Marine Commander tips?
Hokes
Join Date: 2011-05-04 Member: 97097Members
Join Date: 2011-05-04 Member: 97097Members
As a soon to be Marine-based player, im looking for tips and strategies for Marines generaly as well as Map based wise. Any advice would be very much welcomed.
<u>General Questions</u>
- How well do Marines fare against different Aliens (not accounting skill wise just yet)?
- Should Marines take on an aggresive stance or a more passive one at the start? Expand quickly, or slow and steady, both territory and RT wise?
- As a commander, do supporting your team with medpacks/ammo take precedence over Macro-Managing your base? Or is it the other way round?
- Should a commander drop medpacks/ammo early into the game? Or save up on those PRes for later/personal use such as a major push/weapons?
- Doors, should they be locked? and when should they be locked?
- Build orders, any general tips? To tech with a 2nd CC or to go 2nd/3rd RT's?
- Best times for a SG? Early, middle or late game?
- How many MACs would suffice? Or is it the case of more the merrier?
<u>Map Based Questions</u>
<u>Tram</u>
- Is holding Marine Start and rushing Repairs (with the double RT's) right at the start a good idea?
- General SG placements?
- Offensive routes thats the safest/favoured?
- Alien tactics to look out for?
I havent taken to the other maps yet, but infomation regarding tactics and strategies about them would appreciated ver much.
Cheers!
<u>General Questions</u>
- How well do Marines fare against different Aliens (not accounting skill wise just yet)?
- Should Marines take on an aggresive stance or a more passive one at the start? Expand quickly, or slow and steady, both territory and RT wise?
- As a commander, do supporting your team with medpacks/ammo take precedence over Macro-Managing your base? Or is it the other way round?
- Should a commander drop medpacks/ammo early into the game? Or save up on those PRes for later/personal use such as a major push/weapons?
- Doors, should they be locked? and when should they be locked?
- Build orders, any general tips? To tech with a 2nd CC or to go 2nd/3rd RT's?
- Best times for a SG? Early, middle or late game?
- How many MACs would suffice? Or is it the case of more the merrier?
<u>Map Based Questions</u>
<u>Tram</u>
- Is holding Marine Start and rushing Repairs (with the double RT's) right at the start a good idea?
- General SG placements?
- Offensive routes thats the safest/favoured?
- Alien tactics to look out for?
I havent taken to the other maps yet, but infomation regarding tactics and strategies about them would appreciated ver much.
Cheers!
Comments
I would recommend that you know the maps really well before you jump in the commander seat, its very important to know what each room is called and how the get to these places. Also you need to have a mic as commander, if you hope to win, you can't be typing everything out, NS2 is just too fast paced. I always drop ammo and med packs early on to help my weak marines take on skulk rushes and secure locations I want to control. Always lock all doors, every single door needs to be locked right away, this keep the skulks from being able to get to all parts of the map easily, very important. As far as MACS, I always build 2 or 3 right away, I often use them to get the point across to marines that they should help build stuff.
When you Play as marine commander you need to be smart about how you expand, Always place an armory right away and get shotguns research going ASAP. I like to secure a resource node or double resource node as fast as possible. Infestation restricts you from placing structures down, so I feel its incredibly important to get that res income secured before trying to take a tech point. Next thing I like to research is weapons 1, shotguns and rifles do extra damage that always seems to give a good advantage to the marines. Next toss up a sentry around your expansion res tower. Putting sentries in base seems pointless to me since as the commander I can simply pop out of the chair and kill and skulk that might come by. But having a sentry act as area denial near a node is the best way to keep that res income safe.
By this point you should have shotguns, 2 or 3 res towers, 1 sentry guarding the furthest tower and weapons 1. Now its time to take a Tech point, send a MAC to build the closest tech point (on Tram, that would be marine expansion. on Rockdown, I use to pick West wing, but I go South Gully pass now because there is no vent from Auxiliary and once the door is locked, you only have to worry about 1 direction). Advanced armory is the next upgrade to get. If I don't already have 3 res nodes, I am going to make a push to secure at least 1 more res (I always work with 3 res towers, 4 or 5 is just greedy and likely will cost you early on if you try to get them, wait till later). Armor 1 gets researched shortly after I get a 2nd tech point. I try to research flamers as quickly as possible because they make killing skulks and lerks so easy. Next is to push on a Hive, since the aliens should have at least 2 by now. Weapons 2 comes next. I will continue to drop a sentry or 2 around res nodes and maybe 1 in base just to back me up. The rest of the game is spent slowly crushing the aliens, I think you get the general idea of what to do.
<b>Skulk -</b> Best way to play as a skulk is to ambush your prey, you never want to rush at them, all marine guns will own you if you just try to front on rush. Hide on the ceiling or any where that is not going to be with-in the marine forward facing L.O.S. Almost 90% of players don't look up or check their corners when they move out.
<b>Gorge -</b> Hydra placement is effective to prevent marines from being able to simply rush to a location and destroy it. You need to make sure you place a couple hydras around harvesters and hives. Placing 1000 hydras everywhere is pointless, since once the marines get grenade launchers and flamers, it wont matter how many Hydras you place up. So I play the Rule of 4, 2 or 3 as area restriction and a 4th hydra to protect the first 3 from a sneaky angle that the marines might be able to hit from. Late game Gorges are a must for heal spray backup FADE and LERK attack teams.
<b>Lerk -</b> One of the best classes early on and very needed late game. Spore is often effective enough to scare marines away from an area, most marines will not rush through Spores ever. Use spore to give Skulks and Fades that little bit of extra help. Spikes are great for sniping out sentry turrets and pecking off lone marines.
<b>Fade -</b> Blink in, kill a target or 2 and blink out, hit and run is how you need to be as a Fade. Also a Fade Rush is the best way to end the game for the aliens.
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=112884&hl=" target="_blank">Commander Strategy: Build Orders</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=113254&hl=" target="_blank">Marine Openers</a>
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=113104&hl=" target="_blank">On commanding players rather than bots</a>
Theres a lot of strategies, tips, and opinions out there so you can pick and choose which you want to try or follow. However, I think my two biggest ones on marine are:
<ol type='1'><li><b>You will need to babysit your IP all the time to keep it alive</b>
- The easiest way to marines to lose is via losing their IP. As such, this is the most common reason I see new comms lose. I recommend checking on it very frequently (as in no more than every 5s) and keeping it repaired to full health as much as possible. If you see a red dot in marine start, assume its attacking your IP and act accordingly. This usually entails getting out and fighting the skulk/lerk/fade yourself, so make sure that you have the best weapon available (generally shotgun or flamethrower), are fully healed, and have full ammo at all times when in the comm station. What I like to do when I see an alien attacking the IP is first send a MAC to start repairing it, then jump out and attack the alien. This usually sacrifices the MAC, but it buys a few extra seconds for you to log out and kill the distracted skulk/lerk/fade.
</li><li><b>Get flamethrowers as soon as possible</b>
- This is less important now that DI is tied to pustules, but flamethrowers are still the most versatile weapon in the game. The flamethrower is the only weapon still effective in a laggy server (which is still quite common) and its very good at killing skulks and forcing fades to retreat, which helps in protecting your IP. I've been able to kill/drive off 3 skulks/fades attacking my IP by myself with just the flamethrower.</li></ol>
More generally, if you want to learn good marine comm strategy and tactics, just observe good comms. Much of the way I learned how to comm is by observing and emulating. If you see a good sentry placement or an effective tech strategy, make a mental note to try it the next time you comm. I hope that helps.
Start
I usually start with an early expand to either west wing or central (I usually play rockdown). After it's down (before it's completely built), I grab the extractor near the next expo. When I can afford to I'll upgrade both my extractors once, then upgrade the main hive. This can only be done with good team support, otherwise you just wasted 35 carbon. While I'm waiting for the upgrade to finish I'll infest as I see fit, and sometimes take the lone harvester spot between central and gully (to do this, it really helps if you have central so you can protect it). I'll also get whips and crags ready for upgrades once the hive is done upgrading.
Structures
If you can afford it, put a crag near every lone harvester, coupled with hydras. Hydras and whips also complement each other perfectly, as whips have no range, but hydras can be relatively weak if it's surrounded by marines hacking at it. Mature crags are AWESOME, as they heal a ton, and double mature crags is even better, but this is starting to get expensive.
Upgrades
I just do this as I see fit, and haven't found any real rhyme or reason to it yet, as we can only upgrade armor and weapons so far (aliens will get special abilities that you can research later on).
Expanding
Whenever I see a large amount of carbon pooling up while we're in a good position (marines aren't pushing and current areas are fortified well), I'll tell everyone to secure an area so we can hive it.
Communication
If you ignore everything else I put, remember this. If you keep intel out in the open, and constantly say things like good job (or gj if you're typing), it boosts the moral a ton, and makes for a better team.
Plasma
This is the thing I think the aliens have over the marines. Whenever I'm the commander, I become a gorge right away. That means that whenever I have a quick break, I can hop out and spam hydras around the central hive.
Power
If you see teammates just going off on their own, or if they have nothing to do, tell them to go take down a power core. It keeps the marines from expanding easily, and can even push them back since the aliens have superior visibility (press f as an alien to go into sonar mode).
I think that's it. I know that I haven't touched on drifter flares, but I rarely find a use for them since most of the games I play max at around 4v4, with the marines scattered around.
I think the most important thing is to feel whats going on.
Normally i prefer a slow controlled comstyle:
3 restowers first, for an an constantly resflow with 1 turret for basic baseprotect.
Researching Shotguns and Flamers arent my first priority.
Weapon and armorupgrades helps more too keep ur team alive.
But if i see agressive aliens and they are rushing all restowers, base and infest all resnodes, this strategy wont work.
So i give my team Shotguns and let them rush a hive for an example.
The game can change every minute, thats what i mean with gamefeeling.
If we are going to loose and 1 Marine have found a way to an hive, i drop medpacks and ammo as long as i can for him.
This helps Marines at base too, cause aliens have to retreat to defend theyr hive.
It depends, play some game as com, then u know what i mean.
Also i prefer Marines with brain. If someone say: "Give me orders", my answer is "use map and look whats going on"
I think the most important thing is to feel whats going on.
Normally i prefer a slow controlled comstyle:
3 restowers first, for an an constantly resflow with 1 turret for basic baseprotect.
Researching Shotguns and Flamers arent my first priority.
Weapon and armorupgrades helps more too keep ur team alive.
But if i see agressive aliens and they are rushing all restowers, base and infest all resnodes, this strategy wont work.
So i give my team Shotguns and let them rush a hive for an example.
The game can change every minute, thats what i mean with gamefeeling.
If we are going to loose and 1 Marine have found a way to an hive, i drop medpacks and ammo as long as i can for him.
This helps Marines at base too, cause aliens have to retreat to defend theyr hive.
It depends, play some game as com, then u know what i mean.
Also i prefer Marines with brain. If someone say: "Give me orders", my answer is "use map and look whats going on"<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I disagree with that last statement (although the rest is pretty solid). You have so much more intel as a commander than he does just looking at his map. Someone with that type of attitude is also perfect to send on a specific mission that a lot of other players will just ignore.
I remember 1 game, where a com build some restowers and his first priority was to defend them.
He say : "restower 1 under attack, save him". I run like mad,and save the tower.
And then *surprise* another restower under attack, com again "restower 2 under attack".
Me again, run like mad to save res2.
But the skulk who was killed at res1 returned and attack res1. Com: "Save restower1"
This wasnt so funny for me and i decide to do what im thinking is the best. Attacking alienres for example.
Com "Noone follows my orders" an we lost the game badly.
Thats what i mean with "marines with brains"
In an offline rts, a marine do exactly what ur telling him. In NS2 this wont work and u cannot expect that.
I let "my" marines play, and decide in these dynamic situations whats the best.
I remember 1 game, where a com build some restowers and his first priority was to defend them.
He say : "restower 1 under attack, save him". I run like mad,and save the tower.
And then *surprise* another restower under attack, com again "restower 2 under attack".
Me again, run like mad to save res2.
But the skulk who was killed at res1 returned and attack res1. Com: "Save restower1"
This wasnt so funny for me and i decide to do what im thinking is the best. Attacking alienres for example.
Com "Noone follows my orders" an we lost the game badly.
Thats what i mean with "marines with brains"
In an offline rts, a marine do exactly what ur telling him. In NS2 this wont work and u cannot expect that.
I let "my" marines play, and decide in these dynamic situations whats the best.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Defense is rarely a winning strategy, especially on the marine side. A skulk can generally die, respawn, and return to attacking the same res node in the time it takes you to sprint to it. Therefore, I encourage my marines to spend most of their time attacking and only give a specific order to a player to defend a res node when 1) that marine just spawned in base, and 2) the res node is close to marine start.
The problem with the comm you mentioned wasn't that he micromanaged his players but that he gave them bad orders. He also tried to get his marines to follow his strategy rather than adjust his strategy to how his marines played. The only way the former works is in organized public or clan matches.