I’ve noticed there really isn’t anything out there in the way of general guides for xeno players, so I have decided to take it upon myself to throw this together in the hopes that it can alleviate some of the pain and confusion of learning xeno. I am not necessarily a top tier gigafrag xeno player myself, but I have over 1000 hours spread equally between marine and xeno at this point, as well as 3000+ hours overall in SS13, and have helped carry many rounds on both sides. I also know quite a few things that can make your life much easier if you intend to learn how to become the “perfect organism”. The xenomorphs are a blast to play once they finally “click”, so hopefully this will give you a shortcut to getting there.
In this guide I will assume you know the basic controls and mechanics of SS13/CM13. If you do not, refer to the wiki or the in-game tutorials first, as they will help you immensely and they take only a few minutes to do. I will largely be focusing on setups, mechanics, and strategies that will help ease you into playing xeno and hopefully fast-track you into having more enjoyable rounds as an alien. I will also include a brief synopsis of the various castes and my thoughts on them.
Table of Contents:
1. Initial Setup and Control Recommendations – DO NOT SKIP
I put DO NOT SKIP in bold for a reason; there are 3 key settings you MUST tweak if you want to be able to play xeno even half decently. They are as follows: turning OFF Toggle Ability Deactivation, turning ON Toggle Directional Assist, and Turning ON Combat Click-Drag Override. See the attached screenshot for help finding these settings:
These settings do the following:
Toggle Ability Deactivation OFF – Prevents you from accidentally turning off useable abilities by pressing the hotkey twice. This will prevent you from accidentally disabling your intended ability when you are frantically swapping between hotkeys and hit it twice. There is no reason to ever disable a selected active ability, and therefore you should always be using this setting. Not using this setting can and easily WILL get you killed if your hotkey use is not perfect.
Toggle Directional Assist ON – This is the big one. This allows you to strike nearby valid targets so long as you click in their direction relative to you. This is an ENORMOUS advantage unique only to xenos and prevents you from being forced to click on peoples small and rapidly moving sprites every single time to land strikes. Instead, it allows you to click in one of the 8 directions surrounding your xeno, and so long as your target is in that direction and adjacent to you, your strike will land. I will elaborate on this further in the guide on how to kill marines.
Toggle Combat Click-Drag Override ON– This setting helps prevent small click-drags you may be doing when clicking on enemies from preventing a landed slash. In SS13 and CM13, even a slight hold on a click can under normal circumstances turn a harm intent attack into a sprite-drag click, which will not engage an attack. This setting will help alleviate that.
The combination of these 3 settings will massively help you in landing slashes and abilities on marines. They are absolutely game changing, every single good xeno player has these enabled, and you are totally crazy if for some reason you choose not to use them. EVERY XENO PLAYER SHOULD BE USING THESE SETTINGS, YES THEY ARE THAT IMPORTANT. The fact they are not enabled by default is insane, and frankly they should be, but this is SS13 so everything has to be vague and esoteric.
As for hotkeys, there is no right answer. Everyone has a preference. I suggest playing around with them and seeing what works best for you, and keep in mind that you can combine shift and alt with keys too for more advanced combinations. If you want an example, my personal hotkey changes are as follows:
C – V – B for abilities 1-3, keeps it simple and in order. G for the odd 4th ability.
1-4 standard intent cycling, its what I’m used to
Shift + B to resist. This prevents accidentally pressing the default resist key of B at the wrong time when key cycling, which can and will kill you. Also allows my above CVB ability hotkeys.
5 -6 -7 -9 Hiss Growl Roar and Help respectively just for fun
2. Beginner Playstyle Recommendations
CM13 is a massive and detailed game, so I cannot give you a rundown on every little thing or situation you are going to run into, but what I can do is give you a recommendation on playstyles that are way better for beginners to hopefully keep you in the game and having fun.
Caste Choice
My first and foremost recommendation for any beginner player is to choose from the Defender, Sentinel, or Drone lines of castes first. The runner line of castes are very fun and interesting, but they are also the hardest to play and easiest to die on. Unless your heart is set on one of the runner line castes, I strongly recommend learning one of the other 3 lines first, as they are far more survivable and less mechanics intensive. As for the caste lines themselves, here is what I would suggest for the new player choosing from one of the other 3:
Defender Line: The best choice for a newer player picking a caste in the defender line would hands down be either the defender or the crusher. The defender has very high armor, a fast and disruptive combo, and is mechanically easy and effective. The crusher has the highest survivability in the game when using it’s overshield, massive utility and terrain destruction with its charge, and major damage output to boot. Both of these castes will give you effective and beefy frontline combat ability, and are a great way to begin learning how to really fight and land combos.
The reason I do not recommend warrior to a beginner is due to the fact that it is significantly less survivable than the defender or crusher, as it sacrifices armor for a far more oppressive single target combo. Playing warrior is far more mechanics intensive and requires good game knowledge to avoid getting yourself killed instantly. A single amateur mistake on warrior is often fatal.
Sentinel Line: Despite me recommending this line, I don’t recommend sentinel itself, but rather its higher tier spitter and boiler cousins. Sentinel requires a lot more precision and comboing to be used to its full potential, while spitter and boiler are far more straightforward. Spitter is much easier, just empower your spit and go nuts, and spray acid on every cade you see over and over again to drive comtechs crazy. Boiler is also very easy to play and massively effective. Focus on globbing marine lines and cades over and over for devastating effect.
Drone Line: For the drone line I recommend the drone and all its strains, as well as the Hivelord. The burrower and carrier while not terrible difficult to play, generally take a bit more map knowledge to be effective on. The drone and its strains will teach you how to help support your team, and also build crucial resin. The hivelord will take it a step further and allow you to start learning how to really make game winning resin lines.
HOTTIP ON GETTING TIER 2s AND 3s: You will quickly realize there are limited tier 2 and 3 slots. If you are joining a round at roundstart, the typical round times for each first pick of the tier 2 and 3 slots are at 14 and 20 minutes respectively. If you intend to play a tier 2 or 3, I advise you be full health, on weeds, and spamming your evo button at each cut off time. You can be a little late on tier 2 and usually get it. If you want tier 3 at roundstart you better be early or you’re probably not getting it since its first come first serve.
How to Play Early Game ( First 20 Minutes)
Early game has a funny way of being both incredibly safe or incredibly dangerous. The reason for that is simple; survivors. I STRONGLY advise against engaging with survivors at all as a beginner player. Survivor is a very difficult human role, and it is usually mained by some of the most experienced marine players in the game. If you pick a fight with one, understand that the odds are good you are picking a fight with someone with 100s of hours more experience than you who likely has an ace up their sleeve you are not even aware of. Now of course not all survivors are total killers, but knowing how to win 1v1s against people is not something you are necessarily going to know how to do yet.
Instead what I recommend is one of 3 things. Either one, go around the map paying your “drone tax” by putting down weeds everywhere, and avoid survs if you see them, calling out their locations instead. Or two, go around the map destroying APCs, windows, window sills, and any important equipment. Or three, AFK in hive and piss off all the xeno mains lol.
If you do choose to help siege a survivor hold, I advise letting the more experienced xenos lead the charge and play a more supportive role. Survivors are masters of cheese and can and will kill you with annoying bullshit that you’d never expect as a new player.
How to Survive and Assist the Frontline (Post 20 minutes)
Marines will almost always land some time between 20 and 27 minutes in. At that point the battle is inevitably about to begin. It is important at this point that you STICK WITH YOUR TEAM! Now you are probably new and have no idea where you are, fortunately you have a very helpful tool for that; the TACMAP! If the queen is on her ovipositor(eggsac thing), you get access to a real-time tacmap you can use to find your position relative to your team. Use the map to find your team and form up on their position. If for some reason you are struggling with the map, you can also alt-click your queen locator and set it to track a hive leader instead which can help.
Once with your team, I strongly advise playing a supportive role even as a combat caste. You are new, and you aren’t going to be able to recognize dangerous scenarios easily, so it is better to wait for one of the more experienced xenos to initiate a play first, THEN play off what they just did. This reduces the risk towards yourself and gives you an easy layup. As for being actually helpful, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD be mindful of where you are standing. One of the number one killers of xenos is the dreaded body block. It is CRUCIAL that you make sure you are not blocking the retreat of other xenos back into corridors or resin doors. You avoid this by keeping space from other xenos, taking looping paths around them, and not idling in doors.
A great example of what I used to do as a newbie xeno is I would wait for a ravager or another tier 3 to go in and attack marines, I would go in a second later and land my combo on either the marine they just attacked, or another marine nearby. This takes some of the gunfire off you, is extremely helpful, and helps you learn how to kick people’s asses.
Lastly, I will give you a major tip that applies to ALL SS13 combat not even just CM13; if one of your teammates is in the middle of kicking someone’s ass, DON’T GET IN THE WAY! If you can easily angle off to the side to add in some slashes then sure, go for it, but if you have to crash in behind the guy to get some hits in, all you are doing is cutting off your buddy’s escape and preventing them from dodging incoming rounds.
I LIED, one other final FINAL tip. This game relies heavily on teamwork. There are xenos that have the kit to operate alone, but every single xeno in the game with no exception is more effective with teammates. I strongly advise working closely alongside your team until you get better at xeno for a better experience.
3. Things That Will Kill You and How to Avoid Them
One of the hardest parts of playing xeno is simply the sheer amount of weapons, mechanics, and situations that can simply instantly end you outright. In order to help you avoid some of my unfortunate early deaths as xeno, I am going to list out a non-exhaustive list of common things that will kill the shit out of you and how to avoid or even counter them.
Common Fuck-off Guns You Should Not Fuck With Lightly
Any SPEC weapon. The marines start with a single marine in each of the respective SPEC roles, and that is because these weapons fuck shit up. Get more experience before deciding to pick a fight with these. If you insist on it anyways, learn to mindgame dodges, know what castes either are stun resistant or stun immune to certain weapons, and memorize how bad fire is for each caste.
Any slug or buckshot shotgun as a Tier 1 or Tier 2 Caste. They will stun you, do a ton of damage, and you will probably die. Bring friends, land an ability first, or bait out a missed shot before faceplanting into a 12 gauge or you’re gonna have a bad time.
M2C and M56D heavy machine guns. The M2C is the fast firing one that overheats, and it has some of the highest DPS of any weapon in the game. If you choose to run at one don’t be surprised when you get deleted in a literal second and a half. The good news is they are immobile and can overheat, but beware as the gunner can pivot the gun unlike the M56D. The M56D is the slower firing MG that can fire through marines. It will not seem as dangerous until you make a push and start taking consistent fire from it that is not blocked by marines. Use extreme caution pushing against an M56D position as ANY caste.
Heavy Pulse Rifle (HPR). The gun everyone loves to underestimate. If you hear someone holding what looks like a pulse rifle make a loud metallic clanking sound, they just put down a bipod for their HPR and they are about to seriously fuck you up. A bipoded HPR has similar but slightly less DPS than an M2C, makes a deep low rumbling sound when fired, and will literally delete even heavier castes in seconds. DO NOT CARELESSLY PUSH THIS GUNNNNNN YOU WILL DIEEEEE. The good news is the HPR must deploy its bipod to fire in full auto, and cannot turn in wide angles without redeploying, so always make them turn, don’t run right at them like an idiot.
Armor Piercing Rounds. Any weapon firing AP rounds will leave a message in your chat bar that you were hit with an armor piercing round. I cannot stress enough that AP rounds are not a small buff, they are extremely powerful and basically cut the time to kill on weapons in half for armored castes. If you notice marines are using AP rounds, understand that they will kill you in like half the time of normal rounds. The good news is AP rounds are very limited, so if marines waste them, the loss will be felt.
Sentry Guns. Sentry guns do not miss unless you dodge the fire based ones, hit like trucks, and are usually in fortified positions. They will kill you far faster than you might think, and you should think twice before allowing yourself to take shots from one.
Common Death Scenarios You Should Avoid
Pushing Far Off Weeds. This one kills people of all skill levels almost every round, and the reason for that is because marines are actually quite fast if they aren’t wearing heavy armor. If you pick a fight far off weeds, you had better win or debilitate your opponent, because if they decide to chase you, they will do so often at a similar or higher pace than you. You will be wounded with nowhere to go and probably die. Skilled marines will usually aggressively and immediately dive any xeno they see off weeds because they know how vulnerable it makes you. Weeds massively slow down marines which discourages chases and makes them easy targets for attack.
Running into Orbital Barrage Offsets. Something you should always keep in mind, especially when holding down a chokepoint, is where are you going to run if you hear an OB coming? I can pretty much guarantee that the most obvious direction to flee, which is typically in the direction of your nest, is where they will offset the OB to land. So instead of running in the most obvious direction, and very likely directly into the center of the explosion, I advise running elsewhere, even in some instances closer to the marines if you can do so safely, as it will reduce the odds of you being hit flush by the OB.
Traffic Jams. If you ever find yourself fighting in a cramped area with multiple other xenos, I advise you either finish the fight quickly, or just leave. When there are a ton of xenos with not a lot of space, bodyblocks and traffic jams are inevitable and can lead to mass casualties. Don’t do it, go somewhere else or wait.
Fires! Xenos hate fire, and for good reason. It does a lot of damage, and if the fire is green, standing in it will set your armor to zero until you step off it. Do not everrrrr push green fire. It does less damage, but it will slow you down, and you will have zero armor while stepping on it (being ignited with green fire does not reduce armor, only standing in it). Further, if you are ignited, use extreme caution when resisting to stop drop and roll. This is a roughly 5 second hardstun, and if anyone is nearby you will almost certainly be killed without help. Be discerning in when you resist, always do it in safety.
Water. Not as obvious a danger as fire, but still a silent killer. Water slows you down significantly, and the phrase “dead in the water” comes to mind. Marines THRIVE in almost all water environments as xenos NEED mobility to defeat them. Marines will love nothing more than you trying to slowly push them through water, and you will likely be killed if you press the issue. Don’t fall for it, GO AROUND. I have literally turned around losing games as a marine by baiting xenos into rivers. THEY ARE CALLED MARINES FOR A REASON!
Careless Dashes and Pounces. A great many castes have pounces and dashes. These are powerful useful abilities, but they can also easily get you killed. Remember the phrase “look before you leap”. It is trivial to pounce a marine or dash into a gun line, getting out alive is the tricky part. Do you have a way out? Will you be able to tank the inevitable retaliatory fire? Ask those questions before going in.
4. How to Kill Marines
I imagine you probably already know the basics, which are to find a marine and click them on harm intent until they are horizontal. The reality is there is a bit more nuance to it than that, and knowing the details can help you immensely. I’ll go over a couple key things you need to know which include targeting, comboing, and how to more consistently land hits.
Targeting
First and foremost you need to know that where you hit a marine MATTERS, and it matters A LOT. The game does not explain this to you at all, and yet it is still a crucial mechanic. Almost all marines will be wearing armor, and it turns out that if you slash that armor, it will do less damage. Therefore, there are pros and cons to every area you choose to strike a marine. I will explain the basics of this and my recommendation for you, but if you want a truly detailed explanation, I recommend the following guide: Guide to some obscure xeno mechanics - General / Guides - CM-SS13 - Forums .
The following is a quick summary of the pros and cons of each limb to attack:
Head: Medium armor medium damage, can inflict brain/eye damage, internal bleeding, and fractures, there is also a chance of decapitation for those not wearing helmets
Torso: High armor low damage, can inflict internal bleeding, fractures, and organ damage
Groin: High armor low damage, can inflict internal bleeding, fractures, and organ damage
Arms: Moderate armor moderate damage, can inflict internal bleeding and fractures
Hands: Low armor high damage, can be severed and fractured
Legs: Moderate armor moderate damage, can inflict internal bleeding and fractures
Feet: Low armor high damage, can be severed and fractured
As you can see, all the limbs have pros and cons. What I will tell you is the vast majority of xenos choose to target the feet or hands due to the highest level of damage, on top of the fact that fracturing a hand or foot can cause a marine to be unable to wield their weapon or be severely slowed respectively. This effect persists until the hand or foot is splinted, and can obviously be a death sentence to a marine in the open. With this being the case, I would suggest you target the feet or hands as well. As a newer player, you might consider the feet, as slower marines are easier to hit, but also keep in mind that marines are already slowed anyways from damage, and a fractured hand can take them out of the fight entirely until they splint it. There isn’t a perfect answer, but the most important takeway you need to remember is you will do SIGNIFICANTLY more damage targeting the hands and feet.
Combos and Abilities
Every single xenomorph in the game with no exceptions is heavily reliant on their abilities to be effective. Slashing people is important of course, but the only way you will able to consistently do that is by setting yourself or others up by using your abilities properly. Therefore it is critical when you play a caste or strain that you KNOW YOUR COMBO! Every single combat oriented caste in the game has a set of abilities that are designed to synergize with each other, and sow chaos amongst marines, and using them properly will make you far more lethal.
Going into detail on each caste is beyond the scope of this guide, but what I will do is provide a very brief, basic synopsis of each castes primary combos in the final chapter of this guide to give you a starting point. What I will do for the purpose of this chapter is give you an idea of the general types of abilities and how to use them.
Landing Strikes Consistently
This is one of the hardest parts of learning CM13 combat, and even SS13 combat in general. The mechanics are confusing, and the accuracy required can be punishing. Fortunately for you, I have had to put up with this shit for 3000 hours so I have a few tricks that can seriously help you out.
First and foremost, you NEED TO ABUSE DIRECTIONAL ASSIST!!! If you ignored me and skipped chapter one and don’t know what that is after I TOLD YOU NOT TO SKIP, get your ass back there and fix your settings NOW! When you are in the middle of a fight, sprite clicking an enemy marine is going to be extremely difficult as they will be moving, you will be moving, and there will be a million other things going on simultaneously. Instead of desperately trying to click on the marine sprite, focus on where they are going, and their direction relative to you. Then click in their DIRECTION relative to you and you will land your slash. So long as they are directly adjacent to you and you clicked in their cardinal direction, the hit will land. See the following for an example of the possible directions:
As you can see, the entire game consists of tiles we all stand on, and there are 8 possible directions surrounding you at all times. If you click anywhere in the cardinal direction of an enemy using a left click slash/tackle, directional assist will cause you to strike the nearby enemy. This means in the above example that you could have your cursor all the way at the bottom right of you screen, and so long as it was positioned diagonally when you clicked, you would still strike that marine.
Now that you know how to use directional assist, you also need to understand bodyblocking and shoving. An extremely common problem newer xeno players encounter is that even though they are properly using their directional assist slashes, they aren’t landing as they chase marines. This is because IF YOU MOVE INTO A MARINE, YOU MOVE THEM. This means that if you directly tail a marine and move into them, you are literally shoving them out of the way of your own slash! Instead, when tailing a marine it is far better to chase them from a diagonal angle like the example above and strike them diagonally. This will prevent you from shoving them and forcing misses. However, if you have no other choice but to directly tail a marine, make sure you pace your movement to theirs to stay directly next to them, and NOT shoving them!
Next up is using bodyblocking. Turns out you’re a big ass alien and you are not easily moved. If you ever manage to get behind a marine, you can use your own body to prevent them from running back to safety, and you can even push them FURTHER towards your own team. This can lead to some devastating ganks and secure kills on marines that would’ve otherwise escaped to safety. But a word of warning; savvy marines can do this to you as well so be careful.
Another niche but still very important mechanic you may not know is how to attack enemies below you. If a marine is on your sprite or below it, that’s great and all, but it also makes them hard as hell to hit! The good news, is if you click yourself while a marine is on your same tile, you will automatically strike that marine.
My last tip for landing the big damage will be using set ups, and “cursor locking” to tee up attacks. If marines are just being too damn fast, or there is any other number of reasons you cant hit them, the following strategies can help.
First up is using an ability to tee up an easier follow up. A very common way to do this for example, is using the defender tailwhip to first knock over marines, so they are stationary and on the ground, and THEN follow up with slashes. Another common thing I personally used to do when playing warrior would be to fling marines into a wall to temporarily stun them, before trying to land my lunge since fling does not have a miss cooldown and lunge does.
Second, if you already know the direction a marine will be moving, you can leave your cursor stationary on the tile direction you know they will be in in relation to you, and constantly click in that direction to force more strikes to land. This will ensure your cursor remains in the correct position while you focus on your movement instead to keep them in the exact relative direction you want. This same trick can also be used to help line up pounces, spits, and other directional attacks by keeping your cursor stationary in the distance as you either move into position or wait for a marine to move into your line, ensuring an accurate directional ability attack.
5. How to Capture Marines
***(Actual Footage of a Bravo Private about to be Captured)
Capturing marines is the most beneficial thing you can do as a xeno, and its also one of the most dangerous. Capping will simultaneously increase the xeno count by one and permanently remove a marine from the round, which obviously means it can be a game changing mechanic. As a result, marines are not going to let you do it easily most of the time.
First and foremost, certain castes are significantly better at capping than others, and it all has to do with their “tackle range”. Some castes like runner and drone can keep a marine down indefinitely after tackling them down, others like defender, lurker, and warrior sometimes cannot depending on luck. It is crucial that you understand the mechanics behind capping if you intend to do it with any consistent success. I have linked this guide in the previous chapter, and it is once again relevant here should you want an in depth guide on tackle mechanics: Guide to some obscure xeno mechanics - General / Guides - CM-SS13 - Forums . For the purposes of this guide, I am going to give you a broader overview of how to effectively capture marines, should you want an in depth look at it, refer to the above guide.
When it comes to “capping” as it is generally referred to by the community, there are several niche but extremely important details you should know. First off, only certain castes can reliably solo cap a marine. These include drones, hivelords, carriers, runners, and sentinels. These 5 castes once they knock down a marine with tackles, can reliably keep them down with 100% consistency as long as they continue tackling. This is important because if a marine manages to get back up after a successful stun, they can end up ruining the capture entirely in a number of different ways. The rest of the castes rely on a bit of luck to solo cap, as their tackle range is not guaranteed. They will generally need to knock the marine down, and then get lucky that they get them down again in time to complete the capture. The range of tackles each caste requires for a successful stun is as follows:
Drone 2-4 tackles
Hivelord 2-4 tackles
Carrier 2-4 tackles
Burrower 3-5 tackles
Runner 4-5 tackles (fast attack speed)
Lurker 2-6 tackles
Ravager 2-5 tackles
Defender and Warrior 2-4 tackles
Crusher 2-6 tackles
Praetorian 2-5 tackles
Sentinel 4-4 tackles
Spitter 2-6 tackles
Boiler 2-6 tackles
Queen 2-6 tackles
Lesser Drone 4-5 tackles
(Source: Rena from the following guide: Guide to some obscure xeno mechanics - General / Guides - CM-SS13 - Forums )
In addition to the tackle ranges, it is also CRUCIAL to understand the following mechanic about tackle stuns; if someone pounces, lunges, or neurospit-knockdowns a marine, ALL CURRENT TACKLE COUNTERS ARE RESET. If you are trying to capture a marine, DO NOT use an ability to try and keep them down after the initial pounce, ALWAYS spam tackles. The second you knock down or pounce a marine with an ability, your tackle counter and anyone else who was tackling that marines’ counter is reset. Focus on landing the tackle stun, do not spam knockdown abilities, you are only screwing yourself over.
Now as for actually getting captures, there are a couple strategies you should know of that can massively help you in securing caps. First among them is understanding bodyblocking. If a marine is flung behind xeno lines, the first thing you are going to want to do is stand in between the marine and their logical path of escape assuming you have the health for it. With some practice, you can learn to mirror the marines movement as they try to get around you to fully prevent them from making forward progress, all the while you are landing tackles on them. Furthermore, if space permits, you can even push a marine further back by moving into them, just be careful not to let the get by you. Learning to immediately start bodyblocking potential caps will massively increase your success with it, and prevent escapes and failures.
Next up for securing caps is understanding prep and location. Open fields are the hardest possible place to secure a cap due to the lack of cover, while resin door secured choke points are the easiest for the opposite reason. Consider the area you look to secure caps in carefully, as some areas simply are not viable depending on marine presence. You need to remember that if competent marines see you attempting a capture, they will do everything in their power to prevent it. One major way to help prepare for caps is knowing how to use resin doors. A common scenario you will see is a marine will be flung or dragged past a resin door, his buddies will pursue and fire into the doors. What you should do the second you get them past the doors is use shove or help intent to immediately close that resin door to prevent bullets and grenades from following you. This will also prevent an immediate escape if the marine gets up.
On top of using resin doors, you should also take note of nearby hugger traps, carriers, egg morphers, and facehuggers. Getting a potential cap facehugged makes transport of the cap a million times safer, and allows lower health castes to safely transport the caps to hive without fear of a reverse burst. And by the way, if you do not know what a reverse burst is, it is a mechanic in which if you are below 25% health when transporting a marine, each time they attack you from then on has an increasing chance to instantly kill you. Should you ever hit a quarter of your health while transporting a marine, drop them immediately and re-stun them if possible.
For my final tip on securing caps before we get into capping risk avoidance, I will explain what to do if you cannot safely secure a cap due to fear of a reverse burst. If for any reason you cannot safely transport a cap via carrying either due to them having an undroppable weapon and you are a low health caste, or you are just low health, always remember if you are a drone, sentinel, runner, hivelord, or carrier you can just drop them and drag them behind you as you endlessly tackle them. This is a completely valid and highly used strat, it is just slower and more effort. Further, another thing you should be aware of is that if you drop a marine manually while carrying them, they will be hardstunned long enough for you to re-apply a tackle stun again.
Finally, to wrap up the basics on capping I want to emphasize that capping is high risk high reward. It is the most beneficial thing xenos can do for their team, it is also the most dangerous thing xenos can do. I cannot tell you how many games I have personally witnessed be thrown solely because key xenos got greedy for caps they should not have gone for. I reiterate again that if good marines see you going for a cap, they will AGGRESSIVELY try to stop you. Capping in general makes you less mobile, exposes you to far more gunfire and explosives, heavily aggros marines, and is far more mechanically intensive than just killing them. With all that being said, it is crucial that you be discerning in WHEN you decide to attempt a capture. If you attempt to tackle and drag an marine in the open, do not be surprised when his buddies run directly up to you and begin to gun you down. Always be cognizant of HOW you are going to secure your cap before attempting it, and you will have far greater success.
6. How to Win Games
So obviously no CM13 round is exactly the same, and the amount of variables in any given round is immense to say the least. However, there are a few rules of thumb I can provide you that will be helpful in deciding the best course of action in the average round. One of the chief among them is TAKE THE LOW HANGING FRUIT!
What I mean by taking the low hanging fruit is that you should always be looking to achieve the easiest goals first, as they can often snowball and advantage that leads to a win. A perfect example of this, and something I see xenos fail to do all the time is simply securing comm towers before sieging a FOB. In case you were not aware, placing a hive cluster next to a comm tower after the 1 hour mark of the round causes xenos to begin accruing royal resin for powerful upgrades. These benefits alone can be a game changer, and more importantly, marines know this too. If you know you cannot break a FOB based on numbers alone, a viable option is often to bait marines into a doomed assault on a fortified comm tower position. Always remember that baiting the other team into doing something foolish often works.
Taking this even further, it doesn’t even need to be something as big as taking a comm tower. If you are a xeno on the frontline and things are going nowhere and you aren’t able to do anything, have you considered going elsewhere? You’d be amazed how often marines run off in small groups throughout the map for any number of reasons. Hunting down marines in more viable locations is many times more valuable than standing around on a stalemate.
The second thing I will say that you should always be keeping in mind is physically WHERE the match is going on the map. Positioning is extremely important in SS13, and equally so in CM13. There are a great many number of areas on all maps that are either fantastic or terrible for xenos to fight in. You should be extremely cognizant of when you are pursuing marines towards or even being lured into areas that are dangerous to you. As a general rule, open fields, and long narrow corridors with few escapes or cover are a death trap to xenos. Conversely, areas with heavy cover and intersecting hallways are the favorite playground of xenos. If you notice you are pushing marines into an area that will be disadvantageous to you, consider disengaging. On the flipside, if you are being pushed into an advantageous position, LET THEM PUSH YOU THERE!
The last tip I will leave you with is to consider your win condition. Some rounds you will stomp the marines without effort, and you will crash through their FOB with little trouble. Most rounds will not be that easy, and you have to begin going down the list of what can potentially lead to a win. In a best case scenario you will look to rout the marine frontline with maximum casualties to then overwhelm their FOB. If you rout the frontline but cannot break the FOB, look to secure and hold comm towers. If you cannot secure comm towers consider falling back to bait out a marine counter attack.
Expanding on this example, lets say you do not rout the frontline, but yourself are routed. This means you cannot rely on a rout to win anymore. You need to begin looking to fallback to a more favorable location, or potentially setup an ambush. If this cannot be done, you may be forced all the way back to defending hive, and may be reliant on cycling screech charges with the queen to survive. If their numbers are so overwhelming that you think not even that will work you an begin considering more extreme options like sneaking into FOB via burrower tunnel for a hail mary play. These are the types of systematic decisions that can help swing matches, but obviously you cant win them all, and luck and skill spread between teams on any given round is a huge factor.
And finally in regards to win conditions, you must also consider the scaling power of marines as the match progresses. As the match drags on, marines will almost always inevitably collect research points they can use towards a game-ending win conditions such as “god-stims” or nukes. You should expect to see at least some stims deployed between the 1:30 – 2 hour mark in an average round, with the 2 hour mark being more common. Stims are immensely powerful and can easily swing a match for marines. The nuke is an obvious game ender but requires the marines to hold both comm towers for 10 minutes as they decrypt the detonation code for it. When you are deciding on a course of action, always keep in mind that these two tools will almost always eventually be available to marines at some point in a given round, so an aggressive strategy instead of a passive one may often be required.
At the end of the day, the objective of the game for xenos is to break into the marine’s FOB, steal the dropship, and hijack. The three things I have described above in my experience are broadly speaking some of the best ways to facilitate that, and I have seen countless examples of xenos throwing easy wins by not taking them into account.
7. Xenomorph Castes and How to Use Them
So a disclaimer; a full on guide on each of the castes and their strains is beyond the scope of this already very lengthy guide. What I can do is give a brief rundown of each caste, it’s primary effective combo, and what it is best used for.
Drone: Builder caste, no combos, best used to support the hive with pheros and building resin. The healer strain is one of the best support xenos available, while the gardener is more niche, and relies on other xenos to use your fruits effectively.
Hivelord: The elite builder, can solo carry games solely off solid resin lines alone. Has no combo, but can be deceptively deadly using resin walker combined with the potential of a 2 tap tackle stun. Hivelord’s resin whisperer strain is more niche and allows slower ranged building, but can be deadly in a siege as you can safely build right up to the cade line.
Carrier: Another highly valuable support xeno that can carry facehuggers and eggs. You can secure caps on the frontline with huggers and eggs, and place traps for marines as well. Just make sure to try and place traps underneath debris or grass to hide them. Also try not to take risks while carrying eggs, as if you die and marines secure them, they can create greenos easily.
Burrower: A far more niche support xeno capable of making new tunnels. They have a stomp stun on a long cooldown, and can also make acid traps that stun when triggered. Requires a lot of game experience to play well.
Queen: The big momma, and the most powerful xeno on the field. Use the screech to hardstun anyone in view and secure caps or kills, as well as your neuro spit for additional single target stuns. If needed, you also have acid spit. Queen also has access to gib ability to remove one marine after a delay on a long cooldown.
Defender: Don’t let the tier 1 status fool you, they are one of the beefiest frontline scrappers with 35 armor. The typical combo is to dash in using headbutt, follow up with a tailswipe, get a few slashes in, then disengage. Best used to support heavier xenos on the frontline and sow chaos when engaging marines. Steelcrest is a niche option available that can occasionally be useful for sieges since it allows you to fortify and remain mobile.
Warrior: One of the primary capping xenos of the hive and one of the stronger duelists in the game. The typical warrior combo is to land your lunge, pull the target back 2-3 tiles, step over them, and fling them back towards your own lines. Then you have the option of following up with more slashes/ a punch or attempting a cap. You also have the option of opening with the fling as well for an attempted wall slam. Warriors should focus on securing caps or permakills with their incredibly powerful combo.
Crusher: The tank caste, they have the highest on demand durability of any caste, and can clear cades and barriers better than any other caste using their charge. The primary combo is typically to charge in from a distance, stomp to knock everyone down, start slashing, pop your shield when you start taking damage, and disengage. Keep in mind crushers also get AOE slashes as well. You can also use the charger strain, however it is far more niche and takes a lot of practice to master. Focus on setting up plays with your charge combo, and providing cover for other xenos with your tankiness.
Sentinel: The sentinel is more of a support caste on the frontline, but due to it’s paralyzing slash can also be a terrifying capture threat in it’s own right. The typical sentinel combo is to knock down a marine with the scatter spit, then strike them with the paralyzing slash, and once they go down, move in for a cap attempt. If that is not possible, sentinels are typically best used to follow around other castes and use the scatter spit to knock down marines to set up plays.
Spitter: Often overlooked, but surprisingly powerful if used correctly. The primary combo of a spitter is to empower their spit and hit a marine, then immediately follow up with acid spray for a hard stun. Then if you really want to add insult to injury finish with a poisonous tail stab. The marine will be stunned, and taking heavy damage over time from the acid. Another powerful niche for the spitter is siege. Acid spray is on a 5 second cooldown and can be spammed relentlessly on cades, and Comtechs will struggle to keep up with the damage. Spitters should look to setup plays with their hardstun combo, or apply constant pressure to cade lines with acid spray.
Boiler: The xeno artillery, boilers can easily be hard carrying game winners. Their acid and neuro clouds can setup mass casualty or capture events when used properly, and they are extremely oppressive to cade lines due to the constant pressure they can apply. You should look to fire gas slightly behind marine lines if possible to setup plays for other castes, as if marines are forced to retreat, they will do so into your cloud and likely be killed. Also keep in mind if a Queen screeches right before your cloud lands, everyone stunned will almost certainly be killed, but keep in mind that once the cloud lands, queen screech will not stun the marines for balance reasons. Boiler also has access to the trapper caste, which is typically used to be even more oppressive against cade lines, since they can fire acid bolts faster with little recourse for marines holding the line. Last but not least, boilers acid spray is a hard stun if it lands, and their tail stabs are also venomous as well, similar to the spitter.
Runner: Arguably the most difficult caste in the game due to their low health, they make up for it in being one of the most terrifying solo capture threats in the game. If a runner knocks down a solo marine, they can keep them down indefinitely and whisk them away off to the hive with little trouble. The runner combo for capping is to land a pounce, then immediately begin tackling to try and secure the cap within the 4-5 tackle range. (Reminder, NEVER re-pounce a marine if attempting a cap, it will reset your tackle counter!) Once stunned, you can begin carrying the marine off, or drag them while tackling if you do not want them knifing you in the gut as you carry them. One final detail on runner pounces; you will always have time to get 2 free tackles or slashes off a runner pounce before a marine gets up, so use the time wisely.
Runners also have access to the acid runner. They can passively generate acid up to 400, but no further. The rest must be generated by landing slashes or tail stabs on marines. The acid can then be used for a kamikaze explosion, or be secreted as max strength acid on objects or cades. A max acid runner explosion can single handedly turn a game, the radius take up roughly 3/4ths of the screen, will usually crit or kill anyone caught in it, and will excrete medium strength acid on any cade caught in it. Once you start the explosion timer you will be slowed, a 20 second timer will start, and a loud pulsing noise will play warning anyone nearby whats about to happen. The trick to landing this is to watch the status tab at the top right of your screen for the counter, DO NOT COUNT YOURSELF. Only the status tab will give you the true count. Start the timer far off screen so you cant be heard, then at the 10 second mark start moving in. Once at the 5 second mark, go in and begin strafing to avoid the desperate gunfire, and hopefully you will hit your mark.
Lurker: A beefier much more combat oriented older sister to the runner, they exist to oppress the flanks of the frontline and backline alike. A lurker should focus on using their combo to hardstun marines to either kill them outright, or setup other castes for follow ups. They can also haunt the backlines for easy kills/caps to break down supply lines as well. The lurker combo is to cloak, then pounce, then slash 4 times while making sure to use empowered slash, and fade-away tail stab if you really want to send a message. This combo will leave virtually any marine crit or near crit regardless of armor. Should you want to cap a marine, I must caution you that lurker capping is heavily luck based. They can knock a marine down in 2 tackles, or it can take 6. They have the widest variable range in the game, so make sure it’s a safe cap before attempting. A final reminder on lurker; their cloaked pounce will allow enough time for 4 free hits, their uncloaked pounce will only allow for 2. Choose your pounce wisely with that in mind.
Lurkers also have access to the vampire strain, but in it’s current iteration (As of 4/19/2025) it is very unpopular. In theory the vampire is a fast moving scrappy xeno that can heal off its abilities, but due to persistent balance issues it is very difficult to use and not generally seen as effective.
Ravager: Arguably the biggest and baddest xeno before the queen or king, ravs are the powerhouses of the tier 3 xenos, typically dealing the most damage while being able to tank quite a lot of it themselves. Their primary job is to kill and maim marines in large numbers, and follow up with brutal damage on any plays made by other xenos. Ravs have 3 strains, and each plays fairly differently.
Default Rav: Your most powerful combo will be to use your empower near 3 or more marines to supe-empower, then use your dash into a marine to launch them for massive damage, follow up with a scissor cut and a slash or 2, then disengage. This combo alone will usually instantly kill most marines. You can also use your scissor cut to constantly harass marines at range and even over cades due to its 4 tile range.
Berserker: One of the scariest xenos out there, berserkers inherently heal off each slash, and gain a rage stack after each slash delivered. At 5 stacks they have bonus armor, faster attack speed and lifesteal, and can also unleash a whirlwind eviscerate attack that knocks down anyone in a 2 tile radius and deal massive damage, while healing from any marines directly adjacent to the rav. In addition, they can cash in 2 rage stacks for a fling that will heal them as well. The typical combo is to use your speed boost to catch a marine, slash them for the slow, and begin building up to 5 rage. Once at 5 rage you keep slashing and slashing until you begin to lose health, at which point you can fling to regain some or disengage. If you notice the marines cannot get away from you, you can choose to lock yourself in place for an eviscerate for even more damage and healing. One thing to note however is that despite their potential, zerkers need to get revved up first with rage, and can be quite vulnerable to concentrated fire. It is best to play off other xenos or the queen first before performing your combo.
Hedgehog: The tank of the rav strains. Hedgehogs passively generate shards over time and when taking damage. They can then use these shards for an immensely powerful overshield that flings shards at anyone nearby when shot, fling a small amount of shards at an enemy, or choose to unleash all their shards in a 360 degree circle hitting anyone nearby. Hedgehogs have immense temporary tankiness, but it is reliant on their shard shield. Do not attempt to fight people as a hog with low shards, as your abilities are everything. Hedgehogs should be used for sieges to apply heavy pressure to cade hugging marines with their shard shedding and tankiness.
Praetorians: The jack of all trades masters of none. Praetorian has the most strains, and the most flexibility. At the same time, it also doesn’t particularly excel at anything outside of a couple key strains. In my opinion, unless you are playing the Valkyrie or oppressor strain, everything a praetorian does can be done much better by another caste. That said, they can still be extremely effective and a lot of fun to play.
Default Praetorian: Their primary strength lies in their ability to constantly spam long range acid endlessly. This can be very oppressive against cade lines and groups of marines, and on top of that they get a dash as well.
Oppressor: The fisherman of the praes. This is one of the most unique xenos in the game in that it can hook marines from across the screen straight into xeno town for easy kills and caps. The typical way to do it is to land a hook, punch the marine to immobilize them, then walk through them to trade spots on help intent, then fling the, back wards. You can also accomplish the same thing by just walking around them. On top of that, their tail stab is replaced by a short range grab and ministun as well. Last but not least, if you hook a marine into an egg, it will immediately facehug the marine for hilarious results.
Valkyrie: The support prae. Their primary job is to use their screech to help other xenos instantly recover from stuns. While that might not seem like much, it can be game changing if you help a top fragging xeno or the queen recover from an explosive stun.
Dancer: The assassin prae. Dancer has some of the highest single target DPS of any caste in the game, able to deal enormous amounts of damage to marines quickly. The issue is they are very squishy, and not terribly easy to play well. It’s a cool strain, but keep in mind that virtually everything they do can also be done more consistently and effectively by a ravager.
Vanguard: Probably the strongest of the combat oriented praes, vanguards get a regenerating overshield and powerful dashes and flings to cause chaos in marine lines. They can dash in, fling marines towards xenos, and have the health and armor to make it back in tact.
8. Final Notes and Where to Learn More
Needless to say this is a complicated game. This guide turned out just shy of 10,000 words and is 26 pages long, and I have really only scratched the surface of the xeno side of the game. Frankly figuring it all out is part of the fun and I hope this guide has helped shed some light on some of the more obscure mechanics to help you along the way. Naturally as you continue playing the game you will probably have more questions about any number of topics, so I strongly encourage you to join the CM13 discord and ask questions in the CM discussion channel, and for xeno related topics, in the xeno-posting channel. There are many people with far more knowledge than I that can help you out. With all that being said, good luck out there, get tons of frags, and always remember to dodge the SADAR.