My Comm Strategy
Amelek
Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16265Members
Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16265Members
<div class="IPBDescription">General opening strategy</div> Now, I have several strats that I use on pubs, but this strategy is simple and effective on any of the beta servers. It's my variation of a node rush opening. Here it is
1. Tell all your marines to stay in base.
2. Drop Ip, Armory, TF in base. I like squishing things near the TF and RT so that electricity can protect them.
3. Group all of your marines except 2 in squad. Those 2 left out are base guards (if they don't listen tell them they'll get shotties once you get the res, lie if you have to <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> )
4. Your squad hunts out an alien RT and kills it, hopefully with some aliens too ... this is the first thing you do.
5. Build the RT where the alien one stood, and electrify it.
6. Repeat 4-5, until you have at least 4 nodes.
At this point, at worse case it is like 4 v 5 or similar, where the aliens all went gorge and dropped a RT. Or, it could be 4 v 1, where the aliens might have dropped 2 that were destroyed. Irregardless, this general opening pattern can be very effective, especially if the alien team is slow to respond. At this point, it is a good idea to begin teching, or earlier if you find it necessary. The immediate advantage of this type of marine opening is that it aims to take advantage of early alien weakness caused by rapid expansion ... something marines need to understand better.
1. Tell all your marines to stay in base.
2. Drop Ip, Armory, TF in base. I like squishing things near the TF and RT so that electricity can protect them.
3. Group all of your marines except 2 in squad. Those 2 left out are base guards (if they don't listen tell them they'll get shotties once you get the res, lie if you have to <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> )
4. Your squad hunts out an alien RT and kills it, hopefully with some aliens too ... this is the first thing you do.
5. Build the RT where the alien one stood, and electrify it.
6. Repeat 4-5, until you have at least 4 nodes.
At this point, at worse case it is like 4 v 5 or similar, where the aliens all went gorge and dropped a RT. Or, it could be 4 v 1, where the aliens might have dropped 2 that were destroyed. Irregardless, this general opening pattern can be very effective, especially if the alien team is slow to respond. At this point, it is a good idea to begin teching, or earlier if you find it necessary. The immediate advantage of this type of marine opening is that it aims to take advantage of early alien weakness caused by rapid expansion ... something marines need to understand better.
Comments
1. Move out roughly 1/2 the team IMMEDIATELY to the nearest res node, that is on the way to a key area... be it a hive, a 2res, or a pivotal siege spot that can support res.
2. Let the other 1/2 build 1 ip, and the armory.
3. The first 1/2 should by this time have finished their first RT, which I start electrifying immediately, and started to move onto whatever spot I want them to take.
4. The first 1/2 will either have met with a skulk rush, or been idle. If the skulks rushed, I build a 2nd IP. If not, I build a TF instead. We should probably have 3 RTs by this point, unless my moving squad has failed.
5. I begin building the area I asked my first 1/2 to take. In the offchance they met resistance and failed to continue, I stop this plan now and immediately have them focus on a different key spot. First, however, I build a triangular turret setup around the TF, hopefully that covers all of my base... there might be a blind spot behind the CC, but more often than not skulks don't even try since the CC takes so long to build. When my guys move, they will ALL be moving, save 1 man I keep in base for firepower/building.
6a. Team 1 succeeded. I hold my base, and 1 key spot, so I build a TF at the second spot, plenty of turrets, and an obs. I also build 2 more turrets in base, an arms lab in my main base or in the new spot in case main seems it might be lost.
6b. Team 1 failed. I cry and rant and scream, then move them on. They should just be arriving at their new objective point, hopefully uncontested, and begin to take it. Same process as above, only later unfortunately, and I will probably skip the turrets in base in favor of dropping a random RT somewhere, as we'll need a res boost.
This is, of course, only a plan and plans have a habit of not always working. I mess around sometimes, and sometimes I am forced to change. I've started comming alot more now, as I was afraid almost to do it when 2.0 came out... now I enjoy it much and have a 4-2 record right now. One of my victories and one of my losses both shouldn't count due to gross skill differences ;-)
I've lately been considering experimenting with a tech 'rush', building IP-armory-IP-RT-Arms lab-Obs-RT. 2 IPs are needed fast on that considering no turrets means more deaths for marines. The only problem is it requires VERY good soldiers, as if someone doesn't follow an order it can screw you alot more. Still, getting lvl1/lvl1 weapons and armor early makes my marines much more efficient, and the fast obs lets me get PGs that much faster as well. I saw a comm do this without the arms lab, and we managed a 2hive lockdown using no TFs, and taking no RTs except marine spawn and the two hives. It only worked because the marines were just 'better' players than the kharaa, but I still saw some merit.
You don't have to research electrify, but you do need a TF in order to begin electrifying either a Res tower or the turret factory itself. :-( As for strategies, I say your best bet at the beginning is to have squads of 2-3 marines go gorge hunting all around the map. :-) Then build stuff up, but thats my 2 cents. Well this is the case if the kharaa are res rushing.
Steps 3 and 4 of Amalek's order are very crucial in any game of 2.0 (official, no patches). This prevents from the rapid expansion and dropping of RTs by every alien. If you can take down the RTs and the gorges that put them up, the aliens will find themselves in big trouble in early game. If you can keep your squads alert and alive, then the chances of you winning go up by a lot.
As for the main base, if you are doing well - then you start building a TF and 4 turrets. But usually this doesn't come until later, because the aliens will be trying to take out your attack squad, which is killing everything on the map (except maybe hives.. those are too tough usually for low-tech marines).
As for hardcore sensory believers.. what I do is drop an observatory in every hot-spot. The hot-spot is an important area in which my marines are working in - be it hunting or building or just hanging around. It is easier to spend the resources on the observatory and have everything uncloaked permanently instead of struggling to scan every few seconds. When you don't need the observatory anymore (if it is in the middle of nowhere), recycle it.
4. The first 1/2 will either have met with a skulk rush, or been idle. If the skulks rushed, I build a 2nd IP. If not, I build a TF instead. We should probably have 3 RTs by this point, unless my moving squad has failed.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Some folks already mentioned this, but this is impossible. Literally.
Generally, I go with the "half at base, half in the field" start. However, with good shootin' 'rines, I sometimes leave only 1-2 in base, maybe with a pack of mines. However, I find many comms who start like this don't build a tfac at all... And that's a recipe for disaster. Build it, just a little later than right at the start since you need the early res to expand (and preferably drop one or two shotties!)
The advantage to this strat is you have to res to electrify your first res immediately ... because you only spent 55 res on buildings (ip + armory + tf) in base, leaving 45. You can drop the res and immediately electrify, not counting any RFK you get. Then, if the aliens rush in some way (SC, MC) that does not involve gorges, you'll have least 2 RT's for a while. Remember, I said this for the beta, where electricity is much more of an option. This strat gives a simple means of an early continuous attack, allowing marines to both destroy RT's pretty quickly and actually claim some territory.
The 2 base guard thing is decidedly dangerous ... especialy since I don't build early turrets unless I ABSOLUTELY have to. A good majority of the games I lose is to a coordinated early alien attack on my weak base ... but it is an acceptable risk. This strategy counters alien expansion by attacking then expanding ... the counter to my strategy is a concentrated attack on where I am NOT attacking, possibly killing the marines or at least stopping the offensive temporarily.
My first comm game on a 2.0 vanilla server, I kept freaking out b/c I had to build a TF near an RT to electrify it. I didnt' realize this, and I ended up just pretty much terraforming the entire map.
Oh well, we won the stupid way.
So I guess I would have to change that start, and electrify neither turret until I have a TF, if at all, since by the time I get a TF the electricity might not earn it's cost...
all but 1/2 run to 2 rts near each other and tech upgs.
relocate close to 2 rts, tf up mildly have full rambo push from desired location then cap res if aliens start to buckle and tech upgs.
rush mt, use to hold 4 rts (along with pgs later) on one side of map and *shock* tech upgs.
"IP-armory-IP-RT-Arms lab-Obs-RT" was the plan I went in with initially, but I changed that to ip-armory-rt-obs-ip-arms-rt. By the time I got that third RT, I was ready to set phases. My guys rushed a hive site and held it with level 2 weapons/armor only, built a PG/obs and pressed on to a coveted 5th RT. I PG'd that one too and put my first TF, while the aliens were finishing their 2nd hive. Appalled, some of you are I'm sure. But it worked wonderfully, the PGs and by this time 2weapon-1armor upgrades let my guys rip apart the aliens, and we got alot of res from kills.
The 2nd game I switched it up to ip-armory-armslab-2ndarmslab and rushed pure RTs from there. It was risky but somehow it worked that we had 6 RTs on Hera, fast. We hit level 3/3 upgrades so early I just med/ammo spammed as my guys took their only hive out. <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo-->
According to dictionary.com, irregardless is a word. It means exactly the same thing as regardless.
Irregardless is a slang word used incorrectly by people to mean 'irregardless'.
Dictionary.com is just buckling to the masses. Sadly enough, Oxford is doing that too <!--emo&???--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='confused.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sorry, I'm an English major in University.... heh
"Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so."
Important lesson to learn there, folks. Read the small print. Because otherwise someone will check your reference and prove you're horribly horribly wrong.