General Tips For a Marine Commander?
Firepower01
Join Date: 2012-08-03 Member: 154658Members
Join Date: 2012-08-03 Member: 154658Members
I don't command much (hardly ever) but recently I've really wanted to get better at. Seeing as I lack experience though, sometimes I feel like I could serve my team better if I was fighting. I know the basic things like build a second IP, get a obs right away and get phase tech. So do any experienced marine commanders have some tips for me?
Comments
pg -> a1 -> w1 -> aa -> w2a2 -> proto -> get double exos by 11 minutes there you will win most pubs. turret farming wins sometimes in very low level plays. it really depends. but i advise not to overcommit as an onos will make it all obsolete.
do not double med pack those who are at 25 hp unless they are strategically needed. just let them die. med those who are 75 hp. or those will fill up to 76 hp
-You need to be aggressive and pressure the aliens. Be on the defensive means eventually losing to a rampaging onos, so you need to be pushing at all times. You need pgs for that, as fast as possible, so armory->observatory->pg is a must.
-You only need a second IP in larger games or in case of skulks rushes. So it's up to you and how much do you trust your players.
-If you don't direct your players, they'll spread and attack uncoordinately. Have a mic and a plan – a bad plan is better than no plan, and try to make your players follow it. Be firm, but that doesn't mean sounding angry or frustrated. Pub players tend to be too afraid of dieing; push them and help with scans. Make them attack important targets, they tend to waste time killing cysts and whips and not shooting hives.
-You don't need to support every player in every situation. Learn to recognize what situations require generous using of medpacks and what not. Buiding or saving an advanced phase gate, rushing a hive, etc are important -you don't want your players running back to an armory or dieing.
-Pub players tend to save res for exos, so make sure you have armor 3 or are researching it, and can support the exos with macs but otherwise research the double gun version asap.
In my view you only have 2 viable options:
OPTION 1: Build Armory, get 2 nearest RTs up, research Mines and insist on using them. Get Observatory up as soon as possible, research phase tech next.
OPTION 2: Build Armory, get 2 nearest RTs up, build Observatory, research phase tech. Research Mines as soon as possible and insist on using them.
TURRETS suck. They are almost always a total waste of res, especially early-game!
Everything else develops by the needs of actual ingame-situations.
Make sure to research PHASE TECH (at Observatory), SHOTGUNS (at Armory), ARMOR 1 (at Arms Lab) early enough. Go for an ADVANCED ARMORY next, as soon as your resources and a good map control allow that. Just upgrading to ADVANCED ARMORY, but not building a PROTO LAB next or simply not getting GRENADE LAUNCHERS or FLAMERS next doesn't get you any real bonus, but costs 20 res.
Keep upgrading and get a second Command Station up as soon as possible. Secure and strengthen your positions, build Phase Gates between key positions and of course one in your main base. Instruct your Marines to keep up pressure against alien Resource Towers (and Hives, but only, if you are absolutely sure that it will be succesful to attack a Hive - otherwise just kill RTs and Upgrade Chambers) and gain map control, but don't leave your Command Station/Hive outposts unguarded.
It is always an action/reaction tug o' war - you can never really guard your bases completely and you can never really put full pressure on the alien bases with all your forces. Anticipation and quick reaction is the key to victory. 2 Marines guarding a base, when there is no actual Alien attack, are 2 Marines that are missing, when their team-mates attack the Aliens...
When there are more than 6 Marines and the Aliens are very aggressive, it is sometimes advisable to build a third IP - especially when you have enough resources.
General advice: Support your marines by performing a SCAN, when they build a new expansion, and in the heat of important battles. Try to take a Marine's perspective as a COMM - as a Marine, you know, that your ammo (especially with the assault rifle or grenade launcher) is pretty much limited - when your Marines push forward and there is no armory nearby, do NOT forget to drop Ammo Packs.
Most important:
1. Talk to the other players, so that they know what your general strategy is, what the Aliens are doing and so on... keep your Marines updated, give precise orders and HOPE that people at least try to follow your orders and that they don't focus on their very own "special" but useless ego-trips all the time. :)
As long as initiative contributes to the team's goal, there is no problem with it, but if your team looses, because some people didn't want to listen no matter what, it can become a little frustrating.
2. Get a very good overview of the maps from first-person-perspective and try to remember locations' names and important spots on a map. It helps quite a lot.
"2 skulks incoming at nano-grid. It is our TOP PRIORITY to hold nano-grid." is soooo much more helpful than "Incoming... INCOMING! ... INCOMING! Hey, what are you guys doing? I said INCOMING! ... Aaaaaah, power down."
3. Read tutorials, gain experience by playing and learn to know exactly how each game mechanic/building/upgrade/value works.
Well, one could write a book about it. :D
That's all my time allows right now.
I guess we all would be very thankful for further suggestions, constructive critique and players' opinions.
Best regards,
deathst4r
- Turrets suck (still)
- Exos suck
- Flamethrowers are a waste
- Jetpacks are OP
- Phase gates are really important, especially on veil.
Also, you only need a 2nd IP if you're losing a lot of people fast and you're on a higher player count server. Otherwise it can be delayed to 4:00-5:00 without negative reprecussions.
As aliens or marines, there's pretty much 1 rule: Do whatever you think will help your team the most. Know your alternatives and use them given the situation. In different situations, different things can work better than others.
If they're attacking HQ from the very start 'en mass' then you'll want a second infantry portal and mines, have a couple marines defending while you have 1-2 teams of 2-3 marines going out of the opposite side of base and set up extractors or even hunt down enemy harvesters.
Also as you gain experience you'll obviously learn a couple of strategies/tactics to put to use which hopefully will be accepted by the rest of the team.
Try to look at the tech tree and units, experimenting isn't exactly 'blashemy' in public games since most players won't even bother taking the command role to start with.
most importantly look at the map(s) look for potentional weak spots at alien hives for instance you can put up arcs in drill in the map mineshaft and nuke the hive in deposit, save some resources by putting up an observatory instead spam scan 24/7 or a map like Veil at cargo get jetpacks and have people fly around like vultures with grenade launchers and assault rifles, death from above! (yeah obvious things like that)
However as things are in the current build the 'famous and popular' Tres onos egg drop sure is cheap but in all reality one of a few things the kharaa can make use of to turn the tide of the battle in their favor (if not the only one in public play) so what I do as a 'pre-caution' if that's the word for it is that I'll get 3-4 extractors, get phase gate tech as quick as possible, cut a line between the main hive and the closest techpoint (essentially cutting the map in half) by setting up a forward phase gate and for god sake get mines shortly after phase gate tech is done 'cause you'll need it for 'em rambo skulks! (otherwise get lvl 3 weapons as quickly as possible!)
Though this strategy tend to fail since a lot of green folk have yet to learn how to aim with the assault rifle/etc. then this might not be an option (you'll quickly notice this as your whole team gets butchered by 1-2 skulks wink* wink*) so I start off with a robotics factory and deploy mac bots to repair armor on marines in the field (those that do survive) which does tend to keep groups of marines in top notch shape when they fight off a pack of skulks and then slowly but surely get phase gates afterwards and lockdown whatever tech points you can and afterwards one can only hope for the best really.
Note: mac bots are great to re-deploy/repair extractors behind the frontlines when that occational skulk manage to get behind your marines and take out 1-2 extractors, meaning your marines get more time to kill aliens instead being builders.
Note 2: Mac bots + EMP is great against Oni and Fades since it'll remove 50 energy points meaning they'll usually have trouble escaping using their charge/blink ability especially the onos since celerity don't kick in when damaged and the onos can be rather slow without using charge.
Lastly I'll say using a microphone tend to keep people look alive/even willing to listen at times! :O
^ the biggest "mistake" I see in at least 50% of the games I've played lately. Robo factory should be one of the last things you get (similar to how whips should be one of the last things you start dropping on alien side) - unless you are planning to siege with ARCs which can be really powerful.
Marine coms making turrets in every room early game kind of gives me a headache.
tips: -weapons 1 doesn't change the number of bullets needed to kill a base skulk and it doesn't upgrade exo's weapons
-sentries are a waste of money when used to "defend" as their fov is crap , they can be destroyed by any average skulk player
-armories are great to support your troops when they're near a hive and to bloc onos from entering corridors
-wielders are awesome
-don't forget to use nanoshield on your troops, especially on the wielders guys who repair exos
- Spend your res.
Unless you're saving for something specific (like an onos egg drop), you should never ever go above 50 res, and most of the time you should be at less than 20.
However, be careful what you spend it on. Dropping robo factory/turrets or whips might not be the best choice :-) . Defensive structures don't win games. Resource node domination and tools to help your team be more effective and aggressive do.
Maybe what i write would be not that 'general tip'. But as it's for everyone better to win than lose, i would like to tell you some general 'winning tips' for marine commander(at least through my opinion).
Actually there are still lots of people still saying that you can just sit down and click upgrades as expected/as wroten and drop some RTs and ammos. Yeah, that looks general, but actually completely rubbish. If you really wanna win against 'good' aliens, with good commander, you must be really busy. To communicate with that living things who would do what they want to do if you don't give any exact order to them. That means you should keep give orders exactly and remarkable while you should also control your resource situations. Actually marine commander of NS2 is therefore one of the hardest job through entire RTS genre, although some people who just sit down and only click upgrades and sometimes win against bad aliens and think that he did a good job will say that it's easy to be marine commander.
So simply said :
1. Communication(not just like a normal talking, but exactly, directly and politely, but when needed really aggressive as much as you can)
2. Strategy(map control, resource control... just like other rts games)
I would like to give you a direct key point of good winning strategy, and some examples for that.
It is : <b>Be both aggresive/defensive</b>
It depends on definately circumstances, but being too aggresive or too defensive will just bring gradual and eventual lose. I will give you some examples through the temporal stage of the match.
*Early stage of game
-Well Aggresive would mean at the early stage of game that marines go capture points asap, especially double nodes or other tech point. And if alien spawn is close spawn, you must research <b>phase gate asap</b> and put it on the other side of the map. Then it will lock alien expansion.
-Well Defensive would mean at the early stage of game nothing but just staying capturing strategically important area. Or just tell some marines(1 or 2) staying at base to build structures stay at base for a while to defend base and nearby extractors from early skulk pressure.
*Mid-late stage of game
Now it depends on how you think. No absolute tactical point. But i will give some important key possibilities.
- Well Aggresive would mean either send 'just some' marines to threat alien harvesters, or even hive to distract aliens. But please never send every single marines and die to kill a hive while they have at least 30% of map control and another hive. Just send marines if you definately sure that you can kill hive and <b>take control that tech point</b>. Otherwise it will be really vanish. Besides, keep threating them everywhere is also key point. If marines stack all together(like 6 marines in on room feeling like they are safe would just bring gradual lose). If you would have played Company of Heroes so well, you will understand. No american troopers can win against germans without being everywhere on the map. Being everywhere on the map is definately the key point of both aliens and marines, and it's therefore for marines more important because they have phase gate, and without it a lot slower than aliens.
- Well Defensive would mean here also important. As i just said, no stack in one room, firstly. But then it's important. You should have at least 1(or just maximum 1 is also enough at 8v8) guy defending 3 res nodes which is nearby captured techpoints, but backwards from there therefore a bit hard to defend if it gets chew down by a single skulk when you are attacking somewhere. There is actually no big difference between 8 marines(entire team) attacking or 7 attacking. Just tell to one marine politely, that it would be really helpful to win, if he stays on the side of the map and defend the res nodes(he will be able to defend at least 2-3 res nodes) rather than attack with other marines. If you keep lose extractors, you will eventually lose, even if you control 80% of the map. Losing extractor is the biggest reason why marines dominated whole match somehow gradually lose map control and eventually lose entire match.
Furthurmore defending base power node with exos or some players(no more than 3 out of 8 to 10. never) who are talented(:p) at staying at base could be also decent tactic.
Using your resources wisely will be both aggresive/defensive. I prefer aggresive resource uses. Of course there are probably some good reasons to save your resources, but still better to decide as soon as possible.
There are so many tactics and important that i wanna tell you, but that's the basic. Of course apart from upgrades, giving ammo and health pack. That's of course the 1st basic. But those wroten above are the basics for winning tactic, at least against good aliens. You should just keep doing and thinking about more than that, like keep thinking about what would be good for which circumstances.
By the way, instant losing tactic at the late stage of game which you are winning : not paying attention on base power node = 8 exos out of 8 marine players...
Lastly, some examples on summit would be also cool. It will clearify you how to control map.
Ideal stategy and circumstance for close spawn is to get the tech point on the opposite side of the map. As i wrote above, it will lock alien expansion completely.
However, if spawn is cross, you cannot get other side of the map and dominate whole map, of course. And you will never get both 2 techpoints on wings unless you drop CC at one of those two and get a new base. So it's ideal if you take one techpoint on one wing and take crossroads, and <b>then</b>, most importantly, take at least 1 neareast resnode room(like Crevice, Computer lab, Reactor Core...) of alien base with phase gate, so with phase gate means to control completely. That will make you easy to keep pressure on their res nodes. And also you won't be distracted as you will lock one exit from their base.
However, if you would still lose if you did have good communication, good control, good tactic, then that's because the game is natural selection 2. Unfortunately, or also fortunately, NS2 is a lot skill based. You will just lose because alien players were just better than marines.
But i am pretty sure, if you do so well at least like i wrote, you will win at least even skilled/not stacked matches.
Ah, being mentioned about skills, it's always better if you tell those skilled players to do some responsible jobs like sneaking into alien hive and kill upgrades, or harvesters which is far away. And if meanwhile other marines work as a team, it would still be no problem to attack/defend area without good some skilled players. That's the best way to distract aliens.
I hope if this would help you.
secondly, exo's can't phase around the map, again, making your bases EVEN MORE vurnable.
thirdly, exo's are VERY slow, making your bases EVEN MORE vurnable.
if aliens know how to play, they will rush marine bases when exo's rush hives, and it's a lot worse for marine to lose base than aliens to lose hive, if there is only 1-2 exo's those will usually die instantly when marines beacon their support back to base ( our should be easy to kill if aliens know how to play ).
what you should do is make your own tactic.... this game is not linear for marines, there is tons of stuff you can do wich is effective, for example jetpack / shotgun rushes, ninja phasegate rushes, artillery rush with marines to kill all aliens, while artillery clears hive and buildings, well placed phasegate near hive to force aliens def and then making artillery to clear the hive ( if your marines can hold that position ), exo's mostly work only in public games where aliens can't arrange baserush to counter it, i've been in game where there was 5 exo's in marine team with mac's ofcourse, well, aliens had 2 onos and we only had 1 hive that was dying and 1 hive that was just beginning to get built, quess who won the game ? aliens, we just rushed marinebase where was 3 normal marines deffing and they lost command centers and we won because exo's was too slow to get to the unbuilt hive.
if you do however want to get exo's, get them only AFTER you have phasegate, w3 and a3, welder, shotgun and mines, those are more important than exo's.
pg -> a1 -> w1 -> aa -> w2a2 -> proto -> get double exos by 11 minutes there you will win most pubs. turret farming wins sometimes in very low level plays. it really depends. but i advise not to overcommit as an onos will make it all obsolete.
do not double med pack those who are at 25 hp unless they are strategically needed. just let them die. med those who are 75 hp. or those will fill up to 76 hp<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I wouldn't take this advice as solid. If you want to learn how to command I recommend watching some higher tier competitive matches. You will find that it's quite opposite of what lofung just said to do.
It's situational, but in most cases phase tech can be put off for quite a while till weapons 1>armor 1>weapons 2 is researched. Getting armor 1 as a first upgrade will only hurt your teams ability to fight fades and lifeforms earlier, and armor is redudant in NS2 due to armory healing. Amories fully heal armor and only armor 3 allows you to take more than 3 bites anyway. I also forgot to mention that mines are usually always researched first in competitive games, but won't be as needed in pubs. I recommend having mines by the time you have phase gates though... for obvious reasons. By that time you should have a second command chair and a phase gate defending it as well.
Never research exo suits first if you plan to play this game in any serious fashion. Exos are only useful when you research dual miniguns and that should only be done after you have armor 3 already... otherwise you are going to be wasting peoples 75 pres (Which was already wasted by buying the exo in the first place). Also it takes almost 3 times longer to get dual miniguns than it would take you to research jetpacks which are 5 times cheaper and let you hold RT's more effectively. Also, jetpacks counter onos better than exo's do.
Never get exo's first... that is just a horrendous idea. Do the math... you can have jetpacks much faster and they are 5 times cheaper. Any actual good player will agree with me 100%. I ragequit from servers when the comm goes for exo first. Nothing pisses me off more.
I've commanded hundreds of competitive matches, and have been playing matches and gathers for over 2 years. We have a standard of what we have learned through shear experience is the most viable strategies. If you are playing veil, its a good idea to go early phase gates due to the maps size, but most other maps its not needed for a while.
As far as medpacking goes.... watch the scoreboard and pay attention to who is your most effective player / players. You should almost always be following them around and baby sitting them with medpacks... they will make it well worth the res.
<b>Nothing</b> is useless. Learn when and where to deploy things. Learn the tech tree.
Fire-bases are IT! Phase Gate, Armory, Extractor, and maybe sentries. You've established a healthy Fire-base. for your marines to utilize. they can now lock an area down, or kill a hive. Done.
Sentries... Are support only. People think they're useless because they're not fire-and-forget. But Surprise! You still need a marine watching over them. With that said, they're still a riskier venue for 20res. Also, they're tricky to place correctly. Practice building, and destroying them in Explore.
<b>Nothing</b> is useless. Learn when and where to deploy things. Learn the tech tree.
Fire-bases are IT! Phase Gate, Armory, Extractor, and maybe sentries. You've established a healthy Fire-base. for your marines to utilize. they can now lock an area down, or kill a hive. Done.
Sentries... Are support only. People think they're useless because they're not fire-and-forget. But Surprise! You still need a marine watching over them. With that said, they're still a riskier venue for 20res. Also, they're tricky to place correctly. Practice building, and destroying them in Explore.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You should never spend any money on sentries unless you already have teched up to level 3 everything, and have exo's and jetpacks. Only then is it OK to build sentries. If you drop them any time before that you are griefing your team, and will make yourself look like a noob to anyone who is decent.
I take back what I said... even when you are fully teched you should never buy sentries... you should spend that money on arcs and dropping GL's for your teammates. Sentries were added to the game for trolls to enjoy making games boring and suck.
In moderation. Nothing more annoying than being bitten in the ass by a non silence skulk because someone was telling you their life story.
It's situational, but in most cases phase tech can be put off for quite a while till weapons 1>armor 1>weapons 2 is researched. Getting armor 1 as a first upgrade will only hurt your teams ability to fight fades and lifeforms earlier, and armor is redudant in NS2 due to armory healing. Amories fully heal armor and only armor 3 allows you to take more than 3 bites anyway. I also forgot to mention that mines are usually always researched first in competitive games, but won't be as needed in pubs. I recommend having mines by the time you have phase gates though... for obvious reasons. By that time you should have a second command chair and a phase gate defending it as well.
Never research exo suits first if you plan to play this game in any serious fashion. Exos are only useful when you research dual miniguns and that should only be done after you have armor 3 already... otherwise you are going to be wasting peoples 75 pres (Which was already wasted by buying the exo in the first place). Also it takes almost 3 times longer to get dual miniguns than it would take you to research jetpacks which are 5 times cheaper and let you hold RT's more effectively. Also, jetpacks counter onos better than exo's do.
Never get exo's first... that is just a horrendous idea. Do the math... you can have jetpacks much faster and they are 5 times cheaper. Any actual good player will agree with me 100%. I ragequit from servers when the comm goes for exo first. Nothing pisses me off more.
I've commanded hundreds of competitive matches, and have been playing matches and gathers for over 2 years. We have a standard of what we have learned through shear experience is the most viable strategies. If you are playing veil, its a good idea to go early phase gates due to the maps size, but most other maps its not needed for a while.
As far as medpacking goes.... watch the scoreboard and pay attention to who is your most effective player / players. You should almost always be following them around and baby sitting them with medpacks... they will make it well worth the res.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is an example of a post from someone who never plays pubs. Yes this may be how they do it in competitive games, but your completely wrong in thinking that competitive strats are applicable to pub play. Phase gates first, armor 1, early exos are all things that are good in pub play. You have to realize that your team is generally bad so you need to make things easy for them. Competitve strategies only work for good players.
Explain to me how armor 1 is viable in any way shape or form? I will agree to an extend that phase gates are needed to hold ground in pubs, but overall is still an inefficient strat when thinking of the game as a whole. People are going to get better... and in a short time. So, lets start practicing for what's actually going to be the game in a few months...
I also have to disagree with you about competitve strategies only working for good players. They are used in competitive because they have been found to the the most effective overall. Remember that good players are playing against other good players? So in essence the goal is to have the most strategically advantageous strat... lol @ redundancy.
Anyway, I use "competitive" strats in pubs all the time, and they are still the most effective. Remember how bads are playing bads? Just like good playing good you want to use the most effective strategy. Even if your team is bad you can bet the other team is bad as well. The only thing that might not work as well is coordinated hive pushes without having to use beacons... even then if you are a good comm who uses his mic and a powerful voice you will get the attention of even bad players.
Even if you're using your mic 120% of the time (and that's no physically possible) pub players won't act like comp players. They'll lose time biting power nodes that don't power anything, they won't coordinate their attacks, they'll charge headlong with their onoses and die, they tend to not use the map key, they waste time killing unimportant cysts warning the aliens of their presence, they get attracted to where there's combat, they tend to not use mines or place them in the worst places, they value the kill/death ratio too much and do not grasp the comparative importance of killing structures instead of enemies, do not aim well with their bites (so not all bites deal 75 damage, rendering those metagame calculations about the value of armor 1 useless) do not know the maps and it takes longer for them to reach places, rarely chase onoses when they retreat and generally are more concerned with having fun than winning the match. Not to mention that most pub servers have many more players than the competeitve standard of 6v6.
Certain strategies aren't going to work as well with pubs as they work with competitive teams, wich isn't the same as saying they'll be completely useless though.
I also agree with the the other experienced players that say you don't need a second IP immediately. When you do that, you shoot yourself in the foot because you'll only be able to get 2 towers and an armory up. The first things you should put in, are an armory and 2 close rt's. After that you need an observatory, and no one should be sitting in base. If there is a skulk rush you just beacon everyone and continue on, never jump out of the chair to handle things yourself unless it's just one lone skulk chewing the power node.
I've seen a lot of games go very badly because the marine commander thought he could handle a skulk or 2 in base but couldn't. If you miss the beacon you lose your base and that's never a good time. Which brings me to the point about 2 arms labs.
If you have 5 res towers, you might as well have 2 arms labs and a 3rd IP. You should split them up between 2 tech points. 2 arms labs in one base won't help you out if you lose the power there, same with 3 IP's.
I always go A1, then W1, W2 and maybe W3 because of course weap ups are needed for higher life forms. Why don't you explain why you think W1 is better to get first.
I think this is even MORE true when as you suggest phase is being delayed.
Your opener is either going to be a Robotics Factory blocking the power
or
Armory > Observatory > Sell Armory
Then see what the enemy does or where their base is
If someone scouts a skulk rush then Drop a second Infantry Portal, jump out of the chair, and help defend
Things go well you should be able to start pushing the map and taking rooms
When you get to a room before a hive you will need to setup a forward base
Depending on how skilled your team is will depend on what you need to drop them
Some rules of thumb:
Don't build phase gates one room over
Don't face all of your sentries the same direction
Don't forget about your arms lab
and
Have a plan ready when your team runs into Lerks, Fades, Onos, etc. . .
If you think they will have X soon then maybe start getting the shotguns and jetpacks ready
Most importantly though
<b>Have your observatory as a control group and have the hotkey memorized and ready for a distress beacon</b>