Mentor Application - Revencort

Mentor Application - Revencort

Byond CKEY:

Revencort

Discord ID:

revencort

Character Name(s):

Vivien Shricker

Why do you want to become a Mentor?:

I am a big fan of the Aliens universe and by good extension, the experience CM13 brings forward, it goes in relative substance and explores some of the great characteristics the setting has with good gameplay that encompasses several aspects not seen very much in other games such as logistics and medical. In my time here I took a liking to the workings of the rounds, what makes a nice experience and what is good to know, how to build barricades, outposts, repair communications, treat overdoses, build fortifications and Hives as a Drone, lead marines as a squad leader, manage operations as an ASO, juggle APCs and handling one too many solo FOB constructions as a ComTech, make chemicals and surgeries as a Doctor, work for capture stuns as a Sentinel… and so many other roles and tid bits that I have garnered and can pass forward.

I also had my chance teaching a few privates in how to get the hang of the game through roleplay and in universe methods when possible, a few times resorting to LOOC when they were really lost and had UI help. It is with pride that I can say I have patience and feel good about teaching others of things, it comes naturally as a thing I do in real life as well.

Ultimately, I desire to contribute back to the community with teaching and knowledge and being a mentor expands the possibility of that.

What gameplay areas do you know and which areas are you strong and weak in?:

My strongest areas are as field support roles, be it Hospital Corpsman, Combat Technician or as a Doctor, be it on the field, or shipside dealing with chemistry orders, medbay setups and medvac surgeries. Coming after those are command and CIC roles such as SL and ASO, leading squads, assigning and delegating fireteams to certain tasks, making use of the SLs skills for engineering and such, as an ASO, making sure the operations departments of the Almayer work fine, beholding a particular great knowledge towards logistics.

Regarding xenos I also spent most of my time playing as either a Drone or as a Spitter and Sentinel when not a support focused Praetorian which is what interested me more. Building hives, being a healer drone occasionally, helping with captures and stuns as a Sentinel, grinding down marines as a Spitter and as a Praetorian. Though is the side I have lower hours and would say have a slightly weaker knowledge but yet I have full knowledge of the xenomorph gameplay cycle and how all castes and strains work and how they fit in.

How often are to able to play CM?:

10-20 hours per week, give or take.

A screenshot or transcript of your human and xeno playtimes:

Hospital Corpsman 34.7 hr
Combat Technician 27.2 hr
Doctor 25.9 hr
Squad Leader 16.9 hr
Auxiliary Support Officer 10.6 hr
Cargo Technician 10.1 hr
Dropship Crew Chief 5.1 hr
Staff Officer 4.0 hr
Rifleman 2.0 hr
Ordnance Technician 1.8 hr
Maintenance Technician 1.7 hr
Nurse 1.6 hr
Smartgunner 0.9 hr
Marine Raider 0.8 hr
UPP MSzht Engineer 0.8 hr
Fireteam Leader 0.4 hr

Drone 7.5 hr
Spitter 4.5 hr
Larva 2.7 hr
Sentinel 2.7 hr
Praetorian 2.3 hr
Defender 0.6 hr
Boiler 0.4 hr
Lesser Drone 0.2 hr
Runner 0.1 hr

Anything else you’d like to add?:

Particularly regarding Xenos, as I got lower hours but can ensure on my word that I behold knowledge of it, feel free to ask me whatever in depth question it comes to mind, I’ll gladly answer them to prove my understanding.

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Addendum: While the application process is up I’ll be actively playing the game, if inquiries on my character’s roleplay and gameplay observation are needed I go by Vivien Shricker as cited above and will be going by VS as a Xenormoph (Preferred using the base XX-Numbers for personal immersion preference but for the sake of the process I’ll identify as mentioned).

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Playtime update.

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Hello Revencort! I have not seen you much in-game, so I can’t speak to that. But your 25 xeno hours are on the very low side, it would be good to see some more updated xeno playtimes down the line where you play more castes and just more xeno hours. I have a few questions for you:


Sample Mhelps.
Question 1: Why cant I buy major evo boon? I have a pylon and max royal res, do I need to go back on ovi first?!
Question 2: i want to play specialist for the first time next round but i am afraid i will mess up everything which one should play how do i help the mission what do i need to do please help
Question 3: Why do I get yelled at for helping to tackle caps?
Question 4: What is the “warrior combo,” how do I do it?


Then this one is more open-ended.
Question 5: What do you think are 2 common Mhelps that a young carrier (assume they have played all the tutorials) would have about playing carrier, and how would you answer them?

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What’s up HungerJames? Thanks for taking your time to give me a feedback and coming up with those questions. I’ll make sure to continue playing further and expand my Xeno playtime and explore every caste possible to the fullest of my potential.

Now for the questions, I’ll answer them below in order:

“Major evo boons are part of the techwebs mechanics presented in both sides to incentivize map control and strategy, to buy the major evo boon you’d have to harness control of both of the comms towers from the marines, also giving you access to the other xeno techwebs such as larva surge and the incubation of the King.”

“It is great to know you are interested in one of the most diverse marines roles, for your first try on it I’d recommend you pick up the Sniper Specialist with its standard loadout (Not the Anti-Material variation) since you’ll act as a long range support role to marines. Your job is quite straight forward, as a sniper you can help your squad and SL by sticking behind in their pushes and doing target acquisition and outputting high damage to them with your sniper rifle as well relaying long range intel, they come with three different types of mags, incendiary for long lasting damage, flak for AoE and marksman for raw maximum damage and armor damage across the board.”

If they inquired further help and seemed lost with their skills, I’d follow along:

“Your skills involve aimed shots at targets, your bullets are homing unless they cover themselves behind a turf, your other skill involves a laser that will track to your target and expose yourself but boost your aimed shot ability. You can also conscript a rifleman to help you in your mission by giving them the spotter loadout, which comes with a laser designator that can supplant the laser ability in a faster manner.”

I’d first try and inquire them in what capture situation they found themselves on preferably for more detail since there are many cases in which this may or may not happen.

“It may be the case you were confusing a fellow xeno with a capture already handled by them or while trying to pull them back to the Hive, situations such as grab resets, mistaken friendly tackles on xenos or body blocks are common when multiple people are dealing with safe captures, additionally if they have been hugged already they will be stunned for a considerable time, xenos might have also other plans for their paths or combos of capture and not want intervention that might lead to it not working. Ideally you should help a fellow xeno when they are struggling with a cap or they are at risk of escaping.”

“The warrior combo is a staple popular combo warrior players make use of, it can basically be summed up to the respective usage of the warrior skills: Lunge > Fling > Punch. You use the lunge to dash forward and grab stun a marine and follow up with a fling back to the xeno lines (Ideally if you have time and enough response time, you’ll throw them back for a capture or in the relative direction of the Xeno fortifications so they may be surrounded), ending it with a punch to stagger the target. This is all done in quick sucession, and requires a great deal of mechanical skill and practice.”

I believe the two most common Mhelps that I could receive from a young carrier could be how to make hugger resin traps and why their huggers throws aren’t doing anything to marines since for the former thing it is asked to them a lot by Queens and other xenos, and for the latter it is quite the trouble a lot of new Carriers seem to find and be confused about.

“Heya, I’d like to know how to make one of those traps where marines step in and get hugged?”

“Hey there friend, to achieve that goal you simply have to make a resin hole and place one of your huggers in it.”

“man no matter how hard I try throwing my huggers they do nothing, they just stay there staring and die”

“Sup man, this is actually intended for balance, you have to play smart with it and usually offset the throw in relation to the marines lest your hugger is to no effect, as the huggers have a sort of “freezing” time before they become active and can jump on one of the marines, you can’t actually hug them with a throw.”

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By the way, I am continuing to actively play and expanding my playtimes as a xeno further as stated above, spreading it through all castes that we have in the game, I will upload them for showcase.

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Thank you for your answers, they were mostly solid!

For your own sample Mhelps, how to use facehuggers are common questions; however, your responses were less detailed and more vague than your others. It could be worth explaining how to get facehuggers from eggs and/or morphers, store them, and try and hide resin traps under clutter. Then the second one, it could be helpful to give an approximation on how long it takes for a hugger to “unfreeze” or tell them that when the hugger’s air sacs start to move then it can hug a host but only stays alive for a handful of seconds

I held off responding so I could observe you play some xeno rounds. From what I saw, you understood what you were doing, and your updated playtimes shows that you have been putting in the work to play more xeno!

I am still a little concerned with your hours, mainly that just knowing a lot about the game is not the same as having played it. I will be holding off on any plus or minus for now, but I will be keeping an eye on this app

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Thank you too Hunger, I am glad to hear you liked the answers and thanks for the feedback where I can improve and the benefit of the doubt you give me to prove myself.

I thought about the details you mentioned for the last two answers about the Carrier but also thought it could be better not to give all the details and hand hold too much, but I’ll make sure to refine and add them in further questions I may receive.

That said, I am also glad that you found that I play good as a xeno, I know it can be time consuming and exhausting to spectate someone when one could be playing the game so I am pleased I didn’t disappoint.

I am pretty invested in seeing this through and I’ll keep playing as a xeno further this week, I should accomplish appropriate hours by the end of it.

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Hi Ravencort!

I haven’t had much interactions with you in-game, so I can’t really comment on you as a person. However, I admire your enthusiasm and dedication to be a mentor, which shows that you have the drive to be a part of the mentor team! Now, I’m going to ask you a few questions to gauge your level of experience and knowledge of the game.

  • Help, I’m a new captain and none of the SO’s have woken up yet. What do I need to do?
  • I’m a new captain and my marines keep dying and we’re losing ground in caves. Should I order them to keep pushing? What do I need to do to secure a push to their hive?
  • I’m playing a carrier but I can’t seem to be able to plant my eggs near the frontline. Every time I click on the eggs, a hugger keeps coming out. Please help.
  • I keep dying as a Burrower whenever I try to fight. How do I play this caste?
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Hello huskymaru, thank you so much. I am thrilled you find my enthusiasm fitting for the mentor team! I hope the answers are to your liking, I am open to any feedbacks.

I’ll answer your questions below:

"Hello pal, if it is your first time around as a Captain, I’d recommend you first and foremost check the tactical map to see your preferred landing zone for the operation, take notice where the communication towers are and plan ahead which one will serve your plans best, afterward you should designate it as primary. After that it’d be fruitful to mark briefing right away and choose a location to let marines know where they can rally for the plan, be mindful you need all SLs there to start and then relay their plans to their squads themselves, and also check if all departments are working accordingly, such as Requisitions or Engineering to load the OB, usually a radio check will do but you can go there and check if they need any assistance.

Text break for better readability

“Being mindful of Almayer’s comms is also a good thing to keep aware of, for any needs. Once briefing is over you will need to set up a deployment time so they can do their first drop accordingly and then when you are back at CIC, overwatch each of the squad depending on urgency, alternatively if you feel overloaded you can compel a role such as the ASO to give you a hand at CIC doing Overwatch.”

I tried to be really in depth about this one since in this case I take he’d be a brand new Captain manning an operation alone, as a mentor proper I believe I’d have more leeway to explain things to them in shorter differing messages as we “chat” through responses through each topic with more nuance as I am asked more specific questions too.

"Hey there, if you feel like you are losing the upper hand of the situation and getting grinded down by enemy forces there are a few things you can do to remedy that, pushing further if you don’t have the upper hand isn’t usually ideal. To remedy that you could issue counter measure orders and strategies such as pulling back to a more favorable position where your engineers could build fortifications and the marines lick their wounds off with medics as well receive supply drops to rearm then gather for a better push, from there you could also set up a flank to alleviate the main front or if the situation is dire fall back even further to use one of your OBs as the enemy pushes, damaging their forces and clearing the way for a counter attack.

“Hey there fella, as a Carrier you must be mindful that once planted, you cannot “unplant” an egg, clicking on them will have you extracting facehuggers from the eggs rather than extracting the eggs themselves. While at it, if you desire to specifically be a frontline egg planter I may suggest you the Eggsac strain of Carriers where you tradeoff your 7 stored eggs (As well your hugger throwing and resin trap abilities) for 12 eggs stored total and the ability to produce them yourself as you walk around where it’d be your main objective to plant eggs around the frontline and set up ambushes with other xenos, as the base Carrier your main focus is not on eggs but more on hugging, you can only plant eggs on hive weeds and get eggs that are produced by the Queen or Eggsac Carriers. Also be mindful that Eggsac’s eggs are more fragile due to the leniency of production and ease of getting them as one.”

“Hey friend, for a Burrower you can envision yourself as sort of a guerilla fighter, trapper and backliner rather than a frontliner. You should orchestrate with other xenos to set up flanks with your carefully crafted tunnel networks as well putting up traps around that other xenos can fill up with huggers or gas, as well as being responsible for the quick moving of the Hive with fine the placement of your tunnels, you can set up an invasion to the FOB with a well hidden forgotten flank or save the Hive from an invasion itself by allowing xenos to escape through your network to a backup safe place. You can also pick up lonely marines as well probe the bare watched corners of the FOB with your burrow ability for hiding and tunneling to another location and also tremor (The stomp, it is 7x7, and can also be used for escaping sticky situations) ability for AoE stun, ideally you’ll have support of one or two more xenos to make the perfect ambush or achieve high damage in structures.”

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I’d like to withdraw this application. I’ll be pretty busy throughout this winter and won’t be able to engage with the community as to mentor as much other than playing here and there. Appreciate the time from both HungerJames and huskymaru for the time dedicated here, thank you.

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Withdrawn.

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