1. indeed it doesnt probived complete invisibility. but i have yet to find any marine in a game that could see me when i cloaked in the middle of a room. it is not easy to see.
2. 3 res for a scan is alot in early game. a good commander will not scan at all. hell get armor and wepon upgrades and tell his marines to watch their backs.
3.cloaking does not require you to find a good spot it is quite effective to hide in the middle of a room or in the top corner of one.
4. the survivability of a skulk depends less on his life and more on the skill the skulk has to strafe. I am an excelent shot, but i have come agianst un carapaced skulk that could charge you down a straight hall way and strafe in a way that you couldnt hit him once. ive come to think that the survivability depends on marine firing patterns and skulk strafe patterns.
5. you only need 1 sens chamber in the beggining. you should start by camping the marine spawn while your gorge uses that extra 32 res to set up a mini wall of lame for 56 res you can put 4 OC's in the hive you wish to take next. and thats only if your skulks arent the best. otherwise you could build about 2 extra res nodes. if you want to take out a base and you got some time then get cloaking on a skulk or lerk or what ever then you can cloak next to a turret and bite cloak bite cloak bite cloak. take out the turrets 1 by one. also offencive gorging is much much more important in this because you can run to the middle of a base as a gorge cloak and then start building a chamber ive taken out whole bases with just a single gorge with cloak.
5.it does work on turrets.it offers the advatages of extremly powerfull offencive gorging. your skulks are supposed to walk around killing res nodes.
6.everyone knows that "ENEMY IS APROCHING" is stupid kind of. although once you learn the radius of detection a sens chamber has you know exactly were marine "could" be and move accordingly.
7. i dont know if youve heard of this wonderfull ablity called healing spray?? no?? ok then let me explain what healing spray is. it heals 4-5 times faster than any defence chamber. use it.
ChurchMeatshield grunt-fodder // Has pre-ordered NS2Join Date: 2002-12-31Member: 11646Members, Constellation
Ehhh.....no. With sensory you are still dead if you have to run up to a marines defendng a position. And trust me, you will have to to do that quite often. I can down skulks without carapace like hot knife cuts throuhg butter. Carapace is just way too damned good.
ShockehIf a packet drops on the web and nobody's near to see it...Join Date: 2002-11-19Member: 9336NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Constellation
As one of the biggest & long standing advocates of Sensory Chambers I have to say.....
meat is right.
It's not Sensory is bad. It's not that at all. The chamber has a good ability if placed right, (directly as part of a WoL you know they'll jump a lot) and Cloak in funky.
Sensory ROXX Man! I always build sensory first and then make that upgrade called "Advanced Hive Sight". I then can see the enemy very clearly (sometimes i get frightened by alien mates, but its ok) in my dark monitor (sometimes i hit obstacles on my way though) and at least know WHO killed me! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Well, ok, its not like that. Sensory can be very effective as first chamber, but only if you re going for 3 hives, trying to hold marines off the map. You can chomb down a marine on his shoes (pfuuuuu) while he passes by without noticing you and you can scare them by laughing from a dark place (then get shot by a Monk-Style player who aims only with sound) and anyways sensory is fun. I mean, whythefock do you bother playing always the same stuff? Try something funny like sensory first. Its not a bad idea. Its a freaking GAME after all! You should get some nice action or funny guerilla (or gorilla / godzilla / ...) tactics! I am bored of D/M/Endgame without even using my good old cloaking :/
SKULKS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THE THING ASSULTING THE POSITIONS!!! your supposed to use a gorge to build OC's and tower creep up. skulks are supposed to be support, gorges are supposed to be the main weapon. and if you dont know what tower pushing or offencive gorging is then you shouldnt be talkign at all.
<!--QuoteBegin--NightCrawler.+Apr 29 2003, 11:00 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (NightCrawler. @ Apr 29 2003, 11:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> SKULKS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THE THING ASSULTING THE POSITIONS!!! your supposed to use a gorge to build OC's and tower creep up. skulks are supposed to be support, gorges are supposed to be the main weapon. and if you dont know what tower pushing or offencive gorging is then you shouldnt be talkign at all. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> lol, and what happens when the comm drops the siege?
can you say "boom" gorgey?
seriously, go play on better servers because any competant marine team will OWN every tactic you have mentioned
OMW and I this time I thought skulks were better at a) taking structures down quickly and b) attacking marines
than a battle gorge. OF COURSE how could I have been so stupid.
Mate, you need a lobotomy or something, maybe just find a server with some players who aren't complete dimwits. Battle gorging has its place, but say early game, marines plonk a res node down. What is the alien team to do, send in a group of fast, dangerous fighting machines or a fat gorge with enough res for one OC.
From what you've said you'd just leave that turret right there and get your skulks to sit outside marine base (which btw, SOME marines have left WELL before you can get there (especially well before you can get there with sensory!))
I'm not saying sensory first isn't fun, I'm saying you WILL lose! Come to my server and prove me wrong!
battle gorges are used to break fortifications like when marines try to secure hives early on. Please dont act your skill level, otherwise we'll have 1 more newb than we need. yes once marines have seiges the battle gorge technique will not be effective. BUT you fail to realize that commanders never use seige in their early establishments.
Your assertion that good comms will never scan is ludicrous at best. The scan area is quite big, and it will most likely only require 5 or 6 scans at most to cover the distance between the marine spawn and whatever hive the aliens started with. That's 15-18 less res, yes, ok. But then they're spawn camping your hive. What good will cloaking do to you now? Nothing. That's our entire point.
Know what my comm and I did the whole 2 times (hey, we don't tend to hang out in newbie servers, sorry) we encountered sensory first?
Step 1: Mine the **** out of our base. No carapace skulks die instantly if a mine explodes anywhere near them. Step 2: Hand out 2 or 3 shotguns. Step 3: Move the entire team (maybe minus 1 marine to keep an eye on RTs and such) toward the hive. Step 4: Comm scans every room of the way and then proceeds to tell us how many skulks are waiting in ambush and where ("2 above the doorway, one on the right wall.") Sometimes he even individually gives us attack waypoints as well. Step 5: Own the aforementioned scanned skulks which LMGs and shotguns do with the greatest of ease since, you know, you O so wisely decided to skip carapace. When skulks have no carapace, you can even shotgun snipe them. They're that weak. It's pathetic. Step 6: Reach the hive and spawn camp. Step 7: GG.
As I recall, the first time this occured was on a clan server when 1.04 was just released. The home clan had 4-5 players on the aliens' side and they decided to try out sensory first since it was apparently "improved." After their 10 minute beatdown, one of them in the ready room said out loud "Man we are NEVER doing that again. Sensory first does NOT work if the marines are any good." It made me smile, because it was the truth.
<!--QuoteBegin--NightCrawler.+Apr 29 2003, 01:51 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (NightCrawler. @ Apr 29 2003, 01:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> battle gorges are used to break fortifications like when marines try to secure hives early on. Please dont act your skill level, otherwise we'll have 1 more newb than we need. yes once marines have seiges the battle gorge technique will not be effective. BUT you fail to realize that commanders never use seige in their early establishments. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> and YOU fail to realize that an alien etam will not have enough res to chamber rush while the marines are making early establishments...
And gorges die extremely fast without carapace. Less than a full pistol clip to kill, a marine can hop over about 4 oc and pistol you before you can so much as move. So if your tactic is to chamber rush, then why nto get def first and make it 100times more affective
<!--QuoteBegin--NightCrawler.+Apr 29 2003, 03:58 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (NightCrawler. @ Apr 29 2003, 03:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> and thats why we have cloaking. so marines dont pistol you while your building your chamber <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> and thats why a smart marine will hear the gorge building, and use his LMG at close range <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Are you sure you dont wanna play on a server with good players ?
the great master ns player has spoken! all must obey his lack of knowledge and common sence.
edit: Kazy that stratige works with or without carapace. its called a rush. and if you have 3 defence chambers before the rush comes... then i applaud you
This is getting pretty silly now, Nightcrawler for your own good i'd suggest not embarassing yourself any further.
And for the record -
Net connection: £13/month Mod download: Free Forum registration: Free Having some random newb tell you that he'll own your marine team by walking up as an uncarapaced gorge and building an OC: Priceless
Remember kids....
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> SKULKS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THE THING ASSULTING THE POSITIONS!!! <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->SKULKS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THE THING ASSULTING THE POSITIONS!!!<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Hell yeah!! I drop the harsh language chamber first all the time. You should see all the marines run when I take the nasty name calling upgrade.
Night, this rush will always work on cloaked skulks because they won't have carapace and they'll get eaten alive by basic weaponry. Yes, even with carapace aliens might still lose anyway, but they'll greatly improve their odds since skulks will do a lot more damage before dying instead of having a highly debatable ambush "advantage" that is easily negated by scanning.
Marine superiority is quite evident in the early game. Going DC first gives you a chance to reduce that advantage and/or slow down (more marines will die, more medpacks and ammo will have to be dropped, marines will have to stop to reload more often, etc.) the marine advance to your hive by making you a lot tougher to kill.
Hell, even if they don't rush you they can still grab half of the map and there's nothing you can do to stop them. Once they've established outposts, nothing will be enough to take them out. Mines own no carapace skulks, lerks will be pistoled in a nanosecond because they'll have no carapace and no nearby healing stations. Walls of OCs will be easily taken down by 2-3 marines because they won't have any DCs to heal them. You'll NEED a second hive to do anything, but you'll never get it since you're not anywhere near strong enough to secure a position. All that because you didn't get DCs first.
ChurchMeatshield grunt-fodder // Has pre-ordered NS2Join Date: 2002-12-31Member: 11646Members, Constellation
Don't bother trying to reason with this guy. He'll eventually learn losing game after game. You don't need to prove him wrong or anything, it's not like you'll win a prize. The one thing he'll have to learn is that his plan only works if there are no marines guarding locations, and the fact that cloaking doesn't work while moving. And, who says marines have to establish outposts at ALL to win? Camp 2 nodes...get JPs...gg.
That was just an example of the many things marines could do to abuse no carapace 1 hive aliens. Yes, they could tech rush too. In fact, they could do pretty much anything and still beat cloaked skulks easily as long as they don't all run off alone in random directions like idiots.
I suppose you're right though, I'm just wasting my time....
you dont want to open your mind to any advatages sensory brings. so all this desscussion is: yes it is, no it isnt, yes it is, no it isnt. lets just wait for 1.1 cause disscussing sesory now is pointless any way.
Advantages? What advantages? The only one you mentioned is improved ambushes and we all showed you how it really isn't all that great compared to carapace VS a non idiotic comm leading marines who can aim.
Trust me, if you played good marines with any regularity, you would know how laughably bad sensory first is. Movement first is better, and defense is light years ahead. Both for the upgrades and the chamber itself.
But for the sake of futility and psychological masochism, let me ask you these questions:
- What advantages does sensory first give beside a slight improvement to skulk ambushes that is easily completely negated by scanning?
- How will sensory first prevent a marine team from capping 1 or 2 nearby nodes right off the bat and teching straight to JPs? How will sensory chambers and cloaking help against jetpackers? Remember that lerks won't have carapace or massive DC healing.
- How will sensory help against an organized marine rush led by a comm who knows how to scan?
If your argumentation boils down to "don't let the marines leave their base, ever", stop and think for a minute. Do you honestly believe that, assuming both teams are anywhere near the same skill and organizational level, it is truly possible to completely deny marines access to the entire map? Would such a massive, flagrant imbalance make it through playtesting? If yes, don't you think clans would abuse it from hell to breakfast in matches? But why aren't they?
First off, let me say this. When I picked up NS for the first time I was confused. Greatly. I read the manual, thought I was ready to go, but nope. This game is a wee bit over the top for the younger crowd, hence the mature community. I like it. But back to this post...At first, I thought traditionally. D, Movement, Sensory, in that order. It worked, but I wanted something more. Recently, while playing LAN with some friends, I found it. Sensory rules first, and if used correctly, can get you the win in under 10 minutes. First of all, cloaking + skulks = win early on. What an lmg rine cant see, it cant hit. By initiating unseen attacks, marines will be paranoid, especially new ones. This is good, instantly putting them on the defensive. This alone is good enough, but cloaking for gorges works well too. A marine cant see the health of a Chamber or RT from far away, so the Gorge can be building while cloaked to ensure safety...well, just had to say it...Sensory goes first! <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo--> [/QUOTE] this is somewhat not applicable to match's.... in match's marines will be moving in pressure groups of 2-5 and when a cloaked skulk comes from behind *in the best of conditions* and hits the marine it will send the marine flying across the room. WHY!!! do you ask? Because marines hop while moving!! Clans get lvl 1 armor off the bat giving marines 3 hit lifes, when they are hit they get thrown across the room and all marines look around and cap the 9hit rat in .000001 miliseconds. Sensory is also not viable because it doesnt give any advantage to rushing marine rsr nodes that are defended. When a skulk rush's a rsr node.. how do you expect him to kill the marine with only 9 hits for his life. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!!! when the aliens fail to stop rsr expansion of at least 1-2 nodes.. the marines will have jp/hmg... and what is cloaked skulks going to do vs flying marines?
dc's = Give hive a chance to heal vs hmg's, if you happen to fight a hmg/jp rush via oc's/lerks.. the hive will be able to heal before a next wave! dc's = lvl3 cara skulks are able to group up in attack groups of 2-4 and successfully take down rsr expansions/ even marine base supported by gorgs dc's = better upgrades if you ever happen to get your 2nd hive and also allows for movement + dc.. which results in an umbra+fade combo
Limited advantage of sensory sense = SOMEWHAT better scouting for alien kharra sense = The ability to sometimes take down rambo upgrade lvl1 marines with only 1 chamber up sense = Ability to hide your gorg *unless they get mt*
And in regards to kazyras post <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Would such a massive, flagrant imbalance make it through playtesting? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> They let the obvious marine tech advantage through didnt they?
Nightcrawler, i havnt seen a post from you in a while actually saying any advantages from sensory, only a chamber rush, which works 100 times better with DC. PLEASE if your going to put up an arguement, argue the right thing
ThinGLord of wub and vlaaiJoin Date: 2003-04-11Member: 15400Members, Reinforced - Supporter
edited April 2003
First of all quit using my name <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Second, the ThinG is always supposed to be the skulk rushing the enemy, althought the skulk might not always be the thing rushing the enemy (pure poetry <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->)
Third Sensory owns, I'm not saying that it's the best, but it has SOOO many good points, Marines will not see you unless you are standing under a 1000Watt spotlight. That's it. If you can't see the benefits of sensory or don't know how to use/play with it, go back to the marines => consider yourself a leet n00b !
I've played a good deal of games with sensory as a first (and I presume the whole discussion is about sensory on publics, not in wars) and won them all, they cannot shoot what they cannot see. Sure you can't rush as a pack, but what you CAN and MUST do is hang around the hives, and wait... till you hear the thumps of soon-to-be-dead-rine boots. You wait untill they pass you by, and wack them across their steel plated behinds from the back.
[/edit] Ehm Roo... I played all of my sensory first games on your server, and ehm, my team won them all, so ehm... you're wrong <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->. You are right if you add the fact that if a complete noobish alien team plays against a squad of Roo-regulars at rine side, opposed to a situation where Roo-regulars are aliens and the noobs r on the rines side... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Basically, I don't agree on the fact that the aliens WILL lose, but I do agree that if they choose Sense first vs an experienced and coordinated Rine team, the chances the aliens will win are indeed very slim...
To tell the truth, I do not like sensory first games at all. Most likely it will go to that point, where a good comm can guard the marine base with a few mines (or turrets, but most likely not), drop out few shotguns, get some RTS and get obs+motion tracker.
At that point aliens could be at hive two, if they have a skilled gorge in their team, but most likely they don't. They might be securing the second hive, but it's not built yet.
Only way a sensory-first tactic can win a game is, if the marines are newbies. And that is the truth.
Starting with movement or defense chamber will help you a lot more than a sensory chamber at an early stage of a game. Sensory allows camping, and almost save gestating, and almost save building. Ofcourse, pretty much any wise marine player who uses headphones will hear the sound, and start to look around.
At second hive stage (if the aliens even get to that point), marines most likely will have motion tracker. This pretty much makes sensory useless. Then you can consider that you have only one upgrade, which will be most likely defense at that point.
Defense chambers are vital because of 1. Carapace and 2. Because of their healing ability. Defense chambers are a huge help for a battle gorge, because building a defense chamber near allows web+heal spray kill+heal tactics, which work quite fine actually.
If the server has a 1. noob or 2. dumb gorge who starts with sensory (at this point the admin should already kick the lamer), lerks, who are awesome at 2-hive stage, will be completely useless. Lerk without cara+movement can't flyspike, and will get killed very quick.
I shall not repeat soulskorpion's words any longer, because he has stated all I'm going to say.
Aliens have a bigger chance of winning if they start with defense or movement.
About the fun-part of cloaking, I completely disagree. I am a huge alien-person in this game, and I find sitting in a ceiling for ages very dull. I don't find any fun in that. I find sneaking behind someone with silence a lot more fun than camping with cloak. Actually, in 3-hive stage I don't usually even bother taking the sensory upgrade. And If I do, I most likely take Scent of fear.
lagger, why did you conveniently discard the sentence following the one you quoted?
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->If yes, don't you think clans would abuse it from hell to breakfast in matches? But why aren't they?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And while marine teching is indeed unbalanced, it isn't anywhere near as bad as marines (supposedly) being completely unable to leave their base due to a single upgrade skulks can get early into the game.
Pykmi is my type of player. I too pick scen of fear over cloaking. On most maps there are PLENTY of ceilings to hide on, why need cloaking? Why would you stand in the middle of the room cloaked when on the ceiling not cloaked is just as good. With sensory lerks and fades suck at hive 2. Marines can hear very well and they will research MT early. One game against sensory first aliens: When we found out we couldn't stop laughing. We mined the spawn then we set out to a key position where we could control 3 res and a hive, killed all cloaked skulks silly even without the scan, came to out destination started building 3 marines covered. 8 skulks came we killed them silly. 3 out of 8 marines survived, PG went up, so no more ambushing for skulks, gg for that location, did it again got 2 more res nodes, aliens got 2nd hive early but we had 6 res nodes and 500 res constantly, since skulks couldn't do **** after comm slaped down few turrets, comm just researched weapons armor HA HMG and built second TF at every location, fades came we slaped them silly, what use is cloaking to fades against a HA HMG welder train. We just strolled over to their hives in the next 15 min=GG.Nuff said.
being able to control cargo hive and 3 res nodes that are so close together is a map imbalance. no matter what you choose first if marines get cargo secured it is game over. and no matter what chamber you pick first if marines mine their base your not going to get in untill you got 2 hives. GG nuff siad.
Comments
1. indeed it doesnt probived complete invisibility. but i have yet to find any marine in a game that could see me when i cloaked in the middle of a room. it is not easy to see.
2. 3 res for a scan is alot in early game. a good commander will not scan at all. hell get armor and wepon upgrades and tell his marines to watch their backs.
3.cloaking does not require you to find a good spot it is quite effective to hide in the middle of a room or in the top corner of one.
4. the survivability of a skulk depends less on his life and more on the skill the skulk has to strafe. I am an excelent shot, but i have come agianst un carapaced skulk that could charge you down a straight hall way and strafe in a way that you couldnt hit him once. ive come to think that the survivability depends on marine firing patterns and skulk strafe patterns.
5. you only need 1 sens chamber in the beggining. you should start by camping the marine spawn while your gorge uses that extra 32 res to set up a mini wall of lame for 56 res you can put 4 OC's in the hive you wish to take next. and thats only if your skulks arent the best. otherwise you could build about 2 extra res nodes. if you want to take out a base and you got some time then get cloaking on a skulk or lerk or what ever then you can cloak next to a turret and bite cloak bite cloak bite cloak. take out the turrets 1 by one. also offencive gorging is much much more important in this because you can run to the middle of a base as a gorge cloak and then start building a chamber ive taken out whole bases with just a single gorge with cloak.
5.it does work on turrets.it offers the advatages of extremly powerfull offencive gorging. your skulks are supposed to walk around killing res nodes.
6.everyone knows that "ENEMY IS APROCHING" is stupid kind of. although once you learn the radius of detection a sens chamber has you know exactly were marine "could" be and move accordingly.
7. i dont know if youve heard of this wonderfull ablity called healing spray?? no?? ok then let me explain what healing spray is. it heals 4-5 times faster than any defence chamber. use it.
meat is right.
It's not Sensory is bad. It's not that at all. The chamber has a good ability if placed right, (directly as part of a WoL you know they'll jump a lot) and Cloak in funky.
It's just DC's are too good.
Well, ok, its not like that. Sensory can be very effective as first chamber, but only if you re going for 3 hives, trying to hold marines off the map. You can chomb down a marine on his shoes (pfuuuuu) while he passes by without noticing you and you can scare them by laughing from a dark place (then get shot by a Monk-Style player who aims only with sound) and anyways sensory is fun. I mean, whythefock do you bother playing always the same stuff? Try something funny like sensory first. Its not a bad idea. Its a freaking GAME after all! You should get some nice action or funny guerilla (or gorilla / godzilla / ...) tactics!
I am bored of D/M/Endgame without even using my good old cloaking :/
your supposed to use a gorge to build OC's and tower creep up. skulks are supposed to be support, gorges are supposed to be the main weapon. and if you dont know what tower pushing or offencive gorging is then you shouldnt be talkign at all.
your supposed to use a gorge to build OC's and tower creep up. skulks are supposed to be support, gorges are supposed to be the main weapon. and if you dont know what tower pushing or offencive gorging is then you shouldnt be talkign at all. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
lol, and what happens when the comm drops the siege?
can you say "boom" gorgey?
seriously, go play on better servers because any competant marine team will OWN every tactic you have mentioned
a) taking structures down quickly
and
b) attacking marines
than a battle gorge. OF COURSE how could I have been so stupid.
Mate, you need a lobotomy or something, maybe just find a server with some players who aren't complete dimwits.
Battle gorging has its place, but say early game, marines plonk a res node down. What is the alien team to do, send in a group of fast, dangerous fighting machines or a fat gorge with enough res for one OC.
From what you've said you'd just leave that turret right there and get your skulks to sit outside marine base (which btw, SOME marines have left WELL before you can get there (especially well before you can get there with sensory!))
I'm not saying sensory first isn't fun, I'm saying you WILL lose! Come to my server and prove me wrong!
let's w8 and c
Know what my comm and I did the whole 2 times (hey, we don't tend to hang out in newbie servers, sorry) we encountered sensory first?
Step 1: Mine the **** out of our base. No carapace skulks die instantly if a mine explodes anywhere near them.
Step 2: Hand out 2 or 3 shotguns.
Step 3: Move the entire team (maybe minus 1 marine to keep an eye on RTs and such) toward the hive.
Step 4: Comm scans every room of the way and then proceeds to tell us how many skulks are waiting in ambush and where ("2 above the doorway, one on the right wall.") Sometimes he even individually gives us attack waypoints as well.
Step 5: Own the aforementioned scanned skulks which LMGs and shotguns do with the greatest of ease since, you know, you O so wisely decided to skip carapace. When skulks have no carapace, you can even shotgun snipe them. They're that weak. It's pathetic.
Step 6: Reach the hive and spawn camp.
Step 7: GG.
As I recall, the first time this occured was on a clan server when 1.04 was just released. The home clan had 4-5 players on the aliens' side and they decided to try out sensory first since it was apparently "improved." After their 10 minute beatdown, one of them in the ready room said out loud "Man we are NEVER doing that again. Sensory first does NOT work if the marines are any good." It made me smile, because it was the truth.
and YOU fail to realize that an alien etam will not have enough res to chamber rush while the marines are making early establishments...
And gorges die extremely fast without carapace. Less than a full pistol clip to kill, a marine can hop over about 4 oc and pistol you before you can so much as move. So if your tactic is to chamber rush, then why nto get def first and make it 100times more affective
and thats why a smart marine will hear the gorge building, and use his LMG at close range <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
Are you sure you dont wanna play on a server with good players ?
edit: Kazy that stratige works with or without carapace. its called a rush. and if you have 3 defence chambers before the rush comes... then i applaud you
And for the record -
Net connection: £13/month
Mod download: Free
Forum registration: Free
Having some random newb tell you that he'll own your marine team by walking up as an uncarapaced gorge and building an OC: Priceless
Remember kids....
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SKULKS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THE THING ASSULTING THE POSITIONS!!!
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Hell yeah!! I drop the harsh language chamber first all the time. You should see all the marines run when I take the nasty name calling upgrade.
Marine superiority is quite evident in the early game. Going DC first gives you a chance to reduce that advantage and/or slow down (more marines will die, more medpacks and ammo will have to be dropped, marines will have to stop to reload more often, etc.) the marine advance to your hive by making you a lot tougher to kill.
Hell, even if they don't rush you they can still grab half of the map and there's nothing you can do to stop them. Once they've established outposts, nothing will be enough to take them out. Mines own no carapace skulks, lerks will be pistoled in a nanosecond because they'll have no carapace and no nearby healing stations. Walls of OCs will be easily taken down by 2-3 marines because they won't have any DCs to heal them. You'll NEED a second hive to do anything, but you'll never get it since you're not anywhere near strong enough to secure a position. All that because you didn't get DCs first.
Think about it.
I suppose you're right though, I'm just wasting my time....
Trust me, if you played good marines with any regularity, you would know how laughably bad sensory first is. Movement first is better, and defense is light years ahead. Both for the upgrades and the chamber itself.
But for the sake of futility and psychological masochism, let me ask you these questions:
- What advantages does sensory first give beside a slight improvement to skulk ambushes that is easily completely negated by scanning?
- How will sensory first prevent a marine team from capping 1 or 2 nearby nodes right off the bat and teching straight to JPs? How will sensory chambers and cloaking help against jetpackers? Remember that lerks won't have carapace or massive DC healing.
- How will sensory help against an organized marine rush led by a comm who knows how to scan?
If your argumentation boils down to "don't let the marines leave their base, ever", stop and think for a minute. Do you honestly believe that, assuming both teams are anywhere near the same skill and organizational level, it is truly possible to completely deny marines access to the entire map? Would such a massive, flagrant imbalance make it through playtesting? If yes, don't you think clans would abuse it from hell to breakfast in matches? But why aren't they?
this is somewhat not applicable to match's.... in match's marines will be moving in pressure groups of 2-5 and when a cloaked skulk comes from behind *in the best of conditions* and hits the marine it will send the marine flying across the room. WHY!!! do you ask? Because marines hop while moving!! Clans get lvl 1 armor off the bat giving marines 3 hit lifes, when they are hit they get thrown across the room and all marines look around and cap the 9hit rat in .000001 miliseconds. Sensory is also not viable because it doesnt give any advantage to rushing marine rsr nodes that are defended. When a skulk rush's a rsr node.. how do you expect him to kill the marine with only 9 hits for his life. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!!! when the aliens fail to stop rsr expansion of at least 1-2 nodes.. the marines will have jp/hmg... and what is cloaked skulks going to do vs flying marines?
dc's = Give hive a chance to heal vs hmg's, if you happen to fight a hmg/jp rush via oc's/lerks.. the hive will be able to heal before a next wave!
dc's = lvl3 cara skulks are able to group up in attack groups of 2-4 and successfully take down rsr expansions/ even marine base supported by gorgs
dc's = better upgrades if you ever happen to get your 2nd hive and also allows for movement + dc.. which results in an umbra+fade combo
Limited advantage of sensory
sense = SOMEWHAT better scouting for alien kharra
sense = The ability to sometimes take down rambo upgrade lvl1 marines with only 1 chamber up
sense = Ability to hide your gorg *unless they get mt*
And in regards to kazyras post
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Would such a massive, flagrant imbalance make it through playtesting? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They let the obvious marine tech advantage through didnt they?
Second, the ThinG is always supposed to be the skulk rushing the enemy, althought the skulk might not always be the thing rushing the enemy (pure poetry <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->)
Third
Sensory owns, I'm not saying that it's the best, but it has SOOO many good points, Marines will not see you unless you are standing under a 1000Watt spotlight. That's it. If you can't see the benefits of sensory or don't know how to use/play with it, go back to the marines => consider yourself a leet n00b !
I've played a good deal of games with sensory as a first (and I presume the whole discussion is about sensory on publics, not in wars) and won them all, they cannot shoot what they cannot see. Sure you can't rush as a pack, but what you CAN and MUST do is hang around the hives, and wait... till you hear the thumps of soon-to-be-dead-rine boots. You wait untill they pass you by, and wack them across their steel plated behinds from the back.
'nuff said
Cheers <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
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Ehm Roo... I played all of my sensory first games on your server, and ehm, my team won them all, so ehm... you're wrong <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->. You are right if you add the fact that if a complete noobish alien team plays against a squad of Roo-regulars at rine side, opposed to a situation where Roo-regulars are aliens and the noobs r on the rines side... <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Basically, I don't agree on the fact that the aliens WILL lose, but I do agree that if they choose Sense first vs an experienced and coordinated Rine team, the chances the aliens will win are indeed very slim...
At that point aliens could be at hive two, if they have a skilled gorge in their team, but most likely they don't. They might be securing the second hive, but it's not built yet.
Only way a sensory-first tactic can win a game is, if the marines are newbies. And that is the truth.
Starting with movement or defense chamber will help you a lot more than a sensory chamber at an early stage of a game. Sensory allows camping, and almost save gestating, and almost save building. Ofcourse, pretty much any wise marine player who uses headphones will hear the sound, and start to look around.
At second hive stage (if the aliens even get to that point), marines most likely will have motion tracker. This pretty much makes sensory useless. Then you can consider that you have only one upgrade, which will be most likely defense at that point.
Defense chambers are vital because of 1. Carapace and 2. Because of their healing ability. Defense chambers are a huge help for a battle gorge, because building a defense chamber near allows web+heal spray kill+heal tactics, which work quite fine actually.
If the server has a 1. noob or 2. dumb gorge who starts with sensory (at this point the admin should already kick the lamer), lerks, who are awesome at 2-hive stage, will be completely useless. Lerk without cara+movement can't flyspike, and will get killed very quick.
I shall not repeat soulskorpion's words any longer, because he has stated all I'm going to say.
Aliens have a bigger chance of winning if they start with defense or movement.
About the fun-part of cloaking, I completely disagree. I am a huge alien-person in this game, and I find sitting in a ceiling for ages very dull. I don't find any fun in that. I find sneaking behind someone with silence a lot more fun than camping with cloak. Actually, in 3-hive stage I don't usually even bother taking the sensory upgrade. And If I do, I most likely take Scent of fear.
Defense gets old and boring, despite all its nice advantages its just less <i>FUN</i> compared to sensory.
Thats the primary reason theres people who like sensory first, its fun being invisible. Plain and simple.
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And while marine teching is indeed unbalanced, it isn't anywhere near as bad as marines (supposedly) being completely unable to leave their base due to a single upgrade skulks can get early into the game.