How to REALLY become good at RM
Lets forget every other article to come into existance for now. Before you read the article you must note that this article should help you on standard Random Map Multiplayer games for the expansion.

These are the standard settings on Microsoft Game Zone; CC Random Map 1 Room:


Game Type Random Map Map Type Standard
Location Random Land Map Difficulty Any
Resources Standard Population 250
Reveal Map Normal Initial Tech Level Standard
Victory Conquest

If you suck really badly early game i guarentee you if you can do this good enough you will kick *** early game and take out that big bad guy who always beats you.
I will now explain how to start off playing a RM (Random Map) Game.

On Any map, the first thing you should do, is queue 4 workers at your command center. Food flow is important throughout the game, and a near continual worker flow is essential. The second you have queued 4 workers at your command center (defualt hotkey is H A A A A), immediately click two of your workers, and get them to build a house in no particular place around your command center (leave enough space so you can make farms around your CC (Command Center). Quickly, click your last remaining worker and get him to build a house of his own. Your goal in this early part of the game should to queue up 4 workers and have at least 1 house done before the first worker has been created, so you dont hit the pop limit and slow down your worker production (get housed). Immediately after you order your second house to be built, click on your scout and hold SHIFT, then right click serveral times around the edges of the black (Fog of war/shroud/unscouted areas), then when it is set so your scout will go in a circle let go of shift and right click. You must practice to do this as fast as you can, someone like me can have all this stuff done before the first worker has been created (and believe me my first worker is always queued within a second of the game starting).
Click on your command center now and right click on one of the trees around it, so your workers that have been created will go here, and have your house workers mine one of the trees around it as well. Now the next step depends on the progress of your scout.

For Nerf/Bantha Maps
If you have at least 4 nerfs in your first loop of your base, grab 1 or 2 of your workers, get them to construct an animal nursery anywhere around your base (but not too far away from your command center). While they are doing that herd your nerfs close to your CC and kill/eat one of them. Send all your remaining workers to eat it (you should have around 7 by now), and herd the rest into your animal nursery. The purpouse being to keep your food flowing in. As soon as you get 50 food from now up until the point where you have at least 27 workers, queue up as many as you can. You must realise that a full nursery, will provide you with the same amount of food as 4 working farmers throughout the game, if not more when you research the nursery techs. Even 5 will provide you with an almost instant 2 free food workers which is a major boost to your economy. Once your scout has completed his first loop, get him to do a second, but this time set his SHIFT+Right click waypoints a few paces into the blackness(shroud). Make sure to herd any new nerfs into your nursery and keep queueing workers. At about this moment you should have 5 workers on 1 nerf, with all other workers that you have and are being created, select them and send them on the carbon around your command center. As soon as your scouted has found a good source of a) Berries b) Huntable animals or c)Fish grab your nerf workers who should of eaten their nerf by now and get them to build a food processing center near the food source. The best food source is probably hunting since there is ushually more animals, plus animals are gathered faster and more efficiently than berries, and fish aren't often in many clumps. Send all new workers to the food center to harvest food until you have about 9 and continue to harvest wood of the trees at your base with the few carbon workers. If you find any more nerfs after your nursery is full, build another.Unless of course you only have 1 extra nerf.

Once you have an additional 100 carbon, select all the workers mining carbon around your command center and make them build a carbon processing center at the carbon located closest to your command center, and now send all workers mining carbon to mine it from there. Now you must keep your scout going, once he has done his second loop you'll probably want him to do one more loop before you send him to scout your enemies, who should be almost paralell to your and your allies, so look at the mini map and see where they are, and SHIFT+RIGHT CLICK your scout to search for them. When you find one of your enemies scout his whole base and then send him to find your other enemy.

Keep making workers, remember to build a house at around this point before you get housed. Once your hunters are finished or about to be finished get them to build farms around your command center, since you should have a lot of carbon from the guys mining it. The reason you want to eat animals/berries early in the game rather than farm is because farming costs a lot, and you also have to build a food center before you can make farms, so eating wild animals which cost absolutely no carbon to harvest aside from making a food center, is 100% recommended. This sort of mining food is called "free food". Right now your economy should really be on its way, you should have quite a few workers. Keep making workers, when you have about 25 send the next 2 workers to mine nova, and if your still no way near reaching 500 food when you have around 23 workers you'll need some more farms, so grab some carbon guys and set them to make farms. When you have around 27 workers you should be at if not almost at the 500 food limit and ready to go tech 2. If you feel your economy is lacking in either food or carbon, make a few more workers, i always make at least 30 im just telling you to make around 27 because it is much easier, and with people like me who can move their mouse very fast and uses hotkeys rigourously, i am ushually approaching the 500 food limit when i have around 29 workers. So if you feel send a few more workers onto food or carbon. If not just advance, you should have the 3 required buildings to advance anyway (food, carbon nova center or animal nursery).

As you are going tech 2 you should notice you have quite a bit of spare carbon (and at least 12 carbon miners), so what you are going to do now is what is called a rush, an early attack that is aimed to disrupt your opponents economy. Grab 2 spare workers and get them to construct a power core in your base, but preferabbly in an open spot at the closest part of your base to your nearest opponent. Rushes are best suited to 1 vs 1's and 2 vs 2's but also are common in 3 vs 3's and 4 vs 4's where your position is the outermost of your team. You should be playing RANDOM LAND MAP on standard resources with map not revealed which is stand RM settings, so your rushing force should be able to hit your opponent without fail unless he has walled off (which is unlikely).
SO as soon as you have 200 carbon you should build a power core immediately with 2 spare workers. As soon as thats done build a troop center, and as soon as thats built which should be around half way before you hit tech 2, you should queue a recruit. If you have enough for a second troop center or just above do, build it! (preferred 2 for a good rush). Keep queuing trooper recruits in your troop centers until you are almost tech 2 and have at least 10. Once you are tech 2 immeddiately research trooper and let the other troop center finish making your troop. Select all your troopers, and look at your closest enemy base. Find his carbon mining location, and send the near troops there, but be careful in their route of action and try not to have your troops spotted as he will see this send his workers away from that location and you will loose the element of suprise. While your troops are walking there research macrobinoculars.

Once they are there walk them into the center of the most amount of workers of his carbon mining operations. They should then proceed to kill most of his carbon workers, a few may escape. Keep your troops away from his command center and any turrerts. At this point you should be sending all your troops parading around the outskirts and anywhere you can and kill as many workers as you can. Make sure, again to kill any of his enemy troops and stay away from turrets. If he kills your troops with his own it is most likely that he is going to attack you at home with them so throw up 2 turrets which are in range to cover each other on your carbon mine. If he comes to your carbon mine garrison as many workers as you can in the turrets and make the rest run away to a safe position. If he comes to your command center simply garrison all your farmers inside it. Now you should be aiming at making a war center, and probably a spaceport, but if you didnt need to make turrets make a mech factory. Keep yourself occupied some how and balance out your economy, but mostly to food gathering until you have 800 food and 200 nova. When you do advance. While you are advacing the tech level 3, there are several things you should do. First is research Handheld carbon extractor and irrigation to strengthen your economy. Second depends on how you decide to attack in tech 3. If you hit him bad and killed many of his workers you may want to try and finish him off, and depending on what you like go to your war center and research either all the troop upgrades or all the mech upgrades. And if you have an additional 100 nova research holonet tranciever. You may also want 2 guys mining ore so you can make extra command centers/anti air turrets/fortresses.

When you hit tech 3, the world is yours. You may want to take him out with planes, or mechs (which by the way are VERY resistant to command center fire, so a group of 5 will have no problem levelling all his workers without a single loss), whereas troops will have more of a problem. If he is really at your feet bring in a few pummels. If he didnt really get hurt during the attack or is beating you, you may want to invest in a fort in a position in front of your base but before his a few paces from where he wont see it until its completed. If you are commonly getting beaten after you hit tech 3, you may want to invest in learning how to BOOM which is a technique used by every single good player to boost his economy (which is by the way having multiple command centers making many workers), but i will probably explain that in a later guide.

For NoN Nerf/Bantha Maps
In these maps, you must bypass the nursery. If there is in total only about 3 nerfs/banthas (either way), it is best to eat them and invest in just hunting/berry eating. You should go heavier on farming and make around 30 workers instead of only 27, since a full nursery is equivalent to around 4 working farmers. Since you dont need to make an animal nursery although, you have an extra 100 carbon at your disposal. In other words to all of the For Nerfs guide except change what i sayed above.

For Fish Maps
For fish maps your path of action should be the same as the normal nerfs/bantha one except go a bit heavier on carbon earlier, have around 2 extra guys on it and instead of making farms, make a power core and a shipyard or 2 and pump out boats. Boats gather food much faster than anything else, and being able to simultamiously make boats AND workers at the same time is a HUGE and i mean HUGE boost to your economy. So if there is a fish map try to take advantage of it, but dont let it get in the way/ ruin your rush. Generally on these maps since you have boats collecting you food you can have most workers on carbon with only 3-5 on farms.

For Absolutely Dry Bare no food maps
For these maps you need to keep all your workers at the start mining carbon, and once you realise there is no food build a food center near your command center (but not interfering in a spot where you could make a farm around it). When its done make as many farms as possible and keep the rest of your workers mining carbon while your still creating workers (hopefully). Once you have 4-5 farms skip making farms until you gain 100 carbon and make a carbon center. From that point on have at least 6 guys working on carbon and whenever you get 50 food make an extra farm until you have around 12 farms/good food income. You should probably go for at least 30 workers on these kinds of maps if not 32+.


Luring
Luring is a technique used by many good players to collect food from animals without having to make a food center. This can be good often for parts of stages where there is only 1 animal and would be pointless to make a food center, also if you are waiting for your 100 carbon to come in to make your food center you can lure an animal to continue food income. Its best you have basic training researched when you go to lure. Make sure you have at least 3 workers around your command center, send another worker off to the animal. Take 2 shots at it then click the worker to garrison in your command center. The animal should follow, and when it gets near your command center grab those 3+ workers you had waiting there and make them shoot it, kill it then eat it. The beauty of luring is that you can send 1 of your nerf guys off just before it is done, lure an animal and when they are done the lurer turns up with an animal for them to kill. Luring only works on animals which will chase you, (Dewbacks, faulmapests, rontos among others) and you should still not bypass making a food center. It is also handy if you have a kind of nearby animal near your berry mining operations for example, and you can lure it when your berries are starting to run out.

Your goals of this whole strategy should be to try achieve Tech 2 with at least 27 workers by at least 14 minutes game time. F10 or F11 is the game clock i think, so make good use of it. You should also aim at hurting your opponents economy bad with your rush.

This is one of the two main strategies employed by all good players, so make good use of it.Thats all i have for ya's now, Good Luck with it

sounds good.
put you really only need one shelter right away.
and you dont need a food processing center to slaughter animals.
just do it outside your command center.