Still working on this.
Decided to make this while I was TDY and bored. Please feel free to PM me for comments, concerns, and cries of outrage. Will add pictures and more when I get extra time.
Roundstart
When the round starts, everyone has a job to do. I’m going to lay it out for everyone.
For acid castes: Melt escape holes/crusher-boiler lanes in buildings.
Drones - 4-5 drones usually needed | Recommend two carriers, one hivelord is optional. Make use of the hive guides outlines in my list of guides. https://cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f=133&t=7864
"Protip" - Feed carriers plasma so they can shit out resin holes everywhere, the map better be a damn minefield.
Sentinel – Melt the aforementioned items, Evolve to spitter if possible
Runner – Grab monkeys and bring them to hive. Devour and carry NO LONGER THAN 10 SECONDS. There is nothing worse than knowing you KILLED 3-4 would be robust xenos. Break some windows for easy escape. Survivors should truly be last on the list since they will rush guns anyway. (Why so many guns on the colony anyway?) PROTIP: If there are no spitters, let one or two evolve before you evolve, an ancient runner can be a strong assassinating force but an ancient sentinel will NOT be robust. Until they get buffed someday.
Within 20-30 minutes, probably much less with proper teamwork, there should be a fully weeded planet with no mining tools, some holes for escaping from marines, plenty of huggers and jelly, NO DEAD XENOS, all monkeys taken to hive and overall a place to call home sweet home until the invaders come.
MINE AVOIDANCE - Simple, get used to right clicking your pathway, if you see metal, table parts, dead xenos, empty mags, shitpiles, leftover sentry boxes ANYTHING THAT COULD HIDE ONE, right click the damn tile, much simpler than hoping there is another larva so you can run over a mine again. Just right click out a path for ya.
EVERYONE
• This should be standard, but please, make a macro for Toggle-Darkvision. Save yourself and everyone else the trouble. You just increased your mortality significantly by doing this. Use it often and never run into random marines again.
• Actually, make macros for everything, for Ready-Tail-Attack, Place weeds, *dance (actually helped me a few times as crusher due to facing different sides when rapidly pressed), If it’s on your alien tab, with some thinking, it can be a macro.
• Don’t ever mention or think about “There is XXX amount of larva left”; it is best to think that you won’t have another chance to play if you die. I always say it’s better to have 30 players playing xeno than 10 players playing xeno 3 times. Makes more room for that one essential player needed.
• Along with that, there are caste restrictions now; there is no room for screwing up. If you keep yourself alive and you do get 30 xeno players, that’s 12 Tier 2 and 6 Tier 3. With 10 playing and dying often, that’s 4 Tier 2 and 2 Tier 3!!! Which would you rather have?
• Everyone except crusher can tail attack. I admit that I forget to use it even if I have it as a macro; It helps to give that extra sting and can be the hit that takes a head or foot off.
• If you are ever full of plasma and see that drone/hivelord/queen working hard, give em that boost of plasma. Good queens and hivelords will ALWAYS be using plasma for eggs, jelly, structures, sticky resin, pheromones, tunnels etc.
• If you aren’t in the hive, by a nest, with a spitting caste etc. DON’T CHASE DOWN INFECTED MARINES. You will more likely just get gunned down as they zone you. The exception is if they are resin cuffed. If you can catch up and Ctrl + click them, they can’t move out of your grasp. You can bring them back without a hassle by tackle spamming ONLY if cuffed.
• Know your hotkey mode keys. 1 2 3 and 4 switch between help disarm grab and harm respectively. The robust xeno switches between disarm and harm at battle. Ctrl + click for fast pulling etc
• Don’t fight in the river bro, just don’t. All marines can run faster than most xenos in the water and they will gun your happy ass down.
Resin castes
Key
* goes for hivelord as well
# goes for carrier as well
Drone
First things first, you cannot upgrade, BUT, STAY WITH ME, you can upgrade as a carrier and a hivelord.
• *#*#*#*# Obligatory WEED EVERYTHING. There should be no reason why you are full on plasma. That isn’t to say you can’t have plasma half full for pheromones.
• * Resin walls can save your life, if going into a combat area to place weeds, have a fallback area with resin walls to run behind. Drones aren’t as fast as other xenos, so you have to rely on something to block a few of those shots. There are also ways to have an on the move resin wall button, but that’s for another day.
(props to the pro queen who gave me the idea)• * If an area has all the nests, walls and doors needed, place sticky resin. Sticky resin is very much missed out on and can make an area very undesirable to move on.
• WEED NODES KEEP SPREADING!!!! This is a big thing, what this means is there is no reason to skimp on weed nodes, If you are bored and have plasma on you, feel free to spam weed nodes every two or three tiles, makes it a pain in the ass to burn it all.
• USE RESIN CUFFS!!! Click it twice on the same person in quick succession to tie hands and legs in one go.
• Place nests in combat areas for your sisters, nest fields aren’t the best place for marines to fight since one tackle means they are toast.
• * For nest building, people shit on it, but it works to use the checkerboard pattern. Have a hivelord put a tunnel by it and you got money. Works well in conjunction with cuffs! If someone has a problem with it, ask them to make a better and faster setup that it!
• If in a combat zone with other sisters, keep safety above all else, your sisters rely on you to stay at full health whether they know it or not. Keep a pheromone on, likely guard, and stay at full health so you don’t end up running out of plasma. If you have to run out to place weeds, do it when other sisters run out. Your main job is to place weeds and keep pheromones on; grabbing downed humans can come secondary. Remember that it’s a moot effort if you die and that human gets saved.
Hivelord
• PLEASE USE YOUR TUNNELS! I cannot stress this enough. Use your tunnels. It’s what separates you from a drone and is one of the key parts of a successful hive. The questions you need to ask yourself when making one.
1. Where do your sisters need to be the most?
2. Where can I put it so it can be accessed safely?
3. Where can you place one to cut corners?
Limitless possibilities, check around the map, do not forget that there are points SPECIFICALLY MADE for tunnels just like the premade tunnel east of nexus. (Don’t be metagaming marines!)
• Don’t hoard that plasma, you have the most and fastest regen of all the castes, so use it and share it. Never be full.
• Remember to use frenzy and resin walker when you need to move fast in weeded areas. DON’T FORGET TO TURN IT OFF! I see many a hivelord get dunked because they ran out of plasma with it on. I digress back to an earlier point. MACRO IT!
Carrier
Quick note, I don’t see many carriers anymore, they are key to a good round, you get people in the game, and we need you!
• Find those tunnels made by the hivelord; make that little building nearby into a real stronghold by ferrying huggers to it. If the queen is anything good she will have a ton of eggs. Bring them to small outposts so you and others don’t have to travel far.
• When in combat situations, prioritize helmets more than helmetless marines. It’s better to rid them of their helmets first to make it easier on you and your sisters. Better for a hunter to pounce near a marine and use one hugger than two or three.
• I said this already, but even more so for carriers. Do not chase down infected freed marines, you can’t spit, you can’t make nests, your tackle is mediocre, in other words, you WILL get gunned down. I see it happen and it is pitiful.
• You can use pheromones also, that said, you have little plasma. The most viable for carriers is frenzy. Use it for that speed boost.
• If by some off chance the drones and hivelord didn’t weed a place, do them a favor and put a node or two down.
Attacking castes
DON’T GET GREEDY! A good few shots can still put you down and if you decide to run at the wrong moment like at less than half health, likely you will get chased. The robust will yakkety sax around the bullets and get away or pounce/charge their target down at the right time. Assuming you aren’t and that’s ok it takes time, just run at half health. Leaves enough to run to fellow sisters . . . you did bring friends right?
Runner
• With the recent update, there should be no reason to die a young runner. While young and mature focus on breaking spotlights, breaking windows for easy escape points, and attacking singular or groups of two marines.
• After you get to elite, you start to get much more robust, as such your slashes can be pretty robust. Jump on a marine and give em a slash or two.
• Due to the changes to pounce, the self-stun and marine stuns are faster. The time between them sometimes isn’t enough to place a hugger on someone, better to pounce then use the drop hotkey to quickly drop your huggers.
• Thankfully times aren’t like before when just about every shot aimed at you would hit. But still, three hits and you are in crit, upgrading helps you take just about 1 more hit. As such, do be careful and know when to quit. You can always wait to upgrade/evolve.
• If not busy, act as a hugger ferry service in place of a carrier. With well-placed tunnels and runner speed, your sisters will thank you for that help.
• Hide is still pretty buggy, if you hide and are off weeds, you still gain plasma, yet if on weeds you don’t get any back.
• Turn hide off when not actively using it, it makes every bullet ever fired your way hit you, so even as ancient runner, you can get hit with every bullet fired at you if you have hide on.
Hunter (RIP warrior)
• Congrats, you are a stronger runner that can hide! Well, hide, do more damage, run just as fast, pounce for a longer stun.
• People forget about their hide skill a lot. Hiding can save you during a chase down, help you surprise marines when least expected, bait them into an ambush. There are limitless possibilities where hiding can give the upper hand.
• If you decide to go up the upgrade chain, a well-placed hide pounce slash combo can take a marine out of the round assuming they don’t have B18 armor.
Crusher
FIND MINES TO STEP ON!!! Look for anything that looks like it could hide a mine. Walk over alien corpses, metal, tables, empty magazines, fucking everything. Especially near nexus, telecoms, and engineering. Be the hero that the hive needs.
• DANCE!!! When you’re in a room with ‘rines on all sides DANCE!!! When you wanna charge into a room to knock a turret down and get up DANCE!!! When you wanna face all four sides in less than a second DANCE!!! P.S. Results may vary with a slight chance of getting lit up by bullets.
• You can rapidly click in the opposite direction of where you are moving to block bullets from that direction. If you are robust, you can time the shots and your clicks at the right time.
• Your stomp can knock down marines 2 tiles away from you for a very short period. Helps with getting sisters into a room quickly.
• As a mature or higher crusher, facing forward can block plenty of damage and shield other sisters from shots.
• When it comes to tackle stun length, crusher is second to the queen. Very imperative that you switch to tackle and knock someone down.
• Your claws don’t do as much damage, BUT you can run people over. It doesn’t take much charge to run someone over and two tiles of running space gets you enough charge to run someone over or run into someone. Use it in conjunction with a tackle to get two or three good run overs on someone.
• You can flip regular tables no matter how long the length and walk over them to destroy them. Anytime you find a table, destroy it. For reinforced tables just run em over.
Ravager
The Che Guevara guide still stands proud! Charge slashing on harm is still the safest way to do damage. All I will add is don’t forget your tail attacks. Read it at http://cm-ss13.com/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=5270
• As with the crusher, you can flip tables and run over them to destroy them. You can also charge through tables to destroy them.
Spitting castes
Most of this will be the same for Sentinel up to Praetorian. Melt anything you find harmful from round start on. Be it doors for easy entry and exit, mining tools, flares, mostly anything in the colony that is there at round start. It was there on the colony when ayys attacked, so you have knowledge of it.
Sentinel
• Due to the fact that you can only spit neurotoxin, you are limited in offense capabilities. Best thing to do is just what sentinel was made to do. Guard hosts. If you decide to upgrade instead of evolve, you become much stronger.
• Your neurotoxin still stuns long enough for a fellow sister to get a marine hugged. If you find yourself guarding hosts at an outpost that gets attacked, lend your hand by firing random shots of toxin into the fray. It still gives slight toxin damage, every little bit helps!
Spitter
• Always run with a crew in areas where marines have been patrolling. You don’t want to get in fights with more than one or two.
• If you find yourself full of plasma and near weeds, just melt shit.
• Macro the toggle spit type for ease of life. Use neurotoxin in battle to knock a marine down then switch and pelt with acid globs.
• Don’t rush into enemy territory during a battle, leave that for the more agile and armored sisters. Shoot a Gatling gun of acid in then back up to recharge. Your spit will travel until it hits a target, so feel free to fire and forget with acid globs.
• Upgrading as spitter is very viable seeing as how you retain fair speed, gain increased plasma with extra stun time on toxin, increased damage with acid globs and a bigger health pool. At ancient level, a few acid globs can have a marine heaving its lunch in the middle of battle which is a great self-stun.
Praetorian
• With the Prae being the Queens’ royal guard, if she ventures out into hostile territory, get a sentinel or spitter to guard hosts. The queen doesn’t know it, but a good praetorian can help her immensely in battle. If she screeches and focuses one person, shoot some neurotoxin on them first then shoot some at the others. Be the stun machine that she needs to get slashes in.
• Along with the hivelord, you are most expected to have pheromones on. Do so and use whatever you feel necessary.
• Always use spit in bursts of about two or three. As with spitter, use neuro then swap with a macro to acid globs and focus the downed marine.
Queen
Name of the game from round start on is called “Don’t touch the top”. The aim is to never let your plasma touch the top. Make eggs, make jelly, make sticky resin, make doors for cover, do what you can to keep that goal in mind. A field of unused eggs is never a waste as someone will need those eggs sooner or later.
• You can go crazy with macros for playing queen. Make one for eggs and one for screech to make life easy for starters.
• Set your hive orders and make it nice and long. Make a notepad/wordpad document with them already drafted so you can just copy and paste. Use “word of the queen” to send a command report like message to everyone. Good for catching attention of busy sisters as it makes a screech sound.
• Know a certain Rambo hero marine that causes your sisters trouble? Tackle them then use Gut on them to ensure they never see the light of day.
• Most of your time should be spent in the hive. Have at least one drone become a hivelord. See to it that they build tunnels leading to a building to the south so you can make easy travel. Once you can travel there faster, go there with a squad and drop some eggs there to make it a real outpost.
• If you are going to screech, go in there with a squad and let them know so they won’t run like idiots.
• Use your tackle, queen has the best tackle in the game and at elite empress, you can decap in about 3-4 hits. If you can reach Ancient empress, you can decap in two hits. Savage I know.