here is the one and only time you should get sens first .... when you want to make the game harder for yourself and want to struggle for victory if not lose. thats the only time you should get a sens

here is why sens is the worse chamber to get

1) all the abillities are easy to counter for marines

a- Cloack is easily countered with Motion Tracking
b- Focus is easily countered with Armor 1 upgrade
c- sof only levels the playing field out if they have MT so it doesn't help all that much

getting MC is much better

A- Celerity is not counterable execpt by getting better shooting marines, it matches the aliens skill VS the marines skill, not the marines tech VS the aliens tech. thus, all the good plays should get Celerity to out match their openents in skill

B- Silence is not counterable , unlike Cloack silince enables aliens to fool the most importent marine of all. the commander, I've led dozens of skulk rushes where we sneak into an empty marine start early game and silently chomp the CC before the com even notices

C- Adren also has no easy counter, the fact that you can have more attacks is simply a great advantage. great for BB gorges and Sporing Lerks

2) the order of hive chambers is terrible with sens first

a- you will need to get DC at least first or second hive, by the time you have a 2cd hive , marines start getting HMGs , its impossible for Aliens to function without fade's and other upper level life forms using a DC upgrade. but if you get sensory first then DC , you will have to run between hives in case either one is attacked, those seconds that you have to run from hive to hive can be the diffrence in stopping a siego or phase gate rush.

b- if you get in a double hive lock down, sensory is near-impossible to use to break a base to free a hive.

getting MC is much better

A- if you get MCs first you will enable your skulks to kill more marines, the R4k gained by this can be used for a skilled skulk to get a quick second hive and BAM you get DCs , because you got MCs first it is easy to go from one hive to another, making it easier to secure RTs and hive locations.

B- a double hive lockdown is hard to get out of with MCs as well. but I find that Celerity Fades are better off then any Sens upgrade


I hope I've been able to convince you that Sensory is a horrible first hive chamber and should never be recieved first.. thank you

MC is the best hive chamber, if you have a skilled team , g MDS for the win every time

ok... but when your an alien.... do you instantly cloak.... then walk slowly around the entire map? do you crawl out of your base at .5 miles an hour and 30 minutes later make it from your hive to MS?

Motion tracking still helps outragously with aliens even if they are cloaked

Unless there happens to be a sensory chamber anywhere nearby, in which case the alien can run full speed and still be cloaked. If aliens don't have sensory chambers all over the territory they control, and somewhere nearby contested areas, they aren't using it right.

in the new beat 6, the SC is much better. anyways, getting SC is ok as long as u get the 2nd hive up quick. in my opinion, SC benefits the lower life-forms better than the higher life-forms. thats is why it is gd for early game. skulks wif focus can easily own marines early game, b4 they get armour 1. the R4K they get is a lot. SOf is a most useful ability for skulks. cloaking, well u wont need it if the map is covered wif SCs. the thing is, wif SCs u can get enuf res by R4K for a 2nd hive. From there, get whatever chamber and then u can onos or fade safely.

While SCs might work in both b5 (improbable) and b6 (more likely), it still sets the game up to be equally frustrating and boring for both teams...

Marines gets to deal with skulks they in no way can get the first shot on (regardless of skill) and fades that can one-hit kill you with lerk support, as well as being totally unable to move anywhere unnoticed.

Aliens gets to deal with two locked down hives and a boring tech-up phase before the marines walk in and siege you, with no real ability to break a lock-down of any kind (not to mention trying to take care of HMGs without help from hit registration issues - celerity, or higher capacity to take hits without having to return to hive - carapace or regeneration).

Overall, it's boring and frustrating and I wish they'd remove the cloaking ability entierly from the game.

[Edit] Basically, SCs makes both alien and marines haveing to play a one-shot game. If marines are able to push INTO THE SECOND HIVE LOCATION (or prevent it for ~1-2 min) and get an obs up, aliens CANT WIN period. If aliens are able to stop the marines BEFORE they get to a position where they can siege/lock down the second hive, they CAN win.

Yeah the SC is really a one hit wonder.

Great at game start, cos you have the whole sens network thing, you have SOF for any scout lerk, you have focus for people who can time their bites.

A good team should make enough focus kills in order to drop a hive very quickly. If they dont....


Marines rush obs. MT makes things a little easier. Or they rush weapon ups, bait the aliens and dice them. Or armour ups and lots of medspam.


If/when aliens get second hive, they're put in a quandary. DC, which will counteract some of the weapon ups, but leave them with a crippled reaction time to hive rushes, or they go with MC, which means relying on stealth (negated by mr obs and his friend armour1), having a good hive attack reaction, but withering under marine heavy support.

So SC really requires an exceptionally aggressive AND successful alien team....... something thin on the ground in pubs, and in the clan environment I would wager that no one team would be willing to really gamble a league match on the possibility that they might seriously outclass their opponent.

All things being equal, SC first is viable as it stands. If you're a better team than them, sure, but if you're on even skill levels... no chance..

armor 1 only "cancels out" focus if you suck so bad that you can't get a second bite off.

I'd use Sens first on tanith. I made it work in a 12v12 pub server. TWELVE vs TWLEVE. Even with the huge marine advantage, the aliens were still able to prevent marines from taking cargo at all. But, tanith might be the only map I can do this on.

ARrrg where has this sccounter=MT came?!?!?!. I would say that SC is aliens version of SG rush, if your team dont know what you are doing your screwed otherwise you have good chances win.

so basically your all saying.... SC is good if and only if you have a very skilled team... and if you did have a very skilled team.... why not get MCs and dominate the marines about 10 times harder

Its not just a skilled team, it needs to be an aggressive team.

Second, SC means the marines HAVE to counter. If you go MC, you're not really forcing the marines to do anything. They just have to listen more, or keep a sharp eye out (depends on upgrade obviously).

If aliens go SC first, you WILL have to alter most marine strats in order to react. If your team cant shoot, or you cant medspam, then you WILL need to get armour 1 or MT in order to spot ambushes. You can also write off ninja phases because there's always some gorge who has SOF and is just waiting for a ninja attempt.

If aggression is followed up, then the second hive should be fairly quickly up and also signal the endgame.

Skill AND aggression, going SC first means you can pretty much rule out defensive strength unless you somehow manage to place cloaked OC zols.

agression can be played out well with MCs as well tho. Celerity skulks have more agression then anything because they can freak the marines out cuz there not use to shooting a fast target

Sensories require not skilled teams, but organized teams. Meaning you don't let the Marines know that you have sens until a few minutes into the game (by NOT decloaking right in front of them, etc). You build a sensory network throughout the map, so that you can have cloak+focus/sof everywhere. That is killer. Also, you have to adapt your strategy - more offensive gorges (for healing), etc.
DCs are for unorganized teams, MCs are for average teams, SCs are for organized teams. Easy as that. And of course, SCs are the most fun
And you have no idea how frustrating it is to get killed by cloak as Marines...

the starter of this thread isnt very smart.


end of post.

This is a tremendously helpful reply, I know, but..
Sensory is great if you and your team know what you're doing. Playing with a bunch of idiots or newbies will get you nowhere (atleast if the newbies are unwilling to learn.) The regulars on most servers will know how to play with Sensory, and a little microphone communication goes a long way in getting you the victory.

Sensory will of course become a much more viable tactic, however, in b6.. due to it's SoF bonus, the cloaking changes, and the free upgrades. No more wasting 2 res on an upgrade only to get popped before you even reach the Marines.

Above the reasons mensioned
i think "those lamers who put light gramma to maximum looking for cloaks" is the biggest reason to stop u dropping sc, isnt it meaningless to cloak and to be uncloaked everytime?
mc is nice, instead.

i just played a game with quite a few pubbers i knew were quite experienced. at the countdown to the start of the game, a person announced to drop sc first and the team went into 'sc mode', if u like.

they dropped three scs right from the start and we focused their **** and we even got a focus fade up + scs in important places soon after. we proceeded with SMD and won, basically.

u only need players who know how to play with sc being first and tell them at the beginning of the round that ur planning to drop sc rather than dropping an sc in the hive when u feel like it 4 minutes into the game when everyone else is expecting a dc.

hmm i'm not sure about pub games, but i thought aliens are winning more in clan matches?

surely that's what the game balance should be based upon? not what happens in pub games, but rather the clan games?

Clan matches can suck it. Without pubs the game dies. I know UWE is not going to make NS2 for the clan scene, because $50 from all the clanners isn't going to turn a profit.

Sensory is awesome if you know how to use it and it should only become more useful over time. We'll just have to wait for b6.

SC right now is very map dependant I think...but I'll let tsojan state why sensory is bad first.

SC is a great chamber to get if you're team knows

1) where to place the chambers so skulks can cloak when they're near them
2) how to ambush
3) what focus is
4) has good teamwork

Otherwise its GG

Movement is better? Hmm its hard to say... Generally, you want to set up 3 ASAP if your team decides to get movements first so you can max upgrades (lvl 3 silence/level 3 cel). Celerity is very good if you can bunny hop and silence is good if you can ambush.

Defense is the best choice for starting chambers imo. Most commanders push armor 1 -> weaps 1 -> weaps 2 -> weaps 3 and then finish researching the armor upgrades afterwards. The upgrades that dcs provide allows a fade (who is basically the whole team) to single-handedly eliminate several marines at once while the marines are getting weapons 2. By that time, however, your second hive should be going up and you should be getting either sc or mc for more upgrades.

Won't somebody think of the cloakers? Oh the cloakers! (like me)
Ur right though,SC's suck as starting point; but then most games I've seen a DC is slapped down first. Never an SC though.
SIEGE VS GORGE! WHO WILL WIN!
CALL: 0800 999 001 for Seige.
CALL: 999 for Gorge.

SC first pwns all......and its fun

Get ur whole team to CLOAKWALK... and watch the marines have 3 resnodes TOPS all game

Fun ****

~Jason

SC 1st or 2nd is really dagerous cause onos and fade need both MC and DC.
So if u took SC 1st u have to get 3 hives up to handle with a HA train.
In my opinion it depends on the comm if sens works or not, he has to drop some obs here and there and support his marines by scanning, thats the way to take sens out

and of course 1 armor up (always anyway)

I prefer MC 1st cause silence is useless if they got MT. and well its great to take out the Marines as silence skulk

u can see cloaked but u cant hear silenced ^^

thats what I'm saying.. MC is the best first chamber. sensory is like shooting yourself in the foot at the beggining of game, sure you still "Can" win but it just wouldn't be as easy/fun as if you picked a better chamber like MC

sure MC is generally seen to be an 'easier' starting chamber if you want to win the game, but SC can easily be just as fun provided you get three of them.

but of course the word 'fun' is an entirely subjective term.

btw welcome to the forums Scharfzahn but i don't get why you like MC first because silence is useless if they got MT

MC allows you to be more kinetic.

DC allows you to take more damage.

Both of these help the 'run up to marine and bite his kneecaps off' aspect of the game.

SCs allow you to see other players, hide, and bite them harder.

These require a player to be slower and think more as to what the marines are doing, where they are going to be going next, what routes they are taking, ect.

Like it or not (And I know I don't, hell knows some of these games could use a different order) Sensory requires a non-rush based tactic.

And that is why they are different.

This does not excuse you from berating the person who put down sensory, unless the tactic was tried many times before with failure. And for the love of whatever higher power you worship, DO NOT do a 'omgwegotsensf4' on the public channel. Everyone expects a non-sensory first, do try not to spoil the surprise.

heres the rule of thumb... if your a gorge, don't drop Sens first your first game on the server.. play a few games, see what the players are like, if they are skilled then bring up the idea in team chat at the beggining of the game ... if they want ti then go for it, but if theres a lot of "nooo " then don't do it.... thats a good way to play it in my opion.

I'm not saying sens is a bad chamber...its just the worse out of the three...

Unfortunatly, Mr. Avenger.....

You can't learn comming until you hop in the chair.

and...

You can't learn how to play a chamber without having it dropped first.

Edit: Having it dropped on a first hive.

Now, I can't speak for every player, but I'm free to go out on a limb and say that many people are afraid to try something new, expecially in the public forum, where shame becomes a factor. Many of those who demand a specific chamber first may just not know how to play it any other way, and are embarrassed to lose because everything didn't go their way, chamber wise.

Edit: You know, this all may actually stem from the great Sensory rush that came with the starting weeks of 2.0. Now, I'm not pointing the finger at Avenger here, but I know a few people who have been permantly harmed from having sensory firstly dropped on the first hive twenty games in a row.

Edit: Remember when there were forums to actually lock the upgrade order to DMS? Single-minded people, those were.

*listens to chamber music*

Right now sensory is horrible, but I have a feeling after looking at the changelog for B6 that it's going to be a lot better and a lot more people are going to like it.

then I will try it out in multiple ways, evaluate it, and see if its any good. but until then I stand by my saying that I don't like sens first. theres certain tactics you can use with it to win a game, but as a whole it hurts your team in the long run in my humble opinoin

Sens provides nothing against elec, whereas DC (regen) and MC (Adren) assit in killing Eleced PGs, RTs and TFs.

IF sensory helped kill eleced stuff in some way, perhaps Make the chamber itself immune to electrical damage and make the electrified building fire all its charges at the SC. That way for a 20 res invenstment (gorge+Sc) you could disable the Elecy on the Structure so the skulks could eat it.(yum)

Sensory.... SNEAK....Up...The.....Hive.....Is....So....Friggin.....Easy....

~Jason

People actually use electricity? When the heck did THAT happen? For the price of an elec, I am give my marines a level 2 upgrade, or 3 shotties, or 6 welders. Hmm...minimally protect one small area...or give my mobile turrets (marines) a lot more firepower (enough to kill skulks with one hit, gg no carapace). It SURE is a tough choice.

To all those whom say that Sc kills fades, I tend to getmore kills with SoF then I do with regen or cara, also I do not know what your team is doing with a one hive fade or onos. SoF fade can tip the balence in your favour quite easily, you can sneak up on rines alot easyer with both SoF or Cloaking, and you know which marines are alone go for them. If your playing on a pub there is quite a high chance that theres gonna be a person ramboing wheather he thinks hes good, RT guy or complete newb. What really annoys the comm is picking of lone shotties or theshotties on in the rear of a small pack. Also early game info is vital, if you all build defences exoecting to weacon armour a PG Siege rush will completly screw you over. Sensories can also prevent the ninja PG.

listen buddy. I've played dozens of sens first games. and I've won and lost a few. I'm just saying that MC first is 10X better then anything. but when B6 comes out maybe that'll change since sens is getting a big boost in there. but if you think sens first is the best... then you are crazy