General Command Theory
Firewater
Balance Expert Join Date: 2002-12-12 Member: 10690Members, Constellation
Balance Expert Join Date: 2002-12-12 Member: 10690Members, Constellation
This Theory will explain what the marines and their commander can do to to hurt the Alien team, and how to keep consistently doing these things to eventually takedown the enemy forces. After over a year and a half of playing NS, casually and competitively there are some consistencies that I notice in both styles of play.
Basically there are three things the marines and aliens can do to hurt each other, and increase their side's chances of victory.
These are
-----Build RTs. Building RTs helps you tech faster, as well as allows more resources to give marines medpacks. Keeping marines alive in the field allows for more RTs to be capped, as well as other things.
-----Destroy Enemy RTs. Especially against the Aliens, their RTs are very precious and can slow down their fades and second hive by destroying these. Also after an RT is destroyed it can be capped.
-----Attack the Enemy Base. This can potentially end the game, but what I've noticed that a lot of pub commanders get locked into the mindset that they can only attack when they have enough firepower to end the game, this is not true. Every attack on the hive does not have to be a game ender to be successful. Attacking the hive can potentially take out some upgrade chambers, or just draw the alien forces back so it allows for capping/destroying of alien RTs.
So basically, its Getting faster tech, slowing enemy tech, and destroying enemy tech/base.
From what I've noticed generally speaking
Great commanders do 3 out of 3 things to hurt the aliens at the same time. Almost always achieve victory
Good Commanders can do 2/3 at the same time, and still have a good shot of achieving victory.
Bad Commanders do 1/3 or 0/3 and have a very little chance of winning.
This theory explains why Turrets in main base or electric TFACS and Elec nodes are not very good things to do most of the time. When defending, you are wasting time by not doing one of the three offensive threats against the aliens. Also, 99% of static defenses break, so spending res on turrets and Elec is often a waste. Of course, sometimes the mariens are forced to defend in a situation, but
this should be minimal. Both sides have to go offensive to win.
Try to notice if you aren't , if your commander is doing 1 or more of these things and see how the game plays out.
I hope this helps, I will try to make an example of what I mean later today and host it, so people can actually see that this works.
Demo link broken, still looking for a new host.
Basically there are three things the marines and aliens can do to hurt each other, and increase their side's chances of victory.
These are
-----Build RTs. Building RTs helps you tech faster, as well as allows more resources to give marines medpacks. Keeping marines alive in the field allows for more RTs to be capped, as well as other things.
-----Destroy Enemy RTs. Especially against the Aliens, their RTs are very precious and can slow down their fades and second hive by destroying these. Also after an RT is destroyed it can be capped.
-----Attack the Enemy Base. This can potentially end the game, but what I've noticed that a lot of pub commanders get locked into the mindset that they can only attack when they have enough firepower to end the game, this is not true. Every attack on the hive does not have to be a game ender to be successful. Attacking the hive can potentially take out some upgrade chambers, or just draw the alien forces back so it allows for capping/destroying of alien RTs.
So basically, its Getting faster tech, slowing enemy tech, and destroying enemy tech/base.
From what I've noticed generally speaking
Great commanders do 3 out of 3 things to hurt the aliens at the same time. Almost always achieve victory
Good Commanders can do 2/3 at the same time, and still have a good shot of achieving victory.
Bad Commanders do 1/3 or 0/3 and have a very little chance of winning.
This theory explains why Turrets in main base or electric TFACS and Elec nodes are not very good things to do most of the time. When defending, you are wasting time by not doing one of the three offensive threats against the aliens. Also, 99% of static defenses break, so spending res on turrets and Elec is often a waste. Of course, sometimes the mariens are forced to defend in a situation, but
this should be minimal. Both sides have to go offensive to win.
Try to notice if you aren't , if your commander is doing 1 or more of these things and see how the game plays out.
I hope this helps, I will try to make an example of what I mean later today and host it, so people can actually see that this works.
Demo link broken, still looking for a new host.
Comments
In a nutshell: be <b>proactive</b>, not <b>reactive</b>.
Unfortunately this ends up with them lamed up in MS or some pokey hole, having waited to see the aliens get Onos.
I'm not saying the rush pwnzor all, but I have seen even BASIC marine rushes take down hives. Pressuring the enemy means they're reacting to you, they're focusing on your marines and NOT your RTs or upgrades. Marines are disposable. Keep them fairly healed up and let them rain havoc on the aliens.
The aliens can rush your spawn - pointless unless they're *very* good since you can just drop a CC and IPs in a better spot. They can try to counter cap your RTs... but that wastes a lot of individual res, which means slower upgrades for aliens. The aliens can counter your marines, which is handy because then you *know* where the aliens are.
All three are infinitely better to laming up spawn and trying to dig in for a tech rush. It just don't work. You need to pressurise the hives, even if its a rambo with a shotty who's JPing to each hive and putting 2 shots into each. The aliens will be ape trying to find out wth is going on, and meanwhile you're capping res like there's no tomorrow. GG.
Can someone help me?
If you play defensively the marines tend to stop listening and go rambo off on there own. By constanly pushing out, marines will usually be moving together.
Sometimes I see commanders commit to much in destroying one hive. They are only focus on one thing and if it fails they lose. Encourage the marines to move out early and fast. Don't completly set up base then start expanding. If aliens do an early rush just relocate somewhere else.
Side note:
If the marines start to get to scattered do not hesitate to becan them all back to base. Even more so if you have PG set up. This gets them all grouped up again ready to go where u need them. Its really usefull if you want to do a rush on their hive. Comms tend to think becan is for a last resort. Or only use it if half the team is dead.
When to use it:
Use it for large scale attacks.
Regrouping
Base is heavily under attack
If half the team is dead(Depending on how big the team.)
Anyway, the 2 games on nancy were just horrible for aliens. From playing on that server consistently i know that marines is the team that gets stacked and for those 2, it was pretty stacked.. In the end, sheer numbers of marines (11v11 server) overran aliens. (that and the utter lack of teamwork shown by the aliens) The only real close game was the last one on hera. Aliens made the cardinal mistake of leaving a hive open.. In this case we responded, but not quickly enough..
No real dispute from me. as those three tips are something anyone can say, but need a good team to follow through, and in those games you pretty much had it.
Either way, it was a good game.. and the medspam was a ****.. early game it can cost you alot of res..
Oh and btw, youll get more res by allowing the rts to continue going than recycling them, plus it keeps a skulk busy..
One more thing.. that pg you dropped in the back of mother interface on nancy scared the hell outa me.. i was a gorge back there and all of a sudden i see a pg drop in front of me with no marines near by..
-Aes-
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Anyway, the 2 games on nancy were just horrible for aliens. From playing on that server consistently i know that marines is the team that gets stacked and for those 2, it was pretty stacked.. In the end, sheer numbers of marines (11v11 server) overran aliens. (that and the utter lack of teamwork shown by the aliens) The only real close game was the last one on hera. Aliens made the cardinal mistake of leaving a hive open.. In this case we responded, but not quickly enough..
No real dispute from me. as those three tips are something anyone can say, but need a good team to follow through, and in those games you pretty much had it.
Either way, it was a good game.. and the medspam was a ****.. early game it can cost you alot of res..
Oh and btw, youll get more res by allowing the rts to continue going than recycling them, plus it keeps a skulk busy..
One more thing.. that pg you dropped in the back of mother interface on nancy scared the hell outa me.. i was a gorge back there and all of a sudden i see a pg drop in front of me with no marines near by..
-Aes- <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I prefer to recycle and rebuild, rather than just let it die. I let the skulk chomp it halfway then recycle, gives me enough res to replace it. About my medspam, you don't get an award for having the most res in the ready room, meaning, the only wasted res is the res that isn't spent. I kept my guys alive to they could surpress you guys pretty well.
If you let the rt keep running instead of recycling it, youll get more res from it.. And I saw on the demos that you recycled some almost instantly the second they got hit. Never said anything wrong with a med spam.. Just saying too much early on (10 meds = weap upg.) can be bad, especially if your team isnt getting to rts and holding them..
-Aes-
For example, cargo hive on NS_Veil. Build a Tfac + some turrets on the side that leads to sub sector hive. Dont do it so close that its easy to run back and heal though, you want the turrets to fire on them for a second before they get to the TFac turret area. You should probably electrify it too, IF you are going to do it. Skulks can no longer leave that side of the hive, and the aliens leaving that situation alone is a BAD idea. The turrets might sit their and get no kills, BUT, when you are ready to kill the hive, you have 80% of the work done already outside their hive. Now all you need is a pg, upgrade sieges , and GG aliens. I've seen this win the game every time a commander does it. And all you hear from aliens in the ready room is cursing the commander <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->.
If you let the rt keep running instead of recycling it, youll get more res from it.. And I saw on the demos that you recycled some almost instantly the second they got hit. Never said anything wrong with a med spam.. Just saying too much early on (10 meds = weap upg.) can be bad, especially if your team isnt getting to rts and holding them..
-Aes- <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=70624' target='_blank'>*blink blink*</a>
Good and ancient wisdom.
Can someone help me?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Copy a random *.spr from your sprite directory and rename it to nsarms5.spr. Works...
As is clear in the post, you gain or lose 2 res either way. How much would you pay to keep 1/6th their team busy for 20 seconds?
Argue with me all you want, my way works and I am going to continue to do it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->