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The Thing: Reborn vBlack




General Information

Map Tileset
Installation

Map Size
96x96

Human Players
6

Rules

-At the begginning of the game, one random player is chosen to be The Thing, without the other players knowing.
-If you are near an Infected Survivor or a Thing, you get an infection.
-If you die with an infection you become an Infested Survivor.
-If The Thing or an Infected Survivor gets killed, he leaves the game.
-If a Survivor gets killed without having an infection, he leaves the game.
-The Thing and all Infected Survivors must kill or infect all the remaining survivors within 15 minutes
-The Survivors must either kill The Thing and all Infected Survivors or survive 15 minutes
-The Thing and all Infected Survivors have two Forms - a human form and an alien one and can freely shift them (Morph)
-Only Human Forms can open/close doors

Note: When a Survivor becomes an Infected Survivor, he gets the same Human form only with 40 HP

Units

There are 3 types of Survivors - Marine, Ghost, Firebat, and 2 types of Alien Forms - Zergling (Thing), Broodling (Infected Survivor)

Marine
10 DMG; 100 HP; 0 DEF; No Upgrades

Ghost
15 DMG; 100 HP; 0 DEF; No Upgrades

Firebat
24 DMG; 100 HP; 0 DEF; No Upgrades

The Thing (Zergling)
15 DMG; 120 HP; 0 DEF; No Upgrades

Infected Survivor (Broodling)
10 DMG; 60 HP; 0 DEF; No Upgrades

Gameplay

The beginning of the game
Some people find it "manner" to tell what unit do you controll in the beginning of the game. If you want to be "manner", use the following messages:
g - Ghost
m/r - Marine
f/fb - Firebat

Never tell anyone that you are The Thing, and never trust anybody who tells that somebody else is The Thing in the beginning of the game.

How to find eachother ?
In the beginning of the game, all players are spread around the map. You cannot kill The Thing alone (Exept one case that I will tell about later), so you must gather together. To kill The Thing atleast two players are required. There are a fiew "meeting spots" that are usually used - the Middle of the map, the Doors, the Ship, and maybe the Platform. Sometimes it's good to meet organized in one place, but sometimes not. If The Thing finds out where are you going to meet, he may get there first and kill all the Survivors that come one by one. So some may prefer to randomly meet around the map... I don't know myself what is better.

Meet a Human
If you meet someone alone, it is risky - it may be The Thing. If you meet a player in Human Form, and he doesen't attack you, it doesen't mean he is safe. Some prefer to run away from the guy they've met untill they find the 3rd person to feel safe. If you met someone and approach him, the usual thing to do is to say "hi". You may see multiple players telling "hi" in response - some are joking, one of them may be The Thing, and only one of them is the actual guy you've met. If he doesen't reply to you this may cause him being a suspect. After you've met, don't stay on one place, try to find more people.

Meet The Thing

The first strike is very important for The Thing - if he fails, it may be his death. There are a fiew usual types of Thing's behavior when making the strike.

-If he approaches his victim and makes 1-3 shots in human form when very slose, and then Morphs into The Thing to finish. The downside of this may be the following: after making the fist shots, his victim may "Mark" him, by making 1 shot at his human form & then saying "Thing has 90 (or whatever he has left) HP in human form". This will make further attacks of this type useless - everybody will know that it's The Thing approaching. Allso the victim will tell what unit The THing has in Human form. The benifits of this method are that shooting the victim in Human form is a ranged attack and the victim can't run from it, or use Microcontroll (I will call this microcontroll becawse I can't think of a better word). Killing a running victim in Thing form is quite slow, so this method gives you an advantage in time.

-Approach in Human form and morph inth Alien form when close. This may sometimes help from "Marking" The Thing, but will not help from knowing his Human form. But you will not have such time advantage.

-Use the Alien form all the way. Do this if you have all the time in the world. It ensures that nobody will understand what your Human Form is.

Have a group (2-6 people)

Someone in this group must command the others. It should be the most experienced player. He must keep all the people together, and tell them how to act in some situations.

If a big group (4-6) people is created, the Thing (if he is one of them) may not attack, becawse it's risky. He may try to keep in the group (If Testing (I will tell about it later) failed, or is not known by the players) and attack when he has a good opportunity.

When and how to attack a big group ?
If The Thing is one of the people in the group...
When the group is moving. Usually people make a line of Survivors. The Thing can do two things:
1) Try to get ahead and moove after the first Survivor in the column. When he makes a turn, The Thing doesen't make it, or makes a turn to the other side. Some will follow the fist guy, some may follow The Thing. After the group is split, strike.
2) When walking in a place, when the first 1-2 people can't see what's happening with the last 1-2 guys in the line (This may occur when there are a lot of turns). Attack the first ones or the last ones. This can be disabled by giving vision.

If The Thing is not in the group...
Try to understang where are they going - it may be a camp site. Or maybe they are just looking for you. If you know that they are going to a camp site, you can take a risk and get there first. When they will be coming to it, you start shooting at them and they may loos their "power over you". But if they are too powerful, they can just storm you, loosing men, but killing you.
If you don't know where are they going, you can harass them. Attack in Alien form, deal some damage, retreat, regenerate, repeeat.

Group movement

-If the best ranged units in group must be in the center, protected by the more meatshieldy units.
-If some meatshieldy unit's HP << HP of other better ranged unit than him, they must change places. (so a 100 HP Ghost protects 10 HP Marine)
-Allways follow one guy, don't split
-Move close, if someone gets behind, stop and wait for him.

[i]Note: If a group is 1F, 3M, the F is counted as a mietshield, and the 3M are the ranged guys. If a group is 2M, 2G, the Ghosts are more ranged, so Marines are counted as meatshields.

Behavior of an Alien
If the alien is one of the members of the group, he may show his real nature with his behavior. If 
-He's reply time is bigger than this person normally has. Becawse if a person lies, he will think longer (but not all people), or maybe he is whispering with his infected teammates.
-He tryes to follow somebody all the time. This is well seen if he follows the Primary Target (see below)

When attacked

-If you have low HP and you see The Thing/Infected Survivor running at you, don't wait untill they get close, run when you understand that they are aiming at you.
-Microcontroll. When one guy makes the Alien form run after him, while the other one shoots. This can be hard to do if you are in a small pass or something/someone is blocking you.
-The low HP ones must shoot, while the more HP guys must run, taking damage.

Camping
There are 2 camp sites on the map. The Ship is the easy one. The Platform is the hard one (I mean for the attackers).
If camping on the Ship...
-Somebody must block the stairs, and take damage while The Thing is trying to break in. Don't sacrifice your life, run away when you are about 40 HP, let him in, let the microcontroll begin. If The Thing is trying to run away, somebody who has more HP can try to block his way. The ranged units must stand close to the stairs, but not too close - don't block the guy who is the meatshield on the stairs.
If camping on the Platform...
-The Ghosts must stand so they can make the maximum amount of shots at The Thing while it's running without mooving. The place to stand is somewhere a little bit up and to the right from the middle of the platform. The Marines must stand near the stairs, but not block the way, as said before.

The Doors
For The Thing
If the Survivors are defending at the Doors, there are 2 ways to get in.
1) Use the upper door. There is an open-door beacon infron of the door itself. Run at the door with your Alien form, when it will be ontop of the beacon, morph it into Human and give the Human form the command to move through the opened door. Once you are there, Morph back to Alien. This will get your Human form damaged, and it doesen't allways work that perfect, becawse you will be shot at. It is the only way to get inside if you have no Infected Surviors with you.
2) Use the bottom door. It's open beacon is quite far from the foor itself, send your teammate to open it.

For the Survivors
I, personally try to do like this: there is 1 survivor at each door, he watches over it. All the others are standing in the middle between the 2 doors. If one of them reports an attack, the others will be there fast enough - they were standing in the middle between the 2 doors. If you know that The Thing is alone, one can guard the bottom door, while the others guard The THing's main road - the upper door.

1 Thing and 1 Survivor

There are situations when you meet The Thing alone, while nobody has yet gathered. It attacks you. You have 2 main strategy's - give up to increase your chances of winning in The Thing's team, or try to survive. If you decided to try to survive, now it all depends on The Thing's choice. He can choose 1 out of 2 tactics:
1) Microcontroll. The victim will try to run. A Zergling moves faster than a G/M/F, but when he gets close enough to attack from the black, he stops, becawse is target is runnig away from him. Becawse of this, chasing a survivor like this can take a lot of time to kill him, so use microcontroll. Try to cut him off from the right or from the left and attack him then. The victim has no other choice but to start allso microcontrolling, trying to evade your attacks. While miscrocontrolling, you can't type, you can't do 2 thing at the same time. Allso you can't make signals on the minimap to show your direction, place where are you. (If you haven't done that in the fist seconds when he attacked you, bad for you).

2) No microcontroll. This will enable some things for both The Thing and his victim.
-The victim can make minimap signals & discuss where to meet the other survivors
-The Thing can allso type stuff like "Help, i'm attacked" and make false minimap signals

Finish the victim
If you ar chasing the victim and your Human form is ranged (not a firebat) you can Morph when the victim has low HP and finish him with 1-2 shots, saving some time for you.

Primary targets
In a battle, the Ghosts are the primary targets, becawse they deal more damage than Marines do. The faster Ghosts die, the better. Try not to mess with the firebat, he will take away half of your HP (for The Thing). If you attack somebody and a firebat comes in, he may help you to kill your target faster, with his splash damage. Allso low PH units may be targeted first.

Testing

How to know who is The Thing/Infected Survivor. Approach the person you want to test. If a Spider Mine appears in the right bottom corner on the map, he is either an Infected Survivor, or The Thing. If you allready had a mine, it will not work. Testing is the main problem for The Thing, so use it wisely.

How to fake testing

If you are The Thing and want to fake testing, you can try and do this: (only works with groups of survivors that just were created and the survivors didn't test eachother yet) approach them in Human form, and blame somebody saying "I got infection from him, he's the Thing" and start attacking him. Not everybody may belive you. You may start a total chaos. Somebody may think that you're The Thing and start attacking you, while somebody else will think that the guy attacking you is The Thing, and so on... Even professional players may get confused sometimes. Anyway, you must make them kill eachother. When they all will be damaged seriously, you Morph and finish them.

Who's with you ?

If you can't understand who is with you, you can try and ask him about HP, position of his (or what you think is his) unit in the group. If that fails, try to unally the guy you think it is and order your unit to move somewhere (so he automatically doesen't attack) and see will the mouse turn red when you point it at him.

How to lure the Survivors

You may call for help, making minimap signals in the position you want, ant saying stuff like "HELP HRLP" (don't forget to add grammar mistakes). The minimap signal must be from one point, and that point must be moving around, but not very fast. It will create an illusion of a Survivor trying to escape The Thing.

Alien Group

Like any group, it must have a leader. The Thing may not allways be the leader, becawse if an Infected Survivor is more experienced, he should be in controll. The Thing may allso be dead, and the group can contain only Infected Survivors. Use the movement type that protects the weakest.


Alien Group Attack

When attacking, you need strict organization. Discuss the Primary Targets, and who will do what before the attack. Ghost forms should be used as the ranged force, and morphed when their HP gets low. The Thing is the main meatshield. The Firebat Broodling should be used to get close to the Survivors and when the Alienn form's HP is low, Morph into The Firebat to use his good damage.

A Spy in the Survivor Camp
The Alien team send a Spy (or even a fiew ones) into the Survivors group. The Alien team must know where the Survivor team is. This works only if the Survivors don't know was anybody Infected or not. The Thing Morphs into Alien form. The Spy(s) Morph into Human Form. The Spy(s) make Help signals, and try to make the Survivors belive that he(they) are attacked by The Thing. The Spy(s) run to the Survivors. The Thing runs after them (acts). To add some realism it may even attack  the Spy(s), but not much, maybe 1-2 times maximum. The Spy(s) must run so that The Thing is "forced" to run near all the Survivors - close enough for them to get an Infection and to make Testing useless. Of corse The Thing will get damage, and will "act" that It's retreating. This will get the Spy(s) into the Survivor team.

This is very good for the Aliens:
-They have full information about the Survivors group
-Testing is now Useless
-The Spy(s) sometimes can even influence the group to make wrong decisions
-They can coordinate the attack better: The Thing attacks the Survivors, and then the Spy(s) make their move. This is very handy for killing Primary Targets.

But be cairful - a Spy(s) must act good, and remember that they are dead if cexposed. Giving vision can help against this.

Hiding

Everybody exept you are infected, you decided to hide. Some like to sit in one place, but I like to move around. Remember, you have a bigger sight range than any Alien form. You can see them while they can't see you. If you see them somewhere, go there - it is very unlikely for them to return in the same place within about 3 minutes. Don't attack if they don't. Even better would be to ally them. I had situations when they passed very close and didn't see me.


Searching

If there is an Alien team (more than one player), split up in sectors. For Example: The Thing searches only the upper part, and the Infected Survivor searches the bottom part of the map. If an Infected Survivor found him, report immediatley. If you are not powerful enough to kill him alone, just follow him on safe distance, telling your team where to go (risky if it's a ghost ).

Disbalance

-Ghost is more powerful than the Marine, and this disbalance is not balanced by the fact that there are more marines than Ghosts (so it would be harder to figure out who is The Thing), becawse of Testing
-The Platform is too cool for a camping place. Even one Ghost can kill The Thing alone.
-"Cheating" doors is a small room that has 1 entrance and both close & open door beacons are in that room, and there is another open door beacon, but I don't know for sure how to use it, and it it too far away.

Bugs

-If morphing very close to a wall, you may end up in the middle of the map.
-Sometimes the open-close door beacons don't work for an unlucky player. It lasts about a minute
-Sometimes (very rare) your form that is not being used (If you are in Alien form now, your human one is in the "Morph Arena" - a place where all currently unused forms are) can be attacked by other unused forms in the "Morph Arena". So if your ally unally's you, he can kill your form and get you defeated.
-If your broodling is blocked while created, it gives you the "Unit unplac." bug and doesen't create it and you are left with only one form to use. (But on the other hand, you can use it as an advantage - if nobody saw you die, you can come up to the survivors and give them vision and say "you see, I have no unit in the Morph Arena, so I'm not an Infected Survivor", but they can kill you, becawse you have no sainty, it all depends on their attention)

Other Tips

If you are The Thing, unally everybody in the beginning. Anfter you've killed somebody, figure out who you killed, give him vision, and unally everybody else again (exept your teammate)

If you play for the Victory sign, cam all the time and make it boring for the others. If you paly for the process, camp only in hopeless situations, when the chances are even.

If someone is saying "Help, I am being chased by The Thing. Please some one help. My current point where I am is there *minimap pings*" he is most likeley lying. In most of the cases he's The Thing - the grammar is correct, the sentance is long. Stupid errors like "helop" don't make you a suspect.

If you and somebody else are chasing somebody with low HP, you can split & one of you cuts him off.

Try to develop short phrase commands to communicate faster.

Allways check every unit's HP in battle, not only yours, but allso your ally & enemy

If you see "offtopic" stuff being written, like ":)" when there is nothing to smile at, it may be a sign that the person who wrote this is an Infected Survivor now.

By my opinion, the funnest games are played WITHOUT TURNING VISION ON.

Nice tutorial, it actually made me wanna play the map right now
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I hate to be like this, but I feel like have to do it.

Reborn is horrible when compared to The T H I N G (Ice 5.0)!
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if it wasnt for maphack there wouldnt be this version black and we would all be playing the original the thing map
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Nice tutorial, it actually made me wanna play the map right now
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refering to my previous post....the only reason people wanted to make a version black was because in the original the thing someone may have map hack and could see the person who is the thing
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i played this map umpteen times together with jammed and it is one of the best starcraft maps ever !
therefore i would recommend all disbelievers to try it before render a jugdement

btw very nice tutorial, although my style is a bit different 8]

sry for misspelling, am drunken
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i would add following: if you are thing and there is a struggle near the doors you can morph into human form and move on the beacon to close the door so your opponet cant escape, hit him 1-2 times until you morph back into thing and finish him
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and there is one other thing i would mention

whats to do if my ally who is no thing attacks me, or even worse my brood ..

happens permanently 
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What maphack ? I saw map hackers in the Reborn vBlack allso. It pings on the minimap the Thing's location.

I think they made Reborn vBlack becawse they wanted it closer to the movie - get killed, become an Alien allso.
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wait wait there was a movie?

map hackers dont gain anything by using maphack in vBlack
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besides, if you are a penguin plug user you can see if someone selects ling → you can conclude who it is, you could also call it a vulnerability of the thing

..no game is perfect
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besides, if you are a penguin plug user you can see if someone selects ling → you can conclude who it is, you could also call it a vulnerability of the thing

..no game is perfect
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Penguin Plug is a kind of "game enhancer", it detects some hacks, spoofed names, shows who downloaded and who didn't, shows APM(Actions per minute), and some other minor stuff...

Never mind my previous post, it's now available at http://www.bwprogrammers.com as BWLoader.
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