that I don't have to build again.
"Don't treat any one material as gospel" - oh, for sure, I read lots of things. It's just that Arma's guide is kind of written like a religious text. It's long and it's the kind of thing you can go over certain things over and over to kind of cement them in your mind.
Anyway, like I said, I hope you don't take these comments to mean anything other than I just want to keep having these discussions and learning. Thanks again for taking the time to watch my replay, read my post, and offer your own insights.