My Strongest Opponent So Far (BAR Road to Rank #1)

[@christhomas412]

You don't have to do anything to change your camera habits that you don't want to, it's fully possible to play with this zoom level. We have camera locations on F1-F4 just like SC2 does as well so you can pop your view around to your own desires. I don't like people making subtle fun trying to change your behavior, they should let you choose how you want to play. I was always wanting to see what happens when this game lands in the hands of a SC2 pro, and I'm glad to see it! As the contributor who laid out grid keys, I'm glad to see that it can support a variety of different playstyles, camera habits, and so on.

[@camerbot]

he has too zoom out if he wants to use air

[@Ruwetuin]

I lolled at the answer to the question: "do i have any good air units myself that I can use" which he answered: "I can make some banshees"

[@o4ugDF54PLqU]

tbf banshees are decent in 1v1, since they can quickly take out mexes

[@ChaseAnderson5k]

Mutas can harass mineral lines. Doesn't make 'em good air units, just good harassment units. XD

[@AidanNaut0]

better buff banshees ;)

[@FoxtrotYouniform]

I'm out of the loop for a week or so and thermy goes from 'yeah this is like supreme commander' to 'I dunno, 3 mex bot lab or 2 mex 1 wind third mex into lab?"

[@DasHobble]

Once he figures out that he can build a con turret sooner than 8 minutes he's going to be terrifying

[@plausiblealpaca3987]

🤣

[@drivver4470]

Not really Early con turrets are nice but having multiple cons is stronger in 1v1 All cons pay back themselves in energy cost and storage in a few minutes compared to the handful of resources you save with a con turret

[@martinr2040]

😂😂 and he didnt even finish it xD

[@xeroprotagonist]

I suggested on the last video to build construction turrets and energy storage sooner, the metal waste & wind stall were even more severe in this match. That's the main thing killing your momentum, I think. What you're doing is kind of like if you played SC2 and only made marines out of one barracks, floated 2k minerals, and also spent a good part of the match supply-blocked.

[@PunkSkeleton]

Yes, the micro and multitasking is insane but the macro... It's not easy in this game, especially with different wind speed on different maps but there are some general tips: 1. Either you have a construction turret or you assist the lab with the commander (or at least 2 construction bots). In very early game you alternate between making winds (or solars) and boosting lab with the commander. Later in the game the simplest rule is: your metal income exceeds your metal consumption -> build another construction turret. There are better rules for that but this is the simplest one and it always works. 2. Build an energy storage. It helps a lot. Some energy converters won't hurt also as you have to overproduce some energy anyway. 3. Metal is like minerals in SC2. You just can't overflow 1k minerals by 5 minute mark in SC2 and you can't here either. If you do it is either due to very long and bad wind stall or because you did something wrong. 4. Use the build grid option. You can also set spacing between building, this setting works for each building separately and is remembered between games so you can really quickly order large wind farms that don't chain explode.

[@captain-hooked]

mate this is legit interesting to watch - I hope you keep it up as I am really looking forward to these.

[@PastaAnimal]

It is so nice to see u improve every single video, kinda insane how fast you get better :D

[@kirktown2046]

To micro tanks you want to use the set target/priority target hotkey and "wiggle" (give them a move order to the extreme left/right or whatever direction is on either side of their actual destination so they effectively zig-zag them to dodge projectiles.) I'm not even sure that most pros do this, but it can be insanely effective, sometimes leading to 100% dodge. Microing air is only necessary for bombers for better regargetting, shorter bombing run windups, afaik. Just use a simple patrol command or have them patrol straight out of the air factory. You can move the patrol order as the front shifts. Unlike Supreme Commander, there's no exploitable fighter cheese micro, thankfully. Air is super fragile in BAR, even a tiny bit of tier1 aa could've pushed them back. T2 mobile flak vehicles are insanely good if you need a big AA punch but is overkill usually.

[@Strauss-]

It's hard for me to enjoy BAR gameplay ebcause it's usually just icons moving slowly over a huge map. But this zoomed in gameplay is lit at 16:17 someone in chat says szoom out zoom in is better than clicking on the minimap. I wonder why that may be?

[@artificer111]

It’s not if you’re already used to SC2 levels of APM. It’s easier if you’re used to the megamap from Total Annihilation/ SupCom/ Classic Spring

[@AidanNaut0]

yeah, everyone begging for him to zoom out i think are in the wrong. Zoom is an accessibility feature, not a competitive one. uThermals unit control is vastly far superior for it. The only other person I see with similar unit control is Chisato.

[@leafykille]

"you are young little grasshopper, but you will learn!" Your builds are getting better really quickly, I'm super impressed with your growth:)

[@killers31337]

Missile trucks shoot both air and ground targets. One missile truck DPS is very low, but when you have 5-10 of them they become quite deadly against slower tanks and static defense. So mass missile truck is a legit ground assault strat, and as a bonus you can just cancel opponents air.

[@Anubis7169]

yep. hardest part of the missile truck blob is just waiting for it to form xD

[@dskinnerify]

Keep it up! You're getting better all the time!

[@DxKShifty]

cant wait for the next BAR vid

[@ZachRE88]

Every upload gets better. My noob advice: Mix cons into the repeat build queue. You'll look back and have a bunch of cons that can be used to build your Eco out, porc the perimeters where your army isn't, get a new lab up fast, etc.

[@leafykille]

Loving the BAR content as always:) looking forward to the next one.

[@weedzombie123]

@uThermal Big thank you for bringing more spotlight to this amazing game cant wait to see you be #1 gl and hf !

[@russellinator]

I like your zoom level. It's a good bit wider than SC2, but you can still see all the units and attacks.

[@kalamona6598]

Adding a missile truck to your ground troops not only helps with air, trucks also have a good vision range. Also Janus, i like these, they are a shotgun-like unit: huge blast, but long reload. Two of them can one-tap a LLT, and they disrupt enemy formations too, but they are not really good for long fights, more like a hit and run thing. I am not familiar with the 1v1 in Bar, seems a lot more assault focused, but there are plenty of siege units that can shoot outside LLT range.

[@leafykille]

Your first use of air units! This is where your micro can truly shine!

[@leafykille]

They are either in the right place or they are dieing. If you have enough they can punch through, but that's usually way later.

[@PedroGarcia-fl1fu]

Please still playing like that way, it is much more aesthetic for watch, in zoom out it is only dots in screen...

[@MJ-in2xt]

Super excited for the BAR content!

[@leafykille]

Your reclaim is getting better, love to see you actually using the resources available:)

[@namelesspity1463]

TY @uThermal 2 omg... sc2 micro in BAR... god help us also KEEP PLAYING LIKE THIS --NEVER ZOOM OUT Also construction turrets!! -- drop 1 blueprint with 1st worker then walk away to build metal while comm finishes building blueprint, repeat with 2nd worker then good until T2 climb After 40+ wind and 8 converters -- if you feel comfortable -- make metal storage, reclaim tier 1 bot lab and make T2 bot lab = profit

[@hkl2007]

Yeah this doesn't work in 1v1 bro :p

[@allthebeans2295]

I love your BAR content! Keep it up brother

[@13BulliTs]

I see you tried to out micro stupid, which is not a bad idea if you also won the economy, but in the end the most battles are won in growing economy and hit your opponent hard with better tier units or just bomb them into oblivion with either nukes or bomber planes.

[@leafykille]

Assist orders are your friends, if you queue up a load of power you can tag new workers to assist the initial worker or any other worker that is assisting it to speed production steadily.

[@leafykille]

This will mean you work through your intended build order faster and faster. Very useful for general eco build-up allowing it to progress even while fighting on multiple fronts.

[@plausiblealpaca3987]

The Exploiter actually has the exact same damage, attack speed, and range as an LLT. Main difference is that it has more than 2x the health. They're strong, but you can still break them with pawns. It costs about as much metal as 2 LLTs and a MEX combined, so moderately expensive. Personally I prefer ground based anti-air, because they have such a long range. Fighters have to expose themselves in order to engage. If do you decide to use crossbows, they kinda need to keep them on a different hotkey so you can keep them behind your army. If you group them with your other front line units they tend to run ahead and die like old high templar before they had a basic attack. That's a big part of the reason many people prefer missile trucks (whistlers/lashers) for anti-air, they can also hit ground. If you do decide to use missile trucks, they kinda need to be attack-moved. If you normal move them they also tend to get too far forward and die pointlessly. A lot of people are telling you build construction turrets sooner, and they're not wrong. But your macro problems started before that. You didn't hit zero metal for the first time until 16 min. I know you want to figure out your own build orders, but you either need to keep your commander home for longer, or build more construction bots. You shouldn't need a construction turret in order to hit zero metal. Part of it's just that you're building ticks (cheap units) and not building LLTs, so you legitimately have less stuff to spend your metal on. But that also means you can afford more construction bots.

[@mrpotato8985]

I like the BAR content! Keep up the good work :D

[@majmage]

Dang, I thought you'd pull this one off. If you'd managed to get construction turrets online sooner I think you'd have done it (and avoided overflowing metal from 7:13-12:27); I'm terrible at that too (and a much worse player than you generally). Personally I like the staying power of ground AA, but Air2air options are definitely able to respond faster to where they're needed. Was very interesting to see the interactions between early vehicles vs. arm bots. I do think you leveraged your mobility advantage really well (as usual) to offset it. Feels like you should do concave formations more often? Honestly I feel people are *really* susceptible in this game to divide-and-conquer where you concave around one end of their line and fight really efficient 10v1 or 10v2 type of fights all the way down their line. Requires a lot of micro, but you have plenty. Basically it feels like when you got to lategame and started doing the "surround formation" around their force your troops did sort of the opposite (granted, doing any _long_ formation spreads troops out so maybe that's why you do it that way; against AOE plasma enemies it's great to avoid clumping)

[@zackcheang8563]

text in blue are people chatting in lobby, text in yellow is from spectators watching the game

[@purelypimp]

so happy your doing this series. i always like and watch but never comment. till now LFG

[@Zrzyck]

1v1 is so much different than 8v8. Would love your commentary in 8v8 game.

[@CupCake316258]

The units are very small and take up very little space on the map, also the units all look similar and it's difficult to differentiate each unit. This makes watching and understanding this game very tough. Love the content man.

[@Anubis7169]

Your commander is outstanding in his field

[@XtaReplay]

Not bad, not bad. Next time youll win

[@CamiloCBG]

You're doing much better!

[@YurGa1980]

3:53 you can see he already expanded more than you and on the game end graph you can see he was steadily winning on metal production. My guess is the game was pretty chill for him since he scouted your lack of expansion and managed to defend his own.

[@CoolTI-Daniel]

What a game indeed. I am not that great, but here are things I noticed that you forget to do. Construction turret perhaps a tiny bit earlier. Advanced solar panels??? when you have the metal, make the advanced panels. You seem to always forget to go for T2... Specially with all the available reclaim metal all over the place. (Also the res did awesome.) In this case, perhaps just keep 1 or 2 AA bot with your army to shoot down his pesky air And Macro... Keep 1 guy doing mass wind

[@kroIya]

The main cost of asolars is energy, not metal. You only ever make them when you have spare energy, which is a strange time to be building more energy production, but there are niche cases.

[@CoolTI-Daniel]

@@kroIya Thanks for the correction :) I have lots to learn and should certainly try more 1v1's. So far I have done too many standard public 8v8's as frontline vehicle... Need to vary and practice to get better... tho sadly I lack time to play. Being an adult sucks lol.

[@wozo9210]

THANK YOU FOR SHOWING ME THIS GAME

[@ChaseAnderson5k]

You're getting better, evek though that was a loss

[@suunraze]

Does wind power actually scale with the cube of wind velocity? Or did they just make it linear?

[@odinncool]

Build turrets are OP

[@odinncool]

I reccommend the statistics tab up in the right corner when the endgame comes up. Better and easier to understand metrics.

[@jonbauml225]

You're getting gooder

[@kruegs2006]

Always put static aa on your air lab, he was sniping them as they came out the lab

[@yowofu8450]

For me the zoom is very nice to watch as is

[@leafykille]

Don't feel like you have to follow the no map zoomed out metta. Zoomed in with a map is also viable. It gives you all the same information with much better micro potential, and your strength is very much your micro.

[@leafykille]

It may also be a good idea to switch from map and a close view to a fully zoomed out view as you get more things to control than you realistically can with a zoomed in view some time in the mid to late game. Please experiment with view settings and see what works for you. I'd love to see the game played your way, rather than the "best" way.

[@ZaidHaritsah-ev8bs]

He forgots to get metal extractor near his own base. I think mostly bottom side.

[@ryangonzales6542]

His micro was great. His macro was kinda poor. To slow to move to mex and to get build power and expand E. He had like 3x thermals eco

[@GáborOrosz-y1l]

cant wait till mark plays zoomed out like everyone so we can watch triangles fight squares with yellow dots....coz thats so fun...

[@AntoniGawlikowski]

Such a nice game!

[@spyemanciator7148]

supreme commander jokes

[@Chris971.]

Can someone explain why the tank projectiles are so slow? It makes this game look way more comical, too bad it's not like the seige tank where it is just invisible

[@yang8244]

fun game to watch. Please try other maps.

[@ibback3916]

early laser can save alot apm .. and the scale too small bigger control save alot apm too XD

[@NeonTheGreat]

is there more maps than just this one?

[@sonicdemon8692]

this game looks like planet annihilation, without big planets.

[@kalamona6598]

Both this game and Planet Annihilation are inspired by Total Annihilation.

[@Chris971.]

The edge of the map is too sharp they need to fix that

[@joshmeyer8172]

🛩

[@leafykille]

Yes, I am insane.

[@EvilNecroid]

ill never understand spam clicking

[@ChasseurTueur]

i think, its so it looks like he has amazing APM :)

[@weedzombie123]

you should 1v1 agressa

[@TalionJoga]

zoon OUT PLEEEASEe

[@markgibbons802]

Pls don't do the Zoom OUt! It would ruin the viewers experience!!!!

[@_DarkEmperor]

Start with vehicle factory and go for mass Blitz in early game. Or even better, switch to Cortex, go vehicle and go for mass Incisor. I think this way You can win against very good player, i think using bots is limiting You.

[@hkl2007]

Ticks are rly op 1v1 if u have the apm for it

[@_DarkEmperor]

@@hkl2007 Yes, and then opponent builds few light laser towers and ticks are helpless and pawns are not performing well enough.

[@hkl2007]

@@_DarkEmperor Well i can tell you don't play alot of 1v1, you can't cover everything with pawns llt in earlygame, tick player will contain you in a small part of the map while expanding faster back home, then transition out of ticks with a big economical advantage. 1v1s dont play like 8v8, you cant just choke it up with llt and be fine vs raiding, there is too much surface area.

[@Qrzychu92]

I still think SupCom would be more fun :) it's more fiversified when it comes to builds. BAR is sadly one factory for 10 minutes (I know Drongo can get to Calamity by then in team games :P), while in SupCom factories are cheaper, so even 1v1 always has some air, bomber harass, tanks, arty, plane scouts, even navy if there is water.

[@kirktown2046]

Boo, SupComm/faf is step backwards. ASF micro is silly and air unit mechanic failures are baked into the engine, unfixable. More factories doesn't make for a better early game at all, and both games have essentially infinite build diversity regardless.

[@Qrzychu92]

@@kirktown2046 I agree that BAR has WAY better engine, and micro feels more responsive. However, most 1v1 I saw on BAR are the same. Bots, early harass, MAYBE someone will go to vehicles, from time to time you see shurikens, and then usually the game is over. Yes, you can find games with multiple calamities, and Jaggernauts, but they are extremely rare. In SupCom it's hard to find "land only" game. Just the upgrades for the ACU give more variations than BAR. And it's just me I guess, but the scale of the units looks better in SupCom. But that's irrelevant :)

[@hkl2007]

​@@Qrzychu92You get every lab most games in 1v1, way more common with 3 labs than t2, if u start bots u go veh for mediums and minelayers, veh goes botlab for rez etc

[@HighWater-yo1nj]

Oof. I'd love to watch but I cant handle your camera handling.. claustrophohic! And seems like so much extra apm used..

[@functorafunctora]

Supreme Commander FAF is basically just better BAR.

[@hkl2007]

It's a diffrent game

[@Octopussita]

show the players open skill score in these recordings