It is recommended to have at least enough supply centers to permanently sustain your unit production without pause. If you are new to the game it is recommended to go for three supply centers at HQ1 and not a single one more. Later on you can obviously vary the amount of Supply Centers you build.

Usually 3 Supply Centers are enough to sustain a fast rush with cheap units, but this will in turn cripple your late game strength severely so you have to make the rush count. If your rush fails it is generally recommended to add more supply centers to avoid the previously mentioned issue.

The higher your overall player rank becomes, the more upgrades for the supply center are available. One of them allows you to increase the SC's compensation. What this means is that additional Supply Centers will produce a higher percentage of the previous Supply Centers production up to the point where they only loose 20% efficiency. This means that the higher you get, the more Supply Centers will be worth their cost as they will still significantly boost your income.

Here is a recommendation of the highest number of useful Supply Centers per rank:

• Rank 7 and lower: 3 Supply Centers

• Rank 8 to 10: 4 Supply Centers

• Rank 11 to 14: 5 Supply Centers

• Rank 15 and higher: At that point you probably have found out how many Supply Centers work best for you. If you are still unsure: Just go for 5 of them

Note: Many players first focus down your Headquarters, Construction Yard, Power Plants and production buildings when attacking your base, meaning that in a lot of attacks they are low priority targets. For that reason it is recommended to prioritize upgrading their HP and Armour only after you upgraded those of the other mentioned buildings.