NOTA players guide

This is an NOTA players guide, made by 123v and edited/wikified by HeavyLancer. NOTE: CURRENTLY WIP

Overview

This guide is about unit selection for various situations, some general tactics and strategies for all 3 fields of battle; land, sea and air. All of these fields of battle in NOTA are equally important and it is advised not to concentrate solely on one at the expense of others.

Land

Tier 1

The Kbot is the unit which you should use for the mass of your army. It is cheap and dishes out the best fire power at cost. However, Kbots lack armor, health and speed but you get the most fire power for the cost.

Vehicles are best used as tier 1 Kbot support as vehicle artillery and AA has better range than their Kbot equivalents. Vehicles also have greater speed and better armour (making them better base assault units). They are also less cost effective than Kbots in terms of damage dealing capacity.

If you need a mobile army for a big map you may want a a vehicle army because of the extra mobility and aforementioned armour. However, for that cost you could build 2 Kbot armies, which can push for more ground and still hold their own, and have more firepower.

Tier 2

As tier 2 units hit the battle field tier 1 units will play a smaller role in the bigger battles, but one of the neat things about NOTA is that tier 1 units have important uses even into the late game where as in many other mods they are a waste of resources.

T2 units are really neat, you can see for your self in-game. The Arm Raptor IV Kbot is a work of art, even it you do not play NOTA you need to see this unit.

Some notes on specific units

The peewee is a very useful unit in NOTA. It is cheap, moves at a high speed for a Kbot, has a spray attack, decent health, and does not take out all it's mates when it is killed! (Unlike in some other mods) The Core AK is the same but the lazers it has are just not as cool.

Another ground unit u should know about are the speedy raider bots. They are fast, have a decent attack range, and do decent damage. An opponent that micromanages these early on in the game can be a nightmare if you are not prepared. These raider bots are good for raiding, killing arty, snipers, and when micromanaged, small groups of kbots. DO NOT try to kill them with Arm Flash tanks. The Zeus, Core Instigator, and units whose projectiles move fast enough to hit fast moving targets are good for dealing with these.

Kbot artillery for both Arm and Core are great. They can fire on the move, and make a big boom :D

Air

Air defense

• The best way and most cost effective way to establish air supremacy is to build fighters. You should make use of ground Anti-Air to make sure that your fighters win, but it is not cost effective to use ground AA to hold your airspace. Ground based AA will also be a deterrent for enemy aircraft, but this does not equal safety as ground attack air craft can remove small groups of AA with out much trouble.

As fighters can be lost easily over enemy airspace is is normally better not to lose them in a conflict over enemy airspace. Instead, more costly ground-based AA could be a safer option for your air force.

• Warning! Only flak and ship based high altitude missiles will hit high flying planes such as bombers. All other AA is for low altitude air defense.

• Flak has splash damage but is also inaccurate, however, it can case premature deaths vby causing an engine fire. Once you have 8-10 flak it will become effective and enemy bomber losses will be heavy.

Transportable (yes, transportable!), static flak does the same damage as non-transportable versions and has a faster turret turn rate, so it is not so bad against fighters (but still inaccurate). Use a transport unit to carry transportable defenses to new locations.

Air VS Sea

As ships are rather costly and as a result come with some AA, it is a good idea not to fly near ships. Torpedo bombers should be used against ships, but not in heavily clumped packs, as ship AA will deal splash damage to those poor planes of yours and kill them off very quickly. If you do not use them in packs pilots will not be coming home, and they will not be able to tell stories of the great ships they sunk. Toads and Vashps can also be used against ships, but not subs. Bombers and such will not be very effective for dealing damage to ships as you will see for yourself.

There are sea based planes but land air is really where it's at.

Tier 2

Tier 2 air is a huge difference from tier 1.

• A pack of tier 2 bombers can give some tier 1 fighters a bad time and an early death as the tier 2 bombers have better AA thanks to their tail guns. Still, a large pack of tier 1 fighters will drop even tier 2 bombers. Tier 2 fighters are better.
• 4-5 accurately placed bomb drops from a t1 or t2 strategic bomber can eat most factories and a few more and a base constructor (tower) can turn pretty colors too (i.e. BOOM). About 32 bombers can kill a Command Center and 9 stealth bombers will do the same job.

• Stealth bombers use 200 E to stealth. Any plane will detect stealth bombers, which means that late game full base fighter patrols will eat any stealth bombing attempt.

• Wings are deadly low flying lazer beaming monsters, but every AA can hit them, so they can fall out of the sky fairly quickly. They fly slow so a retreat needs to be premeditated if the wing is to live. It has a lazer of death and 2 bombs. It does not have a large fuel tank so at the moment it is not a great deep strike unit, unless you have mobile airpads with u.

• Yes there is fuel, and it makes for great game play. Airpads are cheap but needed. A t1 air factory comes with a pad as part of the kit (W00t!)

Some notes on specific units

• The Tier 1 ground attack planes (Toad and Vashp), are excellent. They are not cheap or easily built but are wonderful for cleaning up problems in your base. A toad can pick off raiders in your wind mill farm without causing any collateral damage. Also note that Wind turbines are not as highly explosive compared to other TA-like mods.

• The Core Flying Fortress is a very costly unit but a pain to kill as it has AA and a lot of armor and health. Interceptors are the best way to kill them. If you have less than 20 Tier 1 aircraft after a flying fortress comes your not going to have much of a fighter force left afterwards. 20 Tier 1 fighters have a decent survival chance if they attack as a group. The Tier 2 interceptors are the best way to kill a flying fortress though. Flak is not bad but a flying fortress is flak resistant (flak will still kill it, however)

• Napalm bombers are great. They are fast and fly low to avoid a lot of AA. Rocket towers or tier 2 rocket units put a stop to them best.

Napalm. Beautiful. Hit massed units with it. Hit econ farms with it. Love it when you use it. Hate it when it is used against you :D

Sea

• Firstly, a word on hovers. Hovers are cheaper that ship so nice to use as they do not cost as much. Hover arty is the best hover unit for fighting ships, but understand that ships are the kings of the sea, not hovers. 6 hover arty will pwn a Destroyer and you could pull it of with 4 of them if you're really good, but don't count on it. A hover transport will CARRY a MOHO builder. This is important as Moho builders are very important units in NOTA and they are very slow.

• Ships are huge investments and as a result have a huge impact on the field of battle. Losing sea and then having the enemy use naval bombardment is not fun and will end the game. If there is sea on the map you will want it.

• As a ship is valuable you do not want to lose your first ship so watch it closely, but do not be afraid to use it because you just may catch you opponent with his pants down. If an AA ship can park in your harbor you can say good bye to your air supremacy, and then you've got a problem.

• The Destroyer is really the runt of the ship family but it's radar and sonar ranges are huge. It has the most torpedoes of any ship(4, with 2 on each side), yet it's low health is a bit of a drawback.

• The Cruiser is a great all purpose ship. I envy the Core version, it's the best ship you could dream up. Cruisers effectively have 2 torpedoes, a nice set of guns, decent range, and a small sonar radius.

factional ship differences

Arm ships are more single purposed and thus cost a lot less as they tipicaly have less aa, and are just not as much. Core ships tipicaly lack the range of the arm ships but do have more hp and are backing a more al purpose bite. an arm missle ship is much smaller but costs half the price. a core missle ship packs a heavy cruser gun battery and weapons to boot. A player who keeps his wallet in mind woudl prefer the arm missle ship as he can get more missle bang for the buck, but he will need 2 def his ship where as the core ship can dish some seriouse dmg 2 all units (but not subs) The core battel cruser is a floating pile of HP where as the arm battle cruser has half the HP, but can lay into his enemies with his massive long ranged guns.

Subs carry a lot of fire power; 3 unguided 1 guied torpedos, but have little hp and can be eaten with ease. subs van drop a lot of hur b4 torpedos reach them and if they are lucky they can even live. 2 lucky subs can kill a destroyer, but the same destroyer on a luckey day could also kill both subs in the same exchange.

an anti ship gun is a powerful weapon, but air can nock it out with some ease, so keep air supreamacy. a birtha can be built by a commander, a def, tower or the tower which can build all t2 and t3 structures. birtha's have a good range for controle over sea.

heavy longrange weapons are a great way 2 back ur sea effort, and a way 2 hold it.

Deffence... NOTA def. units are costly but very effective. Spending the M can be a set back, but if it was well chosen it will surve u well.u will find that nota does not have indestructabke supper units if u ur enemy hasn't the def, or aa removing large problems is posible. a nuke cannon, nuking silo, bitha, pinoco, orbital lazer are all kill able.

Tactics. Keeping ur army alive and microing u lines during confrontation is part of the game. A well lead army can achieve wonders. Raiding/attacking econ is big as NOTA econ is an investment. ground and mex are more valuable in nota than other mods. Doing raids and not just one all out attack will help u gain the upper had so u can make that heavy attack.

learning units abilities and weaknesses, and how 2 exploit them, as in NOTA range is by far not the most promenant exploitation, but only one of them. these exploitations in NOTA are a huge part of the fun, not to mention the complexity of the battle field.

Factors: cloaking, rate of fire, accuracy, armor classes, decloaking range area of effect, build time(which decides what is practical 2 produce), speed turn rate, turret turn rate, speed, cost vs #s and fire power, deployment, energy for construction 2 other units, dmg, range,and more

there are three armor classes light,medium and heavy units do different dmg 2 the different armor classes as u would expect.

Economy

Economy is costly in NOTA which means that using MMs (metal makers) is not a way to get a heavy economy rolling. If you have a good supply of Energy then use MMs, but producing units will get you a lot further than throwing your resources into a bunch of fusions to sustain them. Heavy economy building costs a lot of Metal and takes time to build. Getting Moho extractors (Mohos) is a huge deal, and it costs u nearly 5000 M 2 get 2 ur first moho up and running. This means stat econs rise more steadily and are of huge value. moho s have more hp as they do cos a lot. In nota wind does not have a huge explosion so u do not have 2 be as afraid 2 use it.

General Strategies

After your first five or more metal extractors (mexes) you can support a factory. Factories cannot be assisted in NOTA. If you want larger unit production you can build another factory. In NOTA diversity is very important as a result you should have a number of factories early on perhaps even before you can keep them all running at full production. NOTA factories can increase and decrease their production speed so as not to consume resources or build as quickly, depending on your desires.

Once you have 3 or more factories you might think of going to Tier 2 depending on how the game is going. As you get a feel for the game you will know when and even if you want to tech. The Tier 2 units are much more useful than Tier 1 units but also cost a good deal more so there will be many more Tier 1 units than Tier 2 units. Building an air factory before going to Tier 2 in any other area is also often a wise idea if you haven't already.