Thank you for the detailed replies.
Im just looking at it from a flow and feel of the game perspective.
1. Dreadnoughts
The issue I have with dreadnoughts is that I just expect them to do more. They are that big, they are that slow, they take so long to build and so much resources, you'd expect them to be more useful. Im at odds with a ship that size doing so little. 3 Sentinel turrent can easily take down a dreadnought. I dont think you see that in Total Annilhlation or Supreme Commander.
I understand there are 3 classes and it seems to go like this - Prometheus > Hyperion > Cronus > Prometheus. I find as a battlegroup one dreadnought just do not cut it. You want Hyperion backed by Cronus at least.
When I started the game I use alot of Artemis, but as time went by, I found them to be the most useless unit in the game and pretty much stopped building them. Their attack fire misses most of the time just like Cronus. For Siege damage, its still not working. At least I couldnt find a way to make it target properly. I have been trying to make use of them, they have to be in a separate group and require more attention to control. I remember having bunch of artemis/cronus sitting at long range and they fire non stop at the enemy for a full 10 minutes and I made no progress. So I raged and just sent in everything I have to forcefully bust the base.
What I find is that there is no siege unit that I can effectively close out the game with. There is no chance of the opponent coming back yet I cant break him without suffering ridiculous casualties. The opponent(AI) just essentially sits there and wait to die. I find that everything has a decent counter except fix defences.
I loved what I saw on the game play video on the steam website, unfortunately in practice, it didnt play like that. My dreadnoughts just didnt fire like that.
I also notice in the video Hyperion was shooting broadside rockets. What ability is that? I've never seen mine do that. That Prometheus fire on that nexus...wow...that was a great sight...which I never saw in the game.
2. Falcon Anti-Air is the most effective but it requires factory. Substrate open with assembly that can build aircraft. You'd essentially have to blind counter them by building Falcon Anti-Air straight away. The most costly unit in the game is the engineer. If you lose one early game thats a huge set back. Losing extractors is also a very significant blow, it slows you down dramatically as you are strapped for resources.
3. With the amount of radioactive available in most maps I struggle to expand my economy with amplifiers, refineries while also building up units and quantum relays. You have to cut some slack some where. Quantum relay probably will be the best place to do it. Each ability use already increase the quantum cost so it cannot be spammed infinitely.
Refinery takes a long time and at least 3 to reap benefits. Its slow to build and expensive. The amount of resource you spent needs alot of time to be recouped. Its a very significant drain on early game resources. If you like give substrate something similar to compensate.
Anyway, thank you again for replying and explaining. Its an old game already with escalation coming out in a few weeks. Its way too soon timing for expansion like this. There will be no player base for the original game and I doubt they will spare much attention to this game. I realised this too late.
