Division Of Forces

xl-cow

<div class="IPBDescription">Bing Bang Poof</div> On a 6vs6 game or so, in the early game I tend to divide my forces up into 2 and 3.
With any game size I do that as well.

I have a belief: If your marines are positioned well, a squad bigger than 3 makes no difference against skulks or gorges.

Why? Simply because of the "skulk upset." A skulks ability to take out 3 marines in a quick second through either good planning on his part or unpreparedness on the marines.

Thus I minimize the deaths by division because it decreases the amount of marine deaths to killing one skulk.

Anyone finding similar?

DrunkenSailor

Well, I guess the thing is that by minimizing your marine deaths, you're also minimizing the effectiveness of your squad entirely. Losing a three man squad means that nobody is left at the presumably critical position they were at, but losing 3 men out of five still leaves (5 - 3 =) two marines to accomplish what needs to be done.

And for the love of God, if your marines are going down in groups of three to a single skulk, get them motion tracking asap. They obviously need it.

Stakhanov

<!--QuoteBegin--DrunkenSailor+Oct 24 2003, 10:51 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (DrunkenSailor @ Oct 24 2003, 10:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> And for the love of God, if your marines are going down in groups of three to a single skulk, get them motion tracking asap. They obviously need it. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Better upgrade their armor asap... I don't think a skulk has a chance of biting marines 9 times under constant lmg fire. If 3 marines die to a skulk WITH upgrades , then it's time to group up your whole team and go siege something. Elec nodes and siege turrets are always reliable.

xl-cow

Notice my early game clause - it's important to what I'm discussing. Motion tracking in the first couple minutes is generally a waste. There isn't that kind of res flow to back up that sort of upgrade.

Early game initiatives are to gain managable RT's and make them relatively solid for the next two minutes, and hit any RT's they are building.

If one skulk can take out 3 marines or so in a 5 marine squad - in the time it takes for those 2-3 marines to reinforce they can get wiped out again. Or complete the objective but have minimal movement options. Meanwhile the reinforcing marines have to spend downtime getting to their original squad which leaves them isolated.

The idea is to gain RT points, while putting pressure on their gorge and RT flow. Sure I can simply have my whole team building an RT and electrify it, and move on - but that leaves a wide margin for gorges to lay the early res and start establishing team res flow.

If I put pressure on gorges, that means skulks have to start defending RT spots and gorge en route to positions - which incidently frees up pressure on my RT building squad.

FYI, I upgrade armor around the second RT cap or so.