New Comming strategies?

[Legionnaired]

Well, I think the strat to work out then is a phase rush, with GL/HMGs on the second hive at 5:30. You might have to eat the second hive for a minute or so, but you'll have awesome map control with the early phase gates.

[Necrosis]

Aliens are starting to lose more frequently. I dunno if its a choke fix or its bitter experience, but I'm seeing more rushes on the hive, catpacks, multiple rushes on separate areas, etc.


I'll tell you what, its not fun as alien to try to shutdown two rushes only to find there's been a third, and that the third one is a full on PG TFAC lock with turrets all laughing at any skulk who gets too curious.

[Mr.Bill]

what's happening is that marines are getting back into the game, their not all running around with their heads cut off, and their pushing harder in some games, where they tfact every pg position. I think Onos are now a vital part of the game, and with redempt working more often, not that much of a waist

[LowCrawler]

i comm now the same way i always did. Early phases are absolutely vital, even more important than weapons or armor... I mean think about it, what good are those lvl3 shotties when theyre still at MS?

being proactive -not reactive- to the second hive is the most important thing you can do as a commander. Get in there, and if you dont lock it down, at least have a presence.

Especially in pubs, half the game is mental. Dont mess with dbl, instead take the other 4 nodes you can get to. 2>4 and its a whole lot easier for them to attack your only two nodes at once than it is to be scattered all over the map doing it.

Back to the mental bit, electrify. When a skulk runs by an electrified node, he takes damage. This means he's not going near that node anymore... they basically give up on attacking your res.

Turrets. Turrets. Turrets.  Theyre cheap as hell and they never miss, again, the mental bit, skulks hate turrets.

Don't fear fades. Its unusual to see more than two fades early game- so what you can do as a comm is make a point to have MULTIPLE GROUPS of marines at different places in the map. (*spread out*) when you do this, the fade can't have any impact because he cant be everywhere at once, naturally.

Motion Tracking... you almost have to have this nowadays, with either silence or cloaking bound to come up soon.... 'nuff said.

adv. armory/proto wont be necessary until about 20 mins if you are good at having presence on the large majority of the map. This means youll have all the res, or at least all the res will be open, and youll have the hives. They can get two hives IF its late in the game (15 mins+) and ONLY if you have the third very heavily locked down.

for a marine team to win will require a large amount of organization and a clear plan A as well as a B.






/end.

[E-Fonzarelli]

In general, the game is waaay faster for the comm. I'm macroing and microing like there is no tommorrow. So the game is faster, everything is more frantic, you MUST keep your rines in groups (before it was just an option, but now with silence, cara whatever skulks, your rines must hunt in packs), and YOU MUST COUNTER WHATEVER UPGRADE the aliens are taking.

in the constellation forums this is exactly what the dev's have gone for.

[Mr.Ben]

That is also the major issue. In a proper match aliens will have 3 upgrade chambers in <1 minute. 1 or 2 chambers go up as STRAIGHT away. After that you need to meet some skulks and figure out what upgrade they have, silence, cloaking and focus are all dead give aways but it's not necessarily obvious from the first scrimmish. So you can't make a move to start countering any upgrade till about 2 minutes, by that time you're half way to fades and a second hive, maybe they'll have an early lerk too.

MC is easy to counter, MT totally owns silence and celerity, however you can't rush MT at the start of a round because if they do SC you're going to get focus owned from 30 seconds onwards and never get a foot in the door. YOU HAVE TO, REGARDLESS OF CHAMBER TAKE A1 AT THE START. You can't start teching MT 3 minutes in to counter MC, by then fades are gestating. You can't risk trying to counter straight off the back either, therefore marines are forced to play A1 still and whilst it's useful againist all chambers, A1 isn't a counter to cloaking, silence or skulks taking 35-50 bullets because of carapace.

By the time marines are in a position to counter aliens properly they're in too strong a position.

[Necrosis]

I had a good laugh last night, we'd went MC first yet one marine shouted CLOAKED ONOS IN MS.





We were all pretty baffled about that one.


Being PROACTIVE, as LC said, is the best thing you can do as comm. You KNOW you're going to see fades, you KNOW aliens are going to push second hive, so by thinking backwards from that point, you can see counters.

Worst thing you can do is get complacent after taking a hive. Games fail when the marines smash a hive, then wait around for a bit before hitting the next hive. In the interim skulks are hitting all nodes and trying to recap a hive, which means you're bleeding res before your final push.

Move directly from hitting one hive to hitting the other. Generally instead of fades/onos you'll see a big pile of alien eggs begging to be knifed, and it forces aliens to cluster the hive in order to combat you. If you're REALLY lucky half the alien team will be away from the hive trying to cap another, which means your push can't fail.

[2_of_8]

One strategy that's very useful and pisses aliens off to no end is sending a ninja into the hive at about the time fades appear (between 3-4 minutes) and killing the egg. Obviously, the higher skilled fades will choose a better place to egg, such as a remote marine-inaccessible vent or on top of the hive, but there are still many fades which gestate on the floor.
Do the same thing, but very early on in the game - as soon as possible - with gorges trying to put up res nodes; rush the 2 closest nodes to their hive and kill those eggs.

[Necrosis]

Thats an awesome strat. I almost knifed an Onos egg to death today. It was endgame, I was feeling sporting, so I ran in and went knife only.

In retrospect I should have shot it first before knifing and killing it, but my heart wasnt in it. Knife only, that way if the egg dies, he's learned a valuable lesson.


As it happened, he survived. Skulk saved him. Not before he screamed the house down on teamsay or his mic tho. Kekeke.

[Doobie Dan]

I haven't had much time to play lately, but have the changes improved marine teamwork on LM?  I'm starting to get the feeling that the devs weren't happy with the lack of teamwork being used by the average marine team.  It'd be nice to hop in the chair and have a natural sense of teamwork already there - "where to, commander?" with at least 80% of the team STICKING TOGETHER.  That's been the biggest difficulty I've had as a comm is getting people to stay as a group.  It would certainly be more along the lines of the original idea for NS.

[Niteowl]

Another strategy for NS 3.0. Don't EVER let me in the cc, you will lose, guaranteed.

[2_of_8]

One strategy that I've used twice, and worked once, was simply do a mad rush on nodes. Today, I did this on ns_origin - their first hive was biodome. First minute, we capped only about 2 nodes - laser drilling and one in double. In the meanwhile, we kept getting killed. I got armour 1, my marines stopped dying so fast. We capped all of the right-side nodes, and even computer lab. Aliens had 3 nodes at this point; bio (starting hive), vent and xenoform.
I got a few phase gates, in furnace and vent. Electrified the res nodes at both hives. We proceeded to take out xenoform, leaving them at 1 node. Simply sieged the last hive, and won. At no point in this game did I experience a res shortage; I even got 2 arms labs, since I couldn't keep using the res as fast as it came in.
This win was in part due to the lack of Alien's offense, as they only took out 3-4 nodes, all of which I promptly recapped.

[lolfighter]

Another strategy for NS 3.0. Don't EVER let me in the cc, you will lose, guaranteed.

[snapback]43461[/snapback]

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.

[Diablus]

Relocate outside the main hive -> build as many IPS as possibly -> Pull off another historical "Massive Bloody Charge WW1 strategy" into the hive room. No armory.... no ammo drops... no medpacks.. one man falls, the other takes his ammo / weapon and keeps on firing!

[Niteowl]

Another strategy for NS 3.0. Don't EVER let me in the cc, you will lose, guaranteed.

[snapback]43461[/snapback]

His spirit is broken, you see. He can't commrage anymore, because marines actually GET to their damn waypoints now.

[snapback]43477[/snapback]

No, no they don't. Not in the games I play, anyways.

[Necrosis]

Rage more, Hoots! You have controlled your fear.... Now, release your anger! Only your hatred can destroy the aliums!




In other news, sgs can dice a hive in farrr too short a time. I mean full health to zip in a matter of seconds, and if noone is near an MC....... I've seen marines win games by surgically striking each hive. Get in, sg it, phase back to base. Rinse and repeat. Assuming you're keeping the nodes down, the aliens will swiftly run out of res. At worst you can expect an onos desperation rush, but with only one hive and fully upped shotties + mines you can expect Onos burgers.

Hell, if you rush a hive right after the onos rush you might get lucky and kill them all while they're healing up after redemption kicked in.

[Malevolent]

Another strategy for NS 3.0. Don't EVER let me in the cc, you will lose, guaranteed.

[snapback]43461[/snapback]

His spirit is broken, you see. He can't commrage anymore, because marines actually GET to their damn waypoints now.

[snapback]43477[/snapback]

No, no they don't. Not in the games I play, anyways.

[snapback]43484[/snapback]

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.

[pardzh]

I've seen a lot more Marine wins too. Seems like people are aiming better almost.