Tips For New Commanders
Tyrsis
Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8804Members
Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8804Members
I posted this in the marine strategy section, but figured I'd repost it here since there's been a lot of questions here about it:
There have been many strategy "guides" and such for newer commanders. But I think what many people fail to realize is that there is no definitive winning strategy for commanding a win. I think we can all agree that it depends on a few variables. Alien skill (map knowledge, good hiding, killing vanilla marines in 2 bites), marine skill (good aim, killing cara 3 aliens with no gun upgrades), the map (ns_bast has to be one of the hardest marine maps unless relocating, with ns_mineshaft being a close second) and lastly the amount of players (4v4 favours aliens since they get resources very fast, while 12v12 favours marines since aliens get resources very slowly). So I figured I'd post some obvious (or not so obvious) tips for new commanders. Remember, the best commanders are the ones that can adapt to any situation. There are a few "hopeless" situations where you are totally outclassed by the other team, but at that point it doesn't really matter anyway .
- Turrets are useless, don't use them unless you really need to, and definitely not within the first 5 minutes of the game.
Some people argue turrets are useful for area control, but in reality, if an alien team wants an area, a tf + 4 turrets will fall real fast even to skulks. The new lower damage of turrets is just silly and totally nullifies their usefullness. And their cost really isn't worth it either. Turrets have some usefulness later in the game when aliens start getting desperate as skulks, but at first, they are just a resource drain that you should always avoid.
- Electricity is your friend, but it's not the ultimate defense.
Electricity really depends on skill levels. A good alien team takes out electrified nodes easily, but let's face it, pub servers don't sport the best organization. As skill level rises the usefulness of electricity drops. (for both teams). If a marine team is good (can aim as above), then you don't even have to bother electrifying, as the nodes usually pay for themself before going down. Many people argue against electricity, but from my experience on pubs, it's useful enough that you'll want to use it. Besides if you're on a server that doesn't need electricity and you're new to commanding, you shouldn't be in the chair
- Armour 1 is always the first arms lab upgrade, then tech to Gun 3
This one is obvious for older players, but not as obvious for newer commanders. The reason is simple, takes 3 bites instead of 2 to kill a light marine. That extra bite means a lot more than you realize. After Armour 1, you get up to Gun 3. Armour 2 and 3, while useful, is not as useful as Armour 1, and not as useful as Gun 3. For people who enjoy "greater than/less than" symbols: Armour 1 > Gun 3 > Armour 3
- Get nodes, and get them quickly
Nodes nodes nodes, quick quick quick! This isn't 1.0x. You can't do a two hive lock down with only 3 nodes all game and expect to win. Nor can you tech to JP + shotties and expect an instant win. JPs have been nerfed (though are still useful, don't get me wrong). For newer commanders who have never played 1.0x, you're in luck, as you've probably not been tainted by the experience. Holding 5 nodes for more than 5 minutes is a must. Even if nodes go down and back up at many points throughout the game, you have to constantly push nodes. While holding a single hive is important, you don't have to worry about this within the first 8 minutes of the game. If you get to a hive, get the node and move on. You can always come back later and spruce it up with a phase gate. You should be aiming for 5 nodes by the 3 minute mark. If you have less than 3 by 3 minutes, you're in a real bad position. And by the 5 minute mark if you don't have 4 or 5, the game is pretty close to over.
- The best defense is a good offense.
Always be pushing something. Always have your team either killing nodes, killing aliens or in a good situation, both . Getting as many nodes as you can is important, but even moreso is killing alien nodes. While it's extremely hard to stop early fades, you can at least stop really early onos. The aliens should always be scrambling to defend something. It's really hard for aliens to coordinate "saving" stuff. What I mean by this is that all aliens know when a node is under attack. This usually results in a much larger force than needed coming to it's defense. Having the aliens constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time makes it a lot easier to secure other areas.
- Find the alien hives at the start
As a commander you have a unique ability to view the entire map. Go to each hive location and listen for the resource node, or the familiar "popping" of a spawning alien to find out where their initial hive is. This will help you decide which direction from your start location to start securing nodes. Usually secure nodes in the opposite direction of the starting hive. Aliens will have a lot harder time getting to them since they are so far. And if they are electrified, most of the time they just leave them alone. Also knowing where their hive is will usually tell you which nodes the aliens went for first. Many aliens decide to take the nodes closest to the first hive so they can get back to skulking as fast as they can.
- Push their 2nd hive at all times
You hear the screaming of leap. 2 hives. While not nearly as devistating as in 1.0x, there is one thing that is real bad about 2 hive aliens. Stomp. An adrenaline onos with regen can stomp an HA train into submission. While you'd think 5 HA marines can take out one onos, if they can't fire they can't kill. And an adrenaline onos seems to have endless stomp supply. stomp stomp stomp and then watching as little skulks take down your HA train, can be very demoralizing. So what can be done? First off, pray that you rarely see this. It's hard to find someone who can play onos real good (especially on pub). And push that 2nd hive. That means setup a siege outside and get rid of it. Or better yet a shotgun train can do wonders. Whatever you do, keep that 2nd hive down in some form. Even if you kill it and leave, as long as it stays down, the onos is less than a match for HA without stomp, or even a small group of LMGers.
** Though one thing to note. If you've kept the aliens to a very low resource node count (2-3) for most of the game, you probably won't see an onos after the 2nd hive is up any time soon. But if they've managed to keep 5 nodes, you should be expecting at least 1 within 10 minutes.
- Early shotguns are your friend
In a common pub situation where skill is varied, a shotgun is a good thing. Some of the poorer aimers have a much easier time killing. Shotguns also have the added bonus of taking out an alien node really fast. Send out a team of 2 or 3 shotgunners on a node hunt. And make them SHOOT the node (drop ammo if needed). Aliens have approx 5 seconds to respond before the node is down. You'd be surprised how fast node counts change doing this. They are pretty cheap and extremely devistating. 3 guys with shotguns also have the added bonus of being able to take out a hive really fast. If you've taken out a bunch of nodes, and notice they have a 2nd hive going up with little to no OC coverage, send in your shotgunners. The hive should be down before the aliens have time to respond. Keep shotguns in play at all times. Don't be afraid to drop guns. Even if they die, people without weapons pick up the dead marine's gun.
- Upgrade the armory as fast as you can
The armory takes 3 minutes to upgrade. Therefore if you want a prot lab or advanced weapons before or around the time they have an onos out, you will need to upgrade the armory as soon as you can. Even I forget to do it sometimes and smack myself for it. It's tough scrambling to drop medpacks, dropping nodes, watching your marines, dropping buildings to remember to do it, but it's pretty important, so try not to forget. I think I got this bad habit from 1.0x where locking two hives came before teching. If a two hive lock failed in 1.0x then I teched. (bleh)
- HA vs JPs, judgement call
While people will "usually" call for HA if you ask them, it really depends on how the game is going. If there are many OCs all over the place, then an HA train is what you need. If the aliens decided OCs weren't useful for some reason, JPs will quickly change their mind. A mixture of both is what you should be going for, but you won't always have a huge amount of res needed to outfit everyone. Most of the time you'll want HA, but don't forget about JPs. Nothing pisses off an onos more than a JPer they just can't reach. Though in general HA is better simply because newer marines survive a lot more and quickly learn that wandering off is a bad thing with HA. (if dying doesn't teach them, the screams over voice comm usually teach them pretty quickly
- The dual resource trap. Just avoid it!
I see it time and time again. "Get to double resource! We are teh winnars if we get double res!!!" Yet when the marine team gets there, they are jumped by 4 skulks and various gorges. Use this to your advantage. Aliens will try to lock down a dual res because for some reason in the past marines believed the only path to victory is controlling the dual resource, so they drop OCs and DCs in there. If you notice OCs all over the dual resource point of a map, just ignore it. You can still control most of the resource nodes on the map and come back for it later when you have someone with a GL. Don't send wave after wave of marines to their death at the dual res. While relocating to dual res can sometimes work, a lot of the time it doesn't. And prepare for huge amounts of fighting to occur if you put all your eggs into the dual res basket.
- The mid-late game. What to do now?
Ok, so you have 3-4 nodes left, you have 4-5 guys in HA with various toys. But now what? I've seen it happen time and time again. A commander gets his team into HA but then feels they've won and if they don't, then he blames his marines, heh. At this point kill the remaining alien nodes. You've probably taken down an ono or two, and probably some fades. The only thing on the alien's minds right now is to stop the HA train. Which means they are all going for onos. Cut out their resource supply. Take out every node that isn't in their hives (probably 2 unless you already sieged/shotgunned one of them out). Reducing them to 2 nodes will demoralize them since that's pretty much it for them. Siege or kill their 2nd hive. Then trap them in their last hive. Phase gate, and then just kill them. I have no idea why, but aliens whine when you siege their only hive, so just send in the HA train.
- Don't be afraid to Command, it's only a game
While this one seems painfully obvious, the only way you can get good at commanding is to actually command. There are many things you can only learned by actually doing it. Don't be discouraged by people screaming, "noob" etc. You have to learn some way, and we were all new at one point. If you are new, take suggestions from some of the older players playing, but try to remember the points laid out above. After commanding your first victory you will feel a lot better about it.
- Learn to use shortcut keys
The shortcut keys for dropping things like health and ammo should be one of the first things you learn. Shortcut keys are laid out very close to one another so they are very easy to learn. Memorizing the health and ammo keys are a MUST. The others you can memorize later. (E-S for health, E-A for ammo)
Deviating from what's outlined above, can still result in a victory. I've been in situations where I've seen a turret creep win. (TF, turrets move ahead a bit, TF, turrets, rinse repeat, until the entire map is just turrets (it was disgusting)). I've even seen situations where marines won by locking down only one node and one hive. But these wins are VERY VERY rare. The above tips are just that, tips. Use as you see fit But they should definitately help the newer players who want to give commanding a try. (They would have helped me a lot if I were new, heh)
Tyrsis
There have been many strategy "guides" and such for newer commanders. But I think what many people fail to realize is that there is no definitive winning strategy for commanding a win. I think we can all agree that it depends on a few variables. Alien skill (map knowledge, good hiding, killing vanilla marines in 2 bites), marine skill (good aim, killing cara 3 aliens with no gun upgrades), the map (ns_bast has to be one of the hardest marine maps unless relocating, with ns_mineshaft being a close second) and lastly the amount of players (4v4 favours aliens since they get resources very fast, while 12v12 favours marines since aliens get resources very slowly). So I figured I'd post some obvious (or not so obvious) tips for new commanders. Remember, the best commanders are the ones that can adapt to any situation. There are a few "hopeless" situations where you are totally outclassed by the other team, but at that point it doesn't really matter anyway .
- Turrets are useless, don't use them unless you really need to, and definitely not within the first 5 minutes of the game.
Some people argue turrets are useful for area control, but in reality, if an alien team wants an area, a tf + 4 turrets will fall real fast even to skulks. The new lower damage of turrets is just silly and totally nullifies their usefullness. And their cost really isn't worth it either. Turrets have some usefulness later in the game when aliens start getting desperate as skulks, but at first, they are just a resource drain that you should always avoid.
- Electricity is your friend, but it's not the ultimate defense.
Electricity really depends on skill levels. A good alien team takes out electrified nodes easily, but let's face it, pub servers don't sport the best organization. As skill level rises the usefulness of electricity drops. (for both teams). If a marine team is good (can aim as above), then you don't even have to bother electrifying, as the nodes usually pay for themself before going down. Many people argue against electricity, but from my experience on pubs, it's useful enough that you'll want to use it. Besides if you're on a server that doesn't need electricity and you're new to commanding, you shouldn't be in the chair
- Armour 1 is always the first arms lab upgrade, then tech to Gun 3
This one is obvious for older players, but not as obvious for newer commanders. The reason is simple, takes 3 bites instead of 2 to kill a light marine. That extra bite means a lot more than you realize. After Armour 1, you get up to Gun 3. Armour 2 and 3, while useful, is not as useful as Armour 1, and not as useful as Gun 3. For people who enjoy "greater than/less than" symbols: Armour 1 > Gun 3 > Armour 3
- Get nodes, and get them quickly
Nodes nodes nodes, quick quick quick! This isn't 1.0x. You can't do a two hive lock down with only 3 nodes all game and expect to win. Nor can you tech to JP + shotties and expect an instant win. JPs have been nerfed (though are still useful, don't get me wrong). For newer commanders who have never played 1.0x, you're in luck, as you've probably not been tainted by the experience. Holding 5 nodes for more than 5 minutes is a must. Even if nodes go down and back up at many points throughout the game, you have to constantly push nodes. While holding a single hive is important, you don't have to worry about this within the first 8 minutes of the game. If you get to a hive, get the node and move on. You can always come back later and spruce it up with a phase gate. You should be aiming for 5 nodes by the 3 minute mark. If you have less than 3 by 3 minutes, you're in a real bad position. And by the 5 minute mark if you don't have 4 or 5, the game is pretty close to over.
- The best defense is a good offense.
Always be pushing something. Always have your team either killing nodes, killing aliens or in a good situation, both . Getting as many nodes as you can is important, but even moreso is killing alien nodes. While it's extremely hard to stop early fades, you can at least stop really early onos. The aliens should always be scrambling to defend something. It's really hard for aliens to coordinate "saving" stuff. What I mean by this is that all aliens know when a node is under attack. This usually results in a much larger force than needed coming to it's defense. Having the aliens constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time makes it a lot easier to secure other areas.
- Find the alien hives at the start
As a commander you have a unique ability to view the entire map. Go to each hive location and listen for the resource node, or the familiar "popping" of a spawning alien to find out where their initial hive is. This will help you decide which direction from your start location to start securing nodes. Usually secure nodes in the opposite direction of the starting hive. Aliens will have a lot harder time getting to them since they are so far. And if they are electrified, most of the time they just leave them alone. Also knowing where their hive is will usually tell you which nodes the aliens went for first. Many aliens decide to take the nodes closest to the first hive so they can get back to skulking as fast as they can.
- Push their 2nd hive at all times
You hear the screaming of leap. 2 hives. While not nearly as devistating as in 1.0x, there is one thing that is real bad about 2 hive aliens. Stomp. An adrenaline onos with regen can stomp an HA train into submission. While you'd think 5 HA marines can take out one onos, if they can't fire they can't kill. And an adrenaline onos seems to have endless stomp supply. stomp stomp stomp and then watching as little skulks take down your HA train, can be very demoralizing. So what can be done? First off, pray that you rarely see this. It's hard to find someone who can play onos real good (especially on pub). And push that 2nd hive. That means setup a siege outside and get rid of it. Or better yet a shotgun train can do wonders. Whatever you do, keep that 2nd hive down in some form. Even if you kill it and leave, as long as it stays down, the onos is less than a match for HA without stomp, or even a small group of LMGers.
** Though one thing to note. If you've kept the aliens to a very low resource node count (2-3) for most of the game, you probably won't see an onos after the 2nd hive is up any time soon. But if they've managed to keep 5 nodes, you should be expecting at least 1 within 10 minutes.
- Early shotguns are your friend
In a common pub situation where skill is varied, a shotgun is a good thing. Some of the poorer aimers have a much easier time killing. Shotguns also have the added bonus of taking out an alien node really fast. Send out a team of 2 or 3 shotgunners on a node hunt. And make them SHOOT the node (drop ammo if needed). Aliens have approx 5 seconds to respond before the node is down. You'd be surprised how fast node counts change doing this. They are pretty cheap and extremely devistating. 3 guys with shotguns also have the added bonus of being able to take out a hive really fast. If you've taken out a bunch of nodes, and notice they have a 2nd hive going up with little to no OC coverage, send in your shotgunners. The hive should be down before the aliens have time to respond. Keep shotguns in play at all times. Don't be afraid to drop guns. Even if they die, people without weapons pick up the dead marine's gun.
- Upgrade the armory as fast as you can
The armory takes 3 minutes to upgrade. Therefore if you want a prot lab or advanced weapons before or around the time they have an onos out, you will need to upgrade the armory as soon as you can. Even I forget to do it sometimes and smack myself for it. It's tough scrambling to drop medpacks, dropping nodes, watching your marines, dropping buildings to remember to do it, but it's pretty important, so try not to forget. I think I got this bad habit from 1.0x where locking two hives came before teching. If a two hive lock failed in 1.0x then I teched. (bleh)
- HA vs JPs, judgement call
While people will "usually" call for HA if you ask them, it really depends on how the game is going. If there are many OCs all over the place, then an HA train is what you need. If the aliens decided OCs weren't useful for some reason, JPs will quickly change their mind. A mixture of both is what you should be going for, but you won't always have a huge amount of res needed to outfit everyone. Most of the time you'll want HA, but don't forget about JPs. Nothing pisses off an onos more than a JPer they just can't reach. Though in general HA is better simply because newer marines survive a lot more and quickly learn that wandering off is a bad thing with HA. (if dying doesn't teach them, the screams over voice comm usually teach them pretty quickly
- The dual resource trap. Just avoid it!
I see it time and time again. "Get to double resource! We are teh winnars if we get double res!!!" Yet when the marine team gets there, they are jumped by 4 skulks and various gorges. Use this to your advantage. Aliens will try to lock down a dual res because for some reason in the past marines believed the only path to victory is controlling the dual resource, so they drop OCs and DCs in there. If you notice OCs all over the dual resource point of a map, just ignore it. You can still control most of the resource nodes on the map and come back for it later when you have someone with a GL. Don't send wave after wave of marines to their death at the dual res. While relocating to dual res can sometimes work, a lot of the time it doesn't. And prepare for huge amounts of fighting to occur if you put all your eggs into the dual res basket.
- The mid-late game. What to do now?
Ok, so you have 3-4 nodes left, you have 4-5 guys in HA with various toys. But now what? I've seen it happen time and time again. A commander gets his team into HA but then feels they've won and if they don't, then he blames his marines, heh. At this point kill the remaining alien nodes. You've probably taken down an ono or two, and probably some fades. The only thing on the alien's minds right now is to stop the HA train. Which means they are all going for onos. Cut out their resource supply. Take out every node that isn't in their hives (probably 2 unless you already sieged/shotgunned one of them out). Reducing them to 2 nodes will demoralize them since that's pretty much it for them. Siege or kill their 2nd hive. Then trap them in their last hive. Phase gate, and then just kill them. I have no idea why, but aliens whine when you siege their only hive, so just send in the HA train.
- Don't be afraid to Command, it's only a game
While this one seems painfully obvious, the only way you can get good at commanding is to actually command. There are many things you can only learned by actually doing it. Don't be discouraged by people screaming, "noob" etc. You have to learn some way, and we were all new at one point. If you are new, take suggestions from some of the older players playing, but try to remember the points laid out above. After commanding your first victory you will feel a lot better about it.
- Learn to use shortcut keys
The shortcut keys for dropping things like health and ammo should be one of the first things you learn. Shortcut keys are laid out very close to one another so they are very easy to learn. Memorizing the health and ammo keys are a MUST. The others you can memorize later. (E-S for health, E-A for ammo)
Deviating from what's outlined above, can still result in a victory. I've been in situations where I've seen a turret creep win. (TF, turrets move ahead a bit, TF, turrets, rinse repeat, until the entire map is just turrets (it was disgusting)). I've even seen situations where marines won by locking down only one node and one hive. But these wins are VERY VERY rare. The above tips are just that, tips. Use as you see fit But they should definitately help the newer players who want to give commanding a try. (They would have helped me a lot if I were new, heh)
Tyrsis
Comments
not true at all, the main point of marines is to leave base and cap res nodes then secure alien hives. Theres gonna be times where theres no marines and spawn and then the aliens will easilly take everything down, but if you have a TF without any blind turret spots you are much more safer
good work there tyr:D