Player-Versus-Player Strategy Guide

[KlumsyK]

WOw, writing THE BOOK on netmelee, eh, Shiver?
I love the illustrations!
Yeah I agree that listing possible matches is better left out. Not only to save volume, but also because I think that's the aspect that makes the game so fresh every time, so it's best left unbound by theory. But thats just my opinion.

[Shiver]

The Arilou Skiff



Being the first of several ships designed for flanking, the Arilou is built around the premise of being able to pick apart its enemies without taking any damage in return. With only six crew members, this craft does not allow its pilot any room for error. The ship's maximum velocity is not high enough for it to flank most other spacecraft the conventional way, so Arilou pilots must instead rely heavily upon a frustratingly random teleportation ability to get into attack position. In terms of cost-effectiveness, the Arilou falls short of its 16 point value.



Primary Function: Auto-Aiming Laser



This short range laser is always aimed at your opponent. The weapon stutters while firing, causing a point of damage every other frame. To look at it another way, that's half the rate of sustained firepower which you can expect from a VUX laser or a quarter of sustained firepower from a Chmmr laser. This comparison is hardly flattering for the Arilou, but the weapon's precision and ease of use mitigate this lack of impact somewhat. Be sure you do not exhaust your battery entirely when you unload on an opponent. Keep a small reserve of energy in case an emergency teleport becomes necessary.



Secondary Function: Teleport



For only three points of energy, the Arilou may instantly teleport to a random location within the arena. This ability is most frequently used as an escape mechanism. See a projectile flying your way? Teleport out of there before it connects. Teleportation has a catch to it: There is a minuscule chance of the Arilou spawning inside an asteroid or planet, destroying it instantly. The more you use Arilou, the more you will learn to hate this flaw in the ship's design.



Chain Teleportation

It's not immediately obvious, but teleportation also has offensive potential. To teleport offensively, use the secondary function repeatedly until your ship appears close to your opponent at an angle they are not able to stop you from flanking them. Between each teleport you should wait for your battery to recharge so that you are at your maximum capacity when the moment to strike finally presents itself. This tactic dramatically increases your chance of a fatal teleport, but is nevertheless worth it against many different ships which Arilou would otherwise not be able to beat.



Bonus Feature: Inertial Nullifier



Arilou is the only ship in the game which does not continue to coast in a direction after it turns off its thrusters, allowing it to come to a full stop in an instant. This gives you better handling of the ship, but isn't really decisive by itself. Arilou is also not affected by the planet's gravity, nor the Chmmr's tractor beam.



Ideal Purpose

Here are your most viable targets:

• Druuge
• Earthling
• Mycon
• Umgah
• VUX
• Zoq-Fot-Pik

Mycon is the best craft to go after, while Druuge is second best and VUX is third. Some other popular ships to send Arilou against seem to be Melnorme and Supox. These are normally easy prey for Arilou, but unfortunately both ships each have their own obscure anti-Arilou tactic which can give them an edge. Attack either ship with Arilou if you want, but understand the risk involved. With that in mind, I will now go over the three good targets:

Arilou vs. Mycon: The technique for this particular match-up is as simple as watching out for plasmoids while moving in for the kill. You shouldn't even need to teleport. This is the most basic flanking exercise in the game.

Arilou vs. Druuge: Chain teleport until you end up where you need to be, then fly in and blast away. It may take a couple attack runs depending on how much crew the Druuge has. Never stay in the Druuge's line of fire for more than a fraction of a second.

Arilou vs. VUX: This fight depends entirely to how well you can move up one of the other player's blind spots and flank them. Your ship's outline is small and the VUX's weapon is a thin line, so these blind spots are easy to take advantage of. Avoid limpets to the best of your ability as you fight, but do not obsess over never picking up a single one of them. The Arilou is affected by limpets less than most other vessels. Arilou is unique in that it can negate the VUX's first strike ability. If you're playing Arilou as a starter, teleport just as the match begins to get clear of a potential VUX.



Counters

Ilwrath and Shofixti are ideal for destroying Arilou. You may or may not have the luxury of using a good counter against it.

Ilwrath vs. Arilou: Keep your cloaking device on. The Arilou's auto-aiming laser will not track you while you're cloaked, forcing them to face directly into you at short range to attack. Victory is not as simple as returning fire; Your effective range is shorter than theirs, and when you uncloak to attack the Arilou's laser can track you again. You will need to catch the Arilou by surprise while they fumble about trying to hit your cloaked form. I recommend playing this one cautiously.

Shofixti vs. Arilou: This is not the most reliable Arilou killer, but it's certainly the cheapest. The Arilou's effective weapon range is too short to hurt Shofixti without walking into the glory device's kill radius. Unfortunately, this leads to a long and frustrating series of feints from the Arilou in order to trick you into triggering the bomb at a bad time. Use your pipgun to put pressure on Arilou, but don't expect the other player to let you kill them with that.

Spathi vs. Arilou: Spathi performs well against Arilou, although it is not cost-effective and the match is long and tedious to an extreme. Play defensively and keep plugging away with those torpedoes. Three torpedo hits or a bad teleport will take down that Arilou.

You can also use one of the tougher ships such as Androsynth, Slylandro or Mmrnmhrm if none of the proper counters are available to you, although none of these are ideal as you should have bigger fish to fry with them.

[Shiver]

No activity for an entire day anywhere on the forum? Guess I'll have to resuscitate this project on UQM instead.

[Cedric6014]

Dear Shiver

Firstly I'd like to say that what you're doing is absolutely awesome and I think everyone is impressed by it. It might take you a year or two to complete, but I dont think you should give up. Just take your sweet time. There is no urgency

Secondly, it doesn't really need to be in two places but its nice if it is.

Thirdly I wouldn't feel purturbed if folks are in the middle of ofther non-SC related things right now. remember, ther are only 5 people on SCDB so the likelihood of noone being around for 1 or 2 days is quite high. They'll be back

Love, Cedric

[Shiver]

I was just thinking how silly it is to be running this project here instead of there. No need to get defensive. I can continue copy-pasting content into this thread too.

[Eth]

  Yeah, it's finals week here in Eth-land, so I've been busy with Real Life (or School, at any rate).  Keep up the good work, Shiver!  It's terrific.  Yeah, don't worry about soliciting our input.  None of us play SC2 anymore, anyway!   

[Lukipela]

End of a big project nearing and a wedding this weekend (not mine thankfully) for me. Posting this on UQM might be a lot wiser, for one thing there are more NetMelee players over there.

[chenjesuwizard]

Wow cool! A whole book! I hope you keep going! they're realy helping me!
(I'm a begginer)

[Scott_Irving]

I was out of town and sick all week so...

[chenjesuwizard]

I was sick too
I normally check the board everyday but haven't this week
By the way that strategy guide helps alot
I am a begginer and don't know how to fight very well

[Lukipela]

Is the Cruiser really a good target for the Skiff? Even if the laser has longer range than the point defence, it just seems that even a slight mistake would land you inside it's range. And while the point defence doesn't do much damage, the Skiff can't really take much either. Or is it just so much more maneouvrable?

EDIT: Also, is the Skiff/Eluder game really possible with human players? It just sounds like one of those neverending games where one plyer just runs away and the other teleports.

EDIT2: You've got the same picture twice for the Broodhome, both shrapnel spamming and DOGI are the DOGI picture.

[Lukipela]

Also, if you want spellcheck help, the Chmmr part contaisn the word "sattelite" (Bonus sattelite array), which should be satellite I think. Posting on UQM oesn't seem to have helped your cause really, they're pretty slow right now as well.

[Shiver]

Posting on UQM oesn't seem to have helped your cause really, they're pretty slow right now as well.

Feh. You're posting in this thread, but only because you saw the other one. I see no compelling reason to keep the thread updated in two different places.

Is the Cruiser really a good target for the Skiff? Even if the laser has longer range than the point defence, it just seems that even a slight mistake would land you inside it's range. And while the point defence doesn't do much damage, the Skiff can't really take much either. Or is it just so much more maneouvrable?

Yes, Arilou beats Earthling if the pilot knows what it's doing. Arilou can have a hard time if its crew is low at the start of the fight, but I have been able to win the match without taking a single point of damage. Elerium and Gekku have both done it to me as well, so I know it's not overwhelmingly difficult to pull off. The Arilou beam has a slightly longer range than the Earthling point defense. The Earthling point defense also has an interesting habit of shooting at the Arilou beam if that's the first thing the PDL notices. Because the PDL has a rather delayed rate of fire, you can trip it up with your weapon, fly into the PDL's effective range, then fly out before it fires on you.

EDIT: Also, is the Skiff/Eluder game really possible with human players? It just sounds like one of those neverending games where one plyer just runs away and the other teleports.

I tried this a few times with Elvish Pillager from both sides. Spathi always wins. The Arilou can drop right on top of Spathi and it still doesn't allow them to deal much damage. The Spathi--being faster than Arilou--gets away too quickly. In fact, when the Arilou did get the drop on Spathi that was usually what got it killed by Spathi torpedoes. Extensive chain teleporting would also kill Arilou during these long and tedious matches.

This line of input is perfectly welcome, but keep in mind that I go out of my way to test everything extensively and know way too much about Star Control's combat as it is.

EDIT2: You've got the same picture twice for the Broodhome, both shrapnel spamming and DOGI are the DOGI picture.

Refresh the page. I messed with the Chenjesu images recently, so your system is using the Chenjesu_02.gif image from memory rather than what it is.

Also, if you want spellcheck help, the Chmmr part contaisn the word "sattelite" (Bonus sattelite array), which should be satellite I think.

Thanks. For reasons beyond my understanding, my Firefox spellchecker thinks that sattelite is an actual word. Know of a way to remove words from its dictionary? Nevermind, I'll just have to watch for that from now on.

[Lukipela]

Feh. You're posting in this thread, but only because you saw the other one. I see no compelling reason to keep the thread updated in two different places.

Not really. I had the Arilou comments all thought out before you decided to move the thread, I just didn't have time to post them. I actually made the Arilou post here by accident (had both forums open) and was then too lazy to move it. I'm a bit suprised at the low activity over at the UQM actually, as most of the NetMelee players tend to hang out there. But I don't doubt that it's a better place for this stuff.

In regards to NetMelee tactics, I don't doubt that you wrote (or are writing) the book. I was asking out of curiosity more than as criticism, because those are the things that seemed non-intuitive to me. The answers were quite interesting (I'd never noticed that you can trick the PDL).

[Shiver]

The Chenjesu Broodhome



To say that Chenjesu is lacking in mobility would be an understatement. Due to its mediocre acceleration, abysmal turning rate and high ship mass, this ship lurches about during combat like an obese sea turtle. This ship will crash into the planet more frequently than anything else in the game, and due to Chenjesu's large crew capacity, even one crash will sting like a swift kick to the crotch. An expert player can minimize these collisions, but they are still going to occur. Despite this, Chenjesu is quite powerful. Its choice of armament is strong and versatile enough that this ship can put up a fight at all distances against just about everything in the game. It's a solid combatant, but not nearly worth the cost of 28 points.



Primary Function: Photon Shard



Photon shards can be launched all the way across the screen and continue traveling beyond the camera's boundaries and come back again on a wrap-around. While that is a neat demonstration of the weapon's infinite range, it's also a phenomenally stupid way to fight. Many players like to try and hit their opponent with a crazy wrap-around shot and I have no idea why anyone would think that's a good idea. Wrap-around shots are not reliable in the least bit and waste far too much time, so don't try and make them.

With that tangent out of the way, let's go over the specifics of this weapon. To fire a photon shard, hold down the primary attack button. The photon shard inflicts six damage on a direct collision with the enemy. If you release the primary attack button before the shard strikes an object, it will explode into eight little pieces of shrapnel that travel in different directions and inflict two damage each. You do not need to line up your shots perfectly to damage an enemy craft thanks to shrapnel. These smaller fragments are not very precise, but they do help.



Shrapnel Spamming



Rapidly tapping the primary attack button will unleash a flurry of ordinance nearby that can be devastating at short range. This technique is a good way to handle small enemy craft attempting to flank you, for it will cover your ship from almost every angle with weapons fire. Shrapnel spamming does leave two diagonal openings behind the Chenjesu itself that are not covered, so try to keep hostiles off your back as much as possible.



Secondary Function: De-Energizing Offensive Guided Interceptor



Using their entire battery, the Chenjesu can construct and deploy DOGIs during combat. DOGIs seek out the opposing craft and attempt to bump into them. A DOGI collision inflicts no damage, but rather drains ten points of battery power and knocks the other ship off course. Chenjesu can only maintain four DOGIs during combat at a time, though even one DOGI can potentially disable an opponent by keeping their battery empty. DOGIs have varying amounts of usefulness depending upon what the Chenjesu is up against. Even when you're in a match where DOGIs do not appear to be decisive, it's good to make one if you've got the energy to spare and the opposing ship is not an imminent threat. DOGIs are vulnerable to your own weapons so try not to shoot them down.



Ideal Purpose

While Chenjesu is too expensive to be used as a proper counter, it is also moderately effective against the entire line-up of ships within the game. You can use Chenjesu against almost anything and get some mileage out of it. The DOGIs make it particularly devastating against Utwig and Druuge, so those are often the best prey.

If you're being smacked around by a Syreen bloated full of extra crew, Chenjesu is a good candidate to put a stop to the rampage. Against Syreen, pillbox to minimize their ability to steal your crew.

Chenjesu is also a good choice against a Chmmr that has been beaten down to half its crew compliment or less. You should be able to wipe them out before they can unload their battery on you. Shrapnel is mostly useless against Chmmr, so try to land every shot.



Counters

Orz vs. Chenjesu: Orz is the most reliable Chenjesu-killer. Drop marines from many different directions so that your opponent cannot avoid them all. Do not engage the Chenjesu directly. The fight should win itself unless your marines grossly underperform.

Slylandro vs. Chenjesu: As with most matches that favor Slylandro, the right tactics can only take you so far. This match is almost entirely based on your reflexes. You want to hit Chenjesu from the sides and back while dodging photon shards and shrapnel. Stay clear of the Chenjesu's front unless they perform a gravity whip, in which case it's quite possible to move in front of them for a brief period and escape unharmed. Do not get too close to the Chenjesu during a flanking run, shrapnel can still get you while you're on their sides or back.

While not a serious counter, Earthling is a good way to finish off a Chenjesu that has lost at least half its crew. Accelerate away from them, then turn back around and lob missiles until the Chenjesu is no more.

There are many ships that cost less than Chenjesu, but can go toe to toe with it when played well. Androsynth, Mmrnmhrm, Melnorme, Mycon and Yehat can all see success here. Lastly, Chmmr and Kohr-Ah will defeat Chenjesu more often than not.