Natural selection Feng shui

xen32

Tips and trick on placing your structures in the room.
What's the best spot for upgrades? Should you block power node with something or not? Should you keep all fancy buildings in one tech point or spread em all over your bases? When exiting PG, is it better to face armory, so you can heal quickly, power node, so you can kill enemies humping it, or should PG be placed between IPs so marines could teleport right after spawn?


Pictures are we welcome (for your comfort, there are many services that let you draw online and link to picture, just google something like "draw online and share")

GISP

It depends on the base layout realy, but as a general advice.
Place upgrade structures at the back of your base and at a wall, so if anything is noming it, theyll have there backs turned to the rest of the base, and have long and limited escape routes.

aaSpider

I like having a setup where the IPs face the rear of the phase gate and the front of it faces the armory.

This allows for newly spawning marines to quickly jump in the phase and also for marines returning for ammo/health to be facing the armory.

Runteh

It is a difficult one really.

Whilst having a PG near to the portals is good, if the base gets rushed it is sometimes better to have it further from the portals.

Split seconds matter, so having a portal behind a railing is quite nice - even if it gives spawning players .25 of a second longer as the skulk has to climb over it to get to you. Also having a reasonable distance between the portals can be good to split up groups, but in LOS of each other. Probably a good idea to have the PG phase in lining up in LOS of the portals as well, or critical structures like the obs.

Generally speaking though, you don't want structures right in the middle of the room or causing issues with blocking LOS, especially fleeing Onos or skulk dancing. The only time you want an armoury not against a wall is when you want to block an Onos or Fades.

You also have to think about how people defend these structures, hiding them away can be useful, but not if a marine doesn't want to enter the room but just fire at it from range. Trying to back up rooms full of aliens without stepping into the room can really help to delay the enemy in time for reinforcements.

DC_Darkling

I keep to the old NS1 basics, modified a little for NS2. But the core is the same.

* do your marines use the item? (IPs, PG, armory)
- Place it NOT close to a wall, object or other building. Open = less skulk friendly.

* Is it something your marines do not use? (armslab, proto, etc)
- shove it in a corner, against a wall, or anywhere so a skulk biting it is forced to face said wall and not oncoming marines.

* Exceptions by tactic.
- obs covering objects like a CC, powernode and armslab is usually more important then tucking it away skulk safe.
- sometimes you must place a structure wrong, to allow marines to respond in time. (No point letting them run through half a base, down a corner etc)
- armories and robotics can be used as a onos blockade.
- imagine mines are a good defense for certain structures & place accordingly.

Apreche2

On piece of advice I can give is to put the proto lab in a forward base. If you started shipping, but you have repair, put the proto lab in repair. That way if you go exo, they have less distance to travel since they can not use phase gates. The same goes for ARC robo labs.

Underwhelmed

IPs and PGs in the open where they're harder to surround, spaced as far away as possible so you can't camp all of them at the same time. Stop putting these in corners and against walls.
Armories, observatories, arms labs, etc all go in a corner or against the wall so Aliens can't play ring-around-the-rosie, preferably opposite corners/sides.
Don't cluster buildings if you can help it or bilebomb will destroy them.

DC_Darkling

armories in corner is NS1.. Id not advice that in NS2. Marines will use it a lot more for health and armor repair, facing the back to any oncoming skulk. Also a armory is a low priority target for many kharaa, and they will usually push other objects first.

xen32

aaSpider wrote: »

I like having a setup where the IPs face the rear of the phase gate and the front of it faces the armory.

This allows for newly spawning marines to quickly jump in the phase and also for marines returning for ammo/health to be facing the armory.

This is a nice setup for comfort of your marines, but when gorgie comes along , he will have an opportunity to destroy 3 of the most vital marine structures at the same time.
Question is: should it be more comfortable for marines to use structures, or harder for aliens to mess with your base?

Mestaritonttu

xen32 wrote: »

This is a nice setup for comfort of your marines, but when gorgie comes along , he will have an opportunity to destroy 3 of the most vital marine structures at the same time.
Question is: should it be more comfortable for marines to use structures, or harder for aliens to mess with your base?

I don't think this is the case. Usually there's something much more tempting to bile, like the obs and the power. Power is usually closer to an exit, too.

I like to setup like this:



Phasegate between 2 ip's for the shortest distance on both, and an armory above/below phase so you only need to turn your head before phasing if you want to buy something.

Not Sure

Runteh wrote: »

It is a difficult one really.

The only time you want an armoury not against a wall is when you want to block an Onos or Fades.

In my opinion, the only time you want an armory not against a wall is every single time you place an armory.

If you don't leave space around all four sides of an armory, marines can't use it to heal spam while they're fighting nearby, and that kind of defeats the purpose of having more than just an advanced armory in your main.

DC_Darkling

by the gods.. Don't place PG, ips and armory so close if you can. Yes indeed, bilebomb and skulk camping.

LoS for your marines fine, but lets not overdo it on placing stuff to close.

If you place stuff to close a skulk can just walljump and/or run on everything, bite inbetween jumps and never ever lose speed.
Fave tactic of mine really, works especally well on a CC aswell. One good skulk can get a CC down very very far with that tactic.