Mine Placement
Kazyras
Join Date: 2002-11-23 Member: 9722Members
Join Date: 2002-11-23 Member: 9722Members
<div class="IPBDescription">"On the floor you noob!" .... NOT!</div> How often does this happen? You and everyone place mines on the floor and ONLY on the floor, then a bunny hopping skulk comes in, rapes 3 marines and then randomly blows up on a mine. Efficient mine placement? NOT. Yet it's almost all I ever see.
A good way to place mines is to completely block off an entrance with tripwires. Like this:
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And place a few on the floor in such a way that if a skulk survives a tripwire or jumps through a hole, he'll have no way to avoid running/landing smack dab on a floor mine.
I can already hear the objections: "Haha you idiot, a skulk can suicide 2-3 times then a big hole will be created and the entire alien team can get in!" My answer to this is: I know, that's why the mine wall has to be watched and maintained.
Generally speaking, with 3 packs of mine you can effectively deny 2 typical sized doorways. If you place your mines in such a way that you will see any skulk approaching from a distance so you can shoot at them, you should only have to get a new pack of mines every minute and a half or so. For holding an entire position by yourself with no sentries necessary, this is a pretty sweet deal.
For example, if you do the <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=20&t=30366' target='_blank'>bast strategy</a> posted on this board, you can easily do this with both doorways leading into the main aft (watch out for that pipe in the left doorway, put a tripwire or two on it too) and hold the whole marine base by yourself with 3 packs of mines and force the aliens to go through the tram tunnel to get out of the refinery area.
I'm not saying to never place mines around important structures. I always place mines around and on top of IPs myself (JUUUUSSSSTTT in case), but only doing that is pretty asinine and doesn't work too well.
A good way to place mines is to completely block off an entrance with tripwires. Like this:
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And place a few on the floor in such a way that if a skulk survives a tripwire or jumps through a hole, he'll have no way to avoid running/landing smack dab on a floor mine.
I can already hear the objections: "Haha you idiot, a skulk can suicide 2-3 times then a big hole will be created and the entire alien team can get in!" My answer to this is: I know, that's why the mine wall has to be watched and maintained.
Generally speaking, with 3 packs of mine you can effectively deny 2 typical sized doorways. If you place your mines in such a way that you will see any skulk approaching from a distance so you can shoot at them, you should only have to get a new pack of mines every minute and a half or so. For holding an entire position by yourself with no sentries necessary, this is a pretty sweet deal.
For example, if you do the <a href='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=20&t=30366' target='_blank'>bast strategy</a> posted on this board, you can easily do this with both doorways leading into the main aft (watch out for that pipe in the left doorway, put a tripwire or two on it too) and hold the whole marine base by yourself with 3 packs of mines and force the aliens to go through the tram tunnel to get out of the refinery area.
I'm not saying to never place mines around important structures. I always place mines around and on top of IPs myself (JUUUUSSSSTTT in case), but only doing that is pretty asinine and doesn't work too well.
Comments
Mines on the floor are very effective and better than mines on the wall because they're a suprise. Especially if well placed. Mines on the wall as suggested are effective to stop a neewbish skulk but most regular players will throw themselves at the mine wall in an attempt to take out as many mines as possible. If they take just one mine out the wall becomes useless and the other three mines are a waste of res.
You say you would use three packs of mines to defent two doorways, like marines start on ns_nothing? Me, with two packs of mines on NS nothing, I will place two on the floor in painted corridor, two in the corridor from docking wing (docking wing end) one on DW res, one on miasma res node, and I'd have four left over to take to cargo, viaduct, put near the structures or spread around res points for easy gorge kills. For every 5 mines I place I normally get 4 kills in the following few minutes. This gives the impression to the aliens that we have mines all over the place, but when and if the fades arrive there are no mines left in base.
Take mines out of base and place them where they do the most phsychological harm. For example out of marine base and on the stairs at caged. Under the vent at atmospheric or at the top of ladders just one mine will do the trick on bast.
Eclipse has some excellent examples of such spots - see the image - red dots mark mine placements. The trough running across station access nets me 4 kills a game almost every game. Devistating for skulk rushes form that side. And the three steps in the darkened area of marine base are a good place to put mines, the aliens think they're in the clear and get caught out every time. Also you can often shoot the aliens before they trip the mines, and if you dont the mines act as your safety net.
Mines on slopes are hard to jump over, mines just over the brow of a slope is hidden until it's too late.
Also mines placed on empty res nodes are never wasted. There's a good thread from a few months back covering all of this.
Mines on the wall should be used sparingly as they are a very expensive way of denying access.
If you try to block the entrances, they skulks have to walk in very slowly even when there's a hole in the field. Slow skulks are easy targets. One marine can easily handle base defense. This also works well on assaults, because you can mine around you while you shoot the hive. It helps keep you alive while you reload and such.
Mining the structures (other than the trouble caused by mines TOO close to buildings, preventing them from upgrading) works well when you cluster your buildings. The skulks will get into the base, and eat your base defender marine, but they probably won't be able to eat your buildings. You only need one mine pack to pull this off, instead of several to handle all the entrances. Still, I prefer the first method because I like having the securing of a living base defender.
The other common, but not very impressive, strategy is to place claymores all over the floor. It sucks up lots of mines, first of all. Sure, it makes the base pretty secure if you have a marine there (marine stands in minefield, skulks stuck outside it and are easy targets on walls), but it's just not worth the res. It loses out based on cost efficiency.
See - I love stuff like this in this forum. Where people go to such lengths to give over seemingly small tactics that actually enhance your game so much.
Cheers mate!
A good place to put mines is near bends in ramps. When people run over ramps, they can't actually see the ramp surface, but they assume them to be clear. Take advantage of this.
but putting mines on the wall and the laser is too big, then the skulk could trip it without damage.
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What's the point you might ask? The point is that it will take a MOB of skulks to do anything to the position you are defending. For instance, yesterday, 6 skulks came at me (their entire team minus the gorge actually, it was a 7 vs 7) while I was defending the base with 2 minewalls. I gunned 2 down before they reached the mines, then reloaded. 2 died while trying to get through: one jumped, triggered 2 wires and blew up, another jumped through the hole the last one created and landed smack dab on 2 mines on the floor. The last two jumped through the hole as well, but they tripped a single floormine that softened them up quite a bit. By then I was done with reloading my LMG and I easily finished them off.
If I had placed the mines using the conventional "around our stuff" way, I would have gunned 2 down like I did, then switched to my pistol and maybe (big maybe) killed a 3rd before being violenty murdered by the remaining skulks. Then they could have each trigger a single mine to open up a blind spot on a structure and eat an IP, the protolab, whatever. It would have been a real structure buffet.
Your method, eaglec, will only insure that you will get a few random kills around the map. You might scare off a few newbies and make others a bit more paranoid/cautious, but in the end, in the grand scheme of things, your mines won't have done much except get a few kills on skulks caught offguard. I much prefer when mines are used in a way that says "access denied, punk."
1 x really low on the wall near entrance - this will make skulks think the mines arent on the ground
1 x armory - try to place it on a place a skulk will run to, not the side or anything like that
1 x ip - same as armory
2 x other main buildings
This is minimal defence though, and you need a guy to defend it as well. Once aliens get carpace or regen, mines wont stop them but a watchful marine will only need 2-3 shots to kill them.
Also, another good way to protect things is to place them on walls in your base. Put a few on the ground, and then do an x or star type thing on walls that go through many of your buildings. That way skulks will die if they try to much on them.
So I just place then by choke points. 3 mines on the wall, two on the floor.
they should be secreuing an area while the skulks throw themselves into mines.
PS: If your a fade and you see a base coated with mines, for god sakes dont blow them up until a few rines are in there. i hate it when a fool blasts apart a base only to have 3 rines come through a sec later and attack.
If you don't want a skulk to get into an area, then you can do the entrances. I find it more effective to mine up structures on the ground anyway. What harm can a skulk do to your base if he gets in, and then can't eat anything without blowing up?
How much match experience have you actually had?
Mine damage to structures in tournement mode is almost non-existant. With friendly fire capped at 33%, and the damage of a mine explosion being so small in comparison to the health of a structure, It is practically impossible to cause significant damage to your base through mining.
In months of clanplay i have not sen a structure destroyed or badly injured through mining. The only real change tournement mode makes to mine behaviour is the kind-of-buggy chain reaction effect. Where mines close to eachother will set eachother off, and proxy mines from the same pack can trigger other proxy mines even when they are placed at opposite ends of a room.
The chain reaction effect makes it a little more expensive to mine things in clanplay, because all mines close to one another will explode at once. On the plus side, it is much harder for carapaced skulks to get through a mine field in tournement mode, as 1 slip will trigger enough mines to kill them.
Wether you mine the floor or entrances usually depends on the area you are trying to hold. Some locations, such as the marine start on Nancy/Tanith/Nothing/EC allow you to easily block the entrances with 3 trip mines per entrance. In other areas such as a forward siege, or out-of-the-way resource towers, mines may be better used on the floor. Make the call depending on the area you are mining.
In tourney mode, you should never have more than a few mines in one place anyway. They chain react, so making a minefield is just a waste of resources. One pack of mines around your structures, and maybe a few at key entrances to the base, will not endanger your structures. They will kill any marine dumb enough to be standing there, but that's his own fault.
- RD
-If the door is mined properly, it will stop 1 skulk, not the 4 that comes after.
-If a skulk blows up a mine near a building the other skulks can stand there, yes, but if they move to try and kill marines that will shoot them they are in the same position as the first skulk...
-There might be 4 potential entrances and only one armory...pick one
Plus, if you need a guard to watch the mines they dont really work well do they? Unless its a huge game a soldiers makes alot of difference...
EDIT: I also assume that the marines are decent shots.
Wall mines for the major deterrent (not frag machine) and a few mines on the floor behind that to mop up any that got through.
Admitedly my mine method plays more on the phscologic aspect that the barrier aspect, although for the base placement in eclipse it is much more effective to place them up by the steps so your base guard gets a clear shot at the skulks first.
Use on walls is sometimes justified, but too often we do see 'experienced' and '"elite"' players sticking 10 mines over 1 wall so that the first skulk creates a hole big enough to sink the titanic.
Like turrets mines should not be relied on as a replacement to marines, when a good marine is taken out in a key location he reports back to the team what happened and how many of the enemy team were there, ie "engine going down, 2 skulks 3 fades and a lerk". A mine will simply report "BANG" to those in earshot.
I KNOW a hole can be created, that's why a marine is there to shoot lone skulks dead before they trigger any and to replace mines should a sizable squad of skulks try to break in. The point of a good minewall in a doorway is that it will take MANY skulks to break through. It should also take more than 1 skulk to create a real hole in one. In my 6 skulk rush example, I had 4 wires to completely block off the doorway, and 4 mines on the floor behind or so that ANY SKULK JUMPING THROUGH A HOLE WOULD INEVITABLY LAND ON THEM.
So what happened? 8 mines and 1 marine were enough to hold 6 level 3 carapace skulks! With mines around the structures and no minewall, I would have been murdered almost immediately and the base would have been easily lost! What part of that don't you understand? This is how eve lost to ReD in the final of that tournament! The entire ReD team skulk rushed the base, killed the lone defender easily and destroyed everything! I'm not saying that a good minewall would have prevented that due to the weird chain reaction behavior of mines in tournament mode, but still -- don't underestimate a good skulk rush by saying "oh the marines will just waltz into the hive and spawn camp then", nothing guarantees the aliens will be have left their base as wide open as the marines did.
And to whoever said it's not good because it has to be watched.. like WTH? Even a turret farm has to be watched or you're gonna lose it.
Also, placing mines around buildings tends to trigger that annoying bug that prevents you from upgrading/researching anything. I'd only place them around IPs and phase gates.
one laserwall hold one skulk, if carpace not even that...6 skulks charging against a laser wall will look like this:
1. Unless its a long hallway or room(bast refinery type) none will be killed before they hit the fist wall...
2. First skulk dies on his way to the second wall by the LMG
3. Second skulk makes a hole in the bottom of the second wall, then jumps over mines on floor
4. Second skulk gets killed by pistol
5. Third , fourth and fifth skulk get trough unhurt and kills defending marine
6. Base is smoked
10 res worth of carpace, 2 dies
10 res worth of mines kill 1 skulk in total
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1. First skulk gets killed by defending marine
2. Marine dies by second skulk
3. Second skulk gets killed by mines around ips
4. Marines can spawn without being hit by skulks, if they do the skulks cant move since they have mines around them.
5. Marines might die repeatedly, but buildings ar left alone or kills most of the skulks in the process
*note* Skulks CAN still eat the buildings, but have to stand still doing so, thus mamking themselves sitting ducks...
I do know what you are saying but I have played to many games where laserwalls just took out one skulk...