How do I effectively defend my 2nd hive?
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Remain Calm Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5216Forum Moderators, Constellation
Remain Calm Join Date: 2002-11-02 Member: 5216Forum Moderators, Constellation
When I commanded the alien team a while back I noticed that it was impossible to expand and get RTs at a decent speed without a 2nd hive providing enough energy for infesting. But just putting the 2nd hive up straight away doesn't really work since the marines can walk in, shoot defending aliens as they jump at them (no lerks that early in the game...) and then just murder the hive.
Leaving it for later means we're behind in tech and resources, so I'm at a loss.
Leaving it for later means we're behind in tech and resources, so I'm at a loss.
Comments
Also, try to get your other players to defend as skulk/lerk. If they won't listen and marines are shotgun rushing your 2nd hive, try to get your team to attack marine start (chances are it only has a few marines defending it since the rest are likely attacking your hive).
Marines typically go into a frenzied rush mode to kill the second hive so their base shouldn't be too well defended, and if they do manage to take down the hive you can possibly return the favor by killing an infantry portal and armory while they're away from the base.
From there, tell your aliens to move to surface access and hold it while you plant a hive, then protect it while it grows. You don't have much to spend money on at the start, so two res nodes is more than enough until you get the second hive. I would suggest you concentrate on pushing the infestation into surface from generator as well, as linking hives together is a good idea, and it also allows you to drop crags (sometimes they work at first hive) to help your aliens, although a gorge can do just as well. You should be able to get a lerk or two by the time the hive is planted so defending it should not be very difficult.
Keeping your enemy's mind off what's going on around them by messing with them at their base is a great way to expand. I cannot say the same for turtle-expanding.
Offense can be the best defense here, marines generally won't attack if they are under attack so keep the pressure on them and attack their IP which can cause the comm to get out of his chair and chase you...wasting marine team precious time.
Also your aliens should defend the hive better, marines walking into the hive puts them on the disadvantage, because it puts skulks in a prime situation for ambushing. Further, marines are slower than skulks, so your skulks should be able to reinforce the hive faster than marines, to say nothing of mixing a lerk in, and preferably a gorge dropping a couple of hydras/healing people. Also using a gorge allows you to grab the hive RT straight away with gorge infestation.
Really speaking your greatest threat is marines shotgun rushing the hive, it's hard to kill them that quickly if they come in force, you'd need at least two lerks I think to hold off a shotgun rush.
Generally speaking I think your best bet is to concentrate most of your team in the growing hive, with at least one gorge and lerk in there, then get one or two other players to run around the rest of the map harassing marine resource towers, either you'll draw marines away from the hive, or you'll cripple their res income, good idea either way.
I also believe that the dominance of the Shotgun rush highlights the need for dynamic structure health scaling. Dynamic (effective) health scaling has been used as a balancing mechanism in games with fluctuating player count, such as Diablo and WoW (Wintergrasp), which I think is quite effective at preventing certain game elements (eg structures) from being trivialized with increased player count.
Given that they carry a lot of ammo, cutting the anti-structure DPS in half would probably fix the problem.
check the map a bit and see where the main battles are. find the calmest spot and drop the hive there. makes defending it VERY easy. i usually drop it in Crossroads, where it's a pain to defend, but it's also the one place the marines almost never look
+1
Taking heliport just needs a good Lerk (+ some other backup of course)in the long hall, and Surface access can be held easily with a gorge/hydra (again, with skulk backup) on the ramp.
Marines need their bases for map control because their bases give them their mobility, but aliens get it naturally.
The best way to get map control as aliens is probably to get your second hive, and its RT as well as one more RT so that you can fund your fades and lerks. Then you use your crags and infestation to build forward outposts to help keep your fast aliens alive and track marine movements.
But you do need that second hive, I generally think your second hive should be defensible, rather than aggressively positioned.
<!--quoteo(post=1858761:date=Jul 8 2011, 08:14 PM:name=twiliteblue)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (twiliteblue @ Jul 8 2011, 08:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1858761"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I also believe that the dominance of the Shotgun rush highlights the need for dynamic structure health scaling. Dynamic (effective) health scaling has been used as a balancing mechanism in games with fluctuating player count, such as Diablo and WoW (Wintergrasp), which I think is quite effective at preventing certain game elements (eg structures) from being trivialized with increased player count.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
+0.98
My only gripes with this are purely preferential. I generally don't like the idea of an effectively artificial scaling mechanism (for example, resource income as a function of player count); and games may vary in player count a lot, so determining how much health a structure should have (especially if it's been damaged) would be a pain... but I see the necessity (and many of my recent posts have dealt with scaling/scalability issues), so on the whole I agree.
<b><u>Ignore the following if you wish</u></b>... just my musings on how you might attempt to balance and implement this.
<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->N number of players using this attack should take T number of seconds to kill this structure. T is your specified (arbitrary) constant, N is your variable.
The amount of damage an attack does is A hitpoints per second, the amount of hitpoints a structure has is H.
Note: N would most likely be less than actual player-count, but would certainly be proportional to player count (N would be a proportion of player-count). The ratio of N to actual player count would need to be considered (and is fairly arbitrary).
So H/T=N*A;
Rearranging,
H/N = T*A
Let R = H/N
Then R = T*A
R, Ratio of hitpoints to number of players = T, time (seconds) to kill a structure * A, damage per second of an attack
Pick a basis situation, so GIVEN a basis attack (e.g. bite) with A damage per second (your base variable, which is already balanced on a player vs player basis; apply any factors like structural damage type); SPECIFY the ideal time, T seconds, that it should take for this attack to kill this structure (e.g. extractor); MULTIPLY A and T to get R
Then
H = R*N
The hitpoints of the structure scales with the number of players.
R must necessarily be constant, so for other attacks, either accept T's new value (whether more or less), or work to re-balance A for this structure to get T to be ideal: either through applying factors such as structural damage type, or by increasing or decreasing the value of A as necessary (but you must, in turn, re-balance player health with this new A).
Alternatively, work backwards: start with T and R and get A from there.
A spreadsheet of the damage per second (or time taken to kill) of every single attack versus every single unit or structure would be of great benefit in attempting this.
Alternatively, for every attack, you could give it an anti-player damage, P, and an INDEPENDENT anti-structure damage, A. This would make it IMMENSELY easier to balance, however, it does lead to some player confusion / lack of intuitiveness. (How much damage does this weapon do? Why does this weapon do so much damage to players but it takes forever to kill a harvester?)<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->