See, the comm needs help too.

[aeroripper]

I was playing a game tonight and realized that comms need help front their marines as well.  There was a few games today where i feel like you have to babysit your whole team and all they do is shoot and you have to run everything.  It makes it so much easier if you can have competant marines to know what the comm needs (or for them to be experienced comms as well).  

Maybe its just my comming because i forget things so it helps to have marines that can keep track of the game as well.  I keep track of upgrading\overall strategy\checking hives\ thinking of how and when to take down 2nd hive etc... if marines can see when we're down to low RTs they will go wait and cap some.  Also able to keep eachother welded without prompting.  It just makes the comms job a lot simpler and streamlined and you can concentrate on the bigger picture a helluva lot easier.

Maybe that's why a lot of comms lose a lot is because their team doesn't work\share relevant information together?

Anyways here's a demo of the game we had tonight that i thought had good teamwork, but we also had good players so that always helps.  And thank nooblet for being a field comm because its very helpful when people are.

EDIT: Link download thing expired

[Asal]

I try to help my best when I see this, but sometimes a person like me just gets in the comm's way.

[rad4Christ]

Most important asset to a marine commander is competency and map knowledge. Know how to get where I say, and know at what times in the game what to expect. HAving a marine or two constantly pressure nodes, but not lemming-like running to their death is a good plus.

Aero, you're getting better as a comm, but you also need ot let the marines know you plans from the beginning of the game. Lots of times, after the 3-4 minute mark, if we don't have two hive lockdown, I feel you go into reactive mode, responding to aliens more than pressuring them. My experience says wehn you don't know what to do, start killing their nodes.


Marines, you need to do more than follow orders and aim. You also need to be anticipating what nodes aliens have, what hive they're likely to get next, etc. In alot of games marines tell me of an alien presence in an are of the map, then NEVER go back there b/c they consider it hostile territory... Well, go back there and kill whatever's there! Most times it's the chamber gorge, or egging lifeform. Keep trying and don't give up!

[CryForMe]

A great example of whats being discussed happened last night on bast. Nobody wanted to comm, so i jumped in the chair. Instant loss, right? Wrong. We managed to get a whole bunch of nodes up and upgrades going while putting way too much pressure on one hive. By the time we got heavies, aliens had 3 hives up. Thankfully, the team overcame my horrible commage and took down all 3 hives with me doing nothing more than dropping structures, meds and ammo. Again, to anyone on my team last night, GG. Thats an example of the way rines are supposed to do things.

[SlickWill]

A comm can only do so much.  Rine knowledge, competence and ability to follow orders are WAY more important than comm.  Comm is important, however, only to a beginning extent, to get to the difference from a good loss to a win is on the rines.

[SuicidaL MonkeY]

The comm has the same responsibility as the GROUP of marines on the map, you cant single out the comm as being the same importance as one marine. Commanders give you your res towers, tf's, meds, ammo, ect, while soldiers out in the field have to build and shoot, yeah, i think comm's are a bit more important than the soldier. For the simple fact i commanded a game with only 2 marines vs 4 kharra, the entire game, and we won. Now the marines i had we're not LM regs, they weren't that great at aiming, and didnt go to their waypoints half the time, but since i was comm i gave them meds, an rt i thought would be valuable, locked down seige locations, and finally took down the hive with heavy weapons.

Whoever steps in the commanders chair should know they are as important as the GROUP of marines on the field, not just one or 2 soldiers. To say the comm is important only to a beginning extent is a bit, well, in my opinion not true at all.

Mid-game the comm has a very important role, usually at this point there is at least 1 or 2 fades, a hive either going up or being MC rushed, usually you cant just send your rines a wp there and have them run in, almost all the time that happend marines end up loosing. If the commander doesnt have a plan on a seige or sg rush attack or such, the soldiers are basically just wandering cattle for the aliens to gorge upon.

IMO thats what makes the marines in Natural Selection so fun to play, the commander is as important as ALL the soldiers on the same team, and if BOTH dont work together, well, the kharra will have lots of teeth to floss.

Remeber, the Commander basically has the most strategic plan to unfold, the aliens all decide together, where as the comm does not, and sends HIS or HER waypoints for the rines to follow, followed by a usual structure drop.

Just remeber to always drop us meds and ammo when we ask.

[TheAdj]

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.

[aeroripper]

All good points... i've been trying a AA rush a getting a few HMGs down pretty quickly and it seemed to have won a few games relatively easily when i first tried it.  But lately it hasn't been working as well and it seems once the 2nd hive gets up all your plans just fall apart.  By that point without JP\HVY hive rushes are usually suicide, or you might get the hive down and lose 100res on all the weapons and meds.  Not a huge loss for them, there is probably a gorge that has 40 res to put it right back up.

It seems to be relatively easy for marines to secure nodes across the map in the early game and get a good resflow pretty quickly.  But around 4 minutes the 2nd hive is probably going up and a fade is about and people are dying faster.  How do you take down the 2nd hive?  Shottie rush *might* work if you catch the alien team offguard but its still pretty risky.  I'd like to see adj comm, he seems pretty good  .

[TheAdj]

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.

[SwiftSpear]

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.

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I'd give an undisclosed didget to see LMers shooting well enough to acctually kill all the lower lifeforms in a hive as well as chase away the large ones while still being able to shoot the hive down.

[TheAdj]

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.

[mhawk]

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.

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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.

[TheAdj]

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.  

[JohnTheGarbageman]

You don't quit Exigent unless you're "kinda fired", so I like to think I know a little about losing, competitive or otherwise.

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Fixed.

[TheAdj]

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.

[Malevolent]

There is no point in bringing other people down especially when related to competitive play, since this server is not a place for it.