<!--QuoteBegin--Fossa+Nov 18 2002, 05:50 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Fossa @ Nov 18 2002, 05:50 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Gorges can speed build, NOT hard to throw up three sensory turrets in the first minute or so. And if you prevent them from even stepping foot outside they are NOT going to be getting a phase gate unless they want to warp from one end of their base to the other. Thats the whole point! You DONT LET THEM LEAVE.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
** be nice **
First off, unless you’re using the f4 bug, there is absolutely no way to put up 3 sensory chambers in the first minute of the game, especially if your skulks are all alive, which they would be if you had your way since you started that thread where you say to sit outside their spawn instead of rushing. That in and of itself should indicate the quality of the advice since about half the time the Kharaa either cripples the marines RP wise or straight out win with 2 waves of solid rushing. The simple trick to a successful rush is if you’re good at skulks, let two or three bad skulks go in first to let the marines empty their clips. Now you’re a skilled skulk in a room with a bunch of marines trying to change clips or pull out knives. If you’re a bad skulk, be one of the first three skulks into the room and make the marines empty their clips into you. It’s really not that complicated. All that aside, spending your RP to build 3 sensory towers will before you put up even a single resource tower is such unspeakably bad planning that I’d have to invent a new language to have words vile enough to adequately insult it.
Secondly, There is no way, <i>absolutely no way</i>, that if a team of six or seven decent marines wanted to leave their spawn and set up shop in one of your empty hives you could stop them, even with level 3 cloaking. First off, since marines have at least two separate exits from their spawn, you’ll have to split your forces to cover both exits. If you’ve followed the cunning strategy of leaving them alone until they’re ready to come out AND crippled your initial drive to cap resource nodes, they should have some upgrades and be able to scan for you while you’re still trying to build your second hive. Even without the upgrades or scanning, all they have to do is use bounding overwatch, come through entrances looking up ready to fire, and have one guy fire rounds into an area while the rest remain on guard and watch for green blood spray. Even if you manage to kill all but one of them before they reach the resource node or whatever, that’s enough. All he has to do is hold off some base skulks that can’t cloak (‘cause they’re moving) until reinforcements arrive, and since they usually have more spawn points, and their spawn is closer, guess who winds up with the numbers?
And that's the whole point. You DON'T GET A CHOICE ABOUT THEM LEAVING THEIR SPAWN UNLESS THEY'RE TOTAL NOOBLERS.
I don't know what sort of marine teams you've been playing against, but if they're any good at all and they want to leave, <i>they will.</i> No matter how good your ninja skulks are, no matter what upgrades you have, if they're working together and decent in combat you'll have an even battle <i>at best.</i>
Cloaking doesn't really help you against good marines; it has to be lvl 3 to be effective at all, they check corners and ceilings often, and even then the good ones will spray a few shots off and look for hits if they suspect an alien is lurking about, as is the case with your team of lurkers. So in the end, even assuming you somehow <i>start</i> with level 3 cloaking, this is how it'll play out:
Alien skulks take cloaking and take positions outside the marine base.
Marines build (uninterrupted - bad idea!) and head out.
Depending on the hearing the marines have, they'll either have heard the click of your little nails and will know to expect you, or will merely be cautious. They will <i>not</i> charge blindly down a hallway without glances up, into corners, behind them, etc.
In the best of circumstances, you'll catch half their group off guard and kill them. The remaining half takes down a couple of you before buying the farm as well. Against a coordinated, experienced group, you get massacred by their trailing guy whose entire <i>job</i> is to pick off skulk ambushes like the ones you describe. But let's say for the sake of argument it's the former...
Aliens resume their lurking positions and cloak, marines respawn.
Marines form back up, walk outside, and smear the lot of you across the room since they now know you're sitting there with cloaking and probably know exactly where to expect you. At the very least they're now firing test shots and looking for hits, so your cloaking keeps you hidden until they actually <i>hit.</i>
Congratulations, you've now wasted your upgrade chamber on your first initial contact only, and cannot put up an adequate defense to repel their attack on your 3rd hive location... then your 2nd. Then your last hive.
Sure, early cloaking works against lesser teams, but so do a wide variety of other strategies. What makes a strategy a <i>good</i> one is how it holds up against an equal- or greater-skilled team, not a lesser one.
As the skill level of marine teams increases, I think many will be changing their minds about the first upgrades.
Cloaking is nice, and fun, but I really don't think it is very helpful. And carapace helps, but I don't think it is the best choice.
Just last night I was in a game where every single time I came near the marine team, I was obliterated before I could do much. Why? Because they could hear me coming so easily. Carapace will not help you if the marines start firing at you before you can close on them.
I am really starting to think that Movement first is a much better solution. Silence and Celerity work much better, for me, when I am skulking in the early game. Carapace is nice, particularly against inexperienced or even average marine teams, but really good marines always hear you coming. And if you can take that advantage away using Silence, you are in a much better position. Same with Celerity. They will hear you coming, but you can close the gap fast enough to make up for it.
Of course, Movement first requires experienced skulks. "Noob skulks" would still do better with Carapace, but alpha skulks can be so effective with Movement early on. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin--HavoK+Nov 18 2002, 08:32 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (HavoK @ Nov 18 2002, 08:32 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Of course, Movement first requires experienced skulks. "Noob skulks" would still do better with Carapace, but alpha skulks can be so effective with Movement early on. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Doh, I'm writing about this in my mega-post. It's all true though.
Actually the thing that gets me killed with marines is their observatory. I'll hear a marine coming and hide way up in a dark corner where they can't even see me and they'll come into view and immeadiately shoot at my position. Why? Because theres a giant blue circle hula-hooping my body that neither cloak or silence can get rid of. Your upgrades can be compromised with a simple, cheap, quick-to-make observatory. Yet another reason why defensive chambers are better at the start.
<!--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-->"If you need to defend you havent been listening. with cloaking you can keep them from leaving their base. If they dont leave there is nothing to defend against. You are playing the game as marines rather than aliens. The only defense we need is a good offense. I say a GOOD offense. I dont mean rushing, I mean preventing them from expanding. See my other thread for details."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, the Kharaa game is 90% defense. It starts as a Position Defense, moves to a Nonlinear Area Defense, and then if things go well it shifts into a Mobile Defense/Counter-Attack and <i>then</i> shifts into an Offense only when you start attacking the marine spawn areas. Every single second before that is technically dedicated to denying territory to the marines. I use these terms in an actual tactical sense, not in the way they seem to be used when talking about team FPS' where anything involving killing stuff is considered "offense" and defense = camping. You get to go out, attack, and kill stuff in defense a defensive game too.
If your clan or the people you play with can win using Sensory as the first upgrade then hey, that's great - keep using it. The problem is, it doesn't really stand up as a long term tactic, and almost guarantees defeat in most pub games. First off, Stuff that works for a clan that is used to working together, is toward the higher end of the talent curve, and uses a practiced methodology is just not going to work on a pub server where anyone on the planet can show up and play however they feel like. You can argue that those people should learn new strategies, but the bottom line is they don't have too, usually don't want to, and will usually keep playing the way they're used to while they complain in the mike. Even the people willing to learn new tactics may simply lack the skill or knowledge to effectively use the subtle advantages that Scent of Fear or Advanced Hive Sight give, and after the second Cloak based bushwack, you're playing n00bler marines if it works again. In a pub game you've simply got to, <i>got to</i> plan and build for the Average Common Denominator. People here have been playing HL mods long enough to know how pub teams usually shape up: One or two 30/2 high scorers, one or two 0/15 n00blers and the rest are shades of in between. In any mod, it's those people in between that keep the boat afloat or make it sink. For the average player the entirely passive, non skill-dependant defensive upgrades work very for those players, in fact thay work well across the board for all player skill levels. A slightly less attractive alternative would be the movement upgrades. Adrenaline requires no real talent to use and allows slightly faster demolition of marine structures since you won't have to rest as long between bites, but that's it as far as skulks go. Celerity gives n00blers a shorter wait between deaths, but in the hands of even a moderately skilled player level 3 celerity is nasty. Skilled players with it can circle strafe whatever they feel like and quasi-bunnyhop to avoid fire during an attack. For some reason marines have a really hard time hitting stuff that's jumping and drifting off to one side while it's coming at their head. Leaving silence for last, in my opinion it’s far more important for catching marines off guard than cloaking. I can’t think of a map that doesn’t have tons of places for a skulk to hide and wait for marines to come by. There are so many good hiding spots in fact, that the real problem isn’t being seen, it’s being heard coming up behind people.
As far as what chamber to build first, it’s really a moot point. If you have a halfway competent gorge/gorges, he’ll/they’ll be out capping resource towers and starting your second hive before he starts on upgrade chambers. The first ten minutes or so of a round, skulks have a pretty distinct advantage over base marines and don’t really need <i>any</i> upgrades to hold off the marines long enough to get a second hive up and cap most of the resources. AS long as they’ve concentrated on that, you should be getting two types of upgrades about the same time. As useful as sensory upgrades <i>can</i> be, they’re simply not as important as Defense or Movement upgrades, nor will they provide a tangible benefit to all team members regardless of skill level. Movement and Defense chambers are virtually required if you need to take back a hive or mount a credible offensive. A strategy that counts on 100% containment of marines is a strategy that will get you rolled over, and you’ll be missing a key element that will mean drastically reduced durability of your troops and structures or drastically reduced firepower and ability to respond to threats across the map.
<!--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-->"Gorges heal faster than def chambers, cost less, and if they're cloaked the marines will never find them." <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A gorge that spends the early game hanging around the front waiting to heal cloaked skulks is definitely not doing his job as a gorge, and will most likely end up costing the Kharaa team the round. As far as being cheaper, the points that a gorge takes and holds doing nothing but healing sill <i>far</i> outstrip what he would spent if he plopped down <i>6</i> defense chambers and then went about his proper business. The team is far, far better served if he would toss down a couple defense chambers around the corner for people to retreat to so he can go off and cap resources or build a hive. Regeneration is even cheaper still, allows individual players to heal as needed wherever they are, and it doesn't tie up a resource point gulping gorge to wait around for the skulks to inevitably all die so he can get killed holding a truckload of resource point and loose them all. Regeneration requires defense chambers to be built as well. Counting on a gorge to be handy as a frontline healer in the early game is pure and utter folly.
I've seen sensory chamber first put to insanely good use in several game. Yes, we had observatory and everything, but the Skulks werent stupid enough to hide right outside our base within sensor range, they hid a distance outside, guarding the spots where we'd want to siege their hive... every time we wandered there, all of us would die. Its impossible to shoot a skulk before he kills you if he attacks from behind; in contrast, a Carapace upgraded skulk just dies in one second instead of half a second.
It really depends on map design. On maps where there are chokepoints that marines have to pass through and are far enough from the main base that observatory can't detect you, (bast and nancy are good for this, hera is somewhat less good but still okay) cloaking is just insanely ridiculously good. It can keep your whole team contained or even semi-contained, and meanwhile the aliens are building up 3 hives.
Why worry that you cant get movement with 2 hives when you could get 3 hives instead?
<!--QuoteBegin--HavoK+Nov 18 2002, 01:32 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (HavoK @ Nov 18 2002, 01:32 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Of course, Movement first requires experienced skulks. "Noob skulks" would still do better with Carapace, but alpha skulks can be so effective with Movement early on. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo--><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I wouldn?t say that. Defense and movement upgrades are equally effective IMO, but the defense chambers themselves are better than movement chambers (especially with only one hive). With carapace you don't really even have to ambush, you can just run in and kill them, which makes you much better against groups of offensive marines, you don?t wait for them, of course you still come around from behind but you can really stay on the move with carapace and if you get caught off guard you?ll be able to take enough damage to take out a few at least, and it also gives you the extra boost you need to sometimes take out single HA marines if you see any around (but mostly only nade/lmg ones). If there?s a fight going on and you go around and come up from behind, with them building or shooting, they aren?t going to hear you much anyways.
Carapace buys you time in combat, sensory helps you ambush better, something you can already do. Movement helps a lot, but then you get no good forward bases, movement chambers come into play when the second hive goes up, when you need to be able to quickly transport between them to stop attacks (although I?d rather come up from behind unless the hive is actually taking damage already). When you cloak/ambush you?re locked in position, unable to check other areas, when you patrol you have a much better chance of finding them before they get to their destination, unless you have them locked in base of course, but that won?t happen much in the early game unless you?re facing a pretty bad team.
When the second hive goes up, I just get adrenaline to leap around the map almost as fast as you would with celerity. But only do that if you intend to go fade, so you?ll already have the adren you need to be an effective fade, and won?t need to go die or something to get rid of another movement upgrade.
Of course, the fastest way to a second hive is to have one gorge build 3 towers and save for a hive, that way there?s no dividing of RP once the skulks max and everything goes to that one gorg. This way you get defense and movement up within a few mins of each other, and both of them come much earlier than in most pubs. But you really can?t expect people to do that in pubs. So since you?re going to be stuck with one hive for a while it?s best to get the one that gives the most advantages, a few defs near an occupied hive with a lerk firing in at the turrets can help a great deal, or if there?s no marines there, a skulk rushing in to take a few bites at the tfac before healing and repeating can make a lot of difference in keeping the marines from holding on to anything for long.
Boddo, if you have observatory and are still getting ambushed, vote the commander out.
Observatories are _cheap, scanning is _cheap. That commander should have been overwatching the approach route as your task group advanced, scanning as you went, to reveal cloaked/concealed aliens.
Observatory range is _extensive, normally one in the main base is enough to scan the entire map. If the hives don't show up on the motion tracking (look for a motionless blue circle that never vanishes, that one is a hive) then simply drop another observatory in a forward base.
OK the the main reason I've seen supporting the Sensory first line of thought focuses around the early game and is "the marines can't see you that way. You can hide outside of their base and eat them, and they won't know you are there until its took late." So for right now I'll ignore motion sensors which, like previously stated, make ambushing marines much harder. My only response to this is: you need to learn better skulk tactics. If you need cloak to surprise marines, I'm sorry. If you cannot adiquatly use the walls, ceilings, and corners to ambush them, then your cloak is more of a crutch to fix a defectiveness in your playing style.
People have said "with cloaking you can hide outside their base, and keep them from expanding!", and to this is say "Wow, the marines you play against really suck." Any marine worth their bullets, is doing very few things very early game, and one of them (again unless they are dumb) involves running alone out into the waiting/incoming tide of death. They are building their base, or moving in mass to establish a secondary base. Any non-noob are moving in groups, and while some skulks can take down a squad on their own, few can truely do it with any regularity. As I think it was Catgirl that said it, though if I'm mis-attributing the quote I'm sorry, Marines that want to leave their base will. Frankly one or two cloaked skulk won't stop them.
Secondly if you are waiting outside their base for them to come out you are wasting time attacking the marines while they are their most vulnerable, pre-turrets etc.
I personally choose DCs first not really for the upgrades, though those are very usefull, but to establish defenses that are self sustaining. Until mid game Marines have a hard time dealing with any offensive chamber instillation that is backed with defensive turrets. Many good marines with pull up defenses on their main, then push for a hive location and lock it down. If you've covered that natural expansion hive for marines (for the non-WC3 people, that would be the hive location closest to marine spawn) with even light defenses it will keep the marines pinned down long enough to get help there, if it isn't there already.
holy long posts batman! I'll keep this as short as I can.
I like defense chambers first, because I'm usually a gorge and like setting up good defenses for the hives and resource nodes. You gotta have defense chambers to heal the offense chambers if you want ANY sort of defense to last. The offense chambers fire slow gobs of spit and its pretty easy to dodge. A good marine can take out any offense chamber. Defense chambers heal your chambers, your teammates, and I always throw one or two under the hive to help that out too, should it be attacked.
I like movement chambers first, because.. how was it put? A lerk with celerity is like trying to hit a hummingbird with a bat. You can SERIOUSLY annoy the marines, not even attacking them, just running around, like with a fast skulk, annoying them. Chomp here, chomp there, they can't even hit you, its so hard to aim. They don't expand or build because they're spending so much damn time trying to hit you and your friends. Meanwhile, the gorges expand ever onward...
I like sensory chambers first, because it allows the ninja skulk to get into their base. It allows a lone skulk to cloak, fire a parasite at that marine who just spawned in, and recloak one second later. Sure maybe a turret will fire at you at first, but how often do marines look at where the turret is firing? Most of them assume its an entryway. And it's invaluable to know where all marines are, early game. Let the commander place a resource node. Send in the skulks to waste that 22 RP. It makes the marines hurt early game, the aliens knowing where they are.
Oh and sorry, I hate caps or using "l337 chat" but I had to make my point here, I'm sick of ppl saying you can ambush them and prevent them from leaving base while all it takes is one scanner sweep (if the observatory wasnt close enough to prevent cloak to begin with). Yes I know scanner sweep is generally under used, but it rocks, when I'm comm I use it often to scout for my marines and cloaked aliens will soon learn to regret that sensory chamber first.
Mr. Fruitypants, awesome post dude! Tons of good points and lots of good info to back yourself up... just last night I was on a map, ns_bast I believe, anyways some idiot Gorge plopped down a Sensory chamber... it kinda went down hill from there. We then somehow got a 2nd hive up with 4 gorges, the whole time I am asking everyone but 2 gorges to go skulks... it turned out nasty, we got our butts kick hard, cloaking will only go so far early game, especially against well organized marines
***this is a quote by me, from one of the other 7654398543 upgrade order posts I read....seemed apropriate here***
I can see any order as being a damn good strategy(Im so happy the dev team actually made a game that involves teamplay and strategy:) ) for a clan match. On public servers...DEFENSE FIRST!!!! In a clan game everyone is on the same page...attacks are tactical and orchestrated, a plan has already been layed out. Any order of upgrades can be succesful in the hands of a higly organized team. This NEVER happens on public servers. When I come into a 1 hive game thats been going on for 5 mins and I see anything but the defense icon next to the hive...I leave instantly(suprisingly Ive been in games where the gorges dont build any upgrades in those first 5 mins!?!) Too many noobs and frag **obscenity** and rushers and campers and teamplayers and lone rangers ect...to organise such strategies. The safest bet on public servers is Def>Move>sense.
Id just like to add, that motion tracking has never workedon my screen. Maybe its gf4 or somthing, but the only blue circles i ever see, are buildings and hives. I have never seen at all, a blue circle running around on a wall. Also, on really laggy servers, the circles can get stuck there, just like waypoint icons.
Personally, in all the games i have ever played, being cloacked as a fade and hiding, still works, right up to the end. Even when you know that marine has every single weapon and armor upgrade, so why shouldn't he have the motion tracking?
Here comes my 2c, which nobody's going to bother to read. Most of this has been said already, but nevertheless...
I am a strong advocate of def, move, sens. It is extremely hard to win with sens first. Note: extremely hard, not impossible. I've just finished playing a game which dragged out some three hours (one hell of a match <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->) in which we won, and had sens first. It was very hard, and we pushed through to the second hive by no virtue of cloaking.
The reason for def and movement first are because of fades. That's really all there is to it. Fades HAVE to have carapace, and adrenaline\celerity (personally I use celerity, but it's a matter of personal preference).
Ok, cloaking fans? Yes, it's nice. But the damage a skilled fighter can do without cloak is immense anyway. Personally, I don't care if my enemy can see me coming - it isn't going to help him. Further, if you're at the pitched battle stage in, say, Hera and you're trying to retake the Holoroom using skulks, cloaking will do sweet bugger all to help your skulks take out the turret factories. I'm sorry, but if you need cloaking to net kills then you badly need to brush up on your melee combat.
Also, def towers are obviously essential to protect offense chambers and resource chambers. There's also the fact that l3 carapace actually doubles the average lifespan of a skulk. It is NOT useless. It is useless if you think carapace is designed to let you charge machineguns head on (in which case you're a little... confused <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->). Besides, I've made attacks on a TF with a skulk, taken a few hits, ran back to defense chambers to regen and gone again instead of having to wait to respawn. Skulks aren't quite as fragile as most people believe.
I'd like to add, IF a gorge on your team builds sensory first, and your one of the people who thinks sensory should be last...please don't whine and complain for 10 minutes about what an idiot he is, and how your hopeless now and might as well all go to the ready room and restart. I played with someone like that today who eventually got all but 3 of us to go to the ready room and then flipped because we wouldn't go.
I find it amusing that while "everybody" says defense should be first, "everybody" also says you shouldn't start building until later in the game. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Personally, I would take movement first. Silent skulks are a wonderful thing, and something an observatory or motion track can't eliminate. Sure, there's motion track, but marines cannot look in every direction at once. Marines CAN hear in every direction at once, and that claw tap is the #1 warning sign for any marine.
And you can say 'well the comm can notice you' all you want, if the comm sees you and notifies his troops before you attack, you're either doing something wrong or the comm is omnipotent.
Side note: A camping skulk is a skulk that could be patrolling territory. Camping is the early game is IMHO, totally retarded. While you can fart around above resource nodes all you want, someone always wants to be Rambo and is scoping out your territory while you stare at a geyser.
My experience today isn't what should go first, but what should not go second... sensory...
The game I was in today they got carapace first, then sensory.. and while cloaking may be great at the start of a game, it does not help much when the marines have HA.. about the time the aliens get that second hive. At the start cloaking will help a skulk ambush a LA marines, but they need more against HA.. Adrenaline for the Lerks and Fades is much better in that situation.
You could forgo defense for last, but that would spark a whole new debate.
So I'd say sensory first or last depending on play style, but 2nd - not so good.
first of all it give an immediate 20 point boost to armor.. second it gives 20% damage reduction per level
a skulk takes 60 points to kill, 10 armor 50 health, a skulk with level 3 carapace takes 80 points, plus is only taking 40% of normal damage.. thats a serious benefit, and when i take carapace i can certainly tell that im living longer.
Inexorable: A cloaked Fade would have done better 1 on 1 against the HA/HMGs, but in this game they were organized and were never alone much. IMO, for what it's worth, Fades with Adrenaline with Umbra backup would have been better.. But without Adren, Umbra isn't nearly that easy to keep steady, and a lerk can't do anything else but. And flying/shooting is very tough for the lerk with no adren.
It seems sensory is good first for early tactics to contain the marines, so I can see taking sensory first or last.... but strategicaly 2nd seems much less useful to me.
Defensive chambers allow for those wonderful Walls of Lame, defend forward bases, and allow quick healing for nonstop harassment. It's also lovely for making turret pushes deep into Marine territory.
Movement allows for that important Adrenaline for Lerks/Fades. A Lerk popping a constant Umbra field and a Fade that just won't stop Slashing inside it are a deadly duo.
Finally, Sensory last. In the endgame, SoF is useful to hunt down expansions as fleeing Marines trundle off to them. And as mentioned before - Observatory "pwnz0rz" Cloak. Any Commander worth his chair will be Scanning the area where his group is walking.
I agree that movement should be second. But defense are so damned worthless now that they randomly heal three buildings. Walls of lame were never possible either. It was a bugged seige that did it not allot of defense towers so they dont really help there either. Would you people try playing S>M>D just once?
Maybe they've played S. Or S>M. But I doubt they've either lived long enough or taken long enough to ever get to the "D" part.
As it is, 90% of the time we don't even get to the third Hive playing D>M>S. Never need it. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
When I die, spawn, and re-upgrade (pre-1.02) I'd always not evolve Cloak until after I started attacking, so that I could get a free heal out of it...never actually needed it. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
** be nice **
First off, unless you’re using the f4 bug, there is absolutely no way to put up 3 sensory chambers in the first minute of the game, especially if your skulks are all alive, which they would be if you had your way since you started that thread where you say to sit outside their spawn instead of rushing. That in and of itself should indicate the quality of the advice since about half the time the Kharaa either cripples the marines RP wise or straight out win with 2 waves of solid rushing. The simple trick to a successful rush is if you’re good at skulks, let two or three bad skulks go in first to let the marines empty their clips. Now you’re a skilled skulk in a room with a bunch of marines trying to change clips or pull out knives. If you’re a bad skulk, be one of the first three skulks into the room and make the marines empty their clips into you. It’s really not that complicated. All that aside, spending your RP to build 3 sensory towers will before you put up even a single resource tower is such unspeakably bad planning that I’d have to invent a new language to have words vile enough to adequately insult it.
Secondly, There is no way, <i>absolutely no way</i>, that if a team of six or seven decent marines wanted to leave their spawn and set up shop in one of your empty hives you could stop them, even with level 3 cloaking. First off, since marines have at least two separate exits from their spawn, you’ll have to split your forces to cover both exits. If you’ve followed the cunning strategy of leaving them alone until they’re ready to come out AND crippled your initial drive to cap resource nodes, they should have some upgrades and be able to scan for you while you’re still trying to build your second hive. Even without the upgrades or scanning, all they have to do is use bounding overwatch, come through entrances looking up ready to fire, and have one guy fire rounds into an area while the rest remain on guard and watch for green blood spray. Even if you manage to kill all but one of them before they reach the resource node or whatever, that’s enough. All he has to do is hold off some base skulks that can’t cloak (‘cause they’re moving) until reinforcements arrive, and since they usually have more spawn points, and their spawn is closer, guess who winds up with the numbers?
And that's the whole point. You DON'T GET A CHOICE ABOUT THEM LEAVING THEIR SPAWN UNLESS THEY'RE TOTAL NOOBLERS.
Cloaking doesn't really help you against good marines; it has to be lvl 3 to be effective at all, they check corners and ceilings often, and even then the good ones will spray a few shots off and look for hits if they suspect an alien is lurking about, as is the case with your team of lurkers. So in the end, even assuming you somehow <i>start</i> with level 3 cloaking, this is how it'll play out:
Alien skulks take cloaking and take positions outside the marine base.
Marines build (uninterrupted - bad idea!) and head out.
Depending on the hearing the marines have, they'll either have heard the click of your little nails and will know to expect you, or will merely be cautious. They will <i>not</i> charge blindly down a hallway without glances up, into corners, behind them, etc.
In the best of circumstances, you'll catch half their group off guard and kill them. The remaining half takes down a couple of you before buying the farm as well. Against a coordinated, experienced group, you get massacred by their trailing guy whose entire <i>job</i> is to pick off skulk ambushes like the ones you describe. But let's say for the sake of argument it's the former...
Aliens resume their lurking positions and cloak, marines respawn.
Marines form back up, walk outside, and smear the lot of you across the room since they now know you're sitting there with cloaking and probably know exactly where to expect you. At the very least they're now firing test shots and looking for hits, so your cloaking keeps you hidden until they actually <i>hit.</i>
Congratulations, you've now wasted your upgrade chamber on your first initial contact only, and cannot put up an adequate defense to repel their attack on your 3rd hive location... then your 2nd. Then your last hive.
Sure, early cloaking works against lesser teams, but so do a wide variety of other strategies. What makes a strategy a <i>good</i> one is how it holds up against an equal- or greater-skilled team, not a lesser one.
Cloaking is nice, and fun, but I really don't think it is very helpful. And carapace helps, but I don't think it is the best choice.
Just last night I was in a game where every single time I came near the marine team, I was obliterated before I could do much. Why? Because they could hear me coming so easily. Carapace will not help you if the marines start firing at you before you can close on them.
I am really starting to think that Movement first is a much better solution. Silence and Celerity work much better, for me, when I am skulking in the early game. Carapace is nice, particularly against inexperienced or even average marine teams, but really good marines always hear you coming. And if you can take that advantage away using Silence, you are in a much better position. Same with Celerity. They will hear you coming, but you can close the gap fast enough to make up for it.
Of course, Movement first requires experienced skulks. "Noob skulks" would still do better with Carapace, but alpha skulks can be so effective with Movement early on. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
Doh, I'm writing about this in my mega-post. It's all true though.
Actually, the Kharaa game is 90% defense. It starts as a Position Defense, moves to a Nonlinear Area Defense, and then if things go well it shifts into a Mobile Defense/Counter-Attack and <i>then</i> shifts into an Offense only when you start attacking the marine spawn areas. Every single second before that is technically dedicated to denying territory to the marines. I use these terms in an actual tactical sense, not in the way they seem to be used when talking about team FPS' where anything involving killing stuff is considered "offense" and defense = camping. You get to go out, attack, and kill stuff in defense a defensive game too.
If your clan or the people you play with can win using Sensory as the first upgrade then hey, that's great - keep using it. The problem is, it doesn't really stand up as a long term tactic, and almost guarantees defeat in most pub games. First off, Stuff that works for a clan that is used to working together, is toward the higher end of the talent curve, and uses a practiced methodology is just not going to work on a pub server where anyone on the planet can show up and play however they feel like. You can argue that those people should learn new strategies, but the bottom line is they don't have too, usually don't want to, and will usually keep playing the way they're used to while they complain in the mike. Even the people willing to learn new tactics may simply lack the skill or knowledge to effectively use the subtle advantages that Scent of Fear or Advanced Hive Sight give, and after the second Cloak based bushwack, you're playing n00bler marines if it works again. In a pub game you've simply got to, <i>got to</i> plan and build for the Average Common Denominator. People here have been playing HL mods long enough to know how pub teams usually shape up: One or two 30/2 high scorers, one or two 0/15 n00blers and the rest are shades of in between. In any mod, it's those people in between that keep the boat afloat or make it sink. For the average player the entirely passive, non skill-dependant defensive upgrades work very for those players, in fact thay work well across the board for all player skill levels. A slightly less attractive alternative would be the movement upgrades. Adrenaline requires no real talent to use and allows slightly faster demolition of marine structures since you won't have to rest as long between bites, but that's it as far as skulks go. Celerity gives n00blers a shorter wait between deaths, but in the hands of even a moderately skilled player level 3 celerity is nasty. Skilled players with it can circle strafe whatever they feel like and quasi-bunnyhop to avoid fire during an attack. For some reason marines have a really hard time hitting stuff that's jumping and drifting off to one side while it's coming at their head. Leaving silence for last, in my opinion it’s far more important for catching marines off guard than cloaking. I can’t think of a map that doesn’t have tons of places for a skulk to hide and wait for marines to come by. There are so many good hiding spots in fact, that the real problem isn’t being seen, it’s being heard coming up behind people.
As far as what chamber to build first, it’s really a moot point. If you have a halfway competent gorge/gorges, he’ll/they’ll be out capping resource towers and starting your second hive before he starts on upgrade chambers. The first ten minutes or so of a round, skulks have a pretty distinct advantage over base marines and don’t really need <i>any</i> upgrades to hold off the marines long enough to get a second hive up and cap most of the resources. AS long as they’ve concentrated on that, you should be getting two types of upgrades about the same time. As useful as sensory upgrades <i>can</i> be, they’re simply not as important as Defense or Movement upgrades, nor will they provide a tangible benefit to all team members regardless of skill level. Movement and Defense chambers are virtually required if you need to take back a hive or mount a credible offensive. A strategy that counts on 100% containment of marines is a strategy that will get you rolled over, and you’ll be missing a key element that will mean drastically reduced durability of your troops and structures or drastically reduced firepower and ability to respond to threats across the map.
<!--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-->"Gorges heal faster than def chambers, cost less, and if they're cloaked the marines will never find them." <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A gorge that spends the early game hanging around the front waiting to heal cloaked skulks is definitely not doing his job as a gorge, and will most likely end up costing the Kharaa team the round. As far as being cheaper, the points that a gorge takes and holds doing nothing but healing sill <i>far</i> outstrip what he would spent if he plopped down <i>6</i> defense chambers and then went about his proper business. The team is far, far better served if he would toss down a couple defense chambers around the corner for people to retreat to so he can go off and cap resources or build a hive. Regeneration is even cheaper still, allows individual players to heal as needed wherever they are, and it doesn't tie up a resource point gulping gorge to wait around for the skulks to inevitably all die so he can get killed holding a truckload of resource point and loose them all. Regeneration requires defense chambers to be built as well. Counting on a gorge to be handy as a frontline healer in the early game is pure and utter folly.
It really depends on map design. On maps where there are chokepoints that marines have to pass through and are far enough from the main base that observatory can't detect you, (bast and nancy are good for this, hera is somewhat less good but still okay) cloaking is just insanely ridiculously good. It can keep your whole team contained or even semi-contained, and meanwhile the aliens are building up 3 hives.
Why worry that you cant get movement with 2 hives when you could get 3 hives instead?
I wouldn?t say that. Defense and movement upgrades are equally effective IMO, but the defense chambers themselves are better than movement chambers (especially with only one hive). With carapace you don't really even have to ambush, you can just run in and kill them, which makes you much better against groups of offensive marines, you don?t wait for them, of course you still come around from behind but you can really stay on the move with carapace and if you get caught off guard you?ll be able to take enough damage to take out a few at least, and it also gives you the extra boost you need to sometimes take out single HA marines if you see any around (but mostly only nade/lmg ones). If there?s a fight going on and you go around and come up from behind, with them building or shooting, they aren?t going to hear you much anyways.
Carapace buys you time in combat, sensory helps you ambush better, something you can already do. Movement helps a lot, but then you get no good forward bases, movement chambers come into play when the second hive goes up, when you need to be able to quickly transport between them to stop attacks (although I?d rather come up from behind unless the hive is actually taking damage already). When you cloak/ambush you?re locked in position, unable to check other areas, when you patrol you have a much better chance of finding them before they get to their destination, unless you have them locked in base of course, but that won?t happen much in the early game unless you?re facing a pretty bad team.
When the second hive goes up, I just get adrenaline to leap around the map almost as fast as you would with celerity. But only do that if you intend to go fade, so you?ll already have the adren you need to be an effective fade, and won?t need to go die or something to get rid of another movement upgrade.
Of course, the fastest way to a second hive is to have one gorge build 3 towers and save for a hive, that way there?s no dividing of RP once the skulks max and everything goes to that one gorg. This way you get defense and movement up within a few mins of each other, and both of them come much earlier than in most pubs. But you really can?t expect people to do that in pubs. So since you?re going to be stuck with one hive for a while it?s best to get the one that gives the most advantages, a few defs near an occupied hive with a lerk firing in at the turrets can help a great deal, or if there?s no marines there, a skulk rushing in to take a few bites at the tfac before healing and repeating can make a lot of difference in keeping the marines from holding on to anything for long.
Observatories are _cheap, scanning is _cheap. That commander should have been overwatching the approach route as your task group advanced, scanning as you went, to reveal cloaked/concealed aliens.
Observatory range is _extensive, normally one in the main base is enough to scan the entire map. If the hives don't show up on the motion tracking (look for a motionless blue circle that never vanishes, that one is a hive) then simply drop another observatory in a forward base.
People have said "with cloaking you can hide outside their base, and keep them from expanding!", and to this is say "Wow, the marines you play against really suck." Any marine worth their bullets, is doing very few things very early game, and one of them (again unless they are dumb) involves running alone out into the waiting/incoming tide of death. They are building their base, or moving in mass to establish a secondary base. Any non-noob are moving in groups, and while some skulks can take down a squad on their own, few can truely do it with any regularity. As I think it was Catgirl that said it, though if I'm mis-attributing the quote I'm sorry, Marines that want to leave their base will. Frankly one or two cloaked skulk won't stop them.
Secondly if you are waiting outside their base for them to come out you are wasting time attacking the marines while they are their most vulnerable, pre-turrets etc.
I personally choose DCs first not really for the upgrades, though those are very usefull, but to establish defenses that are self sustaining. Until mid game Marines have a hard time dealing with any offensive chamber instillation that is backed with defensive turrets. Many good marines with pull up defenses on their main, then push for a hive location and lock it down. If you've covered that natural expansion hive for marines (for the non-WC3 people, that would be the hive location closest to marine spawn) with even light defenses it will keep the marines pinned down long enough to get help there, if it isn't there already.
Ok proceed to flame and nit pick my post. :>
<span style='font-size:21pt;line-height:100%'> SCANNER SWEEP >>>>> CLOAK
OBSERVATORY = NO CLOAK FOR J00</span>
I'll keep this as short as I can.
I like defense chambers first, because I'm usually a gorge and like setting up good defenses for the hives and resource nodes. You gotta have defense chambers to heal the offense chambers if you want ANY sort of defense to last. The offense chambers fire slow gobs of spit and its pretty easy to dodge. A good marine can take out any offense chamber. Defense chambers heal your chambers, your teammates, and I always throw one or two under the hive to help that out too, should it be attacked.
I like movement chambers first, because.. how was it put? A lerk with celerity is like trying to hit a hummingbird with a bat. You can SERIOUSLY annoy the marines, not even attacking them, just running around, like with a fast skulk, annoying them. Chomp here, chomp there, they can't even hit you, its so hard to aim. They don't expand or build because they're spending so much damn time trying to hit you and your friends. Meanwhile, the gorges expand ever onward...
I like sensory chambers first, because it allows the ninja skulk to get into their base. It allows a lone skulk to cloak, fire a parasite at that marine who just spawned in, and recloak one second later. Sure maybe a turret will fire at you at first, but how often do marines look at where the turret is firing? Most of them assume its an entryway. And it's invaluable to know where all marines are, early game. Let the commander place a resource node. Send in the skulks to waste that 22 RP. It makes the marines hurt early game, the aliens knowing where they are.
I like em all, depends on how you want to play.
-Brew
-PD
I can see any order as being a damn good strategy(Im so happy the dev team actually made a game that involves teamplay and strategy:) ) for a clan match. On public servers...DEFENSE FIRST!!!! In a clan game everyone is on the same page...attacks are tactical and orchestrated, a plan has already been layed out. Any order of upgrades can be succesful in the hands of a higly organized team. This NEVER happens on public servers. When I come into a 1 hive game thats been going on for 5 mins and I see anything but the defense icon next to the hive...I leave instantly(suprisingly Ive been in games where the gorges dont build any upgrades in those first 5 mins!?!) Too many noobs and frag **obscenity** and rushers and campers and teamplayers and lone rangers ect...to organise such strategies. The safest bet on public servers is Def>Move>sense.
Personally, in all the games i have ever played, being cloacked as a fade and hiding, still works, right up to the end. Even when you know that marine has every single weapon and armor upgrade, so why shouldn't he have the motion tracking?
with a clocked fade you can time your rockets and take out some turrets without being visable at all.
Cloaking is not the only good thing about sensory you know.
They automatically parasite nearby marines.
Scent of Fear allows you to see damaged marines.
Enhanced Hive Sight allows you to see marines much easier in dark places.
I am a strong advocate of def, move, sens. It is extremely hard to win with sens first. Note: extremely hard, not impossible. I've just finished playing a game which dragged out some three hours (one hell of a match <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->) in which we won, and had sens first. It was very hard, and we pushed through to the second hive by no virtue of cloaking.
The reason for def and movement first are because of fades. That's really all there is to it. Fades HAVE to have carapace, and adrenaline\celerity (personally I use celerity, but it's a matter of personal preference).
Ok, cloaking fans? Yes, it's nice. But the damage a skilled fighter can do without cloak is immense anyway. Personally, I don't care if my enemy can see me coming - it isn't going to help him. Further, if you're at the pitched battle stage in, say, Hera and you're trying to retake the Holoroom using skulks, cloaking will do sweet bugger all to help your skulks take out the turret factories. I'm sorry, but if you need cloaking to net kills then you badly need to brush up on your melee combat.
Also, def towers are obviously essential to protect offense chambers and resource chambers. There's also the fact that l3 carapace actually doubles the average lifespan of a skulk. It is NOT useless. It is useless if you think carapace is designed to let you charge machineguns head on (in which case you're a little... confused <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->). Besides, I've made attacks on a TF with a skulk, taken a few hits, ran back to defense chambers to regen and gone again instead of having to wait to respawn. Skulks aren't quite as fragile as most people believe.
I think that's long enough...
So in short, **obscenity** happens, live with it.
Personally, I would take movement first. Silent skulks are a wonderful thing, and something an observatory or motion track can't eliminate. Sure, there's motion track, but marines cannot look in every direction at once. Marines CAN hear in every direction at once, and that claw tap is the #1 warning sign for any marine.
And you can say 'well the comm can notice you' all you want, if the comm sees you and notifies his troops before you attack, you're either doing something wrong or the comm is omnipotent.
Side note: A camping skulk is a skulk that could be patrolling territory. Camping is the early game is IMHO, totally retarded. While you can fart around above resource nodes all you want, someone always wants to be Rambo and is scoping out your territory while you stare at a geyser.
The game I was in today they got carapace first, then sensory.. and while cloaking may be great at the start of a game, it does not help much when the marines have HA.. about the time the aliens get that second hive. At the start cloaking will help a skulk ambush a LA marines, but they need more against HA.. Adrenaline for the Lerks and Fades is much better in that situation.
You could forgo defense for last, but that would spark a whole new debate.
So I'd say sensory first or last depending on play style, but 2nd - not so good.
mndeg, exactly which Skulks are you using? My Skulks work perfectly well Carapace or no.
first of all it give an immediate 20 point boost to armor.. second it gives 20% damage reduction per level
a skulk takes 60 points to kill, 10 armor 50 health, a skulk with level 3 carapace takes 80 points, plus is only taking 40% of normal damage.. thats a serious benefit, and when i take carapace i can certainly tell that im living longer.
A cloaked Fade would have done better 1 on 1 against the HA/HMGs, but in this game they were organized and were never alone much. IMO, for what it's worth, Fades with Adrenaline with Umbra backup would have been better.. But without Adren, Umbra isn't nearly that easy to keep steady, and a lerk can't do anything else but. And flying/shooting is very tough for the lerk with no adren.
It seems sensory is good first for early tactics to contain the marines, so I can see taking sensory first or last.... but strategicaly 2nd seems much less useful to me.
It's always been D>M>S for me.
Defensive chambers allow for those wonderful Walls of Lame, defend forward bases, and allow quick healing for nonstop harassment. It's also lovely for making turret pushes deep into Marine territory.
Movement allows for that important Adrenaline for Lerks/Fades. A Lerk popping a constant Umbra field and a Fade that just won't stop Slashing inside it are a deadly duo.
Finally, Sensory last. In the endgame, SoF is useful to hunt down expansions as fleeing Marines trundle off to them. And as mentioned before - Observatory "pwnz0rz" Cloak. Any Commander worth his chair will be Scanning the area where his group is walking.
- M4H
Maybe they've played S. Or S>M. But I doubt they've either lived long enough or taken long enough to ever get to the "D" part.
As it is, 90% of the time we don't even get to the third Hive playing D>M>S. Never need it. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
When I die, spawn, and re-upgrade (pre-1.02) I'd always not evolve Cloak until after I started attacking, so that I could get a free heal out of it...never actually needed it. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->