A Fire Base is a base that is used to defend a players base from attack, or attack an enemy base. By defending a fire base, point defense and anti-air turrets can be used (also mobile units could be used) to attack enemy units. They are sometimes protected with shields. For attacking a fire base, mostly T2 or T3 artillery and/or air refueling/repairing pads are used to assist aircraft to attack a base. A FatBoy is considered a mobile fire base.

Tips

In order to build a useful and hard to destroy fire base here are some helpful tips.

• Cybrans have the advantage when building a fire base because of their cheap shields, excellent area of effect T2 artillery and quick to build T2 point defense.
• Place walls around your base to prevent units from running through the shields.
• Mix T1 and T2 point defense(also T3 if UEF).
• Normally experimentals are the biggest threats to your fire base or bases. (A Monkeylord can punch through almost any defense, even if they are destroyed in the process.)
• Location and altitude are important, the higher up the better so as to prevent artillery from hitting hills.
• Placing firebases next to mass points is also important as it can deny the enemy from claiming it and guarantee a source of mass for you later on.
• Fire Bases can be used to defend against all types of attack. (air, land and naval)
• Putting an experimental in your firebase (like a Galactic Colossus, Fatboy, Monkeylord or Megalith) can make it nearly impossible to destroy.
• Remember that firebases always have a weakness, like an experimental, T3 naval, nukes or a falling CZAR.
• Firebases can be disposable, so if an enemy army is closing in you can build a few cheap firebases that will most likely get destroyed, but it will buy you time to finish that 90 percent of that Spiderbot.
• Be careful how much you invest in Fire Bases, building them too late is just as bad as building them too early. Maybe you could have spent all those resources building an an army or a couple experimentals.
• Shields, shields and more shields. You can never have too many (Make sure you have enough power though, unless you are the Aeon and have constructed a Paragon). Remember that the only defense against artillery is shields, so place an engineering station to assist shields if you can.
• The Seraphim have the best Shields for the job. Also using their T3 mobile Shields is a good idea.
• Always have engineers assigned to every shield generator as they can help prevent and delay the collapse of the shield which is very critical in increasing survivability.
• Ordering the PDs to face a point through issuing attack order can be a good preparation against incoming attackers. Select your PDs, click "Attack" and order them to shoot at the chokepoint. Order them to stop. (Alternatively you can turn the view that you build from by selecting a unit, pressing ctrl-T {Track} and using the arrow keys. The view will remain turned even after you deselect the unit.)
• If a firebase is protecting mass points, (they're perfect for the job, especially if you have access to the Cybran's cheap shields) remember that losing that base is even worse then if it was only protecting your base.
• It is normally impossible to build a firebase on a location that is being bombarded at range as any structures you attempt to build will be destroyed as soon as you place them. You can overcome this difficulty by moving mobile shield generators into position to cover your engineer units while they place the first shield/tactical missile defence etc. The unquestioned supreme unit for this is a UEF T3 Support Armored Command Unit upgraded with a Shield Generator Field- as well as being by far the strongest shield in the game with 52,000 HP, the sACU has a build speed of 60, enabling it to quickly build strong firebases without being threatened of being destroyed in an artillery attack. Cybrans can air lift in engineers and quickly build a shield, remember to assist it.
• SACUs are a very critical investment for Firebases as they can rebuild destroyed turrets and Shield Generators that they have been assigned to Assist, making them far superior over the standard Engineer units.

Strengths and weaknesses

Here are some basic styles to building a fire base for each faction. Remember you should always modify your Firebase(s) for each individual map. This is just a guide showing the strengths and weakness of each factions capabilities and a basic firebase layout.

Key

• W — wall
• P1 — point defense tech 1
• P2 — point defense tech 2
• P3 — point defense tech 3
• AA1 — anti-air tech 1
• AA2 — anti-air tech 2
• AA3 — anti-air tech 3
• S2 — shield tech 2
• S3 — shield tech 3
• T — artillery or tactical missile
• R — radar

UEF

This layout could be useful for defending on maps like Finn's Revenge or Fields of Isis where it's important to defend from units coming from one angle. UEF are excellent at this because they have T3 PD and they have a well known weakness which is slow turn speed. Also each tech level of PD covers the other levels weaknesses like T1 has fast fire rate to cover swarms and T3 has high damage to cover experimental units and T2 is somewhere in the middle. Also note you can add Air staging facilities under the shield. Overall UEF has the most expensive, but also the most comprehensive defense.

Aeon

Aeon point defense is very strong and their T2 PD is the second most powerful PD in the game (behind the Ravager). It is very important to mix T1 and T2 with aeon because of theirir slow RoF. Aeon turrets turn 33% faster so they can defend from different directions at the same time. Also Aeon have excellent defensive T2 artillery so it's a good idea to use it in your base. Overall Aeon can make the most balanced defense positions in terms of damage and expense.

Cybran

Cybrans have very weak T2 PD for defending against T3 and T4 armies, but are highly useful for defending early and mid game. If enemy units do get close it's good to have more T1 PD then T2 PD; Cybran T1 PD has twice the DPS as T2 but has half the range. Cybran T2 PD is un-kitable and is designed for taking out fast, relatively light threats such as scouts, Fire Beetles, and other bots. Cybrans also have weak shields so using more then one will almost always be needed (continue upgrading shields until they cover up to the walls). Cybran artillery is almost useless as a defense, it's high firing randomness and AoE are designed for bombarding basses, not defending against approaching armored assault bots. Cybrans will have the advantage in the early and mid game because their units cost less, but when they reach the late game their defenses will start to fail. Overall Cybrans have the cheapest defense.

Seraphim

Seraphim defense is right in the middle of cybran and aeon defense. Their T1 PD is very close Aeon T1 PD and can turn just as fast. Their T2 PD features a beam which can take out T1 armies quickly and has higher DPS then the Cybran T2 PD. The major weakness of the Seraphim is their AA defense, due to lack of tracking in its projectiles of its T3 AA. This can be made up for by using T3 Fighters patrolling overhead (so having air support platforms is recommended for their fire bases). Overall, they have the same cost as Aeon and almost as high DPS, with the beam style T2 PD and fast fire rate.

Placement examples

Here are some examples of great locations for building fire bases on a few different maps. These are just the most used locations and may not always be the best in any scenerio. The red is your default starting location and the green is where to a fire base could be located.

(Fields of Isis) This is full of choke points so building a fire base to control them is a advantage. Building one in the middle behind the 2 middle choke points is a good fallback postion

(Four-leaf Clover)This map has 2 choke points that lead to your base so controling them is critical. The center is a good postion to have a fire base if your enemies are turtling.

(Theta Passage)This is a textbook example of fire base placement. The green point closest to your base is best used for stageing attacks and the one to the north is a perfect spot for T2 artillery and the one in the top left is a good air support base. Also the green line is optional for early defense.

(Winter duel) The green zone just north east of your base is important for defense and is perfect for T2 artillery and TMLs

Trivia

In the 5th Forged Alliance mission a secondary objective is to destroy a few fire bases.