Before I begin, I would like to say thank you for reading this. It’s my first guide to doing anything, and I’m quite proud of what I’ve got so far. If you got any suggestions or comments, feel free to tell me. But before you post, consider these rules:

1. NO flaming. I absolutely hate flaming because there is usually no point. You may criticize others and disagree, but be polite about it.
   
2. Backup any negativity. There comes no useful discussion if you say “this is stupid” or “this guide sucks”. If you say something like that, state why you feel that way and if possible give solutions. Also, make sure you follow rule #1.
   
3. Don’t be afraid to post objections. If you feel that something is wrong or doesn’t really work, post it! I want this to be complete and thought through guide, so anything is welcomed. I won’t get mad at you to criticize, if anything I’ll be happier.

With that done, I’m going to say that this is going to be an ongoing project for me until I get every chamber done only the offense chamber. My ultimate goal is to get a sticky and to have as many newcomers as possible read this guide. This is something for the new and the old alike, so I hope you enjoy it!


The General Tips
When you drop a chamber, there are certain things to consider before you drop it. If you don’t remember these things, you will end up spending much more res ineffectively and the chambers could potentially have a shorter lifespan. Even If you don’t read the rest of this guide, please at least consider these questions before dropping.

Where should I drop it? Is it really worth the res there?
How should I drop it? What spot would this be the most effective?
When should I drop a chamber? The answer isn’t “when I get 10 res”

The Offense Chamber
The offense chamber is a chamber which is a great force to be reckoned with, if placed properly. It has 1000 hit points, it deals 20 damage per hit and has a ROF of 1 spike every 2 seconds; it’s a slight wonder why we don’t use it a little more. An offense chamber, if placed correctly at the right time can easily take out a marine or two. Here are my tips to unlocking the full potential of an OC.


Where should I drop them?
This question is the most important question to ask, especially for an offense chamber. If you don’t answer this question, the offense chamber will most likely be a useless piece of 10 res. Here are my suggestions:

Medium Combat Area’s
Medium Combat area's are the area's where I find the OC is the most useful. The offense chamber is relatively ineffective in high combat unless constantly maintained (see below). In medium combat areas, usually only small groups of marines come there which is good because armies of marines would spell destruction to the OC and no marines will make the OC become decoration.
Thats why Medium Combat area's are very good, they provide a compromise between effectiveness and maintainance.


High Combat Area’s
High Combat area's are the best places to put OC’s if they are supported. This support must at least include a gorge healing it, preferably in combination with lifeforms and lerk spore/umbra. The advantage with this technique is that the gorge becomes nearly indestructible while the OC’s become much more effective, especially when DC’s/more gorges are added in. The only disadvantage is that it needs to be maintained constantly, which isn't a large drawback really.

Consider this information taken from the Community Manual:


Considering this information, we can see that the gorge can heal a lot of damage inflicted on the OC. As a result, the OC’s life expectancy atleast doubles. Also considering that the OC has a lot of HP and doesn’t need to reload while the marine has little HP and needs to reload, we can say the following (taken from Swiftspear):


Near Alien Activity
I recommend placing OC’s near alien activity because they are much better at being support units rather than combat units. If you place OC’s far from a hive, it is much easier to take them out because they will have less support from your teammates. It's quite easy to avoid OC spikes (unless there are alot), but it's much harder with lifeforms around.

Early Detection
Using OC as early detection can really pay off. It can be more effective than a SC because the hive sight alerts can be more noticeable than the red dots on screen while also hurting the marines. Think of it this way: the OC forces a marine to do two things: Ignore the OC or Attack the OC. Most players choose to shoot it back, and if there are enough OC’s in the right place, the marine will have no choice to shoot it or take a large detour around it.

Buying Time
This is the one of the best things an OC can ever do. I repeat: buying time is the best thing an OC can do. Following up on early detection, if the marine shoots the OC(s) he will be diverting time to doing that task. Even if he manages to take the OC down, he still used up 1 minute of his time for 1 OC. Now, consider this quote from DC Darkling:


If the marine attacks the OC, that’s one minute more for the aliens to hit a base easier, one minute he can’t set up a ninja PG; one minute he’s doing the least in the most amount of time.



And even by chance if the marine were to jump over the OC, he could only do it under specific conditions. First off, he can’t really jump over multiple OC’s, OC’s placed in long corridors and in corners and OC's in key locations like PG/siege locations. Jumping over these OC’s would cause heavy damage to him or make him lose a potentially valuable chance and going around these OC’s makes him lose plenty of time if not impossible.

Medium-small areas
Medium sized areas are the best areas to place OC’s. Medium sized rooms are good because the OC can use all of its 800 unit radius range. OC’s placed in open areas are also harder to remove because the LMG is ineffective at long range, the pistol carries a small amount of ammo and grenades don’t really reach. Smaller sized rooms make spikes harder to dodge, which is a disadvantage of large rooms. That’s why medium-small are the best rooms.

Open, minimal cover areas
Open areas are very effective for OC’s. Believe it or not, the marine needs the cover more than the OC because a regular marine in the open usually falls to the OC easily. It’s also hard to find good OC cover in most maps anyway, most "cover" would just block the OC's FOV unless its the correct height/location. Open rooms filled with a few OC’s force the marine to take cover far away at the door and don’t allow the marine to run past it without taking a large amount of damage (its hard to dodge multiple spikes at a time).

Near Important Things
Placing OC’s near important area or structures like rts or siege spots are also great places for OC’s. They prevent the marines from doing something important without damage or forcibly slow down the marine. Even if the marine were to hide behind the RT, the OC still discourages the marine and alien players should be in the area anyway.


How should I drop them?
This is the question that will determine just as much as the previous question how well your OC will preform. This could be even more important than the previous question too!

Minimal Grouping
Minimal grouping is something that you should keep in mind when placing OC’s. Personally, I find that you squeeze the most out of your OC if you spread them out rather than bunch them up in one place. The advantages of this are:

1. Marines are more likely to run past and get hurt rather than avoid it altogether.
2. It’s less deterrent to a rambo if it were spread out through the whole area rather than a huge wall of it. More marines would risk ramboing only to die by constantly being hit.
3. If the marine shoots a grenade, it would only hit the few chambers there. The other chambers won’t get hit by the splash damage. Same goes for guns, the bullets that miss won’t hit the chamber right next to it.
4. It covers a larger area, so the comm won't siege unless he's filthy rich or just plain dumb.
5. It covers a larger area, which is always a good thing.

Packs of 2 – 3 are the Best.
Especially with the new way the DC’s work, 2 OC’s and a DC works very well. These are more effective in higher combat areas than 1 in each corner, and are pretty cost effective too. They are especially deadly in high combat areas with a gorge there healing them.

Refer to this quote stated above:


Place them on corners
This is the absolute most effective, quick and best piece of advice I can give for dropping OC’s I find. The reason for this is because it now covers a HUGE area compared to before. I cannot stress this one enough, because this one makes the OC twice as effective. This combined with 1 on each corner will still make rambos come in only to be caught between 2 OC’s and little health. Here’s an example:

OC Placement

Now, the marine would see the first OC and pass by it and most likely pass by the second one too. By the time he meets the first green line, he can’t turn around or he is dead, so he continues ahead. He continues to meet OC’s until his death at the second green line. In this formation, he has no place to hide and no place to run either. He can shoot it down, but it will take a long time and will be difficult without any cover.

Place them on high ground
High ground isn’t necessary, but sure does help. The biggest advantage is that grenades and GL grenades go in an arc trajectory so it would be harder for a grenade to hit. That’s because most of the time the ceiling is too low for the grenade to reach and the grenade the marines carry explode fairly quickly. The OC is also harder to knife (it could be an advantage).

The downside is that the OC usually becomes less effective if too high off the ground due to restricted FOV. It also doesn’t block the marine’s movement, which is something we want.

Avoid blind spots
If the OC is too far up on a ramp, it won't be able to shoot because of the maximum shooting angles. Also, placing an OC high up or far down can reduce how much actual view of the area it has. Also, the OC can be placed too close a corner without actually being on the corner which can make it too easy to remove. When in doubt, just place it at ground level on the corner. Here is an example of blind spots:

OC Blind Spots Corners
OC Blind Spots High Ground


When should I place them?
This part is kind of hard to write a guide for. This part is more up to you than anything else. Here are some questions you should pose yourself before you place an OC.

Can I afford to drop it?
You want to make sure that you have enough res inflow to balance the price of the OC.

Would the OC be more valuable in this situation than a RT?
If you control maybe half the map and you’re not gaining ground very quickly, it probably is worth it.

Would a DC/MC/SC be more valuable to my team?
Remember that your team members are more valuable to you than an OC. An OC can only do so much, but a teammate can do so much more. If it’s a high combat area, your fellow aliens would need healing/energy more than a measly OC.

How easily can the marines destroy it?
If all the marines have HA/HMG’s, then it will be a cake walk for them to destroy any OC they find. If you got no lifeforms to back up the OC, then it will again be a cake walk. But if your winning over the marines or the marines are relatively equal to you (and don’t have HA or HMG’s), then it would be more likely to be worth it.

Are the Marines using HA or JP's?
The counter to JP's are OC's, along with lerks. The OC can easily shoot down a JP. But the counter to OC's are HA's because OC's do half damage to heavies. It would be much more useful for the aliens to drop OC's if they use JP's rather than if they use heavies.

Would I spend my res better on being a lifeform?
Maybe your fellow aliens need a lerk? A lerk can be a powerful asset, especially with the gas. Lerk is supposed to be support, not a fighter, so don’t worry about being a bad aimer (like me). Maybe you’re a good fade, because the aliens can never get enough fades. Maybe an onos, because the stomp can REALLY help your teammates get those pesky HA’s or HMG’s.

Why Should I Drop Them?
By now you might be asking yourself: "Why should I drop one in the first place? I should just go Fade instead." consider this quote from Crispy:



Conclusion
In conclusion, the OC is the most unused but can be one of the most useful chambers. It can make or break a game, because it can be the sole thing alerting you to a shotgun rush or the thing that stops that rambo PG from going up. It lightens the workload of the aliens, and piles it on the marines.

It's functions can summed up to 4 major things:

1. Lowers Armour (and health)
2. Tanks damage
3. Increases marine vulnerability (reloading)
4. Distracts the marines

Basically, the OC cannot and will not replace your team members, but it can supplement them and decrease the workload a heck of a lot. I repeat, an OC is not a combat unit, it's best used as a support, damage absorber or a discouraging unit.



The Defense Chamber
The defense chamber is the least used chamber in the game and there is good reason for it. Still yet, this chamber can provide invaluable support to structures and large units in the field if placed properly.

Note: Because we’ve now reached the upgrade chambers, how you place them becomes less needed and closely linked to where you place them. Because of that, I’m combining the two from now on.

Where/How to Drop Them?

High Alien Traffic Area’s
Placing a DC near a high alien traffic route is one of the best place’s to put a defense chamber. With many aliens passing by the chamber, the chamber is basically protected from attack. Also, most fleeing higher lifeforms will commonly flee to these areas because they are usually safer. So ultimately you’re squeezing the most from the chamber and keeping it alive the longest.

Note that it doesn't have to be in High Combat Area's. It works the opposite way there because no aliens wanting to stay alive will stand still near a DC to heal when a fight is happening within the same room; they'd much rather prefer a safe place to stand still and heal.

Away From Hives
When you place a defense chamber, keep in mind that the hive heals much more that the measly defense chamber can. Remember also that the fleeing alien will consider which one would save him the most time and guarantee survival more. This means that you’d want to place the defense chamber a nice distance from a hive so it would get used more often.

Near the Front Lines
This is very obvious, but make sure to remember that you don’t want to place this too close to combat, you may place your DC an intersection/room away from where the current fighting is happening. Doing so will allow for the aliens to lose ground, give them a safe place to heal and won’t compromise efficiency all that much. Also note that you may need multiple DC’s to accommodate multiple aliens at a time.

In the Hive Room
Putting 1 DC near a hive works very well because of the way the DC works. One DC can heal 3% of the hive’s health per tick, compared to the gorge’s 1%. Just remember to place the DC farther from the siege spot than the hive, so it’s not sieged first. Also try to put the DC out of sight, so it will be harder for the marines to find it.

Near other Chambers
You may wish to place DC's near other chambers like OC's, for constant heal protection. Just note that you need to know how much action the OC's will see. For example, if there are multiple OC’s near a high traffic area for marines, chances are it’ll see a lot of action. As so, you might want to place multiple DC’s behind the OC’s.

Also note that you will not want to put your only DC's in that one spot. Reasons for not doing that are:

• If they were to die, then you will lose any defense upgrades until they can be replaced.
• QUOTE(Crispy @ Jul 17 2007, 06:13 PM) [snapback]1639382[/snapback]
  I look DCs the same was as I look at SCs. For me the best result is getting a network so you're never any more than 5 seconds from healing. Having them all clumped in one area isn't making the most of their area of effect. A typical theory in NS is "what benefits the most players is the best option". This means in almost all cases Hive+Fade > 2xFade, 1st/2nd/3rd upgrade chamber > OC, 1st+2nd/2nd+3rd upgrade chamber > Lerk. The same applies (imo) to DC placement. Healing lots of players a small amount all over the map is better than healing fewer players a larger amount in one section of the map. The main difference vs. the SC is it's much harder to come up with safe spots for DCs and if you do it requires teamwork to get existing Gorges into vents or to get more players to Gorge inside the vents and drop.
• The marines can just go to that area with all the DC's and shoot down any fleeing lifeforms, as well as structures. Since fleeing lifeforms have nowhere else to heal, they have no choice but to stay and fight or run to a potentially far healing station (hive, DC's, etc.). It also disables the aliens from ambushing correctly because marines will most likely be multiple marines at that location.

A good rule of thumb is a 3:2 ratio of OC’s to DC’s in high marine traffic area’s and a 2:1 to a 3:1 ratio in lower traffic areas.

In some Vents
Putting this chamber (preferably 3 of them) in vents (separated apart preferably) can be very useful in the long run. When placed there, they are virtually out of marine reach until JP’s. That means that you will have this chamber almost all game, no matter if the corresponding hive is gone.

Placing them in vents can also be very useful for Skulks and especially Lerks. Chances are a Lerk will be trapped in a vent with marines outside and little HP. Putting a DC in that vent would save the Lerk either res (if they die) or time (if they self regen).

Out of Sight
It would be a useful practice to place DC’s in dark corners, under gratings or in other hard to reach/unnoticable area’s. This provides similar protection from attack as vents do, only to a lesser extent. A notable example of a good place is in ns_caged, the path from Generator to Aux Gen.

When to Place them?
As Soon as Hive is Up
This is self explanatory, because the sooner you can get any sort of ability the better.

During or Before Attacks
You’d defiantly want to place a DC nearby when a critical battle is going on. It is especially important in chokepoints and uncompleted hives, because there is usually nowhere else nearby to heal. It saves the Gorge in the area from healing lifeforms till his spray runs dry and helps gets aliens back into the battle faster.

Preferably you would want to put the DC in before the fight begins, like right after the second hive is dropped (most decent marine teams would try to attack the second hive during construction) or in important chokepoints like Generator Room in ns_nothing. This allows for the lifeforms in the area to be as effective as possible before the marines establish a working base there.

Why Should I Place Them?
There are many reasons why you should place a DC, they are:

• They provide defensive upgrades to all the aliens, like carapace or redemption. This gives everyone a big boost in combat.
• They give aliens an alternative place to heal. This saves them plenty of time and reduces the risk of surprise attacks during travel (because there is less traveling to do).
• It helps the gorge nearby in healing wounded aliens. This doubles healing time which gives the gorge and lifeform more time to do things.
• It heals large amount of health for structures and onos’s. This provides more healing than any gorge could for a low price of 10 res.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the DC is very effective than what it is credited for. It is a rather easy chamber to place, as long as its protected. It is a good practice to place DC’s near the front lines and near OC’s because this cycle happens: the OC’s defend the DC and wounded aliens, the DC heals the aliens and OC’s and the healed aliens protect the chambers.

In short, you should build DC’s:

• Far from aliens bases
• Close to structures
• Close to wounded aliens (aka. The front lines)
• Out of sight

MC and SC to Come!


========


Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it!


Credits:
Chocolate: For writing this guide
Ambritenaro (spelling to be checked): For joking around about dropping chambers made me make this guide .
Crispy: Really gave good points about OC's that I wouldn't either think of or would have a hard time explaining. I took nice bits of information from him .
Swiftspear: For pointing out some bad points and giving a good deduction of gorges .
KainTSA: For thinking the way I do, understanding my point of view and giving some additions.
Bacillus: For making a small contribution.
Alite: He didn’t do all that much, but I have NS discussions with him every once and awhile.
DC_Darkling: I took a really good definition from him on how to win a game. Fits perfectly with my guide.
the_x5: Took a quote from him.

Tactical Gamer Server: Heh, I like playing on this server, its one of the best around. It’s also the server on which I play on the most and originally played on and got the idea of making this guide.

(tell me if I missed you, but make note that ill add you in if you made a notable (either criticism or actual quotes)).

You didn't mention not to drop OC's close to an overlook (somewhere where a marine can peak around a corner and shoot them down while the OC can't return fire). OC's dropped as far as possible from overlooks take 3 clips of LMG ammo to kill, where ones that are close 100% of the bullets hit, and they only need 2 clips to kill. Massively increases the lifespan of field OCs.

Also, OC's are only useful for defending gorges from small numbers of marines. They don't have any other use in the game. They are not the most useful chamber, if the gorge leaves them alone a single marine can take out an indefinate number of OC's. All he needs is time and ammo spam.

OC's can prevent ninja's but that's pretty hit and miss at best. Good marines can dodge full walls of OCs enough to get around them, and then the comm only has to med on the other side. If worst comes to worst and a PG has to be built within the LOS of an OC the comm just has to keep medding the marine every 2 shots. When the PG goes up the other marines will stream through and decimate it in a matter of seconds. I'd prefer an SC so I know the marine is there, then an OC that won't even keep him from getting a PG up in the first place, and all of a sudden there is a team of shotgunners in the hive unannounced.

The reality of a situation is that even the best dropped OC is generally speaking still going to end up a waste of res in the end. Dropping OCs is always a gamble, they RARELY pay themselfs off in any meaningful way. It's basicly a straight up lie that they are the "most useful chamber in the game"

Also, in terms of placing OC's on high ground, DON'T! There are very limited "high ground" spots in NS that an OC acctually can shoot from. All OC spikes fire from the top point, and the lower body of the OC blocks shots that try to fire at too low of an arc. Also if an OC is too high up a lifeform can't hide behind it. The greatest asset of an OC is usually that a gorge can hide behind it and actually make it an unstoppable combat unit for a period of time. If it's too high that breaks. Finally, if you can hide the lower body of an OC behind something (low ground), which is possible a few places in the game, that means it won't be shot out as easily, as there are very few points where you can shoot at the lower body without being in the field of view of the upper body. In general neither "high ground" or "low ground" are good OC spots. It's limited to circumstance and scenario. Many high ground spots provide more range overlook, and that means it's harder to avoid the OC fire, but not all do. Many low ground spots don't impede the firing of an OC, but still provide it's body some protection. But not all do. If in doubt, choose some spot on the floor where you can circle strafe around the OC and hide from marines, unless you know the spot is good because you've used it before and it's worked out well don't try to get too tricky with OC placement.

A bunch of OCs at hive is still useful against the jp rushes, I think.

Generally place those OCs near alien activity. Its easy to take out even masses of OCs if there is no skulk attacking while the marine reloads.

They are also useful for lone gorges at growing hives if you hear marines coming. Most often they'll give enough time for the rest of the alien team to teleport in. So lets say you're alone at fusion hive in Tanith and you notice there are 3 parasite dots at cargo. The chances are they're going to move to fus so go ahead and drop 2 or 3 oc:s and save the hive from getting pg rushed.

Very nice guide Chocolate. People often do underestimate the power of OCs. The OC alarm that you mentioned is extremely useful on pubs because rines will shoot them even when the comm tells them to be quite.

I find a properly placed OC wall at a choke point CAN win the game if it gets alien support. You just need one or two skulks there when rines start trying to push through and they won't stand a chance. When they have skulk support, OCs:

Lower armor
Block shots
Increase the chance that a rine will be reloading when you attack
DISTRACT (most important I think)

The major mistake people make with OCs is that they drop and forget. OCs should be thought of as support units, not combat units.

Thanks guys, I'll be doing my first revision soon as I can and I'll be adding what you guys (and I) see fit.

EDIT: I've done the modification already

To Kain:

Yeah, I played a game yesterday night and 1 OC alerted my team to a shotgun rush from Storage D in ns_metal. We didn't lose that hive just because my whole team came back to the hive. We had no SC's either.

Also, your five points are exactly what I want to stress in this guide, I'll make it clearer in my guide.

I think your guide is pretty clear, I was just trying to emphasize some of the points I think you assumed were known. I'm looking forward to seeing your next chamber guide. I pretty much only gorge to drop an RT or a hive so I'm sure you have some points I'm unaware of.

This is iffy... If you have enough res to spam OC's in the hive your team really should have taken down the AA in MS with fades and onos before the marines could afford a jetpack rush. In terms of what OC's do to jetpacks, they are really more of a deterrent, not a counter. Jetpacks move fast enough to avoid OC fire, and they can hide in cracks all over the place that OC's can't shoot. While if I'm a lone jetpack and there is 5 OC's in the hive I'm not going to want to go in, a full on team of JP shotty won't be stopped by 5 ocs. They will just fly by and take the hive in a clip and a bit each.

Also, jetpacks are pretty good defenders because fades and onos can't push on a room full of JP, they will get chased down. So even if you lame up your hive, jetpacks don't necessarily need to rush, they can just sit outside and plop sieges down if they want to.

As an issue of investment, it should be VERY VERY rare that you are a gorge at some point in the game, and you have 50 res to spend on OC's in the hive. If you are a gorge you should have dropped several nodes within that 50 res, or dropped the hive chambers, or gone fade with 50 res. If you have 50 res as a late game gorge and your team is still letting the marines save up for a JP rush then your team isn't playing NEARLY offensively enough. Aliens with that much of a resource advantage should be dominating the map in every way. Why haven't the last marine nodes been taken down and replaced with alien RTs? Why hasn't the third hive been cleared? Why is marine start sitting pretty? The answer is because gorges are screwing around dropping OC's in useless places rather then making themselfs threatening to the marines in any way.

Aliens don't have time for gorges to piss around saving up res for OC's in hives. A better way to prevent a JP rush from taking down your hive is taking out the AA in MS with constant pressure from your whole team. A gorge and an OC in MS on a base rush takes another full second to take down, meaning the marines can't just focus on taking out the fades and skulks on the AA right the instant they respawn from the beacon. It's a BAD BAD conception most players seem to have that they can afford the time to sit around saving for OC's wherever they feel the need. Aliens don't have the ingame time for any of their lifeforms to save. You should always be doing something threatening somewhere. Weather it's healing fades outside MS or second hive, or OC spamming marine resource locations, or dropping upgrade chambers that your team needs. OC's in a hive are just about always the wrong time and place for an OC. The only time I could possibly concive of them being reasonable is if I'm a late game healer gorge, saving for onos while my team has gone MC first DC second (which is just asking to be raped by JP's FYI) and I hear that marines have gone JPs, so I instantly divert my onos saving res to OC's in the hives we have up. There simply is no other situation where it's logical for a late game gorge to have enough res to put OC's in the hives, and the aliens are allowing the marines enough time and res to set up a JP rush.

I took a bit of a clanner approach there I guess. In smaller teams its not useful to have all higher lifeforms unless you're sure you can do the decisive push. Fades without skulk support tend to die a lot because there's no para or risk-free offensive. More rt does the trick but only if you can hold them, which depends on the map control. Plus you can't always leave the growing hive since you'll need a healer and hive spitter there anyway. I'd rather not waste 50 res on oc:s anyway. 2 or 3 will do nicely.

Take the AA out? Well sure its good if you can pull it off. Its a huge risk however. In ms there are likely to be mines, marines without para, a pg and so on. After you've attacked once you'll have to risk yourself getting flanked while on your way back to hive. So do it if you have the chance but I wouldn't recommend counting on that too much.

Edit: Basically the whole team goes fade after there is nothing else to do. 4 or so lifeforms is always good, but some skulk and gorge support is useful too. Fades are always handy, but if the marines rush for jetpacks and you've got 40 res and not much res control it might be a good idea to drop some oc:s instead of saving for 2 more minutes, losing the hive to the rush and then fading at 1 hive. Worked in 3.1 at least, I've played way too few 3.2 pcws to say anything specific with the new jp.

As a hivegorge you'll often end up with some res. Lets say you've got a minute for the hive to go up. Marines are trying to rush it but you use your 20 spare res for 2 ocs. Marines are either forced to risk the rush with some alien cover and extra dmg and hp or siege. Most often the sieges allows the hive go up at that point. None of the clans I know use the ocs as a normal tactic but they've got some uses too, mostly stopping quick rushes and getting the necessary 30 sec more time for aliens.

In clanplay you basically are attempting to get your whole team to fade. Find me a team that uses OC's actively in competitive NS right now. None exists. There is no precedent for the ultimate strategical usage of OC's in competitive play. OC's aren't used at all. If you're talking about OC's you have to talk about pubs.

In small games he who is more aggressive is the winner. There is really no such thing in NS as too aggressive. OC's are negative progress, because they are entirely defensive. It's better to take down a marine res node then it is to drop an OC, and it's better to take down the marine he builds the res node then it is to take down a marine res node. Simply put there is no time for OC's when a game is small, unless you're talking like 1 or 2 players, in which the strategy simply becomes to be offensive with OC's because there isn't enough players to fade, and you have such high res flow that you need to make your res fight for you.

Man this guide is gonna make think twice before dropping a wall of ocs around an rt just to prortect it lol. God this makes me realise how much i suck at aliens (I usually am a marine). Well next time i am alien, I will drop ocs a bit more responsibly even tho some people think its useless.

Damn i cant beleive how much ocs ive dropped uselessly just to protect an RT these past games lol. man i suck at alien...

Remember guys, in games of 6 vs 6 to 8 vs 8, you've got 5 things helping the OC's case:

1. You don't have an army of marines at the marines disposal.
2. The marines aren't everywhere, in groups, all the time.
3. You don't have the man (skulk) power to have a constant scout of your territory
4. You've got a much higher resflow even with 3 rts.
5. You're more likely to have lots of bad players than pro ones.

As a result, it becomes much more of a viable option for your team. Bad players have a much harder time killing or passing by the OC's than good ones. The marines are spread more thinly and it's not like it takes half a minute just to get 1 res.

However in clans, it works the opposite way. I don't scrim myself, but I can tell that the marines know how to bhop and/or kill a OC and/or bind the med pack button to "q". They also stick in groups and kill more rts.

Even though there are quotes like "the best defense is an offense", which are true, you still need defense. Hitting their bases hard (unless its really hard) won't completely stop a guy from setting up a rambo PG or killing all your rts. Same for a game like soccer, having complete offense won't completely stop a guy from the other team from breaking through and running with the ball all the way to your goalie (he would be very lucky if he did that ).

Anyway, back to the guide, I won't be posting or updating the guide for the next couple of days because I'm going on a field trip for 3 days and 2 nights. Once I get back I'll start on the rest of the guide, which shouldn't be too hard.


Well its alright... most people don't know how to get rid of one anyway and anyway, we all make mistakes... (I remember I used to drop OC's in a dark isolated corner so they wouldn't die )

Nice, I agree with the OC part (only part I read for now because I have to leave). I hate it when Aliens waste all the OCs into one wall that just gets naded and never kills anyone. Spread out OCs are really deadly.

I'll read the rest later when I get back

I think generally I only drop OCs when I need protection myself and it's justifiable. I find it's much more worthwhile to drop an OC to help you defend a point as a Gorge than to think it's something that can do a job all on it's own. For me it's similar to playing defence as an Engineer in Team Fortress. I'm not going to leave a sentry gun by the flag alone or it will be taken out in seconds. Generally -and this is just my own personal guideline- if an OC hasn't gained 2-4 RFK for you or a teammate within 60 seconds of it being dropped it would probably have been wiser to spend that 10 res on something more relevant.

Here are some places I might drop OCs: (this only really works on pubs)

Looking down the last 3m of a vent
Marine's are far slower in vents so can't actually dodge the fire. You're more than likely to score a few hits this way and force the Commander to medspam, which will alert any nearby Aliens. Also if a Gorge is nearby all he has to do is spitspam down the vent at the retreating Marine to finish him off. Obviously, putting an OC at the end of a vent is pointless as the Marine will see it in advance and retreat back the way he came. You want the Marine to see it as late as possible so he will waste a maximum of time retreating back to his starting point, or else will be so vexed he might foolishly attempt to advance, which will be fatal for him and RFK for you.

At siege/PG spots
As Swift says, a good 'rine won't shoot at it while placing the PG and a good Comm will med every 2 hits, but if the 'rines are that good it's likely the Aliens will be good enough to go investigate the suspicious 'click-buzz' and medspam noises coming from outside the Hive. And if the Aliens aren't that good, the teams are stacked and you probably don't stand much of a chance.

At the bottom of some ladders
Before he realises it, you've just scored 2 hits on the Marine and he should be easy to finish off. A good example of this would be in ns_metal.

Next to water
Marines move very slowly in water. If a Marine surfaces to find an OC hailing spikes down on him he probably won't be making it out alive. A good example of where this might work is on ns_prometheus.

---

A funny OC scenario:

An adren Gorge, I was outside MS on ns_caged waiting to drop an SC just out of Obs range so we could monitor the amount of 'rines leaving that side of the base (as we were preparing to drop Sewer to replace Genarator which was under attack from a ninja PG). I see one of my teammates -also a gorge- get into trouble at Lower Sewer while dropping an RT, so I went to help him out. When I got there a Marine had obviously spammed all of his ammo into the poor phattey and was hot in pursuit, flailing his knife around aimlessly, looking for the humiliation kill. Luckily he didn't hear me coming up behind him and together we managed to spit him to death and heal eachother back up.

Next we return together to put up the SC outside MS and -all of a sudden- my partner decides it's a good idea to also put up an OC at the top of the ramp. By this time a Marine has spawned and comes to investigate the suspicious glorp, glorp noises emanating from just outside his base. Not really sure what to do, and not wanting my SC to go to waste, I drop another OC next to it quickly as the 'rine rounds the corner. He immediately charges us but we healspam and spit occasionally while we take it in turns to finish off the OCs by which time the 'rine stands no chance (the Commander hadn't been paying attention, so no meds for him!). Before long a Fade comes to investigate the cluster of friendlies under attack, joined minutes later by another, and they proceed to pound the Marine base, returning for healing periodically and with a supporting MC giving them plenty of energy

By the time the 2nd Hive goes up to replace the fallen Generator, we now have DCs to add to the mix. The Commander had woken up and frantically researched hand 'nades and upgraded the Armoury, but the hand nades had little to no effect against 2 Adren Gorges healspamming and a supporting DC, and unfortunately for him, he dropped the first GL just as our first Onos arrived.

Pretty much the only reason this worked was because a) Marines were distracted b) there were two of us to constantly reheal all the structures and c) support arrived for us just as the Commander started sending more Marines to clear out the OC spam. Oh, and let's not forget all the RFK we were getting from the attacking Fades and the defending OCs/Gorge-spitting.

The way OC's work in that case is simple. One gorge on 1 OC is impossible for a single marine of equal skill to take out. I take out crappy gorges on OC's by dropping 2 grenades, then rushing the OC and jumping over it to unload bullets, but when that's attempted on me I just avoid the nades and circle strafe the OC.

One gorge on 2 OC's is impossible for any single marine to take out, and in the case of a good gorge, very difficult for any less then 3 equally skilled marines to take out.

One gorge on 3 OC's can't be taken out in a timely manner without heavy weapons, and will cost any less then 3 shotgunners their life to displace completely. For the price of a lerk +10 you can stop a disturbing amount of marine force at any given point on the map... Far more force then any skulk or lerk could, probably more then a fade could (the fade would need to run out and back several times, costing time).

2 gorges can ALMOST outheal nearly a full marine team of LMG's shooting an OC, and thier compiled healspraying will make even heavy weapons (short of a GL) have great difficulty taking them down.



I said it in my first post. By FAR the greatest use of an OC is turning the weak and spongy gorge into what is actually a very intimidating fighting force. Places a gorge probably should be a large portion of the game anyways (double res on origin for example, cargo bay on tanith, mother interface on nancy, nearly any fade healing base) it's usually worth it to drop an OC or two so the supply lines can defend them selfs so to speak. OC's really don't defend parts of the map that you are ignoring, but with gorge support they can be scary.

What you describe is usually correct, but you also just pointed out their best strength. They DELAY the marines. What does time delay do? Buys your team more labor-time at the expense of the marines. If they cause marines to break following orders and waypoins they are even better. And then there are some times where they are useful deterrents just like the marine turrets and CAN kill, even though they are really there to give supressing cover fire.

I find putting OCs on higher ground more of a risk. If you are a gorge, you do want it on equal ground to soak up bullets. But if you are going to go away, then you are best to leave it on low ground or have it be able to shoot behind a wall, such as the lower area in topographical in veil.

Aliens have an extremely hard time retaking territory at the start of the game. If you can get OCs up, you can stall enough to get a lot of the map.

Yeah this strategy is very notable on Metal, where aliens can lame up Mineral Processing in order to control a huge part of the map. Marines can go around and avoid it but they usually just keep on trying to drive straight through.

I'll start by saying
1) I only play gorge, and have gotten very good at it.
2) This post is excellent and everyone should read it and understand it, even if they do not drop chambers.
3) My only complaint is that the topic should deal more with how to gorge and drop chambers, not just dropping.

A good gorge, as previously stated, can turn an OC speed bump into a Road block. I've seen (and done) on more than one occasion gorges using your above stated rules for placement lock marines in there spawn until the overwhelming use of high weps or straight up seiging. The judicial use of OC's and other chambers combined with secondary damage dealing (spit, para, spores, spikes on some servers) can be more effective than skulks or fades at holding an area.

also don't underestimate a gorges firepower (aka spit) when camping near a OC. Thats a continues stream of 25dmg flying towards the rines ppl.

Actually that's 30 dmg.

ok 30...
My mind is bad on names and worse on numbers so I'll take ya word for it.

Alright, sorry guys for not checking this guide back, I lost interest in the guide before but now I'm back and going to finish this guide. It's now going to be just for OC's, because I'm pretty sure 99% of the NS population knows how to place a DC/MC/SC etc.

Back to business:

I'm going to add the common thing with most experience players here is that they use OC's as protection when a gorge. I hadn't realized that before but when I saw 1 gorge drop 3 OC's outside MS in caged and stopped a whole team going that direction I just have to include it. That is something that I'm going to add if not already there.

I'm going to change the high ground section, I now realize that high ground can be a good thing IF you know how to use it, which I'm not going to cover in depth in this guide.

I'll also add Crispy's points. They were very good, I'm impressed .

I'll also fix up anything else I see fit. If anything else needs to be changed besides these 2 which I've missed due to time since I last checked this/unclarity just tell me.

EDIT:
Well, I'm done everything basically and edited my first post. I've still have to add Crispy's points, perhaps change the formatting colours (spent tonnes of time on that already and its still ugly) and add any missing points. I hope I'm mostly done this thing, I have a copy of the original one on hand if anything comes up tho.

I would rather have 3 mcs up before a oc is dropped. Also 4 ocs = hive so ocs are usually a waste of res.

Fades are better than static defenses (fades are the only offensive lifeforms TBH), learn to be a good fade and you'll be a much better asset for your team. Even if you CAN stop marines from going towards a certain location, that just adds more marines going to another. You actually do want to thin out the marines so ocs are bad.

Area denial can be important when the area is double res or a Hive, or the first junction on the quickest route to one side of the map from MS. And a lot of this doesn't apply to clan matches for obvious reasons, so let's keep in mind this is useful for people that want to play (and stay) on pubs.

With this in mind we can also say that Marines will not automatically go the other way.

• Good players might try to gauge the skill of the Gorge by attempting an attack, and if you're good and take them by surprise, you can get a kill out of this.
• Stupid/inexperienced players will blindly try to repeatedly attack the OC, which means lots of RFK, so you're getting area denial PLUS a Hive/Fade.
• Stupid players dying to OCs aren't in any way effective for the Marine team. Stupid live players following people through a PG and attacking a Hive are at least in some way effective, since:
  • there are more targets so a Fade may not be eliminating the biggest threats first, keeping the good Marine players alive for longer
  • stupid live players can build sieges
  • stupid live players can shoot the Hive (but only if everyone else is doing it and the comm screams at them)
  • stupid live players can inadvertantly block Fades
  • stupid live players can inadvertantly keep dropped weapons/welders from disappearing
• Also, stupid dead players clog up the respawn queue and keep the good Marine players dead for longer.
• Frustrated comms might fork out res on a GL to deal with the OCs that are feeding on all his newbie/dumb Marines. GLs usually don't last long and are fairly ineffective weapons, so this is pretty much you forcing the comm to waste res that could be spent on more effective weapons or the tech tree, delaying 'Weapons 3', for example.

I don't know, I've just played a 18player game on veil with inyourface commanding, I had a shotgun and ocs didn't slow me down at all. Overlook was oc'd up and so was double, instead of going through overlook I went through system waypointing. Double went down in 2seconds flat to 2 shotgunners while some other marines were killing overlook's undefended oc's. The only real problem were the ocs inside pipeline hive, I couldn't fly in and jetpack down a hurt fade.

Bottom line:
I'd take a decent fade over 4 ocs any day, any time, any scenario.

Well see, normally the point would be: having OC's in Overlook forces you to go through System Waypointing. why didn't you encounter anybody at Waypointing nor Nano, especially on a 9v9 server?

I'd take a decent fade over 4 stupidly placed ocs without alien team defending them any day, any time, any scenario. Overlook is probably the worst spot for ocs in the whole map. 2 shotgunners at dbl die to a few skulks while reloading.

Ocs are not some turrets of doom that solo marines but an oc at the right time can help you outlast the 15 seconds more or help to get the decisive frag. The problem is that its difficult to judge when the oc is useful and even if you want to use the oc, you wont get the chance all that often.

I'm happy to see that a lot of people are seeing my point of view and defending the OC. Thanks guys

Updates:
Added some extra bits of info in the OC section; namely adding a part dealing with reasons to drop the chamber (taken from Crispy's post [man I love quotes!]) and a few typos/formatting errors. I've decided to put in a section for each chamber; even though I've decided not to put it awhile ago I realized that it wouldn't take that long to do and is a nice addition. I'm almost finished the DC section anyway, and I've only put a couple of hours work into it so far.

PS: This post reached above 1,000 views! Yay! . Now if only it could be stickied.... I guess that'll have to wait until I completely finish this guide and maybe go through a couple of re-writes.

Alright, I've added DC sections finally. Been quite lazy and busy so I never got around to completing it till now. Tell me what you think!

would've been interesting to look at it more at a competitive level

Thats tough for me, I don't know very much of the competitive scene and it's a very small percentage of the community anyway.

If someone wants to do a section for competitive play, I'd be more than willing to let them use my guide as much as needed provided they PM me and cite my info. I personally will not write a guide like this for competitive play in the foreseeable future of NS1, just maybe in NS2 tho.

Not sure if I agree with placing all your chambers in one place, ever. If you put them all together you need to have someone pretty much babysitting them the whole round or it's just a case of a boost/mine boost/JP and they could all be history, and a Fade going from Cara/Focus 3 to Cara/Focus 0 is pretty hard to swallow. You're much more likely to find a player with 20 res than 40 to put the missing chambers up. For the first 3 DCs I'd always try to place them in vents/inaccessible areas that are in the middle ground. This basically pushes up the defensive line and allows you to reinforce the res nodes in the middle ground, which should help put the squeeze on the Marine tech tree.

I look DCs the same was as I look at SCs. For me the best result is getting a network so you're never any more than 5 seconds from healing. Having them all clumped in one area isn't making the most of their area of effect. A typical theory in NS is "what benefits the most players is the best option". This means in almost all cases Hive+Fade > 2xFade, 1st/2nd/3rd upgrade chamber > OC, 1st+2nd/2nd+3rd upgrade chamber > Lerk. The same applies (imo) to DC placement. Healing lots of players a small amount all over the map is better than healing fewer players a larger amount in one section of the map. The main difference vs. the SC is it's much harder to come up with safe spots for DCs and if you do it requires teamwork to get existing Gorges into vents or to get more players to Gorge inside the vents and drop.

The other reason is if you have all your DCs together there is only ONE place the Marines have to look for healing lifeforms. That's one spot to point themselves at and one spot to grenade. Marines are much more vulnerable if they're not all facing towards you.

Hmm, I guess I wrote that paragraph wrong, because I didn't suggest to put DC's together. What I meant to say is that it would be a good idea to complement other chambers like OC's with DC's. I know it's a bad idea to place DC's near each other, because of the reasons you mentioned.

I'll make note of it and probably put it in a what not to do section . I'll also reread the DC section to remove any hints of placing all DC's nearby.

please get it done


its a nice guide




oh and if you're at it include a guide for sticky chambers xD

Whoa, it's been a while since I've posted here. I've litterally droped this when school started.... been busy keeping my average high. I see I still need to address the MC and SC.... well, those aren't actually hard at all. Imma take a look into this when exams are done.


Heh, thanks for the compliment =).
As for sticky chambers... I'm not totally aware of these and how these work. The most I know is that they stick on ceilings and walls. Personally I am more interested in the basic game mechanics anyway. I'd rather not keep track of all the new add-ins.