Optimal Gorge Number/player.
Alpha_1
Join Date: 2002-12-18 Member: 11041Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-12-18 Member: 11041Members, Constellation
I was just wondering what most people thought the optimal number of gorge were for the number of players on the alien team. Also at what point during a game would it be advisable for a second gorge to be morphed.
I've had problems with a 5 player team and 2 gorges within the first 5 minutes of the game, this prevented a hive from being put up by a bit of time. Once it did go up (a mintue or two later) marines were nice enough to show up and clear it out.
So how many gorge per number of players on the team, and at what point, either time wise or RT# wise should number 2 be encouraged to morph?
Thanks in advance for you replies.
I've had problems with a 5 player team and 2 gorges within the first 5 minutes of the game, this prevented a hive from being put up by a bit of time. Once it did go up (a mintue or two later) marines were nice enough to show up and clear it out.
So how many gorge per number of players on the team, and at what point, either time wise or RT# wise should number 2 be encouraged to morph?
Thanks in advance for you replies.
Comments
OMG WHY 3 GORGES?
ONE BUILD REST RUSH!
You know how people CONSTANTLY scream these messages into an uncaring, ignorant void on the public servers? Yeah. That should give you some idea of what the general population thinks is an apropriate number of gorges.
<b>ONE</b> gorge. In every situation. No, you shouldn't go gorge buils a resource and then go skulk. ESPECIALLY not right outside the marine spawn. Stop it. God **obscenity**, we don't need OCs around that node you just built! The marines are gonbna take one look at it and seige it. Great so now you're going to wander off without even building some defs so the mess you've made LASTS a little while, and now you're going to run in circles around an empty node because you can't afford to build anything now. You **obscenity** noob.
The only time there should be a 2nd gorge is if the first gorge has his resources maxed out AND he's already got a hive coming up. In that situation, HE will probably ask his team for a second player to become gorge. For all I know, this might actually happen in larger games. It sure almost never happens on a public server.
In ANY other situation, the 1 gorge needs all the resources he can get, and that means YOU need to stay skulk and harrass the marines. If you think he wants a resource tower, type and ask him if he WANTS you to go gorge or not. Most of the time he'll say no. If he's rolling in resources or very, very low, and busy building up structures he just plopped down anyway, he <i>might</i> say yes. In any other scenario.
Now, if you already have a gorge, and you die and you see that he's just standing still someplace utterly stupid, and he never talks or types and doesn't respond to other players, and it's been five minutes and he still hasn't built a single structure, then yeah, you have a lamer on your team, and you'll want a second gorge ASAP depsite the drain on resources, because there's nothing else you can do to try and salvage the situation.
And for christ sakes, when you hear "WE NEED BUILDERS," don't immediately go gorge! Instead, press tab and see if your previous gorge says GEST as his species. Odds are he's just getting an upgrade and if you go gorge, in a couple second you'll have 2.
Now let's recap:
<span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'>ONLY NEED 1 GORGE</span>
If you ever think you might benefit from having more than one gorge, ASK YOUR CURRENT GORGE if he wants you to go gorge and build XXX. And then DO WHAT HE SAYS TO DO!!
As a <b>VERY</b> general guideline, i'd say there should be just one gorge until at least one or two additional RTs are up, as resources are really slow between 2 gorges until this piont. Also, around this point in the game the skulks should be maxing out resources so it'll all be split between those two gorges.
At that point its common for both to go to a hive, with one setting up defences and the other saving for the hive, so saying one gorge only, period, is very wrong. I've seen 2 gorges early on because we needed healing at the front lines in a skulk rush, and it won the game for us because we could run in and back out for healing.
*Note: once u have 2 hives up (or teh second one coming in, the other gorge <i>may</i> ask u to help build def around the two hives u now have. once there are three hives up, tho, and there are more than 6 players, there can be up to 3 gorges, and u can still win (seeing as ur gonna get onos and better weapons, what these 3 or less gorges are to do now is build def and offense chambers outside the marine base. then, the game ends with team two victory.
So I guess with a team of 10 people, maybe 2 gorges would be advisible after all.
I don't know. I have never played on such a full server without 5 idiots all going gorge.
I suppose what I should have said is that in the type of small games I usually play, you never want more than one gorge, and you never want to go gorge unless your team's current gorges want another gorge.
1 gorge per 5 skulks sounds okay, but I have never played a 10 vs 10 game, so I can't say for sure.
All RPs that flow into the alien team are split among players + gorges.
This means that if everyone is at maximum RP, ie, all skulks have 33 RP when there's only 1 hive up, then ALL RPs will go to the ONE player who is the gorge.
You are ONLY hurting your team when you have more than 1 gorge.
Another flawed piece of logic is "Well with one gorge he can't get around fast enough!"
Two words:
Movement. Chambers.
Well, four:
Well placed Movement Chambers.
Just like a Phase, and about twice as useful (albeit less versatile).
If you are a Gorge, you are not a Skulk. If three of you are Gorges, three of you are not Skulks. That's three less people to attack the marines.'
Do the math:
Five marines, one is a commander, four are attacking. Five aliens, one is a Gorge, four are attacking as Skulks. Evenly balanced.
Now, shift it. Two more dumb noobs turn Gorge. Now you get four attacking marines vs two attacking Skulks.
Point is clear.
By turning Gorge, you not only steal resources from the team, you deprive the team of necessary warrior Skulks who are desperately needed to attack the marines during the first five minutes of the game. I would venture to say that more games are lost because there's no one attacking than because of resources.
If this isn't clear, switch it around. Everyone on a team going Gorge is like if every Marine was Commander. You would have five guys sitting around in command consoles while the aliens merrily ate everything up in their base.
Don't stay Skulk because you don't need another Gorge. Stay Skulk because you need Skulks.
So now comes the easy part ...putting up defenses...keep in mind pretty much every hive has 2 marine ways in and at least 1 vent. Now you may be tempted to put the defenses close to the hive or even in the hive room....but don't do so 90% of the time its better to put it a bit forward on that path into the hive. This does a few things 1 it gives really advanced warning about people heading to a hive and 2 it generally makes them siege the oc's and then have to make a new tf to siege the hive. Do this for the hive you are already at then run over to the other hive and do the same there. By the time you finish all the walls of lames and grab a couple more rt's the second hive should be near done so go ahead and save up a few resources.
Ok so now the second hive finished and resources slowed down because everyone else needs to fill up again...but you were smart and saved up a little right? good now you can place 2 movements in your main hive us one of them and place one in the second. Take this time to either grab the third hive if its clear(if you havent already done that earlier) or to touch up the defenses you set earlier. Right now your tasks are really simple grab nodes, take choke points, web areas, and build forward support for assaulters. Easy eh?
Ok now lets explain couple things that people are worried about. If your team is at full resources then everything above 33 goes into the team pool when the gorge dies...he then goes gorge again and regains it all back plus whatever was building up while he was dead. All you really lost was a few seconds which isnt a REALLY big deal. Another thing never have someone go gorge just to grab a node and then go back to skulk...its a waste. Think about it like this: that skulk is at 33 he then spends 13 to go gorge waits for 2 more resources drops a node and then goes back to skulk....he just spent 39 resources(22+13+4) on a node AND has to fill back up his resources. Thats a lot of wasted resources just going to gorge and back(just about enough for another node) and you also have to share resources with him till he fills back up...not acceptable.
Now I know you probably still doubt the one gorge method hell I did too when I was first told about it...but give it a try you will see it works out much better. If you still uncertain just remember if you REALLY want its ok to have 2 gorges later in the game(after the second hive is complete) but its really important to only have 1 at start. Ok i have talked enough.
1. Number of Rts you have.
2. Number of players.
3. Whether non-gorges have maxed their resources or not.
4. How well your team is doing.
More RTs, more players, maxed resources and your team doing all mean you can sustain more gorges. The reverse is also true.
1 gorge will ALWAYS, 100% of the time, get RPs FAR faster than if you have 2 or more gorges.
And its not a minor difference in speed.
It's "I just placed an RT and by the time I built it I already regained 22+ rp, and we're only on our 2nd hive."
The biggest problem with more than one gorge is that one or more of those gorges does not understand that they are hurting the team more than helping it. They have no concept of how the resources are distributed, and think that the ultimate strategy consists of everyone on the team going gorge and building right outside the marine base.
The biggest problem with most 'newbie' gorges is that they don't think about how them being a gorge, sitting around waiting for those resources to come in, since there are 3 gorges and they are coming in quite slow, is hurting the team because that is one less attack-class alien in the field.
the first gorge needs to convert right away.
The second gorge should not evolve until he has 33 rps.
The two gorges should not seperate. part of what makes this strategy work is the fact that resource towers will be up twice as fast.
I have not timed it but the time it takes for the second hive to be up is very close if not faster than with one gorge. and as a result defenses and upgrade towers went up much faster.
also try a few variations. have the first gorge build resource towers and the second one save for hive or the first gorge save for hive and the second one build resource towers only. Ive tried it with the first gorge building 2 resource towers then saving while the second drops the third and forth resource towers.
Anyone willing to try this and post times it took for the standard one gorge to bring up a hive as compared to various 2 gorge combinations would be greatly appreciated since im not 100% sure which is faster myself
I'm talking about larger games like 8vs8 players.
As it was said earlier in this topic two gorges can build up structures faster than one gorge... and we all know that resource towers take quite a while to build up.
When the game starts one player becomes gorge.. that's the "builder".
the rest of the team has to keep the marines at bay.
When reaching 33 res a second player become gorge, too... that's the "helper/saver".
The builder builds res-towers wich the helper helps to build. The time you can save this way will pay you in resources.
The Helper/Saver should now get enough resources for a second hive.
Now the helper can either decide to become another type of aliens or work as an offense gorge.
This one works quite well a lot of games for a few friends of mine and me... but it can't really say if it's really faster than the one-gorge-tactic. If i had a server of my own I could test this (on publics there are always some dumb noobs who run around attacking the enemy base with their spitting not even knowing what a gorge is for *sigh* ).
Last but not least you should remember that gorges can't fly, can't climb and are not that fast...
i like both the one-gorge and the two-gorge tactics, but on larger maps (or maps that takes pne long to from one place to another because of elevators, doors and so on) i think two gorges may be nessesary to secure the area and help their mates out if needed.
-=HyPeR=-
So don't go Gorge when we have already have a Gorge! Jeebus! This is a very simple matter.