Cost of skulk: 0 res
RFK from skulk: averaged 2 res
Cost of medpack: 2 res
RFK from marine: 2 res
Price of healing for skulk: 0 res

In other words, pure skulk -v- marine battles are advantageous to the Kharaa.

In other words, for the 1st ~4 minutes of the game, if your team is only teching up and capping RTs, you are going to lose. The Kharaa will be teching up and capping RTs, but they will turn a profit from normal fighting.

So...to turn this around, kill RTs. Kill exposed chambers. Doesn't matter if skulks kill 2 of your RTs while you rally your team to kill 1 of theirs. Any marine can recap an RT. Takes 10 res to gorge to cap one for them.

Fades and Hive 2 appear around ~4 minutes with 3-4 kharaa RTs. Killing 1 RT pushes it back to 4:30. Killing 2 RTs pushes it back to ~5 minutes.

When fades and hive2 appears, you'll be assaulting the hive, as usual. But the difference is the Kharaa are down 2 RTs, meaning they cannot get onos and fade again once you down the existing ones.

Remember that. Increase the trade deficient between the teams in YOUR favour. Make the Kharaa pay through the nose, hunt down their RTs, celebrate for each one lost, then dance on the popped balloon when the day is done.

now.....this speaks the TRUTH. though trivial.

i found a lot of rines only go killing aliens, ask for med pack and ammo or hunt for rts, but never knife down aliens structure. it should be noted that marines rt come more easier than aliens one, though both aliens and marines rt cost 15 res

tis true, an alien res tower is worth more then a marine res tower, and yes im completely agree killing res towers is a good strat.

Just dont be so trivial about letting your marines die. Remember say a skulk kills 5 marines. Thats a possible 15 res in rfk and a rediculously early fade.

Everyone keeps thinking it's rts that win the game.
Not true in my opinion. Sure, you do need some rts to keep upgrades and deck out your marines.
But,
The most important thing is locking down 2 hives. Thats the turning point of every game.

I really like the fact you pointed out killing exposed chambers. In an early game it's almost pointless to get up a phase and tf in their active hive, they spawn in and out so often it just tends to be a waste of res and set the marine team back a step.
Whenever I have a lone rine in their hive and I know he wont last, I tell him to gun down whatever chambers he can find.

Right, because locking down two hives is totally feasible and a completely worthy and legitimate strategy both in clan and pub play.











































If you got a two hive lockdown, that means two things.

A. Marines are über elite shots.

B. Aliens are completely incompetent.

Or have completely encompassed one side of the map. Hive lockdowns are smart-they just cost a LOT of res. Res that could be spent on PGs and equipment. Having two hive lockdowns doesn't mean jack if you don't have any res. Touche.

You can still have res and have a two hive lockdown.

You lock down two hives, and the aliens cant get enough upgrades or abilites to effeciently take down rts or take back the hive.

Once you have two hives locked down you can concentrate on res, if your unable to keep a steady res inflow and lock down two hives at the same time, then you've already lost that game.

Marines dont have to be 'uber leet shots' to lock down two hives. If they cap rt's on the way to two unoccupied hives, then lock down the hives, then they're fine. It isnt hard to shoot a skulk, and it isnt hard to kill them at the start of the game either.

As I said, once you have two hives locked, in a pub you'll get a lot of rfk from aliens trying to take it back. And because they cant upgrade enough, you'll get a lot of res from keeping your rts.

I agree that killing alien RTs is the key to winning. If aliens went SC, then scan around the maps and give marines waypoints to where they are. Alternatively, if you see an MC by the hive, kill it with one LMG clip. DCs unfortuately have more hp so they are harder to kill. When aliens have "locked down" double, siege it -- it's usually safer to build sieges and deffend them than trying to walk in and shoot all the buildings.
Have the marines shoot RTs instead of knifing them. When a marines comes up to an RT, drop them 2 ammo packs (2 res) so they have ammo to shoot it down. The only two downsides are that the commander will spend extra 5 seconds of his time and that the marine will be vulnerable while reloading his gun. Still, there are many benefits:
a) Resources: Shooting down an RT will prevent aliens from getting resources because it will die quicker and will allow you to get more resources because the marines will start building the RT sooner.
b) the Aliens will have less time to react to attack so the RT will lose more health. The marine should have time to reload the gun because of hearing the skulk.
c) No armory humping required

On locking down two hives: It is hard to lock 2 hives and even if you do achieve it, you'll need to keep them. If aliens are even moderately good, locking 2 hives will not work because
1) Costs a lot of time
2) Costs a lot of resources
3) Aliens can get many RTs and resources
4) Marine forces are spread out
5) No resources for upgrades and weapons

I'm sure there are other problems with it working and it depends a lot on the size of the game.

I want to give rapier a hug but he just broke both my arms with his ownage of some random noob thread, nice going lets all post unconstructively in the strategy forums forever!

I comm alot of pubs and my usual strat is 2 hive lockdown.

However in competetive play this is pretty much impossible (unless as someone stated earlier the aliens are crap)

I have a hard time commanding competetive in this version. It seems as soon as the aliens get that second hive up, youve had it, double upgrade fades with meta will kill your marines unless your highly upgraded or have HA, which is like impossible to get. Still think marines haev the advantage early game, up untill about the 4 minute mark.

When commanding competetive I do fine up untill about 4 minutes. As soon as those fades pop up, a solo or double team of marines becomes useless, the fade simply picks em off like fish in a barrel. Once the fades pop up, you have to have your marines in at least teams of 3 or 4 to stand any chance.

This limits your control as larger groups cover less ground, making your res towers vulnerable to skulk attacks.

Usually at around 4 minutes I will push for the growing hive. It u dont take down the hive its gg.

Even if you do, youve most probably lost most of your RTs in the process except you will have a few upgrades by then. So its back to sqaure one really.

As you can tell, im not the best competetive comm, but if anyone has some tips Id gladly hear them.

Thinking about this as well, sometimes its worth it to overdrop a marine.

If he's building a phase gate for example, or if him living means a tactical advantage with location.

You got to take a lot into consideration, but I do agree it's always best to be sensible with your dropping.

Also looking into things like taking out alien rt's early game is important. For each rt you knock out your slowing down and from appearing for almost a full minuite.

http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....5&#entry1461388

It's pretty much covered by past posts, but to sum it up:

1) Take position into account when doing the math on a marine's value. It's like chess. A knight in the center is much more valuable than a bishop in the corner. Position, position, position.
2) Meds and ammo are VERY VERY VERY VERY good for morale. They make happy marines, and happy marines tend to obey you.

P.S. Six ammo packs to gun down an rt quicky = teh win. You'll more than make it up by killing 15 res of alien rt (25 if you count the gorging cost) and you'll deprive them of that res. And get a bunch of skulks away from whatever they were doing to save the rt.

Its finals week for me (yes i know most colleges are done by now... -_- ) so I'm just throwing this post out here before i forget about it.

I wanted to create a chart showing damage statistics against a Alien resource tower. Basicly... to assist commanders in knowing if a marine team will be able to take down a RT given X amount of rines with X weapons to use with X amount of time to spare. Assume LvL 0 weapons (since its early game RT hunting I'm concerned with), but if someone would like to do the other weapon upgrades that'd be nice to know as well.

How much time to knife a RT?

How many marines does it take to kill a RT using just one LMG mag per rine?

How many marines does it take to kill a RT using just the LMG mag and pistol mag per rine?

How many full shotty blasts to down a RT?

How many HMG bullets to down a RT?

How many Hand grenades to down a RT? (hey dont laugh! )

You see... it is in my opinion that killing RTs is probubly the most important thing marines can do while waiting for that 2nd hive to drop. The insane gorging cost puts aliens at a huge disadvantage when rebuilding early game RTs.


No res = sad

It takes exactly as many LMG as HMG bullets to kill an RT - namely 300.

alien RT has around 2k HP right?

basically its rts that win most games, if you are alien and nobody builds any rts, but the rines have 3 up already, you have probably lost from the beginning

same thign with marines, if aliens get 3 or 4 rts up while rines have only 1 or 2, aliens will probably win

you KNOW the game is over when any team has locked down the map (EX: double, 2 rts near rine base, 1 hive, and the nearest rt to the hive [hey thats 8 rts right there ])

Alien RT: 2500 hp

To Hand Grenade: 25 Grenades (Instant)
To LMG/HMG: 193-250 Shots. (19.3-25)
To Pistol: 97-125 (19.4-25)
To Shotgun: 12-15 Shots. (15.6-19.5)
To Knife: 84 Swipes. (54.6)
To GrenadeLauncher: 8-10 Shots. (9.6-12)

Obviously all times are excluding reload time.
Theres your stats for ya.


Shotinthehead: I beg to differ, though rts are important, it's the 2 hive lockdown which wins the game. If rines can hold that, then the aliens cant upgrade to high enough liveforms to effectivly kill them and take back the rts. You could elec any you have and not even need to worry about them (In theory)

Keep in mind that the RT heals slowly on its own, so it will take slightly longer. Also, if you have a two-hive lockdown, you still have to make sure aliens don't take over the rest of the map. 7 alien RT's vs 2 marine RT's (assume one is in the combat area so neither team has it) is an alien win, even with a two hive lockdown, if the aliens are any good.

Those stats take into consideration the regen rate. (Atleast the damage calculater does when killing lifeform aliens)

But things like dcs, or random bullets missing will screw it up.
Those are more of less the bare bones.