Strategies
measles
Join Date: 2007-02-26 Member: 60122Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2007-02-26 Member: 60122Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">NS2_TRAM (a discussion)</div>Tram is an excellent map for play strategies.
All the features of this map awesome for a pilot map, here are a few strategies as I see them;
Frontiersmen;
For this team there are 2 initial options;
Rush tech2-
To rush tech 2, your going to ignore the east side (observatory etc), so locking the access door to that area is advised.
Setting IP behind the corridor wall would be appropriate, because soldiers are going to be focused on accessing double (repair room)
Result:
+2 CC's and 3 RT's upgraded to value of 2-3 each.
+Focus on alien start hive, upon success, 2 more nodes.
Alternatively, focus on the east side from initial start means you are going to supress expansion, at the cost of stability.
With soldiers moving centre and eastward Aliens can easily launch an offensive on MStart/Mexpansion.
BUT;
With marines locking down double, a few good skulks and a gorg or Lerk can easily hold off advancing forces at lienexpansion.
Whilst Commander sets 2nd hive at elevator hive, giving access to 2 more rt's.
Does this make sense?
All the features of this map awesome for a pilot map, here are a few strategies as I see them;
Frontiersmen;
For this team there are 2 initial options;
Rush tech2-
To rush tech 2, your going to ignore the east side (observatory etc), so locking the access door to that area is advised.
Setting IP behind the corridor wall would be appropriate, because soldiers are going to be focused on accessing double (repair room)
Result:
+2 CC's and 3 RT's upgraded to value of 2-3 each.
+Focus on alien start hive, upon success, 2 more nodes.
Alternatively, focus on the east side from initial start means you are going to supress expansion, at the cost of stability.
With soldiers moving centre and eastward Aliens can easily launch an offensive on MStart/Mexpansion.
BUT;
With marines locking down double, a few good skulks and a gorg or Lerk can easily hold off advancing forces at lienexpansion.
Whilst Commander sets 2nd hive at elevator hive, giving access to 2 more rt's.
Does this make sense?
Comments
I think it's much more critical to have a good plan as alien. The first minutes of play generally determine if aliens have a chance of winning or are doomed to eventual defeat. I like to put a new hive in elevator transfer first, which gives aliens a forward base. This also gives another hive to generate energy to put infestation down quickly, which is important. I put a res node in alien expansion and Operations and then start extending infestation into double. This is all done within the first 2 minutes of the game. Too often, the alien commander will build useless stuff around alien start and not expand, which almost always spells doom for the aliens. Rapid expansion and infestation is a MUST for alien victories. They must expand and try to infest as many res nodes as possible to prevent marine expansion. I usually ignore server room until the mid-game as it's fairly useless when you have elevator transfer, but can be nice for additional hive energy/drifters. Another important factor for an alien win is having a few gorges. They need to place some hydras around the alien expansion node as well as elevator transfer. They also heal any damaged hives/harvesters. Without these gorges, it can be hard to keep the marines at bay and you'll find yourself constantly replacing hives/harvesters, which eats up resources. The alien commander should probably be a gorge and put some hydras out, as you won't be using your resources for lifeforms very much.
Wins on tram usually take a long time unless it's an IP rush by the aliens. I think alien wins usually take longer. Aliens usually have to build little forward bases with a ton of crags to heal the fades/lerks and slowly push to marine start (at which point the server usually lags like hell due to all the required alien buildings). Taking marine expansion as alien isn't all that helpful because it's still bugged and won't spawn eggs if a hive is there, but it still heals. Marine victories usually involve taking elevator transfer, then server room. Server room provides quick access to alien start to end it, but it can take a while with a good alien team. I've had a few games where marines take alien start first and are left with elevator transfer or server room. I think this is a bad situation for marines because to hold onto alien start and alien expansion, you have to put down a lot of power packs for power as there are no power nodes. This makes the base vulnerable and costly to maintain. One good alien counter attack means you loose a lot of res and have to do it all over again.
I enjoy playing tram much more than rockdown. You have more options on tram and can be sneaky, whereas on rockdown, there are only two ways around the map, and you're bound to run into an enemy.
My strategys havent been tested on the new version, and I suppose they might very well be bad now that alien expansion changed location.
As a marine I usually prefer to capture the right sides extractor, but still have a cc in marine expansion (usually just sits there as I like to have a backup base if disaster strucks).
I think the right extractors are easyer to hold than double. As double is a double res room, it tend to make the teams psychologically find it more valuable, while the nodes on the right side often is left alone. So if you keep macs as scouts in double, and tell your marines to kill extractors built there, you can keep a good resource advantage, as your extractors is left alone/easily defended at the right side (operations being a possible exception, if aliens got a hive there). The center is usually easy to hold aswell, unless no marine wants to help, as it can get backup from everywhere.
Once I secured those extractors on the right side, I try to get a cc in center, aliens rarely got a hive there, and its not very hard to apply pressure on it. When I done that I let my marines attack where they want (altough still telling them to defend when needed), while I get the double res room, and the armor and dmg upgrades (ft should already be researched by now).
But I guess its time for me to go play some now, I want to play around with the new layout (have so far stayed with rockdown due to lag, and the times I played on tram its either as rine comm (not alien for osme reason) or not comm)
As alien commander your goals in the early game should be:
-Get another hive down quickly
-Have at least 2 harvesters active by the 3 minute mark
-Have infestation covering at least one more res node without a harvester yet by the 4 minute mark
If you don't do the above, things aren't looking too well for the aliens. This really limits you to two opening options
1) Put the second hive in server room and take alien expansion and double res
2) Put the second hive in elevator transfer and take alien expansion and either tram tunnel res or operations
I prefer #2, but if you are facing a very good marine commander, you might have to go with #1.
After that, I try to put a single whip down and upgrade to melee #1. This is very important as Melee #1 allows skulks to kill marines in 2 bites instead of 3 if marines don't upgrade to armor 1. This makes a huge difference and many alien commanders don't see the benefit in it. After that, the priority should be to upgrade the hive to level 2 to enable fades, continue trying to put harvesters down, and put crags and whips down in strategic locations. If Marines upgrade to armor 1, you need to counter with Melee #2. Aliens should be giving feedback telling you when marines have armor 1 (i.e. it takes 3 bites to kill a marine).
Not to brag or anything, but I'd say I win as aliens when I'm commander using the above strategy a good 75% of the time. Sometimes it take a long time to complete the victory, but at least I give the aliens a shot a winning. I lose when marines focus on taking out harvesters and aliens don't do a good job protecting them or when marines are hell bent on taking elevator transfer early.
DO NOT upgrade harvesters. I really can't think of a situation where it would be needed unless the aliens are losing badly and trapped in their hive. It only increases individual resources, and an average player should not be dying with a lerk/fade so often that he runs out of personal resources as alien. Marines are a little different, and I can see upgrading an extractor in certain situations.
Yep, a skulk can kill a marine in 2 bites if the melee upgrade level is at least 1 better than the marine armor level. A fade can kill a marine in 2 swipes if the armor and melee upgrades are at least equal, and takes 3 swipes if the marine armor upgrade is one better than melee. I've won a few games quickly with a "Melee #1" rush. The first thing I do is upgrade to melee 1 without anything else, then tell the team to rush marine start. It works a lot of the time, but if it fails, you're kinda screwed as you used up a lot of res with that upgrade so early in the game.
In the early game, remember it takes two bites and a parasite to kill a marine with armor 0, so if you can lead with a parasite, you make your life much easier finishing the kill.
1. RT (observation)
2. Armory
3. 2nd CS (marine expansion)
4. Upgrade 1st CS
5. Recycle 2nd CS
6. Research Shotgun
Then I usually tech up to flamethrower as fast as possible to counter the inevitable marine start infestation spam.
Alien side:
1. 2nd Hive (elevator transfer)
2. RT (alien expansion)
3. 3rd Hive (server room)
4. RT (operations)
5. Upgrade hive (server room) to hive mass
6. Whip + melee 1 or running leap
I try to use the three hives (especially the hive in elevator transfer) to expand infestation to all of the res nodes and marine start as quick as possible.
General res node strategy is pretty similar for both sides; take the res nodes on the opposite side of the map as the enemy. If enemy goes west RTs (double) then I take east (operations and observation) and vice versa. If I'm winning, then I take the tram tunnel RT as well.
This, I did not know. Are you quite sure about that?
In game it appears as though resource begins to flow a little faster.. Maybe I'm imagining things. Nevertheless, I don't thihnk it should remain that way.
<!--quoteo(post=1838267:date=Mar 22 2011, 10:29 AM:name=Quovatis)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Quovatis @ Mar 22 2011, 10:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1838267"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yep, a skulk can kill a marine in 2 bites if the melee upgrade level is at least 1 better than the marine armor level. A fade can kill a marine in 2 swipes if the armor and melee upgrades are at least equal, and takes 3 swipes if the marine armor upgrade is one better than melee. I've won a few games quickly with a "Melee #1" rush. The first thing I do is upgrade to melee 1 without anything else, then tell the team to rush marine start. It works a lot of the time, but if it fails, you're kinda screwed as you used up a lot of res with that upgrade so early in the game.
In the early game, remember it takes two bites and a parasite to kill a marine with armor 0, so if you can lead with a parasite, you make your life much easier finishing the kill.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Normally, I try to get running leap asap.. But, in a recent game I found that most of my players were lerked and there was 1 gorg so I upped armor 1st.
Also, FYI, the alien armor upgrades are bugged and don't do anything at the moment. Don't waste res on them.
Seconded.
Its only really useful for marines if they can only hold 1 or 2 res nodes.
1 tres every 7 seconds? 15*7 = 105 seconds...
And if upgrading did increase tres, that'd be 1/3 the cost for +1/3 the production (so another 105 seconds). Bit of a gamble.
1 tres every 7 seconds? 15*7 = 105 seconds...
And if upgrading did increase tres, that'd be 1/3 the cost for +1/3 the production (so another 105 seconds). Bit of a gamble.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm pretty sure it's one res every 12 seconds, so it takes 3 minutes for a res tower to pay for itself. The personal resource upgrade doesn't increase the frequency of the flow, it merely gives you 2 res instead of 1 every 1/2/3 cycles.
1. immediately build new hive in elevator transfer (center of map)
2. immediately build harvester in alien expansion (do not ever let it die -- jump out of hive and attack from vent behind the harvester)
3. immediately infest double res nodes (block marines at beginning - let it die)
4. wait for marines to build extractor either in tram tunnel or in observation, get team of skulks to take it out, then try to keep it infested
5. secure marine expansion and build a hive there, get 1-2 gorges to spam hydras
6. if you haven't won yet, build hive at observation
7. if you haven't won yet, build harvesters at double res nodes
Fit in upgrades when you can. Ignore crags/whips anywhere except the forward hive at marine expansion, at least until late game.
Hives only cost 20 res. Most likely you will lose the hive at marine expansion (though you won't if you use good teamwork and catch marine team off guard). The idea is you get the 3rd hive very quickly and let it distract marines while you get 4th hive at observation. At this point it should still be early game and you will have warded off marines from double res while securing 3 hives (alien start, elevator xfer, observation) and a majority of the map.
Principally you need to block off double res from marines as they don't have any other good extractor locations around marine start. Continue to take down observation since it is so far from marine start.
You get a ton of resources at beginning of game, which allows you to throw 2 hives down and a harvester without having to think about it. Do not waste on whips/crags early game. Do not waste on harvesters that will inevitably go down.
A couple other points:
1. Don't waste time placing infestation all around the map until you have at least a 3rd hive up. It is better used on blocking marines from getting extractors (nearby to marine start). Keep placing the infestation and letting it die, it doesn't matter.
2. Don't forget to heal hives, especially if you don't have crags, considering the hives do not currently heal themselves.
3. Get team of skulks to work together, if you have 5 skulks hit marine start (IPs) while the marine team is elsewhere on map (attacking dubious hive?) then it's 95% chance it's game over.
4. Don't waste time killing power nodes when it serves no purpose. If anything I say keep power nodes up to encourage marines to build extractors, then take the extractors out. It takes 1 second for a marine commander to decide to repair a node, compared to over a minute for a skulk to kill one. Not a good use of time.
1. immediately build 1 extractor @ closer side of double res (tell team to guard it and not move)
2. immediately build command station at marine expansion
3. immediately build armory inside hologram
4. immediately lock doors at marine start + double res
5. build IP at marine expansion
6. upgrade shotgun
7. secure double res and get the 2nd extractor up
8. weapons 1 upgrade, then armor 1
9. push team into alien start, take out both harvesters before worrying about hive
Ignore observation & tram tunnel res nodes, if you build extractors here they will always get wiped out. If you don't have extractors in double res, then your team is going to have to defend it, and that means no marines in observation. Not worth it.
The map is arranged to make it very easy for marines to take control of their expansion and double res. Observation is too far away from anything else on the map to be worthwhile.