Going Without Defense Chambers
Ratfire
Join Date: 2003-03-31 Member: 15091Members
Join Date: 2003-03-31 Member: 15091Members
<div class="IPBDescription">But first...Running, Biting, n Cloaking</div> If you look through all the posts here, most of them regard the general structure of an NS Khaara game. Hive 1 = defense chamber, Hive 2 = movement chamber, and Hive 3 = sensory chamber.
Now granted this is an effective setup. From the start, aliens are already going for the ability to absorb more hits, regenerate from hit and run attacks, or be fwoomped back to the hive after taking too much damage.
But has anyone come up with or seen a viable strategy using any of the other chambers first? Especially regarding the upcoming 1.1 advantages of a sensory chamber.
For instance, say that the gorge went for a movement tower first. This offers the distinct advantages of speed, continual attack, and silence.
Since skulks are already faster than marines, the speed upgrade makes them blazingly better, and able to both arrive at locations sooner, move out of the way faster, and more quickly move up to and engage targets.
Adrenaline allows for even more distinct advantage. It regenerates your stamina much more quickly. This means a number of things.
-Skulks can kill a resource tower without losing all their stamina (I.E. making them attack very slowly)
-Skulks can now fire more parasites, and fire them more often, giving a distinct tracking advantage early in the game.
-While still with only one hive, adrenaline gives Lerks a much greater ability to both attack and fly.
And silence can really take the place of regeneration when it comes to hit and run attacks. It is much easier to sneak up on an enemy undetected and kill him, than it is to have to run away and regen hit points from a failed or damaging attack. In addition, silence becomes much less useful once marines have motion tracking, but using it early in the game gives Khaara both a sound and sight advantage.
While sensory chambers are not really a viable option for the 1st upgrade chamber, with the new abilty to cloak all surrounding chambers in 1.1, it gives a great advantage to hiding your location.
Another little trick with sensory chambers is parasite. Many Khaara don't remember, and many Frontiersman don't know, that if a soldier touches a sensory chamber, he is parasited. This means, that a lone sensory tower, just around the corner, has a chance to parasite unsuspecting soldiers that run by, and the foolish soldier who decides to knife it to death.
Ratifre
Now granted this is an effective setup. From the start, aliens are already going for the ability to absorb more hits, regenerate from hit and run attacks, or be fwoomped back to the hive after taking too much damage.
But has anyone come up with or seen a viable strategy using any of the other chambers first? Especially regarding the upcoming 1.1 advantages of a sensory chamber.
For instance, say that the gorge went for a movement tower first. This offers the distinct advantages of speed, continual attack, and silence.
Since skulks are already faster than marines, the speed upgrade makes them blazingly better, and able to both arrive at locations sooner, move out of the way faster, and more quickly move up to and engage targets.
Adrenaline allows for even more distinct advantage. It regenerates your stamina much more quickly. This means a number of things.
-Skulks can kill a resource tower without losing all their stamina (I.E. making them attack very slowly)
-Skulks can now fire more parasites, and fire them more often, giving a distinct tracking advantage early in the game.
-While still with only one hive, adrenaline gives Lerks a much greater ability to both attack and fly.
And silence can really take the place of regeneration when it comes to hit and run attacks. It is much easier to sneak up on an enemy undetected and kill him, than it is to have to run away and regen hit points from a failed or damaging attack. In addition, silence becomes much less useful once marines have motion tracking, but using it early in the game gives Khaara both a sound and sight advantage.
While sensory chambers are not really a viable option for the 1st upgrade chamber, with the new abilty to cloak all surrounding chambers in 1.1, it gives a great advantage to hiding your location.
Another little trick with sensory chambers is parasite. Many Khaara don't remember, and many Frontiersman don't know, that if a soldier touches a sensory chamber, he is parasited. This means, that a lone sensory tower, just around the corner, has a chance to parasite unsuspecting soldiers that run by, and the foolish soldier who decides to knife it to death.
Ratifre
Comments
Back before all this jp/hmg rushing nonsense, you'd see gorges tossing off a single RT and then getting all three of whatever the first chamber they picked was - early in the game, anything is viable. But once the marines have any weapon upgrades, a Defense-less alien team is going to just get chewed up.
Ratfire
Ratfire <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Use the 'Search' button, thats what it's there for...
It's called the 3 hives,MC,DC,SC,ONOS rush.
The alien just collect a lot of res and then they build 2 hives 3 DC 3 MC and 3 SC and then everybody evolves into ONOS.....
First, you build DCs.
Skulks can use carapace, so they can kill more marines before dying, destroy TFs and engage marines in close combat. A skulk without carapace is a dead skulk.
Lerks use carapace as well. They are weaker than skulks, so they HAVE to use carapace, or a marine can kill then in 1 second using a pistol.
Gorgs have some options. If they are waiting for the ress to build a hive, then use redemption. If you are defending a hive (building ocs and dcs), then use carapace. If you are atacking/building rts, then use regeneration.
Then, with a second hive, build MCs.
Skulks use celerity or adrenaline. Celerity so they can run even faster, and adrena to use leap more times. I ALWAYS use adrenaline, because leap makes me even faster if I had used celerity, and it is GREAT to kill that marine that is 20 meters away at the end of the corridor. Also usefull to run away. It is great to leap inside the marine base, kill 2 or 3 marines getting ammo and then leap away to heal.
Lerks use adrena, so they can fly more often and use umbra and spikes.
Gorgs use celerity to run, adrenaline to use webs and almost never silence.
And the most important of all, Fades almost always use adrenaline, so they can blink, shoot and cut as much as they can. A fade without adrenaline is a worthless ****. You can use celerity to do the hit-and-run strategy, but it wont be as good as adrena.
Then, with a second hive, build SCs.
There is no need for a SCs at this point of the game. Onus dont want to hide themselfs, they want to strike fast and kill those marines. Cloaking is just used for fun. Improved Vision (i guess), is not worth ****. The only good think about SCs is the Scense of Fear, that is used to find that hiding marines.
Now granted this is an effective setup. From the start, aliens are already going for the ability to absorb more hits, regenerate from hit and run attacks, or be fwoomped back to the hive after taking too much damage.
But has anyone come up with or seen a viable strategy using any of the other chambers first? Especially regarding the upcoming 1.1 advantages of a sensory chamber.
For instance, say that the gorge went for a movement tower first. This offers the distinct advantages of speed, continual attack, and silence.
Since skulks are already faster than marines, the speed upgrade makes them blazingly better, and able to both arrive at locations sooner, move out of the way faster, and more quickly move up to and engage targets.
Adrenaline allows for even more distinct advantage. It regenerates your stamina much more quickly. This means a number of things.
-Skulks can kill a resource tower without losing all their stamina (I.E. making them attack very slowly)
-Skulks can now fire more parasites, and fire them more often, giving a distinct tracking advantage early in the game.
-While still with only one hive, adrenaline gives Lerks a much greater ability to both attack and fly.
And silence can really take the place of regeneration when it comes to hit and run attacks. It is much easier to sneak up on an enemy undetected and kill him, than it is to have to run away and regen hit points from a failed or damaging attack. In addition, silence becomes much less useful once marines have motion tracking, but using it early in the game gives Khaara both a sound and sight advantage.
While sensory chambers are not really a viable option for the 1st upgrade chamber, with the new abilty to cloak all surrounding chambers in 1.1, it gives a great advantage to hiding your location.
Another little trick with sensory chambers is parasite. Many Khaara don't remember, and many Frontiersman don't know, that if a soldier touches a sensory chamber, he is parasited. This means, that a lone sensory tower, just around the corner, has a chance to parasite unsuspecting soldiers that run by, and the foolish soldier who decides to knife it to death.
Ratifre <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
my clan has used every single chamber combination, we found that D/M/S is the most effective.
Whats good about movement is for a gorge push, have 2 gorges and 4 skulks attack an enemy base while spamming heal spray with adrenaline, but at the same time, if this fails yer team gets ran into the gutter so to speak.
With sensory first, stalking becomes much easier, but it is very difficult to retake lost ground. Also sensory chambers are cheap enough to make it difficult for JPers to get through because you can stack and build walls.
Bare in mind we won with these tactics, however, we were not trying these out on top clans, we wanted to see if it would work with the lesser skilled clans, but then we determined against top tier teams (ReD eve and HAM) it would not be a viable option.
However in public situation, it all depends on how your aliens play. If they are an aggressive bunch, you can go sensory, but remember it is almost impossible to retake lost ground, so the skulks would have to be able stalk every single marine that would dare to make an advancement towards another hive or even RTs. The aliens have to stalk the marine's closest expansion RT, while preventing them from going after the gorge.
Movement it seems to me anyways that it would be more viable, especially if you have a couple of gorges that really know what they are doing an can organize an attack, it could be devistating to the marine main base and my force a relocation or end the game.
unfortunately, both of these situations require above average teamwork in coordinating assaults. With a D chamber, and more specifically carapace, the gorge needs less protection, so that frees up skulks to do whatever they want, as long as they are killing marines, they really do not need teamwork to set up attacks or stalking points or gorge pushes that the other chambers would require.
<!--QuoteBegin--flauyra+--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (flauyra)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> sensory will now be wickedly viable <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
full silence!
*chuckles*
after you have two res towers and two sensories, you should make a move for the second hive and have your camping teams switch to the offensive for two minutes, give or take. This easily prevents observatories from being put up and motion tracking being researched. in the meantime, you take hive #2 and then you drop three motions as quick as possible. Skulks get silence, and suddenly you can move around, cloak, and uncloak without being detected. An added benifit of having silence is that motion tracking doesn't really help well with a rush. So even if cloaking is nulled by marines, a silence rush is brutal.
As all goes well, Sir Gorge will have lotta res and a third hive goes up, fades come in and the marine's family members get to collect the life insurance.
after you have two res towers and two sensories, you should make a move for the second hive and have your camping teams switch to the offensive for two minutes, give or take. This easily prevents observatories from being put up and motion tracking being researched. in the meantime, you take hive #2 and then you drop three motions as quick as possible. Skulks get silence, and suddenly you can move around, cloak, and uncloak without being detected. An added benifit of having silence is that motion tracking doesn't really help well with a rush. So even if cloaking is nulled by marines, a silence rush is brutal.
As all goes well, Sir Gorge will have lotta res and a third hive goes up, fades come in and the marine's family members get to collect the life insurance. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Somehow this sounds VERY wrong... :/
I will leave it at that
I hope they overhaul enhanced hivesight too.
And adrenaline first so you can parasite more? What are you stupid? Are you going to parasite marines to death or something?
And adrenaline first so you can parasite more? What are you stupid? Are you going to parasite marines to death or something?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No gorge who has played this game for more than an hour will ever build only level 1 or 2 of an upgrade unless they're really hard pressed for resources. And when you get level 3 silence, you become a wikkid skulk. A marine can't see you coming up behind him even if motion tracking is on unless he turns around.
Adrenaline mostly helps out the gorges and lerks at hive 1. Parasiting to death isn't an often occurance, but the adrenaline certainly helps you when you're trashing marine bases. Ever try working a res node by yourself? You'll have to wait for your energy to recharge. And if you get into a battle with a marine midway, you have a serious problem when that energy is out. If you've got a team of 2 gorges with adrenaline, they can pretty much healspray over a base with a bunch of skulks too. You'd be surpised what a little teamwork pulls off.
First, you build DCs.
Skulks can use carapace, so they can kill more marines before dying, destroy TFs and engage marines in close combat. A skulk without carapace is a dead skulk.
Lerks use carapace as well. They are weaker than skulks, so they HAVE to use carapace, or a marine can kill then in 1 second using a pistol.
Gorgs have some options. If they are waiting for the ress to build a hive, then use redemption. If you are defending a hive (building ocs and dcs), then use carapace. If you are atacking/building rts, then use regeneration.
Then, with a second hive, build MCs.
Skulks use celerity or adrenaline. Celerity so they can run even faster, and adrena to use leap more times. I ALWAYS use adrenaline, because leap makes me even faster if I had used celerity, and it is GREAT to kill that marine that is 20 meters away at the end of the corridor. Also usefull to run away. It is great to leap inside the marine base, kill 2 or 3 marines getting ammo and then leap away to heal.
Lerks use adrena, so they can fly more often and use umbra and spikes.
Gorgs use celerity to run, adrenaline to use webs and almost never silence.
And the most important of all, Fades almost always use adrenaline, so they can blink, shoot and cut as much as they can. A fade without adrenaline is a worthless ****. You can use celerity to do the hit-and-run strategy, but it wont be as good as adrena.
Then, with a second hive, build SCs.
There is no need for a SCs at this point of the game. Onus dont want to hide themselfs, they want to strike fast and kill those marines. Cloaking is just used for fun. Improved Vision (i guess), is not worth ****. The only good think about SCs is the Scense of Fear, that is used to find that hiding marines. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow something new. Great job.
And adrenaline first so you can parasite more? What are you stupid? Are you going to parasite marines to death or something? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'll agree with your point on silence, considering most people do not use sound properly anyways, even if they hear something they cannot tell where its comming from.
If you actually HAD looked through all the posts here, you'd see that the topic of chamber orders has been brought up a million times. It's also utterly pointless, because it's going to change completely in 1.1.
If you actually HAD looked through all the posts here, you'd see that the topic of chamber orders has been brought up a million times. It's also utterly pointless, because it's going to change completely in 1.1. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lol.