Small And Large Server Res Balance
matso
Master of Patches Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
Master of Patches Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
<div class="IPBDescription">Adapt, proposed early game res drain</div> <u>Background</u>
As is known to most experienced players, larger servers (10v10+) strongly favor the marines, while small servers (<6v6) are very, very hard for the marines.
There are two major reasons for this, namely alien spawn speed and the resource model. I'll leave aside the spawn rate for now, and concentrate on the resource model.
Both sides get (10+num_players * num_res_nodes * 2.3) resource per minute. The Kharaa splits this income between all living players, with gorges getting three times as much as other Kharaa. This means that a gorge is basically getting the same amount of resources (in fact, due to the base 10 res per minute, a gorge will get slightly (20%) less res in a 16v16 game compared to a 4v4 game) no matter the number of players, until 8-9 minutes have passed at which time the aliens fill up and all of the resources goes to the gorge.
Normally, the alien second hive is finished at about the 11 minute point, and fades appear at the 13-14 minute point . We can say that the resource model works very well for the Kharaa, as it ensures the same development speed no matter the teamsize.
However, the marine story is quite different. A marine team has to pay a constant cost to build a base/fortify/research - the same cost in resources, no matter the teamsize. There is almost NO extra cost involved for the marines as the teamsize increases (apart from possibly building an extra IP or two, or adding more turrets to keep out the larger swarms of skulks). Small teams are also hurt by the absence of the commander from the battlefield compared to larger teams.
Only when the marine team has finished teching up and needs to equip the marines with HMG/HA does any per-marine cost enter the equation.
This has savage consequences for the balance of the game. This table list the time needed to build a base, two fortifications with siege, research MT/AU1/WU1/HMG/HA and equip half the marine team with HA/HMG/Welder depending on the number of res towers held - basically, one-hive lockdown and tech-up.
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->
Total cst #plrs 01,00 02,00 03,00 04,00 05,00 06,00
_606,67 04,00 32,74 22,91 17,89 14,84 12,80 11,33
_648,83 05,00 31,20 20,99 16,06 13,16 11,24 09,88
_691,00 06,00 29,96 19,55 14,73 11,95 10,14 08,87
_733,17 07,00 28,93 18,42 13,71 11,04 09,32 08,12
_775,33 08,00 28,08 17,51 12,90 10,33 08,68 07,54
_817,50 09,00 27,35 16,76 12,25 09,76 08,17 07,08
_859,67 10,00 26,72 16,14 11,72 09,29 07,76 06,70
_901,83 11,00 26,17 15,61 11,27 08,90 07,41 06,39
_944,00 12,00 25,69 15,15 10,88 08,57 07,12 06,13
_986,17 13,00 25,27 14,76 10,55 08,29 06,87 05,90
1028,33 14,00 24,89 14,41 10,27 08,04 06,66 05,71
1070,50 15,00 24,55 14,11 10,01 07,83 06,47 05,54
1112,67 16,00 24,25 13,84 09,79 07,64 06,30 05,39
<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
As can be seen, if the marines hold 3 res nodes, they have plenty of time to get all the resources they need in larger games. Do note that this INCLUDES the equipment cost - so what it means is that by the given time, half the marine team will be in HA with HMG/Welder.
Two things should be noted.
1. Small marine teams are dead. If you are playing a 4v4 game, the marines don't have a reasonable chance to hold enough RT to get HA by the times the fades appear.
2. Large alien teams don't have a reasonable chance to hold the marines down to few enough resource nodes to stop them from getting HA. In fact, if the marines tech rush (ie, builds no fortifications and skips MT/WU1/AU1) and just stays in there own base the whole time, they will have equipped 3xHA/HMG/Welder at the 9 minute point. Of course, if they do get ONE res node and tech rush, the heavy squad will appear at about the same time the gorge builds his first RT tower (about 5 minute point).
-----------
There are two possible solutions
1. Mess with the marine resource model so smaller marine teams gets more resources and larger teams gets less
or
2. Add in some kind of per-marine resource drain in the early game, so larger marine teams have more expenses (as proposed by coil).
A combination of the two is of course possible, and it's what I'll propose.
First of all, small marine teams need more resources. The simplest way of achieveing this is to give them a bigger base income, ie instead of 10 res per minute, we increase it to 20 or 30 res per minute. This will give small marine teams a BIG boost - for a 4v4 game, it will be as if they had one or two extra RTs. For a 16v16 game, it will be just a quarter or half of a RT extra.
To compensate for the extra income, we need some extra per-player expenses.
I'd like to introduce something I call "adaption". Whenever the marines gets access to better tech, before they can use it they (or rather, their equipment) must be adapted to use it. Adaption costs resources and time - every tick a marine has an adaption need, one resource is paid for it, and he scores one adaption point towards whatever tech he is currently adapting to. If there are no resources available, no adaption is done (probably needs to speed up adaption for newly entered players though - if resources are available, adaption is done for any non-recent tech needed). If a marine player leaves, all resources are returned to the commander.
Before a tech had been adapted to, the benefit is not available - can't pickup the new weapon, don't get the better armor, don't get to see the MT circles etc.
As we want most of the cost for research to be in the form of adaption, we lower the costs of the basic research (and maybe lowers the time .. but that's probably not necessary). So, starting the HMG research might be just 10 ... but once researched, each marine costs another 12 res to adapt to the HMG. Thus, HMG research for a 4v4 team would cost 58 res in total, while a 16v16 team would pay 202 res (remember .. the marines are getting more resources, so actually a 4v4 team has an easier time to pay those 58 compared to the 35 it cost previously).
After having fiddled with the costs of buildings and research, the above table (ie, cost to tech up and get half team into HMG/HA) gets a much more even look:
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->
Total cst #plrs 01,00 02,00 03,00 04,00 05,00 06,00
_680,67 04,00 17,36 14,52 12,58 11,18 10,11 09,28
_773,83 05,00 18,65 15,02 12,68 11,05 09,85 08,93
_867,00 06,00 19,79 15,43 12,76 10,95 09,65 08,66
_960,17 07,00 20,83 15,79 12,82 10,87 09,49 08,45
1053,33 08,00 21,76 16,10 12,88 10,80 09,36 08,29
1146,50 09,00 22,61 16,37 12,93 10,75 09,25 08,15
1239,67 10,00 23,39 16,60 12,97 10,70 09,16 08,03
1332,83 11,00 24,10 16,81 13,00 10,66 09,08 07,94
1426,00 12,00 24,76 17,00 13,03 10,63 09,01 07,85
1519,17 13,00 25,36 17,16 13,06 10,60 08,95 07,78
1612,33 14,00 25,92 17,31 13,08 10,57 08,90 07,72
1705,50 15,00 26,44 17,45 13,10 10,54 08,86 07,66
1798,67 16,00 26,93 17,57 13,12 10,52 08,82 07,61
<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
Note how flat the curve is around the 3 and 4 RT area. Also note that it now resembles the row for 8v8 players in the previous table. Quite intentional, as I belive that's where the balance for good games are right now.
Most of all, note the effect for small marine teams. They would have a fighting chance to do something, other than die (thanks to the extra base resources).
Tech rushing is of course still possible. By skipping MT, upgrades and fortifications, it would be possible for a 16 player marine team to get a 3xHeavy group out at the 12/8/6 minute time if they held 1/2/3 res towers, respectivly. Various rushes are of course still possible, but will be a fair bit slower than today (except for very small teams).
It may well be that a large marine team in itself becomes more powerful than a large alien team, due to various strengths of the sides (range vs melee). However, it's really hard to say that, as such nuances are swamped due to the excess of resources.
There may also be other problems with large servers. As the resources increases, the marines can use it to pave the world with turrets instead of teching up - in a 16v16 game and holding 3 res nodes, the marine commander can build about 8 turrets per minute. Two hive lockdown with a vengeance. I'm not certain how to solve that problem, really - maybe adding a turret limit akin to the alien chamber limits, or adding a support cost for each turret... hard to say.
The spawn problem also remaines to be solved, but there has been various solutions proposed to that already.
Have a look at the <a href='http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~matso/resmdl2.xls' target='_blank'>spreadsheet</a> that I've used to find out the above tables. Feel free to play around with it, it can be quite enlightening.
As is known to most experienced players, larger servers (10v10+) strongly favor the marines, while small servers (<6v6) are very, very hard for the marines.
There are two major reasons for this, namely alien spawn speed and the resource model. I'll leave aside the spawn rate for now, and concentrate on the resource model.
Both sides get (10+num_players * num_res_nodes * 2.3) resource per minute. The Kharaa splits this income between all living players, with gorges getting three times as much as other Kharaa. This means that a gorge is basically getting the same amount of resources (in fact, due to the base 10 res per minute, a gorge will get slightly (20%) less res in a 16v16 game compared to a 4v4 game) no matter the number of players, until 8-9 minutes have passed at which time the aliens fill up and all of the resources goes to the gorge.
Normally, the alien second hive is finished at about the 11 minute point, and fades appear at the 13-14 minute point . We can say that the resource model works very well for the Kharaa, as it ensures the same development speed no matter the teamsize.
However, the marine story is quite different. A marine team has to pay a constant cost to build a base/fortify/research - the same cost in resources, no matter the teamsize. There is almost NO extra cost involved for the marines as the teamsize increases (apart from possibly building an extra IP or two, or adding more turrets to keep out the larger swarms of skulks). Small teams are also hurt by the absence of the commander from the battlefield compared to larger teams.
Only when the marine team has finished teching up and needs to equip the marines with HMG/HA does any per-marine cost enter the equation.
This has savage consequences for the balance of the game. This table list the time needed to build a base, two fortifications with siege, research MT/AU1/WU1/HMG/HA and equip half the marine team with HA/HMG/Welder depending on the number of res towers held - basically, one-hive lockdown and tech-up.
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->
Total cst #plrs 01,00 02,00 03,00 04,00 05,00 06,00
_606,67 04,00 32,74 22,91 17,89 14,84 12,80 11,33
_648,83 05,00 31,20 20,99 16,06 13,16 11,24 09,88
_691,00 06,00 29,96 19,55 14,73 11,95 10,14 08,87
_733,17 07,00 28,93 18,42 13,71 11,04 09,32 08,12
_775,33 08,00 28,08 17,51 12,90 10,33 08,68 07,54
_817,50 09,00 27,35 16,76 12,25 09,76 08,17 07,08
_859,67 10,00 26,72 16,14 11,72 09,29 07,76 06,70
_901,83 11,00 26,17 15,61 11,27 08,90 07,41 06,39
_944,00 12,00 25,69 15,15 10,88 08,57 07,12 06,13
_986,17 13,00 25,27 14,76 10,55 08,29 06,87 05,90
1028,33 14,00 24,89 14,41 10,27 08,04 06,66 05,71
1070,50 15,00 24,55 14,11 10,01 07,83 06,47 05,54
1112,67 16,00 24,25 13,84 09,79 07,64 06,30 05,39
<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
As can be seen, if the marines hold 3 res nodes, they have plenty of time to get all the resources they need in larger games. Do note that this INCLUDES the equipment cost - so what it means is that by the given time, half the marine team will be in HA with HMG/Welder.
Two things should be noted.
1. Small marine teams are dead. If you are playing a 4v4 game, the marines don't have a reasonable chance to hold enough RT to get HA by the times the fades appear.
2. Large alien teams don't have a reasonable chance to hold the marines down to few enough resource nodes to stop them from getting HA. In fact, if the marines tech rush (ie, builds no fortifications and skips MT/WU1/AU1) and just stays in there own base the whole time, they will have equipped 3xHA/HMG/Welder at the 9 minute point. Of course, if they do get ONE res node and tech rush, the heavy squad will appear at about the same time the gorge builds his first RT tower (about 5 minute point).
-----------
There are two possible solutions
1. Mess with the marine resource model so smaller marine teams gets more resources and larger teams gets less
or
2. Add in some kind of per-marine resource drain in the early game, so larger marine teams have more expenses (as proposed by coil).
A combination of the two is of course possible, and it's what I'll propose.
First of all, small marine teams need more resources. The simplest way of achieveing this is to give them a bigger base income, ie instead of 10 res per minute, we increase it to 20 or 30 res per minute. This will give small marine teams a BIG boost - for a 4v4 game, it will be as if they had one or two extra RTs. For a 16v16 game, it will be just a quarter or half of a RT extra.
To compensate for the extra income, we need some extra per-player expenses.
I'd like to introduce something I call "adaption". Whenever the marines gets access to better tech, before they can use it they (or rather, their equipment) must be adapted to use it. Adaption costs resources and time - every tick a marine has an adaption need, one resource is paid for it, and he scores one adaption point towards whatever tech he is currently adapting to. If there are no resources available, no adaption is done (probably needs to speed up adaption for newly entered players though - if resources are available, adaption is done for any non-recent tech needed). If a marine player leaves, all resources are returned to the commander.
Before a tech had been adapted to, the benefit is not available - can't pickup the new weapon, don't get the better armor, don't get to see the MT circles etc.
As we want most of the cost for research to be in the form of adaption, we lower the costs of the basic research (and maybe lowers the time .. but that's probably not necessary). So, starting the HMG research might be just 10 ... but once researched, each marine costs another 12 res to adapt to the HMG. Thus, HMG research for a 4v4 team would cost 58 res in total, while a 16v16 team would pay 202 res (remember .. the marines are getting more resources, so actually a 4v4 team has an easier time to pay those 58 compared to the 35 it cost previously).
After having fiddled with the costs of buildings and research, the above table (ie, cost to tech up and get half team into HMG/HA) gets a much more even look:
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->
Total cst #plrs 01,00 02,00 03,00 04,00 05,00 06,00
_680,67 04,00 17,36 14,52 12,58 11,18 10,11 09,28
_773,83 05,00 18,65 15,02 12,68 11,05 09,85 08,93
_867,00 06,00 19,79 15,43 12,76 10,95 09,65 08,66
_960,17 07,00 20,83 15,79 12,82 10,87 09,49 08,45
1053,33 08,00 21,76 16,10 12,88 10,80 09,36 08,29
1146,50 09,00 22,61 16,37 12,93 10,75 09,25 08,15
1239,67 10,00 23,39 16,60 12,97 10,70 09,16 08,03
1332,83 11,00 24,10 16,81 13,00 10,66 09,08 07,94
1426,00 12,00 24,76 17,00 13,03 10,63 09,01 07,85
1519,17 13,00 25,36 17,16 13,06 10,60 08,95 07,78
1612,33 14,00 25,92 17,31 13,08 10,57 08,90 07,72
1705,50 15,00 26,44 17,45 13,10 10,54 08,86 07,66
1798,67 16,00 26,93 17,57 13,12 10,52 08,82 07,61
<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
Note how flat the curve is around the 3 and 4 RT area. Also note that it now resembles the row for 8v8 players in the previous table. Quite intentional, as I belive that's where the balance for good games are right now.
Most of all, note the effect for small marine teams. They would have a fighting chance to do something, other than die (thanks to the extra base resources).
Tech rushing is of course still possible. By skipping MT, upgrades and fortifications, it would be possible for a 16 player marine team to get a 3xHeavy group out at the 12/8/6 minute time if they held 1/2/3 res towers, respectivly. Various rushes are of course still possible, but will be a fair bit slower than today (except for very small teams).
It may well be that a large marine team in itself becomes more powerful than a large alien team, due to various strengths of the sides (range vs melee). However, it's really hard to say that, as such nuances are swamped due to the excess of resources.
There may also be other problems with large servers. As the resources increases, the marines can use it to pave the world with turrets instead of teching up - in a 16v16 game and holding 3 res nodes, the marine commander can build about 8 turrets per minute. Two hive lockdown with a vengeance. I'm not certain how to solve that problem, really - maybe adding a turret limit akin to the alien chamber limits, or adding a support cost for each turret... hard to say.
The spawn problem also remaines to be solved, but there has been various solutions proposed to that already.
Have a look at the <a href='http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~matso/resmdl2.xls' target='_blank'>spreadsheet</a> that I've used to find out the above tables. Feel free to play around with it, it can be quite enlightening.
Comments
for eg, 1 hive aliens get max 13 res only (just enough for a gorge, go gorge to go lerk)
but that would prolly make everyone want to turn into a gorge as 2nd hive is going up <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
The current alien model really works. 11-12 minutes until 2nd hive is built, then 2-3 minutes more until the fades appear, no matter the teamsize.
The problem is on the marine side of the fence.
It's never so simple as who controls the res nodes.
If a marine player leaves, all resources are returned to the commander. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hey now that's only fair if when an alien leaves, all his resources go to the gorges! <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
It's never so simple as who controls the res nodes. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
don't let'em get the gorge. Go sensory and hide like a mutha, or get (good) defender(s).
The resource model is shaky, but its skill that decides each game.
[edit] ever killed a marine trying to get a resnode up somewhere? it's a great waste of 22 resources[/edit]
However, 12-13 minutes until the 2nd hive is *right* on the money, and it's clear that the marine model doesn't work in this sense. I don't really like this suggestion, unfortunately, since it's avoidable, as you said - turret farms could easily take over as they did in 1.0.
That said, I think it's sort of a moot point... the resource model is going to be altered pretty heavily for 1.1, on both sides. Trying to balance on the existing system isn't really worth too much right now. However, it's great that the imbalance between the build models (gorge gets ~same RPs no matter the team size, while commander gets much more) has been pinpointed, so that it can be addressed by the devs and playtesters. (:
I would like to see something done about this, if only for my poor 32 player server alien brothers <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
The resource model is shaky, but its skill that decides each game.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes and no. Take two decent teams that knows the basics of the game. My prediction is that the Kharaa will win all games at the 4v4, 5v5 levels. The Frontiersmen will win all games at the 12v12 and higher game levels. The Kharaa will win most 6v6 games, the marines most 11v11 games. In between, you have a fairly even fight.
Skill still matters of course ... a really unskilled marine team vs a really good alien team may certainly see alien victories in a 16v16 game. However, a really good alien team vs a decent marine team won't win a 16v16 game.
Skill still matters ... but the resource model matters more and more the further away from 8v8 you go.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
ever killed a marine trying to get a resnode up somewhere? it's a great waste of 22 resources
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's an interesting point ... just how great a waste is it? Lets take a look - just how much does it cost a marine team to loose a res tower, counting in seconds to replace it?
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->
__ 01,00 02,00 03,00 04,00 05,00 06,00
04 68,75 46,48 35,11 28,21 23,57 20,25
05 61,40 40,00 29,66 23,57 19,56 16,71
06 55,46 35,11 25,68 20,25 16,71 14,22
07 50,57 31,28 22,64 17,74 14,59 12,38
08 46,48 28,21 20,25 15,79 12,94 10,96
09 43,00 25,68 18,31 14,22 11,63 09,84
10 40,00 23,57 16,71 12,94 10,56 08,92
11 37,39 21,78 15,37 11,87 09,67 08,16
12 35,11 20,25 14,22 10,96 08,92 07,52
13 33,08 18,91 13,24 10,19 08,28 06,97
14 31,28 17,74 12,38 09,51 07,72 06,50
15 29,66 16,71 11,63 08,92 07,23 06,08
16 28,21 15,79 10,96 08,40 06,80 05,72
<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
As can be seen, it's a great loss for a small marine team ... if it's the first res tower dropped, it can loose the game for them, as they have to wait more than a minute before dropping a new one. Even if it's the second tower or third tower, we are looking at a significant loss...
Compare that with the 16v16 game... once the marines have captured three res nodes, the income is great enough that the marine commander can drop restowers in front of a gorges nose, forcing him to call in a skulk to dispose of it. If it slows the alien hive by 11 seconds, it will have paid for itself.
Another way of seeing it is to consider how long time it takes for a restower to pay for itself. Also quite interesting...
<!--c1--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>CODE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='CODE'><!--ec1-->
__ 001,00
04 143,48
05 114,78
06 095,65
07 081,99
08 071,74
09 063,77
10 057,39
11 052,17
12 047,83
13 044,15
14 040,99
15 038,26
16 035,87
<!--c2--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--ec2-->
For a 4v4 marine team, a tower is required to live for more than two minutes before the investment pays for itself.
For a 16v16 marine team, you are looking at a quarter of that (naturally).
This indicates that to balance things properly, you need to flatten the resource curve some - ie, instead of having each extra tower give num_players * 2.3 res extra per minute, you might want to give (10+num_players*1.0) res extra per minute. Would give smaller marine teams more resources, while larger would have less.
However, it might adversely affect the midgame balance, as the marines will have trouble equipping an equal part of their force with HA/HMG. OTOH, that might not be a real problem, as the lifetime of large heavy marine groups are probably better than small groups of heavy marine groups anyhow... the dynamics of balanced large servers are unknown, as none exists.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->
Of course, voogru servers are much more challenging since aliens can give res to gorges, each other and hives to make a 2nd in under 5mins, and to pool res to make a fade soon as that 2nd hive is up.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, the vogruu mods probably (I don't play vogruu myself) makes his server far more of an even game, compared to other large servers (voogru is 12v12, about). Speeding up the early alien game is one way of doing so .. but I'd rater slow down the marines than speed up the aliens.
Also, if you added vogruu mods to SMALLER servers, the marines would be toast.
If they had 4 res points (including spawn one)
Thx, im lazy <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> , ' . , ' . , ' . <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
I'm equally glad it's not me who has to do it because I think it's gonna be a major headache to sort out <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
When you have the res for it, give two guys jetpacks and heavy machines guns, and send them via the venting systems to do a hit and run on the hive, leaving all the hive's defenses completely alone. As the aliens scramble to resurrect their fallen hive you are either repeating the quick hive kill on their other hive or you are using the time you have bought yourself to research upgrades (which make ALL the difference vs fades when you meet them).
Don't forget that even if the marines play a man down because they have a commander, the aliens play a man down too, because their gorge spends most of its time away from combat.