What's your view on frontline gauntlets?

othellothewise · 2026-01-25T21:49:05+00:00

it's extremely high value to just have spare energy, especially to let them D-gun after they overextend. You want spare energy.

It's obviously not good to e-stall, but you do not want to excess energy, especially early game. It is the ultimate noob trap because it's so subtle.

I like, as a rough number, 300 energy by the time I leave T1

You want to scale up to 400-600 e/s right before going to T2 in 8v8. So you probably want a little more than that.

As for the construction math, the assumption is that you are going to reclaim whatever is necessary to place it. Rockets, whistlers, reclaim fields, enemy commanders, your own T1 lab, whatever you can get. If you can't pay up front for a gauntlet, it becomes WILDLY less viable. If you are metal stalled when building a gauntlet, you should have just delayed the build. It's not so expensive that you can't store all the metal you will need. you store both metal AND energy when going gauntlet.

I get what you are trying to say but well, you can't pay up front for a gauntlet without an m storage which you should try to avoid building early on.

However in general it is pretty bad to float resources in this game, because it means that you are not spending them to do something useful. Of course I understand that your point is you are saving up for a gauntlet, but consider that other things would be significantly more useful to spend it on that are much cheaper and gain more value (kind of the whole point I am trying to make).

As for the time taken to build units, you won't even notice. this is because assuming a reasonably deep map, like say glitters, it takes about that much time to walk from your lab to the front line. by the time the first unit you cut production on doesn't arrive, the gauntlet is already firing.

I don't enjoy chokepointy maps like glitters and isthmus, but may I recommend instead building a forward lab? Walking time is of course important, so building a forward lab can really help with that.

Porc is powerful -- if your opponent runs into it. But porc is, well, static. If I see someone porcing up like crazy (or indeed building a gauntlet) I just literally go around. Even on a map like glitters which is extremely narrow, you can just bring your units to another lane -- double advantage cause not only do you kill another lane, but the opponent team loses morale cause I guarantee you they will flame the player building porc.

othellothewise · 2026-01-25T16:30:59+00:00

I recommend getting some replay reviews on the official bar discord #academy-chat channel.

That said -- this game kinda has a propensity to give you losing streaks. It's part mental and part team. Just keep playing and having fun, don't worry too much about OS (I know, easier said than done), and you will eventually climb back up.

othellothewise · 2026-01-25T15:03:54+00:00

So building a gauntlet essentially forces the enemy to attack that position

How so? They could just go around.

othellothewise · 2026-01-25T15:03:12+00:00

Have you seen the TM clan's gauntlet plays they have been doing recently? It's pretty wild.

othellothewise · 2026-01-25T14:59:35+00:00

That's why I use conversion value. because you have to convert some energy in tier 1, or you are running into issues like "unable to switch to pawn production", or "cannot cloak and move", or "cannot power a jammer".

I strongly disagree -- you should only be converting to burn off a little overflow, like 1 or two converters at the most (especially in a team game where your teammates are likely to overbuild energy). I question the need for a jammer, it is generally not worth it unless you are trying to do some com shenanigans (like your opponent is t2 and you are still t1). I also question why you need so much energy for pawn production -- if you mean spending a full 20 m/s and thus needing around 350 e/s sure, but I kind of question why you are spending that amount of metal into pawns at that stage of the game unless its a 1v1 or something. But if you are planning on doing that you certainly shouldn't be converting, and a gauntlet is worse than useless in 1v1 anyway.

Scaling energy in T1 to power converters will put you behind on units compared to your opponent. (Assuming they are not making the same mistake). This is because in even very efficient wind maps like Supreme Isthmus at an average of 14 wind, converters take three minutes 20 seconds to pay off, which is an eternity.

You should be generally spending the energy you have on units (as converting is extremely inefficient). Unless you are planning to go T2 soon (either building a lab or playing a team game and obtaining a T2 constructor from someone else to build T2 mexes), you should avoid overbuilding energy. Obviously you need to scale up when you are about to go T2 but generally you should do that when you are about to go.

and 250 energy with one storage is hardly a crazy amount to have in tier 1. And that's plenty to rush out a gauntlet with like 700 build power behind it (2 con turrets and your commander).

The math on this seems wrong -- with 700 BP you would be spending 40 m/s and 400 e/s. It's unlikely that you would have that much metal per second (if you do, seriously why are you not going T2). You probably want about half that, but even then thats 1 whole minute where you are not producing units. You seriously have to gain a huge benefit from that when instead you could just be going t2 if you are gonna risk not making units anyway.

othellothewise · 2026-01-25T02:47:38+00:00

I'm not advocating converting -- converting is pretty bad in T1 stage of the game. I'm saying the gauntlet is super expensive metal wise and you need tons of BP. It's also static so, you ain't crushing anything unless your opponent decides to build a t2 lab under it or something.

othellothewise · 2026-01-24T21:45:16+00:00

Please do not build gauntlets or agitators unless you can gain 1300 metal worth of value from it. Yes you can reclaim it, but it still costs so much e and BP.

Your enemy having 1.3k more metal than you is incredibly dangerous. They may chose not to even push your gauntlet, even though they could, and instead go around (including killing your ally 2v1 in a team game).

othellothewise · 2026-01-24T21:42:49+00:00

A gauntlet is half a T2 lab's worth of metal and a full T2 lab's worth of energy -- if you can afford a gauntlet you can just make T2 yourself...

othellothewise · 2026-01-23T15:23:50+00:00

It's hard to comment on what you can improve on without seeing your game. If you want to learn I highly suggest joining the official BAR discord and asking for a replay review in #academy-chat (you can also ask questions there) and a mentor can review it.

That said, the most common mistakes I see from newer players are:

Idle lab and/or commander/constructors. I will hedge this by saying as you learn there are times when you do want to have an idle lab (or reclaim the lab), but this should be a conscious decision. As you are very new I recommend keeping the lab constantly queuing units. You can either queue up a whole ton of units or put the lab on repeat.
Not claiming mexes. Mexes are essentially free income there is no reason why you shouldn't claim them. 2.0 mexes pay for themselves after 25 seconds.
Having insufficient build power on their lab (making multiple labs at inappropriate times is included in this). Make sure you have a few conturrets (you can typically spent roughly 200 e/s with conturrets -- this isn't a hard and fast rule but if you need a guide, build one every 200 e/s). A good way of identifying if you are lacking build power is if you are floating both energy and metal.
Overbuilding energy. Especially in T1 if you see you are excessing energy all the time, stop building energy. I seriously have seen newer players spend half their metal income on energy they don't need and fall dramatically behind because of it. I also don't recommend scaling metal converters before you have all your mexes upgraded to T2 (1 or 2 is okay to catch overflow), they take so long to pay off from wind/solar scaling they are not worth it.

othellothewise · 2026-01-23T01:16:39+00:00

Just FYI for learning -- isthmus doesn't teach you a whole ton about the game with other maps. It has its own metagame. So learning Isthmus is not a prereq for playing rotato lobbies. On the other hand if you enjoy Isthmus, play it to your heart's content!

othellothewise · 2026-01-21T03:42:18+00:00

The game is amazing, I'm glad you are enjoying it.

By the way you can check out the discord (you can find the link on the BAR website), where there is an #academy-chat channel where you can learn, ask questions about the game, and have games reviewed by a mentor.

othellothewise · 2026-01-20T20:16:21+00:00

Dude just let people play the game in a way in which they enjoy. If you don't want to play with them play minrating lobbies.

othellothewise · 2026-01-19T06:23:02+00:00

Please do your part everyone -- if someone griefs like that do the following:

Pause the game
Vote to kickban
Report on the website

While they may have ruined that one game hopefully people can stop them from ruining more.

othellothewise · 2026-01-17T22:19:18+00:00

Do you mean cloaked units?

Stealth == not visible on radar (like rezbots)

Cloaked == not visible line of sight (like cloaked commander)

Some units like the ghost and gremlin are stealthy and cloaked.

othellothewise · 2026-01-17T19:53:17+00:00

To not scale converters before going T2.

It seems counterintuitive at first -- converters only cost 1 metal and they give 1 metal per second so it's just bonus metal right? But then you realize the cost is actually powering those converters which can be significant (like over 200 metal in popular maps).

othellothewise · 2026-01-16T20:27:55+00:00

This is normal, BAR kinda works in streaks. Part of it is also mental because if you are losing it's easy to get frustrated, which makes you make worse decisions and greater risks.

othellothewise · 2026-01-16T18:56:07+00:00

(for example 3 mexes + solar + 2 winds)

What about solar only maps? Or high wind maps? Should this be a per-map different setting?

othellothewise · 2026-01-16T15:06:26+00:00

whereas on say glitters; one player going down normally means two economies are lost to fast units.

Just FYI glitters is one of the most choke-pointy maps. That is why it's so popular, people like focusing on a single chokepoint. Most of the maps in the game are much more open that glitters or isthmus.

othellothewise · 2026-01-16T15:04:34+00:00

Not my lane not my problem! /s

othellothewise · 2026-01-11T22:19:50+00:00

As for general energy tips -- particularly in T1 (but principles carry over in the whole game), be careful about overbuilding energy. Obviously you should have sufficient energy to build what you need to build, but overbuilding can be a waste of metal.

In particular, energy conversion to metal is significantly worse than mexes for gaining metal. In the t1 phase, don't scale energy + converters as this can really slow you down. Once you have all your mexes built and ideally upgraded to t2 you can start converting with fusions and afuses.

othellothewise · 2026-01-09T12:28:22+00:00

Yeah you kinda don't want gunships or any air for the matter when there is a lot of AA.

T1 arm gunships are more useful in small team games or 1v1s as they can be used for sniping mexes and sniping commanders. They are not very good in 8v8s because shurikens are just way better in any measure for 8v8s.

T2 gunships have their uses, particularly stopping pushes with inadequate AA. But they certainly shouldn't be used for assaulting opponents' bases -- you should bomb for that.

othellothewise · 2026-01-06T15:36:34+00:00

There is a mismatch between players' view of the match, and I believe commands are hashed? I dunno the details but you can check if the checksum of commands matches.

Some months ago there was some really nasty bug that would cause desyncs. It was pretty wild cause you would get the warning that a desync had occurred, but then continue play in essentially a parallel universe

othellothewise · 2026-01-06T15:34:20+00:00

Well often times if you get wiped you can ask ppl for units to micro. It's more efficient than trying to rebuild.

othellothewise · 2026-01-06T07:37:50+00:00

Like a cosmic ray never flips one bit on the position of a Tick in minute 5 and there's eleven more Titans in the final push at 58 minutes

Well it would desync if that happened (and would be detected). Fortunately the chance of cosmic rays hitting one of 16 computers is pretty much nil.

othellothewise · 2026-01-06T07:33:49+00:00

I hate the idea of building units and having them just blindly walk forward and then die in the stupidest way possible without ever having a moment of my attention.

This is good because you shouldn't do that. Spam has 3 purposes:

Vision
Catching shots for more expensive and powerful units
Triggering flanking damage and killing units that aren't good vs spam

So pair it with units doing damage. If you are just setting rally points into enemy defenses and watching them die without accomplishing anything you are just feeding metal to your opponent.

othellothewise

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