Is The Sc Any Good Now?

Demented · January 2004

The main gripe with the sc in previous versions was that it provided no truly offensive upgrades. SoF or Cloaking may have been useful but they were nothing compared to celerity or carapace, especially pas the five minute mark. Now, with focus, I really do think that the sc is a good first chamber. In combat, my first upgrade is ALWAYS focus. IMO its comparable to the advantage carapace or celerity confers. I don’t think anyone who has tried focus will disagree. And it cannot be countered that easily or negated with scanner sweep (another reason why the sc was not used). It’s not unusual for a skulk to kill three marines in a row with focus.

The ability to mass cloak is also quite nice and it certainly is more useful than the mc's adrenaline-boosting.

In short, the sc has overcome its main problems and is most definitely not a useless first chamber. So why shun the sc when it makes for some very interesting gameplay?

im_lost · January 2004

The addition of focus makes sensory an even better choice for a first chamber, but it does nothing to boost it later in the game when marines have armor upgrades and HA. It does take less bites to kill the marine, which is nice if you are a lerk swooping in for a bite, but for a skulk it will actually take longer to kill a marine with HA. So, focus boosts the sensory chamber early game (where it was already strong) and does little to help it later in the game.

AgentOrange · January 2004

I'd like to see focus get the same treatment as carapace in the sense it gets better with more hives to make it more effective late game.

Mav · January 2004

I don't think it's a question of SC being good or not. SC offers some very nice upgrades.

The problem though is that upgrades are very limited, and some movement/defense upgrades are very cruical towards late-mid and endgames.

Without adrenaline, it is very hard for lerks to lay down sufficient umbra during an attack on a heavily defended outpost/base. Gorges also like adren for Bilebomb/Healspray spammage. I think alot of fade players would like to see adren for their fades as well.

Regen is very key for camping lerks. I'm not an avid fade player, but I think Fades also value regen very much. Carpace can be very useful for skulks, and I wouldn't even want to be in an endgame without regen for Onos. Regen is a huge beef for Oni, especially when you are trying to break though a turtling marine base with massive Turret/HMG/Shottie/Grenade spammage.

IMO, those are the two most crucial upgrades for a common game of NS. And another thing that happens in a common game of NS, is that the marines heavily lockdown or even relocate to a hive. That means for the majority of the round, you are going to see only 2 out of 3 upgrades.

In my experience, sensory does not put pressure against higher marine tech, nor does it make up for the significant loss of adrenaline or regen/carapace. It let's you dominate in the beginning, but afterwards it becomes much more difficult.

Starlude · January 2004

Sensory is a viable first chamber, but if it is placed alienes basically have to win early game, or be able to do control + containment EXTREMELY well (which shouldn't be hard while they haev L0 armor, for even L1 armor requires now 2 focus bites). when I say contain really well, I mean destroy all marine teams wandering around, and effectively stop the marine team at 2 resources towers: one in their base and one elsewhere. Containment is very possible with sensory, given the cloaking and focus abilities, you simply kill easier and are harder to see. However, if containment is not successful (to the point where you get all 3 hives) aliens are moderately screwed. Even if you manage to get 2 hives, sensory begins to lose it's force in the mid-game (unless serious containment slow marine development, which is what sensory is best at). If a team can properly utilize sensory to contain the marines, sensory cna and will win. The problem is on most pub servers, aliens either aren't good enougn, or don't know whawt they are doing to perform effective containment. Thus DC is still the first chamber of choice. while sensory is extremely strong in the early game, and can be if aliens can delay marine development, it is severly weakened by 1) an obs 2) motion tracking 3) armor 1. Then the lack of DC kicks in when elected RTs and higher lighforms appear.

The lesson? Go sensory if you think your team can effectively contain enemy marines, and delay their development long enough to get 3 hives, or kill them early. a combination of cloaking and focus is deadly (focus within sensory chamber range).

wkzero · February 2004

I think sensory is much more useful now than it has ever been. Getting it as a first or second upgrade seems to be pretty popular on some of the pubs that I have been on. With the way marines move out now, getting a sensory network up is pretty important.

DC_Darkling · February 2004

HA is taken down easy (if its a lone rambo) aslong as the skulk has lvl3 celerity to go with it. <img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' />

pikey · February 2004

It's all about teamwork; 2 skulks with focus will kill a lvl 3/3 LA faster than 2 skulks without focus. Same thing goes for weapon upgrades on rines; 2 w1 rines will take down a skulk faster than 2 w0 rines. Sensory is still good for mid-lategame.

Buggy · February 2004

its better, but the reason why people didnt like it in the first place remains. you need DCs for fade/onos, and MCs are better for those lifeforms (as well as defending hives cos of the teleportation) than SCs, and you need fades/onos to win. if you dont, youll win anyway.

Vitamin_Lead · February 2004

I agree with whoever said focus should get better as you get more hives. It's still very effective against heavys in the late game, but not nearly as much as in the first few minutes. lvl 3 focus against lvl o armor marines = alien win.

Deacon · February 2004

It's all about the comm.

Sensory can be completely shut down with the following, easily reproducible steps:

1. Research Armor 1, to turn Focus into a liability
2. Build observatories at each outpost.
3. Avoid small groups and rambos. Marines move as a single group, commander scans ahead when the group is moving.

Against a novice commander, Sensory first is devastating. SC-cloaked skulks with Focus can easily kill 2-3 marines each. Against a veteran commander, Sensory-first is a waste of both res and a chamber.

Starlude · February 2004

also depends on team ability, but we won't mention that, right? We always assume the teams are equally good =p.

Demented · February 2004

</div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Buggy @ Feb 1 2004, 04:53 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> its better, but the reason why people didnt like it in the first place remains. you need DCs for fade/onos, and MCs are better for those lifeforms (as well as defending hives cos of the teleportation) than SCs, and you need fades/onos to win. if you dont, youll win anyway. </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'>
Argh it took me so long to realize...

But what you say is not entirely true either. Blink/focus is devastating, and so is gore/focus. Onos does not really need mc upgrades, although the dc is essential.

BTW how many focused bites does it take to kill a Lvl 2 LA and a Lvl 3 LA?

DarkEnligther · February 2004

Hah.. onos is too damn slow as regen + focus, when I go onos I want either 3 hives + adren for charge + gore or 2 hives + celerity, cos you WILL need to run a lot

Starlude · February 2004

armor 2 now gives 4 bites (5hp though), so 2 focus bites will kill, and I'd assume armor 3 requires 3 focus bites then X_X (5 regular bites), although I could be wrong here.

The_Spectre · February 2004

No, armor 3 still dies in 4 bites (2 focus), but with 45 hp left after 3 bites instead of 5 hp.

Don't think I've won a single game in 3.0 yet with sensory, unless teams were horribly unbalanced. Haven't lost a game as comm against sensory either. These are just observations though. Rushing very early with focus and going straight for the armslab and/or obs might be good, if the marines didn't drop mines.

Buggy · February 2004

I was playing on some random server today, where the aliens seemed to like sc.
one round i was on alien, one round i was comm.

...anyway, since the round i was comm probably went similar to the round where i was alien, ill leave that. the aliens game went like this:

"omgomg sc first!!1"
no get dc, sc isnt gonna work
"butbutubut u can hav focus or cloak!111!"
yeah, which both are useless against electrified res towers, and we need dcs for fades to clear those up
"butbut 1 bite kill!!"
well, the comm dropped an arms lab and started researching armor1. bb focus
"butbut once u get dc, u are fine against electrified res towers~!"
yeah, and it leaves you with 2 hives/1lockdown DC/SC
"so what u nub?!/11"
well, so now i have to walk to the other side of map to try and defend our hive, while they're putting up a siege in peace
"but im goin onos!11"
good luck without adren/celerity, they have lvl3 ha/hmg

<img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' />

Is The Sc Any Good Now?

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