Just a few thoughts on hive building

[MagicPussyCat]

I see a few very silly mistakes being done when it comes to building hives/placing walls and stuff, so I thought that I would make a few diagrams explaining my thoughts about this subject.

I only made diagrams for two situations, but you can apply these to any situation or part of the map:

River Defensive Line

This is what people usually build, for some reason:



This is what I think people should actually be building (or at least, something along these lines):




Crashed Shuttle Tunnel Forward Hive

This is the "forward hive" that people tend to build starting at the crashed shuttle and then extending towards the water plant/table fort area.

This is another defensive situation that people usually screw up by placing lots of single walls and obnoxious doors. Here is generally how I think it should be done:



Obviously these aren't perfect, and somewhere out there is a better hive design than these. I'm just trying to get people thinking about how to make better hives than the crappy one-wall-line ones I see all the time.

And yeah, some of these involve a lot of wall segments, but it's not a big deal if you're a hivelord or an upgraded drone. Especially if you have some other xenos helping you build who kind of understand what you're going for.

Thoughts/comments/suggestions?

[Youbar]

To summarise what you've just said, defense in depth. World War 1 style trenches don't work, like the style of fortifications you showed us in the first picture. You need to scatter the defenses backwards, allowing aliens to retreat while enhancing marine casualties.

[Eenkogneeto]

One problem
Ayys are rarely if ever on help intent.

[Toroic]

The problem is that when you're building outside of the caves you're inherently picking a less effective strategy.

For the same cost as one of the exterior walls you could make the entire tunnel leading into the hive full of sticky resin, which could easily be defended by a boiler/crusher duo.

There is no strategic advantage to holding the ground just north of the river, and marines pushing into sticky resin caves make it very easy to kill or capture large numbers of them. Rock is bulletproof and can't be orbital barraged.

Xenomorphs have the enormous benefit of starting the game with their enemies IC not knowing they exist. They also don't need to control any territory to be successful (as marines do with planet engineering for power).

Thus, they should use stealth as long as is reasonable, and let marines push into territory that is ideal for xenos to fight on.

[Liran343]

Just fortifing the tunnel is a little cheasy and lame when you're a drone. Is it effictive? yes. do you need alot of peticance to wait for marines? yes. most of the time, teir one and even teir two jsut lose pateince and try to push the marines out of the tunnel. only rto meet two turrets on burst fire.

[Toroic]

Just fortifing the tunnel is a little cheasy and lame when you're a drone. Is it effictive? yes. do you need alot of peticance to wait for marines? yes. most of the time, teir one and even teir two jsut lose pateince and try to push the marines out of the tunnel. only rto meet two turrets on burst fire.

If that's the attitude you play drone with, I don't want you on my team.

Drones have freedom for creativity, but when you are deliberately doing a worse job, you make everyone else's job harder. It's obvious when it happens, and other players resent it.

[Butterrobber202]

I will use this now and forever

[Renomaki]

Again, as either a marine or a xenomorph, it always baffles me how builders refuse to focus on the VAST cave networks, and instead waste countless resources and time on building an exterior defense that won't hold off trigger happy marines for long. A lot of marines tend to shoot at walls, which brings them down far faster than stabbing at them, which in turn means that big fort you built is going to get breached quicker than an average marine metarush.

A well built cave is a nightmare for marines, even if they manage to push inside. A well built xenofort, on the other hand, is only going to buy you so much time before you are forced into the caves where you SHOULD have been building.

[Liran343]

If that's the attitude you play drone with, I don't want you on my team.

Drones have freedom for creativity, but when you are deliberately doing a worse job, you make everyone else's job harder. It's obvious when it happens, and other players resent it.

k man.

[Jackie Estegado]

I am an experienced xeno player, and I will tell you one thing: Defenses for aliens are not supposed to be bullet sponges, they are supposed to give a manuvering advantage over the marines. Checkerboard and trench line defenses are used because while the aliens can quickly run amongst the lines they seriously impede the ability for the marines to fire through.
And let me not tell you how much time it takes to get through as an alien your type of defenses you are proposing, especially if one doesnt know the exact layout.

[BalancedGeneral]

Spoilers, walls only take 3 hits. You can spend hours building your pretty patterns only to have it torn down in under a minute by 2 marines. (They can carry far more ammo than even what 2 drones could build)

[Jroinc1]

Spoilers, walls only take 3 hits. You can spend hours building your pretty patterns only to have it torn down in under a minute by 2 marines. (They can carry far more ammo than even what 2 drones could build)

3 hits from WHAT? What was hitting them? My pulse-rifle fire usually needs 8-10 rounds to take a wall out, and that's not insignificant.

[BalancedGeneral]

3 hits from WHAT? What was hitting them? My pulse-rifle fire usually needs 8-10 rounds to take a wall out, and that's not insignificant.

I was just playing, doors take 2 shots walls take 3-4 from the standard rifle

With infinite ammo, and infinite respawns on marines you can stack 20walls 50 walls deep and it will have little impact

[Reuben Owen]

Just a note about sticky resin. Always try to throw it into any hive. At least 3 or 4 tiles thick. It can't be destroyed by bullets like walls + doors. Also, it can take a shot or two of flamethrower. Usually when Marines are clearing weeds north of the river they'll leave the sticky resin alone after remove the weeds because it takes a long time to get rid of, and they have to get rid of each 1 individually, with a knife or some form of melee.

[Joe4444]

I was just playing, doors take 2 shots walls take 3-4 from the standard rifle

With infinite ammo, and infinite respawns on marines you can stack 20walls 50 walls deep and it will have little impact

I honestly wonder if you play the game at all....it takes a lot more than 3-4 shots from a STANDARD M41A rifle to take down a resin wall and atleast 4 shots or so for a wall.
as for the second bit.even if each wall took 50 shots then it'd still have little impact making the second point redundant.

[Toroic]

I honestly wonder if you play the game at all....it takes a lot more than 3-4 shots from a STANDARD M41A rifle to take down a resin wall and atleast 4 shots or so for a wall.
as for the second bit.even if each wall took 50 shots then it'd still have little impact making the second point redundant.

No, he doesn't and he's convinced marines are OP.

[poopbutt69]

that would take sooo long to make, youd have to have some drones that arent retards and thats pretty rare. as people said the mobility of that hive is really low too, it would be highly dependent on tunnels, but if people are using tunnels they arent defending walls, and walls dont do a good job of defending themselves.

the other worry about that kind of build is its weakness to orbital beacons. if marines place an orbital at any of those doors, its going to wreck the hive, and the lack of mobility and vision might cause xenos to not see the orbital, or be stuck and unable to run.

this kind of hive also doesnt encourage capturing as its harder to drag through and safely secure hosts.

its an attractive hive, but i think it falls prey to the issue of 'symmetry'. a lot of people want their hives to be beautiful, or have this innate desire to have some kinds of patterns in their hive. almost always symmetry just creates repeated points of weakness though. in my experience the best hives are ones with just a completely shit ton of almost random walls and eggs, with sticky resin everywhere else. although its boring, its monumentally difficult to pass through as marines, and ive only seen it passed through once, and even then by the time they made it to the caves they were so exhausted they were wiped out.

edit: just an added point, symmetry is very common in nature, and i think its because it is a very high combination of efficiency, simplicity, and effectiveness. the thing is, in nature, symmetry, like an armadillos shell or something, is usually put up against things that aren't especially intelligent. things like humans are so programmed to think in patterns, that anything defensive in a pattern, like passwords, or locks, become easier to crack, because thats the first thing people look for to help them break shit.

so when the marines come to a hive and ob a piece of it, or hope to a find a 'weak' spot, they never can. its all just a shit ton of walls, like three miles of random walls and goop, and its incredibly difficult for people to have the patience to just repeat killing walls straight for 30 minutes.

[Reuben Owen]

Just me, but I feel they don't give enough time to bring hosts back to the hive before they attempt to knife rape you from the inside are have to be spamtackled all the way for like 5 mins. Sometimes you have to sit there and balance tackling a host down while yelling at the drone to make a nest. All these pre-built doors don't really help either by slowing down your progress. Or the prebuilt nests, as they're pretty far and usually reserved for the multitudes of smallhosts. I think that's why most Xenos like fighting at the river, because it's quicker and safer to bring hosts to (at least until the marines break through). And after a certain point of building defences to block the actual hive, they can't make it quick enough all the way in before the hosts wake up and tear them to pieces/etc.

[poopbutt69]

the amount of time you have is effected by pain crit and things. if you put someone in pain crit before eating them they can wake up even before they are infected.

that said i think the infection time is fine, if anything its too long. facehuggers are extremely powerful 1-2 hit kills. they dont need to be stronger.

[SPACEpotato1]

Lol. As a long time drone caste lover, being the only caste I've ever really played, I don't focus on shit like this, at all.

Instead, I completely enshrine the hive in a confusing mess of rooms that mislead and misdirect and what not, with narrow hallways and screech sized rooms - On top of that, I weave THOSE in with honey comb nests in order to confuse the living fuck out of any marine that messes with my hive

I've never gotten to see if this actually works, though