How to Tau!?

[Cheapside]

Hey guys wanna ask if any of you got any tips for how to play Tau as in what skill to take and upgrades and such.

[|Sith|octavian1127]

Only played a bit during beta and am certainly not the best at the game in the first place, but anything that enhances weapon range, lets you see the enemy without them seeing you, or lets you reposition better. I was also more inclined to upgrade escorts earlier than the other fleets since they perform a more crucial role as spotters. Stasis bombs, recon beacons/drones and micro-warp jumps were my method for skills. Upgrade wise I think you have two choices. Either give them as much range as possible then rely on escorts or a dedicated capital spotter for targetting info OR ignore range upgrades and make them beefy (that forward shield upgrade is pretty strong imo). If you make them beefy, you need to take micro-warp jump and turn speed upgrade. If you go the range route, you might want to consider investing in the stealth upgrades.

[Zabi]

No idea of multiplayer, but so far the probe skill for spotting enemies early have helped me a lot to increase the damage of the missile/torpedo that chase the enemies (they do a lot of damage and have low cooldown).
If you take the Tau "carriers"... the upgrade that add a boarding action to the bombers also do a lot of damage.

The turrets upgrades sound like and interesting route, you can increase the turret range by 3k, another upgrade cause your turrets to also damage enemy ships that are in range (is not a huge amount... but with more that 12 turets per ship, the damage for being close to your fleet is a lot).
I'm ussing that, and so far... is fun. The escorts ships are doomed againts the massive amount of small turrets, and the big ships normaly have loss their engines at that point thanks to the boarding bombers an the missile/torpedos.

For favors... i like the Earth one, the extra upgrade slot is always welcome and the "experimental railgun" hit very hard (90 damage, ignore shield and armor).

But definitely the key is spoting the enemy and get the most of the "alpha strike", and spam missiles (near 25 seconds cooldown with crew upgrades)

[Narfwak]

Mass Earth Caste favour is the way to go while leveling your fleet; line enough shots up and you'll just delete a light cruiser immediately. I've been experimenting with a Mont'Ka/Fire Caste boarding strategy now that I've got a few level 10 ships and it seems to be working surprisingly well. You really need all the crew points and upgrade slots to make it work, but when your base Troop Value is as high as space marines and you deduct 5 from the enemy value and make a boarding action each Manta wave... it's pretty ridiculous how ships just instantly die the moment your mantas arrive.

The only caveat I've had so far is that the boarding action from your ordnance waves doesn't seem to trigger the stacking buff from the Fire Caste favour, but unless I'm mistaken it does benefit from it. So, if you get a few good boarding actions off with your standard boarding broadside it means the manta waves just get more and more powerful as the battle progresses.

I've only been trying it in skirmish, but so far it's pretty effective. Mantas in general are insanely powerful - get as many as you can.

[Stoinker666]

Air caste and stealth upgrades because the ships are just painfully slow. Probably useless in AI skirmish since the AI cheats to compensate for how stupid it is, but can be devastating in MP.

[Theobald]

Originally posted by Narfwak:

So, if you get a few good boarding actions off with your standard boarding broadside it means the manta waves just get more and more powerful as the battle progresses.

How so ?

[Cheapside]

Thanks guys good food for thought.

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

Still a bit of a noob here, but I've found that the Tau like to let the enemy come to them. Run augar probes on everything and autocast (or micro if you want more control on where you're aiming) them, then fire heavy seeker missiles at select targets (or just autocast) to soften the enemy up. Of course, this works a lot better against the AI, since it tends to just charge head-on at you and allows you to take it out piecemeal. You can bolster this with the Earth Cast favor experimental railgun, which is an absolute beast.

Also, don't bother actually using your custodian once you've leveled it up. It's just way too expensive points-wise and the Wardens that come with it are pretty much garbage for anything other than scouting. If you must have a battleship, just take the Stronghold instead.

*sigh* If only you could leave those damn Wardens at home and just take the Custodian at a discount instead...

[a great big ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ truck]

Originally posted by VestedGamr:

Still a bit of a noob here, but I've found that the Tau like to let the enemy come to them. Run augar probes on everything and autocast (or micro if you want more control on where you're aiming) them, then fire heavy seeker missiles at select targets (or just autocast) to soften the enemy up. Of course, this works a lot better against the AI, since it tends to just charge head-on at you and allows you to take it out piecemeal. You can bolster this with the Earth Cast favor experimental railgun, which is an absolute beast.

Also, don't bother actually using your custodian once you've leveled it up. It's just way too expensive points-wise and the Wardens that come with it are pretty much garbage for anything other than scouting. If you must have a battleship, just take the Stronghold instead.

*sigh* If only you could leave those damn Wardens at home and just take the Custodian at a discount instead...

Gte the dhow upgrade for it. The dhow is easily the best escort in the game as it comes with 200 shield and 200 hp and decent damage.

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

Originally posted by Yekteniya LXIX:

Originally posted by VestedGamr:

Still a bit of a noob here, but I've found that the Tau like to let the enemy come to them. Run augar probes on everything and autocast (or micro if you want more control on where you're aiming) them, then fire heavy seeker missiles at select targets (or just autocast) to soften the enemy up. Of course, this works a lot better against the AI, since it tends to just charge head-on at you and allows you to take it out piecemeal. You can bolster this with the Earth Cast favor experimental railgun, which is an absolute beast.

Also, don't bother actually using your custodian once you've leveled it up. It's just way too expensive points-wise and the Wardens that come with it are pretty much garbage for anything other than scouting. If you must have a battleship, just take the Stronghold instead.

*sigh* If only you could leave those damn Wardens at home and just take the Custodian at a discount instead...

Gte the dhow upgrade for it. The dhow is easily the best escort in the game as it comes with 200 shield and 200 hp and decent damage.

Still not worth the 401 pts. Sure, the Dhows are good on their own but they don't really synergize with the ordinance-heavy Tau fleet. If it's a choice between Castellens and Dhows, I'm going to want the extra seekers.

[a great big ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ truck]

Originally posted by VestedGamr:

Originally posted by Yekteniya LXIX:

Gte the dhow upgrade for it. The dhow is easily the best escort in the game as it comes with 200 shield and 200 hp and decent damage.

Still not worth the 401 pts. Sure, the Dhows are good on their own but they don't really synergize with the ordinance-heavy Tau fleet. If it's a choice between Castellens and Dhows, I'm going to want the extra seekers.

Dhows upgraded with seekers are absurdly good at zonign enemy fleets away from your line ships. The typical anti escort tactic of ramming isn't as efefctive because you eat a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of seeker fire and the extra shield means they aren't as vulnerable to aoe weapons.

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

Originally posted by Yekteniya LXIX:

Originally posted by VestedGamr:

Still not worth the 401 pts. Sure, the Dhows are good on their own but they don't really synergize with the ordinance-heavy Tau fleet. If it's a choice between Castellens and Dhows, I'm going to want the extra seekers.

Dhows upgraded with seekers are absurdly good at zonign enemy fleets away from your line ships. The typical anti escort tactic of ramming isn't as efefctive because you eat a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of seeker fire and the extra shield means they aren't as vulnerable to aoe weapons.

Understandable, and I NEVER said Dhows themselves were bad on their own. But would you rather have a screen of escorts that are useless until the enemy closes in or more long-range firepower to boost your already existing long range firepower?

[a great big ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ truck]

Originally posted by VestedGamr:

Originally posted by Yekteniya LXIX:

Dhows upgraded with seekers are absurdly good at zonign enemy fleets away from your line ships. The typical anti escort tactic of ramming isn't as efefctive because you eat a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of seeker fire and the extra shield means they aren't as vulnerable to aoe weapons.

Understandable, and I NEVER said Dhows themselves were bad on their own. But would you rather have a screen of escorts that are useless until the enemy closes in or more long-range firepower to boost your already existing long range firepower?

True the strongest way to run tau is mass cruiser.

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

Originally posted by Yekteniya LXIX:

Originally posted by VestedGamr:

Understandable, and I NEVER said Dhows themselves were bad on their own. But would you rather have a screen of escorts that are useless until the enemy closes in or more long-range firepower to boost your already existing long range firepower?

True the strongest way to run tau is mass cruiser.

Well, what you really want out of that is massed torpedoes regardless of whether you're running a swarm of Il'porrui (Emissary) or the larger and more powerful Lar'shi'vre (Protector). Swarming cruisers is just the easiest way to do it.