I bet your strategy will work just as often as it doesn't for most people. But if it works reliably well for you, well great! More power to you.
Oh, ignore the asshats that jump straight to the personal insults. They obviously have poor impulse control and social skills.
Also, to everyone saying that aliens will counter effectively... it has not been my personal experience that pubs (on both sides) are particularly effective at countering anything. It happens, but not all the times. It depends a lot on who you play with. I've had plenty of times where the aliens (myself included) had our hands handed to us by 2 exos (not 20.. two), simply because coordinated attacks on anything (the exos or a base) was just impossible to execute.
This probaly works, simply because that many Exosuits will stomp on anything.
However if aliens are smart they will delay with bile, and kill your base as you cannot beacon.
Also this tactic seems to rely upon your team being good enough to hold off the aliens despite your terrible comm decisions - largest being no welders.
<!--quoteo(post=2046438:date=Dec 16 2012, 02:20 AM:name=PsympleJester)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (PsympleJester @ Dec 16 2012, 02:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046438"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I read this topic as: "Winning as marines in 223, The key is the exo"
I thought it was a bite radius joke... Not just another idiot advising people how to lose the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah. It is just that it so happens that only idiots call others "idiots" just for expressing an idea (no matter how wrong or right) about a frikking game in a forum.
<!--quoteo(post=2046590:date=Dec 16 2012, 12:29 PM:name=mushookees)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (mushookees @ Dec 16 2012, 12:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046590"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->exo dont benefit from weapon upgrades, just rush armor 3
also
just keep building cc's with the macs after you kill a hive<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes! Thank you, some info I was missing. I thought the weapons was affected as well. Excellent, that saves me a lot of res :)
And yes, spamming a few CCs to hold the techpoints a while longer is a good idea, I only do it if the trains start going slower though.
Lets see now... Ah yes, Xarius says: Even a simple shotgun rush would be a better idea I never see those any more on pubs, wonder why... Problem is, on pubs, you cant force it on people, plus they need to know what they are doing.
TimMc says: Also this tactic seems to rely upon your team being good enough to hold off the aliens despite your terrible comm decisions - largest being no welders. Yes it is a bit of a gamble, hence the PG and weapon 1 to give them a chance, otherwise I would have scrapped that as well. The point is, if I research welders I get two effects: 1) res wasted on research 2) marines waste their personal res (buy- die, buy -die) and I don't want that. I want minimal time to EXO which means I need their personal res as well, it's more important than the occasional replacement armory. But no, you don't need "pro's" for it to work, it's just game mathematics not sports.
<!--quoteo(post=2046614:date=Dec 16 2012, 02:00 PM:name=ComboBreaker)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ComboBreaker @ Dec 16 2012, 02:00 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046614"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How are you going to beacon effectively against lone onos or 2-3 skulks in your base?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I suppose you men "defend" effectively?
If they have an onos in my base, good for them, I'm out killing their hives, racing against time. You need to have players saving up for an onos from the start to have time to get it out before the train runs over you. Onos egg is on third hive if I remember correctly and costs 75 team res. As I said, the train needs to get going before or around the time the first player payed onos gets to the field. If it's not we can still take him down, chances are that the onos is poorly supported that early on. Most pub players evolve to something at least once or spend a few measly res on upgrades instead of saving.
As I said earlier, the aliens need to know what I'm doing to take full advantage of it but yes, again, it is a gamble. One way of countering a couple of skulks would be to leave one EXO with mac support in at least one base (of course, preferably the one with your active CC and the IPs).
oddly I've seen it used, though with less Exo units as part of other strategies. For it to be truly effective though you would need turrets defending the power nodes at both tech points but its workable. It can be countered I will say but it would require crags , an onos and some gorges with a decent aim using bile bomb alone with possibly spores and well placed spike walls.
At a guess though I will say its a good move to weaken the enemy even if you don't get 3 hives down, just getting one down can then let you hammer the advantage in other ways.
So I was just in a game where this worked perfectly. I will still say that it depends on the competency of the enemy team. But I think it's good that there's a relatively simple, basic strategy that works against moderate-to-low skill enemies. It's like the "noob tube" or Carrier rushes in StarCraft. Like Dwavenhobble said, it can be countered, but it takes an intelligent enemy team. In common pub games, you won't encounter that, so it makes little sense to rely on strategies that require your whole team to be on-the-ball.
It depends quite a bit on automation - MACs rather than welders, and sentry turrets rather than phase gates. These can sort of equalize the skill differential in some ways, though marines will have to survive with not too much for a while, and it will kinda feel like you're near losing. It certainly helped that I was very good at using my Exo (I was one of the first to get it, then even when others got destroyed, mine lasted the rest of the game).
Interesting, hope you had as much fun with it as I usually do :)
I agree on the skill needed to keep the EXO alive. Once you are in the fray you are so in to aiming and checking the gun heat that it's hard to keep track of the MACs (and the buggers keep moving around being "smart"). You need to back off constantly to repair. I guess with a few guys that alternate at the absolute front that you could get it to work better, two steps forward, one backwards sort of thing. Selecting and controlling MACs can be a nightmare, I wish I could double-tap the group number I assigned to get the camera view to that group or assign MACs to entities in "follow" mode. And in the midst of battle they get the great idea to move forward in to the line of bile bombs to repair.... which is why I need to hold them back and hope the EXOs can figure it out that me hollering "fall back for repairs" every 5 seconds means that support is nearby :D
<!--quoteo(post=2046412:date=Dec 15 2012, 04:34 PM:name=spacedaniel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (spacedaniel @ Dec 15 2012, 04:34 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046412"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->My Edit for a good Exo rush: This will take good positioning and timing by both you and your team... and will not work if you give it away or are to slow.... Or are VS a great Pub team <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> So, by no means am I an experienced com or any good at it but here's a formula that has worked pretty good, considering that people get hybris galore in an exo and try rambo-ing alone :) Apparently it's hard to hear orders inside those machines... I haven't had the chance to try this on a large server, mainly 6vs6 and 8vs8 so I don't know if it's valid for 10vs10 or more.
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->NOTE: Get Mines and SG as needed <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> 1) Get 1 or 2 RT:s and the armory. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->EDIT: Get an Obs<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> 2) I get upgrades or <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->Phase tech<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> ... only get wep/arm 1 If your doing really good. 4) Build obs and decide where to go for a second base. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->EDIT: Get armory/s and gates where you want 2nd base<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> 7) Upgrade armoury and get 2 more RTs unless they are up already. 6) Put second CC up. 8) Prorotype lab. By now the team is <!--coloro:#F4A460--><span style="color:#F4A460"><!--/coloro-->Should Not Be<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->struggling and wondering why we aren't doing it the same old way that never works, calling me names and quitting. 9) Hold on! Time to tell the team whats going on. Hang in there! 10) Research exo. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->And welders if you don't have them now<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> 11) <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->Don't<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->Build a robot factory. 13) Beacon the team to the proto-lab, get <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->2-3people<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> in an exo and pump out 4-8 <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->welders<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->. 14) Choose which way to go.... scan all the time, kill hives, have fun, drink mildly alcoholic beverages. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->Build forward Phase-gates/armory's, and get JP's as needed <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> 15) Don't stick around and build up, that will just slow down the blitz and give the aliens a chance to retaliate at your base, just ignore everything and hit the hives. 16) Win. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->If you can<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=2046770:date=Dec 16 2012, 07:44 PM:name=Desther)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Desther @ Dec 16 2012, 07:44 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046770"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->How to win vs Aliens:
<ul><li>Be better at aiming</li><li>Fast Mines</li><li>Fast PG</li><li>Keep them on 1 hive</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, very good advice. But on a pub server that is about as effective as Hitler yelling "Not one step back!" while russian tanks drive over the pride of the fatherland in a snow storm.. twice. You couldn't elaborate a bit? On timing, costs, how to aim better etc?
I hear ya, you would require a couple of guys holding on to their res until you got the EXOs. Hard in pub. Seems to me it's just the usual game but with EXO first instead of JP. Would probably work, I can't say anything else. Shotguns and mines are a 35 res drain, thats armour 1 and weapon 1 right there though. And chances are you wouldn't have rines with any res left on a pub when you get exos, or the opposite, people dont place mines or just place them too close = waste.
I've been having a lot of success simply going for a deny second hive strategy as a marine commander to be honest, get a small group of good marines to hold the most likely second hive position with an armory until PG comes round. If you can keep aliens off the second hive, it's almost always a GG. On veil that usually means you rush cargo, keep sub scanned in case of a ninja hive and put pressure on nano. Of course this all implies you have a team of marines who aren't entirely incompetent, but that's pretty much a basic condition for any marine strat to succeed really.
Marines have the edge early on, if this advantage goes unharnessed however they will quickly fall behind. This is really something that all commanders need to hammer on. ###### sitting around, it doesn't matter if you die as long as you end up killing that harvester. Time is of the essence and you need to hit the alien economy hard, at any cost. As a marine I've often succeeded in doing a lot of damage single-handedly, even in my opinion turning around games that way, by continuously ninjaing harvesters and upgrades and taking out sole skulks trying to come to its defence. Now just imagine you have the entire team that committed to harming the alien economy and you will be amazed at where it will get you.
Basically, the marine team needs to play the RTS first and the FPS game second, unlike aliens. It's all about damaging the alien economy, pressure that will in turn also keep pressure off your harvesters. As long as this doesn't make its way into the meta however, the win rates will remain unchanged.
<!--quoteo(post=2046847:date=Dec 16 2012, 11:48 PM:name=Xarius)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xarius @ Dec 16 2012, 11:48 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2046847"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I've been having a lot of success simply going for a deny second hive strategy as a marine commander to be honest, get a small group of good marines to hold the most likely second hive position with an armory until PG comes round. If you can keep aliens off the second hive, it's almost always a GG. On veil that usually means you rush cargo, keep sub scanned in case of a ninja hive and put pressure on nano. Of course this all implies you have a team of marines who aren't entirely incompetent, but that's pretty much a basic condition for any marine strat to succeed really.
Marines have the edge early on, if this advantage goes unharnessed however they will quickly fall behind. This is really something that all commanders need to hammer on. ###### sitting around, it doesn't matter if you die as long as you end up killing that harvester. Time is of the essence and you need to hit the alien economy hard, at any cost. As a marine I've often succeeded in doing a lot of damage single-handedly, even in my opinion turning around games that way, by continuously ninjaing harvesters and upgrades and taking out sole skulks trying to come to its defence. Now just imagine you have the entire team that committed to harming the alien economy and you will be amazed at where it will get you.
Basically, the marine team needs to play the RTS first and the FPS game second, unlike aliens. It's all about damaging the alien economy, pressure that will in turn also keep pressure off your harvesters. As long as this doesn't make its way into the meta however, the win rates will remain unchanged.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good points all of them. I think that's actually (sort of) is what happens the times marines do win, an early advantage and somehow they cant get that 2nd hive or marines strike right when its planted. And a big affirmative on the concept of marine = early gamers, alien = late gamers Oh yes, the RTS number crunching is very important. Once the alien harvesting machinery starts snowballing, rines are screwed. Which is kind of boring, if you disregard stacking, which is another problem, it is clear that marines have X minutes to win or it's aliens that win the day. That is a fundamental flaw right now in the game. You don't evolve together, aliens have an exponential power growth starting at zero. The rines are linear starting at 2. After those X minutes the lines cross then it's bye bye rines.
I use to play smaller games of 6v6 or 8v8, but this patch I started playing 10v10 and up because it's more balanced. Usually I stayed away from the large servers, but now it's like a different game. I find that matches tend to be 50-50 the larger you go because Marines are good in big games, but Aliens are good overall, so it balances out.
For the record, I think the OP's plan is terribad, but I'm actually going to explain why... maybe you "pros" could either do the same or STFU. One line insults or one word responses might seem funny as hell to you, but you wind up looking like A-holes and not contributing. Moderators should be moderating these forums FFS.
On topic :
The main problem is that the key to the OP is holding a minority of the map and going into turtle mode. This more than any other thing loses games. By not supporting your marines out in the field with proper tools and upgrades, you are not only handing the Aliens the map, but you are reducing the alien teams incentive to spend res on lifeforms that do most of the combat.
For example, no alien will generally spend 50 Pres on a fade when the marines are hiding behind armories and defending their close RT's with sufficient numbers to put them down quickly. The alien com will stop spending T-res on cysts and RT's and just start buying drifters/whips/chambers with impunity... and the real problem you are going to run into is that the map should look like a forest of alien death-weeds and eggs rather than highways to hives. If you focus your exo-push on an "easy" hive, the alien com will have no problem just marching in shifted whips and crags to your main and then its base race time.
Never base race an alien that's been sitting on a majority of the map for 10 minutes, you're going to lose for one simple reason... dropping an alien hive is instant, building an emergency chair requires cysts to recede. Once the exo train is on the move, I'm already swarming drifters and cysts into the outposts to find SG nests and mines while calling out plays for my troops. If bombard whips and shades are not enough to slow the exo-train, I'm just going to shift them to your base.
Now, as with every strategy ever conceived, there's going to be some advantage to be had in simply surprising the hell out of the enemy. If they don't see this coming, you have a pretty solid chance of holding your advantage for a few minutes... so much the better if the aliens haven't made good decisions about lifeforms until that exo-push happens... but consider that any strategy that hinges on the element of surprise is at a huge disadvantage if the surprise looks like a slow-rolling convoy of mechs generally getting in each-others way and blocking LOS.
If this is working at all, I submit it has more to do with your marines being good enough to get you to your exo-research by denying alien economy per normal gameplay and less to do with the nature of your strategy, which IMO won't work if you hand the aliens 6+ towers to work with for most of the match. If that's correct, you could have just ended the game earlier with a good team by properly supporting them in the early game.
@OP: What's the average and fastest time you've been able to get exo research finished? Also, just for super-clarity, you're starting the Exo push with single gun exos right?
be friendly and be the awesome community we used to know and have here at natural selection!
create a better world, right here and now: communicate in a respectful way and help each others, work out counters and maybe make this strategy even better!
<!--quoteo(post=2047270:date=Dec 17 2012, 10:38 PM:name=AWhite)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (AWhite @ Dec 17 2012, 10:38 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2047270"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->@OP: What's the average and fastest time you've been able to get exo research finished? Also, just for super-clarity, you're starting the Exo push with single gun exos right?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Good question... I haven't got a good time estimate on that.</b> It has so far been "just in time" though. I'll have to experiment a bit. I guess you could add the building and research time and have that as a reference just as with res. And of course the income per RT. Don't know if it would depend on server size, the build time is pretty small compared to research. The more I think about it, the more interesting it sounds :)
Lets see, I'm not sure what the income per second per RT is, I tried to find it but I gave up, if anyone could fill me in I'd appreciate it! :) If you have that income rate and assuming that you do not waste any res on health- and ammo packs (I usually do some of that though) you could have a descent estimate of a "best time to EXO" on one axis and number of RTs on the other. Now, if you are "up" one RT you could subtract X amount of time, "down" one and add X amount of time instead BUT it would depend on how far gone on the time axis you are. If you have 20% left of time to EXO research the loss of 1 RT would set you back only during those remaining 20% of the reduction. And if you loose a vital building you'd have to deduct Y seconds per res lost where Y depends on the number of active RTs... I guess it becomes rather complex pretty quick to keep track of manually :)
So, if you then compare that "best time" to the aliens ability to get bombarding whips, bile bombing gorges and so on (enough stuff that would stop the train or take out your bases quicker than you can get new ones up) you would get a continuous check on your progress based on active RTs and know pretty much exactly when you lost the game (too long time, too few RTs = loss, naturally, as with all games) IF aliens are doing it at maximum efficiency. With that kind of thinking a mod showing the number of active RTs would be a great help, actually you could probably have a module where you program the build order of your choice and get reminders when there's enough res and then an automatic timeline.. Would take the fun out of the game a bit though. Basically, with an average player skill established every game can be reduced to a kind of advanced tic-tac-toe (incidentally the most balanced game in the world) :)
Oh, and <b>yes, single weapon EXOs</b>. I do not wait for the double. I guess that if the aliens are really slow or your players are doing great you could wait for the rine pres to close in on 75 and research dual. Personally I enjoy fist pounding hives to death :) A "grab" ability would be so awesome! Hold alien 3+/-1 seconds or something... seeing them wriggling on your grip, throwing them down a cliff perhaps? Anyway, off topic.
Last night I was on an alien team playing veil. The marine team tried to pull off this exo rush. (I wonder if their com read about it here) They had 4 exos pushing in to our barely matured 2nd hive in cargo. Our comm just managed to get bile bomb up after all 4 came in to the room and started attacking the hive. The marine strategy nearly worked but then didnt as they were overwhelmed with bile and skulks. They lost a lot of res in a short time period. After that they did keep pumping out exos, I'm not sure if they were P-res or T-res. I am pretty sure they didnt have W3 or A3 for a looong time after that though. They eventually lost as you can imagine.
On what size server/playercount? Did they have MACs with them and did they back off to repair at any point? Trying to punch a hole in this myself and so far bile or bombarding whips are the best option. BUT it depends on the size of the server, could be that 4 are not enough?? Did this with a 6vs6 but they never got bile.
Balance is so dependent on number of players in this game.
I'm really surprised somebody hasn't made a spreadsheet for res calculation stuff yet.
Anyway, I'm super curious about this so I scraped some numbers off the wiki, please correct me if something is wrong.
------
EDITED FOR FAIL MATH (mostly pres)
Marines start with 50 res and need to account for 115 total res to get the armory, advanced armory, 2nd cc, proto, and exo research needed. On 1 RT the difference takes 6.5m. The build/research time is comparatively small at 3.75m assuming you do nothing simultaneously and spend no time walking/scrolling/clicking, etc.
Players need to generate 30 more pres from start as well. Let's assume they never die. @4rts you'll have the res in 6min. and on 3rts you'll have the res in 8 min.
This means the Comm will need to account for 20-30 more res in RT's and 24-36 more sec in build time.
So, assuming you drop 3 RTs (for a total of 4 including the start RT) and the 2nd CC immediately at start (45res) and start building instantly you can have everything done (ignoring travel time) in 4.43 minutes. You will have to wait for res a couple times, after the RT's before putting down armory and before putting down the proto.
-------
So, can it be done in a "safe" (before onos) timeframe? Yes. Is it likely? Probably not, I think we see a lot of Marine teams fail to hold but one or two additional RT's a lot of games. And if your marine team is holding 4 total RTs and NOT Dying significantly enough to interupt their pres flow you are probably going to win anyway and it doesn't matter what you give them at that 6 min mark when they can buy Exos.
<!--quoteo(post=2048671:date=Dec 20 2012, 02:37 PM:name=AWhite)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (AWhite @ Dec 20 2012, 02:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2048671"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'm really surprised somebody hasn't made a spreadsheet for res calculation stuff yet.
Anyway, I'm super curious about this so I scraped some numbers off the wiki, please correct me if something is wrong.
------
The bare minimum you have to build to get to exo's is: armory, advanced armory, second CC, proto, and exo research.
That takes 115 res. Marines start with 100. So the difference of 15 is what you need to earn, and that takes 90 sec on 1 RT (@1tres/6s)
The total upgrade and build time is 225s (3.75m) WORST case. Meaning you do nothing simultaneously, the BEST case scenario (your marines are magically where they need to be instantly and you click the buttons immediately) you can do all this in 125s since the armory + AA can happen alongside the CC+proto+exo.
Now, your marines also need to generate 30 additional pres to add to their starting 20. I'm not 100% on pres math so please check me here. My understanding is every 1.5s +1 pres is generated per RT and then shared amongst the team. In a 6v6 game a marine generates .2 pres every 1.5s on 1 rt OR 1pres every 3.75s. Meaning it takes a marine 112.5s to generate the 30 more res needed on 1 rt if they NEVER DIE. Since this time is under both our worst and best case upgrade/build times we can ignore it for now since it will happen before the tech is ready.
Time to completion on 1 rt: 125s-225s or 2m-3.75m
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Frankly, 3.75 min on 1 rt seems too fast and I suspect some portion of the wiki is wrong or my understanding of pres is wrong. I posed my timetable question since its not out of the realm of reason to see good alien players who die once or twice to Onos around the 9:30 mark in gametime. Granted that team is usually playing well and holding a lot of RTs but it seems suspect that marines can consistently get this done this fast.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You don't have to spreadsheet this stuff because it's pretty simple math and there aren't very many paths, nor do build order timings really matter like in SC2.
Teams start with 50 tres and earn 1 tres per RT per 6s.
Players generate 0.125 pres per RT per 6s. Meaning a marine with 0 deaths takes 20 minutes to gain +25 pres from a single RT.
Comments
But if it works reliably well for you, well great! More power to you.
Oh, ignore the asshats that jump straight to the personal insults. They obviously have poor impulse control and social skills.
Also, to everyone saying that aliens will counter effectively... it has not been my personal experience that pubs (on both sides) are particularly effective at countering anything.
It happens, but not all the times. It depends a lot on who you play with. I've had plenty of times where the aliens (myself included) had our hands handed to us by 2 exos (not 20.. two), simply because coordinated attacks on anything (the exos or a base) was just impossible to execute.
However if aliens are smart they will delay with bile, and kill your base as you cannot beacon.
Also this tactic seems to rely upon your team being good enough to hold off the aliens despite your terrible comm decisions - largest being no welders.
I thought it was a bite radius joke...
Not just another idiot advising people how to lose the game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah. It is just that it so happens that only idiots call others "idiots" just for expressing an idea (no matter how wrong or right) about a frikking game in a forum.
also
just keep building cc's with the macs after you kill a hive<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes! Thank you, some info I was missing. I thought the weapons was affected as well. Excellent, that saves me a lot of res :)
And yes, spamming a few CCs to hold the techpoints a while longer is a good idea, I only do it if the trains start going slower though.
Lets see now... Ah yes,
Xarius says: Even a simple shotgun rush would be a better idea
I never see those any more on pubs, wonder why... Problem is, on pubs, you cant force it on people, plus they need to know what they are doing.
TimMc says: Also this tactic seems to rely upon your team being good enough to hold off the aliens despite your terrible comm decisions - largest being no welders.
Yes it is a bit of a gamble, hence the PG and weapon 1 to give them a chance, otherwise I would have scrapped that as well. The point is, if I research welders
I get two effects: 1) res wasted on research 2) marines waste their personal res (buy- die, buy -die) and I don't want that. I want minimal time to EXO which
means I need their personal res as well, it's more important than the occasional replacement armory. But no, you don't need "pro's" for it to work, it's just
game mathematics not sports.
I suppose you men "defend" effectively?
If they have an onos in my base, good for them, I'm out killing their hives, racing against time. You need to have players saving up for an onos from the start
to have time to get it out before the train runs over you. Onos egg is on third hive if I remember correctly and costs 75 team res.
As I said, the train needs to get going before or around the time the first player payed onos gets to the field. If it's not we can still take him down, chances
are that the onos is poorly supported that early on. Most pub players evolve to something at least once or spend a few measly res on upgrades instead of saving.
As I said earlier, the aliens need to know what I'm doing to take full advantage of it but yes, again, it is a gamble. One way of countering a couple of skulks
would be to leave one EXO with mac support in at least one base (of course, preferably the one with your active CC and the IPs).
For it to be truly effective though you would need turrets defending the power nodes at both tech points but its workable.
It can be countered I will say but it would require crags , an onos and some gorges with a decent aim using bile bomb alone with possibly spores and well placed spike walls.
At a guess though I will say its a good move to weaken the enemy even if you don't get 3 hives down, just getting one down can then let you hammer the advantage in other ways.
It depends quite a bit on automation - MACs rather than welders, and sentry turrets rather than phase gates. These can sort of equalize the skill differential in some ways, though marines will have to survive with not too much for a while, and it will kinda feel like you're near losing. It certainly helped that I was very good at using my Exo (I was one of the first to get it, then even when others got destroyed, mine lasted the rest of the game).
I agree on the skill needed to keep the EXO alive. Once you are in the fray you are so in to aiming and checking the gun heat
that it's hard to keep track of the MACs (and the buggers keep moving around being "smart").
You need to back off constantly to repair. I guess with a few guys that alternate at the absolute front that you could get it to work better,
two steps forward, one backwards sort of thing. Selecting and controlling MACs can be a nightmare, I wish I could double-tap the group
number I assigned to get the camera view to that group or assign MACs to entities in "follow" mode. And in the midst of battle they get
the great idea to move forward in to the line of bile bombs to repair.... which is why I need to hold them back and hope the EXOs can
figure it out that me hollering "fall back for repairs" every 5 seconds means that support is nearby :D
<ul><li>Be better at aiming</li><li>Fast Mines</li><li>Fast PG</li><li>Keep them on 1 hive</li></ul>
So, by no means am I an experienced com or any good at it but here's a formula that has worked pretty good, considering that people get hybris galore in an exo and try rambo-ing alone :) Apparently it's hard to hear orders inside those machines...
I haven't had the chance to try this on a large server, mainly 6vs6 and 8vs8 so I don't know if it's valid for 10vs10 or more.
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->NOTE: Get Mines and SG as needed <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
1) Get 1 or 2 RT:s and the armory.
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->EDIT: Get an Obs<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
2) I get upgrades or <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->Phase tech<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> ... only get wep/arm 1 If your doing really good.
4) Build obs and decide where to go for a second base. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->EDIT: Get armory/s and gates where you want 2nd base<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
7) Upgrade armoury and get 2 more RTs unless they are up already.
6) Put second CC up.
8) Prorotype lab. By now the team is <!--coloro:#F4A460--><span style="color:#F4A460"><!--/coloro-->Should Not Be<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->struggling and wondering why we aren't doing it the same old way that never works, calling me names and quitting.
9) Hold on! Time to tell the team whats going on. Hang in there!
10) Research exo. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->And welders if you don't have them now<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
11) <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->Don't<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->Build a robot factory.
13) Beacon the team to the proto-lab, get <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->2-3people<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> in an exo and pump out 4-8 <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->welders<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->.
14) Choose which way to go.... scan all the time, kill hives, have fun, drink mildly alcoholic beverages.
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->Build forward Phase-gates/armory's, and get JP's as needed <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
15) Don't stick around and build up, that will just slow down the blitz and give the aliens a chance to retaliate at your base, just ignore everything and hit the hives.
16) Win. <!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->If you can<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<ul><li>Be better at aiming</li><li>Fast Mines</li><li>Fast PG</li><li>Keep them on 1 hive</li></ul><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, very good advice. But on a pub server that is about as effective as Hitler yelling "Not one step back!" while russian tanks drive over the
pride of the fatherland in a snow storm.. twice.
You couldn't elaborate a bit? On timing, costs, how to aim better etc?
I hear ya, you would require a couple of guys holding on to their res until you got the EXOs. Hard in pub.
Seems to me it's just the usual game but with EXO first instead of JP. Would probably work, I can't say anything else.
Shotguns and mines are a 35 res drain, thats armour 1 and weapon 1 right there though.
And chances are you wouldn't have rines with any res left on a pub when you get exos, or the opposite, people dont place mines
or just place them too close = waste.
Marines have the edge early on, if this advantage goes unharnessed however they will quickly fall behind. This is really something that all commanders need to hammer on. ###### sitting around, it doesn't matter if you die as long as you end up killing that harvester. Time is of the essence and you need to hit the alien economy hard, at any cost. As a marine I've often succeeded in doing a lot of damage single-handedly, even in my opinion turning around games that way, by continuously ninjaing harvesters and upgrades and taking out sole skulks trying to come to its defence. Now just imagine you have the entire team that committed to harming the alien economy and you will be amazed at where it will get you.
Basically, the marine team needs to play the RTS first and the FPS game second, unlike aliens. It's all about damaging the alien economy, pressure that will in turn also keep pressure off your harvesters. As long as this doesn't make its way into the meta however, the win rates will remain unchanged.
Marines have the edge early on, if this advantage goes unharnessed however they will quickly fall behind. This is really something that all commanders need to hammer on. ###### sitting around, it doesn't matter if you die as long as you end up killing that harvester. Time is of the essence and you need to hit the alien economy hard, at any cost. As a marine I've often succeeded in doing a lot of damage single-handedly, even in my opinion turning around games that way, by continuously ninjaing harvesters and upgrades and taking out sole skulks trying to come to its defence. Now just imagine you have the entire team that committed to harming the alien economy and you will be amazed at where it will get you.
Basically, the marine team needs to play the RTS first and the FPS game second, unlike aliens. It's all about damaging the alien economy, pressure that will in turn also keep pressure off your harvesters. As long as this doesn't make its way into the meta however, the win rates will remain unchanged.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good points all of them. I think that's actually (sort of) is what happens the times marines do win, an early advantage and somehow they cant get that
2nd hive or marines strike right when its planted. And a big affirmative on the concept of
marine = early gamers, alien = late gamers
Oh yes, the RTS number crunching is very important. Once the alien harvesting machinery starts snowballing, rines are screwed.
Which is kind of boring, if you disregard stacking, which is another problem, it is clear that marines have X minutes to win
or it's aliens that win the day. That is a fundamental flaw right now in the game. You don't evolve together, aliens have an exponential
power growth starting at zero. The rines are linear starting at 2. After those X minutes the lines cross then it's bye bye rines.
Crapping all over the OP is rude.
For the record, I think the OP's plan is terribad, but I'm actually going to explain why... maybe you "pros" could either do the same or STFU. One line insults or one word responses might seem funny as hell to you, but you wind up looking like A-holes and not contributing. Moderators should be moderating these forums FFS.
On topic :
The main problem is that the key to the OP is holding a minority of the map and going into turtle mode. This more than any other thing loses games. By not supporting your marines out in the field with proper tools and upgrades, you are not only handing the Aliens the map, but you are reducing the alien teams incentive to spend res on lifeforms that do most of the combat.
For example, no alien will generally spend 50 Pres on a fade when the marines are hiding behind armories and defending their close RT's with sufficient numbers to put them down quickly. The alien com will stop spending T-res on cysts and RT's and just start buying drifters/whips/chambers with impunity... and the real problem you are going to run into is that the map should look like a forest of alien death-weeds and eggs rather than highways to hives. If you focus your exo-push on an "easy" hive, the alien com will have no problem just marching in shifted whips and crags to your main and then its base race time.
Never base race an alien that's been sitting on a majority of the map for 10 minutes, you're going to lose for one simple reason... dropping an alien hive is instant, building an emergency chair requires cysts to recede. Once the exo train is on the move, I'm already swarming drifters and cysts into the outposts to find SG nests and mines while calling out plays for my troops. If bombard whips and shades are not enough to slow the exo-train, I'm just going to shift them to your base.
Now, as with every strategy ever conceived, there's going to be some advantage to be had in simply surprising the hell out of the enemy. If they don't see this coming, you have a pretty solid chance of holding your advantage for a few minutes... so much the better if the aliens haven't made good decisions about lifeforms until that exo-push happens... but consider that any strategy that hinges on the element of surprise is at a huge disadvantage if the surprise looks like a slow-rolling convoy of mechs generally getting in each-others way and blocking LOS.
If this is working at all, I submit it has more to do with your marines being good enough to get you to your exo-research by denying alien economy per normal gameplay and less to do with the nature of your strategy, which IMO won't work if you hand the aliens 6+ towers to work with for most of the match. If that's correct, you could have just ended the game earlier with a good team by properly supporting them in the early game.
be friendly and be the awesome community we
used to know and have here at natural selection!
create a better world, right here and now:
communicate in a respectful way and
help each others, work out counters and
maybe make this strategy even better!
bring out the best, not the worst!
so off in the off i am again :P
<b>Good question... I haven't got a good time estimate on that.</b> It has so far been "just in time" though. I'll have to experiment a bit.
I guess you could add the building and research time and have that as a reference just as with res. And of course the income per RT.
Don't know if it would depend on server size, the build time is pretty small compared to research. The more I think about it, the more interesting it sounds :)
Lets see, I'm not sure what the income per second per RT is, I tried to find it but I gave up, if anyone could fill me in I'd appreciate it! :)
If you have that income rate and assuming that you do not waste any res on health- and ammo packs (I usually do some of that though) you could have a descent
estimate of a "best time to EXO" on one axis and number of RTs on the other. Now, if you are "up" one RT you could
subtract X amount of time, "down" one and add X amount of time instead BUT it would depend on how far gone on the time axis you are.
If you have 20% left of time to EXO research the loss of 1 RT would set you back only during those remaining 20% of the reduction.
And if you loose a vital building you'd have to deduct Y seconds per res lost where Y depends on the number of active RTs...
I guess it becomes rather complex pretty quick to keep track of manually :)
So, if you then compare that "best time" to the aliens ability to get bombarding whips,
bile bombing gorges and so on (enough stuff that would stop the train or take out your bases quicker than you can get new ones up)
you would get a continuous check on your progress based on active RTs and know pretty much exactly
when you lost the game (too long time, too few RTs = loss, naturally, as with all games) IF aliens are doing it at maximum efficiency.
With that kind of thinking a mod showing the number of active RTs would be a great help, actually you could probably have a module
where you program the build order of your choice and get reminders when there's enough res and then an automatic timeline..
Would take the fun out of the game a bit though.
Basically, with an average player skill established every game can be reduced to a kind of advanced tic-tac-toe (incidentally the most balanced game in the world) :)
Oh, and <b>yes, single weapon EXOs</b>. I do not wait for the double. I guess that if the aliens are really slow or your players are doing great
you could wait for the rine pres to close in on 75 and research dual. Personally I enjoy fist pounding hives to death :)
A "grab" ability would be so awesome! Hold alien 3+/-1 seconds or something... seeing them wriggling on your grip, throwing them down a cliff perhaps?
Anyway, off topic.
Did they have MACs with them and did they back off to repair at any point?
Trying to punch a hole in this myself and so far bile or bombarding whips are the best option.
BUT it depends on the size of the server, could be that 4 are not enough??
Did this with a 6vs6 but they never got bile.
Balance is so dependent on number of players in this game.
Anyway, I'm super curious about this so I scraped some numbers off the wiki, please correct me if something is wrong.
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EDITED FOR FAIL MATH (mostly pres)
Marines start with 50 res and need to account for 115 total res to get the armory, advanced armory, 2nd cc, proto, and exo research needed. On 1 RT the difference takes 6.5m. The build/research time is comparatively small at 3.75m assuming you do nothing simultaneously and spend no time walking/scrolling/clicking, etc.
Players need to generate 30 more pres from start as well. Let's assume they never die. @4rts you'll have the res in 6min. and on 3rts you'll have the res in 8 min.
This means the Comm will need to account for 20-30 more res in RT's and 24-36 more sec in build time.
So, assuming you drop 3 RTs (for a total of 4 including the start RT) and the 2nd CC immediately at start (45res) and start building instantly you can have everything done (ignoring travel time) in 4.43 minutes. You will have to wait for res a couple times, after the RT's before putting down armory and before putting down the proto.
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So, can it be done in a "safe" (before onos) timeframe? Yes. Is it likely? Probably not, I think we see a lot of Marine teams fail to hold but one or two additional RT's a lot of games. And if your marine team is holding 4 total RTs and NOT Dying significantly enough to interupt their pres flow you are probably going to win anyway and it doesn't matter what you give them at that 6 min mark when they can buy Exos.
Anyway, I'm super curious about this so I scraped some numbers off the wiki, please correct me if something is wrong.
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The bare minimum you have to build to get to exo's is: armory, advanced armory, second CC, proto, and exo research.
That takes 115 res. Marines start with 100. So the difference of 15 is what you need to earn, and that takes 90 sec on 1 RT (@1tres/6s)
The total upgrade and build time is 225s (3.75m) WORST case. Meaning you do nothing simultaneously, the BEST case scenario (your marines are magically where they need to be instantly and you click the buttons immediately) you can do all this in 125s since the armory + AA can happen alongside the CC+proto+exo.
Now, your marines also need to generate 30 additional pres to add to their starting 20. I'm not 100% on pres math so please check me here. My understanding is every 1.5s +1 pres is generated per RT and then shared amongst the team. In a 6v6 game a marine generates .2 pres every 1.5s on 1 rt OR 1pres every 3.75s. Meaning it takes a marine 112.5s to generate the 30 more res needed on 1 rt if they NEVER DIE. Since this time is under both our worst and best case upgrade/build times we can ignore it for now since it will happen before the tech is ready.
Time to completion on 1 rt: 125s-225s or 2m-3.75m
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Frankly, 3.75 min on 1 rt seems too fast and I suspect some portion of the wiki is wrong or my understanding of pres is wrong. I posed my timetable question since its not out of the realm of reason to see good alien players who die once or twice to Onos around the 9:30 mark in gametime. Granted that team is usually playing well and holding a lot of RTs but it seems suspect that marines can consistently get this done this fast.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You don't have to spreadsheet this stuff because it's pretty simple math and there aren't very many paths, nor do build order timings really matter like in SC2.
Teams start with 50 tres and earn 1 tres per RT per 6s.
Players generate 0.125 pres per RT per 6s. Meaning a marine with 0 deaths takes 20 minutes to gain +25 pres from a single RT.