So You Want To Make The Marines Hate You?
Kiz
Join Date: 2002-11-06 Member: 7236Members
Join Date: 2002-11-06 Member: 7236Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Skulk guide...thing...I think...</div> Don't stop attacking. I'm serious. Your life is worth six res at most (full upgrades). You are expendable. Don't be a grabass about your ratio or your score or what-the-hell ever. Eat faces, die, and respawn to do it all over again. It's your job- nay, your duty to the hive, to eat as many faces as possible. You are the camel spider of the Kharaa, you kill a default marine in two hits, and you cost nothing!
Let's say you're playing on ns_caged, and there's a small marine outpost in the Sewer hive. It just got started recently; Phase, three turrets, and a turret factory. What do you break first? Here are your options:
1) Turrets. About four feet of metal-based area denial. Doesn't move, fairly inaccurate, but will kill you if you hold still without cover.
2) Turret factory. Lets the turrets operate. Doesn't attack. Big as a barn to a skulk. Beware of welders if you're hiding behind/in one.
3) Phase. Lets marines show up within LMG/SG/HMG distance and turn you into skulk paté.
If you answered 2, you're right. You take out the turret factory and the three turrets providing fire support to the marines go down, giving you a much less hostile area to work in.
"But Kiz, I keep dying when I try to take out the turret factory!"
So? That happens. Just keep pressing. The only stop you should be making is to give yourself carapace and celerity. The first lets you live long enough to get in another two bites or so, and the second lets you get there faster to make up for time lost when evolving. The faster you get there, the less likely it is someone has repaired the turret factory, and the less likely it is the commander has dropped enough medpacks to heal his marines.
See, humans have this weird habit of wanting to save themselves, so they ask for health boosts from the commander. You? You're expendable, you're a kamikazi. Why else do you think your third-hive ability is the Natural Selection version of suicide-bombing?
Your mission is to take down the turret factory at any cost. Your first run into the outpost should be focused on finding the turret factory. Die on purpose, that will make the marines too sure of themselves. Second run is to try and find cover from as many turrets as possible behind the turret factory. You most likely will die, but the more bites you get in on the turret factory now, the less you have to get in later. Any runs after that are to exploit the hole and lower the health of the turret factory until it is dead.
I've seen skulks jumping in and out of turret farms and gnawing on the turrets. Don't do that unless it would open a hole in the turret net, otherwise it's going to get you very dead, very fast, for little gain. The least you can do is get behind the turret factory and chew on it, making the job of eating the crunchy snacks with chewy centers that much easier.
Let's say you're playing on ns_caged, and there's a small marine outpost in the Sewer hive. It just got started recently; Phase, three turrets, and a turret factory. What do you break first? Here are your options:
1) Turrets. About four feet of metal-based area denial. Doesn't move, fairly inaccurate, but will kill you if you hold still without cover.
2) Turret factory. Lets the turrets operate. Doesn't attack. Big as a barn to a skulk. Beware of welders if you're hiding behind/in one.
3) Phase. Lets marines show up within LMG/SG/HMG distance and turn you into skulk paté.
If you answered 2, you're right. You take out the turret factory and the three turrets providing fire support to the marines go down, giving you a much less hostile area to work in.
"But Kiz, I keep dying when I try to take out the turret factory!"
So? That happens. Just keep pressing. The only stop you should be making is to give yourself carapace and celerity. The first lets you live long enough to get in another two bites or so, and the second lets you get there faster to make up for time lost when evolving. The faster you get there, the less likely it is someone has repaired the turret factory, and the less likely it is the commander has dropped enough medpacks to heal his marines.
See, humans have this weird habit of wanting to save themselves, so they ask for health boosts from the commander. You? You're expendable, you're a kamikazi. Why else do you think your third-hive ability is the Natural Selection version of suicide-bombing?
Your mission is to take down the turret factory at any cost. Your first run into the outpost should be focused on finding the turret factory. Die on purpose, that will make the marines too sure of themselves. Second run is to try and find cover from as many turrets as possible behind the turret factory. You most likely will die, but the more bites you get in on the turret factory now, the less you have to get in later. Any runs after that are to exploit the hole and lower the health of the turret factory until it is dead.
I've seen skulks jumping in and out of turret farms and gnawing on the turrets. Don't do that unless it would open a hole in the turret net, otherwise it's going to get you very dead, very fast, for little gain. The least you can do is get behind the turret factory and chew on it, making the job of eating the crunchy snacks with chewy centers that much easier.
Comments
1) Turrets.
2) Turret factory.
3) Phase.
If you answered 2, you're right.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not necessarily. Especially in larger games (6v6 or greater), the Comm is going to know instantly when you start chomping things, and if the phase is up, you're not going to be facing only 3 dumb turrets, but 3-5 smart marines with better aim.
It's often better to eat the phase gate first.
It's often better to eat the phase gate first.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ok, yea, I didn't cover the whole range of options here. It's still a good idea to get as much damage in on the turret factory as possible, though. Guess it's just personal preference, seeing as how I seem take a little more time to die if the marines have to rely on each other for fire support.
There's a far more efficient way to take down bases. Firstly, yes, you go for the turret factory first thing but you only stand next to it and attack if there's a blindspot in the turrets. As "natural" blindspots are more and more rare these days as commanders start getting a clue, you would do well to create blindspots. Turrets have a tenth the health of a turret factory - it's quite possible that in ONE run you can destroy a turrets by circling it, which opens up a blindspot by the TF, which then lets you take down the TF without dying. Much more effective than four or five suicide rushes directly to the TF.
Really though, every strategy is never the best strategy. It depends on the situation. I agree with kiz if you can get in a fair number of bited before you die, but if not, then SoulSkorpion's idea is better. Also in 1.04 with the less-hp phase gate and the ability to "use" it, you can strafe that and eat it faster and less support will come.
Priorities:
#1 Phase gate. -> everything else in the hive is built to protect this. If you don't kill it, they can rebuild everything.
#2 Tfac. -> easier than eating 5 turrets. (a tfac built on top of a res collector? jump onto it, crouch, face down, and eat)
#3 Turrets -> the worst target, but often required to get at #1 and #2.
And dying isn't such a great thing.... remember the respawn queue. [don't die too much, watch the respawn queue]
Everyone else has already weighed in on the pg vs. tf thing, so I'll skip that.
I just wanted to add that <i>every damn alien player</i> should read your paragraph above. It should be in the NS manual.
Regularly, I die while attacking a marine strong point. Then, in death-observer mode, I get to watch a bunch of my team trying to be all stealthy and "stalk" the turret farm. Like, you know, they're going to <i>catch it off-guard</i> or whatever.
Attacking structures is not a Solid Snake/Sun Tzu complex cerebral engagement. It's a race between you and some doofus with a welder. If you do your job before he does his, you win.
- Don't forget to parasite marines, a parasite marines (if he's not silly) never follow a group of marines, and if they have an outpost, parasite the tf or the pg (then your teamates can show where the outpost is).
- the marines can respawn faster (if they have more respawn than your hives) but a lonely skull is very strong, a lonely marine is "weak", a marine always search to rejoin is teamates (except rambo marines <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->). then break there group of marines, and they are disorganized, they hesitate to build things if they are not cover, they not attacking oc etc....
Attacking structures is not a Solid Snake/Sun Tzu complex cerebral engagement. It's a race between you and some doofus with a welder. If you do your job before he does his, you win.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
THANK YOU. Someone else who knows there's no reason to sneak around a turret farm. Get in there, chew on turret factory, and a pox on Death's bony arse. You'll be back soon enough.
1. I hide in celings, dark corners etc..Await marines, surprise them..hopefully killing all or some...slowing them down, if I die, I get back to location, if I survive, I hide somewhere else, retreating
2. When the marines finally got a hive, I evolve to lerk, find a goo spot and spike their phase gate, then TF and then eat the turrets...
3. I stay as lerk until a gorge comes and puts the hive up then I advance to next marine location. I hide, spiking what I see. When marines come to kill me, I umbra and eat them...this way you can take entire bases on your own, just make sure you have energy left from the spiking...
I've been on servers, where I've seen players go lerk just to take out a turret factory that can be easily taken out with just two skulks. If it can be avoided, it's better to save resources than to go Lerk just to take a Hive. I've seen lots of Lerks take back a Hive, but end up with no resources to prevent the Marines from taking it again, or even to build a hive!
Organization is the key to Kharaa winning, Skulks are like pack animals, and when they hunt together they can do much more damage.
(uhm don't take the next example wrong)
The german u-boats did in WWII (I'm sorry to say they where effective)
try to move in from 2 maybe 3 different location (vent, front, behind.
First the vent and behind, the marines will then bo occupied, and you cut of their last 'free' route by charging in from the front (normally u die from head-on charging)
So skulks, gather. 6 skulks is the best. 2 from behind, 2 from vent and 2 head-on.
This requires great team-work though, rarely seen on pubs <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
rotfl. Can I quote that in a sig? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
rotfl. Can I quote that in a sig? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Go for it, man.
Ok, about lerks. I have seen a game turned around because 2-3 lerks spiked the phase gate and TF, with the rest of the damn team, gorges included, tried to liberate the other hive. The lerks got yelled at for killing marines and not helping them, even though they just killed the marines that tried to repair the tf.
I was one of those lerks. Two of us set up in the vents*, i was just flying around like a hummingbird. We had Adren, and carapace. (We didnt die when they killed the second hive.) it was my job to keep the marines ocupied, and i did so. its easy if you know how to fly without landing, and where to place a def tower as a gorge. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> One some maps, there are places that you can build and not be hit unless the marines had jetpacks. fortunatly the comm just kept saying, out of team chat, that jetpacks were a waste of res, and just outfited his marines with heavy armor, welders, and shotguns or HMGs.
Anyways, whenever i got him, i went back to my hidden def tower (Right above them, good thing the commander was to stupid to drop a grenade launcher.) since they had HMGs, as soon as they started shooting, i went and healed... Now note that i am a psycopath when im lerked, and am zig zagging every which way, thus making me a pain to hit, expecially with such a high ceiling. Yes, thats right, the "A-A Shotguns" rarley hit. Once the other two took out the phase gate,** it was as good as ours. since i didnt have any marines to worry about, i droped down from my little hideyhole, right ontop of a turret, bit the living *bleeeeeep* out of it, and flew back to regen. By this time, the two other players managed to get the TF gone. Then we were threatened with a kick/ban for not working as a team, even though we said we'd get the other hive... Sadly, the rest of our team still hadnt gotten that hive back. So, since we were all saving up and we didnt have a gorge, i went gorge, got yelled at, then threw the hive up. We still got yelled at cause this is when the marines arived to shoot at it. well, my buddies were still in the vents... the fools rushed us with jetpacks and PISTOLS for gods sake... One of my buddies died, and i was hiding behind my wall of Off. Chambers. The poor marines are no match for a **** off gorge and a ton of Offencive chambers. they died, the comm gave up on it (Stupidity again) and then they promptly lost the other hive. I wish i could have seen the look on the marines faces. rofl
Anyways, dont underestimate a lerk, and definatly not a group of them. a well co-ordinated team of them can totally rip a firebase to shreads.
*I dont remember what map, im sorry to say, but the vents had a clean shot to where the marines were, and they put the tf in such a way that one of the two of them had a good shot at the repairing marine, and the tf/pg
** I dont know why there wernt any more marines there... i think its just cause we were fighting stupid (Not noob, just stupid... they were pretty good shots) marines, with a worse commander.