A Clanplayers Ideas And Thoughts About Ns
Tomten
Join Date: 2002-11-10 Member: 8138Members
Join Date: 2002-11-10 Member: 8138Members
<div class="IPBDescription">lots to read, lots to think about :)</div> I'm not usually a person who whines, but I just feel like have to bring this *beaten to death* topic up again, as I really love NS and would like to see it improved.
I am aware that most player probably won't agree with what I have to say, as most of you play on public servers and don't play with a skilled and coordinated team, but please don't flame and try and come up with some constructive critizism.
Here's the main problems I see with NS right now. Keep in mind that I comment from a CLAN-PLAYERS perspective, not a PUBLIC-PLAYERS perspective.
1. Early game - skulks stand little chance versus marines without carapace. The Kharaa team is often (if not always) forced to build an early DC to be able to get carapace and to be able to even hold back the marines (can probably hurt the marines somewhat now, but not really hurt them. Since the Kharaa are forced to build a DC their income is really slow and it takes forever to build a res tower, slowing down the res income greatly.
What makes this whole thing so bad is since aliens are so weak the first minutes, marines can roam the map and hunt/kill gorges and greatly slow down them alien team, whereas the marines can still build up a base and feel pretty confident that the aliens are unable to stop them (unless the marine team sucks ofcourse).
2. Advanced Armory Upgrade is avalible to fast. HMG rush is INCREADIBLY powerful and almost impossible to stop, even with lv 3 carapace skulks die fast and it's just crazy that you can outfit two marines with HMG's just after a couple of minutes of gametime. Unless you make armslab a requirement for advanced armory upgrade, marines will continue to dominate clanwars.
3. Hive buildtime VS marine upgrades. This is something that might be changed with the 1.04 patch, but right now I feel that marines climb the tech-tree a bit faster then the Kharaa. When my clan don't HMG rush (we usually don't do it to early because we think it's pretty lame), we usually have HMG's and jetpacks even before they get the second hive up (or just get it done), which is pretty strange, since it still takes quite some time before you can go fade after you get the second hive (takes some time to get resources). I don't think our opponents ever has gotten Fades in the 20 or so PCW and clanbase games I have played...
Here's some questions that have been bugging me for a while
- I've read that marines get a larger resource income when they have more players? Why? If you want to balance the game, why not make it as simple as possible and have the same resource flow, no matter how many people that's playing?
- Why are the spawn locations on all maps so bad? They seem to encourage spawn camping, will this be improved in the 1.1 patch?
- Expansionist VS Fast Tech. If a team can't expand, they shouldn't be allowed to win. I find the res tower at the start location a pretty strange design decision, since it (at the current NS version) allows a marine team to tech to HMG's and just make a quick push towards the alien hive. Having the resourcetowers placed a couple of meters outside the alien hive and marine base would help some to make games more aggressive, and make it more important to play expansive/aggressive, since it would be harder to hold resources and just sit in base and tech...
Here's a couple of suggestions on how to balance the game
- Defensive chambers are one of the most important buildings in the game, to important in my opinion. The armor system should be rebuilt. Carapace should a starting upgrade, always avalible and improve as you build more hives. At one hive a LV1 Carapace skulk should take 14 LMG bullets and at two hives it should take 17. To compensate for the somewhat weaker skulks at first and second hive, you be able to get DC, MC or SC, to give a wider array of chooice in earlygame and make it possible to compete no matter what playstyle you have. This might be unbalancing at a glance, but if you tweak the DC chamber upgrades a little, I think this would make the game easier to balance in the future, as DC's carapace upgrade is far to important for gamebalance right now.
- Kharaa Resource Pool. The current system REALLY limits the option for early game. Because all resources are shared, you want to fill up the RP as soon as possible, so the gorge get more res for the time. This results in no player EVER playing as a lerk before the second hive comes up. I think this is pretty boring. I suggest that you consider splitting the resource pool and make it so that gorges have a resource pool of their own, that's only shared with other gorges. This would give ordinary aliens more option to how they would like to spend their resources, since they wouldn't draw resources from the gorges resource pool. I also suggest that gorges and ordinary aliens would be able to trade resources within their own resourcepools. So a Gorg would be able to give resources to another gorg, while a ordinary skulk could give res to any other "warrior" kharra. With this resource system it would be possible to spend your resources more efficent, get more options to how you want to play, and get more tactics <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
The only con I could see with this resourcesystem is that it wouldn't hurt as much to die as a gorg, but you could always add a penalty so that 10 res is withdrawn from the gorg resourcepool everytime a gorg dies <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I don't think it would be hard at all to balance either, just take the current system, and let the "gorg" resourcepool recive resources at the same rate the gorges out on the field recieve resources in the current NS version.
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Comments are most welcome, but please don't flame <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
btw, I'm swedish, so don't complain on my l33t writing skills <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
I am aware that most player probably won't agree with what I have to say, as most of you play on public servers and don't play with a skilled and coordinated team, but please don't flame and try and come up with some constructive critizism.
Here's the main problems I see with NS right now. Keep in mind that I comment from a CLAN-PLAYERS perspective, not a PUBLIC-PLAYERS perspective.
1. Early game - skulks stand little chance versus marines without carapace. The Kharaa team is often (if not always) forced to build an early DC to be able to get carapace and to be able to even hold back the marines (can probably hurt the marines somewhat now, but not really hurt them. Since the Kharaa are forced to build a DC their income is really slow and it takes forever to build a res tower, slowing down the res income greatly.
What makes this whole thing so bad is since aliens are so weak the first minutes, marines can roam the map and hunt/kill gorges and greatly slow down them alien team, whereas the marines can still build up a base and feel pretty confident that the aliens are unable to stop them (unless the marine team sucks ofcourse).
2. Advanced Armory Upgrade is avalible to fast. HMG rush is INCREADIBLY powerful and almost impossible to stop, even with lv 3 carapace skulks die fast and it's just crazy that you can outfit two marines with HMG's just after a couple of minutes of gametime. Unless you make armslab a requirement for advanced armory upgrade, marines will continue to dominate clanwars.
3. Hive buildtime VS marine upgrades. This is something that might be changed with the 1.04 patch, but right now I feel that marines climb the tech-tree a bit faster then the Kharaa. When my clan don't HMG rush (we usually don't do it to early because we think it's pretty lame), we usually have HMG's and jetpacks even before they get the second hive up (or just get it done), which is pretty strange, since it still takes quite some time before you can go fade after you get the second hive (takes some time to get resources). I don't think our opponents ever has gotten Fades in the 20 or so PCW and clanbase games I have played...
Here's some questions that have been bugging me for a while
- I've read that marines get a larger resource income when they have more players? Why? If you want to balance the game, why not make it as simple as possible and have the same resource flow, no matter how many people that's playing?
- Why are the spawn locations on all maps so bad? They seem to encourage spawn camping, will this be improved in the 1.1 patch?
- Expansionist VS Fast Tech. If a team can't expand, they shouldn't be allowed to win. I find the res tower at the start location a pretty strange design decision, since it (at the current NS version) allows a marine team to tech to HMG's and just make a quick push towards the alien hive. Having the resourcetowers placed a couple of meters outside the alien hive and marine base would help some to make games more aggressive, and make it more important to play expansive/aggressive, since it would be harder to hold resources and just sit in base and tech...
Here's a couple of suggestions on how to balance the game
- Defensive chambers are one of the most important buildings in the game, to important in my opinion. The armor system should be rebuilt. Carapace should a starting upgrade, always avalible and improve as you build more hives. At one hive a LV1 Carapace skulk should take 14 LMG bullets and at two hives it should take 17. To compensate for the somewhat weaker skulks at first and second hive, you be able to get DC, MC or SC, to give a wider array of chooice in earlygame and make it possible to compete no matter what playstyle you have. This might be unbalancing at a glance, but if you tweak the DC chamber upgrades a little, I think this would make the game easier to balance in the future, as DC's carapace upgrade is far to important for gamebalance right now.
- Kharaa Resource Pool. The current system REALLY limits the option for early game. Because all resources are shared, you want to fill up the RP as soon as possible, so the gorge get more res for the time. This results in no player EVER playing as a lerk before the second hive comes up. I think this is pretty boring. I suggest that you consider splitting the resource pool and make it so that gorges have a resource pool of their own, that's only shared with other gorges. This would give ordinary aliens more option to how they would like to spend their resources, since they wouldn't draw resources from the gorges resource pool. I also suggest that gorges and ordinary aliens would be able to trade resources within their own resourcepools. So a Gorg would be able to give resources to another gorg, while a ordinary skulk could give res to any other "warrior" kharra. With this resource system it would be possible to spend your resources more efficent, get more options to how you want to play, and get more tactics <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
The only con I could see with this resourcesystem is that it wouldn't hurt as much to die as a gorg, but you could always add a penalty so that 10 res is withdrawn from the gorg resourcepool everytime a gorg dies <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
I don't think it would be hard at all to balance either, just take the current system, and let the "gorg" resourcepool recive resources at the same rate the gorges out on the field recieve resources in the current NS version.
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Comments are most welcome, but please don't flame <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
btw, I'm swedish, so don't complain on my l33t writing skills <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
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Added to the fact that the Kharra share resources, early game Kharra build is very slow. However if it was possible for skulks to donate their resources to another player, you would have a second hive in under a minute. But what would a second hive do for a team with no money? Increase the spawn of skulks, prevent a siege rush and give them leap. I do not believe this to be unbalenced but I would like to see it in action before hand as this is in theory.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->2. Advanced Armory Upgrade is avalible to fast. HMG rush is INCREADIBLY powerful and almost impossible to stop, even with lv 3 carapace skulks die fast and it's just crazy that you can outfit two marines with HMG's just after a couple of minutes of gametime. Unless you make armslab a requirement for advanced armory upgrade, marines will continue to dominate clanwars.
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Although I have felt the sting of this tactic it is risky to pull off. If you can kill the two marines with HMGs then they've just lost 50 some resources if they can't recover their guns. I think that the armslab requirement is a great idea because the HMG and GL were not meant for early game play (could you think of what would happen if you had fades in one minute?)
Added to the fact that the Kharra share resources, early game Kharra build is very slow. However if it was possible for skulks to donate their resources to another player, you would have a second hive in under a minute. But what would a second hive do for a team with no money? Increase the spawn of skulks, prevent a siege rush and give them leap. I do not believe this to be unbalenced but I would like to see it in action before hand as this is in theory.
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donating resources right over would be to powerful, since it would allow the Kharaa to throw up alot of res towers in a very short amount of time. Read my suggestions about the split resources for the Kharra... one pool for warriors (skulks, lerks, fades, onos) and one for workers (gorges)
And I think we all can agree that Gorges are just too slow builders at the start.
Its because it was well thought out and had several good points and ideas.
I used to play DOD 24/7 until I went to a lan and a saw 1.0 of NS. Ever since I have switched to play NS 24/7. However I am seriously starting to get bored of it, all the games seem to replicate each other (2 spawns, 1 armory, 1 observatory, send marines to the hives, phase, game over). Playing the same scenario over and over with marines winning the grand majority of the time just has gotten old. I hope some of these or other ideas will be seriously considered to allow NS to grow to its full potential.
1. Spawn Locations for Khaara
- Some maps have pretty good spawnlocations, in small tunnels and caves where the marines wont be able to kill you directly. We need more of this to make spawncamping less powerful.
2. Chokepoints
- I've noticed that some maps have really nasty chokepoints, a whole map can be sealed of by taking 2 locations. (these locations are not particulary hard to take or hold either)
3. Hive Locations
- Certain hives are much worse starting locations then others, some have 3 exits while others have 1, this make them either very easy to defend or very hard.
ALL hives on a map should have the same range from the marine base, all hives should have the same number of exits and all hives should have the same number of nozzles. OR make it so that the maps only have one starting location for the Khaara.
Just some suggestions, I bet most Mappers already know of this, I just wonder when we will see updates on the current maps <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
HoT Ho11oW PoiNT Posted on Dec 28 2002, 07:21 AM
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Aliens seem to collect resources faster with no gorges. I do not think that your team just magically produces more resources because you go gorge. I might not be correct, but if your team stays all skulks until you all have 33 resources (which seems to happen faster with no gorges), then you can evolve to lerk and one person go gorge (leaving them with 20 resources). They can then build a resource tower almost right away. Just ignore the "We need builders" for the first 5 mintes of the game. This also gives you an extra skulk to attack instead of having a non-fighting gorge just sitting around a resource nozzle. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You miss the point, without a early gorge the Khaara are done for it. If they dont get a Defense Chamber the marines will just rush them and own their Hive.
No Gorge = No Defense Chamber = No fighting chance
A Gorge will (If he knows what he is doing) first build 1 RT, 1 DC, 1 RT, 2DC, OC's (for defenses), RT, Hive.
Something like that anyways.
However, around the same time the Gorge start to build OC's the Marines will have HMG's, and without Fades/Lerks the marines will now rip all the little Khaaras to shreds <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
or they just move as a group, from room to room, scannerswep once, take out all hiding skulks, move on to next room, closer and closer to your hive. Once they get there, you can't do crap, since you don't got carapace and **obscenity** with useless SC.
I doubt you would even live long enough to get more then one SC, and then the marines would see you anyway since you are only partially invisible.
Sorry, but it wont work, not versus good marines anyway. Right now Defense chambers is the only way to go.
Why would they even bother rushing when you got cloaking? All they have to do is contain you, while you are on the move, you ain't invisible and skulks without carapace is gunfooder for any marine, even a newbie marine...
or they just move as a group, from room to room, scannerswep once, take out all hiding skulks, move on to next room, closer and closer to your hive. Once they get there, you can't do crap, since you don't got carapace and **obscenity** with useless SC.
I doubt you would even live long enough to get more then one SC, and then the marines would see you anyway since you are only partially invisible.
Sorry, but it wont work, not versus good marines anyway. Right now Defense chambers is the only way to go.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
it does take time to build an armory chamber and upgrade it, and level 2 cloaking is good enough for most skulks to appear practically invisible. But you are correct, the last time I played a game with strategies different from the D/M/S combo we lost because all of the team quit when a sensory chamber was built.
Sensories cost 10 to build, and are very attractive for those who don't run around and wait for their food to come to them.
Now, PLEASE don't bring up DC vs MC/SC anymore in this thread, it's already proven that DC is the best first hive chamber.
That makes so much sense its not even funny! i was playing with these dudes that got all mad cuz me and my buddy were goin fade to kill some marines when they (gorge) needed the res for a third hive... wit this system its not unbalced it fixes the res pools so you dont have to worry about you taking all the RP's. Altho you would want "warrior" aliens to gather RP's at a slower rate if you used this method.
If your plan no longer contains the marines, then you aren't doing something right. It isn't really the game's fault. I personally dislike the resource distribution for the aliens, but that's because i go gorge and it takes me #@%$ forever in order to build stuff at most times, and many pubs have wasteful aliens. Usually after the first 5 minutes I don't really feel as bad (2-3 resource chambers tends to appease my soul).
What really hurt me as a gorge was building the second hive. I had to wait for everyone to get back up to 66 resources in order for me to get ALL of the resources again. That hurts when everyone keeps evolving into fade whenever they die. *shrug* it's like wasting 25 on a rambo marine to give him a HMG when if people stuck together someone could pick it up. I'm gonna stop complaining and go play some CS before going to bed, I blow at playing NS late at night.
So I'm starting to build of some res nodes and someone says "Hurry up with the D". So I right click- go to my upgrades, and without thinking build a movement chamber. I explain to the team that I'm sorry and they say, we'll just go celerty or silence; don't wory. I get 2 more up and have a warping position between our skulks on the rest of the map and our hive. We stopped the marines from expanding and were able to return to base quicker than ever.
Our skulk team also held off a phase gate sieging crew because they had speed and craftiness on their side.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and **obscenity** some people off here. Sensory 1st will give you scent of fear. You can drop hurt marines quickly and can see where they're going fast. Movement will give you celerity or silence, and belive me when I say good marines are quickly dropped by silence. Defence gives you the good old carapace, and is tried and true.
These are by no means alike in value. The only value that tips the scale one way or the other is SKILL. SKILL in teamwork, SKILL in killing, SKILL in knowing when to pick your battles. Carapace merely lets those without skill live longer and those with skill to perform skulk rapings. You want a good group of skulks, check out the TE clan. Scrimmed them once and I've never seen better organization. No matter how good your aim is, you're lucky to drop 1. Now try it with celerity. You won't be alive more than a second after you see 1.
In addition, your level 3 carapace ain't **obscenity** when marines go for the quick tech and get an arms lab right away. The phase gate rush will be quite hindered come 1.04, but level 1 or 2 weapons in the first 5 minutes isn't.
AMEN BROTHA! <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
HMG rush actually isn't that hard to stop, as long as you don't rush the HMG-toters head on, which almost everyone does. Simply be creative and get yourself behind them, and say goodbye to those poor chaps.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->These are by no means alike in value. The only value that tips the scale one way or the other is SKILL. SKILL in teamwork, SKILL in killing, SKILL in knowing when to pick your battles. Carapace merely lets those without skill live longer and those with skill to perform skulk rapings.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->HMG rush actually isn't that hard to stop, as long as you don't rush the HMG-toters head on, which almost everyone does. Simply be creative and get yourself behind them, and say goodbye to those poor chaps. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Yeah, I have to agree; if they tech straight to hmgs they likely do not have armor1, so they are still just as much skulk bait as before.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> really **obscenity** me off, because they show just how little some people know about the game mechanics.
How does carapace lessen your skills? Saying that it's a tool for bad players to become better is just the most stupid thing i've ever heard. How come a tool that increases your health with 100% make you a bad player? If any clan think they can beat a *skilled* marine team, without carapace for the first hive, PLEASE show me. I can assure all of you that there no way in hell that any clan on earth can beat one of the top CB clans withouth carpace, your hive would be down after five minutes. Look at some of the CB logs, and you see that base-rushes and HMG rushes dominate.
How can you "be creative and stop HMG rush"? PLEASE show me, I you play stupid public players, sure, you can stop a HMG rush, but a team of 6 marines who work togheter? NO WAY, they will move in group, leaving one to defend while five attack, probably two or three with HMG's. There's no chance that you can stop them unless they suck. If you sneak around in the rof or anywhere, they will most likely find you, if you charge them head on, you die, and if you move in group, you die to crossfire. It's that simple. Oh, and unless they don't have armor 1 (which they sometimes get since alies often are forced to ge 1 def chamber before res tower), you still only have skulks and carapace.... so sorry, even if you by some miracle would kill of one rush, they would soon be back, only this time more organized.
There has to be a different system to the 1 Hive = 10 seconds, 1 spawning alien. It may work for marines, but early game aliens it really hurts.
It goes against the "mass aliens" feel of the alien vs marine genre. Really hampers public play against any decent commander and doesn't help clan play when your sitting in a long queue when your under serious attack.
Maybe:
1 Hive = 5 second spawn time, 1 spawning aliens at a time
2 Hive = 10 second spawn time, 2 spawning aliens at a time
3 Hive = 15 second spawn time, 3 spawning aliens at a time
Marines have all the options at the moment. Aliens are very limited.
Its because it was well thought out and had several good points and ideas.
I used to play DOD 24/7 until I went to a lan and a saw 1.0 of NS. Ever since I have switched to play NS 24/7. However I am seriously starting to get bored of it, all the games seem to replicate each other (2 spawns, 1 armory, 1 observatory, send marines to the hives, phase, game over). Playing the same scenario over and over with marines winning the grand majority of the time just has gotten old. I hope some of these or other ideas will be seriously considered to allow NS to grow to its full potential.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well good news, since 1.04 will drastically reduce the phase gate's durability, it grows more expensive too - and IP's are also costing more.
I predict 1.04 will gently nudge us towards a more ground war style gameplay, were marines and aliens don't just fight for hive control, but general map/nozzle dominance.
I have tried the marine hmg JP rush myself on .... Nancy. Sucker sat in a vent and hmg'ed our hive, and us skulks couldn't do a damn thing about it.
But apart from that occasion, no. I do think, however, that too early HMG could hurt. It shouldn't be possible to rush the aliens with HMG before they have a chance to go fade.
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Well this guy was a HMG totin' Jetpacker. Otherwise I dont think he'd make it into that hive vent.
I wonder if the hitbox bug for crouching-marines-inna-vent-bug was fixed in 1.03 or will be in 1.04? I never survive a (v)en(t)counter with a marine as skulk.
Why wouldn't I? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--> I assume that is why we had a world of trouble nailing that vent marine. My skulk bites just didnt hurt him.
[edit] IRC moderator? There's an #IRC place for NS?
#naturalselection on irc.gamesnet.net
On topic every patch has brought balance and gameplay differences which people complain about or love, then everyoen gets used to it after a while and gameplay goes back to normal with both aliens and marines winning in relatively equal amounts, then another patch comes out and the same thing happens. If people spent more time playing the game and actually considering whats going on rather than complaining about how unbalanced it is then maybe we could all actually have fun, it is a game after all.
"We play for the game, others play to win"
If they are unupgraded marines, toting hmgs, they will likely not make it to the hive. A basic LMG rush is quite a bit more effective, waiting to tech to hmgs before attacking is kind of silly.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No, you are wrong.
LMG rushes can be stopped with carapace, when skulks get LV1 Carapace they can hold back LMG marines, once they get more carapace, they start winning over unupgradeded marines. HMG's can kill any skulk easily, no carapace or carapace. HMG's can easily come into play before you have the second hive up, therefore it's unbalancing, since they are supposed to be a counter for fades and other heavy Kharaa, not as a counter to skulks.
Here's how I think it is.
> standard marine vs uncarapaced skulk = marine win
> standard marine vs lv1 carapaced marine = skulk can win, but marine is still a bit stronger
> standard marine vs lv2 carapaced skulk = skulk is a bit stronger, almost equal
> standard marine vs lv3 carapaced skulk = skulk most often win
> armor and LMG upgraded marine = pretty even, marine probably wins more often
<span style='color:purple'><b>Edited for content</span></b>
This statement is just plain wrong. Two marines with HMGs can dump one clip each into a hive, and it's down. This happens so fast that the hive doesn't even get done announcing to the Kharaa team that it's dying before it's already dead.
And as for survivability? Give me an HMG and I'll take on 3-4 carapaced skulks at a time with only one Marine for backup. A situation I would not even HOPE to survive given only a LMG for a weapon. The reasons are numerous, but they've all been stated multiple times (rate and cone of fire mostly), so I won't go there.
> standard marine vs uncarapaced skulk = marine win
> standard marine vs lv1 carapaced marine = skulk can win, but marine is still a bit stronger
> standard marine vs lv2 carapaced skulk = skulk is a bit stronger, almost equal
> standard marine vs lv3 carapaced skulk = skulk most often win
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Do notice that the progression (in unupgraded LMG bullets) for skulks is 9-14-17-18. It used to be 9-14-18-21, but the carapace "fix" screwed up the nicely even progression.
In any case, I'm arguing that the difference between carap 2 and 3 for skulks should be too small to notice, usually.
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Wow, that's a hell of a statement considering that Kilmster is a member of what could be considered the second best clan in the world (they have my vote). I'm not sure which marine teams you're playing against, but the LMG rush is just as deadly as using HMGs. Am I saying that the HMG is easy to stop? Not at all, but what I am saying is that I agree with Kilmster that it is overkill. Sure, Level 3 carapace gives the skulks, in my opinion, a huge advantage, but the LMG rush usually wins the game before it comes into play.
That being said, I feel that scanner sweeping is what is broken. For a measley 1 RP (3 RPs in the next patch) the marines completely take away the only viable strategy the aliens have; namely, stealth. An early skulk versus a stock marine in a fair fight will generally lose. A skulk attacking from behind, etc, on the other hand, has a nice advantage. The problem, is that it's almost impossible against a good clan because the commander is spamming scanner sweep everywhere the marines go.
In my opinion, scanner sweeping either needs a massive increase in RPs or to be taken out altogether.
Of course, as has been said before, if the marine rush is taken away, then the marines will lose almost every round.
Organized skulk defense is pretty good versus a marine rush, stay together and ambush in close quarters. Have one of your skulks scout for any marine expansions - an alien team won't let the marines expand. By doing that, you prevent them from getting HMG's quick, and even if they did get HMG's, it wouldn't be enough to break through an organized skulk defense because they'd probably only could afford one or two.
Defense chambers are neccesary for the start, but it really doesn't slow anything down that much. You're saying the aliens are at a disadvantage? That's not true at all.