The Slow Expand, Revised

jdp311 · December 2002

<div class="IPBDescription">Suggestions for a more fun game?</div> Before I start let me say that I KNOW that a rush will work better and I KNOW that taking two hives is the best way to go. This isn't about the best way to win. It's about the best way to win while having a fun game where you get to fight.

Basically, I use build two phase gates at start, armoy, observatory and than a phase gate at base. Next I send all but one marine to a hive. Build phase gate there then secure with TF and 3-4 turrets.

Now, at this point most people would go take the other hive in order to keep the aliens at 1 hive/skulk/lerk level. Nah, I want a real battle. SO, we just start fortifying our two bases and expanding to the nearest resourse nozzles.

I upgrade motion tracking, build arms lab, build proto lab, upgrade armor, upgrade armory while also grabbing resources and defending them when possible and than we get to HA/HMG the aliens to death with a slow march of armored death walkers <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'>

Note that this is not a guaranteed victory at all. If the aliens are good they have several opportunities to kill you such as your weakly defended base (for a while) or by taking out your hive expansion (this happens at times) OR if they are really good with fade you might get killed before you can get the HA/HMG to take them out (maybe I upgrade too slow sometimes). Even if you do it all right, I find there's a lot of fighting and you might lose <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'>

However, I do believe this is the type of game the developers had in mind when they made it. After all, they say the battle should be for the third hive, not the second. Suggestions as to what order to get the upgrades would be welcome. Also, do you think marines on the servers will want to play this way or will I get yelled at for not taking that 2nd hive? or rushing, heheh.

Kid-A · December 2002

Hmm I like the idea of changing gameplay. Try the 'move base to free hive' for similar effects.

As for the tactic sorry but most games I play on this would NEVER work and marines would probably complain. I find there isn't time to get the res to upgrade before fades come along.

If the programmers DO want this sort of game, reduce phase effectiveness, make upgrades cheaper.

Also what size game do you use this?

I am unsure what order to get the upgrades, to keep the marines happy I'd probably get HMG's 1st. Also that's only 35 res (as you have to have an armoury) whereas HA is 95. One possibility is jetpacks and HMG although many pub players are poor at this.

jdp311 · December 2002

The size of the game ranges from 4-10 on a team. I play on public servers mostly so it changes quite a bit, sometimes during the same game <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/confused.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='confused.gif'> . And your problems with it are true, it is rather slow but that's kinda the point, it's a slow march due to self-imposed restrictions on the marines to stop the "5-minute games" as some people are calling them and let each time do some fighting to get the win. Of course, if would be better if the devs would come up with some way to make the marines play this way (and more viable against those fades) but until then I'm going to try it whenever I can get the marines I'm playing with to go along with it.

I'm still trying to find the right balance of expanding to resources and saving up for upgrades.

Anyway, if you're bored with the normal tactics you can try it and see if it works for you.

Kid-A · December 2002

What is your win : lose ratio. I've tried similar tactics but they NEVER work at all. To secure 1 hive so that it's impervious to fades is next to impossible while defending a base against fades, and with this tactic fades WILL come along. And they'll come along WAY before I can afford HA and HMG's.Even if I got the upgrades done in time AND secured the hive and base well I'd have no res to buy any equipment anyway as you really need 3 HA & HMG.

Also I never cap resources on the way to the hive, its too difficult to hold them, a skulk always comes along and has a little feast so I rarely get my 22 res back.

btw anyone know how quickly nodes get res?

jdp311 · December 2002

You should not ask me how often I win with this strategy. You should ask me how often I win with the other strategies (rushing or phase gating both hives). The answer? 90%. I only lose if the marines I'm commanding are totally newbish and can't shoot anything.

So if you play a game and just destroy the aliens then next game try the slow expand and see how it goes.

Berger · December 2002

I think the perfect order for upgrades is armor1,weapon1,weapon2,armor2,weapon3,armor3. The jump from level0 to level1 armor makes your marines much better against skulks, requiring three bites instead of the regular two. This is what I usually do, and it works quite well.

MaxGallagher · December 2002

The best fighting takes place when aliens have two hives, imo.

The best game i ever played in was 3 hrs long. Near the beggining, the Marines (my team) occupied two hives, but the aliens launched some brilliant coordinated attacks and retook one. They got it up and running, and for the better part of the game things went back and forth, with Marines taking a strategic point, aliens sweeping in and wiping everything out and taking it back, Marines driving back the Fades and reclaiming it, etc. Res nozzles changes hands constantly. Both sides were giving it their best effort, and it was impossible to say for sure who was going to win from one minute to the next.

Marines played the better part of the game with lmgs and light armour, fully upgraded, due to the constant res expense of rebuilding TFs, phases and turrets. At any given time there were only a handful of HAs with HMGs. The real critical difference was people using their gren launchers wisely, to drive back Fades.

I would say if you're up for a nice, long involved game, then your approach is probably the most fun.

MadJackMcJack · December 2002

If you find that, using this approach, your marines are going up against fades without upgrades, consider laying a seige base outside their main hive. Fades will rabidly defend their hive, allowing your marines time to repair base damage and to secure new areas while the fades dismantle your seige base. Either that, or they fail, and they are left with a few fades that they are <i>extremely</i> wary of commiting fully to a fight. And remember that although fades can take down any turret farm, it'll take time to do so (unless a lerk lands right next to the TF and umbras).

But yes, the most exciting games I've had on both sides has been when fades and HA/HMGs go toe-to-toe, espically when both combatants have excellent support (medpacks, welders and grenade launchers for the marines, lerks, gorges and DCs for the aliens).

BelrickNZ · December 2002

On a certain few maps this is a sure fire tactic.

It requires 2 things from the map to work.

-Vital choke points, marines are really limited on where they can place turrets.
-Res. Most maps dont have enuff res spots and its the mairnes who losses out the most. Also hard to reach tucked away res helps heaps too.

matso · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Kid-A @ Dec 21 2002, 05:22 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>What is your win : lose ratio. I've tried similar tactics but they NEVER work at all. To secure 1 hive so that it's impervious to fades is next to impossible while defending a base against fades, and with this tactic fades WILL come along. And they'll come along WAY before I can afford HA and HMG's.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

It all depends on the server size.... anything is easy if the server is large enough. Check out the spreadsheet from <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=5&t=18081' target='_blank'>this article</a>, it will tell the whole story.

jdp311 · December 2002

Also, I find this works better on those maps that have the double resource nozzles in one room. Therefore it's more cost effective to take that room allowing you to upgrade faster.

Also, do not waste resources on guns without armor. No matter how much "L33tNSBob" whines do NOT* give him a HMG or shotgun unless you KNOW he's not going to run off and die within 5 seconds of getting it. It works better if you save up and give 2 or 3 people HA/HMG or shotgun all at once so they can defend/weld each other.

* Giving a good gun to someone who's defending IS a good idea however since it can be picked up by someone else if he dies.

BlueGhost · December 2002

Why go for the first hive first anyway though?

Hive taking is surely an all or nothing stratagy you eather take two hives and prevent their expansion that way or you take res points and deny the enemy res points (with siege/assults).

Afterall by taking a single hive early on yet leaving them an empty hive to expand into you are effectivly doing NOTHING to their rate of growth, infact your not touching them attal untill they've got up the 2nd hive and are trying to clean out their 3rd.

Why not just allow the 80 it costs to build a hive to do the work for you wiping out their res points getting your own res points and expanding rapidly to having full tech and lots of HA/HMG..

This is also not as effective a stratagy as quickly controlling two hive with phase. BUT its a stratagy they may well not expect. And is still viable (when compared with your stratagy of taking one hive first.. why on earth take just one hive, <b>it has no effect on your enemy!</b>)

BlueGhost

Ardesco · December 2002

Frequently, hive killing/rushing is the quickest way of ensuring victory. With the loss of the phasegate rush thanks to a crappier phase and a stronger initial hive, marines will (hopefully) have to rely on better strategems in order to maintain control of their ship. In general, marines should always be aggressive--the only reason a rush really works is mainly because the aliens have no real counter early on via gorges (as any buildings besides a seconds resource node brings in cash VERY slowly for the alien team). At some point, any really decent game of natural selection boils down to how many nodes you're able to control at any one moment.

So, you realize that spending every 5 minutes and 100 rps to secure 1 resource node is pointless, so, what should you do? Aggressiveness for the marines is often not without its risks. If you quickly push resource nodes, then there's always the risk that they get chewed up quickly. But if you capture enough of them fast enough, even a well-prepared alien team might not be prepared to take down all those nodes faster than you can rack in the profit. With more money = more flexibility in what you can do. Hey, blowing off some cash in order to try something can't hurt, especially if more of that is coming your way.

Defense, as you might suspect, also has to work on more flexible grounds. Instead of having one marine remain stationary at a node, he needs to basically act as a your secondary set of eyes and ears. Especially ears. If a marine is able to situate himself within earshot of any two nodes at any given time, he's able to investigate any alien attacks between those points via the really obvious skulk bite sound. Usually, however, taking down a note takes a while for a skulk, so short patrols between several nodes can increase the effectiveness of your average marine. Of course, this requires a lot of micromanagement--the tradeoff for efficiency is that somewhere, your average grunt will get lost in it way over his head.

Good luck, and remember: More cash = more flexibility, but never forget your overall objectives: Destroy the aliens and their darn hives!

jdp311 · December 2002

Blueghost when I say take a hive I'm assuming that there's a resource point there. I know on some maps (Caged for instance) the recource points aren't in the hives but in that case you'd want to go to the resource point next to it and take that instead. Usually though, a hive has a resource point.

Example: In Caged you want to take the Pumping Station next to the sewer and then setup siege there instead of actually building in the hive.

BlueGhost · December 2002

Er correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it impossible to seige the hive from 02? Don't you have to siege from just up the ladder (thus making the no of turrets needed to defend the setup LOTS?)

The question still remains, why go for a hive when you could just spread to the nearest/easiest to defend res points?

I mean on caged if your not going to try holding two hives why not hold the two res in the middle of the map and JUST go for res as much as you can? (especially considering the aliens may well overlook the one you have to weald)

On the maps with double res areas (bast, tanith, hera) if your going for a fast res approach surely you'll want to hold the double res points over holding one hive?

BlueGhost

T_RAT · January 2003

so true JDP311.
should be a battle for the third hive not the second, being a skulk all game is boring, as so id having a lmg all the time.
<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tiny.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tiny.gif'>

Canadianmonk3y · January 2003

Marines can win like 99% of the time on nothing if they move into cargo bay right away, as there are 3 RTs really close-by, and more a bit further out. You can get a HA/HMG + HA/GL 4-5 person squad, all with welders, and some upgrades at the same time aliens get fades.

If the aliens stat in the cargo bay hive, laugh at your fortune... Free win!
Relocate to the vent exit to viaduct, and pistol or lmg their hive to death from the vent. It is just not fair at all to the aliens...

The Slow Expand, Revised

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