The Big Picture
relsan
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3720Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2002-11-01 Member: 3720Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">how to really tell if all is lost</div> It definitely sucks when the marines lockdown two hives and then take their pretty little time finishing off the last one. But it's just as sucky when aliens lockdown 2 hives and then take their pretty little time finishing off the marines, especially if they decide they want onos instead of going straight for the marine start because then that takes another 15 mins to get the marines out of there and get the hive up.
It's a two-way street on that gripe, but really I think the lag time that occurs after one team takes two hives is because players really don't understand how this game works. I think that it is commonly assumed on a pub that the game is over when somebody locks down 2 hives and other team doesn't realize that there plenty of weak points that they could be exploiting. I'll explain:
The game completely revolves around resources and its the team that realizes this that always wins. Here's my point. Quite often I'll see marines cap 3-4 resources around the map initially but they won't bother to defend them because 1. its costly and 2. they want to lockdown two empty hives. The aliens are also focused on the hives and so they throw themselves hopelessly at the marine hive outposts which are probably the most defended assets the marines have. Eventually the marines save up to build an HA/JP/HMG/GL crew to finish off the aliens.
Now here's the same scenario with a different ending and I've actually witnessed this several times. The marines cap four res nodes and take two hives and completely fortify them with turrets, mines, sieges, the works. The aliens start pounding their marine start which the commander neglects to fortify. No surprise these days; most grunts gasp when they see a commander drop a tf in the marine start at the beginning of the game. So the commander says no problem and relocates to one of the hive outposts. Now the commanders got enough rp for a few HA, some JP, and maybe an HMG or two, but he's not ready to support a full squad.
Suddenly the commander realizes that his resources are barely trickling in, so he tells the marines to go out and get more resources. That's when they discover that the aliens have taken all but the 2 resources they have at their outposts. But not only that, they have used the rp from the other 8 resources to completely surround their outposts with OCs. The aliens only have skulks, lerks, and gorges but they are fearlessly attacking the outposts non-stop. A little mistake here and the HA guy goes down, a little mistake there and somebody loses an hmg. Slowly, the marines are losing. The commander can't buy weapons fast enough because there are no resources and eventually one of the outposts gets totally overrun. Nobody can get outside the outposts because there are chambers everywhere. The rest is history. The aliens take two hives and crush the marines with umbra'd fades, leaping skulks and web.
My point is that the best way to defeat an enemy is with eternal vigilance. You should be seeking out <b>undefended resources</b> at all times and letting your team know about them. Suddenly the marines will find that they stuck their hand a little too far into the cookie jar. It's the same thing with rushing marines. You need resources for everything, including jp rushes, cc/ip spamming, whatever. They are getting their resources from somewhere and if they are already at your hive before your gorge could put a hive up, chances are, their resources were left undefended and you had a prime opportunity to eat them a long time ago.
Alien teams win when they make the marines pay for every move they make. Alien teams should make the marines have to at least put turrets or have men stationed at every resource or hive they take. If you force them to do that, your gorge will have a second hive up before the marines reach the top of their tech tree because of all the rps they spent on turrets and all the resources they didn't take because the commander needed marines to stand guard over their outposts. That's the way the game works when you look up from a bird eye view but it isnt as obvious when you are deep in the trenches, so I've explained the big picture as best I could. I see to often that aliens give up even when they still have plenty of opportunities to win.
So in closing:
1. Learn the maps. That means know every hallway and EVERY CRAWLSPACE and where it goes.
2. Know where all the resources are.
3. Check them often.
4. Know where all the hives, and marine start are.
5. Be smart, and keep a mental note in your head of what the least defended enemy resources are.
6. Tell your team about any undefended resources and mass for an attack, or do it on your own if you think you can pull it off.
7. Try to prevent marines from advancing if they are on the move. Flank them instead of taking them head on. Learning the map and all the crawlspaces is invaluable for this.
All of this is buying your gorge the most important resource in the game:
Time.
It's a two-way street on that gripe, but really I think the lag time that occurs after one team takes two hives is because players really don't understand how this game works. I think that it is commonly assumed on a pub that the game is over when somebody locks down 2 hives and other team doesn't realize that there plenty of weak points that they could be exploiting. I'll explain:
The game completely revolves around resources and its the team that realizes this that always wins. Here's my point. Quite often I'll see marines cap 3-4 resources around the map initially but they won't bother to defend them because 1. its costly and 2. they want to lockdown two empty hives. The aliens are also focused on the hives and so they throw themselves hopelessly at the marine hive outposts which are probably the most defended assets the marines have. Eventually the marines save up to build an HA/JP/HMG/GL crew to finish off the aliens.
Now here's the same scenario with a different ending and I've actually witnessed this several times. The marines cap four res nodes and take two hives and completely fortify them with turrets, mines, sieges, the works. The aliens start pounding their marine start which the commander neglects to fortify. No surprise these days; most grunts gasp when they see a commander drop a tf in the marine start at the beginning of the game. So the commander says no problem and relocates to one of the hive outposts. Now the commanders got enough rp for a few HA, some JP, and maybe an HMG or two, but he's not ready to support a full squad.
Suddenly the commander realizes that his resources are barely trickling in, so he tells the marines to go out and get more resources. That's when they discover that the aliens have taken all but the 2 resources they have at their outposts. But not only that, they have used the rp from the other 8 resources to completely surround their outposts with OCs. The aliens only have skulks, lerks, and gorges but they are fearlessly attacking the outposts non-stop. A little mistake here and the HA guy goes down, a little mistake there and somebody loses an hmg. Slowly, the marines are losing. The commander can't buy weapons fast enough because there are no resources and eventually one of the outposts gets totally overrun. Nobody can get outside the outposts because there are chambers everywhere. The rest is history. The aliens take two hives and crush the marines with umbra'd fades, leaping skulks and web.
My point is that the best way to defeat an enemy is with eternal vigilance. You should be seeking out <b>undefended resources</b> at all times and letting your team know about them. Suddenly the marines will find that they stuck their hand a little too far into the cookie jar. It's the same thing with rushing marines. You need resources for everything, including jp rushes, cc/ip spamming, whatever. They are getting their resources from somewhere and if they are already at your hive before your gorge could put a hive up, chances are, their resources were left undefended and you had a prime opportunity to eat them a long time ago.
Alien teams win when they make the marines pay for every move they make. Alien teams should make the marines have to at least put turrets or have men stationed at every resource or hive they take. If you force them to do that, your gorge will have a second hive up before the marines reach the top of their tech tree because of all the rps they spent on turrets and all the resources they didn't take because the commander needed marines to stand guard over their outposts. That's the way the game works when you look up from a bird eye view but it isnt as obvious when you are deep in the trenches, so I've explained the big picture as best I could. I see to often that aliens give up even when they still have plenty of opportunities to win.
So in closing:
1. Learn the maps. That means know every hallway and EVERY CRAWLSPACE and where it goes.
2. Know where all the resources are.
3. Check them often.
4. Know where all the hives, and marine start are.
5. Be smart, and keep a mental note in your head of what the least defended enemy resources are.
6. Tell your team about any undefended resources and mass for an attack, or do it on your own if you think you can pull it off.
7. Try to prevent marines from advancing if they are on the move. Flank them instead of taking them head on. Learning the map and all the crawlspaces is invaluable for this.
All of this is buying your gorge the most important resource in the game:
Time.
Comments
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But you see, if the aliens go strait for the marine base, guess where the marines relocate? It really dosent matter which the aliens choose, the marine base, or the hive the marines have. Either way, the game won't end when they destroy one. Unless the marines have a total nub commander, who dosen't put a cc down in their secured hive, but usually if the marines can hold out long enough for the fades, they have upgrades and a good defense, meaning the comm can't suck that bad.
The main asset of Aliens is the speed and flexibility, for marines it is power and strategical awareness (the COM can see everuything). You need to use your strengths and exploit the enemies weknesses. In this case your strength is your speed and the enemy's weakness is that he can't defend all his bases all teh time, only some of them all the time or all of them some of the time. Hit them were they are weak and keep hitting them.
As COM I know I am going to win when the Aliens aren't killing my unprotected nodes, but are instead going for my fortified ones (usually in hives).
Best exemple being the dreaded Hera processing relocation. Marines can siege both hive... if they have the ressources. They're attacked from everywhere and it's quite hard for the comm to take other nodes (holoroom , while near , is bashed even more by skulks and lerks)
Lots of nodes (including the marine spawn one) are simply out of reach.
There's no hope of holding ground near archiving. Ventilation can't be defended either.
So marines face eternal harassment from lerks , gorges and skulks at their base... they can double TFs , sieges , spam mines , use welders , even use HA HMG , they will eventually lose because they can't afford Turret Farming an other location than their own base , and a big push results in the loss of either 50% of the team or the marine base as they will immediately face a rain of aliens. Plus , the comm has to make sure no sneaky gorge builds a hive in datacore or ventilation , which takes either a marine or obs pings.
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But you see, if the aliens go strait for the marine base, guess where the marines relocate? It really dosent matter which the aliens choose, the marine base, or the hive the marines have. Either way, the game won't end when they destroy one. Unless the marines have a total nub commander, who dosen't put a cc down in their secured hive, but usually if the marines can hold out long enough for the fades, they have upgrades and a good defense, meaning the comm can't suck that bad. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I dont think thats what he was saying
Anyway, it's like Stoneburg said - why let the marines have 6 resource nodes when you can make them have 2? It's best to attack the enemy where he's weakest. Even if it's not a game ending move, you can still paper cut the enemy to death, and when he's tired and wounded you can make that final attack. If you're going to face a difficult opponent you may as well do it when he's not at full strength...
Ex: Game in tanith. All I did was hold RR for 6 or 7 minutes while the comm teched up, and we were able to suit up 3 jp/hmgs easily. Waste handling went down as it was being built, and fusion soon after that.
Ex: Game in tanith. All I did was hold RR for 6 or 7 minutes while the comm teched up, and we were able to suit up 3 jp/hmgs easily. Waste handling went down as it was being built, and fusion soon after that. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think thats a particularly convenient example of a double res node being extremely close to the marine start. But regardless, the battle over the reactor room could have gone either way if both teams were grouping and hitting it from the start. I wouldn't say that situation favors the marines at all.
I could also point out an example of my own, which by the way I see quite often, where the marines attempt to tech rush to JP/HMG by holding the reactor room, but the aliens hit the marine start so hard that the marines have to relocate to reactor room.
Whether the marines go on to win or lose the game is not the point. The point is that the aliens bought their gorge time and cost the marines resources due to relocation. The marines have gained two res nodes and lost a marine start that is much easier to defend. Thus, the marines will have to sacrifice even more resources on turrets or make several marines stand guard over the reactor room which has 3 more entrances and a perch were lerks can become a total nuisance. It's also way easier to parasite in that room whereas in the marine start it's more risky for a skulk to go in and tag a marine. So the marines become much more trackable when they relocate to the reactor room.
If the aliens stay on the marines and contain them, the gorge will have more than enough time to set up a hive far away from the action.
Ex: Game in tanith. All I did was hold RR for 6 or 7 minutes while the comm teched up, and we were able to suit up 3 jp/hmgs easily. Waste handling went down as it was being built, and fusion soon after that. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
In 1.04, if you want to play the resource-denial game as aliens, you have to do it early. This is one of the reasons why the much-maligned skulk rush works. If you can wipe out that initial 100 resource lead, you can put the marines in the same position as you; watching the RT and wairing.
But you can't win the attrition game with marines. Because, like you said, marines will eventually tech to jp/hmg and go hive-hunting.
But this has always been the case since 1.0. The aliens need hives to tech up. The marines need time. The marines should be trying to prevent the aliens from getting hives. The aliens should be trying to close the game before the marines have time to get their tech in full swing.
I already laid out a whole scenario of how aliens thwarted marines attempting to hold on to the reactor room in tanith so they could tech rush... but you're still asking me how it could be done. I just told you how it could be done, and how it has been done before. If you are asking me how exactly, there are tons of skulk guides on this board on how to bite better, lerk guides on how to fly better, and gorge guides on how to manage resources better. But what I'm focusing on here is the fact that everyone should be thinking about resource strategy. Resources make NS go round just like money makes the world round.
And losing starts with an "I can't" attitude. Now I understand some of you guys may have been on the losing end of a battle and it seemed impossible, but I'm suggesting that you consider that there was something you could have done to prevent the outcome rather than just giving up and saying "Aliens suck and marines are overpowered". Sometimes it IS a war of attrition and it takes a while to wear down the other team but it is very much possible to prevent a tech rush in 1.04.
I've been in many games where the marines had two hives locked down and still lost. Why? Because the aliens had more resources and THUS were able to infest the map so badly that the marines couldn't step out of their own outposts. The marines weren't able to tech fast enough to stop the aliens who simply continued to throw themselves at the outpost until it cracked, i.e. the tf went down or one of the phase gates went down. I even explained a scenario of how this happened (and thus how its very possible and proven) in my second post but I guess you didn't read that.
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>So let me put it as bluntly as possible for you. You're saying that hive locations are more important than resources. Thats like saying for instance, in order to play Half-Life 2, it is important to have an upgraded uber leet gaming system. But then you spend all your money on the upgraded uber leet gaming system and forget to factor in the money on a good ISP into your budget. So then one day you can't make the payments and your ISP cuts you off. So now you have this upgraded uber leet gaming system, but you can't play your favorite game with your friends anymore because you didn't factor in the ongoing costs of the ISP. IT IS THE EXACT SAME THING WITH NS. Even if you have two hives, if resources are just barely trickling in (and I'm sure we have all been THERE before) and its taking forever to get to 54, the marines ARE GOING TO OWN YOU. It won't matter if you have two hives if you can't defend them.</span>
I'm not trying to argue with you NobleFade or call you a moron. I'm only trying to help you understand the bigger picture. I'm sharing with the group, tactics I've seen, used, and proved were viable methods of thwarting tech rushes and two hive lockdowns. When all is said and done we are all going to go back and play ns. The question is, are you going to f4 as soon and the marines start tech rushing or lock down two hives, or are you going to come up with a good game plan and keep fighting. I know what I'm going to do.
Really? What is this "more" you speak of? This other aspect of the game that I've failed to see in the months that I've been playing this game? What other objectives do marines set for themselves at the beginning of each game?
Please enlighten me, oh wise master, because every game I've played involves marines relocating to the hives, marines turret farming the hives, marines mine blanketting the hives, and marines spawn camping the hives. I have yet to see any commander tell his marines to take rooms without a hive, just for the res, and fortify it up to keep it. They don't care, because they know that it's THE HIVES that are important. And even with only 1 res tower they are able to tech up faster than a gorge can, which is why you see jetpacks all the time before a second hive is even up.
Oh ya, I didn't read the rest of your post, though the caps looked interesting.
I talked some into going node hunting with me. Then I went gorge and capped them and turned the map into a hellhole of offense chambers. Eventually they starved and couldnt keep up and I could push further and further.
Same applies to wc3. cut off the expansion, poke em a bit, after a while, theyre mine runs out and just keep poking at them since no more new units can come, until you shred them down to a 1 bite portion.
However, they're not saying that you should just <i>let</i> the marines take two hives.. don't even let them secure 1 hive, if you can. Harrass them always, while the gorge goes crazy with the res nodes, and maybe a 2nd gorge to setup hive defense and the 2nd hive.
If you half of the maps resources and the marines have 2 nodes, and both teams push for the same hive the aliens are going to come out on top simply because they can setup insta-OC/DC defense.
It may be quite easy to lock down 2 hives by gettin it early, but in the later game you will most like end up gettin owned my constant attacks from skulks and annoyin lerks. And while this is happenin the gorges are out gettin all the res and have so much res they can even keep on buildin the hives secretly at ventilation and datacore.
Res is the definitely the key. Most of the times these days marines can take on tier 2 aliens with HA + HMG and GL'ers becos teh comm has the res to constantly suit up his men.
2 hive lockdowns on 1-2 res nodes are doomed to fail. As alien you just have to take down more res then the Marines are getting in and you will win. It's a war of attrition. Wonderfully fun games too (as alien).
Processing relocations are the eaiest. Several times have I been part of alien teams against this. Lerks constantly picking at any structure in sight or marine that is welding. Regular skulk rushes, Gorges dropping chambers or even starting hives just to force the COM to waste res on scanning. Beautiful <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I've also been part of games where it has been resource denial the other way. Even got to the point where a skulk was complaining he didn't have enough resources to get carapacxe, but they had two hives. I was constantly scanning resource nodes and as soon as one went up or was about to, I would send 2 JP_HMG:ers over to kill it. We even killed the res nodes <b>inside</b> their hives.
As an alien I'm not worried when Marines rush into two hives at the start. I just tell teh team to go after their resources and keep harassing them. Killing their base and forcing them to relocate is excellent, another huge waste of resources for them. Once we have capped all the resources, we start locking them into the hives, then the war of attrition starts. Chamber rushes either clear out a hive or forces them to spend resources on sieges. Skulk rushes cost 2 points per skulk, if they can manage to kill a single turret it will have been a <b>huge</b> profit. 6x2 = 12 points, turret = 19 points. But we have 8 RT's, they have 2, so it's really a profit at a 4:1 ratio. We can afford to lose 4 resources for every one we kill, or more. In the case of processing relocation that is 8:1. And as long as we are the ones attacking we can pretty much lose <b>any</b> amount of resources and still be ok (such as putting up the hives 20 times just to force teh COM to ping them).