Tips For Commanders
R32
Join Date: 2002-09-16 Member: 1325Members
Join Date: 2002-09-16 Member: 1325Members
Feel free to add on but these are some of the things I think are currently holding the marines back.
1. Know your maps
It seems that most people are still to unfamilier with their maps. I can tell where the 1st Alien Hive is located just from where the skulks are rushing from.
2. Turret placement
I play as a Kharaa often. I find that most of the time I can take out turret factories as a line skulk. Practice better turret placment by setting the turret factory against a resource node or wall where a skulk cannot hide.
3. Spawn portals
Build at least 4 spawn portals as soon as possible. This will get dead marines back into action very quickly.
4. Keeping Marines alive
Upgrade Motion tracking quickly. This allows marines to be prepared for assaults and increases chance of survival greatly. Additionally weapon damage upgrades is a very cost effective way to improve the efficiency of your troops.
1. Know your maps
It seems that most people are still to unfamilier with their maps. I can tell where the 1st Alien Hive is located just from where the skulks are rushing from.
2. Turret placement
I play as a Kharaa often. I find that most of the time I can take out turret factories as a line skulk. Practice better turret placment by setting the turret factory against a resource node or wall where a skulk cannot hide.
3. Spawn portals
Build at least 4 spawn portals as soon as possible. This will get dead marines back into action very quickly.
4. Keeping Marines alive
Upgrade Motion tracking quickly. This allows marines to be prepared for assaults and increases chance of survival greatly. Additionally weapon damage upgrades is a very cost effective way to improve the efficiency of your troops.
Comments
i usually find it easier to defent a tfac that is in the middle of a room with a bit of space around it. a turret on either side seems to keep em off real good, although i guess in small corridors or rooms with lots of stuff in the way might change that.
placing a fac in a corner or next to a wall seems a bit tricky to me. i used to try and always got it just so there was that tiny gap for a skulk to sit in that was mostly undefendable
oh, and i just remembered, i have seen commanders build turrets on top of factories. this seems to be the best way of defending them
Always place the gate first in any offencive area, befor the gate goes up tell everybody to get near a gate, the second it goes up tell everybody to leap in.
Also tell everybody to only shoot buildings when orderd.
BlueGhost
oh, and i see a lot of commanders trying to "hide" factories, does this ever work? i imagine skulks would have to be pretty dumb
1. Never take comm if you don't have a plan. If YOU as commander need to ask your marines what you should do you should never have taken it in the first place. A commander needs to have the strategy already devised.
2. Authority (most important part) is the key to having a good team of marines, I never say anything about people never getting hmg or ha for not following orders because when I command my games usually end victorious for marines in light armor and lmg, so I don't need that threat. But all you have to do is be VERY active over voice, marines like to hear their commander on voice, because that tells them you are always thinking, and always doing something and always have the plan in action. They want you to tell them to check the ceiling, or HURRY to the waypoint. The commander MUST be barking orders at all times throughout the game over the mic or your marines will start to scurry off before you get that need to have 2nd hive. This is where I see most newbie commanders fail, they never use communication at ALL. Maybe once every 3 minutes they will say something, this is not good ever.
3. WAYPOINTS WAYPOINTS WAYPOINTS. Give them waypoints in the beginning so they move fast and if you have to give them the waypoints at short intervals so they can find their way through the map otherwise they will get lost.
4. Speed. You as a commander need to move fast in securing that first unguarded hive, since the next hive you will try and take will most likely have some protection so speed is key.
5. Upgrades are so so, basically you need 2 ips
on a pub if you don't trust someone to stay at base get a tf up in the CORNER not out in the open where you have to cover it on all four sides and try and place your turrets so one is covering behind the comm chair and one is trying to cover the turrets and some buildings. If I do this I will never build more than two starting turrets. and try and get as much coverage as possible by building my buildings close together and not placing my turrets way out where skulks can just run right by them.
After this move out and maybe drop a node and have one marine guard it froma position he will likely stay alive at then the rest move to the hive, drop a node, tf right next to or on the node if you can and four turrets in a box around the node/tf. After this get observatory, phase at base. Then get to your second hive and take it, if you think you can siege the hive they start with go for it. Otherwise the 2nd hive shouldn't have too much defense yet and so should be easy. After this it's game over any decent commander can win when they own two hives.
Try and get arms and weapon upgrades don't put too much emphasis on hmg's ha till end game as if they should never get fades if you move fast enough. Your upgrades will allow the marines to rush the fades and kill them anyway, even if they take some damage. Key here is authority in that you need to be yelling over your mic telling them to rush and you will notice if you hold your cursor over a fade you can see you can see it's health this helps alot in raising your marines morale like a couple times a fade was in red and im like he's in red you pansies GO KILL HIM and well they did.
Bottom line though is the commander needs to have authority and a plan before taking the freakin comm, don't take it if you are gonna be a silent bob and not say crap an let your marines do anything they want without reprimand because I can tell you write now your comm win ratio is gonna be a little over .0001%
Maybe some good field commanding marines will save your **obscenity**, if you cant get the nerve to start talking to your marines.
oh and the turret fac in the open doesn't need 4 side protection. i usually find two turrets placed a short distance from opposite corners of the factory keep it covered. (each one covers two sides so no skulk spots)
And then a smart side-stepping skulk waltzes in, and -63 marine resources... :/ Corner placement is better PROVIDED you do it correctly.
Upgrade Motion tracking quickly. This allows marines to be prepared for assaults and increases chance of survival greatly. Additionally weapon damage upgrades is a very cost effective way to improve the efficiency of your troops.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Motion tracking doesn't seem to work most of the time which makes it a bit of a waste :/
Nuff Said.
RU
Making infantry portals and Phase Gates is a great way to overwelm aliens. In the time it takes one alien to spawn you can spawn most of your team. Only build more then 2 if you have some extra resorces tho.