Supreme Commander - Strategy Boot Camp, Day One

Hi, ho, hi, ho, it's off to work we go
It's best to start by building things in a simple yet effective sequence that can get your economy and army development on the fast track. Despite minor variations, this seems to be the most effective starting build order: first, use your ACU (Armored Command Unit) to build one Mass Extractor then two Power Generators and one Land Factory (LF). Then queue up the other three nearby Mass Extractors to be built by your ACU while you wait for your Land Factory's completion.

Once the factory is complete, crank out a couple of scouts and two to three engineers. Send the scouts off to do their thing at far-off chokepoints while setting your Engineers to automatically build distant Mass Extractors. Have your ACU build another LF and basically follow this rough pattern as you build-up in the early game and mid-game.

Close to you, close to me
SupCom adds an interesting twist to the RTS genre with its new concept of "adjacency." Basically it's what it sounds like - if you place Mass Extractors or Power Generators adjacent to any factory, you'll notice faint power lines snaking between the two buildings. This means that you're receiving an adjacency bonus for that specific building, which lowers production costs for whichever resource producer is nearby. For example, if you put a Mass Extractor up against your Land Factory, any units produced from that factory will cost less Mass to build. These discounts stack as well, so adding more Extractors or Generators means more of a discount - kind of like a military blue-light special, if you will.