A lot of people have speculated about how things are going in Alien Swarm and Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop. And some of these predictions are completely wrong. Let’s talk about some of these wrong guesses and check out our Alien Swarm Reactive Drop Myths guide!
Alien Swarm Reactive Drop Myths Guide
Welcome to our Alien Swarm Reactive Drop Myths Guide. This guide will help you see how things are going in Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop! We know that there are people who have a hard time finishing the Alien Swarm Reactive Drop game. If you <aare one of those who find it difficult to finish the game, let’s take you to our Alien Swarm Reactive Drop guide.
Myth: Skipping the Computer Boot-Up Sequence is a Glitch
We’ve actually been trying to tutorialize this better over the past few updates, including the current beta, but this explanation is short and simple. When a Tech opens a computer and it plays the boot sequence, he can override it and jump straight into the hack (or in Reactive Drop, the unlocked computer) simply by pressing the USE key again.
Myth: Stop, Drop, and Roll
I’ve only seen this one a few times, and generally not in places where people who play the game a lot talk, but some people think a marine can stop burning faster if they combat roll across the floor.
This is not the case. Combat rolling only does four things: it moves you, it makes you temporarily ignore projectiles (more on that later), it interrupts some actions like reloading, and it changes whether your character is matched by asw_filter_rolling in maps.
If you’re standing in a fire, combat rolling can get you out of it. But it won’t make you burn less than if you had just walked out normally.
Things that will put out fires include any kind of healing, fire extinguishers, ice, and letting the fire burn itself out.
Myth: Combat Rolling only Dodges Projectiles from Rangers
This is another simple one. Combat rolling dodges projectiles. It does not dodge explosions, melee, or elemental damage. If a marine fires a gun, the bullet is considered a projectile, even though it is implemented as hitscan[en.wikipedia.org]. You can literally dodge a bullet in both Alien Swarm and Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop.
Myth: Dropping Two Heal Beacons doesn’t Heal Injured Marines Faster
This one is a little bit complicated, but bear with me. I’ve heard people argue both ways, and I can see where those arguments are coming from. But complicated math is still math, and we can figure out how the system works without guessing.
In Alien Swarm and Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop, marines are not healed directly by medical supplies. Instead, they receive “slow heal” points, which are converted to actual health up to 4 at a time, 3 times per second. If the most recent source of healing for a marine was a medical gun, this is instead done 6 times per second.
So a marine can convert up to 24 “slow heal” points to health per second, but for the purposes of this myth we’ll say it’s just 12 because if you’re being healed by a beacon there’s generally not also a medical gun healing you at the same time.
Heal beacons last 20 seconds and can heal either up to 270 health if they are placed by Faith, or up to 240 health if they are placed by Bastille.
Heal beacons transfer those “slow heal” points to marines based on their current health percentage. If a marine has full health or enough “slow heal” points to end up at full health, the beacon does not transfer any points. Otherwise, it transfers 12 points per second to marines at 0% health (and it considers marines who are infested to be at 0% health) scaling linearly to 3 points per second for marines who are almost full.
If Sarge, the marine with the highest max health of 140, is at 1 health, in the first second, a beacon will heal… 11 health. Yep, it rounds down. So even when the beacon is healing the most it possibly can, there’s still room for another heal beacon.
And if Sarge is infested, it still works faster to have two beacons, because infestation curing is done immediately by the beacon and doesn’t have to go through the slow heal queue.
But that’s not the whole story. A heal beacon placed by Bastille can heal 240 health. That’s almost enough to heal any two marines to full. It can heal any three of Bastille, Crash, Faith, and Wildcat to full at the same time. So placing an extra heal beacon will heal faster, but it will also waste a lot of medical supplies.
Myth: You can Earn every Achievement with Challenges Active OR you can’t Earn Achievements with Challenges Active
If a challenge was active in the lobby since the last mission vote, the following achievements cannot be earned:
- Perfect
- Outstanding Execution (all campaign variants)
If a challenge was active in the current mission attempt, the following achievements cannot be earned:
- Easy Campaign (all campaign variants)
- Normal Campaign (all campaign variants)
- Hard Campaign (all campaign variants)
- Insane Campaign (all campaign variants)
- Brutal Campaign (all campaign variants)
- Speed Run (all mission variants)
- Hot Enough
- World Traveler
- No Time To Waste
The following achievements can be earned with or without a challenge active:
- (all weapon specific achievements)
- Clear Firing
- Short Controlled Bursts
- Shield Down
- Blast Radius
- Sharpshooter
- Scrambled Eggs
- Bug Stomper
- Parasite Puncher
- Close Encounters
- Smoking Barrels
- Infestation Savior
- Circuit Breaker
- Security Expert
- Gunslinger
- Quick Load
- Peace Medic
- Protect the Tech
- Technician Secured
- Hardcore
- On the Ready Line
- Another Bughunt
- Kill Them All
- Nuke From Orbit
- Zero Mortality
- The Choice of Progress
- IAF Cadet
- Battle-Tested
Myth: Techs Build Sentries Faster and Weld Doors Faster
This one is simple: Marines standing near a Tech build sentries faster and weld doors faster. A Tech is always standing near himself, but other marines can benefit from the speed boost as well. Similarly, Bastille doesn’t have to be the one who activates Adrenaline for it to have a longer duration when he’s in a mission.
