The Comprehensive Guide To Lerking
Sarisel
.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::. Join Date: 2003-07-30 Member: 18557Members, Constellation
.::' ( O ) ';:-. .-.:;' ( O ) '::. Join Date: 2003-07-30 Member: 18557Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">updated to v.01 and released</div> Here it is, in .html format for easier access. I don't think that I will be able to complete v.1 by next week as I planned. School starts tomorrow, and I have other issues to take care of. I will still be working on the guide in my free time though.
Quite a few improvements in this version - it is more clean overall, some new features, and fixes. Enjoy.
PS: The latest suggestions in my v.0 thread haven't been put in. Don't worry, I will make sure to include them in v.1.
[edit: windows XP is giving me trouble with the zipping of the file. Will put it in .zip format when I figure out what's going on.]
Quite a few improvements in this version - it is more clean overall, some new features, and fixes. Enjoy.
PS: The latest suggestions in my v.0 thread haven't been put in. Don't worry, I will make sure to include them in v.1.
[edit: windows XP is giving me trouble with the zipping of the file. Will put it in .zip format when I figure out what's going on.]
Comments
as far as i know spikes are hit scan and hit INSTANTL always.
"Any Kharaa life form or structure in that cloud takes about one third of damage from projectile weapons (those that fire bullets)."
It does not reduce damage, it blocks 2/3 (depeding on version) bullets. Not much different but knowing that could save our life IE it is absolutly possibe umbra stops nothing. and possilbe to stop all.
-note: primal scream increases movment speed, double attack rate, increased damage by 25% plus possible more. Posstibly reduces damge intake and increased energy recovery.
"While celerity does not make flying any easier"
Acually it sort of does, can change directions faster and turn easier.
"Ambushes are more deadly than ever(refering to 3 hives)"
err what are you doing ambushing at three hives, i think its time to get dirty and fight rines face to face (which i do acually at 2 hives).
well thats the end of my criticism. now to add more
-there is no such thing as a group of rines to big to attack, but the distance to enemy is proportional to the number of rines. Spores are your best friend vs groups of rines, there are great for two reasons, 1, they hurt many rines at once and 2. the SCATTER the rines. as the rines scatter pick the lone ones off with spikes and spore the groups to further scatter rines.
- when sporing, spore not only on the rine but in the areas surrounding a rine. In hallways spore the rine followed by the places between you and the the rine.
PERSONAL PREFERANCE TIP: bind mouse 2 to lastinv which is fast switch to previous weopon, spike spore spike spore or umba spike umbra spike whatever. Good to have for all species, blink SMACK, leap bite. i set menu to mouse instead.
- when attacking it is almost always safer to attack in mid flight, alot harder to hit and can retreat lots faster.
Now for Super advanced attack tactics for those lerks who have perfected flying and aiming while flying.
The fly by: fly head on to twords a rine while spike and just as you fly over head do a 180 and continue spiking, marine will usually be dead by then.
Tip: when doing the fly by accually aim for a foot or two to the left or right of the marine, the slighy angle flyuing twords him will make you lots tougher to kill. NEVER DO FLY BYS ON SHOTTIES. Hmgs out of the question two. Used for lone marines or 2 marines if not right next to each other. in hallways with an entrance and a safe exit on the other side.
Tip 2: spore before spiking on top of rine, as you do flyby marines will have to sacrifice aim while moving out of spores or remain in spores and die.
Also if you want to play it sllightly safe(this aint a safe manuver) spore on the marine then fly a wide circle around the marine and he will neglect to leave the spores.
The circle: simple circle and spike up close. Not recomdned but recomended to practice in case you come across a tight situation.
the simple hop manouver: when ambushed and no place to run, sometimes you could just flap once and sort of "hop" over a marine will spiking him, if you keep really close the marine and go directly over his head, its acually an insanly hard angle and movment to shoot you at.
Super advance flying: Simple, learn the map and learn to fly backwards.
The over all best way i find to attack is to 1. Spore to scatter and retreat, 2. spore marines again and spike.
Um i know i have more insane manouvers here somewhere.
And the top 3 ways a lerk dies
1. Too aggresive/ underestimated marines aimability
2. ambushed
3. i didn't see those mines/turrets/other 8 marines around the corner
and lastly the biggest **** off of all
4. Hl lag compensation.
Nothing sucks more to be a rine in base singled out and targeted by a lerk in base. You dying and noone on your team knows your dying. No one to help you.
then the marines has two options.
1. Chase you down and die
2. or Two wait for you to finish killing him.
Its the most depressiong thing dying next to your teamates knowing your going to die, and none of your teamates even know your dying.
Lerks take down turrets quickly. Can be used to blind side a tf really fast. About two full thigs of energy without adren per turret.
-o yeah and the super advance/slightly insane attacks above are not recomended without regen and adrenline.
-spore from the vent above marines start. Keep your ears WIDE open for the turn table door. When that door starts moving start sporing it, marines will be stuck on the door unable to escape and choking to death.
-a lerk can survive indefinatly in refinery with regen and adrenline
BEWARE the pipes above the ramps. It looks like you can fly through the gaps but you cant.
-tram tunnel is also your friend.
that vent exiting atmosphere above the curvy ramp is a bith to hit, dont count on that as a quick escape.
-the pipes between atmos and feed are a deathtrap, fly low and to the left when retreating.
-the vents are your friend as always.
that cool long elevator ramp thing can be your friend and worst enemy. floating down taht long thing to try and excape sucsk sometimes, i prefer the vent route right next to it that leads to tram tunnel.
-another cool place to spore is the elavotors or stairs. marines sort of get stuck on them while riding them or have to jump off and hurt themselves. sucks to be them.
-when attacking to main alt junt?(room outside turn tables) from stairs, it is better to hover from the bottom of the stairs to attack rather than standing at the top of them.
-engine sucks to fly in
-that circle path by feed kicks ****.
get to know your vent systems
whether you attack from a vent or the door depends whether or not you want the rine to follow you. I usually choose door if i got regen.
Anyway, nice guide there!
as far as i know spikes are hit scan and hit INSTANTL always.
"Any Kharaa life form or structure in that cloud takes about one third of damage from projectile weapons (those that fire bullets)."
It does not reduce damage, it blocks 2/3 (depeding on version) bullets. Not much different but knowing that could save our life IE it is absolutly possibe umbra stops nothing. and possilbe to stop all.
-note: primal scream increases movment speed, double attack rate, increased damage by 25% plus possible more. Posstibly reduces damge intake and increased energy recovery.
"While celerity does not make flying any easier"
Acually it sort of does, can change directions faster and turn easier.
"Ambushes are more deadly than ever(refering to 3 hives)"
err what are you doing ambushing at three hives, i think its time to get dirty and fight rines face to face (which i do acually at 2 hives).
well thats the end of my criticism. now to add more <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Only fair that I answer criticisms.
It isn't possible for anything to move from one point to another without taking some time (even if it is less than 0.0000000001s). That's from a physics viewpoint. In the game I think they may actually hit instantly. But at speeds close to that of light, that's pretty much the same thing with more wordiness.
Taking 1/3 damage is the same as blocking 2/3. Yes, it depends on which version - this is for 2.01d. Generally you will be taking only 1/3 of the damage overall.. although it doesn't really matter if it specific. You either survive or you die - and you should know that you won't survive even 3 shells from a lvl3 shotgun, which deals 200 (+?) damage if all pellets connect, or any heavy weapon for that matter if you're just sitting on the ground and letting it hit you.
I don't believe primal scream increases energy recovery. Last time I checked it didn't. My energy would be depleted even when shooting spikes with adrenaline. Damage stays the same as well. Movement overall is just faster. If you really want to prove the point, test it offline. I'm pretty sure of this though.
As for celerity - it takes much more concentration and reflex reactions to maneuver the celerity lerk. Its faster speed isn't easy to handle.. but maybe that is just for me. I'll add this to the guide.
And finally, with three hives it is very likely that the marines are still attacking with heavy weapons. Naturally, when the marines are weakened, the aliens go in for the kill.
Good job with the posts so far.
Any creatures affected by primal scream definately move faster, attack faster, and receive less damage from attacks (I think it was Mouse who told me this last one). I'm not sure about any of the other effects.
As for spike speed, yes we all know that spikes are hitscan and therefore really DO hit instantly, but trying to apply real-life logic and therefore telling people that it hits ALMOST instantly may make some people believe that they will need to lead fast moving targets, which is definately not the case. Perhaps rewording "<i>The Lerk shoots spikes at its target at a speed comparable to that of light. In other words, spikes hit almost instantly.</i>" to "<i>The Lerk shoots spikes at its target at a speed comparable to that of light, basically hitting their targets instantly.</i>" or something to that effect may cause less confusion.
It might also pay to make it clear that you lose only a negilible amount of speed if you flap without touching any movement keys. It's definately implied in several places (like in Ch 1, paragraph 5, line 5: "<i>If greater velocity is required...</i>") but I don't I saw this little tid-bit is explicitly stated anywhere...
With the wording difference for umbra, I do believe it is important to use the word block, seeing as any bullets that DO hit will do FULL damage. The Umbra doesn't discriminate between bullet types and doesn't actually do any of the bullet blocking itself. What's really happening is that a creature inside an umbra cloud is modified like a primal screamed creature. While in "umbra mode", each bullet that hits this creature is given a 33% chance to do damage, and a 67% chance that it will do none. As far as I know, the chances of any one bullet doing damage is not affected by the successes or failures that other bullets experience. Therefore there is a small possibility that if 2 HMGS and 1 LMG all fire continously at a creature inside an umbra cloud (assuming, for simplicity's sake, that clip sizes and umbra durations are infinite, and that the ROF for each gun was equal), that every single HMG bullet would get blocked and every single lmg bullet would be allowed to pass through, meaning that while only 67% of the bullets were blocked, something like 80% of the damage had been cancelled out by the umbra. (assuming, for simplicity's sake, that each HMG is worth exactly 2 LMGs).
While most of the time you would see 67% of the bullets blocked and on average 67% less damage received, the moment marine combined arms come into play the average damage reduction can swing either way due to varied rates of fire and damage values for each bullet.
And last but not least, celerity lerks:
I'm under the impression that a celerity lerk not only has a higher top-speed but also each flap pushes with more force. So when we say that lerk flight is basic vector addition, knowing that each flaps provides a high acceleration in the direction of the movement keys tells us that we can change directions more quickly at the same speeds. However that being said, the improved acceleration is directly proportional to the improved maximum velocity, and therefore all lerk sub-species are just as agile as each other when travelling at their top speeds.
What this means for the lerk user however is that they need to calcultate vectors faster in order for their input commands to keep up with the faster lerk, therefore the lerk is theoretically HARDER to control at top speeds. However that being said, if you force yourself to move at the same speeds as a non-celerity lerk, then you will still benefit from the more powerful wingflaps: You need to flap less often to remain level and you can change directions quickly and with greater room for error. Therefore the lerk is theoretically EASIER to control than non-celerity lerks at lower speeds.
Ok that's all from me at this time, good luck with your guide. It is defiantely a good idea and I myself certainly appreciated some of the info already in there.
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It also helps if you are falling when you flap (either by not flapping or gliding for a while or by running off a ledge and not flapping), because then you can flap much faster for a few seconds while gaining barely any altitude...
like that? but only gliding for about 1/2 a second?
Yea thats the problem.. Im trying to find out if theres any way to gain velocity without gaining altitude..
for some time i wondered why you cant look straght down and flap fast to gain insane momentum.. Know what i mean? but the hl engin doesnt work this way <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Ok 3rd time lucky hopefully:
If you hold down the the jump key inbetween flaps, you fall more slowly. If you don't hold it down you fall more quickly. Therefore if you don't hold the button down inbetween flaps then you will need to flap more quickly to <b>maintain the same</b> hieght.
Holding or tapping the jump key wont effect how much effect each flap has on your general speed however, the only difference is that if you are flapping more quickly, you are accelerating more quickly.
Therefore, as I have been attempting to explain in my previous posts, if you wish to fly faster, then you want to tap that jump key as quickly (ie EACH tap is quick like a karate chop, the mouse wheel does it better though) as possible, so that you spend the least possible amount of time gliding and the most amount of time falling at a faster rate. Your faster falling rate means that you will naturally have to shorten the gap between flaps (so instead of doing a slow tap/hold every 2 seconds, you are doing one extremely sharp tap (or mouse click) every half a second to a second)...
If I still haven't made myself clear then I'm simply going to stop worrying about it, as the rest of my advice alone should be sufficient to help a few people...
In certain areas, you can simply mousewheel into the ceiling and gain maximum speed in less than one second - but the ceiling must have no bumps, ridges, etc.
In areas where the ceiling has bumps, ridges - your method is useful if you want to quickly gain speed. However, the Lerk can gain maximum velocity in about 5 wing flaps. Find a change of elevation in the ground, do a quick 3 flaps straight ahead without gaining any altitude. Then make another 1 and with the final flap, glide. There - you've achieved maximum speed. Glide is, however, very important in flying.
All of these things are in the guide.. just read.
[edit:] I suppose that there is a bit of confusion at the beginning of the guide for some people. The basics of flight - 1. flapping, 2. gliding, and 3. changing direction are not in any particular order. They are just the things you need in order to fly. Hope that clears a few things up.