Ha Trains

QuietMischief1 · May 2003

webbing

lots of it

welders don't stop webbing while it's being thrown

you can squeeze enough web in there to slowly disable the entire group

J2pc · May 2003

err.. first of all, lvl 3 aliens r VERY capable (but then again, fully teched marines are too)

I wonder, who would win with equal skills, 7 onos vs 7 ha/hmg/welder

hmm

But here's my 2 cent's'

Get some gorgs to spit up some babblers and move the lerk's in with spores, then let the gorg web a bit, move some more babblers.

By now u should have couple of them webbed up and damaged by the spores. Now move the onos & fade in, backed up by lerk-umbra, health-spray and some more babblers for total chaos, guaranteed win

The best place to pull this kind of stuff is a crossway of 3 or more different paths, so you can engage from different directions. Thereby spreading the hmg fire a bit (cause onos do tent to die very fast from concentrated hmg fire.)

Ok, team coordination will have to be VERY good, and the lerks will have to umbra the gorgs in the first stage, but if pulled off correctly, I don´t see how this could fail (oh, and dc´s around the corner never hurt <img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'> )

Try it. Have fun and absolute havoc

Jabba_The_Hunt · May 2003

Am I the only one that notices that lvl 3 weapons and armor, plus ha and hmgs, are far better than any of the alien evolutions? I mean you could take out those 7 ha but I think it would require planning.

I would suggest making your final stand in a choke point, somewhere the gorge can setup oc's and dc's so that they are getting hit from multiple directions, even if they brake through one of them. At the same time atleast one gorge should be behind the front line surrounded by atleast 4 dc's, this means the aliens have plenty of heal power, the gorges job is to keep the dc's alive, by any means possible (heal, web etc). This is where the aliens real power comes from their ability to heal amazingly quickly. Now for the battle strategy, 4-5 fades backed-up with lerks keep the marines occupied, while an oni or two goes round the back of the marines and starts tearing them to pieces, ok requires timing but I think it would be the aliens only hope.

J2pc · May 2003

Errr, I don't agree with you (Could be a matter of opinion though)
But that doesn't matter to much

Ok, there I go up there is my tac, this is why go the CHAOS way

Teacher: What's the friend of every marine
Class: His team sir
Teacher: And what else
Class: The commander sir
Teacher: What happens when a lone ha/hmg goes rambooing lvl 3 aliens?
Class: He get's pwnd his @ss of by the evil aliens
Teacher: good, and why is that?
Class: Because he doesn't get welded when hurt, and has no backup for when he's reloading his slow hmg
Teacher: Very good children, now what happens when 7 ha/hmg/welder go out the door on their way to alien hives? They pwn everything sir.
Teacher: Hmm, but what if they panic, don't welder eachother, get confused.
Class: We don't wanna think about that sir
Teacher: And why is that?
Class: Because when ha's dont get welderede, there armore goes down, and when they don't organize reloads, it's very likely that on 1 point, they'll all be reloading.
Teacher: So what's the no1 enemy of any marine?
Class: Chaos and anything that creates it, like babblers, webs, spores etc.

At least, this is how I see it, Break the marine-formation, confuse them, make chaos. Spawn babblers to waste their ammo, put up webs, so while evading everything else, they'll get stuck in them. Spray spores to soften them up while webbed/moving away. Move in the rest to finish them up when they're running low on their clips.

Too bad that in pubs, everybody goes rushing them, and we all die and loose <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'> If u win, move directly to their nearest base and take it out (don't expect any heave resistance)

Oh, u know what is REALLY evil, keep attacking them with almost everyting u got, then move 1 skulk with regen/adren or something in marine spawn, and start with the IP <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wow.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wow.gif'>

Ulatoh · May 2003

ya, webbing i think is the counter... last night in a game on the Evolutionarily Challenged server, i went gorg just after we were getting pwned at sewer, and actively webbed the ha's, 3 of them, and the skulks cleared them out, or they ran away, meanwhile, the other skulks bit their base, and that distracted them. We ended up winning, going from losing 1 hive and being hive one against a team of HA to winning with 2 and a half hives (i built gen, wehre they relocated, behind their backs.)

Hawkeye · May 2003

Well a lerk and a fade could stop a group of HAs that are marching to some destination. Umbra and acid rocket will push them back. That is all you need, to stall them. If one of them comes after you with a knive, keep lerk umbraing and slash him.. he stands no chance in a melee fight. Also good to tear them apart by attacking from the rear, but be prepared to get hit with a lot of bullets when they find out you are there.

In general, I agree that chaos does a lot to hurt their chances. Supposing a HA group is clan-like organized and knows what to do in every situation, there isn't much you can do to stop them, because they will keep each other alive no matter what. Ideally, an HA group would have at least 1 HMG dude defending from the rear (as a warning to the rest of the group by firing if enemy is spotted). There would be 2 grenaders and the rest being HMG and they ALL have welders. Supposing they came across gorge webbing everyone, everyone fixates fire on gorge and moves little. There should always be at least one guy welding the rest of the group at all times. If several onos attacks, everybody focuses fire on the closest one (yes, works just as well as starcraft). Grenader always targets lerks with umbra, and HMG guys always focus on closest enemy (with exception of gorge). In the case that the team is under heavy attack, 2 or 3 welders will be repairing armor. If a HA group of 6-7 people follow these conditions, it will make them far more effective. It is only when HAs split off or don't do their job do problems arise. Otherwise, nobody will die, the death wagon will continue to ride.

To stop something like this, you'd need probably 3 onos.. all 3 to attack one HA guy and kill him by the time all 3 onos die. In any case, it is a huge sacrifice to aliens to kill 1 guy. Gets easier with less HA guys, but by the time aliens try again, the HAs probably would have replenished their numbers.

QQQ2 · May 2003

As an onos with three hives the best startegy is to primal scream just behind the corner from where the marines are, then rush them. With the primal scream boost your horn is moving hella fast and can chop up an HA fairly easily. Combining this with jumping around and frequent crouching will make you much more difficult to kill (and we all know the onos' hit box is not perfect). On any public server 7 oni versus 7 HA (any weapons) should end in a slaughter with the all the HA dead. I am fairly confident 3 oni could take on 7 HA, assuming the oni are skilled. Contrary to popular belief, being an effective onos does take skill.

Eclipse · May 2003

3 Hive situation vs. HA is kinda of a no brainer, get a few suicide skulks to soften em up, have a pair of fades and lerks pelt from a distance while an onos moves in with charge. Welding is nice but it usually wont work against all that.

But what do you do when you have 2 hives to their one, and they manage to get the welder choo choo going? Now is when it gets tricky

I've found that a very fluid team can beat HA trains. A couple skulks, a lerk or 2, a fade or 2, a gorge. Best expereince involves lerks flying in fast and throwing umbra up, followed by the fades and skulks who zoom in and tear em to pieces with melee. Gorge can try to web and heal spray. Thats about all you can do, and pray you can kill a few. Because once that happens marines tend to get disorganized because their one or 2 less heavies so they have to divvy up the welding even more, and then a second wave can usually finish it off.

Barring that gg. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'>

ElvenThief · May 2003

Mmmm. I was suprised to see how many people mentioned webbing, as these HA were obviously organized. Every HA train I've seen has been able to weld through webs like a hot knife through butter. I guess it really depends on the competance of the team.

I have to agree with everybody else though: the way to counter is to kill the resource flow. Add a few onos, as obviously you had 3 hives.

FD_Razmataz · May 2003

the welding through webs thing is not only a matter of competence but, often, luck. If the HAs are all at the stage where they've given up on waiting for their reload and are welding their teammates (as has been mentioned) then all it takes is one of the forward ones to notice the gorge putting up webs and he'll weld forward as they move instead of into the group. He's the reason the webs come straight down. The others could be firing... if only public marines were that organised eh?

trick is, to web them up while they're firing, not welding, and/or when there's something distracting them. cos once you have the marine(s) webbed, it doesn't matter whether he was welding his teammate on the far side of him, or unloading into the hive; he's stuck for a good few seconds, more than enough to get more webs up his friends, and refresh his one before it expires <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

sej · May 2003

play aliens who would use dc/web/lerks/bilebombs/onos/

HA gets stopped regularly on the server i play with hive 2 aliens let alone have 3 aliens.

1 Onos can take out at least 2 ha hmg btw.

Jummeh · May 2003

sorry in my post i had omitted that we did indeed have GLs, i think the main thing is that the rine team is organised and when the HA train gets momentum, there is very little time for the aliens to regroup somewhere and make a mass attack. couple that with a good comm that gave ammo and med then it is chapter 11 for the aliens.

We had 2 oni come at us at one point, the first one charged at us and keeled over with just one horn attack. the second one managed to hit this guys a few times but very soon died aswell. some welding and a few med packs later every1 was full health again.

It certainly will be interesting to see 7x fully upgraded HA vs 7 oni fully upgraded and see who wins. ne1 up for a trial?

BTW: Those of you who posted all those interesting counter strats, how would you have the time to set this all up, although the HA is slow but all that combined firepower kills a lot of things very quickly.

Maj_Mistake · May 2003

I would say attack the rine's base, if all the marines are out of the base then it's easy pickings for one onos solo, everyone else can concentrate on the train. If the comm tries to fend off the onos then there's no more health or ammo for the train, and anyone who spawns at an ip will be in normal armor with lmg so no problem for onos. If the marines get a pg up or something then they'll get split up. The onos should be able to take one or two out as they come through the pg, the aliens which were attacking the train can either warp through the pg and probably die or get themselves organised together because now they have time. The problem here though is if the marines ignore the attack on their base and the defending aliens can't hold them off long enough before they get all 3 hives. Still if the games ends with everyone dead except 2 marines or one onos then I'd say that was a good finish. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'>

wlibaers · May 2003

Generally, if the alien team was bad enough to let them get that much res, they're not going to be good enough to beat them. But assuming a competent team, there are ways to do it.

Webbing. Don't shoot webs in front of them. Shoot webs so that, the moment the strand gets formed a marine is IN the web strand. Welders don't help against this kind of webbing, but depending on the location it can be difficult to do.

Fades, at long distance, acid rocket. It's important not to spread the rockets, as they have a very small splash radius. For example, all shoot the leftmost or rightmost guy, or all center (probably best as even if you miss you'll still hit something). Acid rockets don't do much damage, but if multiple fades all attack the same target, it adds up quickly. Half the fades should crouch, others standing behind those. That way you get two shooting fades for the target size of one fade.
If one is left behind or the whole HA team is looking in one direction, a big skulk rush focused on one of them can take a HA down quickly. This isn't going to work if they have motion tracking (the comm will warn them), and those skulks are toast once they figure out what's happening.

Opposite of this strategy: bile bomb them. The bad thing is you have to be close. Probably best done around a corner with a gorge to insta-web anyone who gets past the corner. The huge splash can damage all marines in the crowd simultaneously. The idea is to make total damage to the group bigger than total weld capacity. Requires adrenaline and multiple fades. Add two or three skulks to rush around the corner and xenocide (no more than that, or you fill up the spawn queue without adding extra explosive capability). Lerks with spores help too.

Oni are good, but only if they can get very close before taking fire, so wait at corners.

the_stalker · May 2003

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Talesin @ May 24 2003, 11:31 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> 'What do you need?'

'Onos.... lots of Onos.'  </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> 
lol no you dont you just need an intelligent team ive seen an ha train get taken down by skulks <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'> <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif'> <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif'>

Skillzilla1 · May 2003

All you need is teamwork, and the ability to utilize all your skills (webbing, primal scream ect)

Talesin · May 2003

Heh... I'm guessing that people just don't get modified media references. It's ironic, see? They don't have guns, so... gaaaaahhh. Never mind. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'>

Ha Trains

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