Movement Or Sensory?
Bulls-Eye
Join Date: 2002-12-05 Member: 10488Members
Join Date: 2002-12-05 Member: 10488Members
Comments
You can have Fades and Lerks that can hide and ambush lone Marines, but when they pop out to attack they can only shoot 3 times before running out of energy and taking 30 seconds to recharge. And if the Marine happens to have Heavy Armor, you dont have the firepower to kill him. You also have no way to hurt heavily Turreted areas, because they don't have the energy to keep Umbra up all the time.
Or you can have 2 Fades shooting a constant stream of acid, while staying in the cover of a perpetual Umbra that renders them invulnerable to those annoying human Turrets.
Hmm, I wonder which one I'd choose.
Really, cloak isn't much help for anyone other than Skulks, and a good skulk player can find places where he can hide <b>without</b> using Cloaking.
Cloaking is only useful for ambushing wandering Marines. You cannot attack a turreted resource tower with Cloaking, you cannot attack a siege base with Cloaking, and it's also a pretty stupid idea to attack a group of 2 or more Marines with cloaking - even if you get behind and start clawing them, HMGs and Shotties do absolutely insane damage at pointblank range.
Moreover, going Sensory instead of Movement completely negates your greatest two-hive weapon: the Umbra-lerk.
It all depends, if you have good aliens, and lousy marines. It's real funny to get cloaked on the ceiling just outside their base, and parasite and chukle at every marine passing-by. I have done this many times at (err, nancy?, the one with mess-hall). I get on the wall, right above their main entrance, you know, the ramp. And just scare the hell out of 'm.
It's real fun to see newbees screaming and shooting all over the place.
And when a fade attacks a marine and it runs back screaming for his mummy, jumping right in front of him is REEEEALY cool.
Fade attacks marine
Marine runs back to base
cloaked skulk jumpes at marine
skulk chomped marine
marine: ****** wtf ****** wher'd he come from *****
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But my point is, it all depends on the game, and the players. I just love 'skulking' around, and chomp wandering marines.
But that doesn't happen to often these days, The marines are getting experienced <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='wink.gif'><!--endemo-->
Oh well, shooting parasites from a vent with 3 def ch behind you is great fun too.
for gorges i prefer adrenaline because im an aggressive gorge. if theres marines nearby that i cant outrun id rather web them and attack or web and run. adrenaline makes either choice effortless. i don't prefer to bother with cloaking as a gorge since im restricted to hiding on the ground.
lerks dont have a problem flying when they have adrenaline. Without it they have to be careful not to attack too much because they might not be able to fly away. With it their power meter never goes down when they fly. also spikes are way more effective with adrenaline and you can maintain constant umbra with it as well.
fades can get off more acid rockets with it and have less down time. but also i prefer to escape rushing marines by backing up and firing acid rockets. some would rather be able to duck a corner and cloak but that doesn't always work with smart marines who know you're cloaked nearby. in fact when im a marine i always shoot at walls and corners till i see green blood if i hear fades cloaking.
for onos i find it much more preferable to have juice for my charges and paralyzes than the ability to hide because quite simply im already hard to kill.
AND if i were a hive <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> id rather have a movement chambers so that my children could come help me rather than a bunch of sensory chambers that all say the same thing ("Enemy approaching") and aren't even as effective as seeing an OC under attack on hive sight.
so basically i think that cloaking is nice in the early game but adrenaline is preferable for the long haul so thats why i prefer not to bother with sensory at all. and while sensory does also give you scent of fear and enhanced sight, most veteran players can use sounds, regular hive sight, and their own instincts to reap comparable results.
in most games theres a standoff once the aliens have two hives and the choice of sensory or movement is obvious to me; movement all the way. in the long run it helps a lot more. i didn't mention celerity at all but its definitely useful too. and thats the other thing about movement. all three upgrades are really useful whereas two of the sensory upgrades are more like nice-to-haves when compared to the rest.
And well soon as the other hive got up, we could all get over there fast. But I am inbetween which I would rather first, movement or defence.
Fades NEED energy to live. Cloaking is useless in combat. A fade can go and play Mister Skulk with cloaking, sure, but they are far better being backed up by a lerk with umbra, and having the marines know exactly where they are. It makes for better distraction, and more carnage (WHICH IS THE IDEA OF FADES). It's strategically much better, since it occupies more of their team, and lays their precious structures to waste.
Fades NEED energy to live. Cloaking is useless in combat. A fade can go and play Mister Skulk with cloaking, sure, but they are far better being backed up by a lerk with umbra, and having the marines know exactly where they are. It makes for better distraction, and more carnage (WHICH IS THE IDEA OF FADES). It's strategically much better, since it occupies more of their team, and lays their precious structures to waste.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
yes exactly! TEAMWORK is way more effective with movement than sensory. if the kharaa plan to work as a team, it will be much better with movement.
I find sensory quite useless too as a skulk, like someone said before, any good skulk player will know how to use the map to hide rather than use cloaking. If you could move for a few seconds while cloaked.. now that would be a different matter altogether.
Sensory is incredibly useful <b>at the 3 hive stage</b>. Not before.
Granted it can be amusing to load up with Cloaking, Silence, and Regeneration to pick on poor little marines but why bother if you have such a great advantage. If you have three hives you are probably better off assaulting the enemy using xenocide if you are so short on resources that you don't have enough to evolve into a lerk or a fade.
Nothing makes a fade's job more difficult when he/she is trying to take out enemy emplacements in your third hive location than having to rest to recoup stamina while the enemy rushes from spawn to take him out. With adrenaline I have enough stamina to completely hack an enemy structure to bits without resting. Without adrenaline, I can get it into the red but I tire out before the structure can be destroyed. Those precious moments may allow the enemy to arrive before I can finish the job. Please, do not deny your fades their precious adrenaline. A fade without adrenaline is every marine's Christmas wish.
Unga
A Typical NS round has three distinct 'acts' so-to-speak (I'll only talk about the first two).
The Openning Game - Defence Chambers
In the openning game you want to have Defensive Chambers to give your offensive aliens more suvivability. You need as many offensive aliens as possible active in the openning game to keep the marines from advancing and expanding. Defensive Chambers allow your aliens to survive longer during attacks (which means a greater chance to take out a couple marine) and heal inbetween rushes and ambushes which reduces the time they spend in the respawn cycle.
The Middle Game - Movement Chambers
In the middle game you want to have Movement Chambers to give your offensive aliens more attack power. By middle game Marines are probably entrenched at your 3rd Hive and what nodes you couldn't protect from the Openning is probably reinforced with defensive structure. It is in the middle game you got to start thinking about assaulting min-bases especially the 3rd Hive Base. With full movement upgrades; your Fades can make 2-3 more shots with the Acid Rockets, your Lerks can chain-cast Umbra. We all know a couple Fades and a Lerk is a wrecking ball for mini-bases. The key with Movement Chambers is the ability to do more damage to mini-bases in a much shorter period of time.
Movement > Sensory in Middle Game
Sensory Chambers in the middle game are almost worthless in my opinion. Once they have mini-bases they are sure to get Motion Tracking, smart commanders put up motion tracking before middle game! Just look at your objective for the middle game, to take the 3rd hive (probably from the Marines) and attack any mini-bases they have outside of the main base. If you can shoot and stay cloaked there might be a good argument made for Sensory Chambers but Movement Chambers clearly have more advantages in the base-busting middle game (especially when it is combined with Defence Chambers).
Movement.