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Evolves From: Drone Evolves To: N/A Role: Lead your Hive to victory over the Marines. Use your powerful pheromones and your command abilities to organise the Hive. Lay eggs to create facehuggers and accumulate more Larvae. Use your screech to defend yourself and signal pushes. Use your acid to melt into places. Guides: Guide to Hive Building, Guide to Pheromones |
Overview
The final tier. The Queen is the most vital member of the hive. But with great power comes great responsibility, and she's often misused. Evolved from a Drone, the Queen is the mind of the Hive. Comparable to the Marine Commander, her primary function is to lead the Hive. Communication is key and the Hive should follow her orders.
One definitive feature of the Queen is her ability to grow an ovipositor and lay eggs. Those eggs must be picked up and planted on weeds by the hive castes (Drone, Hivelord, Carrier, Queen). In egg-laying mode, the Queen can toggle a wider vision mode and she can overwatch a xenomorph. The Queen pheromones are stronger and affect all xenomorphs when in egg-laying mode. The Xenomorphs evolution progress stop when the Queen is not in egg-laying mode.
Combat wise, the Queen has the highest health of all aliens and can be tough to kill. She's a capable fighter when threatened, and her increased health won't typically be enough to save her from a squad of Marines if she's caught in the open. If attacked, however, her Screech
ability causes nearby Marines to drop what they're holding and be stunned long enough for any assisting aliens to completely take down a small squad. The Queen also has strong corrosive acid that allows her to open new pathways or dissolve enemy weapons quickly.
Mobile Abilities
Abilities: | Description: |
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Rest |
Used to rest and get up. Xenos heal faster when resting on weeds. |
Regurgitate |
To devour, grab a host with Ctrl + Click or
Grab intent (3 in hotkey mode) then click yourself, standstill. To stop the host from getting up and running away, you can switch to an empty hand (X in hotkey mode) and keep tackling them using Disarm intent (2 in hotkey mode) when you are devouring them. Xenos with devoured humans inside them can not vent crawl but Xenos with devoured monkeys can. Hosts with boot knives can injure the Xenomorph they are inside if they are conscious. Using this ability with a host devoured will regurgitate them back up, giving a moderate stun. (Edit this template) |
Plant Purple Sac |
Can't be planted if there is already a sac on the tile. Can be removed by one slash with harm intent for re-plant.
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Choose Resin Structure |
Click to choose what resin structure to make. The default structure is a Resin Wall. |
Secrete Resin |
Secrete the chosen Resin Structure on your tile. The cost of plasma is increased compared to other castes due to how the hivelord can create stronger constructs.
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Grow Ovipositor |
Grows an ovipositor from which the queen begins to passively create eggs from.
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Screech |
A wide area of effect stun, screeches upon activation.
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Corrosive Acid |
Vomits a glob of acid on item to dissolve it. Multiple items can be clicked at once as long as you are standing still. The cost of plasma is increased compared to other castes due to how the queen has stronger corrosive acid.
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Emit Pheromones |
Emit one of the three Pheromones. It is advised to emit the pheromone that are not already being emitted, as pheromones don't stack.
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Gut |
Gibs the mob you decide to gut.
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Psychic Whisper |
Allows you to select a mob to psychicly whisper to. |
Toggle Spit Type |
Allows you to switch between neurotoxic spit costing 50 plasma to fire or spitting acid which costs 100 plasma to fire. |
Xeno Spit |
Use middle mouse button to spit globs of neurotoxin or acid. |
Stationary Abilities
Abilities: | Description: |
---|---|
Regurgitate |
To devour, grab a host with Ctrl + Click or
Grab intent (3 in hotkey mode) then click yourself, standstill. To stop the host from getting up and running away, you can switch to an empty hand (X in hotkey mode) and keep tackling them using Disarm intent (2 in hotkey mode) when you are devouring them. Xenos with devoured humans inside them can not vent crawl but Xenos with devoured monkeys can. Hosts with boot knives can injure the Xenomorph they are inside if they are conscious. Using this ability with a host devoured will regurgitate them back up, giving a moderate stun. (Edit this template) |
Grow Ovipositor |
Grows an ovipositor from which the queen begins to passively create eggs from.
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Screech |
A wide area of effect stun, screeches upon activation.
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Emit Pheromones |
Emit one of the three Pheromones. It is advised to emit the pheromone that are not already being emitted, as pheromones don't stack.
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Psychic Whisper |
Allows you to select a mob to psychicly whisper to. |
Watch Xeno |
Allows the queen to watch over xenos as if they were cameras. |
Toggle Queen Zoom |
Allows you to toggle between a zoomed out vision the normal one. |
Choose/Follow Xeno Leaders |
Allows you to appoint a xeno leader to help with commanding and also follow them.
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Heal Xeno |
Heals a xeno.
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Gives plasma to a xeno.
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Issue order |
Gives an order that acts as a xenowide buff.
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De-Evolve Xeno |
Allows you to de-evolve a xeno to allow another to take it's place. |
Tactics
The Queen can soak up an incredible number of hits. Unfortunately, she is slow and has a large hitbox. Marines may hit you around corners; any tile your sprite is on is a tile you can be injured from. The Queen needs to fight in cramped environments where the Marines can't focus fire on her, as in the open she will quickly be torn to shreds by Marines who can run faster than her - meaning all of them.
If you manage to somehow catch a marine, perhaps by cornering him or surprising him, you have the potential to drag him into an egg chamber for instant infection, or just shove him in a nest if he was trying to escape. The Queen's disarm timer is rather long. The screech is an amazing crowd control tool and she should not be overly afraid to engage in combat with the rest of the Hive. Warn the Hive of an impending screech, then charge in and do it once they're in position. This will stun every marine in its radius and turn an assault into a rout.
Pheromones
Pheromones scale based on what caste and upgrade tier is emitting them, aka a tier 2 xenomorph emitting pheromones will have a stronger pheromone effect then a tier 1 emitting them and as such the strongest will be used instead. If a Xeno is injured, use recovery. Also use recovery to keep the pressure up if there's a skirmish. If there's a big push or fighting on grass, use Warding. Frenzy may be most useful during an attack, trying to contain escaped hosts, or moving around the map with high plasma. Note that pheromones do not stack.
How to Lead
Remember that the aliens are a HIVEMIND. They are not "One Mind, Many Bodies". A Hivemind is a collective intelligence. As the Queen, you are actually the member of the Hive with the LEAST personality. You're a reflection of every other member of the Hive. That doesn't mean you shouldn't give orders, but it does mean you should listen to the other aliens. Ten heads think better than one - and they're your eyes and ears. Refusing to listen to other aliens is like putting a blindfold on.
It's important to remember that while the other castes have to do what the Queen says, they don't have to like it. They can bitch and moan and make a Queen's life a living hell by generally not giving it their all. As the Queen, you need to be... NICE. The aliens have to LIKE YOU. If they don't, a Queen is in for a bad time.
The number one rule of Queen has nothing to do with how you fight, or how you build your Hive. The number one rule of playing Queen is: BE POLITE!
As the Queen, you're a monarch, not a dictator. What's the difference? A monarch rules through worldly might, but also through charisma. Do you know what happens when a monarch is hated by the people she rules? The French Revolution, that's what. Now, obviously your children can't rebel in this game quite so drastically, but aliens who hate the Queen are demoralized and their behavior is erratic. When you hate your commander's guts, you will, at least subconsciously, perform WORSE.
So how do you separate the good Queens from the bad ones? Well, here is a checklist of bad Queen behavior:
- The Queen insults the lower castes regularly or expresses contempt for the lower castes.
- The Queen insults sisters who die in battle.
- The Queen refuses to even acknowledge suggestions.
- The Queen orders any lower caste member who disagrees or criticizes them to cease talking.
- The Queen gives orders contradictory to the purpose of the caste (Ordering runners to play Hive guard, ordering drones to capture hosts).
- The Queen gives contradictory orders, or impossible orders, such as ordering the Aliens to only kill in defense of the Hive and then setting slashing to Not Allowed.
- The Queen refuses to allow the members of the Hive to hunt at all, and keeps everyone inside even when a siege is not taking place.
- The Queen refuses any responsibility for failures.
- The Queen refuses to grow their ovipositor even if it's at the right time.
If a Queen somehow does everything on this list, tell an Admin via ahelp
, because that's griefing. Nobody does all this on accident. Or if they do, then they need a stern talking to.
Taking Command Of the Bird
To take command of the Bird you'll want to click on the bird's console. Doing so will lock it down for the next 10 minutes, giving your hive plenty of time to board and redecorate. When you're ready to go to your new destination press the launch button on the console and the Bird will fly you away.
Sources and Reading
- Doctor Bright's Guide to Proper Queen Etiquette by Evilkyle24
- Advanced Xeno Strategy by Redrover1760