Commanders
Ejquinn
Join Date: 2012-01-25 Member: 141995Members
Join Date: 2012-01-25 Member: 141995Members
Let's have a thread to discuss commanders. Give tips and tricks for new comms, strategies, complaints, talk about good comms and bad comms, and give suggestions for the position.
Thanks to Jucci i've been leaving us on one IP for as long as possible, it's good for when I need a new res tower early and such.
Thanks to Jucci i've been leaving us on one IP for as long as possible, it's good for when I need a new res tower early and such.
Comments
If you see a bunch of marines walk into a suspicious room, don't just watch them, scan the room! It will pick up any aliens hiding in vents/cracks/ceilings not to mention cloaked units. Use it as much as you can, you will greatly increase the chances of your marines surviving. Always keep a backup obs with 50 energy for beaconing. if you have used all your energy scanning and you suddenly get base rushed... well... things can go bad.
To support my marines I will often use a combo of:
scan first, if attacked, nano shield them and (obviously) meds. The amount of nano/meds you use will depend on the importance of the area.
Timing wise, if get a total of 3 harvesters + only spend 20 TRes on other stuff (think shell + cara or whip + frenzy or just a shade). You can usually drop the 2nd hive just around the 4 min mark and have it finish at 7 min. Remember, every additional 10 TRes you spend will delay that 2nd hive by roughly 30s, so only spend on things you view as critical.
Aliens:
I like to send a gorge or two to where I'm going to drop the 2nd hive and have him place a couple of hydras while I'll go gorge in the main hive and drop hydras there (in case marines decide to rush the initial hive instead). Also, after you have the 2nd hive building, its good to place a cyst or two past the tech node to give you some forewarning of a marine attack. However, the best defense of the second hive is to simply be so aggressive that marines can't even leave their base.
Marines:
My goal on the marine side is to get shotguns and a phasegate close to where I think the aliens are going to drop their 2nd hive by the 5 min mark. Then I'll usually beacon everyone to base, tell them to get shotguns, phase, and rush that 2nd hive till its dead. Forward scan, nano-shield, med/ammopack those who are rushing the hive a lot.
Timing wise, if get a total of 3 harvesters + only spend 20 TRes on other stuff (think shell + cara or whip + frenzy or just a shade). You can usually drop the 2nd hive just around the 4 min mark and have it finish at 7 min. Remember, every additional 10 TRes you spend will delay that 2nd hive by roughly 30s, so only spend on things you view as critical.
Aliens:
I like to send a gorge or two to where I'm going to drop the 2nd hive and have him place a couple of hydras while I'll go gorge in the main hive and drop hydras there (in case marines decide to rush the initial hive instead). Also, after you have the 2nd hive building, its good to place a cyst or two past the tech node to give you some forewarning of a marine attack. However, the best defense of the second hive is to simply be so aggressive that marines can't even leave their base.
Marines:
My goal on the marine side is to get shotguns and a phasegate close to where I think the aliens are going to drop their 2nd hive by the 5 min mark. Then I'll usually beacon everyone to base, tell them to get shotguns, phase, and rush that 2nd hive till its dead. Forward scan, nano-shield, med/ammopack those who are rushing the hive a lot.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes! It is so helpful to have a gorge or two when you comm alien side. Also as marines it's super easy to tell where they will expand their hive, seeing as how they will be pushing it with players and creep. So you should send two or so marines to sieze the other location and secure it while the others fight the main Alien force.
Get more than 1 command chair. There are 3 reasons for this:
<ul><li>More nano shields</li><li>More command chairs in case one dies</li><li>Prevents building hives</li></ul>
There's a secret 4th reason:
<ul><li>Forces the aliens to build specific hive sites, which enables you to push specific areas</li></ul>
Find where the enemy spawned as fast as possible. Consider not building resource towers that are 'toward' the enemy base at the start of the game, unless you're confident your team can defend them. If you build something like that and don't put a big amount of effort into defending, you're throwing away res and giving the enemy team an advantage that will add up quickly. For instance, if you spawned in sub access and the aliens spawned in data core, it's going to be hard to hold ventilation (but very easy to hold computer lab).
Spend your money. Don't get flustered and forget to<b> make stuff</b>. This is one of the cornerstones of playing an RTS. If you have an arms lab and you're floating 70 resources, start an upgrade on it. If you're in a panic, don't think about <i>which </i>upgrade...just click something so the money goes to use. Spam out some MACs and have them build more stuff too. When you get more experienced, you will intuitively know how to spend your money all the time (and then, if you can make lots of money you will win lots of games!)
Another cornerstone of RTS games: don't make something that you won't use. An example of this is when a commander drops an arms lab early in the game, then finds out he can't afford to start an upgrade and leaves it sitting idle. The 20 res cost of the lab could have made 2 res towers, and paid for itself in like a minute. Make an arms lab when you can start an upgrade right afterward. Make an advanced armory when you can upgrade a new gun and have your teammates buy it right afterward.
Then there are the classic NS beacon/phase gate strategies:
<ul><li>When phase tech finishes, have your guys in the field build a gate. Start a gate at the main base, and maybe have someone start building it. When the forward gate is finished, beacon your team. Have them all refill on ammo/health and buy guns, build the gate in the base and go through. You now have a full team pushing as one, and you can kill a hive VERY fast. If the aliens counterattack, beacon again.</li><li>Attack one place by ground (say, running from data core to atrium on Summit). Then, when the enemy team arrives to defend, beacon and attack somewhere else via phase gate (run to sub access or crossroads instead). The more you get their team out of position, the more effective you can be in combat (because they have to spend more time to form up as a group again and fight like you are)</li></ul>
The maps all have specific areas that are good for phase gate pushes, forward armories, forward crags and so on:
<ul><li>Summit: summit reception, pipe junction, glass hallway, maintenance access, computer lab</li><li>Tram: marine tunnel, alien tunnel, tram hub</li><li>Mineshaft: cavern tunnel, north tunnel, gap</li></ul>
Another thing I see a lot in pubs is teams that can't quite break an entrenched alien team and spend all day trying. They lose so much that the aliens start to bounce back. The reality you have to face is that aliens can make a LOT of whips and crags off relatively few resources, and make it difficult to finish them off. That's only in a world without ARCs, though. When you get into these situations, you can afford to make 2-3 ARCs and whittle down their base. Have your teammates guard the ARCs, and have MACs build turrets/repair ARCs during this. For those of you who play Starcraft, it's like a marine-tank push (the players are the marines, and the ARCs are the tanks).
Building placement is another important RTS skill. When you place your first armory, you should be thinking about whether that will be a good place for it in 10 minutes when the aliens have bile bomb. Don't clump everything together to die at once. Spread infantry portals apart so it's hard to camp all of them at once. Put important buildings like observatories out of the sightlines entering your base (for example, flight control on summit makes this really important). When you place whips, you want them to be in spots where they can surprise a marine coming around a corner and whack him in the face, or smack back grenades but not be visible for rifles to shoot them down. You should place crags away from the walls of the room, so that ARCs do not hit them later. For instance, in 'warehouse' on tram, put crags on the east side of the hive (so the ARCs have to be <i>in the room</i> to hit them).
When you take another command chair, put infantry portals and a phase gate there. This is a great way to survive a really brutal alien attack where they de-power your base.
If you're using MACs, get the speed upgrade. It makes them faster than skulks and it has the smallest cost of anything you can make. It's really good.
As an alien commander, make cysts the same way you would make a forward armory as a marine commander. Don't cyst into an area that you don't have players controlling (meaning they're on the borders of it eating marines). Cysts can be built so quickly whenever you want, but losing them is severely punishing. This is really helpful on Mineshaft - if you spawned in Cave, you're going to cyst toward ore extraction AND crushing room at some point. If the marines are in crushing room, don't put cysts there. Just wait and encourage your team to clear it out, THEN lay your cysts down. If things don't work out, put the energy toward drifters and make ore extraction harder to break.