What ever happened to going for the Armory first?
slayer20
Killed a man once. Join Date: 2007-12-13 Member: 63157Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Killed a man once. Join Date: 2007-12-13 Member: 63157Members, Reinforced - Shadow
In Natural Selection, the go-to structure to kill was the Armory. Destroying the Armory before Marines could get the AA/Protolab up could have a huge impact on the game and delay Marine's technology a good few minutes.
What's the deal now? Does anyone go for the Armory anymore? Or is it just me?
What's the deal now? Does anyone go for the Armory anymore? Or is it just me?
Comments
Unless you have an organized base rush, I've rarely seen one or two skulks successfully take out an entire base after killing the Obs, IP, or even the Power Node. It can certainly delay Marines a little bit, but I still feel like taking out the Armory would have longer-lasting effects.
High targets for me, if I rush as a single Skulk is Prototype Lab, Infantry Portals and Observatory (and rarely Arms Lab).
In some rooms like Terminal or Sub Access I try to take out the Extractors. (If I'm harassing and not want to force a beacon)
In a pack the best targets imo are the powernode and infantry portals (maybe the prototype lab, but only if you don't think you have a chance to take out the entire base)
Two quick examples (there are others):
If the marines are on their way back, and you are massively outnumbered, getting the power down will not really help you to cause damage.
If you've just got the phase gate/obs down at a second marine base, and you suspect they're close to getting JP/Exo, or they are using nanoshield, then just ignore the power, get that CC down so they can't buy up higher level tech! You can worry about the power later if you must (or let the comm put a whip on it, or a gorge to bile it, or just ignore it completely...)
Powernode = Disable the base
Obs = Has low HP, medium cost and disables beacon
Phase Gate = Force beacon, possibly turn it into a feedgate
Proto = High cost, disables JP/Exos
Command Station = Force a panic beacon from a new comm
Arms lab = Get rid of marine upgrades
Advanced Armory = High cost, longer time to reupgrade, disable JP/exos/GL/FT
Marines have to research everything again I would not be opposed to them even having to pay full cost like aliens do.
At the least it should be half the cost and full research time.
Aliens economy is too fragile to ninja attacks, the multiple chambers of NS1 gave the alien tech tree more robustness and less prone to complete sabotage in a few seconds.
The full cost and research time aliens have to go through is simply rubbing salt into the wounds when all marines have to do is rebuild the structure (no research time or research costs).
An early obs kill is excessively annoying and quite doable for the lone skulk rush. An early big push should go after the IPs, since in all likelyhood those are the only ones they have, any marines you just killed won't be respawning any time soon and they simply have to build them again, fast. Which means they'll be stopping and running back to base fast.
Midgame and sometimes later the Arms lab can be a very nice target, it's got surprisingly low health. I know when I comm I prepare for the worst and drop a spare in another base if we are doing well res wise. So it may or may not work.
Latgame, IMO the majority of the time you want to go after power and power only. I'm starting to like the Obs first, power second route, but if you have enough force to take out power before the beacon can fire, do it. Sometimes, like if you're a lone gorge and no one is diverting to help you, prioritizing the protolab could be understandable, most often there's only one of those and they're 40 res a pop.
After power is but in a marine expansion I always go after the Chair next, the sooner its gone, the less time they have to scramble an exo or jetpacks.