New Comming strategies?

[SlickWill]

I have noticed that comming is VERY different.  Anybody have any techniques that seem to ahve repeated success?  As noted above, please don't post about an idea you have which may work or sounds technically fit, just actual working strategies.  <<<<<Need to work on my uber leet comming skills.  

[Necrosis]

PG rush and shotguns are as good as ever.

Aliens are very much going SC first now, so you really need sharp marines to spot ambushes. MT only does so much.

Out of the past dozen or more games on LM, its been marine wins with a brutal SG rush. Where aliens have won, its been all out insane aggression. Aliens are maxing out on upgrades since they're free, and another big BIG contributor is that when aliens switch classes, their upgrades all vanish. This means a cara-adren gorge can rather seamlessly turn into a regen celerity fade, or whatever. This indirectly increases alien survivability (no more "I better just rush and die then evolve to fade) and also means less "cool down" between waves of alien attacks.

Consider previous versions:

Skulk
Chambers dropped
Evolve skulk upgrades
Get enough res to fade
Suicide Run
SPAWN QUEUE
Evolve to Fade
Evolve fade ups

And now you can do this:

Skulk
Chambers dropped
Evolve upgrades
Get res to fade
Evolve fade
Evolve specific fade ups


No time in the spawn queue, so no 60 second break in the alien rush. You simply cannot afford to pace yourself anymore, and there's no letup in the alien attack. Also, in older versions

Get to alien hive
Siege all upgrade chambers and aliens in the hive
Walk into hive, do victory dance while aliens queue in spawn

Whereas now

Get to alien hive
Siege upgrade chambers only, leaving 1 spamhealing gorge on the hive constantly, and one healing every alien in the room
Sit at hive for 5 minutes while aliens drop more chambers in safer areas
Lose siege spot
Get splattered by aliens rushing base

Honestly, no siege damage means there is colossal resistance at all alien hives. Moreso on LM since MC rushing means aliens can be in the hive before you're even set up.

The counter to this that I have seen work is the two pronged phase rush. You need to hit several alien hives at once, just to split their forces enough to weaken the hive.

Cautious comms who tech up and hit one hive at a time (which iirc is your most commonly executed strat, or so I've seen) are going to suffer versus relentless alien aggression. Fight has got to be taken to them, and that means insane shotgun rushes. Ideally you're looking at half the team hitting one hive, half the team hitting another, and trying to focus on them both, or at least the more successful one. That's a hell of a headache for any comm.


So in a nutshell, you need marine aggression, and you need to bleed out the aliens by splitting their forces. Otherwise they'll camp in the hive and be everything but indestructible. Sieges are virtually worthless now in terms of KILLING a hive. They'll clear out the lame and the upgrades, but the hive will shrug it off as long as there's a gorge on it.

[lolfighter]

But as Niteowl can attest to, two-pronged hive attacks work well against all but the very most vigilant alien team. Still.

[Niteowl]

I didn't plan, and I usually don't plan for 2 prong attacks, LF, it was just some rine (sorry, can't remember) got a PG at vent, and cave was too hostile for the rines to survive, so we attacked vent.

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.

I've seen too many comms just go ahead and do whatever strat they have planned ahead of time. But like all RTSes, NS has truly became a game of counters. Scout, scout scout. Get positive confirmation either via ping on the hive to get the upgrade chamber or report from several marines which way they are going.

But in other ways, the game has not changed.
-cap
-get a phase network
-hunt alien rts
-counter alien tech
-hunt alien rts
-recap
-attack 2nd hive VERY VERY VERY quickly
-decide either to try and end it fast or climb up the tech tree
-keep hunting alien rts
-finish last hive.

Most games are running under 15 or 20 minutes. So game is decided around 5 minute mark, it seems.

If you are not using the hotkeys for comming, you better learn soon. It's become far too fast for anyone 'learning' or 'getting to terms with the interface'. With that in mind, there have been, what seems to be, far more epic games, due to very harsh back and forth and the ubar lethality of the 3.0 skulk. Ironically, turrets are needed to fend off skulks, you can't expect marines to fend off a rush of celerity skulks anymore.

So, there have been some major changes, but the macro of the game is the same, jsut faster.

[lolfighter]

Oh. Not a good time to learn to comm then, is it?

[Legionnaired]

Before, the game had one critical moment around 5:00 that decided the game.

Now, it has a 'critical period' between when the second hive is dropped at 4:30 and when shortly after the hive goes up or is knocked down, and one side is taken out from attrittion at the 6:30-7:00 mark.

Before, balance was a slippery slope. There's still an element of that, but now it's more of a tightrope walk.

I've played 2 games of 3.0 that illustrate this purpose absolutely perfectly. I'll recall them here, and then summarize a proposed strategy.

The first game was on Veil, regs on both teams.

Build Order:

IP, Armory,  Obs, RT, MT, RT

I tried to get MT as fast as possible, to attempt to allow the marines free movement around the map. I started a two-pronged cap-rush on subsector and pipeline (hive cargo), the subsector one resulting in one dead RC (Alien Res Collector, for future reference.) and two RTs for the good guys. The Pipeline expansion took heavy casuties, but they managed to get C12 up, but it was taken out around when it paid for itself.

Immediately after phase tech went up, I dropped a phase at sub, and ordered all the marines to system waypointing. I sent two people into double to cap it (there was no building here.) and the rest of the team outside cargo. Armor 1 hit right about now, just as I build a PG around the Y-junction, and started setting up a siege point. 50 res in medpacks, 3 sieges later, the hive was down. Cap the node, recycle siege base, head to Dome. Marines moved to north of Pipeline, got a PG up, and dropped 2 HMGs, and 4 Sgs on the ground. Marines moved in, built 2 guns on the stairwell, and held off the lerks and cele-cloak skulks with HMGs. After most of the alien team was dead, marines moved into the hive room and engaged the hive. Hive down at 9:40, end game.

The next game I commed was on hera. Same build order, much resistance met at cargo, but Hera>Holo>N-coridor was open. Went to Arch, phase tech up.

Sent a few marines to pressure maintinance, taken out by aliens defending the building second hive. Marines got a phase in N-Corridor, welded into the cave, and pushed into the hive with shotguns. Stopped in the water by 2 fades, one of which refaded and was rekilled.

Beaconed. Marines march to processing, and take position in the upper room with a phase gate. Sieges against the north wall, hive down 1:00 after the second hive goes up. Cap the two nodes, secure the room, phase back and march to maint. Some screwballs, but 3 marines get there and get a PG up at the west end of Maint. Marines go north, and get a second PG up at the SW end of Vent. Siege base goes up under heavy Onos onslaught, until 'Vermillion' Accidently TKs 3 people with his HMG, then dies shortly after. Siege base went down before the beacon went off. We lost shortly after.

___________END GAME SUMMARY___________

Note that in both games, MT was used to let marines move freely around the map. Marine Mobility is key in 3.0, and if I was a tech-comm, I'd try and go for jetpacks as soon as I could. Otherwise, keep a rapid expansion, requiring the entire alien team to be at a certain place every minute or face destruction. Both games had this element:

First Game:
-Subsector Expansion
-Pipeline Feint
-Cargo Siege
-Pipeline Siege
-Pipeline Shotgunned

Second Game:
-Archiving Expansion
-Processing Feint
-N-Corridor rush
-Datacore attack
-Processing Expansion
-Datacore Siege
-Vent Siege

The fact is, that even the most co-ordinated team will require a good 30 second to get anywhere together, and even then, a whole alien team vs. a whole marine team is an even match. Which means, that whatever you do, you have 30 second to make it count.

Attack 2 places at once with phase gates, or powerbuild one base as fast as possible. Whichever one faces the most resistance, keep only enough guys there to hold off the aliens for :45-1:00, until the other attack can gain force. Then beacon, recycle the phase at the feint, and crush them at the other. Have 1 guy go back to the feint-spot for a quick 1-2 punch.

The key is aggression. If you have marines at the enemy hive, the free upgrades they have, they're never going to use, and vanilla skulks are like candy to marines. Keep the pressure on them, and keep their strengths marginalized. Get HMGs as fast as possible to keep lifeforms at arms length, and have MT to allow marines to move without having to check every corner.

[CryForMe]

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.

[holy_devil]

i'm still rusty on comming, but im trying to get back into it. as it stands, it seems people just aren't putting effort in on marines for some reason. in 3.0 its really REQUIRED that marines use teamwork and listen to their comm, but people play as if it isn't. rambos == OWNED in this version, and once people get a handle of that, marines will start destroying again.

build order;

ip
armory
arms lab
obs


upgrades;
armor1
mt(if mcs, no point otherwise this early)
phase after mt if you get it
weapons1
armor2
armor3
weapons2
weapons3

throw mt in there when you have spare res, or second hive+mc shows up


basically the idea as marines is to be as offensive as possible. DO NOT LET THEM HAVE MORE THAN TWO RTS AT ANY POINT IN TIME. EVER. res system works too fast to let them hold anything. siege is basically complete crap now in the sense of roflowning a hive, shotguns do it faster than siege and are cheaper. only reason to siege now is if they have 2+ fades, an onos, or many ocs in the hive.

no, upgraded armory isn't needed at all. armor >>>> fades. medspam a marine with a shotgun and armor3, he can solo a fade like its a joke, living through well around 6 non-focus hits, with like 3-4 meds.

[Legionnaired]

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.

[snapback]42670[/snapback]

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.

[Mr.Bill]

today we were playing and there were basicly 2 groups of marines going around getting res capping places ,I just called for mines and drops obs all over the place secretly. since they had SC, if it is SC I find having obs at very busy places are almost vital.

and no Lf, now is not the best time to learn to comm It is fun though once you know how, (and if your doing a real game) You can tell the teams are balanced when it becomes almost stalemate, then marines or aliens have to use a crazy tactic to cover that extra bit of ground to tip the scale. Funnest games ever. But damn their stressful for the comm. Yesterday on EON, I had bunker as pg position, we held it fairly easy (yay bunker) but they kept trying to put up the other hives, so every couple of mine a marine would need to reput up a pg, and shottie down or gl down the hive. 1 hive onos's are unkilliable almost with redempt. Biggest worry ever, kil 5 marines, redempt, we try to put up seiges again they all die to the same onos, All in all we took down 20 some hives, and killed 2 or 3 onos (they each redempt abut 8 times each) 1 hive onii btw.

Yeah, thats not really a strat... but it is a good story.

[Niteowl]

All rumours of mr.bill winning in the cc are PURE FABRICATION! Anyone spreading such rumours will be tickled and spun around several times for dizziness!

[Necrosis]

Its not an easy time to learn, but it might be the BEST time to learn. If you can crack this build, you can crack anything thats ever thrown at you.


Where people are failing is their continuing belief in the power of the siege. The siege is dead, long live the medspam. A siege will clear a hive of upgrades, but not kill the hive itself nor the aliens inside. You need to get in there with shotguns and medspam and start killing the aliens while they have no place to hide. No upgrades in the hive means they heal slower and they don't have as much energy - making your job of killing them that much easier.

Comms who relied on siege rushes are going to suffer. Poor marine teams, who relied on sieges because they couldn't get past the aliens, are ALSO going to suffer.

Its time to raise your game and learn how to shoot properly, and how to do a real ninja phase.

[Niteowl]

LF: in all serious, any time is a good time to comm. The roster of folks who will comm is always dwindling.

[Legionnaired]

70 res for a siege base = 35 medpacks, or 16 meds and 12 catpacks. Mmmm, catpacks...

That's 2 meds a marine, and 1.5 catpacks a marine too. Ownination, I'll try this out now.

[2_of_8]

I myself am thinking too, that sieges are outdated now. If they don't receive a buff soon, they will looked at just the way pheromones were looked at; there's a chance of it working, but there's a better way to do it.

[SwiftSpear]

I personally like this one...  Jump in the chair, get ejected within 1 minute, all marines jump in pit of death.

*SwiftSpear glares angrily

 <_<

[george]

RES DENIAL!!!!!!
making sure aliens never get nodes.
Protecting second hive locations.

[Hesitation]

I personally like this one...  Jump in the chair, get ejected within 1 minute, all marines jump in pit of death.

*SwiftSpear glares angrily

 <_<

[snapback]42722[/snapback]

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!

[Mr.Ben]

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.

[SwiftSpear]

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.

[snapback]42734[/snapback]

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!