Alien Evasion

[ShadowNinjaDudeMan]

First of all, cool new forum.

Anyway, as a human, when in close quarters with aliens, which will often happen in the game, you will find it necessary to dodge and jump and all that.
This is alien evasion at close quarters and is a great skill to learn, for example gunning Tyrants and Dragoons.
This may allow you to evade their mandibles of destruction long enough to kill them. Confusion is the best weapon you have, often they are chasing you, and so you can lea them on a merry dance, jumping out the way and moving to the side.

THIS, is how to have no hitbox.

To Evade Dretches:
Good Dretchers will use the headchomp-footchomp technique to kill you, thereforeyou need to get out of the way of the headchomp (run to the side, or dodge if you are pro, I aint) then turn around and start shooting at the Dretch. By this time they will have lost momentum and will be slower, and easier to shoot, they will be going in for another headchomp, so just keep on evading them.
If they are swarming you, then run around, doing random turns, and fast turns, and you will see a long snaking line of dretches following your trail, they will be closely packed together, enabling you to fire upon them.
Sometimes try running towards them, then turning away, confuse them as much as you can.

Basilisks:
Basilisks are harder to avoid, because of their grab, but if you can sprint past them, then turn round, a juicy target awaits you. If they grab you, DONT GIVE UP! Just try to get out of their grip, turning, jumping, and then hope they take their eye off the bal, and accidentally let you go.
Another fun thing to do is to get a few Basilisks, then a a human with a blaster, try to run a gauntlet (works best in Tremor), its just too much fun.

Marauders:
For Marauders, simpy try to keep awy fro where they are (but dont run away, that isnt the point) and with ou gun shoot them where they land, just run backwards away from them as they bounce around.

Dragoons:
Dragoons almost always enter a fight with a pounce, this very often decides th winner of the fight. Three words: DODGE THAT POUNCE. Run to the side of them. Then once they land, run around them to their back and astart shooting them, keep running away from them, turning sharply to try and throw them off, make sure that they cant run away by keeping close to them, and listen for the scream, at that, they will try to run away, but DoNT LET THEM!

Tyrants:
When they attack you, try to get out of their way and keep moving out their way when they try to see you.
An attack on a tyrant may last for long with a lesser gun, but you will steadily drain them of health.

The Golden Rule of Evading Aliens is to KEEP MOVING.

[mooseberry]

Good techniques. One dodging ability I find helpful against dragoons and tyrants, is to do a varying speed strafe. What you do, is move back and forth, dodging their blows. However, you must vary the speed of your blows, or they will time you and kill you. So, a good technique is to go left fast right medium, than pause, fast than pause slow, and so on always varying your speed of dodging.

[Mispeled]

Sometimes ducking be extremely effective against maras hopping over your head. I wouldn't try it with goons, though, pounce usually has enough range that they can still kill you.

[Plague Bringer]

I love pissing newb dretches off who jump for headbites.

[ShadowNinjaDudeMan]

Good point people.

Yeah, never stick to any set patterns.

[Death On Ice]

I love pissing newb dretches off who jump for headbites.

I love pissing newb dretches off who use the ground for headbites by jumping over them.

[Quaoar]

I love pissing newb dretches off who jump for headbites.

I wonder what all the dretch experts are going to do when (if?) 1.2 comes out and there are no more ground headbites.

Seriously.

[Megagun]

Good points you have there.

Another thing I myself sometimes use as a Battlesuit with a Luci, with medium health (about 50) and a few annoying dretches as I am about to move back to base to recharge, goes like this:
*Move backwards, facing the dretches
*Charge a Luci shot as the dretches get near you.
*Fire it at the ground, and jump.
This also works against Basilisks.
Basically, we're using the Area of Effect thing Luci shots have here, to try and kill as many irritating aliens as possible. Don't ever try to hit the Dretches themself: you won't ever hit 'em. Best is to wait until they get close, so that they'll be surprised by the Luci shot.

Also, the SPRINT key is the MOST USEFUL key in the entire game! Use it, especially when chasing a goon! If you don't use the SPRINT key, you will surely miss out on a looot of things in Tremulous. Besides, jumping isn't really something you do often as a human in Tremulous.

[Quaoar]

The vast majority of jumping in Trem is at the human base. It tends to coincide with the second kind of human sprint: retreating like hell. When you're turret-blocked and running for your life, you probably can't make the last jump, and that gets people killed. It isn't a noob thing either, one way or another any given player might have low health, no ammo, and have goons chasing his ass, and there's no way for a veteran player to manufacture stamina. What's the point in giving up the kill when you could've run away and not only stolen evos from your opponents, but spared yourself the equipment downgrade?

Some builders know about staggering turrets but just don't think it's that important, but obstructing humans from doing what they're trying to do is the same as helping aliens.

[Plague Bringer]

I love pissing newb dretches off who jump for headbites.

I wonder what all the dretch experts are going to do when (if?) 1.2 comes out and there are no more ground headbites.

Seriously.

No ground headbites? D=

I love pissing newb dretches off who use the ground for headbites by jumping over them.

Wicked fun.

[ShadowNinjaDudeMan]

I jumped this total noob dretch once in a one on one match, and he started yelling thinghs like Stop fucking hacking!!!!!!!!!

Anyhoo, Im off to fetch some tape, my side appears to have split.

[daenyth]

Where does everyone get the idea that ground headbites will be gone? The ONLY way to remove them would be to reduce the range of dretch attacks, and they've said that they won't. Theres no magic code that dretchs can bite from the ground; they just aim their attack, and if the human is in range and on target, they get hit.

[Paradox]

Removing ground headbites would be like making the lcannon shoot blaster rounds, which it sorta does, except bigger and deadlier and bigger.

[benmachine]

Where does everyone get the idea that ground headbites will be gone? The ONLY way to remove them would be to reduce the range of dretch attacks, and they've said that they won't. Theres no magic code that dretchs can bite from the ground; they just aim their attack, and if the human is in range and on target, they get hit.

That's not quite true, it's possible to scale the attack's upward vector down, so that their range is squashed in the vertical direction. However, this is kind of hacky and counter-intuitive and so is not likely to be done.

(note: the specifics of this post may not be wholly accurate, but think twice before saying something is impossible: you might be surprised)

[St. Anger]

I love pissing newb dretches off who jump for headbites.

Come to the BG server more often, will be fun when I jump for headshots and own you as a dretch repeatedly.

[Lakitu7]

It's been said repeatedly that ground headshots are staying.

[Plague Bringer]

I love pissing newb dretches off who jump for headbites.

Come to the BG server more often, will be fun when I jump for headshots and own you as a dretch repeatedly.

You're obviously not a newb dretch, then. I love it when they jump, I duck, and they don't look down. Or when I jump right over them and they run into the turrets. Hilarity ensues.

[temple]

Not bad, not great.

Dretches, move perpendicular or tangent to them.  Near run straight forward or backward.  Adjust the angle of your motion with their motion.  It will provide you with the most amount of distance, allow you to shoot at them, effectively exploiting the human advantage of having ranged weapons.  

If a dretch is coming straight at you, just charge and jump over them.  Most dretches go for the ground head-bite (if they don't and jump at you, just shoot em down as they jump straight into your muzzle).  When you  get good timing and the balls to do it, you can jump over most dretches while shooting down (especially with the shotgun), sprinting away, or swinging your weapon around to finish them off.  It really does work.  Plus, if you jump, they can't land that ground head-bite.  

Basilisks, face em.  That's all you can do.  Against good basilisks, jump to avoid them jumping on your head.  You can kill any basilisks if you just keep them in front of you.  Its hectic but survivable.  

Against ExistentialRisk and most good basilisks, they will try to jump on your head.  This defeats facing them because once on your head, the basilisk grab stops you from aiming up to shoot them.  So, just jump to throw off their jump.  

Marauders, move back and forth.  Its really that easy.  Stay on a very direct path and hopefully away from walls.  I've been killed many times like this.  When jumping, the marauder (and any player) loses control and has to land where they traveling.  No mid-air control unless the marauder is near a wall.  So, just move back and forth to keep them jumping and landing in the same places while shooting at them.  Marauders are only dangerous when they can control their wall jump and can aim their claws.  But having the nerves to not run around erratically will force the marauder to ether stay grounded (which is sure death for them) or try to intercept you (which forces them airborne and limits their control).  However, if they are willing to risk wall jumping a bit while taking damage, they can throw off your prediction.  

Dragoons, just jump before they chomp.  The key to killing a goon and any other alien isn't running around forever.  The key is dealing damage.  All dodging does is give you the few extra seconds to get the kill.  People say jumping drains stamina too much.  I look at stamina like ammo.  I don't use it unless its to save my life and I don't get into fights unless I have it.

So, when a goon comes, you want to jump before they chomp so your legs take the damage, 70% damage reduction with Light armor.  So a chomp only does 30 damage.  You can take 2 and a pounce before you die.  With a helmet, you can take more damage.   If you can aim, you can kill the goon before you run out of stamina.  

The key is timing the jump.  Bonus if you jump and end up out of their range.  Double bonus if you use a medikit while this happens.  Triple bonus if you can jump, hit them, and use a medikit.  Then, you have already hurt them (if you were shooting while jumping or before they got close), will do more damage before they can get in range again,  and hopeful can jump again when they try to attack.    

If your timing is off, well, you better do some damage or pray you can dodge them the next time.  Because with just Light armor, you won't get a 2nd try and with a helmet, you still will be hurt and the goon will be bearing down on you.

Tyrants, pretty much the same as goons.  Just that with tyrants, they have way more health than you can deal in a few seconds.  I can luci a tyrant much like using a shotgun against goon.  Mileage may vary.  You need to get some big hits in early before you can try dodge and get a win.

People will tell you to crouch while moving backwards or spring while back peddling.  Yeah, that works to a point.  Once people see what you are doing, they will just run past you and attack the rear.  As a goon, I mostly pounce past someone to block their retreat and throw off their sprinting.  As a dretch, I'll run past someone and they end up right in my bite.  Once you get your timing down, jumping while using a medikit, and shooting will make you last for ages against aliens.  

The main reason why I don't like pure back peddling or crouching is because if you get double teamed, you will die to 1 alien or the other.  It makes you too predictable.  By moving at angles or jumping, you dodge a lot more attacks, make harder to get TK'd (while giving your teammates more room to assist), and allows you pick off aliens.  

At this point, I die because I get double teamed a lot.  Dealing with that is a whole 'nother level.

[/dev/humancontroller]

Uhm trying to jump and struggle in different directions when a basilisk has grabbed you is useless because that is only an illusion. Just try movin in one direction and hope that the basilisk grab breaks when it moves too far away when trying to circle you.

And this article wasn't useful for me because I didn't learn anything new. You've written the skills every pro player already has.

[kevlarman]

Uhm trying to jump and struggle in different directions when a basilisk has grabbed you is useless because that is only an illusion. Just try movin in one direction and hope that the basilisk grab breaks when it moves too far away when trying to circle you.

And this article wasn't useful for me because I didn't learn anything new. You've written the skills every pro player already has.

actually basi grab does break in 1.1 (often for just barely long enough to escape) due to latency and unpredictable timing of clientthink()

[Samurai.mac]

This seems pointless, you basically just said "don't get hit" but in more words.

[ShadowNinjaDudeMan]

This seems pointless, you basically just said "don't get hit" but in more words.

Exactly, but telling the community "Don't Get Hit" is a bit patronising.
So I fluffed it up with information on HOW not to get hit.

[Samurai.mac]

Fair enough, and what you suggested does work, it just seems a little obvious.

[ShadowNinjaDudeMan]

Fair enough, and what you suggested does work, it just seems a little obvious.

Quite obviously you have never played with a complete noob.
lol.

[Samurai.mac]

lol, maybe so.