#TIps and tricks

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clever kindle
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A place to share less known BAR features, tips and tricks.

Starting with a few:

  • ALT + area commands
    Using alt while giving an area command like repair, reclaim or resurrect will make it persistent - for example, it won't disappear after all units are repaired, you can use this to continuosly repair your rocket bots or set up a repair area behind the front line

  • Pulsar and Bulwark
    Can be turned off and closed. When closed incoming dmg is reduced by 75%!

Changes it from a Negotiator needing 4 missiles to kill one to 16... which is much more reparable while you hunt them down @elfin tree

  • Some (not obvious) units have built in radar
    For example, the previously mentioned pulsar and air factory

Probably a bit more known but II will mention it anyway:

  • You can reduce the stockpile amount of stockpile weapons
    I think the only use case for this is if you are really limited in resources and need every last drop of metal, worth limiting anti nukes to only 2 missiles instead of 20 if you don't expect 7+ nukes

  • Spy bots can reclaim
    Sneak behind enemy base and reclaim the remains of their com wreck they used for teching but left to res later

  • Self Destructing construction turrets creates no explosions and can be done safely

sacred lark
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Pasueing a con when it's building something will stop the blueprint from decaying but not take any resources well the cons paused

acoustic sequoia
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  • T2 Missile cruise ships seem to launch warheads that split mid-flight into plasma lobs that rain down on the ground, but these seem to actually be akin to shrapnel and plasma deflectors do not block these out. Useful to bypass any plasma deflectors on mixed land-sea maps.
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  • (On Gridkeys) Pressing N and CTRL+N cancels the first and last command in queue for any given unit, respectively.

  • Laser weapons cannot pierce through water. Units that are completely submerged cannot be hurt by lasers (except for the commander underwater laser, and Pulsars? I'll need to doublecheck)

  • When a factory is in production for a certain set of units, and you need to make a different unit immediately, you usually hold ALT then click that unit to make it now. Factories on repeat orders will make the ALT+clicked units as if they are not on repeat then move on to the repeatable queue.

  • Pressing the traversability overlay key (F6 on Gridkeys) whilst having a building selected from the build list shows all the areas that the building can and cannot be built. Some flexibility on edge cases between the red/purple and green areas, but should show some interesting areas to build radar on jagged or otherwise unbuildable terrain/hills.

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  • (Thanks to Hobo Joe) Holding Shift+Alt and clicking and dragging whilst a building from the build list is selected will create a grid of buildings whose spacing can be adjusted by then pressing X or Z. What's cooler is that holding down an additional Ctrl, so Shift+Alt+Ctrl, will make the grid hollow!
proven obsidian
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  • (On Gridkeys) Holding Space while dragging for a unit selection lets you filter by idle units.
clever kindle
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  • Selecting a building A from menu and holding ctrl alt shift while mouse is above an existing building B will auto surround building B with building A
    Most useful for quickly making walls around stuff but also works with any other building
proven obsidian
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  • Do not use Ctrl - Alt - Shift to surround AFUS with Advanced Converters
clever kindle
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  • Make walls around geothermal powerplants
    Walls are cheap, this doesn't reduce explosion but does prevent a single tick from blowing up your whole base
proven obsidian
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^ Except don't use T2 walls around Armada AGeos, there's a bug where they die to collisions if any T3 drives over the wall. It's on Drivver's radar to fix.

clever kindle
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  • (Or cortex shooty geo Cerberus)
proven obsidian
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  • Most static artillery is extremely easy to accidentally block with your own radars, LLTs and other such. Keep the firing angle in mind and place stuff behind the artillery instead.
clever kindle
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  • It is possible to Dgun some air units, for example transports and Dragons
    Dgunning an enemy transport attempting to comdrop earns you extra style point
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  • Explosions in transports (commanders or bombs) do reduced damage
proven obsidian
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  • If you want to quickly test whether your AFUS/Converter layout is resilient to chaining, open up a replay and type /cheats, then /godmode. This will allow you to give a self-destruct order, at the cost of desynchronizing with the replay as stored.
proven obsidian
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  • A well-microed Centurion can kite an unsupported Commander to death.
  • Gauss mode on Hounds exists and lets them deal with fast moving stuff in a pinch.
  • Armada T1 land factories are a fair bit shorter, collision box-wise, than Cortex ones; this lets an LLT placed next to it cover more area behind the factory.
  • Submarines can fire through Shark's Teeth (naval walls) for whatever reason.
  • The Beaver and Muskrat can build a torpedo launcher on the sea floor, it will pop up towards the sea surface once it finishes building.
  • Put your Catapults on Hold Fire and use queued Set Target to poke stuff down.
elfin tree
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  • Lasers, Heat rays, and tychon beams all have damage dropoff where they do upto 50% less at maximum range
  • Spybots can be self-destructed for a powerful EMP blast which can stun even T3 units
versed spade
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You can type /showpathtype <movedef> to see traversability without having a unit selected.

It's easiest to use if you bind keys for various units. For example:

// path traversability
bind  Alt+sc_q  showpathtype bot3    // bot con
bind  Alt+sc_w  showpathtype tank3   // veh con
bind  Alt+sc_e  showpathtype hover2  // hover con
bind  Alt+sc_r  showpathtype boat3   // ship con
bind  Alt+sc_t  showpathtype atank3  // amphibious con
bind  Alt+sc_y  showpathtype bot1    // tick

This is particularly useful pregame, to help decide to go bots or vehicles on a new map.

acoustic sequoia
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  • Learning to juggle around build priority toggles for things you need built ASAP is also a pretty high-level skill that takes a while to master, in where you turn off and on build priority for your construction units and turrets on a macro scale to ensure your resources are going into the things you need the most. For example, you need to build ground AA in your base immediately; you'll need to turn on build priority for the con turrets in your base and turn them off for your cons at the frontline building beamers or wardens etc. to ensure that those ground AA defences are built as quickly as possible by letting your limited resources be used up primarily by your con turrets. Also important to revert them back when done.
finite urchin
pliant wraith
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You can change your default left click to set target, which is way more effective than the default attack command and let's you not suicide your nuke bombers

elfin tree
red nova
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You can see the default and grid keybinds here:

Screenshot_49.png screen_2024-02-20_17-49-59-047.png
clever kindle
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  • Shurikens can EMP slow air units
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  • Liche can fire at ground units while landed and is pretty good at it. It won't damage itself and most other units do reduced damage to aircraft so it isn't easy to kill
sour zephyr
finite urchin
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Shurikens can completely EMP air units, I have an image of a bomber sitting still mid-air somewhere...

midnight imp
sour zephyr
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That did the trick. Thanks Hobo Joe!

sacred lark
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If your playing a position where you need to micro on the Frontline set two cons to a long e queue so you can passively scale up your energy income

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And not forget to

tame marlin
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sneaky pete does not just stall your energy heavily earlygame when building it, it also drains alot of energy while its on, which means after its complete you might still stall energy, consider adding the cost of multiple wind/solar to its price before deciding if you want to build one

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you can also turn off its cloak/jammer individually, in case you only need 1 of the 2, that could save you alot in energy upkeep, in the long term

crisp steppe
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The Commander D-Gun does not work underwater.
If you have successfully used the D-Gun on a submarine it was in shallow water or near the shoreline and exposed.

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Constructors have a build range. (Usually indicated by a Green circle)
There are usually points on a map where instead of getting a transport to fly up there it would be possible to build from a different elevation

This is obvious on many maps, but in some cases by playing a skirmish match and exploring you can find those sneaky spots

elfin tree
crisp steppe
acoustic sequoia
elfin tree
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  • Hovering over the chatbox or Console and holding Shift+Ctrl will expand it
  • Holding shift while scrolling with mouse wheel will scroll page page (Fastest)
  • Holding Ctrl while scrolling will scroll by multiple lines (Faster)
final solar
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After a tip on microing Ticks against Rovers, i recently learned in this video that if you select D-Gun with your Comm, your cons and labs will temporarily stop building in order to help get E (if you're low, interaction used here to help get E for Ticks or Rovers to shoot!) https://youtu.be/jEH2QRwOAX0?si=rVm5h51ai2uqvf_3&t=1060s

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(Micro tip mentioned first, followed by the D-Gun note)

crisp steppe
solid ocean
finite urchin
solid ocean
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Haha no I'm just fooling around. Seems as if the set target command can do everything 😂

latent flax
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One of my favorite tips is to set scouts to guard frontline units to give you more radar and vision range.

finite urchin
elfin tree
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tho, i wonder if i'd ever use it in the heat of battle

elfin tree
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  • Construction turrets set to Roam will assist with the building of allied teams units
solid ocean
latent flax
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Just remembered one more: The Commander is always spawned looking down/south, so to prevent losing time on turning to build, have you first construction projects south of the commander

astral parrot
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While reclaiming, hold Alt and click on the unit type you want to reclaim, then drag and release. This will reclaim all unit of that type in the area. I find this useful for quickly reclaim fields of Windmill, Solar or even obsoleted T1 unit for a bit of extra metal, without having to pixel-hunting

finite urchin
astral parrot
finite urchin
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You can clear minefields with spread artillery ground attack (a then right click drag line, after volley draw new line a bit further, repeat)

acoustic sequoia
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You could also just build a T1 vehicle minelayer and just minesweep the area since it's jammed by default...