Hey Karrd, thanks for following through and posting your thoughts on chamber order... I agree for the most part. Here are my comments:

Originally Posted by Card AKA Karrd

1) How organized is your team? (I'd recommend you never get movement if your team isn't working together. It's at it's best only when your team is working together)

Although this is a very serious issue/consideration on most pubs, I think you'll find that, at TG, lack of teamwork/organization/communication is the exception and not the rule. As of late, I'd say that the general playerbase on the TG server when it is full or near-full is at least 70-80% experienced regulars.

Originally Posted by Card AKA Karrd

2) How organized is the other team? (If they are well coordinated, DCs and MCs are a waste of res, they will easily hunt them down and kill them. SCs even the playing field by allowing you to analyse and destroy the marine coordination.)

Earlier today a bunch of us were watching the UK/Finland match and one thing I noticed was that the initial chambers (non-SC) were *always* dropped in vents or areas that otherwise inaccessible to marines in the early game. This kind of DC/MC placement makes them much harder to destroy. I do admit that this requires considerable experience and knowledge of the map in play.

Originally Posted by Card AKA Karrd

4) How many RTs do you have or are about to have? ( Res is always good, but only movements can nearly maximum effectiveness with 3. Getting DCs or SCs when you have only 2-3 RTs means you won't be able to take full advantage of them.

I don't follow... How does res affect chamber use or effectiveness? Certainly prior to the latest version this was true, but with free upgrades, I'm not sure I see what the issue is.

Originally Posted by Card AKA Karrd

I'd recommend getting movement first only if you are going to really push for a fast second hive.

Seeing MC in use quite a bit as the first chamber here at TG I'd definitely have to disagree with the above (and the accompanying explanations that I snipped out). Certainly part of it has to do with the fact that, in pretty much every game at TG, the aliens decide quickly on:

• Which 2 players will be dropping RTs
• Which player will be dropping chambers
• Which player(s) will be going fade
• Which player is saving for the hive

So the "fast second hive" is really ubiquitous because unless the marines push to hold a hive early on, the aliens will have a second hive going within the first few minutes of the game thanks to the fact that one player had been saving for exactly this purpose since the start of the round.

Originally Posted by Card AKA Karrd

While always useful for getting skulks around the map, in combat it's effectiveness is determined by the skill of the player.
[snip]
Get this for a fade only if you know how to use one well. The added speed makes good fade's lethal, but throws off many people who aren't used to it.

Given the average skill of players at TG I'd say that celerity skulks and fades are extremely effective.

Originally Posted by Card AKA Karrd

The only time you should get this early for an onos is if you plan on destroying alot of structures in a short time. Otherwise it's worthless until the advanced abilities are unlocked.

At two hives, the extra stomps provided by adrenaline can be deadly and can neutralize the advanced weaponry the marines will have at this point.

On a related topic, during the UK/Finland match, I was quite surprised to see the chamber order of MC/SC/DC employed. I forget which team used it but if I recall they did end up winning. It seems to me that the justification was that at the time that SCs (and second hive) were dropped their fades were their primary attackers and, of course, at two hives could heal quite effectively with metabolism. The combination of either adren or celerity with focus made for a deadly offense.