One of the best strats ive seen since 3.0 came out, and has worked EVERY time is fairly basic. Res intensive, but basic. To begin with, have two people go cap RTs, no more. Armory, obs, IP, TF and arms in base. Use the TF to start electrifying nodes as soon as available res comes in, hold off on immediate upgrades. Besides the two people capping nodes (one builds, other covers), everyone else should immediately start scouting hives. When you come on an empty one, build the RT first, then the comm should IMMEDIATELY fortify it - TF electrified, PG and turrets. If done correctly, you can have one hive locked down within the first two minutes and the second within the first 5 if you have a decent shooting marine team. The key to this strategy is that once the hive is fortified, skulks and gorges and lerks for the most part are completely useless in getting into a hive. The aliens must then wait for fades and onos. In all the games ive played, aliens seem to be more intent on dropping at least one chamber or one rt then saving for fade, so you'll generally have a few mins before you start seeing the big nasties. After the hives are locked up, everyone moves as one group and starts capping nodes and taking down alien RTs. Large groups always stand better chances obviously, since its hard for the lone roaming skulk or lerk to escape the hail of fire coming from 5-6 people. Once this is done, a steady res flow should be coming in to allow for quick upgrades. The kicker to the aliens now is that unless they have a team full of onoses and fades, once you have HA/HMG or JP/SG combos, marines are virtually unstoppable. Take down the only hive they have and youre golden.
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I'll try this out for giggles, but I doubt it'll be effective whatsoever. You have 4 minutes to get both hives before the second goes up, and I doubt your going to get the 60 (pg) + 30 (nodes) + 60 (elec) + 60 (turrets) = 210 res needed to do that. Remember, a node gives 10 res a minute (1/6 seconds.) so you'd need 20 node/minutes to do anything effective. I suppose if you get 4 extra nodes in the first 30 seconds you could do it, but you're still going to be upgradeless fighting celerity, focus, or cloaking skulks.
It's risky, but I'll try it when I get the chance.
The other thing I want to try is AA + Proto + JP, and then SG/JP the second hive down as it's going up...
That's 50 seconds for the JP and 180 seconds for the JP, whichs puts jetpacks at the 3:50 mark, and probably about 210 res for it too. If you can act quickly, you can probably rush jetpacks, quickly rape their nodes, then go for the second hive, killing lifeforms as you go. The problem is, that lerks are going to take you out if you don't have armor 1, as a few seconds in spores will bring you down to a single bite. Not to mention the fact that with level 0 weaps, you'll need catalysts to take the hive out before you get eated.
I still think that the best strategy is going to be a steady steamroller expansion, taking out the chokepoints and cutting off their nodes one by one.
I personally like this one... Jump in the chair, get ejected within 1 minute, all marines jump in pit of death.
*SwiftSpear glares angrily
<_<
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Haha! I think I might have been on the alien team that game ^__^
90% of the strats I've seen involve early Motion Tracking, and then casual ninja-SG rushing of hives.
Damn that observatory! Damn it to HECK!
Tech: AA (first) A1, W1, PGs.
Strat: First thing you do is get AA going, once it's up you drop as many hmgs as you can, have your marines walk to the hive and demolish any skulks on the way and try and end it before they get fades.
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I've been doing this every game since 3.0 came out. After intense recearch I have determined that HMGs SUCK unless you have some damn good marines pulling the trigger.
Also motion tracking helps them pretty good if the aliens are dumb enough to early lerk rather then early fade. And keep the bastages medded, they have HMGs!
HMGs are the absolute dogs bollocks. Drop 3 hmgs + welders and if they dont get to anywhere you want them too vs skulks then they just suck and wouldn't get anywhere with anything else. 125 bullet clip 6 bullets or so to kill one skulk...
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is a 4 bullet kill at hive one... and 5 at hive 2, it doesn't go to 6 until the skulks get cara, but that is still a very fast kill. I find worst case scenario you waste 25 HMG shots for a skulk kill.
I haven't been winning 90% of my comming as before, but it's more of a 60%. The main problem I have now is lazy marines, now responding or moving to WP's.
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Wow, you keep track of you W:L ratio! :blink:
IT's not like it's logged or anything, just in my head, a ratio to how many I win/lose.
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Mine's 100% win and 100% loss!
0 divided by 0, right? Or am I doing my math wrong here :D
I tried to divide by zero, but my calculator seized up. I'll try doing it on a slideruler next and see if the universe gets a bluescreen.
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I'm a genius (http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.divideby0.html).
Therefore: Wins = undeterminate, losses = undeterminate!
:o
I haven't been winning 90% of my comming as before, but it's more of a 60%.
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Gah, you need to play more often then! I haven't been in a game which I played from the start in (I joined one late once) where marines have won in about 4 days, and I play NS a distrubing amount of time per day.
I'll tell you a funny story. Marines had nearly every node on the map, were doing well, and only lost because they tried a siege attack on a hive.
Another funny story, aliens only seem to lose games where they go SC first and act like retards, allowing the marines to get to at least one hive and/or electrify nodes. GG.
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Was that the game I commed on metal?
Yeah, that was effing redicuous. The aliens had 4 gorges healing the hive, and since there was no splash damage they didn't die. I built 4 siege guns, had a GL on the hive, they just healed each other too fast. Eventually someone got behind us and bilebombed us out.
Siege damage needs to go back in and hitboxes need to be fixed. After that, we'll talk.
Another strategy for NS 3.0. Don't EVER let me in the cc, you will lose, guaranteed.
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His spirit is broken, you see. He can't commrage anymore, because marines actually GET to their damn waypoints now.
Holy crap do they get to those waypoints! I'm seeing more and more marine wins and near wins. Mobility, pressure and teamwork are the keys.
Mobility: Move out immediately, and keep doing it. Phasegates will save your marines from those long footmarches through no-man's land that they have to do so often otherwise, and allow them to spend their time defending and attacking instead.
Pressure: Keep them on their toes all the time. Get phasegates outside their hives to threaten them. Kill their nodes. Kill their nodes. Kill their nodes. Nothing screws over an alien team like a lack of res. Whenever you're not moving out, you can bet that they are. The team that moves out wins.
Teamwork: Besides listening to orders (and giving them out if you're in the chair), this includes never moving out alone. A few highly skilled players can get away with it, but for most people it is highly recommended to team up. Two marines are three times as powerful as a lonely one.
And finally, ninja phases and shotgun rushes are still as effective as ever. Don't expect to be able to beacon and re-rush, because by then the skulks will be chomping the PG and the marines will just die as they phase in, but a team of shotgunners in the hive spells serious trouble for the aliens, and certain doom if they had no early warning. Later on, spice it up with jetpacks for extra mobility, especially in bigger hives.
I've been on the receiving end of this several times, and it's very nasty. The aliens are very bad at recapping. Most players go gorge again after dropping their node, and they'll have to reach 25 again to drop another one. Recapping early usually means giving up on early chambers, an early hive, or an early Fade, all of which play to your advantage. The marines can recap easily, and can recycle an endangered node to recover some res. The aliens can't.
Another strategy for NS 3.0. Don't EVER let me in the cc, you will lose, guaranteed.
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His spirit is broken, you see. He can't commrage anymore, because marines actually GET to their damn waypoints now.
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No, no they don't. Not in the games I play, anyways.
Another strategy for NS 3.0. Don't EVER let me in the cc, you will lose, guaranteed.
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His spirit is broken, you see. He can't commrage anymore, because marines actually GET to their damn waypoints now.
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No, no they don't. Not in the games I play, anyways.
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You missed some games today and yesterday. The marines dominated. The aliens had no chance. But still, the aliens did win most of the time.