Second Hive before upgrade - why?
hozz
Join Date: 2012-11-20 Member: 172660Members
Join Date: 2012-11-20 Member: 172660Members
Often I see Alien commanders drop a second Hive before researching any upgrade (evolutions like Celerity, Carapace,...).
Often I think "I wish we had some upgrade to help us, because we are f##king losing the game, instead of a Hive that needs an eternity to finish and does absolutely nothing for us".
So my question is: is there a good reason for starting a Hive before getting an upgrade?
With Hive before upgrade, you can have the second upgrade faster (because it is constrained by the time the Hive needs to finish). You also get lifeform specific upgrades like Leap faster.
With upgrade before Hive, you get the first upgrade faster.
I feel like an early evolution is much more useful than faster Leap or something, given how a lot of map control is decided at the start of the game and before the second Hive is finished (under any build order).
Are there any good reasons for getting the second Hive first?
Side note: Apparently Hive first often happens in competitive games (?). Maybe this is why some comms go Hive first?
Often I think "I wish we had some upgrade to help us, because we are f##king losing the game, instead of a Hive that needs an eternity to finish and does absolutely nothing for us".
So my question is: is there a good reason for starting a Hive before getting an upgrade?
With Hive before upgrade, you can have the second upgrade faster (because it is constrained by the time the Hive needs to finish). You also get lifeform specific upgrades like Leap faster.
With upgrade before Hive, you get the first upgrade faster.
I feel like an early evolution is much more useful than faster Leap or something, given how a lot of map control is decided at the start of the game and before the second Hive is finished (under any build order).
Are there any good reasons for getting the second Hive first?
Side note: Apparently Hive first often happens in competitive games (?). Maybe this is why some comms go Hive first?
Comments
I think comp goes for 2nd fast because skulks without leap are easy pickings for marines with good aim? I don't know.
DISCLAIMER: You shouldn't go for upgrades before 2nd too late either tbh. I find it extremely annoying when we've been holding for 5min or so and then comm decides to go cele instead of second hive.
DOUBLEWHAMMY DISCLAIMER: This is just how I feel, I don't blame anyone going for some strat costing us the game, especially since we're talking pub.
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT DISCLAIMER MEANS: Generally though going any strat that doesn't involve you getting an upgrade instantly when the game starts is a risk in my book - you're denying your team a combat advantage in order to get an economical one.
A finished Hive will provide you with free eggs in that location, thus preventing the risk of getting egg locked. Plus it's a forward spawn position that allows your troops to reinforce other locations quickly than what you could reach from your first Hive. And it provides healing to players up at the front as well. You simply get a home advantage further out in the map and have a backup Hive connection that makes it harder to cripple your entire expansion by cutting a cyst somewhere.
But mostly I'd prefer to get at least one upgrade before the second hive is dropped.
you can get a fade out in under 4 minutes and carapace shortly after with a quick hive build
also you can get carapace and leap very quickly
I'm glad that someone else was able to clean up your mess, but please stay out of the hive unless you actually intend to command.
I've won just about every game where I dropped a hive first then a single rt and gorged the hive myself. As a few people stated it does provide map control as well as access to things like leap and bile bomb pretty early. Leap is actually a complete replacement for celerity if you're really good with it. The only down side to it is that you don't have 4 or 5 rt's right off the bat. Then again if the marines are any good at all they would have killed a couple of those rt's you dropped anyway.
The more res nodes you have for more time, the more your resource lead will grow.
Implying there is a best first upgrade
Well, getting something like blink at the start of the game would be kind of useless, wouldn't it?
If you can get leap quickly, it is obviously going to be the best first upgrade because it's the one 80%+ of your team is going to be able to use...
I don't think you understood the intent of the comment. I am saying there is no real best first upgrade.
I don't usually do it that way but I've never had a problem with khams who have.
going early hive has its advantages and disadvantages same with going early upgrade.
I don't care if you win literally every game, you are trolling your team. Deciding the build order is the job of the real commander. If there were a votekick function you would get kicked and rightfully so.
Oh man, watch out guys, IMPLYING.
You don't know how to argue do you.
It usually goes like this: get RTs, drop hive, make upgrades. As soon as your hive is grown you have enough res to insta get leap/bile at first hive, evolve another and quickly drop and evolve two more upgrades, while getting second ability. By 7th minute, you are going to have everything possible with 2 hives.
Well it depends. Are you saying you drop a hive and rt then gorge until the hive is built and resume khamm? That is a similar strategy to what I've done a few times with great success. But if you just drop a rt and a hive and expect someone else to resume khamm after it's built then it's just forcing someone else to adapt to what you think would be a good strategy, but don't want to bother doing.
Well I'm not the type of commander to sit in the hive the whole game, but yea I get back in after the hive comes up and then I usually have about 30-50 res to drop some more rt's, upgrades, or get leap or whatever. Alien comm isn't really something you have to sit in and do the entire game like the marine comm. I actually find it to be far more beneficial to act as a sweeper in a sense. Basically picking off lone marines or stopping them from killings rt's while the rest of the team provides pressure.
YOU were 8/9 on this strategy? YOU? You don't even get back in to command. Try this sh*t on any real server -> ban.
But I also meet people recently who try to convince everyone to concede and ragequit as soon as a fast hive appears. They just go crazy in the first 3 secs of a game because of this strategy. At one game on refinery I built up turbine as second and smelting as 3rd hive. But despite of asking, no1 wanted to go gorge or defend the crucial 2nd RT. We even lost the main hive. The rines just outplayed me and my team. But I built a cara shell at the 2nd hive and we had 3 upgrades + leap around the 8 min mark. We lost in the end, but it would had been sweet with a better start/more defense.
The problem is: when I drop a fast 2nd hive -> people rage -> it takes ages to get upgrades blabla
when I build fast upgrades -> you need to cyst everything and drop 5 RTs that we can't even hold, waste your res!
when I rush RTs first -> where is the 2nd hive, we need leap and bilebomb
I guess there is not a single strategy on a pub server that is loved and accepted by the team when the team can't do well. If they are awesome and crush the enemy, well, then you can do almost whatever you want, you will win and noone will rage. I really miss beta-games. There were more trust and teamplay
I get out and go gorge the hive. I don't know what a "real" server is but I have yet be kicked or banned from any server ever.
Aliens starting in pipeline on veil lose 60% of the time according to ns2stats.
Aliens starting in sub-sector win 65% of the time.
Best strategy when starting in pipeline: drop sub-sector immediately.
can not agree more to this
I've seen a Cargo hive drop, at start, work out pretty well. I've also killed a bunch of early Cargo/Sub-Sector hive drops. Drifters probably would have helped in those situations, but it takes time for them to get there.
Please tell me this is some kind of sarcasm that was lost in translation to text.
Do you know what the biggest hit to alien resources is in the first minute of a pipeline start? Cysting into cargo.
12 resources just to be able to drop your third harvester. That when your second (C12) is one of the most vulnerable spots to marine ninja attacks on the map. That single factor is what kills most alien teams when starting in pipeline. 7/8 cysts needed for C12, 12/13 needed for Cargo.
Or you could just drop a hive which you are going to need at some point anyway, and drop one cyst for that harvester. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.