On 5x5km maps, you will be scouting primarily with land scouts. They are practically free; it's very, very difficult to make them *not* worth their investment. Always prefer having more scouts than having too few scouts; I like to always have a few more than I think I'll need, so I can quickly replace them if they happen to get picked off. Better players will try to blind you in whatever way they can, including targeting your scouts and radar with bombers and LABs.
At a minimum, make sure that you have 1-2 scouts placed slightly past the middle of the map, covering at least one choke point. Typically, you will be sending your ACU down one side of the map and your units down the other; make sure there are scouts with both groups.
Every raiding party and every army needs a minimum of one scout with it. The importance of this cannot be understated. Nearly every unit has a larger firing range than omni range, meaning that if your tanks are traveling without a scout, they have a smaller usable range.
Stationary radars are cheap. Use them more frequently as the game goes on, but be careful about making too many too early - the energy drain is significant in the opening minutes of the game, and land scouts will likely be more efficient. Keep in mind that they are fragile as well, and will make prime targets for bombers or raiders - make sure that they're placed strategically so that an attempt to take them out will likely end up hurting your enemy more than it will hurt you.
In 5x5km maps, you may not even be making air as it's very easy to defend against it with AA. However, if the spawn points are separated by water, or there are many expansion points only accessible by transports, or the map is anything larger than Theta or Canis - you should most definitely be making air. You generally can't go wrong with air second.
The purpose of an air scout is that it is faster than every other T1 air unit. This means that with proper micro, you should only need one and it should last you the majority of the game so long as you pay attention to it. Other than that, keep making interceptors so that you can match your enemy's air production. Games can easily be won by a decisive air fight that gives you air supremacy, allowing you to shift production to offensive air units and forcing your enemy to invest heavily in land based counters.
Lastly, as you improve with the game you will find that you can determine a huge amount about what your enemy is doing simply by noticing what they're doing at what time. For example, if I notice that I seem to have 2-3 more tanks than my enemy at minute 3, I can assume that they're most likely putting more eco into early air. If you know the map and the enemy, you can often predict what opening they're using with a high degree of accuracy simply because at the "high level" most people play very consistently and predictably. If you see them in chat, talk to eXivo and Pic - they are perhaps the best players I've seen at getting into their enemy's heads and playing several steps ahead.Statistics: Posted by uberge3k — 27 Dec 2012, 17:53
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