Marine Idea & Tips
Slade8
Join Date: 2012-11-20 Member: 172589Members
Join Date: 2012-11-20 Member: 172589Members
I never played NS1 but I've been having a lot of fun with NS2. I started out playing Aliens but switched over to Marines because currently they feel like more of a challenge. I do feel like they could use some help/work. At least on public servers. Although I do think part of it is Marines are more reliant on proper teamwork than Aliens or at least teamwork that is harder to coordinate than Aliens. I still enjoy playing Aliens though so I'm certainly not looking for a major swing but I do feel right now things are a little too slanted towards Aliens. I do tend to play on 20-24 player servers though (mainly because lower pop servers can get annoying if there are any afks).
I see a lot of complaints on the forums about marines but I do think part of it is offering gameplay tips to people. If you have a mic and play Marines try to offer tips to people.
<b>Ideas:</b>
Killing a hive should give the marine team TRes. Why? Right now there isn't a huge penalty for losing a hive and it would give more of an opportunity to swing things back for marines. Being able to setup a ninja phase gate and take down a hive might allow a team to turn the tide. Aliens right now just have an inherent advantage of being able to ninja take down bases and once a power node goes down there is just massive loss for the marines. If the aliens lose a hive they generally just drop another one right away and it's of minimal impact. Marines need more opportunities for come back wins. This also puts more pressure on aliens to be smart about where and when to place hives and how to defend them (could be a flat TRes gain and/or perhaps a % of the Aliens stored res). It would balance things some in regards to the penalty for losing a hive vs losing a comm station.
Power Nodes powering an area with a command station should give a much more prevalent warning when attacked. When a command station gets attacked there are alarms going off all over the place. The problem is no alien attack goes after the comm station first. The absolute most important thing in any marine base is the power. If a power node is being attacked that's powering a comm station big alarms should go off also. "Power Node For Comm Station Being Attacked". Right now marines have this big alarm that is essentially useless.
Marine Commander should be able to toggle a dispersion field around Exo's that will cause marines around them not to beacon. It becomes extremely hard to manage an exo push and multiple bases around the map. It's just unwieldy. There should be a downside though. Like an extra tick before the beacon teleports if dispersion field is active anywhere.
<b>Tips:</b>
When moving into a room the person with the highest health/armor should go first. Don't stand on top of each other. Be in a position where you can easily shoot at another marines feet that's being attacked.
Call out if you're going to die to recycle a building if it's going to be lost. The recycle amount your team gets is based off of the total health of the structure. So the earlier this happens the better. Don't recycle if there is a chance your team can save it because a low health structure might only recycle for 1 or 2 res.
Phase tech is the first priority. Don't build anything else but what you need for Phase Gates and RT's. Don't over expand until you have phase gates up.
Go mines early and mine said phase gates and vents.
Early game ninja Aliens upgrades can be devastating. Taking down an RT is annoying taking down an upgrade structure is a ton of lost res.
You don't have to kill cysts. Obvious but I see this on a lot of public servers. If you're near a hive run in and shoot an upgrade. Killing cysts is an invitation for aliens to come kill you. Have a reason for killing a cyst, not just because it's there.
Wait for Shotguns until fades come out unless you have some really annoying lerks.
Early game you don't need an armory by each phase gate unless it's in an area you expect to be continually attacked. You're better off using your res for mines and arms lab for weapon and armor upgrades. If people need health or ammo phase back.
Grenade launchers aren't good for taking out alien structures. Even if the other team has no whips as soon as the first grenade goes off whips will be built. Taking out buildings is a job for Arcs. Best use of a grenade launcher? Stand behind an exo train and lob grenades at the feet of your exos. You can rack up tons of kills this way and it's very effective at protecting both exos and welders.
Arcs do not suck. They are extremely powerful. There are way too many times on public servers where I get an Arc train going and people seem to think they suck and barely will protect them even when I am calling for it. However they are not a win button. I've played around with early Arcs and don't forgo upgrades to get Arcs. Marine teams need to mix in more COMBINED Exo and Arc pushes. If you're going for Exos try to mix in a few Arcs with the push.
Exos cut through hives like a hot knife through butter. If you have 3-4 Exo's in a hive just focus fire the hive.
I see a lot of complaints on the forums about marines but I do think part of it is offering gameplay tips to people. If you have a mic and play Marines try to offer tips to people.
<b>Ideas:</b>
Killing a hive should give the marine team TRes. Why? Right now there isn't a huge penalty for losing a hive and it would give more of an opportunity to swing things back for marines. Being able to setup a ninja phase gate and take down a hive might allow a team to turn the tide. Aliens right now just have an inherent advantage of being able to ninja take down bases and once a power node goes down there is just massive loss for the marines. If the aliens lose a hive they generally just drop another one right away and it's of minimal impact. Marines need more opportunities for come back wins. This also puts more pressure on aliens to be smart about where and when to place hives and how to defend them (could be a flat TRes gain and/or perhaps a % of the Aliens stored res). It would balance things some in regards to the penalty for losing a hive vs losing a comm station.
Power Nodes powering an area with a command station should give a much more prevalent warning when attacked. When a command station gets attacked there are alarms going off all over the place. The problem is no alien attack goes after the comm station first. The absolute most important thing in any marine base is the power. If a power node is being attacked that's powering a comm station big alarms should go off also. "Power Node For Comm Station Being Attacked". Right now marines have this big alarm that is essentially useless.
Marine Commander should be able to toggle a dispersion field around Exo's that will cause marines around them not to beacon. It becomes extremely hard to manage an exo push and multiple bases around the map. It's just unwieldy. There should be a downside though. Like an extra tick before the beacon teleports if dispersion field is active anywhere.
<b>Tips:</b>
When moving into a room the person with the highest health/armor should go first. Don't stand on top of each other. Be in a position where you can easily shoot at another marines feet that's being attacked.
Call out if you're going to die to recycle a building if it's going to be lost. The recycle amount your team gets is based off of the total health of the structure. So the earlier this happens the better. Don't recycle if there is a chance your team can save it because a low health structure might only recycle for 1 or 2 res.
Phase tech is the first priority. Don't build anything else but what you need for Phase Gates and RT's. Don't over expand until you have phase gates up.
Go mines early and mine said phase gates and vents.
Early game ninja Aliens upgrades can be devastating. Taking down an RT is annoying taking down an upgrade structure is a ton of lost res.
You don't have to kill cysts. Obvious but I see this on a lot of public servers. If you're near a hive run in and shoot an upgrade. Killing cysts is an invitation for aliens to come kill you. Have a reason for killing a cyst, not just because it's there.
Wait for Shotguns until fades come out unless you have some really annoying lerks.
Early game you don't need an armory by each phase gate unless it's in an area you expect to be continually attacked. You're better off using your res for mines and arms lab for weapon and armor upgrades. If people need health or ammo phase back.
Grenade launchers aren't good for taking out alien structures. Even if the other team has no whips as soon as the first grenade goes off whips will be built. Taking out buildings is a job for Arcs. Best use of a grenade launcher? Stand behind an exo train and lob grenades at the feet of your exos. You can rack up tons of kills this way and it's very effective at protecting both exos and welders.
Arcs do not suck. They are extremely powerful. There are way too many times on public servers where I get an Arc train going and people seem to think they suck and barely will protect them even when I am calling for it. However they are not a win button. I've played around with early Arcs and don't forgo upgrades to get Arcs. Marine teams need to mix in more COMBINED Exo and Arc pushes. If you're going for Exos try to mix in a few Arcs with the push.
Exos cut through hives like a hot knife through butter. If you have 3-4 Exo's in a hive just focus fire the hive.
Comments
I'm 95% positive this isn't accurate. Ghosted structures attacked by aliens 'recycle' for 100% of their value, however, in all other cases the recycle value is 75% of the value of the structure.
The only case in which recycling earlier is better is when you're not sure you can complete the recycle before the structure is destroyed (which is pretty common, and for that reason alone it's often recommendable not to delay)
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Wait for Shotguns until fades come out unless you have some really annoying lerks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->The big timing I live by is "no shotguns before weapons level 1". It decreases the number of pellets that have to hit to make a kill for every lifeform. Good advice though, early shotguns are much less advantageous than early mines.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Early game you don't need an armory by each phase gate unless it's in an area you expect to be continually attacked. You're better off using your res for mines and arms lab for weapon and armor upgrades. If people need health or ammo phase back.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Armories are very cheap. You pay for an armory if you can save dropping 5 medpacks. Armories should be used as often as you can get away with it. But you're right, marines can phase back to the base armory as well, so make sure any field armory you place is in a location where significant time will be saved by making use of it as opposed to the one in base. 15 seconds of running time is enough time savings to warrant a new armory.
Unless the developers made changes that I'm unaware of, the OP is correct. If the commander chooses to recycle (note: there is a difference between "attacked" ghost structures, canceled structures, and recycled structures), the return value is based on the remaining health of the structure. This is also true even if the structure hasn't even been completely constructed yet. Therefore, if you're going to recycle a partially constructed building, you may want to allow it to finish constructing (or hit 100% HP; welders heal structures faster than they construct them) as you'll get more back.
That being said, there is a bit of thought that you could put into this. For one thing, the commander may consider NOT recycling in order to slow the alien's advance. If you have a built, powered RT, it may be better to simply get as much as you can out of the remaining ticks (while again also slowing the alien's advance). However, unfinished or unpowered RTs will not give you any resources, so if you're going to recycle them, recycle them ASAP.
Apart from aliens losing all their upgrades which in turn means its almost over for them