Skulking 101

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  • GorgenapperGorgenapper Join Date: 2012-09-05 Member: 157916Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--quoteo(post=2014952:date=Nov 7 2012, 10:47 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Swiftspear @ Nov 7 2012, 10:47 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2014952"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->pres and tres aren't the only resources in NS2. You have a limited amount of time in order to accomplish all the things you need to do. You're correct that it's not worthwhile to die for absolutely no reason, as you do lose a very small amount of res for every death. However, your team incurs as signigant loss to map control ever time you choose to not be somewhere where you are harrassing marines. If a marine comes along and you choose to run off and circle around the map for another 3 minutes. That 1-2 pres you possibly saved cost your team map control, and player time spent. Now of course half the time you'll push the attack and your investment doesn't pay off... but GENERALLY it's better to invest in keeping the harassment heavy than it is to be overly conservative. In one case you lose a small amount of valuable resource to accomplish absolutely nothing, and in the other you risk a slightly larger amount of valueable resource to play for a very high payoff.

    It is much more expensive for marines to move throughout the map than skulks. Marines can't take vents, marines are slower, marines can't rely on as much support just sort of showing up for them. If you kill a marine fairly deep out into the map, you cost him far more value than you lose by dying. If you manage to kill the extractor as well, you've basically bought yourself 10 deaths as a skulk AT LEAST.

    If you try a base rush and your whole team dies, well, it maybe cost you as much as an extractor and an upgrade chamber... But 50% of the it actually works, and you either cost the marines a HUGE amount of structure investment. Even if you try and your whole team dies as skulk to literally 1 pack of mines, the cost of those mines made your rush worth it. Also, don't fail to account for the psychological cost of a rush that was BARELY held off. It's not surprising if there are sentries in marine start the next time around... and those barely do anything for quite a high investment :P

    Beacon is EXTREMELY expensive to a mid game marine team in map control and time spent. You waste a minute or so of time running out on the map for pretty much every marine on your team. If you have to beacon you have to beacon but you really only save yourself from dying, it's not cost effective to beacon pretty much ever. It's just less expensive than losing your IPs for 1 minute.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

    There are few things I hate more than a skulk that hides in base (or in dark areas) and just waits for lerk or even fade. They are leeches that do nothing but bring your team down.

    That one skulk COULD be killing RTs (10 res each, not to mention the res flow from those) in relative safety, making himself useful while keeping to his goal of staying alive and getting res flow. He could be defending double on ns_veil with gorge support, which is not that hard to do when you have other skulks and a gorge or two in there - just wait for the marines to walk in, or ambush them from the vents just above the entrance to nanogrid.
  • SootySooty Join Date: 2002-12-23 Member: 11416Members
    I think you should also mention the concept of map control, especially where you talk about "tying marines down". Tying marines down make sense if you're ahead on RTs or you're trying to achieve map control by tying them down right outside their base or even within their base (usually not as effective because of armories). But if the aliens are behind on RTs, you need to be making the plays instead of trying to control the opponent. Of course, it's much easier to be the controlling player. Many games end up stomps because teams let themselves be locked down to 1-3 RTs while the other team controls the rest of the map without being contested.
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