Lately when ive been comming, i tend to build more than three IP, usually one for each person on the team.... this seems like overkill, but in certain situations it can help you win....

Marines need to reload, and as a result, are quickly overwhelmed when trying to hold a situation... Several skulks can use timing, cover, and dodging to quickly deplete marines of thier ammo, when this happens, it is usuallt 1-3 bites, which happen in less than a second, and you have one less marine defending this location.

During hive rushes or rushes on alien fortifications this becomes important simply because every marine counts. Without going into too much detail, lets say there are 4 marines at a phase gate, and 2 are reloading, if that 4th one wasnt there, the 3rd one would get owned by the two skulks rushing him, and they would then kill the reloaders most likely, but simply because there were 4 marines instead of three, more likely in that situation, the 4 marines (maybe 3) would still be alive, and both skulks would be dead.

Now lets say in the above sitation, 3 marines die, and 2 aliens die, leaving a lone marine at the waypoint. Most likely those 3 marines will not spawn in, and phase in time to rejoin the battle before the lone marine bites it to the remaning alien forces....


This is where my strat comes into play. Because i have so many IP's, i have a constant wave of troops... Similar to D day (ww2) my troops are "expendble" to a degree in that all they need to do is kill, arcade style and not worry about dying. The fact taht we radically outspawn the aliens takes the above situation and completely reverses it, even with thier stronghold, they cannot expect to hold out against an endless stream of 5-8 marines every 10 seconds (if phase gate is up).

Ive used this strat with disastrous efficiency late game to take down a building 3rd hive, or even to take down a third hive against multiple onos, lerk, fade, ect....


Im posting here not to brag, but to explain my reasoning as best i can because many comms would rather drop another HA suit/hmg/welder (35 res) than get 2 more IP(40 res) when assaulting a hive...

To me it has become a necessity, i never attack a hive with less than 4 ip's, usuallyy 5-7...


Next time you fail an assault against a hive ( a well fought one) look at the scoreboard immediately after, ill bet you 6-1 your respawn queu is huge...

The simple fact is, marines in groups pwn all, 2 marines are 3 times as effective as 1, 3 marines are 3 times as effective as 2, 4 marines, 3 times as effective as 3... and on up.... plain and simple, marines have power in numbers, they NEED numbers to defeat any alien life form other than skulk/gorge......

My strat prevents the numbers from dwindling, because if they do, the marine positon can rapidly be overrun and taken out.......

My theory for this strat goes back to Starcraft, i played protoss mostly, and on shared res maps (unlimited res) the common strat was 12 "unit" buildings", i always went dragoon, and made 24 unit buildings... higher initial cost, but when battle time came, and i had 5 dragoons constantly queued in the queues, i overran my enemies simply because i produced more units than them, and hence overwhelmed them...... The same has worked for me comming in many a NS game


Do i win all the time.... NO.. is it overpowered... actually i believe it is...... try it sometime...

As long as you can keep the marines continually phasing (i like to make it so there are only 2 phase locations... MS and Battle) then you will see how truly overpowering this can be in all but the best alien hands...... Marine Shock troopers in 10 second waves totally obliterates 2 hive aliens.... sometimes even three hive aliens....

And since i get this on servers all the time.... the 3 ip limit thing is no longer present... dont tell me it is.... because ive done this enough to know it no longer is
if i make 9 ip in a 10 v 10 game, ill watch that killboard light up with alien kills MORE than 3 every 10 seconds the whole time (and ill wach ppl spawn in about once a second on average) signifying that all ip's workin normally (no 3 ip cap)........

Take it, Flame it, Discuss it, Try it, Debate it...

~Jason

If you need more the 1 ip for every 4 people on your team then you deserve to lose. Plus if your whole team is dead you can use 15 res to beacon them which you could do 15 times for the price of 10 ips.

you know that D-day was not meant to be that way that lifes were expendable?
Allies had ampibic tanks as mobile shields but they sunk in their boats because of bad weather circumstances so many humans became a shield instead.
Just telling its a BAD comparison.

mass iping always worked as long as there was no defensive reaction from aliens, that are just fast enough for outflanks.

I like this a lot.

The biggest problem i see is that whenever a marine spawns, he is gripped by the urge to get out into the map where he last died. This means that more oft than not, he walks off by himself.

With multiple IPs, though, say, three, you have a squad of three marines constantly spawning and running off TOGETHER.

Good idea, good for pubbing, if not for professionals.

i'm really really really sorry to inform you

but 3 ips is the maximum for spawn rate

which means

if you build 3 ips, 3 marines spawn at a time

if you build 138428303 ips, 3 marines spawn in at a time

if you build 1 ip, one marine spawns in at a time

and so on

Yeah afaik it's an IP to spawn rate ratio. If your whole team jumps off the cliff at the same time and you have an IP for each of them they will respawn in a wave ten seconds later. Not 3 by 3.

But if you need more than three even on a 20 person server, that's really sad.

I still don't know where these newbies hear that 3 IPs is the max. Who the heck keeps spreading these lies? I love having lots of IPs myself,a nd the only reason I don't like it as much as I did back in 1.04 is becuase of r4k. Right now, every time your marines die you feed more res to the aliens. Back 1.04 marines could TRLY use the zergling strategy and just keep pouring in without worrying.

Ya ummm... you should have a really tight budget if you're playing ns properly which means generally a max of 2 ips.

And meatshield you got real issues if you can't build more ips because you're worrying about giving the other team rfk.

He's saying too many IP's give marines an invalid excuse to die

I don't know what it is now, but I believe during one version the IP's were limited to 3 at a time, hence the ongoing rumour.

Just a little tidbit there.

My own opinion? I can't seem much point in past 3-4. The 30 res you spend on an additional 2 would buy Armour 1 for everyone and a Shotgun. Organized marines can use just that to give the aliens a good scare.

- Shockwave

Um...the defualt number of IPs is 2 not 3....
Why you would need an IP for every member of the team is beyond me. That res could be used for shotguns, upgrades, etc.

Sad or not, its LOGICAL. I also do this.

just think. More IPs = faster spawning. Now lets think of worst case scenario.

3 hives, so kharaa spawn fast. We have 4 IPs so we spawn fast aswell..

even if the idiots can totally not shoot, and need a whole clip to finish a skulk, NO PROBLEM. Its not only the more ppl in, the more are shooting.. nono, its the more ppl in, the more are capable of DYING.

if a skulk has to bite 3 or 6 rines to death is a differance. Its not just attack, pure defense aswell.

Don't do this beacon crap. We have relocs, maybe you need to beacon alot (then i prefer IPs) and you can put them around armslab etc. (telefrag protection lol)

Point is, I agree. It helps. Sure, it is sad its needed, but it helps.

To those of you saying stuff like: 'If you need more than X(2-3) IP's to win, you suck', get a brain, it's a totally different type of strat, based on a totally different way of thinking. The entire idea is to simply overwhelm with suicide rushes at a rate so great that even IF the enemies kill all your marines, the're *all* back in 10 seconds, no Shotties, no lmgs, no HMGs, no GLs, just mass suicide rush on the enemy hive. When it comes down to it, 2 things are absolutely effective in large games for your res: Static upgrades(Upgrades that are applied upon spawn, I.E. Weapon/Armor upgrades, MT, Hand Grenades), and a larger ammount of IP's, as they will always boost your team's respawn rate as long as the structure is alive. Dropping a set of shotties in a 12 person server is 110 res, where as in a 6 man clan game, it's only 50, and much more effective, while the entire time it's 1marine:1alien ratio.

Think logically there, Why spend 110 res on shotties that will eventually die(most likely soon, as well) when you could just tack on 7 Ips for that ammount, and raise the respawn rate so high that you can overwhelm you opponent repeatedly at all locations.

Basicly, the idea is Manpower > Tech.

Sidenote: IP's aren't limited to 3/4/X, only limit is the ammount of people on your team really. If you had 2145 marines and 2145 IPs, all could spawn at once, however having 5 Ips and 2 marines, wouldn't be any different than 2 Ips and 2 marines. Anyways, I have wittnessed Jason comming on multiple maps and winning consistently with his strat, it is quite effective, there have even been times where he took down 3 hive aliens with solely rushes, instead of the classic HA/JP GL/Shotty/HMG charge of death.

That is all.

I've done this before. Mainly on Eclipse.

If they spawn in com core I just relocate right outside. Drop comm chair, drop as many IP's as marines minus one (Comm.), and arms lab it up.

The thing is, the IP's need to be relatively close to their hive, in which case you'll have a hard time unless the aliens are fine with the idea you're building a CC and tons of IP's right next to their hive.

How many players per team, usually?

7-10 per team is the usual.....


Not clan play...

From my experience... most pubs are 9v9 (18 players)

I like massing IP's when the game is hopeless and you want a fun last stand, or you relocate to outside of their first hive right at the start.

JASON I KNOW YOU H4x!!

I had the sad opportunity of being on the losing end of one of Jason's streaks the other day. His strat works.

I thought whack a marine was on that one combat map... where there is that ladder at MS with the windows overlooking the big MS room...


Many a time ive seen ppl go up that ladder and CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP one after another the killboard lights up with alien kills.....

~Jason

that is seroiusly jason the dumbest idea that you have come up with yet...

ill try it!

Also, having more IPs than marines will infact help. As you may have noticed IPs have a "recharge" time. Take for example 4 IPs and 2 marines, the 2 marines die, and respawn right away. They die again, they wont be able to use the 2 they previously spawned from as they are still recharging, however they will spawn from the 2 unused IPs quickly.

i want to see a demo of more than 3 marines popping out of an IP at once. even though it says "REIN" doesn't mean they're actually respawning.

The simplest way would be to start up a server with a bunch of bots on, then type "killall" in the console to make them all die at the same time (I think cheats need to be on for that command to work). Then watch what happens.

Nope. Back in 1.04, I remember this one game where the aliens had totally beaten us, and I had, in a last ditch effort to survive, relocated into Generator hive on ns_caged (yay for having no res nodes) and built about 6 IPs. My team size was 8 or 9 I believe, and the result was incredible. With no res nodes (and no rfk because this is 1.04) we managed to hold off the aliens for approximately 3/4 of an hour just because we spawned so damned fast! It was like a beacon every 10 seconds.

Shouldn't this be in Marine Tactics?

As for the 3 IP thing, I think that was introduced in 2.0, and removed in 3.0

the 3 ip thing probably started becuase Aliens can't spawn more than 3 at a time, and alot of games never get 3 ips up.

Back in v2.0 i was on a rine team that recycled everything in base (we was turret farming for a long game) and spent that res on IPs. We won becuase aliens finally gave up aftr countless onos died to the lvl 3 lmgs.

Since no-one seems sure on whether more than 3 people can spawn at once (I believe it's not possible), I will test it tonight

To the best of my knowledge, no more than three marines can spawn at once, even though the score table displays them as 'reinforcing'.

I said "i know" in my original post... cuz ive tested it...

Get like 10 ip down... and ur whole team (prolly only 4-5 will) to suicide at once... watch them all spawn in within seconds of each other...

~Jason

"within seconds" is very different from "do they spawn three at a time or four at a time or five at a time"

your marines could be spawning in 3 at a time. and even though they spawn "within seconds", they're still only spawning 3 at a time.

SDJason and his 11 ip's for 10 marines.

He has no feelings and treats his marines as cannon fodder.

But it is a lot of fun.

Spawn, phase, shoot, die, spawn, phase, shoot, die....repeat.

I guess it's easier than dropping meds and preserving lives.

so, has anyone actually confirmed whether this works or not? cause if it does, more ips. i usually dont drop more than 2 ips.

It used to work, but i havent tested it in b3.5.

Well Ip rush is rather close to MC rush. It is so unusual that it works most of the time; but only because most ppl dont expect it.


Frankly speaking i rarely built more than 2 ips in MS, though a reloc sometimes needs the third/fourth ip if you want to hold your ground.

As alien i usually feel that SC is the right way to counter mass ipm since you wont see armor1 early when 4+ ups are up. OCs can be considered a rather soft counter to mass ip (imho), as long as you make shure that your gorges know how to place ocs.

It is rather hard to tell how to correctly reply to mass ip, since it make the game even more dependend on alien skill. If your mates just keep dieing witheout taking out at least 3 rine before, you will be outspawned and loose.

My vote for the ultimate early mass ip counter goes to the giant box in the hallway from MS to engine on ns_bast. I made 13 kills in a row yesterday as a hive 1 skulk with regen just by sitting on that box and killing the unlucky rines that walked bye. Great time.

Right so what would happen against good skulk players?

I actually remember this one game on ns_bast.

My marines had all run off to engine hive through main aft (this being a pub) without building anything in MS. In main aft they met a full-on skulk rush. The results were predictable. After that I sold the base, dropped a CC under engine hvie (which was their start hive) and proceeded to rambo through the vents (b4a bast) and int othe hive, which was empty as the skulk rush decided it was more important to eat the empty CC than find the last marine.

Suffice to say we had about 9 IPs and the entire team spawned in a matter of about a minute. We then proceeded to LMG the start hive down at a0/w0 whilst the alien team were scouring the map for our relocate.



So yes, mass IPs do work in some situations.