Anti-movement/late Game
Khaim
Join Date: 2002-06-28 Member: 841Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-06-28 Member: 841Members, NS1 Playtester, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">Part 2 of the Anti-Chamber buisiness</div> Continuing the Anti-Chamber deal/ec. stuffs from my other topic on <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89657' target='_blank'>Anti-Sensory and General Notes</a>. Note, this is really all written from a command perspective, but even infantry can find this information useful.
This Section will be on Anti-Movement chamber first tactics, mostly outlying the MC's advantages and disadvantages, and also have a second part dedicated to Late Game Tactics, late game being a situation where marines have 1 hive, base, and ~3-5 res nodes and lvl3/3 weapons and and whatnot, and the aliens have a hive, and ~4-6 res nodes, along with 3 of each of their chamber choices, and static defenses, basicly, when push comes to shove late game.
Don't have enough time to write everything out, so at the moment I'm just posting the outline titles here, and will flesh them out either on my free period or when I get home today.
<b><u>Anti-Movement Tactics and General Strategy</b></u>
<b>Part 1: Combat</b>
- The MC, like the DC, has *all* combat effective abilities, celerity helps dodge, Silence can help if the alien gets out of sight range, and Addren will help make sure they don't run out of energy to leap/blink/fly/kill/whatever. Therefore, in combat, the aliens are going to be a good deal tougher to kill with MCs.
- Celerity, is nasty. It allows a skilled alien to close almost twice as quickly as a regular one, and makes them infinately harder to shoot at closer ranges. Depending on the skill of your marines with a shotgun, it will either be the perfect weapon, or the most useless of all in this case.
- Silence, keep in mind that around observatories you can see aliens on the minimap, this will help until you get MT(assuming you do).
- MT, on that note, is very, very key against Movement chambers. It will allow your marines to virtually negate silence, and give them more time to prepare, and fire upon celerity enemies, hopefully killing them or forcing them to fall back before any damage is done.
- Lerks are not going to be your friends, there's really no good way to take care of them either, shotguns work well, but only if they actually attack directly. Up until you get some GL's, addren spore lerks are going to be a real pain most likely, and about all you can do is give meds and/or welders and KEEP MOVING, standing still is going to burn your armor and health down real quick like.(although occasionally they'll have no good lerks or lerks at all, depends on the alien team, really, but it is more likely with addrennaline that you'll see spore lerks.)
- Be real careful early game if they drop 3 Movements first. At level 0/0 weapons and armor, marines will get utterly dominate by movement skulks, scince they can close quickly and dodge bullets with celerity, AND ambush successfully with silence. The best of both worlds with the MC.
- Like with the SC, aliens can't heal unless with a hive or gorge(innate regen not counted) however, this is a little harder to capitalize on, as if there is an MC nearby they can fall back with it easily, and they can move much faster too and from hives/gorges to heal. But still something that may be exploited every now and then if the right situation arises.
In other words, the MC is quite arguably the most rounded chamber of any of the 3. Allowing for support, assault, AND ambush options, the aliens can take on virtually any role required, this also makes them very hard to hard-counter successfully, and making the game a whole lot more variable. Keep in mind that they can really do just about anything, rushes can be foiled, defenses can be crushed, it's really a game of all 'middle ground' as far as combating movement goes on a man to man basis.
<b>Part 2: General Strategy and Notes on Movement Chambers</b>
- 2 Hive lockdowns suck against Movements. A lot.
-- Taking 2 Hives but losing the resource battle will get you slaughtered most likely, as soon as they get an onos or two, they'll likely MC rush your hive and take out the location before you can react successfully.
-- Likewise, don't ignore hives entirely either, no matter what chamber and res flow, aliens *always* benefit immensely from gaining a second or third hive.
- Dear god, don't shoot the building hive.
-- As soon as you nail a building hive with so much as a toothpick, you'll have a parade of skulks and such chewing and slicing your legs off. If you manage to get into a hive, build a PG, get shotties, or even GLs in there if you can afford it and have the tech, and take it down in less than 10 seconds, the longer it takes, the more aliens can warp in. Hopefully you can take it down before they get to an MC if you take it down quick enough and they don't realize you're there just yet.
- Taking the middle hive = Bad news.
-- You DON'T want the middle hive with MCs. If you take it, they will still be able to get up a second hive accross the map due to the MC warp effect, this is especially true if FF is on and a skulk can bite the hive to get reinforcements.
-- Also, if they get 2 hives, and you have the middle one, you're in a tough position, big time. They can then attack from both sides of the map, and capitalize quickly on wherever your weakest spot is, and you'll likely be forced into holding only your base and the third hive. Ultimately losing to an onslaught of higher lifeforms as they hemm you in and take your resource nodes and put them up for themselves.
- Resources and fast tech are key.
-- The aliens are most likely going to get a 2nd hive pretty much no matter what you do unless you take their hive early on in a rush or some such, or cripple their economy.
-- Like with sensory chambers, resources are a key here, as to break 2 hive lockdowns and such, they will need most likely either a few fades, or an onos with support, delaying this will allow you to get higher tech quickly. If you can make Jetpacks or HA's by the time they're just getting onos, you should be fine.
-- As stated, 1st hive movements are very strong in combat early on, picking up some tech to counter this is going to be pretty useful.
- Don't worry overmuch about static defenses
-- If they're pressing nodes really hard, you can electrify one or two, but it's pretty easy for aliens to take them out, especially once they have hive 2 and addren bile-bombs and the like.
- Aliens are more likely to spend res on higher lifeforms than on chambers, early shotguns can be important, HMGs over GLs most times later games, except when dealing with sporing lerks.
- Hand grenades may be an option if lerks are that much of an issue, although they are usually not effective enough, scince they can easily retreat down whatever vent they are in.
Basicly, the idea here is to pick up res and quickly and efficiently boost your marines' combat effectiveness rather than building up static defenses or bases or Phase gate tactics. Aliens are much stronger with MCs in combat than with SCs and arguably with DCs either.
<b>Part 3: Overlying Strategies Against Movement Chamber 1st Aliens</b>
- Grab some early res and hold 'em, losing too much resources to constantly rebuilding nodes really sucks, no matter what the chamber.
- As stated before, boosting combat prowess over location is prefferable in most cases, as ground tends to change quickly in Movement first games due to ease and fluidity of alien attacks.
- Heavy weapons are going to be a big plus mid to late game, try and get that armory upgraded early on, but not insanely so or you'll burn too much early game res and have an advanced armory and nothing else. (look for around 3:30 to 7 minutes in, depending on the situation.)
- MT should be a huge bonus, allowing you to react quickly and hit the enemy when they're away or prepare a marine defense before they even reach a location, gorge-hunting is also a viable but risky strategy if you have MT. (easier to locate and find gorges without them realizing it until too late.)
- Be ready for some nasty one hive fades, although they don't take as much firepower to kill as carapace fades, they can move in and damage or kill your troops much faster, and stay in longer than sensory fades due to celerity or addren boosts, silence fades are pretty easy to kill with MT though.
<b><u>Late Game Tactics and General Strategy</b></u>
This is some general strategic notes for late game, basicly, in that time period where aliens have their second hive up and you're stuck to a MS, a hive, and maybe 1 or two other nodes, and how to press forward and advance to key locations without losing your own.
<b>Part 1: The Order of Buisines</b>
- First, you'll want to get everything in order, make sure you have some res, killing a hive is nice, but without res, you'll get demolished. A marine team on two res nodes is as good as dead.
- Make sure you have ALL the static upgrades, at this point in the game, you should really be getting along on all the static upgrades, and you may even want to have two advanced armories just in case, scince that's the most critical building. Even if they have sensories, MT will probably make a good choice, simply to allow your marines to see what's incoming while they defend locations, and allow communication by sight instead of having to type or say everything.
- Cap nodes with a sizeable force, but never more than half your team. If you leave only 2 or 3 guys to defend all your holdings, they'll be overrun in no time, likewise, if you have too small of a capping force, they'll be destroyed.
- Patrol the nodes you have, a group of 2 or so HA's can hold any number of nodes by patroling and welding them as needed, especially if there's an armory nearby. You want to keep those nodes up, they're a good piece of res themselves, plus the flow of res is absolutely KEY late game, as you'll lose a lot of heavier equipment and res on meds and buildings and ammo most likely, hell, even cat packs if you like em'. (They have their uses.)
- Once you're all set on holding your res and can hold the aliens off without losing a significant portion of your forces constantly, you should be ready to press the offensive.
<b>Part 2: Advancing</b>
- The most common misconception here, is that you're supposed to take out hive with Jetpack/GL or Jetpack/Shotty combos. Bad, BAD idea. Horrid even. Chances are you'll kill the hive, BUT, they will put it back off and likely still hold you while you try and advance to take the area. Also, once that hive is online again, they now have all 3 chambers. This in essence will boost their effectiveness, weather than increasing it. This should only be done as a last ditch strategy. (I.E. You are unable to hold you hive and base successfully.)
- HA's are going to be the way to go, you just need to make sure they don't all reload or weld at the same time. The firepower of lvl 3 Weapons HA HMGs is withering even to Onos with stomp. Likewise, the Damage taking capacity of HA's at level 3 armor is effectively infinate if played right, with a GL or two to support, you should be able to take out just abou anything with enough effort and a little luck or skill. Jetpacks are nice, and I'm sure some clanners would argue that they're much better because you can dodge and all, but in all reality, JPs just aren't reliable enough to make a solution to most problems, heavy static defenses and/or lerk and fade support combined with gorges or skulks to heal or leap will take out JP's pretty quickly.
- Leave some guys to defend. Suicidal attacks are not the way to go, if you fail an attack, you can regroup and try again, if you lose your base or your hive, you're going to be in quite a bind trying to take it back quickly now that the aliens only have one location to pressure, and you only one to leave from. A good idea for this is to usually move your node defenders to the main defense points and worry less about your nodes for the moment in favor of more manpower on the actuall assault.
- Seige. At hive level 2, many times aliens are just *too* strong to take on effectively inside of hiverooms where they heal and have full chamber advantages, defending seiges allows you to capitalize on the HA's strengths as well, and set up a full wall of defense capitalizing on the marine's ranged abilities.
- Get an armory at the location you're attacking from, also, if you didn't already, make sure there's one at the hive you control. Likewise for observatories.
-- The last thing you want is half your troops having to phase out to get ammo or having to spend a lot of key res on ammo packs during a tough hive battle.
- Try and stagger your marine's heights, this is really not something the comm can do, but if marines stagger their heights, this breaks the effectivness of Onos stomp, which is the single greatest weapon that the aliens have to use against you. Also keep a GL or two on hand and COVER THE GRENADIERS, they can't do much to fades or anything other than skulks or gorges(and even then only if they're very skilled with a GL or pistol), GLs should help break umbra support up by dealing full damage and scaring lerks off.
- Use the full gambit of weapons. Each weapon in NS has it's place, the only ones you may consider skipping are mines and LMGs at this point in the game, as LMG damage is just too weak to offer a useful sniping platform in comparison to the pistol, and mines are easily blown up by gorges, dealing damage to your stuff as well. Electrify, seige, sentry, HMG, Shotty, GL, everything is a valid option. Adapt your weapons choices to fit the situation. Lots of onos? HMGs, Lotta lerks? Shotties and GLs. Fades? Shotties and HMGs, Skulks are countered by just about anything, but there are tons of situations out there, so learn to adapt and not stick to a specific strategy or any such, this goes to all points in the game, not just late game.
<b>Part 3: General Notes and Tactics to Watch Out For</b>
- Once the hive goes down, you easily have the upper hand, but it's not quite over yet. If you seiged, set turrets up and a phase if you don't have them yet, just get some decent static defenses and be ready to defend, don't press the attack just yet.
-- A lot of comms get real uppity here, thinking they've won now, and a lot of alien teams to just give up, but sometimes smart alien teams will rush your base hard or nail at your old hive or any such, and, if they still have 3 of both(or all 3) chamber types, they're still definately a threat as long as they have a hive and res. Just be ready for a counter-assault, if all your forces move out immediately without fortifing the area the aliens will take it back, or they may just wipe your base out in seconds with any remaining onos or a skulk rush. If they take your base appart before you have any defenses in place at hive 2, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to hold out while rebuilding at the same time.
- You may have also lost a lot of res nodes during the time you took the hive, this is to be expected from any good alien team, scince your node defenders were probably watching base/the hive during the assault. Now is the time to re-capture those nodes and node hunt against the enemy. Aliens with anything more than 6 nodes are a SIGNIFICANT threat no matter what the hive level. 3-5 1 hive onos can utterly destroy any location they rush, usually no matter what forces are there simply due to devour taking one man out per onos, and gore dealing insande damage to your phase and any other defenses in the area.
- Once you're all set and in the clear, have a little fun, try and joke with the aliens or some-such, and overall, just be a good sport, and remember, it's a game. : ) Don't get too uppity over it. Losing a long game and good battle sucks no matter what the circumstances really, so don't be an **** to em or anything, kay'. ^^ Fun games and fun players is what keeps NS alive. Don't spawn camp em or sit around on your heels for 5 or 10 minutes outside their hive, just end it quickly with heavy weapons or whatever you chose and is most effective for you. Victory Jetpacks add a nice touch for your team too, especially if they've been using HA all game. : )
Okay', that's about it for the moment, may add some more stuffs later, but this should be okay' for now, this isn't meant to tell you exactly how to play the game, but more outline the strengths and weaknesses of certain points, and what situations they are best in, note which hive to attack and such are not listed, these choices and the like, and how to executre a plan, or what plan to use even, are up to the commander; everything needs some modification and adaptation, because no two games of teams are alike, so just learn to be modular and play to the enemy's weaknesses as well as your own strengths. An Anti-DC General Strategy topic/whatever may crop up later, but for today, that's all. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b><u>Side Notes and Status</b></u>
[March 9th - 12:40 PM EST] Topic Posted, General Outline Concieved and Posted.
[March 9th - 02:30 PM EST] MC: Part 1 completed, Part 2 Started.
[March 9th - 05:03 PM EST] Guide Finished for now.
This Section will be on Anti-Movement chamber first tactics, mostly outlying the MC's advantages and disadvantages, and also have a second part dedicated to Late Game Tactics, late game being a situation where marines have 1 hive, base, and ~3-5 res nodes and lvl3/3 weapons and and whatnot, and the aliens have a hive, and ~4-6 res nodes, along with 3 of each of their chamber choices, and static defenses, basicly, when push comes to shove late game.
Don't have enough time to write everything out, so at the moment I'm just posting the outline titles here, and will flesh them out either on my free period or when I get home today.
<b><u>Anti-Movement Tactics and General Strategy</b></u>
<b>Part 1: Combat</b>
- The MC, like the DC, has *all* combat effective abilities, celerity helps dodge, Silence can help if the alien gets out of sight range, and Addren will help make sure they don't run out of energy to leap/blink/fly/kill/whatever. Therefore, in combat, the aliens are going to be a good deal tougher to kill with MCs.
- Celerity, is nasty. It allows a skilled alien to close almost twice as quickly as a regular one, and makes them infinately harder to shoot at closer ranges. Depending on the skill of your marines with a shotgun, it will either be the perfect weapon, or the most useless of all in this case.
- Silence, keep in mind that around observatories you can see aliens on the minimap, this will help until you get MT(assuming you do).
- MT, on that note, is very, very key against Movement chambers. It will allow your marines to virtually negate silence, and give them more time to prepare, and fire upon celerity enemies, hopefully killing them or forcing them to fall back before any damage is done.
- Lerks are not going to be your friends, there's really no good way to take care of them either, shotguns work well, but only if they actually attack directly. Up until you get some GL's, addren spore lerks are going to be a real pain most likely, and about all you can do is give meds and/or welders and KEEP MOVING, standing still is going to burn your armor and health down real quick like.(although occasionally they'll have no good lerks or lerks at all, depends on the alien team, really, but it is more likely with addrennaline that you'll see spore lerks.)
- Be real careful early game if they drop 3 Movements first. At level 0/0 weapons and armor, marines will get utterly dominate by movement skulks, scince they can close quickly and dodge bullets with celerity, AND ambush successfully with silence. The best of both worlds with the MC.
- Like with the SC, aliens can't heal unless with a hive or gorge(innate regen not counted) however, this is a little harder to capitalize on, as if there is an MC nearby they can fall back with it easily, and they can move much faster too and from hives/gorges to heal. But still something that may be exploited every now and then if the right situation arises.
In other words, the MC is quite arguably the most rounded chamber of any of the 3. Allowing for support, assault, AND ambush options, the aliens can take on virtually any role required, this also makes them very hard to hard-counter successfully, and making the game a whole lot more variable. Keep in mind that they can really do just about anything, rushes can be foiled, defenses can be crushed, it's really a game of all 'middle ground' as far as combating movement goes on a man to man basis.
<b>Part 2: General Strategy and Notes on Movement Chambers</b>
- 2 Hive lockdowns suck against Movements. A lot.
-- Taking 2 Hives but losing the resource battle will get you slaughtered most likely, as soon as they get an onos or two, they'll likely MC rush your hive and take out the location before you can react successfully.
-- Likewise, don't ignore hives entirely either, no matter what chamber and res flow, aliens *always* benefit immensely from gaining a second or third hive.
- Dear god, don't shoot the building hive.
-- As soon as you nail a building hive with so much as a toothpick, you'll have a parade of skulks and such chewing and slicing your legs off. If you manage to get into a hive, build a PG, get shotties, or even GLs in there if you can afford it and have the tech, and take it down in less than 10 seconds, the longer it takes, the more aliens can warp in. Hopefully you can take it down before they get to an MC if you take it down quick enough and they don't realize you're there just yet.
- Taking the middle hive = Bad news.
-- You DON'T want the middle hive with MCs. If you take it, they will still be able to get up a second hive accross the map due to the MC warp effect, this is especially true if FF is on and a skulk can bite the hive to get reinforcements.
-- Also, if they get 2 hives, and you have the middle one, you're in a tough position, big time. They can then attack from both sides of the map, and capitalize quickly on wherever your weakest spot is, and you'll likely be forced into holding only your base and the third hive. Ultimately losing to an onslaught of higher lifeforms as they hemm you in and take your resource nodes and put them up for themselves.
- Resources and fast tech are key.
-- The aliens are most likely going to get a 2nd hive pretty much no matter what you do unless you take their hive early on in a rush or some such, or cripple their economy.
-- Like with sensory chambers, resources are a key here, as to break 2 hive lockdowns and such, they will need most likely either a few fades, or an onos with support, delaying this will allow you to get higher tech quickly. If you can make Jetpacks or HA's by the time they're just getting onos, you should be fine.
-- As stated, 1st hive movements are very strong in combat early on, picking up some tech to counter this is going to be pretty useful.
- Don't worry overmuch about static defenses
-- If they're pressing nodes really hard, you can electrify one or two, but it's pretty easy for aliens to take them out, especially once they have hive 2 and addren bile-bombs and the like.
- Aliens are more likely to spend res on higher lifeforms than on chambers, early shotguns can be important, HMGs over GLs most times later games, except when dealing with sporing lerks.
- Hand grenades may be an option if lerks are that much of an issue, although they are usually not effective enough, scince they can easily retreat down whatever vent they are in.
Basicly, the idea here is to pick up res and quickly and efficiently boost your marines' combat effectiveness rather than building up static defenses or bases or Phase gate tactics. Aliens are much stronger with MCs in combat than with SCs and arguably with DCs either.
<b>Part 3: Overlying Strategies Against Movement Chamber 1st Aliens</b>
- Grab some early res and hold 'em, losing too much resources to constantly rebuilding nodes really sucks, no matter what the chamber.
- As stated before, boosting combat prowess over location is prefferable in most cases, as ground tends to change quickly in Movement first games due to ease and fluidity of alien attacks.
- Heavy weapons are going to be a big plus mid to late game, try and get that armory upgraded early on, but not insanely so or you'll burn too much early game res and have an advanced armory and nothing else. (look for around 3:30 to 7 minutes in, depending on the situation.)
- MT should be a huge bonus, allowing you to react quickly and hit the enemy when they're away or prepare a marine defense before they even reach a location, gorge-hunting is also a viable but risky strategy if you have MT. (easier to locate and find gorges without them realizing it until too late.)
- Be ready for some nasty one hive fades, although they don't take as much firepower to kill as carapace fades, they can move in and damage or kill your troops much faster, and stay in longer than sensory fades due to celerity or addren boosts, silence fades are pretty easy to kill with MT though.
<b><u>Late Game Tactics and General Strategy</b></u>
This is some general strategic notes for late game, basicly, in that time period where aliens have their second hive up and you're stuck to a MS, a hive, and maybe 1 or two other nodes, and how to press forward and advance to key locations without losing your own.
<b>Part 1: The Order of Buisines</b>
- First, you'll want to get everything in order, make sure you have some res, killing a hive is nice, but without res, you'll get demolished. A marine team on two res nodes is as good as dead.
- Make sure you have ALL the static upgrades, at this point in the game, you should really be getting along on all the static upgrades, and you may even want to have two advanced armories just in case, scince that's the most critical building. Even if they have sensories, MT will probably make a good choice, simply to allow your marines to see what's incoming while they defend locations, and allow communication by sight instead of having to type or say everything.
- Cap nodes with a sizeable force, but never more than half your team. If you leave only 2 or 3 guys to defend all your holdings, they'll be overrun in no time, likewise, if you have too small of a capping force, they'll be destroyed.
- Patrol the nodes you have, a group of 2 or so HA's can hold any number of nodes by patroling and welding them as needed, especially if there's an armory nearby. You want to keep those nodes up, they're a good piece of res themselves, plus the flow of res is absolutely KEY late game, as you'll lose a lot of heavier equipment and res on meds and buildings and ammo most likely, hell, even cat packs if you like em'. (They have their uses.)
- Once you're all set on holding your res and can hold the aliens off without losing a significant portion of your forces constantly, you should be ready to press the offensive.
<b>Part 2: Advancing</b>
- The most common misconception here, is that you're supposed to take out hive with Jetpack/GL or Jetpack/Shotty combos. Bad, BAD idea. Horrid even. Chances are you'll kill the hive, BUT, they will put it back off and likely still hold you while you try and advance to take the area. Also, once that hive is online again, they now have all 3 chambers. This in essence will boost their effectiveness, weather than increasing it. This should only be done as a last ditch strategy. (I.E. You are unable to hold you hive and base successfully.)
- HA's are going to be the way to go, you just need to make sure they don't all reload or weld at the same time. The firepower of lvl 3 Weapons HA HMGs is withering even to Onos with stomp. Likewise, the Damage taking capacity of HA's at level 3 armor is effectively infinate if played right, with a GL or two to support, you should be able to take out just abou anything with enough effort and a little luck or skill. Jetpacks are nice, and I'm sure some clanners would argue that they're much better because you can dodge and all, but in all reality, JPs just aren't reliable enough to make a solution to most problems, heavy static defenses and/or lerk and fade support combined with gorges or skulks to heal or leap will take out JP's pretty quickly.
- Leave some guys to defend. Suicidal attacks are not the way to go, if you fail an attack, you can regroup and try again, if you lose your base or your hive, you're going to be in quite a bind trying to take it back quickly now that the aliens only have one location to pressure, and you only one to leave from. A good idea for this is to usually move your node defenders to the main defense points and worry less about your nodes for the moment in favor of more manpower on the actuall assault.
- Seige. At hive level 2, many times aliens are just *too* strong to take on effectively inside of hiverooms where they heal and have full chamber advantages, defending seiges allows you to capitalize on the HA's strengths as well, and set up a full wall of defense capitalizing on the marine's ranged abilities.
- Get an armory at the location you're attacking from, also, if you didn't already, make sure there's one at the hive you control. Likewise for observatories.
-- The last thing you want is half your troops having to phase out to get ammo or having to spend a lot of key res on ammo packs during a tough hive battle.
- Try and stagger your marine's heights, this is really not something the comm can do, but if marines stagger their heights, this breaks the effectivness of Onos stomp, which is the single greatest weapon that the aliens have to use against you. Also keep a GL or two on hand and COVER THE GRENADIERS, they can't do much to fades or anything other than skulks or gorges(and even then only if they're very skilled with a GL or pistol), GLs should help break umbra support up by dealing full damage and scaring lerks off.
- Use the full gambit of weapons. Each weapon in NS has it's place, the only ones you may consider skipping are mines and LMGs at this point in the game, as LMG damage is just too weak to offer a useful sniping platform in comparison to the pistol, and mines are easily blown up by gorges, dealing damage to your stuff as well. Electrify, seige, sentry, HMG, Shotty, GL, everything is a valid option. Adapt your weapons choices to fit the situation. Lots of onos? HMGs, Lotta lerks? Shotties and GLs. Fades? Shotties and HMGs, Skulks are countered by just about anything, but there are tons of situations out there, so learn to adapt and not stick to a specific strategy or any such, this goes to all points in the game, not just late game.
<b>Part 3: General Notes and Tactics to Watch Out For</b>
- Once the hive goes down, you easily have the upper hand, but it's not quite over yet. If you seiged, set turrets up and a phase if you don't have them yet, just get some decent static defenses and be ready to defend, don't press the attack just yet.
-- A lot of comms get real uppity here, thinking they've won now, and a lot of alien teams to just give up, but sometimes smart alien teams will rush your base hard or nail at your old hive or any such, and, if they still have 3 of both(or all 3) chamber types, they're still definately a threat as long as they have a hive and res. Just be ready for a counter-assault, if all your forces move out immediately without fortifing the area the aliens will take it back, or they may just wipe your base out in seconds with any remaining onos or a skulk rush. If they take your base appart before you have any defenses in place at hive 2, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to hold out while rebuilding at the same time.
- You may have also lost a lot of res nodes during the time you took the hive, this is to be expected from any good alien team, scince your node defenders were probably watching base/the hive during the assault. Now is the time to re-capture those nodes and node hunt against the enemy. Aliens with anything more than 6 nodes are a SIGNIFICANT threat no matter what the hive level. 3-5 1 hive onos can utterly destroy any location they rush, usually no matter what forces are there simply due to devour taking one man out per onos, and gore dealing insande damage to your phase and any other defenses in the area.
- Once you're all set and in the clear, have a little fun, try and joke with the aliens or some-such, and overall, just be a good sport, and remember, it's a game. : ) Don't get too uppity over it. Losing a long game and good battle sucks no matter what the circumstances really, so don't be an **** to em or anything, kay'. ^^ Fun games and fun players is what keeps NS alive. Don't spawn camp em or sit around on your heels for 5 or 10 minutes outside their hive, just end it quickly with heavy weapons or whatever you chose and is most effective for you. Victory Jetpacks add a nice touch for your team too, especially if they've been using HA all game. : )
Okay', that's about it for the moment, may add some more stuffs later, but this should be okay' for now, this isn't meant to tell you exactly how to play the game, but more outline the strengths and weaknesses of certain points, and what situations they are best in, note which hive to attack and such are not listed, these choices and the like, and how to executre a plan, or what plan to use even, are up to the commander; everything needs some modification and adaptation, because no two games of teams are alike, so just learn to be modular and play to the enemy's weaknesses as well as your own strengths. An Anti-DC General Strategy topic/whatever may crop up later, but for today, that's all. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b><u>Side Notes and Status</b></u>
[March 9th - 12:40 PM EST] Topic Posted, General Outline Concieved and Posted.
[March 9th - 02:30 PM EST] MC: Part 1 completed, Part 2 Started.
[March 9th - 05:03 PM EST] Guide Finished for now.
Comments
To beat MC you either have to be faster, or be tougher. A marine shotty rush will knacker any hive and I've seen hives go down in a matter of seconds. Other things are to hit two hives at once, since that messes up how MC work. MC is an aggressive chamber choice, but you can hit back harder with shotties and armour upgrades. You can't really defend any building because adren gorges can cheerfully keep an entire team alive, and if push comes to shove they can spit/bb any possible marine lame you can imagine.
Good honest fast paced marine aggression, res domination, and hive pressure is what works. Cap node, lose node, recap node, pressure hive, make aliens panic. If you can keep them running around their main hive, you can cap everything else on the map before chugging in with HA, or L3 shotties.
And controlling the map works in any strat really. It's part of the whole idea of an RTS game.
As I said, everything needs modification to the situation. If they gorge to heal, JP kill em or whatever, this is all just pretty generic stuff(or meant to be, was too specific on some points, but I'm not going to worry about editing them.
As for the topic Khaim and grendel work these in nslearn FTW!!