The point raised about the "onos/fade killing everything":
What if youre a lerk and you support with umbra? Umbra doesnt kill, but a lerk can get beaten down or caught in a nasty crossfire. It's a case of "making the strong stronger" which I am sure you all experienced in CS (More kills = more money = always best weapons = more kills = etcetcetc). Like I said it would be a great tourney variable but not being able to keep up with the pace of others because my lerky doesnt kill or my skulk escorts a gorge, makes it more "fight or die" instead of "take a beating from the boring stick for the team (ie. escort a gorge, etc)" Just my 2c
Actually, when I fight alongside a fade as a skulk, I find that I get a fair amount of kills, as marines tend to focus their attention on the fade (if I fight against a fade and a skulk as a vanilla marine, I tend to fire at the fade, as I am dead anyway, and I might as well try to kill something worth lots of res. If I get the skulk, but the fade kills me, what's the gain? Thus, usually the skulk eats me). So just because you are a skulk and other people are fades or onos, it doesn't mean that you're screwed, you'll just have to hunt with the pack now instead of trying to take on the marines alone.
As others probably have said already ( don't remeber all that have been written here) there will probably not be many that specialize in the fearfull skill of fragstealing. And I think lolfigther is right about that the marines focus on the fade instead of the skulk because the fade is a much greater threath.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If people start holding back their fire with fear that someone will yell at them for "kill stealing", the enemy will definitely overrun you.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I ain't holding back for anyone. Not for teammates. Not for the enemy.
Learn to stick up for youself in this situation cause it <u>will</u> arise. If you take an enemy down, you are <b>not</b> in the wrong. Tell the killchaser to go play UT2003! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--CaL_FiN+Jun 18 2003, 04:43 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (CaL_FiN @ Jun 18 2003, 04:43 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> There is no team pool is there in 1.1? Or is it just that Gorges don't get a boost? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> There is a team pool but all aliens share equally from it. Res For Kills™ just supplements the normal income.
Even with out playing 1.1 im starting to think that killres is a bad idea. The vary notion of marines getting res for killing skulks (what are they haveing a fricken field BBQ???!!!) sounds horribly stupid to me. While it sounds cool for aliens to get res (after all they are basicly eating or spewing predigesting fluids on the mariens) You have to balence that res bonus with something. Of course the easy way of balencing is to give marines res (see above) You could allso try maby giving marines a built in res bonus or maby a tech that gives thema +20% but personally i think that would be a pain in the **** to do well. Easy solution nix killres
Hmmm , it seems the "fiercely individual" kharaa have an endless source of problems with the res for kills. Res from the killed marines should go to the common pool ffs. Much simpler like that... the marine bodies belong to the bacteria.
Marine res for kills also tends to annihilate the beautiful aspect of the kharaa strategy , suicidary skulks. What's the use of bringing a phase gate to half hps if your multiple deaths give enough ressources to the marine team to afford an extra welder ? Marines are humans who spend time humping the armory or building things , their commander sacrifices ressources to keep them alive ; skulks are expendable weaklings that generally consider healing at the hive is a waste of time.
<!--QuoteBegin--Stakhanov+Jun 18 2003, 03:57 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Stakhanov @ Jun 18 2003, 03:57 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Hmmm , it seems the "fiercely individual" kharaa have an endless source of problems with the res for kills. Res from the killed marines should go to the common pool ffs. Much simpler like that... the marine bodies belong to the bacteria.
Marine res for kills also tends to annihilate the beautiful aspect of the kharaa strategy , suicidary skulks. What's the use of bringing a phase gate to half hps if your multiple deaths give enough ressources to the marine team to afford an extra welder ? Marines are humans who spend time humping the armory or building things , their commander sacrifices ressources to keep them alive ; skulks are expendable weaklings that generally consider healing at the hive is a waste of time. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> 1-3 res is not a great gain for a marine team. Trust me, people still sacrifice themselves in an attempt to bring things down, it just makes you think twice about leaping into a huge crowd of marines with no back up.
Kill stealing really isn't much a problem in ns, imo. It's much too team oriented. Say you attack with 2 skulks, who'se really going to be paying enough attention to be able to tell if they landed 1 blow, or if the other guy landed 2. Can't really be a kill steal if you don't know who dealt the most damage. And, if your using a gorge+skulk, who CARES who gets the kill, either alien can use the res for benefit of the team. Heck a gorge getting a kill is a serious bonus to your team(any amount of res that a gorge can get is just that much that he doesn't have to save). I've not yet seen any people talk about kill stealing (mind you, I'm playing with some very good people, but I would have thought it would come up atleast once). It'll happen sure, but since you can just mute people over voice com, and text is easy enough to ignore, just rise above it. There are more important things to worry about.
i agree with Stoneburg .. this game is team-based along with CS and TFC and any other FPS where you are on a team .. the irony <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
my response to anyone who claims i stole their kill is .. " next time i'll let them kill you " .. and with that i have sat and watch them die infront of me only to then kill the person who attacked them .. then they complain " why didn't you help me ?!! " <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
as far as getting res for kills, i don't like it .. any problem foreseen or mentioned in this post is why..
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->1-3 res is not a great gain for a marine team. Trust me, people still sacrifice themselves in an attempt to bring things down, it just makes you think twice about leaping into a huge crowd of marines with no back up. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That isn't really the point, it's 1-3 res FIVE or SIX times. Which is of course 6-18 res. That is nothing to scoff at, especially over a shorter period of time than it would of otherwise taken to get normally.
If that affords a welder then damage done to a building is now irrelevant.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Kill stealing really isn't much a problem in ns, imo. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I will guarantee you this WILL be a problem on the pub servers.
what about kill herding, where the aliens do uber damage to the rines, and herd him into an area where perhaps a single gorge spitwad would do the killing damage and the gorge would get the res... thus speeding up further the hives completion
not to mention an oc farm, can you see a sensory chamber cloaking a wol and a gorg getting uber res from it?
<!--QuoteBegin--Stoneburg+Jun 18 2003, 07:04 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Stoneburg @ Jun 18 2003, 07:04 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I don't call it "kill stealing" I call it "team work". And I call people who complain about it "idiots". <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very well put. The point of NS is not to get the ultimate number of frags. Frankly, I've gone 15-5 and 5-15 as a skulk and regard each run as just as good. Why? On the 15-5 run I was protecting our hive against wave after wave of marines. The other (5-15) I was trying to attack structures, not marines. Ok, the numbers are made up, but you get the idea. Kills in NS are only as meaningful as what they accomplish.
I am just as happy if my teammate kills the marine or skulk as if I do. Its a teamplay mod, not half-life deathmatch.
If you die charging as skulk, and the skulk behind you eats 3 marines, you've done your job.
So, if someone starts to whine at you about kill stealing just because you killed a skulk they were shooting at, keep doing it. You are probably doing something right.
As a Vampire Slayer veteran, I'm pretty tired of the whole "OMG KS!!!" thing. I'd say you're bound to see a bit of it in NS, but it's bound to be a bit more muted, due to the fact that it's more of a team game. The answer, as always, is to stick to servers you can trust.
<!--QuoteBegin--Pjofsky+Jun 18 2003, 01:08 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Pjofsky @ Jun 18 2003, 01:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The problem we're focusing on isn't kill stealing. It's <b>resource</b> stealing. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Or giving your opponent a whole ton of resources (IE the n00b whos played skulk for the first time and goes 0/35). :/
One thing I'm worried about is res-for-kills contributing to slippery slope. The more slippery slope you introduce to a game, the more you decide the game's fate early and spend the rest of the round mopping up. I don't see this as a good thing. On its own, killing a player removes his aid from his team for awhile, which depending on the circumstances can be in and of itself a very effective occurrence.
I have also seen the view expressed by many that a res-for-kills system is not friendly to new players. Something who is just trying to learn how to skulk is not just costing his team an effective member, but to add insult to injury he is enhancing the marine's powerbase every time he dies. This feels inherently wrong for a teamplay-based style of gameplay.
I would also add that res-for-kills for marines doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
What if... - Alien's res-for-kills goes to the team, not the individual, so everyone gets a cut of the pie. This way support roles aren't punished, but rather are indirectly rewarded for enhancing the killing effectiveness of the players they support. (handles kill-stealing issues) - If an individual alien dies, THAT alien loses 1-3 res points, INSTEAD of the marines GAINING 1-3 res points for his demise. This is more newb-friendly, as it not only encourages the new player to play smarter, but also doesn't directly punish his entire team just because he is learning. Possibly implemented so that an alien loses 1 res point/33 that he currently has. ie, A skulk with 0-33 loses 1, 34-66 loses 2, 67-100 loses 3 res. That way good players who play better will have more encouragement to improve, while the penalty to new players with lower res is relatively minimal. (And it may make Oni easier to balance since getting to 100 will be a little harder). - To compensate, marines get enhanced res flow from nodes. This feels right, first of all. And it will have an identical affect to giving marines res-for-kills. With res for kills, marine team gets 1-3 res/kill, currently. IE, they get bonus res for killing aliens. Let us say we instead enhance node flow for marines. They are still getting "res-for-kills", just indirectly. The more effective marines are at killing aliens, the more nodes they can control, and the more res they get from those nodes. Perhaps if marines enhanced res factor was dictated by the # of nodes they held. More nodes = more res/node.
Again, this is speculation, so take with a grain of salt.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> If an individual alien dies, THAT alien loses 1-3 res points, INSTEAD of the marines GAINING 1-3 res points for his demise. This is more newb-friendly, as it not only encourages the new player to play smarter, but also doesn't directly punish his entire team just because he is learning. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->The problem with that is while the rest of the team is on higher evolutions that player never gets to see them.
Not everyone is almost strangely in love with the skulk and wants to remain it all game (IE me).
*Adds name to list for making res for kills a variable if possible*
Don't know how much an effect one poor player can have on advancing the other team too much, lol and the moaning he'd get at him <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Heh so variable jus in case
[edit] "kills for res" WTH am I on <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> [/edit]
Well by page 4 I am sure no one is reading this any more, but here is my suggestion.
Change the alien res for kills to give the res bonus to all the aliens within a certain radius of the kill. This stops the KS complaints. Or you could give the Killing blow alien a bonus point for actually making the kill and give everyone else 1 point if they are within the radius. With either of these, including recently dead aliens would be a nice bonus.
For marines you could change it so that the lone marine gets no bonus, but if they are in a group of two or more they get the 0-3 bonus. Again taking into account the recently dead so that the lone survivor is no penalized.
I think that the res for kills thing is bad not just for the fact you can steal res with the kill stealing but if people concentrate on just kill stealing, they will not be looking at the big picture of the game, you can of course kill marines and it helps the team a little but it's not the only thing that is important, which is help to win the game for your team.
<!--QuoteBegin--Silicon+Jun 18 2003, 04:23 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Silicon @ Jun 18 2003, 04:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I think that the res for kills thing is bad not just for the fact you can steal res with the kill stealing but if people concentrate on just kill stealing, they will not be looking at the big picture of the game, you can of course kill marines and it helps the team a little but it's not the only thing that is important, which is help to win the game for your team. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> That's just stupid. I've never, ever understood "killstealing" in NS nor in any other mod. I mean, how do you people define who is killstealing and who is not? If I group attack some marines and it just happens one skulk gets the frags while I bite and get shot, I don't stop to whine about it. A marine is never "defenseless" (especially not a skulk) in a way that it can't stick a knife up your as* while you chuckle. A marine is always dangerous and I just move in for the bite no matter how long someone has been battling with him. Waiting behind a corner and letting your teammate get one bite/few bullet hits and then moving in for the kill is too impractical to be even theoretically annoying.
<!--QuoteBegin--Jimyd+Jun 18 2003, 05:23 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Jimyd @ Jun 18 2003, 05:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> if you have it where people lose res when they die, they will just stay in hive all game doing nothing and saving for onos.
thus.. this = bad idea.
end of story. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> It will also prevent skulks from trying to take down defended places. If you get enough defence somewhere you could cripple an alien attack for a considerable amount of time (due to the threat of res loss).
Comments
What if youre a lerk and you support with umbra? Umbra doesnt kill, but a lerk can get beaten down or caught in a nasty crossfire.
It's a case of "making the strong stronger" which I am sure you all experienced in CS (More kills = more money = always best weapons = more kills = etcetcetc).
Like I said it would be a great tourney variable but not being able to keep up with the pace of others because my lerky doesnt kill or my skulk escorts a gorge, makes it more "fight or die" instead of "take a beating from the boring stick for the team (ie. escort a gorge, etc)"
Just my 2c
And I think lolfigther is right about that the marines focus on the fade instead of the skulk because the fade is a much greater threath.
If people start holding back their fire with fear that someone will yell at them for "kill stealing", the enemy will definitely overrun you.
I ain't holding back for anyone. Not for teammates. Not for the enemy.
Learn to stick up for youself in this situation cause it <u>will</u> arise.
If you take an enemy down, you are <b>not</b> in the wrong. Tell the killchaser to go play UT2003! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
There is a team pool but all aliens share equally from it. Res For Kills™ just supplements the normal income.
Of course the easy way of balencing is to give marines res (see above) You could allso try maby giving marines a built in res bonus or maby a tech that gives thema +20% but personally i think that would be a pain in the **** to do well.
Easy solution nix killres
Marine res for kills also tends to annihilate the beautiful aspect of the kharaa strategy , suicidary skulks. What's the use of bringing a phase gate to half hps if your multiple deaths give enough ressources to the marine team to afford an extra welder ? Marines are humans who spend time humping the armory or building things , their commander sacrifices ressources to keep them alive ; skulks are expendable weaklings that generally consider healing at the hive is a waste of time.
Marine res for kills also tends to annihilate the beautiful aspect of the kharaa strategy , suicidary skulks. What's the use of bringing a phase gate to half hps if your multiple deaths give enough ressources to the marine team to afford an extra welder ? Marines are humans who spend time humping the armory or building things , their commander sacrifices ressources to keep them alive ; skulks are expendable weaklings that generally consider healing at the hive is a waste of time. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
1-3 res is not a great gain for a marine team. Trust me, people still sacrifice themselves in an attempt to bring things down, it just makes you think twice about leaping into a huge crowd of marines with no back up.
Kill stealing really isn't much a problem in ns, imo. It's much too team oriented. Say you attack with 2 skulks, who'se really going to be paying enough attention to be able to tell if they landed 1 blow, or if the other guy landed 2. Can't really be a kill steal if you don't know who dealt the most damage. And, if your using a gorge+skulk, who CARES who gets the kill, either alien can use the res for benefit of the team. Heck a gorge getting a kill is a serious bonus to your team(any amount of res that a gorge can get is just that much that he doesn't have to save). I've not yet seen any people talk about kill stealing (mind you, I'm playing with some very good people, but I would have thought it would come up atleast once). It'll happen sure, but since you can just mute people over voice com, and text is easy enough to ignore, just rise above it. There are more important things to worry about.
my response to anyone who claims i stole their kill is .. " next time i'll let them kill you " .. and with that i have sat and watch them die infront of me only to then kill the person who attacked them .. then they complain " why didn't you help me ?!! " <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
as far as getting res for kills, i don't like it .. any problem foreseen or mentioned in this post is why..
That isn't really the point, it's 1-3 res FIVE or SIX times. Which is of course 6-18 res. That is nothing to scoff at, especially over a shorter period of time than it would of otherwise taken to get normally.
If that affords a welder then damage done to a building is now irrelevant.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Kill stealing really isn't much a problem in ns, imo. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I will guarantee you this WILL be a problem on the pub servers.
not to mention an oc farm, can you see a sensory chamber cloaking a wol and a gorg getting uber res from it?
Very well put. The point of NS is not to get the ultimate number of frags. Frankly, I've gone 15-5 and 5-15 as a skulk and regard each run as just as good. Why? On the 15-5 run I was protecting our hive against wave after wave of marines. The other (5-15) I was trying to attack structures, not marines. Ok, the numbers are made up, but you get the idea. Kills in NS are only as meaningful as what they accomplish.
I am just as happy if my teammate kills the marine or skulk as if I do. Its a teamplay mod, not half-life deathmatch.
If you die charging as skulk, and the skulk behind you eats 3 marines, you've done your job.
So, if someone starts to whine at you about kill stealing just because you killed a skulk they were shooting at, keep doing it. You are probably doing something right.
Or giving your opponent a whole ton of resources (IE the n00b whos played skulk for the first time and goes 0/35). :/
One thing I'm worried about is res-for-kills contributing to slippery slope. The more slippery slope you introduce to a game, the more you decide the game's fate early and spend the rest of the round mopping up. I don't see this as a good thing. On its own, killing a player removes his aid from his team for awhile, which depending on the circumstances can be in and of itself a very effective occurrence.
I have also seen the view expressed by many that a res-for-kills system is not friendly to new players. Something who is just trying to learn how to skulk is not just costing his team an effective member, but to add insult to injury he is enhancing the marine's powerbase every time he dies. This feels inherently wrong for a teamplay-based style of gameplay.
I would also add that res-for-kills for marines doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
What if...
- Alien's res-for-kills goes to the team, not the individual, so everyone gets a cut of the pie. This way support roles aren't punished, but rather are indirectly rewarded for enhancing the killing effectiveness of the players they support. (handles kill-stealing issues)
- If an individual alien dies, THAT alien loses 1-3 res points, INSTEAD of the marines GAINING 1-3 res points for his demise. This is more newb-friendly, as it not only encourages the new player to play smarter, but also doesn't directly punish his entire team just because he is learning. Possibly implemented so that an alien loses 1 res point/33 that he currently has. ie, A skulk with 0-33 loses 1, 34-66 loses 2, 67-100 loses 3 res. That way good players who play better will have more encouragement to improve, while the penalty to new players with lower res is relatively minimal. (And it may make Oni easier to balance since getting to 100 will be a little harder).
- To compensate, marines get enhanced res flow from nodes. This feels right, first of all. And it will have an identical affect to giving marines res-for-kills. With res for kills, marine team gets 1-3 res/kill, currently. IE, they get bonus res for killing aliens. Let us say we instead enhance node flow for marines. They are still getting "res-for-kills", just indirectly. The more effective marines are at killing aliens, the more nodes they can control, and the more res they get from those nodes. Perhaps if marines enhanced res factor was dictated by the # of nodes they held. More nodes = more res/node.
Again, this is speculation, so take with a grain of salt.
Not everyone is almost strangely in love with the skulk and wants to remain it all game (IE me).
Don't know how much an effect one poor player can have on advancing the other team too much, lol and the moaning he'd get at him <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Heh so variable jus in case
[edit] "kills for res" WTH am I on <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> [/edit]
Change the alien res for kills to give the res bonus to all the aliens within a certain radius of the kill.
This stops the KS complaints.
Or you could give the Killing blow alien a bonus point for actually making the kill and give everyone else
1 point if they are within the radius.
With either of these, including recently dead aliens would be a nice bonus.
For marines you could change it so that the lone marine gets no bonus, but if they are in a group of two or
more they get the 0-3 bonus. Again taking into account the recently dead so that the lone survivor is no penalized.
That's just stupid. I've never, ever understood "killstealing" in NS nor in any other mod. I mean, how do you people define who is killstealing and who is not? If I group attack some marines and it just happens one skulk gets the frags while I bite and get shot, I don't stop to whine about it. A marine is never "defenseless" (especially not a skulk) in a way that it can't stick a knife up your as* while you chuckle. A marine is always dangerous and I just move in for the bite no matter how long someone has been battling with him. Waiting behind a corner and letting your teammate get one bite/few bullet hits and then moving in for the kill is too impractical to be even theoretically annoying.
thus.. this = bad idea.
end of story.
thus.. this = bad idea.
end of story. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
It will also prevent skulks from trying to take down defended places. If you get enough defence somewhere you could cripple an alien attack for a considerable amount of time (due to the threat of res loss).