A great strat that I have found really hard to win against as aliens is making 3 ips(max respawn) and building an observatory no armory no tf. Then getting pg and placing one close to the hive(doesnt have to be right next to it which makes it hard to defend against). Then you just out spawn the aliens. If some nub doesnt listen and just wonders around the map thats great b/c you can get rts. Ammo who needs that b/c you will die too fast until all aliens are in respawn cue and then its game over and ammo spam is ok.

Also, the commander doing this for the third time in a row we were able to stop him. Attacking the base though is impossible with 3 ips and beacon. But all though we stopped them from kill our hive they had too many rts and aliens wasted res on lerk and o chambers by hive not at startegic locations.

PG rush has and always will be effective. However you need your team do do what you say. Good in clan games.

Problem : RFKs. When you're attacking the hive , the marines tend to die more often than the aliens do... which gives them enough RFKs to evolve to fade/onos soon destroying the PG , or build an other hive.

IP rushes were deadly in 1.04 , but much less now. Using a PG to reach the hive basically makes it a delayed IP rush , so the aliens are likely to have better tech (full upgrades while your marines have none !) and hive assaults are too messy to use shotguns effectively (marine dies with shotgun , his pal takes the now emptied weapon and dies stupidly)

The 3rd IP is worth 2 shotguns , so if you have the ressources for such a strat it's better to just give a pack of them when the PG goes up so the hive dies in seconds without much trouble.

This tatic won't work because your marines won't have any upgrades meaning a basic skulk will have no trouble slaughtering them, esp. with upgrades like carapace.

Also as soon as two hives come up and fades and lerks you are all screwed and it will just be a mass slaughter of marines

That would depend on if they're average pub nublar, or above-average pub person.

Anyway, this is just one of many rush tactics, may or may not work. If the other team is prepared, you're screwed, but otherwise you got a quick win. Short game, less fun for everyone, but if winning is more important than the fun, sure, go ahead.

NOTE: this might be fun if you totally own the other team(for opening a window). But chances are that winning is less fun than any other kind of win.

This works on pubs for one reason: aliens don't know how to deal with pressure. What you should do is ignore the marines by your hive as much as you can, and stick to your original plan.

I'm willing to bet that when the aliens lost, half the team had 70 res or more. This strat is very analogous to my usual pub strat, but I spend the money on motion tracking instead of phase gates, since that much pressure is overkill.

Contrary to what someone else said earlier, you won't see many phase rushes in clan games, unless the aliens are completely outmatched. Phases need to be held by at least one marine; it's far too disorienting to have to rush through and then immediately engage in battle. This ends up meaning phases are used to hold an area, maybe to delay alien expansion, until the marines are ready to advance whenever.

You're going to get supremely stuffed if the aliens see it coming. Out-spawning them is great fun because it allows the aliens to get insane RFK, and since all your boys are in base they'll have the run of the map and more than enough resources to lame you into your own spawn.

I see it ending up more as a "turtle and wait for the aliens to get bored" strat. Once the aliens nail the third hive, you'll have to contend with Xeno, which will kill marines in big amounts very quickly, you lose your spawn advantage, and your base gets totalled.

Rushes are great but need a lot of coordination and most of all the element of surprise. Anyone seeing this coming will be able to shut it down quite quickly.

try adding mines to this strat
I know no one uses mines on pub, but they really help you
defend the pg, + pu them around the hive and skulks will be easier to hit
when they are watching out for mines.

Any thoughts?

Eh. Since the commander can pretty much do this kind of thing whenever he wants, it's better to just go about business as usual, capping nodes, upgrading etc etc. Then, you see somebody close to the hive, send them a waypoint, try to get phase up, drop shotguns( at least a few), have them phase through, and eliminate the hive.

The problem with the strat you described, is most of the aliens are to be dead. This is bad, because in order for it to be effective, you need to be killing aliens. With what I described, most of the aliens will be playing as usual, running around the map, and it will minimize your chances of failure. This is why normal phase rushes are so effective, there is little to no resistance when you start attacking the hive.

? no Observatory without Armory...
as far as i know...

This can work though it's fairly risky because if you lose the PG at any other time than straight away you've fed the aliens a load of RFK which they will then use to completely whup your un-upgraded ****.

The problem is simply : LMG 'rines on the offense tend to die alot more than Skulks. So unless you get really lucky and wipe out 80% of the Alien team and send them into the spawn queue of dewm, it won't work.

The other problem is of course the aliens don't need to kill your PG to win out of that situation - as long as they can handle your assault up to about the 5-6 minute mark, they're fine and will have expanded more than your lone res runner can :/

Some people are talking about full upgrades second hive and higher lifeforms. WTH I said to do this immediatley. That means pg up at both ends in 2 min. they would be lucky to have 3 chambers of one type up and only if this fails would they have time for gestating to a fade or ono. Even if the marines get slaughtered the respawn 3 to 1 and if all are dead you can beacon.

This tactic sounds way too risky: it's based on the fact that the 'Rines are cooperative, are skilled enough to take down multiple aliens w/o armour/weapons upgrades, and the Alien team is incompetent.
Personally, I build 2 ip's, armoury, tf, and 2 Sentry turrets...get some res, get an Arms Lab + Observatory, set down some defense in one of the empty hives, then PG rush the other hive(s) with shotties.
Early-game rushing can be very effective. I found this out by accident when I unknowingly sent my 'Rines into the Alien's starting hive.
P.S. Make sure, if you can afford it, to have a "Rambo-team"; 2-3 'Rines (preferably above-average/Vet) that essentially function as your Scouting-unit: dropping RT's, building defence at choke points, while the rest of the 'Rines use good-old brute force on a Hive. This strategy makes it very hard for the Aliens, because IF your main Rine force is utterly destroyed (as it often is), they can phase in to one of the various "scouting-posts" and quickly regain the area they lost (better yet, attacking the OTHER hive, which most likely the Aliens will be unprepared for).
I comm the game as, imo, it was meant to be commed...no blind rushes, no uncalculated risks; that is what the majority of NS players already do. Your job is to stem this rambo-ness, redirecting their fury into a efficient and effective team. Although early-game PG-rushing does that (in a minimal way), it doesn't adress the fact it's NOT FUN: If you (Rines) lose the rush, then the Aliens will likely return to your base in full-force with some bad hangovers. If the Rines win the rush, the game is over...sounds a little like Combat?

No offence either chief but within 2 minutes they WILL have second hive up, and failing that all 3 chambers for their first choice. No matter which they pick, chances are you're going to get caned.

Second, while PGing that first hive, they can still afford to send one guy out to lame up the second hive - fully prepared for your PG assault. You won't be able to spare a team to send out, and leaving that hive alone will only give them the time they need to get it built. And when they spawn back in, your game is up.

Nice strat but at the end of the day its a rush and rushes fail miserably if not achieved within the first minute.

A single good lerk can put a stop to this! Spores + unupgraded marines = dead rines.

Well, except that spores aren't actually lethal. They're just an annoyance.

well, i say that if you get all the aliens in the respawn que and all the marines in the hive this is a great strat. otherwise it wont work. one good gorge can cap most of the map while you take out the hive. myself, personally, would deal with this easily. just attack marine start. someone spawns and trys to kill you? spawnkill them. 3 people spwan at once? i can handel that on the rare occasions my ping drops under 500. distress becon half the team? fine, i'll hide behind the CC and make them chase me. if you get enough marines back to start to kill me, then the PG is underdefended and is going to go down. if you dont then your base gets munched by a single skulk.

It is immpossible to get a hive up in 2min(takes a little over 3min in 6v6) and one gorg might have 3 chambers built by then. Also, when you build the pg(semi close to hive) there are going be some gorgs a good distance from the hive and some skulls messing around. No one goes lerk anymore at the begining and even if they did they suck in ns thsi is not combat where they get 6 upgrades. They will only have one. So when you are playing 6v6 expect 2 gorgs away from the hive and 1 skulk on other side of map thats 5v3. By the time the others come back the 3 aliens should all be dead and you should have 5 marines alive.

PLEASE think before responding to this post. Even when the aliens new the comm was going do this 3 times in a row they won everytime. One time we were able to put up the 2nd hive, but I yelled at that person. Why??? Lets see are first hive dead 2nd is not up yet and he could have gone fade. NOOB

Let's see. It will probably take about 10 seconds to build the observatory (2 marines not starting at the same time). It takes 45 seconds to upgrade phase gates. If you sent marines right to the alien hive and they met no resistance, they might be able to start building the pg immediately, which will take them about 5 seconds, with ip's and a pg being built at marine start. Oh yeah, it also costs 125 res to build all of this stuff, which you won't have that quickly. So, it will probably take about a minute and a half to actually get this set up, with no res to do anything in case it doesn't work out. With your estimate of 3 minutes to put up a hive, that gives you 4 and a half minutes to kill their first hive (including building time of the second hive). If the aliens can't figure out what is happening, then I guess it could work. You said you couldn't stop it even when you knew it was coming. I can't believe that you can't have a 2-skulk ambush team waiting on each side of the hive to disrupt the incoming marines before they build the phase gate, or even an OC. Also, if all 5 marines are moving in this group, then it is about the 2 minute mark before marines even get there to start building the pg. If there is a good fade on the team, they will come and tear up the unupgraded marines, and a second hive will soon be going up.

keys to beating a NO ARMS LAB pg rush:

1) build 3 sensory chambers in a network covering the path marines want to rush through

2) get focus

3) kill marines in 1 bite

4) laugh

5) laugh

6) laugh

7) win


This only applies if marines are going WITHOUT armor 1, if marines go for armor 1 asap or you just dont like sensory do this:

1) set up lots of ambushes in active areas, if 6 marines leave base and you kill 1 at each intersection, by the time they reach the hive they will all be dead, or there won't be enough to secure a pg.

2) get several nodes. if marines are focusing hard on the main hive it should be easy to have a quick res flow without defending nodes.

3) get 3 defense chambers. If possible hide them in such a way that they will be relatively safe yet heal areas where marines want to hold. If that is not possible get them by the hive so it is harder for them to rush in and win.

4) get fades, a single good fade has a good chance of slowing down the marine team because they can't afford alot of arms lab upgrades or shotties when they spent extra on fast phase and extra ips instead of nodes. The key thing to remember is that the fade's job is to DELAY, and STAY ALIVE, don't try to be a hero and kill all the marines at once. Try using blink to cause trouble in marine start, anything you can think of to make them react to you instead of following their original plan.

5) get more hives

6) win

Sensory would beat this strat and if you wait for levl 1 armor someone could go fade and kill your team, but I still dont think you can get a hive up in 2min. 1 rt gives your team 1 res every 4 seconds. So if there was a rt for every member of your team that would be 15res a min. 2min is 30 res plus the 25 starting res. You would have to kill 3 marines in 2min, but wait you have to build rts first to have everyone have their personal rt and you have to go to a hive a gestate into a gorg. So, unless you can kill 10 marines in the first 1.5min then rush to a hive to gestate and put down the hive it is IMPOSSIBLE. A fade cost less than going gorg and placing a hive it is impossible for your team to have a fade after only 1.5min. If it was possible you could just have 2 regen fades rush base after marines leave and start getting rts in the first 1.5min and marines would never EVER win.

Also, you would have to not only go sensory, but you would have to place them at the hive and toward the marines start, which is something you might not do if you dont know the marines are going use this strat and they may kill you if you try to go too close to their base.

If this tactic fails that forced the aliens to use sensory as their first upgrade so elec all your rts will insure that they will not be taken down and you wont have to worry about fades. I would immediatly recycle the base pg and 1 or 2 of the 3 ips and start getting rts and elec them.

I tired this the other day. Here is what happened.

I dropped mines around the phase gate to defend it while the marines went and killed.

The marines were slaughtering the aliens at first. When they died and respawned, they (Unfortunately) would hump the armory till they had 250 ammo. This allowed the Aliens to respawn.

Then the marines got together and decided to attack only the hive, and not the aliens.

The game lasted 13 minutes with just them having one hive. At the 14 minute mark they had a second hive and a fade. All the while the marines were complaining. I had researched grenades for them to use.

Point: Due to armory humpage, we lost since they spent so much damn time in base just humping away. Next time I try this I'm gonna recycle the armory so they will hopefully directly phase through. I'll post my results later today.

Well hidden skulks on scount duty can put a quick end to your attempt to a PG rush, and you'll have a major setback, with no armories to heal marines/give ammo. And they don't even need SCs to hide that well too.

Even if you did have an armory, the RFK gained by the aliens will put you in a bad position assuming you have not capped any nodes yet and they slaughter all your marines. But that would be suicide anyway.

Besides, anything that appears as a moving yellow circle on hivesight = food, so make the best out of your parasites!

Just an analogy from an alien player's point of view. And yes it's possible to slaughter 10 marines in the first 1.5 mins of the game, but it's close to impossible anyway, they would call you a h4xx0r.

BTW, SCs won't work too well, because you can still hear the sloshing sound of RTs even when it is cloaked (and average alien players know that) so they could presume that countering phases with SCs is not the brightest idea. Better alternative against it is MCs first (extra speed = harder to hit skulk)

When the marines get in the hive the aliens can no longer "ambush" and I am counting on the 3 to 1 respawn ratio meaning the aliens have to kill 3 times as many marines, which makes it hard. The key is a good spawn camp, but as pointed out pub people are noobs and the guy who tried had armory humpers and no one spawn killing. 4 spawn kill 1 shoots hive with sg(sg given out after all aliens in cue), commander spams hp and ammo.

The FASTEST I have ever seen the 2nd hive dropped is 2:45 in 6v6, which I consider to be a fluke. Most of hte time, a rushed 2nd hive builds between 3:30 and 4:00.

Furthermore, to those who suggest that sensory would beat this strat is utterly correct, sensory tends to own pgs. I know that as comm, the most effective counter to sensory involves neither an early arms lab or early obs (although a cloak walk rush is a risk), but involves early HA / electricity.

the whole point of this is to end the game quick.

I see alot of the people here are assuming that this game would go on. If the rush fails the game is lost. simple as that, and if you can't kill that hive within the first couple of minutes then you didn't *rush* and have failed. If your sly enoughy you could have a marine slinking around the map getting RT's and start to tech, but the whole point is to rush. This would be an effective pub strategy, and in the hands of an actually organized / trained team it would be interesting to see the effects.

I've used IPrushes alot...Im not comm, im grunt....footie ........and although I find that if your team has skills then the only thing I ever encountered that halted the advance was: Cheaters (damn them), SC ..damn cloaking-focus-combi......and if the comm places the IPs next to each other...I can easily cover 3-4 IPs as skulk unless Im accidently telefragged...as long as the IPs are close to each other!!

As for SC.....it works GREAT!!!!....an SC in the hive area, and one that covers the PG area (in a vent I would assume) + a third so they cloak fast!!!

2 gorges in the hive is VERY handy....heal-spray for the hive, hard to kill (hive heals them, they have cover + backup) and spit v no upgrades...thats not impossible......3 spit = 1 bite, and as cover-fire for the skulks its nothing less than PERFECT.......

Thats dead marines.....

Ofcourse there is a small idea that I use against this.....marines make LOTS of noice....aliens do too....
IF the aliens dont make noice, its because they are sitting still....so just take your lmg and spray the path you are gonna walk in...your lmg can cover alotta grounds with 50 beans, and reloads quickly.....

Ofcourse Ive been at IPrushes in PCWs...I remember some detailed ones.....5 of them in fact ...but Ive been in many more

2 went as planned, we all stormed/sneaked to main hive..relocated and went in and pounded the hive...3 IPs....CC....and once we were expecting SC, so we got obs asap, other time armory....

1 time we stormed there......and suddenly on the way there....snap, snap, snap 3 parasites and all aliens knew the idea....they were in hive in NO TIME...we relocated outside, and had mere luck that they tried to rush us together....6 dead aliens and we could spawnkill them.....2 IPs, 1 CC, 1 TF and two sieges as fast as we could get it...hive poof

1 time we got there....and we got the IPs up...and then 4 skulks came...3 died and 1 spawnkilled us all cause the IPs were too close..........the comm got out and kileld it, but that skulk had gotten 11 frags by then...and we found out later that he had been getting a hive as soon as he spawned...........(25 res start, 22 res for 11 kills with 2 average res/kill......:S.... = 47....and with RT(s)......****...)

1 time, my nightmare, SC.....1 in hive, 3 total ..this was 2.0 so it was without focus...and we still got Pwned...totally......aliens could walk right in...even though we had an obs up at IPrush-point (sewer in ns_caged), we were in room next to sewer, (not at RTspot)........we got knocked over by ppl whom we owned in any form of normal combat............but these guys had a lerk behind them sporing the IPs.....not fun if its like all the time....1 gorge who did spit on the walk-way to the hive...and then some very irritating skulks who never gave up........they had 3 hives before we even killed the SC in their hive......so we got Pwned.....and that by ppl whom we would pwn in any other way...we just wanted to end the PCW quickly.......it ended 2-2 after they did a succesfull baserush in ns_veil....and we all realized we needed more training
An important thing: they were clever enough to have 2 skulks go to marine start and finish off the RT + CC....no res at all except from what we got from kills....kinda bad since we didnt kill much............

Just a thought... this might cost too much res... but with an armory you could add shotguns and nades into the mix - both deadly against hives. One 1337 with a sg could hold the pg while the team pummels the hive.

But that's probably too res intensive. I'd say a good rush though in that time juuust before the fades show up.

oi... this is just rushing...

to those of you who don't understand

a) there will be no time for fades to appear
b) there will be no aliens going elsewhere to put up more hives
c) your lone marine slinking around getting rts won't have enough time to build more than 2
d) all your res went into ips, shotties, or medspam
e) the phase-gate just means you're a little slower getting there, but it also means you're a little faster getting set-up once you're there

If a, b, c ,or d DID NOT happen then that is not a rush. That's just trying to make a forward base sometime later in the game.

e is just a slight variation. Doing this means you'll drag out the endgame, and teh eventual alien win, because you've wasted all your starting res, and the aliens got a whole buncha RFK. If you did NOT waste all your starting res, then what kinda rush did you try?

and why the hell would you need to defend the pg? either
a) your marines are not dying, and are all shooting the hive, meaning you just won
b) your marines are dying, in which case the ones phasing back are enough to defend it

addenum::

The aliens do not have time to put up any sort of defense.
The marines do not have the res or time to tech anything (even PGs waste 65 res getting set-up. I'd rather just reloc outside thier hive and pummel it like that, using the 65 res for an armoury and 5 shotties)

This is all supposed to happen in the first 2-3 mins. If it doesn't then it's not a rush. It's just the same old pressure on a hive (who doesn't actually drop a pg when they're attacking a hive mid-late game?) Which you'd have to be stupid not to do.

Side note: In the time frames you guys are talking about, (4-5 mins) the element of surprise is totally lost, and a rush now just means that the aliens second hive will be lamed up well. If fades come into the equation, it's already too late.

He said the aliens couldn't stop it even when they knew it was coming. I don't care how committed a rush it is, if aliens are expecting it, then they have time to get OC's, and either a SC near where the PG will go, or DC's near the hive, and possibly a lerk. Therefore, this rush should not work against aliens that are expecting it.

If the aliens know it's coming, and have those minutes to prepare a well thought out defense, then it's a damn bad rush. Even it they notice you right when you leave the base, it's less than a minute to the hive. sometimes less than half a minute.

The reason relocating is not as good as pg b/c at the begining of the game all the aliens are at the hive and coming toward you. It will be very hard to setup cc by hive with no reinforcements. You can spend the first min building and let the aliens move out some plus a pg takes far less time to build then a cc plus 3 ips and if your whole team is dead you can beacon and have a pg to the hive.

The reason why this is hard to defend against(considering you have descent marines) is the massive respawn rate. If a o chamber is put down its only good against 1 or 2 marines. 6 marines will rape it in a sec. A lerk can gas the marines but if he tries to bite he will die. Remember the aliens have to kill at least 3 marines every time they repsawn and they can not allow their reinforcement cue to get large. If both teams have a large cue the marines can beacon and then it will be 6v2.

Never give out an armory. The marines will hump it and they WILL die faster than they can use all ammo. When the aliens are all in cue then ammo spam you should have the res by then.

I like the basic principle of the strat but I think you have to include upgrades, at the very least armor 1. Definitely recycle the armory though.

Btw whoever said hive in 2 min lies unless playing 5v5 or less. Btw the larger the teamsize the more effective a rush like this is.

as i said before, this works perfect if you can get all the aliens into que. if you cant, then they WILL run around and destroy you. either they get a second hive, or they take out your PG, or they sit next to your ip's and spawnkill you. or, if there are enough of them outside the hive, all three. and if you distress becon and pull everyone back to base, then that gives the aliens in the que getting spawnkilled time to recover or take out your PG on that end.

You can get upgrades going while doing this. That way if there is a tie where it seems no one is gaining ground then all of a sudden level 1 armor WTH I bit him 2 times noooooo.

Using a phase gate means that it is a slow rush. It takes 45 seconds to research phase gates, plus building the observatory, plus building phase gates at two locations. That is enough time for a skulk to get to your base, see that all you have is an observatory, then set up an ambush position. So, even if the marines can get to the hive in under a minute, if they want to take advantage of their superior spawn rate, it will take about a minute for this rush to begin, assuming that everything works flawlessly.

3 ips = 60 res 2 pg + ob + research=65 res the armory needed would be recycled. 125 res is not hard to get within 1.5min considering you start with 100. So you can have everything up and people phasing through at exactly 2min. Build the ob before ips to increase speed rate.

The rest of res should be spent on med packs and ammo. If you have an armory they will hump it. The whole arms lab thing is only if after 2 minutes you are keeping the aliens in the hive but cant get in there and kill it and the aliens cant get to your pg.