SAM rovers rock. <4>-1-2 is all you need to wipe out the AI planes that keep harassing your formers and crawlers. And you don't have to worry about them flying out of your base on a suicide defensive mission to attempt to save some stupid crawler who's just going to die
anyway when the AI plane takes out your interceptor.
(Unless of course your tech is
so much better than the AI's that your interceptor can successfully kill 4 or more attacking AI planes.)
As I've mentioned in other threads, I'm terribly fond of the drop marine -- 6^~-3-1*2 is the best bargain, but I'll sometimes use better attack/defense when the situation demands it. They can drop onto the beach and then make an amphibious assault into the AI sea base that's right next to the land. Or they can be used like a normal paradropper, or like a normal marine. With only plasma armor, they won't withstand a serious counterstrike, but usually they're good enough for the jobs I'm doing.
Blink/Dissociative Choppers -- the king of the skies. What AAA? What Aerospace Complex? Hahhahaahahah!
(Blink comes late, but Dissociative is available reasonably early; Dissociative/DeepRadar choppers are also fine investments.)
Plasma-armored fusion sea formers (with deep radar, of course) -- you can't beat 'em. The plasma armor costs nothing at all on a fusion sea former. Trance costs more, but can come in handy. Unfortunately, by the time I've got fusion reactors, I usually have built most of my sea formers; so I usually don't waste the energy upgrading them, unless they're likely to be in a low-tech combat zone. But any new sea formers I commission from that point on are plasma-armored. Later on, they may be upgraded to super/clean.
Synthmetal armor is also free on infantry-chassis supply crawlers, once you've got fusion reactors. And while a supply-2-1*2 isn't likely to win any fights it gets in, it may do a bit of damage before it dies (unlike the unarmored crawlers, which fight almost as poorly as unarmored probes). And against a worm, it'll likely do considerable damage (and it may even hold its own, if you give it trance).
Don't forget fusion reactors for your normal probe teams! The AI doesn't grok this; it always builds fission-reactor probe teams. But in a probe-vs-probe fight, the one with 20 HP is going to win. Even better, probe foils with fusion reactors cost less than probe foils with fission.
Garrisons can be interesting, sometimes. I like to make some 1-3tr-1*2 clean "wormguards", especially in coastal cities, to stave off the nasty sealurk attacks. Clean AAA best-armor for the obvious reasons, and a clean cop (1-best-1*2 clean/nonlethal), 1 per base, for drone suppression along with defense. I usually won't use best armor on cops, though, once I get past probability armor; I'll save the energy/minerals and use best armor on the AAA. Before clean reactors are available, or before I have enough energy to spare, I'll usually build AAA/trance garrisons -- two attacks covered for the price of 1 (support mineral). I usually don't bother with ECM, because by the time it's available, the AI's rovers are not a concern (but their needlejets are).
