Commandering-can't Hold A Place For Very Long!
Poochi
Join Date: 2004-02-06 Member: 26165Awaiting Authorization
Join Date: 2004-02-06 Member: 26165Awaiting Authorization
Well as a noobie commande walking into the world of stragety & tactics I have found out that you can't really hold a hive/area very well. Everytime I obtain a hive i put my PG, TF, Armory, and maybe observatory, yet when its early in the game the damn onos (just 1) comes in and wipes everything out. It's seems strange when you have complete possesion of the field and you loose it all in 1 onos attack. Funny anit it! Anyone got some tips to make an effictive, cheap defense, for RT's, Hive Recapts (marines), and bases. Just want some advice so I can start to really understand the princaples of comming, because it isn't that easy.... Poochi i'll be playing on steam NS and on the fourms!
Comments
use a phase to get to onos. and kill it. but basicly, dont build to many bases. it takes about 40 turrets to stop an onos.
use a phase to get to onos. and kill it. but basicly, dont build to many bases. it takes about 40 turrets to stop an onos. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
use mines instead of turrets. turrets are just good against skulks/lerks and gorgies. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
1) Gathering Resources
2) Building Bases
3) Researching/Upgrading
4) Destroying the Enemy
In Natural Selection, the Commander needs to decide how to best balance these activities. In the beginning, it's best to build a modest base, and concentrate on gathering resources. Once your resource flow is sufficient, you can begin significant base building and research. You may need to destroy the enemy when they become too much of a threat, such as when a fade or onos appears, or when a hive is built.
You will need to effectively multitask in order to win. Remember, time is a resource you don't want to waste. Practice offline with the Commander interface until you can quickly and easily use it. This means memorizing the hotkeys and knowing the locations of various points-of-interest on maps. Develop a base building plan so you can maximize your base defense with minimal resource and time investment. Learn how to place your armslab and observatory in squads.
Don't forget, aliens have strengths and weaknesses. The best way to learn these are to play as an alien against a good Commander. Notice what really causes aliens to lose and win. Observe the behavior of various alien players as they react to the Commander's activities. Remember, there are psychological elements involved. Who knows, maybe you can trick the aliens into F4ing even though you were on the verge of losing.
Last of all, the marines under your command are players, just like you. They want to have fun. You'll need to keep the marine's morale high, or they won't listen to you. Simple things like medspam, although not very effective tactically, can easily make a marine want to follow orders. Don't forget to use the mic, and make sure you sound confident in your orders. Don't fight with your marines. In short, always give the marines something to do, and try to make it something they'll succeed at.
Specific Natural Selection build and research orders have already been posted numerous times. Hopefully, you'll be able to appreciate them more, now that you have some Commander experience. You can also watch Commander demos. Use the search feature at the bottom of the forum page. All that's left for you to do is practice.
Always try to attack some way or another, and i advise you get upgrades/guns for your marines instead of turrets for an onos ... nothing is ever, ever, EVER gonna kill an onos except for field marines
Actually, offence is the best defence, if you have one guy to build and the rest to push for the next hive, you will keep aliens busy defending their hive instead of taking a new one.
Try to set a trap for the onos, with 5 or so marines, a few SGs and maybe mines. I promise you that onos is dead...
Turrets are basically only able to keep skulks off, and add to the average dmg/s, if you want to hold a position, send marines...
<a href='http://www.chinapage.com/sunzi-e.html' target='_blank'>Art of war</a>
you think my moral would be low. not nessicarly.
eveytime my team kills someone, I go over to the group, and drop an ammo pack for em both, and medpacks if they need it.
generly, I keep track of my soldiers and drop ammo, and packs when I can with out them asking. This realy keeps them in a good mood. and always fresh to kill something.
besure to do the same with the heavies.
4 turrets is insane.
if you realy want to make a good base right away
Large game 2 ips, small game 1 ip
TF, and two turrets with line of sights to both ips.
NO amory.
Generly speaking you just want your ips covered. cause a skulk camping the ips are what brings down main base. besides if a skulk sees two forward turrets, sometimes even one, they just assume there is more behind the TF and leaves.
If you reens aren't very good, they are bound to lose anyways.
I realy find it usefull for the one IP strat.
If you reens are realy good. like all in one group and not dying. I find it realy easy and fast to relocate to a much better postion.
Drop an armory, yoru ips, and start getting upgrades. sometimes double upgrades.
So lets say, its early mid game, and you literly got 80 rez to spare. everything is upgrading already. your obs is getting motion or phase, your arms lab is upgrading something, and you armory is upgrading. Now unless your planning a hive assult pretty soon.
Pass out some shoties. and like 2-4 welders. This realy raises group moral. the reens will love you more, and listen to yo. ontop of that. the alieans will FREAK OUT. seeing that its 3-5 mins in game and every reen has a shoty. Now the only thing you have to worry about is a group of onos.
basicly. your asking for a lose by being too defencive. You lose while being offiencive. because you reens cant shoot. its not entirly your fault.
Your Job as a COMM is to increase the chances of thier winning/survival. By getting upgrades. and orginizing them into assults. etc.
make it you goal as comm, to win the game in less than 15 mins. Youll find this will help you alot more
you should constatly have reens moving out of base trying to get other rts, and if you need to tell em this, tell em to take paths that go by the rts you already have.
and honestly if you keep your reens at the front lines, you probrably hurting them more, than they are hurting you. if you lose 1 rt, and they lose 2 or 3. that a great trade off. plus. it was prob only one skulk. if its a fade. then just send one or two people to go scare it off/ or kill it. send like 3. with sgs, try and surround it.have a couple get on one side. the other team gove the other exit. youll find yourself a dead fade shortly. honestly, just consentrate on taking out thier nodes, and the occasional hive. and youll do just fine. cause they will be tryihng to defend the thier rez nides. a couple of times ive had skulks stop killing a rez node cuase they went to go defend against my offence.
and remember. Sometimes its better to kill thier rez node and leave it open, rather than to build another one. or palce a comm chair ontop of the rez node. thats always fun.
Onos <i><b><u>do not</i></b></u> come early game. If you think that when alien can get onos is early, you are probably skewing your whole timetable 3 or 4 minutes late. That's 3 or 4 minutes your marines spend with no upgrades, that's 3 or 4 minutes aliens have to get up a 2nd hive or control the map.
This is by far the most common mistake among pub comms, so don't blame yourself.
Back in 1.04, when there were no upper lifeforms, marines were playing a defensive game; trying to hold off the 2nd hive until they could get enough upgrades to kill everything (ie JP HMG). Ever since then, however, it has been necessary for marines to immediately go on the offensive. The faster the better. Please don't squat on your res and tech to the top tier. Consider every upgrade to be its own lever towards killing the enemy hive (instead of as a means of getting the next upgrade in the list).
The only places on a map I'll fortify with a TF and PG are hives (inside or from a siege location) and maybe the double res.
2 marines can do more damage than 4-6 turrets. Turrets slow down attacks, marines prevent them. They get better at preventing them the more upgrades you get.
also one thing, do not forget to set the marines up, take down a hive asap, I notice often ppl do well, and never go for the hive then its too late :-S
sometimes you may have a good comm, but your team may not have the teamwork, or your team lacks such ability's for the rines.
-chez
you think my moral would be low. not nessicarly.
eveytime my team kills someone, I go over to the group, and drop an ammo pack for em both, and medpacks if they need it.
generly, I keep track of my soldiers and drop ammo, and packs when I can with out them asking. This realy keeps them in a good mood. and always fresh to kill something.
besure to do the same with the heavies. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
problem with that is that it delays your arms lab tech, you may get the early game, but when that 4-5 mark reaches and fades are flying around, and you don't even have armor 1 started, you will be in BIG trouble.
I play on surftown in Denmark, and I know most of the ppl playing there, and if I know that Im gonna win anyway, I'll go
IP + armory + upg armory.....fastest JPs in the game.....
If I can see that Im gonna loose, I wont go comm
I both teams are brilliant I wont go comm either
If both teams are n00bs (happens wuite often), I go comm.......THAT I know....base:
IP
Armory (and I tell ppl that I give ammopacks..and they should move NOW...most ppl do then)
Obs...and fast phasetech......
n00b marines v n00b aliens = go secure 2 hives if you can....works SO well....aliens with 1 chamber SUCKS.....DC = no cloaking, no focus, no extra energy, no celerity.....if they get MC...well n00bs cant use that....if they get SC, you should get MT fast too, and obs at both hives...(allows lots of scans too)
But heres the killer effect:
as we all know a normal marine is weaker than a skulk.....
But if you get enough res.....you should get dual armslabs and get armor3-weaps3 FAST
(w = weapons, a = armor, MT = MotionTracking)
This is what Im assuming for n00b games:
w0/a0 marine < skulk
w3/a3/MT marine > skulk (and with the new extra nade it should be even better)
having two lvl 3 marines going together in a n00b game is like perfect..and lmg reloads fast...
ok, so fades and onos are hard to kill......
Fade: ok the marines have MT so they know where he is coming from... and 2 marines together v fade =
it takes 47 lmg level 3 bullets to kill a fade....with regen we better make that 50..and 2 marine together SHOULD be able to hit something that comes right at them...but assuming not, I take the 3 ppl that I see are best, and tell them to find the fade...I get them SGs (3 SG lvl 3 shots = dead fade if all pellets hit) and welders (to weld each others armor, fades need 4!!!! swipes against full light armor), and tell them to yell for medpacks when needed....thats a dead fade..no matter what
As for onos I dont see the problem...1 hive = no stomp so that basicly a big easy target........ok 2 marines may have a problem here...but 3 should actually be able to kill it.....
As for fades and onos, this is what works:
Onos:
HMG is best against onos.....it is not very accurate, but onos is os big that you hit anyway
JP is best against onos......allows you to stay at range to avoid the all-melee onos
Fade:
SG is best for fade....it will just swipe and blink away again before you can harm it with HMG
HA is best here....fade has a HARD time getting through.
HA v onos....onos will eat the HA
SG v onos....SG only works close up and onos will kill you there..
JP v fade...blink is faster than JP, you cant evade with it
HMG v fade.....the fade can blink away before dying
Fade: HA, SG
Onos: JP, HMG
HA HMG in a group (HAtrain)( is also good.....it has very few weaknesses.....)
The top tech teir should have very few weaknesses, just like (3 hive) 2 onos 2 fades with lerk support have very few weaknesses.
All HMGs aren't so great at taking down buildings, and a couple of shotties thrown into the mix help against the 1337 fade that will invariably show up to blink in and out for a few swipes.
Also, if you have a train of HMG HAs be sure to drop some ammo for them from time to time, before the ask for it. Since it has a small cap with a long reload time your marines won't be killing much with a half full hmg before they run into trouble
No, the CC is unimportant. If there are any skulks chewing on the CC before ANY other buildings, then they are combat rejects. Getting out of the CC would probably be a better idea if you actually <i>have</i> structures left. But, a good thing to try is when you have some spare res, drop yourself a shotgun/hmg and load up, get back in the chair. If you have jetpacks get that too. Then get back in, and base D is a cinch. If you are worried about unintelligent marines running off with mines you drop them, drop them for yourself and place them around the important stuff. Namely the ip, and or observatory for beacons. I would probably not always drop two ips though, unless you have over 6 people right away. If not, wait and see how good your marines do, then drop a second ip as needed. Personally, I'd get an arms lab up and armor 1 for my marines with the money you spend on 4 turrets and a second ip.
1. I build an ip for now ( just 1)
2. I might build an armory
3. Then ill will order the marines to hives BUT tell them to get the res along the way. (SO therefore I will secure 2 HIVES making them pinned down to one.
4.After i get the res the obs comes up and MT/PG goes up
5. Then Armslab will be upgrading slowly to 2 for now (3 when to fully ready to attack)
6.The armory will upgrade so it will be ready for good weapons( in the meantime i have SG)
7. Proto Lab HA's will go up then JP (depending on the marines speciaties)
8. Ill PG close to the hive and TF, and Siege and game over.
ALSO IN THE MEANTIME OF THIS ALL I WILL SECURE HIVES WITH TF an Armory (maybe) OBS AND ALL THAT.
So what do you think?