Rip Down Offense Towers
TomCerul
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9614Members
Join Date: 2002-11-22 Member: 9614Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Without taking damage</div> I thought everyone playing NS would have played Team Fortress and learned the magic tricks to taking down sentry guns. Since I keep losing teammates to these things, here's my guide.
Pay attention when you are moving around. When you ride an elevator or open a door, expect a Wall of Lame (WOL). You should Never be killed because you were surprised by offense towers.
When you do find offense towers, evaluate the situation and take cover. Report in that you found offense towers. Report numbers and whether there are defense towers. For example: "Command, In South loop, I have a wall of lame, 8 offense towers." or "Command, outside feedwater, 2 offense towers." After you get the commanders attention, carefully peek at the towers so that they show up on his minimap and on his game screen.
The commander will either order you to engage or to hold back and siege. If he says siege, don't shoot at the towers at all. The aim is to surprise the aliens with a HUGE hole in their defenses, not attract there attention with a few hitpoints of damage that will be healed before they get there to eat you. Since you are trying to surprise the aliens, be quiet. Don't jump around, shoot your friends, use the mouse communications or flash your flashlight.
As a fast rule, one marine (loaded with ammo and carrying lmgs) can take down one tower. So if there are more marines then towers engaging the towers is a fine idea.
Here's the big magic trick to engaging towers safely. Shoot from behind cover. One person in the squad approaches the towers and peeks around cover Just enough so that he can see some of the tower. If the tower is firing at you, you've gone too far. Empty a full clip into the tower you can see then take cover and reload. If a second man is there, he can take the same position and shoot one full clip. Additional marines should be covering. There isn't a way for more then one marine to shoot at a tower safely. If you are low on ammo, take a guard position. Don't go empty if your teammates have plenty of ammo.
It doesn't advance the goals of the marines to have any people getting shot by offense towers while trying to shoot. It gets really bad when multiple people are try to dodge and shoot the same towers at the same time. Half of the squads ammo will be spent shooting marines and half of the marines will die from offense towers. Take it slow, get it done. Keep yourself and your squad alive.
Naturally you know what defense towers look like. They are the prefered target since they heal the other towers and make you spend more ammo. That doesn't mean that you should kill yourself to take out a defense tower. Take it easy, take turns. Shoot the towers down and advance to your goal.
Exceptions: Every good plan needs some exceptions. If the offense tower isn't active yet (it's bent over and not shooting) shoot it down right away. You can take these towers down so fast that it's just not worth bothering anyone over.
If there is one offense tower that IS active and you are alone, consider making a sprint past it. If you don't hurt it, the aliens don't know that you've just breached their defenses. Since aliens are most careful outside their defenses, they may not notice a stealthy marine in their sprint back to the fight. If you get behind alien lines, find someplace safe-ish and tell the commander where you are and whether you can build (a phase gate or turret factory there). Since you are alone, be aware that the commander may not want to drop anything for you. Ammo and health will attract alien attention and get you killed. Buildings are darn hard to put up in alien territory with no-one to guard your back.
Fresh Bait
Pay attention when you are moving around. When you ride an elevator or open a door, expect a Wall of Lame (WOL). You should Never be killed because you were surprised by offense towers.
When you do find offense towers, evaluate the situation and take cover. Report in that you found offense towers. Report numbers and whether there are defense towers. For example: "Command, In South loop, I have a wall of lame, 8 offense towers." or "Command, outside feedwater, 2 offense towers." After you get the commanders attention, carefully peek at the towers so that they show up on his minimap and on his game screen.
The commander will either order you to engage or to hold back and siege. If he says siege, don't shoot at the towers at all. The aim is to surprise the aliens with a HUGE hole in their defenses, not attract there attention with a few hitpoints of damage that will be healed before they get there to eat you. Since you are trying to surprise the aliens, be quiet. Don't jump around, shoot your friends, use the mouse communications or flash your flashlight.
As a fast rule, one marine (loaded with ammo and carrying lmgs) can take down one tower. So if there are more marines then towers engaging the towers is a fine idea.
Here's the big magic trick to engaging towers safely. Shoot from behind cover. One person in the squad approaches the towers and peeks around cover Just enough so that he can see some of the tower. If the tower is firing at you, you've gone too far. Empty a full clip into the tower you can see then take cover and reload. If a second man is there, he can take the same position and shoot one full clip. Additional marines should be covering. There isn't a way for more then one marine to shoot at a tower safely. If you are low on ammo, take a guard position. Don't go empty if your teammates have plenty of ammo.
It doesn't advance the goals of the marines to have any people getting shot by offense towers while trying to shoot. It gets really bad when multiple people are try to dodge and shoot the same towers at the same time. Half of the squads ammo will be spent shooting marines and half of the marines will die from offense towers. Take it slow, get it done. Keep yourself and your squad alive.
Naturally you know what defense towers look like. They are the prefered target since they heal the other towers and make you spend more ammo. That doesn't mean that you should kill yourself to take out a defense tower. Take it easy, take turns. Shoot the towers down and advance to your goal.
Exceptions: Every good plan needs some exceptions. If the offense tower isn't active yet (it's bent over and not shooting) shoot it down right away. You can take these towers down so fast that it's just not worth bothering anyone over.
If there is one offense tower that IS active and you are alone, consider making a sprint past it. If you don't hurt it, the aliens don't know that you've just breached their defenses. Since aliens are most careful outside their defenses, they may not notice a stealthy marine in their sprint back to the fight. If you get behind alien lines, find someplace safe-ish and tell the commander where you are and whether you can build (a phase gate or turret factory there). Since you are alone, be aware that the commander may not want to drop anything for you. Ammo and health will attract alien attention and get you killed. Buildings are darn hard to put up in alien territory with no-one to guard your back.
Fresh Bait
Comments
So I scan the area, and see 1, maybe 2 OCs sitting there in the middle of the hall. I tell them to just run past them, and I get a "No way! You're retarded, you retard! I'll die! Retard! Siege! Now!"
So please, just RUN PAST THE DAMN THINGS! They have almost a 3 second break between target acquisitioning, and even when they DO target you, if you strafe, you'll be fine until you can get behind a corner.
Yup. Marines are far too afraid to jump offensive towers. You can literally jump onto the things and then over them, and often get away with no damage. You can easily get over any single-file row of towers.
This will result in death very infrequently. It's almost always worth it.
In no-new-player-hands this gun kicks a$$, is cheaper and more fun for marines than "build structure at waypoint"
On most maps, hives can be approached through the vent system, where offensive chambers can't be placed. If more marines used the vent system to bypass the main routes, then more marine games could be won. Sometimes, when marines weld the vents, I think to myself, are the marines keeping the aliens out, or are they keeping themselves in. Often the vents are the best way to bypass the alien offensives, then get close to the hive to set up the seige.
Offensive towers shouldn't put anyone off from going forward. Time is of the essence.
use the mouse communications or flash your flashlight.
i would advise against using any mouse communications as it gives away your position. I have been done because i pressed roger that, the skulk waited around the corner and i ran under him and i die because he suprised me. Later he said he could hear me talking.
Use voice com or type if u have 2.
use the mouse communications or flash your flashlight.
i would advise against using any mouse communications as it gives away your position. I have been done because i pressed roger that, the skulk waited around the corner and i ran under him and i die because he suprised me. Later he said he could hear me talking.
Use voice com or type if u have 2.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
TomCerul actually wrote: Don't jump around, shoot your friends, use the mouse communications or flash your flashlight.
Yep, all four of these things are bad. All of them make noise and attract attention.
hmmm. maybe "Don't jump around, don't shoot your friends, don't use the mouse communications and don't use flash your light."
English doesn't do -(a + b + c + d) well. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Anyway in this situation one marine fireing at the offy tower will take AGES to kill it, even if you get an ammo box for more ammo you'll be there for a [b]LONG TIME[b] because the def towers will be regenning it while you fire, If you get 5 marines all open up on one tower symltaniously it will die VERY fast.
The best method is however to go AROUND the wol, find the 'hole' and run through it, get to a secluded position build a phase gate, even in 1.04 phase gates will be great.
Although when gorges start building their defence to stop people seeing the hive rather than sieging it you may well run into problems.
BlueGhost
when i am a marine, i jump over O chambers like nothing, I think 4 is hard to get by cause you will get hit, but you can jump over 3 easily