The Defence Chamber Rush (v1.04)
Error404
Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9353Members
Join Date: 2002-11-19 Member: 9353Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Getting Level 3 Upgrades for Large Games</div> <u><b><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> The Defence Chamber Rush</span></b></u>
<i>I've come to the conclusion that on 22+ player servers, that however good a Kharaa team is, they will lose most of the time to a decent Marine team.</i>
The reason for this, is to do with the way the resource distribution works. On large servers, the Marines have the benefit of faster resources (the more players the faster the resources come in), but because each player on the Kharaa team takes away the Gorges resources, it means the Marines can build faster while the Kharaa can only build slowly.
<b>What this means?</b> It means that while the Marines are upgrading quickly, by the time the Kharaa manage to get enough resources for a second hive and start building it, the marines will likely have jetpacks and HMG.
<b>What would you do?</b> The most obvious solution to counter the Marines faster resource collecting would be to build as many resources towers as fast as you can in the early game. This would involve asking your team to temporary Gorge as soon as they had 33 res, to evolve to gorge, build on a res node, then go back to skulk. <b>This doesn't work either</b>.Why? Because against a decent Marine team, they will be killing your Resource towers faster than you can put them up and defend them. Thats a waste of 40 res already.
By the time, your gorge has started building the second resource tower, the Marines would have secured their first hive. The commander will order all if not 70% of his guys to that empty hive. At this point, you'll likely only have one gorge, and four unupgraded skulks against 8 to 10 marines. If they are a competent team, they will kill the gorge, your four skulks AND the second resource tower. Putting 5 of your team in the spawn queue. By the time you get skulks back to the hive, they'll already have a Phase Gate up with reinforcements.
<b>Don't bother with the Resource tower</b>, instead build 2 DC first, to keep the marines at bay.
<u><b>Spawn Rate and Spawn Queues</b></u>
The marines can build as many infantry portals as they like. With 2 infantry portals, they are spawning at twice the speed of Kharaa. Often it's not a good idea to rush a marine base on a large server because when more than half of your team are <i>inactive</i> and waiting in a <b>Spawn Queue</b>, the Marines can run about the map doing whatever they want, including securing resource nodes; which is the last thing you want. All it takes is one marine to put a phase gate in an empty location.
The large spawn queue is not only demoralising for the team, it also makes it hard to get enough skulks together to organize an offensive. An often heard dialogue is, 'As soon as we spawn we'll meet up outside Ventilation, and then attack <i>together</i>', it'll never happen. While you're waiting for your mates to spawn, you'll be an inactive skulk. The marines would have already set up heavy defences at their secured hive.
<u><b>Early Solution</b></u>
The most applicable solution for skulks against a decent marine team, would be for the Gorge to get Defence Chambers up as early as possible. Once your skulks are equipped with Lvl 3 Carapace or Regeneration, there will be less pressure on your spawn system and skulks can get out faster and be more effective.
With such a large Kharaa team, this single upgrade can sometimes mean an early win. If not, it gives the Kharaa a better chance of holding onto key locations of the map and the ability to play offensively, destroying Marine structures and stopping Marine expansion.
<b>Slower maybe, but better than dead</b>. It may take longer to get the second hive up, but using the resources to get the early upgrades, such as Carapace and Lerks, gives you the early one-up on the marines. Its a gamble, but better than saving for a second hive thats going to get shot down immediately because 3/4 of your team are spawning and you have no Lerks to counter jetpackers.
<b>All a good Kharaa team needs, is Lvl 3 Carapace/Redemption, and Lerks</b>. While the Marines are unupgraded, Carapaced Lerks and Skulks are just as effective as Fades against HA Marines with HMG. A single Carapaced Lerk can quickly take out several unupgraded marine with it's spike-shooter, meaning it's effective at keeping a hive space clear.
<u><b>ATTACKING the Marine Structures</b></u>
Once you have your tough Kharaa team, it's important to begin attacking Marine structures. This helps waste marine resources, slowing down their expansion and possiblity of upgrades. If your team manage to take out the Prototype Lab as it is researching (if you don't know what it looks like, make sure you do), you'll have scored a major goal in throwing the Marines back into the stoneages. The Prototype Lab is what gives the Marines their jetpacks and heavy armor, once this is down, it compensates time for the Kharaa's early upgrades and allows Gorges more time to get the second hive up.
Gradually, as your offensives become more frequent, the Marines will end up leaving their base less and less to defend it. You'll easily have them caged inside their own base while they save up enough resources for upgrades. If the skulks have been taking out the Marine Resource towers and the gorges capping the nodes, then you'll <b>have turned the tables against the Marines</b>, your Gorges will be getting resources faster than the marine commander. The second hive will be up and the winning line may or may not be in view.
<u>Conclusion</u>
Early DCs and Lerks on large servers are the only option against a competent Marine team. If the Marine team are all newbies, you probably won't need them.
<i>I've come to the conclusion that on 22+ player servers, that however good a Kharaa team is, they will lose most of the time to a decent Marine team.</i>
The reason for this, is to do with the way the resource distribution works. On large servers, the Marines have the benefit of faster resources (the more players the faster the resources come in), but because each player on the Kharaa team takes away the Gorges resources, it means the Marines can build faster while the Kharaa can only build slowly.
<b>What this means?</b> It means that while the Marines are upgrading quickly, by the time the Kharaa manage to get enough resources for a second hive and start building it, the marines will likely have jetpacks and HMG.
<b>What would you do?</b> The most obvious solution to counter the Marines faster resource collecting would be to build as many resources towers as fast as you can in the early game. This would involve asking your team to temporary Gorge as soon as they had 33 res, to evolve to gorge, build on a res node, then go back to skulk. <b>This doesn't work either</b>.Why? Because against a decent Marine team, they will be killing your Resource towers faster than you can put them up and defend them. Thats a waste of 40 res already.
By the time, your gorge has started building the second resource tower, the Marines would have secured their first hive. The commander will order all if not 70% of his guys to that empty hive. At this point, you'll likely only have one gorge, and four unupgraded skulks against 8 to 10 marines. If they are a competent team, they will kill the gorge, your four skulks AND the second resource tower. Putting 5 of your team in the spawn queue. By the time you get skulks back to the hive, they'll already have a Phase Gate up with reinforcements.
<b>Don't bother with the Resource tower</b>, instead build 2 DC first, to keep the marines at bay.
<u><b>Spawn Rate and Spawn Queues</b></u>
The marines can build as many infantry portals as they like. With 2 infantry portals, they are spawning at twice the speed of Kharaa. Often it's not a good idea to rush a marine base on a large server because when more than half of your team are <i>inactive</i> and waiting in a <b>Spawn Queue</b>, the Marines can run about the map doing whatever they want, including securing resource nodes; which is the last thing you want. All it takes is one marine to put a phase gate in an empty location.
The large spawn queue is not only demoralising for the team, it also makes it hard to get enough skulks together to organize an offensive. An often heard dialogue is, 'As soon as we spawn we'll meet up outside Ventilation, and then attack <i>together</i>', it'll never happen. While you're waiting for your mates to spawn, you'll be an inactive skulk. The marines would have already set up heavy defences at their secured hive.
<u><b>Early Solution</b></u>
The most applicable solution for skulks against a decent marine team, would be for the Gorge to get Defence Chambers up as early as possible. Once your skulks are equipped with Lvl 3 Carapace or Regeneration, there will be less pressure on your spawn system and skulks can get out faster and be more effective.
With such a large Kharaa team, this single upgrade can sometimes mean an early win. If not, it gives the Kharaa a better chance of holding onto key locations of the map and the ability to play offensively, destroying Marine structures and stopping Marine expansion.
<b>Slower maybe, but better than dead</b>. It may take longer to get the second hive up, but using the resources to get the early upgrades, such as Carapace and Lerks, gives you the early one-up on the marines. Its a gamble, but better than saving for a second hive thats going to get shot down immediately because 3/4 of your team are spawning and you have no Lerks to counter jetpackers.
<b>All a good Kharaa team needs, is Lvl 3 Carapace/Redemption, and Lerks</b>. While the Marines are unupgraded, Carapaced Lerks and Skulks are just as effective as Fades against HA Marines with HMG. A single Carapaced Lerk can quickly take out several unupgraded marine with it's spike-shooter, meaning it's effective at keeping a hive space clear.
<u><b>ATTACKING the Marine Structures</b></u>
Once you have your tough Kharaa team, it's important to begin attacking Marine structures. This helps waste marine resources, slowing down their expansion and possiblity of upgrades. If your team manage to take out the Prototype Lab as it is researching (if you don't know what it looks like, make sure you do), you'll have scored a major goal in throwing the Marines back into the stoneages. The Prototype Lab is what gives the Marines their jetpacks and heavy armor, once this is down, it compensates time for the Kharaa's early upgrades and allows Gorges more time to get the second hive up.
Gradually, as your offensives become more frequent, the Marines will end up leaving their base less and less to defend it. You'll easily have them caged inside their own base while they save up enough resources for upgrades. If the skulks have been taking out the Marine Resource towers and the gorges capping the nodes, then you'll <b>have turned the tables against the Marines</b>, your Gorges will be getting resources faster than the marine commander. The second hive will be up and the winning line may or may not be in view.
<u>Conclusion</u>
Early DCs and Lerks on large servers are the only option against a competent Marine team. If the Marine team are all newbies, you probably won't need them.
Comments
Anyway, it's good, but get more than one gorge on a big server. On a 12 man server one gorge gets 3/14 = 21% of resources. 3 gorges each get 3/18 = 17% of resources, but together put 50% of resources into buildings (i.e 133% more than a single gorge). You can get those 3 DCs up much more quickly.
After each one puts up a DC, have one build a res and save, one build res and defence and one battle gorge (field hospital, minesweeper and offensive OCs if required). One good way to increase your cara advantage is to heal wounded skulks and maintain the pressure - keeps the spawn queue clearer as well. Remember to try and attack in waves, which is also easier when a forward gorge is around as people tend to congregate for healing and backup at this known location.
Put up Offensive Chambers or whatever they are; and watch the acid fly into their eyes. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Nooby doo is right. In larger games multiple gorges don't only become viable but necessary. Usually (I mean on my regular 20 player server) 2 people go gorge and whack up the first RT together. The one who built the RT goes and caps more whilst the other goes and puts up some DCs and carries on to either cap RTs or get OCs in the hive if a rush looks likely.
Secondly, don't build your first new RT in a hive. Instead build it near your original hive. Its easier to defend that way and its critical you do not lose it in the early part of the game when the res flow is slow. If you build your first in a hive and its taken you've just been dealt a crippling blow. A hive has been taken and your first gorge and RT are gone. Bad news.
Thirdly, you don't need WOLs to hold hives. You need carapaced skulks. WOLs are just icing.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->On large servers, the Marines have the benefit of faster resources (the more players the faster the resources come in), but because each player on the Kharaa team takes away the Gorges resources, it means the Marines can build faster while the Kharaa can only build slowly.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes and no. The kharaa are excellently balanced with the current system, the second hive goes up with only about a minute difference between really small and large servers. Large servers only really effect the marines balance.
Basically aginst a good team in large servers you need DCs pretty quick, i'd say within 8 minutes at the outermost. Waiting until after you've lost your gorge(s) and the other 2 hives to put up DCs is too late.
Yes, that's a very good point that I forgot to mention. If you decide to go for a second RT before dropping the DCs, its better near the start hive. The marine team will be looking to secure 2 hives quickly from the start, and that means any structures in the other hives will be in danger of being wasted.
A RT in an empty hive, can quickly turn into a fly trap for kharaa. The marines will likely have situated themselves in defensive positions around that hive, and milk all the unupgraded skulks that go to the 'Your resource tower is under attack!' beacon.
That's why you should be careful of where you place the new RT, it could easily become a <b>magnet of death</b> for you team. Really, the Kharaa, should not be focused purely on just defending RTs at this point, it's crucial that they stop marines from expanding and moving around the map.
<b>A good strategy</b>, I've seen in many games is to get early Carapaced skulks, launch a mass attack on the Marine start, wiping out their Infantry Portals. This usually results in them forcing to relocate and wasting resources - delaying upgrades once again. Once you have the marine start resource node, they'll usually not bother taking it back for some time.
A single carapaced skulk on average should be able to take out 2 marines. I'd say that an average unupgraded marine can usually take out 2 unupgraded skulks. <b>A group of 8-10 unupgraded marines moving in unison is like a mobile turret farm!</b>. Theres no reason why a team of carapaced skulks can't stop marines in the early part of the game.
You say this is for large games, but it sounds like pretty much good advice for ANY sized game. Rushing the marine base early on is a dumb move, carapace is essential early on against good marines (on the servers I play on, the marines are excellent), and you have to keep attacking the marine bases so that they run out of res.
Either way, it's still good advice <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
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I decided to say 'large games' to play it safe. Anything goes in NS, the DC or 'Carapace Rush' is just the Marine equivalent of a jetpack/hmg rush.
The winner in NS, is <i>usually</i> the one who can out-tech the other team. To get the early <b>one-up</b> on the opposing team is to gain the advantage.
In all RTS games the best thing to do is cap res points as fast as possible, with defense spending coming second. For the sake of argument, this ignores the fact that your (many) unguarded res points may simply be attacked by the opposition. You cannot disagree that the team with the most money wins (assuming skill level is equal blah blah).
When you build defense before res, you *cripple* your economy with a punch in the guts for each DC you build. You are sacrificing the team's long term health (lots of money) for short term gain (early carapace). Because, after all, you will eventually get the DCs, it's just how long you can stand living without them.
So, if you can get away with building a res first (which is nearly always the case), then do it. Building it will give more long term benifit than building a DC first if you can hold on for a bit at the start. If you cannot get away with building a res first (you get overrun by marines as the first res goes up) then yes, build a DC first.
I may not be explaining this right but I think anyone who has played RTS games for a while knows this and has experienced this plenty of times. Building early DCs is kind of like building early OTs at a res. Useful for the short term but if no marines attack early then they would have been better spent on something else (like another res).
The only time in a pub game that I think building DCs would be useful would be for a crippling early rush at the rine spawn or something similar.
If you read the original post and some o fthe replies you will see why this can be a good idea. Having half the team in spawn-que and Marines controlling the map is no good.
Your philosophy is better suited for the Marines, who have the ability to do it.
You say it is useless to have a zillion resources but if you have too many resources then you should've taken the 2nd hive sooner, and built beautifully arranged boquets of chambers to hold them with all that cash. It is not an important factor in this discussion as far as I'm concerned.
It really comes down to these two choices:
1. Take the risk of getting caught out and go hard for resources. Once you get enough money that you cannot spend it on resources fast enough, go ahead and build DCs and OTs. If you get through it then the risk has paid off and you have climbed the tech tree as fast as possible.
2. Go hard for carapace and hope that marines don't just sit back and out-tech you by capping resources.
So obviously for each game there is somewhere in between those two extremes of how to build, and it depends on the character of each game. But my point is that the best thing to do, i.e. what you should be aiming for, is to get res as fast as possible.
If you find that building DCs earlier is necessary then by all means do it. But you should keep in your mind that it is a sacrifice to do this and it should be minimized if you care about efficiency and tech-tree speed.
Some of this talk of getting 3 DCs before any res, which I have also witnessed, is just crazy. The amount that it puts you behind the marines is just begging for a thrashing.
I used to build like 3 RT's before putting down DC's, but now I just cannot do that most of the time. Why? Because the marines have become so much better. The "1rt - 3 DC" way is the one which is most successful at the moment, but this is an 18player server, on a larger server I would probably advocate either a second gorge (that only saves for DC) or getting the D immediatly.
On rare occasions skulks do so well in the beginning that I am able to wait until the 2:nd or 3:d RT before I put down the DC's, but that is indeed rare, and often the game ends when lvl3 cara comes up and skulks just trash the marines.
Going D first is a bit "desperate", but I am sure it is needed sometimes, especially on larger servers.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->You say it is useless to have a zillion resources but if you have too many resources then you should've taken the 2nd hive sooner, and built beautifully arranged boquets of chambers to hold them with all that cash.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As I think you know, the only time an alien has more resources then they can spend is when Marines have a two-hive lockdown, since the aliens usually have most of the map and they can't spend the res.
The thing is that 3DC's in practice doubles the amount of "skulkage" on the teaam (and makes the gorge real hard to kill), thus it is very important to get it soon, even if it does damage the economy, since the economy may or may not be used depending on circumstance, twice the skulkage will.
Basically, the idea is to <b>control the game from the start</b>. Once you have control of the map from the start, it really doesn't matter how slow your res comes in because you know that eventually, your res will come in faster than the marines.
Some of the best skulks that I've played with, sometimes don't even bother to evolve to Fade because the carapace is enough for them to own.
It's a matter of skill at the end of the day. A good Kharaa side can gamble 3DCs up first, because they're confident they can take on the marines quickly. If the team think it might be difficult, then play it safe and knock up a couple of RTs first before DCs.
Like a jetpack rush, a DC rush requires timing and co-ordination, combined with skill.
Being agressive and controlling the game early are certainly things to strive for. This is still true when (again) speaking generally about RTS's. But 'controlling' really comes down to keeping the opposition's res down, and not much else. It always comes back to res (skulk rushing for a 5 minute victory aside).
This whole discussion is about the first 4 or 5 objects built by the gorge. After that the build order is a different matter entirely. And after those first few objects are built, you are always in a better position if you had put the effort into res rather than early DCs (or OTs for that matter). There can be no argument about this; it is a fact that if you have managed to mine res as fast as the game allows, then you can't do any better.
Now this assumes that your team is keeping the opponent's res down sufficiently while guarding your own. A very hard task. But if you make it through (to the stage where the DCs go up, and they all go up at once because you have so much res), then the reward is there to be taken.
It is such a hard thing to do, that it may actually be wise to put up a DC early, even as the first object in some cases. But the fact remains that it is a damaging thing to do because if, in hindsight, your team could've waited an extra 5 minutes for carapace, then you have made a mistake.
Arghhh!! No! You do not understand. It is <b>relative</b>. This is the point, re-read it:
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Basically, the idea is to control the game from the start. Once you have control of the map from the start, it really doesn't matter how slow your res comes in because you know that eventually, your res will come in faster than the marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It is not about how fast you get resources or how much you get, it's about how fast you get them <b>relative to the others</b>. If you get three RT's up but the marines get three up, you will be losing because the resource model allows the marines to spend their res with 100% efficiency all the time, unlike you. Also the marines have earlier availability to more potent upgrades then you do. Carapace skulks are better then vanilla marines, JP or HMG marines is better then carapace skulks, and Fades/umbra/webs is better then JP's and HMG's. The problem is that with equal resources the Marines will get JP's/HMG's quicker then you get fades/umbra/web because they can spend theor resources more efficiently (on a team of 10 you have to put 207 res in the skulk-bank before you can be 100% efficient, and that is assuming no-one gets carapace or goes lerk).
Itäs better to have 2 RT's and the enemy only has 1, then for you to have 5 and the enemy 5. 5 vs 2 RT's... maybe, but without carapace you will never get 5.
It's all about making up for the Resource distribution imbalance.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Basically, the idea is to control the game from the start. Once you have control of the map from the start, it really doesn't matter how slow your res comes in because you know that eventually, your res will come in faster than the marines.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You are right that it is relative. I shouldn't say these things as if they are absolute because within the spectrum of 'early carapace' and 'early resources' there are clearly different advantages.
The advantage of early carapace is being able to keep the marines from expanding and upgrading. The advantage of early resources is being able to build more static defense and a hive earlier. There are other advantages, disadvantages and complexities which really need to be ignored for simplicities sake (e.g. getting DCs early means you will be losing 2 res from every spawning skulk, getting resources early means you will have longer spawn queues etc.).
But you have to remember that this is all about the first 5 minutes of the game (or maybe a bit longer I haven't timed it). For the sake of argument, say the early carapace build is DC, DC, Resource and the early resouce build is Resource, DC, DC. From then on I think we can agree that the build order is pretty much up to the gorge and won't make a hell of a lot of difference either way.
So with the early carapace build, you get an extra 3 or 4 minutes of trashing marines resources because you are strong and have two DCs. With the early resource build you have to sneak around and stay out of trouble until the 4 minute mark.
After the 4 minute mark is up, this is the theoretical state of the game for early carapace:
- Marine resources in ruins
- Skulks are strong
- Aliens behind on their own resources
The state of the game for early resources:
- A few marine resources are up (but surely no turrets yet)
- Skulks are strong
- Aliens have a good amount of resources coming in.
I'm sure the times I have quoted are totally wrong, and I may also be wrong about the turret factory thing, but I know I like the 2nd option the best. The reason for that is that with your newfound carapace, you can go and smash those couple of marine resources that have gone up.
(Sorry about the length of these posts)
EDIT: On certain maps this will always hold (example: Eclipse). On other maps, you might get a bit more leeway.
If you ever play against skilled marines, you have to have full carapace aswell as organisation and full teamwork.
Also, it should be pointed out that building DC-DC-DC only costs about 2 minutes on 2nd hive/fade time compared to going RT-RT, due to the skulks filling up.