Good hydra placement?

Apreche2

What are some general tips to place hydras more effectively? When I put them down, they tend to get killed without doing much damage. I know you want to put them somewhere that marines can't easily see and shoot them from afar. I also know I want to put them in a spot where they will do a lot of damage. But what is the range of a hydra? Can I put it up on a high ceiling and have it hit marines on the ground?

MMZ_Torak

In my experience, you want to place them somewhere that you can keep them healed easily, keep them between you and the attacking force, keep them close enough together that they can be healed together, but not too close as they can be easily killed all at once.

Also, keep them from being ranged by marines (meaning, don't put them somewhere that they can't fire at marines but the marines can fire at them.

Generally, if they are within your range of placing them, and you follow the above guidelines, you will find great places to place them. Just realize that, alone Hydras are little more than a speed bump.

DC_Darkling

anywhere where a marine must stand in range to shoot them & cant simply run past them.

|strofix|

I find that it depends a lot on the circumstances, and what you want them to do.

When you and your Hydras are defending together, like when a gorge defends nanogrid, you often want to place them in a place from which they can be easily shot, as long as they can also shoot marines easily. This is because you need any marines that try to charge you down to take a considerable amount of damage before they get to you.

If its a drop and forget situation, I usually place them anywhere around an entrance to a room that requires the marines to actually enter the room before they know they are there. This typically wastes the most amount of time for marines, and gives skulks enough time to react to the intrusion.

Sometimes it can help for your Hydras to be easy to take down, so long as the marines are more concerned with them, and not with something else. Sometimes if I'm in a room with a building hive, I will just throw Hydras down on the floor in plain sight of the entrance. Marines will typically be farmore concerned with taking the easy Hydra kills before coming in, buying you a few seconds with the hive.

rantology

You never want to place them where they can be easily shot. You want them to apply the most pressure possible on marines trying to push the area you are trying to hold, so that they will be shot by the Hydra if they enter the room, and in a way that they cannot be shot from outside the room. This can be directly above a doorway, behind a prop inside the room, etc.

You do NOT want to place a hydra behind clogs or behind another hydra, both of these things block hydra LoS and prevent it from shooting the enemy.

_Necro_

What others have said is right. I want to add the 2 ways I know to place them effectively:

1.) To defend a wide corridor:
Place them all near each other around a corner on the ground so you can heal all 3 at the same time. The hydras are now your cover while healing them. Put clogs in front of them (but only one layer!) so they have a little bit cover too, (but can shoot above the clogs). Place a clog-wall left or right behind them, so you have a second line of cover if you receive to much damage and need to heal.

2.) To defend a room with a narrow entry:
Place them around corners in a room you want to defend, than use your clogs to barricade the entrance. But not completely! Keep a hole, that forces the marine to crouch to get into the room. This allows you to easily spit at incoming marines, while they move slowly. It also stops them from running right out of the room when they see the hydras. Most marines don't waste ammo on clogs, when they see a way to get through. And you can use the hole to scout ahead of the room and quickly get back when marines are trying to hunt you. (Poor gorgies die, because they couldn't climb their own clog wall! )

Another important thing to remember is, that hydras have problems hitting sidewards moving targets. Hydras have no problem in targeting when the target is stationary or moves to or away from them. If you can manage to place them in a triangle, you get sure that (no matter in what direction the marine tries to strafe) at least one hydra will hit him at any time.

SquishpokePOOPFACE

Put them on top of the enemy command center as a sign of peace.

Calego

I heard a suggestion once to place your hydras in a way that the marines have to look up to deal with them, so that when your skulk buddies arrive to help, the marines are too busy looking up to see them.

Andinagama

I can make the following suggestion: if anyone on these forums (myself included) sees really good hydra placement (including placement you did yourself), take screenshots of it and post them here. A topic like hydra placement is something that a visual aid will certainly help.

On a slightly related note, yesterday I was playing Docking as marines, we had 3 bases (locker, caf, and terminal) and they had departures and generator (and east wing). They did a 3-person gorge rush to terminal and biled the powernode constantly. We responded by having 2 marines weld power and placing a robofac in the way of power, while the rest of our team advanced on their hives. In any case, when I went out into eastwing/terminal passage to shoot the gorges, I got killed by the nine hydras they had placed (marines were a2) and I had a bit of a laugh to myself as it was the only time hydras alone had ever taken me from 100% health to 0%. We still won because the alien team didnt have enough res to do much but gorge, and they were too focused on getting terminal that they didnt defend their other bases.

If there is a lesson in this, it is that hydras placed by a single gorge are more useful to waste the enemy's times and bullets, not serve as serious defence. And that a 3-person gorge rush is inefficient when you have only 8 people on your team (we only lost power once to their biling).

AurOn2

no dont! Then marine spies will find out the best places hydras will be and always check there first! DONT DO IT COMRADES!

buhehe

The first rule of thumb is to never put hydras where they can be shot from afar.

Lone hydras are pretty pathetic both in damage and survivability.
Stacking them together is beneficial for many reasons:

• Way more bursty damage
• Harder to kill: some bullets might end up hitting the other 2 hydras.
• Easier to heal in a single heal spray

Placing hydras behind clogs is not a bad tactic if done properly, in my experience, UNLESS marines can destroy clogs from distance (and thus hydras behind them).
Hydras can shoot THROUGH clogs IF there are small holes between clogs.

Hydras need only LoS to the target in order to shoot, no matter if it's just a pixel they see.

So if you can create artificial, small holes between clogs, u're good to go.
The only problem i've found so far is that if marines shoot some key clogs, your whole clog structure may collapse and fill the holes.

Calego

Something else I've used hydras for (since they really don't stop a marine unless they're backed up) is a sort of backup drifter. Since they blink on the map when they shoot at things, you can use them to alert you of movement down certain hallways and doors. Mind you, you have to be paying attention to the map and a drifter is infinitely better, but if your comm forgets about drifters (I do a lot) it can be useful.