Micro and Macro SoaSE Tips

Alt+click on a ship will select all ships of that type in the same area.

Using the search feature at the top of the screen will make it easy to locate colony ships... It'll select 'em all.

For managing battles, I use the number keys to group my unit types together. Auxiliary Fleets generally aren't Micro-managed, since I only use them if they have a huge advantage. (IE, Undefended planet, or they're a defense fleet, with planetary defenses behind them.)

1 - Colony Capital Ship
2 - Carrier Capital Ships (I love these things)
3 - Support Capital Ship
4 - Light Frigates
5 - Long Ranged Frigates
6 - Heavy Cruisers
7 - Siege Frigates
8 - Support/Command Cruisers
9 - Repair Cruisers
10 - Flak Frigates

Holding down Alt shows you the paths, or targeting.

Alt + Clicking a unit selects all of that unit.

Holding down shift allows you to keep what you've selected, while selecting something else, perfect for making mixed groups like my Light Frigate/Flak Group

For example, if I'm playing TEC and attacking:

~Colony Ship attacks enemy Capital Ship. If no-Capital Ship is present, Planet.
~Carriers auto-drop Missle Batteries, then focus fires on Capital Ship or Planet
~Light Frigates focus fire on Long Ranged Frigates first always. Capital ships are left to the Long Ranged Fleet.
~Long Ranged Frigates focus fire on enemy Capital Ship, or if no Capital Ship is present, they focus fire on Medium then Light Targets. Heavy targets only get focus fired once the bulk of their force is destroyed.
~Heavy Cruisers focus fire on enemy Long Ranged Frigates always. Capitals are left to the Long Ranged Fleet. Then they focus fire on the enemy's Heavy Cruisers, or Advent Support Cruisers.
~Siege Frigates are usually grouped with the Heavy Cruisers, to make targeting them difficult for my enemy. They typically have the same range as Heavy Cruisers, and they can actually do a little bit of damage (Meager, but it helps) to Long Ranged Frigates.
~Support Cruisers are usually dumped within the largest stack to throw off enemy targeting, with their support abilities on auto-run. I often use this button as a panic button, when a Capital Ship's shields go down. A lot of the support cruisers have nice effects that really shine during close battles.
~Repair Cruisers are also dumped within the largest stack to throw off enemy targeting, with repair on auto-run. I often only use this button as a panic button when a Capital Ship's shields go down.
~Flak Frigates are typically dumped in front of my Long Ranged Fleet. I usually let the AI do the targeting for me with these things. I only keep them around to keep those pesky fighters off my Long Ranged Fleet.

This will work fine if all members of the group are part of the battle fleet, but what if I want to reassign ships to other areas and want to remove the group number from them? The official hotkey card says Ctrl+Shift+Number removes a ship from a control group. It doesn't seem to have any effect.

It seems that the only way to leave a numbered group is to die.


It would be nice to have a button that clears a ship from ALL group memberships if it is part of several groupings, but being able to clear a specific group number would help.

Are you having success with Ctrl+Shift+Number to clear group number? Or do you bring up the group, shift-click the one you want to remove, then Ctrl+Number to reform the new, smaller group?

I'd appreciate any help on this. Thanks.

Pin your Shipyards

Pin your Repair Stations

Pin your Homeworld

Pin the location of the battle

- make sure to have auto-pinning disabled in options

Now you should be able to micro your battles , and build units , send units back for repair , and keep an eye on your homeworld.

The secret is basically to have a useful empire selection bar , thats not overcomplicated with every planet in the system but with enough useful stuff on it to stop you needing to zoom out everytime.

Bumping this topic...

First question would be, what is pinning and how do you do it?

I can understand micro-ing LF's around the main force to hit carriers (or carriers that are 'kiting').

I can also understand focus firing different units

Then, what else is there to micro?

For example I have seen a few people saying to use assailants range against illumiunators so they can't use their side beams. I don't really understand how to do that effectively? The turn speed of the assailants seems too short to fire, then run, and then fire again? [picture answer preferable]

Also as another example - Scouts (also LF’s?) against LRF's. Is there a way to more effectively use scouts to consistently get to the back of LRF using their superior mobility, take some shots while the LRF’s are still turning and then rinse and repeat? How exactly do you do this?  [picture answer preferable]

Another problem I have is retreating individual ships. As you see your ships getting focus fired, and you want to retreat them. Is it best to drive forward, through the enemy line (probably not best against illuminators) forcing them to 'turn' slightly, if not completely around (against AI), or should you just try and turn them around on the spot - meaning they move around in an arc and often get closer to the enemy anyway - before retreating them.

 

Are there any other things that you can/should micro? All input would be beneficial.

 

On a side note (to improve macro) is there a way to 'tab' between the research tree's? Basically you press F2 but when you want to swap between military/civil/fleet, you have to mouse over & click - is there a shortcut keyboard command?

 

 

 

 

Setup control groups for ships designed for specific purposes (bombers for example) by selecting the group and pressing ctrl+#. You can also set frigate factories to control groups to quickly replenish your forces (don't forget to set the rally point on your cap!). Ctrl+right click to set multiple focus fire targets. Attack ranges and fleet cohesion are also very useful, especially when dealing with strikecraft and weapons that do splash damage.

There is no easy way to make ships turn without moving forward by issuing a move order. The only way they turn on a dime is when acquiring a new target that is already within weapons range.

Every unit is a hard counter to SOMETHING, mircoing them to attack what they kill best will increase your fleets total dps and get the best use out of each unit.

Also there are hotkeys for each slot on a ships ability menu, its a good idea to memorize them so you can quickly select and use abilities, especially for capital ships.

"Ctrl+right click to set multiple focus fire targets" [Deceiver]

I am just going to assume you mean 'shift', unless Cntrl does something different? - I believe it focuses the camera on the target unit.

 

Thanks for that input Deceiver, I appreciate it. But, that only half answers my questions...

So the questions repeated (also changing the wording because they were not outlined very well...)

 

1. What is pinning, and how do you most effectively do it?

2. When retreating individual units they are getting focus fired, what is the best way?

3. How do you win with scouts vs LRF's? Do you micro them to the backs of the LRF's or do you just take them on face to face with superior numbers + less cost. Note: I am just interested in micro tactics for flanking any unit really (using a units speed to gain advantage) & how to best achieve it. [Picture answer preferable]

4. If you were in a battle Assailants vs Illuminators, (you being the Assailants), is there a way to stay out of range of the Illuminators and wear them down slowly whilst reducing your casualties? Note: I am interested in micro tactics using ships RANGE to benefit, this is just an example. [Picture answer preferable]

5. Is there a way to tab between the research tree's after pressing F2, or do you have to manually click on each tree?

 

Basically to sum up this thread so far (yes I am going to overuse numbers in this post, by using them again!):

1. You should memorise the "gridkeys" the game provides to increase micro. (these are QWERT,ASDFG)

Ie. At the start of the game to improve speed you should click the planet, then WS (then place capital factory) WA (automatically places a crystal extractor), then AQQ (depending on how many metal/crystal extractors you have on your home planet), Ctrl+F6 (Twice to sell 200 metal), F7 (To buy 100 crystal), AQQ (to que [at least] 2 scouts, which should then each be control grouped for ease of use).......etc.... continue on like this micro'ing scouts, building research labs (civic or military, map dependant), que'ing capital ship - and setting rally point towards the nearest asteroid.

2. You should then go about pinning your capital planet and important structures (frig factory, repair bays) (I don't completely understand how to do this but at the moment I can see it being very beneficial).

3. Along with pinning you may want to assign control groups (Ctrl+#) to certain structures/planets/ships. You definetly want to assign a control group to your capital ship, and set a rally point from your frigate factory/ies to your capital ship. Note: Double clicking your group Ie Ctrl group 1 (just the number one twice) make the campera pan to their location. This followed by pressing 'X' will zoom the camera to an ideal position. (this X button combining the groups is a very useful way to micro scouts @ the start of the game...)

4. As your fleet starts to come into play, assign hotkeys to each unit type, so you can focus fire their hard counters when the battle begins (aka fighters against LRM's, but also staying away from flak). When selecting targets hold down shift+right click to focus fire each ship individually. Note: you can select all units of one type within a gravity well by holding down Alt+LeftClicking on a target unit (aka LRM's).

5. If you have a large bunch of utility frigates (or ANY ship for that matter), you can cycle through your selection by pressing the tab key, and going backwards with the shift-tab key. This is useful for casting different abilities such as heal and repel - remember to use the hotkeys for these abilities to further reduce the mouse movement, ie QWERT.

6. Use F2 to go to the military/civil research tabs (F3 for pirates). .. this is where I don't know how to switch between them faster.. (I can only use the mouse at this stage).

7. Hold down alt to show unit ranges and health/antimatter (useful when trying to focus fire, and using abilities).

8. If you are attacking an enemy ship and it decides to run away, you don't want your whole fleet to follow it, potentially moving closer to danger. Simply press the S key to make them stop (from memory it is S?), sadly you will then have to reassign them focus fire targets.

 

 

er yeah sry its shift, dunno y I wrote ctrl

Pinning -

In options you can tell what should be auto pinned.

On the upper left corner, where is Search button, next to it is "stack" button, and on the other side pin button.

It work's like this, if you have something pinned, then that thing where it's located will show up on Empire tree. For example, it auto pins cap ships, that's why you see on empire tree their phase lane, however, you don't see your scouts traveling trough phase line, since they aren't pinned.

I usually just unpin planets that I have developed beyond my need of attention. (You do it by selecting the pinned object, hovering over pin button, you can see evewrything that's been pinned, and then click on pin button, it will unpin, same with pinning)

Thanks heaps Asmeus, I will test out pinning straight away!

Still waiting on other replies to my other questions though...anyone at all?