Alien commanding tips and strategies (super long)
Stoneburg
Join Date: 2002-11-11 Member: 8174Members
Join Date: 2002-11-11 Member: 8174Members
I've seen a lot of comments lately about how Alien commanders don't really influence the game. I think we can all agree that the marine commander has a *bigger* influence on the outcome than the alien counterpart, but claiming that alien commanding doesn't matter indicates to me a lack of understanding. So I've decided to try and contribute to the community by explaining some concepts the way I see them, and hopefully help new or aspiring alien khamms. I don't claim to be the best alien commander, but after almost 700 hours of NS2 play and years of NS1 I've hopefully picked up a few things. This post is about PUBLIC games on LARGE (20-24 player) servers. Feel free to add, elaborate or contribute to the discussion in any way.
The most important thing first...
Communication
As commander you have an unique view of the battlefield that gives you information unavailable to your teammates. You hopefully also have a plan. Your job is to communicate your plan and give your teammates the information they need to be successful.
Let your team know what you are doing and what you're going to do, that way you both win. They can now help you accomplish your goals, and you won't have people harassing you for upgrades since you're telling them what is coming and when it is coming. It also gives the smarter players on your team and those with some leadership skills something to work with.
Most commanders let people know what is happening, but that's only half the job. You also need to tell your team what to do. Here's an example of three different ways to communicate the same thing:
Commander says: Overlook!
That's not very useful. It's only slightly better than saying nothing.
Commander says: Overlook is under attack by three marines.
That's a bit better, now we know what is going on. This is pretty much the average level of communication by commanders.
Commander says: You two skulks in System try to save the RT in overlook, 3 marines are attacking it. But wait for the lerk to get there, don't go in alone.
This is much better. You let people know who the information is directed at (use peoples names as often as possible), you explain what is going on and what needs to be done, and you're helping them organise in order to increase their chance of success.
It's pretty easy really, you just need to answer these questions: What is going on? What are we going to do about it? Who is going to do it?
Of course what you say is important, but it is also important how you say it. My philosophy is to avoid negative critisism as much as possible. Some commanders are constantly telling their teammates what they are doing wrong, and that is just bad leadership and poor skills at giving feedback. They tend to get poor performances from their team, which leads to more whining from them which leads to even more irritated and frustrated aliens.
Do you ever start a sentence with "Why didn't you..."? Don't. Every time you're about to start a sentence with those words just do yourself a favor and shut up instead. If your teammates made a mistake in your eyes, tell them what you WANT them to do instead of what they are doing wrong. And do it in a way that makes them want to do it.
Instead of saying "Why didn't you defend the res node?" say "Ok guys, it's really important that we try to defend our res nodes or we won't be able to get ANY upgrades."
If your skulks are running into marines one by one and dying all the time, don't berate them for it, say something like "These marines seem to be really good at shooting, try to stick together and ambush them." Once again, don't tell them what they are doing wrong or what they shouldn't do, tell them what they should do, and show that you care about their situation. It's easier for someone to accept that they're dying a lot because their opponents are too good, than to accept that they are doing something wrong.
You should always encourage good behaviour, and be on the lookout for good behaviour to encourage. If someone is doing something that you want, compliment them. That way you will reinforce that behaviour. If you see a skulk taking down an extractor, say "Awesome job taking down that extractor NSPlayer!". If he gets positive feedback confirming that he is doing something right, and gets rewarded, he is likely to keep doing it. It also tells other people what they should be doing without critisising them. If you see a successful ambush by a couple of aliens, say "Wow! Sweet ambush in East Junction! Nice teamwork there guys!". If someone is doing something bad or stupid, ignore it unless it is systematic. If they keep doing it, just explain why it isn't a good idea in a neutral manner.
Last but not least you need to listen to your teammates, communication is a two way street. They will notice things that you don't, and see opportunities that you might miss. If someone has an idea, try to help him accomplish it, or explain why you can't in the nicest possible way. I've won many games because one of the players have come up with a plan that I didn't think of, and if you encourage it, you will get more of it.
Different strategies
There are several basic strategies you can use, and I'll go through some, but most important is that you actually HAVE a strategy. Even a bad strategy is better than no strategy at all. The second most important is that you tell your team about it, so they understand what is going on and can adapt their play accordingly. You also need to carry it out in what I tend to think of as a "distinct" manner. If you're trying to achieve something, do it 100% until you decide not to do it anymore, and be prepared to change strategy to adapt to the situation. I also wrote a post here about the most common alien strategy and why I don't like it, together with two different alternatives that I think are superiour.
Instant hive drop
This is a good strategy to use when you get a bad starting hive and/or get a close spawn. Drop the second hive immediatly when the round begins and mak sure one or two player runs over there to gorge it up. If it is possible to get a res node up without a lot of cysts, plant the cysts and get out and go gorge. Then drop the harvester and go heal it up. When that is done, get over to the second hive ASAP and help heal it up. If you can't get an easy harvester up (read: you start in Pipe on Veil), just run over to the second hive immediatly and help gorge it up. Once second hive is up research Leap if you got the second harvester up and start expanding from the new hive. If you didn't get a second harvester up, delay upgrades while you get some more resnodes. The second upgrade to get should be carapace, after that, it depends on the situation.
This strategy hurts your early economy but prevents you from getting egg locked and gives you access to the most powerful abilities. It also gives you much better map control. It is not as risky as it seems, since it is extremely hard for the marines to get to and kill the hive with 2-3 gorges healing it and building clogs/hydras. If done correctly the hive will be up before the 2 minute mark and a few minutes after that you should have the most vital upgrades and 3-4 harvesters.
Early carapace
This is an all-round strong starting strategy for all maps and situations
Carapace is an essential upgrade for pretty much all life forms, and possibly the one single upgrade that gives the biggest combat advantage. By getting it early you significantly increase the likelyhood of winning those early engagements. That in turn translates into more map control and a stronger mid- and late game economy.
Send out a drifter to a strategic location while you wait to find out the marines starting position. Once you know where you are, claim the resnode furthest away from them. Then start upgrading to crag hive and jump out to go gorge. Speed build the harvester and plant your hydras, but save your clogs. Now drop the shell in the safest position you can think of, and cover it completely with clogs before you get back into the hive and start upgrading it.
Early lerks
This strategy works best with close spawns, since it means that one side of the map will be much harder for marines to access than the other. The idea is to claim all the nodes AWAY from marine start in order to get a super strong economy, allwowing you to get Lerks (and Fades and onos of course) out early. Of course you have to make sure that there are actually players on the team that will go lerk, and preferably that they are somewhat good at it. You should also have one player go gorge immediatly, and have him run along the cyst chain speedbuilding the harvesters.
The main objective is not to collect as many T-res as possible, but to get the broods res up to 30/50/75 as quick as you can. This means taking more risks with the harvester placement and going for harvesters that you would normally not try to take. It also means delaying upgrades and a second hive. Normally you shouldn't place a harvester unless you're pretty sure it will stay up long enough to pay for itself, but in this scenario it is OK to take more risks for two reasons:
1. Even if it doesn't stay up long enough to repay itself, it will have given at least a few P-res as long as it goes up at all. And every res will bring the players closer to lerk/fade.
2. Since you have a lot of harvesters early, you have enough income to be able to afford a loss.
This doesn't mean you drop harvesters willy nilly, but you should be looking for every opportunity to get one up and drop it unless it's obvious marines will be able to take it out.
When you run out of positions to drop harvesters, use the res to start sending out drifters. Make sure you get the max 5 out and use them to protect your harvesters. When the players start approaching 30 res, you start getting them the upgrade of their choice. This is one of the few times I will get regen, because I think regen is awesome for early lerks, but if your lerk players want something else, get that instead. If you have enough res, you can even get two upgrades (if some wants regen and others want carapace for example).
Next objective is to get a hive up, and it's almost always going to be the hive furthest away from the marine starting base. At this point you've got nothing better to do, so you will run over there and healspray it after you've dropped it. Once it is up, your priority should be spores and then blink. Blink takes a long time to research so you want to start it ASAP. It makes a huge difference to Fade efficiency, so you don't want them being without it for even a minute if it is avoidable. Once Blink is on its way, I'd suggest going for the following research order:
Carapace (unless you have it already) -> Adrenaline -> Bilebomb -> Celerity -> Leap
After that either save for a 3:d hive if one is available, or spend the res on lerk/fade eggs.
The tradeoff here is that your skulks will be relatively weak in the early game without upgrades, and won't have leap until the mid/late game. That combined with a close spawn makes this a risky strategy that can fail either by getting egglocked, or skulks being unable to defend the harvesters effectively until lerks are out. To protect yourself against an egglock you should get out of the hive and get some clogs/hydras up either in the hive or at the closest choke point as soon as you've dropped your 4:th harvester. Skulks should be more focused on defending your harvesters than taking down marine extractors in the beginning, but then switch to the opposite once lerks are out. When lerks are out, they are responsible for defending (which they are awesome at) and skulks should focus on biting res.
Every second you can shave off getting the lerks out is important, because it means more time spent against marines with less upgrades, which snowballs into greater map control and stronger economy for you, delaying marines even more.
Resource managment
The truth is that a lot of commanders just don't manage their resources efficiently. Yesterday a commander that is considered OK got both celerity and adrenaline before starting the second hive. To me that's a huge mistake. Getting a second hive is essential, getting the second upgrade is a luxury. Especially in the early game, every single res is important. Don't place 4 cysts if 3 can get the job done. Don't sit in the hive if you could be out speedbuilding a harvester or healing something. Don't get both upgrades from one tech path unless you have to or you're swimming in res. Try to think of ways constantly to achieve what you want at a lower cost.
Also, don't be afraid to have res in the bank. Some commanders are reluctant to have a significant amount of res in the bank, either because it might give the impression they're not doing anything, or because they think the res isn't "working" while it is sitting there, since you don't get any interest like you would in an actual bank. The second one is kind of true, if you have more than 10 res and there is a node available for a harvester, NOT building that harvester is actually costing you res. But only IF the harvester would have gone up and stayed up long enough to pay for itself. By NOT building a harvester that would have died before it paid off, you have made a profit.
The benefit of having accumulated res is that it gives you freedom. If you have 50 res in the bank you can EITHER drop a hive+shift OR drop a fade egg OR get a forward base up etc etc. This means you can react to situations and capitalize on opportunities that present themselves. Getting something you don't really need just because you have the res for it is not good resource managment. The best part is that if you manage your resources well from the start, you will more often be in a situation to go crazy with them later.
Drifters
These little babies are severly under used. At 3 res they are a bargain and you should try to get them out early. Remember that drifters can't see through walls, so you need to place them so they have line of sight. Try to have the maximum number out as often as you can, they will give you a great overview of what is going on.
They are also fun to use to help out in a fight. Set it to attack a marine that is fighting a skulk and it will cause a fun distraction, and often ensure a victory for the skulk. A drifter has 300hp so it can soak up damage that would kill 3 skulks without carapace. Enzymes are also very effective when your team is trying to take out a base. Give the aliens that are attacking the powernode an enzyme cloud and that node will go down in half the time.
In closing I would just encourage you to try new things. Using the same strategy over and over isn't just boring, it also won't help you develop. There is not one superiour strategy, it all depends on the context. I also skipped a whole bunch of subjects, mainly because I realised this post was already becoming incredibly long. Hope you made it through it and got something out of it!
The most important thing first...
Communication
As commander you have an unique view of the battlefield that gives you information unavailable to your teammates. You hopefully also have a plan. Your job is to communicate your plan and give your teammates the information they need to be successful.
Let your team know what you are doing and what you're going to do, that way you both win. They can now help you accomplish your goals, and you won't have people harassing you for upgrades since you're telling them what is coming and when it is coming. It also gives the smarter players on your team and those with some leadership skills something to work with.
Most commanders let people know what is happening, but that's only half the job. You also need to tell your team what to do. Here's an example of three different ways to communicate the same thing:
Commander says: Overlook!
That's not very useful. It's only slightly better than saying nothing.
Commander says: Overlook is under attack by three marines.
That's a bit better, now we know what is going on. This is pretty much the average level of communication by commanders.
Commander says: You two skulks in System try to save the RT in overlook, 3 marines are attacking it. But wait for the lerk to get there, don't go in alone.
This is much better. You let people know who the information is directed at (use peoples names as often as possible), you explain what is going on and what needs to be done, and you're helping them organise in order to increase their chance of success.
It's pretty easy really, you just need to answer these questions: What is going on? What are we going to do about it? Who is going to do it?
Of course what you say is important, but it is also important how you say it. My philosophy is to avoid negative critisism as much as possible. Some commanders are constantly telling their teammates what they are doing wrong, and that is just bad leadership and poor skills at giving feedback. They tend to get poor performances from their team, which leads to more whining from them which leads to even more irritated and frustrated aliens.
Do you ever start a sentence with "Why didn't you..."? Don't. Every time you're about to start a sentence with those words just do yourself a favor and shut up instead. If your teammates made a mistake in your eyes, tell them what you WANT them to do instead of what they are doing wrong. And do it in a way that makes them want to do it.
Instead of saying "Why didn't you defend the res node?" say "Ok guys, it's really important that we try to defend our res nodes or we won't be able to get ANY upgrades."
If your skulks are running into marines one by one and dying all the time, don't berate them for it, say something like "These marines seem to be really good at shooting, try to stick together and ambush them." Once again, don't tell them what they are doing wrong or what they shouldn't do, tell them what they should do, and show that you care about their situation. It's easier for someone to accept that they're dying a lot because their opponents are too good, than to accept that they are doing something wrong.
You should always encourage good behaviour, and be on the lookout for good behaviour to encourage. If someone is doing something that you want, compliment them. That way you will reinforce that behaviour. If you see a skulk taking down an extractor, say "Awesome job taking down that extractor NSPlayer!". If he gets positive feedback confirming that he is doing something right, and gets rewarded, he is likely to keep doing it. It also tells other people what they should be doing without critisising them. If you see a successful ambush by a couple of aliens, say "Wow! Sweet ambush in East Junction! Nice teamwork there guys!". If someone is doing something bad or stupid, ignore it unless it is systematic. If they keep doing it, just explain why it isn't a good idea in a neutral manner.
Last but not least you need to listen to your teammates, communication is a two way street. They will notice things that you don't, and see opportunities that you might miss. If someone has an idea, try to help him accomplish it, or explain why you can't in the nicest possible way. I've won many games because one of the players have come up with a plan that I didn't think of, and if you encourage it, you will get more of it.
Different strategies
There are several basic strategies you can use, and I'll go through some, but most important is that you actually HAVE a strategy. Even a bad strategy is better than no strategy at all. The second most important is that you tell your team about it, so they understand what is going on and can adapt their play accordingly. You also need to carry it out in what I tend to think of as a "distinct" manner. If you're trying to achieve something, do it 100% until you decide not to do it anymore, and be prepared to change strategy to adapt to the situation. I also wrote a post here about the most common alien strategy and why I don't like it, together with two different alternatives that I think are superiour.
Instant hive drop
This is a good strategy to use when you get a bad starting hive and/or get a close spawn. Drop the second hive immediatly when the round begins and mak sure one or two player runs over there to gorge it up. If it is possible to get a res node up without a lot of cysts, plant the cysts and get out and go gorge. Then drop the harvester and go heal it up. When that is done, get over to the second hive ASAP and help heal it up. If you can't get an easy harvester up (read: you start in Pipe on Veil), just run over to the second hive immediatly and help gorge it up. Once second hive is up research Leap if you got the second harvester up and start expanding from the new hive. If you didn't get a second harvester up, delay upgrades while you get some more resnodes. The second upgrade to get should be carapace, after that, it depends on the situation.
This strategy hurts your early economy but prevents you from getting egg locked and gives you access to the most powerful abilities. It also gives you much better map control. It is not as risky as it seems, since it is extremely hard for the marines to get to and kill the hive with 2-3 gorges healing it and building clogs/hydras. If done correctly the hive will be up before the 2 minute mark and a few minutes after that you should have the most vital upgrades and 3-4 harvesters.
Early carapace
This is an all-round strong starting strategy for all maps and situations
Carapace is an essential upgrade for pretty much all life forms, and possibly the one single upgrade that gives the biggest combat advantage. By getting it early you significantly increase the likelyhood of winning those early engagements. That in turn translates into more map control and a stronger mid- and late game economy.
Send out a drifter to a strategic location while you wait to find out the marines starting position. Once you know where you are, claim the resnode furthest away from them. Then start upgrading to crag hive and jump out to go gorge. Speed build the harvester and plant your hydras, but save your clogs. Now drop the shell in the safest position you can think of, and cover it completely with clogs before you get back into the hive and start upgrading it.
Early lerks
This strategy works best with close spawns, since it means that one side of the map will be much harder for marines to access than the other. The idea is to claim all the nodes AWAY from marine start in order to get a super strong economy, allwowing you to get Lerks (and Fades and onos of course) out early. Of course you have to make sure that there are actually players on the team that will go lerk, and preferably that they are somewhat good at it. You should also have one player go gorge immediatly, and have him run along the cyst chain speedbuilding the harvesters.
The main objective is not to collect as many T-res as possible, but to get the broods res up to 30/50/75 as quick as you can. This means taking more risks with the harvester placement and going for harvesters that you would normally not try to take. It also means delaying upgrades and a second hive. Normally you shouldn't place a harvester unless you're pretty sure it will stay up long enough to pay for itself, but in this scenario it is OK to take more risks for two reasons:
1. Even if it doesn't stay up long enough to repay itself, it will have given at least a few P-res as long as it goes up at all. And every res will bring the players closer to lerk/fade.
2. Since you have a lot of harvesters early, you have enough income to be able to afford a loss.
This doesn't mean you drop harvesters willy nilly, but you should be looking for every opportunity to get one up and drop it unless it's obvious marines will be able to take it out.
When you run out of positions to drop harvesters, use the res to start sending out drifters. Make sure you get the max 5 out and use them to protect your harvesters. When the players start approaching 30 res, you start getting them the upgrade of their choice. This is one of the few times I will get regen, because I think regen is awesome for early lerks, but if your lerk players want something else, get that instead. If you have enough res, you can even get two upgrades (if some wants regen and others want carapace for example).
Next objective is to get a hive up, and it's almost always going to be the hive furthest away from the marine starting base. At this point you've got nothing better to do, so you will run over there and healspray it after you've dropped it. Once it is up, your priority should be spores and then blink. Blink takes a long time to research so you want to start it ASAP. It makes a huge difference to Fade efficiency, so you don't want them being without it for even a minute if it is avoidable. Once Blink is on its way, I'd suggest going for the following research order:
Carapace (unless you have it already) -> Adrenaline -> Bilebomb -> Celerity -> Leap
After that either save for a 3:d hive if one is available, or spend the res on lerk/fade eggs.
The tradeoff here is that your skulks will be relatively weak in the early game without upgrades, and won't have leap until the mid/late game. That combined with a close spawn makes this a risky strategy that can fail either by getting egglocked, or skulks being unable to defend the harvesters effectively until lerks are out. To protect yourself against an egglock you should get out of the hive and get some clogs/hydras up either in the hive or at the closest choke point as soon as you've dropped your 4:th harvester. Skulks should be more focused on defending your harvesters than taking down marine extractors in the beginning, but then switch to the opposite once lerks are out. When lerks are out, they are responsible for defending (which they are awesome at) and skulks should focus on biting res.
Every second you can shave off getting the lerks out is important, because it means more time spent against marines with less upgrades, which snowballs into greater map control and stronger economy for you, delaying marines even more.
Resource managment
The truth is that a lot of commanders just don't manage their resources efficiently. Yesterday a commander that is considered OK got both celerity and adrenaline before starting the second hive. To me that's a huge mistake. Getting a second hive is essential, getting the second upgrade is a luxury. Especially in the early game, every single res is important. Don't place 4 cysts if 3 can get the job done. Don't sit in the hive if you could be out speedbuilding a harvester or healing something. Don't get both upgrades from one tech path unless you have to or you're swimming in res. Try to think of ways constantly to achieve what you want at a lower cost.
Also, don't be afraid to have res in the bank. Some commanders are reluctant to have a significant amount of res in the bank, either because it might give the impression they're not doing anything, or because they think the res isn't "working" while it is sitting there, since you don't get any interest like you would in an actual bank. The second one is kind of true, if you have more than 10 res and there is a node available for a harvester, NOT building that harvester is actually costing you res. But only IF the harvester would have gone up and stayed up long enough to pay for itself. By NOT building a harvester that would have died before it paid off, you have made a profit.
The benefit of having accumulated res is that it gives you freedom. If you have 50 res in the bank you can EITHER drop a hive+shift OR drop a fade egg OR get a forward base up etc etc. This means you can react to situations and capitalize on opportunities that present themselves. Getting something you don't really need just because you have the res for it is not good resource managment. The best part is that if you manage your resources well from the start, you will more often be in a situation to go crazy with them later.
Drifters
These little babies are severly under used. At 3 res they are a bargain and you should try to get them out early. Remember that drifters can't see through walls, so you need to place them so they have line of sight. Try to have the maximum number out as often as you can, they will give you a great overview of what is going on.
They are also fun to use to help out in a fight. Set it to attack a marine that is fighting a skulk and it will cause a fun distraction, and often ensure a victory for the skulk. A drifter has 300hp so it can soak up damage that would kill 3 skulks without carapace. Enzymes are also very effective when your team is trying to take out a base. Give the aliens that are attacking the powernode an enzyme cloud and that node will go down in half the time.
In closing I would just encourage you to try new things. Using the same strategy over and over isn't just boring, it also won't help you develop. There is not one superiour strategy, it all depends on the context. I also skipped a whole bunch of subjects, mainly because I realised this post was already becoming incredibly long. Hope you made it through it and got something out of it!
Comments
I have known the strategies for awhile now but have not thought about how to follow through with them and what they allow you to do quiet as much as state here. I love what you said about drifters because I do love them so. I like to get a lot of them out so my aliens and I can see where the marines are going. Drifters can be a great distraction to let your skulks go in for the kill. Good post with good food for thought for an average commander.
Another strategy I have been likely lately is going shift hive first. I will cyst up near the marines base but not too close to avoid having it seen. I will place a shift and tell my aliens to constantly rush their base. They then spawn pretty close to the marine base and by sheer numbers can either delay the marines long enough for me to get a strong economy going or overwhelm them and win.
All you really do is save them from having to look at their mini-map. Unless you have bad people that just can't figure out what to do.
Also, you missed one of the most powerful basic strategies on larger servers... that is a forward shift spawn to help secure/attack a location.
A couple other observations I've seen with Alien comming:
One thing that is also more powerful on larger servers is spores. If you have 2+ lerks, research spores over leap/bilebomb/blink first (unless they are absolutely terrible lerks.)
One other thing that a LOT of alien comms don't do is spawning gorge eggs at a hive when there's a exo/arc train coming. This is one of the single best things you can do to help stop that as a comm.
I agree about enzymes, I use them quite a bit.
underused also.
also I like to cyst into a room held by one or two marines when my aliens are getting ready to ambush. if they ignore them it makes it harder to build, if they shoot them, they give away their position...hopefully my skulks can hear things... and it can waste ammo. also, if they try to chop, delays themwith the weapon switch.
also, good early drifter placement makes it easier to support spontaneous pushes.
also, cyst up res nodes you have no intention of taking, the res war is almost zero sum game. you'll generally win if you outres the enemy... some comms tend to forget that delaying their res accumulation also helps this. sometimes I'll drop a harvester that I know will probably lose res, because I can afford the loss, but they can't afford the delay
my goal as alien comm is to take as many res towers as early as possible. upgrade to lerk or fade is hands down better than upgrade through Cara or cele. I usually hope to have 4 res at least before I evolve my hive.
If there's one thing I should do more, it's use people's names directly. I do it sometimes, but normally I just say "two skulks in System" or whatever they are. Having your name actually spoken will help you do something more efficiently, so I will work on doing that more!
Though I still like to call out locations, so players know which part of the minimap to check (and numbers if they run out of drifter vision too quickly).
In particular, there will often be several chokes on the map where you will frequently have aliens on one side, and marines on the other. If you can get a drifter on the marine side, it helps your players immensely, as they will know exactly where the marines are on the other side (and even which way the marines are facing).
Placing drifters in the corridors leading to your res (rather than in the res room itself) is also what will allow your players to intercept and kill the marines before they do much damage (if any), keeping your res flow high.
I tend not to do this unless I already have significant map control, or unless it will give me significant map control (e.g. taking/holding double, defending a new hive drop) just because it costs so much t.res.
For the cost of 16 eggs (which is like 1.5 waves of skulks on a large server) I could have dropped a hive.
If you've got drifters to spare, keep a drifter in sight of power at your hives to prevent ninja phasegates.
Hopefully you'll have drifters in all corridors leading to the hive to intercept them before they ever get there, but a drifter by the power can prevent those cases where it's 3 hives vs 2 cc and the aliens lose a hive to a ninja phase.
I agree with this sentiment, it's usually what I do as well.
You miss out then on a great strategy. There have been a number of times where I was able to get a early shift around a corner of a contested tech point and spawn skulks and it allowed us to secure the point, whereas we wouldn't have been able to otherwise. You don't need to spawn massive amounts of eggs (like 16)... spawn them as needed to get more skulks to help you secure the location. I wil look at the scoreboard and see how many skulks are dead and spawn that many amount of eggs.
Played a game on Docking, we were stuck on 2 hives (Departures and Generator) with us controlling Gen-east wing, Maint being a no mans land, and marines controlling rest,
with drifters in ball court, and the Center I used packs of drifters to buff my onos teams that were hit and running Locker rooms and terminal and I micro'd the drifters to escort the onos.
Should also note, every time we coordinated and attack, I would build cyst outward from our territory so that when the Onos were forced to retreat I could bone-wall their exitpath from the pursuing Jetpackers, (THIS IS VITAL WHEN TEAMS ARE EVENLY MATCHED)
between the drifter squads being easily managed thru hotkeys and doing my best to support my team, (2hive egg drops/crags/shifts ect) we managed to eventually wear down a marine team that would have otherwise arc/exo pushed through our defenses.
a common mistake is to not make these early enough... the main point is really to save your harvesters. making them after you have dropped nodes is usually too late
the hardest decision in pubs is dropping harvesters safely, and aliens lose when they choose poorly.
About dropping harvesters:
Harvester build time = 45 seconds
Harvester gather rate = 10 res / minute (Team), 1.25 res / minute (personal)
if the harvester stays up for 10 ticks (~102 seconds), it's profitable for everyone
You can trade Team Res for Player Res by dropping harvesters that won't stay up that long. This becomes very attractive on large servers
if you drop a harvester that will die after 4 ticks (~66 seconds), you are trading 6 TRES for 0.5 PRES
If your team is 12 players or larger, that is more attractive than dropping an egg
if the harvester will die after 6 ticks (~78 seconds), you are trading 4 TRES for 0.75 PRES
If your team is 6 players or larger, that is more attractive than dropping an egg
If the harvester will die after 8 ticks (~90 seconds), you are trading 2 TRES for 1 PRES
If your team is 2 players or larger, that is more attractive than dropping an egg
got the numbers from http://wiki.unknownworlds.com/ns2/Harvester
this is a slight simplification because it ignores potential cyst costs (less net profit) and no res while dead (less net profit) and ignores the fact that making marines empty ammo into harvesters instead of lifeforms has some positive side effects (more net profit)
They can scout, keep marines busy, enzyme and are in general awesome.
I tend to push out RTs and drifters before even bothering with crag. Most players onfield suck to much to bother.
The more skill players have the faster we need craghive id think.
Also denies visibility to safe some lifeforms. Bonewall can also play a part of this.
When on 3 hives do not forget ink or illusions to mix in with your lifeforms.
Cysting redundancy is only worth it if you can get the rt(s) covered with it, to pay of the extra rescost. And long enought of course.
Extra techpoint.. Can your lifeforms hold out on the upgrades they have for a little longer or do they need it now?
Extra lfieforms.. Can you keep the techpoint or do you need more muscle?
Cyst away mines. Mist them if you want to speed it up. Cysting mines is already costy as marines defend such areas, misting it is more costly. Its big risk vs reward to have a push succeed. Echo in a upgraded shade to ink for even costier but a harder push.
Never forget to push use of bilebomb and umbra. Also gorge tunnels.
Bite every RT which is not yours, as in push your team to do so. That it is not your RT does not mean they should have it.
Clog/hydra up your most vulnerable RTs.
no, no leap should not always be first. If you have 3+ lerks (or 2+ good ones), spores are amazing for first upgrade. Try getting your team to mass lerks and get like 5-6 and spores first dominates.
I've tried adrenaline vs celerity when having leap and I prefer celerity still for getting around the map faster. I don't usually leap more than 2-3 times when fighting a marine anyway, which is usually what you can do without adrenaline.
If your team is having trouble or about to take a strategic position and you have no drifters nearby, hop out and help them take it. 1 extra player can make the difference. Same thing goes for people harassing nearby res nodes, as the aliens aren't as dependent on you in combat as marines are. If this ends up happening a lot you might end up with enough res to lerk, which is even more beneficial for stopping harass/helping teammates.
As long as you aren't negatively affecting your team by being out of the hive (i.e. late harvesters/upgrades or you sit outside of the hive too long) you will be a much better comm.
Have a Drifter overlooking the Power Node in every Hive room, and every room adjacent to it.
Cover these rooms with infestation completely, leaving no ground to build on.
I've seen too many games end with a whimper - a bunch of Marines just walking into a Hive room, dropping phase gate and armory, then destroying eggs/upgrades before the Alien commander even noticed. By the time the commander reacts and the alien players respawn, the room is locked down and the Hive's death is inevitable.
Having Drifters in line of sight to Power Nodes lets you spot PG assaults before they begin. Having cysts all over the room forces Marines to waste time and/or ammo to clean out building space, giving you more time to react.
If a group of Marines are hanging out around a Power Node close to the Hive room, you must direct your players to wipe it out immediately.