Beaconing from outside a base is something I don't think I've ever seen someone pull off, but it's pretty easy to do. It's actually a good idea if you have observatories in other places on the map and you can then beacon to any chair, even if the power or obs is down in that room. I don't think many people realize it's possible.
Doing anything with EMP is too much micromanagement for this games interface.
Harrassing RTs with drifters sounds like an amazing idea, I'll have to try that next time I have a chance as Khamm
I've done the outside-room-beacon trick many many times and its massively useful/successful. Due to timings and other things, I actively let 2 Onos and a 2 Gorge take down power in Repair once while my marines were killing a hive, as soon as the hive was down I beaconed using the one I had placed in the room/hallway between Logistics and Repair (for forward information on South Tunnels rushes). Whole team arrived and destroyed the two Onos, easily got power back up.
The aliens RAGED HARD that I was abusing some kind of bug to Beacon into an unpowered room
A for drifters on RT's, it only works if the Marine comm is not that experianced, else he'll just scan either as soon as he sees it being hit or when his marine arrives to check it out and you lose the drifter. You take a marine of the front line for a very small amount of time, but if you can manage to get one drifter by every unguarded RT - you can almost cause a stack overflow situation in the Marine com because so many things are under attack - then pounce an attack while marines are away from phasegates
Other good/interesting tactics, phasegates if your individual players are good are better in hallways than bases - generally allows fast defence and offence (rather than just defence). A good example of this is one phase gate in Hub allowing you to attack Elevator, Repair, North Tunnels (arc hive in warehouse) ore and mezz RT's. Hugely powerful position for Marines and will be used a LOT more now it's been seen frequently in competitive games.
I find a better use of mac's in base instead of using emp, position one flanked slightly on the 'exit route' the Onos is going to use to flee. As soon as it runs past it, place a Robotics factory, the arc auto-builds it, instantly creating a block for the fleeing onos usually giving you enough time to kill it! Far more useful than blocking them OUT of the base is blocking them IN so you can kill them
The beacon to unpowered room is actually very useful and has mostly no opportunity costs.
For example take Veil. It is a good idea to put an OBs into Nano anyway for reconnaissance. Power-Down in the main base (Control)? Just use the NanoGrid-Obs. Raging aliens are hilarious every time.
I always explain... The rule is so simple: An Obs always beacons to the closest built CC.
I wonder if you could recycle a CC in base B to use the OBs there to beacon to base C and cancel recycling after the beacon.
Or better ask: Does an OBs beacon to a recycling CC?
The beacon to unpowered room is actually very useful and has mostly no opportunity costs.
For example take Veil. It is a good idea to put an OBs into Nano anyway for reconnaissance. Power-Down in the main base (Control)? Just use the NanoGrid-Obs. Raging aliens are hilarious every time.
I always explain... The rule is so simple: An Obs always beacons to the closest built CC.
I wonder if you could recycle a CC in base B to use the OBs there to beacon to base C and cancel recycling after the beacon.
Or better ask: Does an OBs beacon to a recycling CC?
Tested it.
Yes, an OBs beacons to a recycling cc. Even if the CC is recycled, you can be ported there, when u triggered the beacon before the end of the recyclingprogress.
The beacon to unpowered room is actually very useful and has mostly no opportunity costs.
For example take Veil. It is a good idea to put an OBs into Nano anyway for reconnaissance. Power-Down in the main base (Control)? Just use the NanoGrid-Obs. Raging aliens are hilarious every time.
I always explain... The rule is so simple: An Obs always beacons to the closest built CC.
I wonder if you could recycle a CC in base B to use the OBs there to beacon to base C and cancel recycling after the beacon.
Or better ask: Does an OBs beacon to a recycling CC?
Tested it.
Yes, an OBs beacons to a recycling cc. Even if the CC is recycled, you can be ported there, when u triggered the beacon before the end of the recyclingprogress.
Thanks for the info. Sounds reasonable to do it this way. To prevent exploiting it.
So basically beacon does its location of nearest CC check upon clicking the beacon key, not upon the beacon 'going off' - good to know
I wonder how "built" a CC must be to trigger a beacon, completed or just 'tapped' and I guess that raises the question for how far built does it have to be for it to trigger tech - from what I've seen in game I think that is fully constructed?
I'm postive if you trigger beacon right before CC goes down and CC is destroyed before beacon goes off, you will still teleport your team to that room.
Beaconing to ghost/not fully built CC requiers some researching.
A for drifters on RT's, it only works if the Marine comm is not that experianced, else he'll just scan either as soon as he sees it being hit or when his marine arrives to check it out and you lose the drifter. You take a marine of the front line for a very small amount of time, but if you can manage to get one drifter by every unguarded RT - you can almost cause a stack overflow situation in the Marine com because so many things are under attack - then pounce an attack while marines are away from phasegates
I've started having this happen to me in competitive games, and it's not too much of a bother.
I find the first thing I do when an RT is getting hit is to click it and gauge how quickly it's HP are going down. (So I know whether to send a Marine to kill a single skulk, or just leave it and focus elsewhere if there's multiple skulks/higher lifeforms.) A drifter attacking an RT does so little damage it should become a "deal with it whenever someone happens to be near" issue, but...
The endless "your base is under attack" messages can get in the way of responding quickly to med/ammo requests.
@Sherlock hence my stack overflow concept. I totally agree it's not going to hurt much, but it just turns into another item on your mental to do list, most people can only hold onto 3 to 4 concepts before losing the larger overall picture. This is what generally starts impairing the weaker commanders vs the stronger. I have no experiance commanding or even playing in anything above public servers; so having to command/direct ground troops, organise defence, med/ammo, build and plan assaults it sometimes happens very rapidly that you just get overwhelmed.
You see it frequently at the start of a game there is a general 'idea of a grand tactic' and if you disrupt it they stumble and lack the tactical knowledge to alter it successfully to respond to new inputs. I've had this a few times where my primary tactic was defeated and my fallback tactics just never quite gained enough momentum with the players to actually make it exist.
I think EMP and rupture may as well be removed from the game. They're both pretty much useless and are never used. They'd need some real attention to make them worthwhile, and I'm generally of the opinion that useless clutter just for the sake of having more stuff in the game is bad.
I almost forgot about this one: fake recycle. You hit recycle, then you hit cancel. Some might walk away as soon as they hear recycle sound. Some might not, but you don't lose anything for trying.
I tried doing a beacon into an unpowered room the other day. My comm chair in repair room was under attack and the power was down, so I recycled my other chair in warehouse and tried to beacon into repair room. However, the aliens just destroyed my comm chair before I could get the beacon off, leaving us with none and losing the game. Fortunately, it ended a game that we were going to lose a lot quicker.
Though, much of its effectiveness is limited to the specific circumstances (e.g. 6v6 comp match on Descent).
Ima tell you a story: we start in containment at we soon found they got smelting. BUT. As soon as our skulks got there, they found no RT or IP there. We were like what the hell. And that's when I've heard my hive screaming. Must be one marine who discovered our base. I'm getting out just to find out 8 marines with axes chopping down my home, completely ignoring everything else around them. I'm starting to round around in circles biting eveyone I could, my team joins up, we are slowly taking them down one by one while our hive is dying. In the end there's only 1 marine left and hive at like 5%, three skulks around him, AND WE ARE SO DAMN NERVOUS, NONE OF US CAN HIT HIM. When our hive was like 1 swing away from death, I finally managed to land a killing blow. GOD THAT WAS INTENSE.
Also, did a successful ninja MAC just ten minutes ago, seemed like none of the marines was capable of building ninja PG. Tho not much were phasing thu, they were too focused on defense, we were bound to lose that one.
Why didn't the marines just attack the hive with their rifles, or better yet rush shotguns? Sounds like they employed a good strat but totally blew it by only using axes on the hive
Why didn't the marines just attack the hive with their rifles, or better yet rush shotguns? Sounds like they employed a good strat but totally blew it by only using axes on the hive
Using whips, the occasional whip around a corner annoys those ninja harassers and is quite potent if there happen to be aliens supporting it. Besides, what else you gonna spend that res on, onos eggs? Whats the fun in that? Let the players get their own damn oni, comm is for building!
emps are really good against onoses, because it severely impedes their ability to escape. beacon and EMP -> dead onos.
Also fades because it removes their ability to blink of shadowstep. But I can see why it's never used, it isn't really worth spending res on and the UI is a bit fidgety in this game so getting the EMP to work when the MAC is in the exact right location is sorta difficult
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
edited April 2013
@ScardyBob Watching that replay, it's unsettling to see all of the places that it could have gone horribly wrong.
0:34 - Three skulks snuck through the top of Shipping/Receiving while we went along the bottom
0:51 - A drifter appeared in the room we had just relocated into
1:41 - I managed to kill that one skulk before his 3 friends appeared
Not to mention the CC/Hive death times were incredibly close
@ 1:31 Drone Bay CC
~ 14 seconds ~
@ 1:45 Fabrication Hive ~ 7 seconds ~
@ 1:52 Hydroanalysis CC
Comments
I've done the outside-room-beacon trick many many times and its massively useful/successful. Due to timings and other things, I actively let 2 Onos and a 2 Gorge take down power in Repair once while my marines were killing a hive, as soon as the hive was down I beaconed using the one I had placed in the room/hallway between Logistics and Repair (for forward information on South Tunnels rushes). Whole team arrived and destroyed the two Onos, easily got power back up.
The aliens RAGED HARD that I was abusing some kind of bug to Beacon into an unpowered room
A for drifters on RT's, it only works if the Marine comm is not that experianced, else he'll just scan either as soon as he sees it being hit or when his marine arrives to check it out and you lose the drifter. You take a marine of the front line for a very small amount of time, but if you can manage to get one drifter by every unguarded RT - you can almost cause a stack overflow situation in the Marine com because so many things are under attack - then pounce an attack while marines are away from phasegates
Other good/interesting tactics, phasegates if your individual players are good are better in hallways than bases - generally allows fast defence and offence (rather than just defence). A good example of this is one phase gate in Hub allowing you to attack Elevator, Repair, North Tunnels (arc hive in warehouse) ore and mezz RT's. Hugely powerful position for Marines and will be used a LOT more now it's been seen frequently in competitive games.
I find a better use of mac's in base instead of using emp, position one flanked slightly on the 'exit route' the Onos is going to use to flee. As soon as it runs past it, place a Robotics factory, the arc auto-builds it, instantly creating a block for the fleeing onos usually giving you enough time to kill it! Far more useful than blocking them OUT of the base is blocking them IN so you can kill them
Set up a chain of infestation to some overlooked part of marine territory. Place 1-3 whips around the power node and/or phase gate.
For example take Veil. It is a good idea to put an OBs into Nano anyway for reconnaissance. Power-Down in the main base (Control)? Just use the NanoGrid-Obs. Raging aliens are hilarious every time.
I always explain... The rule is so simple: An Obs always beacons to the closest built CC.
I wonder if you could recycle a CC in base B to use the OBs there to beacon to base C and cancel recycling after the beacon.
Or better ask: Does an OBs beacon to a recycling CC?
Aaah yes, the "here, take my resources" tactic. A classic.
Tested it.
Yes, an OBs beacons to a recycling cc. Even if the CC is recycled, you can be ported there, when u triggered the beacon before the end of the recyclingprogress.
Thanks for the info. Sounds reasonable to do it this way. To prevent exploiting it.
I wonder how "built" a CC must be to trigger a beacon, completed or just 'tapped' and I guess that raises the question for how far built does it have to be for it to trigger tech - from what I've seen in game I think that is fully constructed?
Beaconing to ghost/not fully built CC requiers some researching.
I've started having this happen to me in competitive games, and it's not too much of a bother.
I find the first thing I do when an RT is getting hit is to click it and gauge how quickly it's HP are going down. (So I know whether to send a Marine to kill a single skulk, or just leave it and focus elsewhere if there's multiple skulks/higher lifeforms.) A drifter attacking an RT does so little damage it should become a "deal with it whenever someone happens to be near" issue, but...
The endless "your base is under attack" messages can get in the way of responding quickly to med/ammo requests.
You see it frequently at the start of a game there is a general 'idea of a grand tactic' and if you disrupt it they stumble and lack the tactical knowledge to alter it successfully to respond to new inputs. I've had this a few times where my primary tactic was defeated and my fallback tactics just never quite gained enough momentum with the players to actually make it exist.
Rupture is awesome..
I know this. You can't beacon to ghost or unfinished CCs. Some commanders had a bad time figuring that out...
Good to know! The amount of times I've seen Commanders beacon entire teams AWAY from the room under attack is painful
... if you have 3 hives you almost have to have map control already
Though, much of its effectiveness is limited to the specific circumstances (e.g. 6v6 comp match on Descent).
Ima tell you a story: we start in containment at we soon found they got smelting. BUT. As soon as our skulks got there, they found no RT or IP there. We were like what the hell. And that's when I've heard my hive screaming. Must be one marine who discovered our base. I'm getting out just to find out 8 marines with axes chopping down my home, completely ignoring everything else around them. I'm starting to round around in circles biting eveyone I could, my team joins up, we are slowly taking them down one by one while our hive is dying. In the end there's only 1 marine left and hive at like 5%, three skulks around him, AND WE ARE SO DAMN NERVOUS, NONE OF US CAN HIT HIM. When our hive was like 1 swing away from death, I finally managed to land a killing blow. GOD THAT WAS INTENSE.
Also, did a successful ninja MAC just ten minutes ago, seemed like none of the marines was capable of building ninja PG. Tho not much were phasing thu, they were too focused on defense, we were bound to lose that one.
Also fades because it removes their ability to blink of shadowstep. But I can see why it's never used, it isn't really worth spending res on and the UI is a bit fidgety in this game so getting the EMP to work when the MAC is in the exact right location is sorta difficult
0:34 - Three skulks snuck through the top of Shipping/Receiving while we went along the bottom
0:51 - A drifter appeared in the room we had just relocated into
1:41 - I managed to kill that one skulk before his 3 friends appeared
Not to mention the CC/Hive death times were incredibly close
@ 1:31 Drone Bay CC
~ 14 seconds ~
@ 1:45 Fabrication Hive
~ 7 seconds ~
@ 1:52 Hydroanalysis CC