Comm Tactics

livingin360

<div class="IPBDescription">How Have They Changed Since NS1 and What are the new shortcuts?</div>I was wondering if people could give their input into their personal comm tactics and list of handy keyboard shortcuts. Especially select all marines? I havent located that for ns2 yet.

VeNeM

some are still the same, but ive noticed that sometimes itll switch on its on, like when dropping ammo , itll switch to something else and wont let me drop stuff.

Laosh'Ra

there's a webbed thread for the tactics:
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=116048" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...howtopic=116048</a>

elodea

Sure, personal comm tactics as opposed to strategies and build orders? Here are some of mine

1) Have your buildings hotkeyed as you would in ns1. I usually 1CC,2obs,3obs,4armslab,5armoury/squad. You can create a select all hotkey by pressing the blue marine button up the top left to select all and then hotkey it.

2) Always keep your eyes on the minimap for quick meds, nanos and ammopacks. Scan when your marines are building.

3) Building a forward obs along with an armoury at your pressure phasegate due to local MT.

4) 2nd hive timing is 3-5 minutes and it takes 3 minutes to build.

5) Don't force early upgrades untill you know whether your team is able to kill or deny that 2nd hive. I prefer to spend it on shotgun, welder, phasegates etc. w1 if yes, a2 and no mines if no.

*edit* float 50 obs energy and/or 20 res for CC when you start gearing up to attack the 2nd hive.
Oh yea, if a lerk flies through your base and is about to escape, place an armoury in his face.

internetexplorer

I like to hotkey my robo factories so I can make and rally MACs/ARCs whenever I get the chance. I rarely select buildings to use the 'assist' abilities - I just spam them off the assist tab. The exception is beacons - I hotkey observatories to beacon toward them.

As aliens, I like to hotkey crags/shades for triggering umbra and cloak on teammates.

Over all, I think people don't use nano shield nearly enough. Unless your team is in total control, you should be nanoshielding marines and structures to turn fights around. Having multiple chairs helps with this, of course, because you get more total energy stored. Even in the later stages of the game, nanoshield is really helpful.

A lot of fundamental RTS concepts work as the commander too - if you're on even ground with the aliens and trying to find a way to deal damage, you shouldn't be letting your resources stockpile. You should be spending them on upgrades, ARCs/MACs, forward armories/turrets/phasegates and so on. For aliens, you should be getting forward crags/shades/whips. In the early-to-mid game, if you can't decide what to spend money on, at LEAST get your teammates armor 1 (or shells for carapace/regen).


<!--quoteo(post=1907109:date=Feb 26 2012, 05:45 AM:name=elodea)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (elodea @ Feb 26 2012, 05:45 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1907109"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->4) 2nd hive timing is 3-5 minutes and it takes 3 minutes to build.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

This is a really useful one too. It's a good idea to scan all the hive sites, or have buildings/teammates in them, around this time. You shouldn't ever have a situation where the aliens place and build a hive up without the marines knowing. If you can see every site but one, and the aliens are doing their utmost to keep you away from it, you can still safely assume they must have a hive building in there (because they need one, and they're not pressuring other areas as much etc).