Strategy Guide

[Norfenstein]

With the manual essentially done I thought I'd post this quick strategy guide I wrote up a while ago for aliens (sans the Granger). Maybe I'll get around to writing one for humans and builders sometime soon.

Aliens (general): Always attack the head's of humans. Use stealth whenever possible. Never be predictable in your movements (i.e. don't travel in a straight line). Humans are much more effective in groups so target loners and cull stragglers whenever possible. With regeneration you never need to return to your base so use hit and run tactics to stay alive. If you're outclassed wait until your defensive structures weaken humans first or use a booster to poison.

Versus Turrets: Turrets won't try to fire through each other or other objects, so position yourself where the least amount of turrets will hit you. Focus on one turret at a time and back off once it stops firing because it'll explode soon and deal splash damage to players and to other structures. If you have room to maneuver, strafe back and forth or all around a turret while slashing since they aim very slowly. You can do this on top of turrets as well. If all you need is to get past a turret front, you can sacrifice a dretch to draw their aim somewhere convenient so you'll have more time to get by with your next life.

Versus Human Bases: Remember, the object of the game is to destroy the enemy base and then wipe out the survivors, so only focus on individual humans when you're in need of frags, or waiting for teammates to stockpile frags. In smaller games it's often possible to sneak into an improperly defended base and do significant damage, even with low classes. Look for a path through the automated defenses to the reactor or armoury. If you can take out the reactor before any humans realize what's happening then all the other defenses will halt and it becomes trivial to clean up the rest of the base. Attacking a reactor from above makes it much more difficult for turrets to target you and you'll take less damage from the reactor itself. If the humans are relying heavily on tesla generators try to take out the defense computer to render them useless. Even just a few quick hits can be used to take out an armoury, and doing so can seriously hinder a human team. In larger games, taking down automated defense is usually a bigger help for your teammates.

Dretch: You're silent when moving so find a hiding spot and wait for a human to pass, then follow for a surprise attack. Stay on the ground and aim upward for safer headshots. The only structures you can damage are turrets and teslas, so if a human lays one down destroy them before they finish building, then kill the builder. Once spotted by a human use your wall walking to evade enemy fire until they have to reload, then go in for the kill. If you're outclassed, use poison or wait outside your base for humans to take damage from your defensive structures before attacking. Dretches actually have the highest movement speed in the game so unless one of the higher class's movement abilities would make getting to your destination faster it may be better to travel as a dretch and evolve when you get there. Dretches also have the fastest relative regeneration rate of all aliens besides the tyrant, so if you're damaged before evolving, wait until your health maxes out first.

Basilisk: Always focus on a single target. Use the grab to stick a human then jump on their head for a faster kill. The grab only works when actually aiming at a target. Be very careful of battlesuits and squads. Avoid turrets in groups of two or more. The grab will actually slow turret rotation speed so you don't need to strafe as much to kill single turrets. The gas is best used as a hit and run attack since it's fairly unreliable.

Marauder: Hit and run by jumping over humans and slashing at their heads. Never stand still. The slash can do more damage than the lightning, so only use the lightning to finish off near-dead targets. Avoiding chaining the lightning since the damage will be divided between all targets. Don't waste time attacking turrets when you can simply jump over them to reach vital structures.

Dragoon: Aim upward with a charged pounce to fly further. Only use the bite in close quarters when you can get a clean headshot. Use the pounce at all other times. The pounce doesn't do locational damage so you don't need to aim for heads, but do aim -- you can deal pounce damage without actually touching a human. Never bite mid-pounce, it will cancel the pounce damage. Always use the pounce for movement. You don't have to be on the ground to charge up the pounce, so press the button again immediately after releasing it. Use the barbs to snipe at enemy defense; target armouries first, then teles if they're vulnerable, then turrets. If the enemy is relying heavily on tesla generators take out the defense computer to cripple their base.

Tyrant: Your base movement is slow so don't go anywhere that's wide open or hard to maneuver in. Always use the trample to increase your speed. Kill or force a retreat on every human that could pursue you (remember to slash their heads). Retreat from pursuers only to regain health and set up an ambush. You can take out turrets easily and absorb fire from one or two simultaneously, so don't be afraid of them. Be careful of backpeddling or circle-strafing humans with powerful weapons (like the chaingun or lucifer cannon) or distant humans with accurate weapons (like the mass driver). Use the trample to damage teleporters and medistations, since you can hit them while moving and its difficult to slash them directly. If you're regrouping with teammates stand next to them to double their regeneration rate.

EDIT: Updated 2006-07-25

[OverFlow]

Oh my.  I never noticed you updating that manual.  Now I feel bad about not working on it more. ;(  And with that all done, we really have just a couple veeeeery small things to take care of.

All the strategy looks very nice, although I think it should all be fairly obvious after a fair amount of playing.

[Norfenstein]

All the strategy looks very nice, although I think it should all be fairly obvious after a fair amount of playing.

Key words being "should" and "fair amount". Some people need common sense written on a sticky note attached to a wrecking ball. And my precise intention was to bring new players up to speed so I hopefully wouldn't have to spend future games shouting incessantly at my team and generally being a dick.

[juice]

General building DO's and DON'T's:

DO:
(Human) Be CAREFUL about moving your base  Do not try moving it all at one time unless you have the complete support of your team and in early games this is usually non-practical as your teammates will try to get credits obviously.  It is best to have one builder to stay behind with a guard and the other builder to move the reactor.  This does 2 things:  1) The old base would act as a sort of decoy if an alien attack came and they would be more interested in the decoy base rather than the new one going up or 2)  If your new base gets rushed, you can fall back to the old one and quickly set up again.  Get your teammates to guard the area you're going to build in, and start off intelligently!  Build the reactor first (obviously), a turret, a healing station, and then a spawn.  After this, build an armory and then another spawn.  Why the turret/healing station/spawn?  When I see new people building, often times they will make the armory first and then the spawns.  The problem is the base is horribly vulnerable right then and could be subject to quick work by a few basilisks.  You just need a single turret, a medi station, a spawn, and the cooperation of your team to start off smoothely.  Then you may build an armory and another spawn.
(Alien) For aliens, congested rooms littered with objects make the best types of bases as you can close them off easier with the way alien defensive units work.  Be sure to put your Overmind in a place where humans can not hit from a distance, so check that out before moving it.

(Both) Lay turrets and defensive structures in smart places.  A smart place is not a doorway.  A smart place is away but facing a door way or to the side of one.  Do not block your teammates!  If you must put defensive structures in a congested hallway, always put it to the side.  Also be sure to space them out efficiently.  It might be a good idea to see which ways are easiest to get to your team's base and concentrate a bit more on those points.

DO NOT:
(Both) Try building forward if you are a bit new and inexperienced.  THIS IS NOT NS OR GLOOM!  Maybe in certain situations you build forward to alleviate an easy access way or so, but it is often unnecessary to build multiple bases.  You want to protect your Overmind or Reactor, so you often want most of your resources pointed at guarding it no matter what kind of lead you're in.

(Both, mostly Humans) Clutter your base.  Bad base design simply kills so many games.  Design your base AROUND your reactor, not simply having it there.  Your reactor always comes first, so take care of it.  I mainly refer to Human on this one because Human has many more structures.  Aliens get it a little bit easier because most of their structures are simply defensive.

(Both) Build bases in wide open areas.  This one's pretty obvious.  Make your bases death zones, not fodder![/b].

Section 2 = later maybe

[juice]

i hate bumping, but people need this :\

[Catalyc]

Yes, this topic needs a sticky as well as that other one about building >_>

[Norfenstein]

I put a link to this thread in the stickied quickstart guide, where there's a note saying it's not exactly up-to-date anymore...

[Catalyc]

http://www.tremulous.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=378

that one is quite a good read as well.

[juice]

SUPPLEMENTAL!

Base Raiding - The RIGHT way![/u][/i] By juice!

Section One - Base Raiding and General Ideas

Tremulous is unlike alot of teambased games that we play from time to time.  The main difference is that because of the design, Tremulous is best played with timing.  Timing can mean everything in Tremulous as it can mean the difference between a 5 minute win or an hour long deadlock.

In Tremulous, classes (offensive/defensive) are set up to institute a play style of strategy rather than skill.  Most of the weapons for humans are pretty easy to use as are most of the alien classes as you become more experienced.  In this way, skill factor or "the lone wolf" is partially eliminated and good team play is forced if a team wants to win.

Tremulous defensive structures are designed to be a pain in the ass from the get go.  They do a ton of damage most of the time.  Machine gun turrets even keep Tyrants at bay if placed correctly.  A well-made base will feature multiple defensive structures as well as an overall placement of others that make it hard to get to the reactor.  Also, many signs of good base design include eggs or spawns that are higher up and off the ground.

So just how do you destroy a base?  The short answer:  You can't.  Most of the time it requires a team of atleast two to three people to START raiding a base.  3 is an ideal number because you have a good range of firepower and you don't take too many people away from your own base.

So what of this timing you may ask?  That comes with each race's individual guide.

Section Two - Aliens

Aliens are simply made for quickness and deadly assaults.  They are well primed for quick short cutthroat tactics in which they drop in, dismantle turrets, cause a little chaos, and jet out.  Timing is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT for aliens.  Bases WILL kill you.  Its not a matter of what class you are or how good you are, you WILL be killed if time is not on your side.

When you raid a human base, try to think of your health as a timer for base raiding.  When it gets to 60%, get out.  While 60% is high, you will no doubt encounter people who will chase you down after you try to get out.  Once you get out, you probably have 30-40% left and are easy credits for wandering humans.  Its much better than trying to leave at 20% health or so.  You see, the whole objective of a base raid of a human base is to CRIPPLE the humans SLOWLY BUT SURELY.  Trying to do things TOO quick will kill you and waste frags.  I recommend Dragoons or Marauders for quick base runs, preferably advanced marauders.  They're job is to slip in, quickly take apart a turret, and slip out.  Find a booster, heal to about 80-90%, and make your way back over (aliens innately heal).  Keep up the assaults and the base will start to show cracks.  By the time aliens are ready to exploit these cracks, Tyrants will most likely be enabled.

Tyrants are the janitors, not the assaulters.  You *CAN* assault with a Tyrant, they have powerful attacks and alot of health...but the problem is, you're just a huge fuckin target.  Every grunt will be after you once you run and you'll probably be killed by a rifle.  Dragoons are much more suited for assaults but are not too good at the janitor work Tyrants can do.  The Tyrant's job is to destroy the telepads and reactor.  Tyrant's are the artillary, not the front line.  The front line is for marauders and dragoons who can actually escape whereas Tyrants might not have that option.

All it takes is patience, timing, and cooperation.  Once those are utilized, the cracks will be visible.

Section Three - Humans

Eliminating alien scum but just can't get through those damn acid tubes?  Yeah well, here you go.

Humans are DRASTICALLY different in approach to aliens at some times.  Depending on what weapons you have, the strategy changes.  For stage 2 base raids, I suggest 3 humans equipped with light armor and pulseguns, flamers, or chainguns.  The guys with pulse attack structures, the guys with chaingun attack both structures and aliens, and the guys with flamer attack aliens.  Flamer is extremely deadly to dragoon who will retreat as soon as it starts spraying the flames.  What your job is to PRESSURE them.  Choke them in their own base.  FORCE your way in and then destroy the overmind.  This is MUCH easier said than done and alot of quick home base runs may be necessary.  But really, during stage 2 that's all you need.

Stage 3 is where it gets interesting.  Alien bases will be much tougher so battlesuits / jetpacks are required along with pulse guns, chainguns, and lucifer cannons.  Lucifer cannons take out the structures and the big aliens only.  Pulse guns still focus on structures.  Chaingunners focus on aliens.  I've found that a team of two bsuits and a jetpacker works great.  The jetpacket uses the lucifer cannon while the two bsuits use pulse gun and chaingun.  Basically you mow your way to the overmind like the above section, but tough aliens will drive you back a few times.  It may be best for a team of assaulters (or harassers as you might say), all with lucifer cannons, tenderize the base a bit before going on with the base raid.

In this measure, time is of the essence again.  Humans have alot longer lasting time if they play SMARTLY and cooperate.  Acid tubs are your main problems; they can wreak havoc on base raids.  Concentrate on those, then have one person constantly attacking the overmind while the others destroy the eggs.  Don't just do one or the other; a lone granger could get away and really mess things up for you.  

----------------------------------------------

as with the other one, maybe i'll add on later but looking at the date of the last one, probably not.

[Venkman]

Really, I just wanted to bump this topic. But, also, here's a few tips for Marauders:

-Make every jump a *new jump*...
If you're jump-dancing around a human (which you should be if you're using Mara correctly), he's going to try and watch for your pattern of movement. So don't have one. If you started with a jump left, then bounced right, then another bounce left, the human is naturally going to expect you're next bounce to go right. I can't stress this enough: When playing Mara, DO NOT BE PREDICTABLE! Don't jump in a pattern.

 - Advanced Mara's Electric Attack...
Most people will tell you not to even bother with this secondary attack for various reasons (most are listed above), but there is one way to use your zap effectively. In a word: *Turrets*.
Because the Mara's zap can hit multiple targets at once as long as said targets are positioned within range, it makes an ideal offensive attack against clusters of turrets (especially if those Turrets are placed close to a corner). Just wait until no one's watching and then round the corner, get close enough so that your zap-attack can hit all or most of Turrets in the cluster, and then blast away. If you're at full health you should be able to get off 2-3 full zaps before having to retreat.

Have fun, boys and girls!

...Humans, you can suck it.    

[ACKMAN]

Really, I just wanted to bump this topic. But, also, here's a few tips for Marauders:

-Make every jump a *new jump*...
If you're jump-dancing around a human (which you should be if you're using Mara correctly), he's going to try and watch for your pattern of movement. So don't have one. If you started with a jump left, then bounced right, then another bounce left, the human is naturally going to expect you're next bounce to go right. I can't stress this enough: When playing Mara, DO NOT BE PREDICTABLE! Don't jump in a pattern.

 - Advanced Mara's Electric Attack...
Most people will tell you not to even bother with this secondary attack for various reasons (most are listed above), but there is one way to use your zap effectively. In a word: *Turrets*.
Because the Mara's zap can hit multiple targets at once as long as said targets are positioned within range, it makes an ideal offensive attack against clusters of turrets (especially if those Turrets are placed close to a corner). Just wait until no one's watching and then round the corner, get close enough so that your zap-attack can hit all or most of Turrets in the cluster, and then blast away. If you're at full health you should be able to get off 2-3 full zaps before having to retreat.

Have fun, boys and girls!

...Humans, you can suck it.    

Jesus fucking christ. Best. Bump. Ever.


Anyway, unless you're talking about 1.2... a mara shouldn't attack a base if it's not going to go for big targets. The fact of you being allowed to jump over turrets is to ACTUALLY jump over them. Get on the arm/rc and forget about those rets if you don't wanna die.

[mooseberry]

lolnecro

[Venkman]

Jesus fucking christ. Best. Bump. Ever.


Anyway, unless you're talking about 1.2... a mara shouldn't attack a base if it's not going to go for big targets. The fact of you being allowed to jump over turrets is to ACTUALLY jump over them. Get on the arm/rc and forget about those rets if you don't wanna die.

I'm glad you appreciated the bump, Ackman.

And your points about turret strategy are spot-on. Generally when base-raiding, I just hop the turrets and find a safe corner to duck off in while I pick my next route of attack.

Mostly, the situation I’m referring to happens in A.T.C.S. when humans are trying to take the hallway and placing turrets at every turn:
Usually I’ll try to lure the builder and guard away, kill them, and then re-gen around the corner from whatever cluster of turrets they were defending. After I’m all healed, I use the zap as an easy and efficient way to destroy the turrets. Also, if there’s something else nearby like a heal station or armory; the exploding turrets’ shrapnel will take them out for me.

I felt the strategy was worth noting, considering pretty much every other tip-thread refers to the zap as a “virtually useless attack”. In 1.1 at least, all you need is two good zaps to get a turret smoking. Also, as you pointed out, no one ever expects a Mara to even bother with turrets.

So, at the very least, my tactic has the element of surprise in its favor.

[ACKMAN]

So, at the very least, my tactic has the element of surprise in its favor.

I don't know how much hp you have but dude... 2 rets can make me cry of pain.

[Venkman]

The key is to make sure you can approach the cluster from an angle that only allows one of the turrets to actually fire at you. As I'm sure you already know, one turret will not attempt to fire through or around another turret. So, at full health (175) and while attacking an unguarded cluster (say, in the A.T.C.S. hallway for example), if you can align your approach right you can get off 2-3 full zaps before the one firing turret can chip you down to retreat-worthy health. If the zap goes through 2 turrets, both will be smoking by the time you’re done.

Now, if you're playing against humans with a truly clever builder, this tactic is pretty much null and void because he's not going to build his clusters with a lot of aligning turrets.

But, still, you’d be surprised how many evos I’ve siphoned just from zapping unguarded turrets.

[Conzul]

But, still, you’d be surprised how many evos I’ve siphoned just from zapping unguarded turrets.

In 1.2 this doesn't work anymore

[Venkman]

Uh-oh...

[Venkman]

In 1.2 this doesn't work anymore

For realzies?

Who's gonna feed my Advanced Marauder now?

 
...Look how sad he is.

[UniqPhoeniX]

You never could get evos from killing rets if that's what you meant... Unless that was modified on whatever server you were on. And 2 ret explosions aren't powerful enough to take out a medi even when right next to it, let alone an armory

[F50]

There was a time (though it may have been before gpp) where you *could* get evos and credits from killing rets and acid tubes, amoung other buildings.

[freecd]

obsolicious

[Liskey]

I don't think you could ever get evos/credits for killing rets or tubes, in gpp or 1.1.  Otherwise you could go on an empty server and power up with no enemies, which I don't remember ever happening.  You do get lots of points for killing structures tho, in case you like being high on the list.

[David]

At one point back when it was MGDev / Official Dev getting evo's / credits for killing buildings was tried.
AFAIK tremstats doesn't give you credit for being on a empty server.  (Not that things like tremstats should ever dictate balance)

[Venkman]

I guess I should have been clearer:

What I meant by "evos I've syphoned" was the collateral damadge their explosions cause, especially when the turrets in question are placed near Human respawn points.

For example:
When base-raiding on A.T.C.S., while the goons are taking care of the human fodder, I'll duck off in one of the corners and start zapping the turrets near their respawn point. Usually, I can catch one or two unarmored humans in the explosion as their respawning.

  

[mooseberry]

I guess I should have been clearer:

What I meant by "evos I've syphoned" was the collateral damadge their explosions cause, especially when the turrets in question are placed near Human respawn points.

For example:
When base-raiding on A.T.C.S., while the goons are taking care of the human fodder, I'll duck off in one of the corners and start zapping the turrets near their respawn point. Usually, I can catch one or two unarmored humans in the explosion as their respawning.

  

In 1.2 this doesn't work anymore

For realzies?

Who's gonna feed my Advanced Marauder now?

 
...Look how sad he is.

Notice on a forum it is not so easy to switch what you are saying. Not that anyone cares, but just putting that out there.

[Venkman]

That's why I said "siphoned"... A means through which to attain something else.

Like just now, I was on and zapping away in the humans' base, and sure I caught a lucy in the face soon enough. But when I respawned I had 9 evos instead of 3, and without actually touching a single human. And this scenario happens ALL THE TIME.

Now I've read around on the forum and I know you know your shit, Moose. And honestly, I'm happy to admit when I'm wrong and even happier to learn. I've also been playing for only a few months and so I'm still learning. There's A LOT about this game I still don't know, I'm aware of that. It just really seems like my evos are coming from SOMETHING related to me zapping turrets.

If it's not the collateral damage they cause, then please tell me what it is.

 
Somehow, he's getting fed.

[mooseberry]

Yes, obviously you can gain evos from killing humans, you zap turrets, zap from turrets zaps humans, and you either kill them or hurt them and they later die giving you evos. That wasn't my point though. It just seemed silly to me to obviously change what you are saying.

[Venkman]

Very true. Honestly, I could care less what the internet thinks of me.

But the fact is I had already asked several times while playing if rets gave you evos and of course everybody said no. So I field tested my theory and my results were as follows:
When I made things explode by a human respawn while my teammates were in the process of killing humans, it added up to a bunch of evos.

As for your theory about the zap's link being able to kill a respawning human, it’s not really logical when you think about it. I mean, they've just respawned and, what, 1/2 or 1/3 of 25 damage is going to kill a fresh human? No...

But exploding turrets can. Also, I watched it happen a number of times. And, trust me, the zap itself is so weak that any time I get a KILL with it, I notice.

Of course, like you said, it could be any number of things and my theory probably IS wrong.

That’s not the point. The point is that you need to go back and re-read what I wrote. I never actually said that the turrets themselves where giving me evos. Rather, I simply implied that blowing them up in-mass often resulted in my “siphoning” of said evos. Here, look it up…
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/siphon

Nerds and their trivial banter about video game semantics, huh?

But hey it’s a vicious cycle, I know (I might’ve even been offended if I wasn’t so often a perpetrator of the same crime, myself). But if you wanna keep on believing that I thought rets gave you evos directly, that’s your own problem…

And kind of a sad one.

[DraZiLoX]

In 1.2 this doesn't work anymore

For realzies?

Who's gonna feed my Advanced Marauder now?

 
...Look how sad he is.

How you know that marauder is boy, IT CAN BE GIRL : (

[Liskey]

Mara zap doesn't need to kill humans to get evos, it just needs to damage them.  So if the zap chains to a couple of humans while your target was turrets, you'll get partial evos from your damage when they eventually get killed.  If you damaged 5 humans over the course of getting yourself killed several times, and later a rant kills all 5 of them in the hall, you could see 6 evos show up at once.

But I'd be shocked (NPI :-) if explosion damage from a building you killed resulted in evos for you - AFAIK the human takes damage from world in an explosion, not from the alien who caused the explosion.