New commander recruits
007
Join Date: 2002-01-27 Member: 116Members
Join Date: 2002-01-27 Member: 116Members
Comments
You absolutely need to use voicecom.
If you don't have a headset mic, or any other way of using voicecom, please get one as soon as you can. It's impossible to lead a marine team to victory well without the use of it. It's the most essential item in all of NS, so if any of you guys DON'T have voicecom, get it, IMMEDIATLY!
The first times you guys play commander will be kinda rough. Only because you've never played it before, like (I know for me anyway) any new RTS game would be starting on the last level ...
Just do your best. Take opinions of the other players if you think they're good. However, don't let your teammates bully you into a different stratagy then you started with, unless it sounds like a good idea.
Also, never give up. Even when it seems like your darkest hour, there still may be a way out. Perhaps you have just enough rp to build a CC and theres 1 other marine at the other end of the map undetected ...
<!--EDIT|Silver Fox|Oct. 29 2002,22:27-->
1) Armory/Advanced Armory. Drop a shotgun or two in the early game to really trip up the aliens, but make sure you don't give it to a lone-wolf. Ditto for grenade launchers in the late-game. It's also a good idea to drop a welder and shotgun for yourself.
2) Observatory/Phase Gate. Motion Tracking at the Observatory is one of the most cost-effective upgrades in the game, as it makes your marines MUCH more efficient. Place gates at outposts to quickly defend your expansions.
3) Turret Factory/Arms Lab/Prototype Lab. This is the support tree... Arms Lab upgrades are *very* effective, especially in the upper levels. Heavy Armor from the Prototype Lab also makes your marines extremely dangerous. Don't forget that turret factories have to be individually upgraded to support sieges (unlike Starcraft, where a single upgrade gave all tanks the siege ability).
I think it may take a few days even weeks for the community to settle into the game (possibly not, we shall see) and until then you can probably expect the marines to run off as lone soldiers, not know what to do and generally not play too well. Luckily the aliens will probably do the same until they get used to it too and balance it a little.
So just remember the first time you command, if you lose, have a bad game or just can't understand what to do:
Don't give up! Keep on trying to learn, keep on motivating your troops, keep on whipping alien butt until the bitter end. You'll soon settle into the position.
Then again, maybe you'll lead the marines to an easy victory in your first commanding role and continue to do so. Some people are born leaders. Good luck!
Everytime I try to set it up for half-life voice comm my computer tells me I cant use the mic and locks up for ####.
also, dont worry on first tries. Its bound to happen as with all thing new and untried. Come on now this is a totally new concept to HL its a hybrid fps+RTS in one. Just like the first few missions in each RTS game, u'll take things in slowly..and somewhere in the midddle, u'll take the new role like a duckling to water <!--emo&:)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'><!--endemo-->
relax dont worry -have fun. Dont forget its a game.
p.s the in-game tool tips will be a great help.
And for the first few days or even weeks no one is going to listen to commander 'cause they just want to explore and do it their own way. If that happens on a long term we here inb forums have to start making our own servers to get some gamplay on <!--emo&:D--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'><!--endemo-->
The best military advice is this: no plan ever works past the first seconds of combat. Do what you can, help your troops, but it IS up to them to get the job done. <!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo-->
It was very laggy unfortunately so it was difficult. I was dropping health and ammo, building structures etc. Then 3 members on my team start cursing at me and telling me I suck, and I built some spawn portal on another on accisent and I think everyone was getting telefragged (!lol!<!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo--> and we wound up losing. I've never been bitched at so bad in my entire life. Needless to say I didn't try commander again...too intimidated. THese guys were just total jerks. Calling me every name under the sun and I do mean every name (sigh). The thing that really got me was a guy who said
"What a f@@@inn n00b. Commander is SO easy. You suck dude"
Correct me if I'm wrong...but..um...this game JUST CAME OUT! Give me a break! We're all n00bs! And commander easy?! I beg to differ...it's very involving and taxing. I play RTS games, but it was just so new to me I didn't have a chance. I hope they make a simple commander tutorial (playable) or I don't stand a chance. Maybe I'll take the helm again some day... <!--emo&::siege::--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/siege.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='::siege::'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/pudgy.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt='::gorge::'><!--endemo-->
i put that up for you.
Voicecom can really be a needed, as opposed to optional, accessory... especially if you are new at commanding. One of the first things you need to learn as a commander is where your troops are! It does nothing for you as a commander to "voice" someone back to base, and suddenly realize that it is someone on the other side of the map who you gave the order to. With a voice com you can also let your troops konw what is going on... DO THIS FREQUENTLY AS A NEW COMMNADER! There is nothing worse that being a marine who is waiting, waiting, waiting.......... for orders or supplies. Let the marines know to hold their position. Let them know why: "Building resource tower when RP's up" or "Upgrading arms. stay and resupply". Orders like these will help your marines to have confidence in you.
If your marines don't have confidence... you have a team of freeloaders. Freeloaders do nothing but loose the game. DON'T FREELOAD... if you see an aliens resource tower and you decide on your own to take it out, you could jeopardize your whole team. Remember... ALIENS HAVE HIVE SIGHT. if 10 aliens come toward you and they cross a path of marines advancing or setting up another base... what do you think is going to happen... DESTRUCTION! Following orders is the quickest way to succeed. Also, following orders is the fastest way to get upgrades. A commander will not waste time on marines who are going to loose what he gives them.
Commanders.... watch your teams. If someone is getting hurt, drop some health around them. I know it is sometimes hard to drop it on top of them, but a good marine will either get to the health, or realize that you were doing your best to keep them healthy. A happy marine is a good marine.
NOW.... as for the voicecom described above. Here are a few suggestions for you marines that want to become GOOD commanders, but DON'T have voicecom.
1) DON"T WASTE YOUR TIME TYPING "SAY_TEAM" MESSAGES ALL DAY LONG!!!!!!!
The whole point of being a commander is to LEAD. Give your marines orders through the interface. Lots of waypoints help. It gives a marine a sense of DOING something rather than waiting. Say_team "Go to the wharehouse" doens't mean as much to a marine as 2 or 3 waypoints there. If you type messages constantly to your marines... you won't have any time to keep up with what they are doing, where they are. who is getting attacked. status of builds, armour, weaps, etc, etc, etc.... On the other hand.....
2) DON"T LEAVE YOUR TEAM IN THE DARK BY NOT USEING "SAY_TEAM"!!!!!
You may be needing 10 more RP's to upgrade marines armour or weaps. If you don't let them know that.. they will think you stepped out to lunch and start freelancing. As I stated many times... A HAPPY MARINE IS A GOOD MARINE!
3) DON"T send marines in one direction, then change waypoints the other direction, then change another, then... u see what I mean. It makes marines loose confidence in you. This is bad even if you do have voicecom. If you see marine going the wrong direction, don't simply assume they are not following orders, they may just be taking a different path to waypoints. Worse yet, they may not know the correct way of getting to your waypoint. More, and closer, waypoints help marines to konw where they are going. Giveing a marine a waypoint 50 meters away only tells the marine the direction. It doesn't tell him the quickest route, the dead-ends, alien builds, or other factors. Give him five waypoints 10 meters appart instead.
4) Make sure everyone has SOMETHIGN TO DO! Bored marines are FREELANCING marines. Try at ALL COSTS to keep them in groups... when possible bring groups together. Bigger groups = faster builds, better protection, less loss of weaps & armour, pros leading noob's... the list goes on.
5) If you don't know what you are doing, DON"T COMM! I was ina game once where we had all the weaps & armour we wanted... only problem we had was a good commander who had to leave the game. A noob got in there and lost the game in 3 minutes. He didn't make sure there were spawn portals and no one could get back in. A good commander has had GOOD OBSERVATIONS of OTHER COMMANDERS!
ABOVE ALL, DON"T TELL EVERYONE " Hey I'm new... I'd like to try!!!" A marine only hears" Hey, I don't know what I am doing... don't bother to listen to a word I say cause I will get you killed." As a new commander you have the RESPONSIBILITY of leading your marines. It is not something that will be easy, especially with large player maps. Learn, ask quesitons, observe. One of the things that I did was to find a server with no one on it and explore the commander console. See how everything is setup. A <b><u> GOOD COMMANDER </b></u> is one who is CONSTANTLY LEARNING!
Rescue
For advice, I suggest just keeping at it. NS is a totally different type of game than the others. The kiddies will get bored and move back to where they came from in due time. Absolutely don't let them get you down; they just think that because they can aim they are l33t d00ds who pwn and rox00rZ ur box00rZ. I for one would much rather invite a team player onto my server any day as opposed to a great player who has never heard of the word 'teamwork'. Oh, and one last thing, please don't think I am saying that all marines are CS kiddies; I know that is not true, but I don't think it's any secret that the marines are filled with players who are screaming for an HMG and HA in the first 30 seconds of the game. As a point, I offer a scenario. I was playing commander for the first time, and my team was crying and whining for weapon upgrades. Looking at the scores, I realized we were not only expanding quite well, but had killed over twice as many aliens as marines we had lost. If we are owning them on the battlefield as well as expanding, why would I waste my resources to give them overkill weapons? Granted, one shouldn't wait too long to get your team upgraded, but securing that resource node, to me at least, is much more important than giving the kiddies their toys.
<b>How to place a Siege Cannon</b>
<u>Step 1 - Place and/or Upgrade a Turret Factory.</u>
You can only place a Siege Cannon within a certain radius of an ADVANCED Turret Factory. Advanced Turret Factories are created by upgrading an existing Turret Factory. To upgrade a functional Turret Factory, follow these directions:
1) Click on a Turret Factory. In the menu you will see an Upgrade button. Click it to start upgrading. You should see a progress meter at the bottom center of your commander HUD. Once this process is completed, move on to 2).
2) Once finished upgrading, you <i>must get a marine to "build" the Advanced Turret Factory</i>! Even though the marines built the Turret factory when you first placed it, they will have to re-build it again after it upgrades in order to activate it. They +USE the ATF just like they build anything else.
<u>Step 2 - Place the Siege Cannon</u>
Go place your Siege Cannon, and have your marine(s) build it! Again, it must be within the green radius of your Advanced Turret Factory.
VOILA! <!--emo&::siege::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/siege.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='siege.gif'><!--endemo-->
Communications really are the key.. if I don't hear back from my commander within 30 sec or so of a request, with at least a HOLD ON, I get pretty ready to vote him out.
Voice comms also make it that much easier to biatch out your units when they say GIMME AMMO HEALTH HMG JETPACK PLS K THXK GIMME GIMME GIMME and never say where they are. TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE IF YOU WANT SOMETHING!!@1!
Sorry about that... my number one peeve with new recruit infantry <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
If you're infantry with voice comms, that's great as well. As commander, I'm sometimes too busy droping health and ammo or managing waypoints to notice a text-chat request. If you can ask with the voice chat and tell me where you are, chances are d@mned good I'll drop what you want as soon as I'm not busy saving someone's arse.
Oh, and noob commanders... I don't care if I don't get way points or supplies all the time, just try to speed up the building around new resource points. If there's not a turret fac up with at least 3 turrets around it within a minute or two of the collector being built, chances are pretty good it's not going to stay there much longer without getting overrun. Once you get later into the game, there should be plenty of resources... build upgraded armories and research labs at a few places besides the base so you're able to drop advanced weapons and armor at other places besides the spawn.
And of course.. don't forget about the research tree! As soon as you've got some spare resources and your marines are doing OK on their own (assuming they're able to go 30 seconds without dying if you stop dropping health on them), go find out what upgrades are available. The arms lab is great, the 3 levels of weapon and armor upgrades boost your troops ability to take and deal out damage immensley, without you having to drop them any pickups.
Anything I missed?
I gotta call BS on one thing in your post.. the Advanced Turret Factory does not need any marine help to upagrade... none of the upgrades do. As soon as the upgrade is complete, the commander has access to the new structures, objects, or abilities.
I gotta call BS on one thing in your post.. the Advanced Turret Factory does not need any marine help to upagrade... none of the upgrades do. As soon as the upgrade is complete, the commander has access to the new structures, objects, or abilities.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Then either one of two things are happening:
1) There is a bug that sometimes requires marines to "rebuild" the Advanced Turret Factory after upgrading
OR
2) The ATF will eventually come online after a long period of time (after the progess meter has completed, and the structure has upgraded) but will happen much faster if marines build it.
I have been in many games where the commander will upgrade a turret factory but be unable to place a siege turret. The upgrade meter will be completed in the command interface, and the structure will be called "Advanced Turret Factory" to any marines looking at it, but it will still be in it's idle animation and not making any sound (in addition to not allowing the commander to drop a SC).
The solution has always been to have a marine walk over to the Advanced Turret Factory and +USE it. The marine will see the sparks just like he is building it. After a short build time (like 10 seconds) the ATF will be online and only then will animate into it's "active" animations. Everytime this has happened, the commander was then able to place the siege cannons.
Perhaps it will finally come online by itself, but there is definitely a significant period of time between when the commander view shows it as being upgraded, and before it activates and allows SC to be placed nearby, where a marine can "build" it to make it come online.
Plop down the fac, have it built. When it's done, hit upgrade and drop down 4 MG turrets. By the time those are built, the upgrade should be almost done. After fending off an alient or two, drop a Siege turret in each corner of the room.
I can clean out fortified positions (such as the holoroom and the hallway leading to it) in about 5-10 minutes without having a single unit enter the range of enemy turrets... I would have noticed something like that delay in being able to make Sieges.
And yes, I'm pretty certain that it happened last night on a 1.01 server. I'm not 100% sure though, since I did play one game on a 1.00 server.
Marines like orders. And not stupid orders either. I feel that I should be DOING something useful when playing, and standing at the base is not useful. However, if the base NEEDS someone standing at it, that is a different matter entirely. So, if you just want a guy to pull guard duty on an outpost or act as a sentry/early warning for your builder crew, SAY SO.
Next, learn names. Nothing is more annoying than being on an 8 man team and being told "two guys go to water filtration". Marines really don't know where all the other marines are, or what they are doing, so give names. Pick two guys who aren't doing anything important, and give them orders to do something.
After that? Don't waste expansion money on guns. Heavy armour marines are nice, but so are resource collectors. Standing for 20 minutes at a resource node waiting for your commander to stop buying heavy machine guns with every dollar your team makes when you could be increasing your income is also tiresome. Also, NEVER EVER EVER give a gun to a marine just because he asked for one: it undermines your authority, and wastes resources that may have been spent better somewhere else. If one asks for a tactical item, it is worth listening, but being a slave to all the rambos out there that want hmgs at all times is the path to defeat. For a harassing troop that has shown himself to be competent with a pistol, a grenade launcher can be considered tactical. Laser mines are tactical. A welder is tactical (and is well worth considering: a marine who cares enough about fixing something that is damaged instead of just killing will be likely to protect your investment). Never feel obligated to give someone something just because they want it though: The pistol does more damage than the hmg, and it is very important that you use your limited omniscient perspective to make decisions for the good of the team.
Senty turrets: try to spread these out some. A wall across a base entrance is all well and good, but you should make sure that when designing any base, there is no single point anywhere in the room where a skulk can stand and attack either your turret factory or your command center: these two buildings are vital, and you should make sure that to get to them, your opponent has to level the entire outpost. In my opinion, the patch went a little TOO far. aliens are fast enough that they don't really need the effective base defense to the same degree as a marine, and marine buildings are a lot harder to repair (and don't heal automatically, last time I checked.) Sentry turrets shouldn't be the be all and end all, but the turret factory weakness is a little too easy to exploit.
Also: spread armories around. As a commander, your time is valuable, and you should avoid wasting it wherever possible on restocking marines. In addition, with more bullets, your marines will be a LOT more aggressive in combat, and therefore more effective. Marines with low ammo will only really shoot when it is a matter of self preservation, or when they have a very high likelyhood of killing someone. With more bullets in the air, the sheer likelyhood of tagging aliens with stray bullets increases dramatically, and also makes the aliens a lot less agressive (I should know, I spend a lot of my time playing an alien <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->) Given that restocking at an armory is free, there is no real excuse for only having one armory on the map. If it is not practical for a marine to walk back whenever he needs ammo, and he will be spending more time in an area it takes him to walk through it, an armoury would likely be a good investment. In addition, when you are ready to upgrade an armoury, your troops can go elsewhere to get more bullets.
If you see you have a superhero marine somewhere (i.e.: one that can aim), try to drop health packs for him when it is convenient for you. If you can' drop supplies whenever you can, but it isn't your most important job: if you have time, do it, if not, just make sure you always have an infantry portal. Don't get mad at your team if they can't hit an alien either. in close corners, with a 50 shot clip, against an alien that can take a dozen shots before going down, you might have troubles too.
Next, learn where the hives are, and build outposts at unoccupied hives quickly. An onos rush (by competent players) is game ending. period, and bile bombing fades aren't much better. The effectiveness increase between two hives and three hives is huge, and even if there is nothing of value at a hive location, it is worth setting up just so the aliens can't.
finally, a note on waypoints. Last, but far from least. A marine really doesn't know what's around the next corner. Try instead of telling a marine to go stand beside the hive to harass it, send him just outside the door, and let him figure out why he's there. If you give orders that are humanly possible to achieve, people will get used to following them, instead of ignoring you, and no one likes suicide rushing alone. Give a marine a pair of friends to go attack with, and he won't mind if he gets overwhelmed too much, but being told to attack 3 onos, 14 offese towers, and a fade at the same time is annoying. It means your commander doesn't have anything better for you to do. Which means he doesn't really have any long term plans for how he will win the game. Marines win by Going out, establishing some ouposts for resources, controlling AT LEAST one hive location, upgrading to the nines, then sweeping the aliens off the map in combined teams. Never forget this, and if you ever lose your compass, think about this plan, and decide what you need to do to get back on the track. In rts games, a lot of people start getting lazy and just slugging it out with wave after wave of badly executed attacks. To be a good commander, you have to be micromanaging as effectively as you can be at ALL TIMES, not just during the start and endgames. If you want to take an occasional nap at your keyboard, play a marine or an alien, and request guard duty <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->.
One thing to definately do is secure at least one hive really early in the game, and even make it a secondary base with a command console and everything. That'll prevent the worst bits of alien carnage from coming your way and give you time to upgrade your stuff while you're at it.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is the path I find myself taking about 90% of the time when I'm Commander. Motion Tracking, IMHO, is the best upgrade for the marines, hands-down. Once I get my Observatory up, I scan the Hive locations and tell all my guys except one to bum-rush over there and secure it. I have the remaining guy in my base lay some mines down, and build up a Phase Gate to link to the new base.