Editing Xenos (section)

=How to Play=
[[File:Alienshuttle2.png|right|470px]]
A lot of people like aliens, either playing as, fighting against, or being stroked by them.
Fortunately for those of us who do, random alien events and/or answered prayers tend to happen very frequently. Unfortunately, however, it seems a lot of people have no fucking clue what they're doing when they spawn as one. This is a guide describing some basics and tips about playing as a xeno so you're not stuck in ooc going "how does I play alium?"

This guide is fairly comprehensive and long. There is no tl;dr for this shit, so tough it out, soldier.

===Prologue===
Aliens arrive on the station in one of three ways.

The first way is for the random event where CentCom broadcasts that an Unidentified Lifesign has been detected aboard the station. This means that in a very few random places around the station, larvas have been spawned. They can pop up almost anywhere, even right next to you (if this happens then GG for aliens, they lost the element of surprise). The alert won't be called out for almost ten minutes, plenty of time for a queen to appear and a nest to take hold.

The second way is for admins to spawn them. This can either be as a forced random event that is exactly like the CentCom alert, OR they could just hide some facehuggers and/or eggs somewhere on the station while they cackle evilly to themselves waiting for some poor unsuspecting assistant to get a very slimy face full of alien wing wang.

The third way is for [[Shaft Miner|mining]] to discover a facehugger on lavaland and transport it to the station, usually to [[xenobiology]], for """study."""

'''"Shit, my face has been raped by xenos."'''
If you've been infected, there will usually be telltale signs. You'll feel sick. Your throat will be sore. You'll cough a lot. These symptoms mean you are forming a babby. Luckily, medbay is capable of [[Surgery|surgically removing alien embryos]]. Making a backup in genetics then cloning you once you burst (or after your infected body is burned) also works, provided you can get the geneticists to [[Beyond the impossible|stop dicking around]] for thirty seconds.

===Phase One===
'''''Oh shit I'm a larva what do I do?'''''
*You've just spawned[[File:Aliensnake1.png]]and are weak as shit.
*You have all sorts of useful powers at the top left of your screen, and will get more when you evolve into an adult.
*As a larva you can barely attack (it does pathetic damage, but accelerates your evolution progress with every bite) and your main powers are to hide under objects and crawl through vents by alt+clicking them.
*Use :a to communicate with any other aliens over hivemind chat.
*If there's anyone around when you burst, you may be fucked. Turn on Yakety Sax and run for your life. Finding a vent is your best, and probably only chance of survival.
*If you're not in a good spot, find the nearest vent and for the love of god crawl through it.
*A good spot is anywhere where you A) are not likely to be found and B) have an easy-access vent. If it's dark, that's even better, since someone who comes inside may not see you unless they get close.
*Crawling through vents takes time both to enter and to get around the station. If you are being chased, get some distance before trying to enter or you may be killed before you ventcrawl away!
*If for any reason your hiding place is found out, don't be afraid to crawl through dem vents and find a new place.
*If you're stuck in a room with no vents, and doors you can't open, turn "hide" on in the alien tab and (yeah) hide under the table. Hopefully nobody knows you're there.
*Once you're in your spot, sit and wait to evolve.
*If a xeno hive already exists somewhere, make your way there as you grow twice as fast on resin floors.

'''''Somewhat useful thing'''''

As you develop (after bursting, of course) you will change colour. freshly hatched larva look like [[File:Aliensnake2.png]], evolving larva look like [[File:Aliensnake1.png]] and ready to evolve larva look like [[File:Aliensnake3.png]].

===Phase Two===
'''''Fuck yes, I'm a xeno, time to go kill some motherfuckers.'''''
*'''STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM, don't run off to kill people just yet. Or ever.'''
*As a general rule, don't go into the hallways when you are the first xenos starting out. The most stupid thing you can do is run out slashing everything you see at this point. Going into the halls later on when you have more sisters should still be done by your own discretion and the discretion of your fellow xenos.

There are currently 5 classes past larva stage: '''Hunters''', '''Sentinels''', '''Drones''', the '''Praetorian''' and the '''Queen'''. Drones are the only aliens that can evolve into a '''Queen''' by themselves. Hunters hunt, Sentinels guard, Drones build a nest, and Praetorians guard the Queen and act as the successor. All classes can eat people and digest them, and regenerate health and plasma by standing on resin floors.

'''''Hunters: Tunnel Snakes rule.'''''
*So you chose to be a Hunter[[File:Alien.png]]. You are the warrior of the group. You are stealthy, fast, and vicious. You are not tasked with killing everyone you see, though. You are mostly a courier, pulling freshly-tackled humans to the hive and let the facehuggers make babies.
*Although you are fast as fuck compared to your xeno sisters, you have low plasma storage. You also regenerate plasma very slowly. Use your powers wisely.
*Your exclusive power is Pouncing. You can click the "pounce" button to travel up to seven tiles (literally throwing yourself) and knocking down whoever you come in contact with. If you hit a wall, you'll be stunned for a while. Beware of humans holding shields! These will knock you down like you struck a wall, which can easily punish you with a laser barrage in your stunned state.
*You can devour people, storing them in your stomach, by grabbing them with an aggressive grab and clicking yourself. You can then drop them by using the regurgitate button. This is useful for delivery of unconscious people, but no one ever uses it. Make sure to completely strip someone before even considering eating them, nothing is more shameful than a reverse-chestburst.
*As a Hunter, you are not just tasked with stealing humans away and taking him to the nest, but also with spreading resin floors. Since you are the fastest, you can reach various areas quicker than the others. You can set up a small home with the limited plasma you have that others can flock to and make into a full-blown nest, or at the very least serve as a safe space to heal up at far away from the hive.
*You can also pose a great threat to machines and cyborgs with your quick slashes. However, you should always attempt to attack a cyborg while in a group to maximize your chances. You are a "hunter" after all, and the only thing more dangerous than a hunter is a group of hunters.

'''''Sentinels: The Guard of the Hive'''''
*A Sentinel [[File:Aliensentinel.png]] is a warrior, but not meant to stray far from the Hive. You are tasked with defending the hive, the Drones, the Queen, if you have one, and the eggs. If a human stumbles upon your home sweet home, you must make sure they don't harm anything.
*You come, in your arsenal of alien powers, with Invisibility, Neurotoxic Spit and Corrosive Acid.
*Neurotoxic Spit is a projectile that stuns a human temporarily, causing toxic damage and knocking them to the ground. Basically a long range tackle, this actually does a fair amount of damage to them, so don't overdo it. To use this, click on the Neurotoxic Spit button to activate it; you can then click anywhere to spit in that direction. To turn it off, simply click the button again.
*Invisibility is free, and makes you transparent; you can toggle it with its action button. You'll still be visible on station tiles, but alien resin, having your same color, hide you almost completely. Attacking and using abilities won't disrupt your stealth.
*Corrosive Acid eats through basically anything, including doors, APC's, and items. If you don't want to crawl through a vent to get somewhere, want to open up a door for other aliens to drag humans into, destroy a dangerous weapon, or make an opening for a Queen to get through, this is the power to do it. You cannot corrode humans, monkeys, or any creature with acid. Really, though, you should never want to do something that damaging to a possible host.
*You must make sure the Drones don't get hurt while they plant layers and layers of resin, set up shop, and keep things running. You are the protector of the hive, not a Hunter with spit and acid. Don't hunt humans down unless you have no hunters or an overabundance of sentinels.

'''''Drones: Plant Weeds Erryday'''''
*You are a Drone[[File:Aliendrone.png]], a worker. You are tasked with spreading a fuckton of resin until you eventually can become a big, fat Queen. You are far from any bit of a fighter. As such, never go out alone into uncharted areas that may be dangerous without a Sentinel or Hunter willing to help.
*You, like the Sentinels, also have corrosive acid, but no neurotoxic spit. You can evolve into a at will Praetorian once you reach 500 Plasma if there isn't another living royal (praetorian or queen). Your main power and focus is to shape resin. Lots, and lots of resin.
*Resin '''walls''' are tough mounds of purple slime, shaped into a protective wall. Resin '''membrane''' is the xeno's functional equivalent of a window, although it prevents lasers from passing through it. Both kinds can be destroyed by attacking them, although they are pretty resistant. They are mostly used to make mazes where the crew is forced into melee, or are tricked into wasting laser shots on a membrane thinking it will behave like a normal window. Another functionally important resin structure you can build is the '''nest''', it's a mound of slimy substance that can entrap your victims until they bursts and acts like a cuffbuckle shitcurity combo. Just drag the infected over it and buckle them in. Be sure to support hunters and sentinels by building a nest when you see them dragging a human. 
*You, if not your own candidate for Queenhood, maintain the hive, making walls of slime and resin. You're faster than the Queen but slower than the hunter.
*You are also a sub-par defensive line for the Queen (although still able to absolutely wreck a poor assistant's day). If the Sentinels aren't defending the Queen, and she is being attacked, you should attempt to defend her, but not at the cost of your life. If she does die, you and/or your fellow Drones should determine the next Queen in line and continue the cycle.

'''''Praetorians: Royal Blood'''''
*You are a Praetorian, the last step in evolution before the alien queen. Drones may only evolve into a Praetorian if there are no other royals present. Queens can promote a Praetorian, if one does not exist.
*Praetorians have a similar set of skills to alien queens, minus the egg laying: Neurotoxic Spit, Tail Sweep, Corrosive Acid, Shaping Resin. Praetorians cannot ventcrawl, but are also immune to stuns and very hard to kill.
*Like the queen, you are immune to syringes, hulks, mechs, space wind, and are very durable, though not as durable as her.
*You also gain tail whip, and are slightly faster than your queen, so it is safe to use this ability on the offensive which is actually fucking terrifying to behold.
*If the queen should die, you are next in line as successor, you must evolve as soon as you are able so the egg supply can resume!

===Phase Three===
'''''I'm a queen, but how is babby formed?'''''
*Let's get this out of the way, first: You can caress anyone with your scythe-like arm by clicking on them with an empty hand, with the Help intent active, while they're next to you. This is no help to you or anyone else. Moving on.
*You're a queen[[File:Queennew.png]]. Awesome. You get some nifty bonuses and defects compared to regular aliens. Let's go over them.
*'''Cons:''' You are slow. And by that I mean fucking slow. Snail's pace. You also can't vent crawl. You basically have zero mobility compared to everything else in the game. You also stand out. You basically suck balls.
*'''Pros:''' You can lay eggs[[File:Egg.png]], you build plasma four times faster than regular aliens (20 units per tick as opposed to the normal 5), and are insanely durable (400 HP). You are immune to mech punches, hulk punches and space wind punches. Also some [[Librarian|people]] will think you're sexy. You basically kick ass.
*Your first task is to lay eggs. You start with 250 plasma even though you needed 500 to evolve, and you'll build more very quickly.
*If at any point in time you have plasma built up and don't know what to do with it, lay another egg. Laying more eggs means more facehuggers and are your best weapon against unprotected humans.
*You can open any door that isn't ID locked, but locked and/or bolted doors require that you spit corrosive acid on them. Corrosive acid is your all-access pass to the station. If you're stuck for any reason, or want to get in somewhere (example, rooms with monkeys or plasma tanks), use dat acid. It takes a while to eat through doors usually, so spit early and lay eggs while you wait.
*You're extremely vulnerable to swarms of shitty assistants trying to weld you open a new asshole, so take care to keep them at an arm's length with copious amounts of facehuggers and your tail whip ability.
*Remember, darkness is your friend. Smash dem lights. Smash any cameras, while you're at it.
*If you for any reason need to defend yourself, neurotoxic spit is extremely effective at stopping someone in their tracks. Crewmembers expect you to be harmless with your slow movespeed, punish them with your ranged stun!
*When you incapacitate someone for any reason (probably by stunning them with spit), stroll on over and strip off all their possessions (keep tackling them while you do this to keep them down). Start with dangerous things like radios, weapons, air tanks, and [[backpack]]s. ALWAYS take off the radio first. If they call in your position and you don't have enough facehuggers, you are fuuuuuucked.
*Drag anyone you incapacitate back towards the heart of your hive. Make sure that when they never get back up thanks to your hordes of facehuggers. The alien wing wang is your best and final weapon. Once they're impregnated, feel free to drag them to some dark corner and caress them until they explode into a new alien baby.
*Remember what I said earlier about monkeys? Monkeys and the humans they've probably been turned into are viable facehugger targets, and are a fantastic way to rapidly expand the size of your brood without needing to hunt down those pesky toolbox-wielding humans. From a meta standpoint, they also let more players into the game without killing anyone, so it gets more ghosts back to playing, which is always good. Same goes for braindead people. Virology is a great place to do this at!
*Once you've amassed an army of facehuggers, and hopefully ambushed a couple unsuspecting crew who were unfortunate enough to stumble on your nest, you should communicate closely with the other aliens and prepare to start really branching out across the station. You've already started this, probably, especially since the other alien players are probably being more aggressive than you.
*Your life is invaluable, should you die, the alien hivemind will collapse and all xenomorphs will go into a debilitating collective depression; rendering them extremely vulnerable for several minutes and unable to gain a new queen until the effect has passed!
*For 500 plasma you can promote any alien drone, sentinel or hunter to a Praetorian. Pick someone who has shown their competence and is willing to stay by your side!


===General Advice===
*You do not need air to breathe as a xenomorph! Feel free to walk around the outside of the station and make a good safe area to plant weeds and store plasma on (i.e., the solars, or [[toxins test area]] if no one is bombing or has bombed it). You can also smash down windows and grilles for an easy entry or exit point. If you get spaced you're usually out of luck, though!
*You can open any door that is not bolted by simply clicking it; it'll take a while to force it open if it's still powered, though. For a more permanent solution, corrode the door with acid.
*You can corrode with acid even walls and floors, as long as they're not reinforced. This means you can get into basically anywhere.
*Welded vents can be torn back open from the outside, but not while you're ventcrawling. Break them back open to give yourself an entry and escape point!
*Disarming is a guaranteed stun that can keep anyone down as much as you need, though it will only disarm if they have something in their active hand. Just don't stop until you get to a nest.
*The atmospherics vent leads to a safe 3x3 room with a single canister inside it. Go here if you really have nowhere else to go, as it's 99% safe. Only bombs can get you there and even the AI can't see that room.
*Virology is a marvelous base to build a nest in, as it is heavily fortified and isolated, and more difficult and bottlenecked for the crew to get in than you. It also comes with five monkeys for you to infect right away!
*'''Smash all of the lights you find!''' You can see perfectly in the dark. Humans, without flashlights, are completely blind. Break all those lights and humans will become afraid of entering the dark areas, with good reason. This goes double for a queen, since the queen can't really fight worth anything and relies on the facehuggers and other xenos to protect her. Note that weed nodes produce a bit of light, so don't spread them out.
*Smashing cameras can hide you from the eyes of an AI, but take care NOT to smash APCs at first as that will set off a power alarm.
*You cannot facehug the dead but a dead guy will chestburst if he was infected while alive, although larvae grow faster in alive people. It is important to weigh the micromanaging aspect of keeping someone knock down but alive for faster larva bursting, versus killing them to remove all chance of them pulling a bomb out of their ass in the middle of your nest because you weren't paying attention to them.
*You regenerate health and plasma by staying on weeds. If you're in danger, spawn a weed to heal up. Note that your plasma regeneration is halved while injured.
*Drones, Praetorians, and Queens can create alien nests made out of resin. You can use these to buckle victims (drag and drop) to keep them immobile. They can get free on their own but it will take them two minutes, enough time to attach a facehugger to their face. Just be sure to periodically knock them down again while in their nests so they don't get up and cause trouble so near all your larvas!
*Take out APCs and other machinery only once your numbers have grown enough to assault the station at large. The mass power failures will easily reveal what areas you've overrun, but will also provide protection in the darkness and prevent the crew from producing the tools they need.


'''Common Mistakes as an Alien Queen:'''

*Not putting down eggs ALWAYS! If you have free time, you should be planting weeds, making nests, and planting eggs.
*Not throwing facehuggers. If your target doesn't have a RIG suit helmet on, you can throw a facehugger and instantly get them facehugged at a distance!
*Not going to an isolated area. Picking somewhere with access to space is a good idea. Being in an area where you have no way out into space is a bad idea. Virology, the turbine, and some large rooms in maintenance make for good nests.
*Spacing yourself. If you find you are a retard/lagged a lot and spaced yourself, you can use neurotoxic spit or throw a facehugger to send yourself back in the direction of the station. If all else fails, you should eventually loop back to the station, or hit a space ruin that you can send yourself back with.
*Attempting to fight the station all by yourself. Don't try to be a hero, you are slow and vulnerable to swarming. Try to stick to the relative safety of space.
*Not disarming cyborgs/other hostiles. If you disarm a cyborg or a person, you'll stun them for a good amount of time. You can easily take a cyborg 1 on 1 this way.
*NOT USING YOUR TAIL WHIP ABILITY. It is even more powerful than facehuggers, being literally implemented as a ''"get the fuck OFF OF ME"'' button to shake off the half-dozen assistants assaulting you with toolboxes. It has a 15 second cooldown, but doesn't cost any plasma!