Any Natural Selection 2 heads out there?

DeVore

Have been playing this with what little spare time I have and its REALLY good when you have a good team behind you.

Any Irish community/clans out there?

DeV.

SeantheMan

DeVore wrote: »

Have been playing this with what little spare time I have and its REALLY good when you have a good team behind you.

Any Irish community/clans out there?

DeV.

Yeah, we set up a STEAM group, only 4 of us in it though :P
Grimey is mad for it :P

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/BoardsNS2

DeVore

Cool, im devoreie

tuxy

I had cured my online gaming addiction a few years ago.
Natural Selection 2 has undone all that.
I normally go Aliens because everyone wanted to be Marines at first. Now I think the onos is a bit OP and I might give marines a go, they could do with the help.
Love the level of communication you can find on public servers, not many games like that. Small enough community too so I'm getting to know lots of players.

If anyone want to add me on steam it's cspelman@oceanfree.net
Don't mind having that email public, I stopped using it years ago but it's still my name on steam.

Canis Lupus

If the alien command can drop an onos egg asap coupled with someone who can use it AND a sensible gorge it's lights out for the marines. They just won't be able to get anything done with the onos harassing them. Won a good few games that way now.

tuxy

Canis Lupus wrote: »

If the alien command can drop an onos egg asap coupled with someone who can use it AND a sensible gorge it's lights out for the marines. They just won't be able to get anything done with the onos harassing them. Won a good few games that way now.

Yes that's exactly the problem, I hope it's fixed soon.

Canis Lupus

tuxy wrote: »

Yes that's exactly the problem, I hope it's fixed soon.

Meh, I prefer playing Aliens anyway :P

Wossack

didnt spot the steam group - must join that this evening

strat

nice wan, jumped in that group there now. crackin game

DeVore

re: Aliens and Onos...

I think the same can be said for an Exo and a welder... really, its astonishingly hard to stop those feckers...
My belief is that since most new players are going to start out with Marines, it might be that the Aliens are slightly more likely to be experienced players and aware of the need for teamplay. 3-4 Marines with basic weapons can take down an Onos , and if they spot the Gorge nearby (and he has to be very near!) they can kill him in 2 seconds flat. Most of the time I've been playing as Aliens has been as Gorge and its amazing how few of the Marines target me in a big fight...

Really enjoying the teamplay aspect of this, a good team of mediocre players will slaughter a team of uncoordinated ninjas...

Wossack

dont know if its an exploit or not, but had a game last night there with a guy in an exo with about 5-6 MAC's stuck beside repairing him... practically impossible to kill..! so cheap

Grimebox

I'm currently completely addicted to this game. I am a lot more fond of aliens because its a lot easier to improve as them. Marines is fairly standard fps stuff with only added positioning needed to be taken into account. Skulk, Fade and Lerk are each incredibly difficult to master. Only after 80 odd hours do I feel somewhat competent with the Skulk. Have barely scratched the surface with Fade or Lerk. Gorge is worse than the original imo. The addition of the alien commander means the gorge is no longer the primary builder. They are essential for taking new hives, supporting an onos push but that's about it. I used to be primarily a gorge in ns1 so now I am disappointed with their lack of utility. Onos is simple enough, just don't get trapped, don't die. Onos can be incredibly useful at forcing the marine team to distress beacon back to their main base to counter a strong marine push.

I've been playing gathers via this site recently: http://www.ensl.org/

I got fed up of people going off doing whatever they felt on public like rather than trying to get some cohesion going. One warning though if you try those gathers, the guys who play them are good! I was doing fairly well on public then regularly did the worst in those gathers. Now I sometimes come second to last

There are some fantastic creative strats to try out for aliens, but not so much marines in my opinion. Aliens can try going shade off one hive, losing the first fight on purpose, cloaking, creeping into the marines base, wait for all the marines are gone and chomp the commander center. Hilarious stuff. You can try putting cysts down into the marines base, putting down a few shifts inside there base then spawn a billion eggs in their base while have everyone attack/spawn right on top of them. Absolute chaos ensues if you pull it off correctly.

dont know if its an exploit or not, but had a game last night there with a guy in an exo with about 5-6 MAC's stuck beside repairing him... practically impossible to kill..! so cheap

Like any strategy game, the answer doesn't lie in tackling that exact situation, you must prevent your opponent getting into that situation. Constantly deny resource towers all over the map as skulks. Never ever defend, offence is the best defence, and that has never been as true as it is in this game. But bile bombs would also work :pac:

Here's the other thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056794303

We should get 8 of us together with mics and have some fun on public servers if anyone is interested.

tuxy

Wossack wrote: »

dont know if its an exploit or not, but had a game last night there with a guy in an exo with about 5-6 MAC's stuck beside repairing him... practically impossible to kill..! so cheap

Kill the MAC's they go down fast

As for exos, skulks can take care of the welders fast and bile bomb destroys the exos.
2 or 3 good alien players can take down an exo no problem.
It often takes a coordinated attack using about 5 marines to take a onos. Unless they have jetpacks. One jetpack can give onos lots of trouble. It's just onos egg normally comes long before jetpacks.

DeVore

Not any more, onos now requires 3 hive for eggs to be dropped.
At 75 points, they are expensive glass cannon...

Canis Lupus

DeVore wrote: »

Not any more, onos now requires 3 hive for eggs to be dropped.
At 75 points, they are expensive glass cannon...

Was only a matter of time. That should balance things out a bit more even if I did enjoy it when I was on the aliens side

DeVore

I think they need to do something similar with Exos... played a game last night where we had to deal with about 15 of them without Onos, despite out resourcing the Marines they just kept pumping them out. Fade's are too expensive to use against Exos. They get ripped up. Lerks are useless, might as well fire needles at a tank and Gorge will get rushed easily, so it comes down to a skulk rush (which to be fair, is pretty funny to watch!)

All the 'rines commander needs to do is drop 3 Exo's for his team and flush out any alien players with enough res to go Onos and then the aliens are pretty much at the Exo's mercy. 3 Hives is pretty much game over for the Marines as it is. if they've let the aliens get three hives up, they're pretty sh*t to start with!

Grimebox

DeVore wrote: »

I think they need to do something similar with Exos... played a game last night where we had to deal with about 15 of them without Onos, despite out resourcing the Marines they just kept pumping them out. Fade's are too expensive to use against Exos. They get ripped up. Lerks are useless, might as well fire needles at a tank and Gorge will get rushed easily, so it comes down to a skulk rush (which to be fair, is pretty funny to watch!)

All the 'rines commander needs to do is drop 3 Exo's for his team and flush out any alien players with enough res to go Onos and then the aliens are pretty much at the Exo's mercy. 3 Hives is pretty much game over for the Marines as it is. if they've let the aliens get three hives up, they're pretty sh*t to start with!

Yeah that 3 hive onos doesn't make a great deal of sense. Its nice to see them try to balance it but like you said, if aliens have 3 hives its already game over.

Fade's are very underpowered to be honest. They are effective in early game but that's about it. 3/3 marines take too many hits to take down. They have no chance vs an exo, complete mismatch there. They need a health/armour buff in the late game somehow.

Lerks are actually quite effective against exos using their needles. Obviously the exos need to be distracted by skulks or onos.

It's strange, since playing more competitive games, I have only seen a handful of exo's being built in around 50 hours of play. They go down so damn quickly when aliens coordinate effectively. Jetpacks seem so much more effective since they only cost 10 res.

Shiminay

I found that as a cloaked Skulk I can get in behind an Exo and take it without a huge number of problems, you just gotta keep moving to make sure you're out of their field of fire.

Wossack

can firmly attest to the annoyingness of a few skulks nibbling your ankles as an exo! I dont go anywhere now without my flamethrower equiped welder buddy

DeVore

I agree, I think we'll see a move to jetpacks more and more.

Mind you, as an Onos last night in the Onos Bar (low ceiling!) I took one jetpacker out by jumping on a table and leaping at him and timing the strike just right... the response in chat was hilarious!!

Jetpackers cant stay up forever too, I hunted a few down just by waiting for them to fall last night... hard with an Exo about but in that case better to bug out and call it even.

DeVore

Wossack wrote: »

can firmly attest to the annoyingness of a few skulks nibbling your ankles as an exo! I dont go anywhere now without my flamethrower equiped welder buddy

those are the tastiest... they come pre-heated, like pop-tarts!

tuxy

I think jetpack were always the way to go and a better use of resources but not many seemed to realise.

DeVore

They neutralise Skulks almost entirely. Fades are pretty useless against them too. Lerks of course can attack them but by that stage the marines have upgraded armour too, so it takes a good while to kill one. Onos can deal with them quickly on the ground but if there are more then one, it gets very hard.

The aliens dont have an easy answer to jetpacks, other than Lerks who will be targetted by them pretty quickly!

Grimebox

Reduced Onos Gore range by 0.5 meters.

Makes jetpacks even more viable

Zith

DeVore wrote: »

The aliens dont have an easy answer to jetpacks, other than Lerks who will be targetted by them pretty quickly!

Leap for skulks is a great leveller with jetpacks. You can almost see the desparation in the marines eyes as his fuel starts to run low...

*leap* *chomp*

Fair enough a shotgun/jp rine with decent aim can prove more challenging but in the end they are all just ragdolls on the floor for a good skulk.

Wossack

the ole leaping ono's devour from ns1 was a personal favorite like mr miyagi catching a fly with chopsticks

shame it hasnt made a (higher resolution, yuk!) reappearance!

DeVore

The problem late game with Skulks is the armour and weapons upgrades along with the cheap jetpacks. It turns skulks from being an awesome starting lifeform for Aliens into basically a wimp looking for undefended resource nodes.... Leap isnt really enough to make up the difference with shotguns, more armour, more damage and flight!

I think what most people are not realising on the servers is that this is an RTS at its heart and whoever quickly moves to harvest those and deny the opposition their expansions, is in a great position to win. More games should be won within 5-10 minutes than really are imho.

Whats the IPC channel for getting some clan games? Because I'm finding my enjoyment is now getting dependent on having a good commander and good team mates...

Canis Lupus

Lerks are good when attacking exos if you spore all over the place and deny the exo welding. Silence rather than camo is most important with a skulk. It's amazing how much people rely on sound to locate you. It's more effective on the exo I think as well.

Fades piss me off royally... When I'm a marine I can't shoot one for ****. When I'm a fade it's like everyone else is using homing bullets....

Have to say tho Planetside 2 will be taking my time up for a while. NS2 will have to take a back seat for a bit.

DeVore

Man I cant play Fades half as well as I'd like to.... And I'm generally a horrible Onos, but a worse Lerk!! lol.. On the plus side, by dint of dying a lot, I'm now becoming a lethal Skulk and I have always loved playing support characters so Gorge is my favourite.