power node liability
soccerguy243
Join Date: 2012-12-22 Member: 175920Members, WC 2013 - Supporter
Join Date: 2012-12-22 Member: 175920Members, WC 2013 - Supporter
I just saw the aliens pull a win out of their gorge butt by simply ignoring the marines and their arcs. They all charged in and killed the power node at the main base. They ignored all the expensive structures. I though UWE wanted this game to be PvP not PvE.
Was it good team work? sure. Was it good strategy? sure, but its only viable because the power node is a single-point liability. Its needs to be babysat. So the marines have to babysit their arcs AND babysit their powernode.
Power surge is a band-aid "solution" to power cuts.
A possible solution:
Unpowered structures don't cause marines to lose upgrades (an unpowered Arms lab doesn't cause A0). However marines can't use the structure (can't buy jetpacks from an unpowered prototype lab, can't get health from the armory, etc). Do uncysted alien shells, spurs, and veils cause aliens to lose their upgrades?
start at 23:00
Was it good team work? sure. Was it good strategy? sure, but its only viable because the power node is a single-point liability. Its needs to be babysat. So the marines have to babysit their arcs AND babysit their powernode.
Power surge is a band-aid "solution" to power cuts.
A possible solution:
Unpowered structures don't cause marines to lose upgrades (an unpowered Arms lab doesn't cause A0). However marines can't use the structure (can't buy jetpacks from an unpowered prototype lab, can't get health from the armory, etc). Do uncysted alien shells, spurs, and veils cause aliens to lose their upgrades?
start at 23:00
Comments
Phase gate is usually near arcs so it is very possible to babysit powernode among other structures.
He should have been scanning for their location, had the team ready to phase back and been expecting to have to beacon.
Moreover even if the marine comm is expecting it, he is forced to abandon his arcs, obs, and armory near the hive.
This ALL-IN rush on the powernode is only viable because it is a huge liability for marines. None of your counter-points have made me reconsider the weakness that is the powernode.
- They were at level 3 weapons but didn't have a 2nd tech point. Bad idea.
- 2 rines went into the corridor to meet the aliens. Bad idea.
- No armoury wall to stop the obvious incoming rush from the known about onos. Bad idea.
- No GL to deliver massive amounts of damage to the large concentration of aliens. Bad idea.
Yes, it is hard to stop but especially so when you do nothing to prevent it. No IPs elsewhere mean you can't power surge to phase gate in or beacon. There were no reenforcements coming and that was the problem here, not the health of the node.
If they had put an armoury up, the aliens would have either over commited, losing everything and the game, or the aliens would have run off never to try it again. Aliens took a huge risk and it paid off. Also, if rines had taken out all the smaller lifeforms and worked up to the bigger ones. It would have been 2 onos verse the rine side with jetpacks and shotties. Rines would have probably won that and got the power back up.
If you didn't control a second tech point, marines were the ones trying to do a last ditch victory.
If you don't have 2 chairs your asking to lose, 5 skulks and a drifter can destroy a chair faster then a beacon...
I don't get how the marines are supposed to construct extra armories for a wall, a second CC and IPs all while constructing a forward base (of arcs).
I don't about you but i've rarely seen another command chair in all the comp game's i've watched.
They should have beaconed sooner. It would have allowed them to fully take use of their jps and engage earlier and start eating into the onos's health. Also the comm really wouldnt be sacrificing any of his arcs, obs, and armory near the hive cause all the aliens were in on the all in, theres nobody left to take it out. Even if the aliens left 1 gorge behind to bile the pg was right there, all they had to do was step right through and kill the gorge. And in a trade I would keep your base over anything else. Oh btw, a nano on the power node would have won it for the marines, focus fire on the onos would have helped too.
I have an interesting note on this.
I was commanding on Biodome as the marines and we were dominating. I caught, out of the corner of my eye, several red dots coming from between Canopy and Reception (forget the name). I immediately beaconed. About 2 seconds after my marines returned the power went down. Despite all my meds, my marines still got cleared and we lost. I think this is a strategy vastly underrated right now, in that once you've gotten the IPs and Arms Lab out of the way, you can crush with fades, lerks and an Onos with the Gorges decimating all 30 of your armour. A possible counter is to power surge the arms lab but then you sacrifice the IP.
I think this is a problem that manifests itself on the bigger servers - in this case I had about 11 aliens bashing the shit out of the power node, rather than a more realistic number of 3-5.
Edit: Yes I nano'd the powernode.