It's either a manual error...

Tieom

<div class="IPBDescription">Or last second tweaking</div>The skulk's Xenocide ability.
According to the manual:
400 damage, 800 against buildings.
(Found here: <a href="http://www.natural-selection.org/manual/alien_skulk.html" target="_blank">http://www.natural-selection.org/manual/alien_skulk.html</a>
According to the in-game help:
200 damage, double against buildings.
It would seem that the latter is the amount of in-game damage.

In my humble opinion, they should have gone with what it said in the manual (400/800). This way, Xenocide would, no matter what, kill a marine from point blank range (Even with maxed-out heavy armor and full health). It would also be capable of crippling multiple turrets, which is critical against late-game marine bases.
Now, this may seem too powerful, especially the one-hit-kill thing, but keep in mind:
The attack takes 2 or 3 seconds to 'charge', and by this time it's usually too late.
It puts the player out of action for around 15 seconds
It keeps the skulk effective in late game. Especially in small games (4 or 5 per team), many of (If not all) the marines are outfitted with heavy armor. With the skulk dying so easily (especially to HMG fire), the bite is near-useless and the current xenocide won't even deplete the armor.
It gives the aliens an apparently much-needed effective anti-turret weapon.

If that is also too powerful, it could be changed to 300/600, or 200/800, or 300/1000, or 400/400, or whatever.

Ingame help error - The alien resource tower ingame help states that the tower will contribute resources 'until the nozzle runs out'. Since the help for both the nozzle and TSA towers says that the resources are infinite, it's sort of puzzling.


Not a manual error, but a suggestion (Which will likely be shot down by Greedo386, who seems to be the first one on the scene with all these things):
The resource economy for aliens is REALLY slow at the beginning of the game. The more players, the slower it is.
So my suggestion is that the cost of alien resource towers increases per tower. That is, the first one costs very little (such as 10, but there is usually a tower already in place), the second costs 14, the third 18, and the fourth and all others costs the regular 22.

Greedo386 -
No offense, but I dislike how you state the RP costs of things for marines in response to "X for the marines is too powerful."
"Of course it's balanced, look how many RP's it costs to get X."
What you forget to mention is that those costs are for the first, and only the first (Barring building destruction, which is rare) one off the production line. After the (Agreeably hefty) innitial investment, heavy weapons and armor can be bought cheaply, and given to almost everyone in the squad. Since marine buildings rarely get destroyed (Thanks to the near-invunerable/omnipotent turrets), and resources are infinite, the cost of the buildings is a temporary inconvenience. Actually, the cost of the guns themselves soon outweighs the cost of the prequisite building(s), as each gun is produced the cost of the buildings becomes more negilible.

Also, the HMG is hardly what I'd call a 'late game weapon'. It's completely possible to start cranking out HMG's with the starting resources (96) and the 1 resource tower. Since around the time this HMG build sequence is completed, a few Gorges are either waiting for resources or building the first alien resource towers, it gives the marines a monumental advantage, as they can blow away almost anything with impunity, including said alien resource towers, which can usually be immediatly replaced with TSA resource towers, insuring the terran steam-roller goes on.

I hope you won't take this as a personal attack or flame.

Ahnteis

Xenocide should go back up to 400/800 OR be given a larger area effect IMO.  Don't forget, you have to have all 3 hives up to get it and it's a one-time shot.  (You dead when you're done.)

Gallig

I've used the xenocide ability pretty often against turrets and they all died after 2 xenocides close to them. So this must mean the manual is right.

If the resource tower ceases function when the nozzle runs out of resources, but the nozzle actually never runs out, does it really matter? Although I have to admit, that if the marine tower is always infinite and the nozzles had limited resources, it would be unfair for the aliens in later games.

Gorges get an increased share of the resources, so you should try to keep the number of gorges low (1 is enough, 2 is okay, 3 is a waste). Also you have to consider, that more alien players means they can hamper the enemy expansion more easily, providing their gorges with more time.

Without those tweaked resource income for marines, that most servers seem to run, it would be quite costy to equip all your marines with this stuff, you'll still need RP's to build resource towers and provide them with turret protection and even a single skulk can take out a HA marine when attacking it's back.

And believe me: A HMG gives a marine a lot of firepower, but he's still very vulnarable and now he's also slow, making him a very juicy target. Imagine 4 LA (light armored) Marines with HMG's walk along and suddenly a skulk drops right into them, taking 2 out before they kill him. You've already lost the RP's of 2 HMG's and the aliens lost nothing. You can easily kill a skulk with an LMG if it attacks you in the front, but all firepower of the world won't save you from a bite in the back.
Also if you're spending all your resources on research for HMG's you won't have turrets to protect your base from those skulk rushes that can really cripple you in the beginning.

Inexorable

Before boosting Xenocide, you should remember that while you need three hives, the Skulk itself is free. 400/800 is an insane amount of damage.

PriNcE_oF_SpAcE

even though 400/800 is an "insane" amount it's not nearly enough....I think either the damage or the area of effect should be boosted for the xenocide abilitie....making it worth while commiting suicide...and as already mentioned a much needed weapon against turrets(and bear in mind you need that third hive)

Greedo

Rofl.  I seem to have some sort of reputation.  <!--emo&:D--><img src="http://www.natural-selection.org/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'><!--endemo-->

Resource nodes are techinically finite, but they have a ridiculously high amount of resources, and generally won't run out in any normal game.

I don't know which xenocide amount is right, but I do know I've taken out 3-4 marines at one time with it.  Thing is, though, if you don't kill them the first time, the commander has to spend resources to heal them, or you <i>will</i> kill them easily the second time.  I know I've survived xenocides in the past, only to be left with maybe 19 health.  And xenocides in groups are especially deadly.

And as for costs, I specifically didn't mention that all further gun/HA purchases don't require the one-time building cost.  Basically, it's like this:  You spend ~300 resources equipping a squad the first time, and you go out.  If you suceed, and you take a hive, or a lot of ground, or whatever, you're suddenly one step closer to victory.  You've got resource towers harvesting, and you can afford a lot of stuff.  And if you control a large portion of the map, you deserve to win.  But if you spend ~300 resources equipping a squad the first time, and you go out, and you fail, and all your men die, you'll probably need to spend ~100 or more to get them to the same strength as before.  And if you didn't actually accomplish anything, that's 100 resource points that you might not have.

As for aliens resources being slow at the start, it's also designed that way.  Aliens, you'll soon find, have much more 'free reign' over the map in the early game.  If they could go around, capping every node before marines could be out of their base, that would be an imbalance.  Something that I attribute to unfamiliarity with maps, is the lack of an early skulk rush to parasite/attack the marine base.  Generally, if you do this first, and <i>then</i> go gorge if you want, you'll have a bit more initial resources, and less waiting around.  Also, if half the alien team is gorge, that's a big problem.  I'd recommend maybe 1 gorge per 4 aliens, at the most.  Otherwise, the wait for resources will be even longer.

Again, a lot of the balance problems will be fixed when marines can't actually afford to spend cash freely, when the resource problem is fixed.

Tieom

The thing that I've found (During my 2 or 3 times commanding) is that the resources you expend on medipacks and ammo isn't about the actual RP's, but the time it takes to get to the marine and drop the thing on him (Usually 3-6 seconds). Usually, during this time, marines are asking for orders, or something to build, or HMGs/GLs (No one EVER asks for a shotty), or HA/Jetpack, or whatever. I've also found that resources are rarely a problem - Usually by the time you think "Okay, I've got enough resources for X", go to your base, and start the upgrade/research, you've REaccumulated about half the resources it took to start the upgrade in the first place.

About HMG/HA slowing you down and making you an 'easy target' as part of the balancing factor, I have to disagree. Aliens have a monopoly on speed (Save for the jetpack, which is approximatly equivilant to Lerk speed, but it's expensive), and a regular skulk moves faster than a regular marine. So running away is, 99.9% of the time, NOT an option. HA does not change this (Well, maybe increases it to 99.999%). It's already quite easy to hit marines, heavy armor really doesn't change your ability to hit them.
I mean, maybe if HA prevented you from TURNING as fast, it would be a sufficient penalty, and give reason to have a few light marines in the squad to provide 'back cover'.

Also, what happened to commanders being able to see aliens if marines were near by? I've watched a few battles as commander, which constisted mostly of marines spamming the walls and then falling over dead, or stopping and requesting a medpack/ammo.