Thread: FAQ / General Guide.

Just a general info post. Feel free to contribute and/or constructively (or not) criticise, and I'll amend the information.

I'll post some pics when I get chance to play again.

1) General Play Tips
2) Classes
3) Weapons
4) Offhand Items
5) Alien types
6) See Also + Thanks.

General Play Tips -

Friendly Fire is always on. Try and maintain clear sectors of fire (i.e, two in front, two behind in corridors, or taking quadrants in open ground) in order to minimise friendly damage. Grenades (especially the grenade launcher) can be extremely deadly to your own team if handled badly.

Doors are dangerous. Doors can fall on you if the aliens are damaging them from the other side. I'm not sure of the exact mechanics in relation to how much damage one has to do to either side in order to make it fall a particular way, or if after a certain graphical damage level it will only fall one way, but you can certainly use it as a weapon as much as they can. Destroying a door will make it fall out in the direction it's destroyed (afaik, possibly last hit? not clear about that), flattening anything directly behind it.

Barrels are dangerous. Barrels come in three(?) different flavours. Red, Green and Yellow(?blue). Red are explosive, but can be punched around (melee) and will not explode until fired upon (?if pushed through flames). When they do explode, they do so violently, probably about the same damage/radius as a grenade. Green are toxic barrels. Same rules apply as red, except instead of exploding violently, they spew out a noxious cloud that persists for a duration and will damage anything inside. I am unsure if the cloud can be affected by fire extinguishers, flamethrowers, or if it degrades quicker if it does more damage. Yellow (I think they were yellow, fuzzy memory), barrels explode when punched, or at least seemed to to me. I found one on the biomass level and went to punch it out of the way and ended up losing half my hp bar instead.

Quick reloading. When you hit reload, a bar will come up, with a small vertical section in it. If you hit the reload button again when the cursor is moving across that vertical section, your marine will reload much quicker. If you miss, he/she will reload much slower.




Classes -

Officer: Capable of using the Vindicator and a couple of other choice items of gear, the officer also confers bonuses to other team members. As well as this, the officer also has a bonus to explosives - very handy when using grenades. A useful all round character to take. High damage output.

Special Weapons: Capable of using the autogun and minigun, two of the most useful and powerful weapons in the game for general crowd control/slaughter. Useful general purpose damage dealer. High damage output.

Medic: Vital for the harder difficulties (for the most part), the medics perform one obvious role - healing. There are two healing options available to the medic and medic alone - medpacks, and the medic gun (unlockable). Faith is often picked because of her better infestation curing, but Bastille also comes with a handy bonus - an improvement to adrenaline (also an unlock).

Tech: Vital for most of the miissions, the tech is also one of the few characters that can cause a mission to come to an abrupt end if he or she dies. The tech can hack into computers and access panels in order to unlock doors, or progress the game. It's important to note that the Tech's engineering bonus applies to all nearby squad mates - so the tech himself doesn't have to carry around a welder - useful if you want him to have the shock armour instead for instance.

Weapons -

Use the mouse-scroll or hit 'q' (default) to switch weapons.

Assault Rifle - Early available 'dps' weapon. Comes complete with a very large ammo supply and five frag grenades. Useful all-round weapon that is usually eclipsed fairly quickly by better alternatives.

Prototype Assault Rifle - Tech only version of the assault rifle. This version has exactly the same stats with regards to the base assault rifle. However, it auto-aims, making it easier to track some of the smaller aliens. Also, instead of frag grenades, it has stun grenades. The stun grenades function like an AE Tesla effect, and are very effective at slowing down groups of aliens.

Autogun - Special Weapons only. The Autogun's best quality isn't so much the damage each individual shot does (easily eclipsed by other weapons, but the fact that it can lay down a great field of fire. Clearing hallways is much much easier if you have an autogun or minigun plowing through the aliens ahead of you. The autogun remains a very solid weapon all the way through the game, even after unlocking the minigun, as it can auto aim, which the minigun cannot.

Vindicator - Officer only. The Vindicator is a shotgun. Extremely powerful (same damage as the ordinary shotgun when used by Jaeger), has a reasonable ammo supply, and is generally a very good all round weapon. Also comes supplied with five incendiary grenades. Use incendiary grenades with caution.

Twin Pistols - As the name says, a pair of pistols. The pistols have a considerable amount count, but generally don't put out the dps that many other guns do.

Sentry Gun - Sentry guns have to be deployed to be used, but can be picked back up again and redeployed. They have a limited supply of ammo and I do not think they are repairable or rearmable, rendering them a finite resource.

Med packs - Medic Only. A mainstay until the med gun unlock, the med packs are still useful afterwards due to the high number you can bring along. A standard loadout is 8(?confirm). Each medpack will deploy a circular healing area which your marines must be in to reap the healing benefits. It is important to note that med packs last a finite duration but also heal a maximum amount. If you have several wounded team members, the med pack will fizzle out quickly, and two or more may be required to fully heal a squad.

Ammo packs - Just like the med packs, these are a mainstay in the game, but remain so throughout, due to having no upgrade. Each pack contains 3 stashes, and each stash contains a finite amount of ammo. An autogun or minigun will consume the entire stash, while other weapons will take varying percentages (usually 20% per clip in most cases).

Shotgun - Extremely potent weapon, very good all rounder. Short range, but the aliens move quickly enough that it's rarely an issue. The game is generally played in tight quarters regardless. One slight drawback is the ease with which friendly fire can occur.

Tesla Cannon - The Tesla Cannon emits a stunning beam of electricty, which incapacitates and/or slows down aliens. One important note is that the tesla cannon also has no friendly fire. It won't damage your own men. It does very little damage however, and is very much limited to a support role. It will kill aliens eventually, but takes some time.

Rail Rifle - The rail rifle comes with one major significant drawback. It goes through things. This is also a big plus, because it can easily slice through a lot of the general aliens, but it has a tendancy to slice through them and hit your team too if you're pointing in the wrong direction. It's one of the more powerful weapons that the tech and medic have access too, but isn't useful for every map.

Med Gun - Medic Only. The medic gun is the 'upgrade' to the med packs, sort of. It's a weapnized version which can be point and fired (anyone who has played TF2 will know how it works), to heal your team members and yourself (just click on yourself instead of a team member). It does have drawbacks however - it has only 80 rounds, gets drained fairly quickly and can't be reloaded as far as I know. Still, one of the more vital pieces of kit later on. The med gun, like the tesla cannon, only drains ammo when healing. If everyone is full health, it will not drain ammo when fired on them.

K80 PDW - High rate of fire, high damage weapon. Due to the high RoF, the clips do tend to drain fairly quickly.

Flamer - Essential for one level, and can be useful for a few others. The flamer does what it says on the tin. Being set on fire also renders some of the aliens useless (notably the facehugger).

Freeze Turret - Static version of the freeze grenades.

Minigun - Special Weapons only. The upgrade/sidegrade to the autogun. The minigun features a bigger spread of fire, and a faster fire rate. Extremely lethal, it also goes through ammo quicker (due to the higher RoF). An extremely useful weapon if you need to clear out a lot of aliens in sharp order. No auto-aiming on this one though.

Marksman Rifle - Similar in variety to the rail rifle, this weapon has an alt fire of a 'scope'. Similar damage and RoF to the rail rifle, and can pierce through enemies, make it a good weapon for open areas.

Flame Turret - Essentially just a static (but redeployable) version of the flamer.

Chainsaw - High damage melee weapon. Especially useful for finishing up stunned aliens (ala Shieldbugs from behind after they've been tesla'd).

High Velocity Turret - Static version of the grenade launcher. Seems to be fairly accurate and quite destructive.

Grenade Launcher - Very powerful, but very dangerous. Seems to be more effective on large groups of smaller aliens than on larger aliens individually.

Offhand Items -

Some of these items are passive, some require you to hit the '1' (default) key to activate.

Personal Heal Kit - Pretty self-explanatory. Requires activatation to work. Heals roughly 50% of a health bar, I think?

Welder - Seals and unseals doors. Useful for keeping the swarm off your back, and for sealing up doors that the swarm constantly come out of (hi reactor level).

Combat Flares - These provide light and auto aim. Pop one out and it will illuminate the area and allow any weapon you are currently wielding to auto-aim. The auto-aim function works for anyone in the squad.

Laser Trip Mines - 12 per clip, and if you use Jaeger, you can lay down three mines per toss (I think all of them will be detonated in an explosion though).

Heavy Armor - Useful early unlock, provides a damage resistance boost across the board.

Damage Amplifier - Provides a fairly long term boost to damage, and comes with five charges I think. It deploys as a static circle wherever you hit the ability, much like the med hub.

Hornet Barrage - Another useful dps unlock. Provides a rocket swarm attack. Can take out some of the bigger critters on certain difficulty levels I believe, and generally provides a substantial amount of damage. Limited charges (3?).

Freeze Grenades - Crowd control unlock. Very useful against shield bugs, especially if you don't have a tesla. Oddly, you can 'freeze' a creature, and then set it on fire with the flamer. Don't ask, I have no idea.

Adrenaline - 3 charges only. Provides a 'bullet-time' style effect, causing the world to slow down, enabling you to get out of danger quicker, or get around larger creatures easier. Also makes quick reloading a piece of cake. One point to note is that Bastille gives an increased effect from Adrenaline.

Tesla Sentry Coil - Mostly crowd control. These will sit in a specific area and stun any creatures that come by them. Has a reasonable area of effect and stuns quite well. Can be used in the middle of a group of enemies in lieu of a tesla cannon.

Electric Armor - The anti-facehugger device. This item is activated. Apparently a lot of people don't know that one When you get hit by a facehugger, hit '1' and it'll eject the little bugger. Can be an absolute lifesaver.

Proximity Incendiary Mines - Officer only. Useful for Denial of access. Once laid, these will trigger upon contact with aliens and form a wall of fire in the direction of the two flashing red lights on the side of the mine.

Flashlight - Provides a constant light effect in the direction your marine is facing.

Power Fist - Doubles your melee damage.

Grenades - Very powerful offhand item. The same grenades the assault rifle fires, I believe. Can be useful for clearing out groups of swarm or just providing some extra dps.

Nightvision - Rechargable NV. They have a 10 second duration, then need to recharge.

Smartbomb - Mini-nuke! Okay, actually a massive rocket swarm. It's basically a 360% hornet barrage with about 3 times the power it seems. Pretty damn useful for clearing out a mass of swarm when you get surrounded. Only one charge however.


Alien Types -

Drone - These are the first and most common type you'll encounter. They come in packs, do a lot of damage if not killed, move quite fast and can quickly take down a marine. They're easy to kill however. Vulnerable to pretty much everything.

Shieldbug - Probably the second type of alien you'll encounter. These usually come alone (to begin with...), and like sort of like a hand. The white glowing part is the only part you can kill. The 'fingers' will crush you to death if you get to close. Use a tesla/freeze grenade to incapacitate them and then scoot around back and unload on it. Much harder to kill if you have no tesla/freeze ability, particularly on harder difficulties.

Facehugger/Parasite - The bane of many players. Much the same as the alien films, if not killed the facehuggers will leap on to your character, and infest them. Once infested, you have to be healed to get rid of them, or hit the electric armour. That's the only two ways you'll survive. A med pack beacon or the med gun will work, and Faith is the best infestation healer of the two. Fire renders these useless as they can't leap on you when on fire for some reason. Tesla makes them easier to hit, as does auto-aiming weapons. Facehuggers are easy to identify from the glowing leg tips. One major danger of the parasites is not only that they can easily kill a team member, but that if they do, they will spawn multiple parasites (3-5?) upon that team member's death.

Ranger - Smaller than the generic aliens by a little, these are the 'long-range' general purpose aliens. They spit out a volley of three 'bullets' which will knock you back for a moment and cause damage. Annoying and generally easy to get around and kill. Easy to spot as they light up like a christmas tree.

Mortarbug - Much larger variation of alien. These very annoying creatures will spit out three grenade like goops, which will land in a line, and start blinking. As they get closer to exploding, the blinking will become more intense. Usually easy to avoid the grenades, but if possible, useful to take these down quick.

Harvester - They drop out little aliens. They release exploding spawn that are very annoying, but other than that, I don't think they have a form of attack. Pretty easy to kill. Easily identifiable by the big glowing white gas-bag thing on the back of them.

Harvester Spawn - Similar in size to parasites, these explode when near, causing a small amount of damage as well as being extremely annoying.

Buzzer - These things are just a complete pain in the ass. Hard to target (even with auto-aiming weapons in close), it's usually best to tesla them. They knock you back and damage you, and can be extremely annoying in packs (which they usually come in, no less than 3 on average).

Boomer - Tripedal suicide aliens. These will inflate after a time (no idea what the trigger is. Prox to players?). Once inflated, if killed, they will shower around 8-10 small bombs into the surrounding area that will explode after a short time (very similar to the mortarbug's explosives).

Other stuff!

Thanks to Tenrou and Blakeman for their input.

The Alien Swarm Wiki is also a handy resource.

Most of the basic information is in there now. I may add some more pictures if I get chance, but since the Wiki covers a lot as well, there may not be much need.

Yup here is the list of alien names in the wiki.

http://alienswarm.wikia.com/wiki/Enemies


Targeting Cursor - The farther out this goes down the laser light line on your weapon the farther you see in that direction. This also decreases the screen view from behind.

Marksman rifle is also very slow semi-automatic and that it isn't as strong as the rail gun but can still penetrate multiple enemies the same way that a sniper rifle can in L4D.