document updated 18 years ago, on Jun 7, 2007
- Realize that there's a difference between upgrades that are useful for a short time, and
upgrades that will make you more powerful over the entire game. Upgrades that are only
temporarily useful include: mines/grenades, cloaking, scan.
- Upgrades I like to go for, earliest at the top:
- rush HMG (or perhaps shotty, but I have a hard time killing skulks with it... particularly
when lag is high. Also, the high ammount of ammo allows you to avoid resupply)
- rush max UA (uranium ammo)
- rush static field
- rush jetpack
- Specific upgrades:
- Resupply — it seems like an attractive option... however, I find that since anyone
who's not super-human dies every 0-4 deaths (and therefore, you get back up to max
hp/armor/ammo regularly), that it's better to spend the extra point on more directly getting
more kills per death. ESPECIALLY if you can rush HMG while everyone is a non-upgraded
skulk, you'll earn levels really fast. Also, getting a weapon with lots of starting ammo
(eg. HMG) avoids one of the major reasons for getting resupply:ammo. (and as a bonus, it does a whole lot more damage)
- Motion-tracking — I think it's underrated. An important
consideration when moving through a level is that you have to cover your rear
and side flanks, and this lets you do that without spending a lot of overhead
time checking your back. It also drastically reduces your response time (to
near-zero, if you start firing before they come into view), allowing you to do
more damage, and that's true (if not more true) as higher lifeforms move
faster.
- STICK TOGETHER. Aliens can not focus their attacks on a single target nearly as easily as
marines can. Four or five marines can take down nearly anything. One heuristic to use: don't leave
base without 1-3 other marines. (particularly when aliens are winning, but no xeno, DON'T
FOLLOW rines who go off by themselves... only go when a larger group leaves)