This page is a part of the TGMC wiki.

TGMC is a project based on the CM-SS13 codebase.

Welcome!

You've decided to become the next marine killer the xenomorphs need, good choice! This quickstart guide should get you started in no time. But as with any server, it's important you get yourself familiar with the Rules first. We are a Medium Roleplay server, meaning that you should at least try and behave like a xenomorph. That doesn't mean you have to go full "Yes, Queen", just avoid Low RP shenanigans and excessive memes. While our rules are pretty lenient, that doesn't mean your actions won't have IC (In Character) consequences. Try not to have admin bwoink you, and you will be a good beno.

Whatever you do, don't get killed and don't fight young. Xenomorphs are too precious to die compared to marines.

Overview

Xenos are harder than marines in general
It is easy to die
You have a lot of buttons
Teamplay is less required, but still very important to succeed
You have more map control
You don't have the numbers

Step 1: How to be a Xenomorph

Before Round Starts

First, open your character preferences and find the Xenomorph option under Occupation Choices:

Now save, ready up, and you have a chance to spawn in as a Xeno larva at round start (or the Queen if you chose Yes to the Queen option, but don't do that until you've gotten some experience.)

During Round

If you didn't get a slot on the Xenomorph team or if the round has already started, you can attempt to join later in the round as:

Burrowed larvae - burrowed larva are xenomorph newborns that was just born in a resin silo. Press "observe" if you're in the menu, and then click worm button in top left corner. You will join the larva queue. Once your turn comes, you will asked if you want to spawn. You can choose which silo you spawn from.
Living alien - can take over a living alien if one is available (has been SSD for long enough.). 5 minutes need to pass before you can take over somebody.

Step 2: Oh God, I'm a Worm!Now What?

You spawn in as a newborn Larva.

Stay in a safe location! This usually means not leaving the silo. Seriously, you can't imagine how many people wait for half an hour only to go die as a larva. Don't leave until you grow, that is about 30 seconds.

Larva are extremely fragile, cannot attack, but are also fast and agile. You can freely move across window panes and squeeze under unbolted and un-welded doors by clicking on the door. You also have xeno's X-ray vision to prevent accidents.
Take this time while you grow to familiarize yourself with the Xenomorph HUD and the Info/Text panels on the right. This guide will only cover what's different about the Xenomorph HUD from the marine and standard SS13 HUD. If you're totally unfamiliar with the SS13 interface, you'll definitely want to read some starter guides and may want to play a few rounds on a standard SS13 game mode server before jumping in here. Also, try marine first.

The Xenomorph HUD

The image to the right shows the Xenomorph game screen. The HUD icons are highlighted and explained below. Note that as a larva, you'll only have some of these HUD icons.

Xenomorph Abilities - These buttons across the top of the screen are your abilities. All Xenomorphs have the rest ability, which is used on weeds to recover health and plasma much faster, and all except the larva have the ability to consume soul of a dead marine.
Plasma Level - Plasma is used for all Xeno abilities. It regenerates quickly on while resting on weeds and much more slowly when not resting or off weeds.
Hive Ruler Locator - Points to where either the Queen or Shrike is (in a general area, not perfectly accurate). Can also be clicked to change to another xeno.
Health - Your health. When it drops to zero, you'll collapse into a critical state and will bleed out unless you're on weeds or an ally drags you onto them.
Night-Vision Eye - Xenomorphs have perfect night-vision. Click this eye to toggle level of night-vision.

The buttons on the lower right corner and bottom are the same as their standard SS13 counterparts.
Throw, Drop Buttons - Function the same as SS13. Default hotkeys are 'R' for throw and 'delete' for drop.
Body-part Target Selection - Very important for targeting specific enemy body parts such as limbs or eyes. Different attack types can have different effects, such as the Ravager's charge tearing off hands, feet, arms, etc.. if they are targeted.
Intent State Buttons - Safe (green/1), grab (yellow/3), and harm(red/4) function the same as they do in standard SS13 but disarm (blue/2) functions as harm! Also remember that the default hotkey for grabbing is 'ctrl' + clicking on your target, with same effect as grab.
Hunt/Stalk (Run/Walk) Toggle - Basic run/walk state for Xenomorphs. Hunt and stalk confer no other abilities or bonuses. Stick with faster one.
Resist Button - An important button to remember when you're on fire! Press to stop, drop, and roll to extinguish the fire and repeat until the fire goes out.
Right/Left Hand Selection - Selects your active hand. When you grab something, you can press this button (or press the default hotkey 'X') to switch to your free hand and perform tackles or slashes while you drag your target.

Tabs

Game Tab

Operation Time - How long the current round has been going in hours and minutes. Note that the operation always starts at 12:00, so 12:05 means the round has been going for five minutes.
Current Map
Evolution progress - Once this number reaches the current maximum, you may be able to evolve into a new caste of higher-tier Xenomorph. These slots are limited, so evolving may not be possible, or you may not want to evolve due to your own preference or the needs of the hive. Note that you can always evolve from a larva into a tier 1 caste.
Upgrade progress - Once this number reaches the current maximum, your Xenomorph will upgrade to the next growth level. This is different from evolving into a new caste and simply improves the stats of your current caste, usually health, plasma, and damage for example. The growth levels in order are young, mature, elder, and ancient. When you evolve, you lose one growth level.
Health, Plasma
Sunder - how many % of armor you have left. Rest on white weeds to restore quickly.
Pheromones you are under. There are 3 of them, and only the most powerful of each is used.

Alien Tab

Crawl through vent - Clicking this will make your Xenomorph enter the nearest vent within one tile space. It takes five seconds, and only small types of Xenomorph can enter vents. To leave a vent, simply move to the end of a vent or pipe network and you will see a message that your Xenomorph is climbing out of the vent. This also takes a few seconds. Be careful that you don't accidentally exit a vent in a dangerous area.
Evolve - How you evolve to another tier of Xenomorph when your evolution progress number is at maximum.
Hive Status - Shows the number, type, location, and names (number designations) of all living Xenomorphs as well as larva and burrowed larva. It's important to pay attention to this to cooperate best with your hive.
Toggle Middle/Shift Clicking - This is important and will change how your selected abilities activate. Shift-clicking means the ability activates when you hold shift and click on the target tile. Middle-mouse means you middle-mouse click on the target tile. You may want to make sure this is set to your preference after evolving to a new tier of Xenomorph.
Toggle Xeno Status HUD - Turns the Xeno HUD overlay on the sprites in the game area on or off, showing each Xeno's health and plasma levels.

Xeno Status Icons

The image to the right shows which status icons can appear on your Xenomorph.

Sunder - Indicates how much marines removed your armor on a percentage basis so if a xenomorph has 50% sunder, it has 50% less armor
Upgrade Status - Chevrons indicating your play time with the caste
Leader Status - Indicates if the Queen has made you a leader, directing other Xenos to follow your orders and direction.
Queen Overwatch - Indicates if the Queen is using her sight to see through your vision.
Effective Pheromones - Indicates which pheromones you're being affected by. The three types of pheromones are:

Frenzy (increases move speed.)
Warding (increases armor.)
Recovery (increases healing out of combat.)

Pheromones are granted remotely by the Queen through leader status, as well as locally by other castes such as Praetorians. Usually good idea to rest under recovery pheromones, as they drastically increase you rest healing.

Communication

Hivemind is the chat that all Xenomorphs can see, usable with :a or ;. You will occasionally get messages directly from the Queen as well as the results of her telepathic scan showing the number of living enemies remaining. You also have your own OOC chat, XOOC, available in OOC tab.

Step 3: Time to Evolve

Stay alive and safe until your evolution progress reaches required number. Ask your Queen and check the hive status if the hive needs you to evolve into something specific. If not, choose a tier 1 role, or if you have a desired role of a higher tier, choose towards that evolution path. Drone is the easiest one.
Read the Xenomorph Castes page for more information on each type of Xenomorph.

Tier 1 Xenomorph Overview

Caste	Role	Difficulty
Drone	Sustain the hive by creating defences and weeds, and planting eggs. Heal your sisters. Evolves from Larva; evolves into Carrier, Hivelord or Queen.	aEasy
Defender	Be a living shield. Stun marines. Evolves from Larva; evolves into Warrior.	aEasy
Runner	Harrass marines, and abduct or kill solitary ones. High damage output. Very squishy. Evolves from Larva; evolves into Hunter.	aHard
Sentinel	Subdue threats with neurotoxin, and prevent hosts from escaping the hive. Most effective harasser, but also squishy. Evolves from Larva; evolves into Spitter.	aIntermediate

Evolution and Upgrades

	Evolution Threshold	Upgrade Threshold
Larva	50
Tier 1	100	420
Tier 2	225	840
Tier 3		1750
Tier 4	0	1750

Evolution Points allow you to progress to the next caste; Evolution Points are given by Evolution Towers and having burrowed larva
There are no evolution restrictions! If you have the points, you can evolve into any higher-tier Xenomorph!
Achieving your Upgrade Threshold allows you to become Primordial if your Hive Leaders have bought the Primordial upgrade for your tier
Shrike can instantly evolve into Queen

Shrike's Upgrade Threshold is the equivalent of a Tier 2

There are no Tier 3s that can evolve.

Roleplaying Guidelines

This is a MRP (medium role-play) server and we are not solely dedicated to Aliens lore. That said, the Xenomorphs themselves have some RP requirements. According to lore, they are a hive-mind that show considerable (and ultimately unknown) levels of intelligence. They are extra-terrestrial Parasitoids with a reproductive strategy centered around a queen as well as other morphological abilities depending on the circumstance.

Playing a Xenomorph, you must understand your role and work together as a hive.
You are sisters, and you must do everything to help them.
Some roles have more autonomy than others, but a direct command from the queen should always be obeyed.
As stated, Xenomorphs have an as-yet unknown level of intelligence. This not only allows for complex tactics to be used, but can lead to some fun RP opportunities if the situation permits.
You know all the marine weapons, their terminology and whatever else. Don't fear to call the OB, but try to stick with something like "RED POINT".
Refer to the rules if you have any other questions.

Step 4: Combat

Main article: Guide to xenomorph cqc.

Play Your Role!

Through play experience and reading this wiki, you'll learn the different hive castes and roles. Each role is a critical part of a victorious hive and it's important you understand your role, try and play it to the best of your ability, and cooperate. Teamwork is always the backbone of any victory! Here are some basics to get you started:

Melee

Specialists: Runner, Hunter, Warrior, Ravager
Secondary Defender, Crusher, Praetorian

All Xenomorphs can melee, but some have special strengths in this area. All Xenomorphs have the ability to bumpslash, that is, the ability to slash a target by simply bumping into them while on any intent other than help. This means you can simply run around and into a marine and you will damage them, provided they are standing. Some abilites are also useful in helping with melee, such as the Hunter and Runner's pounce and the Warrior's punch, among others. For a more in depth guide to melee combat, see TGMC:Guide to xenomorph cqc. Note - melee means more damage you receive, and risk of dying.

Ranged

Specialists: Sentinel, Spitter, Boiler, Praetorian, Queen
Secondary Carrier

Ranged attacks for the Xenomorphs include neurotoxic spit, acid spit, and acid spray. These attacks are somewhat simpler than melee in you simply right/middle-click on your target unit or tile to fire your ranged ability. Neurotoxin produces stun-like effects which can build up over time to cause an overdose and down a marine, while acid causes immediate burns and is more dangerous with a potential to kill.

As a ranged Xenomorph, you are very important to support and assist your melee classes, act as constant harassment and damage, and in the case of the boiler, controlling key areas and breaking sieges. If you do not see ranged castes in hive, it is wise to pick one.

Note - The Carrier is technically a ranged class since its main ability is throwing facehuggers (and it should be played with similar care) but its position and engagement are often different. The Carrier has a unique playstyle of its own that takes time to learn and master.

Support

Specialists: Drone, Hivelord, Shrike
Secondary Sentinel, Carrier, Crusher, Defiler

The Drone and Hivelord are the primary support roles, meaning they construct and maintain the hive, eggs, hosts, and fortifications, tunnels, or other defenses at forward positions, as well as healing wounded sisters. Secondary supports can assist with these roles or provide special abilities to the Xenomorph team, such as the Crusher's ram and Defiler's smokescreen. These roles may not always provide the constant stimulation of combat, but they are absolutely vital, offering unique gameplay and rewarding creativity. Don't be afraid to try them out, but be sure to read more about the abilities of each.

They are both easier to play, and useful to the team. Build walls, place weeds, and heal your sisters. They will be grateful!

Hive Mechanics

Xenomorphs' Number

To ensure that xenomorphs can overwhelm marines, they need a good number of xenomorphs. Silos ensure that xenomorphs gain numbers the longer the round lasts. You also gain larva from Draining the marine's soul.

Queen standing alongside with corrupted generators

Resin Structures and Psy points

Apart from silo, there are Evolution towers which increase maturity speed for primordial, psychic relay which increase caste slots, turretsto protect your hive, and spawning pools to spawn more minions..

Hivemind and You

The Queen, King, Shrike are your hive rulers, and you follow their lead so that the hive can destroy the marines. If all three of them die, then there the hive becomes orphaned, and there will be a timer before a marine major victory. However, one of the drones can save the hive and prolong the fight by evolving into the Shrike.

You must do everything to ensure the survival of the hive rulers to protect the hive.

Important Combat Mechanics

Teamwork

This may seem pretty obvious, but Xenomorphs are intended to synergize their abilities, communicate, and to harass Marines before the killing blow. Leaders will have invaluable pheromones, and recovery pheromones will practically triple your healing speed and will make any Xenomorph a force to be reckoned with. A squad of xenos can flank, tear down fortifications, and kill Marines in seconds by using their abilities in tandem for incredible damage. A horde of xenos can do a lot more, but AoE will quickly shut down a horde with ease.

A squad of xenos is generally just xenos that stick together and aren't using hivemind chat 100% of the time to speak.

Ask queen for leader to get pheros, ask xenos to follow you to put together a squad and keep their castes in mind and coordinate attacks.

Stuns

Stuns are one of your worst enemies. Stuns will knock you to the ground and prevent you from immedietly getting back up. Stuns are primarily from close-range shotgun shots, and explosives. Stuns can generally be avoided by running from explosives, and getting the sneak attack on people with shotguns in order to stop them from shooting you quickly. As a melee caste go for stuns on these stunners, as a ranged cast simply peak corners and pressure them, as a support caste then use an ability or get a friend.

Stagger

Stagger is what is applied to make you unable to use some abilities, go slower, and generally be vulnerable. High-power weapons such as shotguns, snipers, explosives, and low-firerate weapons will generally produce stagger. Getting stagger is best avoided at almost all costs, as it can end up cancelling some ability you are using, prevent you from using an ability to escape, and slow even the fastest into a much more hittable target.

Weeds

Weeds are the Xenomorph infestation that spreads along the ground and walls from weed sacs (planted weed nodes) and they are a critically important aspect of the Xenomorph team. Without weeds, a Xenomorph will not heal, and if wounded to critical, will bleed out and die, unless dragged onto weeds. Plasma will regenerate off weeds, but at a very slow rate compared to on weeds. This makes weeds in a forward area absolutely vital to the success of any Xenomorph team.

The Queen, Hivemind, Drone, Shrike, Hivelord, Carrier and Defiler are the only classes that can plant weeds, adding further importance to these support roles.

They will also slow down Marines, so weed where the Marines have already left to make it a slower retreat.

Flares shot directly on top of weeds will be instantly extinguished, if you see a marine trying to light up an area then you can replace the weeds that are getting destroyed by the flare and waste more of their flares.

Fire

Fire hurts, especially young Xenos and certain castes. There are three types of fire: normal, blue flame (X-type fuel) and green flame (B-type fuel.) Blue flame burns hotter, doing more damage, and green flame does less damage. If you catch fire, RUN to safety and try to run towards an acid well, teammates and/or weeds if you can. Press resist to roll on the ground and put yourself out. You can put out others on fire by switching to help state (help/1) and clicking on their sprite. Moving over an acid well instantly extinguishes you at the cost of one charge, so be sure to run towards these when on fire.

If you are full health, and playing a hearty xenomorph, there may be situations to go through fire to kill the flamer. Don't risk your life for a single kill, but certainly don't let flamers get away scot-free. Castes with abilities to fling can fling them towards a mosh-pit. Flingers can also turn the tables by flinging non-fire-immune humans into the flames for a lot of damage, and potentially cause the flamer to spray water on their own flames to foolishly try to save their comrade.

Darkness

Darkness is your friend! Xenomorphs have perfect night vision that can be toggled on and off to see what's visible to marines. Use this darkness to your advantage—smash lights, melt flares, destroy power generators, and skulk just out of visual range until you strike. This is especially important for ranged classes which often have a maximum range that's outside of a marine's visual light radius. Keep in mind that marines have their own ability to see in the dark. Smartgunners, ~~Specialists,~~ and marines with certain weapons and equipment have nightvision that's just as powerful as yours, so always remain cautious even if you think you're safe in the dark.

One last important note about darkness—every map in TGMC is technically pitch black without a source of light. This means that if the power is out on the planet, everything will be black and the marines must bring their own light sources and/or repair the power. This is important information for new players to have so they can avoid winding up stuck in total darkness!

Vents

Under the Alien tab, there's an option that says 'crawl through vent.' Clicking this within one space of a vent tile will allow you to enter the vent after a short delay (4 seconds). Alternatively, alt-clicking the vent works too. While in a vent, you can see the network of underground atmosphere pipes that run throughout the map. These pipes have their own unique layout in each map, and you'll have to learn them by exploration. You can't be seen or hurt while in a vent, but you do make noises and can be picked up by scanners.
Use vents to scout the map in safety, gain access to restricted areas, and ambush unsuspecting targets. Note that vents can also be welded shut by a marine with a welder, making them impassable. Xenomorphs can break these welds by using harm intent on the welded vent while outside the vent.

Do note, marines can weld vents, but xenomorphs can also tear the welding off the vents. Simply go up to a vent and click on it to tear the welding off it, but you can't be inside the vents to do this. Maybe beg some hunter to go in with invisibility and tear open a vent to unleash the horde, maybe get a defiler to flank and while the marines run from the smoke the defiler can tear open all the vents. Marines will often only weld a vent once, if at all, and they will often leave vents they can't immedietly see unattended for long periods of time.

Conclusion

This ends the Xeno Quickstart guide. Armed with this knowledge, you should be well on your way to terrorizing and consuming all life in the known universe. Be sure to read each Xenomorphs' individual wiki page for a detailed explanation of their abilities and tactics, and be sure to have fun while you play and learn. TGMC can be a daunting, difficult, and sometimes frustrating game, but stick with it and you'll be rewarded with one of the most unique game experiences out there.

TGMC:Xeno Quickstart Guide

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