Newborns elec RT Strat.

[SwiftSpear]

If Aliens go for RT's early this strat is as good as throwing pebbles at an Onos: Expecting to win is highly unlikely.

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It definitely does happen though, I would even wager a guess that there have been more elec rush wins then normal strat wins on LM in the last 3-4 days.  It is DEFINTALY counterable, and we have done so many times.  But if you just laugh it off and say, "bleh elec, he's wasting his res" you are pretty much guarenteed a loss.  If you treat the elec with respect you can take it down pretty decently, but otherwize you are going to get pwned.

The best counter is just to stay well in control of the map the way the aliens are supposed to.  Remember, under this strat IPs go up late, so marines you kill in the first 20 seconds aren't going to spawn for a little while.  Use that fact to make sure you don't LET the marines get 5 RTs up in the first 2 minutes, because if they do you are screwed.

[[JFF]Kirby]

yeah.. first 2 games i played against newborn was a breeze.. thanks to the aliens not sucking ass.... we just killed the rts before the elec could finish... 3rd time i played against it the aliens were horrible.. i kept tellin em to take down rts before they elec but they wouldnt listen.. they just blew me off and said "piff.. elec?... hell just waste all his res..."

thats when i leave the server....

[SwiftSpear]

yeah.. first 2 games i played against newborn was a breeze.. thanks to the aliens not sucking ass.... we just killed the rts before the elec could finish... 3rd time i played against it the aliens were horrible.. i kept tellin em to take down rts before they elec but they wouldnt listen.. they just blew me off and said "piff.. elec?... hell just waste all his res..."

thats when i leave the server....

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Heh, ya.  Once I learned to respect the elec it wasn't as dangerous as it was before.  But if you let the marine team put up and electrify 5 RTs I don't know what the hell you have been doing, but it sure wasn't playing a good alein game.

Elec = dangerous!  Only you can prevent electrification forests!

[Absinthe]

Any strategy can work, but on that same note every strategy has a counter. I was on for more games than I could count that day playing for both sides. I'll admit we lost the first game (on eon I believe) because about 5 of us skulks were joking around and we kept attacking the shocked rt until it went down then laughed. We had about 10 deaths or more to that one RT. Believe me when I say that strategy has about as much cumulative success potential as Ali's "Rope-A-Dope". It's as ridiculous as setting up a turret farm around each rt and only marginally cheaper.

Unless it has many variations the strat usually works as follows, 1 IP & TF, cap nodes then shock, move forward. You can't afford anything for your team if you shock even 2 rts right off the bat, that includes the most important marine stuff like armory/armslab/observatory. If left unchecked sure this will rack up resources after about 3 minutes when you reach that break-even point. Until then however, you've got fragile 2 hit marines spawning from 1 IP with no upgrades in sight.

Sure that first game was a complete mess, noone went fade as I recall and we had lost 1 or 2 rts that we put down at the start of the game so res was tight. If we hadn't wasted time taking down that elec'd rt (which alone lost us the game) things probably would've gone different. The next few games though lone skulks rushed the base and it was GG. You don't need fades to kill 2 hit marines even without chambers, it sure makes it easy though.

[SlickWill]

Agree, elec strat now only works like all other strats, varyation and "SHOCK"  :p  value are key. Get it, shock? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA






I just wizzled on myself...

[NewBorn]

my opinion on this subject will be here shortly... :blink:

[DarkScythe]

strictly in my opinion, it shouldnt work that well because every time i comm for some danged odd reason i'm always against a team of invincible aliens and like 5 HD's or something

but anyway, i haven't actually tried it myself yet because it's hard for me to imagine that it works very well
there's a *massive* drain of resources in the beginning to elec the nodes, and to fuel it with any speed u need ur rines to be shooting well, which doesnt happen too often.
in doing so, u also lack any base defense whatsoever, and if the aliens manage to rush ur base, it's GG and time for a new round
granted it does scare skulks off in the beginning, but there's also a time constraint to it

as an example, i was up against newborn's elec strat and i caught one of his rines building an rt
he finished it just as i killed him, and i immediately began chomping on the node while he began electrifying it
by the time it elec'd i had the thing down to 2 bars, i simply had to heal twice and it was down

now, if the alien team is coordinated, which *just so happens* every time i'm a comm, all the nodes go down either before or relatively quickly after they elec

i dont know, it sounds good, but i dont think it's better than a standard tech rush..

just me though. do i sound a bit biased? i don't know, but it's how i think..
again this is all my opinion because i've not actually tried this yet, and my opinion might change once i get the nerve to test it on the field

[SwiftSpear]

strictly in my opinion, it shouldnt work that well because every time i comm for some danged odd reason i'm always against a team of invincible aliens and like 5 HD's or something

but anyway, i haven't actually tried it myself yet because it's hard for me to imagine that it works very well
there's a *massive* drain of resources in the beginning to elec the nodes, and to fuel it with any speed u need ur rines to be shooting well, which doesnt happen too often.
in doing so, u also lack any base defense whatsoever, and if the aliens manage to rush ur base, it's GG and time for a new round
granted it does scare skulks off in the beginning, but there's also a time constraint to it

as an example, i was up against newborn's elec strat and i caught one of his rines building an rt
he finished it just as i killed him, and i immediately began chomping on the node while he began electrifying it
by the time it elec'd i had the thing down to 2 bars, i simply had to heal twice and it was down

now, if the alien team is coordinated, which *just so happens* every time i'm a comm, all the nodes go down either before or relatively quickly after they elec

i dont know, it sounds good, but i dont think it's better than a standard tech rush..

just me though. do i sound a bit biased? i don't know, but it's how i think..
again this is all my opinion because i've not actually tried this yet, and my opinion might change once i get the nerve to test it on the field

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If I belive a node I want to electrify won't be able to at least hold yellow bar status before it finishes I will cancel electrification.  This strat DOES work well under certian conditions, but basicly those conditions are that the marines take the majority of the res nodes on the map at a faster rate then they would in a normal game.  A good marine team really helps pull this off because they have to bunch together less and are more inclined to fast movement throughout the map then a poor marine team, and a good alien team hurts this because it is simply much harder to expand enough to offset the cost of several electrified nodes if the early aliens kill your marines as soon as they get more then one RT's distance out of MS.

The two best counter habits I have seen to date to screw this strat over, is pairs of skulks camping the closest nodes to marine start and delaying the initial node rush as long as possible, and a player gorging to drop chambers as soon as the gamestart ping finishes ringing.  L1 celer or L1 cloak may not the end all be all at 1:30 into the game, but at 0:25 they make a HUGE difference.  Going DC first agianst this strat is the most risky, because although it helps nodesmashing fades, your early skulks will be less able to stem the initial res rush,  and the initial res rush is what makes or breaks this strat for the marine team every time it is used.

[edit] acctually I have found from experiance that early base rushes are rarely any more successful against this strat then against a normal strat.  Ips go up soon enough that the base is not realisticly all that much weaker then a normal base except while the marines are still fairly close building the intermost resnodes.  It is more effecive to set up lots of ambush spots near MS and put half assed pressure on the marine base (not so much that you will die trying to kill the CC, but enough that they feel they need to keep base gaurds near MS) The alien conterpriority should be stemming expansion and forcing them to fight for every inch of ground they take.  If the marines have 3 electrified nodes up by the time you get your first fade you are still fine, if they have 4 you are pushing your luck, and if they have 5 you have let them expand FAR too fast.

The aliens number one priority in 3.0f should be preventing the marines from taking ground in the early game, When you reach the mid game your fades are able to take down electrified nodes that the marines have put up, and if they have not electrified nodes, your fades should be able to tie up the upgraded shotty teams long enough for skulks to take down the unelectrified nodes and your second hive to go up.

[lolfighter]

I'm often amazingly slow when it comes to things like this... I think I have been on both sides of this strat for a few times without really noticing.
I remember a Hera game where our commander (which may or may not have been Newborn) had a tf and an IP in base, and nothing else. I was rather surprised. No armory? No obs? Then HD came (as a bloody skulk, too!) and all our base were belong to him. Marines died right as they spawned off the lone IP due to lack of armour upgrades, no obs for bacon, commander jumped out to kill HD but failed, the rest of the team got picked off one by one as they trekked back through the map in a frantic but futile attempt to get to the chair alive. Baseraped.
Then I remember an Origin game where I was on aliens. Wasn't even a very noticeable game. Marines were kinda slow and seemed to leave us alone for the most part. I noticed a few electrified nodes, but didn't think much of them. "I'll just leave those to Fades and Onos." At hive two, with two Fades and an Onos, all those precious elec rts went down real fast, and the marines had nothing left. And that's that, really.
But from the sound of it, I'll gladly believe that it's ridiculously effective against an unprepared alien team.

In the end, NS is a game of counters, and this strategy has one as well. The only thing that can't be countered is massive skill unbalance.

[SwiftSpear]

I'm often amazingly slow when it comes to things like this... I think I have been on both sides of this strat for a few times without really noticing.
I remember a Hera game where our commander (which may or may not have been Newborn) had a tf and an IP in base, and nothing else. I was rather surprised. No armory? No obs? Then HD came (as a bloody skulk, too!) and all our base were belong to him. Marines died right as they spawned off the lone IP due to lack of armour upgrades, no obs for bacon, commander jumped out to kill HD but failed, the rest of the team got picked off one by one as they trekked back through the map in a frantic but futile attempt to get to the chair alive. Baseraped.
Then I remember an Origin game where I was on aliens. Wasn't even a very noticeable game. Marines were kinda slow and seemed to leave us alone for the most part. I noticed a few electrified nodes, but didn't think much of them. "I'll just leave those to Fades and Onos." At hive two, with two Fades and an Onos, all those precious elec rts went down real fast, and the marines had nothing left. And that's that, really.
But from the sound of it, I'll gladly believe that it's ridiculously effective against an unprepared alien team.

In the end, NS is a game of counters, and this strategy has one as well. The only thing that can't be countered is massive skill unbalance.

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That's the key here.  The marine team needs to move like they have a fire lit under thier ass if they want any chance of success.  You must have 4 electrified nodes up before the aleins have fades, and you need to have pushed through several alien resnodes by the time there is any more then one fade on the map.  The 4 min fade should have to contend with no less then 5 electrified res nodes if you expect to win by any safe margin as a marine team trying to pull off this strat.

[lolfighter]

And almost immediately, I deliver proof:

Nooblet tried this on Origin. The marine team passed through double on their way to vent, killing everything and putting the nodes up. When I came there, one of the nodes was electrified, so I chomped the other one. While I was chomping it, it finished electrifying. I was a skulk, so I had no choice but to back off. I proceeded to laserdrilling because the node there was parasited, but it was also electrified. At this point, I suspected that this strat was exactly what was going on - and then it occurred to me that there was probably only a single IP and a tf in the marine base. So I quickly ran there, and I turned out to be right. The IP went down right quick, but the comm never got out of the chair. I later noticed that the marines were busy trying to siege ventilation, our one and only hive, so I guess Nooblet was too busy and never noticed that his IP went down until his marines complained that they weren't spawning. I started camping the commchair, waiting for Nooblet to get out, and was then joined by another skulk. To cut it short: Nooblet got out of the chair and went down in two bites without putting a single bullet into me. The other marines were picked off one by one. Despite intense fighting at the hive and four siege cannons (from what I could see on my minimap), it only went down to about 50%.

And remember that I suck. I am decidedly average, at best. This strat leaves the marines highly vulnerable to baserape, and while it gives the rines the upper hand in the res battle, they themselves are tragically vulnerable. No observatory means that baserapes are hard to counter, and no PGs mean lack of map control. The strat can be very powerful, but it can also be countered if the aliens stay aware.
Basically, the marines specialise: They become extremely strong in one field, but terrible weak in another. Fight them on their terms and you lose. Fight them on your terms, and even a single skulk can turn around a game.

[GrayDuck]

I succeeded with this once (the only time I tried it).  And on Veil.  Any time I command I demand that a single rine stay in base until phase tech is up.  Using this strat it was UBER important to have that lone base guard.  Treat your base people well and they do a good job

[Necrosis]

Base rape is fun. Constant base pressure really annoys marines.


Earlier we had a game with commlet, took out 3 hives by the magic combination of elec rts, jps and shotties. Jet into hive, kill hive, regroup, hit next hive. The only time we stalled was when we tried the more "conventional" route of dropping PGs. Once we abandoned PGs, it was a marine landslide.

[DarkScythe]

And almost immediately, I deliver proof:

Nooblet tried this on Origin. The marine team passed through double on their way to vent, killing everything and putting the nodes up. When I came there, one of the nodes was electrified, so I chomped the other one. While I was chomping it, it finished electrifying. I was a skulk, so I had no choice but to back off. I proceeded to laserdrilling because the node there was parasited, but it was also electrified. At this point, I suspected that this strat was exactly what was going on - and then it occurred to me that there was probably only a single IP and a tf in the marine base. So I quickly ran there, and I turned out to be right. The IP went down right quick, but the comm never got out of the chair. I later noticed that the marines were busy trying to siege ventilation, our one and only hive, so I guess Nooblet was too busy and never noticed that his IP went down until his marines complained that they weren't spawning. I started camping the commchair, waiting for Nooblet to get out, and was then joined by another skulk. To cut it short: Nooblet got out of the chair and went down in two bites without putting a single bullet into me. The other marines were picked off one by one. Despite intense fighting at the hive and four siege cannons (from what I could see on my minimap), it only went down to about 50%.

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yes, i was on the rine team, and i was the last rine at the siege fort in vent
we rushed res and about 10 seconds in, i figured this would be the elec strat
we capped laser drilling, comp lab, bio and double really quickly i believe.
we were ordered to stay in cargo until both nodes started electrifying, and after they started we moved to vent.
about this time our base went under attack, but everyone got to vent and we were able to fend off the skulks

I had hoped that our rpesence would cause enough urgency to recall the skulks attacking base back to the hive so we called for a TF (as most aliens know, when u see a TF outside ur hive u go HIVE HIVE HIVE!!!)
we were informed our IPs went down, but we got a few turrets up and i was keeping an eye and an ear out for the locations of skulks and relaying it to the team
we were low on ammo so we got ammo spammed, however base went down by now
we had about 70 res so we dropped 5 sieges
unfortunately, this was endgame because nooblet got out of the chair because he said he thought he could take out the ONE skulk (there were 2, u say?) and he died.
that was it, we had to take out vent or lose, and we tried our best to hold our location

skulks came in mass numbers, overwhelming our LMGs and rines started falling, we managed to get 4 sieges up and i was building the 5th
we had to manually spot the hive, so we shot it and several ran in to their deaths, but got the sieges going
i got the 5th siege up and shot the hive a bit to fire off the sieges again
by this time i was the only one alive, and 2 skulks were running towards me
i was reloading so by the time i finished, the skulks were jumping past the line of sieges, and i couldn't take both out and we lost. IF i had managed to kill both, the hvie might've went down, but we might've lost anyway as i probably would've died to the skulks that would start dying near the hive

in any case, this is the main reason i dont believe the strat works very well because as it stands, granted the base WILL have an IP and a TF, there is NOTHING else there, because every rine HAS to be out getting resources and guarding them.
the comm can only do so much and when u hop out, u are disoriented for about a second. yes, they will spawn, but with the IP as the only structure to take out, a lone skulk can end MS pretty easily.
yes we have buttloads of res, but we can't use it.

[E-Fonzarelli]

so does this strat really work?

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It eats aliens alive, and spits out HMGs and HA.

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ONLY if the marines have skills....   try it with an underarmed team and you are up crap creek without any toilet paper.  

Personally, my strat starting off alien, is one of two choises - drop an RT and then do the following, or just go find a nice cozy place to hide where I know *I * would head if I were a rambo'ing 'rine.

Then just demolish them.  Anytime I play, you'll see this in action as i'm using at the top of the scoreboard very quickly becuase I ambush so much.  

Now, if you had enough aliens that played like that, the elect strat wouldn't work becuase the marines wouldn't get any upgrades and would be very slow to respawn, ect.

[lolfighter]

There were two skulks in base, but the other one was busy chomping the unbuilt IP that had just been dropped or something. I was just sitting at the edge of my seat, waiting for the comm to jump out. I soloed him before he got his bearings and could start shooting me.
Yes, there were two skulks, but I would've done just as well without the other guy. Not to say that he wasn't useful, I loved the extra insurance that he provided - the chance of the commander killing both of us was far smaller. But he wasn't necessary in the end.

But GrayDuck is also right - a single baseguard would have complicated things immsensely. We would have needed two or three skulks to safely take the base.

What really kills aliens is when they get demoralised by this strat. If they go "gg elec, we lose," they WILL lose.

[DarkScythe]

lolfighter, it also depends on the size of the game

normally in LM it's a full server so, usually 7v7 or 8v8, in this case u may be able to sacrifice one member as a base guard, but when I tried this (finally) on my server, which for some reason isnt very popular, it was a 3v3

you *cannot* afford to have a base guard, as those 2 marines have to move as a group and push for nodes together
also a 3v3 also presents an early fade, which *would've* ended my game had it not been for the fact that he was a stupid fade and went for my chair instead of the IP guarded by a single un-elec'd TF
if the fade had been smarter, we would've lost
however, thanks to that error I won but you can't expect that from people on LM

all in all, i don't really like it, but it's very skewed for the aliens in a small game because you just dont have enough marines to work with
with a larger game, it might be different, i don't know, but I really can't try it out on LM yet because of the fact that I hardly win comming normally on LM, much less try a more risky strat

my other point is in a large game, you can have 1 base guard, but ther will also be a much larger amoutn of skulks running around taking them out
you can elec them but a group of 4 or 5 skulks can take out an rt pretty fast if they go at it two or three times
there's also the matter that they can gang up on it WHILE it's electrifying, which i often try to do as a skulk - if i see it begin to elec i ask everyone near me to bite it down

[Loke The Sleek Peruvian]

I remember nD always being full...what happened :S?
Your comming is improving dark

[Time Mage^]

haha... i was playing versus this guy earlier.. i owned this strategy  :p killed the players then him.. jumps out of chair too late..