D-m-s
RyoOhki
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
Join Date: 2003-01-26 Member: 12789Members
<div class="IPBDescription">It's back with a vengance</div> Before I write this, I will state that this refers to the 2.01 beta. However, seeing as I can't post a new topic in there, I'll throw it open to discussion here. It does pertain to 2.0 standard though, so bear with me <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
In 1.04 Defense-Movement-Sensory was what the aliens always built, because it worked. Well, in 2.01e, D-M-S is just about set in stone. To achieve victory the aliens virtually have to adopt the old 1.04 system of chamber order because quite frankly, if they don't victory becomes much much harder.
Almost the sole reason is 2 hive lockdowns. If your team has gone movement or sensory first, your chances of breaking a 2 hive lockdown are slim indeed. I have seen 4 oni with gorge support prove unable to take down a fortified hive location in a 2 hive lockdown. These were not bad aliens; they were good players and a good team. Without defense upgrades though, they stood no chance. Shotguns tore through them like knives through hot butter.
With defense, your team simply has all bases covered. You can be offensive and defensive, whilst at the same time freeing your team from having to return to the hive for healing as well as boosting the performance of lerks, Fades and Oni by a factor of at least 2. Fades with defensive upgrades at one hive are fearsome beasts indeed, and everyone knows the true power of the regen onos. Electrified res nodes change from impossible to take down to easy prey.
Movement does give you some good stuff, but it just isn't as good at breaking 2 hive lockdowns or fortified marines. Turrets will track you even if you have celerity, silence is great but again, against fortifications it's useless, and adrenaline, whilst helping Fades, Lerks and Gorges, isn't as useful at one hive as it is at 2 (bile bomb, umbra metabolise). In the end, movements are best served as the 2nd chamber. They can work as the 1st chamber, but when placed up against defense they really come off second best. And if the marines have locked down 2 hives early on, movement won't help you.
Sensory. Oh boy. I should write a mod that changes this chamber's name to "whipping boy". Sensory just doesn't work as the first or second chamber. It's abilities are woeful compared to those of the defense and movement chamber. Free scans negate the inbuilt ability of sens chambers, cloaking is useful but again, easily negated, pheremones are utterly useless and Scent of Fear, whilst an excellent ability, doesn't help you against fortifications. Sensory is a solidly defensive chamber, and even in that role it's not very good. Again, free scans negate the defensive bonuses plus a single observatory simply ends any chance of breaking fortifications. If you go for it second, it either means you have to discard defense or movement, and that means your Fades, Lerks, Oni and gorges will be badly hurt. All these classes perform best with adren, regen, redemption, carapace or celerity. Skulks get an excellent boost from silence, celerity, regen or carapace. Sensory upgrades and the chambers themselves do not give equivilant boosts to any alien class. Thus sensory is dumped once again as the 3rd chamber, useful only for finding hiding marines and for laughs at the end of the game.
Many will disagree with what I have said. But the facts on 2.01 servers speak for themselves. When the beta hits the release stage, D-M-S will once again be the formula for victory. We've had some fun in 2.0 playing around with sens and mov first, but the reality of the matter is that D-M-S has been recrowned. We can either accept it, fight it, or keep on changing the game. When I look at 2.01e and I see a product very close to balanced, I think to myself: if D-M-S is the price we pay, so be it.
In 1.04 Defense-Movement-Sensory was what the aliens always built, because it worked. Well, in 2.01e, D-M-S is just about set in stone. To achieve victory the aliens virtually have to adopt the old 1.04 system of chamber order because quite frankly, if they don't victory becomes much much harder.
Almost the sole reason is 2 hive lockdowns. If your team has gone movement or sensory first, your chances of breaking a 2 hive lockdown are slim indeed. I have seen 4 oni with gorge support prove unable to take down a fortified hive location in a 2 hive lockdown. These were not bad aliens; they were good players and a good team. Without defense upgrades though, they stood no chance. Shotguns tore through them like knives through hot butter.
With defense, your team simply has all bases covered. You can be offensive and defensive, whilst at the same time freeing your team from having to return to the hive for healing as well as boosting the performance of lerks, Fades and Oni by a factor of at least 2. Fades with defensive upgrades at one hive are fearsome beasts indeed, and everyone knows the true power of the regen onos. Electrified res nodes change from impossible to take down to easy prey.
Movement does give you some good stuff, but it just isn't as good at breaking 2 hive lockdowns or fortified marines. Turrets will track you even if you have celerity, silence is great but again, against fortifications it's useless, and adrenaline, whilst helping Fades, Lerks and Gorges, isn't as useful at one hive as it is at 2 (bile bomb, umbra metabolise). In the end, movements are best served as the 2nd chamber. They can work as the 1st chamber, but when placed up against defense they really come off second best. And if the marines have locked down 2 hives early on, movement won't help you.
Sensory. Oh boy. I should write a mod that changes this chamber's name to "whipping boy". Sensory just doesn't work as the first or second chamber. It's abilities are woeful compared to those of the defense and movement chamber. Free scans negate the inbuilt ability of sens chambers, cloaking is useful but again, easily negated, pheremones are utterly useless and Scent of Fear, whilst an excellent ability, doesn't help you against fortifications. Sensory is a solidly defensive chamber, and even in that role it's not very good. Again, free scans negate the defensive bonuses plus a single observatory simply ends any chance of breaking fortifications. If you go for it second, it either means you have to discard defense or movement, and that means your Fades, Lerks, Oni and gorges will be badly hurt. All these classes perform best with adren, regen, redemption, carapace or celerity. Skulks get an excellent boost from silence, celerity, regen or carapace. Sensory upgrades and the chambers themselves do not give equivilant boosts to any alien class. Thus sensory is dumped once again as the 3rd chamber, useful only for finding hiding marines and for laughs at the end of the game.
Many will disagree with what I have said. But the facts on 2.01 servers speak for themselves. When the beta hits the release stage, D-M-S will once again be the formula for victory. We've had some fun in 2.0 playing around with sens and mov first, but the reality of the matter is that D-M-S has been recrowned. We can either accept it, fight it, or keep on changing the game. When I look at 2.01e and I see a product very close to balanced, I think to myself: if D-M-S is the price we pay, so be it.
Comments
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Pure poetry.
When it comes down to it really MCs are very <b>Very</b> agressive; their only real defensive applications are MCing/running with celerity back to the hive when its under attack and silent ambushes. Outside of that it's build to let you fight longer (adren), get past defences faster (celerity) and cause confusion in combat (silence).
SCs? well you've covered them really; theyr'e defensive.
With the MCs leaning towards offense but still retaining a slight defense edge it does make a good start chamber in 2.0 at least, but when you get DC it's really good for either application and I think it's this even sided balance of offensive and defensive application that makes it shine so much in 2.01 as a starter chamber in lockdown situations <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sensory Chambers are for containment. By that I mean, you have to build sensories in the chokepoints and get skulk guards there before marines starts pouring in. If marines get past you to one hive, you'll have a much harder game than if you dropped either of the other two towers.
Now, the problem here is fairly obvious. In pub play, not everyone knows how to use sensory properly, and it takes a whole team for aliens to be able to use it properly, while on the marine team, only the comm needs to know what to do to be able to scan in front of his marines.
That is not to say sensory can't be efficient, but if you where to try, I'm sure you'd find that the effectiveness of sensory is inversely proportional with the skill of the marines, because they'll be better at evading an attacking cloaked alien after the first bite and their comm can just scan ahead and find the sc's if he knows what to do, not to mention drop an obs at all major outposts.
Essentially, the later you deploy sensory, the smaller the benefit. And the better the marines, the smaller the benefit.
Now, that said, sensory at second hive is about the dumbest thing you can do. At this point, the marines will have fortified themselves somewhere and they'll have plenty res for scanning. Larger evolutions will start appearing soon, and they do not have as much benefit from sensory as they do from movement/defense.
This is another catch-22. Sensory helps skulks and gorges, but aren't all that for the three other evolutions, since both the fade and the onos have a lot of hp and costs a lot of res, and defense chambers are the best (only?) protection for their res investment, lerks the same to a lesser extent, and movement chambers helps them a lot more too, since they need the adrenaline/celerity to be more efficient.
So, sensory is a hive one or a hive three chamber. If you want it at hive one, it needs to go up in all the choke points before marines gets fortified somewhere, and the better the marines are, the worse off you are with being dependant on the primary chamber.
Celeriskulks are awesome, as are adrenaline lerks/fades. And of course, onos is pretty weak without celerity tbh....
But yes, Sensory is far less effective than the other chambers, mostly because no-one uses it right!
You need to put SC's all over the map, so that you can have a fun time munching any marines which come into the SC zones.
But at least it isnt as bad as 1.04, where sensory first ALWAYS meant a loss.
the Onos is a tank, it NEEDS the defense chamber to further increase his damage taking capabilities
the Fade is a speed freak, running in and out uber fast killing as he goes... it NEEDS MCs to further increase his speed capabilities.
Although cloaking has been made into an extremely evil upgrade (no sound, being able to move and are technically silent [if slow] make it an excellent marine killer), sensory lacks in many departments. Again, it can't be stressed enough that sensory is DEFENSIVE and has limited applications offensively. Marine teams in their bases or outposts will build observatories. These observatories will detect and stuff any cloaking or other sensory assault. In addition they also provide the hard counter for cloaking in the forum of scanning.
The real problem with sense is, an effective strategy relies on building sensory chambers all over the map at key strategic points as stated. The catch is you have to beat marines there, survive to build the sensory and then hope they don't build an obs. In small teams on some maps you cannot prevent marines from slipping past, especially if they are decent. Once past your sensory cordon, they have an extreme advantage over you as you lack defence (carapace) or movement (celerity).
A good sensory strategy would need at least 5-6 sense towers in various places, to stop marines from getting past firstly, and then aid in stopping the marines that do. Unfortunately, that is 120 res right there (10 for each gorge as well usually), and that is not an easy thing to ask from pub players or even from clans.
Sense, while a nice idea in theory, due to it's weaker upgrades and direct counter (obs), isn't anywhere as near as good as Defence and Movement. I'm seeing more on more on servers that when sense is built, with a good enemy commander it equals=loss.
Without DCs though you need to have a gorge nearby or a hive if and if you're harrassing a base/outpost it's a little akward to run to the nearest Healer then back all the time when you could've sat at the edges of the base regenning for a few secs.
I guess people who live off meta would find adren vital, but remember; not everyone plays a species the same way <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Exactly, the thing is for fade while regeneration is great, carapace is just generally better. It allows you to like just that little longer to get an extra swipe or similar in. The massive disadvantage of cara I've found is that you MUST use metabolise. Met is a brilliant ability that is probably quite underused, and in order to get any benefit out of it you MUST have adrenaline.
In addition to this, adrenaline allows a fade to attack from a much longer distance (blink wise) and then swipe for longer. All of this can mean the difference between getting that shotgun before they have a chance to get you.
Most people identify fades by their distinctive and hellishly loud teleport noise; the minute you get lvl 3 silence blink becomes one of the most confusing things to marines in existance. When you blink right into their face without that loud phasing effect it really screws up their aim and I've blinked happily into marine bases without them being aware thanks to silence <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
I'm sure that there's even more than these 2 tactics that can be used to effect but it's always important to realise that Fades aren't necessarily MC dependant; there are plenty of ways of playing most of the alien types and they can use all 3 of the chambers when people know how ^^
It's not so much that aliens are chamber dependant, but that the evolutionary traits of defense and movement, plus the extreamly useful healing and movement to hives under attack, are just so much better than what sensory chambers and traits give you. Whilst Fades don't NEED movement chambers, what would you prefer: adren or cloaking? Carapace or SOF? Regen or Pheremones? ect. Defense and Movement just come out on top.
Take a look at the top playing clans, what do they choose first? Ahem. Right.
Movement helps out bile, spores, blink, and stomp, all of which are nice for taking out entrenched marines. Movement (at least in 2.01e) can also be used to do that trick where you build the locked-down hive, and let all your oni teleport in.
Personally, I'm less than thrilled with this, because I like Sensory, but I just can't countenance actually using it, except as a "fun" option.
Whenever aliens build sense first, the marines run as fast as possbile to both hives and lock them down ASAP, then they just have to tech up. <!--emo&::marine::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/marine.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='marine.gif'><!--endemo-->
Sense is nice to have, but alone it is lacking.
I wasn't really arguing for SCs first, I was just mentioning that Fades don't necessarily need MC first nor that they 100% live off adren. Other upgrade/chamber combinations are possible (at least in 2.0) =P
I've had some fun with a cloaking at the start but that was one of the rare games where the comm, while good, wasn't quite up to scratch with SC first tactics and the aliens knew exactly what to do.
With 2.01's cheaper elec and the tendancy to super expand quickly from the start while putting elec on all the RTs I can see SC being very, <b>very</b> difficult to use effectively as a 1st hive chamber =s
anyways I just get a little flared up when I see someone declare that Fades are adren junkies, that's all... Not everyone has to play the fade the good old cookie-cutter way ^^
Sensory is rather rough on marine movements when placed in actually useful places, + it really got a big boost in 2.01e since you can walk while cloaked (not near an sc). This is the first time ever (even in the early 1.0x's) that I have had a desire to take cloaking over SoF. That says alot.
Here's the thing: if you don't take defense first, you have to *gasp* actually keep a tab on marine movement so that they can't establish themselves too firmly. It doesn't matter much if they claim one hive, but it is fairly important to keep them out of two. Defense is pretty much needed for breaking a fortified marine encampment, but who says you have to let them get that far? Kill them whenever they leave their base, at least before they get to where they want to be. Maybe people will start using parasite again...
In 2.01d I find the M chamber to be the best choice most of the time, assuming it is used correctly. The M upgrades are a bit more powerful then D for skulks, early, which usually allows for aggressive enough playing to get a 2:nd hive up relatively quickly (started at 3-5 min), which will, of course, make sure D is available as the higher lifeforms start plopping up.
So what is the main change of 2.01e that prohibits this kind of alien play?
I think it's that:
- People are getting the hang of the marines now. When d first came out, I was still finding that the average comm wouldn't get upgrades until at least 15 mins in; this, of course, is a bit too late. Nowadays, people know that you need at least 1/1 marines before too long. Commanders are gradually gettting the message that mass turrets isn't all that helpful, and as a result, give out shotguns more.
- DC abilities are easier to get to grips with; while silence/celerity skulks are deadlier than regen/cara skulks (imo), they're also harder to use. Also affecting this is the celerity nerf from earlier (35 -> 25).
- You simply can't rely on your teammates to put up the second hive most of the time, and seeing that you'll need DCs at some point to win, the safest course of action is to lay it down real quick. Otherwise, someone might put down one SC and you'll be focked.
- DCs are about the most useful chamber out in the field. Maybe if MCs increased nearby OC RoF a bit, you'd see them more often in the front lines.
Hmm, it's not so much that 2.01e changed much but that the marine style of playing has developed to the point where D-M-S is the best way to go.
Marines in 2.01e expand quickly, capping usually up to 3 nodes early on which they electrify. With the secure res they get from these (barring an OC assault but that soaks up a lot of res), they then tech quickly, grabbing usually armour 1, then wpn 1, wpn 2 the wpn 3. By around the 10 minute mark they aim to have HA out in the feild. Whilst this has been happening they will make a big push for one unclaimed hive location, and a lot of the time they will get it (you can stop them but it's tough). To counter this alien teams have been assaulting the early nodes, and whilst silence and celerity are great for taking down marines, taking down fortifications is another matter. Regen is a godsend for taking down early nodes, and most games now have an early Fade along with a hive saver. The Fade is the flagship; he moves from res node to res node, hitting the electrified nodes whilst gorges place down new ones once they're gone. Regen allows him to soak up the damage before he gains access to metabolise. Aliens then aim to have the 2nd hive building by the 3-5 minute mark, and from that point it's a struggle of res nodes.
D-M-S reappeared because a) Marine fast expansion and fortification requires def to counter b) Early and cheap wpn upgrades c) The real danger of 2 hive lockdowns occuring d) The aliens having to discard one chamber in favour of 2 others because most games in 2.01e see the marines with one hive. That means that you need a chamber setup that discards one chamber and places the remaining 2 in the best possible order. Defense comes out on top because of the possibility of 2 hive lockdowns: with def you can break them, with mov you can't. It's just better insurance combined with excellent traits that benefit all the alien classes, especially your higher evolutions: Lerks, Fades and Oni. These 3 aliens all love def upgrades, and whilst mov is nice, def simply increases their power in the feild by such a huge factor.
LIE. it wasnt always build and it only works cus of newbish teamplay.
sens first owned DMS on 1.04 when skulks behaved correctly ! and it was hard to counter !
movement first owned with 4 early gorges, gorge rushing, sadly this was way too rare.
---- If your team has gone movement or sensory first, your chances of breaking a 2 hive lockdown are slim indeed.
If your team has movement ot sensory first marines normaly never achieve a 2 hive lockdown or are able to hold it because it gets detected too soon.
---- ...Fades and Oni by a factor of at least 2.
funneh. Fades profit the least from defense chambers in general. Onos the second least, lerks are best with defense first. But thats just a theory in "utopic gameplay".
---- blah blah 2 hive lockdown...
your team obviously fails in basic teamwork, ambushes, guarding and gorge healing.
---- Free scans negate the inbuilt ability of sens chambers
they aint free. and they only nullify cloaking.
<b>Sadly i see more and more D-M on publics.
And when I drop no D as second chamber, so we have M-S and no D to take the 3rd hive (and we really dont need D how it looked then) I see at least 3 instant whiners while we still have no problem winning without any defense chamber.</b>
redem = ramboing, makes games take longer, more time to fortify.
regen = raging, can destroy or die quickly, depends on timing.
carpace = intelligence, best with teamwork.
ive been working in this file (below) for some time.
I noticed why DMS is nice in general (middle comment) so im posting this incomplete textfile.
But most times other orders are a better alternative.
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General RTS rule:
... attacking > expanding > defending > attacking ...
Transferred to alien upgrade chambers:
Defense chambers = defending
Movement chambers = attacking
Sensory chambers = expanding
In combination with alien classes:
Skulks are allrounders, best in attacking (and expanding).
Gorges are builders, medics and Artillery, best in defending (and expanding).
Lerks are defensive, perfect order is; Defense , Movement, Sensory .
Fades are offensive, Perfect order is; Movement, Sensory , Defense .
Onoses are expansive, Perfect order is; Sensory , Defense , Movement.
(look the ...DMS...DMS...DMS... order is in all this and it starts with the weakest lifeform)
So the first chamber means:
Movement first is best for early Fades, worst for early Onos.
Sensory first is best for early Onos, worst for early Lerks.
Defense first is best for early Lerks, worst for early Fades.
But this changes at 2 hives with 2 chambers:
When you have NO DC, more fades are usefull, they dont need DC due their speed and metabolize. Lerks are weak and only useable for support.
When you have NO SC, you need more Lerks, they are perfect scouts and profit most from DC and Adren. Onoses are weak against upgraded rines and BLIND without SC.
When you have NO MC, you need more Onos, it pfofits the least from extra speed and most from defense and sensory. Fades are weak, speed is what they need most.
Some extra Gorges have to fill the gap of the missing chamber:
When you have no DC you need more healing gorges (battlefield medic).
When you have no SC you need more bilebombing gorges (onos is weak base destroyer).
When you have no MC you need more building gorges (you have no MC wich means you are fortifiing more).
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when you lost badly as aliens check what were the first chambers and what lifeforms have been there.
It has been prooven many times.
The whole textfile contains ANY upgrade posibilities (3*3 chambers) of any lifeform with a comment.
----
finaly i gotta paste this stupid but basic picture again:
<b>Your first chamber should be the correct reaction on the marines behaviour.</b>
Then more teammates should evolve into the corret lifeform.
When they do early attacks (like shootgun rushes) build DC first.
When they fortify their bases early build SC first.
When they take many Resnodes quickly build MC first.
so how to defeat DMC?
Just use your brains and act as team.
get armory upgrades instead of weapon upgrades.
spread mines, but only early game.
- you need good coordination to quickly cover chokepoints and not allowing the marines to get past.
- aliens with sensory only are weak, and once the marines have an observatory and can scan alien losses may be significant.
- if the marines break through a chokepoint and get turrets somewhere, it's going to be very hard to remove them.
Basically, if you plan to get sensory first, plan to secure at least 2 hives. If you fail, it is unlikely that a comeback will work against a competent marine team. It is an excellent tactic to use against an incompetent marine team, especially if the comm doesn't know much about observatories (read: it was great in the first two weeks of 2.0).
For combat effectiveness, movement and defence are both good. Movement is very strong for skulks, and allows quick defence of resource towers. Defence is more important for higher forms. Therefore, movement is good if you feel certain its advantages will help you take two hives before the marines do. Carapace is not as effective for skulks, so it may be a bit harder to get that second hive secured. But if the marines do take two hives, defence gives you the best upgrades to take it back.
With two hives, it's best to have movement and defence, as it maximizes combat strength at the expense of being a bit less sneaky. It is the best you can have to take back an occupied location (such as the third hive). Sensory first means you can't have this optimal combination.
Another good reason to get defence at the first opportunity in a game on disorganized pub servers is that you may want to prevent undesirable situations. For example, suppose you go movement first, the team plans to get defence second, but someone decides to mess around and drops sensory the moment the second hive becomes active. If the marines have the third hive, this can be a serious disadvantage and may cost aliens the game. As defence is so important, going def first can be considered insurance against gorges who think sensory second is a good idea.
however, I just thought I'd cut through the theory and the uncertainty with a few facts.
1) It's easy to blame a team, however if a strategy works inspite of a lower-skill group compared to another plan of action that requires a much greater level of talent to not fail then it means the first one is more reliable and therefore often preferred.
2) Public servers are a mixed bag. The individuals you'll meet on there will fluxuate from new players to gristled vetnerans. Anything that requires a team of elites should be kept mainly for clan matches or situations where the alien team is evidently full of highly experienced individuals (which doesn't happen as much as you might like to dream =3 )
3) Fades benefit from DCs... the amount they benefit is subjective thanks to the unique and varied playing styles of those who become them, much like oni and lerks. If I'm a fade I'm completely DC dependant; without the peace of mind regen gives me I won't attack anywhere near as often nor be as effective in the field due to a constant need for gorges/hives or wasting time waiting for both metabolise to refill my health AND my energy levels to reach useable levels again. This is how I play, others play it different but don't expect everyone to do things how you expect or believe to be right ><
4) In my experience the games we've won with SC as a first or even second chamber have had inexperienced comms and generally not very good marines. They hole up at base and the comm is slow to get OBs up. In every other situation while the game has often started out nice it's gradually went screaming downhill as time ticks by. Maybe it's just bad alien players, exceptional marines or whatever but I find from the games I've played SC tends to decline in usefulness rather rapidly as the game progresses and even at the start experienced marines seem more than capable of handling it.
5) Fun trick with cloaking; if you're a marine and you know they have sc, duck and turn on your flashlight. For some reason on my screen it gives a lovely contrast when someone cloaked walks into the light making them pretty noticable; I picked up this little tidbit from a post elsewhere on the board <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<b>slow post edit:</b> that was in response to your first post but 2 posts happened while I was typing and answering the phone lol
I'd agree more with the idea of building your chambers in response to the marines, though sometimes it's better to be a person of action than reaction... just depends on the game, the teams and a heck of a lot of other temperate factors <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
This can be cretided to faster marine expansion, and an influx in intelligent commanders. As strategys develop for marines, the commander or mastermind, can choose several different paths. He can siege, shotgun/upgrade, HA, JP, and two hive lockdown an alien team (I'm SURE there are others, I'm just posting the most common). Because of the lesser co-operation inherent with a public alien team, the uncertainties must be minimized by adopting a chamber that works averagly against all of these tactics; thus the DMS evolved.
Sensory:
I usually go for cloakwalking strategies, Moving right into marine movements and waiting until the last possible moment to attack. Will make most marine teams lose focus as I just scared the brown stuff out of them. Doing this repeatedly can wear down a marine team psychologically, to the point they lose their effectiveness <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Defence:
Regeneration is my friend here - It means I can keep the illusion that I am "invincible" with clever movement: attack for a bit, run out, heal somewhere, attack again. With extra teammembers here I can "tag team" so that the marines are under the illusion this ONE skulk is doing all the damage. This again weakens the marines as a team psychlogically. ("OMG you can't kill that one skulk??")
Movement:
Movement for me means suicide rushes via celerity. This is particularly useful with taking down turret farms, as celerity can get me to the tf with little damage. It's also works a bit like the "I am so fast you can't hit me!" effect which can again wear down the marines.
So it's really a case of adapting to what the marines are doing, then adapting to the chamber placement. However given what the marines usually do, I think this is why D's Are placed first :o