Finishing an Alien Game as Khaam
Geekavenger
Join Date: 2012-08-31 Member: 157117Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-08-31 Member: 157117Members, Reinforced - Shadow
So lately I have run into a few epic turtles as commander on the Alien side. I know the basics of trying to break the Turtle, coordinated attacks, gorge and lerks to support higher life forms, and just generally not getting into that situation by finishing them before they have a chance to turtle.
As an example last night we were able to rapidly take most of the map from the marines on mineshaft when they all went back to their base to grab Exos. We then had a Marine team with about 5 Exos hanging out in Operations and not moving out. Along with the Marines intentionally turtling with structures and added IPs, it made for a very long war of attrition, taking down Exos as we best we could, draining them of their res slowly but surely. Once they were down to about 2 we were able to Rush and take the power and the game.
I did forward healing stations, Gave them all kinds of eggs not just Onos, and at one point was even echoing mature whips into Operations. Shortly after we took the map I had our 4th hive up and was researching the last BioMass upgrades. Sometimes it is like herding cats, but last night the entire team seemed as responsive as you can expect on a Pub game, none of our coordinated attacks could break them until we wore them down over time.
My question is, what are some more things I can do as the Alien Comm to support the team/ Does anyone see any fatal flaws in what I have been doing?
As an example last night we were able to rapidly take most of the map from the marines on mineshaft when they all went back to their base to grab Exos. We then had a Marine team with about 5 Exos hanging out in Operations and not moving out. Along with the Marines intentionally turtling with structures and added IPs, it made for a very long war of attrition, taking down Exos as we best we could, draining them of their res slowly but surely. Once they were down to about 2 we were able to Rush and take the power and the game.
I did forward healing stations, Gave them all kinds of eggs not just Onos, and at one point was even echoing mature whips into Operations. Shortly after we took the map I had our 4th hive up and was researching the last BioMass upgrades. Sometimes it is like herding cats, but last night the entire team seemed as responsive as you can expect on a Pub game, none of our coordinated attacks could break them until we wore them down over time.
My question is, what are some more things I can do as the Alien Comm to support the team/ Does anyone see any fatal flaws in what I have been doing?
Comments
Really that seams about it if you land in that situation. Just box them in and wear them down by whatever means you can. Best way to avoid the turtle is to never let the marines get into the position to crazy turtle like that, just never stop pressing the attack beforehand.
Otherwise, I'm just as useless as everyone else at breaking a marine spawn turtle with has right now. It's not your fault, but if your fades don't immediately position themselves in marine spawn to stop the flow from the ips, its going to become a turtle. You're right, it has to just never happen.
I've never really played another game besides natural selection in my life, so I say this with love; The game is a bit off in many regards right now. 252 should be nothing but improvements to chocolate ns2
The problem with many all out pushes on a turtle is that people hit the power, this leaves you wide open to full DPS of multiple Exo. and as Exo/flame/gl don't receive DMG upgrades even after the power is out the still do max DPS. So all they have to do is push you out fix the power and its just demoralising for you.
However if you can get your team to focus the CC you can get onos on the backside where exo's don't have line of sight, lerks can umbra gorges can bile... Big difference is off CC goes down its GG...
I've gone in as a gorge with 2-3 onos and hit CC the onos died first and we had CC to 1-2 % only to die, and sitting there thinking "common bile bomb" only to see the CC go down to DOT of bile... And a win is a win..
Exos profit from Weapon upgrades since 250 already.
Saves a lot of time, it's less frustrating for players. Often after a 15 minute 1 RT turtle the round will finally end and then a third of the players will quit the server.
But add grenade launchers to the equation? All gorges and lerks dead from 2 nades.
Glad they nerfed GL's, altho I think it was a radius nerf not a damage nerf. Getting almost 1 shot from 1 nade as gorge is pretty harsh.
a good marine team won't let you infest into their base that much, but it is useful against bad teams
Nope. I think this is backwards. Gorges are the primary attacker when breaking a turtle. Everything else, most of all onos, should be there supporting the gorges. Just keep the bile bombing up and it's gg. If the gorges have to lob a bile, run for cover, lob another, then the run for cover again, then the bile bombing will never keep up with the marine repairs. But if the gorges are given cover, and anything attacking gorges is the primary target for all other lifeforms, then the turtle breaks in moments.
Its squishy and dies fast to suicide gorge rushes (buy your team gorge eggs so they don't have an excuse of it being a waste of res)
It may not help against flamethrowers or GLs, but it will knock off the marines armor (and cripple Exos), and also cost them money to rebuild (which on 1 RT is a significant cost).
Eventually (maybe 2-3 time killing it) you will be fighting a0/w0 marines with some advanced wepons. Then its just a simple matter of slaughtering them (not hard on a0)
- Vortex for fades to stop IP respawning and exo dmg
- Onos for fire support
- Lerk to spore and choke (umbra is great but i prefer spore to distract and choke)
- Gorges to Bile during distraction
Most people are giving you advice that I don't think pertains to your true intended question. It sounds to me like you're trying to be the best commander you can be on alien side. You're trying to figure out if you can do ANYTHING more to help. That's great, and you seem like a person who enjoys the game and should give a try at some PUG or competitive games. Either way, here are some tips:
1. No matter what level the game is, have drifters in forward positions and have them hotkeyed. If they're idle, position them out of the way so they don't immediately get killed from across the room. I usually have 2 or 3 drifters. 1 left side, 1 middle, 1 right side (top, middle, bottom in the case of horizontal positioning). I hotkey left guy to say 4, middle to 5, and riht to 6. Constantly watch the map. Yuo see a marine near your unprotected drifter, pull it back. If you lose it, whatever it's cheap.
2. Use the drifters. Multi-task. Watch the map always and if you notice (even in pubs) that your aliens are doing an imrpomptu push, grab that closest drifter and drop enzyme or the shade cloud.
3. Learn ALL the hotkeys. Effective commander is a fast commander. Learn the quick key combos that execute things fast (6->a makes right drifter enzyme load on cursor).
4. Use echo to hit enemy RT's. If you're bored, have most thing researched, and stuck on two hives, try some offense. I like this most on maps like summit. Cyst to one of those nodes, and if they marines leave the cyst to grow alone long enough, echo a wwhip and shift in to hit it. If a marine comes to kill the whip, echo both structures back to safety. Most of the time they won't kill either structure in time (at least on pubs). This likely means your shift should be hotkeyed as well.
5. Don't sit in the hive all the time. There's a lot of downtime where you just need to save resources for upgrades. Hot out of the hive and go gorge. Build an RT if it's early game or go put a sneaky gorge tunnel in some forward position, run back to the hive, then drop a shade by it. Early-mid game this is good.
But to directly answer your question to that game, You did not mention much about drifters, so that is one of the few extra things I can think that you might have left out, but it would not have helped much. If your team is coordinated enough to strike together, you can just wait for them to all rush, use the drifter to make hallucinations, and that might eat enough marine bullets to make the difference.
People need to start using drifters. Cast Hallucination on a bunch of aliens (that are waiting to attack). Double click one of the hallucinations and simply send them into the base. Use your hotkey to select the drifter again and use enzyme, heal and storm to buff your aliens during the attack. The marines empty their clips on the hallus and the real aliens have more time to engage. A close shift can give enough energy regen to keep up the high attack speed enzyme creates. (enzymed bilebomb is da hot shiit.
Others than that, you can try to coordinate the attack. Tell them, that the onos and fade should focus on the marines and guard the gorges while they wreck everything with bile. Or just let them all attack the CC. To often they prefer the power when the CC can end it way faster. Also it is always nice to have someone that can count down an attack. And the kham is best for this as he sees if everyone is ready. The talk and mount the attack yourself.
This all aside, it is really annoying to break down a turtle. Those are the moments where the game gets boring for me. I hope 252 will change something about that. The little bit higher chance of marine comebacks isn't worth the boring grind that is needed to end the game as aliens more often.