Raiding

A raid is normally a small to medium fast attack. The aim of a raid is not to kill or cripple an opponent, but to sap his strength, and to distract him from building his economy.

Raiding is typically done with smaller groups of fast units, with at least moderate damage potential. The idea is to use speed and surprise to avoid defences and destroy some economic buildings. The most popular target for a raid is the metal extractor as they are easy to kill, and metal is generally the critical resource. Windmills are also easy to kill, and if enough are destroyed, an energy stall will hurt the defending player badly. Construction units and factories are also worthwhile targets, although generally a raid will only take out a factory if the defence is quite poor.

As the game progresses raiding generally becomes pointless due to a build up of defensive structures. A raid against a well defended position will only waste resources and give the opponent metal wrecks to reclaim. However certain specialist units such as hovercraft, amphibious units and all terrain assault robots may be able to cover difficult terrain, allowing a surprise raid from an unexpected direction much later in the game.

Raiding should be used with care against porcing - just enough to encourage the porcer to stay behind his defenses, allowing you to spread across the map and take control of as much resource as possible.

In many TA based mods air units are not normally built early, and are very effective against ground units that are not specifically anti air. As a result there is often an opportunity for an air raid in the mid game, after ground defences have become established, but before anti air defence is solidly established.