Top Ten

[Drago Sinio]

The Top Ten fun things to do with "Locusts of Chiron".

1. Send a swarm in to un-terraform your enemies best bases. Especially right after they have built tree farms or Hybrid forests. Locusts love to eat forests. Yum.
2. Use them to cover your advancing troops. They are the best air cover, because they can just hang there in the air indefinitely.
3. Use them for "zone of control". They can slip in and around your enemy as well as a probe team, and they have much better range and are more difficult to attack.
4. Great for blockading enemy troops in the open, so your copters can gun them down.
5. Patrol your enemies coastline, and pick off his ships. Locusts have great range, and can attack anything in the water or in the air.
6. Send a swarm out to take those little annoying sea bases way out there in the corners of the map.

7. Stick them on top of your formers for protection, while the formers build a road or tube right up to your enemies base.

8. Build a "wall" of locusts around your perimeter, for an early warning defense screen.

9. Build a "wall" of locusts around your "crawler farm" to protect them from air attack.

10.Use them to surround an enemy base, placing one in every square within that bases production radius. The base will go into riot, and some of the defenders will dissappear if they are being supported from that base becuase the base wont be producing any minerals.
Now your troops, probe teams, whatever can walk right up to the base, and cant be attacked because of the Locust swarm providing air cover.

Any more ideas to add to the list?

[Qualicide]

kill stuff?

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Well, you guys want a PS2? heh heh :strokes console lovingly:

[Skanderbeg]

All 10 good ideas, but I have some remark. To do the most of these dirty things, You have to be so mighty that You could kill Your enemies in any way.

If I would be your enemy and in front of You in tech and power, I would simply send my empath choppers, and Your locusts would be history.

Greetings Skanderbeg

[Drago Sinio]

Yes, Qualicide, killing stuff is good too.

But I like to use copters or rovers for that. I like the locust for air cover and defense, more than attack, because the copters have more firepower, while the locusts are stronger on defense. I build the SP's and use the SE settings to make them all as strong as possible. I ususally build one per base, and then have one base dedicated to producing replacements. My air force right now in a current game is 78 locusts, and 10 best weapon copters.

And yes, Skanderberg, you have to be stronger than the enemy or the locusts wont save you. Basically the locusts prevent counter attacks, while the copters and ground troops take and hold the territory. The locusts are most effective against a Hive - like enemy who has tons of mediocre troops. Less so against hi tech, or elite troops. An elite trance unit in a base is too tough for anything short of a "Demon" locust swarm.

I think the locust is the most versatile unit in the game, and its very cheap to produce , and very powerful if you are set up for it. The downside is you need the SP's and production facilities to make them strong enough.
[This message has been edited by Drago Sinio (edited December 12, 2000).]

[stuntman19]

Locusts can really dominate in SP, but in MP they are kinda spendy and susceptable to empath and trance troops(even vanilla 1-1-1t). Also after base capture missles destroy locusts with no problem. They do have some good upsides, but not nearly as much as in SP.

[Gregurabi]

Locusts are "cheap to produce"?? Only for very expensive definitions of "cheap"!
[This message has been edited by Gregurabi (edited December 12, 2000).]

[WhiteElephants]

Drago, I have to disagree with you somewhat when you stated, "The locusts are most effective against a Hive - like enemy who has tons of mediocre troops. Less so against hi tech, or elite troops." I think that Locusts would be exactly what you want if you were facing a high tech faction. Otherwise you should have tech superiority over a mediocre Hive faction and have the firepower in your conventional units to overtake thier superiority in numbers. In a battle versus a high tech faction I would assume that your enemy would have a level of tech parity that would neutralize the firepower of your conventional weapons putting you at a disadvantage to attack and defend. If you were to press an attack in this circumstance you would have to have overwhelming superiority in numbers to overcome the inevitable losses you would take attacking a faction with tech parity or superiority which would make you the mediocre Hive like faction you metioned above. Fortuantely for those factions out gunned there is the option of using units like locusts to attack and defend against enemies that have a tech advantage because the level of tech becomes a non issue and who strikes first and who has the higher morale becomes the issue at hand.

You also said, "And yes, Skanderberg, you have to be stronger than the enemy or the locusts wont save you.". I have to disagree with this too because if you were stronger than the enemy you wouldn't need locusts to save you at all. You could just fire up your choppers and run them over.

[Drago Sinio]

Gregurabi, They are relatively low cost, for the time of the game in which they become available. They are roughly the same cost as a best weapon chopper with one special ability.

White Elephant, I should have been more specific with the Hive comment. My use for the Locust in that situation would be to "zone of control block" the enemy troops, and send choppers in to destroy them. Also as air cover for my ground units in the area, if any.

Its a question of using the right unit for the job. The locusts could take the bases, but it would take a lot longer. The chopper can take out multiple units where the locust can only kill one at a time. The locust can just hang there in the air, while the copter has to keep refueling.

You can also use the locusts as a screen to protect your refueling base from counter attack if the enemy has you outnumbered, locally. And I am really talking about a conquest situation at some distance from your home territory. Otherwise ordinary ground units could do the scouting/ blocking work.

But when it comes to a long range, versatile , powerful unit, the locusts are unbeatable. For example, you can attack a base with choppers, but you cant take it with one. A locust can take a base, which is something no other long range unit can do, except for a ship taking a sea base. And of course the locust can do that, too.

A combined elite drop infantry/ chopper/ locust swarm invasion is a beautiful thing to behold. The key is using the right MIX of forces for the situation, in my opinion.
[This message has been edited by Drago Sinio (edited December 12, 2000).]

[WhiteElephants]

Ahhh, I follow ya.