Ns_bast Strategy For Marines

Bastard

<div class="IPBDescription">It worked for me... :)</div> Here's the scenario:

Medium-sized game (10-12 players), Public server, ns_bast was the map. We'd taken a few seconds to get organized and a marine had jumped in to serve as start-up commander. We fended off the initial skulk rush, figured out they were in the engine room, sealed off the vent, and built a standard startup base (tf + turrets + ammo + spawn portals) and the commander jumped out.

I jumped in. The fun was just starting.

With the aliens in the engine room but the vent sealed off we had some time. I sent the marines to feedwater control, being the farthest away from the aliens but easily accessible to us. Plus it helped lock off atmospheric processing. We took the res node at feedwater and then built some defenses there... enough to hold it in place and block any attack.

Then we took atmospheric processing and the game was almost over.

The secret was, of course, <b>building a second turret factory in the corner of the marine spawn closest to the engine hive.</b>. Upgrade it to advanced, then drop a siege practically right on top of it. Of course that won't reach the engine room, but it'll certainly help clear out the area and **obscenity** off the aliens.

With resources pouring in I quickly ran through the tech tree, first reseraching motion tracking then the weapon/armor upgrades.

It was a thing of beauty, really.

Leaving one marine to quard feedwater, I sent my marines down the elevator at our main base. While the elevator was descending, I had them crawl into the vent and go through the vent towards the engine room. Small, long hallways are a marine's friend - skulks have nowhere to go and the fades they'd just gotten weren't any match for a few good marines.

In the corner of the vent between my turret factory and the hive, I dropped two sieges and two turrets. My marines built them and we didn't look back.

Engine room hive went down quickly before a last-ditch fade attempt took out my marines and destroyed the sieges. With my resources I upgraded the armory and built a prototype lab, quickly researching heavy armor. My marines kept the engine room area busy, but couldn't successfully secure the area completely. The aliens started to built another hive but they were running out of fades on defense.

I dropped heavy armor, heavy machine guns, and grenade launchers, and we marched in, took the engine room completely, destroyed the hive they were building, and then cleaned out the refinery hive.

Great teamwork, and I though I did a fairly decent job commanding. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->

V_MAN

You were lucky the aliens obviously had no brains/co-ordination.

Whenever I play on bast if the aliens ever get 2 hives up it's game over for the marines because a fade with adrenaline will own anything less than a HA/HMG.

BlueGhost

Bast is a great map cos you often do end up with HA/HMG vs fades (its to do with the glut of res the marines can end up getting at the cost of not getting any more than 1 hive).

Oh and don't you consider HA/Shotty less than HA/HMG then, that murders fades.

MonsieurEvil

(Fixing incorrect topic date due to server issue)

Xpander

Who blamed anybody? Was my complaint directed at anyone in particular? I mentioned that the tactic's cheap and it's something that needs to be fixed. Using the tactics available to you is fine, such as the steam generation base trick on the same map, but it doesn't prevent it from being an exploit. You're the one who said the devs **obscenity** up, not I.

Are marine rushes cheap? No, because it actually involves getting a group of marines organized and go somewhere and attack. Phase gates? LMG rush? Is it a pain? Yes, but it can be countered. Would you like to suggest a single way that the aliens can counter the base siege without having to assault the marine base?

As for Hera, that's a good point, that's why I said it need to be fixed.

CheesyPeteza

I think it just depends where you play. I used to use that technique a couple of weeks ago on my regular server and it worked great. But you've got little chance of getting away with it now as all the aliens are wise to it.

I guess this is where the game gets interesting trying to find new techniques.

Xpander

I'm almost positive that the hive can be sieged, as I've had personal experiences where the trick was used and the hive "dissappeared" without any marines setting foot near it. *shrugs*

As for the vent, I know about that...but fortunately I've yet to see anyone use it. So I can't say exactly how easy it is to pull off. But you know, countering that still doesn't require the aliens to CHARGE THE BASE. Then again, if it's a vent you're talking about then the hitbox problem now comes into play. <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo--> I could have sworn I read someone here saying how the creator of Bast (and hera?) wasn't too happy with the change in the siege cannons. I can sympathize.

Quite honestly, I used to support the siege cannon's existance in the game. But I have to say that the more I think about it, the less necessary and more excessive it seems. It's presence in the game is almost indicating that the marines somehow can't take out clusters of buildings/hives on their own, which everyone knows is false. But I digress...

Canadianmonk3y

The hive can be sieged from the marine start. I have seen it done.

BlueGhost

Siege in spawn is nice cos you can do it with a single marine while symltaniously hitting another hive, then when your hitting squad gets back from the failed attempted they can leg it through the airlock streight to the engine room hive and gun it down.

BlueGhost

Sirus

If you take the elevator down at spawn, and hop into the vent while your going down you can go throught a series of vents and end up in a small room near engine, which can only be gotten to by vents, and theres enough room to build a Tfac and drop a siege, im pretty positive it can hit the engine room hive from where it is.

matso

<!--QuoteBegin--**obscenity**+Dec 17 2002, 02:56 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (**obscenity** @ Dec 17 2002, 02:56 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Here's the scenario:

Medium-sized game (10-12 players), Public server, ns_bast was the map.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
ns_bast, aliens start in engine room: build TF in base, upgrade to siege, elevator to vent, place siege, kill hive, game over in 3 minutes.

If you feel lucky, you can try placing the siege in base even.. haven't seen it done, but there are those that claims that there is one or two pixels where a siege in base will kill the engine hive, directly.

ns_base is a really nice map that became unplayable when the siege range was increased.

Xpander

Quite frankly, the "strategy" you mentioned isn't much more than a cheap exploit caused by modifications on the siege by the Dev team after the map was created.

Yeah, I've pulled the "siegetheengineroomfrombase" gag, it was funny maybe once. Quite frankly, to be able to own a hive from your spawn point minutes into the match without ever having to step outside your own base shouldn't be considered anything near fair. Things like this and the 2-hive sieging tactic on Hera are errors that needs to be fixed ASAP.