<!--quoteo(post=2008330:date=Nov 3 2012, 05:17 PM:name=fanatic)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (fanatic @ Nov 3 2012, 05:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008330"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->This is rubbish, and your NS2 tactic is no good. To correct the misinformation presented in this post:
1. MC first was the default build order, both in public and competitive play, since 3.0 (may 2005). 2. MC being a great first chamber has nothing to do with hive teleportation being "noob friendly", or any of the other reasons mentioned. In fact, MC even retained its status as the most common starting chamber after hive teleportation was added to the hives themselves in version 3.2. 3. Celerity or adrenaline were vastly superior upgrades for the Lerk, compared to carapace or regeneration.
When I play marine, I love it when alien comms do this. Instead of dropping a fade or onos egg, you have a bunch of useless whips standing around somewhere doing nothing. Good job.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Awww Fana, are you in a moodywoody?
I did this two days ago when I had commanded my team on refinery to the last tech point and had all rts and tech nodes on the map with basically a constant 200 res and 3 onos eggs constantly dropped.
I kept cysting up to the marine base with shade cover and sneaking bombard whips right into their base.
I like to have fun sometimes, you know Fana.. 'fun' :P
Lol I like how someone thinks camo is useful. Seriously do you not realize that you're still partially visible? And when you move it's extremely obvious. I just played a game last night where a bunch of skulks and a gorge tried to "sneak" into central drilling while I was putting up the power node. I killed all 4 of them with 2 LMG mags and a pistol clip before they even got close. Silence can be good but definitely not camo.
Since you probably didn't play the Beta, you wouldn't know that the strategy pretty much every comp team was using was 2nd hive first and then drop the closest res tower. Your argument that the whole marine team will just walk into the hive before it's built and kill it is pointless. Mostly because if they did the aliens could just rush their base and kill it or force them to beacon before doing any real damage to the hive.
<!--quoteo(post=2008394:date=Nov 3 2012, 07:29 PM:name=Shrike3O)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shrike3O @ Nov 3 2012, 07:29 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008394"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I tend to go Adrenaline for Lerks because both your attacks and your flight burn energy. Nothing quite like finding yourself in a fight unable to flap away, and so Adrenaline it is :)
One of the most useful perks of the Shift is spawning eggs around it. Having your assault waves concentrated due to proximity and not suffering from the delay of walking across half the map is very useful.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and the other is the echo. I usually use shift and whip to protect the upgrades, near the hive.
3 uses: 1 a gorge (or other unit also) has costant energy 2 you can spawn eggs if needed 3 you can echo the upgrades away to another hive. It's costly, but better than re-building and researching them. So, as soon as the shift is mature, i upgrade it. (if i remember it must be upgraded to echo)
fanaticThis post has been edited.Join Date: 2003-07-23Member: 18377Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
<!--quoteo(post=2008466:date=Nov 3 2012, 08:31 PM:name=Runteh)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Runteh @ Nov 3 2012, 08:31 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008466"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I like to have fun sometimes, you know Fana.. 'fun' :P<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Never heard of this word before, plz explain.
ScardyBobScardyBobJoin Date: 2009-11-25Member: 69528Forum Admins, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Pub play strat is actually more affected by the skill difference between the teams rather than build order in my experience. However, competitive alien teams usually go some variation of this strat:
1. Second hive drop (comm jumps out and gorges the 2nd hive up) 2. Cyst to and capture 2nd harvester 3. Drifters spawned when needed 4. Drop 2rd harvester at 2nd hive location 5. Leap 6. Onos egg drop (between 5-10 min mark) 7. Typically cara/celerity with adren and regen researched as needed 8. Blink
I very much a agree with this. Many people shun shade tech because it gives no actual statistical benefit. With celerity, you move faster. With carapace, you take more bullets. With silence you make no noise...? But what a lot of players don't realize is <u>how much marines rely on sound to locate aliens.</u> Try it. Walk up behind a marine and start biting him with silence. Chances are, even if he is a good shot, you get in 2 more good bites than you would have without it. First bite he has to figure out what is going on, second bite he may or may not have turned and found you, and then all you have to do is get that third bite in him and he is done. (Primarily why this is most effective early game) <u>There you get an offensive benefit. </u>
"But if you had gone celerity, you would be able to travel around the map so much faster!" While indeed <i>statistically</i> true, think about this. If you are running about the map, doing your normal alien-y things, and you hear marine footsteps, then you had better stop running and start walking. Not the case with silence. Hell, there have been times I have literally leaped past a marine and because I had silence there was no way for him to track me. Of course, this is not the same as having celerity, but you can see how it does give you some pretty rad <u>movement benefits</u> as well. Anyways, onwards.
"I want carapace, it's impossible to survive without it!" First of all, if you are asking this of your commander, you are doing something wrong. Sure, carapace has saved my butt numerous times, but if it is the only way you can get kills then I suggest looking up some tutorials online. Usually, getting carapace is for increased surivablility for lifeforms. Based on my earlier points, you can see silence can help you in this area as well. If they can't hear you coming, they can't anticipate your attack. This gives you valuable time to either A) Close distance and engage the marine or B) Escape before they are even able to fire off a shot. This brings up a valid concern though. Silence is an ability that can either be incredibly useful or entirely worthless, all depending on <u>player skill</u>. In order for a skulk to take advantage of these benefits, they must express some higher level skulk skills. This includes not running in a straight line, using walls and ceilings, vents, and parasite. For this reason alone many veteran commanders decide not to go shade tech in the current state of the community. We have a lot of new players who still have a lot to learn, but I still believe that silence can give these players large advantages. Similar to carapace, it gives them a bit more of a margin of error. They are harder to track, take longer to notice, etc. This gives new players more freedom to explore what a skulk can do, and at the same time teach them the importance of these advanced skulk mechanics. So there you go, <u>silence can also help with surivability.</u>
There are a few more points I would like to make note of before I end. This post is primarily talking about the benefits to skulks. The reason I wrote it this way is I wanted to try and show how silence and shade tech can be viable early-game, where skulks are more numerous. Yes some of these benefits apply to higher lifeforms, but it is quite obvious it is not the ultimate upgrade for all. Also, I would write about the other benefits of shade tech (Shades, camo, etc), but that would be an even longer post... Maybe for later...
<u>tl;dr</u>- While very non-meta, Silence is an extremely viable early-game evolution that benefits skulks in combat, movement, and survivability.
This reminds me of the people who would talk about how sensory first could be awesome and join a game to try it out, and instantly get banned and the whole alien team would F4.
sc is a great bump start. <b>however, focus is taken away from ns1.</b> which is a huge composition in the sc/mc fade build.
when marines are hunting down the fade, which is still <u><b>sadly</b></u> still the backbone of aliens in ns2, no one solos it. they do it in a group. hence shade is quite likely to obsolete in terms of offensive actions but only digs you into the coffin. and without celerity, you cant really catch up marines circling you. those clanners who actually have a proper aim.
or you can talk about wall jumping in massively huge rooms like ns2_refinery.
I agree with you, chalarie, and in fact I told it, for skulks I prefer silence over cloacking. But with skulks I prefer adren over velocity nearly all the times: you can leap every time you lose momentum in wall-jumping, and it's more erratic even during a firefight, so they can track you worse.
But this is for skulk and for early game or late game, not for mid game, where you need firepower to push.
so in mid game you need adren and carapace, and this will be valid also in late game, with addition to silence (mainly).
For this reason perhaps the only option to go shade is if the two starting locations are near, to make the marine comm prone to use scan, that is a 3-tres ability, and in early game can be a great cost. But in regular game, if the two teams are not near, shade will give you only a small advantage.
<!--quoteo(post=2008539:date=Nov 3 2012, 08:40 PM:name=Chalarie)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Chalarie @ Nov 3 2012, 08:40 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008539"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><u>tl;dr</u>- While very non-meta, Silence is an extremely viable early-game evolution that benefits skulks in combat, movement, and survivability.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
See this:
<!--quoteo(post=2007989:date=Nov 3 2012, 11:41 AM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 3 2012, 11:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2007989"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Fades without Carapace and Adrenalin are useless. Shade might benefit the skulks at the beginning the most, but it will utterly cripple you otherwise.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It doesnt matter if you survive your early game, you crippled your mid to late game. If you are dominating enough to compensate you were never in trouble of losing either way. Taking Shade first is like sawing off your left leg.
It's not just fades that will struggle in the mid game, it's also lerks, gorges and onos that have a harder time without crag + shift to be honest. So while shade hive may seem like a good idea with skulks at the start of the game, if you don't get another 2 hives for crag and shift in the mid game you will get destroyed by a competent marine team...
<!--quoteo(post=2008861:date=Nov 3 2012, 07:46 PM:name=ogz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Nov 3 2012, 07:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2008861"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->shade first is extremely hard to play<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Hard to play wouldn't discourage competitive teams. The issue with shade first is that it's only good when the opposing team is bad. There are easily available hard counters to shade technology. You can't skillfully avoid an observatory scan.
Competitive players will invest in a difficult strategy that only high skilled play makes viable, but they won't invest in a strategy that relies on their opponent to be unskilled in order to be successful.
This is my movement upgrades, and specifically celerity dominate as a trend. Moving faster is effectively making the lifeform harder to use, but if more skill is invested into the life form while moving faster, it has a much higher ceiling of effectiveness than other abilities. You can't ever "counter" celerity, the only response is to have an even higher level of skill than the ceiling of celerity.
<!--quoteo(post=2009011:date=Nov 3 2012, 06:14 PM:name=Swiftspear)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Swiftspear @ Nov 3 2012, 06:14 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2009011"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Hard to play wouldn't discourage competitive teams. The issue with shade first is that it's only good when the opposing team is bad. There are easily available hard counters to shade technology. You can't skillfully avoid an observatory scan.
Competitive players will invest in a difficult strategy that only high skilled play makes viable, but they won't invest in a strategy that relies on their opponent to be unskilled in order to be successful.
This is my movement upgrades, and specifically celerity dominate as a trend. Moving faster is effectively making the lifeform harder to use, but if more skill is invested into the life form while moving faster, it has a much higher ceiling of effectiveness than other abilities. You can't ever "counter" celerity, the only response is to have an even higher level of skill than the ceiling of celerity.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
People complain about carapace being needed to "counter" shotguns, but shotguns will still kill a skulk with carapace very quickly. The only way to actually counter shotguns is to dodge, which is much more likely if you have celerity. But it is as you said, requiring some skill.
Well veil + silence or camo is only 15 Tres. Shell + Carapace is 30 Tres. If the map allows another easy to hold res tower, I could imagine how Shade first could get you a huge res boost. You also force the comm to burn res to counter you.
From an RTS perspective this could be fairly useful.
<!--quoteo(post=2009135:date=Nov 4 2012, 04:14 AM:name=Techercizer)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Techercizer @ Nov 4 2012, 04:14 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2009135"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->> Go Shade Hive > Research upgrades > Send stealth forces to wreak havoc upon your pitiful foes > Com scans > Lose game<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Some changes to how that all works could make Shade more viable.
The shade AOE should defeat the observatory AOE. No question. The Observatory doesn't exist JUST to defeat aliens using Shade, so it'd still have purpose, and it would still require aliens to expand covertly right up to it, so I don't see the issue with this one.
Observatory AOE should have to be purchased on a per-Observatory basis. If the Observatory has to become a bit cheaper, no matter, it's mostly the time investment that is needed, so marines can't just sneak an Obs and erect it in five seconds and negate everything.
Marine sensor sweep should only work in ROOMS (so it only works IN that room, not several rooms away) where they have power control. Sensor sweep shouldn't break camouflage (which doesn't make sense that it does), but still highlights them with big white circles.
Shade hive first could have it's uses, since I find most games are lost during the early game. Rarely a team can turn it around in mid-game, and end-game is just a reflection of early and mid game. This means that if you dominate at the start, you tend to dominate the whole game. Shade falls off hard as soon as the opposing commander knows that you choose shade though. (And they will know you choose it.) It tells them that if they build an obs in all their bases, and scan in front of their marines, they will win the game.
The person that said if you win with shade as first hive you were never in danger of losing in the first place was 100% right. Silence+Celerity is awesome, I won't deny that. It's just that it helps Skulks out more late-game than it does early-game as marines will take more bites before dying. Silence gives them a free bite or two if the marine isn't on his toes, so it sometimes evens out. A skulk that holds down the shift key as they move gets silence for free though, if you recall. It's not as fast and deadly as silence+celerity, but it's far cheaper and more durable with carapace. It just makes sense to use the ghetto silence early game and uber silence late game as far as what's useful when.
<!--quoteo(post=2010699:date=Nov 4 2012, 09:56 PM:name=Schleppy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Schleppy @ Nov 4 2012, 09:56 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2010699"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->In answer to a question earlier in the thread, yes, ink cloud does negate scans.
Shade first isn't as terrible as some make it out to be, but it does have 2 huge drawbacks...
1) Higher lifeforms gain less of an advantage from having a shade and crag/shift hive combo then a shift and crag hive combo.
2) The benefits of shade hive are negated by a scan/scattered Observatories unless you have shade's scattered around the map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Should clarify that ink cloud isn't automatic so it's not really that useful. Also that it's only in the small area around the shade so if the comm is scanning around it, it doesn't really make much difference other than to mask things pretty close it.
<!--quoteo(post=2010717:date=Nov 5 2012, 01:11 AM:name=Davil)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Davil @ Nov 5 2012, 01:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2010717"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Should clarify that ink cloud isn't automatic so it's not really that useful. Also that it's only in the small area around the shade so if the comm is scanning around it, it doesn't really make much difference other than to mask things pretty close it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Correct, unless the marine comm tells you in chat where he will scan in 5 seconds so the cloud is up when the scan begins the marines will still get a glimpse of what is inside that ink cloud which is all they need.
AurOn2COOKIES! FREEDOM, AND BISCUITS!AustraliaJoin Date: 2012-01-13Member: 140224Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Forum staff
mature shades need to negate scans and observatories, and camo shouldnt be detectable either way. that will triple viability. Also halve the reduction camoflage gives and im happy. :/
<!--quoteo(post=2010926:date=Nov 5 2012, 12:16 PM:name=AuroN2)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (AuroN2 @ Nov 5 2012, 12:16 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2010926"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->mature shades need to negate scans and observatories, and camo shouldnt be detectable either way. that will triple viability. Also halve the reduction camoflage gives and im happy. :/<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again as stated early *disagrees*:
If Obs and Pings no longer negate cloaking it means there is no way to make them visible except shooting them... Cloak > all seems stupid...
I would prefer dis! :)
Shades give local Scent of Fear. Shades counter Obs Motion tracking when Overlapping + Pings. Ping turns Hallucinations Purple (does not kill them). Re-Implementation of Focus as Shade ability. Camouflage upgrade negates motion tracking from Obs + Pings.
Comments
1. MC first was the default build order, both in public and competitive play, since 3.0 (may 2005).
2. MC being a great first chamber has nothing to do with hive teleportation being "noob friendly", or any of the other reasons mentioned. In fact, MC even retained its status as the most common starting chamber after hive teleportation was added to the hives themselves in version 3.2.
3. Celerity or adrenaline were vastly superior upgrades for the Lerk, compared to carapace or regeneration.
When I play marine, I love it when alien comms do this. Instead of dropping a fade or onos egg, you have a bunch of useless whips standing around somewhere doing nothing. Good job.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Awww Fana, are you in a moodywoody?
I did this two days ago when I had commanded my team on refinery to the last tech point and had all rts and tech nodes on the map with basically a constant 200 res and 3 onos eggs constantly dropped.
I kept cysting up to the marine base with shade cover and sneaking bombard whips right into their base.
I like to have fun sometimes, you know Fana.. 'fun' :P
Since you probably didn't play the Beta, you wouldn't know that the strategy pretty much every comp team was using was 2nd hive first and then drop the closest res tower. Your argument that the whole marine team will just walk into the hive before it's built and kill it is pointless. Mostly because if they did the aliens could just rush their base and kill it or force them to beacon before doing any real damage to the hive.
One of the most useful perks of the Shift is spawning eggs around it. Having your assault waves concentrated due to proximity and not suffering from the delay of walking across half the map is very useful.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and the other is the echo.
I usually use shift and whip to protect the upgrades, near the hive.
3 uses:
1 a gorge (or other unit also) has costant energy
2 you can spawn eggs if needed
3 you can echo the upgrades away to another hive. It's costly, but better than re-building and researching them. So, as soon as the shift is mature, i upgrade it. (if i remember it must be upgraded to echo)
Never heard of this word before, plz explain.
1. Second hive drop (comm jumps out and gorges the 2nd hive up)
2. Cyst to and capture 2nd harvester
3. Drifters spawned when needed
4. Drop 2rd harvester at 2nd hive location
5. Leap
6. Onos egg drop (between 5-10 min mark)
7. Typically cara/celerity with adren and regen researched as needed
8. Blink
"But if you had gone celerity, you would be able to travel around the map so much faster!" While indeed <i>statistically</i> true, think about this. If you are running about the map, doing your normal alien-y things, and you hear marine footsteps, then you had better stop running and start walking. Not the case with silence. Hell, there have been times I have literally leaped past a marine and because I had silence there was no way for him to track me. Of course, this is not the same as having celerity, but you can see how it does give you some pretty rad <u>movement benefits</u> as well. Anyways, onwards.
"I want carapace, it's impossible to survive without it!" First of all, if you are asking this of your commander, you are doing something wrong. Sure, carapace has saved my butt numerous times, but if it is the only way you can get kills then I suggest looking up some tutorials online. Usually, getting carapace is for increased surivablility for lifeforms. Based on my earlier points, you can see silence can help you in this area as well. If they can't hear you coming, they can't anticipate your attack. This gives you valuable time to either A) Close distance and engage the marine or B) Escape before they are even able to fire off a shot. This brings up a valid concern though. Silence is an ability that can either be incredibly useful or entirely worthless, all depending on <u>player skill</u>. In order for a skulk to take advantage of these benefits, they must express some higher level skulk skills. This includes not running in a straight line, using walls and ceilings, vents, and parasite. For this reason alone many veteran commanders decide not to go shade tech in the current state of the community. We have a lot of new players who still have a lot to learn, but I still believe that silence can give these players large advantages. Similar to carapace, it gives them a bit more of a margin of error. They are harder to track, take longer to notice, etc. This gives new players more freedom to explore what a skulk can do, and at the same time teach them the importance of these advanced skulk mechanics. So there you go, <u>silence can also help with surivability.</u>
There are a few more points I would like to make note of before I end. This post is primarily talking about the benefits to skulks. The reason I wrote it this way is I wanted to try and show how silence and shade tech can be viable early-game, where skulks are more numerous. Yes some of these benefits apply to higher lifeforms, but it is quite obvious it is not the ultimate upgrade for all.
Also, I would write about the other benefits of shade tech (Shades, camo, etc), but that would be an even longer post... Maybe for later...
<u>tl;dr</u>- While very non-meta, Silence is an extremely viable early-game evolution that benefits skulks in combat, movement, and survivability.
sc is a great bump start. <b>however, focus is taken away from ns1.</b> which is a huge composition in the sc/mc fade build.
when marines are hunting down the fade, which is still <u><b>sadly</b></u> still the backbone of aliens in ns2, no one solos it. they do it in a group. hence shade is quite likely to obsolete in terms of offensive actions but only digs you into the coffin. and without celerity, you cant really catch up marines circling you. those clanners who actually have a proper aim.
or you can talk about wall jumping in massively huge rooms like ns2_refinery.
But with skulks I prefer adren over velocity nearly all the times: you can leap every time you lose momentum in wall-jumping, and it's more erratic even during a firefight, so they can track you worse.
But this is for skulk and for early game or late game, not for mid game, where you need firepower to push.
so in mid game you need adren and carapace, and this will be valid also in late game, with addition to silence (mainly).
For this reason perhaps the only option to go shade is if the two starting locations are near, to make the marine comm prone to use scan, that is a 3-tres ability, and in early game can be a great cost.
But in regular game, if the two teams are not near, shade will give you only a small advantage.
See this:
<!--quoteo(post=2007989:date=Nov 3 2012, 11:41 AM:name=Temphage)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Temphage @ Nov 3 2012, 11:41 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=2007989"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Fades without Carapace and Adrenalin are useless. Shade might benefit the skulks at the beginning the most, but it will utterly cripple you otherwise.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It doesnt matter if you survive your early game, you crippled your mid to late game. If you are dominating enough to compensate you were never in trouble of losing either way. Taking Shade first is like sawing off your left leg.
Hard to play wouldn't discourage competitive teams. The issue with shade first is that it's only good when the opposing team is bad. There are easily available hard counters to shade technology. You can't skillfully avoid an observatory scan.
Competitive players will invest in a difficult strategy that only high skilled play makes viable, but they won't invest in a strategy that relies on their opponent to be unskilled in order to be successful.
This is my movement upgrades, and specifically celerity dominate as a trend. Moving faster is effectively making the lifeform harder to use, but if more skill is invested into the life form while moving faster, it has a much higher ceiling of effectiveness than other abilities. You can't ever "counter" celerity, the only response is to have an even higher level of skill than the ceiling of celerity.
Competitive players will invest in a difficult strategy that only high skilled play makes viable, but they won't invest in a strategy that relies on their opponent to be unskilled in order to be successful.
This is my movement upgrades, and specifically celerity dominate as a trend. Moving faster is effectively making the lifeform harder to use, but if more skill is invested into the life form while moving faster, it has a much higher ceiling of effectiveness than other abilities. You can't ever "counter" celerity, the only response is to have an even higher level of skill than the ceiling of celerity.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
People complain about carapace being needed to "counter" shotguns, but shotguns will still kill a skulk with carapace very quickly. The only way to actually counter shotguns is to dodge, which is much more likely if you have celerity. But it is as you said, requiring some skill.
> Research upgrades
> Send stealth forces to wreak havoc upon your pitiful foes
> Com scans
> Lose game
From an RTS perspective this could be fairly useful.
> Research upgrades
> Send stealth forces to wreak havoc upon your pitiful foes
> Com scans
> Lose game<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Some changes to how that all works could make Shade more viable.
The shade AOE should defeat the observatory AOE. No question. The Observatory doesn't exist JUST to defeat aliens using Shade, so it'd still have purpose, and it would still require aliens to expand covertly right up to it, so I don't see the issue with this one.
Observatory AOE should have to be purchased on a per-Observatory basis. If the Observatory has to become a bit cheaper, no matter, it's mostly the time investment that is needed, so marines can't just sneak an Obs and erect it in five seconds and negate everything.
Marine sensor sweep should only work in ROOMS (so it only works IN that room, not several rooms away) where they have power control. Sensor sweep shouldn't break camouflage (which doesn't make sense that it does), but still highlights them with big white circles.
The person that said if you win with shade as first hive you were never in danger of losing in the first place was 100% right. Silence+Celerity is awesome, I won't deny that. It's just that it helps Skulks out more late-game than it does early-game as marines will take more bites before dying. Silence gives them a free bite or two if the marine isn't on his toes, so it sometimes evens out. A skulk that holds down the shift key as they move gets silence for free though, if you recall. It's not as fast and deadly as silence+celerity, but it's far cheaper and more durable with carapace. It just makes sense to use the ghetto silence early game and uber silence late game as far as what's useful when.
Shade first isn't as terrible as some make it out to be, but it does have 2 huge drawbacks...
1) Higher lifeforms gain less of an advantage from having a shade and crag/shift hive combo then a shift and crag hive combo.
2) The benefits of shade hive are negated by a scan/scattered Observatories unless you have shade's scattered around the map.
Shade first isn't as terrible as some make it out to be, but it does have 2 huge drawbacks...
1) Higher lifeforms gain less of an advantage from having a shade and crag/shift hive combo then a shift and crag hive combo.
2) The benefits of shade hive are negated by a scan/scattered Observatories unless you have shade's scattered around the map.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Should clarify that ink cloud isn't automatic so it's not really that useful. Also that it's only in the small area around the shade so if the comm is scanning around it, it doesn't really make much difference other than to mask things pretty close it.
Correct, unless the marine comm tells you in chat where he will scan in 5 seconds so the cloud is up when the scan begins the marines will still get a glimpse of what is inside that ink cloud which is all they need.
Also halve the reduction camoflage gives and im happy. :/
Also halve the reduction camoflage gives and im happy. :/<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again as stated early *disagrees*:
If Obs and Pings no longer negate cloaking it means there is no way to make them visible except shooting them...
Cloak > all seems stupid...
I would prefer dis! :)
Shades give local Scent of Fear.
Shades counter Obs Motion tracking when Overlapping + Pings.
Ping turns Hallucinations Purple (does not kill them).
Re-Implementation of Focus as Shade ability.
Camouflage upgrade negates motion tracking from Obs + Pings.