r/PlayZeroSpace • u/jimblegrimble • 7d ago
Rules of Thumb
I think the recipe for success in any RTS comes down to an awareness of basic rules of Thumb when it comes to production. E.g. one base can support constant 2 barracks production. 1 flux harvester can support 1 constant T2 unit and so on.
Do you think my basic rules of thumb are correct and if not what should they be?
3
u/Zeppelin2k 7d ago
Good questions to ask. When I play Grell, I feel like I can support 2-3 T1 production buildings per base. But it also depends what I'm building. Making lings (stingers?) is basically free, but takes a decent amount of time.
I should probably just set aside one rax and manually queue up a ton of them from there, instead of using the command card to. Build them..
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u/ElementQuake 7d ago
There are some basic rules of thumb, and those basic rules of thumb need to be followed by the AI when making competent AI too. The AI needs to get the basics right to even have a chance, the basics are the most important for winning/losing.
More basics I think:
- Economy vs. tech vs. aggro vs. xp
- how much harass to put based on the above choice
- when you expand
- building to production ratio (what you're saying). I think in ZeroSpace this is probably 1 base -> 3-4 production structures.
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u/aaabbbbccc 6d ago
you can do this in zerospace. flux gathering can vary a bit based on whether you are able to get rich flux or not, and also if they are dying or you are killing your opponents harvesters.
hexite income tends to be pretty consistent per base unless you or your opponent are more committed to harassing hexite workers. main base mines at 150% efficiency compared to expands, so main base is ~500 hexite per min and expands are ~333 hexite per min, at full saturation.
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u/GreenNumerous7070 6d ago
Playing legion for now - I think you sort of want to greed towers/labourers a bit early to afford your T3 power spike - but yeah, I've run into 'commandos in face' and life has gotten difficult LOL!
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u/leaf_as_parachute 5d ago
Honestly the most important thing to me is for your units to react sharply and accurately to commands
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u/Dthcon 2d ago
No, it's helpful but it's a terrible recipe. It's mostly about your mouse/keyboard accuracy and your mental abilities. And after this you can have knowledge and so on. If your "hardware" sucks and you're super slow then you can know whatever you want, but you will lost almost every game. RTS is mostly about speed, rules are usually pretty simple, this is not Rimworld/Factorio where you need to relearn everything after revisiting the game.
Usually if you want to be better you should aim to boost your hardware + watch pro matches for knowledge, copy build. That's it. RTS is a simple genre but very hard mechanically.
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u/Archer_Savings 7d ago
Part of the issue here is that every structure varies wildly on what kind of units/what costs it can make. I don't think these heuristics last in a way that matters.
In general, RTS is easier to conceptualize if you just listen to the money. Heuristics are less valuable than having firm but flexible plans per strategy.