I've been comming this strategy for about a month now. I call it "the routine" because it's almost a garunteed win. These are the things I've noticed that makes it more difficult when I comm.
Move in packs as skulks, take down nodes fast. Have 1 person save for hive right away and drop it as soon as possible so gorges can start bile bombing. Have 1 person save for fade. This fade should not attack the marines but instead focus on taking out rts. Get movement first. Allows you to cover huge amounts of space and be whereever needed using clerity or make excellent ambushes using silence.
A risky one, but it can work. Sink your early res into OCs in a very strategic location (hera entrance comes to mind) and totally stop movement through area.
Do not hit the main base hard. Harrass it and try to cause res damage but do not destroy it, I'll just relocate to a better location because my marines are already scattered around the map. You'd do me a favor because now I have a hive.
Bascially all the aliens need is team work. Right now the aliens are still lazy from 2.0. Slowly they will realize they must work together.
Meahwhile I'll continue using "the routine" and easily winning on most pubs.
The marines on the server that I frequent the most use slash and Burn extensively. (Please note, on this server the marine team does not generally electrify nodes. If a node gets killed they quickly replace it while killing ours.)
Interestingly enough after a week or so of this strategy leading to nearly total marine domination, the aliens started making a comeback.
Tips: 1. Turn into a vicious hoard of aliens. Keep an eye on the resource node count. When you see new active nodes scout them, parasite them and call for team support. Chop enemy nodes as quickly as possible.
2. Do not have everyone go gorge and drop nodes all over the map. Drop 2 or three nodes near your hive or in locations that you can defend.
3. Drop offense chambers. Sure they are a bit on the weak side. Certainly concentrated marine fire can take the down. However, keep a few things in mind: A) The "Slash and burn" strategy relies heavily on Rambo marines all over the map. I've found that they don't generally travel in large groups. A few OC's are a great detterent to small groups of marines.
B) If the marines stop to attack your offence chambers, good! They aren’t attack your node. Also marines that are attacking OC's are very vulnerable to skulks as they are damaged and have expended ammunition.
C) Offense chambers slow down marines. If you can slow them down sufficiently you have time to grab more nodes and tech up.
D) Place your offense chambers well. My favorite placement, when possible looks like this:
4. Try to get an upgrade chamber early to counter marine upgrades. (Very possible if you aren’t dropping RT’s all over the map.
5. Use teamwork! If you need help taking out an area, call for it! Bring along a few adrenaline gorge buddies to heal during the assault. It works wonders.
6. Try to take out the marine advanced armory. This can buy you some serious time.
7. Use your resources for the team. Saving for Onos? Better check with your team first.
EDIT: One quick note on OC placement. You don't have to put them near your RT's. Place them at chokepoints when possible. Area denial.
<!--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-->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. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh taking the marines themselves out isn't usually the hard part. It's stopping them before you lose your precious nodes. When the marines are attacking a res they will usually have one knifer/shotgunner plus two guards. A lot of res are located in positions where ambushing is quite tough. With the advantage of range, the marines will often own any skulks that do show up. The rest of the time, they take the res down by all knifing/shotgunning together, which happens so fast that you can't get there in time.
To put this in perspective compare the 5-10 seconds needed to kill an alien rt with the 1 minute+ required to take out an electrified node, with gorges, skulks and Fades (we'll ignore the onos for now <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ). In early game this really makes a differance, because alien rts are so hard to replace. All the while the aliens are in a desperate race against the clock, because they know that upgrades and HA are going to show up eventually.
EDIT: Hmm, that isn't a bad idea at all. We've tried plonking down OCs but they really do drop fast. However it's easier to replace an OC than an RT. Res is still so tight at the start of the game though. A secondary note is that getting OCs to cover a res point is tough. Often the marines will just crouch behind the rt and knife it, safe from OC fire. Still, it's worth a look. The only problem I see with securing a few areas early on is that the rest of the map is going to see heavy marine expansion. 5 - 6 nodes is all the marines need to steamroll you. Taking down those elec nodes will be tough.
I have to say I've been on rine teams using this strategy, in an effort to learn to counter it.
What I have learned is -
Some comms just tell the team to "rambo" and don't use waypoints or squads. Some DO assign squads or waypoints.
Base defences are uniformly non existent. If marine spawn is destroyed, the comm will smoothly relocate if he's unable to take out the rushers.
Essentially its what aliens used to do in 2.0 basic. Rush rush rush, build while rushing, never give the rines an inch. And ends the same way all endgames ended - only this time its aliens lamed up in a hive.
Possible solutions - sheer base rapeage. Its the only time marines stop - to build the new base.
Fades would be essential - taking down rts and elec rts. If attacked, blinking to another rt. Gorge Skulk combos with adren healspray can do the same thing - and at second hive all RTs should be easy fodder.
For slowing the marine advance, Lerks CAN be useful and infact devastating if combined with OTHER aliens. Spores to soften, skulks for the kill.
A continuous blitz over RTs with one or two permagorges dropping chambers allows the rest of the team to fade/lerk and eventually onos if need be.
Because the rines have no "real" defence over their rts, retaking them should be easy, and at the very least destroying their rts is mandatory.
So, summary-
Early skulk capping of easy to hold res. Fades should be hoarding from game start.
Once the marines have revealed their strat, gorges should move nearer to hive and work on chambers and recapping RTs. Fades should work on nailing enemy rts and lone rambos of opportunity. Skulks should rush spawn and wipe it out, failing that wiping out rambos. Lerks can help spore if the marines have weapons - spore can bleed their health rather well.
RTs start electrifying, fades much more important in RT destruction until second hive allows gorges to be cocky. Skulks keep finding marine spawn, keep knocking it down. Lerks still in a support role, with second hive umbra allowing them to support the skulk rush against turrets or sporing rambo rines.
If a hive is attacked - Fades and lerks should really get back to hive and counter it. They're the fastest movers and thus can defend hive then go straight back to knocking down rts.
Shortly after that some onos should be about, and can then start smacking the marines silly or breaking sieges.
Pretty much fighting fire with fire, relies on average fades and skulks, and lerks could be used by any player. ATM it's a bit much to expect on a new-ish pub server but I would expect it to be understood on an avg-vet server.
Aliens dropping res all over the map at the start is <b>reckless expansion</b> anyone who plays RTS will tell you, the counter to reckless expansion is to be as aggressive as you can afford to be.
Maybe if the aliens expanded slightly cautiously instead of recklessly, this tactic wouldn't work so often.
The way I would do this is to take <b>key</b> nodes (i.e. those at/near choke points) with <b>two</b> aliens. One stays skulk while one gorges for the node (so any rushing marines will come across a skulk whilst being healed to death and the skulk regaining health). The gorge then goes skulk and <i>then</i> the skulk goes goes gorge (not before else you end up with two eggs and a node to be stumbled across). This second gorge then drops 2 OCs (you should have near enough the res for it whilst waiting for the other gorge to build).
From this point you can chose whether to stay and guard the area and the gorge heal if you are under pressure. Or both to go skulk and help somewhere else. Now you have 4 RTs (in a 6 man team) which are fairly well defended, giving you enough time to react to them being attacked.
Later on, you can gorge for some more if you feel the need, but 4 nodes is more than enough for a fairly quick fade/hive.
So, in summary, it's not so much about countering the marines countering you. It's making it more difficult for the marines to counter you in the first place.
How I see it is (and as prev posted) alien team work on pubs just isnt to a level that it needs to be and thats the problem.
As we know the marines can now tech/expand faster than they could before making it hard now for aliens. This in the past made a lot of ppl choose aliens fo an easy ride. Another reason ppl want to join aliens is because they dont want to follow orders.
Things have changed marine base building is less frequent they are mobile and capping res from the start.
The Aliens in turn now are finding it hard and cant afford to have a few time wasters on their team hording their res for later game (esp if they dont know how to use it). The aliens with their lack of commander now 'have' to communicate with each other more, make choices together and stick together. I will point out now before anyone shouts at me <b>I dont want and dont think the game needs an alien comm or single choice maker.</b> but more of the followingis needed : Skulks attack together, Gorges build together to secure areas, or Skulks cover Gorges while building and Gorges give support in combat when needed. A single early game alien is easy marine res (a dead alien). The problem : <b>Doing this with alien teams on a pub server is hard</b>
Meanwhile the commanders role during this has become a little simpler. In most cases, almost any group of marines (poor or great) that are following any commander who is using simple instructions such as 'go here, hold+build, go here, hold+build etc...' with a little med pack backup if needed will be hard to beat back with a team of aliens that dont work together from start. In most cases by the time the aliens work out that they 'need' to work together its too late (a problem for them is they lack a leader from the start and doing their own little thing within the first few mins is now very costly to the team as a whole).
The biggest factor in this is..... Single Commander (marines want to follow instructions) V's A mix of aliens (who have always done own things in their own way). Its the marine comm's single hand making all the moves, following his own plan and sticking to it from the start that wins it.
Again <b>I dont want and dont think the game needs an alien comm or single choice maker.</b> However in the opening few seconds of a game the aliens plan needs to be put in place and this is what the 'new breed' of alien players need to get used to.
As said above some ppl want to join aliens cos they dont want to follow orders, the public player/server view of this is what has to change.
- -
Personally... I feel the games are now being played very fast and are over quite quickly. I dont like that myself, as marine or alien it was the longer battles/games that brought me to NS (or kept me here). Regardless of the side I choose it always seems the marines are out and about in force to soon.
Well there's my thoughts feel free to have a moan if ya want. I will say that I always choose random servers and choose random teams and its almost always the same results latly :/
Thanks for your time..... <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
'omg the marines beat us by killing our res nodes early on, and using an early electrification rush .... i don't think its balanced so nerf the marines some more ... listen to me because i know WTH iam saying'
<!--QuoteBegin--noelephant+Oct 6 2003, 09:46 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (noelephant @ Oct 6 2003, 09:46 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 2. Do not have everyone go gorge and drop nodes all over the map. Drop 2 or three nodes near your hive or in locations that you can defend. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> GREAT point. The tendency for aliens to multi-gorge at start and cap as many nodes as possible is maybe not the best strategy. Better to cap maybe two and have the other gorges (who would normally cap more) set up DCs and OCs. Sure, OCs cannot withstand a group of rines for long, but they will slow them long enough for skulks to respond to an "under attack" alert.
<!--QuoteBegin--VeTeRaN+Oct 6 2003, 06:33 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (VeTeRaN @ Oct 6 2003, 06:33 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> 'omg the marines beat us by killing our res nodes early on, and using an early electrification rush .... i don't think its balanced so nerf the marines some more ... listen to me because i know WTH iam saying'
gtfo. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Will you, and people intending to respond like that, just shut up, and read the post. Notice the last part? <!--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-->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--> Urrgggrrr... reading post goooooood...
Marines never have been working together well enough to enjoy wins, that was, and always has been the main problem. All this crap about marines needing this or that and the aliens getting nerfed is just a setback to true balance. Not to diss NS, but the competitive community isn't even close to being on par with any of the other high ranking games. The few people with good aim and teamwork used to be called hackers and people used to think marines got "infinite res" or had "aim hacks". Now that death to 7 bullets is a reality and the people that play come into par with the competitive community, the whole balance of the game gets thrown out of whack. I feel sorry for Flayra because he has to alter the game and try and tailor it to the current community which is insanely hard for a game that has one team based on melee and the other based on range.
The balance will keep shifting until either complacency sets in or the non-hardcore people quit unless Flayra makes some god-like formula that magically makes everyone happy. If I'm a skulk, you bet I'm going to be **** off if I can't close range with a marine and therefore he takes no damage while killing me. If I'm a marine, your damned right I'll be ticked if I can't kill an OC/DC/RT before a skulk comes and eats me because I'm not looking or can't draw my weapon fast enough or a myriad of other things.
And as much as I'd like to see the game picked up by Valve/Sierra or whoever, it's not going to be while it's still in it's unbalanced stages like it is now. My suggestion is to play it at the moments it's balanced or when your team has the upper hand and leave it when it's turned upside down.
The game is fun, but will never be competitive, take it as you will.
Btw, I don't give a **** if you're an "AVID" alien player or not. Your a freaking human being, you have your opinion, you don't need to throw that in there to make your post sound better because it really just makes you look like a jackass.
-TM
P.S. The game is unbalanced towards the marines Flayra
Reckless expansion and cautious expansion run the same risks. Sometimes you just get unlucky and the marines rush the right hive first time, nailing your 3-4 rts. Wild expansion gets all the res towers but you wont hold them all - but on the plus side the rines wont nail all of them either.
I do agree, and have said it myself, that a lot of alien players learned NOTHING in 2.0, think that alien is all about solo play, and don't understand the team concept.
They will learn, or they will leave. Either way the game improves. As the ratio of intelligent players increases, other new alien players can be taught by example.
Just means a small teething period where rines dominate. And rightly so, since substandard players were raping them several weeks ago. Turnabout is fairplay.
One point to make: Since the game is so very dependant on what happens in the first 2 or 3 minutes, you need to have COMBAT UNITS running around during those crucial minutes.
Compare this: If a skulk starts the game by immediately gorging, dropping an RT, and going back to skulk, he is not able to start fighting for a minute and a half at least, perhaps 2 minutes.
If the Marines build together, they can get their IP and armory up and have shotguns inside of 30 seconds, and then start moving towards res nodes.
By the time the skulk who has "spent his money for the team" gets there, the marines have squads camping several res locations and slowly electrifying them. But...the "selfish" skulk who didn't spend his money at all can get to that res node before the marines can, and ambush them before they ever build the node.
So defeating Slash-and-burn is really dependant on having a least a handful of skulks hold on to their money and run forward to set up ambushes, denying the marines the necessary res for fast electrification and shotguns.
When the gorge players spend all their money, they can then come up as reinforcements to slow down the marine charge, while the players who were saving can now go drop things like chambers and hives and maybe even go fade.
This won't prevent the marines from ever cleaning out your ambushes and taking nodes (unless your Skulks are vastly more skillful then their marines), but it means that by the time they can do it, you have a working infrastructure of your own and a respectable res income. Starting the electrification rush at 3 minutes into the game isn't nearly as effective, because by the time you electrify your 4 nodes (example), the Aliens can have a hive halfway up and several Fades with level 3 defense to take out the newly eleced RTs.
The games I'm playing on "experienced servers" seem to be getting more evenly matched. It seems to be "okay" for marines to hold 3-5 nodes for a little bit before 2nd hive/fades, aliens just have to take them down ASAP. It's much more of a struggle for both sides.
It seems like games I'm playing typically go like this:<ul><li>aliens drop a lot of nodes (or a few nodes and protect them, though I don't see this done much) <li>marines spread out as one or two teams, dropping nodes and electrifying them <li>aliens communicate a TON to keep track of where marines are and counter-attack <li>marines get slowed down by aliens, but still manage to get 4-6 nodes electrified <li>aliens get a few fades or a second hive with bile bomb, and start taking down nodes <li>marines coordinate attacks on fades, keep gorges from getting to nodes, and slow aliens down <li>marines get HMG, scare most fades away and keep 2-4 nodes <li>aliens get an Onos or two, start clearing the really fortified nodes/hives <li>HMGs coordinate and use PGs to slow Onos down as much as possible <li>Marines get HA, battle it out with Onos. </ul> At each stage, a team is struggling to get to the next stage and struggling to slow the other team from getting to their next stage. If any team falls behind this progression, then it's over. (of course, the game can be played different ways, but this is a predominant pattern I see)
<!--QuoteBegin--Testament+Oct 6 2003, 08:31 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Testament @ Oct 6 2003, 08:31 AM)</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--> Right. And maybe you also remember that this alien domination in 2.0 was considered such a severe problem by the dev team that marines were made stronger and aliens weaker.
Now we have the opposite situation, but even more in favour of the marines than it ever was for the aliens. This is mainly because, early in the game, marines are superior combat and build units (how it evolves later depends on how each side plays).
Any marine can build. Only gorges can build on the alien side, and the early marine expansion typically means not only lots of dead alien RT, but lots of dead gorges too, which isn't cheap. If a gorge gets killed while building, you lose the gorge res and the chamber. If a building marine dies, all you lose is the building (plus res for kills in both cases).
Also, marines are the superior combat units, especially in groups. They overpower early aliens in ranged combat (skulk is wothless at range, gorges can spit but at a disadvantage against a marine with good aim). They are weaker at melee range (though a marine that's good at dodging can still kill a skulk). Because of this, once you have marines attacking a node, it is probably lost, and if you try to take it back you will probably get killed. This is because most resource towers have an open area or corridor near them that will allow a marine guard to kill you before you can bite any of the marines killing the node.
So, what can you do against it? Well, don't build resource nodes that may be hard to defend. Do build nodes at places where you think you have the advantage, or in hives (you need to keep the marines out of there anyway).
Other than that, save for higher lifeforms (lerks can be pretty good against early marines). This should be obvious, your buildings are a lot weaker than the marine buildings, and you can't do anything about that. But your offensive abilities, which are weaker too, can be upgraded. Don't save for onos though, if the marines are using their advantage well the game will be over before you get to 100. Get upgrades too, in a place you can defend or that's hard to reach. Don't go all gorge at once, aggressive marines require alien combat units to counter.
Then, do whatever you can to get the marines back on the defensive. As already mentioned, a resource tower is likely to be lost once the marines are next to it, so focus on getting them at chokepoints. Compensate for the combat weakness of the skulk by using its movement abilities. Offence chambers at chokepoints are good too. The marine, meeting an OC, has two options: try to destroy it, or try to run past quickly. In the first case, he will be shooting the OC, using ammo, while not checking his back. In the second case, he will try to go through as fast as possible while not checking his surroundings. So, while an OC in a corridor is weak and will be destroyed quickly, if it's placed well and has skulk guards they can be pretty effective. Yes, OC's need guards if they are to be effective. And skulks are more effective near an OC because they now have a distraction and a bit of ranged fire support.
Finally, try to prevent marines from building. While undefended OC's will go down when a team of LA/LMG marines attacks them, an undefended turret outpost is pretty hard to kill for skulks if there is no blind spot or the tf is electrified. Again, attacking the marines while they're building will probably not be effective if they have guards, for the same reason restowers with marines are hard to approach: the marines pick locations where ranged weapons have the advantage. So this means you have to contain the marines when possible, and not let them too far out of their base. Once the marines are all over the map it will be hard to coordinate the alien team.
Excellent points by several people so far. Good to see a post about actual strategies now and again, rather than the "OMG, MAREENZ/ALIENZ NEED NERFD!!!"
I tend to play with my buddies, and we dearly love our electrified res rush at the beginning. It takes a comm with a clear idea of what's going on, so you don't see it <i>everywhere</i>, but I'm seeing it more and more as the tactic becomes standard. In my opinion, there are two main variants to this strategy, and the key to a successful counter is knowing what you're up against.
1) "The Standard" -- Marines start out rushing in more than one direction. Within a minute they have 3 or 4 nodes, no problem. However, these aren't electrified. Electrification, with this strat, doesn't come until the marines have a tiny res base to draw on. All the early res goes to nodes, with the gamble that they'll be able to hold the skulks off for the two minutes they need with those nozzles.
Tactic: Skulk rush en masse. I don't care how good your marines are, vanilla marines will not take down an entire team of skulks. Identify those nodes, kill the marine train if possible, and eat the node while they respawn. Marines will not have more than one spawner at this point, and they won't be able to come back quickly enough to keep the advantage. Once the nozzles are down, DO NOT RUSH. If you lose the manpower advatage and wait in the hive spawn queue, those nozzles will be right back up again. Your job at that point is containment. An important note here: the battlegorge can be immeasurably valuable to an early skulk rush. In a rush of whirling skulks, almost nobody dies but everyone takes damage. One marine with an LMG at a distance can probably whittle your troop down to one or two; not the case if they're healed after the battle. Suggested chamber: movement (celerity skulk, adren/celerity gorge)
2) "Electricity is our friend" -- As the name might suggest, the marines now take time to electrify their nozzles right away. This leads to fewer nozzles being controlled, but the nozzles will be very difficult to take down in the early game.
Tactic (and an "iffy" one at that): Containment. Your skulks are simply not going to take down electrified nozzles with the marines guarding them. Not going to happen. What you <i>can</i> do is keep the number of nozzles to a bare minimum. A 3 v 3/4 res count is not going to be pretty, but you're going to have to live with it. Suck it up and move on. You'll need one man (hopefully good at his job) to save for fade. He'll be your node-killing machine for the time being. One person needs to save up for the hive, because you'll want bile bomb and metabolize as soon as humanly possible. The rest of the people should concentrate on either a) harassing the main base -- aim for killing the marines rather than the structures, as they'll all be gathered around an electrified tf and hard to kill b) gorging and setting up blockades at strategic points. You'd be amazed how well two ocs and one dc can keep marines out of hera entrance. One semi-decent skulk will be absolutely necessary at all choke points; the marines will always try to seige their way out. Whenever possible, try to drop some more nodes, then get back to whatever job you had in the first place. Suggested chamber: defense (the gorges will need chambers for the WoL, and the fade will need regen)
Both strategies are very powerful in their own way. The first allows for map control and easy relocation by the marines. However, if your marines are good, you can rush shotguns and jps incredibly fast with 3 res nodes under your belt from the start. Ideally, you'll know your opponents as aliens (comms tend to heavily favor one strategy over the other, they're likely to do the same strategy both times if they comm twice). Figure out what the marines are trying to accomplish, and work to stop them. Simplistic, I know, but the aliens should be able to play the waiting game once they have the marines contained. Granted, waiting too long is your death warrant, but you should have two hives and a third building before the marines start making you really work for your territory. Best of luck.
The only reason aliens used to win a bunch is because it took people quite a while to learn how to command in 2.0.
Flayra needs to decide whether to set NS up for CAL or Public play.
It's such a stupid idea to give marines a central command and force the aliens to play "loosely". We all know in CAL, everyone has their routine down pat and it does not matter. In public servers, aliens rarely work efficiently. Against a decent marine team, they will lose nearly every single time as is happening more frequently now.
I used to enjoy aliens, but now that the marines finally understand how to play, they simply dominate and it's not even fun attempting to play on a sad **** alien team with no central direction.
An electrified tf in base with one pack of mines and 1-2 marines is sufficient base defense. The other 7 marines just hop from res node to res node, waiting at each one until it is electrified until they get to a hive. Unless you play on a newbie server, the aliens are not going to take down a group of seven marines early on. Lock the hive down and sit back patrolling with their 4-5 RT's and upgrade upgrade upgrade. Let the aliens mill around doing jack ****.
because it's a catchy title? <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--Ryo-Ohki+Oct 6 2003, 10:51 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Ryo-Ohki @ Oct 6 2003, 10:51 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--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-->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. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh taking the marines themselves out isn't usually the hard part. It's stopping them before you lose your precious nodes. When the marines are attacking a res they will usually have one knifer/shotgunner plus two guards. A lot of res are located in positions where ambushing is quite tough. With the advantage of range, the marines will often own any skulks that do show up. The rest of the time, they take the res down by all knifing/shotgunning together, which happens so fast that you can't get there in time.
To put this in perspective compare the 5-10 seconds needed to kill an alien rt with the 1 minute+ required to take out an electrified node, with gorges, skulks and Fades (we'll ignore the onos for now <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ). In early game this really makes a differance, because alien rts are so hard to replace. All the while the aliens are in a desperate race against the clock, because they know that upgrades and HA are going to show up eventually.
EDIT: Hmm, that isn't a bad idea at all. We've tried plonking down OCs but they really do drop fast. However it's easier to replace an OC than an RT. Res is still so tight at the start of the game though. A secondary note is that getting OCs to cover a res point is tough. Often the marines will just crouch behind the rt and knife it, safe from OC fire. Still, it's worth a look. The only problem I see with securing a few areas early on is that the rest of the map is going to see heavy marine expansion. 5 - 6 nodes is all the marines need to steamroll you. Taking down those elec nodes will be tough. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> You have to scout. Extreamlly difficult to do, esp. without regen(another reason to go D). Scouting is vital. Communicate with your team always, even on pubs, and hope they also talk with you.
Now, I don't really think marines are overpowred, esp. from the experienice I had with clan play, but on pubs it may be unbalanced as <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=41573&hl=' target='_blank'>I metioned a week after NS 2.0 came out:</a>
<!--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--> <span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>The Arms Lab Unproportionality</span>(Is that even a word? Heh.)
This one is simple.
Lets say, for arguments sake, the most balanced size of an NS game is 6v6. This is clan standard.
Now the arms lab currently (as of 2.01b) is 20/30/40. This is all fine and dandy.
Lets say the game is now 12v12. Arms lab is still 20/30/40. Anyone here see the imbalance? It?s not hard to spot out.
On larger games(8v8 or more), the arms lab is more than worth it?s cost. You upgrade all of your marines for a fraction of the cost of what buying them all equipment would be, and it?s much more effective as there are more guns that get the upgrades. In smaller games(4v4 or less), the arms lab is crap compared to outfitting your 3-4 marines with some good equipment. Arms lab will still be important in small games, however, it comes second to equipment. And the opposite is true in large games.
The Arms Lab, believe it or not, is what causes a lot of unbalancing on large and small games right now, it?s either too good or too bad. On large games, you see stalemates quite often because aliens can?t hope to compete with marines that come out of spawn that shred them to pieces easily, even with an LMG, as there is such a high volume of it all. That is why large games almost never end early, as marines get their arms lab upgrades for too good of a cost, and they get them all very quickly, resulting in marines that generally cannot do well on attack, but pretty much own on defense, forcing aliens to get their third hive for some uber powerful abilities (or if the aliens chose sensory first so they can get Def or Move chambers).
So, the fix for the arms lab is to make it proportional to the amount of marines playing.
For 6 marines, the cost is 20/30/40.
For 12 marines, you have double the marines, and thus, the upgrades should cost 40/60/80.
For 3 marines, you have half the marines, and thus, the upgrades should cost 10/15/20.
However, just by looking at the numbers presented here I?m sure all the commanders must be dropping their Jaw?s onto the floor screaming: ?NO WAY! 40 res for the first set of upgrades? TOO MUCH!? Or? ?10 res on a 3 man server? It?s practically free ffs!? And, for the most part, they are right.
So, a small modification to the above said proposal: Only add/subtract 50% additional cost for every 100% increase/decrease in marines.
12 marines: 30/45/60 3 marines: 15/23/30
This is a formula that needs to be calculated, one that figures out the cost of the arms labs upgrades based on how many marines there are.
An easy way to calculate the costs of these upgrades if you are without a calculator is:
For every 3 marines lost/gained over 6, add/subtract 5 res for the first upgrade, add/subtract 7 res for the second upgrade, and add/subtract 10 res for the third upgrade.
Very simple, and this would balance out the arms lab completely, no matter the teamsize.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Larger marine teams have a bigger advantage due to solely in fact of the arms lab. Upgrades made at the arms lab should be dynamic with teamsize.
Don't say that it's the same for the aliens, as one hive still costs 40 res, or chambers are still 10 res a piece, for this is WRONG... the fact is, aliens get res slower, so while their initial upgrades come in fast, their res is always coming in a lot slower.
coilAmateur pirate. Professional monkey. All pance.Join Date: 2002-04-12Member: 424Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
The counter to an expansionist strategy is to hit their base. The counter to a turtle strategy is to expand.
Aliens that overextend at the beginning are going to lose their nodes, and likely before the investment has paid itself off. Better to only grab 2-3 nodes and set up defenses.
Keep in mind that if you try to take down the slash-and-burn team and *die*, you're only feeding the marines res - and probably much faster than they'd get them otherwise, considering they are spending a great deal of RPs to electrify all their nodes. Instead, take all your team and head for the MS. If the whole base is defended by a TFactory, all aim for the IPs and CC. If you have a gorge (and you perhaps should), he will be able to heal the skulks taking electrical damage. Lastly, if you don't attack the SnB party, they don't die - and don't respawn. It's a long walk back to base.
<!--QuoteBegin--coil+Oct 6 2003, 04:31 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (coil @ Oct 6 2003, 04:31 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Keep in mind that if you try to take down the slash-and-burn team and *die*, you're only feeding the marines res - and probably much faster than they'd get them otherwise, <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> But if you get a bit off you pretty much paid for yourself.
The comm needs to spend res on medpack + slowed marines + less ammo.
Major problem is the base is pretty much IMMUNE to attack die to elec. TF ussually.
Maybe we could think about not letting TF's hit targets that are blocked from LOS by buildings.
This would allow skulks to chew down the armory from the opposite side of the TF.
Its highly annoying to sit in thier base and not be able to do anything but spawn camp.
---OR
I've heard is suggested that the elec hit you when you bite and not when you are nearby. Possiably we could do this and increase the elec damage/make the elec damage grow a little in a short period of time. 20-25-30-35, until you took 5 seconds off from attacking. So that elec would slow down oni/fade a little bit but not much.
no doubt the marines can't get to your base as fast as you can get to theirs but what if the manage to reach your hive while you're out mopping up the last of their base? Marines don't have a ping of doom to worry about =/
<!--QuoteBegin--Geminosity+Oct 6 2003, 05:44 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Geminosity @ Oct 6 2003, 05:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> no doubt the marines can't get to your base as fast as you can get to theirs but what if the manage to reach your hive while you're out mopping up the last of their base? Marines don't have a ping of doom to worry about =/ <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> The end game ping REALLY needs to be removed.
Aliens that hide and are lame really aren't a problem in my oppinion, it's nothing MT and Jetpack's can't handle.
Or, I should say, admin_slay.
However, I really don't like the ping of doom at all, say if two skulks eat the entire base including the commchair and the only thing left are 4 marines who shotgun down a hive, then 8 skulks end up loosing due to ping.
<!--QuoteBegin--Geronimo+Oct 6 2003, 08:53 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Geronimo @ Oct 6 2003, 08:53 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Taking out and electrifying 6 RTs costs 300 res, not counting shotguns and medpacks... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Let's do a minute by minute on the first few minutes, 10 player team.
Start: Marines start with 100 res. One comm, one stays to build the basic stuff, the rest spreads out in two or three groups. Let's say three for this example. Two IP's and TF is dropped, nothing else right now. -45 res.
After a minute, you have gained 12 res from your res tower and have about 67 res That's more than enough for the first three nodes, each at 15 res. -45res. Let's not electrify anything right now, but rather move on and start killing alien res nodes, drawing aliens towards their current nodes and kill them there instead.
A minute later, you've gained 48 res, total 69 res. Aliens are spreading out and trying to defend their res nodes, but since res nodes die so fast now they don't have time to be sneaky and just have to charge head on for any chance to save the res node, of course putting the skulks at a severe disatvantage. Electrify two. -60
A minute later, you've gained 48 res, total 57 res. After the offense, marines managed to hold two of the three alien nodes they attacked and drops the res nodes. -30 res. (5 seconds into this minute the last unguarded res node is electrified) -30 res.
A minute later, you've gained 72 res, total 69. Electrify the two nodes you just got. -60
A minute later, you've gained 72 res, total 81.
You could tone it down, but marines will have most of the res nodes within minutes if they know how to aim.
Aliens on the other hand haven't had it quite as good. They did grab five nodes, but three of them were killed within minutes of them going up.
half of the aliens grabbed a res node within the first minute, so they've gained 72 res into the communal pool, split out over ten people making it a whoooping 7,2 res per person before the marines slaughtered three of theirs. The nodes closer to marine start are allready electrified since elec was sped up and the other two are protected until finished electrified.
This is not a very good start for the aliens, quite obviously.
<!--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 marines can afford this their base is not well protected...RTs are no good if you lack IPs...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Against a single stock skulk, a single marine can defend the base easily.
<!--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-->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...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Once aliens are forced to respond to the destruction of the brittle towers known as res nodes, marines get the advantage simply because aliens have to choose between charging head-on or loosing that res.
<!--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-->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...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Marine res nodes pay for them a lot faster than an alien node does, especially after the price was lowered.
A marine res node produce 12 res per minute. In 1 minute and 15 seconds the res node has paid itself back to the comm. In 2 minutes thirty seconds the electrified node has paid itself back.
For a single alien on a 10 man team, it will take 12 minutes 30 seconds before that tower alone has paid its value back to you.
Personally, I'm not really sure how you can counter it.
You could guard the nodes you have, but if you're not performing res denial, marines will outtech you on four nodes in 2.0 and certainly in 2.01.
Final thoughts A stock unit with basic upgrades should take the same time to kill a res node, so either make marine res nodes die as fast as aliens res nodes do to a level 1 shotgun to a skulk with celerity, or up the alien res health to last as long as a marine res node to a skulk with celerity.
The quick electricity means that marines doesn't have to think about their nodes at all and can easily keep the pressure on the aliens whose res towers fall a lot faster. It should be the other way, since the alien economy is so inefficient and so dependant on having a lot of res nodes.
when the alien res nodes were cheaper and had less hitpoints... i didnt mind.
when Marine res node cost dropped to the alien cost... i was very ****. Because their res goes into a common pool... marines can keep building Resource towers faster then aliens can (even with perma gorge)
My thoughts...
A.) Drop Marine RT HP down to 1500 (around that of alien RT) B.) Raise Alien RT up to around marine RT stregnth C.) eat cheese and stop playing NS
I agree with typhon, the aliens have become lazy and sloppy in their teamwork from 2.0. In 2.0 its easy enough for an alien to go completely rouge and rule the map before the rines even have a semi functional base and 2-4 rts if their lucky, now that versions are coming out where the teams and stats are a little more balanced, and the rines are using good teamwork strats too boot; it has just been a rude awakening from the ease of winning that the aliens are used to. Soon enough the aliens will come up with a counter, until then experiment with strats until you find one that works. If indeed it actually is unbalanced, which its not =), then wait for a new patch and hope that the rines get the heavy end of the stick again.
Ive said it before and Ill say it again, gorge gangs are the way to dominate marines in large games. Especially so in the rambo res node strategy you speak of. Simply put, the gorges cannot be stopped. The sheer quantities of heal spraying going on will overcome any marine group that is less than 5 (not to mention if you have a good skulk or two). If the marines want to expand all across the map at once, thats great. That means you'll be constantly rolling over groups of 2-3 marines. The marines are forced to group up in order to stop the rampaging gorge gangriums, this translates into no map control for the marines . The gorges cannot be stopped!!!!11111!!!!!!!!!!! <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::gorge::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pudgy.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
Move in packs as skulks, take down nodes fast.
Have 1 person save for hive right away and drop it as soon as possible so gorges can start bile bombing.
Have 1 person save for fade. This fade should not attack the marines but instead focus on taking out rts.
Get movement first. Allows you to cover huge amounts of space and be whereever needed using clerity or make excellent ambushes using silence.
A risky one, but it can work. Sink your early res into OCs in a very strategic location (hera entrance comes to mind) and totally stop movement through area.
Do not hit the main base hard. Harrass it and try to cause res damage but do not destroy it, I'll just relocate to a better location because my marines are already scattered around the map. You'd do me a favor because now I have a hive.
Bascially all the aliens need is team work.
Right now the aliens are still lazy from 2.0. Slowly they will realize they must work together.
Meahwhile I'll continue using "the routine" and easily winning on most pubs.
Interestingly enough after a week or so of this strategy leading to nearly total marine domination, the aliens started making a comeback.
Tips:
1. Turn into a vicious hoard of aliens. Keep an eye on the resource node count. When you see new active nodes scout them, parasite them and call for team support. Chop enemy nodes as quickly as possible.
2. Do not have everyone go gorge and drop nodes all over the map. Drop 2 or three nodes near your hive or in locations that you can defend.
3. Drop offense chambers. Sure they are a bit on the weak side. Certainly concentrated marine fire can take the down. However, keep a few things in mind:
A) The "Slash and burn" strategy relies heavily on Rambo marines all over the map. I've found that they don't generally travel in large groups. A few OC's are a great detterent to small groups of marines.
B) If the marines stop to attack your offence chambers, good! They aren’t attack your node. Also marines that are attacking OC's are very vulnerable to skulks as they are damaged and have expended ammunition.
C) Offense chambers slow down marines. If you can slow them down sufficiently you have time to grab more nodes and tech up.
D) Place your offense chambers well. My favorite placement, when possible looks like this:
<img src='http://www.mastersinformation.com/ocplacment.jpg' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
4. Try to get an upgrade chamber early to counter marine upgrades. (Very possible if you aren’t dropping RT’s all over the map.
5. Use teamwork! If you need help taking out an area, call for it! Bring along a few adrenaline gorge buddies to heal during the assault. It works wonders.
6. Try to take out the marine advanced armory. This can buy you some serious time.
7. Use your resources for the team. Saving for Onos? Better check with your team first.
EDIT: One quick note on OC placement. You don't have to put them near your RT's. Place them at chokepoints when possible. Area denial.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh taking the marines themselves out isn't usually the hard part. It's stopping them before you lose your precious nodes. When the marines are attacking a res they will usually have one knifer/shotgunner plus two guards. A lot of res are located in positions where ambushing is quite tough. With the advantage of range, the marines will often own any skulks that do show up. The rest of the time, they take the res down by all knifing/shotgunning together, which happens so fast that you can't get there in time.
To put this in perspective compare the 5-10 seconds needed to kill an alien rt with the 1 minute+ required to take out an electrified node, with gorges, skulks and Fades (we'll ignore the onos for now <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ). In early game this really makes a differance, because alien rts are so hard to replace. All the while the aliens are in a desperate race against the clock, because they know that upgrades and HA are going to show up eventually.
EDIT: Hmm, that isn't a bad idea at all. We've tried plonking down OCs but they really do drop fast. However it's easier to replace an OC than an RT. Res is still so tight at the start of the game though. A secondary note is that getting OCs to cover a res point is tough. Often the marines will just crouch behind the rt and knife it, safe from OC fire. Still, it's worth a look. The only problem I see with securing a few areas early on is that the rest of the map is going to see heavy marine expansion. 5 - 6 nodes is all the marines need to steamroll you. Taking down those elec nodes will be tough.
What I have learned is -
Some comms just tell the team to "rambo" and don't use waypoints or squads.
Some DO assign squads or waypoints.
Base defences are uniformly non existent. If marine spawn is destroyed, the comm will smoothly relocate if he's unable to take out the rushers.
Essentially its what aliens used to do in 2.0 basic. Rush rush rush, build while rushing, never give the rines an inch. And ends the same way all endgames ended - only this time its aliens lamed up in a hive.
Possible solutions - sheer base rapeage. Its the only time marines stop - to build the new base.
Fades would be essential - taking down rts and elec rts. If attacked, blinking to another rt. Gorge Skulk combos with adren healspray can do the same thing - and at second hive all RTs should be easy fodder.
For slowing the marine advance, Lerks CAN be useful and infact devastating if combined with OTHER aliens. Spores to soften, skulks for the kill.
A continuous blitz over RTs with one or two permagorges dropping chambers allows the rest of the team to fade/lerk and eventually onos if need be.
Because the rines have no "real" defence over their rts, retaking them should be easy, and at the very least destroying their rts is mandatory.
So, summary-
Early skulk capping of easy to hold res. Fades should be hoarding from game start.
Once the marines have revealed their strat, gorges should move nearer to hive and work on chambers and recapping RTs. Fades should work on nailing enemy rts and lone rambos of opportunity. Skulks should rush spawn and wipe it out, failing that wiping out rambos. Lerks can help spore if the marines have weapons - spore can bleed their health rather well.
RTs start electrifying, fades much more important in RT destruction until second hive allows gorges to be cocky. Skulks keep finding marine spawn, keep knocking it down. Lerks still in a support role, with second hive umbra allowing them to support the skulk rush against turrets or sporing rambo rines.
If a hive is attacked - Fades and lerks should really get back to hive and counter it. They're the fastest movers and thus can defend hive then go straight back to knocking down rts.
Shortly after that some onos should be about, and can then start smacking the marines silly or breaking sieges.
Pretty much fighting fire with fire, relies on average fades and skulks, and lerks could be used by any player. ATM it's a bit much to expect on a new-ish pub server but I would expect it to be understood on an avg-vet server.
Aliens dropping res all over the map at the start is <b>reckless expansion</b> anyone who plays RTS will tell you, the counter to reckless expansion is to be as aggressive as you can afford to be.
Maybe if the aliens expanded slightly cautiously instead of recklessly, this tactic wouldn't work so often.
The way I would do this is to take <b>key</b> nodes (i.e. those at/near choke points) with <b>two</b> aliens. One stays skulk while one gorges for the node (so any rushing marines will come across a skulk whilst being healed to death and the skulk regaining health). The gorge then goes skulk and <i>then</i> the skulk goes goes gorge (not before else you end up with two eggs and a node to be stumbled across). This second gorge then drops 2 OCs (you should have near enough the res for it whilst waiting for the other gorge to build).
From this point you can chose whether to stay and guard the area and the gorge heal if you are under pressure. Or both to go skulk and help somewhere else. Now you have 4 RTs (in a 6 man team) which are fairly well defended, giving you enough time to react to them being attacked.
Later on, you can gorge for some more if you feel the need, but 4 nodes is more than enough for a fairly quick fade/hive.
So, in summary, it's not so much about countering the marines countering you. It's making it more difficult for the marines to counter you in the first place.
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'><b>Edit: typos</b></span>
No seriously,everytime i try to kill rts in early game,they die to skulks.Everytime.
How I see it is (and as prev posted) alien team work on pubs just isnt to a level that it needs to be and thats the problem.
As we know the marines can now tech/expand faster than they could before making it hard now for aliens.
This in the past made a lot of ppl choose aliens fo an easy ride. Another reason ppl want to join aliens is because they dont want to follow orders.
Things have changed marine base building is less frequent they are mobile and capping res from the start.
The Aliens in turn now are finding it hard and cant afford to have a few time wasters on their team hording their res for later game (esp if they dont know how to use it).
The aliens with their lack of commander now 'have' to communicate with each other more, make choices together and stick together.
I will point out now before anyone shouts at me <b>I dont want and dont think the game needs an alien comm or single choice maker.</b>
but more of the followingis needed : Skulks attack together, Gorges build together to secure areas, or Skulks cover Gorges while building and Gorges give support in combat when needed. A single early game alien is easy marine res (a dead alien).
The problem : <b>Doing this with alien teams on a pub server is hard</b>
Meanwhile the commanders role during this has become a little simpler.
In most cases, almost any group of marines (poor or great) that are following any commander who is using simple instructions such as 'go here, hold+build, go here, hold+build etc...' with a little med pack backup if needed will be hard to beat back with a team of aliens that dont work together from start.
In most cases by the time the aliens work out that they 'need' to work together its too late (a problem for them is they lack a leader from the start and doing their own little thing within the first few mins is now very costly to the team as a whole).
The biggest factor in this is.....
Single Commander (marines want to follow instructions) V's A mix of aliens (who have always done own things in their own way).
Its the marine comm's single hand making all the moves, following his own plan and sticking to it from the start that wins it.
Again <b>I dont want and dont think the game needs an alien comm or single choice maker.</b> However in the opening few seconds of a game the aliens plan needs to be put in place and this is what the 'new breed' of alien players need to get used to.
As said above some ppl want to join aliens cos they dont want to follow orders, the public player/server view of this is what has to change.
- -
Personally...
I feel the games are now being played very fast and are over quite quickly. I dont like that myself, as marine or alien it was the longer battles/games that brought me to NS (or kept me here).
Regardless of the side I choose it always seems the marines are out and about in force to soon.
Well there's my thoughts feel free to have a moan if ya want.
I will say that I always choose random servers and choose random teams and its almost always the same results latly :/
Thanks for your time..... <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
gtfo.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
GREAT point. The tendency for aliens to multi-gorge at start and cap as many nodes as possible is maybe not the best strategy. Better to cap maybe two and have the other gorges (who would normally cap more) set up DCs and OCs. Sure, OCs cannot withstand a group of rines for long, but they will slow them long enough for skulks to respond to an "under attack" alert.
Nice points, ele.
gtfo. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Will you, and people intending to respond like that, just shut up, and read the post. Notice the last part?
<!--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-->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-->
Urrgggrrr... reading post goooooood...
Marines never have been working together well enough to enjoy wins, that was, and always has been the main problem. All this crap about marines needing this or that and the aliens getting nerfed is just a setback to true balance. Not to diss NS, but the competitive community isn't even close to being on par with any of the other high ranking games. The few people with good aim and teamwork used to be called hackers and people used to think marines got "infinite res" or had "aim hacks". Now that death to 7 bullets is a reality and the people that play come into par with the competitive community, the whole balance of the game gets thrown out of whack. I feel sorry for Flayra because he has to alter the game and try and tailor it to the current community which is insanely hard for a game that has one team based on melee and the other based on range.
The balance will keep shifting until either complacency sets in or the non-hardcore people quit unless Flayra makes some god-like formula that magically makes everyone happy. If I'm a skulk, you bet I'm going to be **** off if I can't close range with a marine and therefore he takes no damage while killing me. If I'm a marine, your damned right I'll be ticked if I can't kill an OC/DC/RT before a skulk comes and eats me because I'm not looking or can't draw my weapon fast enough or a myriad of other things.
And as much as I'd like to see the game picked up by Valve/Sierra or whoever, it's not going to be while it's still in it's unbalanced stages like it is now. My suggestion is to play it at the moments it's balanced or when your team has the upper hand and leave it when it's turned upside down.
The game is fun, but will never be competitive, take it as you will.
Btw, I don't give a **** if you're an "AVID" alien player or not. Your a freaking human being, you have your opinion, you don't need to throw that in there to make your post sound better because it really just makes you look like a jackass.
-TM
P.S. The game is unbalanced towards the marines Flayra
I do agree, and have said it myself, that a lot of alien players learned NOTHING in 2.0, think that alien is all about solo play, and don't understand the team concept.
They will learn, or they will leave. Either way the game improves. As the ratio of intelligent players increases, other new alien players can be taught by example.
Just means a small teething period where rines dominate. And rightly so, since substandard players were raping them several weeks ago. Turnabout is fairplay.
Compare this: If a skulk starts the game by immediately gorging, dropping an RT, and going back to skulk, he is not able to start fighting for a minute and a half at least, perhaps 2 minutes.
If the Marines build together, they can get their IP and armory up and have shotguns inside of 30 seconds, and then start moving towards res nodes.
By the time the skulk who has "spent his money for the team" gets there, the marines have squads camping several res locations and slowly electrifying them. But...the "selfish" skulk who didn't spend his money at all can get to that res node before the marines can, and ambush them before they ever build the node.
So defeating Slash-and-burn is really dependant on having a least a handful of skulks hold on to their money and run forward to set up ambushes, denying the marines the necessary res for fast electrification and shotguns.
When the gorge players spend all their money, they can then come up as reinforcements to slow down the marine charge, while the players who were saving can now go drop things like chambers and hives and maybe even go fade.
This won't prevent the marines from ever cleaning out your ambushes and taking nodes (unless your Skulks are vastly more skillful then their marines), but it means that by the time they can do it, you have a working infrastructure of your own and a respectable res income. Starting the electrification rush at 3 minutes into the game isn't nearly as effective, because by the time you electrify your 4 nodes (example), the Aliens can have a hive halfway up and several Fades with level 3 defense to take out the newly eleced RTs.
It seems like games I'm playing typically go like this:<ul><li>aliens drop a lot of nodes (or a few nodes and protect them, though I don't see this done much)
<li>marines spread out as one or two teams, dropping nodes and electrifying them
<li>aliens communicate a TON to keep track of where marines are and counter-attack
<li>marines get slowed down by aliens, but still manage to get 4-6 nodes electrified
<li>aliens get a few fades or a second hive with bile bomb, and start taking down nodes
<li>marines coordinate attacks on fades, keep gorges from getting to nodes, and slow aliens down
<li>marines get HMG, scare most fades away and keep 2-4 nodes
<li>aliens get an Onos or two, start clearing the really fortified nodes/hives
<li>HMGs coordinate and use PGs to slow Onos down as much as possible
<li>Marines get HA, battle it out with Onos.
</ul>
At each stage, a team is struggling to get to the next stage and struggling to slow the other team from getting to their next stage. If any team falls behind this progression, then it's over. (of course, the game can be played different ways, but this is a predominant pattern I see)
-Testament
Avid ALIEN player. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Right. And maybe you also remember that this alien domination in 2.0 was considered such a severe problem by the dev team that marines were made stronger and aliens weaker.
Now we have the opposite situation, but even more in favour of the marines than it ever was for the aliens. This is mainly because, early in the game, marines are superior combat and build units (how it evolves later depends on how each side plays).
Any marine can build. Only gorges can build on the alien side, and the early marine expansion typically means not only lots of dead alien RT, but lots of dead gorges too, which isn't cheap. If a gorge gets killed while building, you lose the gorge res and the chamber. If a building marine dies, all you lose is the building (plus res for kills in both cases).
Also, marines are the superior combat units, especially in groups. They overpower early aliens in ranged combat (skulk is wothless at range, gorges can spit but at a disadvantage against a marine with good aim). They are weaker at melee range (though a marine that's good at dodging can still kill a skulk). Because of this, once you have marines attacking a node, it is probably lost, and if you try to take it back you will probably get killed. This is because most resource towers have an open area or corridor near them that will allow a marine guard to kill you before you can bite any of the marines killing the node.
So, what can you do against it? Well, don't build resource nodes that may be hard to defend. Do build nodes at places where you think you have the advantage, or in hives (you need to keep the marines out of there anyway).
Other than that, save for higher lifeforms (lerks can be pretty good against early marines). This should be obvious, your buildings are a lot weaker than the marine buildings, and you can't do anything about that. But your offensive abilities, which are weaker too, can be upgraded. Don't save for onos though, if the marines are using their advantage well the game will be over before you get to 100. Get upgrades too, in a place you can defend or that's hard to reach. Don't go all gorge at once, aggressive marines require alien combat units to counter.
Then, do whatever you can to get the marines back on the defensive. As already mentioned, a resource tower is likely to be lost once the marines are next to it, so focus on getting them at chokepoints. Compensate for the combat weakness of the skulk by using its movement abilities. Offence chambers at chokepoints are good too. The marine, meeting an OC, has two options: try to destroy it, or try to run past quickly. In the first case, he will be shooting the OC, using ammo, while not checking his back. In the second case, he will try to go through as fast as possible while not checking his surroundings. So, while an OC in a corridor is weak and will be destroyed quickly, if it's placed well and has skulk guards they can be pretty effective. Yes, OC's need guards if they are to be effective. And skulks are more effective near an OC because they now have a distraction and a bit of ranged fire support.
Finally, try to prevent marines from building. While undefended OC's will go down when a team of LA/LMG marines attacks them, an undefended turret outpost is pretty hard to kill for skulks if there is no blind spot or the tf is electrified. Again, attacking the marines while they're building will probably not be effective if they have guards, for the same reason restowers with marines are hard to approach: the marines pick locations where ranged weapons have the advantage. So this means you have to contain the marines when possible, and not let them too far out of their base. Once the marines are all over the map it will be hard to coordinate the alien team.
I tend to play with my buddies, and we dearly love our electrified res rush at the beginning. It takes a comm with a clear idea of what's going on, so you don't see it <i>everywhere</i>, but I'm seeing it more and more as the tactic becomes standard. In my opinion, there are two main variants to this strategy, and the key to a successful counter is knowing what you're up against.
1) "The Standard" -- Marines start out rushing in more than one direction. Within a minute they have 3 or 4 nodes, no problem. However, these aren't electrified. Electrification, with this strat, doesn't come until the marines have a tiny res base to draw on. All the early res goes to nodes, with the gamble that they'll be able to hold the skulks off for the two minutes they need with those nozzles.
Tactic: Skulk rush en masse. I don't care how good your marines are, vanilla marines will not take down an entire team of skulks. Identify those nodes, kill the marine train if possible, and eat the node while they respawn. Marines will not have more than one spawner at this point, and they won't be able to come back quickly enough to keep the advantage. Once the nozzles are down, DO NOT RUSH. If you lose the manpower advatage and wait in the hive spawn queue, those nozzles will be right back up again. Your job at that point is containment. An important note here: the battlegorge can be immeasurably valuable to an early skulk rush. In a rush of whirling skulks, almost nobody dies but everyone takes damage. One marine with an LMG at a distance can probably whittle your troop down to one or two; not the case if they're healed after the battle.
Suggested chamber: movement (celerity skulk, adren/celerity gorge)
2) "Electricity is our friend" -- As the name might suggest, the marines now take time to electrify their nozzles right away. This leads to fewer nozzles being controlled, but the nozzles will be very difficult to take down in the early game.
Tactic (and an "iffy" one at that): Containment. Your skulks are simply not going to take down electrified nozzles with the marines guarding them. Not going to happen. What you <i>can</i> do is keep the number of nozzles to a bare minimum. A 3 v 3/4 res count is not going to be pretty, but you're going to have to live with it. Suck it up and move on. You'll need one man (hopefully good at his job) to save for fade. He'll be your node-killing machine for the time being. One person needs to save up for the hive, because you'll want bile bomb and metabolize as soon as humanly possible. The rest of the people should concentrate on either a) harassing the main base -- aim for killing the marines rather than the structures, as they'll all be gathered around an electrified tf and hard to kill b) gorging and setting up blockades at strategic points. You'd be amazed how well two ocs and one dc can keep marines out of hera entrance. One semi-decent skulk will be absolutely necessary at all choke points; the marines will always try to seige their way out. Whenever possible, try to drop some more nodes, then get back to whatever job you had in the first place.
Suggested chamber: defense (the gorges will need chambers for the WoL, and the fade will need regen)
Both strategies are very powerful in their own way. The first allows for map control and easy relocation by the marines. However, if your marines are good, you can rush shotguns and jps incredibly fast with 3 res nodes under your belt from the start. Ideally, you'll know your opponents as aliens (comms tend to heavily favor one strategy over the other, they're likely to do the same strategy both times if they comm twice). Figure out what the marines are trying to accomplish, and work to stop them. Simplistic, I know, but the aliens should be able to play the waiting game once they have the marines contained. Granted, waiting too long is your death warrant, but you should have two hives and a third building before the marines start making you really work for your territory. Best of luck.
As usual, just my $0.02.
The only reason aliens used to win a bunch is because it took people quite a while to learn how to command in 2.0.
Flayra needs to decide whether to set NS up for CAL or Public play.
It's such a stupid idea to give marines a central command and force the aliens to play "loosely". We all know in CAL, everyone has their routine down pat and it does not matter. In public servers, aliens rarely work efficiently. Against a decent marine team, they will lose nearly every single time as is happening more frequently now.
I used to enjoy aliens, but now that the marines finally understand how to play, they simply dominate and it's not even fun attempting to play on a sad **** alien team with no central direction.
An electrified tf in base with one pack of mines and 1-2 marines is sufficient base defense. The other 7 marines just hop from res node to res node, waiting at each one until it is electrified until they get to a hive. Unless you play on a newbie server, the aliens are not going to take down a group of seven marines early on. Lock the hive down and sit back patrolling with their 4-5 RT's and upgrade upgrade upgrade. Let the aliens mill around doing jack ****.
Game over.
i say now its time for the alien side to start finding a counter
has anybody forgetten that this is why this game is called natural selection?
plz support it by posting here:
<a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=21&t=47463' target='_blank'>http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/in...ST&f=21&t=47463</a>
As stated earlier... aliens are individualised, however they must discuss as a team who is going to do what, so the team may adapt to whats happening.
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Oh taking the marines themselves out isn't usually the hard part. It's stopping them before you lose your precious nodes. When the marines are attacking a res they will usually have one knifer/shotgunner plus two guards. A lot of res are located in positions where ambushing is quite tough. With the advantage of range, the marines will often own any skulks that do show up. The rest of the time, they take the res down by all knifing/shotgunning together, which happens so fast that you can't get there in time.
To put this in perspective compare the 5-10 seconds needed to kill an alien rt with the 1 minute+ required to take out an electrified node, with gorges, skulks and Fades (we'll ignore the onos for now <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> ). In early game this really makes a differance, because alien rts are so hard to replace. All the while the aliens are in a desperate race against the clock, because they know that upgrades and HA are going to show up eventually.
EDIT: Hmm, that isn't a bad idea at all. We've tried plonking down OCs but they really do drop fast. However it's easier to replace an OC than an RT. Res is still so tight at the start of the game though. A secondary note is that getting OCs to cover a res point is tough. Often the marines will just crouch behind the rt and knife it, safe from OC fire. Still, it's worth a look. The only problem I see with securing a few areas early on is that the rest of the map is going to see heavy marine expansion. 5 - 6 nodes is all the marines need to steamroll you. Taking down those elec nodes will be tough. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You have to scout. Extreamlly difficult to do, esp. without regen(another reason to go D). Scouting is vital. Communicate with your team always, even on pubs, and hope they also talk with you.
Now, I don't really think marines are overpowred, esp. from the experienice I had with clan play, but on pubs it may be unbalanced as <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=1&t=41573&hl=' target='_blank'>I metioned a week after NS 2.0 came out:</a>
<!--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-->
<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>The Arms Lab Unproportionality</span>(Is that even a word? Heh.)
This one is simple.
Lets say, for arguments sake, the most balanced size of an NS game is 6v6. This is clan standard.
Now the arms lab currently (as of 2.01b) is 20/30/40. This is all fine and dandy.
Lets say the game is now 12v12. Arms lab is still 20/30/40. Anyone here see the imbalance? It?s not hard to spot out.
On larger games(8v8 or more), the arms lab is more than worth it?s cost. You upgrade all of your marines for a fraction of the cost of what buying them all equipment would be, and it?s much more effective as there are more guns that get the upgrades. In smaller games(4v4 or less), the arms lab is crap compared to outfitting your 3-4 marines with some good equipment. Arms lab will still be important in small games, however, it comes second to equipment. And the opposite is true in large games.
The Arms Lab, believe it or not, is what causes a lot of unbalancing on large and small games right now, it?s either too good or too bad. On large games, you see stalemates quite often because aliens can?t hope to compete with marines that come out of spawn that shred them to pieces easily, even with an LMG, as there is such a high volume of it all. That is why large games almost never end early, as marines get their arms lab upgrades for too good of a cost, and they get them all very quickly, resulting in marines that generally cannot do well on attack, but pretty much own on defense, forcing aliens to get their third hive for some uber powerful abilities (or if the aliens chose sensory first so they can get Def or Move chambers).
So, the fix for the arms lab is to make it proportional to the amount of marines playing.
For 6 marines, the cost is 20/30/40.
For 12 marines, you have double the marines, and thus, the upgrades should cost 40/60/80.
For 3 marines, you have half the marines, and thus, the upgrades should cost 10/15/20.
However, just by looking at the numbers presented here I?m sure all the commanders must be dropping their Jaw?s onto the floor screaming: ?NO WAY! 40 res for the first set of upgrades? TOO MUCH!? Or? ?10 res on a 3 man server? It?s practically free ffs!? And, for the most part, they are right.
So, a small modification to the above said proposal: Only add/subtract 50% additional cost for every 100% increase/decrease in marines.
12 marines: 30/45/60
3 marines: 15/23/30
This is a formula that needs to be calculated, one that figures out the cost of the arms labs upgrades based on how many marines there are.
An easy way to calculate the costs of these upgrades if you are without a calculator is:
For every 3 marines lost/gained over 6, add/subtract 5 res for the first upgrade, add/subtract 7 res for the second upgrade, and add/subtract 10 res for the third upgrade.
Very simple, and this would balance out the arms lab completely, no matter the teamsize.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Larger marine teams have a bigger advantage due to solely in fact of the arms lab. Upgrades made at the arms lab should be dynamic with teamsize.
Don't say that it's the same for the aliens, as one hive still costs 40 res, or chambers are still 10 res a piece, for this is WRONG... the fact is, aliens get res slower, so while their initial upgrades come in fast, their res is always coming in a lot slower.
Aliens that overextend at the beginning are going to lose their nodes, and likely before the investment has paid itself off. Better to only grab 2-3 nodes and set up defenses.
Keep in mind that if you try to take down the slash-and-burn team and *die*, you're only feeding the marines res - and probably much faster than they'd get them otherwise, considering they are spending a great deal of RPs to electrify all their nodes. Instead, take all your team and head for the MS. If the whole base is defended by a TFactory, all aim for the IPs and CC. If you have a gorge (and you perhaps should), he will be able to heal the skulks taking electrical damage. Lastly, if you don't attack the SnB party, they don't die - and don't respawn. It's a long walk back to base.
But if you get a bit off you pretty much paid for yourself.
The comm needs to spend res on medpack + slowed marines + less ammo.
Major problem is the base is pretty much IMMUNE to attack die to elec. TF ussually.
Maybe we could think about not letting TF's hit targets that are blocked from LOS by buildings.
This would allow skulks to chew down the armory from the opposite side of the TF.
Its highly annoying to sit in thier base and not be able to do anything but spawn camp.
---OR
I've heard is suggested that the elec hit you when you bite and not when you are nearby. Possiably we could do this and increase the elec damage/make the elec damage grow a little in a short period of time. 20-25-30-35, until you took 5 seconds off from attacking. So that elec would slow down oni/fade a little bit but not much.
The end game ping REALLY needs to be removed.
Aliens that hide and are lame really aren't a problem in my oppinion, it's nothing MT and Jetpack's can't handle.
Or, I should say, admin_slay.
However, I really don't like the ping of doom at all, say if two skulks eat the entire base including the commchair and the only thing left are 4 marines who shotgun down a hive, then 8 skulks end up loosing due to ping.
It's just a really bad solution in my oppinion.
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Let's do a minute by minute on the first few minutes, 10 player team.
Start:
Marines start with 100 res.
One comm, one stays to build the basic stuff, the rest spreads out in two or three groups. Let's say three for this example.
Two IP's and TF is dropped, nothing else right now. -45 res.
After a minute, you have gained 12 res from your res tower and have about 67 res
That's more than enough for the first three nodes, each at 15 res. -45res.
Let's not electrify anything right now, but rather move on and start killing alien res nodes, drawing aliens towards their current nodes and kill them there instead.
A minute later, you've gained 48 res, total 69 res.
Aliens are spreading out and trying to defend their res nodes, but since res nodes die so fast now they don't have time to be sneaky and just have to charge head on for any chance to save the res node, of course putting the skulks at a severe disatvantage.
Electrify two. -60
A minute later, you've gained 48 res, total 57 res.
After the offense, marines managed to hold two of the three alien nodes they attacked and drops the res nodes. -30 res.
(5 seconds into this minute the last unguarded res node is electrified) -30 res.
A minute later, you've gained 72 res, total 69.
Electrify the two nodes you just got. -60
A minute later, you've gained 72 res, total 81.
You could tone it down, but marines will have most of the res nodes within minutes if they know how to aim.
Aliens on the other hand haven't had it quite as good. They did grab five nodes, but three of them were killed within minutes of them going up.
half of the aliens grabbed a res node within the first minute, so they've gained 72 res into the communal pool, split out over ten people making it a whoooping 7,2 res per person before the marines slaughtered three of theirs. The nodes closer to marine start are allready electrified since elec was sped up and the other two are protected until finished electrified.
This is not a very good start for the aliens, quite obviously.
<!--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 marines can afford this their base is not well protected...RTs are no good if you lack IPs...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Against a single stock skulk, a single marine can defend the base easily.
<!--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-->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...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Once aliens are forced to respond to the destruction of the brittle towers known as res nodes, marines get the advantage simply because aliens have to choose between charging head-on or loosing that res.
<!--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-->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...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Marine res nodes pay for them a lot faster than an alien node does, especially after the price was lowered.
A marine res node produce 12 res per minute. In 1 minute and 15 seconds the res node has paid itself back to the comm. In 2 minutes thirty seconds the electrified node has paid itself back.
For a single alien on a 10 man team, it will take 12 minutes 30 seconds before that tower alone has paid its value back to you.
Personally, I'm not really sure how you can counter it.
You could guard the nodes you have, but if you're not performing res denial, marines will outtech you on four nodes in 2.0 and certainly in 2.01.
Final thoughts
A stock unit with basic upgrades should take the same time to kill a res node, so either make marine res nodes die as fast as aliens res nodes do to a level 1 shotgun to a skulk with celerity, or up the alien res health to last as long as a marine res node to a skulk with celerity.
The quick electricity means that marines doesn't have to think about their nodes at all and can easily keep the pressure on the aliens whose res towers fall a lot faster. It should be the other way, since the alien economy is so inefficient and so dependant on having a lot of res nodes.
when Marine res node cost dropped to the alien cost... i was very ****. Because their res goes into a common pool... marines can keep building Resource towers faster then aliens can (even with perma gorge)
My thoughts...
A.) Drop Marine RT HP down to 1500 (around that of alien RT)
B.) Raise Alien RT up to around marine RT stregnth
C.) eat cheese and stop playing NS