Strategies For Small Lan Games
Eosapien
Join Date: 2003-02-19 Member: 13749Members
Join Date: 2003-02-19 Member: 13749Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Play differently for a few reasons...</div> I've been playing NS with a group of friends, playing LAN games. We're all finally starting to get some of the nuances down, although we're probably all still newbies compared to the average NS player. Regardless, we've all been following the forums. I have an issue I have yet to see addressed:
We play LAN games with rarely more than four people on a side. I usually go commander. Four on four seems to be a real challenge for the marines. Now I am more than willing to accept that it may be a lack of capability on my own part, but I find it a terrible challenge to beat the aliens even when we outnumber them.
In small games the dynamics seem different for a few reasons. First off, the resources come in rather slowly. You have to stake out a bunch of resource towers rapidly. But, each resource tower also becomes much more important to protect, because you're receiving income from it more slowly. It has to stay alive that much longer before it has paid itself off.
I also find it very difficult to defend locations, since I only really have enough people for one squad. Sometimes I'll put two on a team together and have one guy go rambo. This seems to work well, using the two for defense and construction, while the rambo keeps the aliens occupied. But it's very hard to stay ahead of the resource curve. Jetpacks are almost invaluable with teams this small. Turret farms also seem to last a little longer since the aliens have less resources to throw into a rush against the factory, but at the same time the decreased resources mean they are that much harder to put up.
If the aliens ever do a concentrated rush on the command chair, it almost always ends the game, because it becomes me versus the pack of aliens, with my squad of marines unable to get back in time.
The game usually ends in a frantic mess of trying to follow the opponent, defending holdings, squeezing in an attack when possible, and hoping that you can slowly overtake the enemy. Each kill and each death is that much more critical, but more on a resource level than on a time level. I've had a lot of difficulty trying to rush to take advantage of having just wiped out the enemy team. There are so few people in the game that they can all respawn before I have done anything of significance.
Now, with the postulate that I'm really a newbie here, and have read the majority of the strategy topics that I've seen posted the week or two, does anyone have any advice, or can someone point me to a relevant thread? Most tactics I've seen discussed seem to talk about eight player teams as a minimum.
We play LAN games with rarely more than four people on a side. I usually go commander. Four on four seems to be a real challenge for the marines. Now I am more than willing to accept that it may be a lack of capability on my own part, but I find it a terrible challenge to beat the aliens even when we outnumber them.
In small games the dynamics seem different for a few reasons. First off, the resources come in rather slowly. You have to stake out a bunch of resource towers rapidly. But, each resource tower also becomes much more important to protect, because you're receiving income from it more slowly. It has to stay alive that much longer before it has paid itself off.
I also find it very difficult to defend locations, since I only really have enough people for one squad. Sometimes I'll put two on a team together and have one guy go rambo. This seems to work well, using the two for defense and construction, while the rambo keeps the aliens occupied. But it's very hard to stay ahead of the resource curve. Jetpacks are almost invaluable with teams this small. Turret farms also seem to last a little longer since the aliens have less resources to throw into a rush against the factory, but at the same time the decreased resources mean they are that much harder to put up.
If the aliens ever do a concentrated rush on the command chair, it almost always ends the game, because it becomes me versus the pack of aliens, with my squad of marines unable to get back in time.
The game usually ends in a frantic mess of trying to follow the opponent, defending holdings, squeezing in an attack when possible, and hoping that you can slowly overtake the enemy. Each kill and each death is that much more critical, but more on a resource level than on a time level. I've had a lot of difficulty trying to rush to take advantage of having just wiped out the enemy team. There are so few people in the game that they can all respawn before I have done anything of significance.
Now, with the postulate that I'm really a newbie here, and have read the majority of the strategy topics that I've seen posted the week or two, does anyone have any advice, or can someone point me to a relevant thread? Most tactics I've seen discussed seem to talk about eight player teams as a minimum.
Comments
1) HMG rush
(vet comms, correct me if i'm wrong)
a) IP
b) armory
c) upgrade armory
d) hand out HMGs
e) have you and one other stay (or only ONE) in base and protect
f) RUSH the ONE HIVE (you SHOULD be able to waste all skulks) as soon as all aliens are dead, they'll tricklle back in, 1 per 8seconds, manageable
2) get Motion Tracking right off the bat. phase up and tfac one hive. (longer game, but prolly will be slightly better probability)
a) tech up to JP/hmg
b) JP the hives (2 clips should bring em down)
3) play on ns_nothing and lockdown cargo bay , 3 RTs can be covered with one tfac, mucho rez, can do fun stuff.
1stly you are at a serous disadvantage in games with less than 5 people per team.
Its just a consiquence of how the game works. Basically Alien gorge gets more res, commander gets less res.
I would seriously consider re-location to a hive room, in small games, you'll gain a res-node for free (you can leap from the chair to protect the current one in base).
And it means you've got a hive locked down right away at no serious extra cost. AND cos you don't care about your old base too much you only need to defend 2 locations.
Go with a build order like:
cc
ip
armoury
obs
motion tracking
You absolutly cannot afford to lose the obs during MT research, BUT when you have MT you can start watching the mini-map for red-dots and pre-empt the aliens at every stage.
"Two aliens heading for res node in station access alpha, get there now!"
After the re-location concentrate on grabbing as many nodes as you can and teching up like a crazy person.
You're ONLY aim here is to get JP/HMG befor they have the 2nd hive you may well fail to achive this in which case you're going to need to sneak a player up near a hive and build a phase, you then phase the INTIRE TEAM to the hive and shoot it.
As soon as you've got two hives secure and you're teching up nicely mine both areas like a crazy person, insure you can drop a GL (to deal with pesky gorges who build into your locations)
Now watch the mini-map red dots and keep everyone next to phases, you should have at worst 1 less player than they do in every encounter if you've teched propperly you have the upper hand.
Kill the 3rd hive at your leasure
The rational behind not locking down the 2nd hive asap is that you don't NEED to untill they're looking like building it they will get 3dc's befor its propperly held THIS means you end up defending at a disadvantage which COULD work. But if you fail to hold the 2nd hive you have no res, and no assets.
BlueGhost
It's basically do or die, but I think it's the best chance the marines have. Of course, this is dependent on knowing where the hive is, either by guessing from the early skulks, or by listening for the hive resource node (some consider the latter an exploit though, and it may go away with 1.1).
The marines CANNOT tech rush. The reason is simple: tech rushing in an 8v8 game is hard. Now consider doing with just half the res. It's basically impossible.
The resource model will change in 1.1, hopefully allowing smaller marine teams a bit of a break.
if they like to rush... find the hive quickly, have the team defend as good as they can... and IP rush em...
This is a long game strat though. If you're looking for the quick kill, then do what the rest say. 1 ip, armory, arms lab. 2 rt's, proto lab, JP's, shotties/hmg's.
Okay, I never tried that, but it seems fun.