How to break a stalemate
MashpitSquared
Texas, USA Join Date: 2014-01-13 Member: 193053Members
Texas, USA Join Date: 2014-01-13 Member: 193053Members
Hello.
I have around 18 hours on NS2 now (Great, addicting game, by the way), and I'm getting a good taste of commanding. I enjoy marine comming a lot more than being a kham, since alien commanding system is confusing for me and wants to eat my soul. However, I've consistently run into a problem when comming as a marine. In early game (first four minutes, let's say), I'll medkit-check the location of the alien hive, and then have my rines take the tech points that are directly adjacent to their hive (building RT's all the way). Usually, this is successful enough that I can push the aliens down to 1 or 2 tech points, depending on how good my team is. After that... I tend to put up phasegates at the forward bases, but I'll never break through their lines. I can beacon my team to a location to push, but they end up getting killed by a couple Lerks as soon as they enter the enemy hive room (even with nano and medspam...). I can give them an AA and use a bit of TRes to give them GL's, shotties, flamers and jetpacks, and they get butchered by fades during a siege. I'll give them dual exos, and they'll get those blown up by bile bombs while they were focusing on shooting the skulks jumping around at their feet. Hell, I'll build an ARC factory and try to ARC the aliens out, and my marines just get run over by a horde of skulks while bile bomb melts my expensive siege cannons. At this point, despite having vastly superior map control, we're basically unable to push out into the enemy base, and all we're left to do is wait until they get Onos, and lose all the progress we've made so far. Is this just an issue with having an inferior team, or am I just doing something wrong?
For reference, I usually go PG's first, and put down armories at the tech locations to make for an effective base; then I usually start spending res on the arms lab. Depending on how much my extractors are getting harassed, I either get mines or save up for AA; I start researching shotguns when Fades show up, or there's more than 2 Lerks on the field.
Someone recommended that I should try and reduce my frontlines while increasing the enemy's. The problem is, I have no idea how to go about this. Isn't it an inevitable side effect of superior map control that you have a bigger frontline?
tl;dr: How do I properly push into a hive?
I have around 18 hours on NS2 now (Great, addicting game, by the way), and I'm getting a good taste of commanding. I enjoy marine comming a lot more than being a kham, since alien commanding system is confusing for me and wants to eat my soul. However, I've consistently run into a problem when comming as a marine. In early game (first four minutes, let's say), I'll medkit-check the location of the alien hive, and then have my rines take the tech points that are directly adjacent to their hive (building RT's all the way). Usually, this is successful enough that I can push the aliens down to 1 or 2 tech points, depending on how good my team is. After that... I tend to put up phasegates at the forward bases, but I'll never break through their lines. I can beacon my team to a location to push, but they end up getting killed by a couple Lerks as soon as they enter the enemy hive room (even with nano and medspam...). I can give them an AA and use a bit of TRes to give them GL's, shotties, flamers and jetpacks, and they get butchered by fades during a siege. I'll give them dual exos, and they'll get those blown up by bile bombs while they were focusing on shooting the skulks jumping around at their feet. Hell, I'll build an ARC factory and try to ARC the aliens out, and my marines just get run over by a horde of skulks while bile bomb melts my expensive siege cannons. At this point, despite having vastly superior map control, we're basically unable to push out into the enemy base, and all we're left to do is wait until they get Onos, and lose all the progress we've made so far. Is this just an issue with having an inferior team, or am I just doing something wrong?
For reference, I usually go PG's first, and put down armories at the tech locations to make for an effective base; then I usually start spending res on the arms lab. Depending on how much my extractors are getting harassed, I either get mines or save up for AA; I start researching shotguns when Fades show up, or there's more than 2 Lerks on the field.
Someone recommended that I should try and reduce my frontlines while increasing the enemy's. The problem is, I have no idea how to go about this. Isn't it an inevitable side effect of superior map control that you have a bigger frontline?
tl;dr: How do I properly push into a hive?
Comments
ARCs are allready the tactic you need your team at least, still you need some ppl defending the ARCs.
These are some tips how you can hold ARCs with just 1-2 teammates:
Get Mines.
Get a Amory and a PG (Phasegate) up next to the deploy place.
Ask your teammates to NOT attack anything while doing so, so aliens are kinda suprised if you get up the arcs
Let your teammates mine the pg build a robo and ask you teammates to mine that also.
(build some sentries to help defending)
(for the lerkproblem: you need at least one with a flamethrower in your team to solve that)
Build arcs and ask your few listening teammates to hold these little base at any cost.
Support them with med- and catpacks if needed.
Important don't build things to close together if possible so a gorge needs as much time as possible to bile to the deploy place.
If your marines are having a hard time killing stuff but you are doing good on res, invest in nanoshield and cat-packs. You might just be able to get them to last a bit longer that way.
Most of the time when I get a good ARC train going, the aliens already know of my position because I'm trying to take out an entrenched position; we're both harassing each other's bases, and there's nothing you can really hide. 3 people are not nearly enough to defend an ARC train (even with mines), unless the enemy team is utterly disorganized, getting ready for a base rush, or egglocked. In the first and last examples, I should win regardless of ARC's; in the second example, beacon --> unguarded ARC's --> Gorge bile --> 50 res down. Besides, you can't place mines on surfaces with infection on them, which tends to limit their usefulness in deep hive pushes. Also, the ARC train tends to get overrun by Skulks and Gorges during transit, as competent players who defend Commander structures are few and far in between. Building a Robo-factory so that ARC's made by it would be in range of an enemy hive is usually a waste of res, as my rines can't hold that position for longer than a minute or so, even with an armory and a PG. Don't get me wrong - I love ARC's, they certainly have a pivotal role in the balance of NS2; they're just rather easy to destroy if people don't buy welders and repair them actively (and everyone knows that not enough people buys welders).
It feels that winning tactics just vary too much from team to team - some teams will just get in and wreck everything once I get w2a2 up, and some teams can't push a single corridor even if I get every upgrade in the game, and spam medkits as fast as it is possible to press E-S-leftclick. Once, I just got so frustrated that I beaconed my team to take out their last hive, retaliation be damned; all they managed to do is get themselves killed after taking the hive health to 40%, while the aliens took out our original base, and slowly took out the other 3 over the course of about twenty minutes. Just... What am I supposed to do in a situation like this?
@ ThePyroSquirrel - I usually give my better players jetpacks and shotguns, and the rookies the AoE weapons. It only makes sense to give AoE weapons to people who can't aim. I also tend to encourage my better players to stay out of Exo's, as that effectively removes my "rapid response units".
Yes we tell new commanders not to build them, because the tend to build them in every room and also going robo first. What is a hugh amount of waste of tres.
But as you build a robo anyway to get arcs and has the res to build arcs you should have the 20 tres to build 3 sentries.
Also if you have to move arcs after building them somewhere you are doing it wrong
At the moment the alien team sees the arcs you have a timeframe of about 1-2 mins to get them rdy and deployed.
Sentries alone are not effective but 3 sentries with 2-3 marines next to them are another story.
And by "moving ARC's", I mean something like (I'll use Tram as an example): having a forward outpost at Mezzanine, and having the ARC's go from Mezz to the little stairs area in Server Room so they can hit the hive. It's not a long walk, but my rines apparently can't hear when I say on the mic about five times "There's two Skulks on the ceiling, take 'em out" and then they get butchered as they enter that little room.
Oh, and you seem to have overestimated a bit of when the news of ARC's will bring enemy reinforcements. I usually expect a Skulk horde to come within thirty seconds once the ARC's have fired their first volley.
In most cases if sentries go down so fast they are not well placed or your teammates are worse skilled than bots. As i said only use them to cover your teammates. Sentries alone are pretty useless.
Let's play the mezza case:
Atm you got 4 arcs moving 80% of your team should be there rdy to spam everything they got. Place sentries behind them to protect their backs. Now if you move the arcs into the corner towards server all your teammate have to do is spam onto the arcs and the entries (gls/shotguns etc.). They shouldn't have any ammo problems if you placed the amory right.
If they place now some mines in front and beside them no alien should stand a chance.
I used the sentries to add to the forward fire and give other marines an advance warning of an incoming lifeform, rather than covering their backs. I must say, although I don't see the point of covering their backs as it would take a substantial amount of time for an alien to flank and it never did happen during my situation, I'll give it a shot.
Also, I did get the ARC's in the corner first. However, after ARCing out a bunch of crags and the RT, I had to move the ARC's to the stairs area because they can't hit the hive from the mezz corner. There, the people guarding the ARC's got killed by a horde of Lerks, and then bile bomb finished off the ARC's. Onos ran into mezz a few seconds later, and we lost the outpost.
GL spam is nice, but it requires direct hits to do real damage. Rookies barely can score direct hits on buildings; hell, even vets have a hard time hitting a flying Lerk with a nade.
All in all; I'll try yelling at people to buy more mines, and try to get over my hatred of sentries.
What would be the most helpful thing to get if my team appears to be an abysmal failure at killing the aliens, in general? Sometimes, you just have those teams that, even with the best of instructions, either doesn't follow them or can't hold a spot well enough for my orders to get carried out. As far as I can tell, the obvious cure for those teams seem to be armor, which would allow them to live slightly longer and get lucky with their holding-down-S-and-Mouse1 tactic; sentries, which would deter aliens from running into my outposts and murdering the marines there; or mines, which basically removes non-cara Skulks from pushes. All of those cripple my early-game ability to control the map (not enough res for PG's, forward armories, or more extractors), and basically changes the game from Natural Selection 2 to Waiting Until Aliens Get Onos 2. Is there some clever combination that would allow my marines to spread through the map quickly and control the areas they claim, without relying on the marines as a defensive force?
...Or am I just crying after losing several games in a row where people all thought they were John Rambo running into the alien hive, while paying zero attention to the fact that all our extractors and outposts were going kablooey? As hilarious as it is to hear the most green-faced of rookies cry on the mic that Skulks are too fast and does too much damage, it gets old after hearing it for four games straight.
That being said a couple of things worth considering (a few already mentioned above) may help with a siege with a less than ideal marine team:
- Forward PGs - Sounds like you are doing this anyway with the Mezz example but always have one aggressive phase gate. If your team is switched on and reliable it can be very handy to have two and attack two bases simultaneously. But with the more difficult teams as people have said minimal PGs and one aggressive one and people should end up in the action without you needing to pester them too much.
- Obs - Not sure I saw this mentioned but one thing I love at a siege outpost is an Obs. For two reasons A. you dont have to repeatedly scan for the ARCs, and B. the average idiot (hopefully) pays more attention to red dots on the map than they do the commander so if you cant get them to kill the gorge biling your ARCs maybe the red dot can
- Sentries - You are pretty spot on with your sentry analysis tbh, but as people have said if you have the spare res for a shit ton of ARCs, they certainly help.
- Mines - Not much to say here, mines are good, more helpful on the PG than anything.
- Forward Robo - Again seems like you are doing this already, but minimal travel distance for ARCs with a rookie team is ideal. Less chance of the players getting lost
- Armory Walls - Textbook use of this would be ARC'ing a warehouse hive from north tunnels on tram. 2 Armories in the doorway just after the curve will block a large portion of bile bombs and will also funnel the aliens in through a small gap increasing the chance of meatshotting fades/lerks who get stuck. This works better in some places over others so bare this in mind when chosing which hive to siege first.
Hope the above helps, but as I said, there is only so much you can do. Sometimes with the marines you are given its just not meant to be
Best of luck.
My biggest gripe about sentries won't be their cost, but the amount of supply take up. A full sentry post takes up 30 supply, which is enough for 2 ARC's. Let's say I put down three sentry posts at three chokepoints. That's 90 supply, or 6 ARCs. 6 ARCs are enough to bring down a hive with minimal support. Sentries do next to nothing to higher lifeforms jumping into a marine base. Hell, when I go Fade, I usually just ignore them entirely and blink jump through Marine bases with zero regards to turrets. Unless you stand in front of three turrets for ten seconds, you're not going to notice the chip damage much.
I usually like to put Obs near a forward outpost, but through a wall; an example would be (tram again) an Obs adjacent to the wall at Elevator Transfer when the team is in Mezzanine. That way, I can beacon my remaining team to hold Elevator if the aliens get a mass push into Mezz. I tend to scan an area before a large push regardless of obs just so that I can see the ambushers' exact positions, as well as what lifeform they are; that way, I can tell my team things like "Lerk roosting on the ceiling at Cargo's entrance, chase him off" or "Two Skulks in the vent at Reactor Core, don't get jumped". Since, you know, two Skulks are pretty different from two Fades.
I've never used an armory wall before; usually, I prefer giving my marines as long as a line of sight as possible rather than having them focus fire on a single location. If most of my team is using shotguns, though, I guess I'll consider it as an option.
Thanks for the tips, I hope I get to see you all on the field.
Summit: Home base in flight, PG in cross, PG in sub or directly outside sub.
Docking: Home base in terminal, PG in locker, PG in dept if possible. Otherwise maint or stability is good if you can hold them.
Veil: Home base in Control, PG in system waypointing. Backup phase in sub until you control nano then relocate that pg there. Biggest stalemate map in the game if you can hold strategic PG and deny 3rd hive. I send an ARC or two over to siege c12/pipeline node during long games. Aliens freak out whenever they see an ARC in their territory, which makes a good distraction.
Tram: Home base in shipping. PG in hub, pg in elevator or repair. Siege ore node, and warhouse node/hive easily. If you hold elevator, put an obs in the back corner with a siege. Big intel bonus and perma siege mezz node.
Mineshaft: This map is crazy.
Eclipse: Home base marine start, PG in eclipse and keyhole. Box aliens in at comp core.
Biodome: Usually a PG in falls works well and condensers. Don't play it enough.
If team can't aim go upgrades first and get a 2nd IP relatively early. Build an obs somewhat early for beacon if possible. I usually will go PG after a1 > w1 are done.
If team has good aim go w1 > a1 > phase tech. Maybe w2 before phase if they're owning. Delay 2nd IP until team starts dying regularly.