P1's Notebook

[cashto]

Matic's strategic genius is highly underestimated.

Edit: the first game had so much comm fail in it on our side. Initial op con was never planted, or someone reordered it maybe, anyways after a couple of minutes on int D I start to wonder why the con isn't in yet. Miners were left to run amok, ripping to camped teles, etc. Sup con (that comm never told us about) autoplanted high, died alone after walking halfway across a contested sector. All for the best, because comm wanted to put it low, which would have been right next to an uneyed tele.

At the end we were down two players (6 to 8), so the hail mary run on the tac didn't really have much of a chance.

Edit x2: I guess the initial op con fiasco wasn't comms fault. I think The_Force reordered the con to pick up his lost dis2 by mistake (when trying to get the rest of us to get it).

[finisher2]

QUOTE (cashto @ Dec 18 2014, 03:03 PM) Edit x2: I guess the initial op con fiasco wasn't comms fault. I think The_Force reordered the con to pick up his lost dis2 by mistake (when trying to get the rest of us to get it).

I remember sending a team order to pickup dis2, thinking we might really like that against giga. Do team orders to pickup artifacts also send cons?!
You learn something new....the hard way...

QUOTE (Malicious Wraith @ Dec 17 2014, 11:30 AM) Why not just watch television, or jack off?

Same meaningless endorphin release.

Or television?

[cashto]

QUOTE (fin @ Dec 19 2014, 07:03 AM) Do team orders to pickup artifacts also send cons?!

No, they don't, I'm quite sure of that. I think even if you send a order to a group of players (selecting them with a rectangle), drones won't respond. But it's very common to misclick a single player and give them the order (or maybe someone in the furball tried to give themselves the command. I never did see who reordered the con so I can't say).

[zombywoof]

QUOTE (cashto @ Dec 19 2014, 09:31 AM) I think even if you send a order to a group of players (selecting them with a rectangle), drones won't respond.

I feel like they do but like Cashto I'm not 100% sure.

[everywhere116]

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Dec 18 2014, 02:16 PM) We both spread like syphilis across the map. Someone asks for me to buy bombers. I boot matic and the team kills miners. Then someone asks for me to buy bombers. I boot starfire and the team disses miners. Finally, someone asks me to buy bombers. I shrug, consent, and an AC3/AB3 belters hvy bbr with full adv fignan escort ends the game. Redgi then says, "see, I TOLD you we needed bombers."

You have no idea how hard this made me laugh. Thank you.

I'm gonna read the rest of the thread now.

[zombywoof]

New notebook should be coming up tonight as long as I remember. It's already written just need to remember to post it.

[zombywoof]

Wow I almost forgot about this! Then I did forget about it! Then I forgot where I put the pre-written P1's Notebook 3. Archy and Cashto ALMOST lucked out, but here it is, ANOTHER WALL OF TEXT:

P1's Notebook 3:

Miners, Miners, Everywhere!

Many people understand that the most important aspect of commanding is managing your miners. Where are they going, what are they doing, and where are they going next. By now I'm sure you're aware of the concept of a "mining chain," and if you're not, well then just read further!

A mining chain is the progression of where your miners are going. The ideal mining chain is one in which your miners NEVER enter a sector that they do not mine in. This goes back to the week 1 notebook about tempo: every second your miner is walking around is a second that you don't get to run your fingers through some cold, hard spacebux.

Many commanders do the tried-and-true method of having an offload point in each sector, but unless you're TF that's probably not necessary. After all, why not just save the 3k you would have spent on a refinery and have your miners finish mining then roll forward? This method does require a degree of alertness however as miner AI tends to have some non-intuitive decision trees.

But we're not here to talk about the *basics* of commanding. I mean, yawn. Miner goes to sector. Miner goes to rock. Miner mines rock. Miner goes to ref. Miner unloads helium. Miner goes to sector, ad nauseum. No here we're going to talk about special things, like miner splits.

Miner splits are when you don't have all 4 miners in the same sector or on the same chain. The highest level commanders use miner splits frequently, and for good reason! If I have a single miner that's eyed in a sector right next to an enemy base, the enemy is (rightly so) going to start drooling and stumbling over themselves to get at the poor sap. But what if meanwhile my other 3 miners are happily draining some other sector unharrassed? That sounds like a sweet tempo play to me. This kind of 3-1 split is very common. Another common 3-1 split is to have the 3 miners going along the main miner chain while the other miner happily sits in one sector getting rock after rock. Since most of the time each sector has 4 rocks, this 3-1 split can further evolve into a 2-1-1 split. While the happy-to-hide-in-back miner sucks away at the helium in bum$#@! nowhere, three miners mine a sector and move forwad to offload. But there's a rock left behind! So 2 miners will mine in this new sector while one of the three will will go back to get the leftover rock. Then the two miners that went forward will continue on the mining chain while the leftover miner drains the remaining two rocks of *that* sector.

Basically the important thing to remember about mining chains is this: find a way to let some of your miners keep mining regardless of what kind of enemy pressure there is.

Sometimes though miner splits are horrible. Miner splits are a good way to lose miners to tac. Generally speaking, against tac you'd like to have all of your defense in the same sector making it harder for the SFs to fly around uneyed. Also, if your opponent is unable or unwilling to pressure your miners, it's more efficient to keep all 4 together. Splitting miners also takes a lot momre attention to detail and micromanagement to keep the miners going where they need to be, so don't be surprised if you screw up a few times while getting the hang of it.

Finally, there's some more information about miners. Did you know that there is no rule or law that says you must buy all 4 miners? There are many situations in which having only 3 or even 2 miners is correct... and it's not just about low money too! Bios often subsists off of just 2 miners. Because their tech is so cheap and their techbases so expensive, saving the 7k from not buying miners 3 and 4 can help them get tech up faster. And on high money settings involving Scarce or Scarce+ resource settings (2 he3 rocks per sector), Giga often stops at 3 miners while TF will only get 2. Also on lower total money settings, I prefer to only get 3 miners... saving a bit of cash for other things.

TF miners are a very special case as well. First of all, they cost more than your average bear by 1k. Second of all, they have .55 capacity and 2 mining speed and are glacially slow at moving from place to place. This means that wherever you mine with TF you're going to want a drop-off point because TF's going to need to mine the rock twice. This leads to some wonky situations on the afformentioned Scarce/Scarce+ settings where you might think you want to go up to 3 miners, but remember: that means you have to buy refs twice as fast, which is often simply not possible given the way purchasing constructors works. It's often better to just have 2 miners whittle away at massive rocks. Also I strongly recommend mining dangerous sectors first: your miners are going to be in that sector for a year and a half, so it's better to have them next to mini1 lt ints than, say, gat3 lxy figs.

Speaking of where to mine, that's another trick the top-level commanders like to do. They'll mine forward *first* and then come back and get the "safe" sectors. IMO this all depends on what kind of chain you have going on, but the reasoning is fairly simple. At the beginning of the game ships have mini1 or gat1 and almost no HP. Later on they've got mini2 or 3 and hvy boost, and killing miners becomes a much quicker affair. By saving the safe sectors for later, you basically get to mine unimpeded in the late game by weathering a few drizzles in the early game. Good plan, but it does depend on how you've got your mining chain developed.

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to move your miners around and keep the money rolling in. Join us next week when we takl about what the miners are for: your economy.

[Terran]

summoning p1tldr

[Deathrender]

Not P1 tldr, but:

Moving miners to different sectors prevents them from all getting killed in the same sector.

Moving miners to different sectors gets them all killed by being in different sectors because tac.

[MagisterXF94]

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Dec 19 2014, 07:28 PM) I feel like they do but like Cashto I'm not 100% sure.

Drones respond to that.