Keeping busy as an alien commander
tk-421
Join Date: 2006-11-03 Member: 58315Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2006-11-03 Member: 58315Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Is this a genuine problem or not?</div>I've seen a few posts here regarding "nothing to do" as an alien commander and wanted to have a discussion as to whether that's true or not.
Personally, I've found it fairly time-consuming to keep on top of things and I don't have too much "down time" as people here might suggest. My APM is fairly decent and I've been playing strategy games for over a decade.
Here's what I've come up with so far - let me know what you all think:
<u>Non-Combat Tasks</u>
<ul><li>Upgrades from the hive.</li><li>Upgrades from structures.</li><li>Cysting</li><li>Placing RT's</li><li>Placing upgrade buildings at the hive.</li><li>Placing support buildings near combat.</li><li>Scouting drifters.</li><li>Moving around the map / general map awareness and reporting to your team (this is a big time sink).</li></ul>
<u>Combat Tasks</u>
<ul><li>Bone-walls to save retreating units (love this ability).</li><li>Heal wave from crags.</li><li>Placing eggs at shifts.</li><li>Using drifter ability.</li><li>Ink from shades.</li><li>Creating hallucinations and faking mock base rushes (also great fun).</li></ul>
I'm probably missing a few from these lists.
My humble opinion would be - while you're probably not <i>overwhelmingly</i> occupied during the game, it's still takes a fair amount of attention and APM to stay on top of everything. I'd say this is especially true whenever you have a confrontation break out while you're simultaneously trying to cyst and expand your base in a separate direction (while constantly scouting).
Also, one more point I'd like to add - while you may not always be clicking different actions, it's fairly time consuming just to jump around the map and constantly report to your team the location of all the marines on the map (that you can see). I think that alone is an <b>important distinction</b> between a "normal" RTS and one like NS2 where the people are actual players. Perhaps those people who find themselves "bored" are not spending enough time scouting and reporting enemy locations to their teammates?
Thoughts?
Personally, I've found it fairly time-consuming to keep on top of things and I don't have too much "down time" as people here might suggest. My APM is fairly decent and I've been playing strategy games for over a decade.
Here's what I've come up with so far - let me know what you all think:
<u>Non-Combat Tasks</u>
<ul><li>Upgrades from the hive.</li><li>Upgrades from structures.</li><li>Cysting</li><li>Placing RT's</li><li>Placing upgrade buildings at the hive.</li><li>Placing support buildings near combat.</li><li>Scouting drifters.</li><li>Moving around the map / general map awareness and reporting to your team (this is a big time sink).</li></ul>
<u>Combat Tasks</u>
<ul><li>Bone-walls to save retreating units (love this ability).</li><li>Heal wave from crags.</li><li>Placing eggs at shifts.</li><li>Using drifter ability.</li><li>Ink from shades.</li><li>Creating hallucinations and faking mock base rushes (also great fun).</li></ul>
I'm probably missing a few from these lists.
My humble opinion would be - while you're probably not <i>overwhelmingly</i> occupied during the game, it's still takes a fair amount of attention and APM to stay on top of everything. I'd say this is especially true whenever you have a confrontation break out while you're simultaneously trying to cyst and expand your base in a separate direction (while constantly scouting).
Also, one more point I'd like to add - while you may not always be clicking different actions, it's fairly time consuming just to jump around the map and constantly report to your team the location of all the marines on the map (that you can see). I think that alone is an <b>important distinction</b> between a "normal" RTS and one like NS2 where the people are actual players. Perhaps those people who find themselves "bored" are not spending enough time scouting and reporting enemy locations to their teammates?
Thoughts?
Comments
What you listed are true, but the one fact, that marine commander must communicate with living things compulsorily beats every tasks which khammander must do, haha
Which is true, and as I mentioned on another similar thread, is by design...
i.e. The "cosmic gardener" (alien) vs the "APM Freak" (marine). This is to keep the asymmetry between the two roles, and I like it. E.g. The alien commander not being able to drop way-point is also there for this reason.
Is boredom directly related to apm? What about using your mic and communicating with teammates? Directing players?
You can do that from the field and actually contribute on the fight.
This should obviously be fixed by UWE, but right now you can do much more than just stare at your own hive when you don't have much to do.
i.e. The "cosmic gardener" (alien) vs the "APM Freak" (marine). This is to keep the asymmetry between the two roles, and I like it. E.g. The alien commander not being able to drop way-point is also there for this reason.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Alien pheromones are in, not exactly waypoints but they do give the team an idea of what the hamm is doing, as well as arrows to follow to get there
^^ This seems to be one of the biggest differences you can make as an alien commander and is sadly often overlooked. Always be scouting...
So yes, you can absolutely keep busy as an alien commander, but that requires multitasking and playing on the field at the same time. This is not usually practical on public games, as eventually someone will steal your hive.
Dropping a hive
Upgrades from the hive.
Dropping lifeforms.
Upgrades from structures. (Only if game drags on around 10 minute mark)
Cysting (Only 0-1 cyst after 2nd hive is up and more if the game drags on)
Placing RT's (1 RT after 2nd hive is up and maybe 1-2 after that if game drags on)
Scouting drifters.
Moving around the map / general map awareness and reporting to your team (this is a big time sink).
Combat Tasks
Using drifter ability.
Only thing that takes more than a split second to accomplish is scouting and using drifters.
Also, khamm tip, use your first 20 t.res to gorge and put down 3 hydras, that way at least your hive isn't going to be such an easy target. (And you're not going to do anything with those 20 t.res anyway)
So yea, it's boring imo. It wouldn't be so boring if at least there was more tech variety, currently you're pretty much forced to go second hive first. And Shift is almost always preferred. Though that's kind of similar to how the marine commander plays currently (rush phase tech, zzz) Might as well devise some AI to do it, since there's not much 'strategy' left.
This should obviously be fixed by UWE, but right now you can do much more than just stare at your own hive when you don't have much to do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I do that all the time :D Been playing Alien comm a bit again lately, and I am always scouting around the map, listening for footsteps and building so I can drop threat markers before there is real danger.
I like the changes to the alien comm (I've not comm'd Aliens seriously since about build 200), and for me, there is plenty to keep me occupied, but then again, i've never been a great RTS player :D
Marine commander I will be spamming medpacks and shields, while monitoring research.
Alien commander I will be spamming whips and crags, while monitoring marine movements via drifters.
This should obviously be fixed by UWE, but right now you can do much more than just stare at your own hive when you don't have much to do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I typically do this (though more often by accident than on purpose, its not like you can unhear marine footsteps in an area without direct LOS). It makes up for the substandard LOS/FOW for comm in NS2.
Also, the only time I'm not busy as alien comm is during the early game when I don't have enough res to keep up with tech/structure drops or any AI units (drifters/whips) to micro. Usually, I just go gorge and put up some defenses until my res flow is high enough to perma-comm.
Also I Hardly ever see Khamms use bone wall. I've assisted one skulk to take down 2-3 marines multiple times by placing strategic bonewalls to segregate and trap the marines. As well, forward shades are great for inking and hallucinations you'd be surprised what one decent skulk can do with ink, hallucination skulks, and bone walls. Of course this stuff cost res so don't go too crazy.
Bonewalling a retreating onos or another higher lifeform is well worth it, providing enzyme for a base rush also. But spamming structures here and there would have to be based on a ridiculous res-flow/map control, both not likely if it's a very even game.
thats not the coms job, what most coms fail to do is see attacks coming. if your com is outside the hive, who is providing overwatch? who is making sure a rt isnt going down somewhere?
To that end if your the com and you havnt gestated into a gorge in the first 2 min your a failure.
I don't know how many base RT I have saved as a gorge com after the rine takes it down to 1 bar and kills the cyst.... Jump out attack rine while heal rt...
Clog upgrades...+1. A must as com you will have a minute or 2 free why not protect your stuff....
Get out and heal... Rines attacking a hive heal it... Guess what your the com so when they shoot you get back in the hive.... Then get out 10 sec later and heal more... Repeat this and don't be a POS com who complains....
If the rines keep attacking the same hive make that your hive so youll be there to heal.
Only time a alien com should be bord is when it's a 1 chair turtle.. Once Craig/shift forts are up get your bilebomb to the front Line, or have fun with your rediculous res flow
It doesn't matter if you are able to bring on 200+ APM when you don't have enough resource income to make them matter.
In an traditional RTS more APM means more control, more options and more influence over how the game goes. There are not many RTS out there where you can "over micro".
But in NS2 that can actually happen, if you over micro you gonna blow resources that are actually needed in the long run.
So you are mostly stuck in situations where you would love to do something, but doing something always involves res and as such will hamper your meta game.
No matter what route you go in terms of upgrades, your overall room to act and options will never really increase because all these options are mostly alternative uses for resources.
You wanna scan or you want to medspam? Doing both won't work, no matter how many resources you invested in building OB's over the course of the round.
I'd rather see energy return in some way to give Commanders a reason to actually care about certain buildings and abilities. As it is right now lot's of systems feel tacked on, unintuitive and not worth it.
Why does "shifting eggs" cost as much as spawning new ones? Why have the mature mechanic in the game when maturing still requires quite some resources to actually get the Khamm any advantage? How useful is misting stuff if it does not even increase research speed? Why doe hallucinations cost different amount of res when only 2-3 of them are actually useful?
There is just not much versatility to much of the Khamm gameplay because you always need your resources to unlock the next "big goal" without using what you've unlocked so far because it will hamper your overall progress.
Ah, must've missed that one in the changelog - is this true that it doesn't expedite research anymore? I could've sworn it went faster...
It doesn't matter if you are able to bring on 200+ APM when you don't have enough resource income to make them matter.
In an traditional RTS more APM means more control, more options and more influence over how the game goes. There are not many RTS out there where you can "over micro".
But in NS2 that can actually happen, if you over micro you gonna blow resources that are actually needed in the long run.
So you are mostly stuck in situations where you would love to do something, but doing something always involves res and as such will hamper your meta game.
No matter what route you go in terms of upgrades, your overall room to act and options will never really increase because all these options are mostly alternative uses for resources.
You wanna scan or you want to medspam? Doing both won't work, no matter how many resources you invested in building OB's over the course of the round.
I'd rather see energy return in some way to give Commanders a reason to actually care about certain buildings and abilities. As it is right now lot's of systems feel tacked on, unintuitive and not worth it.
Why does "shifting eggs" cost as much as spawning new ones? Why have the mature mechanic in the game when maturing still requires quite some resources to actually get the Khamm any advantage? How useful is misting stuff if it does not even increase research speed? Why doe hallucinations cost different amount of res when only 2-3 of them are actually useful?
There is just not much versatility to much of the Khamm gameplay because you always need your resources to unlock the next "big goal" without using what you've unlocked so far because it will hamper your overall progress.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you forgot to mention : why even use hallucinations at all when you can just drifter rush
A good khamm will actively sound out marine footsteps before they even reach the point that needs defending, go gorge early on to place clogs around upgrades and place defensive hydras in the starting hive. As well as keeping an eye on drifters location, using enzyme, placing eggs, using bonewall & ink cloud. All these abilities used at a perfect location & time have a massive effect on the course of the game.
You can be a much bigger asset to your team if you are more active in helping them (this doesn't mean more APM btw)
A good khamm will actively sound out marine footsteps before they even reach the point that needs defending, go gorge early on to place clogs around upgrades and place defensive hydras in the starting hive. As well as keeping an eye on drifters location, using enzyme, placing eggs, using bonewall & ink cloud. All these abilities used at a perfect location & time have a massive effect on the course of the game.
You can be a much bigger asset to your team if you are more active in helping them (this doesn't mean more APM btw)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
qft