Perimeter – Intro Tips and Tricks

I noticed that most of the complaints on reviews related to the difficulty of the learning curve. So I put together some tips and tricks that I learned over my play through. I hope it helps some.

Economy Tips

In general like most RTS games Economy > All else. “More stuff beats less stuff” – LowkoTV

• The tooltips have translation errors in them. When it says “energy output” or “energy” it means “energy cost”
• The cost of putting a perimeter up on a energy core is 10 energy per second. You can do them one at a time (very useful vs howitzers later)
• The energy gained from a core is based on the terraformed land in it’s grey “circle”/zone. Land that is not terraformed does not count towards the energy generation of the core. By the same logic the land that is shared with another core only generates energy once (for one core).
• Each build master costs 20 energy while it it building something. At the start of the game it is usually worth converting all but one to brigadiers until you get your economy rolling.
• A minimum energy income for sustained play is about 40. If you can get to 60 you have probably won that map

Unit Tips

In general try all the units in a game to see what you like the most. Some of them are very good, some of them are useless.

My two favorite units for early game/base defense are

• Gyroid – Very fast, low total energy commitment to infrastructure to start building. To get these up rush a Laser lab (level 2), a Antigrav lab and a officer factory. In general I produce 120 officers and convert them into 30 copters. After that I can focus on terraforming/energy generation they will generally keep you safe from early game shenanigans.
• R-Projector – Very high damage but squishy, these are more of a commitment to upgrading labs/buildings and need two unit producing structures but deal lots of damage. Requires a lvl 2 rocket and a lvl 2 laser for almost the same tech energy cost as the Gyroids. However also needs two base unit producing structures which increases their total investment required to get up and running ASAP.

Other Notes

• The 3 basic units get converted into the other units
• You cannot split squads or delete/sell units, if you want to swap you’ll have to sacrifice the units.
• Attacking buildings is generally much worse than attacking the landscape
• For faster production you can increase the number of base unit producing structures. If you want to go full swarm strategy you can have 10+ unit producing structures comfortably on a 40-60 energy economy.

Defending Tips

The most dangerous attacks are the underground/landscape attacks.

To defend against them:

• Build 5+ subterra chasers in the area you want to defend. These are the only thing that I’ve found to be remotely effective against the skummers
• When they start howitzering only use shields to defend one forward point. The AI is very slow to terraform so generally just expand away from them and you’ll be fine. Only use shields when you need to save a lab or something expensive.
• When the AI starts to use landscape damage position a Brigadier near the front line to clean up the landscape ASAP and minimize the damage done. Use the your base defense units to force the AI attack waves back.