Okay, I was in a game about 2 weeks ago. (I'd have posted sooner but the forums were down mysteriously.) A noob gorge built one sensory chamber then wandered around building nothing but hogging up resources. We all flipped out, of course, then built 2 more so we'd at least have a full cloak, and then tried to get a second hive up. The map was ns_tannith.

How the hell do you use sensory to win when all you can be is a skulk, gorge, or lerk?

Every now and then somebody posts here and says "a team of good players can win easily with 3 sensory chambers built first." I'd sure like to know HOW.

We weren't noobs. Eventually, we even had a full cloak. We hid from the enemy. We parasited them from the ceilings. We all died constantly anyway, because the marines weren't noobs either.

The skulks rushing their base all died without being able to eat anything. We never got a second hive up, so we didn't have the option of going fade. Just what the hell were we supposed to do, oh brilliant Sensory proponents? Tell me. How does that work? Because none of us could figure it out. We were voice comming and typing at each other. We constructed elaborate plans, backed each other up, rushed to defend any structure that was under attack. But we were never able to advance or get any hives up, and forget about rushing the marine spawn.

The marines always travelled in packs and it seemed like any time they entered a room, they'ed bump into us and know we were there, even though we were cloaked and trying to let them pass by so we could attack them from behind. Their base had 4 turrets lined up in the far corner of the room behind the CC, and that was pretty much all they needed to keep any and all skulks away.

As one player wryly put it over voice chat: "Yeah, this is great! The marines can't see you! Then they trip over you and shoot you anyway!"

So explain it to me, you guys-who-allegedly-win-with-sensory-all-the-time-because-your-players-are-so-damn-good. What the hell good is cloaking for anything other than letting an enemy run past you?

Against good marines, you don't.

In the games I play (pub servers) those gorges never build DCs or any upgrade chambers for that matter, until the second hive is placed anyway. I do the majority of my marine/turret factory chomping without the aid of healing DCs or gorges, regeneration or carapace.

My problem with sensory chambers going up is they mess up the mid-game. By then you are starting serious attacks and need the movement chambers to keep going and to defend your hives.

Defense chamber is absolutely necessary for first hive. You need it to heal, keep structures alive, and claim new territory. With 2 d chambers and l3 carapace I can kill 2 or 3 marines with healing spray as gorge, d chambers are that powerful. I consider myself a combat gorge, I run to the front lines and web and spray and spit marines to death all the while building towers/chambers and sealing up choke points. You can't do that without d chambers.

Movement comes second because adrenaline is really the only useful movement ability and it's only good for the 2 hive creatures. You could use celerity with skulks, but it would probably be better to be able to take more damage with carapace as the increase in lifespan is greater than the increase in speed.

Sensory chambers are good for clogging areas when you have spare rps and your max of d and o chambers in an area. Cloaking is the best sens ability and it sucks. The advantages of d/movement so far outweigh the benefits of cloaking that sens should be put off until the third hive, but by then the aliens have won.

Then I can only say the alien team's overall skill is lower than the marines'. Without any upgrades at all, skulks should be able to pick off a few marines. If with elaborate planning and flawless teamwork that you claimed to have, then the above statement is the only explaination of why you lost.

Without carapace/cloak/celerity, a skulk is still useful.

Of course if you tell me the marines have hmg/ha or level 2 armour/hmg ect. Then the alien deserve to lose even more coz the gorges in the team are probably newbies.

There are other upgrades for sensory.
For example "scent of fear". You can see an enemy and know that he comes around a corner or something.
The thingie with the glowing buildings.... Never figured out for what that should be used.
If i see a building i see it, that it glows is useless.

From your description of the gorge you were relying on, you were already doomed. I think sensory can be used to good effect in the early game, but it's a big gamble on a pub server where you don't know your allies, so I don't suggest it. But still, if your gorge was enough of a newb to just waste resources and never get you your hive up, then you were screwed whether or not he built defense or sensory. Usually, though, skulks play offense, offense, offense until they become fades (and play offense, offense, offense), and defense chambers make for the best offense, while sensory makes for the best defense.

The early game has almost disappered. Usually it's just grab nozzles, grab hive, then upgrade, and by then you're looking for the best upgrade for you second hive evolutions (fades and lerks, since umbra is now available), which are almost always defense and movement.

*Warning* *The following is a bit off topic*

I would challenge the idea that cloaking is the best sensory upgrade. I don't think much of enhanced sight, yet even that is useful for making marines easier to target in the craziness of skulk combat. Cloaking is a nice ability, and it's uses are mostly obvious. Scent of fear I swear by. In the early game, I don't think it'd be of much use, as most marines either die, or kill the skulk unhurt. Once the second hive is up, it's of questionable value over either defense for fades or movement for fades (notice the world revolves around fades *sigh*), but marines are more likely to be injured rather than straight out killed, so you know where to reinforce... or if you are that fade, they can't hide from you. Scent of fear turns acid rocket into a splash damage parasite. In the very late game, you have overwhelming power... why hide? Scent of fear turns bile bomb into a room-wide parasite. Fire off one volley and you know every marine position in the room your attacking. If you'rea skulk, you know right where to attack (or xenocide, on three occasions I've xenocided three marines because I saw them with scent of fear from a mile away). The same goes for spore cloud as bile bomb... but once again, this means third hive, not start of game.




Wow, I think I ended up agreeing with someone I set out to disagree with. But I still say it's possible to win sensory first, and that your experiance was a terrible example of it, since the gorge clearly wasn't playing that well.

We could take them out at first, but because of the noob gorge wandering around not building anything, we had to wait that much longer for a second hive. It was 4 vs 4, so the resource pot was not very big, and one player on our team was the dickwad who only built one sensory chamber. The other 3 of us tried to rush/ambush but rushing didn't work because they would gun us down while we closed the gap to them, and ambushing didn't work because they bump into us and shoot us even if we were 100% invisible.

Yes, the marines got a lot of stuff built, and soon they had shotguns, then HMGs, and I would immagine, motion-tracking, while we were still trying to get a second hive up.

But what happened to Mr. "I'm in a clan, and we always build sensory first in a clan match and we always win! Blah blah blah blah blah you should learn to work with only sensory as your first powerup! Used correctly, it can win the game!" Explain to me how building sensory first can be used to win the game, short of incompetent marines?

Sensory chambers would be good in clangames if they cost alot less.

Lower them to 7, then you could get cheap early-game cloaking. Everyone knows it's less efficent the carapace, but that might make some clans actually consider using it. It's still to easy to counter, since a good commander will just use scanner-swep to detect hidden aliens, and once the marines have advanced to a room they want to cover, cloaking is virtually useless.

If sensory chambers are built first.. the Kharaa are going to have a VERY difficult time at winning. The tactics aren't changed as some PTs have said, before you had a chamber upgrade, you'd still rush a marine. But if you get sensory, now you rush, and if you live, you either have to run ALL the way back to the hive or to a nearby gorge to get a heal, or sit and wait for the next marine to chomp on and hope they're not smart. A smart marine will usually win against a fully-cloaked skulk if their commander was smart enough to get motion tracking right off the bat. Once you have motion tracking, you pretty much nullify any cloaked skulks. This usually only works if you have a good memory, but as a marine, you can pretty much memorize where the blips are, and kill any hiding skulks and get the "WTF!@#? h4x!" reply. I do it a lot, and if you've ever played with a guy named Rolling Rock, then you definitely understand what I'm talking about.

Also, the sensory chambers "parasites" marines if they touch.. but if you want to really avoid a parasite from a SC, take your knife and use shift to walk up to it.. you should be attacking with your knife.. the knife has (even after the v1.03 patch) enough range to attack the SC and you no get parasited. Yeah, it does tell the aliens where you are, but if you were to touch it, it'd be worse.

Anyway, a quick tactic.. use SCs as walls. Build three next to each other, and you can block a hallway.. place some OCs behind them and the OCs will shoot through the SCs.. perfect walls. Sadly, this defense doesn't last very long since the chambers don't heal over time, like a few OCs and DCs, but it's a useful tactic nonetheless.

And just quick idea.. scent of fear = useless, if you ask me. Even an injured marine can kill skulks/lerks.. just because he's injured doesn't mean he can't deal full damage with whatever weapon he has. Yeah, in a way it's like parasite, but usually you already told your team where that marine was going.. or at least I do.

Cloaking, useful, but useless when it against motion tracking. I really suggest if an alien takes cloaking/silence, they shouldn't be able to be picked up by motion tracking.

Adv. Hivesight, utterly useless. There is real good use for this. Most people just up their gamma to prevent those dark corners. My suggestion? Make the damage from whatever the alien is, more powerful. It'd make sense in a way.. allowing the alien to hit critical spots on a marine, maximizing damage. Maybe 5% for first upgrade, 10% for second, and 15% for third. The levels for Adv. Hivesight already does nothing. Level one = level three. Where I got this idea? From the manual.. the last line from the Thesis: "At its highest level, this evolution seems to make enemies near impossible to miss." I'm probably taking that out of context, but eh.. it'd make a utterly useless skill.. useful. (it'd also make sensory a more valued choice.. yeah, walls of lame would be easier to kill without the DCs supporting the OCs, but the skulks and gorges would be able to dish out more damage, making walls of lame a little more useless)

QUOTE

A noob gorge built one sensory chamber then wandered around building nothing but hogging up resources. We all flipped out, of course, then built 2 more so we'd at least have a full cloak, and then tried to get a second hive up.

Ok, there's the first reason that you lost the game. Not specifically the fact that you had sensory chambers, but because you had an inexperienced gorge running around on your team. Also, I think that the fact that you're basing your entire argument that sensory-chambers-first-sucks from an experience in one game is a bit harsh.

QUOTE

How the hell do you use sensory to win when all you can be is a skulk, gorge, or lerk?

You dont. Going back to the previous quote, that was the problem that stopped you. Not that you only had sensory first (or that you only had sensory period), but the fact that your gorge wasnt doing anything to advance the team.

QUOTE

Every now and then somebody posts here and says "a team of good players can win easily with 3 sensory chambers built first." I'd sure like to know HOW.

Easily. Teamwork, tactics, strategy. However, the most important aspect is a GORGE THAT IS HELPING THE TEAM OUT! In a sense, you answered your own question. "A team of good players" wouldnt have a gorge wandering around doing nothing. Even if they had sensory first, that gorge would be building res towers, offence chambers and saving for a hive.

QUOTE

We all died constantly anyway, because the marines weren't noobs either.

Heh, this makes me think of a quote from the movie Braveheart. At the first fight, the Scots are being bombarded by arrows and the Irish guy turns to Wallace and says, "My God tells me that he can get me out of this. But you, you're fooked!" Same situation here.

QUOTE

As one player wryly put it over voice chat: "Yeah, this is great! The marines can't see you! Then they trip over you and shoot you anyway!"

This is probably the biggest problem that your team had. This one statement alone tells me that you wernt using the cloaking to your fullest advantage along with being a skulk to your fullest advantage. WTH are you doing, cloaked, on THE DAMN GROUND?!? If you're trying to get the element of surprise, GET OFF THE GROUND! Skulks can climb walls and run across ceilings FOR A FRIGGIN REASON! If you're just sitting in the middle of a room (or even in the corner), you were actually just waiting for someone to come along and bump into you.

Now, the point of my post here isnt to support Sensory Chambers first. It's actually to point out that the sensory chambers were not the reason your team lost. It was a combination of factors (skilled opponents, clueless gorge, incorrect use of cloaking and skulk abilities, etc) that caused your team to lose. I think that your anger/angst is misdirected in that you should be verbally reaming that gorge instead of complaining about the "uselessness" of a sensory first method of playing.

I only have one question... You have level 3 cloaking, and marines were bumping into you.

Ummm, last time I checked, marines cannot walk on the ceiling, where you all should have been. In the hands of the right players, sensory first can be deadly. I'll admit, this is a very rare occasion, I personally think if you are going to get an upgrade that masks your presance, getting motion first and getting level 3 silence would be a better way to go, but I really wish people would stop complaining that it is impossible to win with sensory first. It's quite possible, it's just that most players don't know what to do with any upgrades other than defence first, since pretty much everyone gets Regen or Carpace first, then Adrenaline when Fade time comes. This isn't the only alien tactic that works...

*A Post I composed for another Upgrade Order Discussion*

1)Defence 2)Movement 3)Sensory.

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 at 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).

*End of post*

QUOTE (littlewild @ Dec 11 2002, 02:18 PM)

Then I can only say the alien team's overall skill is lower than the marines'. Without any upgrades at all, skulks should be able to pick off a few marines. If with elaborate planning and flawless teamwork that you claimed to have, then the above statement is the only explaination of why you lost. Without carapace/cloak/celerity, a skulk is still useful. Of course if you tell me the marines have hmg/ha or level 2 armour/hmg ect. Then the alien deserve to lose even more coz the gorges in the team are probably newbies.

Of course the gorges are noobs, that's why they built sensory first.

DC's are critical to defend your other towers, heal players, and provide defense traits. The first is often overlooked--how often does a couple offense towers survive by themselves against even a lone marine with a knife?

I should mention that most of the time, we were sticking to the ceiling, but because of the layout of tannith, we were usually in area with low ceilings when a marine troop would come around the corner. I think they had motion tracking anyway, because marines got a LOT of WTF!?!? kills.

I'm sorry, but I still think if you claim to have played a game where sensory was built first, and aliens won the game, it had to have been a combination of noob marines and luck that caused you to win. Sensory does not improve the chances of getting a second hive up more than Defense. Sensory Chambers built in hallways or near other structures do not help nearly as much as defense chambers built in the same position. Sensories are no help in rushing the enemy base, defending two hive locations (except for alerting hatchling skulks) or getting the third hive up. Movement and Defense does help.

There is no combat situation, strategic scenario, or map position I can immagine in which it is better to have sensory chambers than to have defense or movement chambers. If you can explain why building sensory first would ever be a good thing, I'll listen to what you have to say. Until then, I will continue thinking that Defense > Movement > Sensory is the "best" way to go, and therefore building in any other order is hurting the team's chances of victory.

If you won with sensory first, good for you. It doesn't prove sensory is any good, though. I won a game as marine commander once, but does that make me a good commander? Hell no. I just got lucky. The other team was sucking big time.

QUOTE (WarpZone @ Dec 11 2002, 09:02 PM)

If you won with sensory first, good for you.  It doesn't prove sensory is any good, though.

Likewise, if you lost a game with sensory first, too bad. It doesnt prove that sensory is a poor choice for first chamber, though.

I've won at least 3 games where sensory was purchased first. I've won more games than I can count wherein NO chambers were purchased until the second hive, on my command, despite whining from other players. Walls of Lame are not actually required in the early game.

It was a larger server. I think our team had 8 players on it. Five of us had just stuck through 3 straight games, and were learning to play as a team. The other three fluxuated. At any rate, the plan was "One gorge. Build three resource towers, then go straight for the second hive. No offence chambers, no defence chambers, Rush the hive building. All skulks are to start off rushing the marine base, but no skulk is to enter the base unless he is backed up by at least one other skulk, preferably two. Unsupported skulks are to wait outside the door and devour them as they come out. ALL skulks, no matter what they are doing, are to answer a "Resource Tower is Under Attack" message immediatly."

There was a lot of whining from the three players that fluxuated. But despite their whining, we won. And we won again. And again. And again. I've used that tactic whenever I could convince a server to do it. No chambers are needed for the early game. Besides, skulks should max themselves out in the early game, and not buy ANYTHING until the second hive is up, so the gorges get more resources.

In this same manner, I have been able to pull a team of Khaara to victory when sensory was built first by a noob gorge, or just plain one who believes in cloaking first. Step 1: Get rid of the idiot gorge. Step 2: Proceede as above. Get three towers, no defenses, then a second hive. All skulks are to defend towers immediatly.

It works people. Trust me. I do agree that adreneline and regeneration are necessary once fades are available, so that gorge backup isn't needed and the fades can assult an outpost alone or, even better, with lerk support. But for the first hive, no chambers are needed.

LOL Fieari you would have won ALOT easier if you were smart enough to get carapace.

LV 3 Carapace and it takes a LMG marine 19 shots instead of 9 to kill you.

It doesn't mather if you "won" withouth upgrades, what mathers is that defense upgrades are the best early game, and should *not* be ignored.

QUOTE (Tomten @ Dec 11 2002, 10:44 PM)

It doesn't mather if you "won" withouth upgrades, what mathers is that defense upgrades are the best early game, and should *not* be ignored.

I take it you meant to say "matters", but in a game, the only thing that matters is winning (I mean, aside from having FUN!), and however you choose to do it is okay, so long as you win.

ANYONE who believes in a strict build order is a very closed-minded indivudual. I have won games with all three types of chaimbers built first, getting a defence chaimber first is not a strict rule, if it were, the game would force you to place defence chaimbers as your first upgrade, it is as simple as that.

When it comes to what chaimber is built first, you have to think about the players. I will agree, in most pub games, the defence chaimber probably should be your first choice, but not for it's upgrades. Most noob players will not protect structures that are under attack, and for a gorge, always running to a tower to heal it may not always be practicle. When I am playing with friends, or am lucky enough to have a skilled team, the other towers can make excellent choices.

The most common thing I am hearing is, "You are teh suck if no def first, carpace is owned, you die slower!" Well, if you were not getting shot in the first place, maybe you would rather have silence, celerity, or cloaking? When I have silence as a skulk, I rarely absorb even a single bullet, let alone enough to kill me or warrent healing. Your upgrade path should not be planned out before the game starts, it should be based on your players abilities and needs, they are the ones you are building all this crap for anyways.

If you start out with a movement chamber in clangames, you are as good as dead. The same goes for sensory chambers. I don't care if it works on public servers. Anything but carapace is a deathsentance if you play against a skilled clan, but that's just what I think.

The things is, no upgrade can really compete with carapace. While cloaking can be useful, you still need adrenaline and carapace, and cloaking can be easily countered with scannerswep. Celerity and Silence are good skills for skulks, but I doubt you can use it with much success against a good marine team (i'm taking early game now).

Carapace is NEEDED to fight on equal terms versus marines. In early-game before skulks get carapace, they die FAST to good marine players.

I'm not close minded, I just know how to play the game.

First, I didn't know we were talking about clan play. No one, not even yourself, said anything about that. Second, saying that a certain tactic wont work, without even trying it out, well, that fits the definition of closed-mindedness in my book.

I'm not even going to go on arguing with you, because you are not being rational. You spout off opinions like "no upgrade can really compete with carapace" as if it were a fact. Just because something doesn't work for you or your clan doesn't mean the same is going to go for everyone else.

Either way, all of this will end up changing with patches in the future, so what is the point?

It's perfectly possible to win with any of the 3 chambers built first. In fact (I realize clan play is not the discussion here), my clan often builds Movement chambers first because silence and celerity are so tasty with a skulk.

If Defence Chambers are *not* built first,

1) Gorges must take an active defensive role - their healing spray is the only way to heal alien structures.

2) Offensive aliens must play smarter, using one of two tactics:
-a- Ambush. Cloaking, Scent Of Fear, or Silence are key. Advanced Hive Sight will give aliens the edge in a dark room (where ambushing is easier).
-b- Evasion. Celerity for a skulk/gorge and celerity or adrenaline (don't worry about energy while flying) for a lerk. Scent of Fear can help avoid engagements with superior forces; AHS will help you keep sight of your enemy even while you're constantly moving.

Cloaking is *not* negated by motion tracking; merely compromised. MT will not track you while you're motionless, which is when cloaking kicks in. Yes, the marines will know where you stopped, *if they're close enough*. If they have MT, adjust your tactics and - you may need to wait patiently in an area you know they're approaching.

"my clan often builds Movement chambers first because silence and celerity are so tasty with a skulk."

you can't even build MC's when you only have 1 hive... explain how you do it then coil?

QUOTE (LPC @ Dec 12 2002, 12:43 AM)

you can't even build MC's when you only have 1 hive... explain how you do it then coil?

You can build any type of chamber for your first hive...

QUOTE (coil @ Dec 12 2002, 02:25 AM)

If they have MT, adjust your tactics and - you may need to wait patiently in an area you know they're approaching.

Which is the major problem with sensor. It's completly defensive. It does not help if you need to attack. How will cloaking help against a siege/phasegate marine invasion? Compared to carapace, which allows you to live twice as long, or adrenaline which allows you to deal out twice the damage, just how much help is cloaking? Or (lol) advanced hive sight?

Sensory allows you to get some neato upgrades ... and if they were free, noone would argue. Sensor isn't free though - it costs you either movement or defense, both of which are FAR better than anything sensor offers.

Sensory first is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. Sure, you might win ... but does anyone doubt that you would have won using both hands?

Let me emphasize something. Defense chambers first should not, if you are playing to get to the 2nd hive as fast as possible (anyone deny this is a good plan?) be for the purpose of carapace. As I mentioned, no upgrades should be available, IMHO, until the 2nd hive. If skulks ALL have their resources maxed out, ALL those resources are going to the gorges. Every time you spend those 2 RP to upgrade, remember that you are stealing those RP directly from the gorges. That's not your personal stache of resources there, hive brother, even though it looks that way to you. Khaara share resources too, it's just less subtle.

If you are using the 2nd hive-rush strategy, which I've found works QUITE well, even on pubs if you can find a few players willing to work as a team, the only purpose for building a chamber is for the benefits that building provides... such as healing for DCs. If your team isn't working together well, then it might be beneficial to build defences... but then you risk some skulks getting carapace, because it "Makes you die slower".

Here's a hint: Not getting hit makes you die slower.

Good skulks don't need carapace to help their team. And if death comes, so what? It hurts your K:D ratio? Poor baby... why don't you grow a pair and take it for the team.

Note once again that this post is centered around the 2nd-hive-rush strategy, which I have enough experience with to say works rather consistantly if you have a half-way decent team.

okay first thing, 4v4 you should of easily won,

Less res being taken from the gorges, the gorges should have been able to get a 2nd hive up before the 10 min mark easily.

Aliens have no reason for losing if they have less than 4-5 people on their team.

Now about cloaking -

Do Hide in normal hiding places, above doors and such, the marines check the door nothing there move on then attack.
Don't cloak out in the path of marines (duh!)
Do think

"Here's a hint: Not getting hit makes you die slower."

Some marines out there have this pesky thing called "aim" and "commen sense". No upgrades of any sort vrs marines who check those corners, travel in groups, and can actually hit the broad side of a barn = lots of dead skulks.

"Good skulks don't need carapace to help their team. And if death comes, so what? It hurts your K:D ratio? Poor baby... why don't you grow a pair and take it for the team."

How about you play vrs marines who rush your 1st hive. Oh yeah, death doesn't matter when 6 guys are dead waiting to respawn oh so slowly from that 1 hive, while the only living guy is a gorge capping resource nodes.

I guess they should of taken your hint and just not gotten hit.

Blank

QUOTE (Fieari @ Dec 12 2002, 11:22 AM)

Defense chambers first should not, if you are playing to get to the 2nd hive as fast as possible (anyone deny this is a good plan?) be for the purpose of carapace.

I used to be a great fan of 2nd hive as soon as possible. Unfortunately, against good marine teams, you will find yourself sieged or assaulted in either the first or second hive location before you are able to build the second hive.

Thus, I've found that delaying the 2nd hive a minute or two in order to build defenses at strategic chokepoints has proven to be a safer strategy. I usually build three res chambers, then defenses, then the hive. Costs two minutes, but I feel a hell of a lot safer knowing that the marines will have to announce themselves by fighting my defensive positions before getting anywhere close to our hives.

An interesting thing is that while you are building the defenses, all your skulks start to get filled up and shift their resources to you, so at the end you are receving about 80 resources per minute in an 8v8 game, so the delay to build the 2nd hive isn't all that much - 2 minutes delay allows you to put down about three defensive postions, each consisting of 2-3 OC's and a DC. After the hive is up, complement the positions with more DC's and an extra OC, while you still have the extra resources (once the 2nd hive is up, the resource income reverts to normal as noone is full anymore, say about 10-20 res per minute instead of 80).

Oh, and I disagree .. the first DC is an excellent way of extending the life of your skulks. The small delay on the second hive is well worth it, considering that the DC gives 50% extra life to the skulks (9 -> 14 LMG shots).

It is of course imperative to know exactly where you the chokepoint defenses are to be built.

Hint: it isn't _in_ the hives.

Sensory doesn't work first, because most likely the marines will take a hive and the aliens will take a hive, then when the fades go to get that third hive back, they either have no armor or half affective acid rockets.

I see the chief problem as Motion Detection. Silence? No way, they still know you're there. Cloaking? They may not know exactly where you stopped, but they have a pretty damn good idea. Celerity? Maybe, but the speed increase just really isn't all that great unless you are a gorge, and adrenaline is a better choice there. And who cares about enhanced sight and scent of fear? Certainly nobody I've played with. The only use I've found for sight is in crowded marine bases and the only use for scent is for acid spores. So many tactics become available when they don't have motion. I'd settle to have motion be lost if you took out the observatory, but it's not so.

Also, you have to keep in mind most players are NOT in clans, thus a lot of strategies can't be used like they could if they were a completely organized team. Getting sensory or movement first means that when they attack those offence chambers, odds are there will be nobody there to protect them and no gorge to run back fast enough in time. Defence becomes the only legitimate choice in this situation.

I think that about sums it up, make of it what you will.

Way to win in an RTS: Play each game differently by taking advantage of your opponents weaknesses and mitigating your own.
Way to lose in an RTS: Have a build order that goes more than 5 minutes into the game and never deviate from it. *Elric bashes the hint buzzor with fervor*

I'm with coil on this and might as well just put my other post here as well on why/why not to get defense first.

QUOTE

Early Defense is good for: Rushing marine spawn/captured hive Protecting the hive against kamakaze marine rushes Setting up solid forward bases before siege Giving gorges a chance to run from marines with carapace/redemption Bringing damaged troops back to action quicker (either with forward towers or regen) Early Movement is good for: Lots of energy use (parasite/healing spray spammers) Getting to multiple groups of marines Sneaking up on building/scouting marines Getting back to the hive ASAP (no rule saying they can only be built at hives) Allowing gorges to expand quicker Early Sensory is good for: Containment Keeping track of any marines at sensative points (they can't walk past SCs like they can OCs to avoid detection) Spotting hiding marines (Elric fails to get excited) "Parasiting" marines by damaging them So in general, defense is for being agressive and trying to overcome a disadvantage like an agressive marine rush or taking back a turreted hive, movement is for flanking and fighting 2-3 groups of marines and scouting, sensory is for cementing map control (but you have to already have it).

So in relation to the arguments here...

QUOTE

Which is the major problem with sensor. It's completly defensive. It does not help if you need to attack. How will cloaking help against a siege/phasegate marine invasion?

Obviously, it doesn't. It prevents or at least significantly delays them from reaching this point. If they already have it, then obviously sensory is a weaker choice. However, if they do have one hive, at least it slows/reveals them enough through a few key sensories at chokes and camping skulks to get time to get the second. Being defensive is exactly what you need when you have nearly everything and need to keep it. It's perfectly worthless when you have next to nothing. Defending choke points near or at your base doesn't win games, defending *their* choke points does.

The defense tree is, ironically enough, when things have gone bad and you need to take territory back. If you lose map control, this is what you need. IF!

Movement helps when the areas of the map where battles are taking place are constantly in...movement. It does have it's map control abilities through silence/teleport but is obviously weaker in defense than sensory and weaker in offense than defense (have I confused everyone? Good =). It's the balance between defense and offense when you really don't know which way the overall battle is going.

The problem with this in public games is that each requires a change in strategy. Let's face it, newbies aren't going to stop playing like it is AvP no matter what is up. All they know is how to play offense and that offense doesn't work as well without d>m>s. Your attitudes are showing exactly that problem. The problem isn't always the upgrade order; it is THE PLAYER that is the problem.

If the gorges make sensory chambers when they're busy trying to take back the map, the gorges just made a serious tactical error in not realizing the situation. Likewise, if the marines are still holed up in their main and the gorges build defense chambers first, the gorges have just made the *same* tactical error. If the skulks have cloak and the marines are still in their spawn and the skulks aren't all waiting to devour them, then they have made the exact same tactical error. To repeat my opening, you lose when your tactics aren't based in reality.

Defense chambers do very little compared to the other two upgrades to keep the marines stuck in base. In fact, I'd say they don't do the job hardly at all until later in the game. Gorges can't risk/afford building forward defense towers near the marine spawn so anything that gets damaged has to a) run far back to find the tower nest or b) hide long enough for regen to finish working. They are not functioning during this time. In addition, agressive aliens die much more than defensive aliens and dead aliens don't defend. Unless the offense is so effective that it forces them to turtle, the first time you mount a serious offense and suffer heavy casualties, the marines have a good 30-60 second window to counter-attack while the aliens respawn. Eventually, usually sooner rather than later, this happens. The best example of this is when after the first alien rush, all the skulks die without doing any significant damage at all and the marines take a hive or counter-attack the alien start with impunity. Any RTS player worth their salt will tell you that nothing screams "TAKE THE MAP PLEASE" more than a massive loss of troops with no gain.

I think I've ranted enough and made my point.

I can attest to the fact that you can recover from a "sensory first" blunder.
We were playing Eclipse, on a pub, and our first-timer gorge put up a sensory chamber. He promptly got his ears blistered, and was told to go skulk, which he did. We explained to him that your fades were a lot better off with regen and adrenaline, but now, we'd have to do without one. He apologized for the mistake, and we played on.
We got the second hive up, core, about the time the Marines got eclipse secured. It was a close vote, but the majority wanted DCs as the second upgrade. I'd prefered adrenaline myself, but that was that. Enter the meat grinder...
It was extremely hard work to defend core from sieging attemts. We had to use fades in umbra to rush the many siege farms that they tried to set up. Sadly for us, they had a competent commander, and he never tried the same spot twice. We were realy missing movement chambers at this time. Not only because of adrenaline, but so we could move between hives better. We lost an inordinate amount of fades being used with skulk-rushing tactics, but without adrenaline, acid rockets just wouldn't do the job.
We were prety well stalemated for about 20 minutes. There was this vicious cycle going on. They'd arm-up, throw the kitchen sink at us, and start a siege farm. We'd rush them as they were building, destroyed the farm, and counter-attacked Eclipse with the aim to destroy their phase gate, and TF.
It was not fun for anyone. Not a few seconds passed without someone proposing to mass-f4 on global chat. It was that painfull. No one wanted to quit though, damn our blood-thirsty hearts. Eventualy we tried two Lerks stagering umbra at Eclipse, and we cracked the TF. We kept on pouring Skulks untill we finished it off. I thought we were going to choke because folks would try to go fade, but everyone kept at it, and we got our third hive. It ended soon after...thank god!

Pretty long-winded, but I just wanted to make three things evident:

1) It is the team that wins the game, not the upgrade.

2) If you are a "sensory-first" advocate...behold the pain that is in store for you, even if you win.

3) By the end of the match, our would-be george, was third in kills, and knew what an impact building the wrong thing has on a team. I'm glad he toughed-out the reaming and finished the game.

Well said.