Average Lifespan?

monopolowa · March 2005

<div class="IPBDescription">of marines, aliens, whatever</div> I'm just curious what people think of as an average lifespan for a TSA marine, from his conception on the infantry portal until his death at the jaws of some alien lifeform

Looking for some kind of average across different servers and different skill levels

I say 17 seconds for a standard LA marine

HA and JP are tricky - i've had jetpackers that manage to stay alive and in action for as long as 20 minutes (relocate/last stand in alpha hive, dont remember what map...nothing?), while they also can drop like flies if they dont weld or go in unprepared...I'm going to say 1 minute for JP and 1:30 for HA

skulks dont last long either - about the same as marines, maybe a bit less because they're supposed to be cannon fodder

gorges should live for at least a minute, because they try to avoid combat in general

lerks and fades are tricky, because a skilled one can last the whole game while others (the majority) can die very quickly - I'd guess about 1:30 each

onos, I say 2 minutes, depending on the marine response. A redemption onos can last quite a while again, while they can also be taken out the first time they try hitting a marine base

urinalcake · March 2005

mono, you're the very last person i thought that would ever think of a question like this.

at first, i thought you were talking story-wise, but game wise. It's very hard to determine.
The big factor in determining the average would be the direction of the game, but there could be many other factors, amount of res nodes, upgrades, armor as you said, what weapons the marine is carrying, etc.

For aliens? oh god, that could be a science

CyberPitz · March 2005

everyone could go play a game, and post the time of each one that they do, no retrying em <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /> Just go once, post here <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /> then Avg after a day of adding the times up!

2_of_Eight · March 2005

Your times are way too short.
Marines - at least several mines, sometimes up to 5. At least 1, unless they're being spawncamped.
HA/JP - either they win the game, or they all die and the game is lost. Probably 3-5 minutes.

Skulks - 1-3 minutes... don't know.
Gorges - depends on how risky they are, and how offensive the Marines are. Between 1 minute (just dropping a node and re-skulking), or maybe the whole game (I've seen 0:0 gorges in epic games...), maybe up to 15 minutes. Permagorges still exist <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' />
Lerks - I don't know about others, for me it's usually from 8 minutes to 10, in some rare cases less than 1, and sometimes the whole game. These tend to last a long time if the Marines aren't very coordinated.
Fades - purely depends on skill of marines/fade and offesiveness of the fade. From several minutes, to the whole game for skilled ones.
Onos - no idea, I don't pay attention to these.

monopolowa · March 2005

yeah, i know my times are too short...skulks and LA marines are the easiest, because they account for most of the deaths in your game...just take the total deaths, number of players, and game time and you've got a decent estimate of a skulk or LA marine's lifespan. All the other lifeforms are tougher to figure out...

But lets look at it a different way for a moment - rather than the time you stay alive for, think of the number of skirmishes you can survive...a LA marine usually lasts for 1-3 skirmishes, right? (based on how everyone plays, over different servers and skill levels - I dont care how 1337 you in particular may be) So lets say you have one encounter every 30 seconds on average...a LA marine would last from 30-1:30 on average

For a skulk, I'd say they'd last for 1-2 skirmishes, so 30-1:00

Gorges dont have as many encounters, but they're most likely going to die in their first one, so a guess...1:00-2:00

lerk: 1-6 encounters (all depends on if it gets taken by surprise) so 30-3:00
2:15 average

fade: 1-12 encounters (wide variety here, this is just a guess) 30-6:00

onos: 1-12 encounters (can be chased, redempt fails, or is stupid) 30-6:00

HA: 1-8 encounters (all depends on if they get welded, also devour) 30-4:00

JP: 1-6 encounters (mobile, but cant take many hits) 30-3:00

Keep in mind I'm talking about the whole game here, so while you may last longer for one segment of the game, you'll have a number of quick deaths at the end if you're losing...

So...any comments on my new sweeping generalizations about both sides?

Thaldarin · March 2005

It's possible to last up to a hell of a long time in Classic play. In combat play 2/3minutes at most for the average player.

ThorStryker · March 2005

is that 2/3rds of a minute, or 2-3 minutes? Becuase most people I see in combat die in less than 1:30 unless they are camping.

Bulletproof_McBain · March 2005

Here's a bunch of ratios of mine, from screenshots I took of scoreboards over the months (normally scores I was proud of... at least when compared to my team-mates), with a reference to the species I was the most (or at least ended up as at game end) -

Aliens 

Eclipse, game time 69.12, Largely skulk, then became battle Gorge, 21 kills, 40 deaths - av. time alive = 1.725 mins

Bast, game time 22.46, permagorge, 5 kills, 0 deaths - av. time alive = 22.46 mins

Bast, game time 17.22, permaskulk, 8 kills, 2 deaths... then got Steamed - av. time alive = 8.61 mins

Origin, game time 31.12, permaskulk, 17 kills, 7 deaths - av. time alive = 4.44 mins

Veil, game time 20.40, lerk, 14 kills, 6 deaths - av. time alive = 3.4 mins

Cargo, game time 15.07, skulk, 10 kills, 2 deaths - av. time alive = 7.35 mins

Hera, game time 34.01, permagorge, 8 kills, 2 deaths - av. time alive = 17 mins

Bast, game time 11.56, permaskulk, 15 kills, 6 deaths - av. time alive = 1.92 mins

Metal, game time 31.01, lerk, 39 kills, 9 deaths - av. time alive = 3.4 mins

Marines

Mineshaft, game time 30.45, 34 kills, 14 deaths - av. time alive = 2.18 mins

Agora, game time 28.34, 19 kills, 5 deaths - av. time alive = 5.67 mins

Eclipse, game time 34.38, 32 kills 18 deaths - av. time alive = 1.91 mins

Ayumi, game time 30.03, 27 kills, 10 deaths - av. time alive = 3 mins

Mineshaft, game time 45.25, heavy marine, 35 kills, 1 death - proud of this one - av. time alive = 45.25 mins (mathematically)

Nancy, game time 22.48, 17 kills, 3 deaths - av. time alive = 7.5 mins

Origin, game time 34.06, heavy marine, 23 kills, 6 deaths - av. time alive = 5.68 mins

Ayumi, game time 8.57, 12 kills, 3 deaths - av. time alive = 2.85 mins

Ayumi, game time 21.23, 16 kills, 9 deaths - av. time alive = 2.35 mins

Co_angst, game time 16.30, shotgun light marine, 33 kills, 10 deaths - av. time alive = 1.63 mins

Hera, game time 12.07, 16 kills, 3 deaths - av. time alive = 4 mins

Lost, game time 28.28, heavy marine, 31 kills, 5 deaths - av. time alive = 5.65 mins

Tanith, game time 46.57, 29 kills, 14 deaths - av. time alive = 3.3 mins

TacticalAzN · March 2005

My average life span as a marine is about 4 minutes depending what gun I have and what kind of team I have. My kill:death ratio is about 4:1 as a marine. When I am an alien, I live about forever cause I never like to be aliens and always hold back. My kill:death ratio is about 2:1 as an alien.

Cxwf · March 2005

Bulletproof, your math is off. You need to add one to the deaths before doing your division (assuming you were alive when you took the screenshots). Let me use the 1 death game as an example.

You played for 45 minutes and died once. But you didn't die at the end of 45 minutes. You died somewhere in the middle, after living maybe 23 minutes, then you respawned and lived another 23 or so minutes and were still alive when you took the screen shot.

This won't be perfect either, because this math kind of assumes you die right after taking your screenshot, which may not be the case. In order to get it perfect, you'd have to take the kill score screen shot while you were dead, so you could count that last death at the correct time.

DaJMasta · March 2005

I die alot, like even for n00bs and such, but even I think the original estimates r way off, i mean 17 sec isnt enough to do anything.

Playing decently, im probably about a min and a half with a skulk, but more for the other aliens, and probably 7-9 mins with gorge (doing most anything)

For marines, i probably die a little less, especially with Jp, but i never really live thru 10 mins, like ever, and i can usually survive more than 20 secs unless theres aliens swarming the spawn point....

...and im guessing this is for classic, cause in combat halve all those numbahs.

freebirdpat · March 2005

Marines that last 17 seconds probably spend 2 seconds heading to the armory 14 seconds humping the armory and one second dieing because they thought someone else would shoot the skulk entering base.

monopolowa · March 2005

yeah i know i just liked the sound of "17 second lifespan"

But seriously, the average can't be all that high...in a half hour game it's not uncommon to have 20-30 deaths (not all marines die this much but many do)

Swiftspear · March 2005

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (TacticalAzN @ Mar 28 2005, 10:12 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> My average life span as a marine is about 4 minutes depending what gun I have and what kind of team I have. My kill:death ratio is about 4:1 as a marine. When I am an alien, I live about forever cause I never like to be aliens and always hold back. My kill:death ratio is about 2:1 as an alien.  </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> 
Wow, you haven't played me much then... My average K:D as a rine is probably around 4:3, but as an alien it is not at all rare for me to go up around 30:1, probably averageing at about 7:1. (I fade alot though...) I find that average K:D for me are signifigantly lower in NS mode play then on CO mode though, since on CO my relitively high skill often means I tec up faster then the other teams average players, meaning while they are still weaker, I am stronger then I would ever be as any lifeform/marine in a standard NS game.

If I had to guess at lifespans I would say

Vanilla marine: 1-2 minutes
Skulk: 30sec-2 mins
Lerk: 5+mins
Fade:10+mins
Onos:7+mins
JP:3+mins
HA:3+mins
Gorge:7+mins (they avoid combat as much as possible if they are smart)

Average Lifespan?

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