Supreme Commander

Building templates are a new facility in Supreme Commander :forged alliance, which helps ease the headache of the player when it comes to building complex structures. The need to pre-plan and correctly position the structures is huge due to several factors like adjacency bonuses, mutual protection, as well as need to keep your base as compact as possible so that it comes under the influence of protective structures like point defenses, AA defenses, shield generators/stealth field generators, tactical/strategic missile defenses etc. However, in an already frantic game play in which you have to control and micromanage around 200 individual units and simultaneously manage and protect your complex economy, you often get very little time to sit and think about how to effectively utilize the available terrain and bring up the best building formations that would give you maximum economical or tactical advantages. Here is where the building templates come into play.

Building templates are preset structure building queues with their positions included, which you can save. Once saved, these building options will be available to you every time you play the faction for which you have created these. Whenever you ask a builder unit to execute this building queue, the builder will execute the build exactly the way construction was done the first time, at exact relative positions. In this guide I will explain how to make maximum use of this wonderful but almost never used option and its power. To make things simple and straight, I will stick with a common build order and explain things as they progress. For the ease of explaining how it works, I will assume that the templates are already created and they are being used. I will later explain how to tactfully create them to maximum effectiveness.

Lets consider a very common build order:

• Commander arrives….
• Land factory>T1 P.Gen > T1 P.Gen (adjacent to land factory)
• The commander then leaves to build mass extractors all around.

A common B.O. So why not save this small group as a template? So that as soon as the commander arrives just click the template option. You will see a green outline of two pwr-gens and a factory. Place it preferably. The commander will start building the factory, the first pwr-gen and the second.



The T1 bots coming out of the first factory carries on building further factories. However, here too, I have a template of 4 well placed factories and 16 pwr-gens, out of which a factory and two power gens resemble exactly those I have already built. What I will do is, I place the template on top of the already built factory and the two adjacent p-gens.



Note that when placed, the portion of the template where the factory and p-gens are already built turns red, whereas the rest stays green. This means that out of the template, the red ones will be cancelled and the bot will continue building the rest of the building template. To look at the entire picture, what I did was I initially built a part of the complex structure that I will have in late T3, and I am slowly adding complex pre-designed parts to it. Since I am using the templates everything is over with just a click and place. I don’t have to place each of the factories and p-gens independently, saving lots of time, and more importantly concentrate on unit microing on the battle field.

However, if one bot is selected and issued a build template command, it will build it the exact way the template was created. So what if you don’t want:

• Two of the four factories right now
• You want one bot to build the factories while the other to build the p-gens

What you will have to do is select the first bot and issue the build template command. According to the command the bot is suppose to build 4 factories, and then 16 p-gens. However, the presence of a factory and two p-gens change it into 3 factories and 14 p gens after that. This queue will be visible in the bot’s build queue. So cancel those 14 p-gens. The bot will build only the three factories. Now select the bot which you want to build the 14 p-gens. Select and place the same template on top of the currently placed one. But since there are already orders there for the four factories, the they will appear red and cancel as you place the template. Which means the second bot is left with building only the 14 remaining p-gens. This is how you split the entire work among multiple bots with same template, while still maintaining the ease and integrity of the design.



Okay after a tough fight, now you are in T2. You want to build T2 p-gens. Here too you have a template of four T2 p-gens and 24 energy storages built exactly to fit by the sides of the previously built four factories. Just click and place the template. Here too, share the work accordingly of you want. So eventually you have four factories adjacent to the 4 T2 p-gens, which reduce the factory energy consumption drastically as well as benefit from the energy storages, all wonderfully placed within minimum space and well built, that you can easily defend it.



Note that the space in the center of the factories exactly equals to that of A T2 p-gen, Thermo p-gen, shield/stealth field generator, or a T3 mass extractor. So you can choose to place the template accordingly at the very beginning…Now that’s planning. Upon completion, how it will look by T2.5/T3 is shown below. There is also a picture of T3 mass Fabs + T3 p-gens + energy & mass storage at the bottom. That configuration gives colossal economy bonuses with minimum space, and takes quite a time to place properly…not any more while templates are available.