Scanner rush
tommyd
Creator of ns_tanith, co_pulse and co_faceoff Join Date: 2002-01-24 Member: 40Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, NS2 Developer
Creator of ns_tanith, co_pulse and co_faceoff Join Date: 2002-01-24 Member: 40Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, NS2 Developer
<div class="IPBDescription">Pt's commander strat</div>this commander strat works most effectively when the initial alien hive is the hive location closest to the marine start or when the hive is located in a LARGE hive room (ie, refinary on bast). it's very risky, but it can win you the game in less than 5 minutes if done correctly.
first thing you want to do is tell all your marines to head to the 'high ground' area in the marine spawn. this is the area where you have the best chances to counter the common skulk rush. once they are in position, the build order proceeds as follows (marines start with 100rp FYI):
<b>Infantry Portal (25rp) -> Observatory (25) -> Scan up to 2 hive locations (2 rp per scan)</b>
you only need to scan up to 2 to determine where the hive is located) this will leave you with ~50-60 rps by this time.
once you've determined where the initial hive is, have 75% of your troops immediately run together towards the hive (im assuming an 8v8 or so). the rest stay next to the high ground/CC and defend. once your troops are there, order them to high ground. have them focus ALL their fire on the hive. it's most likely that the other aliens will be diffused throughout the map before they realize the hive is under attack. drop a small amount of health/ammo when need. you should have enough for a turret factory and 2 turrets (25+16+16 = 57rps) at this point. have one marine build a tfac and turrets on the EDGE of the hive room. these turrets will help you quickly kill any respawning aliens nearby. if you have enough focused fire on the hive, it will go down pretty quickly. after the hive, proceed to take out the alien's initial resource tower. this will prevent any rebuilding of hives. by now, the aliens won't be respawning and you can simply scout the 2 remaining hives for the other aliens to make sure they dont try to rebuild. hunt down the few remaining aliens and take them out for a quick win.
<!--EDIT|tommyd|Oct. 29 2002,17:18-->
first thing you want to do is tell all your marines to head to the 'high ground' area in the marine spawn. this is the area where you have the best chances to counter the common skulk rush. once they are in position, the build order proceeds as follows (marines start with 100rp FYI):
<b>Infantry Portal (25rp) -> Observatory (25) -> Scan up to 2 hive locations (2 rp per scan)</b>
you only need to scan up to 2 to determine where the hive is located) this will leave you with ~50-60 rps by this time.
once you've determined where the initial hive is, have 75% of your troops immediately run together towards the hive (im assuming an 8v8 or so). the rest stay next to the high ground/CC and defend. once your troops are there, order them to high ground. have them focus ALL their fire on the hive. it's most likely that the other aliens will be diffused throughout the map before they realize the hive is under attack. drop a small amount of health/ammo when need. you should have enough for a turret factory and 2 turrets (25+16+16 = 57rps) at this point. have one marine build a tfac and turrets on the EDGE of the hive room. these turrets will help you quickly kill any respawning aliens nearby. if you have enough focused fire on the hive, it will go down pretty quickly. after the hive, proceed to take out the alien's initial resource tower. this will prevent any rebuilding of hives. by now, the aliens won't be respawning and you can simply scout the 2 remaining hives for the other aliens to make sure they dont try to rebuild. hunt down the few remaining aliens and take them out for a quick win.
<!--EDIT|tommyd|Oct. 29 2002,17:18-->
Comments
this strat worked for me on tanith when the aliens started at the satellite hive. it also worked on caged when the sewer hive was the initial hive. on caged however, i used sieges instead of the actual marines themselves (this is a different strat which i will explain later)
How does the commander select more than 1 infantry? Can he call up a list of players and select whoever he wants? Can he have a button that goes from 1 marine to the other? Or does he have to look all around the map to find them, and do it 1 at a time?
dead-end stratagies will end the game quickly; Victory or defeat.
How does the commander select more than 1 infantry? Can he call up a list of players and select whoever he wants? Can he have a button that goes from 1 marine to the other? Or does he have to look all around the map to find them, and do it 1 at a time?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The commander uses click 'n' drag to "lasso" the marines he want to select, just like in a normal RTS.
You do not (DO NOT) need an observatory to find the alien hive.
What you do:
Commander zooms to all hive locs, and whichever one is making the hive sounds is where the aliens have started!
I do not think this strategy would work though, as the skulks usually make a bee-line towards the marine base in order to rush.
The commander uses click 'n' drag to "lasso" the marines he want to select, just like in a normal RTS.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Alas he cant "CTRL+#" group them. That would be SOOO NICE. Also a "Select all marines" would help. But I digress .)
My clan doesn't usually like playing as marines, but when we do, we use this "technique." One marine stays behind, and the rest take shotguns and head to the Hive location. One effective marine can usually stave off the skulk rush, although we have lost the spawns twice. But the technique has yet to fail us. First priority for me is usually taking out the resource tower. Resources come in EXTREMELY slow for the Kharaa at the point, and ensures that another Hive won't go up soon. Then it's a simple matter of shotgunning the Hive down. As soon as it's death animation begins, rush back to the marine start. Most skulks are wasiting for you in here. From there, it's a simple mopping-up effort.
After two or three marine rushes, we usually give it up for a "real game," and proceed to rush the nearest empty Hive, and set up a new base there.
-Ryan!
"He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat."
-- Napoleon
Another thing?
One marine versus 6-8 skulks?
I dont see how that works, but whatever.
What we did was did a 2 marine rush, one to knife the hive, the other to cover the marine (once all kharaa were dead they quit to the ready room and called us lamers, even though they were mocking us for destroying our comm center)
*shrug*
That's not true at all, bite and heal, or just spike the tfac.
One advantage for the marines here is that the aliens don't usually expect to find a large group of marines moving out from the spawn towards their hive so early, and a group of marines can usually do a pretty good number on the surprised skulks. The tough part is keeping the marines alive while they're attaking the hive. Those skulks are pretty determined and even if they just go one for one, they'll kill the rush.
This doesn't include building a turret factory or anything near by, so the only resources it costs are the ones spent on health and ammo. Also, if you have one or two guys running around securing other parts of the map, you can get a jump on the aliens because they're spending time trying to fight off the attack rather than expanding. Sort of a reverse skulk rush.
I had this done to me as aliens once. We fought off the rush, but were behind for the entire game after that. In the time we were recovering from the initial rush, the mariens had been able to secure one of our hive rooms. They started to try to get our second, but we fought them off after a time and took it. But while we were struggling to get our second hive up, they were upgrading their weapons and technology. Even with the second hive, we could never break into our third. We got close once (I was a gorge playing backup for 4 fades and they were firing acid rockets in from the door), but we never made it. Our push was abruptly halted when the marines started using grenade launchers. We even did a fairly good job of keeping their resource outposts down (it's amazingly easy to isolate resource outposts when the marines are just phase gating between hotspots). Eventually, though, they overpowered us.
If executed properly, and with a little luck, the marine rush can be very effective. It's just harder in general to pull off than the skulk rush, I think.
Rainman
As a side note, I don't know why so many marines think that lmgs are useless. Against skulks, gorges, and single offense towers, they do just fine. Many times I've tried to convince folk to go and rush forward and at least take out one of the aliens initial resource towers (which does slow 'em quite a bit) and any gorges encountered along the way. For some reason, lots of players are almost afraid to.