Thank You Commander Bollux
Lost3
Join Date: 2003-12-09 Member: 24181Members
Join Date: 2003-12-09 Member: 24181Members
<div class="IPBDescription">How to recover from bad Comms</div> We've all been there. A bunch of gung-ho marines ready and able to go from the very start. The alien go Sensory first and we all grin thinking we've got this one wrapped up already. Then your Comm, who seemed reasonable enough before, starts doing odd or useless things. A recent game of mine had a Comm who would communicate quite a bit at first then just stopped talking after a while. He dropped 2 proto labs and never got us Sensory until ... well... they had hive three before he even considered it despite the aliens going sensory first. So this situation is something we've all seen or been subject to. A Comm jumps in the chair and proceeds to be completely ineffective or just screwy then leaves. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief except, of course, you who has gotten into the chair and who has to know salvage the situation.
Obviously not every game is the same and not all previous Comms will screw up in the same way. However what I am interested in hearing is how you deal with these dire situations. What did you try? What worked? What didn't? What did you start with? Did you gamble it all on a desperate shotty rush? Try and turtle up and then move out? Or did you try to be that annoying sod that recycled all the IPs?
Obviously not every game is the same and not all previous Comms will screw up in the same way. However what I am interested in hearing is how you deal with these dire situations. What did you try? What worked? What didn't? What did you start with? Did you gamble it all on a desperate shotty rush? Try and turtle up and then move out? Or did you try to be that annoying sod that recycled all the IPs?
Comments
You cannot salvage a game after a crap comm has had his way with it.
I recycle all exept RTs, armslab, armory and IPs.
pump it all in upgrades and guns, then recycle the IP and we all go out in blazing glory of last man standing
But yeah, after the five minute mark, just consider the game lost. If you don't have w2/a1 with w3 or a2 going and have the armory upgraded, at least 5 rts and a secure hive, then it's lost. It'll be around that time you'll see fades and onos and it'll be the end of the game.
I usually try to eject them and salvage right from the start, but one of the comms I've seen alot of recently is one that drops the usual IP Armory right off, then 10 minutes into the game they have 2 hives and we have no arms lab and 200 res with the armory still not humping back.
The best way to salvage both of these is eject immediately and recycle/salvage and yell at your team alot. I've had the marines favor the insane comm over me several times, even though I know what im doing is right and will only help us, they think the earlier comm was better than me. I dont know what to do when your team favors someone other than you <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I pick up a lot of games and have seen others pick up games and using this tactic have really put up a good fight and it's also incredibly fun to be a marine when this tactic is used. I've seen multiple matches were this tactic was used and 3+ hives have died. Note: aliens are normally swimming in res so hives just keep going up, to win you have to clear out all their res as well as their hives if the opportunity appears.
Another option is the turtle, but turtling only drags out marine losses. If they're at 3 hives then they're going to xeno you to hell, so you may as well suck it up and go for the rush - you'll never get HA in the face of concerted xeno attacks.
Hive 2 is a little more leniant. As everyone had suggested, shotty rushes get you the most bang for your buck (and i'm guessing you don't have alot of 'buck' to work with). Don't ignore res nodes, though. Two clips of shotty will take it down, so why not have the whole team shoot twice and get it over with? Many think that its best to do a stealth rush, but whats the point if they have res coming out the wazoo? you need to keep the res nodes down or you'll lose, hive down or no hive down.
Hive 1 is compeltely salvageable. Recycle tf and turrets (if applicable) and move out, soldier!
One server I played I had a great strat that I typically used (and won) with.
Just drop a tf, and ip and send everyone out of base except for my ace shooter. No Armoury, no Obv, just a tf and an IP.
Guys go out and cap, I electrify. Cap two, electrify, cap three electrify.
Before you know it, three minutes into the game and you have four nodes capped and electrified (and more if you have skilled shooters). Pushed my marines as far into the map capping nodes until they died and respawned. By the time they respawned the base had the armoury built, armour or weapon upgrades going (most of the time I would go dual upgrades) and the obv up with motion tracking or phase gates researching depending on the map. The strat was really hard to beat, especially if I got dual upgrades going. Also, with so much res going, I could freely drop shotguns early to counter fades and to continue taking down their res.
Granted, I haven't played the new patch yet, so balancing may have made this strat less feasible, but the thing is that on servers that didn't know me, I would seem like a noobish com, when I've been playing this game for years (scary thought).
Its a bit of a dangerous strat, and so I don't use it as much anymore, but the thing is you never know what strats may work, so being quick to eject (especially for tech builds you may not agree with) may not be a great idea.
Don't get me wrong, I've asked for ejections right off before, but I also have learned some really awesome tech builds, ideas and map strats by being patient with a commander I'm not familiar with.
The ones I usually eject are then ones I've played with, and lost the game, not because of bad strategy or such, but because they really had no idea of what they were doing during the duration of the game (as in waiting four minutes for a medpack when he has 100 res and constantly asking for one).
The thing is, unless you actually played with the com, and he just doesn't have the basics down (an idea of the map layout, a gameplan, and an understanding of how to guide the men and keep them alive) don't be too quick to judge.
I've learned a lot just by being patient and trusting the com, even though I don't agree with his style of play. Hard enough to find good coms, even harder to find people willing to try com because they're so afraid of being ejected (instead we have a bunch of marines wasting the first two minutes jumping around base waiting for someone to jump in the hotseat)
in the case that the alien team knows how to do "their job" . probably u will see fades , and u wouldnt have any upgrades, so die and be happy, not ur fault, comms fault xD <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
This post is not about recovery, but about coping. I've never commed a game, but I have hopped in. The fact is, I suck at micro-managment, so when no one commands, I'll hop in and warn people that they have me for 60 seconds. I'll drop the basic essentials and keep things flowing, but after that minute is up, I tell them I'm out. I don't take getting screamed at very well, but I find that the NS Community is mature enough not to yell at a loss when they know the commander didn't want to. I attempt to do the same thing when Commander Moron hops in, but I never leave any guarantees.
That said, I managed to hold off once for about 45 minutes on my first stint <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Are there any servers for commander training?
as in waiting four minutes for a medpack when he has 100 res and constantly asking for one
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Saw somebody sitting in base doing that once..... can't for the life of me understand why they thought they needed a med in MS, but whatever.
Anyhow, back on topic, the idea of smacking down a hive then rushing the next hive right after is that is borks the alien game plan - if they've not rushed you by then, then they're easily distracted and nixing a hive will make them spend a hoard of res on hive defence, and/or trying to retake the hive you just smushed. This is GOOD for you because its spending their res, you can turtle while they're busy elsewhere, and it means the aliens will be b*tching at each other about who should go gorge and drop a hive.
Believe you me, disorganization can kill an alien team even if they're on hive 3 - if you can rush their hives down they'll go ape trying to get the hives back, while you can relocate virtually ANYWHERE. Hives are the alien weak spot - they've no choice where to put them and at three hives you *know* where a hive will be.
Yet I did not even bother the TF, only the IP. Worked wonders if the team could aim, listened and especially if kharaa had the furtherst hive