General target priority rule of thumb?

[:1]Hey, I was wondering what the general rule-of-thumb for target priority is when fighting enemy mixed land blobs.
Say you are going up against a direct fire Exp like a GC that is supported by tanks. Is it more effective to micro your forces to go for the tanks first as you can immediately start cutting down the enemy's DPS against you, or is it more effective to go for the high-HP, high-DPS experimental first, which means the enemy has the full might of his DPS to use against your blob all the way until the experimental goes down.
Would the second method result in you losing more tanks quickly but you still come out ahead since once the Exp is down, you would lose considerably less? I know general consensus is to focus fire on the exp, but I'm not quite sure on the math behind that. Also, if the enemy is trashing your base, would the same logic apply for A: Air units (no loss of DPS at your end but more loss of infrastructure if you are defending your base) B: PDs (higher DPS than tanks) and C: Arty/Indirect fire (slow DPS) Anyone got a nice little graph to explain this?|||If exp has aoe - option n2
vs something like pulinsmash - get them tanks!
aoe is the deciding factor imo.|||In a battle, going for tanks first would minimize enemy dps asap. This would put you at an advantage. But if the enemies exp. is super powerful, and the tanks are as much, take out the exp first. With artillery it is difficult to say, but I'd wouldn't see them as much more than tanks. Though in a large battle, you may need to take them out quickly. Same logic applies for air. But for PD's you encounter a dillema. If you have the power to take them out, then do so. But if you spend your time going for PD's, destroy a couple, and then get stomped by decreased forces, your screwed. For the most part, PD's dont march over to your base and rape you after you get beaten in a battle. But tanks will
Idk what redmoth is saying, i think that he meant option n1. i dont think it is as much aoe as general dps.|||You attack whatever is the most effective weapon he has against you. If he has upgraded his tanks then you take out his tanks, if he has an experimental then his tanks aren't upgraded and the experimental will be doing most of the damage.|||It more complicated than that though. If you target his tanks, his DPS depletes with every kill you make. But targeting the experimental does nothing (whilst you continue to take losses) until it dies.
Personally, if you feel the experimental to be the threat (Or a glass cannon like a fatboy) I say try to manoeuvre your blob so that you can shoot the experimental whilst their tanks can't fire at you. Teleportation and jumpjets come in handy here.|||Quote:|||In general if you are close enough to a minor to hit it with tanks you will kill it efficiently and still have enough units left to finish off the rest of the blob assuming equal commitment of resources. I personally wouldn't recommend engaging majors with only tanks unless you have overwhelming superiority. It could possibly be worth attacking a King Kryptor, but the unicol's aura buff and the massive aoe of the cybran majors will mean you will not come out better without experimentals of your own or air support. And honestly, the death explosion is just as likely to kill your units as his.|||First priority: Minor experimentals. Experimentals kite. They have longer range and AoE, so theyre almost always the prime target. Especially when fighting fatboys and megaliths, you want to kill those first.
Second priority: Major experimentals. If you have enough firepower to take them out quickly, do it. If you either doubt that, or have lots of AoE dealing units, take out the army first. If you have minor experimentals capable of kiting, kite for as long as you can, and have them pick their own targets. If you just have tanks, spread them out so you dont catch too much AoE and rape them majors first. The UniCol doesnt deal AoE, but it gives a health buff which you want gone as well.
Third priotiry: Mobile arty. They kite, they deal AoE, they need to die.
Last priority: Normal tanks.
Dont forget: You dont want ACUs/experimentals to level up, veterancy is a bitch, especially because it also adds regen. Of course, if you can take out an ACU, thats ALWAYS a priority, but veterancy is also double as painful on them.
You also dont want experimentals to mass up, because then theyre exponentially more painful. So theyre ALWAYS a better target than tanks.|||So go for the units that are most likely to be in the back kiting (minors) first, then go for the second hardest units to kill (majors), then go for the third hardest units to kill (mobile arty/shotjas) and finally the normal direct fire units?
Basically go for the highest hanging fruit first instead of the low hanging fruit? The thinking on the other side is that the normal direct fire units (tanks) are the most mass efficient, so it makes sense to kill them first, where as majors and to a lesser extent minors are not DPS/mass efficient.
Going on what Word said, it's hard to judge what the most effective weapon he has against you is in the heat of battle. Given a battle, most people what go with their emotions and target what they fear the most (the experimental), which may or may not be the best choice, and is partly why I posed this question. Take for example a blob of wasps with a megafortress in the middle. Most people (myself included) will focus fire on the fortress with my own air even though the megafortress has 24x the health of a normal wasp but only 12x the DPS of a wasp (very general numbers) . But it seems like you agree with going for the highest hanging fruit first as well.|||I think the thing is, minor experimentals in SCom2 are very powerful offensively but don't really have much HP relatively speaking.
If you have the chance to overrun and kill a fatboy or megalith, it's better to do that, than it is to waste time on normal tanks and allow the minor to get away and kite you again.
By virtue of their numbers and HP if they are upgraded, normal tanks will "tank" for the experimental's range and AOE, so if you attack the tanks, you're falling for the enemy's plan.
I don't really think there are many experimentals in SCom2 that are out in front acting as a meatshield for normal units. Maybe the KK? UC + Shotjas?

Your example of megafortress vs. wasps is possibly an exception. But maybe not, since killing the mega will prevent it from making more wasps - something you might care about more than its DPS.