Need Some Help Comming
Demented
Join Date: 2003-07-30 Member: 18573Members
Join Date: 2003-07-30 Member: 18573Members
<div class="IPBDescription">my third time</div> Prior to this day, I have had 2 games in which I served as a full-time commander. Both were in my first week of playing NS. Both resulted in a crushing defeat in the hands of 2-hive fades (the good ol' days). Both times I got flamed by my teammates for a good reason. Both experiences did nothing other than to remind me that noobs should not comm and that comming was not for me.
That was 9 months ago.
Now, I must say that I have amassed sufficent field experience to warrant another try on the comm chair. Now, using the typical lockdown-and-tech strategy is what I have in mind. However, knowing exactly what to do is pretty difficult, especially since most grunts are unable to fully understand the commander's situation. The following would be what I have in mind, with ns_eclipse as an example.
1. Build 1 ip and an armoury. Give out 2 packs of mines and a shotgun (this should go to the most competent member of your team). Send everybody to station access alpha and cap the res node. Electrify it.
2. Send your team to horseshoe (or triad if main turns out to be their hive). Cap the rt, but do not electrify it. Head to main ASAP. Your shotgunner should keep the aliens at bay.
3. At main/ec, cap the rt and build a tf, 6 turrets and an obs. Electrify horseshoe/triad rt, or rebuild it if necessary. (shouldn't happen as constant flow of marines to main/ec should keep horseshoe/triad pretty safe). Research phase tech, then link up main and marine start. Get more turrets if necessary.
4. Construct an arms lab, and upgrade armour and weapons to level 1. Upgrade the armoury. My estimate is that the aliens should be in the process of constructing their second hive. An enterprising gorge may have had set up ocs near your electrified rts. Kill it. Attempt to kill some alien rts. A third pack of mines or a tf may be needed to aid in base defence.
5. Construct a proto lab and tech to HA. Focus on keeping your rts in working order. Bilebombing gorges will become extremly troublesome. Do not stretch your troops too thin by building more rts since you are more likely to experience a loss than a profit. If fades/oni appear, shotguns/HMGs may become essential. If you are sucessful in doing so, upgrade weapons and armour to level 2. Try to save up resources by cutting down on equipment distribution.
6. Equip as many marines as possible with HA and welders, as well as heavy weapons. Have at least one GLer in your squad. A minimum of 4-5 marines must have HA and all MUST move together. If they require babysitting in order to stick together, do so. Get LA marines to support the heavy squad by dropping welders.
7. Fortify marine start with some more turrets since oni are likely to appear. Head down to main/ec, set up a siege base, kill the hive and then secure it. Move to cc and repeat. Individual aliens should not pose too much of a threat. Oni and fades are a problem, but you've gotta live with it. If you HA team is sucessful in killing both hives, you've won.
One issue that has been in my mind is time. Considering the insane pace in which aliens expand, what is the maximum level of expenditure on defence that I can afford in order to keep up with the aliens in terms of res? How long can I wait before sending in the heavies?
Flames? Comments?
That was 9 months ago.
Now, I must say that I have amassed sufficent field experience to warrant another try on the comm chair. Now, using the typical lockdown-and-tech strategy is what I have in mind. However, knowing exactly what to do is pretty difficult, especially since most grunts are unable to fully understand the commander's situation. The following would be what I have in mind, with ns_eclipse as an example.
1. Build 1 ip and an armoury. Give out 2 packs of mines and a shotgun (this should go to the most competent member of your team). Send everybody to station access alpha and cap the res node. Electrify it.
2. Send your team to horseshoe (or triad if main turns out to be their hive). Cap the rt, but do not electrify it. Head to main ASAP. Your shotgunner should keep the aliens at bay.
3. At main/ec, cap the rt and build a tf, 6 turrets and an obs. Electrify horseshoe/triad rt, or rebuild it if necessary. (shouldn't happen as constant flow of marines to main/ec should keep horseshoe/triad pretty safe). Research phase tech, then link up main and marine start. Get more turrets if necessary.
4. Construct an arms lab, and upgrade armour and weapons to level 1. Upgrade the armoury. My estimate is that the aliens should be in the process of constructing their second hive. An enterprising gorge may have had set up ocs near your electrified rts. Kill it. Attempt to kill some alien rts. A third pack of mines or a tf may be needed to aid in base defence.
5. Construct a proto lab and tech to HA. Focus on keeping your rts in working order. Bilebombing gorges will become extremly troublesome. Do not stretch your troops too thin by building more rts since you are more likely to experience a loss than a profit. If fades/oni appear, shotguns/HMGs may become essential. If you are sucessful in doing so, upgrade weapons and armour to level 2. Try to save up resources by cutting down on equipment distribution.
6. Equip as many marines as possible with HA and welders, as well as heavy weapons. Have at least one GLer in your squad. A minimum of 4-5 marines must have HA and all MUST move together. If they require babysitting in order to stick together, do so. Get LA marines to support the heavy squad by dropping welders.
7. Fortify marine start with some more turrets since oni are likely to appear. Head down to main/ec, set up a siege base, kill the hive and then secure it. Move to cc and repeat. Individual aliens should not pose too much of a threat. Oni and fades are a problem, but you've gotta live with it. If you HA team is sucessful in killing both hives, you've won.
One issue that has been in my mind is time. Considering the insane pace in which aliens expand, what is the maximum level of expenditure on defence that I can afford in order to keep up with the aliens in terms of res? How long can I wait before sending in the heavies?
Flames? Comments?
Comments
Sounds like you can think through a game, so go try it out. I started off pretty slow, liking my defenses and spending way too much res on them. I have come to learn that the best form of defense is attack.
Good luck now go have some fun.
if your plan doesn't work, for whatever reason, the most important thing you can do is find out what went wrong, why/how it went wrong, and how you can fix it.
like triga said, try it out. good luck.
1. In early game skulks can get around them with relative ease, so even well placed mines will end up with a hole in them which will render them useless for the most part.
2. Even if they work no RFK
3. Noob placement can make them useless
4. Friendly fire
5. Noobs like to protect the armory with them <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Advantages
If case 5 happens and ur alien its fun to kill a whole bunch of nub armory humpers, a joyful object lesson if you will.
IMHO Mines are useful tools for specific purposes examples being mining up vents and Onos traps.
Good luck now go have some fun. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
bam.
2. Send your team to horseshoe (or triad if main turns out to be their hive). Cap the rt, but do not electrify it. Head to main ASAP. Your shotgunner should keep the aliens at bay.
3. At main/ec, cap the rt and build a tf, 6 turrets and an obs. Electrify horseshoe/triad rt, or rebuild it if necessary. (shouldn't happen as constant flow of marines to main/ec should keep horseshoe/triad pretty safe). Research phase tech, then link up main and marine start. Get more turrets if necessary.
4. Construct an arms lab, and upgrade armour and weapons to level 1. Upgrade the armoury. My estimate is that the aliens should be in the process of constructing their second hive. An enterprising gorge may have had set up ocs near your electrified rts. Kill it. Attempt to kill some alien rts. A third pack of mines or a tf may be needed to aid in base defence.
5. Construct a proto lab and tech to HA. Focus on keeping your rts in working order. Bilebombing gorges will become extremly troublesome. Do not stretch your troops too thin by building more rts since you are more likely to experience a loss than a profit. If fades/oni appear, shotguns/HMGs may become essential. If you are sucessful in doing so, upgrade weapons and armour to level 2. Try to save up resources by cutting down on equipment distribution.
6. Equip as many marines as possible with HA and welders, as well as heavy weapons. Have at least one GLer in your squad. A minimum of 4-5 marines must have HA and all MUST move together. If they require babysitting in order to stick together, do so. Get LA marines to support the heavy squad by dropping welders.
7. Fortify marine start with some more turrets since oni are likely to appear. Head down to main/ec, set up a siege base, kill the hive and then secure it. Move to cc and repeat. Individual aliens should not pose too much of a threat. Oni and fades are a problem, but you've gotta live with it. If you HA team is sucessful in killing both hives, you've won.
One issue that has been in my mind is time. Considering the insane pace in which aliens expand, what is the maximum level of expenditure on defence that I can afford in order to keep up with the aliens in terms of res? How long can I wait before sending in the heavies?
Flames? Comments? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You can't electrify SAA since you didn't build a TF in base. Anyway, make sure they don't have D chambers if you plan on using electricity. Also, spending 45 res on one node at the start of the game is not a sound strategy IMO, better to cap 3 res and NOT electrify them. If *one* of them stay up it's as good, if more do, you've made two to three times as much res.
I don't think your strategy will work against a good alien team becuase it is too rigid. You also spend too much res on static defenses (elec RT, TF an dturrets). Why defend a hive right off the bat? They can't start it now anyway, and if they could, there's still another hive for them to start.
Your strat seems to be too conservative, concentrating on keeping what you have, instead of taking away what *they* have (which usually ends up accomplishing both). Also, you place your upgrades as #4. You intend to cap 4 nodes, lock down a hive and link it with phase gates before even beginning to upgrade your Marines. Has it occured to you that accomplishing this would be a LOT easier if your Marines were upgraded?
Here's a few tips:
- Don't lock down a hive until the second one is started. There's no point locking down ONE hive while there are TWO available.
- Upgrade asap. I tend to drop IP, armory and arms lab, upgrade armor, then cap nodes. This will mean your Marines are at armor 1 1:30 into the game, hurting alien RFK and increasing your combat effectivenes with 50%.
- The longest you can wait with upgrading the armory is when the second hive is started. If you don't have GL when they have Bilebombs and Umbra, you lose.
Your strategy is not worse then many others, it's just that it is the standard "How to lose while still having a plan" strategy of Marines. It's pretty much the default for average commanders, the ones that when I am alien I know will "put up a fight", but there is no way we will lose to them. You have no initiative, you're constantly looking out for being hurt instead of looking to how you can hurt your enemy the most.
Please think before you type a topic.
this one had me in stiches
Thanks buddy... <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
P.S If you would be so kind as to elaborate:
While I do admit that a 50% increase in survivability is good, your base will be left open. (use mines?) It is hard to assign a marine to base defence in pubs- those who will listen are generally too skilled to be used as home decor. Plus that lone none-too-skilled marine will probably die to a skulk rush invloving more than 1 alien.
Anyway, the point is to keep the aliens busy defending their nodes/structures/hives, not thinking of ways to kill your stuff. Th eproblem with Marines is that they usually end up in a defensive position, where aliens don't have to worry about protecting their stuff and can instead focus all their creative energy on coming up with ways to mess it up for the COM.
Not trying to be mean, it's just my opinion. That sort of defensive strategy is a recepie for a loss. You will look good going down fightning, and the Marines will think "Well the COM did his best, we just couldn't hold X", but you will still lose.
Marines are *expected* to try and "hold" stuff. When they do, aleins have all the time in the world to come up with ideas on how to take it down. They only have to succeed once to destroy your base, you have to succeed every time to hold it.
As I said, not trying to "flame" you or whatever, just trying to help you win.