2.1 Balance
RyoOhki
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
<div class="IPBDescription">The fight for the res nodes and hives</div> A disturbing trend has been emerging over the past few weeks on the servers I frequent. It consists of the marines going around in smallish groups, assassinating res nodes, coupled with an electrification rush.
Now I know what you're going to say. "Just take them out". Well, there's a problem with that. Firstly, these groups of marines can take down a res node very, very fast. Knives or shotguns, those res nodes will drop. Now at the start of the game, that is crippling. Secondly, trying to take these marines out in transit is also very difficult, as groups of early marines tend to be quite tough.
Once they have assassinated the node, they plonk down one of their own, electrify it and move on. Bear in mind that whilst this is happening, the rest of the marine side is also off merrily capping other res nodes, and subsequently electrifying them. Suddenly the res count is something like 6 - 2 and the marine fast tech begins. All this in the first 5 minutes.
Countering this has been damn near impossible. Throw down some OCs? Don't make me laugh. Essentially you are just wasting res putting down OCs. You need 3+ in an area to defend it plus at least one defense chamber. Even then, concentrated fire will take them down very fast. Get skulks to the area? You cannot reach most of these nodes in time, and even if you do, there's a marine standing guard, and you must cross a large gap of open space to reach him, during which time he will shred you. Even if you get a group of skulks, chances are that the node will go down by the time you get there. You can kill the marines but they have just delt your economy a devestating blow. By using your starting res, you can secure around 3 nodes. That's not enough.
Getting an early Fade is basically the only way to take down those electrified nodes. But your res flow has already been crippled. You don't have the res to replace the towers that do go down, and you don't have the res for higher lifeforms. Heck, you can't even afford a 2nd hive! Most of the subsequent game is spent desperatly trying to get enough res for a new tower, that is quickly assassinated. Skulk-gorge combos can take out the electrified nodes, but a) marines show up quickly and put it back up and b) it takes quite a while to kill those nodes, during which time the commander will most likely recycle it.
Now finally we come to the hives themselves. If, by some chance, you get a hive up, it's usually far too late. And then, what happens? Shotguns. Yep, the Swiss Army Knife of guns. It really is sickening how fast lvl 2 and 3 shotguns tear through structures. You basically have time to hear "Our hive is under attack" before it dies. Stopping even rambos from doing this requires OCs in the hive locations, which you can't afford thanks to having no nodes. I've been getting flashbacks to 1.04 all week!
I've been pounding my mind trying to think up counters for these tactics but I've come up dry. Please, if people are experiancing similar situations, could you tell us how to defeat it.
Now I know what you're going to say. "Just take them out". Well, there's a problem with that. Firstly, these groups of marines can take down a res node very, very fast. Knives or shotguns, those res nodes will drop. Now at the start of the game, that is crippling. Secondly, trying to take these marines out in transit is also very difficult, as groups of early marines tend to be quite tough.
Once they have assassinated the node, they plonk down one of their own, electrify it and move on. Bear in mind that whilst this is happening, the rest of the marine side is also off merrily capping other res nodes, and subsequently electrifying them. Suddenly the res count is something like 6 - 2 and the marine fast tech begins. All this in the first 5 minutes.
Countering this has been damn near impossible. Throw down some OCs? Don't make me laugh. Essentially you are just wasting res putting down OCs. You need 3+ in an area to defend it plus at least one defense chamber. Even then, concentrated fire will take them down very fast. Get skulks to the area? You cannot reach most of these nodes in time, and even if you do, there's a marine standing guard, and you must cross a large gap of open space to reach him, during which time he will shred you. Even if you get a group of skulks, chances are that the node will go down by the time you get there. You can kill the marines but they have just delt your economy a devestating blow. By using your starting res, you can secure around 3 nodes. That's not enough.
Getting an early Fade is basically the only way to take down those electrified nodes. But your res flow has already been crippled. You don't have the res to replace the towers that do go down, and you don't have the res for higher lifeforms. Heck, you can't even afford a 2nd hive! Most of the subsequent game is spent desperatly trying to get enough res for a new tower, that is quickly assassinated. Skulk-gorge combos can take out the electrified nodes, but a) marines show up quickly and put it back up and b) it takes quite a while to kill those nodes, during which time the commander will most likely recycle it.
Now finally we come to the hives themselves. If, by some chance, you get a hive up, it's usually far too late. And then, what happens? Shotguns. Yep, the Swiss Army Knife of guns. It really is sickening how fast lvl 2 and 3 shotguns tear through structures. You basically have time to hear "Our hive is under attack" before it dies. Stopping even rambos from doing this requires OCs in the hive locations, which you can't afford thanks to having no nodes. I've been getting flashbacks to 1.04 all week!
I've been pounding my mind trying to think up counters for these tactics but I've come up dry. Please, if people are experiancing similar situations, could you tell us how to defeat it.
Comments
It's good that the marines are using such aggressive tactics now but unfortunately with this 'slash, burn, electrify' strategy the game tends to be decided within the first couple of minutes; the rest of the game is just the slow and inevitable extermination of the aliens.
The problem is that now the marines have utterly skulk-proof res towers while the alien res towers are just big, defenceless, puffy bags of 'kill me'.
Once the res is claimed they can then afford to elec TFs all over the map which the res-starved aliens can't really do anything about.
The marines are in the fortunate position of only having 1 'main' base to worry about and the rest is all res... the aliens have to somehow keep their hives up, keep their res towers up and still afford to attack lol.
I'm not so sure about it being a question of 'balance' but it's really frustrating how the game is so quickly decided with the rest just being almost unstoppably scripted in stone =/
youre whining because marines are using teamwork and owning you?
please...
Sure... clanners could do it but not pubbers.
youre whining because marines are using teamwork and owning you?
please... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hmm, very helpful comment I don't think.
He's not whining, he's asking for help in countering a prevelant strat. Could you please tell us how'd you'd counter this ? If not take your unhelpful digs elsewhere.
Give it some time, aliens will find a way to stop it. Heaven forbid aliens have to use some teamwork to win vs a marine team that uses teamwork.
In the games where marines have tried the 'slash and burn' strategy, I've found that a moderate counter is to have a couple of skulks IGNORE the marines encroaching on the aliens turf and knock down the res nodes that are way on the other side of the map. Typically the slash and burn involves sending 2/3 of marines towards alien hive to rip down and cap alien nodes, while 1/3 of the marines run the other way and cap the nodes far from alien hive. Those nodes are typically NOT electrified because the slash and burn places the aliens on the defensive and sets their focus on protecting their own investments. 2-3 skulks that ignore the marines and go sabotage the undefended far nodes can take them down faster than the comm can electrify/recycle/get marines to defend. This way the marines will only have 3-5 nodes instead of the 6 or more usually associated with the slash and burn.
The second part is to MOVE IN GROUPS (hmm, fight fire with fire??). A couple of skulks with a gorge or two for backup will take down a LOT of marines, and once the marines are dead, they can rip down the electrified node with healspray.
Not a perfect counter, but certainly it takes the edge off the strategy.
Another part is waiting to drop a chamber. In one of the original posts regarding this strategy, Stoneburg (the originator of the slash and burn?) noted that the slash and burn is only really effective if the aliens go defense first. This means they dont have the ambush power to blunt attacks (silence), or speed to save nodes (celerity), or ability to heal skulks while they rip down an electrified node (adren). The real counter to slash and burn is movement first, but pub aliens haven't gotten this through their heads yet. I think if you wait before dropping a chamber to see if the marines are doing slash and burn, then drop movement instead of def if they do, would make the aliens much more capable of winning. Sure you wont have DCs to keep your WoLs up, but WoLs dont do squat vs slash and burn anyway. Then once the marines fail at their slash and burn, you get second hive up, drop def, and you're all set.
Even if you just have a 1 person guard they can scout and stall for sufficient time to react... :/
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually their base defense consists of building everything around a lone electrified tf. Tough to take out with the constantly respawning marines taken into account.
By no means am I whining. I think that this is quite a valid strat and it's sheer effectiveness has been what has prompted me to ask the community what their thoughts are on combatting it.
Ganging on res nodes is good, but I still find a problem in that the aliens get starved for res. Losing those early res nodes really hurts. You can starve marines, but it's just that little bit harder, seeing as their rfk goes into a communal pool. Many games lately have seen res scores of 2 - 1 and the like, with most of the map devoid of nodes because neither side can cap them <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
The problem would not seem to be so much that the elec nodes are so tough to take down, but rather that your nodes go down so fast. The aliens, even if they aggressively target the marine res, still find it damn hard to tech because they can't hold their nodes.
~takes notes~
uh... no zig, but vanilla marines can take down alien RTs pretty easy, I've gutted plenty personally with the handy knife o knifey-ness =3
the options available with rts and their alien equivalents are something like this;
Turrets to guard rt = ocs to guard rt (expensive for either team and kinda a pain to do)
marines to guard rt = skulks/gorges to guard rt (means you've got one less attacking unit either way)
elec rt = ... (pretty much immune to the standard 'vanilla' unit for the team... oh wait, skulks seeing as the aliens don't have anything like this)
I know the teams are meant to be different but the actual options lie heavily on the marine side.
Marines can build and fight in one unit; aliens have to switch between gorge and skulk which costs res and gestation time
Marine RTs can be electrified; alien ones can't
Marines can siege a hive if the defences are too strong or opposition too heavy; aliens just have to grin, bear it and break through every last defence
Marines have to be killed to a man even when IPs and the CCs have all been elimanted; alien hives down? PING OF DOOM!!!
The reason the aliens have been doing so well is in two parts; one is the pure strength of their actual units. An Onos is a scary thing indeed even compared to HA =3
The other though is the many minds in one ideal. With the hive sight and teamchat they can be coordinated but with individual res and the ability to pick upgrades for yourself rather than having to wait on a commander to do it for you they can be very self-sufficient and focus on multiple areas at once (poor comm can only really look at 1 point at a time).
Oh and they can go invisible =P
um... okies, I think I've gone a bit off topic here but what I'm getting at is... um.... oh forget it I'm lost ^^;
yeah they're balanced and slash and burn is just a good strat, end of complaint <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Especially when the commander uses the "lump all the buildings together around an electrified turret factory" strategy. Add in four turrets or so, and it's skulk suicide to attack the main base.
By the time you get a skulk/gorge gang to attack an rt, at the most you take down one or two before a more pressing emergency hits... (usually an attack on the hive, or a pg/siege near a hive). Ignore it and the hive dies. Rush to the hive, push back the attack, and the res nodes get rebuilt meanwhile by one or two marines.
Unless you have a really good alien who was res-hoarding from the start for a fade, this becomes agony for the alien team as they wait for the eventual loss. A fade who doesn't know WTH he's doing - ie. not killing elec rts, or dying to the marines rushing to rescue their rts (my weakness, alas, the few times I'm lucky enough to have 50 res) or stopping an LA/LMG train in their tracks (saw a clan guy go fade and do this once, gave us enough time to skulk/gorge their rts to oblivion) - is useless.
Let's not even talk about an onos. Would be ideal but never happen. The best hoarders are around 76+ before the one hive remaining blows into smithereens. And one hive onos suck anyway.
I'm thinking one of the few possibly effective counters to this marine strat is the skulk rush. At least a few skulks (3-4) wreaking havoc in marine start as gorges are taking rts, and staying near there to harass/ambush marines as they come out. Else the marines just divvy up into their squads and clump together to rts, cheerfully massacring everything they run into.
-Testament
Avid ALIEN player.
Us aliens had ventilation as starting hive, some gorgs took cargo bay with 3 ocs 2 dcs and made 2 rts there. but oh hell what kind of hell broke loose when the first scream of "omg their siegeing double ress!!1111" came. instantly everyone. <b>everyone</b> proceeded to fight for the double res, now at this time this was something like 11vs11 game.
Well, marines did what they should have done, they had major of their team attacking double res which they eventually sieged down. But before they did that they had few guys going and capping nodes from marine start, computer lab and xeno.
So yeah what i was doing? well at first i when i joined the game, about the time when they began to assault cargo bay, well i as a merry guy i am went to say my regards, took 12 guys down before i died with my hit and run assaults. Then i wanted to see what did their base actually look like, well i took a peek. died in matter of second as any vanilla skulk would when going into a turret farm. Well i had 50 res at that time and decided to go fade. At this time i went trough xeno, computer lab and marine start rt's and took them down. then i got laser down and furnace down. BUT, because i was only one doing this as a regen fade i got them down, but it took way too long, at the same time the marines had taken double ress to their control and obviously upgraded their weapons to max cause they began to hurt abit <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->. And along i did this one "man" ramboing stuff, i fragged quite a bunch of marines, at the end of my fadeing i was taking furnace down for the 2-3 time, well there was about 6-8 la/lmg marines running around, which i just annoyed the hell out by blinking back and forth & swiping few reloaders down with swipe :=), it was fun alright.
After my fun-hour of fraggin the upcoming la/lmg & la/sg guys some ha/sg guys came, and after that some ha/hmg guys came, and not much after that someone had a grenade launcher, well i still annoyed them but as they had atad "bigger guns" i had to retreat. At this point i wrote "kill" in console and went onos. (took cele/rege) and proceeded to annoy heavys which stomp and devouring few at times,. I took double res's tf/pg/2rt/horde turrets down few times and their other res nodes, but what can a one man do? obviously not enough. at the end i got frustrated and assaulted a 6 guy ha team and died. I had fun fragging, maybe today i can taste the thing they call teamplay.
-alien RT health nerf : it's way faster to knife them now.
-OC health nerf : they aren't as effective at defending nodes.
-double elec targetting : you can't assist a fade as a skulk to take that elec node down. Elec nodes last until onos on pubs.
-gorge armor nerf : they are generally more vulnerable , now that's not a bad thing by itself , but gorges used to be able to defend small outposts by themselves. They could assist skulks with healspray taking less risks. Now they can hardly defend themselves against vanilla marines.
-celerity nerf : skulks are less likely to take this upgrade , and the aliens in general less likely to build MCs first.
-cheaper/faster upgrades : vanilla skulks are less likely to win fights against vanilla marines building/destroying/guarding nodes , even if attacking by surprise. The widespread shotguns are partly responsible of this. Besides , fades are more likely to die from theses.
-15 res HA (and possibly the 15 res HMG) , meaning instant HA trains crushing all opposition with a decent comm.
-bugged 2.01e bile bomb ! elec nodes and outposts can't be crushed from vents or a safe distance. Marines don't have to worry about defending their base/outposts against BBs anymore (manpower consuming task)
What could fix this ?
-Increase the alien RT health back to 2400 or something.
-Increase the OC health back to its 2.0 level (1250) , maybe make the accuracy/projectile speed hive-dependant.
-Remove the double targetting thing. Maybe increase elec damage (not range) slightly.
-Perhaps increase gorge armor levels to 60/120(cara) to make it more effective as a support unit (but not a tank)
-Increase the celerity boost halfway back to 2.0 level (+30) to make the MC better as an all-around upgrade chamber. Maybe increase the stamina boost range.
-Possibly increase marine upgrade time. If they are successful at holding 5+ nodes they should afford a 2nd arms lab anyway.
-Possibly decrease the shotgun firing rate : either slightly , or all the way back to the 1.04 speed , but decrease the shotgun price to something like 8 res as well.
-Decrease mine cost , to make temporary defenses more useful (easier expansion/defense strats , as opposed to the rush strats we have now)
-Increase HA cost to 18 or something , decrease the JP cost : if anything , that should be the equipment for rushing strategies. That's the most counterable of the two.
-Fix the BB , at all costs... if aliens use this to destroy structures through walls , they're exploiters. Exploiters are banned from most servers anyway.
Not much really.
<!--QuoteBegin--"Testament+Oct 6 2003, 02:31 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> ("Testament @ Oct 6 2003, 02:31 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->After reading this thread, I've come to the conclusion that most of you are whining because Marines found their own equivalent of the early-game Alien node rush. I say stop whining, and work to learn a counter for it.
-Testament
Avid ALIEN player.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That isn't too helpful either though <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Now I know what you're going to say. "Just take them out". Well, there's a problem with that. Firstly, these groups of marines can take down a res node very, very fast. Knives or shotguns, those res nodes will drop. Now at the start of the game, that is crippling. Secondly, trying to take these marines out in transit is also very difficult, as groups of early marines tend to be quite tough.
Once they have assassinated the node, they plonk down one of their own, electrify it and move on. Bear in mind that whilst this is happening, the rest of the marine side is also off merrily capping other res nodes, and subsequently electrifying them. Suddenly the res count is something like 6 - 2 and the marine fast tech begins. All this in the first 5 minutes.
Countering this has been damn near impossible. Throw down some OCs? Don't make me laugh. Essentially you are just wasting res putting down OCs. You need 3+ in an area to defend it plus at least one defense chamber. Even then, concentrated fire will take them down very fast. Get skulks to the area? You cannot reach most of these nodes in time, and even if you do, there's a marine standing guard, and you must cross a large gap of open space to reach him, during which time he will shred you. Even if you get a group of skulks, chances are that the node will go down by the time you get there. You can kill the marines but they have just delt your economy a devestating blow. By using your starting res, you can secure around 3 nodes. That's not enough.
Getting an early Fade is basically the only way to take down those electrified nodes. But your res flow has already been crippled. You don't have the res to replace the towers that do go down, and you don't have the res for higher lifeforms. Heck, you can't even afford a 2nd hive! Most of the subsequent game is spent desperatly trying to get enough res for a new tower, that is quickly assassinated. Skulk-gorge combos can take out the electrified nodes, but a) marines show up quickly and put it back up and b) it takes quite a while to kill those nodes, during which time the commander will most likely recycle it.
Now finally we come to the hives themselves. If, by some chance, you get a hive up, it's usually far too late. And then, what happens? Shotguns. Yep, the Swiss Army Knife of guns. It really is sickening how fast lvl 2 and 3 shotguns tear through structures. You basically have time to hear "Our hive is under attack" before it dies. Stopping even rambos from doing this requires OCs in the hive locations, which you can't afford thanks to having no nodes. I've been getting flashbacks to 1.04 all week!
I've been pounding my mind trying to think up counters for these tactics but I've come up dry. Please, if people are experiancing similar situations, could you tell us how to defeat it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Taking out and electrifying 6 RTs costs 300 res, not counting shotguns and medpacks...
If the marines can afford this their base is not well protected...RTs are no good if you lack IPs...
What im saying is, that if the marines are diverting all their res towards getting more, they dont actually spend any, meaning they are inferior when it comes to actually fighting...
Getting a hive up quickly will also be nice, since bilebombs take out RTs real fast, fades and lerks are also capable of killing eRTs...
Remeber that an RT has to stand for quite some time to pay for itself, not counting the time and resources it takes to keep it alive...if you follow up behind the marines and kill their towers just as quick as they build them, you will either stop them from advancing or split them in smaller groups...
Unless your entier team suck big time as alien, then youre screwed from the start
Exactly, three skulks, a gorge, and if possible, an early fade, and gee gee.
If you follow up behind the marines and kill their towers just as quick as they build them, you will either stop them from advancing or split them in smaller groups...
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Here we sometimes run into a map problem. The marines are advancing -towards- the hives. As aliens respawn, they run towards marine start, trying to get behind marines, trying to get to less defended res, and run straight into marines that can aim in long, evil corridors. The forward res nodes are always the most heavily guarded, and regularly reinforced too.
If there are handy vents to flank marines from, this is helpful. If not, ouch. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
(Don't get me wrong, I love choke points. Nothing makes me happier than dropping 2-3 oc's before the revolving door in main aft in ns_bast before marines decide to relocate there. Imo, whoever controls Main Aft in bast, will win the game.
Slash and burn though tends to allow marines to take map choke points first. Then it's ouch again.) <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
It's called you get D chambers first, defend the crap you manage to snag at the start game, get the cash to go fade, and then wipe out marine nodes and their base with fades.
If you have enough fades, you don't even need two hives for adrenaline. At the very least, with a good couple of fades you can eliminate nearly all of their nodes, making the alien's chances of winning go up significantly, and nabbing a second hive.
By the second hive a win is very easy to achieve.
Also, part of the marine game of slash and burn is this:
Always protect your nodes over killing theirs(your nodes > killing their nodes)! Remember, building an alien node can only be done by gorges and takes a lot of res... marine nodes can be built by anyone and are cheap. Making sure your nodes don't go down will save you a lot of hassle in the long run.
Get early d chambers, regen with a skulk is supremly useful for killing marines who are collecting res on the other side of the map. You can set up ambush after ambush and never have to go back to your main hive to heal. If an ambush is set up correctly, you will never need more than 11 shots to kill one-two marines.
<!--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 the enemy concentrates his forces on the right, he will be weak on the left.
If he concentrates his forces on the left, he will be weak on the right.
<b>If the enemy spreads his forces out, he will be weak everywhere</b>
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If most of the marines are out capturing nodes then a concentrated attack on the marine spawn will kill it, or force the "node cappers" to return to base. If they try to relocate, they will be heavily weakened, as of the chaos that ensues:
"Wheres main base?"
"we relocated, it got destroyed because you didn't guard it!!"
"but you told us to get nodes?!?!?"
This again is mentioned in Art of War.
I think you'll get the picture. I will probably edit this post with the actual quotes from the book ^^
Getting a hive up quickly will also be nice, since bilebombs take out RTs real fast, fades and lerks are also capable of killing eRTs...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The main problem again isn't that the marines are grabbing so much res, it's that you, as aliens, are losing so much. What the slash and burn tactic does is starve the aliens for res. A hive? In the kind of games I'm talking about, with compitant marine and alien sides, that 2nd hive doesn't go up for a long time, due simply to resource starvation. An early Fade? Better be getting that res from RFK because you ain't getting it from nodes.
Secondly, the marines arn't just using their res to get more res. Once they have around 4 they will start teching. By this stage they have quite enough res to tech and expand, thus the marines you're fighting in the field quickly become much tougher opposition. It's easy to say "Oh that's 300 res" but with fast expansion the res is coming in mighty fast, plus RFK. The marine base is also a tough nut to crack thanks once again to electrification plus constantly respawning marines. I won't say that rushing the spawn isn't a bad tactic because it can work, and most games where a see a slash-and-burn loss is due to a spawn rush, but it's still a risky tactic. There must be some way of combatting this strat out in the field.
A lot of people seem to assume that I am playing with noobs. Now whilst I will admit that there are some noobs around on these servers, the majority of people are skilled, experianced players who work well as a team. They will race straight to those nodes that are under attack. They will get skulk-gorge combos going to take out electrified res. They will constantly temp for chambers, hives and nodes. They respond to threats coherantly.
And for the last time this is not a whinge. It is myself assessing a valid marine tactic that has achieved a lot of victories, and asking how to counter it.
EDIT: <!--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-->It's called you get D chambers first, defend the crap you manage to snag at the start game, get the cash to go fade, and then wipe out marine nodes and their base with fades.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It's a rare game where I see anything other than DCs first. Again, the main problem lies in defending your own nodes, not taking out theirs.
<!--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-->Always protect your nodes over killing theirs(your nodes > killing their nodes)! <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know this. It's protecting them that's the problem. How can you protect something that dies in around 5 seconds (lvl 2 shotguns will do exactly that).
Marine have so many ways to stop OCs and when they put on HA, they can't even be slowed down thanks to Half DMG. Not to mention a welder can keep them alive vs 8 OCs. (I have seen it)
Keep Half DMG vs Onii from turrets but give back full dmg vs HA from OCs.
OCs are a res waste now!
the initial TF + 50 res for every node you get. Assuming that you get 12 res a minute from a single res point, it will take 4 minutes and 10 seconds to repay that investment. Sure, the increased cash flow often negates this slight problem but for every node that falls under the slash and burn control, that's 50 res down the drain. 5 shotties, a phase gate plus a TF, a fully equipped HA/HMG/Welder marine, the Level 3 tech upgrades etc...
and you're expecting a bunch of single upgrade skulks to take it out?
The thing with a proper slash and burn is that you don't even have TIME to respond to the attack. By the time you heard the alert and lock on to the location, it would have been torn down by the shotties and knifes. It takes like 3 clips of LMG fire and a chamber or two of shottie power to break it down, and you know how fast that should be.
All you can do is guess where they are headed. If that squad is armed with one or two shotties (very likely), you're not going to have much hope in taking out the squad, assuming the shottie marines are a decent shot.
I haven't employed this strat or seen it being done on the servers I play on (the arse end of strats...) but when I get free time I'll give it a shot. All I can do is work with numbers ATM...
Assuming:
Two IPS: 30 res (can be one if needs be, can't remember exact price)
Armoury:15 res
TF: 15 res
2 shotties: 20 res
Total: 80 res approx
By the time this squad reaches a node, you can place one res point BUT you can't elect it yet....
The resource flow for an elect will be some time unless the RFKs stack up enough to start elec'ing nodes. This strat would most likely have a problem with the costs involved in starting it up. It maye be effective, but that's what you get for throwing that kind of cash at it
I know this. It's protecting them that's the problem. How can you protect something that dies in around 5 seconds (lvl 2 shotguns will do exactly that). <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I know this may sound weird(no sarcasm intended), but you have to ambush. Make them close the distance on you, not the other way around.
In way too many games I've played, I see skulks rushing marines head on. This is sucide. I've seen where this does work, against newb marines, but as people grow more and more competant this will not work. You have to pick your fights carefully when playing as a skulk.
Parasite them ASAP, then wait for the perfect opprotunity to strike, and when you hit, hit hard.
In my oppinion, regen or scilence is most suited for this, esp. regen as the marines will most likely hit you once or twice as you parasite them, but regen will allow you to keep at full health.
One good skulk can take on two good marines if the distance has been closed enough, believe it or not. The first strike is absolutly essential.