Can you give me an overview of RPG route's units?
Subject: re: Militery: Weak and strong points
Shock troopers are the first real protection the military-RPG route gets against flak attacks. Officers and privates provide very little protection. The key thing about the shock trooper is that it targets ALL, meaning it is very effective against flak, however it is not very useful at taking out hostile LET units, as they will usually be flakked. Shocks are particularly useful to alliances due to their low eta, meaning they can move quickly to defend against many incomings. Shocks are very useful to have while you are still developing, but once you have RPGs and Snipers they are generally not needed.
The sniper is the main health killing unit on the RPG route. It has high health damage, but almost no armour damage, meaning that on its own it is often ineffective at killing enemy LETs, but when used in combination with the RPG, or other armour stripping units such as the striker or assassin, it is a very powerful unit. It is not recommended to buy too many snipers until you have developed RPGs, as their lack of armour damage will seriously reduce their efficiency.
The humvee is intended purely as a LET flak unit. It has very high armour for what it costs, but its damage is minimal. Solo RPG players often buy humvees to absorb damage for their rpgs and snipers, however buying lots of humvees will reduce how much damage you can deal, so they are often ignored by players in alliances, although some alliance players do like to take advantage of the humvees low eta and high armour to rush quick defence to allies who are being rushed by other low eta units.
The RPG route as a whole relies heavily on having the RPG trooper unit. The shock trooper is useful while you are developing and while other people don't have decent LETs, but it won't keep you safe once other people have finished better developments. The sniper needs the RPG to allow it to be effective, and the humvee doesn't do enough damage to keep you safe. I would recommend buying only what you need of these units and to develop RPGs as fast as you can, which are the most important unit on the route.
For more advice on routes, units and tactics, or if you don't understand any of the terms I've used (eg flak, LET/ALL etc) please have a look in the bushtarion wiki (see link bottom left), although if you have any more questions do feel free to ask us
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What are officers and privates good for?
Subject: re: Milatery
Officers strength lies purely in when they come out in the round, being one of the first ranged lethal units available. Once stronger units are available they become obsolete, and should only be used for dealing with other basic units.
Privates only real use is to 'sweep' for other units, that is to fire after your hippies/yobs etc to make sure they haven't missed anything. Privates can also potentially be used as LET flak, however the military routes all have other units higher up the tech tree which are more effective at this.
Both do small amounts of health damage and negligible armour damage. Best bet is to ignore them as much as possible and develop better units quickly.
If you are unfamiliar with any of the terms being used (flak, sweep etc) look them up in the bushtarion wiki page (link on the menu to the left).
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How should I go about using Recruitment Officers?
Subject: re: Intelligence:
This depends on what you want to bribe. Recruitment officers have good health damage and armour damage, so unless you're going after really heavily armoured units (CyberneticWarriors, ApacheLongbows), then you don't really need to worry about armour stripping the units you want to bribe.
So the difficult bit isn't in trying to get the recruitment officers to do enough damage. The hard part is keeping them alive long enough to fire. There are a number of things you can do to help them live; buy plenty of humvee flak, kill enough of the enemy with RPGs so that there is still enough to bribe but not enough to really hurt you, or try and find an ally with sirens, who can stop the enemy firing but still allow you to bribe hostile units.
Ultimately, to bribe well you need to be opportunistic. Alot of targets in your range will have their troops set up to make it very difficult to get any useful bribes, but there will always be a few targets in your range who have just taken alot of troop losses, or have a bad troop set up, so you need to be patient and hack alot of targets.
You might also want to consider last-ticking or mid-ticking if you are being attacked. TerrroristLeaders smash up the RPG route on the ranged ticks, but if you last tick them with ROs then you could bribe lots of them and make that thug player think twice about hitting you again.
So, concentrate on keeping your ROs alive long enough to fire, and be patient and opportunistic in your target selection. That may mean having to wait a few days for a good target to come up, which can be annoying, but you have to play it carefully because ROs are really quite fragile.
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Are shock troopers useful later in the game?
Subject: re: RPG shockers late game
Most RPG players tend to ignore shocks once they've got RPGs. 99 times out of 100 RPGs or snipers will be more useful. Some players like to keep a few around as an extra slap in the face, but they don't really have enough damage to deserve using up funds that could be spent on RPGs. You wouldn't want to use them for last tick damage unsupported, considering how late they fire. They'll almost always end dying alot and doing little damage back.
That said, they are great units for early/mid round play. Low eta, good survivability and good damage on flak make them worth spending on until you can bring out your high end units.
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What's the best ratio for RPG route?
Subject: re: Journal:
This depends entirely on your play style, there is no 'best' ratio.
In general, RpgTroopers are your offensive units and snipers/humvees are your defensive units, so spend more on one or the other depending on how you want to play.
For example; a player in an active alliance might only buy RPGs, maximising their offensive capabilities, because they can rely on their alliance to defend them against RPG's natural enemies (SAs, TLs, Vamps).
On the other hand, a defensive solo player might buy very few RPGs and instead invest in their defensive units (snipers and humvees), perhaps with the ratio 1:2:3 rpg:sniper:humvee, or maybe even more humvees than that.
As I said, it depends entirely on your playstyle; allied or solo, offensive or defensive. Also, always make sure you have *some* snipers if you choose to go purely offensive, and make sure you have *some* RPGs if you choose to go purely defensive. RPGs and snipers need to support each other.
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A Terrorist Leader play keeps killing me! Is there anything I can do?
Subject: re: 4th time being zero`d
Mostly you're screwed
The game very much operates on a "rock, paper, scissors" scheme. Unfortunately RPGs are paper and TLs are scissors.
If you are determined to hurt this guy in any way possible, then I'd suggest getting more humvees to try and absorb the TL damage and allow your snipers to fire. So maybe 1:3:5 RPG:Sniper:Humvee, or something similar.
The trouble with this though is that it ruins your offensive capabilities, and leaves you open to attack from other routes.
Most top RPG players tend to accept that they can't beat TLs, SAs or vamps, and don't even try to make themselves able to fight them. They simply mass on RPGs and rely on their alliance to cover them against those units, or rely on their own activity/contactability to ensure they can't be stealth rushed.
If you want to try and hurt this guy, then go ahead and try. I think you'll probably only meet with limited success though. A better option might be to try and get into an alliance that will defend you against TLs. RPG is very much a route for alliance play.
