I've seen the perks of sensory first. And really, they're not appealing in the least. But I'm not gonna go into some long explanation as to why it is this, and why it isn't that.. I'm just gonna keep it simple this time.
You go ahead and build your sensory, I'll keep with my movement. I know how to make the most out of it. Besides, a few second cloaking field just isn't worth it when any marine with a set of headphones will know you're nearby. So far, about 90% of the games I've been in, sensory chambers haven't helped a damn thing. Simply because most of you use them to cloak resource towers or offense chambers. Which is just outright stupid. Find a stupid marine team, and you'll be able to pull off your "full map cloaking".
As a final note, Instead of just taking it upon yourself to plop down a sensory chamber because you think it's so 'uberleet'. Ask your team what they want.. and pay attention to what they say. Afterall, you can't rely on a field of cloaking to save your **** with everything. I'm out. <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sensory is the best thing you can plop down, provided your gorges covers the chokepoints, sensory is *the* best starting tower.
But here's the catch-22.
For the larger evolutions, however, they don't die as easy vs a marine or two so cloaking isn't as important. Healing and speed/energy is a lot more important to them, so later in the game, a movement/defense combo is superior to movement/sensory and movement/defense.
I recognize the need to make hives important, but it's too easy for marines to lock one down and deny aliens their full tech tree as opposed to the marines who could essentially cap two or three nodes, then tech up and HA/HMG train aliens.
Either make marines just as dependant on hives for their tech as aliens are, or make the alien tech hive independent.
lol, there's so many people that don't think things through. Which is better, a marine not being able to hear you, or a marine not being able to see you? That's right, everyone with a brain picks sensory. And for early fades and lerks, between adrenaline and scent of fear, i'll take scent of fear anyday.
Most maps have areas all over where you can stand, and a marine - even checking in corners - cannot see you. You can't see him, but you can hear him - and his buddies. Once they have all passed, you run up behind them and get the drop.
By thinking things through, I have achieved silence and invisibilty with only one chamber type.
Sadly though, you cannot be silent without silence (unless you w a l k s l o w l y.)
As for early in the game, if you have the res for a fade, wait until you get enough for onos (most of the time.) Besides, blink without adrenaline is hardly the speedy flying ability it is with adrenaline. Much the same goes for Metabolize.
And all the people you are supporting as a lerk will be much happier with your umbra spam with adrenaline, then they will be with your ability to hear a noisy marine building and/or running on the other side of a wall.
Not saying scent of fear is a bad ability - because it isn't, but it can be easily compensated for.
After much thought, I've changed my mind. I now think sensories are probably the better hive to take straight away, if only because of the marine "hive-sight" mini-map.
Silence doesn't do squat against that.
Still think movement is better for your lerk and fade buddies though.
Are you guys kidding me? I LOOOOOOVE scent of fear. LOVE IT. It's the best upgrade an Onos can possibly have.
Let me paint you a scenario. I'm a lonely Onos at the double node in NS_lost, happily tusking away at some now defunct marine turrets and soon-to-be defunct resource towers. A gorge has healed all my damage, but he's gone now doing other stuff (building a hive, actually). Suddenly, 4 HA's appear to bring me down. FOUR. With HMG's. And upgraded weapons and armor. Scary stuff.
Well, lucky for me, I have my scent of fear. I decide trying to go up either ladder is a bad idea, cause scent of fear show that there's two HA's guarding each one. So I just chill out near the resource nodes, waiting (by now scent has already saved my live once, by showing the HA's camping up my exits). Then I notice a lone HA has gotten brave and decided to come down to try to kill me. Well, I prepare myself, and wait for him to get off the ladder and near the door. Before he knows what happened, I pop around around the corner (using scent of fear to see him of course), devour him, and duck back inside. I take a little damage from his friend's HA, but it's regenerated by my new meal. The marine frantically calls out to his teammates - he doesn't want to die like this. Well, the HA's popped down the ladder, the hive has gotten up by now, I stomp and stun them all then gore them, game over man game over. 4 HA's < Onos w/ scent of fear.
Yes, sensory is useless when cloacking resource nodes ad offense chambers. What it ISN'T useless for is cloaking nearby defense and movement chambers (which both give very nice boosts to nearby aliens). They are also wonderful for setting up hives. Marine commanders won't scan hives much past the initial finding of the starting hive scans. It's very possible to sneak up a hive without anyone noticing now. What's even better is if the marines have a resource tower up in the hive. Take Bast, for example. Marines use the popular Main Aft relocation, and set up the resource tower in Engine Room. Instead of attacking it, just build a sensory chamber and then a hive. Because the resource chamber is still up, the commander won't think to scan the area. And routine marine patrols won't see a thing. They'll sure be surprised when they have xenocidal skulks knocking down their door.
Also, the sensories are nice and effective for negating that big wall-hack in the sky: motion tracking. Get cloacking in areas where you'll be doing a lot of ambushing (read: mess hall in nancy) and motion tracking will have nothin against you.
Well that's my rant in defense of sensories. Hope you enjoyed it.
Fades don't need adrenaline unless you're at 3 hives and you want to start rocket spamming. Blink works just fine without it, if you have problems then you shouldn't be a fade in the first place. As a lerk, sure more energy means more gas spam, but at 1 hive, it's more important to stay alive, with scent of fear you always know if a marine is near you. And you can hide all you want with silence if that's your thing, but while you're waiting for them to pass you, I'm going to be standing in the middle of the room watching them cloaked. You can throw whatever argument you want around, but Sensory > Movement, that's how it is.
"I know how to make the most out of it. Besides, a few second cloaking field just isn't worth it when any marine with a set of headphones will know you're nearby."
Which is great but there's no I in team. YOU might know how to roxor the pwnage but if everyone else is getting cleaned then the game is over. BTW, they might HEAR you but if you're standing still they won't. If you're leaping up and down like a nut then to be honest you deserve getting shot up.
And as an additional, if they hear you but don't see you, their advance moves to a crawl. If they see you and don't hear you, one of them screams "Alien!" and then all of them shoot you.
Right now sens is the strongest opener on the pub circuit. If you're in an organised team then obviously sens will lose some strength - if you're all good then its probably better to go for another tower. Not so the random pub server.
To be honest I think sens will always keep some strength because as long as you pick it, you force the enemy to counter. Sure they can obs their outposts and ping where necessary, but they cant cover every corridor so you can still lay up ambushes in plain view.
You may as well pick it at the start because unlike the other towers sensory is castrated at endgame. At start, a skulk can ambush from sensory cloak and get kills on whole teams of marines. He can kill one and dart for cover while they fall back or play "find the sensory". At game end they don't care because you're just a skulk and they've got HA and GL. Nuff said.
Comments
If you take movement, they can easily see you and MT will be FAR more effective.
DC is okay...but again sc is more effective.
You go ahead and build your sensory, I'll keep with my movement. I know how to make the most out of it. Besides, a few second cloaking field just isn't worth it when any marine with a set of headphones will know you're nearby. So far, about 90% of the games I've been in, sensory chambers haven't helped a damn thing. Simply because most of you use them to cloak resource towers or offense chambers. Which is just outright stupid. Find a stupid marine team, and you'll be able to pull off your "full map cloaking".
As a final note, Instead of just taking it upon yourself to plop down a sensory chamber because you think it's so 'uberleet'. Ask your team what they want.. and pay attention to what they say. Afterall, you can't rely on a field of cloaking to save your **** with everything. I'm out. <!--emo&::nerdy::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/nerd.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='nerd.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sensory is the best thing you can plop down, provided your gorges covers the chokepoints, sensory is *the* best starting tower.
But here's the catch-22.
For the larger evolutions, however, they don't die as easy vs a marine or two so cloaking isn't as important. Healing and speed/energy is a lot more important to them, so later in the game, a movement/defense combo is superior to movement/sensory and movement/defense.
I recognize the need to make hives important, but it's too easy for marines to lock one down and deny aliens their full tech tree as opposed to the marines who could essentially cap two or three nodes, then tech up and HA/HMG train aliens.
Either make marines just as dependant on hives for their tech as aliens are, or make the alien tech hive independent.
By thinking things through, I have achieved silence and invisibilty with only one chamber type.
Sadly though, you cannot be silent without silence (unless you w a l k s l o w l y.)
As for early in the game, if you have the res for a fade, wait until you get enough for onos (most of the time.) Besides, blink without adrenaline is hardly the speedy flying ability it is with adrenaline. Much the same goes for Metabolize.
And all the people you are supporting as a lerk will be much happier with your umbra spam with adrenaline, then they will be with your ability to hear a noisy marine building and/or running on the other side of a wall.
Not saying scent of fear is a bad ability - because it isn't, but it can be easily compensated for.
I now think sensories are probably the better hive to take straight away, if only because of the marine "hive-sight" mini-map.
Silence doesn't do squat against that.
Still think movement is better for your lerk and fade buddies though.
Let me paint you a scenario. I'm a lonely Onos at the double node in NS_lost, happily tusking away at some now defunct marine turrets and soon-to-be defunct resource towers. A gorge has healed all my damage, but he's gone now doing other stuff (building a hive, actually). Suddenly, 4 HA's appear to bring me down. FOUR. With HMG's. And upgraded weapons and armor. Scary stuff.
Well, lucky for me, I have my scent of fear. I decide trying to go up either ladder is a bad idea, cause scent of fear show that there's two HA's guarding each one. So I just chill out near the resource nodes, waiting (by now scent has already saved my live once, by showing the HA's camping up my exits). Then I notice a lone HA has gotten brave and decided to come down to try to kill me. Well, I prepare myself, and wait for him to get off the ladder and near the door. Before he knows what happened, I pop around around the corner (using scent of fear to see him of course), devour him, and duck back inside. I take a little damage from his friend's HA, but it's regenerated by my new meal. The marine frantically calls out to his teammates - he doesn't want to die like this. Well, the HA's popped down the ladder, the hive has gotten up by now, I stomp and stun them all then gore them, game over man game over. 4 HA's < Onos w/ scent of fear.
Yes, sensory is useless when cloacking resource nodes ad offense chambers. What it ISN'T useless for is cloaking nearby defense and movement chambers (which both give very nice boosts to nearby aliens). They are also wonderful for setting up hives. Marine commanders won't scan hives much past the initial finding of the starting hive scans. It's very possible to sneak up a hive without anyone noticing now. What's even better is if the marines have a resource tower up in the hive. Take Bast, for example. Marines use the popular Main Aft relocation, and set up the resource tower in Engine Room. Instead of attacking it, just build a sensory chamber and then a hive. Because the resource chamber is still up, the commander won't think to scan the area. And routine marine patrols won't see a thing. They'll sure be surprised when they have xenocidal skulks knocking down their door.
Also, the sensories are nice and effective for negating that big wall-hack in the sky: motion tracking. Get cloacking in areas where you'll be doing a lot of ambushing (read: mess hall in nancy) and motion tracking will have nothin against you.
Well that's my rant in defense of sensories. Hope you enjoyed it.
Which is great but there's no I in team. YOU might know how to roxor the pwnage but if everyone else is getting cleaned then the game is over. BTW, they might HEAR you but if you're standing still they won't. If you're leaping up and down like a nut then to be honest you deserve getting shot up.
And as an additional, if they hear you but don't see you, their advance moves to a crawl. If they see you and don't hear you, one of them screams "Alien!" and then all of them shoot you.
Right now sens is the strongest opener on the pub circuit. If you're in an organised team then obviously sens will lose some strength - if you're all good then its probably better to go for another tower. Not so the random pub server.
To be honest I think sens will always keep some strength because as long as you pick it, you force the enemy to counter. Sure they can obs their outposts and ping where necessary, but they cant cover every corridor so you can still lay up ambushes in plain view.
You may as well pick it at the start because unlike the other towers sensory is castrated at endgame. At start, a skulk can ambush from sensory cloak and get kills on whole teams of marines. He can kill one and dart for cover while they fall back or play "find the sensory". At game end they don't care because you're just a skulk and they've got HA and GL. Nuff said.