You Muuuuust Resiiiiiist...
Alien_Bob
Join Date: 2002-11-11 Member: 8185Members
Join Date: 2002-11-11 Member: 8185Members
<div class="IPBDescription">..the tempatation to evolve</div> That is, the temptation to evolve to a lerk early in the game as soon as you hit 33 personal resource points.
Unless you have a good reason for going lerk, please try not to do so. As soon you hit your resource limit, any further resource points will go to other team members, which includes the all-important gorge. If you evolve to lerk as your res drops back to 0, and you will start sucking up another 33 points which would otherwise have gone to the gorge and helped build hives etc.
I'm not saying you should never go lerk, just think about whether those resources would be better spent on the gorge instead. Later in the game it doesn't matter so much, but at the beginning when resources are scarce it is considerably more important not to waste them.
Unless you have a good reason for going lerk, please try not to do so. As soon you hit your resource limit, any further resource points will go to other team members, which includes the all-important gorge. If you evolve to lerk as your res drops back to 0, and you will start sucking up another 33 points which would otherwise have gone to the gorge and helped build hives etc.
I'm not saying you should never go lerk, just think about whether those resources would be better spent on the gorge instead. Later in the game it doesn't matter so much, but at the beginning when resources are scarce it is considerably more important not to waste them.
Comments
And this has happened to me several times:
I evolve to a lerk (i have had good reasons) and few minutes later gorge builds second hive. I get killed, second hive is finished and i have...~15 rp points. <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
After that everybody starts to gather those moneys up to 66. My resources increases VERY slowly cuz of that and it takes ages to get 54 for fade (unless i go to gorge and save those moneys that way).
And sometimes if you have 33/33, it is better to call a gorge to build res tower than evolve to gorge, build it and then go back to skulk (again you have spended all your resources).
And you get bonus points for making a refrence to System Shock 2.
But it's not only the resources you should think of when evoliving..
You should think weather it's useful to evolve!
A Lerk is early game is very useful (if not even required -> jp/hmg-rush) in clanwars. but unexperienced players should not spend their whole 33 in early pub-games just to fly around a bit and then get shot down... total waste of time and resources.
Also, in early game you might need a lot of men-power at the front lines to slow down the Marines expanding... while you morph into a Lerk your team lacks power, your teammates die faster, Marines can expand more easyly... the abilities a Lerk offers in that situation are a rather bad tradeoff for the chances the Marines may have gotten.
One thing I'd like to say about players that morph into a gorge in order to get resources faster and become Fade just after the second hive came up.
I saw this "tactic" on a few public servers the other day (12 - 20 slots)...
Shortly after the second hive started to build, the Alien Team (9 players) had 5 gorges, 1 Lerk and 3 Skulks.
The "real" Gorge kept on building structures, the other 4 were just sitting and waiting for the hive to finish (they did not even help the "real" gorge to build structures after they were set!!).
When the second hive was finished, 4 gorges morphed into Fades, eventually storming the Marine base causing a lot of damage.
It worked.... THIS time!
If you do such a thing always keep in mind, that a hive that's building up is an easy target and gorges although not defenseless, are way not as effective in defendind an area as skulks are.
If you don't want to lose your resnodes/hives/choke-points you have to keep the Marines under preassure... but how are you supposed to do this when half your team is sitting in a dark corner "stealing" resources that could be used for upgrades/structures and waiting?
I'm not saying that this is a bad strategy in general, but I want to point out that this can be risky... I've seen an Alien team loosing their hive and 3 gorges because there were no skulks/lerks nearby.
But to give one positive example of the skulk->gorge->fade: I was playing on caged with some ppl as Aliens starting at Ventilation. We did our best to prevent the Marines from expanding but were loosing more and more ground. When second hive at sever was going up, 1 player morphed into a gorge to get resources... hive complete, player got Fade and attacked Marine base. Marines had to get back to their base to fight the Fade wich gave the Skulks the oppertunity to tear down marine outposts making the way clear for the gorge.
I think this is a quite cost and time effective way to use this tactic, but please don't overdo it.
Just my 2 cents
(btw: SShock2 rulez, playing it in Multiplayer with two frieds, lots-a-fun <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->)
from a gorges point of view then staying as skulk is the best thing you can do, i dont mine one out of say 7 players going lerk but i disslike when another player goes gorge to build a R tower cause more oftern that not they use another 4 rps going back to Skulk
anyway good point and i think its good for new players to know.
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And going gorge just to get res for going fade is screwing your team two times over. First by trying to get a larger slice of the pie for your own ego fade trip. Secondly by making them believe you're a gorge out to serve the hive mind. So DONT go gorge to save up for fade, m'kay? It is naughty.
Well usually i don't do that. But if our team has only one gorge, i might evolve and build some stuff (like defending the starting hive, if the other gorge is building second hive or then i build res towers) and after that i start to save for fade.
The thing is, players who can do this with a lerk can more than likely do it with a skulk as well (and I've seen it done). The thing is, a skulk can quite happily maintain a kill\death ratio of 1 (assuming a very high kill count). A lerk can't, they're worth too much.