New (?) bases for Niveus and Nexus6

[zybork]

There are two new (?) kinds of human bases I want to introduce to you for the greater good of the community, one in Nexus6 I tried out recently, one is a base I like to build in Niveus.

A good alien base is one that is not reachable by humans without getting themselves close to the base, that does a maximum hinderence to human movement inside the base, that still functions even when some structures are down and that cannot be ripped apart by a single grenade. Remote eggs are not be neglected in case the primary base goes down.

A good human base now is one from where long ranged weapons can cover the largest possible area without the necessity for the wielder to move, where aliens cannot get close without being noticed (and shot at), that provides good coverance for the armoury at the same time and that allows turrets to be brought to their full effect.

An additional bonus is to be not reachable by tyrants (rarely possible), to be hard to snipe (even less likely possible) and to provide access to the medistation without having to jump over turrets.

I hereby present two bases I found very useful.

The first one I made out of pure desperation during a game in Nexus6. Human team was superior in respect to the abilites of the attackers, but we all know: aliens reach stage 3 and humans are f*cked, especially if they are too dumb to fight as a team, which only too often is the case.

So I shoved the armoury into a corner, placed the reactor in front of it during a minute of relative peace, and then built the rest of the base around it as fast as I could. The result is this:



It proved to be pretty effective. You see, there are three ways for the aliens to attack, A, B and C.



While C only makes sense for snipers, it gives them a hard time for they have to take some time to aim. And altough they tried (a lot...) they could not kill the arm, and fortunately, we always managed to repair the reactor in time. Also, snipers attacking from C are easy prey for all the merry jettards jetting around and deploying their laserguns and massdrivers at them.

A is now a deathtrap for tyrants. Humans can sit in the structures above ground level and gunn'em down, having a perfect line of aim, and thanks to the three turrets on the side, they must turn around if they want to escape. All this reduces the time frame they have to attack to seconds.

B is for our alien friends who attack from the other side, for it has six turrets firing at it: The three between A and B, that one protecting the exposed second telenode, and two on the roof-top.

All in all, the base proved to be very effective, and I only recommend it to you, it appearst to be a hell lot better then the usual cornered human base in the path of the other side of the room.

Now to one of my favorites in Niveus, one I even like more then the one in the garden occasionally:



No alien can approach this base undetected, and a tyrant on a suicide run has exactly five seconds to live the moment it enters turret range if it attacks directly from the front. The turrets will all deploy their fire on it. And even the dreaded snipers are not that dangerous, under the condition that you have at least one or two defenders who are not complete noobs, and that somebody minds to repair the base.

You know, I am not really a fan of that "one telenode per four players"-rule, because usually, I find an additional turret more useful, and if aliens kill humans in a rate so high that the spawning queue gets jammed, you are usually screwed anyway, however, this base allows you to get as many nodes as you like, you may put two on the roof (beware of snipers), two on the floor inside the base, whatever seems fit.



Well, that's it, I there was one thing or two you found useful, happy building!

PS: One good thing about all of them two bases: In order to move to a remote location, you need teamwork, a luxury you usually don't have. These two bases are very close to the maps default ones, so even if rarely anybody supports you, you should be able to move there.

[Geni3]

the niveus base allows for multiple (3-4) rants to attack at once, leaving you dead. A better location is the long red room, they can only come in 1 at time. Nexus base uses more then default buildpoints, and vulnerable to snipers not even jumping onto the middle thing

[Dante]

The Niveus base's main flaw is that your turrets are all in a straight line.  That allows aliens to turret-surf, or jut plain tackle your turret line from one end with a goon or rant, and work their way down the line.  A basilisk can easily clear out the top two turrets, even if the base has defenders camping it.

The Nexus base is worse.  Attack point C is the weakspot that any intelligent dragoon will automatically go for.  They can pick off the 2 elevated turrets, hop over the elevated node and onto the armory, using the reactor as a shield to kill the node and arm if they like, but I personally would just fly over the top and straight onto the Reactor for a quicker win.

I do like the fact that you're thinking outside the box with your Nexus base though.

[Asvarox]

Rant can jump at this middle thing ("C") in nexus (as far i remember i wasn't playing aliens at that map for long) so it can just jump at those rets/nodes.

[zybork]

Dante: Under the condition that you have to move in the same room as the default base is, those bases appear to be the best available.

The Niveus-base ist may be true that the line of turrets are vulnerable, but mind that they can only be attacked reasonably from one side, that would be the the right one (from a base defender's view), the other is blocked by barrels, and the front, well... if you compare this one to literally any other base possible in the main room, you will soon figure out that these base lasts longest of all. So if you can't move elsewhere, go there!

The Nexus-base now is the best you could think of if you have to stay in the main room. I built the base in a devmap and tried to jump the reactor or the armoury. There are two reasonable ways to jump, an advanced marauder, or an advanced dragoon. In my best try, I used a goon+, and when I reached the top of the armoury, I had about 20 (!) healthpoints left, enough for a single shotgun blast or a rifleman spawning right next to the armoury, emptying his magazine on the intruder, and sniping this base is hardly possible. I could not hit the arm, no matter from which spot I tried, and hitting the reactor from intrusion point A is impossible, for the constructions above the path are in the way.

The weak spot of this base however is intrusion point C, and yes, the top turrets are exposed, but on the other hand, no rant can likely attack from C, because if it tries, it will be in a straight line of fire for almost its entire attack run, and if it jumps down to B, it will already have its health depleted enough to be easy prey for defenders, one in the air lasgunning, another on the ground chainsuiting the tyrant.

A is now the point that makes least sense to attack, for the attackers will be lined up in a nice queue, also, a defending chainsuit can go upstairs and jump behind them, putting them between hammer and anvil.

All in all, provided your team failes to move to a better place (and with Nexus, show me one that is less exposed and easier to defend within a range of half a minute from the main base), those appear to be the best choices available. To make a good base without a reactor move however is always impossible in these maps.

[koles_do_grania]

but this base use more than standard bp.
which of 2 turrets will you remove to make this base well defended?

[zybork]

The two on the roof.

[zybork]

I just played on satgnu (with standard-buildpoints), using the low-corner human base in Nexus6, and altough the layout got altered a bit, it held formidably, here is a screenshot:



What shall I say, it was a miracle! The base is pretty hard to snipe, because snipers attacking from corridor (point A, see first post) can't snipe because of the buildings above the corridor, and snipers from point C have a hard time to aim, the moment they are close enough to aim properly they can fended off easily. We also had a tyrant attack from point A that failed!

I am aware that this base is not flawless, and the nodes went down frightenly fast, also, once the armoury got down, however, the arrangement of the reactor protecting the arm and the arrangement of the turrets proved excellent.

Amongst all bases imaginable in the big room, this is for sure the best. I did not see any other base in that location that held Hs1 against As3 so long. We eventually even won, as more players joined and we had some good ones in our team who could bring down the alien base.

Recommendation for this "in the low corner"-base.

[Urcscumug]

I've been trying out the Nexus6 base on servers of various skill level. (My apologies to those who I've put in less than funny situations.)

Verdict: no. Now for the long story.

It does have some good parts. It will hold well against an alien team of low or medium skill. It will hold well if the human team is dominating so aliens can't mount a full scale attack on it. It can even hold for a reasonable time under constant siege, provided full-time builders.

Then again, you can probably say all these things about any half-decent base. I guess it means it's not a bad base.

But it's not a great base either. Reasons become apparent after several experiences. Consider the big human default room in its entirety. What you're doing is moving from a high point, with easy access to both exits and good visibility, to a low spot, crammed in a corner, with easy access to only one exit, yet vulnerable from three directions (A, B, C above). Reaching the other exit requires a long trip up to the platform and down the other side. Visibility is poor. Etc.

Yes, C is still particularly vulnerable, because advgoons will snipe the hell out of it, shooting in an arch over the central tank. They don't even have to climb up, they can do it from the opposite room entrance. And it will hit the most sensitive structures: medi, RC, arm, nodes. We were forced to place bsuits on turrets to serve as shields, it's that bad.

Is it better then the default location? Yes and no. Assuming the default is rebuilt to a more sensitive configuration, it allows better visibility and the high point. It's easier to keep aliens at the entrances.

Thing is, neither location is particularly great. The default room sucks for humans on Nexus6. But I feel that the default sucks less. Given this, I see no point in risking a move.