Award winning tactics
Vangor
Join Date: 2002-05-22 Member: 655Members
Join Date: 2002-05-22 Member: 655Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Ways to make you safe and a pro</div>----- Aliens -----
Do not immediately become a Gorge :
I'm not saying to not build resource towers, but, see what others are doing, if there are three or four up, they don't need a fifth, your resources are better suited for later. However, if to many people take this advice, still don't, many people become gorges then walk to resource node, that is around half as fast or even less than a skulk can run, so you will ultimately help your team by racing to it, not to mention you can defend.
Locate Vents :
These are built for a reason, not so you can see some nice red light in maps, but to run through. You can find yourself behind enemy lines, in a yet undeveloped area, and even, in the marine spawn point, not to mention these are great hiding spaces often times. Most marines overlook these too, so they are great assault points for lerks (hopefully their spike damage gets updated) to shoot spikes, and good places to jump in their midst.
Remember Vents :
While I did say locate vents already, one major thing that seems to slip, is remembering to use them and remembering where they go. Unfortunately, I only do this half the time when I play a skulk or whatever. But, everyone should learn these as well as possible. If damage to health ratios were more even, then tons of stuff could be destroyed by the advantageous, good, skulk, so long as marines don't find out.
Listen Carefully :
I don't know how many times it will take people to find out that the little ping ping ping noise after a launch noise, is bad, that means grenades. Of course, they still run into them. (BTW, just a suggestion, grenades need to be bigger with smoke trails, they are somewhat unfair current) Another thing, I see some people don't pay attention to the creating or welding noise and just see marine, so they decide to run. These guys are fairly easy to get, but you need to be ontop or behind them to get em down with skulks and such. Just plenty of stuff to hear, like I believe aliens can hear the need medikit call, and, you should hear when something is put down, especially new turrets, that is the time to strike.
Head Out Early :
If you aren't the building type, then I suggest you run out as far as you can to their base. Move swiftly, and camp at a close resource center that is yet undeveloped. However, pay attention to my Patience Is A Virtue piece and you will survive. Marines often win cause they can establish resource centers fairly easily, do not allow them to. Your main target is the marines building it. After that, hopefully you can destroy the resource tower. If it is very close to their base, destroy all not yet built up structures, in order of resource tower, turret factory, turrets, armory.
Patience Is A Virtue :
I can't stress this enough. One of the major pieces of a skulk, and most aliens, is to be patient. Most people confuse patience with simply not moving out quickly, that however, is not the case. By patience, I mean, such as in the Head Out Early piece, wait there, but do not immediately attack. I did this at the start, and many other people I'm sure do this (a few I have seen). When that resource tower goes up, allow them to get a bit into building it, I'd say at max halfway. More buildings should go up. Your job, kill the marines. Then, you can destroy their buildings, making them basically wasted resources, then, destroy the resource tower. Very easy to do. If nothing else, if something is not yet built for marines, wait NEAR it. Do not immediately attack if you just got there (unless you know battle was here). That structure does nothing for them, unmade or destroyed, however, unmade, and it attracts a hapless marine who puts his guard down for around five seconds. Eat him, destroy the center and anything near. Again, you need to wait after the first marine shows up, he can get 2 or 3 bars on it, that will do him no good in a second, however, it doesn't help you if you jump on a marine and are shot by his friend.
----- Marines -----
Welders Ready :
Pistols, lets face it, half of the people don't use their pistol in emergency situations, half of those chances never come, and then half of those chances never matter. So, get a welder on hand, ESPECIALLY if heavy armor is up. You can repair armor of friends, repair buildings, destroy webbing, and most importantly, WELD STUFF. (PS: i have killed quite a few aliens with my pistol, but, half of the time people are firing bullets at the stuff anyway, so, they aren't the most useful thing except by yourself which you shouldn't be)
Repair Friends and Structures :
Few people seem to think that maybe a second gun, equal or greater to their own, may save them. These people, dumb, clear and simple. Now, everyone thinks it, the dumb people just don't act on it. Example : In Bast, we were fighting to keep our water treatment resource tower against the refinery aliens. We had a particularly intelligent individual hide behind the pipes with a welder going. Three of us were in heavy armor, and it was like fighting people in double or triple sets of that stuff, we just couldn't be killed with a welder behind us. Structures, not only will this slow down people who may chomp on them so your friends can arrive, but, it makes so that the resource tower has some more longevity, or so there are an extra 10 bullets into the hide of some Onos. Check to see at times of "peace", and I know there are, I've played the game long enough to have half of it as peace-time it seemed.
Weld Stuff :
Why people don't seem to do this, I don't know. This is great, it gives free rein to the marines to control places easily enough. However, few maps really use these things to do their fullest. Hera, uses it to its fullet, one of the best maps for welders, go try it out. If you go to Hera Reception, most people don't know how to open those big doors. Voila! Weld the button open, and open it. However, it is often best to leave it closed. Now, people don't often know that you can even close those doors on the opposing side. Helpful if they own the Holoroom but you have cut off men. Also, this can work to deter most aliens, especially with turrets placed behind em. Not to mention on hera, that in the Holoroom, you can just stump the alien forces by welding and closing vent ducts. Trust me, use this to your advantage at all times, those little yellow, neon looking symbols, WELD SPOTS, some can help you move around, some can help you defend, direct traffic, lots of stuff, it helps to no end.
Watch Projectiles :
I love seeing people go frantic looking for where things are firing from, and yet, they don't look at the projectile's flight path, that gives it away. If you see a spike flying, you shouldn't wonder where it came from, move aside it of course, then, chase that stuff down. This could end quite a few pestering alien's lives, and helps alot if teams are fairly towards the beginning, when killing a lerk or fade helps alot.
WATCH FOR VENTS :
Yes, big thing, I can stress this enough. Alien battles are won and lost because of vents, especially Xenociding or annoying little shooters. Most people take little notice of em, look for red lights especially. Knowing where these are, and telling your commander to build sentry turrets to guard against these will aid you dramatically. Not to mention, if you watch for a vent, you can often add another death to those miserable aliens, and not give him that easy kill.
WATCH FOR DARK AREAS :
Another simple thing that helps a hell of alot. Why do people never check these? This is how a Skulk kills half or more of you, cause they jump from a dark area when you aren't looking, and bite you real fast, you're down. Easy avoidance, tell commander, build a sentry or two there, move along.
Siege Turrets :
Underutilized, unfortunately they are misunderstood. Now, at a marine spawn, these don't do much. Guys, learn, that they do not fire at aliens, they may kill them, but that is backlash from structures. These guys are so freaking supportive for destroying hive centers. They will eliminate aliens venturing to close to offense chambers, blow apart those chambers, and hell, even take down the hive so fast that you can worry more about spare aliens coming than shooting the big hive.
Sentry Turrets :
I never understood why people build like Total Annihilation AI. If you've ever played that, you'll understand. I can put to use 1 sentry turret as good as people can put to use 2 or more. Why? because I build with tactics in mind. Sentry Turrets have a range to seeing things, an angle of detection, and they also have a directly line of sight. Aliens can easily shoot spikes and all manner of projectiles from hidden corners at their bases, and disperse these. Put them behind corners, in areas that are hard to see, and in a more uniform fashion. Remember their angle of detection too, this will help save you. I've ran right over sentry turrets because none could turn to shoot me and deftly escaped them, put some back a ways in, again, well guarded areas. Also, do not put all of your faith in Sentry Turrets, not for long atleast.
Turret Factories :
It seems that no one wants to run an offense line. If you don't know what one is, or are just unfamiliar with the term, let me enlighten you. Basically, most people build a resource tower, then a turret factory, an armory, and some sentry turrets. That is fine, however, not enough. When your soldiers have begun moving up, make a turret factory, and then some turrets, at some junctions and other areas. These work the best if your team encounters little resistance for a bit. Move up near a hive, put this down, upgrade, down goes siege cannon, let it do its thing. Do not be afraid to make one near a resource center, move down a hall, and place another with a few sentry turrets.
Learn Your Resources :
Listen, most people do not help as much as their resources go. Light Machine Gun, Pistol, Knife. That is all you need at the start. Do not ask for Shotguns, Heavy Armor, or anything else for a while. Especially don't pressure him into upgrading to get heavy armor or heavy weapons until you have around 300 resources. Then, don't ask for a while. Heavy Armor and Jetpacks, not so bad on the making, but weapons, oh they hurt. You do your commander no favor in being ###### off that you don't have your weapon, you do him no favors by believing that those are so imperitive that he should waste time and resources on that instead of resource towers which will get you more of those in the long run, and you do him no favors by making him go from battle to satisfy your little needs.
Help Commanders Help You :
I have been so frustrated in a game at one point that I just stop giving weapons to some people who address me incorrectly. Guys, saying HELP and need heavy machine gun, does not help the commander. Even if you are at the spawn, do not rely on him to immediately think this, though most do. Tell him things like "Need Medikit, Heavy Machine Gun, Heavy Armor, Welder, in Main Aft Junction". Tell him EXACTLY where you are, he will get to you soon. Also, be patient, everyone starts as commander, you people better at it (I like to think I am great at it for its sluggishness), help them out, get them on the track of things to do. Asking five or ten times that you need a Heavy Machine Gun in Spawn may get you that heavy machine gun, but I often run out after perhaps the second asking to go shoot somethin. Take extreme notice of this if people are asking for equipment again and again. Do not continue it yourself, you will give the commander a lighter load, waste less of your time and others, and learn to use a gun you should know how to. Also, tell them where to put stuff as well. They cannot know all sentry turrets that fall, or where exactly resource towers that are ready to be taken are. While they have those little dots, a big part of what they are doing exists on the screen, not the minimap, and a person's extreme focus is on the central point of where they look, they will see big flashes, like text, tell them where.
-----
Of course, there is more, but, that should be fairly self sufficient. One big thing, READ THE MANUAL. Half of the people ask to get ammo in the marine spawn area, or how they upgrade their weapons, or for heavy armor and a heavy machine gun when infantry portals are at first going up. Lots of stupidity can be avoided by reading the manual.
Do not immediately become a Gorge :
I'm not saying to not build resource towers, but, see what others are doing, if there are three or four up, they don't need a fifth, your resources are better suited for later. However, if to many people take this advice, still don't, many people become gorges then walk to resource node, that is around half as fast or even less than a skulk can run, so you will ultimately help your team by racing to it, not to mention you can defend.
Locate Vents :
These are built for a reason, not so you can see some nice red light in maps, but to run through. You can find yourself behind enemy lines, in a yet undeveloped area, and even, in the marine spawn point, not to mention these are great hiding spaces often times. Most marines overlook these too, so they are great assault points for lerks (hopefully their spike damage gets updated) to shoot spikes, and good places to jump in their midst.
Remember Vents :
While I did say locate vents already, one major thing that seems to slip, is remembering to use them and remembering where they go. Unfortunately, I only do this half the time when I play a skulk or whatever. But, everyone should learn these as well as possible. If damage to health ratios were more even, then tons of stuff could be destroyed by the advantageous, good, skulk, so long as marines don't find out.
Listen Carefully :
I don't know how many times it will take people to find out that the little ping ping ping noise after a launch noise, is bad, that means grenades. Of course, they still run into them. (BTW, just a suggestion, grenades need to be bigger with smoke trails, they are somewhat unfair current) Another thing, I see some people don't pay attention to the creating or welding noise and just see marine, so they decide to run. These guys are fairly easy to get, but you need to be ontop or behind them to get em down with skulks and such. Just plenty of stuff to hear, like I believe aliens can hear the need medikit call, and, you should hear when something is put down, especially new turrets, that is the time to strike.
Head Out Early :
If you aren't the building type, then I suggest you run out as far as you can to their base. Move swiftly, and camp at a close resource center that is yet undeveloped. However, pay attention to my Patience Is A Virtue piece and you will survive. Marines often win cause they can establish resource centers fairly easily, do not allow them to. Your main target is the marines building it. After that, hopefully you can destroy the resource tower. If it is very close to their base, destroy all not yet built up structures, in order of resource tower, turret factory, turrets, armory.
Patience Is A Virtue :
I can't stress this enough. One of the major pieces of a skulk, and most aliens, is to be patient. Most people confuse patience with simply not moving out quickly, that however, is not the case. By patience, I mean, such as in the Head Out Early piece, wait there, but do not immediately attack. I did this at the start, and many other people I'm sure do this (a few I have seen). When that resource tower goes up, allow them to get a bit into building it, I'd say at max halfway. More buildings should go up. Your job, kill the marines. Then, you can destroy their buildings, making them basically wasted resources, then, destroy the resource tower. Very easy to do. If nothing else, if something is not yet built for marines, wait NEAR it. Do not immediately attack if you just got there (unless you know battle was here). That structure does nothing for them, unmade or destroyed, however, unmade, and it attracts a hapless marine who puts his guard down for around five seconds. Eat him, destroy the center and anything near. Again, you need to wait after the first marine shows up, he can get 2 or 3 bars on it, that will do him no good in a second, however, it doesn't help you if you jump on a marine and are shot by his friend.
----- Marines -----
Welders Ready :
Pistols, lets face it, half of the people don't use their pistol in emergency situations, half of those chances never come, and then half of those chances never matter. So, get a welder on hand, ESPECIALLY if heavy armor is up. You can repair armor of friends, repair buildings, destroy webbing, and most importantly, WELD STUFF. (PS: i have killed quite a few aliens with my pistol, but, half of the time people are firing bullets at the stuff anyway, so, they aren't the most useful thing except by yourself which you shouldn't be)
Repair Friends and Structures :
Few people seem to think that maybe a second gun, equal or greater to their own, may save them. These people, dumb, clear and simple. Now, everyone thinks it, the dumb people just don't act on it. Example : In Bast, we were fighting to keep our water treatment resource tower against the refinery aliens. We had a particularly intelligent individual hide behind the pipes with a welder going. Three of us were in heavy armor, and it was like fighting people in double or triple sets of that stuff, we just couldn't be killed with a welder behind us. Structures, not only will this slow down people who may chomp on them so your friends can arrive, but, it makes so that the resource tower has some more longevity, or so there are an extra 10 bullets into the hide of some Onos. Check to see at times of "peace", and I know there are, I've played the game long enough to have half of it as peace-time it seemed.
Weld Stuff :
Why people don't seem to do this, I don't know. This is great, it gives free rein to the marines to control places easily enough. However, few maps really use these things to do their fullest. Hera, uses it to its fullet, one of the best maps for welders, go try it out. If you go to Hera Reception, most people don't know how to open those big doors. Voila! Weld the button open, and open it. However, it is often best to leave it closed. Now, people don't often know that you can even close those doors on the opposing side. Helpful if they own the Holoroom but you have cut off men. Also, this can work to deter most aliens, especially with turrets placed behind em. Not to mention on hera, that in the Holoroom, you can just stump the alien forces by welding and closing vent ducts. Trust me, use this to your advantage at all times, those little yellow, neon looking symbols, WELD SPOTS, some can help you move around, some can help you defend, direct traffic, lots of stuff, it helps to no end.
Watch Projectiles :
I love seeing people go frantic looking for where things are firing from, and yet, they don't look at the projectile's flight path, that gives it away. If you see a spike flying, you shouldn't wonder where it came from, move aside it of course, then, chase that stuff down. This could end quite a few pestering alien's lives, and helps alot if teams are fairly towards the beginning, when killing a lerk or fade helps alot.
WATCH FOR VENTS :
Yes, big thing, I can stress this enough. Alien battles are won and lost because of vents, especially Xenociding or annoying little shooters. Most people take little notice of em, look for red lights especially. Knowing where these are, and telling your commander to build sentry turrets to guard against these will aid you dramatically. Not to mention, if you watch for a vent, you can often add another death to those miserable aliens, and not give him that easy kill.
WATCH FOR DARK AREAS :
Another simple thing that helps a hell of alot. Why do people never check these? This is how a Skulk kills half or more of you, cause they jump from a dark area when you aren't looking, and bite you real fast, you're down. Easy avoidance, tell commander, build a sentry or two there, move along.
Siege Turrets :
Underutilized, unfortunately they are misunderstood. Now, at a marine spawn, these don't do much. Guys, learn, that they do not fire at aliens, they may kill them, but that is backlash from structures. These guys are so freaking supportive for destroying hive centers. They will eliminate aliens venturing to close to offense chambers, blow apart those chambers, and hell, even take down the hive so fast that you can worry more about spare aliens coming than shooting the big hive.
Sentry Turrets :
I never understood why people build like Total Annihilation AI. If you've ever played that, you'll understand. I can put to use 1 sentry turret as good as people can put to use 2 or more. Why? because I build with tactics in mind. Sentry Turrets have a range to seeing things, an angle of detection, and they also have a directly line of sight. Aliens can easily shoot spikes and all manner of projectiles from hidden corners at their bases, and disperse these. Put them behind corners, in areas that are hard to see, and in a more uniform fashion. Remember their angle of detection too, this will help save you. I've ran right over sentry turrets because none could turn to shoot me and deftly escaped them, put some back a ways in, again, well guarded areas. Also, do not put all of your faith in Sentry Turrets, not for long atleast.
Turret Factories :
It seems that no one wants to run an offense line. If you don't know what one is, or are just unfamiliar with the term, let me enlighten you. Basically, most people build a resource tower, then a turret factory, an armory, and some sentry turrets. That is fine, however, not enough. When your soldiers have begun moving up, make a turret factory, and then some turrets, at some junctions and other areas. These work the best if your team encounters little resistance for a bit. Move up near a hive, put this down, upgrade, down goes siege cannon, let it do its thing. Do not be afraid to make one near a resource center, move down a hall, and place another with a few sentry turrets.
Learn Your Resources :
Listen, most people do not help as much as their resources go. Light Machine Gun, Pistol, Knife. That is all you need at the start. Do not ask for Shotguns, Heavy Armor, or anything else for a while. Especially don't pressure him into upgrading to get heavy armor or heavy weapons until you have around 300 resources. Then, don't ask for a while. Heavy Armor and Jetpacks, not so bad on the making, but weapons, oh they hurt. You do your commander no favor in being ###### off that you don't have your weapon, you do him no favors by believing that those are so imperitive that he should waste time and resources on that instead of resource towers which will get you more of those in the long run, and you do him no favors by making him go from battle to satisfy your little needs.
Help Commanders Help You :
I have been so frustrated in a game at one point that I just stop giving weapons to some people who address me incorrectly. Guys, saying HELP and need heavy machine gun, does not help the commander. Even if you are at the spawn, do not rely on him to immediately think this, though most do. Tell him things like "Need Medikit, Heavy Machine Gun, Heavy Armor, Welder, in Main Aft Junction". Tell him EXACTLY where you are, he will get to you soon. Also, be patient, everyone starts as commander, you people better at it (I like to think I am great at it for its sluggishness), help them out, get them on the track of things to do. Asking five or ten times that you need a Heavy Machine Gun in Spawn may get you that heavy machine gun, but I often run out after perhaps the second asking to go shoot somethin. Take extreme notice of this if people are asking for equipment again and again. Do not continue it yourself, you will give the commander a lighter load, waste less of your time and others, and learn to use a gun you should know how to. Also, tell them where to put stuff as well. They cannot know all sentry turrets that fall, or where exactly resource towers that are ready to be taken are. While they have those little dots, a big part of what they are doing exists on the screen, not the minimap, and a person's extreme focus is on the central point of where they look, they will see big flashes, like text, tell them where.
-----
Of course, there is more, but, that should be fairly self sufficient. One big thing, READ THE MANUAL. Half of the people ask to get ammo in the marine spawn area, or how they upgrade their weapons, or for heavy armor and a heavy machine gun when infantry portals are at first going up. Lots of stupidity can be avoided by reading the manual.