Hovercraft Strategy Guide

Introduction

Hovercraft were a new class of units first introduced to Total Annihilation ("OTA") in the Core Contingency expansion pack. They are fast and have the ability to traverse over both land and water making them, at least on paper, ideal units for raiding and amphibious assaults. Unfortunately, OTA hovercraft are "under-balanced" and suffer several other deficiencies that make them very unpopular with both ARM and CORE Commanders. Few have taken the time to learn the proper use of hovercraft and they rarely appear in multiplayer games.

Like many CORE Commanders, I found that fighting the ARM Pelican to be very frustrating, especially on maps such as Gods of War. The inability of missiles to properly target them when they are on water made them a fearsome weapon. Even when Commanders learned to force fire missiles at them Pelicans were still dangerous because of their firepower, speed and AA capability. The CORE Gimp and Crock are poor comparisons; costly, slow and wretchedly vulnerable to torpedoes and air units.

I turned to experimenting with the neglected CORE hovercraft on Gods of War and Coast to Coast and discovered to my delight that hovercraft could indeed be a very useful if not deadly weapon. When I introduced the fast hovercraft strategy on Gods of War in an old Annihilated.com posting last year new life was breathed into that map and others. Finally CORE had units that could surpass the Pelican in raiding prowess and nearly match their fighting ability. I have won more multiplayer games with hovercraft than any other Commander.

Still, fighting with hovercraft requires skill and experience. There are many quirks that must be mastered in order to win with hovercraft. And they are still "under-balanced" so hovercraft should always be part of a combined arms approach. I wrote this strategy guide for hovercraft as my contribution to keeping Total Annihilation alive as the best RTS game ever.

Hovercraft Advantages and Disadvantages

Disadvantages

Hovercraft have certain attributes that discourage Commanders from employing them:

1. All hovercraft units are produced from an expensive level two factory but have less than a level two fighting ability (exc. the rocket hovers).
2. Construction hovercraft cannot build level 3 structures such as LRPC's or fusions.
3. Cavedog did not create any radar or jammer hovercraft.
4. Hovercraft units are weaker in terms of armor and/or firepower to metal ratios than most level one units. Cavedog did this purposely to balance out their terrain crossing capabilities but it was overdone.
5. Some hovercraft have incredibly poor turning capabilities (even though real world hovercraft can turn on a dime) and they cannot navigate moderately steep slopes (like certain shorelines) which can immobilize them for a long time.
6. Sometimes it takes a ridiculous amount of time for a newly built hovercraft to exit the hovercraft platform.
7. Not all maps are suited for hovercraft, further reducing their usage.

Advantages

1. Terrain crossing - they can traverse land, water and even acid unharmed.
2. Speed - they are the fastest class of units after planes.
3. Torpedo launchers and submarines must manually target hovercraft. Depth charges will not fire at hovercraft.
4. Sight distance for all hovercraft is superior to most units.

Huh? Nothing more?

Yep, that's it. But the first two advantages can be quite powerful if you use it correctly. Let's see why hovercraft can be powerful starting with my original strategy for Gods of War.

Fast Hovercraft Strategy for Gods of War 1v1

This strategy aims to get a hovercraft platform up and running within 4-5 minutes into the game with the goal of using the speed and raiding prowess of the scout and missile hovercraft to tear up your opponents base. Each island has a different build order (using winds, metal makers, reclaiming rocks and plants, etc.) that you'll need to experiment with to get to the 4-5 minute hovercraft platform. I usually play CORE for this strategy because the CORE hovercraft platform is over 200 metal cheaper than the ARM one.

If the wind is strong you could get a Scrubber scout hover into your opponent's base at the 5-6 minute mark with 1-2 more coming at different angles. At that time, few people have much of any defense. Scouts have quite a bit of firepower so hit the mexes and any winds you can get before he dies. If you are really lucky, his Commander is in the middle of swimming to another island and/or he has left an Aircraft plant to kill. If he goes ships and has a few Skeeters, move the Scrubber inland fast and the Skeeter missiles will hit the ground. Often, I wind up with Scrubbers alone in the middle of a smoking ruin of a base.

I follow up with tons of Slingers. They are the Slashers of the sea because you can aim their missile unlike Searchers. If the scouts didn't damage his base enough, send Slingers in as soon as you have them. Since you know where the metal patches are, you can manually target them from maximum range. If MT's are up you have to act fast. Although a Slinger can kill a MT one on one it's better to get a group of say 5-6 Slingers together first and again go for the mexes. If a MT fires at one of yours, guard that unit and they will soon kill the MT(s). Avoid his Commander until you can get 8 or more Slingers together then you can hunt him down.

Hovercraft are used to raid and contain your opponent. If you hem him in and done some damage to his economy then the hovercraft have done their job. To finish him off you must keep expanding and build either ships or planes. Hovercraft will continue to contain him and can be used for a final rush.

Why does this work? For the same reasons a couple of Jeffys or Weasels can be so devastating early in a game. Speed is the key. Few people will expect it or have time to react. If they build a lot of defenses that will set them behind and you can grab the other islands. Slingers are cheap; they cost about the same as a Slasher. And they are so fast they can be anywhere quickly so C-ships and C-planes can't expand your opponent's economy without being harassed.

Now an ARM Commander building Pelicans will initially be hemmed in but don't let down your guard. Soon you'll need to take them on but if you've expanded quickly and raided well you should have a stronger economy. Switch to building Snappers if you're sure he's going Pelicans or continue with Slingers and be ready to micromanage a fight. Add a shipyard to make Searchers to supplement your hovercraft and absorb damage or make bombers to nail the factory.

Of course there are some drawbacks and risks here, such as an early bomber who is skilled at flying off-screen but I will detail these issues later in the Map Strategies Section. Against average players this strategy can serve you very well.

Hovercraft General Strategies

First, please keep in mind that no strategy works if you fail to follow the common sense themes of playing TA. Always expand, build your economy, raid and attack. Second, the primary use of our speedy hovercraft should be raiding on maps with water. So if like to build lots of defenses and sit in your base don't bother with hovercraft. Finally, you must use a combined arms approach when using hovercraft. Although hovercraft alone are good for amphibious assaults and fighting certain situation vs. ships and Pelicans they are much more effective if you use them with the appropriate naval and air units.

Raiding is most effective early in the game so your strategy should be to get hovercraft up and about as fast as possible. Damaging the enemy's economy and halting their expansion is the most important objective of raiding. If you can't get a hovercraft platform built in less than six minutes on a certain map then you have to seriously consider abandoning the hovercraft strategy for that map or decide to build it much later in the game.

Don't use them to assault well defended bases, hovercraft will never be a front line unit. There are cheaper and more effective units around. But when a hole develops or reinforcements are needed in one area hovercraft can rush in. Hovercraft are fairly cheap and quick to build after you get the hovercraft platform up. On big maps in the middle and late stages of the game a pack of fast missile hovercraft and hovertanks can be very useful in plugging a hole in your lines like in Painted Desert.

Hovercraft Battle Tactics

Fighting Pelicans

On most maps with water, the Pelican is a staple of ARM forces. Even without the missile targeting bug, the Pelican is a pretty good unit with decent armor and armed with both a laser and a missile as good as a MT. A single Pelican has almost as much firepower as a destroyer does. But with the missile targeting bug, Pelicans are almost immune to scout ships, and MT's and torpedoes need to be force-fired in order to hit them. Fortunately, the Pelican is not cheap, is a little slow and the missile cannot be manually targeted.

Most CORE Commanders have responded by building lots of Enforcers, FHLT's or even Warlords but this requires a superior economy and is too defensive. All of these solutions have drawbacks or are difficult to achieve in the face of an equally skilled opponent. Building hovercraft in response to Pelicans has fewer drawbacks and is easier to accomplish. If you can effectively use hovercraft to raid and use a combined arms approach you can win against Pelicans.

Missile hovers and hovertanks are the primary units to build although hoverscouts can also be useful if you are metal constrained. I suggest only making one type or the other because of micromanagement issues. You don't want to be busy toggling between missile hovers that need a force fire and your hovertanks.

You can get about 2 missile hovercraft or 1 hovertank to every Pelican for the metal. Pelicans have a build time advantage but are slow which is a defect you must take advantage of. The hovercraft's superior speed allows you to concentrate your forces better and pick the terrain you want to fight on. In Africa during World War II, Erwin Rommel's tanks were outnumbered badly and inferior to Allied armor. He won by concentrating their numbers to smash the Allies' divided sorties. Same concept with Napoleon during his early campaigns in southern France against even greater odds. Get as many radars up as possible to spot his incursions so you can move your units into place, hopefully with greater numbers. If you can lure them onto land, so much the better.

With missile hovercraft I start shooting in their general direction long before they arrive. Watch the greyed out area for the explosions and retarget. They are so slow and your missile's range is so great that you can knock out a few Pelicans before they get any LOS on you. And if you have space, move your Pelicans out of range of their lasers. Remember, the Pelican missile is not manually targetable so they will scatter their shots among multiple targets and let your units live longer. Yes, this is a HECK of a lot of micromanagement for you but with experience it is very effective. And there's not much your opponent can do to micromanage his Pelicans more effectively.

Hovertanks, especially the Anaconda, will do fairly well against Pelicans on their own without micromanagement.

If you can get some scout ships mixed in with your hovercraft your units will be much more effective. The scout ships can distract the Pelicans, absorb a lot of damage or gum them up so the Snapper's slow plasma shell can hit them. (On the flip side, a Pelican and Skeeter force is also more effective than a pure Pelican force.)

Fighting Ships

There are a lot of different opinions regarding the use of hovercraft against ships. Here is the take from my experience. First, we know hovercraft can't kill subs but subs can force fire and kill hovercraft. So the only way for hovercraft to beat subs is to kill the shipyards they are being built in or clear the way for your destroyers and subs. Second, at least on paper, hovertanks have a lot more firepower than any capital ship for the metal. You get about 3.2 Snappers for a Crusader, 6.1 Snappers for a Conqueror and 15.4 Anacondas for a Warlord. These look like pretty good odds for the hovercraft. Plus, moving hovertanks can evade or duck under the ship's plasma cannons shots (especially vs. cruisers) and depth charges won't fire. If you have room to maneuver, go around the target in a close circle and its poor turret will be constantly spinning around trying to aim at the hovertank (deadly effective tactic, tough for even a micromanaged ship to overcome).

Here is reality. Yes, if you ever get 3-4 hovertanks against a lone destroyer, cruiser or even a Millenium, the ships are toast especially if you micromanage the battle well. These opportunities could occur early in the game or when the big ships stray off course. However, in most games the capital ships tend to be accompanied by lots of cheap scout ships. Now if there are not too many scout ships or if they are used poorly, your hovertanks could still win. But a smart opponent would use the scout ships to protect the bigger ships by gumming up the hovertanks and absorbing damage. Even in death, these scout ships protect the bigger ships because their wrecks take a while to float down to the bottom of the sea. So if the hovertanks can't get their weapons in range of the capital ships and get bunched up, they will get torn apart by the ship's longer ranged plasma shells. Also, even without scout ships around, the larger the fleet the more effective they are against hovercraft. In larger fleets, it won't matter so much that one ship's plasma shot flies over its intended target if it hits the hovertank behind it.

So 15 Anacondas vs. a Warlord on the open seas, the hovercraft win easy. 20 Anacondas vs. a Warlord and 14 Searchers, the ships win easy.

Hovercraft can be very effective against ships in some early game and raiding situations but as the game progresses they become less and less useful. Again, a combined arms approach will increase their utility. Mix in scout ships and use them to strip the big ships of their scout ship escorts to allow the hovertanks to get in and use their superior firepower. Add a few destroyers and subs for sub protection and use their longer ranged weapons to fire over/under the hovertanks. Or think of it this way. When you normally take on an enemy fleet you make scout ships, destroyers and subs anyway. Adding hovertanks can be the force multiplier that wins you the battle.

Note: Against ships Anacondas with its fast gauss shots are much more effective than Snappers whose ballistic cannon can miss targets just like ships do.

I would prefer not to use missile hovercraft to fight ships with scout ships being cheaper. But they can be used to fight scout ships and FMT's fields early in the game. Since you can manually or radar target the enemy you can concentrate your firepower and be ten times more effective than simply moving your units in to attack. Metal-equal packs of Skeeters can be beaten by Slingers using this tactic. Another tactic to use when fighting scout ships is to move away from them and hope they follow. Hovercraft are fast enough that a few scout ship missiles will run out of fuel but yours will smash into them head-on. A large FMT field can be crushed by packs of 6 missile hovercraft using radar targeting (6 hovercraft missiles are just enough to kill a FMT). And once again, combining missile hovercraft with scout ships will make your forces much more effective with the ships providing LOS and absorbing damage.

Fun Notes: A hoverscout parked right next to a Millenium will kill it in about two minutes without getting a scratch. The hoverscout will kill a torpedo launcher in about half a minute if the other Commander isn't watching.

Base Busting/Amphibious Assaults

CORE has a slight advantage here because the Snapper has a ballistic weapon. But taking on DT'd defenses such as HLT's and MRPC's is not the forte of our fast and lightly armored hovercraft. Even adding in rocket hovers is not much more effective because of their short range.

You'll need (yet again) a combined arms approach. First soften up hard defenses with long range cruisers and/or bombers. Send in peepers and other scouts to provide LOS. Then send in the hovercraft. Contrary to some beliefs, I think it is more effective for hovercraft to use their speed to penetrate into the vital innards of the enemy base than to hold onto the beach.

Hovercraft require so much less micromanagement for amphibious assaults than using transports or amphibious tanks. There aren't too many situations where you get a chance to play a Normandy style assault but if you do hovercraft should definitely be used.

Watching for Explosions

Missile hovercraft have great range but rather weak armor. When raiding I am reluctant to move them in close where they might get spotted and chewed up. Without radar coverage, I use their great range to do a force fire on several arcs. I watch the greyed-out area of the map for explosions and if there is a hit I've found something to kill. This is very tough for a defender to counter. Also, if I have radar coverage and I attack a radar dot and the missile dives into the water then I have a better idea of what unit I am attacking, i.e. a torpedo launcher, sonar, tidal, Pelican, etc. Hit shift to find your target in the greyed-out area of the map and force fire just behind it to destroy your target.

Maps for Hovercraft

These are the maps I have actually used hovercraft in multiplayer games.

1. Gods of War - raiding, fighting ships, amphibious assaults.
2. Coast to Coast - raiding, fighting ships, amphibious assaults.
3. Hundred Isles - fighting ships with hovertanks supporting the ships.
4. Evad River Confluence - raiding, amphibious assaults (nailed a Commander once too with Slingers).
5. Red River - amphibious assaults.
6. The Cold Place - raiding, fighting ships, amphibious assaults.
7. Caldera's Rim - fighting ships with hovertanks supporting the ships.
8. Metal Isles - only once but I managed to get the hovercraft onto the other Commander's island for a big surprise attack.
9. Trout Farm - raiding, amphibious assaults.
10. Painted Desert - (I just had to try this) raiding, fast response defense force.
11. Acid Trip - control the acid pools, shorelines are a pain though.

If only there were more appropriate acid maps to play. Since hovercraft can cross over acid pools just like it was water they would be a huge surprise to any opponent.

Suggestions to Improve Hovercraft

I will be the first to admit that hovercraft are "under-balanced", no doubt about that. But I also think the solution is not to tweak the existing units armor and firepower (though a faster shot speed for the Snapper would be welcome). There are lots of other ways to make hovercraft more balanced.

Build them from Vehicle Factories

I think the single biggest and easiest advance for hovercraft would be to simply allow them to be built from the regular and advanced vehicle factories. Scouts and missile hovercraft from the regular factory and hovertanks and rocket hovercraft from the advanced vehicle plant. Think of the possibilities. Now you won't have to worry about investing the time and metal into a hovercraft platform factory and stifle your advancement to other level 2 factories. Now ARM would have to worry about being raided for once. I think it would be fairly easy change and it would be pretty balanced too. The build times on scout and missile hovercraft would be double that of a vehicle scout or missile truck because it's coming from the slower vehicle plant.

Increase Turning and Slope Traversing Capabilities

These suck pretty much already. I would give hovercraft some of the highest turn rates in TA and a moderate increase in slope traversing capability. The units are weak enough that they don't need to act spastic in combat.

New Units

I know the third party community has made a lot of great new units. I'll name some that have already been completed and other types I have thought of:

1. Floating hovercraft platform for use on all water type maps
2. Anti-submarine hovercraft armed with 2 depth charges and a scout ship missile
3. Radar, sonar and jamming hovercraft
4. Plasma cannon armed artillery hovercraft
5. Flakker, laser, flamer, paralyzer and Rocko/Storm armed types of hovercraft, some in combination with a guided missile.
6. Advanced C-hovercraft with land and naval build menus

Fix the Pelican

Hehe, this would certainly increase hovercraft usage.

Conclusion

Total Annihilation is a great game with lots of units and strategies. Have fun and try out hovercraft. They will always offer you a furious battle and an interesting game.

Appendix

Hovercraft Unit Information Table

(Along with a few other units for comparative purposes)