Hivelord Discussion

[Toroic]

Hey everyone, I wanted to have a discussion about hivelord, and their current role/balance in the game.

I love playing hivelord, but I think we can all agree that they have some distinct disadvantages over drone, which makes the evolution more of a side-grade over an upgrade.

For example, hivelord as compared to drone:

-are slow
-have no acid (meaning they can't destroy walls or weapons)
-cannot evolve to queen (been the death of teams on games where every drone has evolved)
-cannot vent crawl

+more health
+slightly sturdier doors and walls
+more plasma
+can build tunnels (not on the ship)

I find that hivelord are a great asset to the team if they're one of the original xenos or in the first wave of hosts, because there is significant base building and egg laying to be done, and you can develop a tunnel system to give the whole xeno team the ability to go to all the major areas of the map.

However, more than one living hivelord tends to be a waste, as there's a limit to how many useful tunnels can be placed (especially without the ability to label them)

The other problem with hivelord is they are much worse than drones once the aliens use the dropship, as their lack of acid, vent crawling, and inability to use tunnels all work against them.

Thirdly carriers are absolutely fantastic if used properly, and are much more useful when joining mid-round, since elaborate bases aren't the norm once aliens move out of the caves.

So even as someone who likes playing hivelord, I rarely evolve into them anymore because they just don't help the hive as much as other castes, and a drone's speed and utility, and it only gets worse once you go to the ship.

Basically for me to go hivelord I need
1) A good queen
2) Still early in the game
3) There isn't already a hivelord building tunnels

I was wondering if that was the general consensus of other players, and if they had any other thoughts about the hivelord's viability.

[Dyne]

Very viable, have one in a hive, tunnels for the win, end of story.

[WyattH]

+slightly sturdier doors and walls

Is this true? How can their resin doors/walls be different from a drones?

[Toroic]

Is this true? How can their resin doors/walls be different from a drones?

There are things in the code suggesting higher hp walls/doors, not sure if it's actually implemented. Might've been taken out. In that case, it's really just the tunnels which are useless on the sulaco.

[bustered1]

Personally, hivelord is a great asset. Although I've never been a fan of tunnel building because generally no one comes to protect me when I am building the tunnel. Hivelord is fantastic when it comes to building. You can easily build an alternative hive in less than 15 minutes. I approve of this.

[TopHatPenguin]

There are things in the code suggesting higher hp walls/doors, not sure if it's actually implemented. Might've been taken out. In that case, it's really just the tunnels which are useless on the sulaco.

I don't believe this is correct.If it was there would probably be a visual difference between both the types of resin.
A further point about this is resins doors take 3 M41A shots no matter what caste builds them.

This would be a nice feature to have if it did get implemented after the suggestions re-open.

[canon35]

The only complaint I have about hivelords, and runners, is that they need to be fucking black.

[ChickenShizNit8]

My thoughts-

They're big, purple and build shit.

Woo

[Nick123q23]

I've read on the wiki, a guide, somewhere, that hivelords can be used as plasma farms for the queen because they generate more plasma than any other alien apparently. Could be nice if your queen likes building her own hive.

[Toroic]

I've read on the wiki, a guide, somewhere, that hivelords can be used as plasma farms for the queen because they generate more plasma than any other alien apparently. Could be nice if your queen likes building her own hive.

You wouldn't feed a queen plasma for building, you'd do it so she can rapidly lay eggs/pump out jelly.

drones can do the same thing, though they regenerate a little slower. It's still very helpful, and I have a macro to donate plasma to the queen for that reason.

Generally though you should only give 300 at a time.