Rush Strategy?
Rapier7
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
Join Date: 2004-02-05 Member: 26108Members
This is outlining one very particular strategy, so hopefully this won't attract many flames...
The fast (but reasonable) rush.
Your following items:
2 IPs
2 Armories
Upgraded TFAC
3 Sieges (or 7 shotties)
Observatory
Phase Technology
2 Phase gates
Arms lab
Armor 1
2 Additional RTs
The total adds to 270 resources.
Assume the following:
You start with 100 resources.
You are able to capture 2 additional resource nodes within 1 minute.
During that minute that you were able to secure a resource node, you gained 15 resources from base RT.
Build order (initial base):
1 IP
1 Armory
1 Arms lab->Armor 1
Total cost: 75 resources
Starting resources: 100 resources
Total resources available after purchases: 25
At the one minute mark:
2 peripheral RTs.
Total cost: 30 resources
Total resources: 40
Total resources available after purchases: 10
At the 1:30-2:00 mark:
Armor 1 should be finished (from anywhere from 1:30 to 2:00).
Observatory->PG technology.
Total cost: 35 resources
Total resources: 32.5-55 resources
Total resources available after purchases: -2.5-20 resources
At the 3 minute mark:
Phase gate technology should be finished.
Build one phase gate at base.
Total cost: 15 resources
Total resources: 65 resources
Total resources available after purchases: 50 resources
At the 3:30 mark:
Build phase gate at their first hive.
TFAC->Advanced TFAC
3 Siege Cannons
Armory
Total cost: 95 resources
...........
You can see where I'm going from here.
Using conservative measures (being able to hold 2 additional RTs for 2:30 seconds), and not factoring RFK (save it for meds and ammo), it is possible to establish a siege base at their first hive and end the game within 5-6 minutes.
No upgrades beyond A1 is researched, as W1 will not kill skulks faster with LMGs, and the purpose is to ensure that every Kharaa will take 3 hits to kill a marine instead of 2, thus increasing marine survivability. The purpose is to end the game near the end of the marine's early game dominance in order to ensure that fades will not have enough time to harass your assets and your strategy while preventing a second hive showdown.
Disadvantages:
Base defense is almost non-existent.
A failed rush puts marines in a bad position (no weapons upgrades)
Inability to medspam, while RFK is reserved for meds and ammo, it may or may not be enough to supply your marines.
Advantages:
Able to assert the early game marine dominance to its fullest, and end it during the last phase of early marine dominance.
Thoughts?
The fast (but reasonable) rush.
Your following items:
2 IPs
2 Armories
Upgraded TFAC
3 Sieges (or 7 shotties)
Observatory
Phase Technology
2 Phase gates
Arms lab
Armor 1
2 Additional RTs
The total adds to 270 resources.
Assume the following:
You start with 100 resources.
You are able to capture 2 additional resource nodes within 1 minute.
During that minute that you were able to secure a resource node, you gained 15 resources from base RT.
Build order (initial base):
1 IP
1 Armory
1 Arms lab->Armor 1
Total cost: 75 resources
Starting resources: 100 resources
Total resources available after purchases: 25
At the one minute mark:
2 peripheral RTs.
Total cost: 30 resources
Total resources: 40
Total resources available after purchases: 10
At the 1:30-2:00 mark:
Armor 1 should be finished (from anywhere from 1:30 to 2:00).
Observatory->PG technology.
Total cost: 35 resources
Total resources: 32.5-55 resources
Total resources available after purchases: -2.5-20 resources
At the 3 minute mark:
Phase gate technology should be finished.
Build one phase gate at base.
Total cost: 15 resources
Total resources: 65 resources
Total resources available after purchases: 50 resources
At the 3:30 mark:
Build phase gate at their first hive.
TFAC->Advanced TFAC
3 Siege Cannons
Armory
Total cost: 95 resources
...........
You can see where I'm going from here.
Using conservative measures (being able to hold 2 additional RTs for 2:30 seconds), and not factoring RFK (save it for meds and ammo), it is possible to establish a siege base at their first hive and end the game within 5-6 minutes.
No upgrades beyond A1 is researched, as W1 will not kill skulks faster with LMGs, and the purpose is to ensure that every Kharaa will take 3 hits to kill a marine instead of 2, thus increasing marine survivability. The purpose is to end the game near the end of the marine's early game dominance in order to ensure that fades will not have enough time to harass your assets and your strategy while preventing a second hive showdown.
Disadvantages:
Base defense is almost non-existent.
A failed rush puts marines in a bad position (no weapons upgrades)
Inability to medspam, while RFK is reserved for meds and ammo, it may or may not be enough to supply your marines.
Advantages:
Able to assert the early game marine dominance to its fullest, and end it during the last phase of early marine dominance.
Thoughts?
Comments
of course it depends on their hive too. for example viaduct, u really dont want to siege that with just a1 against angry aliens.
but still very nice post.
Not a bad strat, BUT you think a little too far ahead and you leave very little room for error.
Its good for knowing what you could conceviably do. I find that solid strat usually goes out the window the second you start fighting another team who has its own ideas on how to contain you.
This is a good thinking exercise for a commander, but its also important to be ready to change quickly on the fly to what your opponent is doing.
Also, the 4 - 4:30 time is when a fade or two usually arrives. I think your marines would be hard pressed to hold off fades with w0/a1 upgrades.
I see some of the great commanders in the competitive community, and they have loose plans, but they aren't afraid to break those plans if they need to in order to win.
Its great to have an idea for a rush, but leave yourself a way out in case the attack fails, that way you don't gamble the entire game on one strat.
Also instead of sending all shotgunners to attack, I would leave one to recap/destroy res.
If the aliens get early lerks call off the attack and hit their nodes instead.
If they have 0 nodes, find away to attack the hive from 2 different sides that way:
A)marines do not get clustered, so 1 set of spores is less likely to effect the whole group. It also makes attacking more efficent because skulks won't be able to use marines to close the gap (too many marines means inefficent firing upon the enemy, they wind up shooting themselves in the head).
B)2 fronts means that more lerks are required to spore the area to protect it. Closing in on the lerk from two sides can minimize the its efficency (spelling?) or might get it killed.
Do not be afraid to vary a strat. Most of my commanding games are improvisation, because I do not know what the enemy will or will not do.
Anyways good strat, but don't get locked into it.
When i hit the chair i have some base strat to go wich i will adjust to current aliens.
Usually you can go with the strategy you picked up for quite a long time but like this one with timing it just dont work... what if your rt`s go down? what if you cant get guys to hive? what if......
Leaving your 2nd armoury(and its upg) until after your sieges are up allows you to siege in 2:30-3:00 giving hmgs at 6:00 plus enough idle res for anyupgrades you want or sufficient res to have medium upgs (the rts positioned at the chokepoint can be covered fairly easily before fades and/or after phase gates.
The major problem with this is your attack is res inefficient considering its style, you want to attack instantly but choose to tech up, such an instant investment would be unnecessary aslong as you have a fair income :S
I thought I had taken a conservative approach, when I said to hold 2 additional resource towers, sometimes marines that can shoot 2+:1 will usually overrun the alien RTs. Sure, you can always opt to take more RTs, and even hand out some early shotguns if you have the res, but this is the bare minimum, and it's really hard to object to....researching armor 1 and phase tech.
In any case, this is a strategy, I didn't really outline any tactical plan, I just assumed marines would go out of base, shoot aliens, and knife RTs, if they could.
I usually try to get a siege spot to take down the second hive, but they always have a good number of fades and lerks by then, but unable to use the hive healing as support. It's a trade off, but this strategy, if you have decent marines, can easily ensure a good win.
Of course, strategic fluidity is important, too. But you know....there really isn't much, if you have situational awareness. Say you get a bunch of marines slaughtered early on, build a second IP. Or sensory first, get more obs. But this assumes the basic DMS strat, and it's trying to take out the aliens during the very last moments of the strong marine early game.
That's about it, really. Yeah, I already outlined the advantages and disadvantages, and yes, Firewater, a coordinated lerk rush could screw the attempt.
This should be considered a rush since its primary goal is to kill the hive. There are only really two strategies - rush or control. Control has a primary goal of containment, not killing the hive. I find those ideas useful since a commander who starts out with a control strat (<i>i.e.</i>, spread out, cap, raze enemy rts and kill skulks outside the hive) and tries to convert it into a rush, or vice versa, usually ends up failing disasterously. But it's still a rush, anyway.
I like this kind of thread. Since a good commander should be able to be flexible and still pay attention to the running clock, the timing is probably a little pointless, but saying things like "you need to research this as soon as you have the bare minimum res," or "this can wait if you need to spread the medlove" can be very helpful, in my eyes. Most (you could say <b>all</b>) of command decisions end up being about how to spend your next res point. If emphasis is placed on particular choices it would make it clearer what is really key in a particular strategy like this.
this might actually work well in a public game...
Start by building:
2 ip's
armory
Observatory
When the observatory is done:
Research PG
Scan all hive locations:
All marines rush to hive except for two very good marines who remain at base. When the marines get to the hive, the comm will health and ammo spam. Half the soldiers will attack the hive and the remaining soldiers will defend the attacking soldiers. Then the comm will tell one soldier to build the pg at the hive and one at base by the two very good marines. Then soldier at the hive will build the turret factory and etc... It worked most of the time and marines at the base must be <b><u>excellent</u></b> because they can do a skulk rush. Usually, by the time the turret factory is being built, the hive has already been destoryed. Of course, this was in version 2, so I was thinking if version 3 has changed too much to use this strategy.