A Good Commander Defends His Base
Tiax
Join Date: 2003-05-28 Member: 16802Members
Join Date: 2003-05-28 Member: 16802Members
Lately while playing alien ive had win after win and it seems to be the same thing every time (note, I do play marine too, in fact I prefer it). The best way to explain is an example:
Ex. We (the aliens) build up satcom and fusion. I head to waste and see it is empty, though often patrolled. I put a sensory chamber then a hive. I start on my way to west access and hear loud footsteps, a moment later my scent of fear lights up red all over. Uh oh, I think, 5 heavies incomming to waste.
At this moment I ask my whole team to hit the marine start. A few argue "but what about our hive?". The rest of us hit marine start. With two gorges, two skulks, and I believe a lerk we trashed marine start. The marines were to far away. They dropped the hive and headed back but by the time they got back we had 5 OCs' around their base and every building except the com chair destroyed. The comm chair was at half. (The commander had already jumped out and died to the first skulks that ran in). We focused on the comm chair while hoping for the OC's to kill some heavies. We dropped all but one heavy. The last guy could have gotten in the chair but didn't...im not sure why, perhaps they used up all their res on that heavy rush. Ether way the marines that game were doing REALLY well. Early game they had 3 res to our 1. Seemed like everytime we put up a res they will rip it down. But it all ended because they all attacked waste and left our base undefended.
So why is this on frontiersmen strategy? So that, hopefully, you, as a comm, will not make the same mistake. An all out rush may get you a hive but for an observant alien (especially like myself <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> you'll leave your expansions undefended. My main goal as alien is to gorge and destroy expansions. I go where the marines are not and I destroy it. For the most part this works. Ill leave how to counter it up to you. Good luck.
Ex. We (the aliens) build up satcom and fusion. I head to waste and see it is empty, though often patrolled. I put a sensory chamber then a hive. I start on my way to west access and hear loud footsteps, a moment later my scent of fear lights up red all over. Uh oh, I think, 5 heavies incomming to waste.
At this moment I ask my whole team to hit the marine start. A few argue "but what about our hive?". The rest of us hit marine start. With two gorges, two skulks, and I believe a lerk we trashed marine start. The marines were to far away. They dropped the hive and headed back but by the time they got back we had 5 OCs' around their base and every building except the com chair destroyed. The comm chair was at half. (The commander had already jumped out and died to the first skulks that ran in). We focused on the comm chair while hoping for the OC's to kill some heavies. We dropped all but one heavy. The last guy could have gotten in the chair but didn't...im not sure why, perhaps they used up all their res on that heavy rush. Ether way the marines that game were doing REALLY well. Early game they had 3 res to our 1. Seemed like everytime we put up a res they will rip it down. But it all ended because they all attacked waste and left our base undefended.
So why is this on frontiersmen strategy? So that, hopefully, you, as a comm, will not make the same mistake. An all out rush may get you a hive but for an observant alien (especially like myself <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> you'll leave your expansions undefended. My main goal as alien is to gorge and destroy expansions. I go where the marines are not and I destroy it. For the most part this works. Ill leave how to counter it up to you. Good luck.
Comments
I use them a lot and it works pretty well. If you have 1 phase at every outpost, there will be marines going trought them all the time. So it's much harder tp attack anywhere, cuz there is much activity.
Lunixmonster is a pub server but frequented by good players, so rushes frequently happen.
Need to kill a skulk or gorge and the team is doing okay? Go do it. Anything more than that? Recall your team.
Not many aliens expect the Commander to be wearing HA and wielding an HMG... and be willing to step out to use them to defend the base. It was an odd set of circumstances that lead to this, but it was quite effective as the comm chair is usually the hardest structure to get to in the base. Comms might want to consider dropping themselves a shotty or similar weapon if they are going to have their teams out of base a lot. For me it was a bit overboard (HA and HMG for the Comm are usually a bit much) but that extra firepower can help a lot and prevent critical delays if the comm is inclined to try and take on marauding aliens singlehandedly.
Phase gates are a must as well <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
For the record, I have definately lost games as comm by failing to properly defend main base (usually to an onos), but I can also remember winning a game where the aliens were too busy destroying the main base to protect the 2nd hive going down. A relocate to the 2nd hive (with one already secured), and then a shotgun rush to the last hive pulled out the victory.
I watched today as 2 onos's darted in and out of marine base trying to attack turrets (which there were tons of). A lerk was sporing, and a couple of gorges were doing nothing but building OC's. This went on for about 20 minutes, it was such a joke.
Finnally I asked soemone joining to tell the stupid aliens to bilebomb the base. Then it ended 5 minutes later. People seem to always go onos yet the onos's never do anything. They are so afraid to die they don't hardly help the team at all! All onos's seem to do many times is clog the hallways.
I watched today as 2 onos's darted in and out of marine base trying to attack turrets (which there were tons of). A lerk was sporing, and a couple of gorges were doing nothing but building OC's. This went on for about 20 minutes, it was such a joke.
Finnally I asked soemone joining to tell the stupid aliens to bilebomb the base. Then it ended 5 minutes later. People seem to always go onos yet the onos's never do anything. They are so afraid to die they don't hardly help the team at all! All onos's seem to do many times is clog the hallways. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You are talking about the endgame where the aliens have already won and the marines have stupidly wasted 23983028 res on main base defense. Any smart comm will only setup a minimal base defense and put the rest of the res into upgrades and toys for the troops. The problems occur when the upgraded marines can't stick together and kill the onos, or if the onos attacks the minimally defended main base while the troops are out.
I think the best way to launch an attack is to 1) make sure you have a phase in base 2) have enough res on hand at all times to drop a phase where your assault team is. Even if they are somewhere that you don't want to keep, drop a phase anyway. Have them come back to base, deal with the threat, and then phase back. If you don't want to protect the phase, just recycle it and build one further down the line.
It only costs you like half a phasegate worth of res, and keeps your assault team strong without worrying too much about main. I think it's a good trade.