Ns_hera
Foggy
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9620Members
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9620Members
<div class="IPBDescription">How do you win as marine?</div> It seems every time I play as marine on ns_hera, my team always loses. This probably isn't a fluke, considering the team I had on hera was identical the one I had on other maps, and on other servers with other competent players the marines lose. Does anyone have a clever strategy for ns_hera, besides "go take the recepetion and holoroom and then go find hives"? Thanks.
Comments
Maintenance is a good hive to aim for, though personally I prefer going for Datacore. It just feels more defensible than Maintenance; if you decided to take Holoroom, it's also a bit closer. Archiving isn't that easy to get to unless you bring a welder, but has the bonus that the aliens won't expect you to be there. While a long walk from the marine base, it's got the advantage that all it's entrances are on one side, making defence easier.
Past that, just make sure you weld whatever you can. There are a <i>lot</i> of vents on Hera, and about half of them can be closed off. Do so whenever possible to keep the Kharaa contained.
I'd say leave two marines back in the base to build and send the rest to Hera Entrance (give at least one a welder), where they can take the resource node and have a point in siege range of the Holoroom. If you seal up the vent on the other side of the path you take into the Holoroom and set up your turrets wisely, it's extremely tough for any aliens to make it through. Take the whichever hive of Archiving or Data Core Delta isn't currently occupied (you can listen on the commander view for a hive), and you've got a majority of the resource nodes and a hive.
Head out to Ventillation, take the resource node in Maintenance, and attack from there (that's where they've probably built their second hive, so get teleporters and an armory, along with an appropriate amount of turrets). As soon as you've got sieges in your base, take the resouce node in General Cargo Storage. Aliens generally avoid it because it always gets sieged, and the room isn't of much tactical importance.
Step two, one marine with welder, secure reception, close the open security door to halo room.
Step three, open the other security door, assult hive, if no aliens, secure area, place a turret factory near the resource node, upgrade to siege.
Step four, as siege is blasting the halo room where you know aliens will go, as will all fools, weld open the grate at the top of the boxes. Place turret factory up there. Leave one marine at the turret factory from step three.
Step five, while aliens are trying to take out the siege factory, the marine should be making them think twice before the act, the new turret factory should have siege, start blasting the new hive <if there is one>. From here go capture resource points, and weld vents shut.
Try hard not place turret factorys and turrets in resource rooms, place them at the locations aliens must travel, highly traveled areas.
1)Repel the skulk rush. Drop a pack of mines, and tell a marine to sit on the door and don't let anyone in. I was this marine in a game today, and with me on one side of the door, and 2 skulks on the other, both of us chuckling and taunting, with the occasional Monty Python line to loosen things up. Seriously, with 2 turrets, one marine can hold your main base.
2) Head to reception, set up a node.
3) Head to Holoroom, set up both nodes, weld the hell out of everything.
4) Move to processing. Build a turret factory, and 3 sentries in a triangle around it. Upgrade the factory.
5) Drop 2 seiges against the north wall, plus a sentry or two to cover all sides. Drop two seiges in the east wall, as well as more sentries for support.
6) Watch the fireworks as two possible hives go down.
7) Mop up at archiving.
The first step should be securing hera reception, the cargo room connecting the base, and work on a hive.
From cargo room AND hera, you can siege holo room, so it's nice to let the alien gorges waste a lot of resources building that up, only to shut it down with siege.
* Cargo Room:
After the skulk rush is repelled, one marine should get a buddy or two and a welder. With said welder he should move to maintenance, weld the vent control there and shut it. This restricts alien mobility. The next step is to go through the door and to the left, up into cargo. Weld the button by the door that leads to marine base, and open it up. Marine base is now 2x as big, with 3x as many places to go from it. Weld the vent behidn the resource node so aliens cant' get in there. SEt up turrets around the resource node and up the lift in the little control room. That control room is very hard to take down from the other side of the little self-opening door. The space is cramped so skulks can't maneuver well. Make turret placement tight and upgrade to siege in the far corner opposite the door. This will siege most of the stuff in Processing and Holo room. It's also annoying as hell cuz alien's cant do much about it.
* Hera Reception
Bring a welder, and weld the button by the door near the Archiving hive. If it isn't their main hive, go through it weld the entrance to the hive, and have 3-4 marines hold position in the hive. Then shut the security door. This closes the vent as well, so you've effectively sealed off that entire side fo the baes from the aliens. DO NOT weld the other button, then the aliens can just open it at will. If it is their main hive, just shut the door to keep them from getting through and going the long way. Key here is to restrict alien movement as much as possible while expanding your own possibilities.
* Securing Archiving
Bring a welder, and weld the vent button on the right side of the hive top floor. You can then shut the vent. This is a short vent that leads out to the resource node, but it cuts back alien options to get into the hive, thus making it easier to defend. Make sure the security door to hera is shut as well (from the other side, don't weld the hive side of it or it defeats the purpose). This seals off the other vent entrance. Put the turret generator on the top level back wall, place turrets on either side and in front of it, and along the top sides of the hive, so all the turrets overlook and have a good overhead firing position inside the hive. Get a phase gate asap up.
You can now get to archiving, and aside from the main entrance ot archiving, the entire left side of the map is shut off from the aliens. Only the vent from the room outside archiving to the holoroom is open, and the corridor leading to processing. With the siege in hera and the cargo control room, holo room should be ready for the taking. Get yourself a nice two resource nodes, and weld the two vent buttons in Holo room. One shuts off the cargo hold entrance, the other shuts off holoroom from archiving.
You now have a hive well secured, cut the aliens off rom about 50% of the map and reduced their possible paths of navigation, and you have 6 resource nodes - enough to crank out heavy armor and heavy weapons like nobody's business. Even with 5 you can do that.
* Now What?
You can choose which way you want to go from here. Processing is probably the easiest, since you have the cargo entrance to the upper level of processing, and you have the archiving entrance into it. Siege guns in the corner of processing close to the data core delta hive will put the hive out of commission.
Or you can press the ventilation area. Ventilation is an easy hive to attack, but a very difficult hive to hold. It's difficult to control alien movement since there is only one vent in the area you can seal off. Siege guns in maintenance by the left wall near the resource node will effectively siege the hive itself. Easy to attack.
Data core delta can also be assaulted from Archiving up throug the weldable grate, through the caves. If they dont' defend that side, a group fo 3-4 HMG armed marines can just walk in, unload on the hive, and that would be all she wrote.
* If Archiving Is Their Main Hive
An alternate plan if Archiving is their main plan is to secure the other way - Ventilation. Ventilation has the bonus of having a resource node IN the hive itself, and one outside it. Just shut that left security door in hera, siege up, and push toward ventilation.
There are really 2 places you need to secure in Ventilation:
1) the door/hallway to Processing - one of two routes aliens can take to Ventilation. Turrets on the other side of the door will ensure only the brave, fast skulk can slip by, and wounded at that.
2) the big hole in the back of the hive itself - this is a huge problem in the Ventilation hive, which apart from that, isn't too difficult to hold. But that vent access to it causes problems. Make sure a lot of turrets can cover that, and if you have a marine with a jetpack, you can try to put some mines up in there and mine the hell out of that whole vent. I dont' know if you can put a turret factory on the ground in the water and try to put turrets up into that area. It's something to test out (let me know if it works).
If you do these two things, you will have effectively sealed off the right side of the map from the aliens, sieged the holo room, and gotten yourself a solid 5 resource vents (7 if you take holo room).
This too is enough to outfit everyone with HA, HMG/GL, and otherwise put the hurt on.
Hera is actually a very marine-friendly map, with so many sealable vents and environmental manipulation options.
Basic idea:
1) restrict alien movement by closing off vents, shutting doors, and baracading certain chokepoints with turrets.
2) Put siege cannons in all major areas. It's a tight map, and this will greatly restrict where the aliens can build.
3) Secure either Archiving or Ventilation.
4) Open up the cargo hold, secure it, and put up siege guns. Cargo hold make syour base larger, give syou another resource node, and gives your marines 6 different ways to exit out of your base, instead of just two. It vastly increases your mobility and wehre you can attack.
Restrict alien mobility. Open up your own mobility. Capture resource sites, deny the aliens resources.
Even if all you have is Hera and cargo room, you can make a comeback if you get your men all outfitted with HA/HMGs/GLs/Welders and have siege guns in all your positions. Just keep denying the aliens resources - even if they have 3 hives, if yous till control the resources they won't be able to morph into onos or even fades much.
Map strategies are very involved and can't just be explained with a "attack here first" response.
Shoot the thing biting you.
Shoot the thing spitting at you.
Shott the thing that makes the biting/spitting thingies.
Victory.
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I think that the key to victory for hera is a swift assault on a hive room. Ventilation hive is the closest to marine spawn. You can combine a res grab in maintainance with setting up a preventative siege to cover ventilation. my experience has been that the Ventilation hive room itself is impossible to defend. There are very few building spots an too many angles of attack.
The idea about opening up the cargo door right away is tempting. It might be difficult to do on a pub server reliably though:
Marine1 : "Commander can I get a welder to open up up cargo?"
*poof*
Marine2: "Oooh, gun! Must be for me!"
Marine2 grabs welder.
Comm "Ok, YOU go to cargo then."
Marine2 tries to weld the cargo door from the wrong side.
Someskulk kills Marine2 with bitegun
Comm "Grrrrrr."
Anyway, if you manage to pull it off, it's only a short jog to data core.
Listen, if there are two right next to each other, that is all it is, two nodes. Normaly these places both teams try to hit first.
Now, rate that against moving to a hive, taking its resource, and maybe one more outside a hive if you feel like it.
2 resource nodes right next to each other to me is not as important as taking a empty hive plus one resource at the hive at the beginning.