Fighting Fades
Insidious
Join Date: 2002-11-21 Member: 9553Members
Join Date: 2002-11-21 Member: 9553Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Tricks learned from playing skulk</div> A quick preface - I've posted these strats before under general discussion, which was the wrong place for it, so I'm posting it here where it belongs.
I've seen some wonderful games of NS recently that have renewed my faith in this games balance. How the game is balanced depends on how the people use what they have. A skulk that runs straight at a swarm of marines in a narrow corridor with no cover without even considering climbing walls has no right to complain that the game is unbalanced because he has no chance to kill marines. There are a dozen ways to play that situation out differently that would result in at least one dead marine, if not several.
So some general thoughts that will matter later. If you're dependant on being in close quarters to kill, avoid being seen, attack from behind whenever possible, wait at corners, be quiet whenever you can, and make sure your aim is true. Sound like playing skulk? It should. Sound like playing marine? It should. What? That is how marines should play ONCE FADES ARE AVILABLE.
Fades are to marines as marines are to skulks. Deadly at long range, also deadly at close quarters, but that's the only time you can kill one. LMG's at long range vs. acid rockets is like parasite vs. LMG. You're going to die. You may as well take your chance charging... or retreating. This is exactly the choice a skulk is faced with - charge, or try and ambush. The reason skulks become less effective late game isn't that marines are more powerul (frankly, sometimes they don't even upgrade, they just spread out to hives, making them no stronger, just irritating) - they still die in a few bites... but they have motion tracking! No more ambushes. Once fades are available, there are fewer skulks, thus fewer scouts... so aliens become MORE vulnerable to ambushes themselves. I once saw a fade run up to the door to the marine base on hera, open it, fire a few rockets while running away, repeat. Two marines talked the commander into shotguns, and HID on opposite sides of the door. Fade opens door, and is greated with more buckshot in his face than in all of the street signs in the south. Replace the words "fade" and "marine" with "marine" and "skulk" and you get the same sort of story. Charging fades works sometimes, but it's just like charging marines - you're probably going to die, just doing some damage. The difference is a skulk has enough energy to kill 30+ marines if none of them would shoot, while a marine with perfect accuracy could only kill 3-4 fades before reloading, so you don't see lone marines going beserk, clearing entire rooms of fades like a lucky skulk will clear marines (so unlike skulks, you can't afford to miss).
Another similarity between playing skulk vs. marines and playing marine vs. fade is cones of fire. Marine weapons spread, meaning two clustered skulks are going to die faster because fire will bleed over between the two. Acid rockets work on the same principle, when they hit, they splash. Many skulks have learned to spread out a bit, yet I still see marines rushing fades together... but so close they die to the same rocket, and end up putting more rounds into each other's backs than into the fade. Skulks can spread vertically by wall crawling, but marines only option is lateral spread. PLEASE don't block your teammate's movements or line of fire, one or both of you will live longer, and the fades will die sooner. Each of you pick a side of the hallway, and stick to it (dodging is only negligably effective, unless the fade is going for a straight-on hit, most don't, they know how to splash off walls/floor) And this last bit is kind of hard to coordinate in the field, but if you see which fade your teammate is firing on, concentrate on that one, too. It's better that one fade die than both run away, lick there wounds, then return to lick your whole team.
Other bits of useful skulkieness - even in the middle of a fight, you can gain an advantage by staying out of sight. I circle strafed to stay out of view of a fade that was charging an outpost of ours, and he totaly ignored me in favor of a turret, so I walked right up behind him and welded him to death by pinning him between the turret and myself. He never expected to have his retreat cut off by me physically blocking him, and since I was at the corner of his sight at best, he didn't bother attacking me first.
Fades, even with adrenaline, have a limited number of acid rockets at the ready. If a fade is attacking your base and you have a nice place to hide, wait until he's blown his load, then follow around the corner while he's "reloading." Once again, this is just what a skulk should do to a lone marine that's shooting an alien structure.
On a quick side note, I've noticed that aiming low on fades works best. Games with locational damage have taught many of us bad habits, always going for the head. But fades don't jump very high (well, nothing but a jetpacker or lerk does), but the hit boxes do duck a lot lower than the model shows. I find aiming for the thighs gets me a satisfying spray of green ichor, jumping, ducking, or running.
Another quick comment for playing marine - you may as well bind your key for moving backwards to "commadner, I need a medpack!", because you're going to get hurt. It's better to strafe at full speed than retreat at half speed. If you need to get away fast, strafe away, then you're only a quarter turn away from either flat out running, or turning back to return fire. Good old circle strafing drives most aliens nuts.
Please comment if you have any other advice to include other than vague comments like "charge the fade!"
You wouldn't expect a newb to have much fun with this mod if he was told to always "charge the guys with the blazing guns!" as skulk. He'd be spending more time respawning than in CS. Combat is a lot more complex than that in NS, and that's one of the main reasons it's such an amazing mod.
Just remember, once fades are in play, <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> = <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sneak, hide, ambush, wait for them to waste ammo, and do all of this at the closest range you can risk.
I've seen some wonderful games of NS recently that have renewed my faith in this games balance. How the game is balanced depends on how the people use what they have. A skulk that runs straight at a swarm of marines in a narrow corridor with no cover without even considering climbing walls has no right to complain that the game is unbalanced because he has no chance to kill marines. There are a dozen ways to play that situation out differently that would result in at least one dead marine, if not several.
So some general thoughts that will matter later. If you're dependant on being in close quarters to kill, avoid being seen, attack from behind whenever possible, wait at corners, be quiet whenever you can, and make sure your aim is true. Sound like playing skulk? It should. Sound like playing marine? It should. What? That is how marines should play ONCE FADES ARE AVILABLE.
Fades are to marines as marines are to skulks. Deadly at long range, also deadly at close quarters, but that's the only time you can kill one. LMG's at long range vs. acid rockets is like parasite vs. LMG. You're going to die. You may as well take your chance charging... or retreating. This is exactly the choice a skulk is faced with - charge, or try and ambush. The reason skulks become less effective late game isn't that marines are more powerul (frankly, sometimes they don't even upgrade, they just spread out to hives, making them no stronger, just irritating) - they still die in a few bites... but they have motion tracking! No more ambushes. Once fades are available, there are fewer skulks, thus fewer scouts... so aliens become MORE vulnerable to ambushes themselves. I once saw a fade run up to the door to the marine base on hera, open it, fire a few rockets while running away, repeat. Two marines talked the commander into shotguns, and HID on opposite sides of the door. Fade opens door, and is greated with more buckshot in his face than in all of the street signs in the south. Replace the words "fade" and "marine" with "marine" and "skulk" and you get the same sort of story. Charging fades works sometimes, but it's just like charging marines - you're probably going to die, just doing some damage. The difference is a skulk has enough energy to kill 30+ marines if none of them would shoot, while a marine with perfect accuracy could only kill 3-4 fades before reloading, so you don't see lone marines going beserk, clearing entire rooms of fades like a lucky skulk will clear marines (so unlike skulks, you can't afford to miss).
Another similarity between playing skulk vs. marines and playing marine vs. fade is cones of fire. Marine weapons spread, meaning two clustered skulks are going to die faster because fire will bleed over between the two. Acid rockets work on the same principle, when they hit, they splash. Many skulks have learned to spread out a bit, yet I still see marines rushing fades together... but so close they die to the same rocket, and end up putting more rounds into each other's backs than into the fade. Skulks can spread vertically by wall crawling, but marines only option is lateral spread. PLEASE don't block your teammate's movements or line of fire, one or both of you will live longer, and the fades will die sooner. Each of you pick a side of the hallway, and stick to it (dodging is only negligably effective, unless the fade is going for a straight-on hit, most don't, they know how to splash off walls/floor) And this last bit is kind of hard to coordinate in the field, but if you see which fade your teammate is firing on, concentrate on that one, too. It's better that one fade die than both run away, lick there wounds, then return to lick your whole team.
Other bits of useful skulkieness - even in the middle of a fight, you can gain an advantage by staying out of sight. I circle strafed to stay out of view of a fade that was charging an outpost of ours, and he totaly ignored me in favor of a turret, so I walked right up behind him and welded him to death by pinning him between the turret and myself. He never expected to have his retreat cut off by me physically blocking him, and since I was at the corner of his sight at best, he didn't bother attacking me first.
Fades, even with adrenaline, have a limited number of acid rockets at the ready. If a fade is attacking your base and you have a nice place to hide, wait until he's blown his load, then follow around the corner while he's "reloading." Once again, this is just what a skulk should do to a lone marine that's shooting an alien structure.
On a quick side note, I've noticed that aiming low on fades works best. Games with locational damage have taught many of us bad habits, always going for the head. But fades don't jump very high (well, nothing but a jetpacker or lerk does), but the hit boxes do duck a lot lower than the model shows. I find aiming for the thighs gets me a satisfying spray of green ichor, jumping, ducking, or running.
Another quick comment for playing marine - you may as well bind your key for moving backwards to "commadner, I need a medpack!", because you're going to get hurt. It's better to strafe at full speed than retreat at half speed. If you need to get away fast, strafe away, then you're only a quarter turn away from either flat out running, or turning back to return fire. Good old circle strafing drives most aliens nuts.
Please comment if you have any other advice to include other than vague comments like "charge the fade!"
You wouldn't expect a newb to have much fun with this mod if he was told to always "charge the guys with the blazing guns!" as skulk. He'd be spending more time respawning than in CS. Combat is a lot more complex than that in NS, and that's one of the main reasons it's such an amazing mod.
Just remember, once fades are in play, <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo--> = <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sneak, hide, ambush, wait for them to waste ammo, and do all of this at the closest range you can risk.
Comments
You can kill a fade before your LMG clip runs out if you do it at point blank
Step 1
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F--------->
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Step 2
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<!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo-->[deadfade]
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This generally leads fades to yelling "wtf!" over the chat, since they aren't used to dying in 1 clip.
Uh yeah. =P
Well, pretty long post but describes what a marine should do pretty much. I often go solo behind enemy lines to come back later shooting dead fades and gorges, then they just go wondering what the hell happened <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> Only take them up-front if I have no other choice to consider.
I allways charge a fade when near base. jumping out shooting 3 bullets then ducking in again dosent work on fades. And hiding is stoopid.