Guide to Mass Conversion

Hi all,

Time for a new guide. This is an old, never (finished) posted guide that lurked on gamereplays.org. It was, back than, made by someone named Pulse who really liked spreading his pgens. I added some extra chapters and (updated) information so it matched the latest version.

Introduction

This is an in-depth guide to aggressive turtling in Supreme Commander 2 and is suitable for any player who can build a power generator.
We will start with the basics and provide you with the tools to quickly get to Mass Conversion (MC) needed for base sprawling, and later on will go deeper into the late-game aspect of turtling.

NOTE: For DLC users, turtling has become severly difficult (if not impossible) in a 1v1 scenario because of the way Mass Extractors (MEX) work and a reduced mass conversion rate.

The definition

Turtling: a “turtle” style of play is a defensive style that focuses on patience, positioning, timing, and relatively safe attack options to slow down the pace of the game.

Aggressive turtling: Building a base toward an enemy, applying pressure with a superior economy and forcing the enemy to react to you by taking offensive measures.

What will you gain?

Experience	Insight
New players	Advanced concepts and incorporate it into their play.
Casual players	A deeper understanding of units and their counters.
"High end" players	A refresher and, perhaps, some ideas to finetune your style.

Rather than a tactic, aggressive turtling is a gameplay style that can be incorporated into many other types of play. The second purpose of this guide is to show players that both mass converters and turtling have a place in all game modes (apart from no mass conversion games) and can be used effectively to support teammates rather than leaving them ‘out to dry’.

NOTE: Before using this type of play in a real match make sure you can beat at least 2 hard AI's on Setons Clutch.

Starting your base

0:00 – 6:00 Starting your base

Going mass converters is the conventional route to base sprawling, though other methods like magnetrons, and to some extent, the mass income bonus for ACUs; albeit far less effective.
A starter base will need to give you two main things:

• Defensive capabilities
  
• The potential to expand quickly (most efficient route to mass converter)

Let’s start with the build order.

UEF & Cybran

UEF:               Research "built cost" & "built time"
Cybran (optional): Research "build time" & "built cost"
NOTE: Going for this research path as cybran will slow you down aproximately 40 seconds but is well worth it.

ACU: Mass extractor x2, research station (RS) x3, constantly builds power generators (Pgens)
1st Engineer: Mass extractor,    constantly builds power generators
2nd Engineer: Mass extractor x2, constantly builds power generators (DLC users will not have enough resources to support a second engineer.)

Aeon Illuminate

ACU: Mass extractor x2, research station x2 (x3 in DLC)
1st Engineer:  Mass extractor, constantly builds power generators.
2nd Engineer: used as either a scout or to build power generators.

2nd Engineer will not be able to constantly build power generators, only to fill in for the other engineer if your mass floats over the pgen build cost or for the ACU when you need him for defence. This goes the same with the other two factions, though more prominent with Illuminate. 

This is the optimum route to mass conversion. Note that building any sort of defence will increase the time at which you get mass converter (unless your enemy feeds you research points (RP)) 

When building your starter base remember to:

• Build in rough circles around an engineer/ACU to eliminate travel time
  
• Depending on the game, depends on either aggressive or defensive sprawl builds for your starter base (see ‘The Sprawl’)
  
• Build a radar behind a forward power generator
  
• Constantly monitor radar intel
  
• Keep your ACU on the side of your base facing the enemy to ward off early game harassment.
  
• If you have no chance of surviving an early game assault, do not spend any economy on defences and escape (more detail in ‘Other Topics/Becoming a refugee’)
  
  This will get you to mass conversion at around 5:30 (5:00 DLC) depending on how far mass points are away from the starter mass extractors and/or how fast you can click.
  This will also give you a pool of around 20.000 (15.000 DLC) energy when you hit mass converter; this is vitally important and will be explained later.
  
  When using this gameplay, if your enemy is constantly scouting/has a forward radar, it is good to mask your game plan. To this extent, build excess power generators outside of radar range, and/or scouting routes. This means you can trick them into thinking you do a minor experimental rush.
  No base defence should be built unless an attack is right on your doorstep, not if your opponent is threatening you. This will allow you to reach mass converter faster and be able to utilize your initial energy pool.
  
  Exercise:
  Use the build order described for Cybran in a skirmish on tourney dome, then experiment with it. (Be sure to do this without opponents on!) Try to get the largest power pool along with mass conversion at the lowest time possible.
  
  Grading:
  

  Level	Time MC	Goal
  Pro	5:40	18500< Energy, +170 energy per second
  Semi-pro	6:00	16000< Energy, +150 eps
  Casual player	7:00	12000< Energy, +130 eps
  Getting there	10:00	10000< Energy, +100 eps
  Derped	20:00	1000< Energy + 30 eps

  
  For more information on mass converter build orders, visit Vax's guide[www.gamefaqs.com] to Mass conversion.

Multitasking & Eco Management

With a base on this scale, assigning orders to each engineer can be difficult, though there are ways of making the task easier.
At the right of your screen, you will see how many idle engineers you have. Click this, and the game will select an engineer for you. This function is useful for economy expansion, however under attack, using this method would be detrimental, as the engineer selected by the game will not always be the closest, so you might be dragged to an entirely different part of your base; distracting from the issue at hand. Alt + period can be used to work around this, which will select the closest engineer.

Uses of ‘unneeded’ idle engineers:
Engineers that don’t currently need to build anything should be split into two groups: One group patrolling a large area, mainly on the front lines and the second patrolling hotspots of enemy attacks. The first group will repair any building that has been damaged (from long range artillery shelling etc.) and will reclaim wreckage like the remains of an air battle.

Early game, it is good to queue engineers outside of the factory to see what engineers are available, and as a base is fair small at that point, they can reach an area without too much of a problem. Later game however, rally points should be set to specific areas, mentioned in ‘land/air factories’

Mass leeches:
Later into the game (2000 to 3000+ energy income) You may experience having too much mass on your hands. As a general rule, it is good to float around 2000 mass. Anything above that needs to be utilised, but you're already multitasking other things. Whut do? High value units like battleships, long range artillery and shields are effective mass leeches. Units and structures like these can be queued up and left alone without destroying an economy completely like major experimentals and the like. Mass leeches like these take up very little population for what you've invested into them

Infinite build queue:
With the addition of the infinite build queue, structures that you don’t currently have the resources for can still be queued. This means that, at least early game, no engineer should be idle.
Nukes + anti nukes do not include the infinite build queue, this means that you will have to float the mass for the nuke to be able to build it. The only work around for this is to click quickly after using converters or select all engineers and cancel their queue.

Mass converters:
Late into a game, it is easy to forget to activate your mass converters exactly when they’re ready. Mass converters in general should match your income. Though building an extra one or two will ease the difficulty of converting on the mark. Mass converters should be assigned to a control group. This can be done by selecting all mass converters and clicking ctrl + the desired number.

Place your mass converters in the back or side of your base away from other buildings. Mass converters tend to explode when destroyed and do much damage to buildings and other units nearby. Making rows of mass converters is a bad idea because if you kill one, that one will kill any converter next to it, leading to a chain-reaction. What I tend to do is build maximum 2 next to each other and place another 2 somewhere else.

Mass converters can activate once every 10 seconds at a value of 2500 energy to 250 (125DLC) mass. This means 250 energy per second is being transferred. So for an economy of +1500 energy per second, you would need 6 mass converters.

Agressive turtling in team games

Rather than leaving the rest of your allies to fend for themselves, base sprawling can be used with research points gathered from kills and fewer research stations. This normally only sets a player back by 4-5 minutes, if ALL research is invested.

Sprawling has different functions:

• Serving as a meat shield for allies.
  
• Acting as a bunker for allied commanders.
  
• Support allied attacks with sprawl.

What to build

As you will be supporting your team you must know what to do, and when to do it. Make sure you can at least contain your opponent or are able to protect your allies from your opponent. If you can't do this, don't go MC as people will likely not like to play with you again.

So depending on what your team need you can build what they need. If the battle is close towards your base think of building defensive buildings to repel enemy fire. If the battle is more on their side of the map you can think of offensive buildings like artillery fire.

For turtlers below defensive/offensive buidlings are good to use to aid your teammates

UEF
Foritified artillery, Long Range Artillery (LRA), Nuke Defense/Missile Silo, Shield generator, radar, Disrupter Station, Noah unit cannon.
Instead of building PD's or AA towers you might want to build research stations with the PD/AA upgrade. Research stations do use more space so you have to decide for yourself whether this is worth it.
If an artillery war starts you might as well want to build the Aegis. Be sure to surround this shield with normal shields as well to protect the building itself.

Cybran
LRA, Nuke Missile & Defense Silo, Boomerang, Shield Generator, Radar, Recycler (experimentals), Proto-Brain Complex, Magnetron.
Always research structure detonate (SD) as cybran if an enemy threathens to enter your base. SD will make sure enemies won't be roaming in your base without being concerned of losses. Don't reveal that you have this trait too soon!
As a special mention I like to mention Bomb Bouncers (BB). These are mobile shields which can withstand more punishment than your standard shield.

Aeon
Power Generators(Pgens), Tacticle Missile Launchers (TML), Nuke Defense/Missile Silo, Shield Generator, Radar, Buhbledow, Illuminator, Space Temple, Loyalty Gun
Pgens are actually good to build as Aeon beyond the fact that they produce energy. If you research Electroshock you can keep units away from a rather large range. Pgen creep towards your opponents!
the Buhbledow is a unit that you would only need if an artillery war has broken out. You can EMP their shields down with this and than head in for the ACU kill with tons of planes.

Besides utilizing buildings I strongly recommend to spam units. Preference would be air or a ton of experimentals for any faction really.

Exercise:
Use aggressive turtling on large maps such as etched desert or iskellian coast. You might also want to try transitioning into a sprawl after more conventional gameplay, land spam, air spam, etc. Navy is good to transition from as it's not always necessary to invest research points into your naval units.

The "Sprawl"

From either the starter base in the previous chapter or from Research gathered from a more traditional build. Base sprawling (A base which spreads itself out over an area) is most effective when started between 5:30 – 10:00, any longer and expansion will be too slow and opponent economy would be too similar. In short, it would come down to who’s power generator farm and mass converter abilities are strongest. The size of a base should be relative to the game timer.

• 10:00 the base should be capable of deflecting minor experimentals and of a medium size.
  
• 15:00 spread to a large portion of the map able to counter mid-game armies with ease.
  
• 20:00 – 25:00 covering a massive portion of the map. Think nearly half of Setons clutch. Too big to inflict any lasting damage, able to stop any sort of early-late game assault. (2-5 colossus)

Initial energy pool:
The energy you have in reserve when reaching mass converters. Mass converters convert 10:1 power to mass. So a pool of 20 000 energy would be 2000 mass.
Using these ‘second’ starter resources, a base can quite literally sprawl over an entire map with a quickly growing economy.

Power generators:
Power generators make up the bulk of a sprawl base. Providing both an income, and stopping an aggressor from straight charging a base, lest they be destroyed by either death damage, structure detonate or electro shock. By spewing our power generators, a player’s income with get progressively larger, and it is this aspect of the build which will provide the main advantage. Economy.

Land/air factories:
Factory rally points should be set to patrol small areas or assigned to the closest outskirt of your base for expansion. Furthermore, factories need to be built periodically through the sprawl to allow engineers easy access to hotspots of activity (areas under attack, areas attacking a base, experimental factory assist, etc.)

Engineers:
Your work force, the back bone of a base. Simply put, you can never have too many engineers. More engineers mean faster building, more buildings means a faster sprawl, which in turn, applies greater pressure on an enemy base.
Aggressive uses of engineers: engineers, when fully upgraded, are stronger than the ‘Rockhead’ tank. With the ability to repair, reclaim, and in the Cybran’s case, attack engineers can easily take on a large mass equivalent to themselves. Experimenting with different offensive uses of engineers can be an interesting subject in itself. One such tactic can be used by the UEF. Launching engineers out of noahs and then setting them to patrol an enemy base will cause the engineers to reclaim everything in sight, as well as heal their injured brethren.

Exercise:
Try using different units unconventionally (on multiplayer if you want), like factories, engineers, power generators, perhaps even the airnomo's 'useless' direct fire guns...

Level	Goal
Pro	Kill a player's ACU with a airnomo's only
Semi-pro	Block a nuke with air units / hit a transport with a nuke.
Casual player	Use a darkenoid as an arty shield.

Other Topics

Free for all

When playing FFA you might want to research mass conversion at a certain stage. Most of the time this will be when everyone leaves you alone or if you have defeated certain threats. After researching MC I advise you research an game ender as soon as possible. (AC1K's for instance)

Build the game ender(s) of your choice while expanding your base and research other game enders. You do not attack anyone who leave you alone since you likely will be the largest force in this stage. Make sure your ACU is wel protected at all times.

In the meanwhile, scout, your opponents. See who is the biggest threat. If 2 players are fighting eachother, don't concern yourselves about them. Eliminate a player if they have no one to fight against or the ones who are attacking you. Make sure you lose as few units as possible in the final ACU boom. Others are waiting for this and will not hesitate to attack you straight away.

If you do this carefully you will win the game. But, remember, keep expanding at all time.

Becoming a refugee

Sometimes playing FFA you will not be able to get a succesfull base going before someone utterly destroys it. In the case you got away you might have some resources left. There is 2 things you can do from here.

1. See if you can get a base startup up somewhere else and get back up on your feet.
2. Use your remaining resources to secretly build somewhere RS and utilize the RP to get your ACU buffed up.

If you've chosen option 2 take note of the following:
If you could hide your mex properly, go out and try to get some veterancy untill you are strong enough to destroy an entire base.
If you couldn't hide your RS well enough, be ready to fend off any invaders untill you can destroy your opponents.

Outro
This concludes the tutorial for now..

Do you want me to highlight others topics regarding MC in depth? Send me a message and I'll happily add it to the guide.

Special thanks to Pulse! Send him as much kudo's, love and cake as you can. :-)

[(MM) :: redarrow]

just lucky.

[Jesus of Bullets]

How pro am I if I hit air units with heavy artillery?

[Eccomi]

is there any info on how the mass conversion rate is adjusted in the dlc?

[CaptainConeHead]

The only thing I mess up is build too many research stations too quickly, (4-5 initial) but where do they fit in later on?

[Shaiiko]

Man, you're probably the smartest player I've ever seen in this game, or has put the time in to research all of this.

[Coyal]