c0rpsmakr's TS Guide

[c0rpsmakr]

Hey everyone, 
it's been about 4 months since i've been active on here, i've gotten busy with work/life and i'm not sure how often ill be on (not quitting by any means, still find too much enjoyment from playing every now and then), but over the almost 20 years i've been on here, i've always wanted a place to deposit my knowledge and experience that I've accumulated.

I started ts in 1998 after a friend of mine (known by the log back then Xeoning) showed me this game that he'd been playing, and I got addicted. I was 8 at the time, and remember seeing people like exile4eva, busta1uk, Bluewar88, ragnal2ok, and admiring how quickly they could kill me lol. I played the game for about two weeks before my computer broke, and then I returned to ts another two years later, but I was playing mods since they were much easier and i was winning more than i was on westwood maps. After getting my ass kicked on the mods back then like Grays 3v3 by westwood players hundreds of times, i decided to venture over to official maps and see how i could become as good as them around 2002. i remember people like Xeoning, mill0, Phatmouse (Ray), and Aphrodlte all showing me some of the basics, but it wasn't until dencavda (otherwise known as Avan) took me under his wing and really gave me a new mind frame and approach to ts that i started to improve quickly and see results. After years of playing tournaments and clan matches in his clan from like 2004-2006, I eventually was able to compete with the better players after working on different aspects of my gameplay, learning the most difficult of them (midfighting) by practicing vs Megaf0rce, w0dkabul, dachschaf, and even mammy2k1. TS was considered dead by the time I rose to the top tier, even though there was still probably 5x the player base then compared to now. But I continued to play on and off to this day, still gradually tweaking my gameplay, as I've always wanted to continue getting better and better. 

Teaching people has been enjoyable to me over the years, and my main goal was to always foster the competition of this community and raise the skill ceiling. I've always been willing to pass on my knowledge to nice people that were hungry to learn, and have taught countless people between 2007-now, whether by personally telling them what/what not to do, letting them spectate my games, or having some of my matches recorded for youtube, and I hope to continue this in to the future by making this small guide. There's far too much for me to type in one sitting, so I think I'll gradually add on as time allows. This will be a highly useful tool for both newer players trying to figure out the basics and for older players desiring to improve in different areas. 

 

My apologies on how crappy it's formatted, for the grammatical errors,  and any redundancy as I haven't proofread anything or made any edits, but I wanted to just get the information out.

 

I'll start off with some tips for the brand new players:

First thing's first, if you don't know the tech tree and unit functions/ what they're strong/weak against, you should figure that out before going any further. You can figure those out for the most part by yourself by playing vs a computer or just force firing on your own units in a game to see what is effective. (Force firing is making your units attack anywhere you select, you can do this by holding down the CTRL key while your units are selected and clicking where you want them to attack.) Just know that cyborgs, nod buggies, laser fences, and gates are all more or less useless. They either aren't worth the time/money spent making them or don't have any practical use for online competitive play.

 

 

Tiberian Sun gameplay can be broken down to 5 main components that one must focus on in order to improve-

1. Build Speed-
    The speed at which you can produce structures/units. If you are building faster than your opponent, you'll have more than them at any given time or be further along the tech tree. Milliseconds regularly mean the difference between winning and losing games. You can work on your build speed by paying attention to the structure/unit tab on the side of the screen during the game and placing structures as fast and accurately as possible, then IMMEDIATELY beginning production on your next structure, and continuing this process. Make sure you're always producing something and never just sitting idly. If you are on low power or have less than $100, you will build slower than usual, so always maintain adequate power from powerplants and have consistent cash flow to prevent yourself from building slowly.

 

2. Awareness/Scouting-
    Revealing the shroud on the map as early as possible (especially your opponent's base) so that you can see what they have, and everywhere on the map that they can hide units to attack you with. The earlier you scout the entire map, the earlier you have knowledge of where all of your opponent's units are and can't be surprised. Scout the map by sending light infantry to each corner, followed by other light infantry to scout in between those that you sent to the corners until you have all of the map revealed. If you select an infantry (this works for any unit) and hold down Q, then click several spots on the ground, your unit will travel to each of those spots you select in the order that you clicked them; it's like using a waypoint but it's much more convenient and doesn't leave waypoint markers everywhere. You can improve your awareness by checking your opponent's base and the map between placing/beginning production on your own structures, as to not slow down your build speed. Being aware of the map at all times will keep you alive!

 

3. Unit Control/Reaction Time-
    How quickly and accurately you control your units is a deciding factor in most games. If you misclick frequently during engagements or when trying to defend your base, you will lose more units/structures than necessary, and more often than not cost you the game. Practicing your hand-eye coordination with your mouse and adjusting your mouse sensitivity/scroll speed will help you in this area. I used to practice this by playing games by myself or vs a computer and trying to focus on placing component towers/selling them in specific areas as quickly as possible, and figuring out my timing when lifting a carryall/moving a subterannean apc. Keep training your clicking to be faster and faster and more accurate with every game, eventually it will become second nature.

4. Money Management-
    This one is the killer for most people, because they can't seem to figure out how to keep a steady income throughout the game without overproducing. This one is much more complex than the others because it takes more patience and experience to figure out the ins and outs of controlling your cash. 
    A. You always want to be building something, with your priority on making structures over units. Making/selling buildings is an integral part in setting up your early economy, while making units (aside from harvesters) isn't, so most of your focus should always be on keeping your structure production happening, NEVER STOP MAKING BUILDINGS!!! If you have to, put units on hold or cancel them; if you practice enough, you'll be able to time it to where you can put units on hold just in time to finish buildings without having to cancel them. [An example of this would be you seeing that a refinery you're making that you know you'll end up selling for cash & an extra harvester, is halfway done and you have $1100 currently, but you're also building infantry. Knowing that you'll need $1000 to finish your refinery soon, you immediately pause/cancel your infantry production before your funds reach $1000 so that you can finish that refinery without needing to wait for another harvester to come unload money, delaying your build speed.)
    B. You always want your harvesters harvesting the closest tiberium to your refineries as possible. That reduces the wait time between your harvs traveling back and forth between the tiberium and your refineries. The faster your harvs can go back and forth, the faster you obtain cash. Placing your refineries as close to the tiberium as possible will reduce the distance as well. Another tip here is every time you see your harvesters about to leave a refinery, manually select them and click on the nearest pixel of tiberium. It's a bit tidious, but it becomes second nature and you only really need to focus on this AFTER you've done more important things, like placing your buildings/began production on other buildings and checking your opponent's base/the map for threats.
    C. My rule of thumb for production is to have one refinery with a harvester unloading in it for every type of thing i'm producing. Let's say I want to only build structures, I only need one refinery with a harvester dumping in it to maintain production without my spending exceeding my income. If i want to make structures AND infantry, I need to have two refineries with harvesters unloading tiberium in them at the same time. If I want to make structures, infantry, mech units, and planes at the same time, I need 4 refineries with harvesters unloading in them at the same time. This gets more difficult to manage as the tiberium depletes and gets further and further away, which is why expanding to the next tiberium patch is so important to do.
    D. Because the tiberium depletes as you harvest it, you need to expand your base by building to the next tiberium patch using smaller buildings like silos or powerplants. The earlier you expand, the quicker you can maintain your cash flow once your main tiberium patch starts to run low.
    
    This subject is more complicated than the others, if you have any questions or want any further explanation or advice, feel free to message me or leave a comment.

 
5. Strategic/Tactical Knowledge-
    Having a plan for how you'll approach the game before it starts and as it unfolds. This element takes the most time to learn because of all of the different unit combinations and tactics used in   various situations.
    A few things to consider are:

A. Is the map you're playing on a short, medium, or long distance map? Each requires a different approach; for instance, on a short range map, you need to focus on making 3-5 refineries and lots of infantry because the ability for your opponent to rush you with infantry and ground units is much more practical. While on a long range map, because it will take a long time for ground units to reach you, you can safely focus on upgrading your tech with fewer refineries and a priority on air/underground attacks more quickly. 
                      B. Does the map have a lot of starting tiberium or little tiberium. You need to know this so you can decide whether it's better to invest in an early attack or to expand earlier.
                      C. What is your preferred style of play? Do you like rushing with disruptors, do you like using banshees, do you like longer games with more units? Everyone has a preference, but some styles don't work as well as others on certain maps, and you should work on your weaknesses to be able to play against any style and you should be able to incorporate aspects of other styles in to your own gameplay to improve it. Don't be stubborn, you need to be able to play in any situation vs anybody, that's how the best players are made!
                      D. Knowing what strategies counter others, what units counter others, etc. This is learned through actually playing the game yourself and watching better players.

    There are many more things under the Strategic/Tactical Knowledge Umbrella, but for a faster way to learn, you can watch better players to see what they do in different scenarios. There's several videos on the Tiberian Sun Adventures channel on Youtube with higher leveled players like me, Ray, Cambria, Movieno0b, etc that can be referenced. 

 

If you need any clarification or further explanation, want more specific advice, or have any questions, feel free to message me. I'm always happy to help!

-c0rpsmakr

04/08/2018

Edited April 9, 2018 by c0rpsmakr

[c0rpsmakr]

Here's a fun topic that's been getting some focus recently that I will add some insight on for this guide- 

GDI VS NOD gameplay-

 

As you'll see joining different games, most of the time you'll only encounter players choosing the NOD faction on modified maps with skewed building options, such as getting 1000 power from one powerplant, or on long-distance maps. The reason for this is because nod is the more defensive, stealthy faction while gdi is the more direct, brute force faction. Newer players prefer to be defensive and choose nod, as it can make defensive structures much faster than gdi (ie nod being able to construct whole lasers, sams, and obelisks where gdi needs to build component towers before placing vulcan cannons, rpgs, or sam upgrades on top of them), and its units are intended to be more stealthy and defensive as well. Nod doesn't have ground units that can be sent across the map that are sturdy and powerful enough to gain map control/kill like gdi does. Gdi has disc throwers, titans, hover mlrs, and mammoths, that in a direct engagement with nod's equivalent units (rockets, tick tanks, artillery, cyborg commando) would absolutely crush nod. This is why it takes much longer for players to improve as nod. It has to be much more creative and utilize a variety of tactics to overcome a good gdi opponent, since they cant just march across the map. 

 

Nod has 5 options when attacking or pressuring a gdi: early infantry, subs, banshees, missles, and harvester harassment. 

 

Gdi has several more vs nod: early infantry, apc, titans, hover mlrs, disruptor, mk, bombs, harvester harassment, 

 

Nod is more micro-intensive and complicated, due to it needing to use several different defensive tactics to counter gdi. Not all of nods defensive units work well on gdi's offense, and they're also used in different situations. For instance, nod's attack cycles have problems hitting moving targets, but they are much faster and cheaper than tick tanks, which are more accurate. Because of this, i would opt to use cycles to attack an enemy's emp'd titans near my base instead of tick tanks, since the cycles would reach the titans faster than tick tanks, and the titans arent able to move. Cycles' attack power are also stronger than tick tanks' (when they actually hit their target). I could make 4 attack cycles ($600 each, 600 x 4= $2400) in the same time that it would take me to make 3 tick tanks ($800 each, 800 x 3 = $2400), and the tick tanks would take longer to arrive at the emp'd titans, as well as not being able to kill them as fast as 4 cycles. Cycles are able to dodge gdi bombers better than tick tanks as well due to their speed, which is a great ability to have against gdi's best unit for wiping out nod's defense. 

I'm getting tired, so ill add on more tomorrow.

Edited May 3, 2018 by c0rpsmakr

[Humble]

Keep up the good work man, these are nice to link new players to.

BTW, you are always welcome to record yourself playing and commentate it for new players and upload to the youtube channel we use.

[Weaponx]

I got a excellent tip for NOD/GDI:

Fill your harvesters with BLUE tib, and send it to enemy building like  refinery or war factory, while you attack. It blows up if they attack it and kills the building.

Its all tactics unfortunately  some players cant handle it, yet they see it fine to attacks harvesters, which makes it double standards players.

 

 

Edited September 5, 2018 by Mola

[Holland]

Thanks corps!!! This is real good info for everyone. Especially new and mod players. Maybe someone wants to record reading your guide outloud, adding a compilation of the best TS vids for youtube. That will be great!

[c0rpsmakr]

Of course, although I wouldn't trust anybody to add any demonstrations of what I've put in this guide unless I were the one doing it

[c0rpsmakr]

here's another bit of advice, don't play mod maps.

a lot of mod (modified) maps alter the way the game is normally played, such as increasing the amount of power one powerplant gives from 300 to 1000, or superspeed harvs/increased amounts of money given for every time a harv unloads tiberium. this makes the game an INSANE amount easier, and thus prevents people from learning how to play with the normal metrics. it voids the need to really manage your money, control units properly, and if you play on maps (such as the popular garbage map that is giants), there is one narrow entrance that disables any sort of ground attack coming from more than one direction. These skewed changes basically force most people into playing one way only. 

Also, there should never be any "rules" when you go into a game besides not cheating (which is already prevented thanks to this server). The made-up rules that people say going into a game are just there to make it easier for them since they're unable to play without making the approach to the game more narrow. I'm not saying this to bash mod maps or mod players, but if you honestly want to get better, you're not going to do it by playing a map that nullifies damn near every skill needed to actually be good at this game.

 

edit: i guarantee that if those who play mod maps would play on official maps for even a week, they would improve drastically. the point is.... play official maps to grow and don't be afraid to lose a lot. the best players have lost 235023952352 times before getting decent and there is no other way to get better.

Edited October 4, 2018 by c0rpsmakr