Lets talk strategy
Asraniel
Join Date: 2002-06-03 Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
Join Date: 2002-06-03 Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
<div class="IPBDescription">Because we can!</div>So, finaly we are in a position to talk about strategies :)
I play usually aliens and because of my low fps i play commander. Also because of this i play rockdown, because it has a much better performance than tram.
So, first strategy:
<b>Rockdown as alien</b>
Your goal is to lock down the marines so that they can't expand. This is really important, because otherwise they have GL and flamethrower and you are doomed.
To do this, my strategy is to fast expand to the two nodes closest to the marine start and get 3 hives up asap. Do not worry about the hive very close to the originial hive, you can get that one later.
To execute that strategy, send your first three drifters to one hive and build a whip, crag and then a hive. at the same time create 3 other drifters and do the same for the second hive.
At the beginning, a whip/crag combo is hard to counter for marines, if the whip is placed in a good spot. don't put it in the open, but around a corner.
The reason i get the 2 hives up so quickly is because the aliens will spamn there, so that they can defend those hives. if you just put whips and crags there, it will be harder to order your team to defend.
Now you should start to get all resnodes you can and tech up (armor and attack upgrades). From then on, have to to counter the marine strategy.
So, that is my basic strategy currently. Lets talk about other strategies (i would love to hear about marine strategies) and see how they evolve with the new patches comming out!
I play usually aliens and because of my low fps i play commander. Also because of this i play rockdown, because it has a much better performance than tram.
So, first strategy:
<b>Rockdown as alien</b>
Your goal is to lock down the marines so that they can't expand. This is really important, because otherwise they have GL and flamethrower and you are doomed.
To do this, my strategy is to fast expand to the two nodes closest to the marine start and get 3 hives up asap. Do not worry about the hive very close to the originial hive, you can get that one later.
To execute that strategy, send your first three drifters to one hive and build a whip, crag and then a hive. at the same time create 3 other drifters and do the same for the second hive.
At the beginning, a whip/crag combo is hard to counter for marines, if the whip is placed in a good spot. don't put it in the open, but around a corner.
The reason i get the 2 hives up so quickly is because the aliens will spamn there, so that they can defend those hives. if you just put whips and crags there, it will be harder to order your team to defend.
Now you should start to get all resnodes you can and tech up (armor and attack upgrades). From then on, have to to counter the marine strategy.
So, that is my basic strategy currently. Lets talk about other strategies (i would love to hear about marine strategies) and see how they evolve with the new patches comming out!
Comments
(I'm also talking about rockdown cos thats what everyone is playing right now)
Another key strategy is <b>killing the powernodes before you do anything</b>. I always annoy my team by spamming things like 'get the powernode!' because for some reason many of them ignore the nodes. I saw 3 aliens fighting in the small room west of marine spawn but none of them were attacking the powernode. So I had to spend longer than we would have needed taking it out by myself. Once it was down we easily kept that room and got a crag and whip in there. The powernode right next to the east hive near alien spawn is usually ignored and not taken down. Usually I have to put a whip next to it because only once has an alien player responded to a request to kill that node ><
I find this strategy works well partly because commanders take so long to send MACs to repair the power nodes, and even when they do, it's rare to see marines escorting the MAC so they never stand a chance of bringing power on and lighting up the area. That will probably change in time when people get used to NS2.
Another good tactic for aliens is to work in groups. There is safety in numbers and you can all kill marine structures faster by working together.
I understand that unless I get to tier 2 upgrades I will not get the GL or flamethrower.
Initially I will start to expand west on the map (if marines push east then I'll probably do so) and capture the first command node, getting down another CC asap. After than, building obs and upgrading to an advanced armoury is of utter most importance. Though the second CC may go down, you still have the upgrades available to you. You have to sacrifice a CC really.
Sentry tech is bought very early on, as covering your main base is very important.
That is about it... from there it is upgrades and pushing areas of the maps, placing sentries when required.
I actually just finished playing a game, Sgt. Barlow was playing as comm. He left, but there was a real surprise win by the aliens (to be fair we had 3 guys at the end, they had 5/6).
Basically we had top upgrades, but there was a struggle to push into the main hive because the aliens had tier 3 upgrades, as well as crags/whips and hyrdas everywhere. We were slowly demolishing their defences with GLs and flamethrowers, but what we did not realise is that no one was in the command chair, and a fade went to our main base and took out the power node.
No one knew what was going on because there was a second IP up west of the base, and we kept spawning there. I soon died and then realised that the fade had knocked out the power node for our forward base as well, so that IP was no longer working. Once the last guy was killed, it was game over.
Long story short, the aliens sneaked in a quick win from knocking out 2 power nodes.
Cool huh?
Then I build some more drifters, to take res nodes, and making whips and crags (at the 2 bases nearest marines), aswell as upgrade my 2 back hives to mass. I continously continue to upgrade harvesters (and ofc dmg and armor and such), while I create drifters to create crags and whips as a forward base near the marines second res node (the one right next to their base). this allows aliens to get a good place from where they can kill the power node in marine base, aswell as heal while they assault the actual base. I often try to get a colony from this point, but it is rare it gets finished, due to aliens killing powernode (marines lose their ip), and then kill them off one by one, so we win.
Important is the order I send drifters, first I send to the west one, then to the east, then to the one nearest our start (those seconds can be cruscial for blocking a mac).
As a marine, I send a mac to hive nearest the enemy start, then one to the west (2 starting macs), with almost 100% sucess rate to get an unbuilt cc, and most often actually getting atleast 1 finished.
Directly after ordering the 2 start macs, I build a third to make an armory, then upgrade start extractor.
I then continue to upgrading sentrys in cc.
When armory is done I get sg upgrade, and then start getting some more extractors (again continously upgrade them), aswell as sentrys at whatever base I sucesfully built (both if both suceeded). At this point I also try to get the east tech point near my base, aswell as making an armory at each cc, and starting to get t2.
At this point I often have atleast 2 extra techpoints secured with sentrys, a good extractor income altough the carbon is near the bottom because of making alot of sentrys, upgrading armor and weapon at same time while waiting to get t2. The start base often lack defence as I usually can defend it myself before it dies (altough it got to 20% once), and if aliens does attack it I start making sentrys here aswell (the closer to enemy start the more sentry dense areas).
As soon as t2 is done I start getting gl, but I never get flame because its way to op. I also usually start making more ip at the other cc by this time, aswell as observatory. All this basiclly ensures we win.
As a rine comm I am however bad at dropping packs before rines actually ask for them, at which point I have no idea where they are, so they die before I find them. I am however very good at expanding, so aliens usually already have enough troubles with sentrys as is (never made in their start tho), making the dying rines something I afford.
Then I build some more drifters, to take res nodes, and making whips and crags (at the 2 bases nearest marines), aswell as upgrade my 2 back hives to mass. I continously continue to upgrade harvesters (and ofc dmg and armor and such), while I create drifters to create crags and whips as a forward base near the marines second res node (the one right next to their base). this allows aliens to get a good place from where they can kill the power node in marine base, aswell as heal while they assault the actual base. I often try to get a colony from this point, but it is rare it gets finished, due to aliens killing powernode (marines lose their ip), and then kill them off one by one, so we win.
Important is the order I send drifters, first I send to the west one, then to the east, then to the one nearest our start (those seconds can be cruscial for blocking a mac).
As a marine, I send a mac to hive nearest the enemy start, then one to the west (2 starting macs), with almost 100% sucess rate to get an unbuilt cc, and most often actually getting atleast 1 finished.
Directly after ordering the 2 start macs, I build a third to make an armory, then upgrade start extractor.
I then continue to upgrading sentrys in cc.
When armory is done I get sg upgrade, and then start getting some more extractors (again continously upgrade them), aswell as sentrys at whatever base I sucesfully built (both if both suceeded). At this point I also try to get the east tech point near my base, aswell as making an armory at each cc, and starting to get t2.
At this point I often have atleast 2 extra techpoints secured with sentrys, a good extractor income altough the carbon is near the bottom because of making alot of sentrys, upgrading armor and weapon at same time while waiting to get t2. The start base often lack defence as I usually can defend it myself before it dies (altough it got to 20% once), and if aliens does attack it I start making sentrys here aswell (the closer to enemy start the more sentry dense areas).
As soon as t2 is done I start getting gl, but I never get flame because its way to op. I also usually start making more ip at the other cc by this time, aswell as observatory. All this basiclly ensures we win.
As a rine comm I am however bad at dropping packs before rines actually ask for them, at which point I have no idea where they are, so they die before I find them. I am however very good at expanding, so aliens usually already have enough troubles with sentrys as is (never made in their start tho), making the dying rines something I afford.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
All in all, the strategy for both aliens and marines are almost identical on NS2. LAME!
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->All in all, the strategy for both aliens and marines are almost identical on NS2. LAME!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The alien tactic in ns1 was? Aliens rush - same as in ns2, aliens go into gorge and build a rt, one saves for a hive, one for fade, sometimes early lerk.... Marine options, rush (maybe with shotguns), build base, relocate... now i see the variety.
Everything possible in ns2, only relocate doesnt work in every room anymore.
- 2nd CC
- Armory
- Sentry Tech
- 2nd rt
- Spam sentries (until 2nd CC is up)
- Upgrade main CC to CF
This seems to work pretty well on rockdown. The 2nd CC should be built wherever most of your initial marines are rushing. Also, you don't have to hold it as long as it gets built. You just need to get your main CC upgraded to a CF, then you can get the upgraded armory, gls, fts, etc. Gl and ft are pretty op right now because they work well even if your lagging like crazy.
Also, I find the most effective strategy for sentry placement is to aim them at each other. That way, it prevents skulks/fades from quickly rushing past them and attacking from behind. I also like to aim at least 2-3 turrets at each power node to prevent them from being ninjaed. This is why I prefer capturing the west tech node in rockdown rather than the east one, because the west power node is easier to defend (i.e. its on the marine side of the tech node rather than the alien side).
The alien strategy seems much simpler. Hive rush the marine natural expansions and spam hydras/whips/crags (but not too much or you'll lag crash the server). Eventually, get fades and demolish the marines with their puny shotguns.