Radar Station: Most people tend to build (or capture)
just one radar around their command center and forget about
this unit. This is not always wise if you're playing a long
game and have a very important outpost. Remember the mobile
radar jammer has very limited range compared to the radar
station, and if you can detect enemy units coming you'll
have enough time to better arrange your troops and call
in your airforce to help your static defenses.
Research Facility: Research in Z:SS is not as important
as in other games, since they don't add new functionality
to the units, but they're a wise resource investment when
you have some extra cash to build the facility up. With
the 3 extra levels of unit armour and damage your units
get around 40% more efficient, and since this works for
all units on the map, 2500 is not that much cash for each
upgrade. Specially noticeable is the performance increase
of the units after the speed upgrades - if you think toughs
are too good, you ain't seen them speed up :). The single
best unit after the upgrades, specially speed and armour
ones, is the attack chopper. Those things get pretty wild,
and if the enemy is not prepared for that you'll toast him
in no time.
Teleport: A Teleport costs a lot, takes ages to build
and tons of cash, so use them sparsely, preferrably in big
maps with very low accessibility (ie. many bridges, very
cliffy terrain, etc).
A good strategy with teleports, if you get one up, is to
send 2 shockwaves and 2 toughed APCs right next to your
enemy base and make some serious damage, probably even win
the match. Don't send a lonely pyro or APC. That'll just
make the enemy know you have a teleport and send all his
air force to take it down, then by pure math he'll know
you don't have enough troops to face him (since you've spent
so much time and resources on a teleport) and *steamroll*
you.
Single unit teleporting is nice to send a spy to the enemy
territory when he's not allowing you bridge access, and
constantly patrolling his coast. When players trust on that
they generally prefer covering their limits with AA sites
instead of building anti-missiles, getting vulnerable to
bombing - that's when spy teleporting can prove a deadly
tactic.
Anyway, this is obviously a structure for long games.
Refinery: Never - ever - build this unit at the beginning
of a match thinking it's a wise investment for your initial
cash. It isn't. You'll run out of resources to build the
vital initial troops to form your front line(s). A refinery
takes really long to build, but if you're already stablished,
have some extra cash to spend and not enough troops to attack,
building a refinery is a good option. After it's built the
extra 20% credit income will generaly mean at least one
more factory running with the same territories. It's a good
idea using multiple builders to get it up faster.
Next: Steel Soldiers Defenses
