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AgentF
May 11, 2009

Gunder posted:

Is there any reason for an alien to ever turn off their night vision? It's basically a quake era vision hack without the see-through walls part.

You can have it on all the time but I usually have it off maybe half the time. It's a bit garish, and I like to appreciate the scenery and pretty graphics of the game. It's undeniably useful during action so I usually flick it on just before a fight, like a knight lowering his visor.

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AgentF
May 11, 2009
The next few games I join I'll be resigned to the idea that my team might lose despite my best efforts due to new players being rubbish. And I'm okay with that, since I'll be spending time helping the new players better understand the game. Over time the influx of rubbish new players will be a robust and sizeable community.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Installed new drivers, disabled v-sync and my game is notably better. It's now around maybe 20fps but, hey, better than it used to be! :shrug:

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Had a newbie jump into alien comm and start learning how it works, with me giving him advice about it all. Unfortunately it was Veil with Pipeline hive, and the team wasn't organised enough to defend Cargo so it all kinda fell apart. But still the new guy went from knowing literally nothing to claiming res nodes, getting a second hive, researching leap, getting other upgrades. I feel like a proud father.

AgentF
May 11, 2009

Megaflare posted:

Actually, they slowly die once you switch off. Well, hydras do. I'm not really sure about clogs.

I'm pretty certain that they don't. They can even survive without being on infestation.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
If your team is doing exceptionally well (3 tech points, most upgrades, lots of pres all round) and it looks like things are stable and your team is most likely going to win, it's usually an excellent opportunity to hop out of the chair/hive and let a newbie try his hand at commanding. Then they can make a few mistakes and take their time while they learn how it all works without the pressure of early-game comming.

AgentF
May 11, 2009

Bloodmobile posted:

The skulk and the gorge have ranged attacks, too. What's your point?

The point is that a skulk that gets the drop on you will likely kill you, whereas a skulk that gets noticed from a distance gets shot to bits.

Comparing the power of a skulk to a marine is a moot point, when the question of who wins comes more down to tactics, positioning and teamwork.

AgentF
May 11, 2009

Sulla-Marius 88 posted:

Aw, firetruck. Bought this knowing my laptop is pretty bad and probably wouldn't be able to play it, wondering how it'd pan out, just downloaded it and changed all the settings to off/minimal and it's still FPS 27 in the options screen. Didn't even bother trying to play.

Will have to wait another 8 months til I can justify springing for a desktop.

Give it a go anyway. My FPS is through the floor but I still find ways to remain competitive and am having a blast with this game.

AgentF
May 11, 2009

7c Nickel posted:

Looking through the bonus stuff, pretty boss overall. One of the desktops features the lady marine, and guess what? She looks about the same as the dude marine.



Insane, I know.

No boob window? No long hair? No panty shot? I can barely tell it's a girl at all!

I hope they don't stuff up the Gorgette this badly.

AgentF
May 11, 2009

Sudo Echo posted:

Yeah, if you're any good with arcing projectile weapons like the pipe launcher in TF2, Gorge is lots of fun. I took down an exo suit by myself simply by staying out of LOS and arcing the bile bombs over obstacles. Healing your teammates on the side is just a bonus. With the regen upgrade you can be extremely difficult to kill.

Belly Slide 4 Lyfe

Some tech points have vents or little nooks you can hide in where marines don't notice you (assuming the obs isn't too close). Get celerity and silence and race to that point then evolve into gorge/adren/cara (+feign death if it returns). Then slide the short distance to the marine base and just pour bile shots into the power node. At worst you'll trigger a beacon and relieve some pressure elsewhere. At best you'll catch the comm off-guard and stop the marines from spawning, having upgrades, or teleporting to base. Once the power is down, you can start to tear apart the marine base while trying to survive as long as possible against the vengeful marines + comm trying to kill you. If you have some skulk buddies nearby then, with some luck, you can pick off these defenders and possibly win the game.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Sometimes I see two servers with the same ping and they swap positions repeatedly for no visible reason. Is it that they're sorting the list repeatedly with a non-stable algorithm?

AgentF
May 11, 2009

That Gobbo posted:

Half the time I'm building something I think I hear some skulks scurrying nearby. It's a little annoying.

I reckon it's engaging. Building something makes you vulnerable. It takes up a lot of your vision and some of your attention, and it creates distracting noise that might mask an alien's approach. Building something with a teammate allows for a look-out, but being off in the field, alone, with something to build is tense. It's quintessentially NS.

AgentF
May 11, 2009

7c Nickel posted:

Hey, looks like Criken has a new video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZdY_M9n24c

I would HIGHLY suggest you also watch his Chivalry video too.

It's like Beavis and Butthead playing NS2.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Another game, another newbie who knows how to alien comm.

AgentF
May 11, 2009

octoroon posted:

How did someone get talked into buying one of the twitchiest/most complicated FPSes on the market if they'd never played a game with a mouse and keyboard before? drat NS2 is not intro-level stuff.


A large portion of the opposing team focus firing and chasing with JPs will stop you, beyond that not much.

I'd say a small portion, especially with upgraded weapons. An Onos is powerful but still can't do anything solo, and one that overcommits will quickly find itself focus-fired and then chased down when it flees.

I commed for a newbie-vs-newbie game recently and we were reduced to turtling in our base and fending off alien pushes. We must have killed at least 4 onosses, two at a time, with nothing but focused rifle fire, even with other aliens around being distracting.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
So a Shift can teleport other structures to itself or away from itself? What are the tactical uses of this? Building up a reserve of Shades in your base then plopping them quickly on the map? How fast does this teleport process happen?

AgentF
May 11, 2009
So, how about using a Shift to farm Crags at your base and teleporting them off to be healing stations outside a marine base? Is this any faster than just plonking down the Crags normally and, if so, does the extra speed justify the extra cost?

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Alien hive was Atrium and we had a nice little base at Reactor without them really pressuring us. I researched GLs and armour 2 and was ready for a big push so I told everyone to phase to Reactor and get ready. But instead I had about 2-3 players run from Sub to Flight, which had some cysts in it but nothing else of interest and no power. Then this exchange happened:

:geno:: What are you doing at Flight Control? Get to Reactor. We're pushing.
:v:: Build a phase gate at Flight Control.
:geno:: What? There's nothing there. Get to Reactor.
:v:: No, build a phase gate here.

Then they started getting into a fight with some skulks and Reactor was starting to get pressured so I beaconed everyone to DC and told them to get weapons and phase to Reactor for the push.

:v:: You shouldn't have done that. They could drop a hive at Flight Control now.
:geno:: I don't care about that. We have a real chance to hit their main hive and take it down. There's not even any resistance there.
:v:: I just want it noted that I don't agree with your plan, commander.
:wtc:: You don't have to agree with me. Go hit Atrium.

We ended up taking Atrium down in very little time and sure enough the Aliens dropped Flight in a desperate bid to reclaim a 2nd hive but they never recovered. We eventually took Flight with no problems and won. I've just never really had my authority questioned before, and I didn't know whether to be amused or miffed.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
I suppose. In this case it wasn't about being respected, it was about having a good plan and needing the team to follow through with it. I've never seen a marine backseat-comm like that before.

Haha I wouldn't call myself a good comm just yet, and I comm aliens far more often than for marines, but if you want to add me I'm AgentFlamze on Steam.
VVVVVVV

AgentF fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Nov 6, 2012

AgentF
May 11, 2009
^^^^^^^
Press C in-game to bring up the mini-map.


There's no real reason for goon servers, tbh. The community is already very friendly and helpful and I feel no reason to need respite from those I regularly play with.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
What is spiraling?

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Hahahahahaha.

You were just being useful idiots while the Union of Soviet Skulk Republics spread its influence around the map.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Maybe have parasite reduce the effect of armour by some small-ish percentage.

AgentF
May 11, 2009

Lurking291230 posted:

There is one map where marines can climb inside the ventilation system and NEVER get out of it, because it drops them like 20 feet and they can't climb out. If the aliens don't kill them, they are out of the game.

I'm surprised that wasn't removed since I found it the first time I played.

If this ever happens to you, open the console (~ key) and type "kill".

Which vent is it?

AgentF
May 11, 2009

Fallom posted:

Cold comfort when you run out of ammo like a dummy.

Use your stupid axe.

The real cyst-killers fly around with a jetpack and flamethrower, de-cysting huge swathes of the map and causing me to pull my alien hair out.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
I had the stupidest win recently. The marines had lost Flight Control but then took it back, but instead of rebuilding the comm chair there they decided to gather up their remaining exos and go on a hive-stomping spree. They poured into Data Core and obliterated it, then moved onto Sub and destroyed that, and were now attacking Crossroads in force. The marines only had Atrium, but we were about to lose our last hive and things looked pretty grim.

At this time, I was gorging in the vents near Atrium and finished just before Sub fell, so I still had my bile bomb (and adrenaline). When the ambient noise of marine activity had died down, I crawled out of the vent and biled the command chair until I was out of energy, and then kept biling it slowly. It took a long-rear end time but I must have poured thirty bile bombs into it. After much too long, the comm hopped out and he and a respawned marine were chasing me, as I was dancing around the comm chair and biling it until I was killed.

The aliens, hard-pressed against the exo assault, were surprised and confused to discover that they had somehow won the game. The kill records clued them in to what had happened, as well as my hysterical laughter over the mic.

AgentF
May 11, 2009

voltron lion force posted:

I don't think you you can place mines on infestation :(

Indeed infestation will destroy any mines that it touches. If you have a cyst chain near a marine base that your team is about to push, it's sometimes a good idea to drop a sneaky cyst into the base and when the infestation spreads, the mines will detonate uselessly.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
I must say that I've gotten the feeling that the new community, starting to get an early understanding of strategy, are overly focused on onosses. I know that they're powerful in high-level play and were rushed out near-constantly in the recent tournaments, but I get the idea new players have decided they're a requirement for winning. In many games I have new players requesting that I save for an early onos egg (even if it's not for themselves) and that I need 3 onosses to be able to win the game.

Meanwhile I've been winning plenty of games without paying much mind to onosses. I'll research stomp when it looks like we might have one, but otherwise there are plenty of useful things I can use that res on to support the team. Hopefully I can show by example that there are plenty of other ways to win, and that cracking a late-game marine base is more dependent on coordination and good gorges than on massing onosses.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Thanks for calling me a scrub. I never said my strategy was superior; it's good enough and I win games without onos rushing.

But go on, do tell me how I should mindlessly repeat this over-used strategy because of how overpowered it is :allears:

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Christ! All of this dude's mods are horrific!

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Had a sneaky phase gate set up at The Neck outside Pipeline. Prepared for a GL push by beaconing and telling the team to arm up and phase there. Two players did but most players phased to double and then fanned out aimlessly from there.

I suppose people don't know where The Neck is and I should have said "phase to the new gate" or "phase to outside Pipeline". Needless to say the push failed then my game crashed.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
How long does it take Hive #2 to mature? Could Onos eggs be tied to two mature hives?


Alternative question: At the tournaments we saw Onosses between 6-8 minutes into the game. An Onos showing up at 15 minutes, though, isn't as much of a problem. How far should the first Onos appearance be pushed back, time-wise, to better balance its cost and advantage?

AgentF fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Nov 14, 2012

AgentF
May 11, 2009

mistermojo posted:

Hes going to make alien structures next and turning them all on would probably make it look like a Doom mod

Yeah, it reminds me of Doom as well for some reason. Might be cool to pretend to be fighting hellspawn instead of aliens, but I imagine it'd get old a bit fast.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
The question came up of why would you ever Fade when Onosses aren't that much more res and are far more worth it. In the beta, Fades were a serious threat and everyone rued how powerful they were. Part of it was due to hit collision issues while blinking but I think it's more than that.

The power of Fades is that, with a comm who focuses on res flow (as opposed to super-early hive or onos rush), players get enough res for a Fade quite faster than we see in most matches now. Because the entire team has (roughly) the same amount of res, you have a stage where the alien team explodes into 3-4 Fades at mostly the same time and the marines find themselves overwhelmed. This happened fairly often in the beta and I don't see it so much anymore, but to me this has always seemed to be the main threat of Fades.

AgentF
May 11, 2009
That's a shame. I've generally found the Australian servers to be very friendly. Where have you been playing?

AgentF
May 11, 2009

RadicalWall posted:

Hey, aliens. Have you ever wanted to know where and how many command centers the marines have?



Why do you let me do this, UWE? Can't you see I've gone mad with power?

I see this in a few of my games. Is this not the default? Am I running a mod unintentionally somehow?

AgentF
May 11, 2009
Watching. Best of luck!

AgentF
May 11, 2009
5 lerks! A firehose of spikes. How fun was that to play?

AgentF
May 11, 2009
By the end game I'm always thinking of dropping spikes. Also nutrient mist is on that tab and that sees a fair amount of use when people reach Fade/Onos res. I guess it's an end game tab.

Uses of spikes:
  • Covering a retreating Onos
  • Breaking up a group of marines
  • Bouncing grenades back at the firer
  • Catching jetpackers so they can get eaten
  • Blocking the entrance to a hive to buy time for defenders
  • Harassing the last marine alive

What else we got?

AgentF fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Nov 18, 2012

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AgentF
May 11, 2009
*drops onos egg with team res*
*takes it*
*runs off to enjoy it in some desolate map corner*

Sorry guys, if you wanted that res then maybe you should have thought about being commander.

*asks Unknown Worlds for a res bail-out*

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