How To Use Turrets
SoulSkorpion
Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 423Members
Join Date: 2002-04-12 Member: 423Members
<div class="IPBDescription">(properly)</div> Most of the time, I play as skulk. Lately, I've been playing quite a bit of commander. The advantage of playing so much skulk is that when you're commanding, you know from experience what makes a skulk's life difficult. When used correctly, one of those things is turrets.
In the early days, commanders put turrets along the entrances of their bases, like a WoL, trying to block aliens from entering. This was disastrous, as the aliens just ran over the top of them, found cover between the buildings, and took them out.
The current tactic was directly designed to make up for the weaknesses of the first approach, which is to place turrets near the structures so that all the blind spots are covered. This worked for a while, but now skulks are good enough to combat it, this time by circle-dodging the turret cluster.
The trick is to place turrets as if they're weapons, rather than as some kind of blocking structure. It's quite simple, really. A good skulk can dodge anything fired at him as long as it's only firing at him from one direction. When two things are firing from two seperate angles, it's more complicated. When six or seven are, it's damn near impossible to stop from getting hit.
Basically, put turrets all allong the walls, in a circle. Place the buildings so that they are away from the walls, exposed, in the centre of the base with the turrets surrounding them in a wide circle. Anything which enters the ring to attack the structures in the middle has to dodge turrets firing at them from every angle, which is physically impossible. This works wonders on ns_bast, in Atmospheric Processing. I've tried it out there, and believe me it's effective.
The idea is to maximise the angles of attack. If you group all your turrets together, they can easily be dodged. If you spread them out, it becomes extremely difficult.
In the early days, commanders put turrets along the entrances of their bases, like a WoL, trying to block aliens from entering. This was disastrous, as the aliens just ran over the top of them, found cover between the buildings, and took them out.
The current tactic was directly designed to make up for the weaknesses of the first approach, which is to place turrets near the structures so that all the blind spots are covered. This worked for a while, but now skulks are good enough to combat it, this time by circle-dodging the turret cluster.
The trick is to place turrets as if they're weapons, rather than as some kind of blocking structure. It's quite simple, really. A good skulk can dodge anything fired at him as long as it's only firing at him from one direction. When two things are firing from two seperate angles, it's more complicated. When six or seven are, it's damn near impossible to stop from getting hit.
Basically, put turrets all allong the walls, in a circle. Place the buildings so that they are away from the walls, exposed, in the centre of the base with the turrets surrounding them in a wide circle. Anything which enters the ring to attack the structures in the middle has to dodge turrets firing at them from every angle, which is physically impossible. This works wonders on ns_bast, in Atmospheric Processing. I've tried it out there, and believe me it's effective.
The idea is to maximise the angles of attack. If you group all your turrets together, they can easily be dodged. If you spread them out, it becomes extremely difficult.
Comments
The only real problem with your strategy is when fades start to come in, but I guess once that happens, you have major problems anyway. Good skulking (with carapace, of course) over a prolonged period of time will still wear down your buildings unless you have a welder handy, and the investments required to keep your vital buildings intact will delay your progress and allow the aliens an upper hand.
did you guys ever use a trap when you were younger to catch those pesky wasps... a drinks bottle funnel whihc let them in fine but they cant get out...
i like to use that method..
you place 5-6 turrets along the sides of an entrance so they cant be hit by fades or anything like that then the only way yo take them out is to be in the room... and once your in the bottleneck... as skulk... you arent getting out.
I find turrets to only be useful holding expansions. If your base needs turrets to defend it, relocate to another place which doesn't. It's probably a horrible place to be anyways. Your base is also usually too large to be effectively covered by turrets(yes atmospheric is a horrible place to be, in the middle of nowhere, with so much cover a skulk can do just about anything it wants, plus that little catwalk where a lerk can spike almost anything on that platform, which happens to be the only place that's clear enough to put a base.)
So IMHO, turrets are not supposed to be used that frequently. when they are used, 5 or 6 is usually not an option. Turrets should be placed to cover a base from skulks and lerks. Fades = your dead anyways. So that means optimizing the placement of 3 or so turrets.
Now I usually put the TF against a wall, because that reduces the amount of turrets needed to cover it. also,I place it so that the turrets can cover:
1. the TF, I try so that most parts are covered by 2 of the 3, but always by at least 1.
2. the entrances, so lerks have a harder time spiking
3. the most direct path from the entrances to the tf, in this case, all three turrets are shooting at teh skulk as he runs in. Though don't make the path too long, or lerks will have a field day.
4. EACH OTHER! if a turret doesn't have another turret covering it, that means it can be soooo easily circle-strafed by a skulk
This also means placement of the whole expansion is vital, i.e.:
1. don't place it in a cramped place, skulks can pop in, take 2 bites, go heal, come back, etc.
2. don't place it in a cluttered place, same reason as above
3. don't place it in a huge place, i.e. refinery on i forgot the map name. It's huge! lerks have fun!
4. DO place it in a medium length corridor with no vents. These aren't usually that hard to find. and the turrets can be easily placed to cover everything and the path. Think slightly staggerd triangle like
|......|
|..x..|
|x.ptf|
|.x...|
|......|
p = phase, turrets can shoot over these, so putting it in the middle doens't hinder LOS
I put them down because I couldn't trust my team to use mines properly, and because atmos was regularly taking a pounding from determined skulk rushes. Res was coming in quite nicely, but we couldn't actually procede because base was constantly under attack (and the marines were no match for the aliens).
But the point is, as soon as I did that the attacks stopped being effective <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
(btw, it's not just me who always relocates to atmos. It's nearly every commander on ns_bast on EFTel <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->)
that's a good idea, the turrets in a circle and structs in the centre. altho i do tend to put the structs against a wall, so taht skulks don't have cover in an open area.
yes, atmo is an often relocated area, as it's a hop skip and a jump from feed it's most excellent tram tunnel, and 2 RNs <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
turrets are fine against fades as long as you have lvl 2 or above weapons <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
BUT.... in 2.0 you can just electrify your TF, so you won't have to cover it so strongly.
Maybe a Vet or a PT or Admin who plays 2.0v could let us know the proper way to use turrets in 2.0 so that we can get use to the idea now and not be held back once we start playing.
And this is all just to defend your base? Exactly when can you afford this? You'll still need an armory, ips, arms lab, upgrades, etc. The aliens will have 2 hives up by the time you get your turrets set up. Unless you're going to heavily defend a hive, don't bother. Use mines. If you can't trust your marines to use mines, find better marines.
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::sentry:: ::sentry::
::factory::
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It's a good way to hold a room down when you're on the go.
Having said that, keeping them in a more hexagonal/octagonal shape tends to be more effective than lining them up or circling them totally.
What sort of advice is this? When you're comm on a pub server, you're stuck with the marines you have. You don't have a marine selection pool available to you. You have no choice whatsoever as to the type of player that is on your team. This sort of comment isn't necessary at all and serves no purpose.
Go play on a server for a while and become a regular, then you'd get to know the other players and their strengths and weaknesses.
You CAN choose your marines to an extent because you can choose which server you play on. Why go on a server full of idiots when you could go on to a server you KNOW have good people on? And if the people currently on your team suck? Don't comm and wait till next round and hope for better people.
Basically, only jump intgo the comm chair if you already know your team is decent. Otherwise, stay the hell away from the chair unless you wish to experience extreme stress.
As for the above post: Of course it's no fun commanding when almost all of the players are "idiots" as you bluntly put it <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> But I still don't like that attitude. If all players where to do like that then NS would end up by having very clear lines drawn between "good" players and "bad" players with no hope of imporving the skills of the latter. But then again.. if the commander only wants to have good people around him, he/she can always wait t'ill the "bad" guys suddenly improve their skills after some time of playing the game. So it's all up to the commander - try to play with "idiots" or just skip that <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
*Tip* If you are going to spend the resources on 5 or more turrets, place a second turret factory! It only costs an extra 20 resources and it ensure that you won't lose your turret base in 5 seconds if one of the turret factories goes down.
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I comm a lot and I don't always relocate to Atmospheric on bast! (It's all about main aft, baby!)
Unless, of course, if I don't get onto the marine team right away and get in the comm chair to find my entire team already in atmospheric -- then I'll relocate there. :-p
Rhuadin