Defense Towers First People
Barbarian
Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 6967Members
Join Date: 2002-11-05 Member: 6967Members
<div class="IPBDescription">stupid n00b gorges</div> Was just on a server, and some stupid first-time gorge built movement towers first, then sensory as soon as we got a second hive, leaving defense to wait for the third. As our defensive capabilities sucked, as soon as we got the third the enemy just waltzed into one of the first and took it out with no trouble, and we couldn't build defense towers anymore. This is something that could have been alleviated if DEFENSE TOWERS WERE BUILT FIRST.
I know it's been said numerous times, but if one more n00b gorge reads this...
Edit: Or even defense second, I don't care, but NOT THIRD
I know it's been said numerous times, but if one more n00b gorge reads this...
Edit: Or even defense second, I don't care, but NOT THIRD
Comments
I know it's been said numerous times, but if one more n00b gorge reads this...
Edit: Or even defense second, I don't care, but NOT THIRD<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, most of the time, it isn't a newbie that build sensory first. It's a guy who first joins aliens, evolves to gorge, builds sensory and then swaps to marines. Or a guy who really likes cloaking and only cares about getting it, no matter what it costs for the team. I know a few guys like that and will always quit the game straight if I see them on the server.
That said, if def chambers dont come first, they REALLY have to come second, as they are critical for the power of fades (either with carapace or regen).
Please also bear in mind that if you always build the same chambers and play the same way, you will ultimately become predictable and you don't want that to happen. If your enemy doesn't know which upgrades you'll get, and defenses you'll have, with the first or second hive, you have the initiative.
My final advice is to play with your team and bear with them. Maybe they are trying some new tactic or are just wanting a change of play style? Go with the flow and adapt.
But that presents another problem: adrenaline is pretty much a must for lerks and fades, neither are particularly powerful without it.
I like Movement over Defense because the Carapace and Regen evolutions don't benefit Skulks and Lerks as much as Celerity and Silence do.
Celerity as a skulk is also an amazingly effective upgrade. Who cares about getting health back when you move so fast that you never lose any? Seriously, skulks move like greased lightning with lvl 3 celerity behind them. Turrets and the associated factories fall with ease since you move faster than they can track you <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
edit: Just read cyanide's post, THANK YOU CYANIDE... finally a PT says what I've been trying to tell people. You can play well with ANY upgrade order, just flex your play style a bit...
Now, given, these marines weren't that great. I was routinely taking them out 2 or 3 at a time. But there's not a whole lot Carapace can do against 3 LMGs anyway. I would have much prefered Celerity or Silence so I could do my jobs of running across the map and ambushing people more effectively.
And then we went to a game on Hera. I kept a group of 3 marines out of Reception for the whole game. I hid on the roof, around the corner, all over the place. My Carapace saved me <i>once</i>. If I had Silence or Cloak my job there would have been much easier. Given, I would have needed a Gorge there to heal me every once in a while, but there was one there putting up OCs most of the time anyway.
A lerk with adren can keep umbra going non stop and even attack a bit. A fade with adren can actually keep attacking for some time.
A lerk with cloaking can...uhhh....sit in corners not too close to an observatory if the marine com isn't doing sensor sweeps. Cloaking for a fade is more useful due to their solo combat provess, but I'd prefer adrenaline ten times out of ten. Defense upgrades are decent (better than sensory IMO) but the tower is by far better than either movement or sensory and is essential in a static defense and extremely handy in offense.
As the sensory tower itself is useless (come on, make it parasite at range!), and the upgrades pretty weak compared to the other two towers, I fail to see a point in reserving sensory a spot anywhere except at the third hive.
Movement First-
Skulk:
With movement first you have many options. As a skulk, youll probably want either celerity or silence, adrenaline isnt really needed that badly for skulk unless you are a leaping machine. With celerity youll be able to close the distance with a marine EXTREMELY fast. That means less bullets if they see you before you can kill them. Not only that but it can make you able to get from point a to point b in amazing time. Definately good for keeping those hive locations clear and for getting to where the marines plan on expanding to quickly.
With Silence your just gonna be way more stealthy. A good marine will always be listening for those little skulk sounds that give you away. With silence you can be touching them and they wont even hear you. Although once you bite they will hear you this is great for being a super sneaky skulk.
Gorge:
With movement first you actually get a big advantage you probably didnt realize. You can heal almost twice as much! Get adrenaline and youll be a healing machine. Silence can also be useful if your gonna be sneaking past some marines but the buildings sounds usually give you a marine. Celerity doesnt help much either as getting you a little faster doesnt help much unless your gonna be running away a lot (which in early game you should try to avoid building near marines as it can cost to much if you lose anything).
Lerk:
Movement first offers you two good options. Adrenaline lets you sustain flight a whole lot longer and still have plenty of energy for shooting spikes and biting. Also silence lets you hide in those rafters twice as well and gives marines slightly harder time finding you. Celerity is in my opinion not very useful as with flight you can go insanely fast anyway
Sensory First:
There is pretty much 1 good early game sensory skill and that is cloaking. In early game this can be EXTREMELY powerful. you can sit right in front of there base cloaked and wait till a lone marine walks right past you and then kill them before they can even react. Marines trying to expand on you? No problem just cloak right by where there gonna be coming, parasite, then bite while there right beside you. Also, this makes hive locations very easy to defend because you can hide pretty much anywhere they might build at and take them out right away. A very good skill for early game for any of the 2 attackers due to its defending potential.
With gorge you actually get a pretty good abilitie with this and that is while your building your also invisible. This means that they might blow up your resource tower, but you might get lucky and they might not notice you. This saves you those vital early 13 resources.
Oh by the way, Rhoads,
<==== Got Milk? <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Every one has talked about the upgrades. Don't forget that a Defense Chamber is the backbone of any forward Kharaa base.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Unfortunately the upgrades is all they think of on the pub servers, which is why some people build defense towers last.
Offensive tower placement needs to change with your chamber order too.
For one thing, I'd be really happy to see the walls of lame blocking every corridor and doorway go, because they slow aliens down as much as they do marine. Sure, the walls of lame wont shoot us, but atleast a marine doesn't have to worry about spending 76 resources (Onos + 3 upgrades) only to find he can't even make it out of his spawn area because there are walls of lame from the floor to the ceiling of the two walkable entrances, and the movement chambers don't seem to work for some reason (hint: try ducking before using a movement chamber or jumping a short wall of lame, but not many people know that).
Let's say we grabbed movement or sensory chambers first, and you are a gorge on ns_eclipse. You can keep the lmg only marines out of the left side of the map with a little brains (their left, coming out of the spawn). Stack two offensive chambers hard up against that wall in that dark area before Primary Access Corridor 1A (go left out of the marine spawn, take first right). You want the marine to have to come as far around the corner as possible before the chambers start firing, or the marines realise they are there. Place a few webs down so that the marines will run straight into them just in time for the offensive chambers to start firing. Place about 8 or 9 webs down, on the floor. You want 3 separate lines of webbing (so that one marine walks into the first 3, the 2nd marine runs into the next 3 and so on). Now do the same sort of thing at horseshoe resource node, except you can afford to possible put down a few more offensive chambers because there is a lot more room to play with and stealth is not an issue. What ever you do, try to stack them as high as possible, because the whole idea is to get as much fire power concentrated on one marine as possible once he gets webbed. One turret firing alone is useless if there are another 5 around the corner doing nothing. Do the same trick with webbing and you are away. Feel free to claim the Horseshoe and and South Loop Resource nodes, and encourage the other gorge on your team to take the Maintenance Access Hive next if you dont already have it.
Stay near your two traps, as they will be good to ambush 2 or 3 marines all at once, and you will want to be there when it happens so you can provide some extra firepower with your spit, or some extra webbing to keep the marines unable to escape or return fire. Remember that webbing effects are cumulative, so the more webs a marine hits, the longer he stays disabled, and the slower he moves. A marine with 3 webs is almost completely paralised, while a marine with 1 web can make a get-a-away at crouching speeds (enough to get out of line of site of you chambers... BAD!).
As for your upgrades, if you have movement chambers, you can use celerity to take the back routes between traps quickly and make quick escapes when the marines finally overcome your traps. Perhaps you might want adrenaline to repair the OC's after each succesful ambush. If you have sensory chambers, grab cloak and sit up at the intersection outside the marine spawn exit, and when a group of marines walk past towards one of your traps, follow them (at a distance) so they have no options to escape (a slow-moving webbed marine who slowly manages to inch away from the chamber's line of sight will be no match for a gorge). If the marines are to spread apart, give them a single chuckle to make them all stop and look around. If one takes off by himself, give it another chuckle. It'll freak them out, because they wont know you are only a gorge. They'll eventually set off after getting bored, and they'll hopefully be close enough to each other that you can snare all of them before they know what has happened. (if you have 3 marines going together, your support will be vital, because two offense chambers by themselves wont kill them all before the webbing wears off).
If you have well enough placed webs, you can get foolish marines to try to run through again thinking the webs are still gone (OFCOURSE you replaced them, right?), and smart marines will know they can't get a shot in before getting stuck.
If they come along and weld the webs away, come behind them straight away and put them back. The next time those marines come through, they will believe the webs will (once again) not be there any more.
Webbing placed on the floor (ie you shoot it from point to point on the floor and not from wall to wall). Is incredibly hard to spot, even if someone is actively searching for it. (If they are within decloaking range of an observatory, they will be targetted with circles, but you shouldn't have to worry about that so far away from the base).
Neither Gorges or Skulks benefit from the D-towers enough to warrant them. They are part of forward bases, but forward bases are pretty non-existant at this point. Marines aren't going to go out that far from their base due to the lingering Skulk menace, and Skulk missions are either very successful or they earn you a free ticket back to the hive. No amount of Carapace or Regen will change that. Gorges aren't in combat, so the healing and upgrades D-towers provide go to waste.
Sensory can provide Adv. Hivesight, which isn't overly useful for the portion of the game we're in. Scent of Fear, which isn't useful, since hunting down that injured LMG Marine isn't a high priority and he should be parasited, right? And Cloaking. Cloaking is very useful for Skulks doing ambushes. It allows them to better get the drop on Marines. It's also good for Gorges who happen across Marines who like to wander. Hiding is good.
Movement. Movement offers Adrenaline, Celerity and Silence. Adrenaline has some use for Gorges with their healing spray, but offers nothing for Skulks. Silence isn't beneficial to Gorges, but makes ambushes much easier for Skulks, since many Marines rely on sound to detect them. Celerity benefits both of them quite a bit. Mobility is a key strength of Skulks and Celerity increases that significantly. It also allows our ponderous Gorges more mobility to both travel and escape.
But we also want to look to the future. Having 1 hive is a very temporary situation. The two hive Aliens are Lerks and Fades. Both of them are very dependent on their energy and Adrenaline is the most beneficial of the movement upgrades. But now we also have our warrior evolution, who unlike the three others, benefits a whole lot from D-Towers and their evolutions. Forward bases start springing up all over and D-Towers become very important.
That's why I'm a proponent of the Movement, Defense, Sensory path. Skulks and Gorges get their Speed/Silence with 1 hive and with 2, you already have the Adrenaline for Fades and Lerks.
I don't understand what people's obssession with Adren is. It's good, but not as useful as everyone makes out. You hear people whining "I won't be able to attack their base without adren" WHY!? If you stand in their base too long, you'll only get killed anyway. I thought the idea was hit & run, and if it is, then you don't need to be CONTINUOUSLY at max energy, because you're going to do the RUN bit soon, and regen it anyway.
Cloak is superior IMO, as it allow you once you've run, to hide until you are all ready to hit again. Whilst simultaneously (sp?) letting those Fades/Lerks/Skulks that aren't base hitting, to go kill some marines in relative safety.
Def -> Sen -> Mov. The way forward. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Get where you're going and change when you get there. It's faster and you won't waste resources if you're killed on the way. Why should the defence be compromised so someone can run the length of the map as Onos unnecessarily?
Sure,you could cloak and stay still long before a marine arrives, to avoid being detected.. but there's just too much time being wasted there. Any decent marine would notice your blue circle being quite large, near him, and would assume you simply stopped moving in the area.
Without adrenaline, i actually think the game seems more balanced. Once adrenaline is online, the Fades become god-like, thanks to the rockets. But also...without adrenaline, the Lerk is ENTIRELY a magic class.. and extremely boring to play, as all you do all game is Umbra for your teammates. You usually can't afford to Bite/Fly while Umbra-ing even. Sigh.
NS's "one chamber type per hive" thing was neat at first, but now I wish it had taken a more typical route.. ie you can build any chamber, at any time. It would certainly be nice to try it this way anyway. Make each chamber more expensive, or make them progressively expensive (Level 2 chamber... double... level 3.. triple..). Or maybe even weirder, 3 chambers per hive, but of any combination. ex: 2 D chambers, 1 M chamber. (yes the D Chamber thing would need changing then).
also..perhaps in clan play, alien teams are strategizing and having more efficient resource use by NOT going to level 3 right away... but in pub play, Level 3 is always there. If someone builds a chamber, anywhere, anytime.. they immediately build 2 more, right away. Besides the "spreading them out so it's harder to kill them" purpose... there's not really much reason for having Levels at all! May as well just have a single 60 rp chamber, with no levels.
Aliens just don't ever say "Just build 1.. or 2 of that chamber. Save the money for something else." No one sees a reason NOT to go to the highest level of what they have, right away.
It would be nice to see Level 1 or 2 attribs for longer than 2 minutes.. (or only when the Marines are blowing up your hives.. which usually signals defeat anyway)
Cloak is superior IMO, as it allow you once you've run, to hide until you are all ready to hit again. Whilst simultaneously (sp?) letting those Fades/Lerks/Skulks that aren't base hitting, to go kill some marines in relative safety.
Def -> Sen -> Mov. The way forward. <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I get killed much less with adrenaline than without it. Your post gives me the impression that attacking fades would stand in the middle of whatever outpost/base they're attacking? How stupid would that be? You hang around at the entrance, pick off single marines, run if they come in pairs or larger groups, spamming their buildings with acid rockets as much as possible. Your damage rate is pretty abysmal without adrenaline, 1.75(about) times the attacks per each run is MUCH better than being able to cloak in some corner while waiting for your energy to regen again(cloak doesn't work against smart commanders and/or smart marines anyway, and even the dumber marines should realize that "spludge, spludge" sound is coming from a cloaked alien unit nearby healing). But mostly I end up just doing dirty work as a fade, ie killing marine static defenses. No need for hit and run, just as much damage as fast as possible.
Neither lerks or skulks get much use out of cloak IMO, particularly later in the game neither can kill marines (who have HA and/or HMG), plus both can hide pretty effectively in most maps anyway.
Def --> Mov --> Sens or Mov --> Def --> Sens. The way to victory against the marine scum, maybe.
(If only the sensory chamber would even be useful, but no, it's the most useless of the 3 and the upgrades suck (for me). I see no point in placing it anywhere but last in the order of things).
For one thing, I'd be really happy to see the walls of lame blocking every corridor and doorway go, because they slow aliens down as much as they do marine. Sure, the walls of lame wont shoot us, but atleast a marine doesn't have to worry about spending 76 resources (Onos + 3 upgrades) only to find he can't even make it out of his spawn area because there are walls of lame from the floor to the ceiling of the two walkable entrances, and the movement chambers don't seem to work for some reason Let's say we grabbed movement or sensory chambers first, and you are a gorge on ns_eclipse. You can keep the lmg only marines out of the left side of the map with a little brains (their left, coming out of the spawn). Stack two offensive chambers hard up against that wall in that dark area before Primary Access Corridor 1A (go left out of the marine spawn, take first right). You want the marine to have to come as far around the corner as possible before the chambers start firing, or the marines realise they are there. Place a few webs down so that the marines will run straight into them just in time for the offensive chambers to start firing. Place about 8 or 9 webs down, on the floor. You want 3 separate lines of webbing (so that one marine walks into the first 3, the 2nd marine runs into the next 3 and so on). Now do the same sort of thing at horseshoe resource node, except you can afford to possible put down a few more offensive chambers because there is a lot more room to play with and stealth is not an issue. What ever you do, try to stack them as high as possible, because the whole idea is to get as much fire power concentrated on one marine as possible once he gets webbed. One turret firing alone is useless if there are another 5 around the corner doing nothing. Do the same trick with webbing and you are away. Feel free to claim the Horseshoe and and South Loop Resource nodes, and encourage the other gorge on your team to take the Maintenance Access Hive next if you dont already have it.
Stay near your two traps, as they will be good to ambush 2 or 3 marines all at once, and you will want to be there when it happens so you can provide some extra firepower with your spit, or some extra webbing to keep the marines unable to escape or return fire. Remember that webbing effects are cumulative, so the more webs a marine hits, the longer he stays disabled, and the slower he moves. A marine with 3 webs is almost completely paralised, while a marine with 1 web can make a get-a-away at crouching speeds (enough to get out of line of site of you chambers... BAD!).
As for your upgrades, if you have movement chambers, you can use celerity to take the back routes between traps quickly and make quick escapes when the marines finally overcome your traps. Perhaps you might want adrenaline to repair the OC's after each succesful ambush. If you have sensory chambers, grab cloak and sit up at the intersection outside the marine spawn exit, and when a group of marines walk past towards one of your traps, follow them (at a distance) so they have no options to escape (a slow-moving webbed marine who slowly manages to inch away from the chamber's line of sight will be no match for a gorge). If the marines are to spread apart, give them a single chuckle to make them all stop and look around. If one takes off by himself, give it another chuckle. It'll freak them out, because they wont know you are only a gorge. They'll eventually set off after getting bored, and they'll hopefully be close enough to each other that you can snare all of them before they know what has happened. (if you have 3 marines going together, your support will be vital, because two offense chambers by themselves wont kill them all before the webbing wears off).
If you have well enough placed webs, you can get foolish marines to try to run through again thinking the webs are still gone (OFCOURSE you replaced them, right?), and smart marines will know they can't get a shot in before getting stuck.
If they come along and weld the webs away, come behind them straight away and put them back. The next time those marines come through, they will believe the webs will (once again) not be there any more.
Webbing placed on the floor (ie you shoot it from point to point on the floor and not from wall to wall). Is incredibly hard to spot, even if someone is actively searching for it. (If they are within decloaking range of an observatory, they will be targetted with circles, but you shouldn't have to worry about that so far away from the base).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As the other guy said, don't evolve until you get closer to the action. defensive walls of lame are alot more important than your ability to evolve in the hive.
As for your strategy on Eclipse, you do realize that they can still get through by going through horseshoe? In fact, by the second hive (when you have web), any marines worth their salt already own horseshoe. And really the team can't afford a gorge to be spending all of his time tending one trap, which really doesn't cut off any portion of the map. if you wanted to block off the left side of the map, you'd have to do that area, PLUS own horseshoe.
The only time I, as a gorge, devote myself to an area like this in the early game is on BAST, at the Main Aft Junction. Here, a wall of lame at the rotating door behind marine base can cut off one of only 2 exits for the marines, plus it keeps that vent unwelded which leads right to the marine base. PLUS this serves as a defense for a node, and the engine room hive. <i>Plus</i> the Main Aft Junction allows me to exploit the seige cannon bug with the proper placement. (ie you can place chambers in such a way that they are invincible to seiges, which is important on this cramped map, where seige cannons are ridiculously overpowerd.
It helps to have established DC's since the beginning of the game, there will be a lot more around when you lose that third hive...