Scouting
LazyEye
Join Date: 2005-01-06 Member: 32959Members, NS1 Playtester
Join Date: 2005-01-06 Member: 32959Members, NS1 Playtester
I posted this on another fourm and I'm reposting it here. Enjoy.
How many times has your hive been shotty rushed and you never saw it coming? Its probably the most painful thing to happen on the alien side.
Now skulks should be doing 2 things
A) Scouting
B) Killing marine res nodes
If you are not doing B you should be doing A.
Now this might be kind of hard to explain and you just learn it by thinking a cretin way. In a perfect game, the aliens will always know where the marines at located on the map, now we know we can never have a perfect game so lets find ways of “guessing” where the marines are on the map, here are some key points of guessing where the marines are:
Use your minimap (default C), I press my minimap key constantly to see what we control, where my teammates are, and where I think the marines are going to go next. If you hit C and see no one in one of your hives that you control it would be a good idea to go there and check it out. If you have 3 skulks in one area and haven’t heard any marines or don’t know where any are, you need to move to another area and find the marines, skulks should only be ambushing a location if they know marines are going to pass by soon.
Parasite, Parasite, Parasite. This ability can never be use enough, when you are skulking, take it slow, parasite marines and call for back up. You are doing no good if you just rush in at 3 marines and die with out parasiting any of them( I see this all the time). If you have 3 sensorys then use sent of fear! And alert your team of where the marines are and how many there are. Say to your team what weapons the marines have, this is VERY important, 3 shottys can down a fade in less than 1 second, shottys and hmgs are very deadly to a fade who is not expecting them.
Remember prevention is the key to the alien game, if you know the marines are coming to your hive you can set up a defense to stop them rather than every one just bum rushing into the hive when the marines already have 5 shottys in there. After you stop a rush on your hive because of good scouting hit the marines res towers or base it’s the perfect time because the comm. is **** off because his 100 res rush just failed.
If you are out of res don’t stay on gorge, a gorge can not scout, the only time you should be gorge with no res is if you were already gorge when the marines are attacking the hive so you can heal it. If you have spare res, the next best thing to scouting as skulk is OCs DON’T put OCs in the hive room, that is a waste, put them in the siege spots by the hives so you get some warning, but remember don’t rely on OCs to do the scouting for you, its more of a back up plan.
Also one last thing get the minimaps with the names on it, there is no reason not the have them and they help you learn maps better.
LazyEye
How many times has your hive been shotty rushed and you never saw it coming? Its probably the most painful thing to happen on the alien side.
Now skulks should be doing 2 things
A) Scouting
B) Killing marine res nodes
If you are not doing B you should be doing A.
Now this might be kind of hard to explain and you just learn it by thinking a cretin way. In a perfect game, the aliens will always know where the marines at located on the map, now we know we can never have a perfect game so lets find ways of “guessing” where the marines are on the map, here are some key points of guessing where the marines are:
Use your minimap (default C), I press my minimap key constantly to see what we control, where my teammates are, and where I think the marines are going to go next. If you hit C and see no one in one of your hives that you control it would be a good idea to go there and check it out. If you have 3 skulks in one area and haven’t heard any marines or don’t know where any are, you need to move to another area and find the marines, skulks should only be ambushing a location if they know marines are going to pass by soon.
Parasite, Parasite, Parasite. This ability can never be use enough, when you are skulking, take it slow, parasite marines and call for back up. You are doing no good if you just rush in at 3 marines and die with out parasiting any of them( I see this all the time). If you have 3 sensorys then use sent of fear! And alert your team of where the marines are and how many there are. Say to your team what weapons the marines have, this is VERY important, 3 shottys can down a fade in less than 1 second, shottys and hmgs are very deadly to a fade who is not expecting them.
Remember prevention is the key to the alien game, if you know the marines are coming to your hive you can set up a defense to stop them rather than every one just bum rushing into the hive when the marines already have 5 shottys in there. After you stop a rush on your hive because of good scouting hit the marines res towers or base it’s the perfect time because the comm. is **** off because his 100 res rush just failed.
If you are out of res don’t stay on gorge, a gorge can not scout, the only time you should be gorge with no res is if you were already gorge when the marines are attacking the hive so you can heal it. If you have spare res, the next best thing to scouting as skulk is OCs DON’T put OCs in the hive room, that is a waste, put them in the siege spots by the hives so you get some warning, but remember don’t rely on OCs to do the scouting for you, its more of a back up plan.
Also one last thing get the minimaps with the names on it, there is no reason not the have them and they help you learn maps better.
LazyEye
Comments
Skulk is a class for which looking at the players total score actually determines if he did his job well or not. Skulks are there for one reason most of the game: chewing rts. In about 90% of the cases avoiding marines, after parasiting/telling your teammates of them, to go around them and chew the rts they just built is better than taking a chance and hoping to kill them.
When fades arrive you hopefully have a lerk. Let the fades and the lerk do the defending, and if you're the skulk: chew nodes. With fades on your team, defending your hive as a skulk may often be a bad idea. Nodes, nodes, nodes, nodes.
And again for good measures: skulk. + nodes. + chewing. == alien win.
Skulks are the lifeform most people will end up playing, and everyone has to be a skulk at some point in their NS career. Learning what skulks are good at and what skulks are not the best suited for is an important first lesson for anyone learning to play alien, since the skulk is alright at being a basic lifeform.
Skulks are generally the best lifeform available for taking out simple resource towers and marine buildings. They have the best damage/time ratio on their primary attack over a period of time, and only the mighty onos is better at breaking marine buildings. Skulks are also very speedy lifeforms, letting them cover more ground than gorges or onos, as well as being small and able to use the numerous vent systems, and being able to crawl on the walls and roof. This lets them go from the alien-controlled hive to the alien front line in very little time. This makes skulks ideal for quick reinforcement and as scouts for the alien team, and the wall-walking ability makes them supurb for ambushing, if you can get into a good position that the marines have no choice but to pass by, and if you are good at aiming your bites to make sure you don't miss any and blow your surprise. Skulks also are the only lifeforms which can parasite the enemy and his buildings. Parasite cannot be underestimated. The ability to put a wallhack on a marine absolutely destroys any chance of that marine going anywhere without the aliens being able to see exactly where. Marines can be quite sneaky, but as long as you're able to hit them with a parasite, their chances of taking you by surprise from then on are virtually zero. KEEP IN MIND HOWEVER that parasiting a marine will give away the fact that there IS a skulk nearby, with a direct line of sight. REMEMBER, if you can see them and parasite them, that means they may be able to see you and pistol you back. Five pistol hits and you die. Sometimes it may be more to your advantage if you don't parasite them, but use a microphone or chat text if you have the time to tell your friends where you see them. That way, you can maintain your stealth if they haven't seen or heard you. A parasited marine is a desperate and vigilant marine who will be watching his own back and fighting that much harder knowing he's marked for death. Silently crouch-dropping from the ceiling like a ninja can work a lot better if you haven't been noticed. But if they already know you're there, or you might die before you can kill them or run back to the hive to heal, it can't hurt to parasite. ALSO, parasite marine resource towers. Often, other skulks on your team will be looking for undefended marine RTs too, in different places. Parasiting an RT will make sure people at least have the chance to know it's there, and when the RT is gone so will the parasite. That way, if someone is coming to help you bite it, but they see it disappear halfway before they get there, they can go back to scouting and ambushing and looking for RTs. Yes, parasiting the RT means you have to wait for your energy to return, but unless the game is really really neck and neck, you can probably spare the time.
Essentially, scouting, ambushing, and looking for RTs to munch on are the skulks first and only duties.
What skulks aren't the best suited for is non-ambush attacking. Going head-on as a skulk puts your life in the hands of the enemy. Skulks are fast but fragile. 9 LMG bullets, 6 shotgun pellets(?), 5 pistol or HMG bullets, or 3 knife hits are enough to kill a default skulk. When the marines have weapon upgrades, it takes even less effort to kill a rushing skulk. Lone skulks simply cannot be expected to take down marines who are holding a position the smart way, hitting you from farther than you could ever hope to cross in time to kill them. In fact, without some finesse, even multiple skulks may not be able to root out a marine at the end of a long, straight hallway. He just has too much time to aim and shoot you all. If a marine is holding his ground, you can't really do much about it. Typically your only choices are to back off and try not to die while parasiting them before going back to the hive to heal, or prepare an ambush for them when they finally do decide to move forward. It's possible to bait a marine out of hiding if a gorge pretends to be all alone, but you're risking the gorge as well as yourself if the marine is able to see you hiding. Another thing skulks aren't the best suited for is fighting high level marine technology. This point should be obvious, but skulks die very easily to HMGs, jetpackers with any weapon and enough JP skill, grenades, minefields, and even upgraded LMGs. For most skulks there is just no possible way to combat a pack of heavy armored marines with big guns. Even a perfectly executed surprise ambush will not be enough to kill one, usually, unless they are really lousy shots, or you have a few skulks who pull the ambush at the same time and are able to concentrate on one marine out of the group to kill. This would be the ONLY way, and you still all end up being shot before you can go to another heavy or retreat. It can be done, but fades and onos with lerk umbra support to provide extra bulletproofing are better at fighting teched-up marines.
So there you have it. The skulk. Fast, sneaky, very quiet, but rather easily killed from a distance and less dangerous the more the marines upgrade. To really pwn as a skulk, you gotta learn exactly how far away you can be to still hit them with bite, probably how to bunnyhop for extra scouting speed, and you should try to learn the major locations on the map so you don't spend your time scouting somewhere that the marines couldn't possibly be at anyway. As a skulk, you should almost always be on the front lines, but you shouldn't be eager to run into a room and spill some blood. Patience and sneakyness are the skulk's best weapons, and used right, they're devastating to un-upgraded marines. Until the marines get armor upgrade level 1, it only takes two quick bites each to send them back to the respawn line, so if you want to be the best skulk you can, learn how to spend the first couple minutes of the game usefully, when skulks are still at their most deadly. See where the marines are trying to go, let your team know, wait for them to come right into your jaws before unleashing the fury, and ABOVE ALL:
NEVER MISS YOUR FIRST BITE. <!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo--> You may not get the chance for a second one.
1. Stay alive + parasite.
2. Unless certain conditions are met (such as your team building both dbl nodes on veil, and marines are doing a pincer attack for dbl straight away), exchanging your life for a marines is always favourable.
3. Eat RTs.
4. Attack fortified marine positions. This should never happen.
Priority list for mid-late game skulks:
1. Eat RTs
2. While running between rts, scout.
3. If they have no RTs you can eat, or the situation is especially dire or suitable, support the higher life forms in killing marines.
The life of a skulk is pretty boring after the first 1-2 minutes of the game.
The life of a skulk is pretty boring after the first 1-2 minutes of the game. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yup and beeing knowing and skilled eating RT`s is quite boring and vain. You could be there where the pg is put up or somewhere else, but no you are there biting the stupid rt which has hp over one energy bar. Beeing so temptive you should still never leave unguarded marine rt`s up it`s the fastest way of losing. Also as mentioned nothing beats parasite -nothing- cent of fear need so much teamwork due SC but parasite is easily landed anytime.
And swift good paraskulk will now that marine immediatly checks all popular hiding spots/high areas so getting 5 pistol hits is quite hard especially skulk backing away immediatly after succesfull hit
---> para from strange locations.
<!--emo&::skulk::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/skulk.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='skulk.gif' /><!--endemo-->
otherwise its <!--emo&::asrifle::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/asrifle.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='asrifle.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&::hive::--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/hive5.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='hive5.gif' /><!--endemo--> and your team will be f4ing. Also, KILL THEIR NODES. I can't believe how ignorant people are of taking rts down. I've been in games where we've gotten all three hives up and still lost because the marine team had half the nodes on the map. The comm was smart enough to save up for HA. Soon all our onos and fade succumbed to the mighty power of bullet spraysss, sieges, and random gl spams >8(.
So don't yell at the skulk who is across the map eating a marine RT, he's doing his job.