Mariner Strategy Advantage
BrainWorm
Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20280Members
Join Date: 2003-08-27 Member: 20280Members
<div class="IPBDescription">:/</div> I know that marines are supposed to have strategy advantage over Aliens, after all they are supposed to be "brain" over "force".
BUT there is one thing that annoys me the most and I would like to know your oppinion:
A single JP, in most maps, can enter a vent pipe that often have enough space to hold a TF+Siege+turrets, and some times even a PG. Now, what's the problem with that? simple: You can´t get a onos there, and since if the mariner is smart enough they will make the turret farms in way you cannot go to the TF/Siege w/o destroing the turrets first, it is almost impossible to beat that configuration if you don´t have xenocyde (which as you will see you dont have because this vents will almost always siege one hive).
For instance, I was playing ns_nothing right now, mariners got that vent behind Great Via and turret farmed in there, it even featured a PG, electrified TF, Obs and armory! They then put 2 lines of turrets on each entrace so you actually needed to destroy the turrets if you wanted to get to the core (TF/PG).
Since onos cannot go in there, and fades will lose a lot of his adrenaline using bink to get there, it was an useless effort. Some times we had 2 fades and 3 or 4 skulks plus a lerk attacking the same side to no big usefullness. We could get past the turrets and start attacking the PG/TF but there were always a couple of mariners waiting with HMG so that was hard enough ... not to mention the rest of the mariner team were somewhere else keeping half our team busy.
Aliens cannot siege from away, but while marines can, a joint-efort alien attack can often counter that. However, in these vents, there is almost nothing you can do. I would like to think that all "features" in the game have a counter, however hard, to balance it. Vent sieging on places that have enough room for a whole base is almost counterless.
Specially at that spot on ns_nothing, I already saw mariners relocating there. You have 3 or 4 RTs nearby easily defendable since they are near, and even a sieged hive. Another place like that is the vents above Waste at ns_tanith. Plenty of room to play (actually even more), and you can EVEN WELD SOME ENTRACES!!!
What to do? maybe it would be fair to prevent PG's from been built in small spaces such as vents, but then again, these vents I mentioned have plenty of space.
BTW: I wont even start about "2.01 crippled too much aliens" <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
BUT there is one thing that annoys me the most and I would like to know your oppinion:
A single JP, in most maps, can enter a vent pipe that often have enough space to hold a TF+Siege+turrets, and some times even a PG. Now, what's the problem with that? simple: You can´t get a onos there, and since if the mariner is smart enough they will make the turret farms in way you cannot go to the TF/Siege w/o destroing the turrets first, it is almost impossible to beat that configuration if you don´t have xenocyde (which as you will see you dont have because this vents will almost always siege one hive).
For instance, I was playing ns_nothing right now, mariners got that vent behind Great Via and turret farmed in there, it even featured a PG, electrified TF, Obs and armory! They then put 2 lines of turrets on each entrace so you actually needed to destroy the turrets if you wanted to get to the core (TF/PG).
Since onos cannot go in there, and fades will lose a lot of his adrenaline using bink to get there, it was an useless effort. Some times we had 2 fades and 3 or 4 skulks plus a lerk attacking the same side to no big usefullness. We could get past the turrets and start attacking the PG/TF but there were always a couple of mariners waiting with HMG so that was hard enough ... not to mention the rest of the mariner team were somewhere else keeping half our team busy.
Aliens cannot siege from away, but while marines can, a joint-efort alien attack can often counter that. However, in these vents, there is almost nothing you can do. I would like to think that all "features" in the game have a counter, however hard, to balance it. Vent sieging on places that have enough room for a whole base is almost counterless.
Specially at that spot on ns_nothing, I already saw mariners relocating there. You have 3 or 4 RTs nearby easily defendable since they are near, and even a sieged hive. Another place like that is the vents above Waste at ns_tanith. Plenty of room to play (actually even more), and you can EVEN WELD SOME ENTRACES!!!
What to do? maybe it would be fair to prevent PG's from been built in small spaces such as vents, but then again, these vents I mentioned have plenty of space.
BTW: I wont even start about "2.01 crippled too much aliens" <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
Not that an OC would make ANY difference now that they are near-useless, I find absolutelly no problem beating a OC alone if the comm is with me dropping medpacks. If Comm is smart enough to send 2 riners case closed. You can even use the "OC will attack closest target" bug, drop a TF near it and let the mariner have fun ... if you have 2 riners, you can even build the TF while the other is destrying the OC. By the time aliens rush there (few will actually realise in time) the OC will be gone, TF ready and turrets being built.
I´ll point out another place at that map: Powesilo's upper vents, there are 4 eligible places where a mariner can turret farm with PG/TF that are not accessible to onos and actually nor fades, and please don´t tell me you want that in 7 min game you have an OC each place + one at "Redroom" and then get the much-necessary RTs.
<b>My point is not about letting them in, we can drag this on for hours, my point is once they are there</b>, you cannot get them out of there. Mariners can beat ANY alien base very quickly, but Aliens most often have a hard time even with open marine bases, imagine this vent bases. Therefore I really think there is the need to prevent PG's at this particular places.
Well protected mariner bases are hard to get already, imagine those.
Even if they make a phase gate and get HA up there, it's an extremely perilous place for them to be due to the steep drop. Of course, if they have JP's and HA and you don't have three hives (which would give you acid rocket, primal scream, and xenocide for an easy upper powersile massacre), then you're probably losing pretty badly anyhow.
Oh my, sailors! Im offended, will never gorge again! Ill save for onos now <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
To complain that an area is unbalanced because one team can fortify it is essentially to complain that your team got out-played. The aliens can make it just as difficult to take for marines with a few OCs and DCs. Add a sensory chamber, and good luck to any marines trying to reclaim it without liberal scanner sweeps or a nearby Observatory/Siege Cannon.
[edit]If it were me, I would have gotten a lerk, gorge, and at least one skulk. The lerk umbras and spores, the gorge bile bombs up the vent (if he can't reach, he stands on a skulk that gets him in range) to take out the turrets.
AS I said, 6~7 minutes you can´t put much more then a OC there ...
BTW a lerk/gorge/skulk will only beat redroom if there is no PG in there, a PG will bring lots of mariners inside as soon as you start destroying the turrets ... I want to know how you will beat them since the vent does not allow a clear shot of spores. That´s why my point is: PG's should be removed from vent places or at least from there.
While that's certainly very optimistic, if you can go Fade at 5 mins that's 3 chambers in red room.
The Red Room on ns_nothing has been the most overlooked spot everytime a game is played on ns_nothing. The reason is because Marines can only get up there by using Jet Packs and Jet Packs don't come until later in the game. However, if the commander makes an extra effort to capture one hive early and then research Jet Packs after that, the Red Room becomes very valuable to the Marine team. 5% of time that I play ns_nothing as Aliens, they never take the Red Room and hell, I even forget about it ALL the time and not just SOME of the time. The Alien team will realize it's valuable when they start to hear Marines phase gating into the Red Room and frantically building turrets to hold it down. If there is only one phase gate and some turrets, it's actually quite hard to defend due to not much room around the general area. However, if the Marines successfully get turrets up around the entire Red Room, it's quite hard to take down. Probably the most effective way to take down Red Room is with a Fade / Lerk + Umbra combination to take down to the intial turrets right at the vents entrace to the general Red Room area. After that, Skulks can pound away at the Turret Factory and then cease any kind of threat on The Great Viaduct Hive.
<b>Make sure to check the other hives while pounding away at Red Room...</b>
A smart commander will know when to cut the loss of Red Room. Chances are if the Marines had the Red Room for an extended period of time, the Great Viaduct Hive is long since been destroyed and is either being built up again or is just sitting there with nothing around it. Relocating to Generator or even Cargo, this would allow easy access to one Hive, not to mention destroying another one while researching upgrades when they ALREADY have Jet Packs.
<b>Sounds like a Marine win to me... unless the Alien team pulls together and fights till the last breath...</b>
Ah, the joy of describing games. It really wants me to play some more. Blasted work! Why must I work when the peak hours of Natural Selection pass right by me like a fart in the wind?
STOP CALLING THEM MARINERS!
*vents*
lol <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
STOP CALLING THEM MARINERS!
*vents*
lol <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I almost lost it as well... that is the reason for my intro in the last post made by me.
let's break this down from the 2.0x angle.
skulks start with ~25 res. Two skulks run into redroom, gorge (-10 res each) and drop an ochamber (another ten res each) and go back skulk. That's not 7 minutes into the game. That's like ~30 seconds into the game including build times. How is it that in almost 15 times the amount it takes to drop two ochambers in there, did your team not even get ONE? If you were planning on holding viaduct anyways, the kharaa weren't thinking ahead.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--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-->AS I said, 6~7 minutes you can´t put much more then a OC there ....<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
if 6 minutes into the game they have jetpacks, and enough res to turret/phase red room, you got owned.
<!--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-->My point is not about letting them in, we can drag this on for hours, my point is once they are there, you cannot get them out of there<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lets say at 10 minutes the aliens have 3 onos. WHAT DO YOU DO NOW? WHAT IS THE COUNTER??
Plan ahead, strategy is a big part of the game.