Skulk tactics

Ekaj

The skulk/lvl1 is the default alien class, which means that every time you respawn you will start as one. Skulks are great for ambushing and getting fast kills, but they are very fragile and can’t take many hits. At the start of the game you’ll want to hide near a marine spawn exit and wait for the marines to ship out (or you can dart in and out of view and parasite marines, to make them visible on the hive sight and know where they are until they die), choose places that people don’t always use, because the more obvious spots are usually checked first (marines will come into rooms looking upwards at high ceilings).

If the marines rush out quickly to set up their main base somewhere else try to take out the CC in their absence, they will drop a CC in their new base but it will be a late start and thus easier to defeat them and end the game early (well actually skulks can usually only rush a group of marines and win if you wait around for other skulks to show up and rush in at the same time).

Teamwork is quite important for aliens as well as the marines, and multiple skulks cause much more chaos than one, so if you’re trying to take out some turrets don’t do it alone unless you have a healing source nearby (gorge, defense chamber, regeneration upgrade, hive) that you can run back to. When the second hive goes online you can start to take a more aggressive approach, leap is the second hive ability and works perfectly for closing the distance between you and the marines. Aim right for the marines and switch to bite mid leap and then bite the marine when you land on/near them (with on being preferred but harder to execute). Before you get leap it’s much harder to close the distance (when you aren’t ambushing) so be sure to strafe, jump, and/or wall climb as you run towards the marines or you’ll end up dead.

If the aliens get a third hive the xenocide ability will be unlocked. This makes ambushing a lot easier (instead of dropping on marines and biting, you drop on them and blow everything near you to hell, including yourself) but at this stage of the game the aliens will be very offensive and won’t need to ambush much or at all. Xenocide is great for finishing marine bases, position yourself in a vent or entrance to the base, take a peek inside, choose your target and then start the xenocide before you run in, it takes a few seconds to go boom so you might die if you start it too late. That’s all for now, feel free to add to this thread or correct me.

Llama_Killer

YAY <b>XENOCIDE XENOCIDE XENOCIDE!</b>


GReat job keeping us newbs from being newbish Ekaj!

Evil_Sonic_Death_Monkey

WAT??? XENOCIDE TAKES TIME TO ACTIVATE??? THIS GAME SUX!!! (JKJKJKJKJKJK) hehe, nice knowing tactics to start off being a newb <!--emo&;)--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'><!--endemo-->. hope we all learn diff tacts, cuz they'll get lame after a while

Greedo

One of the better xenocide strategies is to activate it at a distance, then immediatly switch to leap and get real close, just in time for you to blow up.

Battousaix

Xenocide sounds fun *crazy laff*

BTS_Squirrel

im not hearing much about the leap thingy. whats the deal? do you use t like a regular attack? or do you just jump regularly and stuff....

Ekaj

First you select the leap attack by hitting 3 + primary attack, then you aim and click attack to leap in that direction. If you’re aiming at marines click 1 + attack to select bite mid air. It may sound like too many keystrokes but once you get used to it you can do all instantly.

Necro

5 skulks hanging on the roof...5 marines come in...turn xenocide on...drop. <!--emo&:p--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':p'><!--endemo-->

Sgt_X

That's exessive, one maybe two skulks could wipe out that squad with xenocides. 5 skulks could kill that squad with bite alone unless they're all HA and shotgun weilding.

Ekaj

Notice that I never said anything about rushing, and didn’t say why not. Well here it is: skulk rushes have a very low chance of succeeding and if most/all aliens rush and die they will slowly respawn while the marine team has the opportunity to make a devastating counter rush that has a much higher chance of ending the game.

Tryon

Ok, I keep seeing people talking about hanging on the roof and from what I've read in the manual, it talks about skulks running along the ceiling. How is this done? Usually, the highest I can get is up to the corner where a wall connects to the ceiling. Is there something special that needs to be done to travel across the top of a room or is this not possible?

Brew

you just need to be looking up while moving.
you go in the direction youre facing, so if you look down and push forward, you fall off the ceiling.

you get used to it after ahwile, but it's really tough to get around corners or obstacles or whatever, especially if youre trying to simultaneously track an enemy.

Typhon

Once you've run all the way up the wall, in order to get onto the ceiling you usually have to look AWAY from the wall, towards the center of the room, and up, then move forward. Your view will not invert, which means you cant just look 'up' and expect to attach to the ceiling.

baby_seal_clubber

I wonder how confusing it would make the game if as skulks we could have our view invert on the ceiling or sideways on walls like Alien vs. Predator when the Alien climbs around on walls and ceilings. When I first played I expected that to happen and it didn't so I had to get used to remaining upright when I climbed on walls.