A Newborn Gorges' Guide To Defenses.
AUScorpion
Join Date: 2003-01-05 Member: 11842Members
Join Date: 2003-01-05 Member: 11842Members
I know how to make a offense chamber, and I know what a wall of lame is. I'm set right?
Wrong.
Believe it or not there's more to defending than blocking off hallways with massive (and rather expensive) monuments to gorgedom. Sometimes a wall of lame just can't cut it. Inevitably all the structures in one area are used up in a WOL, but there is still so much more that needs defending.
This meager guide is here to help. Hopefully the newly evolved will learn a thing or two from a more experienced gorge, but there is a chance that all you'll get is a good laugh at my expense.
Now on to Gorges' bane. The things that ruin our hard work.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt"
-<i>The Art of War</i>
1. Our first culprit is the grenade launcher. This devious device can fire explosive rounds that can level even the best WOLs in seconds at a fraction of a proper seige's cost. The problem? Splash damage affecting every structure nearby the blast.
2. The second culprit is the unholy building wrecker its self: The seige cannon. A nasty bugger for sure. But it does have two downfalls: Range and Sight. (It can't hit what the marines can't see.)
3. The ever annoying rambo, with his built in resource tower knifing action. Bull-headed to the last, these guys keep coming. Good thing for us, the gorge is a far superior being in mental assets such as tactics. They keep coming, they keep dying, we keep getting resources from their corpses.
All three can exploit a weakness in a WOL, all three can be deadly to a precious hive defended with one.
1. Grenade launchers can rip through all the structures at once and with sickening efficiency due to the radius of their blast.
2. Seiges, can be difficult to catch before they begin wearing away at your well built structures and hive. Normally due to large areas being unprotected in order to maintain a WOL just down the hall.
3. Rambos are seldom more than skulk fodder. But one marine, no matter the intelligence...or rather the lack thereof, can bring down a hive, by quickly building a phasing light thingie inside said hive after leaping over the WOL "protecting" it.
Now, WOLs have their place, I don't doubt this. BUT! There are better, cheaper ways of defending against marines.
Say you have a relatively open room with a couple wide rafters and three entrances....one of which going to a hive. Now you could build several offense chambers at each door to try and block the marines out. But the marines can simply jump over it and be healed by their mystical "com" on the other side. Or a grenade launcher can simply annihilate all the chambers guarding an entrance, making your investment relatively worthless.
Why not become a skulk once more and place chambers, just a couple, spread out on the rafters? Then place one chamber just inside the entrance to the hive. This would force a rambo to take fire no matter where he ran within the room, and only a crack shot with the grenade launcher would be able to do anything about the chambers on the rafters since only a perfect hit would hurt the chambers. Even then the grenade launcher would be forced to take fire as he is lining up his shots. I've seen heavily armored troops, confused as to what to do with such a meager yet deadly defense, mowed down by a group of skulks as they were distracted and taking damage.
Often times marines, in their efforts to move stealthily about the area will ignore anything but a large mass of offense chambers. Choosing to run through to the next corridor rather than fight their way in and end up alerting us to their presence. Use this against them. Purposely allow offense chambers a hallway or two from any major landmark to be uncloaked, naked if you will. Only build one or two. Then where the marines would take refuge after passing the chamber, place another, but be sure it escapes visual detection. It is a simple trap, but effective. And after a few marines have run it's course, you...the gorge...will easily have enough raw building materials for more devious schemes.
My personal favorite device of mayhem is the RWOL or reversed wall of lame. The typical WOL is meant to keep marines out, the RWOL is meant to entrap marines by having them think the coast is clear. The can be put to great use just outside the sewer hive on the map Caged. The entrance to the room is a tunnel that protrudes into the room slightly, allowing for multiple offense chambers to be built against that wall without any risk of visual contact until they all fire of the marines walking through. By the time the marines realise they have walked into a trap most are dead, and the others are either scrambling back to the entrance or jumping about reflexively as if to avoid some skulk nipping at their heels.
So, in review. When building defenses:
1: Take advantage of your enviroment. If there is a hard to access ledge with a great line of sight, try building there... you may just have created the only defensive structure needed to keep marines out of the room.
2: Build something everywhere, don't just build everything somewhere. There is nothing better for early warning than a good offense tower in an area normally used to seige from.
3: Play mind games. It pays off, trust me. The typical FPS player has his/her mind so set on "if it moves blast it" that they will fall for the same trap....repeatedly. This not only nets you resources, but it also deeply discourages the marine team. It doesn't feel good to realise that you've been owned repeatedly not by a WOL, or by an actual alien... but by two stinkin' chambers a hallway apart.
4: Take pride in your work, it's your creation. You are the gorge, and you shape what the battlefield looks like and whom it favors. When you see another offense chamber kill, you should become giddy. After all, those are your well planned defenses doing what you intended them to do!
Wrong.
Believe it or not there's more to defending than blocking off hallways with massive (and rather expensive) monuments to gorgedom. Sometimes a wall of lame just can't cut it. Inevitably all the structures in one area are used up in a WOL, but there is still so much more that needs defending.
This meager guide is here to help. Hopefully the newly evolved will learn a thing or two from a more experienced gorge, but there is a chance that all you'll get is a good laugh at my expense.
Now on to Gorges' bane. The things that ruin our hard work.
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt"
-<i>The Art of War</i>
1. Our first culprit is the grenade launcher. This devious device can fire explosive rounds that can level even the best WOLs in seconds at a fraction of a proper seige's cost. The problem? Splash damage affecting every structure nearby the blast.
2. The second culprit is the unholy building wrecker its self: The seige cannon. A nasty bugger for sure. But it does have two downfalls: Range and Sight. (It can't hit what the marines can't see.)
3. The ever annoying rambo, with his built in resource tower knifing action. Bull-headed to the last, these guys keep coming. Good thing for us, the gorge is a far superior being in mental assets such as tactics. They keep coming, they keep dying, we keep getting resources from their corpses.
All three can exploit a weakness in a WOL, all three can be deadly to a precious hive defended with one.
1. Grenade launchers can rip through all the structures at once and with sickening efficiency due to the radius of their blast.
2. Seiges, can be difficult to catch before they begin wearing away at your well built structures and hive. Normally due to large areas being unprotected in order to maintain a WOL just down the hall.
3. Rambos are seldom more than skulk fodder. But one marine, no matter the intelligence...or rather the lack thereof, can bring down a hive, by quickly building a phasing light thingie inside said hive after leaping over the WOL "protecting" it.
Now, WOLs have their place, I don't doubt this. BUT! There are better, cheaper ways of defending against marines.
Say you have a relatively open room with a couple wide rafters and three entrances....one of which going to a hive. Now you could build several offense chambers at each door to try and block the marines out. But the marines can simply jump over it and be healed by their mystical "com" on the other side. Or a grenade launcher can simply annihilate all the chambers guarding an entrance, making your investment relatively worthless.
Why not become a skulk once more and place chambers, just a couple, spread out on the rafters? Then place one chamber just inside the entrance to the hive. This would force a rambo to take fire no matter where he ran within the room, and only a crack shot with the grenade launcher would be able to do anything about the chambers on the rafters since only a perfect hit would hurt the chambers. Even then the grenade launcher would be forced to take fire as he is lining up his shots. I've seen heavily armored troops, confused as to what to do with such a meager yet deadly defense, mowed down by a group of skulks as they were distracted and taking damage.
Often times marines, in their efforts to move stealthily about the area will ignore anything but a large mass of offense chambers. Choosing to run through to the next corridor rather than fight their way in and end up alerting us to their presence. Use this against them. Purposely allow offense chambers a hallway or two from any major landmark to be uncloaked, naked if you will. Only build one or two. Then where the marines would take refuge after passing the chamber, place another, but be sure it escapes visual detection. It is a simple trap, but effective. And after a few marines have run it's course, you...the gorge...will easily have enough raw building materials for more devious schemes.
My personal favorite device of mayhem is the RWOL or reversed wall of lame. The typical WOL is meant to keep marines out, the RWOL is meant to entrap marines by having them think the coast is clear. The can be put to great use just outside the sewer hive on the map Caged. The entrance to the room is a tunnel that protrudes into the room slightly, allowing for multiple offense chambers to be built against that wall without any risk of visual contact until they all fire of the marines walking through. By the time the marines realise they have walked into a trap most are dead, and the others are either scrambling back to the entrance or jumping about reflexively as if to avoid some skulk nipping at their heels.
So, in review. When building defenses:
1: Take advantage of your enviroment. If there is a hard to access ledge with a great line of sight, try building there... you may just have created the only defensive structure needed to keep marines out of the room.
2: Build something everywhere, don't just build everything somewhere. There is nothing better for early warning than a good offense tower in an area normally used to seige from.
3: Play mind games. It pays off, trust me. The typical FPS player has his/her mind so set on "if it moves blast it" that they will fall for the same trap....repeatedly. This not only nets you resources, but it also deeply discourages the marine team. It doesn't feel good to realise that you've been owned repeatedly not by a WOL, or by an actual alien... but by two stinkin' chambers a hallway apart.
4: Take pride in your work, it's your creation. You are the gorge, and you shape what the battlefield looks like and whom it favors. When you see another offense chamber kill, you should become giddy. After all, those are your well planned defenses doing what you intended them to do!
Comments
Two things:
1)Running by OCs is a ****. See the OCs are now highly accurate, so when trying to run by, every shot that fires will probably hit you. A lone marine has great difficulty getting by a single OC(IMO). Now maybe if you have a few marines, then only one is at risk of dying. Of course it probably has to do with the size of the distances you have to close. I once remember having to run by an OC, in a semi-open area, at full health I died twice trying. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
2)Think of the Onos! Onos have alot of difficulty getting by OCs. Sometimes they are ok, sometimes they are not. A true WoL(two layers of towers) would prove far more cumbersome to get by. So, consider making the OCs so they are not airtight(sometimes). The reason is that the marines might not be running by them. These OCs are very deadly now(HA is the exception of course)
Greatest thing about being gorge is that it's all tactical, your mind, not your reflexes, is what matters. So a person who is only marginally good at battle could be lethal as a gorge.
They learn to stay away by repeatedly getting killed.
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Scattered defenses, especially cleverly placed, will always beat out WOLs.
So, always add another one or two OCs a little way behind (maybe cloaked, or just round a corner) the main WOL to catch these desperate athletes who make it past the first line with only a little health left. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Be evil!
Another thing you dont take into consideration, is the all powerful Shotty. I have seen 2 guys take down a hive with shottys before the hive can tell us its under attack. Those shottys just waste building like they were nothing, and they waste a gorge in one hit.
so dont forget the WOL, as it is very useful
Another thing you dont take into consideration, is the all powerful Shotty..... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you think a WOL is going to "keep HA away" you are overly hopeful. The WOL is an intimidation tactic more than an active defense.
There is a time for a WOL, and a place for one, certainly. Keeping people out of a specific hallway is it's primary use, and it does it's duty well. It loses it's power once the marines have a decent commander, and know they MUST go THAT way.
Any HA marine squad worth their salt is going to simply grenade the entire WOL in seconds and move on. In some areas (as I mentioned previously) the only sure fire choke point is directly in front of the room you wish to protect. This means no more defensive structures could be spared for the inside of that location....yes you get a signal, a warning..... But by the time you act they are likely to already be inside that room, shooting up the things you were attempting to protect.
It's my experience that HA marines are a bit frightened of damage. No, seriously, before you laugh me off how many times have you been looking at a marine yelling through the voice com for welding.... when he had about 89% armor left? They know that stuff they are carrying is expensive, and it will keep them alive if they always have it in top knotch condition. They know they are not promised another suit.
Now. WOLs are easy enough to deal with. You find one and generally you can fire around the corner with a grenade launcher. Since the marines can keep a position of relative safety, the defending aliens are actually at a tactical disadvantage when they respond to the attack. The hallways are typically small and confining, and heavy weapons damage aliens quickly if they have nothing to hide behind.
Sometimes it is good to lure an enemy into the middle of your stronghold. At least there you have the home field advantage. Think of the chaos when 4-5 HA walk into a room after destroying a small but well placed set of two offensive chambers meant for warning purposes and more offensive chambers fire at them from so many directions they don't know where to begin firing. The first HA in, would be undoubtably damaged and shouting "Weld!! Weld!!" while several others pull out the welders and the GL man starts trying to fire at individual chambers and another trys to focus on the hive. Suddenly, as the welding begins, a stream of aliens run and phase in using movement chambers. The welders immediately put their welders away as skulks nip at their heels, bringing their armor dangerously low. The hive heals any alien who is struck by a stray shot, as the heavies fall one by one to the relentless aliens and chambers.
The shotty, huh? Well I'd hate to not mention my favorite weapon type.
For one thing, shotguns are not all-powerful. If they were, commanders would never bother handing out grenade launchers or heavy machineguns. Heck, aliens would never win.
Shotguns have a distinct disadvantage when it comes to well placed structures. In order to kill an OC in 4-5 shots the player must be in it's firing area, they cannot fire a shotgun around a corner.
Damage from shotgun blasts looses a bit of it's sting after a few feet. Less pellets hit the target...it's a shotgun.
They are terribly efficient. One blast can leave several aliens evolutions in the morgue.
The best way to handle a shotgunner with chambers, is the same as the best way to handle a shotgunner with skulks. Simply hit him from all angles and never start the attack from the same position.
That is, build in such a way as to have as many towers firing on the target as possible, without grouping them together. Make him think he can remove the tower in front of him... until he realises that he's taking damage from three chambers instead of one....and quickly dies.
Of course when you add heavy armor or include a group the difficulty of holding him back is increased exponentially. In such a case you must remember, it is not the lone responsibility of the gorge to keep the marines at bay.
Yes, WOLs have their place in well defined choke points. But they are not a cure-all. They are expensive, somewhat easily removed, and can be annoying to larger alien lifeforms.
The idea is that perhaps, a couple chambers here and there can be more effective than a WOL with a little bit of "scrategy."
I guess I use WoL more 'offensively' trying to lockdown a corridor or something to prevent marines from getting through. The WeB (hehe) method I developed in 1.4 to stop those incessant JP attacks, and I was surprised to find it worked a bit, even with the useless 1.4 OCs.
I prefer spreading out defenses, but that description was just overly hopeful. Any HA marine squad worth their salt is not going to fall apart like that, especially since you can't control when an OC begins firing at an enemy and aliens are rarely that well coordinated.
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<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->they cannot fire a shotgun around a corner.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
But if they can find a nook or cranny some times they can shoot it w/o it shooting them.
So you should always check when you are a gorge your array of chambers from a Marines point of view. Take out your own chambers in your mind and fix your def compared to what you would do.
;) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Very true.
Though this is a scenario was based on a very interesting and quite real game. The marines had enough coordination to keep us held back, but not enough to end it. They shot well enough and would normally kill us before we reached them, but they would panic when damage started rolling in.
The aliens were mostly going about their own business until the heavies started blasting their way through to our hive. I saw a complete metamorphosis if you will. We managed to push them out with skulks and surprisingly little damage done to any of the chambers in the hive room. This little wake up call gave our team the momentum it needed to start working together.
Humans are like that. Unless you are playing a clan game you cannot and should not assume anything about their behavior except where they will normally infiltrate, and the locations that are most vital to them.
I've seen aliens that nearly never communicated win games and be somewhat coordinated on attack and defense. I've seen marines that couldn't hit a sleeping onos with...any weapon, but can keep their cool when they were being damaged and would work together incredibly well. And of course I've seen the hopeless guy who trys to be a commander, and has everything right except he's clueless as to what upgrades are, and would angrily yell at anyone who tried to help; he believed that upgrades did not exist.
Nothing is set in stone, even with an individual human on a day-to-day basis.
I only know one thing. I'm going to do my best to never play commander again. When I hop in and look at the screen I get reminded of my playing experience with all the blizzard games... and the inevitable boost to fastest speed. No time for error, no time for thinking, and your peasents never cooperate.
:p
Then the credit goes to your team, rather than any static defenses.
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That should be kept in mind when thinking about oc placement.
:) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
As it should.
You can't win a war by building defences. But they can sure aid you when things look to go downhill.
As true as that is, sej, you know you can't help but feel a little pride when the OCs you built kept their part of the bargain.
;)
Put 5 or so ocs up there and you're set.
My favorite example of this, station access outside of the marine base in Eclipse. A vent runs under station, so just stick an SC down there and you'll never lose the area. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> The same works as well for DCs or MCs, but is less useful I find, though a nice little hidden regen point is always nice.
I mostly spread out OCs now. less splash damage from grenades and marines have to chose what to shoot first.
spreading your OCs (and I'm talking round the hive now) will also be very irritating for JPers.
Oni can actually get past.
And second - definitely do not build WOLs that block essential routes for your bigger friends. Always remember that you can leave a gap and then plug it if/when you're attacked.
I try not to put sensories where they cover RTs, because any marine worth his salt knows that a non-steaming RT means a sensory tower is nearby. Sometimes though, you just can't help it.
For those cases, I often find I get a lot of resources out of an OC placed *behind* the RT, where it has no line of fire to the rest of the room. Since OC's don't fire until they have a line of fire, it stays cloaked until the marine squeaks around the RT (and they always do when knifing) and buts up against it.
As an added bonus, if they *don't* edge around the RT, they get a little surprise when they finish it off.
Surely we know that OCs can shoot through other alien structures,but maybe it wont.But anyway,you will have to use the advantage of surprise,not exactly the kind of WoL you see everyday,but if place correctly they can be very useful at fending off Marines without losing much HP
What you have to do is to line up the OCs and DCs (and SCs) against the walls, blocking the way is just a sure fire way to let a GLer get free shots in
Another thing to do is to place MCs as well. This may sounds absurd,but it isn't for increasing the ROF of the OCs,it's for YOU! Surely they are WoLs,but they are not invincible,and having MCs constantly replenish your energy bar helps heaps when defending bases
Another thing to do is to make sure that they do not see 1 bit of the OC from around the corner,that one spiked arm can give away the position of a WoL,and can devastate not only it,but you and your RPs
Last thing is to have Gorges at hadn at all times,because Dcs and the chambers themselves canno heal themselves fast enough
Attachment shows how to hide a WoL until they realize there is a WoL behind that wall,just be sure to stack them well so as the commander cannot see the underlying structures
(well, i say tactic, i mean LAW)
no blind spots. anywhere.
Well, I got 5-10 kills from rines that tried to take down the res, which I was somewhat willing to let them do, since I could put it back up, and they would probably die after they walked into the room. That was one of the sketchy things that ended up not hurting, since nobody did ever take down the RT. That is also one of the reasons I had those two OCs in West Junction. Two marines (or the same on twice) ran into Overlook, past the two at the entrance, up the stairs, past two more, and behind the RT, where he was quickly killed.
Later in the game, as the third hive was going up, the rines came from the other side and ended up taking down Sub-Sector. I have to admit I'm not really good going lots of places as a gorge. I have enough trouble finding some of those places, let alone defending them. So, we lost that hive, but I had a decent defensive possition nearby. We still had something like a 3-6 res advantage, so we weren't doing that bad. A few small squads of rines got a little inquisitive about Overlook. It was probably pinged about 5 times total. A few marines would walk around the corner from Sub-Sector, I'd spit a little, my OCs would force them out, I'd heal a little (the three DCs helped here), repeat.
Then, my little buddy came along. Actually, an Onos. With my DC's, a secure place to fall back to, and sens that covered almost to the point where I could bile bomb the PG they set up right under where the hive would be. We'd run up, I'd drop a sens if I could, we'd fight, then retreat. Once, I got down to 4 health, the Onos had 24 before we made it back. Luckly, no one really followed us. The only times that the Onos was ever really followed was when I was at the top of the stairs, next to a sens. Poor marine had no idea I was standing behind him. A few spits, run back to my Fort.
The back and forth with the hives (we lost another hive at some other point, then got it back) made for quite an interesting game, as well as the success of my defenses. Being a gorge staying in one small area, I didn't know to much how the game was going when Sub-Sector fell. But (now here's the lesson) a well defended area near an area you want to hold (not just in that area) can be such a useful thing.
It can encourage the marines to go a different way, possibly messing (slightly) with a comms plans.
It can diminish the threat of a two-way attack on the area.
It can kill marines, giving you res to: add more defenses, put up another hive, expand the defenses, or defend a whole new area
It can give you a base to quickly counterattack the marines after they take a hive, before they have a billion turrets set up in the hive.
It can buy time if a huge rush is on its way, allowing time for Onos/Fade/Lerk to get to that hive before the 8 HA/(HMG/SG) do.
Oh, and don't forget, as a Goge, you can be tricky! Get marines to chase you into death traps, lure them in with a token defense outside the kill zone, laugh when you start to cloak and round a corner with a marine hot on your tail when an Onos is coming the other direction (or pop out, spit spit spit, pop back, repeat, then after you pop back, have an Onos and company pop out!).