Hi everybody famous player XX carrier here. As we’re all aware carrier is the STRONGEST caste (and role) in the game, but there are some who seem to think it is weak or underperforming. I thought I’d make a friendly reminder on why it is the most coolest alien in cm! While the removal of vore was a significant nerf to carrier it thus remains a competitive pick for all ranks and skill levels.
1. Carrier CARRIES the hive!!
Hive morale increases by 145% when there is a carrier in the hive. Contrary to popular belief there are not diminishing returns on this. By the fourth carrier the hive will be a fortress of mental solitude! The inverse is also true. Even with as many as 30~ xenos the hivemind typically reaches the “so xover” state when there is not a singular carrier to rally the hive, ensuring a hive collapse with even the smallest of marine pushes. Afterall, other castes depend on you and this is reflected in the pre-drop state of the game!
Here’s an example of what you might hear in the hivemind going after the survivors:
Hive: Mature Defender (NO-85-OB) has died at Central Streets - West!
Hivemind, Ancient Warrior (KI-721-LL) hisses, ‘Rahhh!!! Quit AFKING for T3 and come fight survs!!’
Hive: Prime Spitter (XX-536) has died at Central Streets - West!
Hivemind, Ancient Warrior (KI-721-LL) hisses, ‘And, erm, if XX Carrier-chan (i-if I may call you that) would like to honor us with her presence, we would be eternally grateful… Our claws are too tiny to break open all the reinforced walls, but esteemed XX Carrier could tear right through them and cutely capture them all…!’
This is a real story that really happened, but of course the actual player names will remain anonymous.
2. Priming your tackles!!
I’d like to give a few gameplay tips, because it’s a common stigma that players new to the caste struggle with what to do. Honestly I can hardly blame them because there’s quite a few mechanics that are barely explained if at all. Most understand that carrier can down marines in 2-4 tackles but that’s only if you don’t prime your tackles beforehand.
Whenever someone gets hugged by a trap on the map every carrier receives 0.5 tackle charges (this is why it’s beneficial to stack carriers) And when you have 1 charge, you get a maximum strength tackle. You can only hold 2 charges, but it only takes 4 trap hugs to get. This will guarantee a 2 tap! Keep in mind, missing your tackles will use up the charge.
This comes in handy in MANY scenarios, naturally, but let’s come up with an example!
You are hanging around colony side to abduct some privates (ideal scenario) but-- THE SCOUT IS SHOOTING YOU!
A new carrier might find this deadly but they actually have the advantage here! 99.5% of scouts are 2 celled organisms, so they’ll be spamming high-impact rounds that don’t actually stun your large, super scary physique. So long as you primed your tackle charges in advance, you can 2 tap the scout before they realize they need to cloak and run.
!!!
But the scout has flamed you with incendiary ammo before you tackled them down! The damage is negligible, but this is annoying for the most baldest of XX carriers.
You cannot use huggers while flamed! If you are holding one already, it will burn, and you will be unable to grab any others. The simplest remedy is to be prepared! Simply drag the scout onto a nearby hugger trap, which will then give you the time to safely resist.
3. Nah, I’d hug.
I won’t be covering hugger traps themselves because they are really self-explanatory.
Marines are un-paid paid actors and they actively can’t resist the temptation of walking into a hugger trap. To further this, nearby marines are more likely to *blinks than shooting the hugger off them, so it requires 0 effort on your end to get one morbillion trap hugs.
Instead I’d like to go over the benefit of tackle hugging! Even without priming your tackles, 2-4 shoves for a knockdown is a respectable threat.
Little known fact is that after the removal of shaman, they did give base carrier a new passive ability: Remember Fear
Under normal circumstances, if you were to tackle and hug a marine, another marine nearby could just shoot you mid hug.
But ‘Remember Fear’ has a 70% chance in a five tile radius to stop a marine from shooting their weapons, leaving them stunned in awe as you hug the one you tackled! This passive scales inversely in proportion to the number of marines around. So in small scale scenarios, more often than not, marines will simply watch as you infect someone and drag them away!
In any case, shout out to all the USCM recruits who keep coming back to play despite carrier being a bit overtuned, it just wouldn’t be the same game without all the clueless privates to hug. ^-^
edit: If you doubt the capabilities of carrier or think it’s outlandish how incredible of a caste it is I’d like to see your playtimes. CM operates on a thumb based system and if you aren’t within 10~ hours of my playtime it’s safe to say you know nothing about the intricacies of how carrier works as well as I do.
