Why Don't Marines Use The Observatory?
Morat
Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8338Members
Join Date: 2002-11-12 Member: 8338Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Motion tracking to go...</div> Maybe it's just the games I've played, but I've never yet seen a marine base with a radar dish deployed. Given that the motion tracking upgrade rivals hivesight for usefulness, does anyone have any clue why it doesn't seem to be used?
Is the radar super-delicate and easily chomped or something?
Is the radar super-delicate and easily chomped or something?
Comments
After motion traking is researched, our skulks lose some of their effectiveness (all except the best ones). In addition, MT+shotty is downright evil.
I recall myself holding the crgo area on ns_tanith as marine. I'm usually a bad shot with the shotgun, nedless to say I was not feeking cheerful. That dya, however I learned its power. Suddenly, I see something moving in a vent with MT. Straife...BOOM. Green blood on the wall. The beauty of tracking is that it allows you to squeese off the 1st shot. With the shotgun, it's all you'll ever need.
I killed about 6 different incarnations of the same player as a lerk and a skulk. All in one shot. Makes me wonder why the guy didnt learn.
With everyone flipping out about which chamber should come first and how the Obs tower makes cloaking useless, the fact is that it just isnt implemented that much. From my experience, the most damaging effect of the Obs tower is the fact that marines now have access to the Phase Gates (which I dont really mind since I sometimes camp the gates with a Fade for the fun of it <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> ). Plus, yea, they are really delicate and easily destroyed.
So, most commanders dont understand/utilize the Obs tower to the best of its ability. That's one reason why you wont see it that often.
The most common mistake I see commanders do is to spend enormous resources on turrets and turret factories, instead of trusting in marines to guard them, or just hoping that it will live for the 1.2 minutes it needs to pay for itself. Anything more than that is a bonus.
The resources should go towards observatory/Motion tracking, armory, arms lab, armor upgrade, weapons upgrade, HMG research, prototype lab, HA research. In that order. Total cost is about 300 pts, or a bit less than three fortified resource points. Also note that it gives you combat advantages early - the MT will more than double the kill ratio for your marines. The armor upgrade makes you live 50% longer, the weapons upgrade means the skulks die 10-15% faster - all in all, it means you have a fighting chance against lvl 3 carap skulks.
You can't avoid fortifying completly .. but if you have upgraded your marines, you won't need heavy turret farms to hold the fort
Unfortunatly, it is very hard to choose what to defend. I personnaly have little faith in anyone I dont know as I frequently see skulks own groups of 2 or more all the time. Sometimes it gets to the point where I have to get my **obscenity** off the chair and go kill the skulk so my teammates can move on. Also if the aliens are good it shouldn't last the 1.2 minutes.
What gives?