Khara Resource Model And One Gorge Strategy
matso
Master of Patches Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
Master of Patches Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
<div class="IPBDescription">Why one Gorge is the only way</div> Understanding the Kharaa resource model is crucial if one wants to design good strategies.
Unfortunately, there isn't any really good explanation how it works. However, from playing nonstop alien a few days, I think I'm beginning to understand it.
At the core, its simple: every five seconds, each resource tower adds one resource to the Kharaa resource pool. The resource pool is then spread out equally among all Kharaa which isn't already at the max capacity, increasing their available resources for upgrading and building. If all Kharaa is at max already, then the resources stay in the pool until the next tick.
When a Kharaa dies, he retains as much of his resources as he can, and the rest goes to the pool.
The max number of resource towers you can use is the number of players on your team - in a 3v3 game, no use getting that fourth resource.
Gorges get a special treatment. They get more than their share of the resources as they are the primary builders.
At first, I though it meant that Gorges counted as several Kharas when calculating their share of the xp, but that would be silly - the more players, the slower the alien expansion. Instead, I belive that half of all resources in the pool is first shared among all Gorges, and then whatever remains is shared out among all the non-gorges.
Lets look at some numbers: at start, with one resource income, the Kharaa has 12 income per minute. Assuming a 6 player team with one Gorge, 5 Khara would share 6 resources among them, while the Gorge would be looking at 6 income as well. Assuming the Gorge player evolved to Gorge as soon as possible, it will take 22 / 6 or 2 minutes and 40 seconds from the start of the evolve until the Gorge can build his first resource tower. Adding 20(?) seconds to build the tower, we are now at 3 minutes, 2 resources and 24 res income, out of which the Gorge gets 12.
At this rate, the second resource tower can be built 20/12 or 1 minute 40 seconds later. At five minutes, the third resource tower is built, and we are at 4 resources, with an 18 res income for the Gorge.
A quick glance at the resources for the 5 skulkers out hunting marines. They have shared 6 in income for 3 minutes, and 12 income for 2, for a total of 44 income. In addition, they started at 10, so they are now at 18-19 resources out of their 33 max.
Back to the Gorge. At 18 income per minute and starting at 4 resources, he better scurry quickly to the fourth resource spot. At 6 minutes, 20 seconds, the fourth resource tower is built, at which point the Gorge is at 6 resources with 24 income per minute.
Time to get resources for the second hive - 74 resources more at 24 income means it should take about 3 minutes more to get the hive, so we should be looking starting the second hive at the 10 minute mark.
In the meantime, the rest of the team has shared out 75 resources among them, meaning they all hit 33 resources at about the time the second hive starts to get built. This means that the only Kharaa not at max is the Gorge... so suddenly, the income rate doubles to 48 resources per minute (given that noone wastes resources by going Lerk) . That means the Gorge could hurry to the third hive site - the third hive can be built just 2 minutes after the second was started, at the 12 minute mark.
Of course, its probably more produdent to spend the resources on chambers at this time, because the marines are probably getting a bit restless, probably making a push for a hive location.
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Now, I haven't measured this with a stopwatch (yet :-) ), but it seems to be about right.
Assuming the above is correct, a few obvious things come to mind. The most important of course, is seeing what happens when you have multiple Gorges. With two Gorges, you build the first resource tower not at 3 minutes, but at about 6 minutes. Granted, you can then build two, but you loose three minutes worth of income from a tower - 36 resources down the drain, or half a hive.
Thus, it would seem that in the same fashion the marines have one commander, the Kharaa should start with only one Gorge. Starting with two should be crippling to the Kharaa.
Another thing is that you should NOT go Lerk as soon as you hit 33 - it will cut the resources to the Gorge just when it needs to start building defenses. Wait with any upgrades until the second hive is built.
A cheap Kharaa tactic would be to have all but the Gorge exit for the ready room, because if you go to the ready room, your resources are returned to the pool... and the Gorge gets them all, as it is the sole player on the team. Doing that would allow the Kharaa to get a second hive at the five minute mark. Would be fairly easy to fix though, just don't return those RP until later (have a second pool of to-be-returned points which is slowly added back into the main Kharra pool).
Another thing is that the above thought experiment didn't build any chambers, instead only doing resources and hives. If we look at the resources available to the marines in the meantime ...
At start, the marines have 100 resources. A maximum resource expansion for the marines would be silly - if the aliens allowed that to work, the marines would win. So assuming a halfway competitive game, the commander needs to build an infantry portal (15) and an armory (25) in the base. Also, a resource extractor needs to be built at the first expansion slot ASAP to double the marine income (22). After that, the marines should be forced to concentrate on defending the base and the expansion from the onslaught of skulkers, and should be forced to wait at 24 resources per minute until both the base and the expansion is properly fortified, which will cost a minimum of two turret factories (50) and 6 turrets (96) for a total of 146 pts. With two resources which should give 24 income per minute, this should take almost 7 or 8 minutes before the marines can start thinking about doing anything else, courtesy of all the skulks stalking them. So, at around the 10 minute mark, the marines should be starting a push for the third spot, at which time the Kharaa is just starting to build the second hive and have a few Lerks.
Of course, this nicely balanced evolution is completly FUBARED because the marines seems to be getting 2-3 times as many resources as they should, so instead of struggling to make every RP count, they are completly BATHING in it. At three times, they have an end-game income (6 resources or 36 rp per minute) from the first minute, with predicable results given a half-way decent commander.
Unfortunately, there isn't any really good explanation how it works. However, from playing nonstop alien a few days, I think I'm beginning to understand it.
At the core, its simple: every five seconds, each resource tower adds one resource to the Kharaa resource pool. The resource pool is then spread out equally among all Kharaa which isn't already at the max capacity, increasing their available resources for upgrading and building. If all Kharaa is at max already, then the resources stay in the pool until the next tick.
When a Kharaa dies, he retains as much of his resources as he can, and the rest goes to the pool.
The max number of resource towers you can use is the number of players on your team - in a 3v3 game, no use getting that fourth resource.
Gorges get a special treatment. They get more than their share of the resources as they are the primary builders.
At first, I though it meant that Gorges counted as several Kharas when calculating their share of the xp, but that would be silly - the more players, the slower the alien expansion. Instead, I belive that half of all resources in the pool is first shared among all Gorges, and then whatever remains is shared out among all the non-gorges.
Lets look at some numbers: at start, with one resource income, the Kharaa has 12 income per minute. Assuming a 6 player team with one Gorge, 5 Khara would share 6 resources among them, while the Gorge would be looking at 6 income as well. Assuming the Gorge player evolved to Gorge as soon as possible, it will take 22 / 6 or 2 minutes and 40 seconds from the start of the evolve until the Gorge can build his first resource tower. Adding 20(?) seconds to build the tower, we are now at 3 minutes, 2 resources and 24 res income, out of which the Gorge gets 12.
At this rate, the second resource tower can be built 20/12 or 1 minute 40 seconds later. At five minutes, the third resource tower is built, and we are at 4 resources, with an 18 res income for the Gorge.
A quick glance at the resources for the 5 skulkers out hunting marines. They have shared 6 in income for 3 minutes, and 12 income for 2, for a total of 44 income. In addition, they started at 10, so they are now at 18-19 resources out of their 33 max.
Back to the Gorge. At 18 income per minute and starting at 4 resources, he better scurry quickly to the fourth resource spot. At 6 minutes, 20 seconds, the fourth resource tower is built, at which point the Gorge is at 6 resources with 24 income per minute.
Time to get resources for the second hive - 74 resources more at 24 income means it should take about 3 minutes more to get the hive, so we should be looking starting the second hive at the 10 minute mark.
In the meantime, the rest of the team has shared out 75 resources among them, meaning they all hit 33 resources at about the time the second hive starts to get built. This means that the only Kharaa not at max is the Gorge... so suddenly, the income rate doubles to 48 resources per minute (given that noone wastes resources by going Lerk) . That means the Gorge could hurry to the third hive site - the third hive can be built just 2 minutes after the second was started, at the 12 minute mark.
Of course, its probably more produdent to spend the resources on chambers at this time, because the marines are probably getting a bit restless, probably making a push for a hive location.
----------
Now, I haven't measured this with a stopwatch (yet :-) ), but it seems to be about right.
Assuming the above is correct, a few obvious things come to mind. The most important of course, is seeing what happens when you have multiple Gorges. With two Gorges, you build the first resource tower not at 3 minutes, but at about 6 minutes. Granted, you can then build two, but you loose three minutes worth of income from a tower - 36 resources down the drain, or half a hive.
Thus, it would seem that in the same fashion the marines have one commander, the Kharaa should start with only one Gorge. Starting with two should be crippling to the Kharaa.
Another thing is that you should NOT go Lerk as soon as you hit 33 - it will cut the resources to the Gorge just when it needs to start building defenses. Wait with any upgrades until the second hive is built.
A cheap Kharaa tactic would be to have all but the Gorge exit for the ready room, because if you go to the ready room, your resources are returned to the pool... and the Gorge gets them all, as it is the sole player on the team. Doing that would allow the Kharaa to get a second hive at the five minute mark. Would be fairly easy to fix though, just don't return those RP until later (have a second pool of to-be-returned points which is slowly added back into the main Kharra pool).
Another thing is that the above thought experiment didn't build any chambers, instead only doing resources and hives. If we look at the resources available to the marines in the meantime ...
At start, the marines have 100 resources. A maximum resource expansion for the marines would be silly - if the aliens allowed that to work, the marines would win. So assuming a halfway competitive game, the commander needs to build an infantry portal (15) and an armory (25) in the base. Also, a resource extractor needs to be built at the first expansion slot ASAP to double the marine income (22). After that, the marines should be forced to concentrate on defending the base and the expansion from the onslaught of skulkers, and should be forced to wait at 24 resources per minute until both the base and the expansion is properly fortified, which will cost a minimum of two turret factories (50) and 6 turrets (96) for a total of 146 pts. With two resources which should give 24 income per minute, this should take almost 7 or 8 minutes before the marines can start thinking about doing anything else, courtesy of all the skulks stalking them. So, at around the 10 minute mark, the marines should be starting a push for the third spot, at which time the Kharaa is just starting to build the second hive and have a few Lerks.
Of course, this nicely balanced evolution is completly FUBARED because the marines seems to be getting 2-3 times as many resources as they should, so instead of struggling to make every RP count, they are completly BATHING in it. At three times, they have an end-game income (6 resources or 36 rp per minute) from the first minute, with predicable results given a half-way decent commander.
Comments
Definately gives us a lot to think about!
It also gives us a perfect opportunity to got tsk tsk tsk at the admins who are beefing up the marine income (unless it is actually a bug, which some of the posts in the server ops forums are hinting at...)
Excellent work, I've never had time in-game to figure this stuff out. It seemed like having a team full of gorges would be ideal as long as they can defend themselves, now I understand why that never works.
I'd really like to see an improved section of the manual covering alien info. The current one works great with the storyline, but there are too many holes. Knowing how your species operates would reduce the learning curve a lot.
Otherwise it was great.
So, you should <b>always</b> build a resource tower, even if you think you dont need it.
I would just like to add that in a recent game I took control of the alien team and wouldn't allow ANY other Gorges besides me. I had my 3rd hive and 5 Resource Towers up in like 12 minutes. I had only seen 1 marine who was quickly killed by my Offense Towers and we moped up the remaining marines in grand fashion. Clearly if played with skill and teamwork, the Kharaa can be devastating!
Thank you for opening my eyes to the one Gorge strategy matso.
what matters more? evolving to lerk first to gain the most kills, or winning the game? the hive brought you into this world, the least you can do is to cooperate to successfully purge her domain of lugheads.
(yes, i know i'm full of kharaa propaganda) <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='skulk.gif'><!--endemo-->
Build the resource tower. You get about 5 resource per tower and minute. It would take you 12 minutes to get 58 resources at that rate. If you build the tower, you get 10 per minute and it will take you 8 minutes to get to 80.
Building the third resource? Well, wait 6 minutes at 10 per minute, or build and then wait for 80 resources at 15 per minute ... about the same time. But you should definitely build the third resource chamber, as it will ensure that all your teammates are filled up to 33 at the 9.5 minute spot. At which time you switch to 30 * number of players on team / 4 in income - the so-called HIVE-A-MINUTE rate.
Do notice that you must be able to depend on the other players on your team to stop any and all marines from harassing you and your resource towers. That's MUCH more important than killing marines.
Eh, well, true - the Lerk is a very good Kharaa. But the 9.5 minute spot is sensitive - the Gorge is still waiting to get resources for the second hive, and there are NO defenses of any kind.
It depends a lot on the size of the game. The above was written/only correct for a 4v4 game. In such a small game, one player going Lerk is going to cut the income for the Gorge to 75%, two players will cut it to 60% and three to 50%.
Also, the Lerk is only powerful once the second hive is up, which is going to be at the 14 minute mark or so, given an optimum build and a 4v4 game. Going Lerk before second hive is up is, IMO, a waste of resources.