Defending Against Sieges
coil
Amateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance. Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Amateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance. Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<div class="IPBDescription">no need to whine; shut them down!</div> The easiest way to keep a hive from being sieged is to defend not the HIVE, but the SIEGE LOCATIONS (well, defend the hive, too). Take Eclipse's Maintenance Hive. Go up the ladder on the right side and into the room with the blue electric arcs on the walls... THAT'S where your first line of defense goes up. They have to take out your OCs/DCs *there* before they can set up a siege in a position to attack the hive.. and at that point, your team will have had ample warning through hive sight and will hopefully have sent the marines packing.
The following are common (and some uncommon) locations for siege turret placement to attack a hive. Fortify these locations to prevent a direct siege assault. However, don't forget to defend the hive itself... one marine with a jetpack sneaking by to set up a phase is just as bad as a siege in your lap.
Locations to build up to protect against a siege:
Eclipse Maintenance - 3 siegable locations, two in the "U" shaped room and one from the south access.
Eclipse Command - Triad (not siegable, but good staging ground) and room directly east of hive chamber.
Eclipse Core - elevated accesses north and west of the hive.
Bast Water Hive - the furnace area and resource node.
Bast Refinery - Upper level access and around the corner in the north access.
Bast Engine - The main corridor approaching the hive.
Hera Ventilation - all tunnels between hive and Maintenance should have webbing and OCs.
Hera Core - PROCESSING.
Hera Archiving - windowed alcove at far end of hive room.
Nancy Mother (nameless hive) - approach halls.
Nancy other hives - approach halls and antechambers.
Caged Generator - around both corners.
Caged Ventilation - upper level of the hive chamber.
Caged Sewer - BOTH rooms adjacent to the hive chamber.
Tanith Waste Processing - ramp access and hallway.
Tanith Reactor - adjacent room with resource node.
Tanith Satellite - not very siegable, but hold hallways and try to prevent laser strike.
Nothing Cargo - around both corners.
Nothing Power Silo - both hallways and hallway around the back (with the pair of ladders & doors).
Nothing Viaduct - both access hallways, and watch out for a siege in the vents behind and above the hive room.
The following are common (and some uncommon) locations for siege turret placement to attack a hive. Fortify these locations to prevent a direct siege assault. However, don't forget to defend the hive itself... one marine with a jetpack sneaking by to set up a phase is just as bad as a siege in your lap.
Locations to build up to protect against a siege:
Eclipse Maintenance - 3 siegable locations, two in the "U" shaped room and one from the south access.
Eclipse Command - Triad (not siegable, but good staging ground) and room directly east of hive chamber.
Eclipse Core - elevated accesses north and west of the hive.
Bast Water Hive - the furnace area and resource node.
Bast Refinery - Upper level access and around the corner in the north access.
Bast Engine - The main corridor approaching the hive.
Hera Ventilation - all tunnels between hive and Maintenance should have webbing and OCs.
Hera Core - PROCESSING.
Hera Archiving - windowed alcove at far end of hive room.
Nancy Mother (nameless hive) - approach halls.
Nancy other hives - approach halls and antechambers.
Caged Generator - around both corners.
Caged Ventilation - upper level of the hive chamber.
Caged Sewer - BOTH rooms adjacent to the hive chamber.
Tanith Waste Processing - ramp access and hallway.
Tanith Reactor - adjacent room with resource node.
Tanith Satellite - not very siegable, but hold hallways and try to prevent laser strike.
Nothing Cargo - around both corners.
Nothing Power Silo - both hallways and hallway around the back (with the pair of ladders & doors).
Nothing Viaduct - both access hallways, and watch out for a siege in the vents behind and above the hive room.
Comments
Once the immediate threat to the hive is taken care of, the 2nd priority for your teeth is the phase gate if the commander has set one up.
The only reason to alter this prioritizing is if the marines are using welders to keep the tfac repaired. If they are, then the marines and phase should be your primary targets. It's possible your hive will go down, but preventing the marines from gaining this foothold is crucial. The hive can be rebuilt.
However this subject brings me to a slight problem thats been bothering me with sieges and sadly its on one of my favorite maps; ns_bast.
I've included a picture of what I'm talking about but I don't doubt quite a few of you have run into this. The marine start point is very close to the engine room hive and the main aft junction; two key areas in the map. As long as the marines can keep the start point secure, it's quite effortless for them to set up a siege turret from inside the camp that can reach any alien structures in the main aft junction and the hallway leading to the engine room. In fact, from marine start point sieges can reach the resource nozzle in main aft junction AND the resource nozzle in the engine room.
You can see from the picture where I put red circles for hypothetical siege turret placements and green circles for their corresponding range that if you were to move the siege into the far west corner their range could reach inside the engine room. And in fact, I have been in games where the aliens could not use the engine room resource nozzle because of a siege turret placed inside the marines start point area. If you do a little guesstimation with the picture I included, you can see this is very plausible.
Unless the marines are completely new to this game, the marine start point will be heavily fortified. In all the games I've played it has taken at least 2 onos and an army of fades to destroy it, save an early successful skulk rush of course. So it's safe to say that when playing against experienced marines on this map, aliens will literally be playing with one hive tied behind their backs.
I often find marines using the siege range to lock down the main aft junction. This allows them to waltz in and set up a slew of turrets, effectively blocking off the engine room from the aliens. This is clearly an imbalance.
You could blame it on the map or you could blame it on the siege range but the real question is who is willing to fix it? I'd hate to see relic have to redesign this fun map. I think the easiest change would be to shorten the siege range. I also hope that the dev team really look at this issue because any future maps might have the same problem.
It's available <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=9871&st=0' target='_blank'>here</a>.
2)Ok, so you defend those points where they can build siege turrets... they build a siege turret further up the corridor and blow THAT base up, then they set a siege turret up where your base was and you have to mount a major offensive of fades/onos to break it down. (Unless they have a very poor commander)
Don't argue about the amount of resources it takes either. All it takes is a few marines to not ask for HMG/GL/HA and you can afford 'em no problem.
"But the lack of HMG/GL/HA means the aliens can kill us faster and our base goes weaker"- Ignorant Marine
Don't argue about the amount of resources it takes either. All it takes is a few marines to not ask for HMG/GL/HA and you can afford 'em no problem.
"But the lack of HMG/GL/HA means the aliens can kill us faster and our base goes weaker"- Ignorant Marine<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A) You're not talking to an ignorant marine. You're talking to a Playtester, NS Guide, and clanned NS player with 4+ months of experience.
B) Ok, so you set up a forward defensive line to defend a hive approach. 10 mins later, you receive a Hive Sight audio warning that a building is under attack - you scan your hive sight and see FIVE pink rings, tightly clustered. There's really only one thing that will hit more than 4 buildings simultaneously, and that's a siege. So what do you do? You hop on voicecomm and tell your team that the marines are attacking the hive, then you go over there and you take care of them. Even if they DO succeed in breaking your defense, your whole team knows they're there and is on them like white on rice.
An alien team that allows a forward defense to be destroyed AND a siege to then be set up in hive range deserves to lose that hive, IMO.