Land Factory placement

[LazerBeems]

I'd like to know some of your thoughts on where to place land factories depending on the situation. I've read a lot about when to build them (particularly at the beginning of a match), but very little on effective placement.

I'm only just getting into FAF for the first time, so I've been reading as much as I can and watching casts and replays to try and learn strategies. With that said, I tend to try and spread out Land factories into different areas of the map in order to minimize travel time for the units that are built, but I'm not really sure what makes this efficient (or not).

A few questions :
A) on small and medium sized maps with choke points, is it worth it to attempt to push through the choke to place a factory on the other side (closer to the opponent)?
B) is it worth going for adjacency bonus on mass extractors, especially closer to the front lines, or should I spread out placement to minimize aoe damage or for some other reason?
C) is it better to have a strong "core" base with fewer factories (with higher tech level, defensive structures such as shields, or adjacency bonuses due to mass extractor/power generator placement), or more "front-line" factories?
D) on large maps with oceans and lots of water or islands, how should land factories be used effectively to deny islands to you opponent?
E) finally, can somebody please explain what an HQ is versus a regular factory? I've seen lots of comments but no elaboration on how these are different and when/how one is more effective. Also, where should HQs be located on a map?

In watching some of the high-level players, they seem to have more of a central core to their base instead of lots of factories spread around the map, but this is based on my observations so far and I may be missing something that demonstrates the bigger picture.

Thanks to anyone who has any suggestions for me or other resources I could check out.

[ZLO_RD]

A) placing factories closer to opponent helps with reinforcements, but on small maps you are usually fine with that.
if you place factories too far forward, in case of retreat they will get destroyed, that is not nice at all.

Your logic behind making factories past the choke point is that enemy units can't ambush you while you are in the choke point, because you make your units past the choke point, but that assumes that enemy will not be able to push you back so you can build forward factories, BUT! if enemy can't push you back to prevent factory construction then he also can't ambush you in choke point to prevent you from passin it. This situation does not make much sence to me, unless you assume that you just rush with engineers there, before any enemy tanks arrive (so no need to protect engies that build factoriesthere), or drop your enginers there with a transport, so you can build factories and maybe PD - so you don't get pushed back.

Choke points in this game are usualy not so small - so i would not worry about this problem

B) i would take adjacency, mostly because it is always nice and factries are fairly big so they usually don't suffer from aoe damage so much. even if your factories will be under siege from t3 mobile cybran arty, spreading factories will not help you that much

[Sprouto]

Learn how to effectively use transports and ferry routes.

I've always felt that the cost of building forward factories, upgrading them, and of course, the negative effect of losing them far outweighs any benefit you might gain from being closer on any map 20km or less. That becomes a very different proposition on larger maps.

[LazerBeems]

Your logic behind making factories past the choke point is that enemy units can't ambush you while you are in the choke point, because you make your units past the choke point, but that assumes that enemy will not be able to push you back so you can build forward factories, BUT! if enemy can't push you back to prevent factory construction then he also can't ambush you in choke point to prevent you from passin it.

I guess I hadn't thought of it this way but that makes sense to me, thanks for your take on it.

Learn how to effectively use transports and ferry routes.

I've always felt that the cost of building forward factories, upgrading them, and of course, the negative effect of losing them far outweighs any benefit you might gain from being closer on any map 20km or less. That becomes a very different proposition on larger maps.

I have watched a few videos on ferrying mechanics, but I admit that I have not begun to incorporate it into my gameplay yet. This is not because I don't think it could work, rather because I am still getting used to juggling many different aspects of the game such as eco, unit production, teching up, & scouting for counters that it seems a little overwhelming. Perhaps unsurprisingly I think I have a decent handle on 5-10km land-based maps with little or no water, as I can get decent unit production going. However, on the larger maps, especially water maps like Roanoke Abyss, if I depend too heavily on transports ferrying troops but lose air or naval control then my ferry routes could be vulnerable.

I do think that you're right about using transports, and I will work on using it in situations where factory investment is more risky or inefficient, but I think that there are some situations where this may not be possible. Thanks for your perspective!

[KeyBlue]

E)
This is probably the most important question. As it's about a main mechanic of FAF gameplay.

First you only have access to T1 factories.
You can upgrade such a factory to a T2 HQ factory.
This allows you to build T2 units from it and all other T1 factories get a new upgrade option: T2 support factory.
These T2 support factories are a lot cheaper then their HQ variant. But they can only produce T2 units while you own a T2 HQ or higher.
This means that when your T2 HQ is destroyed all your T2 support factories can only produce T1 units and T2 engineers.

An easy way to look at it is :

• HQ = unlocks the technology
• Support = more buildpower in the form of a factory for relatively cheap

So to answer your question about HQ placement:
HQ is very important and expensive, so you should build it in the most secure location (this is usually your main base).
You should always have only 1 HQ. More for the sake of safety in redundancy would be waste of resources that would be better spend on defending that single HQ instead.

[LazerBeems]

KeyBlue, thank you! This also explains why I've had my T2 factories not allowing me to select T2 units to build; I must have lost my HQ during the match, but I had not idea that it worked this way.

Because you distinguish between HQ & "support" factories, is it possible at all for factories to directly support other factories' build queue (whether adjacent or remote)? I don't think that this is the case but I would like to check my assumption.

Also, is it possible to set up a rally point to indicate assisting a factory without further input from me? For example, can I set a T1 factory to build infinite T1 engineers to assist my Air Factory as they are produced?

[KeyBlue]

Because you distinguish between HQ & "support" factories, is it possible at all for factories to directly support other factories' build queue (whether adjacent or remote)? I don't think that this is the case but I would like to check my assumption.

Yes, this is possible. You can queue units on 1 factory (usually on infinite loop) and then have all the others assists it.
(so you select the factory you want to be the slave, and right click on the master (factory with the queued units).
Now that slave factory will take the next unit in the queue and will build it, and when its done it'll go to the rallypoint of the master factory.

Another nice feature you have with this is that you can queue some units in the slave factory.
The slave factory will first finish his current unit for the master and will then finish his own queue (probably not an infinite loop queue) and when the queue is empty he'll go back to building the units for the master factory.
The units that the slave made from his own queue, will use the slave factory's rallypoint.
So when you notice you need some more engineers for reclaim or maa when you see a bomber coming, then you can quickly queue up some extra units in these slave factories and they'll handle your request and then go right back to building your main forces again.


Beware! When you do this then you delete the current queue of the slave factory.
So when you want to assist your T2 HQ with a soon to be upgraded support factory, then you should assist the HQ before clicking on the support factory upgrade, because you'll upgrade will get removed if you assist after telling it to upgrade.
(you can avoid this by just having them upgrade and only assist when the upgrade is done, but this requires some more attention later on)

Also, is it possible to set up a rally point to indicate assisting a factory without further input from me? For example, can I set a T1 factory to build infinite T1 engineers to assist my Air Factory as they are produced?

No this isn't possible as far as i know.

[KeyBlue]

D) on large maps with oceans and lots of water or islands, how should land factories be used effectively to deny islands to you opponent?

Well when the island has signicant amount of mexes or strategic value then you will want to take control of it as soon as possible.
The safe choice is the get a landfactory build there as soon as possible. Since a landfactory will "secure" it for you.

Why does a land factory secure it?

• When your engineers get bombed, then you can build new ones from the factory and rebuild all the mexes and reclaim some. With no factory, you would have to drop new engineers which takes a long time usually. Your opponent succesfully denied the island in that duration and you'll be set back. Even worse could be to have the opponent drop the now empty island himself. If that happens you'll have to invest a lot more than a factory to get it back.
• Your opponent also drops the island. Well then you can build some labs/tanks/artillery to kill the engineers fast before they can build factories or pd. And even if they get up a single factory then your initial tank advantage (since you started building units before the factory was done) should give you enough to kill those too. If the opponent gets more factories online then you ofcourse will have to make sure you outproduce or atleast stay even with him.
• If you both drop at the same time. Well then its usually a race to who gets more factories faster while being able to have them producing properly. And worse case it becomes a long land war. Losing the island will become even more costly because of the reclaim your battle left behind.

So basicly the idea of a factory is that you can easily recover from a raid/attack on the island. And it makes it more difficult for the opponent to take it away from you.

When the island is secure, then ideally you could try to use those factories to build some hover to contest nearby islands.
If you don't have hover (mostly cybran and uef) there then you could drop your idling units to the nearby islands (preferably artillery). But you need to take care that you can do some damage with them. Since they can't retreat back like hover units would do, a failed attack will always mean its a mass donation.

[LazerBeems]

Because you distinguish between HQ & "support" factories, is it possible at all for factories to directly support other factories' build queue (whether adjacent or remote)? I don't think that this is the case but I would like to check my assumption.

Yes, this is possible. You can queue units on 1 factory (usually on infinite loop) and then have all the others assists it.
(so you select the factory you want to be the slave, and right click on the master (factory with the queued units).
Now that slave factory will take the next unit in the queue and will build it, and when its done it'll go to the rallypoint of the master factory.

Awesome, I'll have to practice this to get the hang of out. That seems incredibly useful.

So basicly the idea of a factory is that you can easily recover from a raid/attack on the island. And it makes it more difficult for the opponent to take it away from you.

I see what you mean, and it's useful to help me think of it in terms of an investment to minimize the risk of losing the island. I really appreciate you taking the time to go into some detail on this.

[partymarty81]

KeyBlue, thank you! This also explains why I've had my T2 factories not allowing me to select T2 units to build; I must have lost my HQ during the match, but I had not idea that it worked this way.

Because you distinguish between HQ & "support" factories, is it possible at all for factories to directly support other factories' build queue (whether adjacent or remote)? I don't think that this is the case but I would like to check my assumption.

Also, is it possible to set up a rally point to indicate assisting a factory without further input from me? For example, can I set a T1 factory to build infinite T1 engineers to assist my Air Factory as they are produced?

I had a horrible moment on a ladder 1v1, playing crashing waves..... my opponent had air advantage and i was pressing with my naval advantage.... I had a very embarrassing case of losing my naval HQ and wondering why my T2 navy dwindled away

Very helpful answers here