sorri.. but take away splash from acid rocket? no way.. thatd be so hard...
i think reduce the splash damage.. cuz if u needed a direct hit on a marine everytime.. itd be so easy to dodge...
tahts wut i suggest... and well eveyrone talks about lmg... killing a fade.. i emptied a whole 50 bullet clip at point blank.. before i got bitchslapped to death.. and he still didn't die.. -.- wtf..
I've been playing Marines now as they seem to be the underdogs. (I always play the underdogs.) The single scariest mid-game thing a Marine can see is a Fade. Of the servers I've been playing on, about 80% of the time, once the aliens got Fade, the Marines screamed bloody murder and the game went downhill from there.
Now, is the Fade beating a result of poor Marine expansion? Superior Alien expansion? Right now the Fade is the endgame for Marines. (One thing to note is that in the servers that I've played on, people choose Fades over Onos simply because of the dodge-fire-dodge technique that makes it VERY difficult to hit a Fade with SGs.) One stupid marine comm thought that a Seige would do it. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Guess no one told him that Seige don't target aliens. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
That brings up an interesting game balance issue. Why not try having Seige cannons actually target larger aliens like Fades and Onos? Obviously at a much lower damage level, but why not? You could even make the splash damage less due to the fact its a smaller target. (So it's more isolated to the Fade or Onos its targetting.) Require that a COmm station be up and if the station is taken down, the Seiges will no longer fire at Aliens but just structures again.
Oh, and to those that say "Stupid marines! I can kill 10 fades just with my LMG!" I laugh as you must've been playing against Newbs. I've charged Fades with 1-2 buddies and all of us shooting straight at the thing. (We even had a level or two of Damage and Armor.) Guess what? We all died due to the splash damage of the Rocket. Fade? Apparently fine as he ran off and regened from a wall of defense. Then he came back and it all started over again. GL's you say? Yes, we tried them. Spammed a door for 5 minutes with one of them. Fade still dodged-fired-dodged and killed more of us than I could count with the Splash.
Tone down the Fade? Maybe not, but enhance the marines so they can deal with them. Why not a slug ammo shot for the Shotgun? I'd take that against a Fade or Onos as it would be COMPLETELY worthless against a Skulk or Lerk.
"Drop 2-3 res noz then bum rush to two hives, and see who can secure them first, I don't think this is quite right since the outcome is decided very early in the game."
Yes, that is probably the optimal strategy.
Marines with 2 hives: - marines can sit back and defend, 'turtling', something that marines are GREAT at. - marines can put crazy defences in both hives [16 turrets, a phase gate, and 2 tfacs each] - then, since there is no way for the kharaa to take a hive, take the resource nozzles or attack the last hive at your leisure. - kharaa cannot purchase *anything* useful at taking a hive (alien structures are just siege targets, 1 hive lerks aren't that useful, carapace only costs 2 res anyway) - kharaa have to take a hive to compete, and will spend their time trying rather than attacking resource nozzles, making the imbalance worse.
Aliens with 2 hives: - aliens can evolve into fades and take out every marine resource nozzle on the map. - then assault both the base and hive, splitting marine resources which are already stretched. - wait for marines to run out of res. - take 3rd hive. - destroy base.
It is *not* a 100% certain way of winning the game for either team, but it is probably too effective.
<!--QuoteBegin--Ulatoh+Dec 18 2002, 12:38 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ulatoh @ Dec 18 2002, 12:38 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->all i have to say..:
5 marines HA+3HMG 1 LMG and 1 GL+GOOD TEAMWORK=aliens grabbing ankles<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Allow me to say "Duh!". Ok, 3 Fades, 1 Lerk, and 1 Gorge = marines grabbing ankles. ??
Of course 5 Marines in HA with HMGs and a GL are going to cause a serious amount of trama. You need to get there first and once you get there, don't make any mistakes to lose it.
Returning to Snake's original theme that the game seems to revolve around the issue of the second hive, I must say that I essentially disagree.
Consider the Marine Base as a "hive" of sorts. Each team starts with one hive, and there are two more to be had. I usually play marines, and I assume that the marines will capture a hive early (a second marine hive, if you will), and the aliens will build a second hive early (unless three of them go gorge, in which case they are doomed.)
So now each team has two hives, and the aliens get fades. Unlike many of those who commented above, I am not pathalogically afraid of fades. Oh, I hate them, to be sure. But 3 marines in spawn gear should be able to take down a fade, if the commander has been moving up the tech tree. Placing phase gates to allow quick reinforcement is also an essential anti-fade technique. Once HA and HMG are available, fades aren't all that scary. (If you don't have 3 marines working together, than you are not a very well coordinated team.)
The battle, then, is all about who takes one of the other team's 2 hives. If the aliens get 3, its all over (except in rare circumstances - refer to my earlier post). If the marines get a second hive (their third counting their start base) then the aliens revert to skulks and die pretty quickly.
I often refer to the phase of the game in which each side has two strongpoints as "The battle of the second hive" (please excuse my marine-centric view - it is the battle when the aliens have 2 hives and the marines have one). This battle can see-saw back and forth for 30 minutes or more, and is in my opinion the best part of NS.
Comments
i think reduce the splash damage.. cuz if u needed a direct hit on a marine everytime.. itd be so easy to dodge...
tahts wut i suggest... and
well eveyrone talks about lmg... killing a fade.. i emptied a whole 50 bullet clip at point blank.. before i got bitchslapped to death.. and he still didn't die.. -.- wtf..
I've been playing Marines now as they seem to be the underdogs. (I always play the underdogs.) The single scariest mid-game thing a Marine can see is a Fade. Of the servers I've been playing on, about 80% of the time, once the aliens got Fade, the Marines screamed bloody murder and the game went downhill from there.
Now, is the Fade beating a result of poor Marine expansion? Superior Alien expansion? Right now the Fade is the endgame for Marines. (One thing to note is that in the servers that I've played on, people choose Fades over Onos simply because of the dodge-fire-dodge technique that makes it VERY difficult to hit a Fade with SGs.) One stupid marine comm thought that a Seige would do it. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> Guess no one told him that Seige don't target aliens. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
That brings up an interesting game balance issue. Why not try having Seige cannons actually target larger aliens like Fades and Onos? Obviously at a much lower damage level, but why not? You could even make the splash damage less due to the fact its a smaller target. (So it's more isolated to the Fade or Onos its targetting.) Require that a COmm station be up and if the station is taken down, the Seiges will no longer fire at Aliens but just structures again.
Oh, and to those that say "Stupid marines! I can kill 10 fades just with my LMG!" I laugh as you must've been playing against Newbs. I've charged Fades with 1-2 buddies and all of us shooting straight at the thing. (We even had a level or two of Damage and Armor.) Guess what? We all died due to the splash damage of the Rocket. Fade? Apparently fine as he ran off and regened from a wall of defense. Then he came back and it all started over again. GL's you say? Yes, we tried them. Spammed a door for 5 minutes with one of them. Fade still dodged-fired-dodged and killed more of us than I could count with the Splash.
Tone down the Fade? Maybe not, but enhance the marines so they can deal with them. Why not a slug ammo shot for the Shotgun? I'd take that against a Fade or Onos as it would be COMPLETELY worthless against a Skulk or Lerk.
Yes, that is probably the optimal strategy.
Marines with 2 hives:
- marines can sit back and defend, 'turtling', something that marines are GREAT at.
- marines can put crazy defences in both hives [16 turrets, a phase gate, and 2 tfacs each]
- then, since there is no way for the kharaa to take a hive, take the resource nozzles or attack the last hive at your leisure.
- kharaa cannot purchase *anything* useful at taking a hive (alien structures are just siege targets, 1 hive lerks aren't that useful, carapace only costs 2 res anyway)
- kharaa have to take a hive to compete, and will spend their time trying rather than attacking resource nozzles, making the imbalance worse.
Aliens with 2 hives:
- aliens can evolve into fades and take out every marine resource nozzle on the map.
- then assault both the base and hive, splitting marine resources which are already stretched.
- wait for marines to run out of res.
- take 3rd hive.
- destroy base.
It is *not* a 100% certain way of winning the game for either team, but it is probably too effective.
5 marines HA+3HMG 1 LMG and 1 GL+GOOD TEAMWORK=aliens grabbing ankles
5 marines HA+3HMG 1 LMG and 1 GL+GOOD TEAMWORK=aliens grabbing ankles<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Allow me to say "Duh!". Ok, 3 Fades, 1 Lerk, and 1 Gorge = marines grabbing ankles. ??
Of course 5 Marines in HA with HMGs and a GL are going to cause a serious amount of trama. You need to get there first and once you get there, don't make any mistakes to lose it.
BTW: 5 HA Marines + 4 HMG, +1 GL, +1 Welder = Better
Consider the Marine Base as a "hive" of sorts. Each team starts with one hive, and there are two more to be had. I usually play marines, and I assume that the marines will capture a hive early (a second marine hive, if you will), and the aliens will build a second hive early (unless three of them go gorge, in which case they are doomed.)
So now each team has two hives, and the aliens get fades. Unlike many of those who commented above, I am not pathalogically afraid of fades. Oh, I hate them, to be sure. But 3 marines in spawn gear should be able to take down a fade, if the commander has been moving up the tech tree. Placing phase gates to allow quick reinforcement is also an essential anti-fade technique. Once HA and HMG are available, fades aren't all that scary. (If you don't have 3 marines working together, than you are not a very well coordinated team.)
The battle, then, is all about who takes one of the other team's 2 hives. If the aliens get 3, its all over (except in rare circumstances - refer to my earlier post). If the marines get a second hive (their third counting their start base) then the aliens revert to skulks and die pretty quickly.
I often refer to the phase of the game in which each side has two strongpoints as "The battle of the second hive" (please excuse my marine-centric view - it is the battle when the aliens have 2 hives and the marines have one). This battle can see-saw back and forth for 30 minutes or more, and is in my opinion the best part of NS.