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Evolves From: Drone Evolves To: N/A Role: Carry huggers around, allowing the Hive to impregnate new hosts on the move. Use pheromones to assist fellow Xenomorphs. Guides: Guide to Pheromones |
General Information
The Carrier is one of the two evolved forms of the Drone. Whereas the Hivelord is focused even more on the Drone's original task of building and fortifying the Hive and sacrifices its mobility to do so, the Carrier takes a very niche role in the Hive. With its ability to store 8 facehuggers safely and carry them around, the Carrier becomes the Hive's main infection vector, able to carry facehuggers to the tallhosts instead of having to bring them to egg nests, and thus deploy them directly on the battlefield.
The Carrier is one of the fastest big Xenomorphs in the game, besides a Hivelord under the effects of Resin Walker or a charging Crusher, allowing it to flank rather comfortably or perform hit and run tactics. While it loses the Drone's ability to build most resin structures, it is still capable of planting resin weeds. It also has access to Pheromones, a critical tool in its arsenal, especially if flanking.
The facehuggers you throw will behave like normal facehuggers, but after being flung a distance they will be stunned for a short bit, and they will not be able to land on humans on a throw. As such, it's recommended to aim ever so slightly off-target. The facehugger will have room to adjust with a pounce once its lights are back on. Remember that clicking a hugger in your active hand stores it.
Playing as a Carrier
As a Carrier, you will find yourself in a strong Support-oriented position, with your facehugger throw allowing you to add an extra threat to tallhosts facing you. While other castes deal damage or stuns, you are capable of using windows of opportunity to infect tallhosts with the facehuggers you throw. Once a tallhost is hugged, they will be impregnated and will only be able to remove the embryo with advanced surgical procedures. If they don't make it back in time, you can fully expect that they will eventually hatch a Larva.
Your ability to plant weeds should never be underestimated. While you're not a sturdy Xenomorph by far, you can still take more hits than a Drone, and tallhosts will certainly hesitate to engage you alone and head-on. In a pinch, you can simply fire facehuggers away to force them to deal with them while you make like the wind.
Carriers can place hugger traps, which are small resin holes hidden away on weeded surfaces. These holes can then store a facehugger, just like an egg, and lets the facehugger ambush passing humans.Hugger filled resin holes additionally make the victim trip and fall, as well as notifying you (the Carrier) when a trap is triggered and giving you the trap's area name. These small traps allow you to easily get infections on any human foolish enough to rush straight into the Hive, and if you feel inclined, can even be put in forward or unorthodox positions to get pounces where the Marines expect to easily clear patches of weeds. In all cases, you can supply the weeds you need to plant those, making them a rather powerful, self-contained ability.
Abilities
| Abilities: | Description: |
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 Rest |
Used to rest and unrest. Xenos heal faster when resting on weeds. |
 Regurgitate |
To devour, drag target with one hand then click yourself.
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 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.
A lone Purple Sac also counts as weed so aliens can generate plasma and rest on it even if the weed under it was removed.
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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. |
 Throw Facehugger |
Puts a hugger in your hand if it is empty. If you do have a hugger in hand it throws that hugger. You can directly store a hugger by using this ability on a hugger on the ground next to you. Throw a facehugger by using the middle mouse button. |
 Retrieve Egg |
Allows you to retrieve eggs with your middle mouse button.
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| File:Hugger Trap.png Hugger Trap |
Places a hugger trap on weeds.
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Carrier Tactics
- The Carrier thrives as an ambush caste, with a powerful ability to hold a chokepoint by chugging facehuggers into it. While Marines can simply shoot the facehuggers as they come in, they will probably reconsider simply rushing in.
- Facehuggers have a very short life expectancy once thrown, usually under thirty seconds. As a result, it is extremely hard to use them as traps unless placed in resin holes, and they will usually be used directly against tallhosts to be viable.
- Facehuggers are capable of ripping off headgear on their own, and once viced to a Marine's face, nothing will pry them off. A facehugged Marine is as good as infected.
- The Carrier will usually heavily benefit from support, especially from castes that can easily stun a tallhost and drag them into the facehuggers you throw. Sentinels and Runners are two obvious candidates, but Spitters and Hunters can do in a pinch.
- You will need large amount of eggs to do your work, especially since you are bound to throw many more facehuggers than you get infections. Make sure the Queen is up to date with the latest engagements so eggs are always close to the front.
- Your facehuggers are useless against tallhosts that are already infected. As such, you should be careful when dealing with those hosts.
- Resin holes can easily be used as the Xenomorph equivalent of a proximity mine. Any Marine foolish enough to walk near one unprepared will usually be pounced and infected on the spot. And since a dark hole is hard to see on equally darker weeds, this can make for a surprisingly efficient method of ambushing Marines even in clear corners, to say nothing of dimly lit areas further concealing them.
- As noted before, facehuggers will be stunned a second or two after landing, even if it hits a Marine directly. Only when this initial stun is over will the facehugger be ready to pounce. While throwing facehuggers at Marines is a simple and obvious way to get infections, it is less efficient than throwing your facehuggers in cover and tricking tallhosts into running in their range once the stun is done.
Carrier Evolution and Upgrades
Carrier Upgrades focus, unsurprisingly enough, on improving their unique ability to throw facehuggers, increasing both their range and storage amount. The Carrier can also expect general improvements of all its statistics, with no noteworthy increase. As they upgrade, Carriers will get better at what they do, and better overall.
Carriers can not Evolve any further, as there is no Tier 3 castes available in the Drone succession.