The Kharaa Resource System For Dummies
Rokiyo
A.K.A. .::FeX::. Revenge Join Date: 2002-10-10 Member: 1471Members, Constellation
A.K.A. .::FeX::. Revenge Join Date: 2002-10-10 Member: 1471Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">... And for the irritated smart people</div> <b><i>Updated to reflect 3.0 changes - Remember that a lot of posts are discussing older versions and may not apply anymore.</b></i>
<b><span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>The Kharaa Resource Model - Classic</span></b>
Kharaa receive their resources in two different ways at the same time:
Method 1<ul><li>Resource nodes collect resources and puts it all into one big resource pool.
</li><li>The resources are split up into equal shares and given out to the players.
</li><li>Note that resources overflow once you have filled up. Any resources you receive when you already have 100 is put back in the pool and given to somebody who can take it.
</li><li>You still receive resources while you are dead. <span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:red'>Needs to be confirmed - may have been removed</span></span>
</li><li>The amount of resources each Resource Tower gives per minute is always the same, so on larger servers you will receive resources more slowly as it has to be split up amongst more players.
</li><li>If someone leaves the game or goes to the ready room, their resources are lost.</li></ul>Method 2<ul><li>Each marine you kill earns you, and only you, 1-3 resources (randomly).
</li><li>Note that resources still overflow. If you have 100 resources then any extra you earn is put into the pool for other players.
</li><li>If someone leaves the game or goes to the ready room, their resources are lost.
</li><li>Offensive chambers that kill marines earn resources for the gorge who built them (even if you've evolved into something else already)</li></ul>Just to be clear, both of these work at the same time, and one method of income will not affect the other in any way.
<b><span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>Experience Points and Levels - Combat</span></b><ul><li>Each time a marine is killed, whoever got the last hit and anybody near him will gain experience from it.
</li><li>The higher the level of the marine killed, the more experience he will give out. This experience is evenly split up among everyone close enough.
</li><li>A team-play bonus is given out at the same time. The more who gained a share of the experience points, the more this bonus will be.</li></ul><b><span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>Quirks explained!</span></b>
<b>Classic:</b> Good players can earn resources faster than other players by killing marines more often. This also means that this player will almost always gain resources faster than any permanent gorge could. Consider earning some resources from kills before evolving into a gorge, or evolving into something else once you have run out of resources so you can earn more again.
<b>Classic:</b> If you are running around with 100 resources, don't worry too much. Any extra you earn is being given to other players, such as the gorges who tend to spend a lot more.
<b>Both:</b> Players who die often and don't kill many marines or destroy many structures will end up helping the enemy more than they help their allies. They earn resources or experience every time they kill you too, so be careful!
<b>Combat:</b> If two aliens team up and kill two marines together, they will have more experience points than if they had each killed one alone (because they would not have gotten that teamplay bonus for either kill). Obviously though, if those two aliens just kill one marine, than they each have less experience than if one of them had made the kill alone (because they each got only half of what the marine was worth, and a bonus on top). A single high level alien can make all the difference in a round if they get there before the marines are ready for it, which you can get if a single alien is getting most of the kills by himself. However pouring all the resources into one alien is risky, because the rest of the team will not be able to keep up with the marines that way.
<b><span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>The Kharaa Resource Model - Classic</span></b>
Kharaa receive their resources in two different ways at the same time:
Method 1<ul><li>Resource nodes collect resources and puts it all into one big resource pool.
</li><li>The resources are split up into equal shares and given out to the players.
</li><li>Note that resources overflow once you have filled up. Any resources you receive when you already have 100 is put back in the pool and given to somebody who can take it.
</li><li>You still receive resources while you are dead. <span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'><span style='color:red'>Needs to be confirmed - may have been removed</span></span>
</li><li>The amount of resources each Resource Tower gives per minute is always the same, so on larger servers you will receive resources more slowly as it has to be split up amongst more players.
</li><li>If someone leaves the game or goes to the ready room, their resources are lost.</li></ul>Method 2<ul><li>Each marine you kill earns you, and only you, 1-3 resources (randomly).
</li><li>Note that resources still overflow. If you have 100 resources then any extra you earn is put into the pool for other players.
</li><li>If someone leaves the game or goes to the ready room, their resources are lost.
</li><li>Offensive chambers that kill marines earn resources for the gorge who built them (even if you've evolved into something else already)</li></ul>Just to be clear, both of these work at the same time, and one method of income will not affect the other in any way.
<b><span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>Experience Points and Levels - Combat</span></b><ul><li>Each time a marine is killed, whoever got the last hit and anybody near him will gain experience from it.
</li><li>The higher the level of the marine killed, the more experience he will give out. This experience is evenly split up among everyone close enough.
</li><li>A team-play bonus is given out at the same time. The more who gained a share of the experience points, the more this bonus will be.</li></ul><b><span style='font-size:11pt;line-height:100%'>Quirks explained!</span></b>
<b>Classic:</b> Good players can earn resources faster than other players by killing marines more often. This also means that this player will almost always gain resources faster than any permanent gorge could. Consider earning some resources from kills before evolving into a gorge, or evolving into something else once you have run out of resources so you can earn more again.
<b>Classic:</b> If you are running around with 100 resources, don't worry too much. Any extra you earn is being given to other players, such as the gorges who tend to spend a lot more.
<b>Both:</b> Players who die often and don't kill many marines or destroy many structures will end up helping the enemy more than they help their allies. They earn resources or experience every time they kill you too, so be careful!
<b>Combat:</b> If two aliens team up and kill two marines together, they will have more experience points than if they had each killed one alone (because they would not have gotten that teamplay bonus for either kill). Obviously though, if those two aliens just kill one marine, than they each have less experience than if one of them had made the kill alone (because they each got only half of what the marine was worth, and a bonus on top). A single high level alien can make all the difference in a round if they get there before the marines are ready for it, which you can get if a single alien is getting most of the kills by himself. However pouring all the resources into one alien is risky, because the rest of the team will not be able to keep up with the marines that way.
Comments
Personally, I will usually build a resource tower first (normally I run to the next hive and do the node there), then I will put up 2 OTs and a DT at each entrance to the hive for a rudimentary defense. Then, another node. Then I save for a Hive.
If there is another gorge, I will tell the other gorge what I am doing and which Hive I am attempting to stake out, and I will usually ask him to shore up the main hive's defenses after he gets 1 or 2 RP towers up. I feel that <i>some</i> sort of defenses are necessary early on, because it's rare in a pub game that you don't find a few rambos running around loose behind your skulk line.
If there is a 3rd or 4th gorge, I'll usually rant a bit to try and get one of them to skulk, and if unsuccessful, leave the game or go marine if teams allow. <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Some more questions:
If you evolve from one of the higher levels to a lower level critter, say from an onos to a skulk, do the resources get added back to the hive stock, or are they just lost forever?
Late in the game, you often see that everyone goes Lerk or Fade or Onos, and the team has no Gorges at all. I don't really see what's wrong with that, but the game does keep nagging for builders: "We need builders.". Is the game wrong, or do you need gorges all the time, even when there is really nothing for them to do? (no hives or defenses need rebuilding and all resource nodes are taken, either by you or by the marines)
If you're gorge and you're over 20-30 RPs and you're not currently building, actively going somewhere or saving for a hive <b>you are doing something wrong</b>. Obviously this doesn't apply in the late winning game since resources are coming in faster than they are going out but otherwise if a gorge isn't building, moving or saving he is hurting the team.
As for the advanced building tactics if you have 50-60 units saved up (say trundling from point A to point B) and you want to place several different chambers down, drop them all first and then go back to build. This is because they do self-build and it takes less time total than the build, complete, build, complete cycle.
They go back out into the pool and are redistributed.
While it's argueable that the 33 RPs could be better spent elsewhere (morph to Gorge, RT, and later back to skulk), a Lerk has quite a few decent early capabilities - the least of which is being able to spike a turret or factory from out of range...
I don't think you are wrong, Revenge. I just don't understand how that works.
-Saturn <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='asrifle.gif'><!--endemo-->
<b>Example:</b>
8 players on a team. One gorge.
The incoming res is split into 10 shares, with one each going to the skulks and 3 going to the gorges. Once all the skulks are full up, the gorge starts receiving all 10 shares to himself!
Admittedly, there are some skillful lerk players out there who could do wonders for their team by going lerk early on, and only one skulk going lerk in the above example would be alright:
<b>Example:</b>
6 skulks with full resources, one empty lerk (just evolved), one gorge.
Now the lerk receives 2.5 of those earlier shares while the gorge gets 7.5. The lerk fill back up fairly quickly while the gorge maintains a decent income.
<b>Example:</b>
5 skulks with full resources, two empty lerks (just evolved, one gorge.
Now each lerk receive 2 shares each, while the gorge gets 6 (2+2+6=10). Now the gorge is collecting almost half as quickly as he could do if the other lerks stayed as skulks. It will take the lerks slightly longer to fill back up than if just one had done it.
I wasn't thinking of getting the skulks to spend their money at all, but rather to simply keep their wallets full "for the good of the team". As for the gorge having 99 resources, as greydmiyu says, that gorge is doing something wrong. Very wrong.
<b>Now Chompy:</b> How often do you see those resource towers attacked before you start building your second hive (given that the second hive is started within 10-20 minutes, I'm not talking about the games where the gorges NEVER get round to building the hive...). Far more importantly, which ones normally get attacked before the construction of the second hive?
Marines often try to claim a straight line of resource towers from their base into an empty hive (attempting at all costs to avoid the aliens), or claim the nearest 2 or 3 hives to their base. As long as you keep away from those "high-risk" zones you should be able to get away with no defenses there for a short while. After a while the game gets too unpredictable to judge where the pesky meatsacks will rambo off to... But until then, you can start making a few risky bets, as they often pay off.
Remember that for the price of two offensive chambers you could already have another res point on the way. Which is more efficient? Spending 78 resources building one resource tower, 2 offensive chambers and 2 defensive chambers, or spending 66 resources on 3 undefended towers and losing one of them? While you still had three towers you were pulling in resources REALLY fast, so you can afford to defend your fourth tower!
Notice that a resource tower, 2 offensive chambers and 2 defensive chambers cost almost as much as a hive?
Marines often try to claim a straight line of resource towers from their base into an empty hive (attempting at all costs to avoid the aliens), or claim the nearest 2 or 3 hives to their base. As long as you keep away from those "high-risk" zones you should be able to get away with no defenses there for a short while. After a while the game gets too unpredictable to judge where the pesky meatsacks will rambo off to... But until then, you can start making a few risky bets, as they often pay off.
Remember that for the price of two offensive chambers you could already have another res point on the way. Which is more efficient? Spending 78 resources building one resource tower, 2 offensive chambers and 2 defensive chambers, or spending 66 resources on 3 undefended towers and losing one of them? While you still had three towers you were pulling in resources REALLY fast, so you can afford to defend your fourth tower!
Notice that a resource tower, 2 offensive chambers and 2 defensive chambers cost almost as much as a hive?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>My resource towers</b> aren't usually attacked, because the first nodes I go to are located in a strategic location. That way, building a defense for my node also has another benefit. Either I go to another hive first, so that defending that node also defends a future hive, or else I'll do a node at a jnuction somewhere that I can wall up to limit marine movement. (for example, Aft Junction on BAST).
If the marine team is any good at all, I will assume that they are going to take a hive. That's fine, that means they are leaving me alone long enough to get 2 hives and my towers up unmolested. There will be more than enough time to get them out of there with Fades. Soon as 2 are up, I web the crap out of all of the entrances to the hive the marines have, and build DTs and OTs right up to the corners, as close as I can to the marine turrets. This heals my Fades and keeps the marines from getting in reinforcements.
Last few days... when I'm playing Aliens... they said that if i pressed f4... i could "donate" my resources to them..
This this... well... legal to the general game..? Did the people do that on purpose..?
Cause i like the idea how i can give my resources to dudes cause i like playing the eating dude.
The people who are doing this are exploiting this feature of the alien resource system.
In my view it might offer an immediate advantage, but you will suffer slightly afterwards if you don't capatalise on it. Using the donated resources to build upgrade or offensive chambers or hives means that when the players rejoin the the alien team they will once again cause the resource collection to go slowly. This is especially true for hives:
<b>Scenario: 5 players, 1 gorge</b>
Each player has 33 resource points to their name, the Gorge who has been saving for a hive has got 40.
At this moment any and all resources extracted by the resource chambers go straight to the gorge.
All the players except for the gorge now exit the the ready room. 132 have just poured into the Kharaa resource pool. 60 of this is given the gorge and 72 remains in the pool.
The hive begins building the hive and is knocked down to 20 points. All 72 remaining resource points in the pool are now given to the gorge again, and now all the players rejoin the alien team. Each player has no resources, and the gorge has 92. The gorge will presumably continue building, so they will all start collecting resources slowly. Furthermore, going from experience, even if the kharaa have four resource nodes by now they wont hit 33 resources before the hive is completed. Once the hive is completed they must all earn another 33 resource points in order to get maxed out again. This is an awefully long time to play with a crippled income for the gorge. The gorge will spend his 92 resource points after placing 3 defensive chambers and 3 offensive chambers. Hardly a worthwhile effort, is it?
On the other hand, if the kharaa had remained honest, and had not used this exploit, the gorge would have reached 80 resources fairly quickly with 4 resource towers. After building the hive, each player would only have to collect 33 resources to fill up, which is only half the time for the gorges to remain crippled.
EDIT: This would however greatly benefit a team who spent all the donated res on resource chambers...
Unless marines who get disconnected from the server incur large penalty when they drop.
Every marine who is in a game increases the amount of resources the marines collect, same as any kharaa does. The only difference between each is that kharaa actually carry their own resources. A player who evolves to onos, gets 3 upgrades, fills up his resource gauge again and then drops from the game (bad connection, lag etc) would then take a whopping away 176 resources with him. A marine who is given a grenade launcher and heavy armour and then drops would still only take 58 resources away.
If those same players were intentionally leaving the server, the Onos would STILL take the 176 resources down the drain with him, but the marine could give his grenade launcher to another player before disconnecting. This would cause the marines a total penalty of 25 resources...
Whereas in the first few minutes of the game, everybody gets a free 10 RP to start. Recycling is the basis of taking those 'bonus' resources and using them in unbalancing ways. Theoretically, you could start building a 2nd hive before the marines have finished their turret factory.
Take caged as an example. Most commanders either forget about it or don't use the res to make turrets defend that part early on in the game. A lerk up there spiking the TF or even individual turrets will quickly get the marines attention. If a skulk uses this to rush in and munch the resource tower, then hes a smart skulk but even if not, the lerk can spike the marines as they run by and most wouldn't even think twice about what they were just doing-they'd concentrate on finding that pesky lil bastad. Until they get GL or jetpacks, hes safe for as long as he can handle, just get regen and adren if its avail and go at it.
But the lerk is also an second unit you can chose from the start. Most players like having a little bit of a choice in what they can be, and not everyone likes to go fade or onos (I suck at onos and usually never evolve into one, always fade for support.)
I'm not about to say I can play a lerk well, as my flying skills under pressure are definately needing some work (ie when swooping at marines for a chomp or when making a quick get away), but I have noticed that with a bit of strategy I can make good use of a lerk with just my spike shooter.
Dont forget that the spikes are 100% accurate, and after a certain distance (half the average corridor I think) if you and a marine stand there shooting each other the marine will fall first. The further away you can keep from the highly inaccurate marine weapons the more you will kill before you fall yourself.
As a lerk, always grab carapace over regen, because you can fly past any static defenses with ease, and you can travel the map faster than anything else if you can fly well (so you can get to your hive and back to heal faster than sitting in a corner regening would), and if you get carapace, the added absorption rate of damage means you'll stop dying with some armour left like lerks normally do.
The only time you should do this is if your resources have maxed out.
Say that you're playing on a 1 hive game, 33 resources, nothing in the bank. You find a nice quiet resource tower far away from marines.
You spend 13 resources changing to a Gorge. You then have 20 resources, so you're in good shape to spend the 22 points on a resource tower, and you spend 4 points on a skulk. The kicker is that you have to change back IMMEDIATELY. Don't hit the use key to try and force growth. Drop it and run.
It takes a while to actually build a resource tower, but they'll grow on their own. Unless you change back immediately, you're sucking up the resources that should go to the other gorge, wasting them. This may sound stupidly picky, but seconds count in the early game; you can't afford to change to a gorge and wait for the resources to build the tower, nor can you waste time hanging around to see it bloom.
There should be one gorge in the early game hunting out resources nodes in the first 5 minutes; if you time it right you should be at the 3rd node with 24 points and can save up for a hive after that point. Everything in the early game should be centered around holding off the marines while feeding the gorge resources for a second hive.
Tired of people bitchin at you for being the third gorge because THE OTHER GORGES suck!!?!?!?!
just take that into consideration..
Ive been bitched at enough cause of that.