People Care Too Much About Dead Hives
Wizzball
Join Date: 2004-09-25 Member: 31915Members
Join Date: 2004-09-25 Member: 31915Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Basic math of destruction</div> This post is a good practical example of the "tactical versatility" you have to show like Flatline described it in <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=11252&st=15' target='_blank'>this topic</a>.
On public servers, it happens more than often that a hive is locked down with pg, tf, shitloads of turrets. Thats fine for the start. But afterwards, people often feel too safe and dont get straight on with the assault but stay in base yelling for upgrades, weapons etc.
Yesterday I played on ns_eclipse, and our comm bailed out in the middle of the battle when we were doing pretty good and said a qualified line like "I bet none of you seriously commed before". (later he should end up jumping back in, selling the ips and leaving the game.)
Anyways, after a minute of horrible, devastating commlessness I took over, even though I'm average at best. Situation was: Rines have full upgrades, a number of RTs but not many, some HMG's, 60 res. We had CC hive, but it was being attacked by aliens, amongst them two onos, and the pg was already down (I was happy it was or the HMG's would have rushed through and get eaten. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->)
However, the way to Maintenance was all free, siege spot uncovered, no ocs on the way. Since EC was mainhive, maintenance had the Motion Chambers.
So, what do you do in this situation? Well, I gave everyone a WP to maint siege spot. What did they do? Yelled "SAVE CC!!", " GO CC EVERYONE!!!", ran there one by one, got all killed of course without saving or killing anything. They weren't really bad or dumb people (they knew the way to hive and its name, so they cant be that new), they just had their own mind which can sometimes be just as bad.
Okay, lets do the full consideration that a decent comm (AND a good, thinking rine) has to do in this situation:
<u>Possibility to save CC:</u>
Computer Core on ns_eclipse is clearly a wonderful terrain for aliens to fight in. The are lots of small corridors nearby with lots of height differences that are perfect to hit and retreat and to surprise unsuspecting marines. Also, there are 2 onos, prolly with full DCs and MCs, and in CC theres just no space for a safe onos hunt, and we dont have enough weapons for it.
Also, its on the other end of the map and it takes you ages to get there, and you can be damn sure to be spread out when you arrive running there.
Its just impossible to save it, amen.
<u>Possibility to siege Maintenance away before they can react:</u>
Maint is a safe, straight walk from rine start. Way shorter than CC. All aliens are likely occupied attacking and securing CC. Plus, we can be sure that the onos dont have hive 3 ability to run there lightspeed in the unlikely event should we get discovered before the sieges start blasting.
Also, maint siege spot has one long, easily defendable corridor and the ineavadable bridge from hive leading towards it, so its bad terrain for attacking onos that have to run long distances under fire. I guess maint wouldve been blown away before even only a skulk could show up.
<u>Whats it worth:</u>
CC hive was our terrain. No chambers in siege distance, no hive. Maint was their terrain. A hive, dcs, ocs, and it was the hive with the three MCs. And a rt of course. <b>Shitloads of res </b>there, a <b>second hive ability they loose </b>(onos stomp, allows for easier pursuit and hunt them down later, skulk leap also), a <b>chamber ability they loose</b>. (aliens usually dont build three of each chamber at every hive, even though it would be smart) A <b>spawn point they loose </b>not to forget! Prolly a late onos that comes to rescue and runs into the lvl3 hmgs at the wide open terrain of Maint and doesnt notice he only has one motion chamber left to gain adrenaline or speed from!
So whats the trade? We get a new rt there, we kill all the mentioned stuff, and have a new hive secured, that is much easier to defend and a good base for retaking the still weak CC from.
We loose some res at CC too, sure, but WE can build a new base FAST.
There was no gorge involved in the CC attack so that <b>hive will take ages to build</b>, and lots of res, so one onos less to fight because they need to spend at least 70 res on hive and new chambers.
<b>If the aliens have too many rts, you have to make them spend their res on anything but not on lifeforms and upgrades! The more they have to rebuild, the less onos show up to eat you.</b>
Thats why I draw the conclusion: <b>If you can get a living hive for a dead one that you already own, get the living!</b> Don't try to secure places that have already been lost and are occupied by large alien forces in difficult terrain. Try to find a place to surprise the aliens from, they'll never be that distracted anymore. (few aliens will leave killing a hive fortification just because theres an attack message somewhere else, especially slow oni that would hate running there just because a lone rine fired on an oc...)
Saving a hive lockdown is good, but sometimes its just not worth it, and sometimes you might miss a much better chance because just you dont want to loose a few turrets that arent worth crap in lategame anyways. This example was from ns_eclipse, but it applies to every map: You have to take terrain, reaction times, defenses, resworth AND abilities into consideration and then decide whether you want to save or to loose stuff and where to attack and defend.
If you can make it so that the onos have to attack you in your place, you're better off than having to attack them in theirs.
On public servers, it happens more than often that a hive is locked down with pg, tf, shitloads of turrets. Thats fine for the start. But afterwards, people often feel too safe and dont get straight on with the assault but stay in base yelling for upgrades, weapons etc.
Yesterday I played on ns_eclipse, and our comm bailed out in the middle of the battle when we were doing pretty good and said a qualified line like "I bet none of you seriously commed before". (later he should end up jumping back in, selling the ips and leaving the game.)
Anyways, after a minute of horrible, devastating commlessness I took over, even though I'm average at best. Situation was: Rines have full upgrades, a number of RTs but not many, some HMG's, 60 res. We had CC hive, but it was being attacked by aliens, amongst them two onos, and the pg was already down (I was happy it was or the HMG's would have rushed through and get eaten. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->)
However, the way to Maintenance was all free, siege spot uncovered, no ocs on the way. Since EC was mainhive, maintenance had the Motion Chambers.
So, what do you do in this situation? Well, I gave everyone a WP to maint siege spot. What did they do? Yelled "SAVE CC!!", " GO CC EVERYONE!!!", ran there one by one, got all killed of course without saving or killing anything. They weren't really bad or dumb people (they knew the way to hive and its name, so they cant be that new), they just had their own mind which can sometimes be just as bad.
Okay, lets do the full consideration that a decent comm (AND a good, thinking rine) has to do in this situation:
<u>Possibility to save CC:</u>
Computer Core on ns_eclipse is clearly a wonderful terrain for aliens to fight in. The are lots of small corridors nearby with lots of height differences that are perfect to hit and retreat and to surprise unsuspecting marines. Also, there are 2 onos, prolly with full DCs and MCs, and in CC theres just no space for a safe onos hunt, and we dont have enough weapons for it.
Also, its on the other end of the map and it takes you ages to get there, and you can be damn sure to be spread out when you arrive running there.
Its just impossible to save it, amen.
<u>Possibility to siege Maintenance away before they can react:</u>
Maint is a safe, straight walk from rine start. Way shorter than CC. All aliens are likely occupied attacking and securing CC. Plus, we can be sure that the onos dont have hive 3 ability to run there lightspeed in the unlikely event should we get discovered before the sieges start blasting.
Also, maint siege spot has one long, easily defendable corridor and the ineavadable bridge from hive leading towards it, so its bad terrain for attacking onos that have to run long distances under fire. I guess maint wouldve been blown away before even only a skulk could show up.
<u>Whats it worth:</u>
CC hive was our terrain. No chambers in siege distance, no hive. Maint was their terrain. A hive, dcs, ocs, and it was the hive with the three MCs. And a rt of course. <b>Shitloads of res </b>there, a <b>second hive ability they loose </b>(onos stomp, allows for easier pursuit and hunt them down later, skulk leap also), a <b>chamber ability they loose</b>. (aliens usually dont build three of each chamber at every hive, even though it would be smart) A <b>spawn point they loose </b>not to forget! Prolly a late onos that comes to rescue and runs into the lvl3 hmgs at the wide open terrain of Maint and doesnt notice he only has one motion chamber left to gain adrenaline or speed from!
So whats the trade? We get a new rt there, we kill all the mentioned stuff, and have a new hive secured, that is much easier to defend and a good base for retaking the still weak CC from.
We loose some res at CC too, sure, but WE can build a new base FAST.
There was no gorge involved in the CC attack so that <b>hive will take ages to build</b>, and lots of res, so one onos less to fight because they need to spend at least 70 res on hive and new chambers.
<b>If the aliens have too many rts, you have to make them spend their res on anything but not on lifeforms and upgrades! The more they have to rebuild, the less onos show up to eat you.</b>
Thats why I draw the conclusion: <b>If you can get a living hive for a dead one that you already own, get the living!</b> Don't try to secure places that have already been lost and are occupied by large alien forces in difficult terrain. Try to find a place to surprise the aliens from, they'll never be that distracted anymore. (few aliens will leave killing a hive fortification just because theres an attack message somewhere else, especially slow oni that would hate running there just because a lone rine fired on an oc...)
Saving a hive lockdown is good, but sometimes its just not worth it, and sometimes you might miss a much better chance because just you dont want to loose a few turrets that arent worth crap in lategame anyways. This example was from ns_eclipse, but it applies to every map: You have to take terrain, reaction times, defenses, resworth AND abilities into consideration and then decide whether you want to save or to loose stuff and where to attack and defend.
If you can make it so that the onos have to attack you in your place, you're better off than having to attack them in theirs.
Comments
You should have used beacon and got everyone going to maint, if they go back to cc use the beacon again...I don't care how much res it uses, the game is lost if the team fights for CC, there's a slim chance if you can siege maint.
Remember though, a 2 hive lockdown is the easiest simplest way for marines to win, I've commed incredibly retarded marines and won games with 2 hive lockdown that would've been lost any other way.
Alot of good commanders don't like 2 hive lockdown though and they go for JP or HA tech early, but once aliens get a 2nd hive up, then the game just gets twice as hard for marines.
The comm left that game because he was frustrated with the marines.
Make the kharaa chose between killing your rts and losing a hive. The winner of a trade like that should be obvious.
Investing huge amounts of res in defending a place you can easily afford to lose severely limits your assault capabilities.
As someone suggested, beacon to get your marines organized, if they split up, beacon again. Or another way is hopefully a couple of marines who listened made it to the siege spot. PG it, beacon, send your boys through.
2 hive lockdown works for me on pub servers with medium to bad marines, it actually works insanely well...
If the marines are ok I grab the furthest empty hive, drop rt + pg, maybe elec move on quickly..
But with bad marines I have turreted both hives, told them to keep phasing and camping both hives and then slowly got ups, quite often with just 3 rt's. Once I get both hives with 3 or 4 turrets in each and the marines phasing I reckon I have a 90% chance of winning.
Turrets are rookie, but against an average pub alien team they divert attention from the pg as a target, they block, get in the way and give the marines more confidence....as soon as the hives are locked like that then I get proper ups, usually sg's first for the first 2 fades...
I prefer not to lock hives, but its an easy tactic because it keeps bad marines together and with an objective they understand...with only 1 hive aliens are not that scary...
I just adapt really depending on how good the marines are, but if they are bad, the 2 hive lock is really what I choose and I've seen it work plenty of times vs an alien team of vets
Timmy, how do you manage to get a 2-hive lockdown?
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->the 2 hive lock is really what I choose and I've seen it work plenty of times vs an alien team of vets<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If the aliens are really vets, or at least one or two vets, you usually never manage to get two hives locked down because they WILL watch the hives at start (due to possible reloc), notify everyone immediately of spotted rines and vet skulks can tear three or four new unupgraded rines to shreds easily!
Also, with a lockdown, you cant upgrade early and your people are pretty much canned food in the hives. Even shotties dont do wonders without weaponup?
And that comm: Its okay being frustrated and leaving, but selling the ips then leaving while the team still wants to fight on sucks. Some semi-pro and pro comms get fed up with their "retarded noob" marines so fast just because they loose one or two battles that they usually mess up the game all by themselves and end up being pretty bad comms.
I've once had a comm that said, while only the base left, aliens 3 hives and a few onos lurking at the entrance: "Don't worry, I've won much worse games than this!". And the rines all followed him. Its these guys calling everyone noobs (incredibly misused word in NS) because they just once loose against a skulk making rines not believe into sensible commanders anymore.
I noticed its just the same for the aliens: People think too much of what they can loose than what they can win. Rines just tried a two-hive lockdown but we had four good fades relatively fast. we had defs, the rines unlikely had many upgrades as they invested into some shotties and lotsa turrets for the lockdown. The closer hive had a pg, tf, and some turrets. the hive that was much further away from mainhive and very close to rinebase just got cleaned out and the rines left the locked hive to see if aliens get a hive up at the cleaned location.
A gorge of course immediatly builds a hive there which end up completely unsecured and close to rine base, and is under attack within a few seconds. But instead of using the distraction to force attack on the closer, easier to defend location and clean their base there, everyone ends up rushing to the contructing hive under attack, arriving there one by one, all fades shotgunned down, end of game.
I mean, screw that gorge and the 40 res, get the closer hive, cost them 150 res and get a second hive that lasts longer than 5 seconds!
Screw that base over there, screw that rt over here, don't get occupied by running across the map feeling like you have to protect it all, you just can't. Move on to the next objective and force your opponents to react. If you notice all you do in a game is reacting to the enemy, its a sure loss, no matter how good it looks.
I think a lockdown with a few turrets is a good thing to do in important places early, but noone should feel like it's worth protecting it. <b>If it can't protect the area anymore but needs to be protected itself, a TF isn't fulfilling its purpose anymore </b>, so its worth absolutely nothing except the recycling value.
To make it even better, I am someone who recycles the siege spots to regain the res and dump it in even more upgrades. And perhaps a few chokepoints.
I've commed marine teams that have beaten v well stacked alien teams, what you'll find is that an alien team with a few vets and good players is not always good cos most of them might be saving for fade, sometimes there's less teamplay in a good alien team with less players wanting to do the gorge donkey work...sometimes..
With marines I can usually spot the 2 best shooters on the team either by name or having played with them before, I try to get them to stick together and find the nicest most open strip down near the alien hive, they just stay there and shoot and I ammo and med them alot...
The rest of the team goes for the furthest hive...a general clump of pub marines...they'll do their job if they see results and if you keep their momentum...
The tech and res works like this, I drop 1 ip (2nd if things are going really bad) drop armory, drop arms and upgrade to a1, then drop rt or 2 on the way to alien hive...next bit depends on how fast the team is...
Get an obs and phase tech if team is slow OR if they get to hive fast then drop RT and TF and I don't elec straight away but keep the team moving on to 2nd hive, its like a bluff...
By the time I get to 2nd hive I have pg tech and w1 and I merge the 2 good shooters with the rest of the team for the big fight that theres gonna be for 2nd hive...
Lerks are most dangerous here, but you don't see a fade yet, the res is coming in and pg tf turrets etc are going down at 2nd hive, aliens can't attack even 3 or 4 marines in a defensive position unless they ALL stack and come in together and I rarely rarely ever see that on pub servers..
It can be difficult to get a marine going back to 1st hive but thats my next objective, I drop a pg there and elec it or turret it...
Directly after that is done I save and drop about 3 or 4 sg's and tell them to camp the hives for the fades...it works...if you don't tell them fades are coming, they scatter and loose sg's...
Crucially I DONT go for w2 and a2, thats like 60 res, to me thats nuts...with a2 they still die in 3 bites and with w2 thats just 10% extra on sg's? still 4 clean shots to kill a fade with w1 or w2...I prefer to get wallhack aka motion not so much for them but for me, takes a long time but I can see where the aliens are gonna hit next, and the speed of the blips moving tells me what it is I scan for fades, lerks, gorges, skulks...PG SUB, some1 get welder base, fade inc cargo PG CARGO, if half the team does that, the fade or fades never get the chances to actually take down the pg, they get hit by marines and turrets, they kill marines, but have to back off each time...I definitely have a 2nd ip down just before I go into 2nd hive..
By not getting a2 and w2 I get advanced armory and motion....I know the advanced armory is about a min or 2 too late, but I will still use the HMGS for defense....
By now the team is understanding what they are doing, a defensive role holding both hives, they understand the tactic (most of them) and even if we have lost every other rt we have 3 solid rt's that have been pumping res for a long time now, plus maybe a 4th rt, thats 1 res a second..
In 2 mins i will make just over 100 res, thats sg's, welders, medpacks and armory at 2nd hive, etc..
HMG's will come in just as first onos comes in...crucially the onos better have dc cos any other chambers he is dead, this is another dangerous bit, I definitely track the onos on the map....
By now the marines are restless and from what I do here is random...get HA or maybe JP...get rt's, kill alien rt's etc...
You have to remember how this looks to the alien team, you have too many unconstructive choices, theres no marines in corridors for skulks to ambush, they just munch the spare unguarded rt or throw themselves at base or turreted hive, gorges cant do anything, fades have to attack a position with 2 marines at least and 3 turrets, and if they kill those 2 marines, 2 more replace them...
This tactic works best on Eclipse, Veil, Lost, Ayumi, Hera...its the layout of the hives which causes problems, a lerk on veil can make life misery....Ayumi has such awkward hives, each hive on Ayumi is naturally hard to hold.
Some maps like Caged is where this tactic does not really work, Origin too...the dbl causes too many problems.
How many times have you commed Nothing and had ms rt, miasma, gen, and cargo rts, thats 5 rt's and a pg to gen and then just lost the game, even with heavies or jp's? its a vast map but if you get down the lifts and grab 2 hives, the pg's make it so small. You get motion tracking and without their 2nd hive the aliens are suddenly not so scary on that map..
At the end of the day I'd prefer to have low teched marines facing 1 hive than high teched marines facing 2 hives...
Think about it, with 2 hives a gorge suddenly becomes so dangerous, he can take out an rt himself with bile and then place one there, with 1 hive a skulk takes down an rt and the gorge has to spot which one it is, then come ALL the way across the map to get it and place it. When I have 2 hives locked down I KNOW what I am up against, when the aliens have 2 hives the spawning is so much quicker and they attack from many more angles, things like bilebomb become your worst enemy, pg's go down before you can even alert your marines...
Two hive lockdown is a good basic tactic, not the most fun one, but it becomes quite easy to predict what aliens are gonna do, you can just feel a base attack is coming, etc. I recommend it for beginner comms definitely. Its an uncluttered strategy with easy aims, for you and your marines.
Basically get PGs right away. 2 ips/armory/obs. Have all your marines go for the hive oposite from the alien hive (use your discretion but this is a good rule of thumb) and cap the nodes on the way.
Get the RT and PGs up in the hive.
Have all but 2 marines move on to the next hive right as soon as the PG is dropped.
While you are getting 6-8 turrets and a TF in hive #1 (trust me on this for public games) you should be assaulting hive #2. Fairly quickly you should have a PG, TF, and 3 turrets dropped in Hive #2.
Drop the Hive #2 RT and 3 more turrets and move on to capping nodes and pressuring their hive.
Within 5 minutes you have a 2 hive lock down and lvl 1 armor and depending how many extra RTs you have been snagging maybe lvl 2 weapons.
Having 3-4 marines guarding the hives (total, not at each) you'll be well alerted of any attacks on the hives and can send as many marines as you need to defend it. As long as your team listens (beaconing helps in bad situations btw) you'll hold those 2 hives for a VERY long time.
Downside to this tactic is its usually 8 minutes in you have lvl 1 guns and armor. Games usually last 10 minutes if your trying to take out their hive right away, but can last up to 35 minutes. Most games that last longer than 12 end up with marines in a Heavy Train going to their last hive.
This tactic wins at least 80% of the time on public servers but like many people who know I use it have pointed out, its not very fun for the alien team and unless you have your marines pressuring the last hive constantly and trying to siege marines can get bored and start not listening to you. But its very easy for the commander and doesnt take much effort to lead the team in this.