Battlezone 1

I played a certain strat game on dial up. My opponent understood my ping wasn't the greatest, and we agreed to using AI units only. So I joined in a Ram and he was Capitan, and he left barracks OFF. He claimed he was fairly experienced in strat. Well, I built some scavs, some silos, hangar, supply, a couple of gun towers and a fleet of tanks. I routinely recycled and rebuilt my factory to get more pilots and rebuilt my force as needed. I threw in a few APCs along the way and I won the game. He asked me how I was able to build over 10 units, and I told him I rebuilt my factory to get more pilots. He said something to the effect of "oh you dirty rat" (probably 50% joke and 50% serious) and mentioned that barracks OFF was supposed to limit production and that he didn't know that factory rebuild gave more pilots.

Is rebuilding factory on the same level as scrap making, or is it typically part of the bag of tricks used by other serious stratters? It's all a matter of opinion, so share yours.

In my opinion, it's fully legit, and I even do it in single player sometimes and in multiplayer strats even when barracks is ON. I thought Barracks OFF was only preventing easy APC reloads, not as a strict 10 pilot limit on production.

Unfortunately, there are few ways for real pilot making (Barracks ON are needed for that). It's a cheat like collecting of gray scrap and I don't want to discuss it here. Comparing to that, Factory rebuilding is legit way of getting 5 more pilots (up to 15).

However, this is free translation of what George Collins (BZ Lead Designer) said in CRO PC magazine: "If the game has limited number of pilots (Barracks OFF), good strategy is to kill them as many as possible, because then opponent won't be able to build new units and his base will be protected only with passive defensive units"

They obviously didn't want more than 15 pilots in Barrracks OFF game, but they coded it bad and everybody does it ( rebuild Factory) since the day1, so it became perfectly legit.

-10 scrap to build Factory. +7 scrap after recycling.

That means we are "paying" those 5 pilots 3 scrap and we are with (undeployed) Factory for some time. That's a great risk and you can lose a game if you don't do it right (in the right moment).

On the other hand, when we have Barracks ON:

-8 to build Barracks. +3 after recycling Barracks. We lose 5 scrap but we need Constructor (8 scrap) and his services for quiet some time.

Hard to tell which one is better to do. I do both, depending on the game situation.

What exactly is Scrap making? would I be correct in guessing that a constructor when destroyed gives out more than 8 scrap? That would explain one of GOLEM's posts, and why in the game i played him in, i never saw his scavs and he was destroying his own units quite often.

As regards the pilot thing, it seems to be a legitimate loophole, and as such is not a cheat, unless you agree in the pregame screen not to do it.

Thanks for your input. I am opposed to scrap making mainly because it requires you to shoot at your own unit, it's something AI can't do, but "pilot making" is something I don't think I ever had a problem with, since all you have to do is command your production units in order to make more pilots, and of course recycling factory would be a very bad idea if your recycler is being attacked. The strat I am describing is a game where only the AI is allowed to do the shooting, so I would think that the best strat tricks/tactics would be the ones that work whether or not you are "allowed" to shoot.

Yes Baldrick, somebody killing their own unit usually means they are making scrap, so I would personally recommend taking them down more quickly, since they like to try to play with infinite scrap, not attack their opponent and explore map with scavs like they are "supposed" to do.