Starting Tips

General Starting Tips

• Neutral creeps spawn shortly after the match starts, but you have a small window to grab a region unopposed with your first engineer while building a Factory.
• Teams share victory points. Don't worry about who captures the Turinium Generator.
• Use F1 or click the icon to select idle engineers when you want to quickly build a structure.
• Use F2 or click the icon to select idle factories.
• You can increase or disable the victory points needed to win in the match setup screen.
• Look for flanking options. A region must be connected along other regions to player’s Nexus for it to receive resources. Make a note how the regions connect to each other and see if you can cut them off.
• If your opponent is lacking in anti-air try surprising them with a large air transition.
• Any resource income you can't store is lost - build more Factories/Assemblies!
• The Empire tree in the upper-left part of the screen gives an overview of all your forces.
• Hover your mouse over any weapon (next to a unit/building portrait) to get more info.
• Elevation determines sightlines. Move onto hills and plateaus (or bring some air units) to get vision on them.
• Destroying an enemy Nexus leaves a Turinium Generator in its place.
• Set Factory/Assembly rally points by right-clicking a location with the building(s) selected. Holding down Shift allows you to see rally points.
• Orbital Fabricators (PHC) and Gateways(Substrate) can also produce Engineers.
• You can issue orders by clicking on the minimap.
• Enable the "Repeat build queue" button to constantly produce new units without having to re-manage production structures.
• Multiple engineers can be used to boost production of a structure or unit.
• Rather than panning the camera, navigating the map is more efficiently done by clicking on the minimap or zooming out and back in again.

Economy Tips

• Hold the spacebar for an overview of the entire map. Useful to see which regions are connected
• Build Amplifiers on Generators to boost the income of all resources in that region. Orbital Abilities can further increase resource income, with Refineries and Harvesters give infinite but less efficient late game scaling.
• Capturing additional regions and building as many extractors as possible is the most efficient way of gaining more resources, but not always the most practical and not scalable
• Too much metal? Build more Factories/Assemblies to pump out more Frigates.
• Too much radioactives? Build more Quantum Relays or air units.
• Too much metal? Build basic defences such as Smarties and Constables(PHC) or Annihilators and Blossom Launchers(Substrate). Alternatively, upgrade existing Smarties to Barragers and Annihilators to Heavy Annihilators
• Too much resources? Use engineers to speed up production or build more production structures.
• Keep building Engineers/Constructors as your economy grows to make economy scaling easier and easier.
• Don't fall behind in Quanta income, try to maintain least one Quantum Relay being built at a time.
• As PHC, invest in Metal and Radioactives Storage upgrades to increase the limits of what you can hold. Ensure you aren't wasting excess resources

Defensive Tips

• Build radar in your bases to see enemy units approaching, buying you time to reposition and for long range units to engage radar contacts
• Want to more easily produce advanced defences in the late game? Call in a Sapper(PHC) or Avatar(Substrate) as they can build advanced defences directly without needing to upgrade basic defenses
• Base defences can be sieged by artillery cruisers. Have a small strike force near your defences ready to pick off enemy artillery
• Keep an eye on your victory points. These can creep up on you really easily and cost you a win if you’re not careful!
• Engineers and constructors can rapidly repair the health of buildings.
• Like units, defences also have certainly specialities. Read the tooltips to make sure you are building the right defences for the right job.
• Falcon AA turrets deal heavy area damage to any enemy air units in range, but lack the strong single target damage and range of Air Eliminiators. Likewise for the Substrate StarBurst and Sky Ender
• Substrate shields regenerate automatically, pull wounded units aside to regenerate.
• Invest in basic defences on your resource regions to prevent the enemy from harassing them with Orbital Abilities.
• Mountains and basins are impassable. Use these chokepoints to your advantage to funnel the enemy in to your defences.
• Base defences are vulnerable while upgrading, use scoutcraft or radar to ensure no enemy units are approaching before you upgrade key defenses.
• Air fighters can be set on Patrol to automatically defend a wide perimeter from air raids.

Combat Tips

• Every unit has a role to play in the counter system by having strengths and weaknesses, read the unit tooltips to see what their use is.
• Use scoutcraft to check your opponents compositions, if your opponent has lots of Athenas which are strong vs cruisers, mass frigates instead.
• Don't forget to upgrade your base defences to more powerful variants.
• Dreadnoughts and juggernauts gain experience in combat. Don't throw away a high-level death machine.
• Dreadnoughts are weaker against defences because they only gain experience from units.
• Indirect-fire weapons will shoot over mountains and valleys if you have sight or radar on enemies in range.li>
• Many Substrate units drain energy when they fire and will need to recharge if energy is depleted. Mix in Capacitors to ensure Substrate units are firing at full capacity.
• The Artemis has a specialized anti-building missile in addition to its secondary barrage effective against groups of frigates.
• Brutes are far tougher than Archers, but their damage output is limited. Great for early creep-sweeping and soaking damage. Mixing Brutes and Archers together.
• Martyrs are fast and strong against units, use them to outmanoeuvre enemy armies and harass undefended or weak enemy positions.
• Hades bombers and strategic bombers are devastating against buildings and grouped units, but lack strong single target damage.
• Don't forget to mix in orbital nullification, or use the Orbital Jam Orbital Ability before a big engagement.
• Medic frigates are unarmed but provide crucial mobile repairs to PHC forces.
• You can burn a level-up opportunity to instantly repair a Dreadnought.
• Mix in Hermes(PHC) or Capacitors(Substrate) to your armies to give mobile radar, very useful for long range artillery units to engage radar contacts.
• Enough Caregivers can negate an EMP Pulse or Plasma Storm.
• If you need to rapidly dodge an enemy Orbital Ability, break up the army formation so units move quicker.
• Nano Mesh Barrier is great for giving Dreadnoughts additional survivability.