The Early Kharaa Build Order
6pt7
Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7836Members
Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7836Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Here's mine--what's yours?</div> Lately, I've found myself more fascinated with taking up the responsibilities of the portly Gorge than that of the harassing power of the Skulk in the very beginning of the game. This, I think, is one of the most critical parts of the game--a good start can mean Fade sieging all of the marines' outposts, or even the decimation of their base by Onos under 15 minutes.
Leading up to these conquests takes time, and most importantly, good economical planning in the early stages of the game. This, by no means, may not be the greatest way to go about building, so I encourage you to share your build orders as well. The premise of this build is to quickly acquire two hives and and ample amount of resources for you to keep up with marines toting shotguns and HMGs, establishing a quick Fade soldier base for them to keep expanding marines at bay until you have enough time to prepare the third hive.
Key:
Res = Resources (points)
OC = Offensive Chamber
DC = Defensive Chamber
1. The most important thing is to have 1 gorge per 4-5 players, with no more than 3 on a single team. I hate to go on in detail about the importance of having as little gorges as possible, but trust me--it's better this way. Order, not ask, your Skulks to harass the opposing team to ensure that they don't get an early lead in expanding resources. If your team works hastily enough, you may even score an early victory in taking out their entire base. Assuming we aren't, let's continue.
2. As a gorge, stay behind and scout for nearby resource nodes. Try not to linger near the marines' primary base; instead, find nearby ones that you can easily defend in tandem to your own hive. The first thing you should build is a second resource tower (the first already having been built in your primary hive). The second, another tower on a nearby node. From here, you have two options:
A. If the marines seem to be unobtrusive in your goals of expanding, build 1-2 more resource towers, if time and resources permit.
B. If the marines are advancing, this would be a great time to establish a primitive defense. Keep in mind that you don't have a whole lot of resources to work with. So if you're soloing the Gorge duties, spend your res wisely by placing a few OCs at choke points to maximize effectiveness. If you have another gorge helping you, they may spare their resources as well to help build some OCs to defend your towers.
3. At this point of time, your resource count will trickle in steadily, and you should consider expanding into a second hive. Ask your fellow Skulks about which hives are close by/unguarded, and head for it. Once you are there, if you have resources to spare, lay down an OC or two to give you some slight coverage while you wait for 80 res. Hopefully, your team can sustain attacking/defending for this critical stage in the game.
4. At 80 res, create that hive. The most important priority from this point on is to enforce the defenses in your hives and res towers. Holding this defense is important to your later success. If you don't have an assisting gorge by now, ask for one--have that gorge defend your first hive while you work on the second one.
5. Once the second hive is finished, notify your team to go fades (or lerks, if you want to umbra/rocket a marine expansion) while you use your newly acquired web ability to solidify your defenses. Webbing is God's gift to the gorge, use it well. Look around for additional, unclaimed expansions and secure those as well.
Now, you should have a solid defense set up with a good res flow coming to your team's way. The third hive should be one of your immediate goals, but crippling marine expansions is just as important; nothing disables marines more than having a poor commander unable to issue weapons to LMG-toting marines that can easily be killed in a blast or two of the fade's acid rocket.
This, I believe is a good way to start off an alien game. It may suck, who knows, but it has worked for me so far. Any of you guys have anything to add or share?
Leading up to these conquests takes time, and most importantly, good economical planning in the early stages of the game. This, by no means, may not be the greatest way to go about building, so I encourage you to share your build orders as well. The premise of this build is to quickly acquire two hives and and ample amount of resources for you to keep up with marines toting shotguns and HMGs, establishing a quick Fade soldier base for them to keep expanding marines at bay until you have enough time to prepare the third hive.
Key:
Res = Resources (points)
OC = Offensive Chamber
DC = Defensive Chamber
1. The most important thing is to have 1 gorge per 4-5 players, with no more than 3 on a single team. I hate to go on in detail about the importance of having as little gorges as possible, but trust me--it's better this way. Order, not ask, your Skulks to harass the opposing team to ensure that they don't get an early lead in expanding resources. If your team works hastily enough, you may even score an early victory in taking out their entire base. Assuming we aren't, let's continue.
2. As a gorge, stay behind and scout for nearby resource nodes. Try not to linger near the marines' primary base; instead, find nearby ones that you can easily defend in tandem to your own hive. The first thing you should build is a second resource tower (the first already having been built in your primary hive). The second, another tower on a nearby node. From here, you have two options:
A. If the marines seem to be unobtrusive in your goals of expanding, build 1-2 more resource towers, if time and resources permit.
B. If the marines are advancing, this would be a great time to establish a primitive defense. Keep in mind that you don't have a whole lot of resources to work with. So if you're soloing the Gorge duties, spend your res wisely by placing a few OCs at choke points to maximize effectiveness. If you have another gorge helping you, they may spare their resources as well to help build some OCs to defend your towers.
3. At this point of time, your resource count will trickle in steadily, and you should consider expanding into a second hive. Ask your fellow Skulks about which hives are close by/unguarded, and head for it. Once you are there, if you have resources to spare, lay down an OC or two to give you some slight coverage while you wait for 80 res. Hopefully, your team can sustain attacking/defending for this critical stage in the game.
4. At 80 res, create that hive. The most important priority from this point on is to enforce the defenses in your hives and res towers. Holding this defense is important to your later success. If you don't have an assisting gorge by now, ask for one--have that gorge defend your first hive while you work on the second one.
5. Once the second hive is finished, notify your team to go fades (or lerks, if you want to umbra/rocket a marine expansion) while you use your newly acquired web ability to solidify your defenses. Webbing is God's gift to the gorge, use it well. Look around for additional, unclaimed expansions and secure those as well.
Now, you should have a solid defense set up with a good res flow coming to your team's way. The third hive should be one of your immediate goals, but crippling marine expansions is just as important; nothing disables marines more than having a poor commander unable to issue weapons to LMG-toting marines that can easily be killed in a blast or two of the fade's acid rocket.
This, I believe is a good way to start off an alien game. It may suck, who knows, but it has worked for me so far. Any of you guys have anything to add or share?
Comments
also, i would focus on resource points much more heavily in the beginning. remember, any resource points you can get are resource points the marines cannot. and diverting men and funds into attacking your minibases is a royal pain for the comander. i would suggest holding off on the second hive untill respoints are all but taken, at that point, saving for the second (and third) hive, would be a snap. also, if youve got good skulks, dont even worry about defence untill your second two hives are building.
If the Marine team is capable on the other hand, you have to become very vigilant when securing nodes and having a couple "wingman" Skulks to be on the look out while you secure your first couple nodes, then usually you want to get some chambers up very quickly, if the Marine team has a good shot, you may want to get movement first with Celerity and Silence to throw them off their game. Or get Carapace with Defense Towers if the Skulks can get beat up a little bit.
A lot of the Gorges gameplay, however, is much like the Commander. You must adapt.
I see a lot of gorges building OC + DC outposts around resources that the marines would never ever reach. You only need to build OC + DC outposts at the nodes closest to the marine bases because they are the ones the marines see first. Don't worry about fortifying every single node in the beginning; its just a waste of resources. What this does is slow down the evolution process.
Ever notice sometimes during the end of the game you always have tons of resources to evolve to onos, and other times your lucky if you can go lerk because the resources are so scarce? It's depends on whether the gorges were diligent in finding all the resource nodes or if they spent most of their time building OC + DC outposts in places that were in no real danger.
Now that I think about it, building OCs/DCs at the very beginning of the game is very cumbersome; one pitiful OC defending a hallway isn't going to do much. So I think the topmost priority for the absolute beginning of the game should be saving up for res towers. Once that's out of the way, then defenses and a second hive should be up next.