Legitimate Relocation in Refinery?
Imbalanxd
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
<div class="IPBDescription">and not just a party trick</div>Lately I've been trying a new marine strategy on refinery, which is relocating to smelting at the start of the game. Its worked well so far, but I can't tell if its just a pointless party trick, or whether it actually has tactical merit.
So the way I see it, Flow Control is simply the worst room on the map. It is so bad its comical. The closest res node is in the Pipeworks tech point room, and even that is pretty damn far away. The next one in Transit, on the way to smelting, is miles away. Flow Control is also on the polar opposite side of the map to two very close together tech points, which the aliens always expand to rapidly.
So after a few games of playing form this terrible position, I decided that smelting looked far more attractive. Transit and conduit are both extremely close by, and its actually a very nice location to defend from, so long as you build away from the vent. Onos who get in struggle quite a bit to get out again afterwards. Furthermore, Turbine hive is a small jog away. Another very important reason for choosing smelting is its proximity to lava falls, or more specifically, the "room" to the right of lava falls. I say "room" because its more of an open area covered (vitally) by an overhang. From here you can shoot out double, and then cover it once you have taken it.
One down side is how open the other half of the map becomes once marines vacate Flow Control, but honestly, there's nothing over worth there anyway. An entire half of the map containing only 2 res nodes? Pathetic. Furthermore, after taking pipe the aliens are forced to then take Flow Control, which is even worse for aliens than it is for marines.
So what do you guys think? Potentially the first viable relocation target in NS2?
So the way I see it, Flow Control is simply the worst room on the map. It is so bad its comical. The closest res node is in the Pipeworks tech point room, and even that is pretty damn far away. The next one in Transit, on the way to smelting, is miles away. Flow Control is also on the polar opposite side of the map to two very close together tech points, which the aliens always expand to rapidly.
So after a few games of playing form this terrible position, I decided that smelting looked far more attractive. Transit and conduit are both extremely close by, and its actually a very nice location to defend from, so long as you build away from the vent. Onos who get in struggle quite a bit to get out again afterwards. Furthermore, Turbine hive is a small jog away. Another very important reason for choosing smelting is its proximity to lava falls, or more specifically, the "room" to the right of lava falls. I say "room" because its more of an open area covered (vitally) by an overhang. From here you can shoot out double, and then cover it once you have taken it.
One down side is how open the other half of the map becomes once marines vacate Flow Control, but honestly, there's nothing over worth there anyway. An entire half of the map containing only 2 res nodes? Pathetic. Furthermore, after taking pipe the aliens are forced to then take Flow Control, which is even worse for aliens than it is for marines.
So what do you guys think? Potentially the first viable relocation target in NS2?
Comments
The only thing I hate about Flow is that stupid IP that ends up in the hallway toward Pipe. That harshes my feng shui.
I'm sure it works in pubs all the time, but I see too many vulnerabilities with too little of a reward for this strategy to be worth it at all skill levels.
I'm sure it works in pubs all the time, but I see too many vulnerabilities with too little of a reward for this strategy to be worth it at all skill levels.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ye, the problem with their being so few relocations is that, if it ever were to become a popular strategy, it would be too easily countered. At least in NS1, you would never knew where the marines were relocating too, because there were so many options. Aah well, I'll enjoy it while few people expect it.
I don't get why some people have a concept of a "base" in this, or any other RTS game. You don't have a base. You have an "area of control." Sure, you start in a position, and usually most important tech ends up in that starting position, or in a position where you have an obs, so you can beacon and defend when needed, but a loss of an RT in conduit is just as bad as a loss of an RT in transit which is just as bad as a loss of an RT in flow control.
Phase gates make walking distances irrelevant.
I don't get why some people have a concept of a "base" in this, or any other RTS game. You don't have a base. You have an "area of control." Sure, you start in a position, and usually most important tech ends up in that starting position, or in a position where you have an obs, so you can beacon and defend when needed, but a loss of an RT in conduit is just as bad as a loss of an RT in transit which is just as bad as a loss of an RT in flow control.
Phase gates make walking distances irrelevant.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, and when your early game area of control overlaps three resource nodes instead of one, you are doing better.
Want to exert specific pressure on an area? Communicate to your team to go there.
It means selling your base and building a CC+IPs somewhere else. Relocation to crossroads was often seen in competitive matches a year or so ago, but it's not as popular a strategy these days.
Some of the rooms look really cool but it is going to need a lot of work to make it a good map.
I don't quite get this, since if you can't keep a phase gate up, I don't see how you'd expect to build and keep an IP there.
For some context, NS1 only had fixed locations for alien hives. Marines always started with their comm chair in a fixed place, but could build comm chairs anywhere on the map. As such, a common marine strategy was to, immediately upon starting the match, build a comm chair somewhere else (anywhere else) on the map and recycle marine start. Because of the great amount of flexibility afforded by being able to build a comm chair absolutely anywhere, this was a perfectly viable strategy.
Marines would commonly relocate to one of the three alien hive locations. Aliens could not build a hive in marine start, and required the third hive for all their advanced abilities/lifeforms, so this was a pretty good tradeoff. Moving your starting location to one of the empty hive locations at the start of the game permanently prevented the aliens from getting Onos or Bile Bomb (IIRC that was a third hive ability?) or xenocide or acid rocket, etc. There could also be advantages to relocating to a map's double, and one room had a particularly notorious relocation known as "red room" ;)
I don't find marines controlling double-res that often, which gives the edge in resources early on.
Watch some old games and find out; it typically involves bullets and aggressive offensive movements.
Well, if you're talking about competitive play, you can drill it to make the move in the least amount of time possible in the most defensible way possible, reducing the chance that being spotted would completely kill your relocation, but such strategies are always a gamble. I mean, we've seen skulk rushes work in tournament play, and that's a hell of a gamble, because if the gambit fails, it tends to leave the marines in a stronger position.
You will have to cede control of pipe and transit in the exchange while the aliens will have pocketed the RT's out to turbine as well.
The upside is that you can shoot effectively into lava from the smelting side and your southern approach from transit is actually defensible as marines which allows your really good focus on a northward push, but the delay in getting from cold start to momentum just seems crippling to me. No faster than fast phase IMO. Then again, I've not tried this, so I really cant say for sure... this is just my impression.
FWIW, I'm pretty convinced right now that heat sink is the key to victory for the marines. You can ez-siege containment from there with just a phase-gate, armory and forward robotics. The key problem is having enough resources to get the siege up properly, which means you're going to need to take/hold pipe and probably lava for a few minutes while you bank the res for it. So far, this really means you need to have forward pressure on pipe from the start with transit and smelting being "gimmies" as a result of keeping the aliens attention focused on their back door.
IMO, if you are going to relocate anywhere, it would be to pipe from the start as your obs there is more valuable and IP's there will keep your pressure on lava and heatsink constant without really giving up much by way of holding transit or smelting given the stupid long distances involved with those runs from flow anyway. At least checking on transit from pipe takes marines through lava which gives them the possibity of incidental contact with targets of interest rather than an isolated flow-transit route that takes a marine out of the fight and puts them in real danger of ambush with two blind 90 degree turns to worry about.
Also, the investment in relocating to pipe is lower as you can do it faster and keep the chair in flow until you are forced to sell it (since it's closer to the new marine spawn and aliens now have to move waaaay around the marine zone of control to hit it.
It doesn't matter how quickly you move; every enemy team will move through Flow Control as they sweep the map, so the only way for you to pull off a relocation is to play as normal until the opening-match scouting ends. By that point, you could just have PGs up.
Gorge 3 hive ability was web.
Really miss the marine ability to relocate wherever they wanted. Nanogrid reloc FTW