Commander Tips
darkjester
Join Date: 2003-08-17 Member: 19853Members
Join Date: 2003-08-17 Member: 19853Members
Comments
Tip 2: Watch other coms and pick up on their strategies
Tip 3: Make every marine under your command feel like they are doing something thats helping the team. don't just give someone a waypoint to a Resource tower thats under attack, tell him to go and defend it and stay in that position untill you can afford to reinforce it with turrets or electricity.
Tip 4: reward those players who follow orders with new equipment-when you can afford it and it fits in with your strategy. don't give them shotguns when they aren't needed, that 10 res could have gone towards upgrades.
Tip 5: Learn the hotkeys. The hotkey system for the command is VERY easy to figure out, onc you see the pattern of
qwer
asdf
zxcv
Each row and collumn on your keyboard matches the menus so you can easily build a turret by hitting Q then X (Q goes to the build menu then x is for turret. I typicaly haven't perfected use of the hotkeys yet and still use the interface, but when you want to spam something, like a nest of turrets or medpacks, all you need to do is look at the thing you want and the hotkey is written on it just press S, click,S,click,etc to do a medpack spam
Tip 6: Don't overdo it with turrets. get Res nodes too. All you need is like 4 turrets in your base to defend your ips from skulks while the marines are off capping nodes.
You have very little chance of victory if you do not hold at least 4 res nodes. you flat out cannot afford the tech your troops need to combat what the aliens are getting off the remaining 6 res nodes. On the topic of res nodes, you must keep their number of nodes less then the number of nodes you hold, plus the number of empty ones. What does that mean you ask? Simple. If you hold 3 nodes, and the aliens have 4 nodes, and there are 3 empty nodes, you still have a chance to win. 3 rt's you have +3 empty rt's>4 alien rt's. RFK's is the only thing that can unbalance that equation. You have to somehow learn to keep a rough estimate of who is winning that "war". Are your marines dying alot? or are the aliens?.
When you have marines that do group up and dont play rambo, be sure to scan in front of them. Not only does it help them do what YOU asked them to, but it gives you res if they get kills instead of being killed.
Seige is your friend. Dont let aliens talk about "lame seige" and let it bug you one bit. I feel it is the best counter/payback for those games where they just sit and wait for you to spawn to eat you instead of killing that ip. Seige out defended areas, then take over. Be methodical, wrest map control from the aliens, and you are well on your way to victory. Then set up new defenses, and recycle the "seige-out" area..
Place an obs at every TF. When you decide to drop a TF, and obs should be in the next 4 structures made there. Making 10 sentries and no obs is less usefull then making 4 sentries and 1 obs. Also, dont be afraid to drop a seige there as well, it's better to have and not want, then want and not have. If you are getting RFK's, getting seige is not expensive, if seige is to much to afford, even only 1 cannon, you are probably losing anyway.
Be happy with a baseball hitters pct. You winning 1/3 pub games as comm is as good as getting a hit in the pros 1/3 times up to bat.
If you see a marine passing something that could use some 'base', select him, wp, drop, wp.
Also, keep all your marines together. 4 turrets and 2 marines are enough to actually hold a corridor. Just be sure to keep your marines in the middle. (behind the tf.)
Learn what's more important. Get 'general' weapon+armor upgrades before the protolab/advanced weapons.
The marines aren't the fastest side. Don't over exhaust your resources.
5 marines versus 3 skulks and 5 OCs will lose, 3 marines, tf, and siege(s) wont.
PS: Don't be afraid to get out of the Comm chair to kill a skulk attacking your Home RT.
Drop another commchair if you're in control of a hive, especially if you're base is still 'spawn turret defended' (IE - 4 turrets, and the rest of the base.)
PPS: Be a marine first, then a comm. Knowing what the troops will need/be up against is better than having a 'general idea'.
Double R-nodes shouldn't contain your entire base. Don't cram your entire base into one.
If the team is calling for ammo in a TF 'station', drop an armory and you'll most likely save in the long run. (If not, you troops will be more 'I have unlimited ammo when I'm near this drum.)
Stay in contact with your troops. If it seems you're doing something awkward, type something like 'siege *position* hive' or 'gonna siege' or 'kill that rt quick!'.
Phase gate a position that's 'far out there.'
If you're building something back at base (arms lab, prototype, phasegate, obs) don't send anyone back, say 'when you die, build some of the base' or when they do die, set them a wp.
You only need 100r for a tf, 2 sieges, 6 turrets. (It costs 110, but by the time the 6 turrets+tf are done, youll have enough for it all.)
Your troops aren't 'supreme gods' in the game, don't expect them to win all the skirmishes without TF support.
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Bingo. I'm finding these to be the most important tactic of all. Also, something I've discovered (call me slow) is that <b>speed</b> is the most effective tactic the Marines have. Games in NS 2.0 are intended to be faster and it takes speed to win: especially for the Frontiersmen. The aliens have a very effective way of speedily capping res but so do the marines. Decide on a build order that facilitates fast and effective movement of your troops to capture res and ground.
Make it happen.
Counter = Kill marines before siege gets put up. If you cannot do that, then you deserve to lose against such a semi-organized marine team.
Shotguns are nice. Give them to what you determine to be your better-than-most players on your team, and give them backup with a few LMG toting marines. Don't give out too many, though. That's why the LMGers are there, to pick up the shotty if your guy should die. Move that group as a squad to take out stuff and build res points and yeah.