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Which factory?

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5 years ago
So I'm really new to this game, and the amount of different types of factories is... overwhelming. I have no idea what the major difference between shieldbots, tanks, rovers etc. are, and which factory should I start with?
+0 / -0
5 years ago
This post has been downvoted below -5 and collapsed, click here to expand
Spider, because you are going to lose either way.
+0 / -7

5 years ago
Cloakbot factory is pretty good for newer players, its pretty simple to learn, nothing too wild or crazy.
+3 / -0

5 years ago
Each one has ups and downs, Cloakbots are the most general and easy to pick up. Just choose one and use it few times until you're comfortable, then try another one and compare it and keep doing that.

Alternative way to explore zero-k unit interactions and all factories in general in depth is playing the campaign. It introduces them by few at a time and allows you to get comfortable with each of them and find their best use.

Campaign is a bunch of cool scenarios and a kind of challenging, very long tutorial-introduction to the game :D
+1 / -0

5 years ago
Vehicles. For use on flat terrain: Rover, tank, hover
Bots. Flexible use, can traverse rough terrain: Shield, Cloak, amphibious, jumpbot
Air. Do particularly well when they arent expected as the enemy will need dedicated AA to deal with them: Gunship, Airplant
Striders. For lategame

Water infested maps: Naval, hover, amphibious(regen in water)
Particularly rough terrain/cliffs: Jumpbots/spiders

+0 / -0
5 years ago
As a similar recent newbie who has played enough games to feel like I have seen all the factories in action, my newbieish impressions of the factories from the perspective of someone who doesn't know squat about the meta are:

Shield- It has small shields on 1/2 the stuff and the other 1/2 is all about playing games with said shields. Has a strong lineup with thugs and rackateers filling out the bulk of your forces, felons to do close in heavy shooting and walking shields for big shields. The goal is to have a huge ball of stuff with a jillion overlapping shields and just roll around crushing everything. Really strong in as straight fight but dies horribly to gimicks(crawler bombs, thunderbirds, fire). Constructors have shields!

Spider- Spiders are all about being on the high ground. Ballistic weapons shoot further from high ground and spiders are full of things that have ballistic weapons and can climb vertical cliffs to get high up. Recluse is the bulk with its long range rocket spam and skrimshingness, just point them in the right direction and they do their thing. Hermit balls for cracking defensive positions and venoms for paralizying stuff that rushes you. Crab is basically a massive mobile turret, teraform it a spike so it can sit up high and have crazy range. Special mention for fleas, spam them everywhere. They are stealth with no HP and a tiny gun, but so cheap they can squeeze in everywhere. Most units are slow though so you get out maneuvered on flat ground. Construtors have radars!

Cloakbot- Everyone says do these because they are really strong, and they are. Glaives for running around harassing, scythes for gimick stealth gimicks, ronin for skrimishing, reaver for close in killing, knights for mixing in everywhere, sling for arty. Round it out with phantoms for god-tier skrimishing and this factory basically runs itself. Is capable of fighting anything. Also has a mobile area cloaker that hides radar signature, very useful for sneakyness. Contrstructors are cloaked!

Tanks- Everything is really big and scary and expensive. Learn how to auto-retreat before using these ones. Units are super straight foward. Drive forward, explode stuff, retreat before death cause your wrecks are worth as much metal as most other facs units x2. The main thing here is never losing units and healing what gets hurt. As long as your careful, you just kind of roll over other facs cause tanks hit so hard and have absurdly huge HPs. Wheeled so they die horribly on rough terrain. Constructors are tanky and have a gun!

Rovers- Like tanks but weaker and cheaper. Special notice of dominatrix, the unit that steals other units and is top tier gimick unit. Constructors....are kinda fast?

Jumpbots- Gimick factory. Everything in here does something weird. Read the details before you poke it. [urlhttps://zero-k.info/mediawiki/index.php?title=Jumpbot_Factory]Jumpbot wiki page[/url]. Constructors can jumpjet!

Amphbot- Strong on land, really strong with access to water. Has a solid lineup with Archers/ducks for fast harrass, scallops/buoys for mainline fighting and Grizzly for mainline fighting REALLY HARD. Has a couple of gimick units that you can ignore or use as you prefer. Constructors are amphibious!

Hovercraft- Only take on really flat maps, they fail hard on slopes that even tanks/rovers can get over, can hover over water or land though. Has very solid units, dagger scout hits hard, scalpel for really heavy hitting skrimisher, halberd can yolo past defenses into hostile base and then wreck things, mace is great at mainline fighting and lance is like a tiny little mobile death laser. Claymore is your gimick guy, he runs in and drops a bomb, then runs away. Constructors can hover!

Gunship/Plane/Boats- Don't take these as first factory as newbie. You will die in a fire. Gunships/planes are cool but one dimensional, you need knowledge to not explode.

Striders- For when you have been winning and winning and winning and just can't make the other guy finally die. Or rushing really early and making the other guy insta-die.
+3 / -0
The best factory for new players are Cloakbot and Shieldbot.

Cloakbot has strong, versatile units which are not over-specialized so you rarely get caught out too badly by the counter structure. All their units are fairly independent and strong even on their own, and most compositions being like Reaver/Ronin or Spectre/Scythe, only needing two units to perfectly cover the weaknesses of the other. The Imp is the real exception, being explicitly a unit to support and force-amplify your others. Pick this factory if you want to play aggressively with endless streams of units like the pros do, and focus on micro and map control rather than on learning what all the units and their counters are.

Shieldbot is all about synergy and specialization. Everything works with each other and you require a mix of several units to really see them shine. Each unit has a narrowly defined role, but you can sort of just mash them all together in a ball to get a robust force. They are defined by protecting each other with their shields, and shooting over each other, so you need to worry less about spreading them out or their lines of fire. They can snowball hard, and the kind of micro you do with them is more strategically placing them in positions where they can do damage without over-extending, and then retreat before they lose shield charge. They also have a big range of compositions to pick from, meaning you can always mix it up and try new unit combos like Felon/Convict/Aspis, Dirtbag/Snitch/Rogue, or Thug/Outlaw/Racketeer. Pick this factory if you want to play conservatively with an ever-growing ball of units and focus on compositions, synergy and having a singular, strong but less mobile force.

Rovers are a lot like Cloakbot, but even faster and more challenging. Tank are a lot like Shieldbot, but they focus on repairing a few very expensive units you must be incredibly careful with, rather than a snowballing an unkillable shield ball. Both are strong over a smaller number of maps which makes them bad to specialize in as a new player because, rarely, you'll just be playing on a map where you cannot use them at all. Amph, Hover, Spider and Jumpbot are similiarly slightly specialized towards different terrain types, though you can totally specialize in any of these if they appeal to you.
+4 / -0
5 years ago
Just to add to whateveryone is saying... more important than learning a factory, is learning the pacing of improving your eco and knowing the right amount to invest in economy, units and defenses. Often having a bigger economy trumps any sort of issues with factories being countered.
+4 / -0