Power Node Strategy
Imbalanxd
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
Join Date: 2011-06-15 Member: 104581Members
<div class="IPBDescription">game strategy, not game design</div>So I don't know if everyone already does this, but it seems like most people I play with don't. So most people, when they see a power node, choose to destroy it as quickly as possible, but I think this is a bad approach. By destroying a power node, you are just causing a slight inconvenience that requires a marine to come push E on it for about 5 seconds to undo everything you just did. A better approach is to damage the power node to 1%. This does two things.
1. It forces the marines to either bring a MAC or a welder. Both cost res and both can be destroyed. Kind of like a sniper shooting to wound in order to get others who come to help.
2. If the marines choose not to fortify and repair the node, they have a massive weakness. Instead of them walking in and building the power node to 100%, you now have something that dies in 1 hit and disables everything that have in the area. The blackout is also extremely helpful.
This obviously doesn't apply to nodes that are already powering entire bases or outposts.
1. It forces the marines to either bring a MAC or a welder. Both cost res and both can be destroyed. Kind of like a sniper shooting to wound in order to get others who come to help.
2. If the marines choose not to fortify and repair the node, they have a massive weakness. Instead of them walking in and building the power node to 100%, you now have something that dies in 1 hit and disables everything that have in the area. The blackout is also extremely helpful.
This obviously doesn't apply to nodes that are already powering entire bases or outposts.
Comments
it does work in public by the way, but only if you are munching on it all alone.
There is only 1 reason to kill the node (beside the marine start) there are sentrys covering a pg, on hive 1.
For Example, Let us say you are an alien on summit and the marines have started in sub access, Aliens have started in Atrium. If a marine team decides to build in Crevice or Reactor core (on the complete opposite side of the map next to the alien spawn) then im not going to leave the power nod alive.
Why? For 1 the chances of the marines putting the effort into trying to fix a node on the opposite side of the map are slim to none, 2 it also disables them from insta building a phase gate in a room, flooding in and setting up a forward base (Trust me, ive commanded marines enough times to see how devastating it can be to set up a quickly built, but heavily fortified phase gate). Of course they can always repair the node first, but its a method of warning to both the commander and the surrounding areas.
But there are also times when leaving the node at a low hp value (I tend to bring it down far enough to have the alarm going off and yellow lights so that another team mate doesnt run up and finish off a 1% HP node, it also screams at the marines "Repair me repair me" with the alarm and flashing lights.) then i will wait patiently in the dark corner of the room and await some poor marine who wants to help his team by repairing the node, Before he realizes it he only helps me get dinner
Would you allow the functioning of an entire outpost to ride on a power node that would go down in a single parasite?
This is a checkmate situation. The marines have two options. Either forego building anything past a res tower, or spend the resources to repair the node. Either way, aliens win.
It doesn't offset the disadvantage of you being useless for 30 seconds biting down the power node to 1% when you could have taken down the phase gate instead. It's an idea that sounds good in theory but doesn't work out that way in an actual game.
It doesn't offset the disadvantage of you being useless for 30 seconds biting down the power node to 1% when you could have taken down the phase gate instead. It's an idea that sounds good in theory but doesn't work out that way in an actual game.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well different situations require different approaches. There are times when you destroy the power node, times when you should not destroy it.
An obvious example of when you should destroy it is when it is powering the marine's main base, and by extension, when it is powering anything more than a resource tower. Disabling these structures is a big plus, and the power outage usually creates a good distraction. However, if your team has no intention of taking the location, attacking the power node is pointless, and structures should be attacked instead.
I played a game last night where a good example of when not to destroy the power node arose. It was on mineshaft, and marines were continuously pushing into crusher from a nearby phase. They would push in with 3 or 4 marines, go straight to the power node, build it, then begin dropping structures. The aliens would then overrun them and destroy everything including the power node. This happened about 4 or 5 times. Each time we had to destroy the power node from 100% to 0%, and each time they would spend roughly 3 seconds building it to full again. What we should have done is just damage the node to +- 1% and leave it like that. It doesn't disadvantage us at all, because it would only take them a few concerted seconds to build it anyway, however it gives us complete control over their structures as we can destroy it at any time. We lose nothing, but gain control.
You know those times when you're running around the map and come across a random marine res tower in the middle of nowhere? You destroy everything there, and when you come back they have rebuilt it. Rather destroy the res tower and put the power node down to 1%. That way, when you come back again you can shut it all down in one bite, and you've given them absolutely nothing, other than 3 seconds not spent building a power node.