The Art Of War
SoulSkorpion
Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 423Members
Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 423Members
<div class="IPBDescription">NS is an RTS! Use strategy!</div> INTRODUCTION
Never forget that Natural Selection is an RTS. In other FPSs playing strategically will give you a slight edge; in NS it's essential. For Kharaa, decentralised command is both a blessing and a curse - you can overwhelm the commander because he's one mind against many, but unless you can co-ordinate effectively you will be destroyed. To prevent this from happening, you will have to learn how to best benefit your team strategically.
CONTROLLING THE MAP
As with any other strategy game, whoever controls the most territory has the best chance of winning. Firstly this is because you will deny the enemy resorces, second because you will have the resources to consolidate your holdings, thirdly because you stop them actually getting to your hives. Having said this, attack and destroy marine outposts whenever you can, even if you're doing it by yourself. Don't let them establish a foothold anywhere, if you can. Every base you destroy costs the enemy the resources it took to build it, and denies them the resources they'd gain from it.
THE BEST DEFENSE IS OFFENSE
Never try to fall back and seal yourself up in your base. Always fight aggressively, never defensively. If you are on the offense, the ball is always in their court, so to speak. You create a scenario and force the enemy to deal with it; if they fail you win, if you fail you merely have to try again. If you're on the defense, then <b>you</b> have to deal with what the enemy throws at you. Besides, if you're always on the defense you'll lose territory because you won't expand. There's also the fact that the Kharaa themselves are designed for attack, and are weak on defense - all Kharaa are fast, relatively weak on health and armour, and very powerful on offense.
CARPE JUGULUM - GO FOR THE THROAT
As with the above point. If the marines have a knife to your throat - they're attacking your hives and outposts, building up forward bases and trying to contain you - attack <b>their</b> stuff. Force them into the defensive by attacking their bases. You can do this even with skulks! You don't necessarily have to hit the usual targets (the TF, the PG, the CC and the IPs) - you can hit those big expensive upgrade labs, which are actually quite weak. If you do this early enough in the enemy offensive you'll force them to retreat and defend before they can do any real damage, at the same time hurting them.
DISTRACT THE COMMANDER
Learn how to lead around the commander's attention. It's much, MUCH harder for kharaa to take out marine hardware if the commander is actually focusing on what you're attacking. However, if you attack an outpost (or even the main base) at the same time as others are attacking a hive, your chances of destroying something are much better. At worst, you'll split the commander's forces when he sends reinforcements out to these other bases, and at best you'll destroy or damage at least one of the outposts. If you can get really good synchronisation going, if you can spare three or four skulks get them to attack three or four totally seperate outposts at the same time as the main assault force go after the hive (or whatever). The one drawback of this strategy is that it will backfire with some commanders if you don't do it properly. If you don't get the timing right when you're causing the diversion, the commader will merely reinforce the place you're attacking temporarliy, put in a few more turrets, close blindspots, then send his troops back to whatever they were doing.
That's about enough for now <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Never forget that Natural Selection is an RTS. In other FPSs playing strategically will give you a slight edge; in NS it's essential. For Kharaa, decentralised command is both a blessing and a curse - you can overwhelm the commander because he's one mind against many, but unless you can co-ordinate effectively you will be destroyed. To prevent this from happening, you will have to learn how to best benefit your team strategically.
CONTROLLING THE MAP
As with any other strategy game, whoever controls the most territory has the best chance of winning. Firstly this is because you will deny the enemy resorces, second because you will have the resources to consolidate your holdings, thirdly because you stop them actually getting to your hives. Having said this, attack and destroy marine outposts whenever you can, even if you're doing it by yourself. Don't let them establish a foothold anywhere, if you can. Every base you destroy costs the enemy the resources it took to build it, and denies them the resources they'd gain from it.
THE BEST DEFENSE IS OFFENSE
Never try to fall back and seal yourself up in your base. Always fight aggressively, never defensively. If you are on the offense, the ball is always in their court, so to speak. You create a scenario and force the enemy to deal with it; if they fail you win, if you fail you merely have to try again. If you're on the defense, then <b>you</b> have to deal with what the enemy throws at you. Besides, if you're always on the defense you'll lose territory because you won't expand. There's also the fact that the Kharaa themselves are designed for attack, and are weak on defense - all Kharaa are fast, relatively weak on health and armour, and very powerful on offense.
CARPE JUGULUM - GO FOR THE THROAT
As with the above point. If the marines have a knife to your throat - they're attacking your hives and outposts, building up forward bases and trying to contain you - attack <b>their</b> stuff. Force them into the defensive by attacking their bases. You can do this even with skulks! You don't necessarily have to hit the usual targets (the TF, the PG, the CC and the IPs) - you can hit those big expensive upgrade labs, which are actually quite weak. If you do this early enough in the enemy offensive you'll force them to retreat and defend before they can do any real damage, at the same time hurting them.
DISTRACT THE COMMANDER
Learn how to lead around the commander's attention. It's much, MUCH harder for kharaa to take out marine hardware if the commander is actually focusing on what you're attacking. However, if you attack an outpost (or even the main base) at the same time as others are attacking a hive, your chances of destroying something are much better. At worst, you'll split the commander's forces when he sends reinforcements out to these other bases, and at best you'll destroy or damage at least one of the outposts. If you can get really good synchronisation going, if you can spare three or four skulks get them to attack three or four totally seperate outposts at the same time as the main assault force go after the hive (or whatever). The one drawback of this strategy is that it will backfire with some commanders if you don't do it properly. If you don't get the timing right when you're causing the diversion, the commader will merely reinforce the place you're attacking temporarliy, put in a few more turrets, close blindspots, then send his troops back to whatever they were doing.
That's about enough for now <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
Distraction is an underused tactic, but an extremely powerful one. Diverting the commanders attention, his resources, or his marines away from your real target makes the battle much easier, and is often times the only feasible plan of attack. I...err, my brother! has blown a game or two as comm because a hive outpost was taken while his attention was focused elsewhere.
Distraction is simple enough that you can pull it off on disorganized pubs. Tell the newbs to attack somewhere else (marine home base is a good target; most can find their way there quickly), then take a few skilled boys with you to the real target.
For maximum effect, lure marines away from their phase gate network so their response time is maximized. Don't rush the marines; make your presence known, then get them to chase you. A gorge with celerity (or skilled with web) is the ultimate bait; he can escape fast enough to avoid being overwhelmed instantly, he can take quite a few more bullets than a skulk, and what marine can resist a gorge? Can you? "Gorge! Kill him!"
I got to Refinery hive, and comm dropped a phase gate for me. I leaned over to build it and heard the gorge building sound, and look over in the dark spot next to the wall and see a gorge building some offense towers. I should have just finished building and ignored him, as he wasn't aiming to kill me, they were quite far away. But the first thing that zinged through my head, "Haha, it's a chubby gorge! Funny funny!"
I proceed to lose any ounce of common sense, take out my welder, and literally run right at him. The fat bastage jumps over his offense towers, and I hurl myself into them. I think you get the idea of what happens next.
Needless to say, the phase was never built, my comp though I was a nub, and I felt like a tard.
Ooh! I never thought of that! <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Anyway, attacking the marine base while attacking a marine secured hive is a great one. Should assign 1 or 2 players to attack the marine base to keep them busy, also reduces the support numbers going through the phase gate to the hive.
The most important thing on the Kharaa team is coordination. If trying to reclaim a marine secured hive, its better to get a group to go in at the same time, rather than have 1 or 2 skulks each time which will cause minor repairable damage.
Communication is vital. Skulks should immediately inform other skulks if a marine has put up a phase gate in a hive so that a large group can come in and take it out. In the Early game, its hard for marines to take out more than 5 skulks attacking in unison.
If you find that your skulk team can't group for attacks, you may as well give up.
*shrug* unless you're an Aussie, I doubt it <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->