Chamber Order. Yes, Already Posted, But Read.

Canadianmonk3y · December 2002

<div class="IPBDescription">Please give reasons for your opinions.</div> Ok, I know there are already a lot of topics about chamber orders. What I would like to do with this one is make a compilation of data and stuff so that all arguments one way or another are represented, hopefully enlightening people.
I will update and edit when I can.

Oh and one more thing. I am analyzing this from playing on a server with a lot of above average players. This means skulks without carapace fall like flies if they are seen. Corners do not work either. Marine with decent aim > unupgraded skulks.
That being said, we get on to my interpretation.
Oh, and when/if you respond to this, give SUPPORT to your argument. Do not just say that "Defense/Movement/Sensory is better," or the ever-present "it's just not your playstyle." Give reasons for your opinions, which is what I am trying to do.
That is the reason I am posting this, trying to get a real discussion, instead of just having a poll. Dont get me wrong, saying your opinion is 100% fine, BUT if you dont give support to your opinion on why you think what you do, then NO ONE CARES WHAT YOU THINK, and posting your opinion without support just clutters up a topic and degenerates it quite often into flaming/back and forth childish yes/no arguments.

Alright.

First hive:
You have a choice of three chambers.

S/M/D

Sensory-
Cloaking... Every other upgrade is useless for a first hive ability.
Can "parasite" marines who get too close. I have knifed SCs without getting parasited. Shows how effective they are...

Tips & Tricks:
Cloaking makes skulks invisible. Hide over build spots such as RTs and sometimes doorways (not reccommended). Do not drop out right away, but wait until they have their back turned, or are building something and then chomp them.
Gorges are invisible also, letting them stay hidden from crappy marines who cannot tell that a gorge is nearby when a RT is under construction, but not done. Plus they are not fully invisible until they get level 3. I sure hope to god that the marines have MT before you get level 3 cloaking. Obviously MUCH less effective in clan/serious matches.

Movement-
Adrenalin is largely useless for one-hive aliens UNLESS the marines have 2 hives, and the only way to get em out is with lerks. Otherwise, going lerk when you do not have two hives up yet is useless.
Celerity makes skulks fast.
Silence makes skulks not make any noise while moving.

Tips & Tricks:
Celerity for skulks is probably not best, unless you are playing on a largely mediocre server, where they cannot hit you with the added speed boost. Otherwise, go with silence.
Silence makes you... Well... Silent. Sneak up behind marines, or hide in some vent ready ro dash out when you hear marines. Keep moving. Your silence is only as good as how much you take advantage of it.

Defense-
Carapace... Regeneration is not even woth mentioning it, as it is worthless to first hive aliens.
Forward based healing. (Improves on the already uber carapace)

Tips & Tricks:
Gorges stay alive 1000% more to gorge hunting marines with carapace OR redemption.
Skulks take more than twice as many shots to kill.
Healing closer to the battles/contested hives so hurt skulks take less time to get back into the battle.
Def towers heal structures. Yes it is minimal, but every bit helps. Being able to construct a 1/2 wall of lame on the way to one hive, while you move on to the next, preventing single or small groups of marines from passing really helps. The def chambers can heal once the skulks have killed them. (Yes, marines will be shooting from around the corner, and will kill the towers if left alone defense or not). But the advantage is that the towers will have a chance to heal the OCs before the marines get back for another attack.

First hive opinions:
They all are roughly as effective as eachother IMO. Defense still takes the #1 position, with Sensory as #2, and Movement as #3.
Why?
Defense makes skulks 2x as hard to kill. That is a lot of extra shots. Then compare to cloaking. You appear when you move, and die twice as fast compared to if you had carapace. Gorges get hunted with much more ease than if they had carapace. (1 lmg clip = dead gorge). MT comes ~ level 3 sensory. Now the gorge hunters know what room you are in, and they can just poke corners to find you. A gorge with level one carapace, and a def tower nearby can scream for help, and as long as he keeps the defense tower between himself and the marine for as long as he can, while spitting acid at the marine lets him live, unlike if he had level 1 cloaking. Level 2-3 carapace lets him solo a marine and if he is by 1-2 def chambers he can take up to three marines, and even if it looks bad for him, he can run back to skulk support without dying due to the carapace. Now we talk about movement. Silence is good, yes, BUT it does revolve around a whole LOT of luck. If the marine sees you, you are dead. Simple as that. Sneaking up is REALLY hard, and if even a single marine sneaks by you and into a hive, you turn into just a normal skulk, as they see you coming if they are guarding the doors, and you die nearly instantly. Gorges with celerity can run fast, yes, BUT they cannot run fast enough faster than a marine to run before they die sometimes. This is even more so with lower levels, but when compared to carapace at level 3 or celerity at level 3, the carapace wins. (Fight them and win or run and lose your buildings? I think it is not really that hard of a choice).
Another thing. If the aliens have Sensory/Movement, how do you propose you uproot marines from areas? Silence and cloaking only work if you are standing still, which means you are not moving, which means you cannot use it when you are attacking, and from there, you turn into a normal skulk and die like a normal skulk... Carapaced skulks on the other hand can take a lickin and keep on tickin. 2-3 carapaced skulks rushing 2-3 marines will usually have the skulks win. Unless of course there is a huge long corridor, letting the marines unload both guns at a relatively small targetable area, but that does not happen anyways, so it can be discounted.

Now, on to two-hive chamber combinations.

SM/SD/MD

*I am not going to repeat what each chamber does, and what you can do with it, and if you care, just look up where I say it.*

Sensory/Movement

Stealthy fades are trouble for marines. Adrenalin > celerity, since you can blink anywhere you want to go. Melee the marines before they can do anything to you.
Lerk is also a good thing too. Umbra for support, and stealth-spike things by shooting one spike at a time.
Skulks largely stay the same.
Unfortunately, the aliens die REALLY fast with this chamber combination.
Gorges can heal nearly unlimited.

Sensory/Defense

Stealthy, fades that can actually live past a shot or two.
Durable gorges.
Lerk is not suggested due to limited umbra.
Not much else you can do.
DEF TOWERS TO HEAL

Movement/Defense

Nearly invincible aliens, with the energy to actually do something.
Most effective two-hive skulks. (Adren+Leap+Carapace=Bite+live)
Unlimited umbra/heal spray.
DEF TOWERS TO HEAL

My opinions:

Defense/Movement is the way to go <b>100%</b> of the time.
Cloaking is largely useless with the second hive up, as you have the hitpoints to take marines down in long hallways or close-up areas. You have def towers to fall back to in order to heal up quick in the absence of a gorge.
My whole M/D argument is based on the theory that cloaking is useless for a 2nd hive upgrade. You can do EVERYTHING you can do with Sensory/Movement, but the difference is that you dont have to do it stealthily when you have carapace. If you do not have carapace, even if you are a fade, you still die FAST. 3 la/lmg marines in a hallway are a snack to a carapace/adren fade, but if you had cloak/adren/silence, they would be a danger. Then there is healing. If you get hurt (you WILL), you have to run all the way back to a gorge/hive. If your gorge(s) are off being forced to repair structures like they have to when there are no D chambers all over the map, you sometimes have to run a LONG distance back to a hive/gorge. If you go to a hive, you get to wait a long time while it SLOWLY recharges your hps at 8hp/tick.
Ok, then people might say to get defense instead of movement. Why not? No energy. You need to have energy to put down marine expansions. It simply takes too long without it, and the marines have the chance to weld stuff/portal in faster than you can kill em with your non-existent energy.

Whew, that took a bit. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'>

USCMLieutenant_Ripley · December 2002

DCs are versatile. The other chambers are not.

Cloaking equals carapace or may even be better. The problem is that in the time it takes to get 30 rps, the game has been decided.

1. A hive starts at 50% health. A DC helps heal it (plus it's natural self-heal) to full and later as the hive is damaged.
2. A DC allows for carapace.
3. 2-3 DCs in the vent at horshoe (stacked) makes carapaced skulks at horshoe essentially unkillable (you will take about 40 bullets being healed by 3 DCs) as they are being healed through the wall. This is an environment that is not unique to horshoe/ns_eclipse.

The aforementioned points are concrete uses, not theoretical.

Movement gives you stealth. That's fair. There is no ancilliary benefit of measure.
Sensory gives you cloak at a HUGE cost, which is ultimate stealth. That's pretty good. There is no ancilliary benefit of measure.

yes the other chambers do other things, but best scenario? you want a swiss army knife on a deserted island, not a spatula (from spatula city).

The_Spectre · December 2002

My order when I know I can count on my team to be reasonable at skulking and use teamwork, and the teams are 8v8 or more:

First hive: NOTHING at all.
Second hive: Defense <i>and</i> Movement. Fade/Lerk combo just needs adrenaline and carapace. Cloaking is for loners, only effective if your team doesn't work together.

Basically, I build two res nodes, usually in between our starting hive and the hive we're taking second. Then I build the res node at the second hive. Then I save for the hive, all the while building nothing at all. This makes for a really fast second hive, and will win against all but the fastest marine teams.

The reason I feel aliens need second hive that fast on large servers, is because with one hive, aliens spawn very slowly, much slower than marines. If you let that keep going, marines are eventually going to wear you down with numbers, even if your skulks have carapace (or celerity). The only catch with this, is that the gorge is fairly vulnerable before the hive goes up. That's why you need reasonably skilled skulks with teamwork, to keep the hive location clear and the gorge safe.

If you don't do this when playing against a large and organised marine team, odds are you'll have both empty hives locked down on you before you can say "bob". Sure, you've got carapace skulks then, but are they really going to win against marines spawning three times as fast?

Until spawn times on large servers get tweaked, this is really the only way to go.

TheGlow · December 2002

My only concern is having defense and movement at once.
Normally Id vote Defense first because carapace keeps you alive longer, so getting a 2nd hive is easier, and the towers heal, which is nice.
Movement is good for adrenaline, but I think staying alive to get hive 2 is better, than more juice to hive 2. Often you die before your concerned about your adrenaline, and a lerk needs that, but no 2nd hive = no umbra, so lerk isnt as useful.
Sensory can come last. Cloak is fun, but thats waiting around and not doing anything when I can be slaying marines. I duno. Thought it was scary watching an onos disappear in front of me. Even though he was on my side, still gave me the creeps.

Elric · December 2002

Well, since this thing has come up 4 times in 2 days, I might as well just save my answer to word and just paste it anytime I see something like this come up.

But here, this is the short answer first.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>My whole M/D argument is based on the theory that cloaking is useless for a 2nd hive upgrade. You can do EVERYTHING you can do with Sensory/Movement, but the difference is that you dont have to do it stealthily when you have carapace.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

I'm scratching my head. Didn't you say a minute ago that...wait I'll dig it up...<i>the ever-present "it's just not your playstyle." </i> argument should be invalid? Then you base your argument on one playstyle? Or did you just mean you hate 1 sentence arguments? Anyway, here's my view on the subject. The upgrade chambers are situational based. Unfortunatly, people are basing their games on the belief that they'll face the same situation in each game (aliens have 2 hives, marines have 1 heavily turreted).

First, that's a midgame answer to an early game question but second, that isn't the situation every game. Some commanders know how to slip a group of marines out the back to take/siege a hive while he has the rest causing enough trouble elsewhere that the aliens have to respond. I would call that a situation better suited for movement (through teleport/celerity/silence) than defense. Defense isn't as necessary against smaller groups of marines and at the same time, flank attacks work much better because there are less to watch multiple angles. Both celerity and silence do this wonderfully. A single skulk with celerity could scout the other points, parasite the marines in transit/building, and with celerity, the rest of his speedy compadres should be able to get there in enough time to save the day and any silent skulks can get the drop on them if nearby. If the marines get to the 1st hive while the skulks are distracted, a movement chamber on their side of the map can be the difference between getting there on time and auto-death.

I answered 1 hive sensory in detail below but here's the answer to your 2 hive answer. Most times, this engagement comes down to the marines have 2-4 resource towers, 1 hive well turreted, the main well turreted, and aliens getting fades/umbras starting to come in. What good is sensory now? You're off acid rocketing engine room on bast when siege cannons begin to open up on Ventalation hive from the Steam room. "How'd they do that, we have atmospheric!" That one jetbo can really hurt if he knows the vents <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'>. Especially when he builds a phase gate, brings a couple HA buddies and builds a couple turrets and those 2 siege cannons. A single sensory tower would have showed his hand long before he got that up. I haven't even *begun* to start talking about the other jetbo waiting to build siege cannons on the upper level of refinery yet >=]. I've lost games to that and I bet so have you. Am I saying therefore you should always go sensory 2nd to stop this? No or I'd be quite the hypocrite wouldn't I? However, if it looks like that hive you are pounding on is going to take more than a couple minutes to crack with adrenaline, then leaving the movement out and going sensory (since you know they are turtled at this point) to prevent the marines from stabbing you in the back when you least need it at the cost of a couple less acid rockets and lerks devoted to more umbra and less shooting is a perfectly reasonable decision. Yes, you can go without it and use a celerity skulk to go on constant patrol looking for just these sorts of things but if a team fails to utilize either strategy and just go for the deathmatch approach, they're asking for a butt kicking (FOR GOODNESS!!<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'> ). As an added bonus, you know any push they have is going to be weakened because every time they step out in a group, a fade and lerk decloaks behind them, umbras the pack, throws a couple acid rockets, and both go in melee style. No adrenaline needed in that scenario. Both would work in the end but the defense/sensory route is the more slow but steady while defense/movement is more designed for quick knockout blows.

Now for my copied rant:

<i>Way to win in an RTS: Play each game differently by taking advantage of your opponents weaknesses and mitigating your own.
Way to lose in an RTS: Have a build order that goes more than 5 minutes into the game and never deviate from it. *Elric bashes the hint buzzor with fervor*

I'm with coil on this and might as well just put my other post here as well on why/why not to get defense first.

Early Defense is good for:

Rushing marine spawn/captured hive
Protecting the hive against kamakaze marine rushes
Setting up solid forward bases before siege
Giving gorges a chance to run from marines with carapace/redemption
Bringing damaged troops back to action quicker (either with forward towers or regen)

Early Movement is good for:

Lots of energy use (parasite/healing spray spammers)
Getting to multiple groups of marines
Sneaking up on building/scouting marines
Getting back to the hive ASAP (no rule saying they can only be built at hives)
Allowing gorges to expand quicker

Early Sensory is good for:

The maphack ability of sensory chambers (which contrary to popular belief does see through walls and at a decent range)
Containment
Keeping track of any marines at sensative points (they can't walk past SCs like they can OCs to avoid detection)
Spotting hiding marines (Elric fails to get excited)
"Parasiting" marines by damaging them

So in general, defense is for being agressive and trying to overcome a disadvantage like an agressive marine rush or taking back a turreted hive, movement is for flanking and fighting 2-3 groups of marines and scouting, sensory is for cementing map control (but you have to already have it).

So in relation to the arguments here...

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Which is the major problem with sensor. It's completly defensive. It does not help if you need to attack. How will cloaking help against a siege/phasegate marine invasion? </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Obviously, it doesn't. It prevents or at least significantly delays them from reaching this point. If they already have it, then obviously sensory is a weaker choice. However, if they do have one hive, at least it slows/reveals them enough through a few key sensories at chokes and camping skulks to get time to get the second. Being defensive is exactly what you need when you have nearly everything and need to keep it. It's perfectly worthless when you have next to nothing. Defending choke points near or at your base doesn't win games, defending *their* choke points does.

The defense tree is, ironically enough, when things have gone bad and you need to take territory back. If you lose map control, this is what you need. IF!

Movement helps when the areas of the map where battles are taking place are constantly in...movement. It does have it's map control abilities through silence/teleport but is obviously weaker in defense than sensory and weaker in offense than defense (have I confused everyone? Good =). It's the balance between defense and offense when you really don't know which way the overall battle is going.

The problem with this in public games is that each requires a change in strategy. Let's face it, newbies aren't going to stop playing like it is AvP no matter what is up. All they know is how to play offense and that offense doesn't work as well without d>m>s. Your attitudes are showing exactly that problem. The problem isn't always the upgrade order; it is THE PLAYER that is the problem.

If the gorges make sensory chambers when they're busy trying to take back the map, the gorges just made a serious tactical error in not realizing the situation. Likewise, if the marines are still holed up in their main and the gorges build defense chambers first, the gorges have just made the *same* tactical error. If the skulks have cloak and the marines are still in their spawn and the skulks aren't all waiting to devour them, then they have made the exact same tactical error. To repeat my opening, you lose when your tactics aren't based in reality.

Defense chambers do very little compared to the other two upgrades to keep the marines stuck in base. In fact, I'd say they don't do the job hardly at all until later in the game. Gorges can't risk/afford building forward defense towers near the marine spawn so anything that gets damaged has to a) run far back to find the tower nest or b) hide long enough for regen to finish working. They are not functioning during this time. In addition, agressive aliens die much more than defensive aliens and dead aliens don't defend. Unless the offense is so effective that it forces them to turtle, the first time you mount a serious offense and suffer heavy casualties, the marines have a good 30-60 second window to counter-attack while the aliens respawn. Eventually, usually sooner rather than later, this happens. The best example of this is when after the first alien rush, all the skulks die without doing any significant damage at all and the marines take a hive or counter-attack the alien start with impunity. Any RTS player worth their salt will tell you that nothing screams "TAKE THE MAP PLEASE" more than a massive loss of troops with no gain. </i>

MrPink · December 2002

D/M/S is the best way to go, because movement doesn't benefit skulks nearly as much as carapace, and if you build sensory first you either have fades with no armor or no energy.

Elric · December 2002

I get the feeling you didn't read a thing I said.

MeltedSnowman · December 2002

Elric where do you play? I'd love to get a break from D/M/S.

Canadianmonk3y · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Elric @ Dec 15 2002, 09:29 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
1.
I'm scratching my head. Didn't you say a minute ago that...wait I'll dig it up...<i>the ever-present "it's just not your playstyle." </i> argument should be invalid? Then you base your argument on one playstyle? Or did you just mean you hate 1 sentence arguments? Anyway, here's my view on the subject. The upgrade chambers are situational based. Unfortunatly, people are basing their games on the belief that they'll face the same situation in each game (aliens have 2 hives, marines have 1 heavily turreted).

2. First, that's a midgame answer to an early game question but second, that isn't the situation every game. Some commanders know how to slip a group of marines out the back to take/siege a hive while he has the rest causing enough trouble elsewhere that the aliens have to respond. I would call that a situation better suited for movement (through teleport/celerity/silence) than defense. Defense isn't as necessary against smaller groups of marines and at the same time, flank attacks work much better because there are less to watch multiple angles. Both celerity and silence do this wonderfully. A single skulk with celerity could scout the other points, parasite the marines in transit/building, and with celerity, the rest of his speedy compadres should be able to get there in enough time to save the day and any silent skulks can get the drop on them if

*parts cut off due to length, but response is to the whole of the reply. Same goes with other parts of the reply.*

3.
The maphack ability of sensory chambers (which contrary to popular belief does see through walls and at a decent range)
Containment
Keeping track of any marines at sensative points (they can't walk past SCs like they can OCs to avoid detection)
Spotting hiding marines (Elric fails to get excited)
"Parasiting" marines by damaging them

4.
So in general, defense is for being agressive and trying to overcome a disadvantage like an agressive marine rush or taking back a turreted hive, movement is for flanking and fighting 2-3 groups of marines and scouting, sensory is for cementing map control (but you have to already have it).

5.
Obviously, it doesn't. It prevents or at least significantly delays them from reaching this point. If they already have it, then obviously sensory is a weaker choice. However, if they do have one hive, at least it

6.
Movement helps when the areas of the map where battles are taking place are constantly in...movement. It does have it's map control abilities through silence/teleport but is obviously weaker in defense than sensory and weaker in offense than defense (have I confused everyone? Good =). It's the balance between defense and offense when you really don't know which way the overall battle is going.

7.
The problem with this in public games is that each requires a change in strategy. Let's face it, newbies aren't going to stop playing like it is AvP no matter what is up. All they know is how to play offense and that offense doesn't work as well without d>m>s. Your attitudes are showing exactly that problem. The problem isn't always the upgrade order; it is THE PLAYER that is the problem.

8.
If the gorges make sensory chambers when they're busy trying to take back the map, the gorges just made a serious tactical error in not realizing the situation. Likewise, if the marines are still holed up in their main and the gorges build defense chambers first, the gorges have just made the *same* tactical error. If the skulks

9.
Defense chambers do very little compared to the other two upgrades to keep the marines stuck in base. In fact, I'd say they don't do the job hardly at all until later in the game. Gorges can't risk/afford building forward defense towers near the marine spawn so anything that gets damaged has to a) run far back to find the tower nest or b) hide long enough for regen to finish working. They are not functioning during this time. In addition, agressive aliens die much more than defensive aliens and dead aliens don't defend. Unless the offense is so effective that it forces them to turtle, the first time you mount a serious offense and suffer heavy casualties, the marines have a good 30-60 second window to counter-attack while the aliens respawn. Eventually, usually sooner rather than later, this happens. The best example of this is when after the first alien rush, all the skulks die without doing any significant damage at all and the marines take a hive or counter-attack the alien start with impunity. Any RTS player worth their salt will tell you that nothing screams "TAKE THE MAP PLEASE" more than a massive loss of troops with no gain. [/i]</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
I tagged parts of the quote for refrencing, as I move along.

1. Ok, yes I was saying things about the playstyle, but they are valid IMO. You can kill just as many if not more marines alone with the adren/cara than any other 2 chamber combo. A decent marine aimer WILL kill unupgraded fades FAST. Fighting 3+ marines is a danger if you do not have cara. And if you have cara, you do not have adren (if you went sensory/something else). The marines ARE going to get one hive if they have any skill whatsoever. Unupgraded skulks do not stand a chance, and the marines move in in the first minutes of the game. Decent commander lays phases asap, and MT goes online soon also. Silence turns useless if marines have MT, with celerity and cloak to a still major, but lesser extent. With carapace, you still have the hps to do something, given they know where you are, but they already do so the other upgrades are largely negligible.

2. Blink lets you get anywhere FAST. Fades and skulks dont need celerity with two hives. Silence is also pointless, as you can blink right in the middle of them and they cannot hear you coming. Also, if fades are not where marines are, if they are doing what they should be (attacking) then the commander is FORCED to send marines. Counter-diversons are good... MMmmm... Another thing. At two hives, the entire map is already divided, and aliens, along with the marines know which areas are friendly and hostile. Parasiting marines helps, but is not necessary. IMO it would be better to have another fade on offense, or lerk as support (just tell your team where marines are/going, and they can be warned just as easily without forcing someone to skulk). Carapace/adren skulks are still good though. Leap into the middle of a marine group and lay waste, get hurt and leap out.
Yes, certain situations could require different abilities, but 99% of the time you can not tell the future, so why not go with the ability that can counter 99% of what marines do? Marines rushing the hive? Where were the skulks in the first place to be on the opposite side of the map, all away from the hives? Skulks are supposed to go where the marines go, and try to stop marine expansion. Oh, and marines DO NOT have 2-4 resource towers. They have the one in their base, and any they spend way too much money towering up. Less marines at the hives lets skulks rush easily, and coordinated. Bye bye marine controlled hive.
Your example of bast. Engine room correct, but you said ventilation instead of feedwater. If feedwater was the first hive, then there would be movements at the refinery.
You are a fade. Blink. Bam out of nearby engine room. Bam, down the elevator, bam off to refinery. Bam, hop through movment, bam, kill marines who are attacking. 10-15 seconds. You cant really shave off more than 2-4 more seconds by having celerity. Then there is the happening that the marines have a phase gate there along with a couple of turrets. There is really no foolproof way to defend against jetbos. I do it all the time, but their worst nightmare is OCs in the vents they try to use. Another thing is that this seems to be a game that is going on for a long time already. One fortified hive, jetpack research... Takes A LOT of time to do that. Then you mention HA buddies? If you see jetpacks, you can counter them. Tell the gorges right away. If the jetbos have nowhere to make sieges, they have no way to harm you. Or if the enemy team likes using them a bit too much, simply go lerk, get your umbra ready and spray if you see one then bite. Hell if they are concentrating their effort on one hive, crack open the engine room. A couple of turrets are no problem if marines are elsewhere. A hive for a hive. Fair trade. But then you remember the commander wastes all his resources on bases... And if you get a lerk with umbra nearby, kiss that whole enemy controlled hive good bye.
Another thing. You mention sensory stopping jetbos. Sensory towers do not use parasite EVER. Sure they do if the marine gets close enough for an attempt to have sex with it, but otherwise, and 100% of the time later, no.
*appreciates BG1/2 reference*

3. This one is soo absurd I will give it a whole # by itself. Sensory chambers DO NOT DO JACK. Have fun wasting tons of resources walling off corrdiors with sensory chambers in the vain hope of parasiting a marine. "The enemy is approaching" Wow, thanks for telling me where... Unless of course you are talking about scent of fear, which is an upgrade only useful mid-late game, and only useful for lerk's poison cloud, and to a lesser extent, bile bomb and acid rocked. The marines should die anyway to acid rocket and bile bomb, so it's use is not exactly the best idea.

4. Early movement is not for taking out multiple groups of marines. Skulks are already fast, they do not need more speed. It is much better to live and proceed to the next group than to die and have to run all the way back. I also fail to see how sensory lets you cement map control, but whatever...

5. They already have it. The marines SUCK if they let you bottle them in their base until you get 2nd hive, and if it is still first hive, 2-3 marines grouped WILL get where they are going.

6. Celerity skulks are just as useless as normal skulks. Getting across the map faster WILL NOT help them in a fight.

7. Offense is necessary. The marines WILL achieve SOME of their objectives. You cannot just rely on saying "the marines WONT get to a hive." Again, I am referencing the server I play on.

8. Defense chambers are NOT a tactical error if they are made when the marines are still in their base. The skulks can LIVE. The marines are going to get past the cloaked skulks, even if it takes one guy to run out as fodder. Wasted alien resources/sensory slot. If you do not have carapace, I can kill you and a friend with one lmg clip, and from there, take out my pistol and maybe take out another. Send one fodder marine through the main base doorway and bye bye skulks. Then if you try to spread out and cover different areas, then the marines win by sheer numbers. Even if each skulk get a kill, not more than 1/2 the alien team is on the way to the marine objective. Marines get there, and build a phase gate. Next hive.

9. I agree. The objective with defensive chambers is scouting. Stay by corners, parasite marines when they come, and run off. Regroup when marines reach their objective, charge and commence wasting of commander money. Marines go somewhere, aliens know about it. Rushing the marine base is BAD. Let me repeat that... BAD. Aliens take WAY too long to respawn, and anything that cuts down on the amount of respawning is a GOOD thing. Ideal defense chamber order. (6+ player per team.) Two gorges, and two RTs go up. One gorge then concentrates on building DCs, while the other caps 1-2 more nodes and then saves for hive. DC building gorge builds near the fighting, and turns into a VERY deadly OC, and skulks come back to heal. (Much shorter than dying and then respawning etc...) One assumption you make is that carapaced skulks rush. They do not if they have any idea of what they are doing. Parasite a marine of a group and get help. Either that or just chomp the group yourself. At the end of the paragraph, *points to saying DO NOT RUSH again...*

Also, if you would like to try to prove your point to me in an actual game, try joining Tower at Charm (IP at topic start post), and try giving it a whirl.

Logo · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>This means skulks without carapace fall like flies if they are seen. Corners do not work either. Marine with decent aim > unupgraded skulks.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

All you say beyond this point is bias. You assume that a sulk cannot avoid fire or keep themselves from being shot at. This is just flat out wrong. The majority of kills I get as a sulk even with carprice involve no shots fired at me (or a few fired in a panic) from the marine. Most of my deaths do...

If you are going to rush into marines head first then yes you will die. If you watch the marines and strike when the time is right then you will be a lot more successful.

I agree full with Elrick for the many reasons he stated.

Canadianmonk3y · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Logo @ Dec 15 2002, 12:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>All you say beyond this point is bias. You assume that a sulk cannot avoid fire or keep themselves from being shot at. This is just flat out wrong. The majority of kills I get as a sulk even with carprice involve no shots fired at me (or a few fired in a panic) from the marine. Most of my deaths do...</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Then those marines suck. Simple as that. If I hear/see you without carapace, you are dead in usually less than seconds. Skulks just cannot move fast enough to avoid fire.

DrFurious · December 2002

I've noticed that M/D/S is gaining supporters as of late, and I personally prefer it in most cases, depending on the individual situation. For one, celerity can be quite useful in responding to threats and closing the gap on enemies. The big advantage early on, though, comes from silence, especially useful in smaller games. Silence allows skulks maximum stealth, as it allows them to move around (speed being one of the skulk's biggest advantages) rather than stay in one place as cloaking does. Keep in mind that in a great majority of encounters, marines will hear enemies much sooner than they see them, and if they're using headphones or well placed speakers they can determine the direction from which they will come. Also, silence is really fun. I was in a small game where the gorge built movement chambers first. It was so much fun stalking the solitary/small group marines by sneaking up on them from out of nowhere. The best is when you chuckle around a corner and quickly circle around them, attacking them from the opposite direction that they're pointing, nervously awaiting you to come running at them. You can achieve those special cloaking moments where you freak people out, but still have a chamber that's useful for other situations.

The other consideration in selecting a tower order is hive placement and reaction to the marines' tactics. Obviously if the marines rush the original hive, defensive chambers are crucial in placing defenses. In more traditional games, however, the gorge often saves up for the hive without building much of anything at all. In these cases, the abilities granted aren't terribly important in the decision, since you'll have them both within a couple minutes. In this case, it's best to assign defensive chambers to the more secure of the two hives, usually the second hive since it's generally the first spot defended by the gorge that just built the hive. This, of course, also depends greatly on the map and the individual game's situation regarding the marines and their movement. Defense chambers should be assigned to the better defended hive since they are far more important in a single hive mid/late game situation.

Sensory chambers first or second is generally a bad idea unless you're sure you have control of all three hives, considering that cloak is less useful than silence to skulks as I already mentioned, and it is certainly less useful in a midgame struggle with fades and lerks. To those who think you can keep a marine team "contained" through the use of cloak, it isn't possible since a marine team with any skill at all will be long gone by the time you get 3 chambers going (they should have at least one hive by that time), and there simply aren't enough choke points in most maps where skulks can group to stop the marines completely. Initial sensory chambers depends on holding the marines off from all three hives, and it simply isn't realistic to expect that this will happen.

Ravlen · December 2002

Here's my argument, cut and pasted from a different forum. I've since thought up other points (like movements away from hive to get back to hive, more points about sensory, both pro and con), but I've just written a long post in another thread. I'll update this post later with more arguments, heh

-----------------------------------------------

The problem with this debate is that the people who think that orders other than D>M>S are too hard set in their ways to realise that yes, you can win games other ways, but not as effectively.

It all comes down to skulks, which is what you have at the start. Then you compare the chambers, and how they help each skulk.

First off, you have sensory. Sensory does not help the skulk physically, just in the evolutions it gives (and "The Enemy is aproaching!"). Anyways, cloaking allows for skulks to defend positions, but it DOES NOT allow for offense. If you can tell me how sensory chambers help you assault a marine location with turrests, I'd love to hear it. Last, you need 3 sensory in order to make it useful. Your gorge will have to use 30 resources in order to make those chambers... not to mention the time it took to save up that much.

When cloaking, you make a noise, alerting the marines nearby that you have just cloaked. So, you need to cloak ahead of time in order to make effective use of it. Also, you need to be sitting in place for a certain amount of time before marines come through to be chomped. This limits the skulks usefulness, which is the ability to cover the whole map, and defend the whole map with their great speed.

For your gorge, it allows you to go cloaked if a marine comes by, so that's pretty darn good.

second, we have movement. Now it becomes a little more useful. You have adrenaline (not useful to skulks), celerity (quite useful) and silence (really useful). Adrenaline wouldn't be used, but both celerity and silence allow for some tasty chomping goodness.

Silence lets you sneak up on marines and chomp them without them knowing you were there (I'd say this works just as good, if not better than cloak. With cloak, you need to stand still and wait for the right time. With silence, you can always stay a few feet away, just around the corner, and always moving. At the same time, you are just as hidden to the marines). This does not help with assaulting marine strongholds. You unfortunately need 3 movement to be completely silent. That's 42 res.

Celerity works very well for skulks, although maybe not as useful as silence. It helps both in defense and offense, as it makes you hard to hit for both marines and turrets... It also makes you able to cover the entire map alot more easily, but you cannot surprise marines really. They will have a hard time tracking you though, especially with 2 or more skulks.

Now, for the chamber itself, it just isn't useful one bit. You only have one hive, so movement does nothing (no hive to warp to).

Lastly, we have defense chambers. Evolutions are Carapace, regeneration, and redemption.

Carapace is damn useful for skulks, it allows you to take alot more hits. This allows you to close the distance on marines and kill them, it allows you to work on turrets longer, sometimes even allows you to work on a factory while a turret is hitting you occasionally. It is also useful to the gorge, as it allows him to survive more hits and maybe run away long enough to have skulks come and defend him. In the end, the best thing for assaulting is a carapaced skulk, because even a fast skulk will get hit, and it doesn't take much to kill a skulk without carapace.

Regeneration allows skulks to heal while away from a gorge or defense chamber. Usefulness isn't that great, due to the slowness of healing, as well as the sound it makes (alerting marines).

Redemption isn't that great, it can pull you home when you want to get that last chomp in (skulks are usually expendable). It is useful to save the gorge in emergencies.

The chamber itself is the ONLY chamber that is useful in the starting game. It heals anything nearby, which is incredibly useful. A weakened skulk can run back, get healed in seconds, and get back into the assault. It allows for defensive walls that are MUCH more powerful. Offensive chambers on their own can be taken down very easily with LMG's, but pair a few defensive chambers together with the offensive and the marines will have a much harder time, and by the time they get through the place should be crawling with skulks. Defensive chambers are useful with the first chamber.

So, due to these points, I have decided that D is the best for the first hive. After that, we get into fades / lerks, and the arguments are different. But I'll stick to 1 hive debating for now. (That debate shows M over S for two hives)

Ravlen

Elric · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Anyways, cloaking allows for skulks to defend positions, but it DOES NOT allow for offense. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Right, and by the same token, carapace allows for skulks to attack positions but it does not allow for defense (offense on its own is fine early and you aren't likely to see tower farms yet anyway). I wouldn't even worry about the healing effect early, any defense tower is almost certainly as far in the back as the hive and in most cases, carapace or not, if a skulk is in a battle, it's going to come out hardly scratched or dead. Rarely does it end with a win with little life left.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The chamber itself is the ONLY chamber that is useful in the starting game.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

No. An early movement chamber near the front gives the skulks a quick return in case the marines try to siege rush the hive. Please no more baloney about how that's useless because the skulks respawn there. It's in a trickle and one skulk at a time is not going to stop a marine rush. A quick retreat in bulk, can get to them in time to stop it. Why aren't they at base? Why *would* they be at base? If they're either off defending the 2nd hive building or scouting and happen to miss the party, they need to act fast which movement provides in 2 forms.

An single early sensory chamber can cut off a choke as well if not better than a 2OT/1 DT combo if your skulks are paying attention. That doesn't mean stick it some place your skulks will ignore, that means if you're on Eclipse with the Eclipse hive, you can hide a sensory tower in the shadows at Triad Generator and any time the marines make a move on it, EVERYBODY will know it long in advance along with how many marines to expect and exactly where they are

Their abilities are very useful, it just seems most people don't realize it.

Oh, and I usually play on COFR and Misfire's but I pretty much do the exact same old build order because I know 99% of people wouldn't be able to change strategies so in a fatalistic sort of way, yeah, I guess we'd lose without defense first mostly because people can't stop playing TFC in space.

Now in response to Monkey.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The marines ARE going to get one hive if they have any skill whatsoever. Unupgraded skulks do not stand a chance, and the marines move in in the first minutes of the game. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Why is that? If the aliens are keeping track on each marine exit, they may be able to get it, they may not so quickly. In *real* skill games, NS teams are going to be constantly fighting over every inch of territory. Marines aren't going to let aliens start taking a hive without a fight and neither would good aliens. Occassionally one will slip by the other but against good teams, it won't happen often. And seriously, when have you ever seen carapace early on in the game? Most games I've seen, you're lucky to see level 1 carapace by 5 minutes into the game, lvl 3 might not even happen until the 2nd hive is starting. The only one that has a chance of getting to level 3 early on is sensory because of its cheaper cost and if you're going to check chokes you might as well get at least a couple. For early game, it is *all* about the abilities of the chambers because the upgrades really aren't going to make much difference in such low levels. Yes that includes your precious I-take-5-more-shots carapace.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Blink lets you get anywhere FAST. Fades and skulks dont need celerity with two hives </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Honestly, how often can you use blink for any appreciable difference? There's a couple halls in each map that you might get a decent blink in. The rest are tight corners with weird stuff in the way and overhangs, not to mention those turret farms everywhere blocking your blink route. Celerity rather than blink will you get you there faster on a lot of paths rather than trying to blink constantly and moving 5 feet forward per blink. Besides, celerity is excellent for combat for both skulk and fade for better circle strafing and closing distances when blink can't (and you know it's often). Claws still do much better damage than acid rockets so why not run up, claw a turret, and run off? And since we're into the BS with these instant spin death moves, you decloak or jump from your hide spot and by the time they've turned around, you're on their face, not still 10 feet ahead of them.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Silence turns useless if marines have MT</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Heh, no. See, there's this thing about motion tracking which even the manual mentions, you have to be looking in the direction of your predator to see him. If you're walking the other way, or your allies are turned with the expectation to check the other direction if they hear a noise, MT isn't going to do jack for them. The amount of kills I have gotten in late game against jetpack and heavy armor marines alike with any weapons is excellent. Yeah, I have carapace at that point since everybody uses the same build order but you know what? Doesn't matter, 9 times out of 10, I never even get shot by my prey when I'm at their back, and the 10th I don't make it out with little life, I get fried because the guy has time to aim his hmg.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>You mention sensory stopping jetbos. Sensory towers do not use parasite EVER. Sure they do if the marine gets close enough for an attempt to have sex with it, but otherwise, and 100% of the time later, no.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

First, try a lan game, get a buddy, and figure out how sensory chambers actually work (or try reading how it works in my post). To repeat, besides the enemy approaching single (which on its own would be useless) any marine nearby it WHETHER IT IS BLOCKED BY A WALL OR NOT will temporarily show up on the hivesight. It is not a huge distance but it is not small either. Plenty of time to hear the announcement, spin to find the yellow dot (or 5) and react.

Map control, a concept familiar to those who've played heavily into RTS. This does not mean you have towers all over the map so that the marines are stuck in base. It *can* mean that but usually doesn't. True affordable map control is where you know exactly where your enemy is or have them set where they are corraled into only one direction. In this situation, you control all the knowledge, you control all the battles, you have constant information on the important areas and hencefore, you control everything your opponent does. You control the map.

If you've played starcraft, then here's an analogy. You have observers at every resource node, have blocked your base from getting hit from behind from drops, and left it so that the only option is to hit you dead on. Meanwhile, any time he tries to expand, he'll either lose it immediatly since you can just send a small contigent to squash it, or he has to try to expand by force. He has to go out the front, which you're already watching and ready to ambush. If he tries to expand by air, he'll again pass by your observers and be blown out of the sky before he gets a chance to touch down. You may not have a single turret anywhere on the whole map and yet, you own it all at your leisure.

So that's the gormet style answer to #3 with a garnish of learn how the game works before you lecture me on how to play this game and lob insults you funny little man. Next.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Yes, certain situations could require different abilities, but 99% of the time you can not tell the future, so why not go with the ability that can counter 99% of what marines do?</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

First, if it countered at that percentage, aliens would never lose. Defense only has purpose if the skulk lives through the firefight it is in where carapace made the difference between life and death. That is definitly not anywhere near 99% of anything.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Early movement is not for taking out multiple groups of marines. Skulks are already fast, they do not need more speed. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

If you have marines on one end setting up stage outside your hive and another group setting up at an empty one, that extra speed could be the difference between whether they get that phase gate or turrets up. I guess you still don't see how even celerity is used offensively. First, the quicker you close the gap between your target, the less hits you take. You may be able to take more with carapace, but it'll take you much longer to get there and easier to hit so in the end, it's a wash in many cases. Not to mention celerity is useful for circling under their feet. Is carapace useless? Of course not. Is it far superior to celerity in combat? Not hardly. There's still flanking. With celerity, the oppurtunity to spot them in one direction, split, and rush to their blindside where your group can hit theirs from 2-3 different directions is disastrous to marines. Silence makes it all the better because they won't even notice the flank until they're all dead shooting the skulk they do see over the one they don't.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>They already have it. The marines SUCK if they let you bottle them in their base until you get 2nd hive, and if it is still first hive, 2-3 marines grouped WILL get where they are going.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

In a good game, nobody is going to be getting that second hive early because both sides will be kicking each other in and out and around. It takes a general rout of one side over the other to buy enough time to set up while everyone respawns/rearms. 2-3 marines are lunch for an organized skulk pack unless the marines plan the hit on them in time. Maybe with your precious carapace style, rush at their face and try to eat them approach, yeah, they're hard to take down. But with one skulk rushing their front at mach speed while 1-2 rush their back in total silence, normally, they go splat. If 2 skulks decloak chuckling right under some unexpected marines feets from multiple sides, the marines life expectancy isn't real grand either. Shoot, 3 skulks in this manner should be able to decimate or totally annhilate a squad of 6 if they set it up right. The mayham of people panicing and spraying everywhere will leave a couple skulks dead but that last one will just be finishing up the leftovers. Will it work every time? Of course not, it'd be imbalanced if it did. Will yours work? Wait, you already said it couldn't work.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Offense is necessary. The marines WILL achieve SOME of their objectives. You cannot just rely on saying "the marines WONT get to a hive." Again, I am referencing the server I play on.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

And if they do? How many games have been lost by marines because they hold a hive, not much else, and get run over by fades. Just because they have a hive doesn't mean containment no longer works. 2 hive battles go to whoever has the better resources generally, so even if you can't get back the hive immediatly, deny them this and it'll all fall into place. The turrets and marines will still die even if you can only fire 4 rockets instead of 5. If you hold the map, the gorge with adrenilne is more than enough to keep everybody happy with healing and slinging webs.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Defense chambers are NOT a tactical error if they are made when the marines are still in their base. The skulks can LIVE. The marines are going to get past the cloaked skulks, even if it takes one guy to run out as fodder. Wasted alien resources/sensory slot. If you do not have carapace, I can kill you and a friend with one lmg clip, and from there, take out my pistol and maybe take out another. Send one fodder marine through the main base doorway and bye bye skulks. Then if you try to spread out and cover different areas, then the marines win by sheer numbers. Even if each skulk get a kill, not more than 1/2 the alien team is on the way to the marine objective. Marines get there, and build a phase gate. Next hive.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Even if the skulks live, they'll run away to heal. They won't be defending no matter the outcome of the battle. Anyway, yes here we go with the counter to the counter, the lure. Now how about we counter your counter by just letting one skulk take the bait, let you rush out to kill him, and then you're surrounded and eaten. A true game of cat and mouse but the aliens would still be holding most of the cards. And why would skulks scatter even if you killed them all? They'd know exactly where you are and where you will be going because of any sensory towers. They'll also know if you try and sneak out another way and deal with it accordingly. And in the meantime, the gorge should have gotten at least a couple free RT to help in the coming resource war. If the aliens can start a good containment with either 2 hives or 3, it, like any good containment, will not be easy to break out of. Of course it can fall to a rout and in which case they would be in trouble and backpeddling but if the marines fall to a similar route from an ambush, the containment will be very easy to restablish and set them back to square one. By the time they do permenantly break containment, which they usually will, they will find the disadvantage so far against them that it will take a lot of work to try to get back in the game.

The strategy isn't fullproof but no such strategy is or should be in a properly balanced game. Obviously your strategy isn't fullproof...well ok 99% fullproof, since aliens tend to win just around as much as they lose in the grand scheme. In the end, like everything else, it has its strengths and it has its weaknesses. It has counters to its counters and the marines have counters to that and so on. In the end, it'll come down to the skill of the team whether a containment strategy will work long enough to win the game but if it holds for any decent amount of time, the game is over. It's just a checkmate that you can see 15 moves ahead. The problem with instantly taking a defense first strategy is that you're automatically assuming the worst, that you can't keep them out of hives and that in groups they'll walk all over you so you just have to slam into them repeatedly. That doesn't have to be true and many times is proven not to be.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I agree. The objective with defensive chambers is scouting. Stay by corners, parasite marines when they come, and run off. Regroup when marines reach their objective, charge and commence wasting of commander money. Marines go somewhere, aliens know about it. Rushing the marine base is BAD. Let me repeat that... BAD. Aliens take WAY too long to respawn, and anything that cuts down on the amount of respawning is a GOOD thing.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Defense chambers help you scout? Which part allows it to do that? Is it the defense towers placed in areas that are specifically designed to be out of the common paths of marines? Or is it the carapace which inspires the strat of hitting the marines you know about instead of looking for the ones you don't? Or better yet, is it the regeneration where you scout by hiding in a corner waiting for your life to come back up?

Anyway, yes, we agreed on rushing the marine base and reducing casualties. What you still aren't getting is that BETTER ARMOR IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO REDUCE CASUALTIES! I can write that on a Goodyear blimp and stick a pink tip on the end so you pay attention to it or not but regardless as many other people have been saying, avoiding hits is equally as good as the ability to sustain hits. Otherwise, abilities like umbra, web, leap, and blink would be utterly worthless. Hey, they don't let me eat bullets or damage the enemy, they must be worthless, right?

Ravlen · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Anyways, cloaking allows for skulks to defend positions, but it DOES NOT allow for offense.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Right, and by the same token, carapace allows for skulks to attack positions but it does not allow for defense (offense on its own is fine early and you aren't likely to see tower farms yet anyway). I wouldn't even worry about the healing effect early, any defense tower is almost certainly as far in the back as the hive and in most cases, carapace or not, if a skulk is in a battle, it's going to come out hardly scratched or dead. Rarely does it end with a win with little life left.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

I don't know how you play, but I come out of fights slightly scratched all the time. I come out of fights heavily damaged all the time, and as a matter of fact, I come out of fights undamaged all the time. To think that either a skulk is at full health or dead is just plain wrong. That shows bad strategy.

"Oh, I'm nearly dead, might as well go get killed". That's a pub mentality. A good skulk will retreat, get healed, and come back and take out more marines.

Also, with carapace, skulks come out of fights alive alot more often, needing heals.

Lastly... Carapace not helping defense? Are you mad? How can you think that having skulks that stay alive longer, that have an easier time killing marines in direct combat, not help defense? This is utterly insane.

Ravlen

Elric · December 2002

Sorry, I should clarify. I mean defense as in defending their areas, not yours. How long does a group of carapaced skulks keep the marines from making an advance? Isn't very long. If they're pounding on your door, then yes, of course constant healing and taking damage are an obvious boon.

Ravlen · December 2002

What do you mean defending their areas? If it is their area, how come you are defending it?

Ravlen

matso · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Elric @ Dec 15 2002, 09:29 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>You're off acid rocketing engine room on bast when siege cannons begin to open up on Ventalation hive from the Steam room. "How'd they do that, we have atmospheric!" That one jetbo can really hurt if he knows the vents <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'>. Especially when he builds a phase gate, brings a couple HA buddies and builds a couple turrets and those 2 siege cannons. A single sensory tower would have showed his hand long before he got that up. I haven't even *begun* to start talking about the other jetbo waiting to build siege cannons on the upper level of refinery yet >=].</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
Yea. But there are better answers than crippling yourself with sensory. Namely, drop a single OC covering the areas the jetbos might be building in. You might have to skulk there, evolve and build, but it is STILL far cheaper than using sensory.

In addition, the OC's won't spam you with "Enemy Approaching" signals all the time, and they may even take out or damage a Jetbo.

Logo · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Yea. But there are better answers than crippling yourself with sensory. Namely, drop a single OC covering the areas the jetbos might be building in. You might have to skulk there, evolve and build, but it is STILL far cheaper than using sensory.

In addition, the OC's won't spam you with "Enemy Approaching" signals all the time, and they may even take out or damage a Jetbo.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Spam? You call knowing the enemy is approaching spam?

The Jetbo in that case could always just whiz past the OC to an built in area and you would never know he went by.

Once again I'm going to say I agree with Elrick.

Ravlen you've made some very valid points but you have to keep something in mind no one is saying D first is useless or something else first is better but instead there is more than one option.

Elric · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> What do you mean defending their areas? If it is their area, how come you are defending it?</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

The chokepoints near their base. That way they're forced to come against well positioned skulks anytime they leave the base. Failing that, a decently hidden sensory chamber near their base will do the job of at least letting you know they're going that way so you're prepared at the next choke point. If you're going to use cloak, you have to know they're coming which is why putting the sensory chambers closer to the front is so important. Set up defenses as close to the enemy as possible and retreat only when you have to.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Yea. But there are better answers than crippling yourself with sensory. Namely, drop a single OC covering the areas the jetbos might be building in. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

No, that or an entire wall of lame for that matter won't help if he can get in to tower blind spots, build a phase, and start the attack in silence because they aren't retarded and attacking the OT, not to mention if he's a true jetbo and makes a flight straight to the top of the hive and slams it with the welder/hmg/shotty. It takes around 45 seconds to take a hive down with that kind of sustained fire. The extra warning from the signal could be the difference between life and death of that hive. A sensory is also drastically cheaper than an entire wall of lame for a gorge.

What is important for a gorge is that he doesn't build it so close to a marine encampment that it's just constantly spamming the warning. Sensories won't pick up buildings in hivesight so if people keeping hearing the warning and see no dots, they'll quickly learn to ignore it. I would prefer it if buildings didn't set off the alert or at least they show up on hivesight as well but it's not a big deal.

rebo · December 2002

I cant belive there are still people arguing for sensory. Get over it, everyone hates it when a gorge makes a sensory first or second. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/pudgy.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='pudgy.gif'>

Elric · December 2002

I get the feeling you haven't read a word I've said.

You have more than a one-liner to post?

Canadianmonk3y · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Elric @ Dec 15 2002, 06:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>1.
Why is that? If the aliens are keeping track on each marine exit, they may be able to get it, they may not so quickly. In *real* skill games, NS teams are going to be constantly fighting over every inch of territory. Marines aren't going to let aliens start taking a hive without a fight and neither would good aliens. Occassionally one will slip by the other but against good teams, it won't happen often. And seriously, when have you ever seen carapace early on in the game? Most games I've seen, you're lucky to see level 1 carapace by 5 minutes into the game, lvl 3 might not even happen until the 2nd hive is starting. The only one that has a chance of getting to level 3 early on is sensory because of its cheaper cost and if you're going to check chokes you might as well get at least a couple. For early game, it is *all* about the abilities of the chambers because the upgrades really aren't going to make much difference in such low levels. Yes that includes your precious I-take-5-more-shots carapace.

2.
Honestly, how often can you use blink for any appreciable difference? There's a couple halls in each map that you might get a decent blink in. The rest are tight corners with weird stuff in the way and overhangs, not to mention those turret farms everywhere blocking your blink route. Celerity rather than blink will you get you there faster on a lot of paths rather than trying to blink constantly and moving 5 feet forward per blink. Besides, celerity is excellent for combat for both skulk and fade for better circle strafing and closing distances when blink can't (and you know it's often). Claws still do much better damage than acid rockets so why not run up, claw a turret, and run off? And since we're into the BS with these instant spin death moves, you decloak or jump from your hide spot and by the time they've turned around, you're on their face, not still 10 feet ahead of them.

3.
Heh, no. See, there's this thing about motion tracking which even the manual mentions, you have to be looking in the direction of your predator to see him. If you're walking the other way, or your allies are turned with the expectation to check the other direction if they hear a noise, MT isn't going to do jack for them. The amount of kills I have gotten in late game against jetpack and heavy armor marines alike with any weapons is excellent. Yeah, I have carapace at that point since everybody uses the same build order but you know what? Doesn't matter, 9 times out of 10, I never even get shot by my prey when I'm at their back, and the 10th I don't make it out with little life, I get fried because the guy has time to aim his hmg.

4.
First, try a lan game, get a buddy, and figure out how sensory chambers actually work (or try reading how it works in my post). To repeat, besides the enemy approaching single (which on its own would be useless) any marine nearby it WHETHER IT IS BLOCKED BY A WALL OR NOT will temporarily show up on the hivesight. It is not a huge distance but it is not small either. Plenty of time to hear the announcement, spin to find the yellow dot (or 5) and react.

Map control, a concept familiar to those who've played heavily into RTS. This does not mean you have towers all over the map so that the marines are stuck in base. It *can* mean that but usually doesn't. True affordable map control is where you know exactly where your enemy is or have them set where they are corraled into only one direction. In this situation, you control all the knowledge, you control all the battles, you have constant information on the important areas and hencefore, you control everything your opponent does. You control the map.

If you've played starcraft, then here's an analogy. You have observers at every resource node, have blocked your base from getting hit from behind from drops, and left it so that the only option is to hit you dead on. Meanwhile, any time he tries to expand, he'll either lose it immediatly since you can just send a small contigent to squash it, or he has to try to expand by force. He has to go out the front, which you're already watching and ready to ambush. If he tries to expand by air, he'll again pass by your observers and be blown out of the sky before he gets a chance to touch down. You may not have a single turret anywhere on the whole map and yet, you own it all at your leisure.

So that's the gormet style answer to #3 with a garnish of learn how the game works before you lecture me on how to play this game and lob insults you funny little man. Next.

6.
First, if it countered at that percentage, aliens would never lose. Defense only has purpose if the skulk lives through the firefight it is in where carapace made the difference between life and death. That is definitly not anywhere near 99% of anything.

7.
If you have marines on one end setting up stage outside your hive and another group setting up at an empty one, that extra speed could be the difference between whether they get that phase gate or turrets up. I guess you still don't see how even celerity is used offensively. First, the quicker you close the gap between your target, the less hits you take. You may be able to take more with carapace, but it'll take you much longer to get there and easier to hit so in the end, it's a wash in many cases. Not to mention celerity is useful for circling under their feet. Is carapace useless? Of course not. Is it far superior to celerity in combat? Not hardly. There's still flanking. With celerity, the oppurtunity to spot them in one direction, split, and rush to their blindside where your group can hit theirs from 2-3 different directions is disastrous to marines. Silence makes it all the better because they won't even notice the flank until they're all dead shooting the skulk they do see over the one they don't.

8.
In a good game, nobody is going to be getting that second hive early because both sides will be kicking each other in and out and around. It takes a general rout of one side over the other to buy enough time to set up while everyone respawns/rearms. 2-3 marines are lunch for an organized skulk pack unless the marines plan the hit on them in time. Maybe with your precious carapace style, rush at their face and try to eat them approach, yeah, they're hard to take down. But with one skulk rushing their front at mach speed while 1-2 rush their back in total silence, normally, they go splat. If 2 skulks decloak chuckling right under some unexpected marines feets from multiple sides, the marines life expectancy isn't real grand either. Shoot, 3 skulks in this manner should be able to decimate or totally annhilate a squad of 6 if they set it up right. The mayham of people panicing and spraying everywhere will leave a couple skulks dead but that last one will just be finishing up the leftovers. Will it work every time? Of course not, it'd be imbalanced if it did. Will yours work? Wait, you already said it couldn't work.

And if they do? How many games have been lost by marines because they hold a hive, not much else, and get run over by fades. Just because they have a hive doesn't mean containment no longer works. 2 hive battles go to whoever has the better resources generally, so even if you can't get back the hive immediatly, deny them this and it'll all fall into place. The turrets and marines will still die even if you can only fire 4 rockets instead of 5. If you hold the map, the gorge with adrenilne is more than enough to keep everybody happy with healing and slinging webs.

9.
Even if the skulks live, they'll run away to heal. They won't be defending no matter the outcome of the battle. Anyway, yes here we go with the counter to the counter, the lure. Now how about we counter your counter by just letting one skulk take the bait, let you rush out to kill him, and then you're surrounded and eaten. A true game of cat and mouse but the aliens would still be holding most of the cards. And why would skulks scatter even if you killed them all? They'd know exactly where you are and where you will be going because of any sensory towers. They'll also know if you try and sneak out another way and deal with it accordingly. And in the meantime, the gorge should have gotten at least a couple free RT to help in the coming resource war. If the aliens can start a good containment with either 2 hives or 3, it, like any good containment, will not be easy to break out of. Of course it can fall to a rout and in which case they would be in trouble and backpeddling but if the marines fall to a similar route from an ambush, the containment will be very easy to restablish and set them back to square one. By the time they do permenantly break containment, which they usually will, they will find the disadvantage so far against them that it will take a lot of work to try to get back in the game.

10.
The strategy isn't fullproof but no such strategy is or should be in a properly balanced game. Obviously your strategy isn't fullproof...well ok 99% fullproof, since aliens tend to win just around as much as they lose in the grand scheme. In the end, like everything else, it has its strengths and it has its weaknesses. It has counters to its counters and the marines have counters to that and so on. In the end, it'll come down to the skill of the team whether a containment strategy will work long enough to win the game but if it holds for any decent amount of time, the game is over. It's just a checkmate that you can see 15 moves ahead. The problem with instantly taking a defense first strategy is that you're automatically assuming the worst, that you can't keep them out of hives and that in groups they'll walk all over you so you just have to slam into them repeatedly. That doesn't have to be true and many times is proven not to be.

11.
Defense chambers help you scout? Which part allows it to do that? Is it the defense towers placed in areas that are specifically designed to be out of the common paths of marines? Or is it the carapace which inspires the strat of hitting the marines you know about instead of looking for the ones you don't? Or better yet, is it the regeneration where you scout by hiding in a corner waiting for your life to come back up?

12.
Anyway, yes, we agreed on rushing the marine base and reducing casualties. What you still aren't getting is that BETTER ARMOR IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO REDUCE CASUALTIES! I can write that on a Goodyear blimp and stick a pink tip on the end so you pay attention to it or not but regardless as many other people have been saying, avoiding hits is equally as good as the ability to sustain hits. Otherwise, abilities like umbra, web, leap, and blink would be utterly worthless. Hey, they don't let me eat bullets or damage the enemy, they must be worthless, right?</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
1.
If the aliens keep track of every exit, the marines travel as a group, and have the number advantage. Some marines get through, and throw up a phasegate.
Also, I know that def towers do not come right away, but if you have a smart gorge they can come well before the second hive. I would easily take 2 def chambers instead of 3 sensory. A gorge who can fight marines at a hive, and skulks with lots of hitpoints is still better than skulks who get vaporized by a poke.

2.
Wrong. You can blink almost every hallway in almost every level. Jump+duck=at the opposing wall. Celerity IS negated about 75% by blink. Just blink right next to marines. Sure it does not work ALL the time, but in the hands of a skilled user, it does work ALMOST all the time.

3.
And if the marines are not watching their motion tracking, they deserve to die. Silence IS negated by MT. MT lets you know ahead of time if something is coming. It is NOT good for close ranges. Stay observant with MT. Once you clear the hiding aliens from an area, the marines can watch as they try to come back and get back in hiding positions which are then compromised by MT. I laugh at how many times that I see aliens going sensory first, and then attempting to hide, but I just walk through the door, aimed at where they are, and bye bye skulk.

4.
Yes, it is a small bonus, but you have to lay quite a few to cover the range of sieges. Resources much more well spent on DCs and MTs, or another hive for that matter. Take a small examlple of what you are saying.
-Jetbo comes in through vents, sets up phase gate at some location. (Motion tracking comes into play, as comm can tell him when it is safe/unsafe to build, and warn of incoming). Phase gate goes up. Reinforcements come in and TF is constructed. The aliens have noticed by the time the phase gets up, and what can they do without carapace? Assault the marine outpost with their precious cloak, and get put through a paper shredder? At least skulks can take down marine outposts with carapace. It is better to chance losing a hive before the marines are driven off, than to not be able to stop the marines at all.

5.
First off, I do play RTSs. When I actually played laddered W3, I was ranked in the top 500 on Azeroth. I also play more RTS games than FPSs or RPGs. That being said, the aliens have to patrol, and attack marines wherever they go, except for their main base. You would have to set up a hell of a lot of sensory towers to see what the marines are doing all over the map. And if you do, any roving marine that sees the gorge running all over laying SCs = -1 gorge. One patrolling skulk can direct team mates just as well if not better, and is not a waste if he dies. Plus he does not waste valuable resources/abilities on chamber slots. Hell if I had that many resources as you have listed as been laid in SCs alone, I would have an extra hive, and some more RTs to boot.

6.
I never said a percentage of winning. The game is mostly based on skill but a few blunders by gorges or the marine can screw the whole team, and sometimes the other team sucks so badly that your team almost wins no matter what. There is no marine counter to carapace like there is for the other two abilities. (MT again)

7.
The quicker the skulk gets to a group of marines building somewhere, the quicker he gets slaughtered. Celerity just does not increase speed enough to screw marine aim. Sure you might be 1/3 closer than you would if you did not have celerity, but you would still die. They still have jack for hps, which make ALL the difference. If you get close enough to melee marines, granted their aim is off, but when they spread out, you will be in the line of fire from at least one marine, which can still track you. You mention flanking. Yes, flanking CAN work, BUT the frontal skulks still get zapped, and the marines spread out when they realize that there are skulks coming the other way. At least the people in the corners will, and the skulks will still die, even if they do take out one or two marines. One lmg clip=two dead skulks, celerity or not.

8.
In a good game, the marines WILL secure one hive almost right away. The aliens have to defend, and hope to keep the marines out of a hive until they get upgraded skulks. This is a guaranteed losing battle for the aliens. Once the marines get set up in the first hive, it is on to the next, where the real fight starts, as the aliens realize that they HAVE to hold that hive, and upgrades start to come into play, making it harder for marines. Slightly improved, but not by much skulk gets hosed, and the marines are alerted to alien presence, and MT comes into play. Add two more splatters to the wall. Two skulks decloak? Marines already know theyre are there unless they have sat there for about a minute or two of doing nothing for their team, to make the marines forget about them, and they still get splattered by marines in the group, even if they do get a kill.

On good servers, it becomes a fight for hives no matter what, as the marines survive in groups, and holding resource towers spread all over the map and one hive is MUCH harder than fighting for two hives. Taking resources is NOT key, and whoever wins the battle of the hives is usually the winner of the match.

9.
Skulks live, they run to heal, and marine presence is erased from the area. They go back to heal (MUCH shorter time than respawning marines take to get back there), and resume patrols. Often enough, the one marine runs through the door, and shoots+kills an alien who tries to drop down, and sights the others. Maybe he does not kill the alien before it hits the ground. The other team mates surely will. The lone marine is protected by the other marines, while the lone alien is not. The marines hold the cards, not the aliens. MT=gorge hunter bliss. Your gorge WILL NOT be racking up RTs while placing SCs all over the map. Once the aliens are out of a room with the sensory upgrade, they will not be coming back in unless marines leave. Cloaking skulks simply CANNOT deal with marines breaking out with MT. MT is there before, or at the same time as SCs are built. (Depending on 1-2 RT built before chambers).

10.
So you admit the entire sensory strategy is based on containment, while on good servers, containment with sensory IS NOT POSSIBLE. Taking defense first does assume the marines will move into hives because they WILL. You CANNOT stop them. Even without groups, a lone marine does walk all over skulks without carapace. I laugh when two skulks try to rush me and I gun them both down with one lmg clip, and MAYBE a pistol shot or two.

11.
They do not help you scout in the base definition of scouting, but it does let you live after seeing the marines, and them blasting you before your ping catches up and you see them and run. Def towers are set up at RTs where the gorge(s) are building, which is on the way to the second hive. Marines will be inside the first hive by the time you get upgrades, and carapace is NECESSARY to uproot them. Patrolling the map and being able to run back alive after sighting marines, while typing/saying where they are is invaluable, where without carapace, the skulk could and will get blasted before he can react/say something to the rest of the team. Regeneration is WORTHLESS as a skulk, as you still die as fast as a cloaked/other upgrade skulk, and your upgrade has no chance to do jack for you.

12.
If the upgrades actually let you move fast enough to avoid marine fire, or even made it so you could approach unnoticed, they would be good, but at the CURRENT state of things, none of them work well enough to improve a skulk's chances of survival greater than carapace. If they improved the other upgrades, then they could reduce casualties, but at the moment, simply no. About your examples. Umbra is like improved armor, as it does not make you evade shots, but you just do not get hit much so it is a bad example. Leap and blink make you get where you want to be nearly-instantly, and sure as hell faster than marines can aim. They are good ways of avoiding fire. However, celerity simply is not, as it does not propel the skulk fast enough to avoid the fire. Web is another bad example, as it incapacitates marines totally, rather than avoiding fire. Granted, it does reduce the damage hugely, but unlike chamber upgrades you do not have a CHOICE. Think about it for a moment. If you could choose attacks, along with chamber upgrades, and there was something better than webs, do you think they would hesitate to skip the web? No. (I do not give an example of something better than webs, as I cannot think of anything like it that would not be 100% overpowered. A damage attack would also not be better as the web thing is a specialized thing, and people would rather have it while being a support oriented gorge than having some new damaging attack). The other upgrades are not worthless, but certainly more so than carapace. It is like being offered one of two gems of the same quality/type, but one is twice the size of the other. Which one would you choose? The big one (carapace)? Yes.

This is proving to be a fun discussion for when I have the time/the boards are up...
Keep it up Elric!

MonsieurEvil · December 2002

(Fixing incorrect topic date due to server issue)

Catgirl · December 2002

I wouldn't mind Sens so much if you could tell where the Marines are setting them off...

GenmaC · December 2002

Is sensory first/second a valid tactic? Maybe, but it sure seems an incredibly weak one to me, not to mention that it promotes very little alien expansion.

For the love of God, when you go to someone else's server (I had this happen a few times), don't try to bring your obtuse reasoning with you...it's incredibly irritating for one shitlicking fuckwad to go gorge, build sensory first or second, then use his 14 year old voice to explain how you just don't know how to play, etc etc.

Elric · December 2002

Edit for the two who posted before I was done:

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I wouldn't mind Sens so much if you could tell where the Marines are setting them off... </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Again, please test them in a lan game or empty server with a friend. You'll be suprised at what they actually do. They show nearby marines in hivesight like they were parasited. Unfortunatly, they don't show buildings which is why if you build a SC in the wrong spot, you can get the claxon going over and over without showing anything...the SC is near a marine building with no marines guarding it.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>For the love of God, when you go to someone else's server (I had this happen a few times), don't try to bring your obtuse reasoning with you...it's incredibly irritating for one shitlicking fuckwad to go gorge, build sensory first or second, then use his 14 year old voice to explain how you just don't know how to play, etc etc.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Nah, in the end I go with what the team is comfortable with. Even if sensory or movement first could win the situation, they won't if your team doesn't know/doesn't want to know how to employ their abilities to their fullest effects. It's a shame because I do it knowing I'm giving up a good easy chance for a win and at the same time playing exactly into the hands of the marines. No marine strategy now has a contingency for cloak/silence because they are sure no one will use them. In any other RTS, people would outright laugh at you if you told them you should always do the same strategy game after game.

Rest for CanadianMonkey:

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>If the aliens keep track of every exit, the marines travel as a group, and have the number advantage. Some marines get through, and throw up a phasegate.
Also, I know that def towers do not come right away, but if you have a smart gorge they can come well before the second hive. I would easily take 2 def chambers instead of 3 sensory. A gorge who can fight marines at a hive, and skulks with lots of hitpoints is still better than skulks who get vaporized by a poke.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Surprise and flank attacks easily wins number advantages in many scenarios even in FPS's. But if they're so invincible in packs as you imply, why aren't they all marine rushing for wins? And if they are, why are we even arguing a part of the game that aliens would never get to because they die in 3 minutes? Carapaced skulk attacks have not been very effective in stopping these marine groups therefore I'm trying to develop a counter that isn't of the take more bullets variety. You can tell me that they'll always be ready for it because they're so skilled...but why would they? Nobody is using the strategy! If you've been going cloak or silence first a game or two and they're expecting you to do the same ambush style next time around, *then* you can hit them with armored skulks in a one angle attack. While they're being paranoid staying spread out to avoid ambush, then is a good time to run full tilt and pick them off one at a time in a mass rush. And since you seem to be keen on the idea that carapace counters motion tracking to a degree, good!! Make them use up the 45 RP at the beginning that they feel will be needed just to not get devoured. Keep them guessing, make them play your game, don't make them play the same game every freaking time so they only need one playbook. No marine at this point feels the need to be cautious of cloaked units or check their backside for silenced units because THERE NEVER ARE ANY!! Every strategy has counters and I believe that either cloak or silence/celerity are exactly the counter needed for the "move as one group and brute force" strategy that is letting them get that first hive so early. It requires timing and planning but honestly, so does any carapace attack unless you think two skulks just rushing the front have a chance against 4 marines.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I laugh at how many times that I see aliens going sensory first, and then attempting to hide, but I just walk through the door, aimed at where they are, and bye bye skulk</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

If they're trying cloak when you're close enough to pinpoint where they are through MT, obviously they're a bit foolish at least after they've figured out the first time you have MT. From farther away though given the circuitous routes the maps have, it really is difficult to pinpoint their location other than saying "Eh, I think there's one in Shipping Tunnel...or was that Aux Generator?

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Yes, it is a small bonus, but you have to lay quite a few to cover the range of sieges. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

Not really, you need 2, at most 3 and I really can't think of any map off hand that has more than two chokes headed from the marine start. You can get pretty creative with SC placement since they see through walls so that they're close enough in range to get a spot on marine groups and yet relatively hidden from view if they're not actively looking for them. Take eclipse for instance. Barring the two station access paths out of the base which admittedly no gorge would be caught dead in at the beginning of the game, there are four major paths out of the base: Triad Generator, Station Access Alpha, Station Access East, and Horseshoe. Horseshoe is easy, stick a SC in the vent in upper keyhole to spot the common route to maintainence. You can hide a SC in the shadows under the Station Access West route to spot the Triad route to Eclipse (again, most common by far). It is unlikely that either will be spotted until later in the game. You may even be able to put a SC in the path by Triad labeled Triad Access B to spot both SA West and SA Alpha with one SC but I would have to test the range again. I do know you can hide a SC in the corner at Triad Access B-C to spot SA Alpha with ease. You could try spotting SA Alpha by putting a SC on the side of the path where the ladders are but I'm not sure if you can fit a chamber there and I wouldn't risk a gorge that far up early on anyway. So with 2 (perhaps 3) chambers, you know the comings and goings of 3 of the 4 routes. They will never see them so they won't know exactly how you're ready for them every time they move out no matter which way they go and therefore you get an extreme pyschological edge. It's near impossible to hide a chamber at Station Access East but it doesn't matter, if they aren't getting picked up by any SC, you know they must be coming from this direction so lie in wait there. If they go elsewhere, reposition, cloak, get ready for lunch. You get the added benefit of having your own motion tracking when you get there and know exactly where each marine is to eat them better. Since you agree that MT is so deadly, surely you will see the advantage in this as well. Later on in the game if you have the resources, that's when you can stick SC's in the vent near Comp Core, underneath the railings in Maitainence, and whereever else you want to add extra spotting. They're just gravy however, it's the exits from their main that you have to watch the most.

How about Bast? Even easier. Stick one under the trap door near Atmospheric (the tunnel path from Steam) to spot both the most key resource point on the map and the only path to feedwater whether it be through Atmospheric or the many vents in the map. They're automatically down to one route. As for the Main Aft route, you can try 1) the vent towards the marine spawn (not likely to last and would spam you to hearing loss from the marine buildings), 2) behind the door to Engine (not likely), 3) hidden in the corner at Port Airlock (nice considering there's nothing of substance past the resource nozzle), behind the wall nook to the right as the marines leave from airlock (unfortunatly obvious if they head the left way to Refinery), inside EM Drill Shaft (since it is rarely traveled through), or best under the grating inside the door to refinery which is at the inside door switch (hard to get to early though). Both ways spotted from the marine spawn at the cost of 20 RP. When you wish to flesh it out, then you can put SC in Tram Maint, the vents by Engine (if they aren't already welded), Obs Bridge, and Water Treatment. Those places are really only useful if you get pushed out of Engine/Atmospheric or if you're paranoid some Jetbo will get by the first claxon without you noticing. Knowing where they are and likewise where they will be going (without them knowing it) can really be the key to whether you win a battle or not.

That should also take care of #5.

Your general answer to #7 seems to be that you're soloing which would be yet another problem with carapace, thinking you can solo and when you can't, you blame it on the marines being too unstoppable. Even your example of a flank implies that. The two skulks die then they turn to kill the others? They're supposed to do it at the same time, it's not a flank if one side hits then the other side attacks later =P. However, I never intended a movement strat to be as effective against a hoard of marines, more for small packs of skulks vs medium packs of marines. The idea is that the marines have broken into two or 3 groups which you have to quickly dispatch. Personally I don't see it as a strong opening but as some have claimed good success with it, I am probably missing something.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>In a good game, the marines WILL secure one hive almost right away. The aliens have to defend, and hope to keep the marines out of a hive until they get upgraded skulks. This is a guaranteed losing battle for the aliens. </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

I just can't agree with such a defeatist strategy (if you can call letting them walk on you at the beginning a strategy). I've wrecked builidng hives, I've seen aliens wreck my building hives at the same time, both with organized and generally good players. I've seen marines get smashed just trying to make momentum and I've seen them steamroll everything in their path. I've tasted the rainbow, sailed the seven seas, seen the wonders of Las Vegas, I've...used too many stupid sayings.

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>The lone marine is protected by the other marines, while the lone alien is not. The marines hold the cards, not the aliens.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

That seems to pretty much be the premise of your entire argument. You constantly allude to one alien here, another alien here, occassionally you're gracious enough to permit two aliens to work together. Tiny problem with this...aliens can also use teamwork and planning. I would go so far as to say that if this is all you're basing your arguments on as it seems to be, then your argument is quickly irrelevent any time 3-4 aliens start working together...or *gasp* the whole alien team! If we're going to be basing this whole discussion on worst case scenarios, rambo players, and godly aim then by all means, let's not hold back. I'll start talking about disorganized or unattentive marines, skulks that are so good who rarely miss a bite and never get disoriented, and we can end it by gathering around a campfire mourning how NS is full of newbies who can't put 2 and 2 together but by god can sure shoot like they did in Counter-Strike!

Since the rest of your points seem to be filled with the same negativity, why don't I just stop here and let you tell me what skill level we're talking about here so we can just argue from there? We can talk about well organized, godly teams or we can talk about the moderately skill pub games out there, neither matters to me. I'd rather not talk about total newbie teams since that's not realistic of the enviroment out there. What I do demand however, is that we talk about two teams of the SAME skill level. I'm tired of arguing from the standpoint that the marines know exactly what their doing and the aliens are lucky to figure out how to get teamwork among even 2 players. It's a loaded argument you are making and since you haven't been budging from it from the start dispite my nudges, I'm just going to have to openly ask that you that you argue this based on teams of equal skill level. Anything else is unrealistic and honestly, a waste of both our times.

Elric · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Yea, I call it spam because there is no indication of WHICH bloody sensory tower is calling out the warning.
</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>

They show up in hive sight if they're in the same range as the warning. I thought it was longer for the warning but with some additional testing, it turns out it's the same. If you're getting the warning and don't see any yellow dots, it means someone built a sensory near a building and nothing else. That or there's a bug with some servers like there is with MT but 1.3 lan, it's been working fine.

Anyway, Canadian, I understand MT is powerful but I still haven't seen it work as a total negation. In the end, we can theory talk this for quite a while but in the end, it's going to just take play testing to see how it comes out. Give me the IP of the server you play at and I'll see what you're trying to explain. So far, I've done well with stealth attacks against groups of marines. I can't find it in the first post in the thread.

matso · December 2002

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Elric @ Dec 17 2002, 08:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I understand MT is powerful but I still haven't seen it work as a total negation. In the end, we can theory talk this for quite a while but in the end, it's going to just take play testing to see how it comes out.</td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'>
As to MT, when the commander researches motion tracking, the number of times that I'm ambushed by anything is cut by about 90%. My kill ratio goes up by a factor of 2-3. Strategically, I know where all aliens are so I know where to go. Tactically, I can get into position behind a corner and start shooting just before the alien comes out, cutting them down before they even see me. I know the maps - I can tell you in what rooms the aliens are based on the size, direction and movement of those circles (well, with a fair accuracy). Hell, I can sometimes tell what kind of alien it is depending on how they move.

MT is the most overpowered upgrade there is, and for dirt cheap as well, IMHO. You can tell you have a noob commander when you don't have MT up within 3-4 minutes.

MT may not totally negate cloaking, but I'd say that it cuts 90% of the usefullness of cloaking down. Not total, but considering how weak cloaking is (compared to carap/adren) even without MT, loosing 90% more really doesn't help any.

Soujiro_The_Tenken · December 2002

I'm not using the quote function due to the obscene amount of BS you posted, it would take too long. "Surprise and flank attacks easily wins number advantages in many scenarios even in FPS's. But if they're so invincible in packs as you imply, why aren't they all marine rushing for wins? And if they are, why are we even arguing a part of the game that aliens would never get to because they die in 3 minutes? "

Yes, I'm wondering if we are playing the same game. 70% of the games I've played the marines rush for a hive right off the bat, general build order for them is 2 IPs, 1 armory, 1 obs. Comm upgrades to MT while 8/10 of the team rushes for an empty hive. You won't have enough res to build any sort of chamber when this happens, so they get their first hive no matter what you can do. Their first assault is generally known about since your team will generally saywhere are/parasite the marines. This is agianst a GOOD marine team, i.e. non-newbie comm/troops. Which IMO becomes more and more often each day. Now for sensory, the ability to see marines may seem like it helps a lot, but if you have a decent team your skulks will make use of their parasites, and will also communicate. So this is generally not needed. Cloaking may be fun to use, but it's a defensive ability, which won't help you much when you need to be offensive. Not to mention OCs are useless without DC. As a "I don't fear no stinking alien" marine player, I generally take out any OC that doesn't have a DC, either by strafing(which usually results in death, but 2nd time can usually take one out), or by staying out of range/barely peeking around a corner. It takes an average of 2 lmg+1pistol clip to take out an OC at a range.

Most of what I just wrote is tired dribble, but it makes sense in my head. Here's where my real arguement comes in. Midgame. This is the point where they have HA/HMGs/Nades, and a single hive. You usually have 2 hives if the teams are of equal skill. So what can you do to win? Attack. And offensive is much more effective if you have DCs and Movements. The ability to get off that extra acid rocket, or spam those umbras, is much greater than running from the battle and hiding. Lerks with adren/carapace can constantly spam umbra and fire spikes of death. Without adren this is impossible. Carapace helps since umbra doesn't block 100% of bullets, which means you can easily flew your sexy lerk **obscenity** over to a d chamber to heal up if it gets too bad. Theres a table somewhere on these forums that show how many more LMG/HMG/GREN each alien class can stand with carapace, which should clue you in on it's usefullness. I'd post more reasons but i'm very tired and just rambling at this point. While sensory may be good for specific situations, movement and Defense are needed for any sort of assault agianst a decent human base. (I actually played with someone who used your reasoning, he threw a fit when the gorge went with the default build order, I changed his mind when I showed him the power of the umbra spam.)

Soujiro_The_Tenken · December 2002

Eeek, forgot to mention, the other 25% of the games I play the marines rush straight for the aliens first hive, I dislike those games because they end so shortly and it's really cheap. Search the boards if you don't think it's a problem, it's been posted about many times. The last 5%=newbie commander who just wants resources, luckily this percent has dropped down the past few weeks to the point where i hardly have to deal with these kinds of commanders.

Chamber Order. Yes, Already Posted, But Read.

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