Supreme Commander 2: Everything you need to know.

Basic information on how to stay alive and a variety of information on every unit in the game.

Introduction

This guide is a conglomeration of information and advice on various aspects of Supreme Commander 2. Inside, you'll find basic strategies to employ in multiplayer, mechanics of various types of unique units in the game, general advice on the usage of specific units and tactics, as well as a complete list of all mobile and 'unique' combat units in the game, with tips and (sometimes) tricks to go with every individual unit.

If you have any information you believe is worth adding, or if you spot any errors in grammar or factual information in this guide, drop your thoughts in the comments. If you have any other comments (or issues) with the guide, feel free to give us your thoughts. We don't bite.

Written and maintained by Badstormer.

Enjoy your stay.

Differences between DLC and non-DLC matches

Note that this section does not apply to tutorial or campaign missions.

The first thing to know about this game is that there is a distinct difference in the game's economy in a game that is DLC-enabled vs. one that runs without DLC. The relevant DLC can be found here and is, in this author's modest opinion, completely worth the money.

The difference is simple: with the Infinite War Battle Pack 1 DLC enabled, mass extractors run at 50% efficiency after being built and scale up to 200% efficiency over time (roughly 20 minutes after being built). What this means is: With the DLC enabled, holding mass extractors for long periods of time becomes enormously more important. This breaks the longstanding tradition of the Supreme Commander series that mass should be taken and held for any period of time possible (as they tended to pay for themselves rather quickly and never became more efficient), and more of a long-term investment that should be prioritized more heavily for destruction and more heavily for protection.

Put simply, with the DLC enabled, mass extractors are much more valuable, especially ones that have survived for long periods of time. Mass extractors also take a longer initial period of time to return on their investment to build, further increasing the importance of defending them. The actual build cost of the mass extractor remains the same.

As for other differences...

• The infamous Monkeylord, the single most powerful experimental in the game by a wide margin, cannot be built without the DLC;
  
• Several experimentals from all factions with unique, and often niche traits, are unavailable without the DLC, reducing tactical options in a match;
  
• Several non-experimental units with unique, strategic use cases are unavailable without the DLC;
  
• Several upgrades to units are either reordered or removed entirely from the tree without the DLC;
  
• Build orders differ significantly with the DLC due to major early-game mass income differences;
  
• Players without the DLC cannot participate in a DLC-enabled lobby.

Frankly, the game plays much differently with the DLC than without it. You'll feel it within minutes of starting a match. For the full experience, I strongly recommend investing in the Battle Pack. At a whopping $1.24 before taxes on the frequent 75% sale, it's a bargain bin of content.

Common Wisdom

As with most RTS games, there is no singular strategy that beats all. By design, any strategy tends to have a weakness, whether it's you or your opponent utilizing it. Adaptation is the key to success. That said, there is some wisdom to be imparted about basic concepts that tend to be learned the hard way:

• Build a factory first. Not unlike the former entry in the series, you cannot go wrong by building at least one factory directly at the start of any match. Building a factory immediately permits you to assemble a task force, send out scouts to assess your opponent's strategy, and construct more engineers to expand more quickly.
  
  
• Mass wins games. While it is true that the overwhelming majority of strategies can be countered, there is one particularly difficult strategy to counter in virtually any context: having overwhelming numbers compared to your opponent, and this particular strategy can be accomplished in only one way: having more mass than your enemy. More mass is more units, more research, more options, and more firepower. You can never have too much, and the more you have, the easier it is to take more.
  
  
• Scouting saves lives. While any strategy can be countered, it is much easier to counter them if you can see them coming. Throwing a disposable fighter over an enemy base every few minutes will permit you to assess everything they're doing in exchange for a modicum of mass, and prepare accordingly for whatever they're getting ready to throw at you, be it artillery, experimental units, nuclear missiles, or a naval armada. One of the most common ways games are lost is not seeing a threat to your strategy before it's deployed against you.
  
  
• Mobility beats firepower. While the occasional turret can dissuade your enemy from encroaching on a specific spot briefly, over-reliance on turrets can quickly turn a match out of your favor, for one simple reason: the turret can't move. If a unit is attacking the turret out of its firing range, such as a mobile missile launcher, the turret cannot be ordered to move into firing range, nor can it be ordered to retreat somewhere safer. While stationary defenses can be helpful in keeping units a certain distance away from an area, you can expect your opponent to deploy something sooner or later to demolish any weaponized structures you build.

Put simply, by focusing on constructing mobile units more than stationary units, expanding to mass deposits wherever possible, scouting regularly, and adopting a mindset of rapid adaptation, you'll have already overcome the most common mistakes made not only in Supreme Commander, but virtually any RTS.

Standard Build Order

This is a basic and flexible build order that can be easily modified to suit one's personal preferences. This generalized build order is suitable for any map that does not have a strong naval emphasis.

ACU - Land Factory (direct-fire units)
Engineer 1 - Land Factory (3-to-1 direct + indirect-fire mixture)
Engineer 2 - 2 Mass Extractors
ACU - 2 Mass Extractors
Engineer 1 - 3 Power Generators
ACU - Radar
Engineer 1 - Mass extractors near spawn
Engineer 2 - Mass extractors near spawn

Build more power generators as needed after completing this build order, and adapt unit production based on what enemy units you encounter. Additional factories can be constructed as soon as mass income permits it. Mobile anti-air should be added to the mixture if air units are encountered early.

This basic build order assumes you will not build more engineers early, and also assumes you will mass-produce assault bots/tanks/artillery directly after the factories finish construction. The intent of this unit pattern is to harass enemy expansion efforts early with small groups of units, prioritizing mass extractors and any poorly defended expansion points. This also supplies the commander with a suitable army early to react to enemy encroachment.

The United Earth Federation

The United Earth Federation's doctrine revolves around simple units, thick armor, heavy shields and a healthy dose of artillery to push forward through enemy positions and hold them with confidence. While easy to understand and very forgiving, this doctrine comes at the expense of slower movement speed and less precise weapon systems than other factions. UEF units - especially heavier ones - pack a punch, are hard to break, and tend to outrange their Illuminate/Cybran equivalents, but are more easily outrun and tend to fire less accurately than their counterparts. Functionally a 'jack of all trades' faction, there is no situation the UEF cannot effectively contribute to, be it on land, sea or the air.

In essence, The UEF is a simple faction that has a healthy balance between offensive and defensive capabilities.

The Aeon Illuminate

The Illuminate are a faction that heavily favors employing unconventional and specialized tactics to outsmart their enemies, with a heavy emphasis on using special abilities or unit functions, such as teleportation, area-of-effect buffs, reflective shields and hovering abilities to take enemies by surprise and outsmart them with unconventional tactics. More succinctly, the Illuminate have been described by some as the faction of shenanigans. This comes at the expense of completely lacking a navy (with a limited variety of their units naturally hovering over water to compensate) and having a less straightforward approach to combat than either of the other factions. With less defensive options than the other factions and less per-unit firepower, the Illuminate doctrine revolves around the strategic usage of unit abilities to gain the upper hand in any engagement.

In essence, the Illuminate strongly emphasize the use of unorthodox tactics, with less direct firepower in conventional engagements, no dedicated naval units, and a heavy emphasis on micromanaging unit abilities.

The Cybran Nation

The Cybran doctrine revolves around an aggressive approach to any match, largely forgoing defensive abilities in favor of superior unit mobility and firepower. Cybran units are quick and dish out more damage than average, but are significantly less durable and often lacking in weapon range compared to their UEF/Illuminate counterparts. They also sport some of the strongest experimental units that mass can buy, if you can afford the cost.

In essence, the Cybran nation is an aggressive faction with poor defensive ability and a heavy emphasis on mobility and firepower at the expense of durability and weapon range.

The Armored Command Unit

The Armored Command Unit (ACU) is the most important unit in the game. In most situations (if you are not ACU-rushing), you cannot win with your ACU alone, though it can help in most land combat/building situations more than any other unit. Your ACU should always be defended or evacuable. Many people lose their ACU from letting it wander off on its own or placing it up on forward bases. In Supremacy, this is sometimes viable - but often pointless. Your ACU should be supporting your units pushing forward in the early game to either kill mass extractors or structures, and is generally supported by about 5-10 tanks/assault bots (though more is better). Your enemy/enemies will need to spend more resources rebuilding their structures and units as you destroy their early structures, giving you a considerable advantage mid-game, alongside a slight research boost.

The ACU early-game can take quite a lot of damage from tanks/assault bots, allowing it to distract enemy units, or just act as a tank while it destroys structures, to give you early ground or just irritate your enemy - though 10+ tanks/assault bots can usually destroy it early-game. Remember to upgrade it or support it with your own units. Later in the game, your ACU should stay further inside your base, protected from any enemy assault. However, it builds 50% faster than engineers and can boost factory production speed by 150%. It can also be used late-game, if kept alive, that is, to assist with forward outpost attacks, or just building point defense very quickly where it is needed. In Supremacy, you can use the ACU to simply walk into an enemy base, attack their ACU, blow up, destroy the entire base, you still have engineers - other base is gone. Alongside that, if you have any large buildings waiting to be built, such as artillery, experimental factories, nuclear launch/defense silos, etc, use your ACU when possible. It builds twice as fast as an engineer - even faster if upgraded - and can potentially mean the difference between victory and defeat from its building speed alone (meaning do not blow it up in Supremacy just because it is a free mini-nuke - it does LESS damage than regular nukes).

Armored Command Units

The ACU functions both as a mobile command center and a walking tank, possessing the ability both to fabricate structures at twice the speed an engineer can and defend itself competently in combat.

While powerful, the ACU is not completely impervious to damage, and, if destroyed, a nuclear detonation will occur at the site of the ACU's destruction, damaging both friendly and hostile units within its radius. Furthermore, losing the ACU while in Assassination mode will immediately remove the player, and every unit under their control, from the game.

United Earth Federation Armored Command Unit

The UEF ACU possesses the most individual weapon systems out of the three factions and is designed to be a defensive powerhouse. It is the only ACU to feature an underwater torpedo upgrade.

The UEF ACU upgrades consist of the following:

• Regeneration: Increased health regeneration.
  
• Anti-Air: Adds an Anti-Air Weapon onto a shoulder of the ACU.
  
• Energy Income: Increases Energy Income.
  
• Radar Cloak: Hides the ACU from Radar.
  
• Tactical Missile Launcher: Adds a medium range Tactical Missile Launcher to the ACU.
  
• Range: Increases the Range of the ACU's weaponry.
  
• Torpedo: Adds a Torpedo Tube for naval defense underwater.
  
• Vision: Increases the ACU's sight range.
  
• Hunker: Allows the ACU to crouch down and emit a shield above itself, making its weapons unusable, but decreasing damage taken by 50%.
  
• Hunker Effectiveness: Increases Hunker Effectiveness by 15%.
  
• Jump Jets: Adds Jump Jets to the ACU.
  
• Shoulder Mounted Artillery - Adds a short-range (but powerful) artillery cannon to the ACU.
  
• Core Dump Technology - Prevents a nuclear detonation upon ACU destruction.
  
• Escape Pod - Ejects the command center of the ACU which can fly to safety and reconstruct the rest of the chassis.
  
• Overcharge - When activated, increases main cannon damage to 150%, doubles the firing rate and increases its splash radius.

Tips

• The UEF ACU has the most weapon upgrades of the three factions, giving it at least some fighting ability regardless of what situation the ACU finds itself fighting in.
  
• The radar jammer and jump jets can be used, to a degree, for hit-and-run attacks, using the jump jets for a quick entry/exit and radar masking to minimize detection risk upon approach.
  
• While not as specialized as the ACUs of the other factions (having neither the face-melting DPS of the overcharged Cybran ACU, nor the teleportation ability of the Illuminate), the UEF ACU is a walking brick when fully upgraded, with several weapons ready to answer any threat that arises.

Aeon Illuminate Armored Command Unit

The Illuminate ACU, in true Illuminate style, trades off base stats for several unique abilities, favoring micromanagement of said abilities over raw offensive or defensive power.

The Illuminate ACU upgrades consist of the following:

• Movement Speed: 25% increased walking speed.
  
• Teleport: Allows the ACU to instantly move to a specified point. Can be further upgraded to double the possible teleport distance.
  
• Anti-Matter Chrome Shield: Adds a personal shield, equivalent to 75% of the base health.
  
• Rogue Nanites: Allows the commander to spawn Rogue Nanites. These cost 750 energy and sacrifice themselves to either do 5000 damage on one target, or heal 5000hp on one friendly unit.
  
• Escape Pod: Allows the commander to eject the head of the ACU which can fly back to their base and allow the player to survive the ACU's destruction. The body can be rebuilt by the Escape Pod. The escape pod cannot be moved while rebuilding the ACU.
  
• Core Dump: A special emergency mechanism that turns the ACU from a 'walking nuclear bomb' into a falling ACU. This ensures base safety.
  
• Hunker: Reduces incoming damage by 50%. Immobilizes movement and all weapon systems.
  
• Overcharge: When activated, increases main weapon damage to 150%, doubles its firing rate and amplifies its splash damage.

Tips

• The Illuminate ACU is designed similarly to standard Illuminate units: several powerful abilities that reward careful micromanagement to make the most of, but less impressive raw stats.
  
• The Illuminate ACU is a weak full-frontal offensive unit compared to other ACUs, with fewer unique weapon systems, no tactical missile launcher and shorter attack range.
  
• The Antimatter Chrome Shield upgrade gives the ACU a very beefy additional layer of defense that makes hit-and-run tactics utilizing teleportation substantially more viable.
  
• In a pinch, thoughtful deployment of rogue nanites can be used to quickly heal the ACU to survive otherwise lethal damage, or surgically damage a specific unit, range permitting.

Cybran Armored Command Unit

The Cybran ACU is built with pure offensive ability in mind, offering both extreme armor and damage output when fully upgraded, but lacking the diverse weapons and abilities offered by its UEF and Illuminate counterparts.

The Cybran ACU upgrades consist of the following:

• Speed Increase: Increases walking speed by 50%.
  
• RoF Increase: Increases main cannon rate of fire by 30% (stacks with Nanite weapon)
  
• Jump Jets: Adds Jump Jets to the ACU, allowing it to fly around temporarily. Can be further upgraded to double the maximum travel distance.
  
• Nanite weapon: Significantly increases the main gun's firepower, granting it dramatically increased range, AoE, rate of fire and granting it limited damage-over-time.
  
• Knockback: Active ability that consumes 250 energy which allows the ACU to knock back units with its normal attack for a limited time.
  
• Hunker: Reduces damage taken by 50%. Immobilizes all movement and weapon systems.
  
• Anti-air: Adds an anti-air turret to the ACU.
  
• Tactical missiles: Adds a medium range tactical missile launcher to the ACU.
  
• Core dump: Averts a nuclear detonation upon ACU destruction. ACU chassis can be reclaimed after destruction.
  
• Overcharge: Increases main cannon damage by 150%, doubles its firing range, adds substantial splash damage and halves its firing range while active.

Tips

• The upgraded Cybran ACU moves substantially faster than the other two ACUs, although this can, at times, bug out and return the ACU to its default movement speed. Using jump jets seems to fix this issue.
  
• The nanite upgrade to the main cannon reduces the immediate damage the cannon deals, but rapidly stacks its area of effect damage over a few seconds, offering several times more DPS than the standard cannon.
  
• The knockback upgrade to the main cannon can greatly assist when retreating from land units.

Shields and You

Shields are a utility that puts a layer of raw energy between you and your enemy, selectively blocking their bullets, while allowing yours to pass through. Despite SC2's health regeneration feature, even a single stationary shield generator can massively improve the survivability of a defensive fortification. Shields come in a few forms - stationary, mobile and personal. Each faction's shields also have differences in their protective functionality.


Stationary shields are the strongest, and most commonly deployed, type of shield. They don't move, they have a decent range, and block a large amount of fire before dropping. Factory shields, standalone shield generators and the 'Aegis' fall under this category.

Stationary shield generators are usually used to protect structures from either artillery (very temporarily) or direct fire, be them defense lines or general base buildings. While they can stop the vast majority of projectiles from slamming into whatever they're protecting, nuclear and EMP missiles will pass straight through them. They will also fall, and sooner than later, to a sustained assault.


Personal shields are the weakest shields available, but are available to most non-experimental units, excluding naval units. These shields are essentially another layer of armor for the unit - one that dissipates rather quickly and regenerates reasonably quickly. These shields cost nothing but research points to permanently obtain.

Unique to the Illuminate ACU is their own personal shield, pictured above, which is slightly stronger than the beefiest sub-experimental shield generator in the game.


Mobile shields are vastly weaker than standard shield generators, but generally stronger than personal shields. They also have a much shorter range than stationary shield generators. Mobile shields are not horribly common in real matches, for several reasons:

• They're much slower than tanks and assault bots;
  
• They aren't very durable;
  
• They usually don't have any weaponry;
  
• They tend to form up in the back of a squad of units.

The only exception to this is the Cybran 'Adaptor' (pictured above), which is a mobile shield, anti-air and anti-missile unit. This unit is generally used as mobile anti-air, with its extremely low-durability shield being more of a convenient single-bullet dissipator than a real benefit.

Shield statistics

Below is a table detailing the basic statistics of each type of standardized shield generator for each faction.

Stationary shields	UEF	Illuminate	Cybran
Durability	10,000	10,000	8,000
Regeneration	100HP/s	100HP/s	80HP/s
Recharge delay (seconds)	40	40	40
Radius	42	46	42
Projectile deflection	0%	50%	0%
Projectiles penetrate	No	Yes (50%)	Yes (100%)
Damage reduction	100%	85%	85%

Mobile shields	UEF	Cybran
Durability (shields)	600	140
Regeneration	1HP/s	1HP/s
Recharge delay (seconds)	10	10
Radius	26	26
Projectile deflection	0%	0%
Projectiles penetrate	No	Yes (100%)
Damage reduction	100%	85%

Durability	50,000
Recharge rate	0/s
Recharge delay (seconds)	∞
Projectiles penetrate	No
Projectile deflection	0%

Notes

• All unique faction shield mechanics carry over to personal shields and mobile shield bubbles.
  
  
• Area of effect projectiles, such as artillery, will detonate upon contact with UEF shields.
  
  
• Shields that permit penetration will always reduce projectile damage by 85% post-penetration. This effect stacks with each shield the projectile passes through. For example, if a projectile passes through two Cybran or Aeon shields, its damage will be reduced by 85% by the first shield, then by another 85% by the second shield, reducing it to a total of 2.25% of its original damage.
  
  
• Projectiles that explode on contact with a UEF shield will still damage units outside of the shield.
  
  
• Projectiles that drop the shield (i.e. reduce the shield health to 0) will still have their damage reduced as much as a projectile that pierced the shield without dropping it.
  
  
• Projectile damage reduction does not apply to strategic weaponry; nuclear missiles bypass all forms of shields.
  
  
• Shields will recharge much more quickly if they are completely dissipated by enemy fire. Otherwise, despite being active, they will regenerate health at least twice as slowly, if not more.
  
  
• There is no way to force a sub-experimental shield to drop or recharge itself other than depleting its health.
  
  
• Shields do not consume energy while they're active; instead, the energy costs for their initial construction are inflated.

Nukes and You

Nuclear missiles - also known as strategic missiles - are one two things to you at any given time: a minor annoyance, or a complete game-ender, and seldom anything in between.

Nuclear missiles are expensive, slow, can't change course after launch, can be destroyed by something less than half its cost and take four full minutes to build, none of this counting the expense of silo it's built in. In return, you're given an explosion that will destroy anything not thoroughly reinforced in a roughly four-hundred meter radius around the site of detonation (about half the size of one of the eight larger outer platforms on Tourney Dome), with a maximum yield of about 15,000 damage within the inner half of this radius. Nuclear missiles penetrate all forms of shielding and can only be consistently intercepted with an anti-nuclear missile.

Nuclear missiles are intended to do two things:

• Destroy forward bases that would yield more mass destroyed than the missile itself costs to build;
  
  
• Destroy heavier bases that commanders have neglected to construct strategic missile defenses within.

While other uses for missiles exist (such as intercepting an incoming army), the inability to steer the missile after launch coupled with the enormous cost of a single missile limits its usefulness in this regard, especially if the intended target would take more than a few seconds of travel time to reach.

The only consistent way to defend oneself against strategic missiles is to invest in a nuclear missile defense silo, available to every faction through research, and stock it with at least one anti-nuclear missile. The silo's range is just barely smaller than the upper detonation radius of a nuclear warhead, but will not fire at any nuclear missiles that do not fly directly above its defense radius. Enabling unit range visibility within the game's settings is crucial for ensuring your strategic missile defenses reach as far as you need them to.

UEF and Cybran nuclear launch silos also come with an automated tactical missile launcher that fires unguided, but unusually powerful, salvos of tactical missiles at nearby targets at no cost. Furthermore, all nuclear missile silos do heavy damage to nearby units - friendly or not - upon destruction, with a maximum of 10,000 damage to anything sitting directly next to the silo.

Cybrans, in particular, have a specific unit included in the Infinite War Battle Pack 1 DLC designed to severely punish players who neglect to conduct proper reconnaissance: the Boomerang Nuke Redirector. This unit, when loaded with at least one redirection charge, will redirect any incoming nuclear missiles back to the silo that launched them, while ensuring that this redirected missile cannot be intercepted by strategic missile defenses. The downside is it usually can't redirect numerous missiles at once which can lead to it being overwhelmed during a salvo of two or more missiles.

Your best defense regarding anything nuclear - whether it be verifying targets or checking for threats - is regularly tossing a few cheap fighters anywhere your enemies could be building silos of any sort. The golden rule of Supreme Commander (scout early, scout often) applies exceptionally well to nukes.

Notes

• Nuclear explosions do not discriminate between friendly or hostile units, and will damage anything in the explosion radius.
  
  
• A single nuclear warhead is more expensive than most minor experimental units.
  
  
• Nuclear missiles are ideal for destroying enemy fortifications outside of their main base, where it is unlikely to encounter anti-nuclear missile silos.
  
  
• While it is possible to simply spam nukes to end a game, it's often more viable to develop units one can actually control.
  
  
• Both nuclear missile silos and anti-nuclear missile silos will never show any indication as to whether they are actually loaded with anything before firing.
  
  
• Nuclear missiles will not collide with any form of shielding, but shields can marginally reduce the damage a nuclear explosion does, as long as there is at least one layer of shield between the inner radius of the explosion and the shield projector. Bubble shields won't do much either way, but personal shields can offer some degree of protection.
  
  
• On larger maps - especially 4v4 maps - launch sites can be hidden practically anywhere, which makes scouting everywhere even more important.
  
  
• A single nuclear missile launch site can force the enemy to invest in multiple missile defense silos to protect their assets, leading to them expending more mass than you to protect themselves. Their failing to do so also opens up a direct method for destroying anything they neglect to protect.
  
  
• Anti-nuclear missile silos can hold twice as many missiles as a nuclear missile silo.
  
  
• Anti-nuclear missile silos can fire several times faster than any nuclear missile silo, and can consistently fend off five or more incoming missiles, provided the silo is loaded with sufficient missiles.
  
  
• Anti-nukes need to physically collide with a nuclear warhead to neutralize them. In most cases, this doesn't change anything, but in edge cases - like anti-nuke construction finishing a quarter second before the nuke itself impacts - can lead to both the nuclear missile detonating and the anti-nuclear missile being launched.
  
  
• Nuclear missiles redirected by the Boomerang Nuke Redirector cannot be intercepted by anti-nuclear missiles.
  
  
• Nuclear missiles have global range.

Veterancy and You

"Veterancy" is a mechanic that allows units that participate in active combat to become more effective over time. This system allocates veterancy 'points' to units, or groups of units (if several contribute to the same kill), based on the threat the destroyed unit posed, as well as how much damage the contributing units dealt. The veterancy system positively reinforces the survival of allied units - especially experimental ones - by boosting their durability and damage output the longer they survive in combat. Veterancy also applies to factories. Veterancy also applies to Mass Extractors, increasing their health and mass output over time.

The veterancy system makes it even more rewarding to ensure the survival of experimental units while still engaging them in frequent combat. Over time, veterancy can increase health and damage up to 50% above standard, and health regeneration by up to 125%. Veterancy boosts health, damage and regeneration in 10%/10%/25% increments, respectively, per level. This can massively increase the effectiveness of experimental units - especially the Monkeylord, Universal Collosus, or Soul Ripper II, which have the firepower, durability, and, of course, price, to motivate keeping them intact.

Most factories do not gain veterancy even if they manage to secure a kill - instead, they procure it through the production of units and addons, with one point of veterancy being provided per construction project completed. Veterancy levels reduce both the build time and cost for addons and units by 10% per level, up to a maximum of 50%.

Notes

• Veterancy point requirements for individual units increases by the same amount for every level gained. For example, an ACU requires 5000, 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 and 25,000 veterancy points for each level of veterancy, i.e. 5,000 veterancy points for each individual level.
  
  
• Factory veterancy requirements do increase with each veterancy level, but this is offset considerably by the increased unit production speed.
  
  
• Mass Extractor veterancy levels are gained after 1, 3, 7, 15 and 31 minutes of operation, increasing mass output increasingly with every level, eventually quintupling it from 0.6/second to 2.4/second. Mass Extractors cannot gain veterancy through unit destruction, even if they are equipped with defensive turret addons.
  
  
• Naval factories have half of the veterancy requirements as land/air factories, due to the increased resource and time cost of naval units.
  
  
• Any unit constructed by any factory will increase its veterancy by exactly one point, irrespective of the unit's actual construction costs.
  
  
• Experimental gantries have the lowest veterancy level requirements of any unit in the game, requiring a mere two veterancy points to gain their first level.
  
  
• Engineers and ACUs can gain an (admittedly very small) amount of veterancy points by constructing buildings. Clocking in at a whopping one point per building completed, an engineer would require 250 successful construction projects to gain one veterancy level - half of the standard unit capacity for a skirmish match.
  
  
• The Proto-Brain Complex's 'Brain', when deployed, triples the veterancy point gains of all units in its boosting range. Mobile air, land and sea units are affected.
  
  
• Cybran naval factories can gain veterancy points by destroying hostile naval units with their Proton Cannons, obtained through the "Sea Operations" upgrade. This usually increases the factory to its maximum level immediately.
  
  
• Veterancy points cannot be deducted, or transferred, from a unit by any legitimate means. Veterancy losses from unit destruction are irrecoverable.
  
  
• Veterancy points do not accumulate beyond level five for any unit.

United Earth Federation Units

UEF Ground

The Rockhead Tank

The Rockhead is the UEF's starter tank. A jack-of-all-trades land unit, it is more than capable of facing most enemy land units one-on-one and can be upgraded for aerial protection. While specialized units may be more effective at specific roles, the Rockhead can be thrown at virtually anything on the ground with a reasonable degree of success.

Tips

- Rockheads lack the speed and damage of assault bots, but in return have a significantly higher health pool.

- Rockheads can be upgraded with four separate distinct upgrades - a third barrel for the main cannon, personal anti-air defenses, afterburners, and a personal shield.

- At maximum training, research, and veterancy, the Rockhead has a whopping 3,525 effective hit points, putting its durability well above any other non-experimental land unit when fully developed.

-Rockheads are best used to pad out an army and soak up damage, with groups of Titan assault bots being more suited for dedicated raiding roles due to their superior speed and firepower.

- Rockheads can be grouped with less durable units such as anti-air, artillery, or shield bubbles, as tanks tend to group up in front of slower units when given a move order in a group.

The Titan Assault Bot

The Titan Assault Bot is the UEF's take on assault bots. Roughly equal to the other factions' variants, the Titan is effective at raiding enemy bases with more speed and firepower than a conventional tank, at the expense of being significantly more fragile.

Tips

- Assault bots are a more specialized combat role than a tank, being more suitable for rapid attacks on smaller bases, utilizing their speed and firepower to get in quickly and shred structures more efficiently than a tank can.

- Mass extractors more distant from the enemy's base are a prime target for assault bots due to their ability to quickly deploy to the extractor, destroy it and anything around it, and escape before the enemy can deploy a reaction force.

-Assault bots themselves are a good reaction force as they can deploy to combat zones more quickly than tanks or other, slower alternatives.

-Like the Rockhead, the Titan can be upgraded with a diverse array of upgrades to deter most forms of air and land units, though it does not benefit from a third barrel as the Rockhead does.

The Demolisher Mobile Artillery

The Demolisher Mobile Artillery is an indirect-fire unit that sacrifices both durability and movement/projectile speed for a much higher damage output to anything its artillery shells collide with.

Tips

- The Demolisher is more effective against structures than mobile units due to the slow speed of the shells it fires - especially tightly packed groups of smaller structures that allow the full AoE effect of the shells to affect several structures at once.

-While the Demolisher has a hard time hitting mobile targets, it does have a degree of movement prediction when aiming its shells at mobile units and will do much more damage per-shot than a tank or assault bot if any shot manages to land.

- Slower units, such as experimentals, will have a much harder time dodging mobile artillery shells than smaller, more agile units.

- As with other UEF land units, the Demolisher has a range of upgrades that apply to it, both increasing its DPS and adding minor deterrents from air and land attacks.

The Meteor Mobile Missile Launcher

The Meteor Mobile Missile Launcher is a UEF indirect-fire tactical missile launcher. It specializes in outranging point defense turrets with its superior range and overcoming tactical missile defenses with its large salvo size. Its durability and speed are both lacking, requiring protection from other units in the event of attacks, and, as with all tactical missiles, its projectiles do not track targets after being launched.

Tips

- Meteors are especially effective at destroying defensive fortifications and are specifically designed to counter point defense turrets, though they are effective against virtually any structure they can get in range of, as well as any particularly slow land units, such as a deployed Jackhammer.

- Meteors, like Demolishers and other indirect-fire units in general are not durable and are better used as dedicated artillery units than direct-assault units. At the very least, a wall of tanks between them and the enemy will dramatically improve their odds of survival in any engagement with mobile units.

-Tactical missile launchers are very effective at depleting bubble shield generators if long-range artillery or heavier units are not an option.

United Earth Federation Units (Part Two)

The Archanist Mobile Anti-Air Gun

The Archanist Mobile Anti-Air Gun is a dedicated mobile anti-air unit designed to protect itself and any units around it from air threats. While completely incapable of engaging land units, it is very effective at dispatching air threats.

Tips

- The Archanist trades land-based turrets for surface-to-air turrets, rendering it incapable of destroying any form of land unit.

- In the early game, mobile anti-air is the only alternative for air defense if constructing fighters is not an option. Verifying whether your opponent is using air units early will let you gauge whether you require mobile anti-air or not.

- Dedicated anti-air turrets have a dramatically longer range and more damage output than mobile anti-air of any form, but are more easily targeted in dedicated attacks and cost much more per-unit to construct.

- The anti-air upgrade that applies almost universally to UEF land units renders the Archanist largely obsolete once obtained, as it does only slightly less damage per-unit for no extra cost after being researched.

The P-Shield Mobile Shield Generator

The P-Shield Mobile Shield Generator is a mobile bubble shield generator. As a fully defensive unit, it lacks any defensive armament of its own, instead being designed to shield groups of units or structures around it from damage.

Tips

- Compared to other factions' mobile shield generators, the P-Shield has the most shield health but lacks the multipurpose functionality of the Cybran Adaptor, while the Illuminate opt for a defensive alternative that buffs the armor of nearby units instead of generating a shield.

- The P-Shield has the speed of an assault bot despite being a defensive unit, letting it keep up with other land units easily.

- Mobile shields tend to group up at the rear of land unit formations, which significantly reduces their effectiveness if your intent is to shield the units toward the front. Micromanagement can mitigate this to a degree.

- Mobile shield generators have a fraction of the health of a dedicated, immobile shield generator, but also regenerate the shield much more quickly once it is broken.

The Sharp Shooter Mobile Missile Defense

The Sharp Shooter Mobile Missile Defense is a mobile anti-missile unit designed to intercept tactical missiles targeting units near it. It cannot fire at any form of land or air unit and instead offers a direct counter to long-range tactical missile launchers.

It should be noted that the Sharp Shooter is useful as an escort unit for slow units with siege capabilities, such as the Fatboy or Jackhammer.

Tips

- The Sharp Shooter is best used in groups. Single mobile missile defense units are usually incapable of taking out any given salvo of missiles.

- Unlike previous Supreme Commander entries, mobile tactical missile defense units are typically the only option for tactical missile defenses, with only anti-nuclear missile silos offering any similar functionality.

- The Sharpshooter is best used to defend structures from tactical missiles and doesn't serve much purpose in the field, as even slower land units can either dodge tactical missiles effortlessly or simply absorb their damage if the unit is colossal enough that it cannot move out of the way. That said, particularly slow units, such as the King Kriptor, may benefit from tactical missile defenses if the enemy is using an unusually large quantity of tactical missile launchers.

- Tactical missile defenses can, and often will, 'miss' their targeted missile depending on the angle between them and the missile. The most effective method to manage this is to simply add more tactical missile defense units, as targeting cannot be manually corrected.

The Field Engineer

This unit is included in the Infinite War Battle Pack 1 DLC

The Field Engineer is a standard engineer unit stripped of any building or reclaiming abilities, instead being granted slightly thicker armor and two front-mounted, direct-fire turrets. Functionally equivalent to a 'healer' role in other games, the Field Engineer exists to increase the survivability of an army in combat with minimal ability to contribute damage itself.

Tips

- Field engineers completely sacrifice their building abilities in favor of survivability in combat, making them ineffective for any construction that isn't a simple repair of what has already been built.

- Field engineers make decent factory guardians, as they can both assist the factory's production and offer some minimal defense both in direct repair and in counter-fire should they be attacked.

- While field engineers have marginally thicker armor than the standard engineer, they will not survive appreciably longer under direct fire. Putting thicker units between them and the enemy can let them survive longer, granting the army more healing capability.

Trivia

The Field Engineer originated from Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, where it fulfilled a similar role to the one it plays in Supreme Commander 2, though in the former, it possessed a limited subset of building capabilities oriented around defensive structures.

United Earth Federation Units (Part Three)

UEF Air

The Wasp

The Wasp is an air-to-air engagement unit that sacrifices durability and air-to-ground weaponry for cost-effectiveness and high efficiency in air engagements. Unlike other factions' fighters, the Wasp cannot engage land units, instead being a dedicated air superiority fighter.

Tips

- The Wasp is the only fighter in the game that is unable to attack land units.

- The Wasp is substantially cheaper than fighter/bomber units but deals less damage. It is still a better choice than producing fighter/bombers, provided the only intended use is air-to-air combat.

- The Wasp, being a cheap air unit compared to fighter/bombers, is uniquely useful as an early-game scout.

- Like other fighters, the Wasp tends to match the speed of what it is targeting, allowing it to remain behind the target and continue firing even if it is significantly slower than the fighter.

- When being pursued by hostile fighters, one can hit S to stop their fighters dead in their tracks, often resulting in the hostile fighters moving ahead of one's own. This allows one to fire on otherwise difficult-to-track targets.

The "Eagle Eye" Bomber

The Eagle Eye Bomber is a dedicated bombing unit, sacrificing all anti-air capability for enhanced bombing ability against both ground and submerged naval targets.

Tips

- The Eagle Eye has a damage-over-time payload in its bombs, spreading the damage out over several seconds. This can make the bombs less effective against small, agile units that can quickly move out of the burn radius of the bomb.

- Several upgrades for the bomb payload are available, most notable being torpedo payloads for submerged targets and a shell cam, offering a view of the bombed area for several seconds after impact.

- Assuming only its bombing utility is desired, the Eagle Eye is significantly more cost-effective than fighter/bombers, but is defenseless in air-to-air engagements.

- Similar to the Wasp, the Eagle Eye's discounted price relative to a fighter/bomber makes it a practical early-game scout.

The Broadsword Gunship

The Broadsword Gunship is a dedicated air-to-ground unit. As with other gunships, while possessing superior firepower against ground targets, it lacks the ability to engage most air units, though it can engage other gunships.

Tips

- Gunships cannot attack air-to-air units, such as Wasps. An escort is worth bringing if air-to-air defenses are suspected during a gunship raid.

- Gunships are particularly effective in the early-game against most ground targets, given anti-air upgrades to ground units generally arrive in the mid-to-late game, and dedicated anti-air units are usually scarce or absent entirely until the enemy deduces you've opted to invest in a significant air force.

-Gunships hover below the radius of most variants of dedicated shield generators, permitting them to attack the generator directly without having to contend with the shield.

The C18 Star Lifter Air Transport

The C18 Star Lifter is the standard UEF transport craft, capable of transporting limited quantities of non-experimental units long distances with enough durability to offer confidence that the transported units will survive the journey.

Tips

- The C18 Star Lifter is durable enough to survive a limited quantity of air defenses, permitting it to drop its payload before destruction even in the presence of mild opposition.

- The 'ferrying' ability offered by transports allows one to automatically move constructed units from a land factory to a specified departure point without manual loading or unloading, provided the transport remains intact.

- Players can only transport units that they own - allied units cannot enter your transports, nor can your units enter their transports.

- The C18 Star Lifter can be constructed by the experimental Mega Fortress, substantially reducing the significant build costs. However, the lifter is too large to dock in the fortress and will be immediately ejected upon finishing construction.

- Ordering a transport to assist a factory will automatically transport the factory's produced units to the factory's rally point.

United Earth Federation Units (Part Four)

The UEF Navy

The Tigershark Submarine

The Tigershark is the standard UEF submarine, with three torpedoes and a single direct-fire cannon for use when surfaced. While lacking in conventional weaponry and completely lacking air defenses, Tigersharks are uniquely lethal to naval units when submerged, as only torpedo-based weaponry can return fire.

Tips

- The Tigershark is one of an extremely limited subset of submersible units - while not completely impervious to direct damage when submerged, the overwhelming majority of weaponry that is not torpedo-based is ineffective against Tigersharks.

- While uniquely difficult to damage when submerged, Tigersharks are equally incapable of firing at anything that isn't in the water without surfacing. This makes Tigersharks redundant for most purposes other than dispatching naval units.

- Most naval units possess torpedo tubes of their own to return fire upon submerged units.

- Submerged units are not picked up on non-naval radar, permitting them to avoid detection provided they both remain submerged and do not come into visual range of any hostile units.

- Combined with their immunity to ground-based radar and their limited direct-fire capability when surfaced, Tigersharks are capable of sneak attacks on enemy bases near the shoreline should the enemy neglect to build sonar stations.

The Mastadon Cruiser

The Mastadon Cruiser is designed as a naval support unit, equipped with long-range tactical missiles, extensive radar and sonar, powerful anti-air weapons, tactical missile defenses and short-range cannons. While an extremely powerful weapons platform for naval support, the Mastadon is extremely limited in options in direct combat, with most of its weaponry intended for either ranged structure bombardment or the defense of allied ships from aerial units or missiles.

Tips

- Mastadons have exceptionally long range tactical missiles, allowing them to bombard all but the longest-ranged units from safe distances.

- Mastadons lack torpedo tubes, making them vulnerable to submerged units.

- Mastadons are heavily lacking in direct combat abilities, with poor tracking and damage on what direct-fire weapons they do possess. Supporting them with direct combat units, such as Poseidons or Tigersharks, is crucial for survival at sea.

The Poseidon Battleship

The Poseidon is the UEF take on a conventional battleship, with an array of three long-range cannons and four anti-air batteries. While the cannons have extensive range and are heavy-hitting, the anti-air batteries leave something to be desired, and the Poseidon, like the Mastadon, completely lacks torpedo tubes.

Tips

- As with most naval units, each cannon is capable of independent aiming - this permits the cannons in the front and the rear to fire at separate targets.

- Despite the number of anti-air batteries the ship is equipped with, the actual damage of the batteries is anemic at best, making the ship worth supporting with dedicated support craft like the Mastadon.

- Due to the absence of torpedo tubes, the Poseidon, like the Mastadon, has no defenses against submerged units and are worth supporting with submarines.

United Earth Federation Units (Part Five)

UEF Experimentals

The Fatboy II Experimental Assault Vehicle

The Fatboy II is a UEF experimental land unit. Intended to function as a mobile artillery platform, the Fatboy is capable of bombarding units from extreme range. Completely lacking air defenses, lacking thick armor and covering ground slowly, the Fatboy is intended to function solely as a moving artillery platform.

Tips

- The Fatboy's borderline comical range permits it to function well as a crawling artillery unit, providing fire support from the rear for units better suited for close-range combat.

- The Fatboy completely lack anti-air batteries, which, paired with its large size and limited armor, make it extremely vulnerable to concentrated bomber or gunship raids.

- The Fatboy's range permits it to kite most ground units effectively, though other long-ranged experimentals, such as Megaliths or Urchinows, may be able to match its range and return fire.

- Due to its exceptional range, damage and mobility, the Fatboy may serve better as a defensive unit than an offensive unit in some situations.

-While not particularly useful as a naval unit, the Fatboy can submerge itself in shallow water for protection from aerial assaults.

Trivia

The Fatboy II is a smaller, cheaper and much weaker version of the Fatboy from Supreme Commander/Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. Unlike its predecessor, the Fatboy II has a much weaker armament, shorter range, lacks anti-air, cannot manufacture land units, and does not have a shield generator.

The Jackhammer Experimental Unpacking Cannon

This unit was added with the Infinite War Battle Pack 1 DLC

The Jackhammer, like the Fatboy II, is a mobile artillery installation, with a heavier emphasis on being a dedicated artillery piece than the Fatboy in exchange for possessing only a single main cannon and needing to immobilize itself to fire upon targets.

Tips

- Jackhammers, when deployed, are a nearly straight upgrade from the Fatboy II, with several times more health, more damage, and a better mass-to-murder-efficiency ratio than the Fatboy, though this all comes at the considerable expense of needing to deploy to use its weaponry.

- The immobilization of deployed Jackhammers offer them immunity to other units that shift movement, such as the Cybran Magnetron.

- While out-damaging and out-tanking the Fatboy II, Jackhammers and Fatboys possess equivalent firing range.

- Unlike the Fatboy, the Jackhammer is not capable of submerging itself in shallow water.

- As with any other form of mobile artillery, the Jackhammer completely lacks anti-air batteries and is vulnerable to aerial attacks.

- The lengthy reload on the Jackhammer's main gun makes it less effective at destroying units that are not blobbed together - manual target prioritization is worth considering if up against less concentrated units.

The King Kriptor Experimental Assault Bot

The King Kriptor is essentially a walking carnival wheel of death with no fewer than eleven separate weapon hardpoints, most of which are situated on the front of its body. More of an assault titan than an assault bot, its intended purpose is to steamroll fortified positions head-on. Comes packaged with a fancy rotating crown.

Tips

- The closer the King Kriptor is to its target, the more of its weapons become effective. Minimize the distance to maximize the damage,

- Despite the King Kriptor's overwhelming arsenal, it has zero anti-air coverage, necessitating an escort if air resistance is to be expected.

- While fully capable of demolishing anything to its front, the King is also capable of rotating its torso a full 360 degrees to face any target at any angle, should any amount of flanking be attempted by the enemy.

- As with other major experimentals, the King moves at a snail's pace and is easily outrun even by less mobile land units. Experimental transports can lessen this issue.

- Most of the weaponry on the King is strictly short-range, requiring it to get up close and personal to anything that needs to be obliterated.

- Despite the thick armor of the King, its slow speed and short weapons range make it easily kiteable by mobile, long-range units like the Megalith or Fatboy, and is especially vulnerable to naval bombardment. For this reason, the King is much better situated for assaulting static bases than chasing armies or individual units.

- The King is capable of flattening anything it walks over, as well as anything its chassis falls into upon destruction.

The AC-1000 Terror Experimental Assault Plane

The AC-1000 is an experimental gunship with most of its weaponry situated on the starboard side of the unit. As an experimental gunship, the AC-1000 offers extreme firepower against ground and naval targets, but lacks defense against air-to-air units.

Tips

- The AC-1000 is remarkably affordable for the sheer amount of firepower, range and speed it possesses, making it an extremely solid investment in the early-to-mid game, costing less than a Fatboy in mass and having similar utility.

- The AC-1000 is deceptively fast for a gunship, easily matching the speed of fighters, allowing it to enter and exit combat quickly.

- The AC-1000's weaponry has unusually long range for a gunship, roughly equal to that of a standard anti-air turret, allowing it to maintain a healthy distance from anything that may fire back.

- Due to its speed, range, affordable price and generous placement on the research tree, the AC-1000 rush is a common strategy seen in matches against UEF commanders.

- While affordable and equipped with more range than any other gunship by far, the actual damage output of the AC-1000 is significantly less than that of its Cybran and Illuminate counterparts.

The C-230 Star King Extreme Experimental Air Transport

The C-230 Star King Extreme is the UEF Experimental air transport. As with other experimental transports, the C-230 possesses some limited defensive weaponry, deceptively strong engines and generous armor to protect its cargo.

Tips

- While the C-230 comes with some defensive weaponry, the weapons are functionally equivalent to firecrackers and should not be relied on for serious deterrence.

- The C-230 easily outpaces its non-experimental variant and has several times more armor to boot, but is less cost effective for pure transportation when survivability and speed are not concerns.

- Ordering a transport to assist a factory will automatically transport the factory's produced units to the factory's rally point.

United Earth Federation Units (Part Six)

The Mega Fortress Experimental Mobile Factory

The Mega Fortress is an experimental aerial factory specializing in producing large quantities of air units at a heavily discounted cost, permitting it to both construct and deploy an aerial army as needed. The Mega Fortress also sports reasonable anti-air defenses and potent air-to-ground weaponry on top of its thick armor and superior manufacturing abilities.

Tips

- The Mega Fortress builds all non-experimental air units at a 66% time and resource discount relative to a standard air factory. This makes the Mega Fortress extremely cost-effective at pumping out colossal amounts of conventional air units.

- Independent of its manufacturing ability, the Mega Fortress has a generous arsenal of weaponry aimed both toward the air and the ground, allowing it to be used in a limited offensive manner, pairing well with its ability to aggressively produce units in the field.

- While the Mega Fortress offers borderline comical discounts on air units, the fortress itself has a hefty price tag and takes long enough to pay for itself that the investment may not be worth it if mass is already scarce.

- Despite being able to manufacture standard C18 air transports, the mega fortress cannot store them and will eject them immediately upon finishing construction of one. They do, however, retain the 66% time and resource discount that other air units receive.

The Atlantis II Experimental Aircraft Carrier

The Atlantis II is a UEF hybrid between a submarine and an aircraft carrier, fully capable of stocking a squadron of 25 aircraft while returning fire to other naval craft with both direct-fire cannons and torpedo tubes. Like the Mega Fortress, the Atlantis can fabricate basic air units at a 66% resource discount, but does not receive the manufacturing time reduction the Mega Fortress possesses.

Tips

- The Atlantis II, despite primarily functioning as an aircraft carrier, is not entirely useless in combat - its canno damage alone roughly matches that of a Poseidon battleship, but has several times less range to work with.

- Similar to Tigersharks, the Atlantis II can only be detected by sonar when submerged, offering a much greater ability to launch surprise attacks when paired with its aircraft carrying abilities.

- Constructing air units with the Atlantis II in lieu of an air factory is heavily favorable to one's economy, as, unlike the Mega Fortress, the Atlantis II is remarkably affordable for the discount it offers, costing just barely less than two standard air factories and possessing a much greater ability to defend itself if threatened.

- The Atlantis II completely lacks anti-air batteries, requiring an escort in the presence of air opposition. Submerging can mitigate this threat, provided torpedo bombers are not present.

The Super Triton Experimental Dreadnought

This unit is included in the Infinite War Battle Pack One DLC

The Super Triton Experimental Dreadnought is a naval experimental unit consisting of three large turrets on top of the vessel, as well as no fewer than twenty-four direct-fire cannons distributed across its port, bow and starboard sides. Functioning as the King Kriptor of the ocean, this unit exists to spew death at any ground units nearby with minimal ability to function in any other role.

Tips

- Despite its size and firepower, due to the cannon distribution across its sides, keeping hostile units at a healthy range is key to utilizing all of the Triton's available firepower; small units in particular are capable of closing the gap and minimizing damage taken from most of its arsenal.

- While fully effective at firing at ground units, the Triton completely lacks anti-air batteries and torpedo tubes, requiring an escort in the presence of air or submerged naval opposition.

- Illuminate units pose a unique threat to the Dreadnought - their small size and maneuverability severely limits how many cannons, if any, can fire upon them when up close. This, paired with the Illuminate ability to unlock teleportation for hovering units, makes keeping the distance from Illuminate units vital for the Dreadnought's survivability in combat.

Aeon Illuminate Units

Illuminate Ground

The Yenzoo Tank

The Yenzoo Tank is the standard Illuminate tank, possessing the common Illuminate ability to hover over fluids, but is otherwise functionally identical to its UEF variant.

Tips
- Yenzoo tanks allow one to navigate bodies of water right off the bat without a hefty naval investment, granting Illuminate players a head start in any naval map, though the firepower of tanks is lacking compared to that of a dedicated naval craft.

- Unupgraded Yenzoos are virtually identical to a UEF Rockhead, save for being able to hover.

- Teleportation upgrades benefit the Yenzoo massively, especially in a naval context where closing the distance quickly is of extreme importance.

The Harvog Assault Bot

The Harvog is the Illuminate take on a dedicated assault bot, possessing the unusual trait of not hovering, despite being an Illuminate unit. Faster than the Yenzoo and weighed down by less armor, the Harvog is designed for fast-paced raids exclusively on land.

Tips

- Harvogs benefit from a slew of defensive and offensive upgrades, making them uniquely resilient to most sources of damage when fully upgraded and retaining the usual Illuminate ability of teleportation.

- While an anti-air battery can be added to Harvogs, the damage output is lackluster and used better as a deterrent than for dedicated defense; escorting with dedicated anti-air units is worth the trouble if significant air resistance is expected.

- The speed of Harvog bots, combined with their researchable teleportation ability, makes them uniquely capable of hit-and-run attacks compared to virtually any other land unit.

- As an assault bot, the Harvog is not able to traverse fluid in any capacity.

The Fistoosh Mobile Missile Launcher

The Fistoosh is the standard Illuminate mobile missile launching unit, possessing missiles that fire small salvos but have unusually heavy damage per-missile.

Tips

- The Fistoosh is the only non-experimental indirect fire unit in the Illuminate arsenal, given the lack of a dedicated artillery unit.

- As with other forms of tactical missile launchers, Fistoosh missiles do not track moving targets and are best used against either static structures or particularly slow-moving or self-immobilizing units, such as Jackhammers.

- The Fistoosh offers a degree of offshore bombardment capability given its hovering ability, not unlike that offered by the Mastadon, albeit at a much shorter range.

The Crahdow Mobile Anti-Air Gun

The Crahdow is the standard Illuminate mobile anti-air unit, offering moderate anti-air capabilities over a decent range. Included in the package is the usual Illuminate ability to hover over bodies of water.

Tips

- Crahdows, like Archanists, can offer a low-budget base defense option if dedicated anti-air turrets are not an option, though their range leaves something to be desired when up against longer-range units such as the AC-1000.

- Low-cost units such as the Crahdow can help powerlevel the veterancy of a factory quickly if producing other units is not an immediate concern.

- In terms of sheer DPS, mobile anti-air tends to win over static anti-air in resource-to-damage conversion, especially with land factories at high veterancy levels. This is, however, at the very real expense of significantly less range than an anti-air tower and much less durability per-unit.

Aeon Illuminate Units (Part Two)

The Bodaboom Mobile Armor Booster

The Bodaboom is the Illuminate variant of a conventional portable shield generator, opting to dramatically increase the armor and regeneration values of nearby units in lieu of a physical shield.

Tips

- Bodabooms, like portable shield generators, are purely protective units and offer no offensive weaponry of their own.

- Bodaboom defense bonuses do not stack, though sending several with any given army can minimize the risk of the buff being lost entirely to destruction of the Bodabooms.

- Bodabooms are able to hover, as with most other Illuminate land units.

- Bodaboom buffs apply to most forms of units, including air units and static structures.

- As Bodaboom buffs apply to structures, throwing a few in with a defensive line is a solid way of dramatically increasing the survivability of the defensive line.

- Bodabooms are purely armor boosters and will not grant shields any bonus resistances.

The Sliptack Mobile Anti-Missile

The Sliptack is the standard Illuminate mobile anti-missile unit, used to intercept tactical missiles within its defensive radius before they impact their targets.

Tips

- As with most forms of tactical missile defenses, Sliptacks lack any offensive weaponry of their own.

- Tactical missiles are rarely used against mobile units, and seldom pose a threat when they are used, making tactical missile defense units more useful around static structures likely to be attacked by missile salvos.

- Tactical missile defense units tend to miss their targets with some degree of frequency. Stacking several around important structures can heavily mitigate this risk.

- A two-to-one ratio of tactical missile defense units against tactical missile launchers generally suffices for defensive purposes.

The Shotja Mobile Sniper Bot

This unit was included in the Infinite War Battle Pack One DLC

The Shotja is a specialized Illuminate unit with extreme range and firepower, but with very thin armor and anemic movement speed. Similar to its SC:FA predecessor, this unit is designed for extreme amounts of precision damage but are very easy to dispatch if the distance can be closed.

Tips

- The highly lethal damage of the Shotja makes it a uniquely threatening unit when paired with teleportation - a squadron of Shotjas can easily teleport to a vantage point, or simply directly on top of a target of opportunity and erase it in moments.

- Shotjas, as with most Illuminate units, can hover over fluid, making them a long-range match for most boats.

- Shotjas can take the place of point defense turrets in a pinch.

Aeon Illuminate Units (Part Three)

Illuminate Air

The Weedoboth Fighter/Bomber

As suggested by the name, the "We Do Both" fighter/bomber fulfills both the role of an air-to-air fighter and an air-to-ground bomber.

Tips

- As with the Cybran fighter/bomber, the Weedoboth is functional in both air-to-air and air-to-ground contexts, specializing in neither, but having the ability to swap between either as needed.

- While more pricey than the Wasp or Eagle Eye, the Weedoboth is a suitable early-game scout.

- The Weedoboth is granted numerous powerful upgrades through air research, including defensive flares and a thick shield on top of much heavier bomb damage, taking it from an average bomber early-game to an offensive and defensive powerhouse late-game.

- Flares can functionally halve the damage taken by the Weedoboth when facing anti-air batteries.

The Vulthoo Gunship

The Vulthoo Gunship is the standard Illuminate gunship, possessing exclusively air-to-ground weaponry and posing a lethal threat to anything below it.

Tips

- The Vulthoo, as with other gunships, hovers low enough to negate the effectiveness of most static shield generators.

- The Vulthoo benefits from numerous unique defensive upgrades, including defensive flares, thick shields and teleportation, making it an unusually durable air unit in the late-game.

- The Vulthoo functions as a lethal ACU hunter in late-game swarms due to its extreme resilience in numbers when all defensive upgrades are present and combined with its ability to teleport directly on top of the targeted ACU.

- Flares can functionally halve the damage taken by Vulthoos when facing anti-air batteries.

The HeeHola Air Transport

The HeeHola is the Illuminate take on a basic unit transport, being able to move small squadrons reasonable distances on the battlefield with no remarkable abilities.

Tips

- Air transports can set up a 'ferry' route to automatically take units from one location to another. This is especially useful when the output of land factories are attached to such a route.

- The HeeHola's onboard weapons function more as fireworks than weapons, with negligible damage applied to targets even with large numbers of air transports firing.

- The HeeHola can bypass a degree of defenses through the use of teleportation, making ambushes significantly simpler with intelligent ability usage.

- Ordering a transport to assist a factory will automatically transport the factory's produced units to the factory's rally point.

Aeon Illuminate Units (Part Four)

Illuminate Experimentals

The Wilfindja Experimental Sea Hunter

The Wilfindja is an experimental unit oriented around naval combat, with a number of drones functioning independently from the main chassis sporting the weaponry of this unit. While the main chassis has no weaponry, the drones will independently attack ground, naval and submerged units in range of the chassis.

Tips

- While the chassis is fragile for an experimental unit, the DPS of all of the drones combined offers ludicrous damage potential. This makes the Wilfindja most easily used against targets that cannot return fire, such as submerged submarines, or individual targets of opportunity where the sea hunter can win the DPS race.

- The Wilfindja can hover over water, though it is easily outmaneuvered by most boats.

- The fragility of the chassis poses a major vulnerability to long-ranged units, such as battleships.

- The Wilfindja has zero air defense, making it extremely vulnerable to concentrated bombing runs or gunship raids.

The Urchinow Experimental Assault Block

The Urchinow is the Illuminate variant of a Fatboy or Megalith, sporting extreme range and lethal ground-to-ground weaponry and heavy armor, but with lethargic speed and no anti-air capabilities.

Tips

- The Urchinow is a lethal ground-to-ground unit at range and can function well as an extremely thick sniper independent of its siege capabilities.

- Urchinows can replace point defense turrets if needed, and are significantly more cost-effective than point defense turrets.

- Urchinows are capable of hovering over fluids and are an effective answer to most forms of naval vessels, though most boats will run circles around an Urchinow speed-wise.

- Urchinows have no anti-air batteries and require an anti-air escort if air resistance is expected.

The Airnomo Experimental Air Defense

The Airnomo is an experimental defensive unit sporting a borderline comical amount of anti-air batteries, offering effective area denial against air units.

Tips

- The Airnomo is slow-moving, but extremely effective at locking down a given location from most air threats.

- If the situation calls for it, the Airnomo has limited ground-to-ground weaponry to defend itself as a last resort.

- The Airnomo can function well as a support siege unit for other siege units, such as the Urchinow or Universal Colossus, offering supreme air support to compensate for the other siege units' lack of air coverage.

- The Airnomo is significantly more cost-effective for air defense than conventional static anti-air.

Aeon Illuminate Units (Part Five)

The Universal Colossus Experimental Assault Bot

The Universal Colossus is the Illuminate variant of a siege titan, functionally the equivalent of the UEF King Kriptor, though with its own unique weaponry, sporting a single, extremely powerful laser mounted on its head and two magnetic claws that pull in smaller land units to either destroy them or launch them at other targets.

Tips

- The Universal Colossus, like the Bodaboom, increases the physical resilience of nearby units.

- As with other siege weaponry, the Universal Colossus is completely dedicated to its role as a ground-to-ground unit and possesses no anti-air batteries.

- While incapable of teleportation by itself, pairing the Universal Colossus with a Space Temple's extreme teleportation range can quickly offer lethal results.

- The Universal Colossus is capable of flattening anything it walks over, as well as anything that its chassis falls into upon destruction.

The 'Pulinsmash' Experimental Mobile Unit Magnet

The Pulinsmash is an experimental, deployable mobile unit that functions similarly to the UEF Jackhammer, though its main weapon consists of a long-range attractor that pulls in individual units and crushes them in a gravitational field.

Tips

- The Pulinsmash is, first and foremost, an area-denial weapon best used to supplement base defenses, as it has no offensive weaponry other than its pulling attack and struggles to deal with large blobs of units.

- The Pulinsmash is capable of pulling in any form of unit, including naval units.

- The Pulinsmash can utilize space temple teleportation while deployed.

- The Pulinsmash is immune to the attracting and repelling effects of a Magnetron when deployed, allowing it to hold its ground if caught within the effective radius of a Magnetron.

The Darkenoid Experimental Giant Saucer

The Darkenoid is a form of experimental gunship taking an unusual form - a flying saucer rather than a conventional gunship shape. Equipped with a massive central beam cannon and several sub-weapons, the Darkenoid poses a lethal threat to anything directly beneath it, but struggles to damage anything it cannot hover directly on top of.

Tips

- The Darkenoid's sheer size allows it to reliably demolish units it falls on after destruction, further posing a threat to slow-moving or static units directly beneath it even if the Darkenoid is destroyed during its attack.

- The Darkenoid is deceptively fast for its size, moving much faster than gunships but still being outrun by fighters.

- The surface area covered by the Darkenoid can offer limited protection against strategic missiles if the landing zone can be inferred, detonating the strategic missile in the air and ensuring the Darkenoid takes the hit rather than anything beneath it.

- The Darkenoid lacks any form of anti-air weaponry, making it vulnerable to interception from fighters.

The Sooprizer Experimental Gunship

This unit was included in the Infinite War Battle Pack 1 DLC

The Sooprizer is an Illuminate experimental gunship with the unique ability of possessing immunity to radar detection, offering the ability to launch sneak attacks - hence the name 'Sooperizer'. Functioning as a stealth gunship, the Sooprizer can dish out surprising amounts of damage from the shadows, but its movement speed is lethargic at best.

Tips

- The main advantage of the Sooprizer is its complete immunity to radar detection, allowing it to sneak up on enemy forces undetected, which offers a highly potent effect given its remarkably lethal air-to-ground weaponry.

- The Sooprizer, while slow, is extremely durable by air standards and can withstand much more punishment than most gunships.

- The Sooprizer lacks any form of anti-air weaponry, though an escort may not be desired as conventional fighters are not immune to radar.

Cybran Nation Units

Cybran Land

The Loyalist Assault Bot

The Loyalist is the standard direct-fire unit of the Cybran land arsenal. Lacking any tanks, the Cybrans instead start with assault bots right off the bat, emphasizing the faction's focus on speed and firepower over defensive ability.

Tips

- Cybrans, unlike other factions, start with assault bots and lack tanks entirely.

- Assault bots being available immediately permit a more aggressive strategy to be employed from the research barrier to assault bots being removed, making early raids and harassment more straightforward.

- While Loyalists lack the range of tanks, their superior speed permit a degree of kiting and, if necessary, complete retreat that other factions lack in the early game.

- Loyalists possess a researchable upgrade known as speed-reducing mega armor, granting them a temporary armor boost that makes them even more resilient to damage than a tank in exchange for a dramatic movement speed reduction for the duration of the ability.

- Loyalists can be upgraded with Jump Jets to further enhance their raiding abilities.

The Brackman Mobile Artillery Unit

The Brackman is the Cybran variant of a conventional mobile artillery unit, roughly equivalent to the UEF Demolisher, but available immediately without necessitating research. As with the demolisher, it fires slow shells that follow a ballistic arc to their target.

Tips

- As with the Demolisher, the Brackman is better used as a supplement to direct-fire units than as a primary offensive unit, as its shells are easily dodged by careful micromanagement despite their heavy damage.

- While referred to as 'artillery', the actual firing range of a Brackman is exceeded by even a basic point defense turret, making it ineffective as a literal long-range artillery piece.

- Brackman artillery shells have significant splash damage and benefit heavily from engaging larger unit blobs, assuming shots can be effectively landed.

The Cobra Mobile Missile Launcher

The Cobra is the Cybran variant of a mobile missile launching unit, and the only mobile missile launcher necessitating research before it can be manufactured. The Cobra favors high-volume missiles with smaller warheads and excels at overwhelming tactical missile defenses, but faces the same vulnerabilities as other mobile missile launchers.

Tips

- Mobile missile launchers of any form are a hard counter to point defense turrets, outranging even the longest-ranged point defense turrets, and are able to overwhelm tactical missile defenses with proper numbers.

- As with other mobile missile launchers, Cobra missiles do not track moving targets and are best used against either static structures or slow-moving units.

- As Cobras necessitate research, unlocking them should be a priority if the enemy is clearly investing in large quantities of point defense turrets and no other answer is available.

The Adaptor Mobile Anti-Air, Anti-Missile and Mobile Shield

The Cybran Adaptor combines the functionality of three units into one cost-effective package: it offers a portable bubble shield, tactical missile defenses and anti-air batteries in a single unit. That said, the quality of each function independently is inferior to a single dedicated unit for each role, making the Adaptor truly shine in situations where all of its functions can be used at once.

Tips

- While the Adaptor has several functions, its main, and most common, purpose is to function as a mobile anti-air battery.

- The shield of the Adaptor, like most Cybran shields, is unusually weak by bubble shield standards and rarely negates more than one hit before falling.

- The tactical missile defense of the Adaptor is less effective than Illuminate/UEF variants, necessitating stacking Adaptors for effective tactical missile defenses.

- As the Adaptor is locked behind research and has significant functionality early-on, assessing its necessity early through scouting is crucial - the presence of air, in particular, is an immediate sign that it should be unlocked as soon as possible.

- The Adaptor's bubble shield, combined with its affordable price, makes it an effective anti-air guardian in most bases, offering both limited protection to nearby structures and cost-effective anti-air support.

Cybran Nation Units (Part Two)

Cybran Air

The Gemini Fighter/bomber

The Gemini, like the Illuminate Weedoboth, is a multipurpose air unit capable both of air-to-air combat and air-to-ground bombing.

Tips

- The Gemini is functionally identical to the Weedoboth without upgrades, but branches more into a speed and survivability-focused unit when upgraded, compared to the Weedoboth which becomes more of a tanky air-to-ground powerhouse.

- While more pricey than dedicated air-to-air or air-to-ground units, Geminis are commonly used as early-game scouts.

- While suitable for scouting in the early game, Cybrans possess a dedicated scout craft that may be preferred later in the game.

The Renegade Gunship

The Renegade is the Cybran variant of an air-to-ground gunship. Placing a higher emphasis on damage output and speed than armor, the Renegade is a uniquely lethal gunship compared to the UEF/Illuminate variants.

Tips

- Fully upgraded, the Renegade receives a whopping 140% increase to its damage output before veterancy is applied, giving it the highest damage on paper of any other non-experimental gunship.

- When upgraded, the Renegade offers a better damage-to-cost ratio compared to Soul Ripper IIs, though their health-to-cost ratio is significantly worse.

- Renegade swarms are common tactics employed by Cybrans, either in early-game rushes or late-game blobs due to the uniquely lethal damage output that Renegades possess, especially in Assassination games.

The Intellitron Air Scout

This unit was included in the Infinite War Battle Pack 1 DLC

The Intellitron Air Scout is a dedicated scout craft that sacrifices armor and offensive abilities for extreme speed and superior optical and radar sensors.

Tips

- The Intellitron flies fast enough to dodge projectiles with remarkable consistency, often allowing it to fly directly over bases and, with some luck, come out from the other side entirely unscathed.

- The Intellitron's sensor suite is far superior to any other aircraft, easily making it the most effective dedicated scout that mass can buy.

- The Intellitron has no offensive weaponry.

The Dragonfly Air Transport

The Dragonfly Air Transport is the Cybran variant of a standard transport. The dragonfly possesses no remarkable weapon systems and its carrying capacity cannot be upgraded beyond its base capacity of 15 units.

Tips

- Ordering a transport to assist a factory will automatically transport the factory's produced units to the factory's rally point.

- The Dragonfly is considered to be the least desirable air transport variant, as it is just as unremarkable both offensively and defensively as other transports but also lacks an upgrade to its carrying capabilities. That said, it still beats walking.

Cybran Nation Units (Part Three)

The Cybran Navy

The Salem-Class Destroyer

The Salem-Class is the Cybran variant of the UEF Mastadon, with a much higher emphasis on direct-fire weaponry and flexibility with a significantly smaller emphasis on support weapons.

Tips

- As with other Cybran boats, the Salem-class benefits from Naval L.E.G.S. technology when researched, permitting it to walk on land.

- The Salem-Class is equipped with enough torpedo tubes to best a Tigershark one-on-one.

- While not strictly a support ship, the Salem-Class benefits from potent anti-air systems and is suitable as anti-air support for longer-ranged vessels, such as the Executioner-Class Battleship.

- The Salem-Class's direct-fire weapons follow a slow-moving ballistic arc, making them easily avoidable by small, fast units, such as hovering Illuminate ground units when properly micromanaged.

- Despite being a boat, the Salem-Class moves with remarkable speed and serves as a solid early-game naval scout that is fully capable of defending itself.

The Executioner-Class Battleship

The Executioner-Class Battleship is the Cybran variant of a dedicated battleship, armed with numerous long-range proton cannons and remarkably potent anti-air batteries. As with the Salem-Class, the Executioner-Class benefits from naval L.E.G.S. technology, permitting it to walk on land.

Tips

- The proton cannons on Executioner-class vessels are uniquely potent, sporting both extremely lethal damage and extremely long range, enough to function as shore-bombardment artillery pieces just as well as direct-combat cannons. The projectiles themselves also travel quickly compared to most naval munitions.

- The extreme range of an upgraded Executioner, paired with naval L.E.G.S. technology, allows the Executioner-Class to be used as a potent siege weapon.

- The proton cannons of the Executioner-class can be applied to naval factories with research, offering a potent defensive system against naval and ground threats to naval factories.

The Command-Class Aircraft Carrier

The Command-Class is the Cybran variant of an aircraft carrier, a non-experimental variant of the Atlantis II with much less remarkable manufacturing and combat abilities that nonetheless fulfills the role of storing and distributing aircraft as needed.

Tips

- While the Command-Class does offer a discount on air manufacturing, the resource reduction is less impressive than that of the UEF Mega Fortress and there is no time savings. In exchange, the ship doesn't require committing to building an experimental and is more affordable than an Atlantis II or Mega Fortress.

- The Command-Class's onboard weaponry, while not entirely useless, is much less lethal than that of the Salem or Executioner-class, and is best kept away from combat.

- The Command-Class benefits from naval L.E.G.S. technology.

Cybran Nation Units (Part Four)

Cybran Experimentals

The Megalith II Experimental Mega-bot

The Megalith II is the Cybran variant of a minor experimental siege unit, sporting similar traits to the UEF Fatboy of extreme range and firepower, with more mobility and less health.

Tips

- The Megalith II is a commonly rushed experimental in the early game, able to be unlocked deceptively early if one invests heavily in research.

- Unlike the Fatboy II, the Megalith II does not suffer from slow projectile speed, making it even more lethal against land units in its range.

- Similar to the Fatboy II, the Megalith II can rotate its weapons a full 180 degrees, allowing it to sustain fire even when retreating.

- While the Megalith II sports a degree of anti-air batteries, they are more of a deterrent than a serious threat to air units and are easily overwhelmed even by smaller swarms of gunships.

- Megalith IIs are an extremely effective replacement for conventional point defense turrets, offering a far superior cost vs. effectiveness ratio in every category, provided one has enough room for them.

- The Megalith II is not submersible and cannot cross shallow water.

The Cybranasaurus Rex Experimental Lizardbot

The Cybranasaurux Rex is a Cybran siege experimental designed to tank and dish out heavy amounts of damage at close-range, with virtually no medium or long-range equipment.

Tips

- The C-Rex is a purely close-quarters combatant - every weapon system it has, save for the miniscule amount of artillery mounted on its spine, assumes the C-Rex will be directly in front of its target.

- The C-Rex is not a particularly fast experimental and is easily kited.

- The C-Rex comes with a generous health pool allowing it to simply walk up to fortified defenses, shrugging off even concentrated damage, at the very real tradeoff of not being able to engage targets from a distance and being completely committed to an assault once it begins.

- Given its slow speed, close-range weaponry and thick health pool, the C-Rex is best used to siege fortified positions and is seldom useful against moving targets.

- The C-Rex is partially submersible and capable of crossing shallow water, though most of its weapon systems will be unusable while submerged despite the spine remaining vulnerable.

The Bomb Bouncer Experimental Reflector Shield

The Bomb Bouncer Experimental Reflector Shield is a Cybran experimental unit that projects a circular, flat shield above itself. The unit is mobile and the shield can withstand considerable punishment. As the shield is shelled, the unit absorbs the energy from the attacks that it can then discharge as a potent area-of-effect burst of damage around (and above) the unit.

Tips

- While the Bomb Bouncer's shield can withstand considerable punishment, it is far from invincible and will not last long against heavy fire or a direct assault. Grouping several together can mitigate this problem.

- The Bomb Bouncer's AoE weapon affects both air and land units, and can destroy most non-experimental units in a single hit, provided they aren't substantially upgraded.

- The AoE weapon can be manually charged for 250 energy, then discharged at will.

- There is a significant cooldown between manual recharge cycles. This does not apply for automated charging through projectile absorption.

- The AoE weapon deals exactly 2500 damage to each individual unit in range.

- The Bomb Bouncer cannot hold more than mega blast charge at a time.

- Bomb Bouncers are best used to defend armies against hostile air - especially gunships. It will not provide any protection from most direct-fire land units, but may hinder units such as the Fatboy or Jackhammer, which have an arced firing angle.

- The Bomb Bouncer can absorb the energy from an enemy air assault and use it to destroy the very air units that powered it.

Cybran Nation Units (Part Five)

The 'Cicada' Experimental Stealth Field

The 'Cicada' Experimental Stealth Field is a mobile stealth field generator that, when activated, completely obscures all units from optical and radar sensors in its effective vicinity, making only itself visible.

Tips

- The Cicada lacks the ability to cloak other Cicadas.

- The Cicada's stealth ability has a relatively short duration and must recharge between uses.

- Units inside the Cicada's stealth field, while cloaked, are completely invisible and impossible to automatically fire at. They can still fire back.

The 'Monkeylord' Experimental Spiderbot

This unit was included with the Infinite War Battlepack 1 DLC

The Monkeylord is an enormous experimental spiderbot and is the only unit in SC2 that was also directly used in the previous two installments in this series.

The unit has a staggering 100,000 base health, almost twice as much as any other major experimental, and main cannon DPS of 2500, allowing it to survive heavy damage and destroy most units in less than a second. With full training and veterancy, this is expanded to an unrivaled 200,000 health and 5,000 DPS. A Monkeylord with 3/4 of its health with full veterancy and training is still capable of taking on 2 Universal Colossi. It can destroy a King Kriptor in 30 seconds. While it is not very maneuverable it can effectively attack units behind it due to the main turret being able to fully rotate, unlike some other land experimentals, such as the Universal Colossus.

Notes

- The Monkeylord will sometimes not fire at units behind it. Simply stop the monkeylord and turn it around if this problem persists.

- The Monkeylord's armament also includes 2 turrets that can shoot at enemies independent from the main laser. These turrets have a substantially longer range than the main laser.

- While the Monkeylord has basic anti-air, it barely pars that of a single Adapter.

Cybran Nation Units (Part Six)

The Experimental Giant Transport

The Experimental Giant Transport is the Cybran variant of an experimental transport, designed to move vast quantities of units or experimentals at extreme speeds, with minimal other purpose than moving large quantities of units quickly.

Tips

- As with other experimental transports, the Giant Transport has some minimal onboard weapon systems, though they are useful as a deterrent at best.

- While not particularly cost-effective for this purpose, the sheer speed of the Giant Transport can make it an effective suicide bomber, as its speed allows it to position itself directly above whatever needs to be damaged long before lethal damage is taken.

- Transports assigned to guard factories will automatically carry the produced units from that factory to the factory's rally point.

The Soul Ripper II Experimental Gunship

The Soul Ripper II is the Cybran variant of an experimental gunship. Sacrificing speed and range for extremely potent air-to-ground weaponry and decent armor, the Soul Ripper II poses an extreme threat to anything directly beneath it.

Tips

- Soul Ripper IIs possess a staggering amount of DPS, allowing them to erase almost anything they can position themselves directly above.

- The DPS of the Soul Ripper II, combined with its armor, can allow it to simply ignore anti-air defenses long enough to dispatch valuable targets, such as ACUs, experimentals, or larger structures.

- As with other large aircraft, the chassis of the Soul Ripper II will impart significant damage upon anything it collides with after destruction.

- Unlike any other gunship, the Soul Ripper II possesses competent air-to-air batteries independent of its air-to-ground weaponry, allowing it to fend off small quantities of air-to-air units alone, though it still cannot resist a sustained assault.

The Experimental Kraken Submarine

The Kraken is a Cybran experimental submarine designed to have significantly more lethality when surfaced than submerged, contrary to usual submarine design. Equipped with eight tentacles capable of shredding naval, land and air units alike alongside three torpedo tubes, there isn't much the Kraken is incapable of demolishing.

Tips

- The Kraken, unintuitively, is capable of firing its tentacle lasers at any form of unit regardless of whether it's above, below or on even ground relative to the Kraken, allowing it to dispatch anything that gets close with ease.

- The Kraken's lethality is only unleashed when the unit is surfaced, and is limited to torpedo tubes when submerged.

- While outputting extreme amounts of damage through its lasers, the Kraken is unremarkably armored for a unit of its cost, making an early retreat worth considering if there is any question as to whether the Kraken can survive a given encounter.

- As with most highly lethal units, the Kraken has a limited laser range and is easily kited.

- The Kraken must be stationary to discharge its tentacle lasers.

Artillery

UEF Artillery

Fortified Artillery Light Artillery Installation

The Fortified Artillery installation is a short-range, low-cost, medium-damage artillery piece capable of shelling things beyond the reach of standard point defense turrets and some missile launchers. When upgraded, it is capable of 'hardening' its weaponry, reducing its range to that of a standard point defense turret while amplifying its area of effect and rate of fire several times.

This unit is generally used to shell hostile units before they get in range of standard point defenses, as well as to provide fire support on hostile bases where heavy artillery is either not in range or not economically feasible.

Long-range Artillery Installation

The UEF non-experimental artillery installation favors range over accuracy, rate of fire and damage potential. While inaccurate and with somewhat lackluster damage, this artillery piece allows for decent suppression over very long distances. Due to the rather inaccurate aim of the station, building multiple is advisable if guaranteeing hits is desired.

Quantum Disruptor Station

The Quantum Disruptor Station is significantly more deadly than regular UEF heavy artillery. With a slightly longer range, heavier damage potential and EMP effect, for nearly the same research price as regular heavy artillery, quantum artillery is a force to be reckoned with. Quantum artillery can fire a charged shot, which will temporarily immobilize any units impacted by the shot.. The EMP effect varies by how many shots impacted the unit per salvo. Around four seconds of EMP are applied per shot hit with each salvo. Other salvos do not stack with the original one.

The only downsides to using quantum artillery is the low rate of fire and larger mass and energy cost over the regular heavy artillery installation. Compared to conventional artillery, the disruptor station is an enormous investment, but remains a better cost-to-effectiveness ratio than standard artillery provided the resources can be spared and the station is kept intact.

Cybran Artillery

Heavy Artillery Station

The Cybran Heavy Artillery Station does substantially more damage than other non-experimental artillery installations, and, when fully researched, also fires noticeably more quickly than all other artillery installations. That being said, it has a considerably smaller range than all artillery structures other than fortified artillery.

The Cybran artillery station does a substantial amount of damage - especially when upgraded - and offers certain tactical advantages, such as accurate shells, generous damage, and, when researched, shell cameras that provide direct vision around a shell's impact area for a few seconds following the impact. All of this is at the cost of a shorter firing range than other artillery.

Cybran artillery is best used for forcefully hammering structures in its effective range - Cybran artillery outputs excessive damage and allows for destroying nearby buildings/units very swiftly. In particular, it is very effective at focused destruction of specific units or structures due to its accuracy and rate of fire.

Unique UEF Units

The 'Noah' Experimental Unit Cannon

The Unit Cannon is an experimental land factory offering extreme discounts to resource and time investment required to build units, alongside the unique ability to launch these units as far as a conventional artillery battery can reach.

Tips
- The Unit Cannon offers an extreme discount compared to the average land factory, offering the same units for roughly 1/7th of the cost both time and resource-wise, making it far superior to a land factory for the purpose of economical production of a ground army.

- Anti-air turrets can intercept units launched by the unit cannon before they land, though the unit shells tend to travel quickly enough that anti-air batteries may miss entirely or land a negligible amount of damage.

- While certainly capable of launching an entire army directly into an enemy base, the units themselves land one-by-one, making them easy to destroy as they land by any immediately proximal turrent defenses. Scouting landing spots, or just landing outside of a fortified position, is key to ensuring the survival of the launched army.

- Fabricating units and launching them individually can be a very economical method for scouting.

- For maps with remote islands conventionally accessed with transport ships, the unit cannon can offer an alternative method for colonization; engineers can be built with the cannon as well, bypassing the need to have an engineer float or be transported over.

The 'Aegis' Experimental Shield Generator

The Aegis projects a very large shield capable of enveloping a medium-sized base (with a radius slightly smaller than one of the four platforms between the spawn areas in Tourney Dome), with much more strength than a standard shield. However, the Aegis does not passively regenerate its shields over time at all, and requires an investment of 5,000 units of energy to manually recharge its shields, regardless of their remaining durability.

Tips

- The recharge ability has an extensive cooldown time completely independent of the actual amount of shields recharged. To maximize energy utilization, use this ability only when the shield is, or is near the point of, dropping.

- The Aegis is best used to protect large bases from small artillery barrages and other long-range units (e.g. jackhammers, fatboys, megaliths) late in the game. It will seldom provide protection from anything that isn't long-range due to its immense shield radius.

- The Aegis will not stop any projectiles that a regular shield will not.

- The Aegis's shield recharge ability will not be able to keep up with a concentrated artillery assault. Even five regular artillery structures centered on it at once can place heavy stress on the recharge limit.

- Similar to regular shield generators, the Aegis does not have much structural resilience for its size. It is especially prone to attacks from bombers, which can get in and drop payload much faster than gunships can. Regular shield generators are borderline necessary to protect this structure.

- The Aegis is best used as a preventative measure for artillery barrages (i.e. have it built before the shells start firing), buying time to develop a more direct countermeasure to whatever is bombarding your base. Because of the Aegis's low structural health, high price and extensive building time, it's usually not worth attempting to construct one if artillery is already dialed in.

The Research Converter

This unit was included in the Infinite War Battle Pack One DLC

The Research Converter is a simple building that converts large quantities of mass into instant progress towards research point production, allowing an individual to progress research at a substantially faster rate than usual, at the expense of much lower mass-to-research efficiency.

Tips

- The Research Converter is a simple solution to an individual posed with the question: "what could I possibly do with this massive pile of excess mass I have?" This facility will let you bypass the normal wait times for producing research points at the expense of significantly higher quantities of mass required for said progress.

- This facility is best used in cases where one has neglected to unlock a unit type that would be an effective counter to a current or impending battlefield threat that one cannot afford to wait for normal research progress to unlock. While it's substantially more mass-effective to just produce regular research facilities instead, skipping the wait can, in certain situations, be crucial.

- In one-on-one or two-on-two matches, this structure consumes enough mass to put an individual at a major economical disadvantage. The research progress gained may not - and usually will not - outweigh the units that could have been produced instead.

Unique Aeon Units

The 'Illuminator' Experimental Intel Gathering Station

This unit was included in the Infinite War Battle Pack 1 DLC

The Illuminator is an experimental radar installation offering extremely long-range sensors, as well as an active ability to convert its radar range to optical sensors for a brief time, offering complete visibility in its effective radius.

Tips

- The Illuminator functions as an extremely long-range radar, and is a particularly useful investment on larger maps where smaller radars would need to be thoroughly distributed for complete coverage.

- As with standard radar, the Illuminator is fragile, and, given its price, is worth protecting with shields.

- The active ability of the Illuminator can allow detection of units usually immune to radar detection, as no units are immune to optical sensors.

The 'Buhbledow' Experimental EMP Missile Launcher

This unit is included in the Infinite War Battle Pack One DLC

The Buhbledow is a strategic EMP launcher, functioning similarly to a strategic missile launcher, but firing EMP missiles in lieu of nuclear warheads.

Tips

- EMP missiles are not intercepted by strategic missile defenses.

- EMP missiles temporarily disable all forms of shields in the blast radius.

- EMP missiles do not stop units from functioning beyond disabling their shields.

- The EMP radius is roughly equivalent to the radius of a nuclear detonation.

The 'Loyalty Gun' Experimental Conversion Ray

The Loyalty Gun is a major experimental turret with an exceptionally long range that is capable of rapidly capturing any vulnerable unit (anything other than ACUs and aerial units) in its range.

Tips

- The Loyalty Gun outranges every other direct-fire unit in the game, allowing it to capture most short-to-medium ranged units well before they can even fire on the structure.

- The Loyalty Gun captures small units in two seconds, minor experimentals in five seconds and major experimentals in ten seconds.

- Loyalty guns offer unusually long range for a turret and can be used as a siege installation, as structures are not immune to the effects of conversion.

- The Loyalty gun functions extremely well as an area denial weapon for land units, virtually requiring an aerial assault to remove the threat of its conversion.

The Space Temple

The Space Temple is an experimental Illuminate unit offering a singular function: extremely long-range teleportation that works both ways. Possessing no other utility or defensive ability of its own, this colossal structure exists solely to move units vast distances in an instant.

Tips

- Units must be directly next to the space temple, or its exit beacon, to utilize its teleportation abilities.

- Any units, allied or enemy, can use the space temple's teleportation ability.

- The exit beacon of the space temple has a 30-second cooldown before it can be moved, offering hostile units the ability to counter-attack if they can reach it.

- The space temple can offer convenient access to remote islands without needing to commit a transport to the task or risk sending an engineer over the sea to colonize it the slow way.

Unique Cybran Units

The 'Boomerang' Nuke Redirector

This unit is included in the Infinite War Battle Pack One DLC

The 'Boomerang' is a more costly Cybran alternative to the regular anti-nuclear missile defense system, but offers a much more potent countermeasure: instead of destroying the incoming missile, it redirects it back toward its launch silo, bypassing any nuclear missile defenses. Essentially, it guarantees a nuclear detonation if it successfully redirects a missile.

Tips

- Boomerang 'charges' are almost twice the cost of a standard anti-nuclear missile, and up to five can be stacked in a single redirector. They remain cheaper than an actual nuclear missile.

- Boomerangs take several seconds to redirect a missile. If the missile is already descending when it enters the Boomerang's area of effect, the missile may slam into the ground despite the Boomerang attempting to redirect it. This will consume one redirection charge.

- Boomerangs can, technically, be overwhelmed by launching a minimum of three to four missiles toward it, which will exceed its capacity for redirection. Whether this is worth the destruction of one's own structures is another question.

- Boomerangs are high-value targets due to the extreme threat they pose to players bearing strategic weaponry - be prepared for air assaults targeting structures like this to clear the way for a nuclear strike.

- The Boomerang can be countered by placing launch silos away from any valuable structures the player owns. Placing silos this far out may, however, expose them to strikes from the enemy. The cost of fortifications to defend the silos should be considered if this tactic is used.

The 'Magnetron' Experimental Unit Magnet

The 'Magnetron' is a stationary experimental unit with a very unique ability: it is capable of both magnetically repelling and attracting units in a wide radius around it, with a more potent effect the closer a unit is. It will consume units that get close enough to the structure, providing (somehow) even more mass than the base cost of the consumed unit.

Tips

- The Magnetron is capable of destroying most non-experimental land units in one second or less, especially if they are not upgraded.

- Stacking several Magnetrons in a confined area will amplify their effects when their activation is synchronized.

- Magnetrons can gain veterancy as any other combat unit can. This veterancy will increase both the durability and grinding speed of the structure. It will not affect magnetic radius, duration, effectiveness, or mass yield.

- Magnetrons are best employed around the edges of a fortified base, where it can consume attacking units (or repel them, if necessary) the easiest.

- Magnetrons do not affect units that are airborne.

- Magnetrons do not affect temporarily immobile units, such as hunkered ACUs or deployed Jackhammers.

- Teleportation-capable units can escape the Magnetron's grasp entirely if they are far enough away from it, provided quick reflexes are employed.

- Magnetrons are especially punishing to enemies that primarily use sub-experimental land units - be it due to game restrictions or preference.

The 'Proto-Brain' Experimental Research Facility

The 'Proto-Brain' is an experimental research station that generates research points much more rapidly, and efficiently, than a standard research station. The 'brain' part of the structure can also be independently controlled - converting the structure into a standard research facility - and can then fly around and boost the veterancy gains of units in a short radius around it.

Tips

- The Proto-Brain complex is slightly more cost-effective for producing research points than standard research stations are, clocking in at 112.5% more mass-effective and ~106.7% more research-effective than three standard research facilities.

- The Proto-Brain is typically unlocked mid-to-late game, limiting its usefulness as a research station, as, by this point, many of the more useful things to research will already have been unlocked. The usefulness of the brain itself should be considered here.

- The Brain of the structure is slow, but has light air-to-ground defenses, boosts veterancy gains of the units around it, does some damage when it slams into an enemy unit (after being destroyed), and is rebuilt for free at the station it launched from twenty seconds after destruction.

- Because it costs nothing to rebuild, the Brain does not offer any significant mass yield when its wreck is reclaimed.

- The Brain increases veterancy gain by 300% for all units in its effective range.

- The Brain's veterancy boost can, through veterancy/research yield mechanics, cause an increase in research points derived from destroyed units. This usually will not exceed the research yield from simply leaving the brain docked in the facility.

- The Brain should be used to support armies - ideally slow-moving ones - late-game, when research matters less.

- The Brain can be damaged when docked, especially by artillery shells. This can be used to reduce the damage to the actual structure by having the brain absorb the direct impact damage from a shell.

The Recycler

This unit is included in the Infinite War Battle Pack One DLC

Less of a combat unit and more of a utility unit, the Recycler automatically reclaims wrecks in a large radius around itself, and can be manually ordered to recycle individual units. This structure specializes in cleaning up frequently contested areas and maximizing the mass gained from skirmishes without having to commit engineers to salvaging in the field.

Tips

- The Recycler is a utility structure first and a weapon second; while it can reclaim hostile units, it does so as slowly as the average engineer does and is not suited for use in combat.

- When reclaiming wrecks, the Recycler reclaims much faster than the ACU or engineers.

- Recyclers are worth building around areas where frequent combat is expected, such as chokepoints.

- Even if lost in combat, the Recycler can justify its own price tag if it manages to reclaim a sufficient amount of wrecks during combat before its eventual destruction.

Credits

Nerd Boi - Essentially tossed the original guide into the incinerator by rewriting literally every section (and then added at least thirty other sections nobody even asked for). Maintains and updates the guide. Took all images present in the guide.

Alex - Original creator of the guide. Handed it over to Badstormer at his request. Contributed the following text to the guide:

- Replaced "Badstormer" with "Nerd Boi" in the credits section

Change log - 2

note: mm/dd/yyyy

5/19/2025

• Reworded one tip for the UEF Dreadnought to reduce grammatical redundancy

4/26/2025

• Removed two redundant words from the Armored Command Units section
  
• Moderate revisions to the Nukes and You section
  
• Renamed the Veterancy section to 'Veterancy and You' for consistency
  
• Slight formatting changes in the Veterancy and You section

4/15/2025-4/16/2025

• Minor revisions to each factions' preliminary summary early in the guide
  
• Significant revisions to the Armored Command Units section
  
• Massive quality pass across all UEF/Aeon/Cybran unit sections
  
• Complete removal/replacement of all non-original images due to licensing concerns
  
• Added the long-overdue Recycler to the Unique Cybran Units section

2/4/2025

• Revised the Standard Build Order section to use a less commanding tone

1/29/2025

• Removed the chronically unfinished Common Strategies and ACU Rushing sections

1/25/2025

• Minor update to Badstormer's contributions in the credits section

1/18/2025

• Merged the "Units" and "Buildings" sections into a single "Common Wisdom" section and heavily revised the contents of both to give better advice with fewer words
  
• Heavily revised the description of all three factions
  
• Removed the "Thoughts on Factions" section
  
• Minor revisions to the Standard Build Order section
  
• Removed duplicate proto-brain complex entry in section 4 of Cybran units
  
• Moderate revision to Soul Ripper II data
  
• Minor revision to Intellitron data
  
• Very minor revision to bullet list spacing under Nukes and You

11/1/2024

• Removed a redundant header in the Artillery section

4/27/2024

• Minor revisions to the "Standard Build Order" section
  
• Minor revisions to the "Nukes and You" section
  
• Altered formatting of notes in the "Veterancy" section
  
• Added spacing between notes in the "Shields and You" section
  
• Major revisions to sections one and two of UEF units
  
• Minor revisions to section three of UEF units
  
• Added second change log section due to space limits in the first

Change log - 1

4/24/2024

• Minor revisions to the "Shields and You" section
  
• Further specified what units the Loyalty Gun is effective against in the "Unique Aeon Units" section

2/23/2024

• Revised DLC-related differences list in the "Differences between DLC and non-DLC matches" section

12/1/2023

• Added "Nukes and You" section

11/16/2023

• Small shields and you section notes revisions

8/26/2023

• Added UEF Research Converter to Unique UEF Units section (thanks Eridani)
  
• Slightly revised the Illuminator formatting under Unique Aeon Units
  
• Added advice to protect the Illuminator with shields due to its fragility

6/25/2023

• Added a sentence to the section pertaining to differences between DLC vs. non-DLC matches emphasizing that mass extractors take significantly longer to repay the cost to build them with DLC enabled
  
• Slightly clarified original guide author's contributions to the current iteration of the guide in the credits section

3/26/2023

• Fixed missing Illuminator image

5/20/2022

• Added a section detailing the differences between a game with/without DLC enabled

12/23/2021

• Revised the Artillery section
  
• Moved the Artillery section below the generic units sections

11/22/2021

• Slightly altered advice regarding prioritization of mass extractor expansion to further encourage aggressively increasing mass income

11/5/2021

• Added a line of credit near the start (instead of the end) due to frequent misconceptions of guide contribution

9/28/2021

• Slight revisions to the Proto-Brain complex's tips in part six of the Cybran Nation Units section

9/23/2021

• Removed some unnecessarily aggressive text from both the Buildings and Units sections
  
• Slightly reduced bolding of text in both the Buildings and Units sections

8/16/2021

• Added detail to Shields and You section regarding damage reduction for non-solid shields

6/22/2021

• Added a Magnetron tip specifying immobile units are not affected by the magnet
  
• Slight revisions to faction descriptions, especially the Cybran section
  
• Readability pass across all Cybran units

6/15/2021

• Removed Supreme Commander 2 Wiki abbreviation in Credits section
  
• Added two commas and a space to part eight of UEF units
  
• Fixed a spelling error in Unique Cybran Units

6/14/2021

• Added a tip to the HeeHola air transport information panel (thanks KoenBarbarian)
  
• Removed unintentional italics of everything beneath the Shotja in Aeon Illuminate Units (Part Five)
  
• Revisions to all Illuminate unit sections
  
• Finished readability pass in Illuminate unit sections

6/4/2021

• Slight revision to Building section
  
• Removed double Hunker entry under the Illuminate ACU's upgrades

4/19/2021

• Beginning of readability pass on Aeon Illuminate Units sections

4/1/2021

• Finished readability pass on all nine UEF Units sections

3/23/2021

• Made some progress in making the Tips sections of units more readable
  
• Fixed several grammatical errors across the guide
  
• Removed unintentional bolding of everything beneath the Cicada in the Cybran Units (Part Three) section

3/13/2021

• Clarified certain tips regarding the Proto-Brain Research Facility
  
• Significant revisions to the Building section

12/5/2020

• Added detail and minor clarification to the Veterancy section
  
• Fixed an improperly line-spaced paragraph in the Building section

11/21/2020

• Expanded standard build order section (no new orders yet, sorry gents)
  
• Added proper paragraph spacing to Building and Units sections
  
• Removed about six unnecessary words from Shields and You
  
• Added Mass Extractor veterancy details to the Veterancy section

11/11/2020

• Reorganized and slightly revised Credits section
  
• Fixed a formatting issue in the Changelog section

11/01/2020

• Small revisions to introduction section
  
• Substantial revisions to "The United Earth Federation" section

10/22/2020

• Updated headers in each unique unit section for more consistency and visual appeal
  
• Removed generalized "Unique Units" sections in favor of faction-specific sections
  
• Removed "(U.E.F)" abbreviation from The United Earth Federation section
  
• Bolded initial sections for each faction-specific unit type
  
• Swapped "Cybran Units" to "Cybran Nation Units" across all relevant sections to comply with the faction's official name
  
• Fixed grammatical errors and added some clarification in the description of the Aegis
  
• Added detail to the Supcom 2 reference in the Credits section specifying unit statistical information can be found there
  
• Made the opening sentences in the Artillery section less condescending (sorry, people)

9/10/2020

• Added introduction section
  
• Minor edits to the formatting in the standard build order section

9/4/2020

• Revised credits section
  
• Further revised "Shields and You"

8/31/2020

• Slight revisions to sections "Shields and You" and "Unique Units - Part Two"

8/30/2020

• Added Veterancy section
  
• Added "Shields and You" section

8/28/2020

• Added (finished, really) the "Unique Units" section
  
• Added proper header text to the Artillery section
  
• Altered image settings in artillery section to avoid text appearing to the right of the image
  
• Added Illuminate Pulinsmash unit to "Aeon Illuminate Units (Part Five)"
  
• Added Cybran Cicada to "Cybran Units (Part Three)"
  
• Revised part three of Cybran Units

3/29/2020

• Major revision to "Common Strategies"
  
• Preparations to add additional sections regarding strategies and countering
  
• Removed unintended bolding of everything in the Change log

3/20/2020

• Small revisions to early sections
  
• Corrected one spelling error in the ACU rushing section
  
• Used the remaining character limit in the ACU rushing section to add a 'universal' rushing strategy
  
• Slightly revised credits section

02/07/2020

• Revised several early sections further
  
• Added some important information to early sections pertaining to build orders and strategies

11/12/2019

• Added the Illuminator Experimental Intel Gathering Station to the Aeon Units - Part Five section
  
• Added the Bomb Bouncer Experimental Reflector Shield to the Cybran Units - Part Two section

11/9/2019

• Added more information to the "Building" section

11/8/2019

• Added the Intellitron Air Scout to the Cybran Units - Part Four section
  
• Removed more evil grammatically incorrect "it's" usage from various sections
  
• Revised several Cybran unit sections
  
• Revised credits section
  
• Forcefully injected a vial of Humor™ to Cybran Units - Part Four

9/30/2019

• Implemented changelog
  
• Revised several sections
  
• Fixed several spelling and grammatical errors (many likely remain)
  
• Added some missing units

[Badstormer]

There isn't anything we can do about international sanctions. You'll have more luck contacting your government about the regional restrictions than posting about it on Steam.

[atreidesson]

Ah yes, so easy to buy the DLC when it's not availible in Russia anymore!

[[N.C]-Lusche]

Ahh, ok. Ty for your answer!

[Badstormer]

Regrettably, SC2 isn't as moddable as its predecessors - much more of it is hard-coded and not intended to be modified than the first two games. While there are at least a few unit packs out there, I can't think of any AI mods.

[[N.C]-Lusche]

Agree! I just have bought it for me and a mate. In multiplayer it is fun and the Ai seems to be good/ ok. Ist there an Ai-Mod out you can recommend? Ty for your guide .... very helpful :-)!

[Badstormer]

Not heavily populated, but not dead either - since the game's priced cheap enough that virtually anyone can afford it on sale, you'll always have at least a few people online.

[SigmaLigma]

This game still alive? used to play it a ton on my 360 after getting it free off gold pass

[Badstormer]

Nuke spamming is a viable way to win, yes, but it tends to cost a disproportionate amount of resources compared to other methods that have better success rates.

Anti-nuclear missiles can be built much faster than regular nukes, for half the price, and can fire much faster. You'd need to send a cluster of nukes - probably at least six, ideally more - in a single barrage to overcome a prepared nuclear defense. This same price can net you at least several experimental units which can't be defeated with a simple anti-nuclear missile and actually respond to commands.

Nuclear missiles are more of a way to catch someone off-guard if they either don't have the resources for anti-nukes or don't anticipate you using them, such as if they neglect to scout.

Personally, I'd just invest in experimental units - they usually cost less than a single nuclear missile and tend to cause more problems for the enemy.

[Cunning ♥♥♥♥ 魔]

Is Nuke spamming a viable endgame method? Didnt find anything here but great guide! :)

[Badstormer]

It seems I've overlooked that, yes.