Alien Commander Guide
elodea
Editlodea Join Date: 2009-06-20 Member: 67877Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Editlodea Join Date: 2009-06-20 Member: 67877Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">because your worth it</div>*Updated for [182] 28/7/11*
<u><b>Overview</b></u>
This is by all means not meant to be comprehensive. Alien commanding is generally very relaxing but i just wanted to share some basic tradeoffs, decisions and timings i see with alien commanding as of 182 for people new to it. While not as direct and influential as marine commanding, alien commanding is in its own way is challenging, rewarding and requires some educated guesswork. If i missed anything or if you have other opinions i would love to hear what you think. Also, i want to see more people fighting to alien comm as everyone usually runs off and im stuck having to comm game after game :'(. Marine stack -> j2 -> everyone runs off -> dahmit!
<u><b>General Strategy</b></u>
It helps to frame the role of the alien commander currently as revolving around two priorities and none other. Any actions you take should help further these goals. e.g. wasting energy building random infestation or letting team resources build up is not helpful. While it is easy to become distracted, you should always strive to fully utilize your team resources such that they never go over 50-60.
1) Securing the 2nd hive
2) Upgrading as fast as possible in order to aid the killing of all demon spawn marines
<u><b>Whip, Crag, or Early Hive?</b></u>
You start with 50 res with each harvester giving 1 res every 8 seconds. This means you must choose between 3 different early game routes.
TL;DR timing estimates - Hive takes 180 seconds to complete + 15 seconds drifter travel. Expect marine armour 1 in around 200+ seconds if shotguns are immediate.
1)Whip
25 res altogether for melee 1. This gives aliens a fairly substantial early game advantage as skulks can now 2 bite kill marines or rather 33% faster for only +10% damage. This advantage is negated however by armour 1 and so a melee 1 strategy works best if you believe your team is able to strongly deny marine resources. A general estimate of when marines at the earliest will get armour 1 is at best roughly 200+ seconds. This is assuming general marine strategy involving 2 rt, ip, armoury for 40res, shotguns for 15, arms lab and armour 1 for 20 + 15 for total of 90 res. Needing to earn 40 extra res with 3 extractors + travel/construction/research time etc is about 3-4 minutes. This timing is very important and I shall refer to it later on.
2)Crag:
As an opener, this route offers +2 bullet protection for 25 res, or +3 bullet protection for 50 res total. Against shotguns, it doesnt realy do anything.. Clearly not an efficient use of res. Even if your hive bugs and your able to early whip AND crag, it is by far an extremely inefficient use of resources pre 2nd hive.
3) Early Hive:
As of 181, leap is binded to 2nd hive which is a huge upgrade to skulks. Going this route means you can only afford a 2nd rt 80 seconds in. Keep in mind also no one will have enough resources (unless their rfk gods) for fades when the 2nd hive goes up doing this nor will aliens have upgrades for 80 [2nd rt] + (25[whip + melee 1] / 2 * 8) = <b>180 seconds</b>. By this time marines are likely to have armour 1 soon if they have held 3 extractors and have not gone robotics. Therefore, the only benefit of early hive is to gain quick access to leap and quickly consolidate map control. The hive takes 180 seconds to complete + 15 seconds of drifter travel time so this strategy is very risky as it is exposed to shotgun rushes but the payoff on completion is very large as aliens will at this point have both leap and 2 bite for a while.
<b><u>Ok i got my whip/crag. 2 rt or 3?</u></b>
After committing 25 res to whip/crag + upgrade 1, your left with 25 of your starting res. At this point it is essential to secure a 2nd hive as soon as possible (upgrading to lvl 2 for <b>25 res</b> is just astronomically not worth it as shown by upgrade tables below - no one will have fade pre 2nd hive). Here are the estimated timings for 1, 2 and 3 rt in regard to how long it takes to get 50 res for a 2nd hive.
Assume 25 seconds travel and build time for harvesters. Assume you have a good gorge who makes crevice available very early.
1 rt
<b>200 seconds</b> = 25*8
2 rt
<b>127 seconds</b> = (50 - 15 + (25/8)) [res accumulated during drifter travel time] / 2 * 8
3 rt
<b>111 seconds</b> = (50 - 5 + (25/8)) / 3 * 8
TL;DR - 3 rt e.g. generator and crevice is best if someone gorges otherwise 2 rt is best before 2nd hive.
so basically if you went whip/melee 1 -> 2nd hive it would take 111 + 180 = roughly 5 minutes compared to early hive rush 3 minutes. The advantage of delaying the hive completion til the 5 minute mark is that your skulks will have a significant advantage over early marines and any early rush to lockdown a hive by marines will generally be a waste of time as
1) there is no hive to prevent.
2) sentries will spread marine resources too thin, increasing the time till armour 1. Thus aliens still have a window to comeback and secure a tech point without team res pooling up unused.
However if you believe the marine team wont or cant aggressively push tech points, then an early hive quickly consolidates alien supremacy.
<u><b>Post 2nd hive upgrades</b></u>
I dont believe melee upgrades affect fades currently (could be wrong), but assuming so, crag upgrades are thus the better option. Also, as marines get armour 1, the benefit of successive melee upgrades is negated for <b>skulks</b> so your basically spending res for no benefit as it will still take 3 bites (melee 1 to 3) to kill an armour 1 marine. In terms of crag placement, i find it best to stack them at the forward hive so fades heal up quicker when they come back and you have the benefit of umbra.
If melee upgrades do affect fades, then it gets a bit less clearcut but i will outline the benefits of successive melee upgrades. If you believe marines are at armour 1, upgrading to melee 2 allows fades to continue 2 swiping marines. When marines upgrade to armour 2, melee 3 AND swarm is required in order to maintain 2 swiping. Personally i believe maintaining the melee advantage (2 swipe instead of 3) over marines takes priority over armour upgrades due to the long rate of fire of fade 2.0 swipe. Quicker kills essentially translates into more effective hp. 2 swipe kills combined with frenzy (gain health on kill) also helps with the lower health problem.
<b><u>3rd hive?</u></b>
In the absence of the crag bug, you should always max all upgrades before even considering a 3rd hive. Otherwise, because crag upgrades are important post 2nd hive, you should re-prioritize to get a third hive in order to access crags.
<u><b>Energy Pooling</b></u>
Its tempting to use your energy to build cysts/drifters asap, but remember that marines are able to kill them quickly and the hive sight function is thus not as useful. Try to only build drifters when you need them, and only place cysts if you have enough energy to complete the chain to where you want to expand to. Pooling gives you more options and makes it easier to respond to different situations quicker. Theres nothing worse than having built 2 extra drifters only to then find yourself not having enough energy to replace a ninja'd cyst in a chain. Further, if your team rapidly pushes into marine territory, energy pooling enables you to consolidate the gain rapidly.
<b><u>Le Marines spammed sentries! halp!</u></b>
Theres nothing you can realy do against sentries directly as commander. Whip and melee 1 however is the best option as opposed to early hive to prevent marine territorial expansion and sentry spammage by forcing armour 1.
<u><b>Excess team resources?</b></u>
Whip rush!
<u><b>Added melee upgrade vs Marine armour upgrade table</b></u>
<img src="http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/1889/skulkupgradetable.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/3296/fadeupgradetable.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<u><b>Overview</b></u>
This is by all means not meant to be comprehensive. Alien commanding is generally very relaxing but i just wanted to share some basic tradeoffs, decisions and timings i see with alien commanding as of 182 for people new to it. While not as direct and influential as marine commanding, alien commanding is in its own way is challenging, rewarding and requires some educated guesswork. If i missed anything or if you have other opinions i would love to hear what you think. Also, i want to see more people fighting to alien comm as everyone usually runs off and im stuck having to comm game after game :'(. Marine stack -> j2 -> everyone runs off -> dahmit!
<u><b>General Strategy</b></u>
It helps to frame the role of the alien commander currently as revolving around two priorities and none other. Any actions you take should help further these goals. e.g. wasting energy building random infestation or letting team resources build up is not helpful. While it is easy to become distracted, you should always strive to fully utilize your team resources such that they never go over 50-60.
1) Securing the 2nd hive
2) Upgrading as fast as possible in order to aid the killing of all demon spawn marines
<u><b>Whip, Crag, or Early Hive?</b></u>
You start with 50 res with each harvester giving 1 res every 8 seconds. This means you must choose between 3 different early game routes.
TL;DR timing estimates - Hive takes 180 seconds to complete + 15 seconds drifter travel. Expect marine armour 1 in around 200+ seconds if shotguns are immediate.
1)Whip
25 res altogether for melee 1. This gives aliens a fairly substantial early game advantage as skulks can now 2 bite kill marines or rather 33% faster for only +10% damage. This advantage is negated however by armour 1 and so a melee 1 strategy works best if you believe your team is able to strongly deny marine resources. A general estimate of when marines at the earliest will get armour 1 is at best roughly 200+ seconds. This is assuming general marine strategy involving 2 rt, ip, armoury for 40res, shotguns for 15, arms lab and armour 1 for 20 + 15 for total of 90 res. Needing to earn 40 extra res with 3 extractors + travel/construction/research time etc is about 3-4 minutes. This timing is very important and I shall refer to it later on.
2)Crag:
As an opener, this route offers +2 bullet protection for 25 res, or +3 bullet protection for 50 res total. Against shotguns, it doesnt realy do anything.. Clearly not an efficient use of res. Even if your hive bugs and your able to early whip AND crag, it is by far an extremely inefficient use of resources pre 2nd hive.
3) Early Hive:
As of 181, leap is binded to 2nd hive which is a huge upgrade to skulks. Going this route means you can only afford a 2nd rt 80 seconds in. Keep in mind also no one will have enough resources (unless their rfk gods) for fades when the 2nd hive goes up doing this nor will aliens have upgrades for 80 [2nd rt] + (25[whip + melee 1] / 2 * 8) = <b>180 seconds</b>. By this time marines are likely to have armour 1 soon if they have held 3 extractors and have not gone robotics. Therefore, the only benefit of early hive is to gain quick access to leap and quickly consolidate map control. The hive takes 180 seconds to complete + 15 seconds of drifter travel time so this strategy is very risky as it is exposed to shotgun rushes but the payoff on completion is very large as aliens will at this point have both leap and 2 bite for a while.
<b><u>Ok i got my whip/crag. 2 rt or 3?</u></b>
After committing 25 res to whip/crag + upgrade 1, your left with 25 of your starting res. At this point it is essential to secure a 2nd hive as soon as possible (upgrading to lvl 2 for <b>25 res</b> is just astronomically not worth it as shown by upgrade tables below - no one will have fade pre 2nd hive). Here are the estimated timings for 1, 2 and 3 rt in regard to how long it takes to get 50 res for a 2nd hive.
Assume 25 seconds travel and build time for harvesters. Assume you have a good gorge who makes crevice available very early.
1 rt
<b>200 seconds</b> = 25*8
2 rt
<b>127 seconds</b> = (50 - 15 + (25/8)) [res accumulated during drifter travel time] / 2 * 8
3 rt
<b>111 seconds</b> = (50 - 5 + (25/8)) / 3 * 8
TL;DR - 3 rt e.g. generator and crevice is best if someone gorges otherwise 2 rt is best before 2nd hive.
so basically if you went whip/melee 1 -> 2nd hive it would take 111 + 180 = roughly 5 minutes compared to early hive rush 3 minutes. The advantage of delaying the hive completion til the 5 minute mark is that your skulks will have a significant advantage over early marines and any early rush to lockdown a hive by marines will generally be a waste of time as
1) there is no hive to prevent.
2) sentries will spread marine resources too thin, increasing the time till armour 1. Thus aliens still have a window to comeback and secure a tech point without team res pooling up unused.
However if you believe the marine team wont or cant aggressively push tech points, then an early hive quickly consolidates alien supremacy.
<u><b>Post 2nd hive upgrades</b></u>
I dont believe melee upgrades affect fades currently (could be wrong), but assuming so, crag upgrades are thus the better option. Also, as marines get armour 1, the benefit of successive melee upgrades is negated for <b>skulks</b> so your basically spending res for no benefit as it will still take 3 bites (melee 1 to 3) to kill an armour 1 marine. In terms of crag placement, i find it best to stack them at the forward hive so fades heal up quicker when they come back and you have the benefit of umbra.
If melee upgrades do affect fades, then it gets a bit less clearcut but i will outline the benefits of successive melee upgrades. If you believe marines are at armour 1, upgrading to melee 2 allows fades to continue 2 swiping marines. When marines upgrade to armour 2, melee 3 AND swarm is required in order to maintain 2 swiping. Personally i believe maintaining the melee advantage (2 swipe instead of 3) over marines takes priority over armour upgrades due to the long rate of fire of fade 2.0 swipe. Quicker kills essentially translates into more effective hp. 2 swipe kills combined with frenzy (gain health on kill) also helps with the lower health problem.
<b><u>3rd hive?</u></b>
In the absence of the crag bug, you should always max all upgrades before even considering a 3rd hive. Otherwise, because crag upgrades are important post 2nd hive, you should re-prioritize to get a third hive in order to access crags.
<u><b>Energy Pooling</b></u>
Its tempting to use your energy to build cysts/drifters asap, but remember that marines are able to kill them quickly and the hive sight function is thus not as useful. Try to only build drifters when you need them, and only place cysts if you have enough energy to complete the chain to where you want to expand to. Pooling gives you more options and makes it easier to respond to different situations quicker. Theres nothing worse than having built 2 extra drifters only to then find yourself not having enough energy to replace a ninja'd cyst in a chain. Further, if your team rapidly pushes into marine territory, energy pooling enables you to consolidate the gain rapidly.
<b><u>Le Marines spammed sentries! halp!</u></b>
Theres nothing you can realy do against sentries directly as commander. Whip and melee 1 however is the best option as opposed to early hive to prevent marine territorial expansion and sentry spammage by forcing armour 1.
<u><b>Excess team resources?</b></u>
Whip rush!
<u><b>Added melee upgrade vs Marine armour upgrade table</b></u>
<img src="http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/1889/skulkupgradetable.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/3296/fadeupgradetable.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Comments
A lot of people seem to battle with the speed of early game commanding support which is the biggest issue. I think a tip that will help people a lot is:
Learn the hotkeys!! I know you think your a ninja with your mouse, but having the hotkeys makes responding to situations a lot faster.
Especially in a situation of 2/3 hives - ctrl + 1 first hive, ctrl + 2 second hive, etc then double tap 1 or 2 to get to that location quickly.
^ Sounds simple but i'm amazed at the amount of people that can't get their head around this
Spot on in my opinion :)
I enjoy playing with you on AUS-Pure, with either you the comm or myself :P
Thus whips only in important chokepoints or hives.
I am constantly amazed at how strong 1 base aliens are with fast ups, especially when it is impractical to put up a comfortable second like surface
Is that true? What are the numbers for this? What about if you stick with melee 1 and marines get armour 2-3?
You didn't really mention frenzy or swarm either. Getting frenzy early with 2 bite skulks can make a huge difference.
Good guide though, you explained everything pretty clearly.
Also, I wanted to mention that you don't need to always sit in a hive if you are alien com, especially at the start of the game. Most of the time when I do it, I hop out after the first extractor and melee upgrade to help put pressure on the marines. There's not much you can do with low energy and tres anyway. This is especially important on lower player count games where 1 extra skulk can make all the difference.
In many games if aliens are managing to kill marines, you can easily hold 5 nodes for some time and be raking in the money for upgrades within a relatively short amount of time.
<b>Crevice 1-3</b>
<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/225/crevice1.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/8434/crevice1.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<b>Reactor 4-6</b>
<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/810/reactor1.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/4387/reactor1.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<b>Reactor 6-7</b>
<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/683/reactor2.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/5079/reactor2.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<b>Surface Access 8-9</b>
<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/220/sa1jc.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5640/sa1jc.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<b>Surface Access 9-10</b>
<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/9/sa2dt.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5783/sa2dt.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
<b>Crossroads 10-12</b>
<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/560/crossj.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/7650/crossj.th.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a>
Especially in a situation of 2/3 hives - ctrl + 1 first hive, ctrl + 2 second hive, etc then double tap 1 or 2 to get to that location quickly.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
haha is it safe to do that now? In previous builds using group hotkeys would always crash my client D:
<!--quoteo(post=1863555:date=Jul 26 2011, 09:38 PM:name=)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE ( @ Jul 26 2011, 09:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1863555"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Is that true? What are the numbers for this? What about if you stick with melee 1 and marines get armour 2-3?
You didn't really mention frenzy or swarm either. Getting frenzy early with 2 bite skulks can make a huge difference.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ah yes sorry! and you guys are right i didnt go into detail about melee 2 and 3. Here is a quick table i did in excel showing number of bites related to each level of marine armour upgrade. The interesting thing i found was that yes frenzy after melee 1 is a good counter to armour 1 as its still a 2 bite kill if you parasite for 10 damage before biting.
Melee 2 on its own doesn't actually make any difference to number of bites for all levels of marine armour but i guess lerk gas may change how this goes.
<img src="http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/4508/skulkupgradetabler.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
I would try and figure out the fade one but im not sure what the new fade damage is since fade 2.0.
<!--quoteo(post=0:date=:name=aeroripper)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (aeroripper)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Cyst placement guide<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Excellent placement suggestions! I very much agree with the need to spend energy wisely in early/mid game
same level of melee as armour = 3 bites
1 level higher melee than armour = 2 bites
2 levels higher melee than armour = 1 bite
Perhaps that would be overpowered right now though as aliens can get those upgrades much quicker than marines.
Small correction: Frenzy is actually the gain health on kill upgrade. Swarm is the one that increases damage.
+1 very interesting
+1, this guide is great and helped me a ton.. will start using it when I com, I was having the most trouble with cyst placement and whether to go second hive right away or whip.
in it's place should be some other form of anti turret tactic. i love the idea of bile bombs disabling turrets (did this make it in?) or something along the lines of coordinated attacks from the aliens leading to disabling of turrets. maybe bile bomb plus lerk gas etc idk... creating a scenario that encourages teamwork to tactically take down a server farm should be implemented to combat the rine's tactic of said farms. in its current state all that is available is leap, leap, chomp - hope the comm doesnt get out of his chair.
Once hive 2 goes up, it looks like getting melee 2 is worth while if you think marines haven't advanced beyond armor 1... but it is likely they have by the time hive 2 goes up.
thanks for this info!
Bite
The primary ability of the skulk, using powerful multi-hinged jaws to deal a lot of damage and quickly. It takes 3 bites to kill a normal marine, but is reduced to 2 if the alien melee upgrade is at least one tier higher than the marine armor upgrade level.
So Melee to Armor may be wrong in the actual builds.
And in
<a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Main_Page" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/wiki/index.php/Main_Page</a>
You will see another List for the Skulk!
Greetings
Yeah I know. It was not formulated right.
It should mean that it was planed so that 1 Melee higher for Aliens than the Marines have Armor will end in a 2 bite kill. And always when I killed a Marine I thought: "Omg, Armour 3 already??".
And know I know why...
So a question to a Dev:
Is it right that Melee 3 for Aliens and Armour 1 for Marines will result in a 3 Bite kill?
I really hope not.
Edit:
And please dont forget Fury! I really sometimes think, that I am the only Com using the power of Fury!
A Fury Lerk feels like a Spike-Gatlingun!
It should mean that it was planed so that 1 Melee higher for Aliens than the Marines have Armor will end in a 2 bite kill. And always when I killed a Marine I thought: "Omg, Armour 3 already??".
And know I know why...
So a question to a Dev:
Is it right that Melee 3 for Aliens and Armour 1 for Marines will result in a 3 Bite kill?
I really hope not.
Edit:
And please dont forget Fury! I really sometimes think, that I am the only Com using the power of Fury!
A Fury Lerk feels like a Spike-Gatlingun!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What is fury anyways I see it on the whip?
Ah, thanks will have to definitely start using it then.