DISCLAIMER: Although I'm already aware that in general, even the most "toxic" players on FAF want everybody to be better at this game and are very helpful in pointing people to the resources they need to improve, I feel it's necessary to point out that my reasons for doing a game analysis are purely for my own education and not as some kind of attempt to flex. My 1v1 rating was -72 when the game started and -45 when it ended. It's been as low as -376. In no universe is there a reason for me to flex, so relax, I know I'm terrible. But I want to get better so I'm using this primarily as a way to work through my own thoughts on what I did right and what I did wrong, and if anyone has any helpful comments I'll be happy to read them.

Map: Festea VII

Less than a week ago I was so frustrated with this map that I made a point of saying so on #aeolus. Nobody cared, of course. I realized that the reason I said that was that I was hoping someone there would tell me I need to study the map then. So I studied the map. What I realized is that I need to get better at reading terrain. This is actually a pretty good map for someone of my skill level, because there are only 3 points of entry by land, which should be easily enough defended.

Opponent: gliffer_slash (0)

I assume that zero rated players are new to FAF but not necessarily new to SupCom. I've been gutted by a number of zero rated players, hence the -376 and the slow crawl out of the basement. I've also played a number of players with lower ratings than me that were better, and >0 rated players who were worse, so I've learned not to sit back and relax, no matter what the rating is. Really, gliffer_slash is not a bad player compared to me and it was not a cakewalk, but he did make some errors that allowed me to win.

Build order:

Like many new players, I struggle with build order. I especially struggle because I'm trying to incorporate reclaim into my build orders, and that takes a lot of attention/APM that is the most scarce resource in every game I play. Also, in the game previous to this one I was rushed by bombers and realized that I had to find a way to get some interceptors into the air quicker, and as Crag Dunes was the map that this happened on, that was the map I used to work that out. Unfortunately, once the game started and I hit CTRL-SHIFT to take a look at the reclaim situation, I realized that this map doesn't have a ton of concentrated mass lying around, so I kind of abandoned that part of my eco strategy for a bit and just sent my engineers out to build mex's.

The build order I'm using is as follow:
Land Factory with commander, building engie x 1, LAB x 2, then engie x 5
2 pgens with commander
2 mex's with commander
1 pgen with commander
2 mex's with commander
1 pgen with commander

The commander-built pgens were built all next to the land factory.
The first engie that comes out I had build 4 pgens perpendicular to the ones the commander built, and then an air factory such that it received an adjacency bonus from all 8 pgens. Once the commander was done its build order I had it assist the engineer on the remaining pgens and air factory.

The LABs I had run down either side of the map to hunt for engineers. The LAB on the right unsuspectingly encountered my opponent's commander (blap), and the one of the left ended up being reclaimed by the engineer he encountered. I didn't even know that was a thing. Moving on.

As I said, my developments in learning proper build orders thus far have depended on a fair amount of mass reclaim available, and when I realized that this was not a feature of this map, I panicked and just sent the 5 engineers on mex building missions. As a result of this and my attempt to build pgens to prevent power locking upon building an air factory, I did mass lock for a bit. Fortunately, in my confusion I ended up sending the engie that was building those pgens on a mex building mission, which relieved the lock enough that my commander could finish building the 4 mex's at the starting location. Then I took another engineer and continued to build the pgens I needed and the air factory.

On the subject of engineers - I really don't know what an appropriate number of engineers is, and when. When I played vanilla SupCom single-player I would always have a factory spamming T1 engies (most build power / mass cost) on a control number and I would just move the whole mess wherever I needed build power. When I started playing FAF I had to adjust to engie-mod, where it makes more sense to build factories to get build power. As a result I scaled back my production of engies for the sole purpose of early base expansion, but then there are always times when a big cloud of engies might be useful, so that's something I need to investigate further. Anyway, that's the reason I only built 6 engineers out of the gate and put that first factory on army production.

Here's the unit composition I've been using and my reasons for it:
First off, I've been reading https://forum.faforever.com/topic/766/ladder-1v1-beginner-intermediate-and-advanced-topics-by-arma473 like it's a bible, and one of the things it says is a tank to artie ratio of 5:1 is ideal. I have read other resources that suggest having a scout bike in the mix, MAA in the mix, and an engie in the mix. I'm sure there are better unit compositions for different situations but I've reached the conclusion that for someone of my skill level, as varied a unit composition as possible is probably the safest bet. So,

• Tank (tanks provide hit-points, and thus survivability, and a DPS soak, so you need lots)
• Scout Bike (provides short range intel and extends weapons range)
• Tank
• Mobile Anti-air (nobody's winning wars with T1 MAA, but they do soften up bombers so that they do less damage before an intie can deal with them)
• Tank
• Artillery (it took me a while to realize that despite the >2x DPS of an artie vs a tank and somewhat similar HP, artillery is only useful against stationary targets, and without a bunch of tanks to stop an opposing force from moving forward, arties are useless, so only 1 for every 5 tanks)
• Tank
• LAB (almost same DPS as a tank, but far less HP... my rationale here is that I want some speed on the field for quick, short range raids on mex's)
• Tank
• Engie (for building mex's as territory is gained, for building point defense/static AA to hold a position, for building radars, for building forward factories)
• repeat

Now, I also realize that this unit composition might be ideal for the first run, and then it might be a good idea going forward to reduce the concentration of certain units, for example, you probably don't need 20 scout bikes mixed in with a blob of 100 tanks. At this point in my "career", I don't have the attention/APM to be that exacting with such things, and at any rate, scout bikes are the cheapest things you can build besides walls, so really, I think I'm getting a good mass cost on attention/APM.

Out of the first air factory:

• Bomber
• Air Scout
• Bomber

Bomber first because they're slow, and by the time it's near its target and likely to need intelligence, the scout is probably already built (it's cheap) and ahead of the bomber. Second bomber because either a) the first bomber got killed but the target has been softened, or b) the first bomber isn't dead because the opponent hasn't got their AA out yet, and I should jump on the opportunity to do some damage.

At that point it's a decision on how to continue with that air factory. If he's also sending bombers my way then I need to start making inties. To be honest, I don't even know if he was making bombers, but I got fucked so hard in my last game that I just started making inties.

• 3 Inties
• 1 Air Scout
• repeat

Now, the reason for the star-shaped patrol is because it's another good price to pay for attention/APM. It's not something a 2k player is ever going to do, and I realize that air combat is something I will have to get better at going forward. But also, the opponents I'm facing at this point don't really require better air play, so it's fine for now. Also, it does give me a couple advantages in return for what I lose by not micro'ing it a bit more - the 5 point star shape gives good coverage, both on the interior and exterior of my territory. Also, it didn't happen in this game but I do often select all my inties with a hotkey and give them specific targets, and the advatage of having them all flying around in a cloud is that on average, every intie is just as close to anywhere else on the map than every other intie, as opposed to guessing on a good place to stage them where they'll be in a good place to react but also safe.

EDIT: So as I'm typing this, I'm watching the replay, and I realized that I fucked up. I didn't build the second group of pgens so that they would be adjacent to the air factory, i built them on the land factory. Like I said, I panicked a bit.

Next, with that first land factory producing units to defend the east point of entry, I proceeded to build factories to cover the west and south points of entry. Same unit composition. Then I built 3 more factories to assist the factories building units for the 3 points of entry. At that point I started power stalling, so I started building pgens with my commander and reclaiming trees with idle engineers. Once my power situation was dealt with, I built another 2 air factories to spam out bombers. An argument could be made that I should have built more land factories (mass was overflowing), but in previous games I had abandoned the bomber campaign as soon as my opponent had static AA on the field, and I wanted to see if I could overcome it, and also my opponent was not making any sort of push via land so I figured I had some time. Ultimately, my opponent built a lot of static AA and bombers proved ineffective at clearing a path to hit his hydro. At that point, I had started building land factories to build attacking armies for the middle and eastern passages, which caused a power stall, then a mass stall, so I put my intie spam and one bomber factory on pause.

Once the first units of my middle passage attack force reached their rally point at his northern entry point, he attacked with an army that had some T2 tanks and began to push through the passage. At that point I should have thought about starting to upgrade to T2 myself but I was in the throughs of a mass stall, and despite not having the intelligence to make such a determination (no radars built the whole game... derp), I figured I had the T1 spam to deal with it if he got as far as my southern entry point. Fortunately I was right, even if it required the assistance of the army defending my western entry point. Also, again without intelligence to justify it, I figured that he had committed a good percentage of his forces to this push, and despite the fact that I might have been leaving myself open to a counter-attack that I couldn't defend, I pushed down the east passage with the army that was defending my eastern entry point. Once the battle in the middle passage had concluded, I realized he was pushing up the western passage, so I desperately attempted to run half of the army in the middle passage to help cover the vulnerable force I had at the western entry point. Fortunately I managed to contain his advance.

My attack on his eastern point of entry was successful enough, in that I had won a battle of attrition and was able to start softening up his structures, but I didn't have the units to push any further from the east. I can't talk enough about how disappointed I am in my lack of intel, so I won't bother. Regardless, I had the FEELING that I had him on his heels, so I pushed forward with whatever I had, which in this case was a limited force at his northern entry point. Again, I was fortunate that I had guessed correctly and that he had committed to defending my eastern attack. I managed to take out some T2 mex's and a land factory. Also, by that point his AA was less of a factor and I was able to make use of some bombers I had lying in wait.

In terms of land forces, again with a complete lack of intel that I'm embarrassed to fess up to, I decided to let my armies collect at their rally points at his north and east entrance points, while at the same time pushing forward in the west. In truth, I didn't do a very good job on the west side of the map: I was fortunate that he valued the west side of the map as poorly as I did. I could have easily won the battle on the west side, if I had built units as I did in the middle and east, but because of my own miscalculation/laziness/lack of attention, my push on the west side was limited to a purely diversionary tactic. It worked, although not perfectly. My waypoint was too far forward, which caused me to lose units unnecessarily. In a rare moment when I had the attention to pay towards this maneuver, I pulled the waypoint back to allow my units to collect into some semblance of a formidable force.

As insignificant as it might be in the whole scheme of things, I think I might be the most proud of this particular action. I have, for so long, depended on the automation of things in this game. There's a reason why my 1v1 rating was -375, and is currently -45. I don't think I'll ever get to 2k+, but I think I'm allowed to take a certain amount of limited pride, as a sub-zero rated player, in the realization that I'm not HITLER... I have to give my troops reasonable orders... I'm ultimately responsible for their well-being... It might just be a game, but the health of my units = the health of my strategy/tactics...

At any rate, my western push was more successful than I had hoped, considering my limited resources. Again, my lack of intel prevented me from knowing things that are clear in the replay, and I endeavor to take no credit from "hunches". I need to do a better job of radar and scouting. But I would be lying if I said that I didn't think that this push was a worthy endeavor, on a hunch, and luckily I was right: my opponent did move his commander west to try and minimize damage.

At this point, in an attempt to avoid a full analysis of my opponent's skill and strategy, which I am clearly not qualified to provide, I will point out that I have learned a lot by reading what the high-level players of this game have suggested I read.

Again...
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/766/ladder-1v1-beginner-intermediate-and-advanced-topics-by-arma473

There's a lot here, but if I can give any advice from one noob to another... you don't need Tech2, and you certainly don't need Tech3... at some point, we all will need to figure out how to upgrade to higher tech levels to compete, but if you're playing ME, it means you're terrible, and if you're terrible, it means you haven't figured out Tech1...

The secret to Tech1 = spam... spam land factories... they're actually pretty cheap, and you can pause them if you get mass locked... and from them, spam T1 units... just spam tanks if you don't know what else to do... I'm not smart/fast enough to realize that you don't have a good mixture of mobile AA... and I'm too stupid to attack your army with bombers anyway... I'm usually more focused on taking out your power, which can easily be solved with, what, 2 static AA?

The point is, my opponent's solution in this game, even though Tech2 didn't help him, was to upgrade to Tech3... That's when I knew I had him...

Tech2 is a great compliment to a GREAT Tech1 army... Tech2 gatling bots add DPS and range that will blap a T1 army into non-existence... T2 tanks are the most efficient source of hit points, by mass cost, of any unit... T2 Missile WILL get rid of pesky T1 point defense... but a purely T2 army is useless, because it's almost impossible to manufacture T2 units as fast T1 spam... I haven't done the calculations on the build time on a T2 tank vs a T1 tank, regardless of resource cost, but I suspect it's not good...

and T3 is much the same... ya, T3 bots are great, but if they're the sole target of a simple T1 army consisting of 20 or so tanks, they're dead...

And so that's what happened... my opponent made a last ditch effort to produce T3 bots... they overkilled a few T1 tanks and then I skullfucked his commander... one could argue that I had already won the game minutes ago, but he probably could have prolonged it by spamming T1 at that point, and he certainly could have made it very difficult, if not impossible, by sticking with T1 when he went to T2 in the first place...

Things I Did Right:

There aren't many. I think sticking with Tech1 is the only thing I did right.

Things I Did Wrong:

There are many. Too many to bother. The main things I don't like are all related to eco:

• I didn't build mex's as I acquired territory in the middle
• I didn't bother with transports to get engies to mass points that weren't pathable
• I didn't upgrade T1 mex's to T2 because i was either mass locked or attention locked

All in all, I think this is one of the best games I've played, but I'm also concerned for the future. I know that with every increase in rating comes more difficult opponents. I don't know if I have the real-world lifestyle that allows me to keep improving. I know that I thoroughly love this game and have the time to consider the meta, but I don't know if I have the time to do the in-game work to apply the meta properly.

But I love the fact that my favorite game has a META. This is such a hard game. Yesterday I wanted to quit forever because I got gutted by a bomber rush. I love that I wanted to quit yesterday and now I'm here writing a novel on my game with a legit zero-rated noob.

I'm having so much fun. Consider that when you make decisions for the future of FAF.

@Tsirkitna by banning people, you're wasting an opportunity to use FAF as a tool to combat racism in the wider global community. I grew up in a racist household, and a racist community, and was absolutely a racist teenager, and it wasn't until I discovered punk rock music that it was really driven home to me that I would have to change to be involved in that community, because that shit doesn't fly in punk rock. Racism in FAF is irrelevant. Racism in the world is the problem, and FAF can be a tool we use to combat racism by letting users know that if they want to play the game they love, they're gonna have to change, because that shit doesn't fly here. That involves a little bit of patience and tolerance of those who show up here impatient and intolerant, at least a little bit more than you're suggesting.

My main reason for leaving is that I'm terrible and I get frustrated and I wonder if it's a good use of my time to play a game that I'm not very good at. But that's my issue and not something that anyone needs to do anything to solve.

However, I will say that a couple of years ago I was playing a little more often than usual, spending a little more time researching things that I can improve upon, having discussions here on the forum, and I ended up pulling away from it because of the way the topic of player improvement was discussed. I didn't really agree with the general ideology. It seems to me that the prevailing goal of those who are in a position to advise players on how to improve their game is to generate as many high-rated players as possible. I understand where this comes from - those players who have high ratings struggle to find games with other high-rated players, making the game less enjoyable for them. But if this is a discussion on player retention, might I suggest that the goal should be to raise the GENERAL level of play. When I was discussing my own abilities with some high-rated players, it was suggested that I start playing 6 hours a day with some real pros so that I can get my rating up to 2k+. Other than the fact that I don't have 6 hours a day to play FAF, I think there was an assumption that it was that important to me to be a 2k+ rated player, or that I'm even capable of being a 2k+ rated player. It was suggested that 2k+ rated players are just like the rest of us, they just practice more. I know from being a musician and an occasional purveyor of guitar lessons that some people have a natural affinity for some things and some people don't, and while working on things that one struggles with is important regardless of talent, some people just don't rise above a certain level no matter how much they work at it. Anyway, I got the feeling that because my goal wasn't to be a 2k+ rated player, not to mention that I don't feel like I have the talent to be, that I was a lost cause and not worth helping. Also, I find the tutorials in the FAF application to be similarly designed to generate the most high-rated players, instead of teaching basic concepts and skills that will, for example, help a 100 rated player be a 500 rated player. It just seems like that isn't much of a priority. I feel like the tutorials could be a great opportunity to help low-rated players while allowing the higher-rated players to spend their time finding people that have the potential to get to their level, but as it stands now, those tutorials are much too fast, much too confusing, much to involved. The first tutorial immediately gets into a rather complicated build order in the first 30 seconds. We need something much simpler.

@Nex it was my experience that if I expressed any kind of genuine interest in improving (I wrote a review of one of my games) that I was immediately referred to a couple of high-rated players (trainers?), with the expectation that I would play 6+ hours a day with them to get my rating up to 1900+. It only seems ridiculous to me because my rating is was and is currently below zero, not because I don't understand the motivation of high-rated players to seek out and train literally anyone with the potential to play at that level. They want more players at their level so they can play more games. I get it. I'm not offended by it. It did scare me away a little bit.

I use music analogies a lot because it's a world I'm familiar with. Music can happen anywhere. FAF only happens on FAF. Unlike music, if you FAF at all, you end up interacting with FAF "rock stars", because there's only one place to FAF, and they're here and you're here. 99.9% of musicians that I've met and/or played with are not rock stars, but I've met a couple. They're not interested in raising the general level of musicianship. They're interested in meeting the 0.1% of musicians who have the potential to be rock stars. As a consequence, they are only useful sources of advice for those 0.1% of musicians. Worse than that, the advice they do give to the other 99.9% is actually harmful in most cases.

The training ideology here at FAF seems to be that the only people qualified to train are those rated 2k+. I think that's a consequence of FAF existing in a compressed space, where everybody is forced to exist regardless of skill. What might be valuable advice to a sub-500 player from a 500+ player is often quickly shot down by 2k+ players. The 2k+ players are not wrong, but the 500+ player isn't wrong that his advice will help the sub-500 player, and get him to the point where he can even understand the advice from the 2k+ players. Nothing that the 2k+ players ever say to me is particularly useful, and it is often the case that the advice they give actually makes me play worse. That's not because they're wrong; it's because I'm not yet at the level that I can see and understand their advice. What I need is more advice from 500+ rated players, just like there's no point in me taking guitar lessons from Paul Gilbert until I've taken a bunch of lessons from guys who are only slightly better than me. I don't think there's anything wrong with the advice that 2k+ players have to offer, I just think that they need to accept that their advice isn't productive to players of every skill level, and they need to make room for the idea that lower-rated players can benefit from advice from sub-2k players that might not fit the current state of the META. Training shouldn't come from only 2k+ rated players. In no other endeavor is training and education handled solely by the "rock stars" of that endeavor.

I'm not in any kind of position to argue with the validity of this piece of advice or that piece of advice, but I've been a musician a long time, and I've given and taken lessons, and I can say with some authority that the training culture of FAF is not sustainable. Even if the goal is to spam 2k+ players, in the long run, this is not how to do it. The idea that learning something "wrong" is harmful, or at best a waste of time, is patently incorrect. There's value in learning what doesn't work. Everybody in a position to tell the rest of us what works only found that out by trying a zillion things that didn't work. Let the rest of us have that same experience.

Some interesting comments, and the thread is getting a little off the topic of this specific replay and more into a discussion on the best way to improve, and that's fine, and I think all the points being made are valid. I remember a math teacher saying that the reason we learn math in high school that we probably won't ever use is because we're learning how to learn, so a discussion on the best way to improve my play is at least as important on a discussion of the specific aspects of this specific replay.

I will say one thing, and this kind of relates to some discussions I've seen and participated in on this forum recently, about the struggle for player retention and the possibility that one of the main reasons it might be hard to keep players around is that this is actually an incredibly difficult game and new players often become frustrated and since it's not fun to get gutted, they leave. And this community does make an effort that is rarely seen in gaming to share knowledge and try to improve play in general, but I do think that there are perhaps some assumptions being made by those who feel they have something to offer other players in that attempt to improve, some bias among the high rated players.

@arma473 said in Game analysis - Replay #14886292:

If Blackheart or Thomas wants to take ZappaZapper under his wing and play 1v1s against him for 6 hours a day and explain the right way to do things and the right way to understand the game, that would be the best way to get Zappa up to 1900 as fast as possible.

I think there's assumptions being made that
a) I'm/everybody's capable of being a 1900 rated player
b) It's important for me/everybody to be a 1900 rated player
c) That I want/everbody wants to be a 1900 rated player as fast as possible

I don't care what my rating is. I've been playing vanilla for 10 years and have dipped my toe into the FAF waters a few times over the past 3 or 4 years and have recently decided that I'm really cheating myself out of something special by allowing myself to be so frustrated as to abandon the best aspect of my favorite game - playing against other humans. And so my only goal is to improve so that I can play well enough to have the enthusiasm to keep playing, be continually learning and improving, and if I'm being honest, if I am actually ever capable of being a 1900 rated player, I hope it takes me 20 years to get there, because it will be 20 years of what I think this game really has to offer over most other games - a sense of accomplishment. And I think maybe a part of the overall player retention issue lies in the goals of those who seek to help others improve, versus the goals of those of us who would like to improve. Maybe we're not all trying to be 1900 rated players, and maybe it's not actually important to address every bad habit immediately, or maybe not ever. And maybe part of what frustrates new players is not just the game itself, but the message they're given when they seek advice - "this is what you need to do to become a 1900 rated player as soon as possible". That can be very intimidating.

Anyway, thanks so much to everybody for all the insight into things I need to work on and ways to work on them, and I hope to continue having these discussions into the future. Also, I hope I provided a little insight into the mindset of the low rated player, because I know part of this playing this game is being part of this community, and being part of a community means helping in whatever small ways one can.

Here's a current frustration of mine, and a suggestion for a solution...

I'm not very good at this game, partly because I'm not particularly good at video games in general, and because I developed bad habits specifically with SupCom, as I wasn't aware of FAF, only played Vanilla, and got addicted to being able to pause the game and treat it like a turn-based game. I have at various times forced myself to play against human opponents but quickly got consistently beaten by low ranked players, resulting in a sub-zero rating and enough frustration to cause me to put the game down many times.

Recently I've started playing again, and while I don't think I'll ever be able to play according to the widely-agreed upon META, I have changed a few things that I do so that I can play more strategically... so that I can focus more on growth of my economy, my production, and my tech level, and focus less on where my tanks are. I've been playing against DilliDalli and M27 and have developed a way of playing that has resulted in more success than I've ever had against those AIs, and that I've developed muscle memory for, to the point where I no longer need to pause the game in the first couple of minutes to keep up with the requirements of setting things up properly. I feel as though I have a better understanding of the true nature of the game and what is required in order to improve and be more successful, and now I would like to start playing human opponents again.

Problem is, that I've been sitting here waiting for the Matchmaker to give me a game for the last 3 hours. This isn't a fault of the Matchmaker - this is the fault of my -45 1v1 rating. People who have been as bad as me usually don't stick around for continued punishment and frustration, and rightly so, players who are better than me don't want to waste their time playing someone with a -45 rating.

This isn't a complaint about the Matchmaker - I am happy to keep waiting for a game - but I do have a suggestion that might help people in my situation - allow AI to be an opponent for very low rated players so they have a chance to demonstrate that they have improved. I won't be able to reliably get matched unless my rating increases, and I can't increase my rating without getting matched. There should be some sort of "release valve" at the bottom of the 1v1 ladder to help returning players who feel they have improved to resurrect their ratings, and maybe one of the better AI mods could serve as this release valve.

Note: A better version of this mod would have customizable options to enable/disable groups of buttons. I currently do not have the inclination to make that change so if anyone else is they are welcome to build upon this mod.

Agreed. It's been suggested that using hotkeys is not necessarily better than not using them, especially when going from not using them at all to suddenly trying to learn to use dozens of them. It would be a better mod if it could just target in on one hotkey at a time that you know would benefit you to use more. Forcing dozens of hotkeys might just end up being frustrating enough for people to not bother using the mod.

@mostlostnoob I started using JIP's "Hover Over Deposits" and it does exactly what I want, and I'm not experiencing any performance issues as far as I can tell. Thank you...

@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.

I recently saw a video explaining transports in-depth, and found out about adding transports to an existing ferry route, and was thinking that it would be really handy to be able to add units to a patrol in the same way. I've always thought the patrol function was harder to use than it should be (it should make things easier, not harder, right?)

I'm not knowledgeable enough to code such a thing myself. I'm hoping someone with the know-how will agree that this could be an improvement and create a UI mod.

Thank you.

@stormlantern my thought process was that I only want to play 1v1 because I don't want to subject my horrible play to a potential teammate

But ya, I figured clicking the 1v1 box was enough. The brown box says "PLAY FORGED ALLIANCE FOREVER", which I guess is kind of vague. It's a big enough box that it could theoretically say "Choose game type below and click here to search for game..." or something similar.

My apologies. I just figured out the reason I wasn't getting games was that I wasn't also clicking the brown "PLAY FAF" button (or whatever it says) in addition to the blue 1v1 button. There's a case to be made that I'm just stupid and didn't understand how it works, but also, I'm not really that stupid and maybe it needs to be made a little clearer how it works. Thank you all.

@sladow-noob I'm in Toronto. I just tried turning on the Matchmaker this morning. I understand that there are times of the day that are more ideal than others to find games, and now might not be one of those times. But I'm sitting here looking at the "IN QUEUE" number go up to 5 or 6 at times, so obviously someone is playing. Again, I'm not suggesting that the Matchmaker is unfairly keeping me from playing. What I'm suggesting is that one of the things that causes ME to stay away from the game at times is the frustration due to lack of success, so anyone who is an appropriate opponent for my rating, as judged by the Matchmaker, is possibly also frustrated enough to not bother playing. I understand that a similar problem of high-rated players also finding it hard to be matched up also exists - in that case, I'm sure those players would agree that an AI that is a worthy opponent for a +2000 rated player doesn't currently exist, so the discussion on whether AI should be allowed in rated games in that context is moot. But as you suggest, M27 certainly should be a worthy opponent for anyone with a sub-zero rating, and could function as a way to get ratings up enough to generate some attention from the Matchmaker. Just my two cents, in the context of a discussion about "player retention".

@mostlostnoob I started using JIP's "Hover Over Deposits" and it does exactly what I want, and I'm not experiencing any performance issues as far as I can tell. Thank you...

Here's a current frustration of mine, and a suggestion for a solution...

I'm not very good at this game, partly because I'm not particularly good at video games in general, and because I developed bad habits specifically with SupCom, as I wasn't aware of FAF, only played Vanilla, and got addicted to being able to pause the game and treat it like a turn-based game. I have at various times forced myself to play against human opponents but quickly got consistently beaten by low ranked players, resulting in a sub-zero rating and enough frustration to cause me to put the game down many times.

Recently I've started playing again, and while I don't think I'll ever be able to play according to the widely-agreed upon META, I have changed a few things that I do so that I can play more strategically... so that I can focus more on growth of my economy, my production, and my tech level, and focus less on where my tanks are. I've been playing against DilliDalli and M27 and have developed a way of playing that has resulted in more success than I've ever had against those AIs, and that I've developed muscle memory for, to the point where I no longer need to pause the game in the first couple of minutes to keep up with the requirements of setting things up properly. I feel as though I have a better understanding of the true nature of the game and what is required in order to improve and be more successful, and now I would like to start playing human opponents again.

Problem is, that I've been sitting here waiting for the Matchmaker to give me a game for the last 3 hours. This isn't a fault of the Matchmaker - this is the fault of my -45 1v1 rating. People who have been as bad as me usually don't stick around for continued punishment and frustration, and rightly so, players who are better than me don't want to waste their time playing someone with a -45 rating.

This isn't a complaint about the Matchmaker - I am happy to keep waiting for a game - but I do have a suggestion that might help people in my situation - allow AI to be an opponent for very low rated players so they have a chance to demonstrate that they have improved. I won't be able to reliably get matched unless my rating increases, and I can't increase my rating without getting matched. There should be some sort of "release valve" at the bottom of the 1v1 ladder to help returning players who feel they have improved to resurrect their ratings, and maybe one of the better AI mods could serve as this release valve.

@indexlibrorum right, ok... I'll try and find the mod then... thank you...

Another question.

It used to automatically build preview a mass extractor if I hovered over an empty mass point. I seem to recall this being an integrated feature, not a mod, but I can't find the option anywhere... any help?

Ah... "umt" is UI Mod Tools...

Right. I was testing Hotbuild Overhaul when it started happening. Disabled the mod, and now the game works. Sorry, I should have tried that.

So next question is where do I find this file and where do I put it? When it says "/mods/umt/modules/", is that a folder, like something I can find in Windows Explorer? Windows puts application files in 800 different folders these days.

The other day I opened the FAF Client and an error message popped up saying something about my mods and replays folder needed to be changed from being on OneDrive. I tried to copy whatever was in the mods and replays folder that was in OneDrive to somewhere on my local harddrive and set the client to use the folder on the local drive, but I guess I didn't do it right because all the mods I was using disappeared. No big deal, a lot of them I wasn't even using, so I've been trying to reload the mods I have been using so I can just get back to playing again.

I don't know if one thing is related to another, but today as I was testing to see if I got the right mods again and they are functioning properly, whenever I try and launch a game, after the loading screen I get nothing but a black screen with the mouse cursor. There's not even a menu button so I can exit the game, I have to CTRL-ALT-DELETE and kill the application in Task Manager.

I figured that maybe there was something wrong with the SupCom installation so I went to Steam, uninstalled and reinstalled SupCom. No change.

I uploaded my most recent game log, if it helps.

game_22054252.log