Marine Strategy
GonePostal
Join Date: 2003-02-14 Member: 13531Members
Join Date: 2003-02-14 Member: 13531Members
<div class="IPBDescription">The best strat to date.</div> Ok. After countless hours of playing this cursed game I have prefected a strategy. This is a variant on the unbalanced JP/HMG strat.
First you start off with the standard
1 ip -> armory
This is where strategy diverges. When I play I play with a few friends and they are all good. (Ie we can kill about 4 - 5 skulks per run by ourselves at the beginning of the game). If so there is no need to build an arms lab right away. If not you need to upgrade armor once to allow them to have a fighting chance. Weapons upgrades this early into the game do not really make a marked difference because the skulks don't have carp (assuming they dont go fast dcs in which case you go weapon ups). What you do now is drop 3 mine packs. 1 mine pack goes to guarding the base. Use them as land mines not trip mines (lasers) because trip mines don't kill most skulks in 1 shot. I prefer to put the mines in the door ways leading to base. Then have 1 guy defend base. The rest try to find and assualt the hive on their FIRST RUN. (Most of the time you can guess the hive they are at depending on the path they choose when they come to your base)
The other 2 mine packs go to 2 skilled persons. They are the early res cappers. You choose 2 res spots on the map and have them cap them. The choice of these res are important. There are some horrible res spots that you can't really cap no matter how good you are. That plus PLZ do not cap res that are really close to their base. It defeats the purpose. You want these res to be covert and out of the way so to minimize the amount of skulks that try to attack it. Now here is the killer part of this strategy. As you cap the res you place 4 mines around it, in NESW (North/South/etc ...) configuration. This keeps the res alive for A REALLY LONG TIME. Skulks always die to these mines and even if they attack in groups it eliminates enough of them so you can run and save the node. Most of the time they just die. (Note: do not place the res on the node or they disappear place them a few feet from the node). Keep doing this on 2 res minimum. You can cap more as the comm sees fit. Just make sure they keep coming back to base for more mines to cap new res and to replace them as skulks get owned by them.
As these 2 cappers do their job the res of the team focuses their efforts on 2 things. 1 making sure both hives are clear. Constantly rushing both empty hives and clearing out any enemy troops. Secondly to try and kill gorges where ever they can. Early marines should be able to easily do this.
While all this happens the com should place a arms lab (if not already placed) and start upgrading weapons. As the res allows then bulid a proto lab. Now the natural feeling would be to upgrade jet packs but that is the wrong thing to do. You want HMGS and jets to upgrade at about the same time. So first you deal with the armory upgrade then jets. Once this is upgraded suit up about 2 of your men with HMG+jets+mines. At this point you should have 1 weapons upgrade maybe an armor and should be working on weapons lvl2.
If the team was skilled enough to keep the aliens out of the 2 hives then w00t to that. If not they will be trying to take a 2nd hive. This is where the coms/player's skill comes in. The call has to be made as to which hive is to be assualted. Things such as access/vents, offensive chambers, skulks and Line of sight (can you abuse and float in the air and HMG the hive). The most important factor in choosing the target hive would be vents. Can you get your 2 jetpackers in the vent that leads to pretty much every hive??? If so that hive should be as good as dead. Such as vents in the map with cargo/via/power silo. Cargo's vent leading from via is very imbalanced. All you have to do is get 2 jet packers in the vent lay a mine at the entrance of the vent jet pack to the open mouth of the vent then lay mines all around you and your partner. Once this is done just own the hive with the HMGS (this will be supper fast if you have lvl2 weapons about a clip a piece from the 2 jetpackers). Pretty much any hive with a vent in LOS of the hive you can do this though with only 1 person. Just lay mines infront of you and behind you and when a skulk comes to attack just jetpack backwards and the skulks can get you or they die trying. This can be done in vents like the one in eclipse CompCore or Subspace or Port Engine (to a lesser degree) or Unnamed. Pretty much almost any one unless it is a hive that lends itself to floating.
This while hopefully the rest of your team does something useful like protecting current res and capping new ones and laying mines at them. That and if you have the res you might want to secure 1 hive and the comm gets OBS/phase/mt.
At this point the game should be done and you should be rolling in res. Say for some reason the alien team is pretty good and for some reason they take out your jet packers. Well then the comm has a decision to make. If the alien team looks unorganized and is messed up then keep jet packing. If not then suit guys up in only jets and harrass/contain and go HA. But most of the time what happens is you can get 1 hive down and clear it with jetpackers + HMG but the 2nd one is too defended. What you do then just just contain and go HA. Easy win.
Well that pretty much wraps up that strat. It pretty much works on every map and has worked a high percentage (90%) of the time when my team was not a tool. I ussually have 2 friends (1 comm 1 other partner we are the res cappers/jetpackers) that I play with so that helps. The whole key to the strategy is the mines on the res/jetpackers and the ability to keep in mind the whole map (don't defend 1 hive while the gorge reses the other hive and puts up ocs).
This is the best strategy to date I have read or tried. NO TURRETS. 1 marine with the support of 5 or more mines should be able to hold off most rushes. This is assuming the worst case senario where your whole team is off somewhere while the 1 defending is alone at base. In bigger games you might want more then 1 person defending base.
Lastly a little off topic I and my friend are looking for a good clan to join. We enjoy this game alot and are tired of playing with stupid people. We pretty much own any pub NS server we are on and have come up with many good strategies that no one that I have seen on this board have come up with. (Ie observatory rush w/ distress beacon or Mine rush). If you have a good clan and are willing to try us out give me a shout at my email plz. crazytonyla@hotmail.com
First you start off with the standard
1 ip -> armory
This is where strategy diverges. When I play I play with a few friends and they are all good. (Ie we can kill about 4 - 5 skulks per run by ourselves at the beginning of the game). If so there is no need to build an arms lab right away. If not you need to upgrade armor once to allow them to have a fighting chance. Weapons upgrades this early into the game do not really make a marked difference because the skulks don't have carp (assuming they dont go fast dcs in which case you go weapon ups). What you do now is drop 3 mine packs. 1 mine pack goes to guarding the base. Use them as land mines not trip mines (lasers) because trip mines don't kill most skulks in 1 shot. I prefer to put the mines in the door ways leading to base. Then have 1 guy defend base. The rest try to find and assualt the hive on their FIRST RUN. (Most of the time you can guess the hive they are at depending on the path they choose when they come to your base)
The other 2 mine packs go to 2 skilled persons. They are the early res cappers. You choose 2 res spots on the map and have them cap them. The choice of these res are important. There are some horrible res spots that you can't really cap no matter how good you are. That plus PLZ do not cap res that are really close to their base. It defeats the purpose. You want these res to be covert and out of the way so to minimize the amount of skulks that try to attack it. Now here is the killer part of this strategy. As you cap the res you place 4 mines around it, in NESW (North/South/etc ...) configuration. This keeps the res alive for A REALLY LONG TIME. Skulks always die to these mines and even if they attack in groups it eliminates enough of them so you can run and save the node. Most of the time they just die. (Note: do not place the res on the node or they disappear place them a few feet from the node). Keep doing this on 2 res minimum. You can cap more as the comm sees fit. Just make sure they keep coming back to base for more mines to cap new res and to replace them as skulks get owned by them.
As these 2 cappers do their job the res of the team focuses their efforts on 2 things. 1 making sure both hives are clear. Constantly rushing both empty hives and clearing out any enemy troops. Secondly to try and kill gorges where ever they can. Early marines should be able to easily do this.
While all this happens the com should place a arms lab (if not already placed) and start upgrading weapons. As the res allows then bulid a proto lab. Now the natural feeling would be to upgrade jet packs but that is the wrong thing to do. You want HMGS and jets to upgrade at about the same time. So first you deal with the armory upgrade then jets. Once this is upgraded suit up about 2 of your men with HMG+jets+mines. At this point you should have 1 weapons upgrade maybe an armor and should be working on weapons lvl2.
If the team was skilled enough to keep the aliens out of the 2 hives then w00t to that. If not they will be trying to take a 2nd hive. This is where the coms/player's skill comes in. The call has to be made as to which hive is to be assualted. Things such as access/vents, offensive chambers, skulks and Line of sight (can you abuse and float in the air and HMG the hive). The most important factor in choosing the target hive would be vents. Can you get your 2 jetpackers in the vent that leads to pretty much every hive??? If so that hive should be as good as dead. Such as vents in the map with cargo/via/power silo. Cargo's vent leading from via is very imbalanced. All you have to do is get 2 jet packers in the vent lay a mine at the entrance of the vent jet pack to the open mouth of the vent then lay mines all around you and your partner. Once this is done just own the hive with the HMGS (this will be supper fast if you have lvl2 weapons about a clip a piece from the 2 jetpackers). Pretty much any hive with a vent in LOS of the hive you can do this though with only 1 person. Just lay mines infront of you and behind you and when a skulk comes to attack just jetpack backwards and the skulks can get you or they die trying. This can be done in vents like the one in eclipse CompCore or Subspace or Port Engine (to a lesser degree) or Unnamed. Pretty much almost any one unless it is a hive that lends itself to floating.
This while hopefully the rest of your team does something useful like protecting current res and capping new ones and laying mines at them. That and if you have the res you might want to secure 1 hive and the comm gets OBS/phase/mt.
At this point the game should be done and you should be rolling in res. Say for some reason the alien team is pretty good and for some reason they take out your jet packers. Well then the comm has a decision to make. If the alien team looks unorganized and is messed up then keep jet packing. If not then suit guys up in only jets and harrass/contain and go HA. But most of the time what happens is you can get 1 hive down and clear it with jetpackers + HMG but the 2nd one is too defended. What you do then just just contain and go HA. Easy win.
Well that pretty much wraps up that strat. It pretty much works on every map and has worked a high percentage (90%) of the time when my team was not a tool. I ussually have 2 friends (1 comm 1 other partner we are the res cappers/jetpackers) that I play with so that helps. The whole key to the strategy is the mines on the res/jetpackers and the ability to keep in mind the whole map (don't defend 1 hive while the gorge reses the other hive and puts up ocs).
This is the best strategy to date I have read or tried. NO TURRETS. 1 marine with the support of 5 or more mines should be able to hold off most rushes. This is assuming the worst case senario where your whole team is off somewhere while the 1 defending is alone at base. In bigger games you might want more then 1 person defending base.
Lastly a little off topic I and my friend are looking for a good clan to join. We enjoy this game alot and are tired of playing with stupid people. We pretty much own any pub NS server we are on and have come up with many good strategies that no one that I have seen on this board have come up with. (Ie observatory rush w/ distress beacon or Mine rush). If you have a good clan and are willing to try us out give me a shout at my email plz. crazytonyla@hotmail.com
Comments
Mines are not the ultimate defence that everyone is touting them as. Even with mines in your doorway and 1 marine guarding, a concentrated skulk/lerk effort will have your base down in seconds.
If they go straight for the IP, what are you gonna do? You have no Obs for Distress Beacon, no marines anywhere near base (not near enough to save it anyway) and the fact you have only 1 IP, an Armory and your CC is practically inviting your destruction.
1 x IP = 22
1 x Armory = 25
3 x Mines = 24
2 x RT = 44
Total = 115
Since you only start with 100 res (less depending on how many marines you have) that means you've saving for that second RT for at least a minute.
Meanwhile you've got 2 marines off on their own trying to build RTs undefended. Skulk food. You've got 1 guy in base who at best is going to drop 3 Skulks in one go. Then you've got... what... 4 guys wandering around trying to find the occupied hive. All Skulk food.
If the Skulks rush your base after the main force has left, you're dead.
If they dont, then you've got Skulks around the map actively hunting and killing your divided marines. Picnic day for the Kharaa.
Your strategy is unfortunately far from perfect. It's good, but not perfect.
No need to put much variation on what already works. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Tried and tested indeed, but with balancing changes continueing dont count on 2 hive lockdown to work in the near future. Let's call this a 1.04-marine strategy and see what happens in the next releases.
I would be wary of calling ANYTHING the 'best' strat.
BlueGhost
Mines are not the ultimate defence that everyone is touting them as. Even with mines in your doorway and 1 marine guarding, a concentrated skulk/lerk effort will have your base down in seconds.
If they go straight for the IP, what are you gonna do? You have no Obs for Distress Beacon, no marines anywhere near base (not near enough to save it anyway) and the fact you have only 1 IP, an Armory and your CC is practically inviting your destruction.
1 x IP = 22
1 x Armory = 25
3 x Mines = 24
2 x RT = 44
Total = 115
Since you only start with 100 res (less depending on how many marines you have) that means you've saving for that second RT for at least a minute.
Meanwhile you've got 2 marines off on their own trying to build RTs undefended. Skulk food. You've got 1 guy in base who at best is going to drop 3 Skulks in one go. Then you've got... what... 4 guys wandering around trying to find the occupied hive. All Skulk food.
If the Skulks rush your base after the main force has left, you're dead.
If they dont, then you've got Skulks around the map actively hunting and killing your divided marines. Picnic day for the Kharaa.
Your strategy is unfortunately far from perfect. It's good, but not perfect. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Perhaps you've missed part of the beauty of this strat...
If the skulks are rushing the marine base, the marines are IN the alien hive killing it. Considering that the aliens take damage wen they have no hive, and the marines can hang out indefinitely....marines win.
If the skulks are out chasing the resource cappers...the other marines are once again IN the hive killing it. If the skulks are dealing with the people attacking the hive (and they will) then the resource cappers (who are heading AWAY from the action) will be more than fine. The nodes are not undefended, as they are being mined, and the aliens are being drawn elsewhere anyhow. Your mathematics are incorrect (obviously an estimate) regarding how long it takes to enact this proceedure, mostly because you have forgotten that for the second rt to be going up, it means the first has already been placed, therefore speeding up the speed by which resources come. Regardless, a minute is far from a horrid price to pay to have 3 resources up, mined, and pumpin in the resources. Anyhow, of all the things you've said...I agree with one. "It's good, but not perfect." No strat is.
Mines are not the ultimate defence that everyone is touting them as. Even with mines in your doorway and 1 marine guarding, a concentrated skulk/lerk effort will have your base down in seconds.
If they go straight for the IP, what are you gonna do? You have no Obs for Distress Beacon, no marines anywhere near base (not near enough to save it anyway) and the fact you have only 1 IP, an Armory and your CC is practically inviting your destruction.
1 x IP = 22
1 x Armory = 25
3 x Mines = 24
2 x RT = 44
Total = 115
Since you only start with 100 res (less depending on how many marines you have) that means you've saving for that second RT for at least a minute.
Meanwhile you've got 2 marines off on their own trying to build RTs undefended. Skulk food. You've got 1 guy in base who at best is going to drop 3 Skulks in one go. Then you've got... what... 4 guys wandering around trying to find the occupied hive. All Skulk food.
If the Skulks rush your base after the main force has left, you're dead.
If they dont, then you've got Skulks around the map actively hunting and killing your divided marines. Picnic day for the Kharaa.
Your strategy is unfortunately far from perfect. It's good, but not perfect. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
What fantasy land are you living in?? You assuming you have some godly comm/marines that can place and build everything instantaneously.
1ip = 22 res and while you bulid this you get more res.
1 armory =25 res and more time so more res
now 3 packs of mines = 24 res
Now if you read I said if your team is good then you can just skip the arms lab and get the 2 res real quick with out waiting. If not get the arms lab and then wait a few seconds for the 2nd res tower cuz you can still get the first one and this will give you res alot faster. So your critisism is flawed. As for your idea that the 2 res cappers are "skulk food" that is if they suck. You cap the res away from their hive so to minimize ingagement. Even if a few do pop up 2 marines supported by the comm should take anywhere from 5-8 skulks easily (early game they have no carp they die like mad).
Your idea that since you don't have a observatory so you can't distress beacon is stupid. If your team suck so much that they all die and don't really take out any skulks they deserve to lose. As a marine at base with mines I can take at least 3-4 skulks easy alone. Skulk rushes don't get much bigger as far as that goes. Average game say about 7 ppl. 1 gorge 7-1=6 then a few dead skulks at a time 7-2=4. Not hard to handle a 4 skulk rush. As the game gets larger it might be benificial to have a 2nd guy and since you have lots of res due to the fast 2 res cap (or 3 if your l33t) you drop mines around your ips and cc. But rarely is your base left alone cuz marines constantly spawn. That and the fact that the rest of your team should be on the offensive thus putting the aliens on the defensive. That minimizes their abilty to base rape. Because if they do their base is dead. Marines can relocate aliens can't. I never said this was a perfect strategy. I said it is the best one I have seen to date... LOL you need to read more and infer less
They'll sit there and whine and moan until you drop an armory, but they'll applaud you when its done.
1x Infantry Portal -- 22 res
1x Observatory -- 25 res
Motion Tracking -- 45 res
As I said best strat to date. I know that this will be changed/slowed down this is why this is the best strat in IMO. It is unbalanced.
DO EVERYTHING IN A GROUP AS A TEAM AND LISTEN TO THE COMMANDER.
I would be wary of calling ANYTHING the 'best' strat.
BlueGhost <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with this guy <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
1ip = 22 res and while you bulid this you get more res.
1 armory =25 res and more time so more res
now 3 packs of mines = 24 res
Now if you read I said if your team is good then you can just skip the arms lab and get the 2 res real quick with out waiting. If not get the arms lab and then wait a few seconds for the 2nd res tower cuz you can still get the first one and this will give you res alot faster. So your critisism is flawed. As for your idea that the 2 res cappers are "skulk food" that is if they suck. You cap the res away from their hive so to minimize ingagement. Even if a few do pop up 2 marines supported by the comm should take anywhere from 5-8 skulks easily (early game they have no carp they die like mad).
Your idea that since you don't have a observatory so you can't distress beacon is stupid. If your team suck so much that they all die and don't really take out any skulks they deserve to lose. As a marine at base with mines I can take at least 3-4 skulks easy alone. Skulk rushes don't get much bigger as far as that goes. Average game say about 7 ppl. 1 gorge 7-1=6 then a few dead skulks at a time 7-2=4. Not hard to handle a 4 skulk rush. As the game gets larger it might be benificial to have a 2nd guy and since you have lots of res due to the fast 2 res cap (or 3 if your l33t) you drop mines around your ips and cc. But rarely is your base left alone cuz marines constantly spawn. That and the fact that the rest of your team should be on the offensive thus putting the aliens on the defensive. That minimizes their abilty to base rape. Because if they do their base is dead. Marines can relocate aliens can't. I never said this was a perfect strategy. I said it is the best one I have seen to date... LOL you need to read more and infer less <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Erm?
In the time it takes a team of 7 to build an IP and an Armory you will have gained 5 or 6 res points, if that.
And I dont know of any map where a marine team can cap 2 res nodes so fast that the Kharaa team havent attacked them, UNLESS the Kharaa are totally clueless.
Your strategy is based upon the assumption that a) the kharaa team are rubbish, or b) your marines all follow orders to the letter and can actually hit what they aim at. Or possibly both.
And THAT my friend, is a dream world.