Battlezone 1

One of the finer points of awesomeness about BZ is the variety of weapons that a player can use, and ability to equip other vehicles with different weapons. However, which ones are most effective? When does one use them? Hopefully these series of posts will help answer these questions.
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To upgrade or not to upgrade? and when?
In so many strats i see that the VERY first thing many people do is build an armory, and arm their grizzly with double SP stabbers and some kind of mortar. While that kind of tank is devestating in the hands of a skilled pilot, if you do that at the begining, just wait until the other player kills you with superior skill, or extra units, or just gets a lucky snipe in. you loose your tank, your position, and 5-12 scrap (bdog grizzly or standard grizzly, mortar or not mortar). This leaves your base open to an easy attack. At the begining of the game, it is far better to stick with solid armament. Become skilled with the standard weapons. Skill beats weapon 90% of the time. Press L to link your cannons; as AT Stabber+Minigun/Chaingun is far more destructive.

Later on in the game, it can be good to upgrade your tank, especially if you will be needing to do some extra piloting. Before upgrading, consider the scrap cost, and the safety of your base. If you are landing weapons in the middle of an attack on your base, the weapons could get destroyed by explosions (those things dont really have armor) or stolen by the enemy. Also, consider how likely you are to get ejected. If its likely, don't waste the scrap. A standard unit leaves the same scrap as an upgraded unit.

However, upgrades can be VERY useful in certain situations. For example, if i know that my opponent is using lots of APCs, i may consider adding the Mortar to my tank. Any explosive weapon with a good blast radius (rocket bomb, mortar, howitzer, mine) is extremely effective at killing soldiers. Or say you are fighting at a longer range. Dual SP stabbers have a range of 200m, and are great at picking off targets such as S-powers, howitzers, walkers, and basically anything you want to destroy without getting too close.

Finally, does one upgrade your units? Maybe. I have upgrades 10 units, and lost all of them, along with about 20-30 scrap, with no significant gain. However, i have also seen players rip through my bases because of a few upgrades. it all depends on the situation. Again, consider how likely it is that the units will get destroyed. if thats likely, don't upgrade. also, upgrade your units all at once, when your base is safe. that way you have only a short period of time where you are vulnerable. and finally, will the scrap cost be worth the potential scrap gain? if your upgrade of 20 scrap will only allow you to take 2 buildings, may not be worth it. Finally, which weapons do you put on which vehicles? First, understand how AI units fire their weapons. They will always use their primary default weapon(grizzly-AT Stabber), or 2 weapons if they are linked(Scout-dual minigun), and they will always fire any weapon that you upgrade them with. Here are some easy and effective unit upgrades:

Turrets: 1 extra chaingun/minigun. double the dmg for 1 scrap? yes. always do it. i have seen some players arm their turrets with at stabbers or blast cannon. while the dmg and element of surprise is amazing, the weakeness of turrets and the cost of the upgrade may not be worth it. also, turrets will run out of amo way faster with stabber or blast

Tanks: 1 extra at stabber. Unlike your own tank, which you usually might want to upgrade to dual sp stabbers, AI tanks have trouble aiming the SP. furthermore, it costs 10 scrap per tank, vs the 4 scrap for 1 extra at stabber. slight loss in dmg, but a HUGE boost in accuracy. the effectivness is amazing

Scouts: Sandbag missle. Scouts do have a rocket hardpoint but low amo. fortunately sandbag doest require much amo, in comparison to other missiles. also, scouts are usually the first units to engage an enemy. adding sandbag will cause the targets to be slower, and as they are slower, they will be even less likely to hit the scouts, and more vulnerable to you and any tanks you have following you

These are just a few examples of how weapons upgrades can be used to turn the game in your favor. just remember the cost, and that skill with the stock weapons is crucial, because often you wont have time/scrap to upgrade. Also, remember that almost every weapon has some kind of benefit. There are all kinds of creative ways to arm the units. try them out

Very nice and thx for reminding me that upgraded tanks DO NOT drop their weapons worth in scrap.

Interesting. I've usually got blasted through going into combat with a military with SP's so I started going that root.

Another note, is that if you are inclined to strat using a Bdog or a stealth tank you stick out like a sore thumb.
Also the very first thing you should build with your cycler is a constructor. I know this should be obvious, but it's not to many.
Good gaming.

I've found building a scavenger first on certain maps to be much better than a constructor first. That said, my constructor always comes either first or second

Yeah, I prefferred dual SP-Stabbers on tanks myself too; tanks being generally the most versatile combat platform and SP-S IMHO being the most efficient weapon, damage-for-ammo consumption wise.

Never bothered much with upgrading AI units though, since they were, basically, my bullet-catching wingmans, while I was swooping in the enemy base, guns blazing (behind them).

But for defensive missions, (and offensive, where time or resources are not a problem) I had a different MO, (for singleplayer anyway, since this is a bit of a handful in MP). Two blast cannons dropped near a supply depot (which I placed in exposed section of the base, or just outside the enemy base). Imagine, a Czar with two BC-s; it`s really demanding in terms of fire discipline, since those things can chew through available ammo in seconds. Tactically, it is also very limiting, since you have to stick close to the supply depot, and for safety`s sake, have a recycler send in ammo drops for those very frantic moments when you absolutely can`t wait for supply depot to slowly replenish your (exhausted) ammo supply. And, for flexibility`s sake, it`s always good to have armory drop you a couple of AT-S or SP-S cannons nearby. You know, for those critical situations when "they" are about to swamp over your "strongpoint", and you have to perform a fighting retreat, real damn fast. That sort of situation, let`s just say, really exacerbates the shortcomings of pairing two blast cannons with a tank chassis, so you`ll want to be ready for it.

Anyway, once I got used to it, all the pros and cons and other specifics of the tactic, I actually had a lot of fun that way. Blowing up a razor in a single salvo, hilarious. And blast cannon being very loud and powerful weapon... It really felt good firing it, and seeing a boom-like effect, immediately.

In retrospect, the weapon customization system now seems a bit simplistic to me, especially after playing stuff like MechWarrior 4 (and its expansions) where I used to spend more time outfitting the Mech, than in the game itself. Something like that would add a whole different dimension of depth to the game, but really, hands down, in those days no other game, strategy or FPS had anything similar to the Battlezone in that respect (well, apart for all the differnet mech-like franchises which where all about it).

Upgrading your "bullet catching" wingmen is essential if you are an offensive player. When I play guys that think defensively they tend to bottle themselves in and are generally poor at gathering scrap. Let me put it another way... If you go into a strat and you are playing a defensive game(not to lose), you will lose if you play an offensively minded player that understands scrap allocation. Scrap allocation is key more any other aspect of the game. The faster you gather scrap, the faster you can beat your opponent. As far as weapons upgrades the most cost effective thing is to outfit tanks withan extra AT. If you know you have the time and resources you fit them with dual SPs, but this is expensive.

BTW, comparing BZ to any other game is like comparing apples to oranges. Not saying one is any better than the other, just saying that they are different. Also, consider that BZ as we play it is approaching 14 years old. It was wayyyy ahead of its time.

personally i hate people that do that. thats not strategy thats adv-DM. the AI are a lot more than bullet catchers. the thing is going a head of you ai allows all the other ai to lock on to you first. and i dont care who you are 10 grizzly tanks are going to take you out.

that and you strategy gets blown out the water as soon as the person realizes you have only 1 tank sitting out side his base.

Since the new AI updates, they are much more than just "bullet catchers" now. Because sending AI in groups saves everyone ammo, that's usually the way I go. I also do this when taking out buildings; having them all focus their firepower brings them down in seconds.

My build order is genrally
scavs 4x
*wait for scrap
scout 1x #tell it to hunt for more scrap#
Factory
constuctor
tank 1x
silo

Well seeing that i just got my ass royally handed to me in a long time, I am witholding what I just learned till I try it out myself. If it wasnt a hack and it real, it is a bigtime game changer. Will update later. BTW the guy that whipped my ass was 007. Frorrealz.

My build order really depends on the map. Constructor still always comes a lot earlier than on yours . You really ought to play a game with me sometime, every time I ask you say "another time" or that you are about to get off

for me it (often) depends if I have scrap near my deployed recycler or not if i dont I build a constructor first

Dude, that gig only works in SP, in MP it`s pretty much worthless as you graciously pointed out. I think I mentioned that somewhere. Besides, I did it only for the heck of it.

In 1.5 you can relay a lot more on your units than you can in 1.4, with working rocket tanks and such the game is a lot more enjoyable.