I posted some Tricks for marines so i figure its only fair if i help the alien bretheren as well! here goes

-Yellow circles are enemies that are being seen by an ally, white circles are friends/hives, Red Circles are Friends/hives/buildings under attack

-Parasite allows you to see the targted unit with a yellow circle around it UNTIL IT DIES this is an in game wall hack for aliens, Parasite also works on marine buildings

-You can hide behind buildings to prevent turrets from shooting you, and can sometimes take out entire bases by yourself because a commander didnt defend all sides of his turret factory

-if your a gorge there is no reason NOT to place webs put them everywhere! and marines will be hesitant to go that direction

-If a marine touches a sensory chamber he becomes parasited

-movement chambers can be used to go to the hive farthest away from your location

-lerks can glide by holding down the jump button, this uses no energy

-if you are fighting a marine at a distance as a skulk DONT BOTHER, he will destroy you, you must wait till you start fighting within meele range or until he somehow expends his ammunition (hide behind corners, on cealings ECT)

-The proper way to use charge for onos is to press the button ONCE, and keep pressing foward into anything you want to die, This works extremely well on anything including buildings (works MUCH better if you Duck while attacking buildings)

-Umbra and Primal scream effect all units around you in addition to yourself, and both are VERY useful

-Spore cloud doesnt damage buildings

-To better see your buildings as an alien Press the Flash light key (default F) and they will become bright, If you upgrade advanced hivesight the enemy will also become bright

-bind <key you want to assign> "impulse 7" allows you chukle at the touch of a button ;o (example. bind f "impulse 7"

-Leap for skulks does very little damage and is moslty useful for getting around the map

-The best way to blink as a fade is to jump, Duck and then blink for best results or just duck, if you still have difficulties aim a little above the target your aiming for. >>>WARNING<<< you can blink into Doors and other objects in the game that are not stationary like walls

-An evil tactic (but sometimes very effective) is to let your friend go out into a cluster of marines and run around like a mad man when he dies count 2 seconds and then go out yourself, Half if not more of the marines will be reloading

-If the hive mind says "structure under attack" thats your cue to get a free kill. ALL marines attacking buildings are pretty much guarenteed to be unprepared for a skulk coming up behind them.

-You do not collect resources while you are dead

Thats about it for now, may add more later, Feel free to post your own as well

Good comments except the following:
>if your a gorge there is no reason NOT to place webs put them everywhere! and marines will be hesitant to go that direction
Yes, there is a reason not to place webs everywhere. There is a limit of webs in the game so if one newbie puts all the webs in front of one hive, web will become unusable elsewhere. My Advice: Put webs where they have the most use, i.e. placed just right in front of offencive towers so that a marine who wants to shoot turrets has to walk into a web just at the point where the turrets see him. That way he will be stuck and shot upon. That usually discourages them a little. Webs are best used with a teammate attacker hiding around the corner. Shoot one web diagonally on a wall and start building (at this point the web is not active). If an enemy walks into the room and starts shooting (you should hear him coming if your awake and careful) shoot the web on the ground in front of the marine (you could be shooting from cover without him seeing you if you setup this with some intelligence and a little thought). The enemy will be stuck and easy kill.
[XOR]Sloop

i like putting them right over the top of the ground, maybe a few inches above. That way you dont have all these webs all over the place and the marines dont even bother... i mean, you want the kill dont you?

Ahh i was unaware of the game limit, i just thought there was the limit to the number of webs in one area

Cool, thanks, there's always something you don't know. I had no idea about the lerk gliding thing.

QUOTE (Jeebus @ Nov 14 2002, 03:54 AM)

-lerks can glide by holding down the jump button, this uses no energy

i don't know about you but for me, this only lets me slow my decent, and i find it quite useless

QUOTE

-You can hide behind buildings to prevent turrets from shooting you, and can sometimes take out entire bases by yourself because a commander didnt defend all sides of his turret factory

I absolutely agree with this...most commanders (especially newer ones) drop their turret factories close to a wall, so a single skulk can take out a TF, 3-4 turrets, a resource tower, and an armory. I've turned the tide of a game by doing this two or three times. And if you've practiced your circle-strafing skills, you can hold walk (Shift, by default) and circle around right next to a turret, nibbling it while it tries (unsuccessfully) to track you. If there's other turrets (and they're not right next to the other one), you're protected by the first turret's hitbox half the time, and usually the turret factory the rest of the time. You usually only need to take down one to get at the TF, anyways.

Something evil you might try.

You need two sulks for this, one as bait and one as the hunter. Bait sulk should have regen, hive sight and celerity. Hunter sulh should have regen, cloaking and celerity.

Find a vent atht's near a high traffic location. Have the bait sulk hide just in view of anyone who walks by while the hunter sticks to the wall opposite to the vent.

Here's how it usually goes down: a marine runs by and sees the bait sulk shooting at him.The bait imediately backs up into the vent a little ways. Mr marine goes opposite the vent to get a better look and WHAM. The hunter drops onto his head and munches on his brain, killing him.

Repeat

bait +stealth = dead

another very annoying tactic if you're a lerker, hidein a vent while mariens are building sometihng, occasionally pop out and spike them all, it takes about 3 seconds to realize they're takign damage, and another 3 to pull out their guns, thats enough to drop at least one marine and cause them to be paranoid, also if you have "chuckle" bound to a key, chuckle randomly to make them think that your coming, and sometiems do, keep them off their feet and youll have yourself a thanksgiving human at your hive table ^.^

Gliding as a Lerk:
When you hold jump, you keep moving in the same direction at the same speed you were at before. So if you want to maintain a constant speed in a straight line, just glide without using your forward key.

Changing directions will require you to flap a bit, and is very tricky to do well. If you have been gliding in one direction and try to turn a right angle , you will keep gliding in the same direction for a while.

If you are just trying to hover in the air, you will still need to flap regularly to keep your height the same, but you can hold the jump button for a fraction of a second each time to save a little on energy.

more tricks

-you can use the skulk 'leap' ability to leap additional distance/in a new direction even while mid-flight for your first leap.

-blink can be used to take no damage from falls. Just jump off the ledge, look straight down, and blink. You'll appear on the ground with no damage taken.

-to wallwalk (as skulk) from a wall to the ceiling, you have to turn away from the wall and face up into the cieling. attempting to look higher and higher (ie inverting your view) will not work

-you can quickly know if your parasite hit a legal target or not. If you shoot it and it just goes 'shoof' you missed. If it goes 'shoof tack' you hit a marine or building and successfully parasited it.

-regeneration makes noise. If you are cloaked or hiding in a dark corner while regenerating, marines probably wont see you, but they might hear you.

-the fades acid rock can be used to safely detonate marine mines from a distance.

-the skulk's parasite attack can be used to activate switches/elevators/doors, anything that you would normally hit 'use' on.

I never knew that little tid-bit about using parasite to open doors. Lovely.

nice tips

QUOTE (Typhon @ Nov 16 2002, 07:26 AM)

-the skulk's parasite attack can be used to activate switches/elevators/doors, anything that you would normally hit 'use' on.

I'm going to have fun next time I play!!!

For lots of fun. sit cloaked some place out of the way near a door where you can still see the hall way. Wait for a marine to approach the door.
Open the door for them with parasite
Hit which ever key you bound impulse 7 to laugh maniacaly
shred them as they frantically search for you on the other side of the door.

Be careful of your gliding key, in the tunnel on bast I flapped like 6 times, was going REALLY fast, and I glided, into the wall. BAM! Like a bird into a wind sheild. I died.

o crap, u die if u go really fast into a wall? *rethinks suicide attacking approach*

I am a major fan of the lerk and i've gotten going extremely fast before and never died from running into a wall. you sure you didnt get shot or run into a mine or something? I didnt think that was possible. would be good to know though.

I would have to agree with wraithman on that one - I've never seen that happen, and I'm a hummingbird on crack when I play lerk. Maybe it has to do with the glide, or maybe there is a teeny little map bug there (I doubt it though, that map r0x0r5).

Flap, glide, flap, glide, dont touch the ceiling or walls, get going really fast, hit something, CRUNCH. Try it in the refinery too. Higher ceiling is easier.

mabey you need flying lessons! heheh jk

if you leap, switch to bite, switch back to leap, leap again (ie leap during a leap) it doubles your speed and you die if you hit a wall, have done it several times

So...

Hope number 1: Hope the marines dont put plexiglass in the corridors and

Hope number 2: If they do, hope they run out of Windex...



Tom "Crap Joe, thats the third one today!"
Joe "I don't care, it's your turn to clean the damn thing..."

Bwahahaha

Just a coupla bits of Alien strategy for folks.

I play a lotta Gorge, and love it, so most of this is Gorgy stuff.

One thing to remember, you're the slow, buildem type, but you're also capable of taking out a whole marine base by yourself. Not with your puny spitgun, but with your webs, your healing mist (it kills marines) and your BABBLERS!!!!

Put those webs where the marines would HATE to run into em...

-inside elevator shafts (the ells go thru em and the marines get stuck)
-doorways (especially the door to the marine base)
-around corners from O-chamber or D-chamber clusters

Remember, you can place webs from a pretty fair distance away, and the Flashlight thingy shows em up nice and white on your screen if you have trouble seeing them.

Everyone ALWAYS underestimates the power of the Babbler attack. A single marine with a LMG sees a Gorge waddling down a hallway and thinks easy kill. The next thing he knows the Gorge is vomiting up a whole pack of mini-Skulks who are depleting his ammo and taking chunks out of his armor. He backs into a web and stops shooting and the Gorge chuckles as the babblers tear the marine to shreds.

If you have adrenaline, you can pump out enough Babblers to not only overrun a base, but to keep the marines from doing anything more than defending too! Gonna take out a room fulla turrets? Stand outside and throw babblers at em! Got some Onos attacking a filled room? Send in a posse of babblers first! (distracts the turrets!) See a bunch of mines up ahead? Babblers!


Babblers... Crunch all you want, we'll make more.


There's nothing more amusing than hiding in a vent, unleashing a steady stream of babblers into a heavily fortified marine emplacement.

One thing to watch for tho, is that the game is pretty darn sensitive (buggy?) about where you are standing/facing when you produce a babbler. Keep in mind that the babbler is produced both ahead and above you. (the tips of it's rear feet will appear about a foot in front of your crosshair) If there's anything remotely near the place where the babbler would 'spawn', you lose the energy of birth, but no babbler is produced. Try and launch your babies high and in the direction you want them to go. They're pretty stupid and will mill around until they see a marine or marine structure.

Some floors won't let you babble without jumping up off of them. When you're trying to babble on an up-slanted floor either aim really high or try jumping while you shoot. If at all possible, try to babble downhill or while hanging out of a vent. IE: When you're playing ns_bast and are in the vent by the marine start, you have to be just below the top of the slope, off to the right, facing diagionally toward the opening to produce babblers.

Anyhoo, on to building things.

Whenever you build ANYTHING, try to drop a D-tower or 2 near it. A line of O towers will last annoyingly longer if you have D's helping them. Also, try and hide the D towers if you can. Their healing goes thru walls, so drop em where marines can't see em. Put them on the floor below a platform, or in those little areas on the side of coridors. They work well underwater too. Anyplace that they won't be immediately noticed but are within range of other structures.

Another fun D-chamber trick is to make "Healing Stations" of 7 to 8 D-towers near marine outposts. That way you or your teammates can indulge in hit-n-run tactics. An Onos or Fade can run in, kill a lot of things before getting low on health, run out to your healing statation and heal back up FAST for another run on the base. (Watch out for sonic cannons tho) These healing stations can be on the other side of a wall or sunken alongside a hallway to keep them not only out of sight, but out of the way. Be sure to spit up a few webs near your stations to annoy any marines trying to clear you out.

Remember that Onos have a tough time moving around, and if you can keep an area clear, do it. Try to keep movement in mind when placing O-towers too. 3 towers in a row will block most hallways, but 2 in front and 1 a bit behind will allow movement thru the line a lot easier.

A fun place to put O towers is snuggled right up to a closed door. The marines open the door and get a face full of surprize goo!

Try placing O towers diagonally across intersections. That way they can all get a clear shot in both directions. Just like turrets, O-chambers will block the shots of other O-towers.

Finally, don't be shy about evolving back down the food chain either. Skulks move faster and can get to many places that Gorges can't. If you're finished building and wish you could get up to that vent, just de-evolve! Skulks also take out Marine resource structures much faster than a slime-spitting Gorge. ...and if you've just respawned in the Grand Canal, and go immediately to Onos, then you deserve a little frustration trying to get up those ladders.

I hope this helps.

PetitMorte(?)

A note when using skulks: if your hive is under attack and it has a water surface, I've discovered that the marines find it incredibly hard to see you. Try it out. Stay still, lie in wait (doesn't even have to be very deep) and wait until they tread all over you. They won't see a thing. And amusingly, they don't seem to see you even if you start biting.

I've taken 3 HA/HMG marines out this way, and have never been killed while in the water.

Probably a bug, come to think of it.


::onos::

Actually thats a lie. You can't take fall damage as a skulk and you can leap twice in midair without changing weapons. Again, try it in the refinery in bast. With level 3 adren Ive leaped and leaped 2x in midair to go incredibly fast straight into the wall. No damage. Only works with lerks (tho it would work with the others if they could GO that fast in any direction other than DOWN.)

Skulk strategy for the vents tat go under a wall: Have one hanging off the ceiling with cloak, then send another under that'l get the marines attention, then run back through the vent, and then the hanging skulk drop onto their head and chomp it off. Works really well outside the Mess Hall.

QUOTE (Jeebus @ Nov 14 2002, 12:54 AM)

-Leap for skulks does very little damage and is moslty useful for getting around the map

It's actually stronger than Charge. Just can't continue it as long as the Onos. When you see a distant marine, Leap towards them, whip out the jaws midair, and bite bite bite when you land. Marines have a HARD time hitting a Leaping Skulk, especially one with Celerity x3.

Read the manual. Leap is 4xtouches, charge is 10xtouches. So you're wrong.

how much damage is a "touch" 1? 5?

Really should check .. but I'm guessing the internal clock in HL is 30 ticks per second. So charge does 300 dps, leap 120 dps (as long as you stay in contact).

OK a few more....

- gorg spit also trips door switches.

- if your not sure about your teams abilities to keep hives, go skulk, find one of the hidden rooms that are only accesible by vent and build 3 of each of the upgrade towers you currently have. it ensures your abilities as long as they dont build a siege nearby, or get inquisitive with jetpacks. Also helps to put a couple of D towers there, then morph to skulk with carapace. You can do quick hit and runs on marines or turrets and rush back for a heal.

- equal numbers of offensive and defensive towers work wonders, but yeh, just try and keep the defensive covered by offensive as a smart marine will kill the def. first.

- going skulk and morphing to fade in a place where you can shoot down on a marine base really annoys them. Get regen and so long as they dont have grens you'll be happy

- the best order for towers is generally defence-movement-sensory. This will often let the aliens win with fades before you even get the third hive. Unless, that is, you want to try out some different tactics D-M-S works well on pubs.

- I'll usually drop a single offensive at any res tower I build at the start, but this is assuming that most of the skulks are generally useless. I'll put 2 off with a def at a hive then move on to a res point, and come back later for more.

- if you have only 1 or 2 gorgs, its worth having 1 or 2 skulks protecting them. nothing is more annoying/damaging than just getting a res tower up then getting splatted by 3 marines and having the tower hacked down in seconds.

- heal spray rocks. always use it in reasonably close skirmish, as it heals your friends and damages your enemies.

- squads of 4 aliens, with 2 fades attacking, 1 lurk using umbra, and 1 gorg with regen doing healing/webs/(babblers) can do horendous damage to marine bases, and can keep going indefinitely. Just need to watch out for the grens.

[edit] ps, I dont think any kind of horizontal movement will get you killed. i'd say it would be downward movement that will be killing you. seems strange though. don't think skulks can get falling damage, but lurks and fades sure can. it might seem like your not moving down much if your going at a fair clip as lurk, and in places like refinery you'll find the walls generally get wider near the top, so its easy to "fall" onto one of these walls. Try it against a wall that slopes inwards and see if you can still get splatted...

QUOTE (Jeebus @ Nov 13 2002, 07:54 PM)

... -If a marine touches a sensory chamber he becomes parasited ...

Actually I believe just being near a sensory chamber parasites you, it shoots them into you, they don't just rub off. Also I think that like alien turrets there isn't a map limit to the # of webs placed but a limit to the number at a location, Im not sure of this but I think thats how it works.

acutally there is a map limit to webs so web carefully!!!!!

Now, does a sensory tower parasite damage a marine? I've been wondering about that for a while... If it did, I'd stick em in front of off towers to ward off welders

QUOTE (Typhon @ Nov 16 2002, 12:26 AM)

-you can quickly know if your parasite hit a legal target or not. If you shoot it and it just goes 'shoof' you missed. If it goes 'shoof tack' you hit a marine or building and successfully parasited it.

Not to mention you can see a new yellow blob on Hivesight, too. . . .

I didn't know about the impulse 7 trick. Thank you.

QUOTE (Lindstrom @ Nov 28 2002, 02:36 PM)

QUOTE (Jeebus @ Nov 13 2002, 07:54 PM) ... -If a marine touches a sensory chamber he becomes parasited ... Actually I believe just being near a sensory chamber parasites you, it shoots them into you, they don't just rub off. Also I think that like alien turrets there isn't a map limit to the # of webs placed but a limit to the number at a location, Im not sure of this but I think thats how it works.

That's been changed in one of the patches (1.02 I think).

Sensory chambers only rub a parasite off now. One of the groovy things though is to drop them in sinking floors (those places where towers disappear through the floor). The pipe leading towards the sewer hive (caged) is a classic. If you drop a sensor tower outside the pipe, facing the weldable vent that's inside the pipe, it dissapears into the floor, but parasites any marines that wander over it.

K.

Chuckling gives you away so fast. If you sit somewhere chuckling, you're as good as dead because they can tell right where you are, next best thing to an observatory.

At the beginning instead of biting everything as a skulk try to play scout and parasite the marines, usually they'll go lone rambo cause it gives away the position of the pack so easy kill, also help the team to see where defences are needed, you won't rack kills but u'll help your team a lot.
Also try to parasite one or two buildings in each marine base u come across even main one, don't parasite every building it is useless and cause a lot of trouble to ur team with all these yellow dots all over the hud.

QUOTE (Yassum @ Dec 12 2002, 03:34 PM)

Also try to parasite one or two buildings in each marine base u come across even main one, don't parasite every building it is useless and cause a lot of trouble to ur team with all these yellow dots all over the hud.

Best building to parasite is the turret factory. That way skulks know where it is when it's buired inside a hord of turrets, and can find an easy spot to bite it.

Well I can say Skulks take fall damage. Ive fell from moderate heights and have landed to lose like 8-12 armor or so.

And yes Lerks can fly themselves into a bloody, messy death.
Example, I was on that map with the Cargo bay area. I dont know map names, just hive names . Anyways, Theres that long vent in the back that leads to that res nozzle en route to the other hive. From the vent, for fun, I held strafe right and hit spacebar as fast as I could. I was killing time. And I flew through, came out the little opening, passed the hive, and SPLAT instant death on the wall. It chalked it up to killed self from worldspawn.

And my lerkage skills have doubled. Instead of umbra and spiking turrets, that takes too long. Just fly up to the turret, umbra, and chomp away.

Great tip for Skulk which I've sometime's used to single handedly used to turn the course of a game :

- Marines structures that have been built on metal-grated surfaces, usually a turret factory or resource tower, come from underneath and start chomping away, it will do damage through the surface and you will not take any fire from turrets etc.

On defence chambers:
Again, the regen through walls. If there is a hallway running past a marine base that isnt easily accessable by that said base, build a wall of dts. You can then have your skulks (with carapace) running in circles, being regenerated nice and fast half the time.
Being regenerated by 3 or 4 chambers is enough for a skulk to go one on one with a couple turrets with little l33t maneuvering.

Also, i find most gorges are very stingy on the defence chambers. A fade or two attacking a marine base with a nice gorge around the corner spraying and amassing 3 or 4 d chambers is a force to be reckoned with. D chambers also eliminate the need to evolve the Regen ability, as the Carapace is much more practical when constantly using the d chambers much superior regeneration.

Carca is awsome when you go agains HMGs, you get massive hitpoint increases. I can actualy take out 3-4 marines (with LMG) with carca before haveing to go heal (4th is risky) vs 1 or 2 before haveing to retreate to regen if I picked that. A (3-4) skulk rush with carca and 2 gorges with carca are a nightmare come alive for marines, even with a resonable turretfarm. The gorges just have to remember to try and heal as many skulks (and the other gorge) as possible while not spending to much energy since they prob won't have adren at this point.

I'd just like to point out that the kharaa buildings are very good at not paying attention to the material world.

For example:

Def chambers and Hives heal through any walls to a specific distance in any direction.
Offense chambers fire through other kharaa and their buildings as easily as through open air.
Any chamber that is built by the kharaa (except the obvious resourcer) can be stacked to unbelievable levels. (exercise caution, as you will tend to get stuck on the 3rd+ level)

to stack buildings, you must have a completed building as a base. Then you simply jump on top of it, and lay a new building on an adjacent completed building.

There thats my 2 cents... Not like you bugs need any help anyways....

Edit: had ALOT of fun outside the generator hive on NS_CAGED with the stacking... hehehe

Actually, Offense Chambers will have trouble shooting through one another, but only through the base of the chamber. think of each chamer as being a pyramid, the shots come from roughly the top of the chamber. if stacks directly behind another they won't shoot through, however all they need to have done is a little staggering to let them have a path through

here is a great tip i have used many times to get gorges all over the map

u need a skulk as a friend ok get the skulk to sit under a vent and get the gorg to jump ontop of the skulk and then the gorg need to jump on the spot while the skulk slowly moves up the wall and when the gorg get to the right hieght can just go in the vent but plz keep close to the gorg as they may need your help again


From ya tips master Alien Bounty Hunter

P.S
this is effective at getting gorges to hives without the marines seeing them

another little trick i found is very handy is On ns_bast there is a water tunnel leading from back of refinary to feed water I have found u can place defence all the way along so u can stay underwater as long as u need to this is handy for when your fades need to get to feed water unseen this way they dont sie while tring to swim throught the tunnel and if they are badly hurt they can dive back under and heal up and is handy in the fact the marine cant shoot under water Try it and see what ya think gorges can build the feed water hive from near the bottom so ya can sit there as a gorg waiting for res in almost safty as marines can siege it if they place the sieges right But hey thats another story lol

Hey, I've never tried. Can you blink underwater?

i have a dirty rotten strategy i used on ns_caged the other day. as a skulk, i ran into the vent at the sewer vestibule sublevel. it's the one that goes to the marine base. i went towards the end, right near where i could parasite marines. instead of climbing up and doing that, i gorged and stacked def chambs like stairs to climb up there. then i ran up and webbed their base from above. when i got shot, the def chambs healed me. you can keep jetpacks out with web too, which bothers them. after we got a second hive, i faded and another guy came with me. we climbed the stairs up there again and started rocket spamming their base. we had been on a losing streak before, but we cleaned in about ten minutes when we did that.