[241] - Advanced Marine Commanding (19 Megs)
MaximumSquid
Join Date: 2010-07-20 Member: 72593Members
Join Date: 2010-07-20 Member: 72593Members
Going to be a long read and you can't really skip sections as there are too many small details that you might not know
So lets get right to it. . .
---
ARCs: - "Don't be afraid to use these!"
1 ARC is 40 res, 2 ARCs is 55 res, and 3 (most common) is 70 res
I try to get away with just 2, but you can think of them as being about 25 res a piece (average cost of an upgrade)
If you're used to a Duel Arms Lab strat it's easy to work in ARCs by just building 1 instead (more on that later though)
Here's what you might not know:
● ARCs will always finish their last shot even as the scan finishes so long as they are already charging
● ARCs can climb over buildings and plow right past a floor to ceiling clog wall
● ARCs will fire continuously without scans through a wall if an obs is detecting alien structures
Advanced Tactics with ARCs:
● Using ARCs as a distraction (nothing gets the Alien team in one place faster than scouting a few ARCs on the move)
● Splitting up ARCs (have your marines attack the hive from one side while you attack with ARCs from the other)
● Planning ahead to use ARCs (ignoring double res early game on Veil is a good example, but lets look at another one below:)
I'm on Tram and my team started server room. . .
We rush phase tech and take over Warehouse and Elevator
Pressure on Mezzanine is high, but thanks to a hidden obs North Tunnel stays relatively safe
I know the Aliens must expand to Repair Room
Pushing Ore from Warehouse is easy with that long hallways; I setup an Armory, Move the phase from Warehouse to Ore, and start building ARCs just out of sight:
I tell my team Not to go into Repair and to just Hold the Corner while the ARCs build
Multiple Gorges completely wall off the way into Ore and drop a huge stack of hydras
I have two ARCs done, but they still haven't dropped the hive; I build 1 more, the hive gets dropped and I blast it down from the corner of Ore
The Gorges' wall off actually hinders aliens from getting to me and it's a big turkey shoot as they round the bend 1 at a time
This is about the 5 or 6 minute mark in the game; ALiens can't believe they just lost an unbuilt hive to ARCs and conceeded soon after I rolled them down South Tunnel
What not to do:
● Don't build huge ARC trains. . . just don't. . . you can use that res to drop marines equipment like Free jetpacks or Exos for players that can't afford them
● Don't send the ARCs anywhere without an escort especially if bilebomb is online
---
Placing Structures Properly: "Do it wrong and you will be hating life; Do it right and it might save the day!"
Lets look at an obvious one. . . walling off with an Armory:
An Exo can easily fit through the right side and just barely the left, but an Onos cannot get in
Other good trends:
● Build Phase Gates almost on top of your Infantry Portals (shorter distance might mean 1 more marine gets through before it goes down)
● Build Armory near IPs, but just far enough away that bile bomb can't hit both
● Build all other structures far away and apart from other structures to reduce bile splash damage
Advanced Tactics with Building Placement:
● Hiding an Obs in an obscure location or with another building (Obs will beacon to nearest Chair so you can put them anywhere really)
● Doubling up Sentries at the edge of two rooms (you can also use this to place 4-6 sentries on 1 battery if you want to be a huge tool)
● Using a building to boost marines into vents (one of the most underused strats of the game)
Hiding Obs Example: (It's actually completely visible on the side, my gun model is just covering it up)
Here's maybe a better shot of hiding an Obs behind a Robotics that I purposefully moved farther away:
Double Sentry Example:
Boost Example:
What not to do:
● Building stuff in underpowered rooms
● or worse. . . in a dead zone where you can never get power!
It's not that obvious if power isn't red. . . you go over that line and your stuff gets no power
But check out that unpowered Obs that is still in the clear, but getting no juice. . . Tram is notorious for deadzones
---
Coordinating Map Movement: "The front line is everything. . . plan ahead and choose your route wisely"
If your team isn't garbage they will listen to you and you need to get them to the best locations on the map as fast as possible
Here's my standard relocation on Refinery. . . I do it nearly everytime my team starts in Flow Control:
After this I tell my team to push for Lava Falls from pipe, setup one node (two if convenient) , and rush for Chasm
Why is Chasm so important?
Two very long Choke Point style hallways coming off of Turbine, and if Aliens are Containment you just trapped them in their hive!
I'd rate Chasm as probably the 2nd or 3rd hardest room to kick Marines out of with Atrium or Deposit being the absolute worst
Best part is that it's relatively unused and unscouted with drifters so you can usually just walk in uncontested. . . pretty much a Win/Win
Other factors with coordinating movement:
● Do I go Relocation or Phase Gates? (phase is usually better, but a relocate means you can beacon and can be online earlier)
● When should I get a 2nd or 3rd Infantry Portal? (if the starting hive is close to your base get the extra IPs sooner than later)
● Should I split up IPs or keep them all in one room? (usually keep them together, but if there is a very dangerous room you own then slip them)
Advanced Tactics with Team Movement:
● If someone is building a node alone have a health pack ready; if you can afford the res scan (Scans will stop ambushes and may even make some aliens retreat)
● Scan into dangerous territory or when your marines stop advancing (It might be just one gorge alone; give your team the courage to rush in)
● Knowing the safest entrance to advance into a room and safest place to attack a hive from (A very big deal when coordinating slow units like ARCs or Exos)
Here's me shooting Turbine down without going into Turbine:
Here's me shooting down Containment while being constantly healed by an Armory, Surrounded by 6 Sentries, so far away I can't even see it:
Most people don't know you can make these shots and usually walk into a hive and get annihilated
I find myself having to tell people constantly on Mineshaft that Sorting can be shot from the steps
The shots get only crazier with Jetpacks, but these are usually too hard to explain on the fly
What not to do:
● Wasting a ton of time and manpower beating against a double or triple gorge wall
● Having front lines being kept up with too few or even no marines to guard or scout 1 room over
● Sacrificing your Exos or whole rooms because you beaconed (be very careful with beacon on big population servers)
---
Build Order and Tech Research: "Do I want Exos or Jetpacks First?"
People often put too much emphasis on this when it's actually fairly low on the priorities of things to master
Believe me. . . if you screw up the other sections all the res nodes and tech in the world won't win a hard game
That said he's my standard build order for high population servers:
Armory > Turn on some power > Obs > Extractors /w more than 1 marine > "Check Rush" > Sell Armory > Upgrade Phase > Turn on rest of power
Pretty short right?
That's because you should be watching what the enemy team is buying and building and try to counter it
So why Phase Rush instead of Arms Lab or some other tech?
● I automatically have an Obs in base to scout for early All-In skulk rushes
● I can jump out of the chair and reinforce a location as commander (it's like have another member on your team)
● You can completely cut off Alien cyst chains and map progression as shown earlier
● Forward bases just outside a hive become very low risk once Phase is up
● Phase scares away a lot of lone higher lifeforms because the risk of reinforcements popping them as they try to escape is too high
● A lone marine rushing back to a recently powered down tech point can build a new phase 1 room over instead of attempting a 5on1
All that alone and it just gets better as you advance in tech and get Mines, Nano-Shield, etc.
Nano-Shield gets overlooked a lot. . . don't make this mistake
You might not get an AA / Proto for a long time, but being able to shield a power node is huge
Know how long it takes to upgrade something. . . Going from 0/0 to +3/+3 is a 10 minute window if you're perfect
Why is that so important?
Your window to not get ran over is first 15 minutes of the game respectfully
I've lost plenty of games with +3/+3 when I could have won if I had got a different tech path like getting ARCs or GLs or whatever. . .
Going duel Arms Lab can cut this down substantially, and you can sell one later to get a little bit of res back
Chances are though that will be all the res you can spare I've found a bigger mix of tech to work out much better during the early game
Some Factors with Researching Tech:
● When do I get Grenade Launchers? (When the enemy team has too many Gorges on the field)
● When do I get Flame Throwers? (When you have Jetpacks. . . do not get them without the other first)
● When do I get Sentries? (When Aliens cannot get a 2nd hive for Bile Bomb or can be placed out of reach of BB)
Advanced Tactics with Tech:
● Selling off old buildings and keeping the current tech (IP without a chair, Proto without an AA, etc)
● Ninja Phase Gates (self explanatory) and Ninja Prototype Labs (built to drop in a Exos and then sold)
● Forward Observatory (often overlooked, but might save you scans on ARCs)
What not to do:
● Trying to sell a group of buildings while one is researching (you can't do it)
● Having power go out on researching buildings (you will lose the tech and I don't think you get refunded!)
● Selling your only Arms Lab (you lose all upgrades while you do not have a powered up Arms Lab)
● Buying any MAC upgrade (Unless you have the spare res and are fast enough to shutdown bile and other power node rushes)
---
The Onos Trap: "Didn't you know that MACs will autobuild nearby structures?"
Just queue up dat beacon!
-
So lets get right to it. . .
---
ARCs: - "Don't be afraid to use these!"
1 ARC is 40 res, 2 ARCs is 55 res, and 3 (most common) is 70 res
I try to get away with just 2, but you can think of them as being about 25 res a piece (average cost of an upgrade)
If you're used to a Duel Arms Lab strat it's easy to work in ARCs by just building 1 instead (more on that later though)
Here's what you might not know:
● ARCs will always finish their last shot even as the scan finishes so long as they are already charging
● ARCs can climb over buildings and plow right past a floor to ceiling clog wall
● ARCs will fire continuously without scans through a wall if an obs is detecting alien structures
Advanced Tactics with ARCs:
● Using ARCs as a distraction (nothing gets the Alien team in one place faster than scouting a few ARCs on the move)
● Splitting up ARCs (have your marines attack the hive from one side while you attack with ARCs from the other)
● Planning ahead to use ARCs (ignoring double res early game on Veil is a good example, but lets look at another one below:)
I'm on Tram and my team started server room. . .
We rush phase tech and take over Warehouse and Elevator
Pressure on Mezzanine is high, but thanks to a hidden obs North Tunnel stays relatively safe
I know the Aliens must expand to Repair Room
Pushing Ore from Warehouse is easy with that long hallways; I setup an Armory, Move the phase from Warehouse to Ore, and start building ARCs just out of sight:
I tell my team Not to go into Repair and to just Hold the Corner while the ARCs build
Multiple Gorges completely wall off the way into Ore and drop a huge stack of hydras
I have two ARCs done, but they still haven't dropped the hive; I build 1 more, the hive gets dropped and I blast it down from the corner of Ore
The Gorges' wall off actually hinders aliens from getting to me and it's a big turkey shoot as they round the bend 1 at a time
This is about the 5 or 6 minute mark in the game; ALiens can't believe they just lost an unbuilt hive to ARCs and conceeded soon after I rolled them down South Tunnel
What not to do:
● Don't build huge ARC trains. . . just don't. . . you can use that res to drop marines equipment like Free jetpacks or Exos for players that can't afford them
● Don't send the ARCs anywhere without an escort especially if bilebomb is online
---
Placing Structures Properly: "Do it wrong and you will be hating life; Do it right and it might save the day!"
Lets look at an obvious one. . . walling off with an Armory:
An Exo can easily fit through the right side and just barely the left, but an Onos cannot get in
Other good trends:
● Build Phase Gates almost on top of your Infantry Portals (shorter distance might mean 1 more marine gets through before it goes down)
● Build Armory near IPs, but just far enough away that bile bomb can't hit both
● Build all other structures far away and apart from other structures to reduce bile splash damage
Advanced Tactics with Building Placement:
● Hiding an Obs in an obscure location or with another building (Obs will beacon to nearest Chair so you can put them anywhere really)
● Doubling up Sentries at the edge of two rooms (you can also use this to place 4-6 sentries on 1 battery if you want to be a huge tool)
● Using a building to boost marines into vents (one of the most underused strats of the game)
Hiding Obs Example: (It's actually completely visible on the side, my gun model is just covering it up)
Here's maybe a better shot of hiding an Obs behind a Robotics that I purposefully moved farther away:
Double Sentry Example:
Boost Example:
What not to do:
● Building stuff in underpowered rooms
● or worse. . . in a dead zone where you can never get power!
It's not that obvious if power isn't red. . . you go over that line and your stuff gets no power
But check out that unpowered Obs that is still in the clear, but getting no juice. . . Tram is notorious for deadzones
---
Coordinating Map Movement: "The front line is everything. . . plan ahead and choose your route wisely"
If your team isn't garbage they will listen to you and you need to get them to the best locations on the map as fast as possible
Here's my standard relocation on Refinery. . . I do it nearly everytime my team starts in Flow Control:
After this I tell my team to push for Lava Falls from pipe, setup one node (two if convenient) , and rush for Chasm
Why is Chasm so important?
Two very long Choke Point style hallways coming off of Turbine, and if Aliens are Containment you just trapped them in their hive!
I'd rate Chasm as probably the 2nd or 3rd hardest room to kick Marines out of with Atrium or Deposit being the absolute worst
Best part is that it's relatively unused and unscouted with drifters so you can usually just walk in uncontested. . . pretty much a Win/Win
Other factors with coordinating movement:
● Do I go Relocation or Phase Gates? (phase is usually better, but a relocate means you can beacon and can be online earlier)
● When should I get a 2nd or 3rd Infantry Portal? (if the starting hive is close to your base get the extra IPs sooner than later)
● Should I split up IPs or keep them all in one room? (usually keep them together, but if there is a very dangerous room you own then slip them)
Advanced Tactics with Team Movement:
● If someone is building a node alone have a health pack ready; if you can afford the res scan (Scans will stop ambushes and may even make some aliens retreat)
● Scan into dangerous territory or when your marines stop advancing (It might be just one gorge alone; give your team the courage to rush in)
● Knowing the safest entrance to advance into a room and safest place to attack a hive from (A very big deal when coordinating slow units like ARCs or Exos)
Here's me shooting Turbine down without going into Turbine:
Here's me shooting down Containment while being constantly healed by an Armory, Surrounded by 6 Sentries, so far away I can't even see it:
Most people don't know you can make these shots and usually walk into a hive and get annihilated
I find myself having to tell people constantly on Mineshaft that Sorting can be shot from the steps
The shots get only crazier with Jetpacks, but these are usually too hard to explain on the fly
What not to do:
● Wasting a ton of time and manpower beating against a double or triple gorge wall
● Having front lines being kept up with too few or even no marines to guard or scout 1 room over
● Sacrificing your Exos or whole rooms because you beaconed (be very careful with beacon on big population servers)
---
Build Order and Tech Research: "Do I want Exos or Jetpacks First?"
People often put too much emphasis on this when it's actually fairly low on the priorities of things to master
Believe me. . . if you screw up the other sections all the res nodes and tech in the world won't win a hard game
That said he's my standard build order for high population servers:
Armory > Turn on some power > Obs > Extractors /w more than 1 marine > "Check Rush" > Sell Armory > Upgrade Phase > Turn on rest of power
Pretty short right?
That's because you should be watching what the enemy team is buying and building and try to counter it
So why Phase Rush instead of Arms Lab or some other tech?
● I automatically have an Obs in base to scout for early All-In skulk rushes
● I can jump out of the chair and reinforce a location as commander (it's like have another member on your team)
● You can completely cut off Alien cyst chains and map progression as shown earlier
● Forward bases just outside a hive become very low risk once Phase is up
● Phase scares away a lot of lone higher lifeforms because the risk of reinforcements popping them as they try to escape is too high
● A lone marine rushing back to a recently powered down tech point can build a new phase 1 room over instead of attempting a 5on1
All that alone and it just gets better as you advance in tech and get Mines, Nano-Shield, etc.
Nano-Shield gets overlooked a lot. . . don't make this mistake
You might not get an AA / Proto for a long time, but being able to shield a power node is huge
Know how long it takes to upgrade something. . . Going from 0/0 to +3/+3 is a 10 minute window if you're perfect
Why is that so important?
Your window to not get ran over is first 15 minutes of the game respectfully
I've lost plenty of games with +3/+3 when I could have won if I had got a different tech path like getting ARCs or GLs or whatever. . .
Going duel Arms Lab can cut this down substantially, and you can sell one later to get a little bit of res back
Chances are though that will be all the res you can spare I've found a bigger mix of tech to work out much better during the early game
Some Factors with Researching Tech:
● When do I get Grenade Launchers? (When the enemy team has too many Gorges on the field)
● When do I get Flame Throwers? (When you have Jetpacks. . . do not get them without the other first)
● When do I get Sentries? (When Aliens cannot get a 2nd hive for Bile Bomb or can be placed out of reach of BB)
Advanced Tactics with Tech:
● Selling off old buildings and keeping the current tech (IP without a chair, Proto without an AA, etc)
● Ninja Phase Gates (self explanatory) and Ninja Prototype Labs (built to drop in a Exos and then sold)
● Forward Observatory (often overlooked, but might save you scans on ARCs)
What not to do:
● Trying to sell a group of buildings while one is researching (you can't do it)
● Having power go out on researching buildings (you will lose the tech and I don't think you get refunded!)
● Selling your only Arms Lab (you lose all upgrades while you do not have a powered up Arms Lab)
● Buying any MAC upgrade (Unless you have the spare res and are fast enough to shutdown bile and other power node rushes)
---
The Onos Trap: "Didn't you know that MACs will autobuild nearby structures?"
Just queue up dat beacon!
-
Comments
How many times are you gonna post shit like this on the forums? This isn't the first thread you've made where you've told people that they should be using glitches to put structures inside of/ontop of walls, and now it's inside other structures as well.
Nice post with some good points that most commanders would want to know, cheers.
The EMP can eat away a lot of energy of that gorge bilebombing your powernode, allowing your marines to phase in.
Yes I could beacon, but I only need one marine.
I'll have to respectfully disagree as the Obs is clearly visible on the side, but is being obscured by my gun model in that screenshot
I posted another example where I moved the Robotics back a good foot so it doesn't clip it all
The point is to not have the buildings swallow each other, but to make it hard to spot during a raid
If you think my judgment lacks character you should know that I found a much more powerful setup hiding an Obs with a second building that doesn't require any model clipping, but I held off posting it because I felt it was over powered
---
DC_Darkling:
Seems reasonable. . .
Although I'll need to see it in action to be totally convinced, but I did edit your feelings into that last section for visibility
---
NoxZA:
It's a known issue with the engine for quite some time
I'm certain I've complained about it before and while I'm hopeful I don't think tweaks to view distance will be coming anytime soon
-
Downside is of course that it costs res, so yes it is clearly a gamble like so many upgrades.
but a gorge with less energy can mean a bilebombed base or not, or he heals to many onos.
A onos can lack the energy to charge away.
A fade can lack the energy to blink etc.
It forces them, when used a lot, to play more lenient with there energy, again meaning they leave combat areas a lot sooner.
And at points, you dont have res to spam on emp and you lose because you picked a wrong upgrade.
Confirmed, not sure if the same is true if the structure dies though
I will add that, as a comm, always bind the main base power node to a hotkey (7 for me) so you will it flashing when under attack.
He spent quite a lot if work on this guide, and i for sure am glad that there are threads like this that exceed the usual "this is my reason why ns is broken" thread content.
I bet at least 90% of the players would enjoy reading more informative posts like that.
There's a decent chance that I would post an alien guide, but much of best alien tactics involve dropping eggs for skilled players
Since my guides would be for public play, and often with people you don't know, this could be very risky
---
Nighttime:
If it's not up to your standards that's a shame, but I couldn't post most the really crazy stuff
If people are ragging on me for a 1/3rd clipped Obs I would probably get hordes more for what I'm going to call the "Multiple Action Exploits" I found
Although I find it hard to believe that you didn't learn anything from the read. . .
Did you already know how to do 6 sentries with 1 battery?
I figured that learning that alone would of made the thread worth while to most people
---
Draconis:
haha. . . i love beaconing into a powered down base. . .
Aliens just Freak!
-
Hehe, me too. It's fun every time. ^^ An Obs in Nano beacons to marine main, for example.
Yes I already knew that. And it's not "6 sentries with 1 battery" it's just using the "1 battery per room" rule and putting them close together.
Again, it shouldn't be labelled as "advanced marine comanding" -- it's just a misleading title. "Tips and Tricks You Might Not Know" would be better.
@MaximumSquid: Thanks for putting this together. NS2 desperately needs more material to help Commanders learn and to encourage them to play and improve.
Interesting. Very interesting indeed. Beaconing to powered-down bases... must remember this. As for blocking off doorways with armories, in the event of a rush and say the onos starts hitting the blocking armory - I hit the armory with a nanoshield and it stalls the rush just long enough to avoid a beacon. Sometimes it even makes the onos run away when he realizes that he's not going to break through that armory anytime soon.