Messages

1

Off Topic / Could Unknown Worlds be any more unprofessional?

« on: October 11, 2005, 02:34:26 AM »

First, to those of you who think "vets" have all the input on the game, you are full of horse manure.  Competitive players make up a small portion of the PT team, and our voices are just a few of the many trying to have input on the game.  Some do influence certain areas of the game, I spent many hours with puzl working on lerk flight mechanics for example, however our voices are still just mixed into the cacophony of the others.  

Next, to those of you talking crap about UWE:  How many of you run a business?  How many of you have been managers and had to do something completely new that you knew little about?  It takes experience to do these things, and experience comes from time doing something plus learning from mistakes made while doing it.  I'm sure some of you are fed up with it, and if you are you probably don't belong in a game community being created by amateur-trying to turn pro-game developers.  I'll personally pick up NS again once I'm back from Asscrackistan and continue PTing it just like I did before because I enjoy the game, I see it's potential for expansion, and who knows, I might make a part time job out of PTing later games from UWE because I stuck with it.  

If you're willing to hang with it, do so, otherwise hop off the bandwagon so everyone else doesn't have to hear it.  While everyone is entitled to their opinion, no one wants to hear whiners, they drag everyone else down.  I understand this is a fairly civil open discussion, and while I also don't side with the "it's free so don't complain" people, bitching will not fix the problem.

2

General / New server mods! yay!

« on: July 03, 2005, 07:38:38 PM »

I like the new mod, for the most part. One thing, however strikes me as EXTREMELY bad:

- Notification of who's starting the eject vote

That is NOT a good change. There are reasons why voting is anonymous. It is meant so that people are not too scared about reprisals to vote for a comm eject.

If a comm eject succeeds, good, it doesn't matter who started it. It doesn't matter because for the eject to succeed most of the marine team obviously wants a new comm,  so who voted is irrelevant.

If a comm eject fails, it STILL doesn't matter who started it, because it had no effect; nothing happened.

The reason we NEED comm votes to stay anonmyous is primarily in case the vote DOES fail. Imagine this scenario:

Player A is not pleased with the commander, who is generally wasting lots of res on useless things and ignoring the requests of his team. He starts a comm eject vote. Unfortunately, only 4 of 8 players vote to eject, failing to meet the "50% plus one" criteria. But the commander now knows that Player A tried to get him ejected. The commander now decides to try to be mean to Player A, denying him of all weapons, medpacks, items, etc. He also tries to undermine him by giving him useless orders.

This is the situation we want to avoid. People should not be afraid to start a comm eject vote!!

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I'd be inclined to agree, except I've been booted by some random idiot starting a vote and others following someone's lead one too many times.  If this happens, that's what an admin presence is for.  I think that would fall under llama behaviour, since that seems to catch nearly everything possible that isn't already listed in the rules.

3

General / How i LOATHE large pub servers

« on: July 03, 2005, 07:29:34 PM »

You make it seem like people on LM are perfect marines that do exactly what you want them to do.  

I'd be pissed off if the entire team went to one spot, that's poor map control, especially with THAT many people.  The more of the map you cover, you more you can strangle alien resources, which is critical on a larger server.  The only time the entire team should be together is when they're defending a critical location or attacking a critical location.

4

General / Strangest strategies.

« on: June 06, 2005, 06:00:56 AM »

ns_eclipse:  large server, 24+ people.  Marine start gets totally bumrushed by 8 skulks 5 minutes into the game, they chew down everything within a minute or so.  I started dropping structures inside eclipse hive, which was the actual starting hive.  By the time marine start had been destroyed, an entire base, complete with arms lab and upgrading armory, was inside the hive.  Needless to say the game lasted about 2 more minutes.

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General / juicy info

« on: June 01, 2005, 09:09:01 PM »

Swift... all FPS based things in NS were removed in 2.0 :p

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Keep thinking that.  FPS still affects a majority of the functions in NS, just not as significantly as before.  To test, join a server (not a listenserver) and set fps_max to 70, then fire off a hmg while timing it.  Then set fps_max to 20 and fire off a magazine and see how long it takes.  I'll bet my paycheck there's a significant time difference.  There is no way to remove "FPS based things" in the halflife engine, despite the 1.1.0.0 HL patch netcode changes that everyone believes were a miracle.

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General / See, the comm needs help too.

« on: May 31, 2005, 07:18:20 AM »

Ouch, that was almost a burn, except it came from a smurf, in which case it doesn't hurt very much.  I also suspect Mr. Smurf knows next to nothing on that which he speaks of, so suddenly the burn doesn't even sting, but is simply funny.  Try again.

7

General / See, the comm needs help too.

« on: May 31, 2005, 02:49:17 AM »

Casaulty rate and team numbers are also key.  In a cal match 6v6 a team can effectivly engage that force, but with attrition as it is 8v8 or larger,  other calculations have to go into it.  Clans can go in the kill everything, but in pubs a random tf can save alot of hassle. I know the res to defense power is lower, but for a moment consider the number of marines it will save from having to defend that area, if you are grouping people up to hit key map areas, aliens wont bother with mildly defended areas.  This way you are saving your best weapon, marines for the primary fight. This of course is in pub games, in scrims, matches, and small games building tf's and sieges just isn't a viable option. As they just slow you down too much.

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The number of players does not matter, in fact the larger the teams, the more you can afford to send out marines to defend nodes or important areas.  The marine team has something the aliens lack:  Centralized logistical capabilities.  It takes the entire alien team to form a coordinated defense and move what they need back and forth to different areas, the marines do not have this liability.  The commander can get the entire marine team to any location on the map in less than 10 seconds via a beacon and a phase gate, aliens lack this incredibly logistical capability.  The commander can also keep the entire marine team supplied with health and ammo at ANY location, while the aliens have to run away to the hive for serious damage.  One does not have to "save the best weapon" for anything, because the commander has nearly unlimited logistical resources to move personnel and equipment anywhere, anytime.  This is why the marine team needs to dictate the pace of the game, because that way it is up to the commander to direct the game, not the alien team.  

8

General / See, the comm needs help too.

« on: May 30, 2005, 09:16:35 PM »

I guess that says a lot about what you think of most of the LM players Swiftspear.  I've had a lot of games I won as comm by simply telling every marine to run into the hiveroom and start shooting, very few times did it not work that was due to the marine's aiming ability.  Other factors usually were the blaim if it failed.

9

General / See, the comm needs help too.

« on: May 29, 2005, 08:12:59 AM »

You don't command for Exigent unless you're "kinda good", so I like to think I know a little about commanding, competitive or otherwise.

The point of attacking the hive isn't just to waste the res, it's to slow the alien team down.  One alien might have 40 res to re-drop it with, but that's 3 more minutes before they get 2 hive abilities and armor, and 3 more minutes for you to push the tech advantage you have.  Not everything is about 100% domination and forcing them to a point of no-return, delaying tactics are often necessary in order to stave off defeat long enough to gain competitive advantages.  If you can get the second hive down, your tech level is automatically better than the alien's level, so use the advantage to destroy their res base.  Start killing their RTs, and when you find another hive building, kill it too.  This can be repeated until they don't have anything left, while you have a full tech tree.  This is one of the things I mentioned already, it's exhausting their resource supply by forcing them to spend everything they have just to hold on.  What you're describing is exactly the opposite, the alien team is forcing you as the commander to spend everything you have, which is what you have to avoid in order to do the same to them.

The most common way to get a hive down is to kill all the skulks nearby and force the higher lifeforms to flee, all the while hitting the hive with whatever weapons you have that aren't needed to kill aliens.  sieges can work, but are very slow in comparison to simply pushing into the hive room to directly engage it.  The key to marine midgame (which is what you're describing, the point when at least one team reaches mid-tech level, mid being the AA or a second hive) is to withstand the explosion of alien tech and continue teching yourself.  This means defending your res nodes and not relying on the structures to do it themselves.  Actively moving marines to res nodes under attack is the number one thing that new commanders do not do.  They rely on electricity or turrets to defend areas for them, which is quite simply the wrong answer.  The cost of these structures versus their defense value is almost no comparison, aliens are intelligent players that can manipulate them in a way that renders them worthless.  Marines are also intelligent players, so use them for defense instead of turrets or eletricity when dealing with nodes.  The key to marine mid-game is getting the most out of what you have, and wasting resources on fruitless RT defense is not a good answer when compared to the strength of two hive aliens.

10

Off Topic / Explain Your Name

« on: May 28, 2005, 10:49:53 PM »

TheAdj is actually a shortened form of Adjudicator, which is pretty much a fancy synonym of judge.  I picked it up from StarSiege, one of the cybrid hercs was the adjudicator.

11

General / See, the comm needs help too.

« on: May 28, 2005, 10:41:31 PM »

With experience, it is quite possible to not only direct the metagame, but to micro individual soldiers, all seamlessly and without hesitation.  It takes a great deal of multi-tasking, but it is possible if you just keep all the aspects of the commanders job in mind and cycle through them constantly.

The first is: How am I going to cripple the aliens enough to secure a victory?  This can be done many ways, mainly by resource denial, resource exhaustion, and direct assault.  Denial is destroying their nodes and refusing to allow them resources, exhaustion is simply destroying their lifeforms and forcing them to spend resources they can't afford to lose, and direct assault is simply walking in and blowing away everything in the hiveroom.  How to accomplish victory is the first question to be asked, and the routes to do it (solo shotguns on node detail, large groups of marines that hunt fades, whether jets or armor for a hive assault, to run to the hive or get a phase, etc).

Next is how do I build the tech and res base to support and pay for my plan to secure victory?  This is how fast you want to tech and how many RTs you plan to drop, and when you plan to drop them.  A fast tech path to victory requires only one or two starting nodes, then the first tech phase, then more nodes to pump out the tech when it's done.  A slow tech would require many nodes to start while the first tech phase is going.  Which structures need to be built for what tech is also important, otherwise you're waiting for res because you built too many of the wrong structure.

The next question is are my marines properly supplied?  What this means is a constant visual check on every marine to see if they're under attack, hurt, need ammo, or are in a situation that requires your guidance.  This is why the questions I've stated need to cycle, because this needs to be checked on pretty much every moment you're not doing something in the base.  Use the select all function and constantly scan for marines under attack or requiring instructions.  The minimap will also show a red dot near the blue/white dots when a marine sights an alien.  Use this as an indicator to click that area on the minimap to show the area on the main viewing area.  Learn the hotkeys so dropping meds and ammo is seamless with dropping structures in base or dropping RTs, because often you have to snap from one location to the other in order to save a marine that is under attack.

The last question is will the current path I'm taking result in victory, given the information I have right now?  If you know the second hive is complete, and you're about to start armor3 when you could start HA, you're probably going to lose due to a poor decision.  Think about the decisions you're about to make regarding tech choices and building choices before you act on them, otherwise you end up with useless structures or tech that really don't help secure victory.  If you're going to get motion tracking 5 minutes into the game when they already have sensories, you're probably wasting res that would be better suited when used on armor or dropping a pair of HMGs.  Thoroughly consider choices about tech before acting.

Cycling through these 4 big questions will greatly improve your commanding skills.

12

General / Shooting around rt's

« on: April 28, 2005, 02:09:07 AM »

Skulks that are not hanging off the RT or on the wall behind it can be shot by firing to the left or right of the actual skulk.  The hitbox extends further out than the skulk does, allowing someone to shoot to the left or right of the pumping section (the cylinder in the middle that connects to the ground) of the RT and still get a hit.  Best results are with a pistol.  If the skulk is not touching the ground and is hanging off the RT, best results are found by faking the run behind the RT, then stopping and waiting on the skulk to move.  I've also seen people rush with a knife with some effectiveness.

13

General / NS 3.03

« on: April 27, 2005, 07:57:19 AM »

This simply makes the insta-lerk even more powerful.

14

General / the problem

« on: April 24, 2005, 04:21:01 AM »

There are less drastic ways of restoring balance to the forc.. erhm, game :cool:

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I'm sorry tanke, but the utter lack of info coming from the dev team has gone far past just pissing me off. As NS is the only game I play, the only reason I have ever thought of quitting (and currently) is the complete silence of the dev team as to what's being done. I understand how secrets are good for PR, but when there's NOTHING about what is being done, what trends the dev team is trying to fix, and any updates of what's happening, then it's just plain stupid. The consti's get nothing, and without being an absolute forumite there is no way of even hearing the smallest tidbit of info...

With that said, there is a problem. I cant' say what it is. I do know my killscore has gone to pot, and as far as I can tell, I AM shooting the other player. I cannot afford to make ANY mistakes as comm, and even when I don't, we still lose ALOT. The dev team AFAIK doesn't really care to tell us not only what the patch will have, but not even what problems they are trying to fix. They don't tell us if they think aliens are overpowered early game, or if marines aren't getting enough tech for the res and time involved, or ANYTHING. So, HD, great explanation, but as far as I am concerned, no one will actually read or respond to it on NS.com that will give you any information. The next release will once again come out and we'll feel like the development team was in a vacuum for the last few months.

Tanke, I'm sorry to vent this on you, but you're group really needs to let us know a little bit more about the current development. At the very least, what is being addressed.

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Don't you know rad, certain developers are the ****, and know exactly how to fix NS, they don't need puny mortals like us telling them something is wrong.

I pointed out the lack of listening and providing feedback to players (namely competitive, but I guess general public as well), and was promptly told I was off-base and using "rhetoric and destructive argumentation", and that I had to "prove my worth" before I would be listened to by a certain developer that is a LM community member.  Needless to say certain developers do not give a flying **** what you think, and you waste your time trying to talk to them in any fashion.

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General / Serious NS headache

« on: April 23, 2005, 02:18:41 AM »

Search for stickers on the ns forums, someone shrunk the pictures of the chambesr and upgrades so they fit on a keyboard key.  I use them avidly at home.

16

General / advice time.

« on: April 21, 2005, 07:22:10 AM »

Don't be afraid to get in the chair. You'll probably lose anyway, since aliens have got it together these days, but at least you can judge how fast you lose.


Currently I'm comming more, and going combat lerk/fade more. I'll tell you what, its certainly worth it, and a celer cara lerk is a joy to play as, reminds me of TIE Fighter (actually moreso in the previous version, which had spikes).

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I think of an A10 actually, much the same effect.  You fly in any everything on the ground scatters away as fast as possible.  Muhahaha.

17

General / Your Comming Style

« on: February 27, 2005, 03:05:15 PM »

Question:

When as a commander you "expand" and go for the res whats the best way to defend the base once they have a fade who pops in and out and keeps taking things out.

I ask this not for myself (of course) but I see this happening alot when marines try to expand quickly. No marines near base to stop it and res too low to beacon.

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This is why I go for fast HMGs every game I play.  I drop myself a HMG right away and use that in combination with the obs to hop out as aliens move into base and cut them down.  Even fades will run from a HMG in base, especially if you can get a good bead on the fade as you hop out and track him around.  You need to defend  base yourself as the commander, that is your job once the game is rolling.  Voicecomm allows you to do your job in the chair, tell marines where and what to do, and defend base all without breaking a sweat or having to pause.  Seamless integration of all of these is what lets your marines focus on what they need to do while you keep the aliens pinned down outside base and helpless to stop your marines moving around.  

The main thing to worry about is the smart fade.  This fade will never leave marine start, it constantly harasses the crap out of marine start.  It takes an ambush of some type to get this fade.  Read my fade-killer article, I talk about this some.

18

General / Aiming and shooting

« on: February 21, 2005, 02:26:07 PM »

From the amount of people saying you only need to spray in the general direction of something with a HMG, it tells a lot about why HA trains die to skulks so much.

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lol agreed.  If you think spraying is the answer to any weapon, then it explains why a lot of people are amazed at other people that actually aim.  You don't spray with any weapon, they all have a cone of fire.  Put the crosshair on or near the alien and track it as best you can.  With a HMG you can kill at least 10-15 skulks per clip if you bother to aim with it.

19

General / Your Comming Style

« on: February 21, 2005, 02:17:04 PM »

Most people have read my comm article posted here somewhere already, so they know how I play for the most part.  My main objective in the first five minutes of the game is nothing more than pushing marines out as far and fast as possible and letting the lesser skilled players that die cap my closest RTs while the others get to alien RTs.  I don't bother with defense of any type because of the need for marines to immediately expand as fast as possible.  I can defend base alone against most attackers, and once the armory is done I can hold it alone against anything short of multiple fades or onos.  If adv armory tech and 2/1 upgrades doesn't win the game, I push armor2 and proto tech.  Depending on the skill of my marines I go HA for newbies or JP for skilled players on most maps.  Certain maps need HA or need JP, in which case I use those despite player skill.  I never lock down hives unless the game is VERY pitched and it's impossible to keep the aliens from moving from hive to hive by normal means.  It's worthless to even defend resource towers with anything but marines, everything else isn't cost effective at all.  I stay mobile and constantly move people to the hot spots, and it very rarely fails.

20

General / You are allowed to...

« on: January 31, 2005, 03:23:34 PM »

Select all and observing marines as they move around is your best ability as the commander.  That's all I will say.