Messages

1

General / Movement Start

« on: December 21, 2004, 09:56:35 AM »

More often i see MC's dropped at the start instead of the ritual DC always start. I wonder everyones thought on it, as i see others still wanting DC. Everyone knows defense chambers still have more reliability, but for a second hive just dropped under attack its helps ONE HEY HEY OF ALOT. Just wondering what everyone thinks about the MC starts, or what they like to see start instead ?

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MC first a viable strategy if the alien team isn't so dependent on fades, AND the team can get can early hive up.  Second hive DCs are crucial.

Movements first can allow silence to dominate until marines get MT.  Forcing the marines to get MT can delay their arms lab tech a little bit so that when you get your second hive up, your fades should be able to dominate, theoretically.

first one to 50 res should put up the hive, and the MCs should be dropped as soon as possible.

2

General / Early fade counters?

« on: December 20, 2004, 05:18:24 PM »

Even the best fades are defeated with some planning and understanding.  I know as I've beaten exigent and terror fades in pubs before as comm with only pub marines, it's very doable if you exploit  the weaknesses of aliens.

First look at what you're doing on marines.  Are you locking down hives and rooms with turrets or electricity?  When is your arms lab and/or obs complete?  When do you start upgrading your armory?  These are the most important tech questions you should be asking yourself.  You can do plenty of things, and each one has it's own risks and benefits. 

My normal build is this: IP > Armory > 2 RTs closest to base > Arms Lab > RT > Armor1 > RT > Advanced Armory.  This does Several things, namely I'm getting the longest build time in the game for marines (the armory up) going very early in the game, usually by 3 minutes at the latest, often by 2:30.  This means by 6 minutes I have HMGs roaming the map, which is VERY dangerous to fades.  Contrary to popular belief shotties aren't the best fade killer, HMGs are FAR better in almost every situation to shotguns versus any lifeform bar possibly lerks.  If you have an advanced armory you shouldn't be dropping shotties, you should be dropping HMGs as often as possible, they're absolutely devastating.

Secondary build is this: IP > Armory > 2 RTs closest to base > Obs > RT > MT > 2 More RTs > Arms Lab > Armor1 > Advanced Armory.  This gets the Advanced armory at 7-8 minutes but you have motion tracking, which is a superior map control upgrade compared to anything else.  Use motion tracking like this:  As the commander, watch where aliens are going and direct marines to where they WILL be, not where they are.  If you are on ns_tanith and see waste has half a bar left with a skulk chewing on it, don't send the marine at MS to waste, send him to west to wait on the skulk.  Prevent aliens from attacking your RTs by simply having marines wait on them.  Proactive beats reactive in EVERY situation.  Contain them near the hive by constantly annoying them so they ignore your RTs and getting a second hive up,  then push in with HMGs and end it.

Last build is : IP > Armory > 2 RTs closest to base > Advanced Armory > 2 RTs > Arms Lab > Armor1.  This gets an Armory at 3-3:30 gametime and absolutely dominates aliens.  The increased availability of HMGs usually shreds fades, which tend to appear just as HMGs push out of base, usually resulting in them being shredded on the first run-in since they expected LMGs and met the first HMG push.  If I do this build I almost always go Armor2 instead of Weapons1, because what will happen is a skulk gets a lucky ambush and gets in 3 bites, which kills an Armor1 marine.  With Armor2 skulks take 4 bites to kill a marine, 6 with 2 medpacks given anytime after the second bite.  So if the marine has ANY aim at all he'll kill the skulk and continue pushing on, which is what you have to do to keep marines in the game as commander, sac res to push them forward.

Notice that all of my main build orders rely on an early advanced armory and armor1 fairly quickly.  That's because these 2 things will destroy aliens faster than any other upgrade combo in the game.  Shotguns are heavily upgrade dependent while HMGs are not.  Shotguns work this way: They deal damage based on pellets that connect per shot, not overall damage from just hitting a skulk with a shot.  If you wing a skulk with 2 pellets it will chuckle and chew your face off.  The shotgun has 5 inner pellets and 5 outer ones, both groups of pellets representing a pentagon shape.   It is very difficult to get all of the inner pellets and an outer pellet to hit a skulk, so what you want to focus on is getting the inner pellets to land.  The problem is this:  At certain upgrade levels it takes 6 pellets to kill a skulk.  This is why sometimes you shoot a skulk in the face and it still chews your face off, you simply didn't do enough damage with 1 good shot to kill it.  This is how it works: 

6 lvl0 pellets at hive1
5 lvl1 pellets at hive1
6 lvl1 pellets at hive2
5 lvl2 pellets at hive2
6 lvl2 pellets at hive3
5 lvl3 pellets at hive3

You should always keep the upgrade level at 5 pellets for a shotgun, which is why I prefer the HMG.  It requires less end-user skill to drop skulks, which resuilts in a higher reliability for HMGs.  As a commander, reliability and common sense are your best friends. 

Fades are far easier to prevent than to kill.  This is the easiest way to rape fades:  Do one of the build orders I posted above.  When those marines have gotten up their RTs, have them make their way straight to alien RTs and proceed to cut them down, even the hive rt.  It's often easy to simply walk into the hiveroom and shoot down the alien RT given enough marines usually 3-4 (1-2 usually results in people crying spawncamp because they have no clue what you're doing).  Use this method of determining alien economy: .5*# of aliens players = Good Economy.  Anything higher early game is a gamble, and anything less isn't very good.  If they go for higher you should immediately stop capping excess RTs and push their nodes, because what they're doing is dropping a lot of RTs so they can all go higher lifeform and get the second hive up that faster, which means most likely early on you won't have but 1 fade at the most.  Shredding the RTs before earn the res back for them effectively stops them from accomplishing their plan, plus aliens are forced to attempt to defend their RTs with just skulks early on instead of killing your RTs and harassing MS.  If they got less than the equation, then have people cap RTs while you pressure their RTs.  This way your economy gets exponentially stronger while theirs weakens under marine attack.  If they don't defend their RTs they don't have much res, which means if they even manage to get the second hive up, it won't be replacable.  If they have around .5, pressure their RTs really hard with most of your marines and use 1-2 to cap the map and defend the built RTs, this keeps the aliens busy while the tech is going and your economy just gets stronger and stronger while the alien RT withers on the vine.

The entire point to this post is that if you combine the correct build order with the correct early game strategy, by the time the midgames comes around you have this:  A strong marine economy,  an advanced armory and at least 1/1 or 0/2 upgrades, an obs going up or up, a weak alien economy, delayed fades, and a second hive starting after 5:00.  What this means is you have HMGs against Hive1 fades and skulks, which  usually results in marine wins if you simply do something not enough commanders do: PUSH THE SECOND HIVE BEFORE IT GOES UP.  Often marines respond to the second hive only once it's up, you have to push on it before it's done.  If you can't win by brute force, use wit.  I'll use bast as an example here.  If you can't get down a building refinery hive, simply keep aliens busy by saccing marines on it, get some res together and shotty rush engine while they're still stroking each other off after beating that refinery attack.  Often after one attack aliens will simply not think another one is coming, or they sit around and don't even hit RTs. 

Getting in a full Shotgun/LMG salvo in a hive usually drops it 30-40%, depending on what upgrades and exactly what weapons are available.  Pay attention to what weapons ups are out and what weapons are hitting the hive, then calculate how much damage they did.  Shotguns and HMGs do 20-25% per clip, while LMGs do 1/14th per clip.  LMGs alone won't do much damage, calculate them in pairs.  Each pair does 1000-1500 damage together.  Use these numbers to figure out damage over time, and relay that to marines so they have a clue how much damage the hive can take.  Keep in mind hive healing + dcs won't do anything but really repair single LMG damage, they don't heal very fast.  A gorge will heal a hive 1% per spray, which means it takes 20 sprays to heal 2 LMG clips/1 HMG clip/1 shotty clip.  They can only slow damage to the hive this way in time for aliens to kill them, but it won't survive long if you can keep battering the hive with bullets. 

Generally if a fade is within healing range, don't focus on killing it, and it's generally useless to shoot an onos in the hiveroom anywhere unless 2+ HMGs can focus fire on it for 10+ seconds, which will always bring it down even when being healed by everything possible (Regen, DCs, hive, healspray).  Skulks are easy targets, even with a REAL shotgun rush at least 1 marine should be picking off skulks, they're so easy to kill and once they die it starts to drag the spawn queue.  I can't think of a reason to not have 1 person shooting skulks, unless no one on the team has above average aim, in which case they're probably better off shooting the hive unless they have an EASY shot on a skulk.  This is why HMGs are powerful:  A hive attack with HMGs will shred aliens almost instantly, and then it's easy to kill them as they spawn will working the hive down.  Shotties aren't as easy to do this with, it's much more difficult given how the shotty works.

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Another strategy that involves hitting alien res, is  to prevent the towers from comming up.  Take central locations in the map and RUSH them in the beginning, even skipping over alien RTs.  For example, on Tanith, instead of capping Reactor Room at the beginning of the round, skip that and goto cargo, where it is a more central location and you are most likely going to run into a gorge at cargo, fusion, or acidic, depending on starting hive location.

Aggressive strategies like this do slow down your res flow unfortunately, but pay off immensly if you pick off that gorge and either slice down a tower, or stop it from being built.

Personally I feel its best to allow the gorge to start the tower, then slice it down, that way they are out all 25 res, BUT at the same time it is also important to kill the gorge, either way the marine team is at benefit.  Delaying the fades while only slightly delaying the marine tech is a very effective alternative to just building up and fighting them toe to toe.

Try the aggressive strategy with players who can work as a group well together, otherwise the chance of success is minimal.

3

General / What Is With The Update Of Ns

« on: August 23, 2004, 01:53:53 AM »

All I can say is that it is worth the wait.

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Does this have anything to do with the (cat)BUS? :huh:

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I can't say anything else or I lose my PT spot =/

4

General / What Is With The Update Of Ns

« on: August 22, 2004, 12:45:29 AM »

I would like to tell you more about the beta 5 release, but I cannot, Zunni issued a hush hush policy.

All I can say is that it is worth the wait.

This is nothing compared to the wait from 1.04 to 2.01, atleast this verision is semi-fair regarding both teams.

The programmers are working hard, so please be paitent.

5

General / The Cool People

« on: August 22, 2004, 12:40:55 AM »

I'll do my part, because every idea I suggest gets reverted back to either my competitive experience or CAL some how.

Tell you what, I'll play against stacked teams everytime I play on LM, I actually enjoy the challenge.

6

General / Ventrillo Server For Lm Regs

« on: August 21, 2004, 01:55:22 AM »

I expected the NSlearn people to use it more, but in game with All Talk on is just more convient.

It was a 1 month deal so I am not too worried about it.

7

General / Ventrillo Server For Lm Regs

« on: August 18, 2004, 10:36:01 AM »

Sorry, I took down the server, no one was using it anyways =/

8

General / What Is With The Update Of Ns

« on: August 17, 2004, 08:55:30 AM »

I keep going back to the the natural-selection.org website expecting that Flayra has posted when he is going to bring out the next update to NS and I've yet to see any news about it. I'm sure someone probably has a link on hand to point directly to Flayra saying the exact day he plans on putting it out but I figured everyone was probably wondering. At this point it is starting to look like Flayra has been working on half-life too long, he's starting to get Sierra symptons. Delays and the like. I hope we don't have to wait a year like we have had to for HL2.

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Playtests are happening on a frequent basis, to fix a lot of unknown bugs, and potentially damaging bugs that can have a serious effect on gameplay.

If the version were released now you would be complaining more than if it wasn't.

Please be paitent, we are trying to get the game so it is fair and playable.

9

General / Comming On A Server Not Named Lunixmonster

« on: August 11, 2004, 12:48:34 AM »

The key to commanding pubs is to get respect from the players.  Tell them what you are going to do ahead of time.

Letting one bad game justifying not commanding on other servers is as unclassy as those who justify the hate of clanners by one person telling them they suck.  Lito you are a better person than that.

Give reasons behind your orders.  (i.e.  Slice down cargo, we need to delay their fades, cap sub sector, i'm trying to get Adv Armory early).

Giving reasons will help execute your strategy.

Even when I command on Lunixmonster, if people do listen to me regardless of what I do, I get out.  Because while in the chair, I am no longer a commander, I am just a person who drops things.

To say that LM is the only server to command on is very arrogant, and ignorant.  I would hope that there would be other servers that have people who are capable of listening.

10

General / Ventrillo Server For Lm Regs

« on: August 10, 2004, 11:26:29 AM »

I have a channel setup on my ventrillo server at

diamond.nrgservers.net:3517

there will be an LM channel passworded.  The password will be:   lmreg

If this could get stickied that would be great.

11

General / If You Guys Want...

« on: August 09, 2004, 03:20:00 PM »

well please let me know either way.

12

General / If You Guys Want...

« on: August 07, 2004, 02:34:11 PM »

I would hope more people woud use it, I dunno if I want to set up a channel for like 4 people =/

Pass this along to the admins if possible please.

13

General / If You Guys Want...

« on: August 07, 2004, 12:34:40 PM »

I have a ventrillo server for nslearn, but nobody really uses it.  If you want you I can set up a channel for the LM community, so they have a place to use some clear voice comm.

Its up to you.

14

General / General Commander Strategy

« on: July 22, 2004, 11:01:55 PM »

The key to commanding is knowing what it is that you can do to help win the game.
I know that sounds kind of stupid, but I see a lot of commanders not doing this so I'll give it a whirl.

There are 3 things that I've notice can help you win the game on top of killing the aliens themselves, not only is it important to do them, but you must usually do 2 or more at the sametime.

1.  Capping RTs/Recapping.

Marine RTs aren't designed to last the whole game (only if you electrify, but those go down to fades).  Its important to always have people constantly trying to cap you nodes, even when you attack.  Never send all your marines to do anything, spread them out and cap, and try not to have more than 3 people cap a node, because you are losing extremely valuabe time, and more importantly, ground.  The faster you move the less time the aliens have to react and get good posistioning.  You are going to lose nodes, it happens, just don't forget about recapping.

2.  Destroying Enemy RTs.

The aliens really do not have the luxury of going "punch for punch" with regards to RTs.  Take these suckers down as early as possible, cripple their res, and you can deny the most important unit in the alien arsenal, the Fade.  Destroying RTs also delays everything, which is not to be overlooked.  It is extremely important to deny their res, because as it stands the alien economy is already crap, if they are reduced to 1 RT, you can pretty much delay their fades by about 1:00-2:00; but this is also dependent on RFK.  Slice those towers down for an easier time, and do it EARLY.  Sometimes you can even catch a gorge evolving if you move quick enough.

3.  Attack the Enemy Base.

This is not to imply a game winning attack, but it can be.  A simple distraction, or a little bit of pressure on the hive can free up your other marines to cap/destroy RTs.  The most important thing to remember when attacking is that every attack does not have to end the game.  Frequent, but decisive attacks on the enemy make them get uncomfortable, which only helps the marines.  You can sometimes destroy some chambers, or maybe catch a skulk evolving.  Even if you don't even hit the hive that much, it makes a GREAT distraction.

Those are the 3 things you have to know what to do properly in order to win the game.  If you can do more than one at a time successfully, you will WIN most of the time, if you can do 3/3 at the same time, the aliens will NOT win, I personally guarentee that.

The trick is being able to manage all 3 things, which is the most difficult part of NS imho.


I hope this helps.