Turret Defences In Main Base?

Ladyskunk · January 2003

<div class="IPBDescription">No longer a good tactic?</div> Hi there,

After a forced vacation from my computer (due to a thunderstorm), I finally am able to get back and relearn NS. However, I'm going random rather than running to get to the aliens anymore. I seem to wind up more on the Jarheads side than on the Aliens. I haven't tried any of the various clan servers out there, mostly as I want to at least believe I have the illusion of a chance, so I use the public servers. I don't see many commanders placing a turret factory and adding sentry guns and a seige cannon in the base.

Is it no longer a viable tactic, or considered more of a new commander tactic and no one wants to be called such, to protect your base?

No, I haven't tried the joy of jumping into that chair, everyone else seems to be ready to jump into it.

Mostly curious,

LS

Sycophant · January 2003

Turrets are still sometimes used in the marine main, but they're usually not built until after a hive has been secured.

The most important objective the marine team has right at the start is to secure and fortify a hive. That means ramping the tech to phasegates as fast as possible, then setting a TF and at least minimal defenses in that hive. Once the first hive is secure, the fight for the second one begins.

Building a TF in the main base right away is usually an unwise expense, as it makes ramping tech more difficult. Once the res start flowing in, <i>then</i> it's time to make those static defenses.

TeoH · January 2003

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to last month :)

The general trend in clan games for a while now has been to avoid the use of turret factories all together, this is finally starting to filter through to public servers. They are considered undesirable because of the massive amount of time and resources it takes to put a decent sized farm up, their relative ineffectivness against organsied skulks, and the fighting advantage the marine team has over early skulks.

Typical base defence might be 1/2 players left to guard the base, and possibly some mines to place over the entrances. Decent marines should be able to hold a base like this, and the advantages of doing this over towering up is significant. There is no extended building period at the start of the game, and no large initial outlay of funds, which means marines can get out of the base and start claiming map control as fast as possible. You can have a team heading out of the base within seconds of the map starting, and the resources you save on defence can be better invested in either early phase gates, or an arms lab to start fast teching. Wether you have towers or not, you still need marine(s) at base to cover it untill you are able to phase quickly back. And 1/2 marines can cover a base towers or no towers, making TFs expensive and redundant.

Ladyskunk · January 2003

Thank you,

Thats what I was wondering... I know when I last played, turrets were everywhere in the base, marines stayed in to guard until a tf, turrets and a seige were built.

Ah well, time to put on my red shirt and act like a good little star trek security goon..

Take care all.

LS

XCan · January 2003

Lately tho' more people have realised the power of teching instead of bumrushing 2 hives (which is MUCH less effective now that aliens have figured way to counter it). ( you've prolly seen it). Now what's tech? Simply, TF, 3 turrs, then instead of bumrushing hives bumrushing res noz and teching to ha/hmg as soon as possible. The main reason is I belive that the pg has increased cost and less hp, a single skulk can chump it down in 15 secs I believe

AcKz · January 2003

No longer a good tactic? Was it ever a good tactic? No.

kolokol · January 2003

I will be enourmously impressed to meet a team that can defend their main base without turrets. It is a recipe for disaster..but plz try it when im playing alien!

Doombringer · January 2003

Turrets have really lost their value, especially for defending the main base in the early stages of the game. At that point in time, resources are better spent on an observatory and phase gates to your newly acquired hive. Heck, I see a lot more commanders abandoning the marine start altogether and setting up a new base in the nearest hive.

A raiding party of skulks can easily kill a TF unless marines are covering or you blew hundreds of res points on 'adequate' turret coverage. The only time turrets become truly viable are.. in small games (where you're facing one or two skulks), or when they have the arms lab upgrades.

Vimstl · January 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (TeoH @ Jan 28 2003, 09:01 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Typical base defence might be 1/2 players left to guard the base, and possibly some mines to place over the entrances. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Your view appears to have a bit of clan tunnel vision. This may be true for large teams, but players on pubs often have to deal with small teams, especially early in the game. If 3on3 or 4on4, it is a non-trivial decision to have 1 or 2 marines guard the base. That only leaves 1 or 2 marines operating outside the base, which is somewhat less than the critical mass necessary to capture hive locations. I shy away from NEVER or ALWAYS pontificating. How the marine spawn base is defended is highly dependant on which map you are playing, team size, and skill level.

Ego · January 2003

the reason i think that people are doing it less and less is because turrets do so little damage unupgraded. A skulk can take many hits without dieing froma single turret.
Ive never been big into the whole defend the base thing.
The servers i play on we barely ever do traditional tactics and we mess around ALOT with new things.
the way I comand now is:
first, 2 infantry portals
1 armory
arms lab
upgrade weapon damage 1
upgrade armor 1
then the marines do well in defneding against skulks <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'> thus there being no need for a turret factory or turrets.
yea, and btw, i just save up for the 20 more for armor upgrades.

with armor upgradid 2 times, and weapons upgradid 2 times, that it takes 4!!! hits ( in the general body ) for a skull to kill a BASIC LMG marine.

but the problem with this is that if the marines arent very good then they get owned none the less <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>, but i play with a consistant bunch of peps so i know most of them and i know who isnt good... ( retard <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'> ).

anyways thats just an alternative to turrets in base anyways that i use
and phazegates really arent that great anymore if there isnt a marine standing over them to protect it hehe.

Ego

MaTT · January 2003

After experimenting with marine tactics in 1.04 ive found the best way for success is to bum rush an empty hive, secure about 5-6 res nodes in total and start teching up. If your fast enough then by the time the aliens have fades your marines will be kitted out in HA with HMG's and grens. I tend to fully kit out HA marines with HMG's and Gren launchers in a 3:1 ratio which means in a team of 9 marines 6 will have a HMG and 3 will have grens! then its off to kill hive no2 ASAP!

The main reason for this strategy working is the fact that the arms lab now costs 45 instead of 50, fades cost 54 instead of 44 and grenades now do double the damege they used to do! Basically you tech up faster... The aliens get fades much later.... and when they do get fades they just die under a hail of HMG and gren fire...

Firewater · January 2003

even obs isnt that good right off the bat, unless you keep sending in marines to suicide their D chambers because lvl 3 carapace rapes no weapon upgrades. A good procedure is to get an arms lab early and tech lvl 1 armor and then attack. Lvl 1 armor allows to take 3 skulk bites total before going down, as opposed to 2. 1 marine with mines is a better defender than a turret factory with 4 turrets. Turrets are a waste of money because they are way too expensive and you need a lot of them to secure an area.

In short, upgraded marines>turrets.

Ego · January 2003

i just said that in the post above you hehe, i guess other peps do the arms lab thing more now?

ive done it before 1.04, havnet tryed scince 1.04 but with reduced cost i bet it works even better <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

Zunni · January 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ladyskunk @ Jan 28 2003, 08:48 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
 </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
Interesting thing I'm seeing alot is once the first hive is secure, they move the base to the captured hive....

They plop down a CC and recycle the IP's...

Has anyone had any success in sending the initial marines that spawn at beginning straight to the hive and building IP's there without wasting the res to set them up at main first???

Just wondering...

Scorpion571 · January 2003

Instead of a TF, I usually drop a few mines to place up in the doorways leading to the marine start.

sej · January 2003

5 Mines on floor of base around inf portals / observatory = Far more effective than 5 mines scattered on the entraces of base (considering most marine starts have more than one entrance).

TacT_RaDoX · January 2003

yes zunni, in a bizarre game on hera a few nights back, our comm sent us straight to ventilation, built res node, cc, 2 ip's and gradually built up a base while 1 marine was running around securing res nodes. They got our main base, it took them a while to find the other but it was well secure at that stage at which point we wandered off to claim archiving, 2/3 fades had time to evolve but were mowed down mercilessly along with the hive <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'> which we went on to secure, leaving us to move on to data core eventually and finish up the game, pity though cus he ended up <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='siege.gif'> the last hive!

StandingCow · January 2003

Turrets in base are a bad idea at the beginning, a good start for marines with the changes is:
One Spawn Portal
Armory
Observatory (then get motion tracking ASAP)
CAP EVERY SINGLE RESOURCE YOU CAN!

So far unless someone did something stupid, aliens were really good, or marines really sucky we win that way.

**EDIT** Duh, I better comment on the accual subject, Turrets in base are good for later, when you do so well the aliens go for the desperate last move to take over your main base**/EDIT**

Ego · January 2003

yea, mines are often overlooked <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>, they destroy skulls at the start.. and not to expensive, and worth it not to have any skulls destroy your base when your gone.

what works is surround the spawn points with mines <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>, done that in a game with scorp, needless to say he got owned 8)

Ego

Firewater · January 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ego @ Jan 28 2003, 12:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> i just said that in the post above you hehe, i guess other peps do the arms lab thing more now?

ive done it before 1.04, havnet tryed scince 1.04 but with reduced cost i bet it works even better <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
actually i posted this strat about 6 weeks ago.

and yes it works very well for playing aggressive.

Turret Defences In Main Base?

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