MrVyngaardLive From New EtoileStraight Outta SosariaRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
I'm pretty sure I've been jumped by a flamed parasite.
Either that or they had another one RIGHT under it, and given how annoying the buggers are, it wouldn't surprise me.
MrVyngaard on
"now I've got this mental image of caucuses as cafeteria tables in prison, and new congressmen having to beat someone up on inauguration day." - Raiden333
Hey, it's cool, easy to understand that it's somethin' like that.
Anyway. Last patch. Someone's screwed something up, since the damage modifiers have gone crazy on the Tesla Cannon.
1 (+75) damage per shot on Sarge, for example. And that's not just a display error. It's actually doing that. If you thought the Tesla was pretty broken pre-nerf, well...
Not sure yet if this affects anything else.
Get the feeling pubs are gonna get a whole lot more boring once most people start noticin' this.
Edit: 1 (+100) on Wildcat, haha. Not broken at all, no sir!
Everything the beam touches just kerplodes. Even the secondary arcing makes bugs turn into a fine green vapour. It's quite amazing to watch.
I think the patch also broke the ignore two player console command. Can anyone verify?
It is no easy task winning a 1v3. You must jump many a hurdle, bettering three armies, the smallest.
Aye, no mere man may win an uphill battle against thrice your men, it takes a courageous heart and will that makes steel look like copper. When you are that, then, and only then, may you win a 1v3.
Hey, it's cool, easy to understand that it's somethin' like that.
Anyway. Last patch. Someone's screwed something up, since the damage modifiers have gone crazy on the Tesla Cannon.
1 (+75) damage per shot on Sarge, for example. And that's not just a display error. It's actually doing that. If you thought the Tesla was pretty broken pre-nerf, well...
Not sure yet if this affects anything else.
Get the feeling pubs are gonna get a whole lot more boring once most people start noticin' this.
Edit: 1 (+100) on Wildcat, haha. Not broken at all, no sir!
Everything the beam touches just kerplodes. Even the secondary arcing makes bugs turn into a fine green vapour. It's quite amazing to watch.
I think the patch also broke the ignore two player console command. Can anyone verify?
Hey, it's cool, easy to understand that it's somethin' like that.
Anyway. Last patch. Someone's screwed something up, since the damage modifiers have gone crazy on the Tesla Cannon.
1 (+75) damage per shot on Sarge, for example. And that's not just a display error. It's actually doing that. If you thought the Tesla was pretty broken pre-nerf, well...
Not sure yet if this affects anything else.
Get the feeling pubs are gonna get a whole lot more boring once most people start noticin' this.
Edit: 1 (+100) on Wildcat, haha. Not broken at all, no sir!
Everything the beam touches just kerplodes. Even the secondary arcing makes bugs turn into a fine green vapour. It's quite amazing to watch.
I think the patch also broke the ignore two player console command. Can anyone verify?
I used it fine.
I went into another game and the tesla cannon was fixed so I think the stats glitched for our game or something.
It is no easy task winning a 1v3. You must jump many a hurdle, bettering three armies, the smallest.
Aye, no mere man may win an uphill battle against thrice your men, it takes a courageous heart and will that makes steel look like copper. When you are that, then, and only then, may you win a 1v3.
Hey, it's cool, easy to understand that it's somethin' like that.
Anyway. Last patch. Someone's screwed something up, since the damage modifiers have gone crazy on the Tesla Cannon.
1 (+75) damage per shot on Sarge, for example. And that's not just a display error. It's actually doing that. If you thought the Tesla was pretty broken pre-nerf, well...
Not sure yet if this affects anything else.
Get the feeling pubs are gonna get a whole lot more boring once most people start noticin' this.
Edit: 1 (+100) on Wildcat, haha. Not broken at all, no sir!
Everything the beam touches just kerplodes. Even the secondary arcing makes bugs turn into a fine green vapour. It's quite amazing to watch.
I think the patch also broke the ignore two player console command. Can anyone verify?
I used it fine.
I went into another game and the tesla cannon was fixed so I think the stats glitched for our game or something.
Mine reset in the next game too.
Worked fine when I logged out and back in to the game though
Hey, it's cool, easy to understand that it's somethin' like that.
Anyway. Last patch. Someone's screwed something up, since the damage modifiers have gone crazy on the Tesla Cannon.
1 (+75) damage per shot on Sarge, for example. And that's not just a display error. It's actually doing that. If you thought the Tesla was pretty broken pre-nerf, well...
Not sure yet if this affects anything else.
Get the feeling pubs are gonna get a whole lot more boring once most people start noticin' this.
Edit: 1 (+100) on Wildcat, haha. Not broken at all, no sir!
Everything the beam touches just kerplodes. Even the secondary arcing makes bugs turn into a fine green vapour. It's quite amazing to watch.
I think the patch also broke the ignore two player console command. Can anyone verify?
I used it fine.
I went into another game and the tesla cannon was fixed so I think the stats glitched for our game or something.
Mine reset in the next game too.
Worked fine when I logged out and back in to the game though
Tesla Guns, Tesla Guns!
Your right, it's still busted. I guess the bug occurs randomly and depends on which character you pick. I doesn't work for some like Vegas.
It is no easy task winning a 1v3. You must jump many a hurdle, bettering three armies, the smallest.
Aye, no mere man may win an uphill battle against thrice your men, it takes a courageous heart and will that makes steel look like copper. When you are that, then, and only then, may you win a 1v3.
I'm not sure what changed recently, but after not crashing at all over the past few days, today I've seen no less than 4 video driver crashes while playing Alien Swarm. Sometimes I can avoid my whole computer crashing by quickly alt-tabbing out of AS when it starts, and using task manager to kill it.
I'm going to try updating my video drivers, but this really shouldn't be necessary, as source games have never had issues on my PC.
Your right, it's still busted. I guess the bug occurs randomly and depends on which character you pick. I doesn't work for some like Vegas.
It's getting +25 damage per shot per point of the Damage Bonus skill. Vegas doesn't have damage bonus, so it's normal when he uses it. Sarge, Wildcat, etc. have 3-4, so it's a one-shotting machine.
Just beat my first mission with a few pubs where i volonteered to be the peace medic. I had no weapons, only a lightning armor, med kits and the medic gun.
Was actually not bad and i made quite a lot of points off it.
StokedUp on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Gamertag(SSF4/MW2)StokedAidzzzSC2 ID Stoked.655 Uploaded SC2 Replays
yeah, the way exp gains work, you can only get up to a maximum of 100 bonus experience for your kill count, so there's really not much to be lost in just letting your officers/special weapons guys handle the brunt of the combat.
If I could suggest a few things to new players I've encountered, it would be these things:
1. much like real life, any bullets that don't hit an alien have a very high chance to hit your friends. With that said, don't shoot unless you KNOW it's going to hit aliens, and not your allies. Friendly Fire is by far the biggest problem for new players.
2. as a supplement to #1, while you'll want to avoid the drones (generic melee bugs) as much as possible, do NOT go strafing through your teammates' lines of fire. This is guaranteed to result in a friendly fire hit for you, and you'll be the one at fault. Whenever you're moving down a hallway, or through a door, keep in mind that you'll want to leave some room for your teammates to shoot through. hugging opposing walls in tight hallways helps.
3. Tesla Cannons and other electrical damage items will APPEAR to do a lot of damage, but when you see that shiny electrical effect covering an alien, that just means that they're slowed down. They still can (and will) attack you until you properly kill them.
4. Flamethrowers and explosive weapons do massive damage, both to swarm and to marines. Don't be that douche that keeps torching/exploding his teammates.
For techs, you'll encounter two types of hacking scenarios. The first one (for doors) will be a minigame requiring you to turn the circuit pieces to form a full linked circuit from one end to the other. The other (mission objective) hacks require you to adjust the movement of each of the 1 bits so that they line up horizontally. If you complete these before the small red indicator reaches the end of it's progress bar, you'll get a "fast hack" experience bonus, and eventually an achievement.
For medics, you'll eventually have two methods to heal your team. Initially you only have heal-packs, which have to be dropped, and create a healing force field bubble of sorts to heal any team members inside. I'm pretty sure you can drop multiple packs next to eachother to stack the healing effect (for infections, more on this later). Later you'll unlock the medi-gun, which behaves pretty much exactly like the medi-gun from TF2, without the ubercharge however. The medi-gun and heal-packs don't have infinite supply, so ideally your team is still avoiding getting hurt as much as possible. When the medic runs out of healing ability, people will start dying quickly, especially on hard/insanity runs. Lastly, infections are pretty much the worst thing that can happen to your healing supply, as they last quite a while and consume a lot of healing to keep the infected marine alive. Tesla Cannons and Electric Armor can reduce how long infections last, but the infected will still require healing to survive it. If a marine dies to infection, usually anywhere from 1 to 3 parasites will pop out of his/her corpse, which can quickly destroy an entire team if they pounce. SynTec residential and later levels have the highest frequency of parasite appearances, so be prepared for infections there, as they WILL happen.
For Special Weapons players - your main asset to the team is your massive main weapon, either an Autogun (great overall weapon, with auto-aim assist) or a Minigun. The upside of these guns is you can unload on groups of swarm, and watch as the piercing bullets mince them to bits. The downside, however, is that you only get two massive ammo magazines, and when you pick up ammo, you'll consume an entire ammo crate to get just one magazine for your autogun. This is generally bad for the rest of your team, as an ammo crate can give them anywhere from 5 to 10 magazines, depending on their weapon choice. The best way to offset this is to carry a secondary weapon you can fall back on for when you don't need the mowing power of your main gun. Alternately, you can just carry ammo packs in your second slot, so you can supply yourself at will.
For Officers, your vindicator will be your best friend. Regardless of which officer you pick, the vindicator will be one of your best weapon choices for him. Some officer players even fore-go a second weapon, instead doubling up on vindicators to maximize availability of the beast. Don't forget that the vindicator and the standard assault rifle both have grenade-launching alternate fire modes. The incendiary grenades on the vindicator are GREAT for clearing out swarm egg nests. If there's a mission where a tech is not needed, it is generally a good idea to double up on officers, then keep a SW guy and a medic.
This turned into quite a handful. I won't elaborate on which weapons to use, because a lot of that comes down to playstyle. Just make sure not to hoard your special item usage too much. Most maps are smaller than you'd think, and items get replenished between stages. If the situation looks like it's going to be troublesome, or someone's about to die, be a sport and use what you can to help.
I would like to extend the last point a bit though:
If it's useful now, then use it now.
Doesn't do you or your team any good if you die and force them to choose what gear they need to leave behind. This is especially painful on maps that require certain things, such as Residential's need for incendiary weaponry. You're given a generous loadout of grenades or mines or flares or whatever for a reason. Let the vets save their gear for when they know it'll be most effective, you just worry about keeping yourself and your teammates alive, even if it means using most, if not all, of your special-situation gear early on.
Better to die 50 feet from the exit with nothing to your name than to die 50 feet from the entrance with nary a bullet out the barrel.
That said, learn quick when it is appropriate to use said gear. A single drone doesn't legitimize using 4 grenades.
Hey, it's cool, easy to understand that it's somethin' like that.
Anyway. Last patch. Someone's screwed something up, since the damage modifiers have gone crazy on the Tesla Cannon.
1 (+75) damage per shot on Sarge, for example. And that's not just a display error. It's actually doing that. If you thought the Tesla was pretty broken pre-nerf, well...
Not sure yet if this affects anything else.
Get the feeling pubs are gonna get a whole lot more boring once most people start noticin' this.
Edit: 1 (+100) on Wildcat, haha. Not broken at all, no sir!
Everything the beam touches just kerplodes. Even the secondary arcing makes bugs turn into a fine green vapour. It's quite amazing to watch.
L4D is probably wors with bad pubs than this. At least in this you aren't 100% boned if you are the only guy left. In L4D you can get snagged by a smoker, pounced by a hunter, slip off a ledge and need pulling up, etc. The worst scenario in this is that you get jumped by a parasite.
For example, on SynTek Residential I was playing the medic, equipped with flamer, heal beacons, and body armor. (I promoted recently so I'm too low level for the medigun, or the flamer for that matter, but it's available on this mission because it's necessary).
All three of my teammates died before we made it to the ventilation ducts (in this case because of a random lag spike more than their lack of skill) and I had to complete the last third of the mission by myself and then survive the panic event while waiting for the elevator. Running around like an asshole spraying four clips of flamer fuel proved to be the correct strategy and I made it to the exit with about 20% health.
You could never, ever, ever survive that percentage of a map in L4D by yourself.
On a scale of 1 - 10, where 10 = "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU", what's worse: A bad pub in this game, or a bad pub in Left 4 Dead 1/2?
I'm too biased to answer this question, because just the other day the same pubbie welded us out of the bridge control room in Deima Surface four times in a row.
Hey, it's cool, easy to understand that it's somethin' like that.
Anyway. Last patch. Someone's screwed something up, since the damage modifiers have gone crazy on the Tesla Cannon.
1 (+75) damage per shot on Sarge, for example. And that's not just a display error. It's actually doing that. If you thought the Tesla was pretty broken pre-nerf, well...
Not sure yet if this affects anything else.
Get the feeling pubs are gonna get a whole lot more boring once most people start noticin' this.
Edit: 1 (+100) on Wildcat, haha. Not broken at all, no sir!
Everything the beam touches just kerplodes. Even the secondary arcing makes bugs turn into a fine green vapour. It's quite amazing to watch.
It is no easy task winning a 1v3. You must jump many a hurdle, bettering three armies, the smallest.
Aye, no mere man may win an uphill battle against thrice your men, it takes a courageous heart and will that makes steel look like copper. When you are that, then, and only then, may you win a 1v3.
I'm too biased to answer this question, because just the other day the same pubbie welded us out of the bridge control room in Deima Surface four times in a row.
We really need to do all the speed runs before the tesla gets nerfed again. I'll be in the chat room waiting for people.
alset85 on
override said: I can't wait until Toady causes pressurized water to be able to actually damage things. I want to hit goblins with a shit cannon of such pressure that the meat is ripped from their bones
I played a pub game earlier where the support guy brought a marksman rifle and ammo and neither of the two medics brought any medic gear.
EnglishBob on
0
Options
L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
Why is it whenever you do accidentally friendly fire someone, they always unload their entire clip into you?
A couple of times, with pubs, I've accidentally shot a guy with a round, maybe two tops, when they round the corner. Then they have to go and just unload. What the crap guys?
A couple of times, with pubs, I've accidentally shot a guy with a round, maybe two tops, when they round the corner. Then they have to go and just unload. What the crap guys?
Special weapons seem to be the worst about this and act like there is no friendly fire (even from people in the PA group). If I'm at an acceptable angle relative to a teammate (i.e. I wouldn't be shooting through them) I'll fire a quick burst at the drone that's attacking a teammate and let the autoaim worry about the details.
I have no remorse about friendly fire when someone runs in front of my minigun when I'm guarding our rear on Deimos Bridge, though.
EDIT: Fun fact - it's possible to beat Timor station when your whole team is dead. I'm not sure whether he touched the flap that lowered on the landing pad, but one guy got killed and knocked onto the Bloodhound on a pub last night and we were treated to a "Mission Complete" message in x-treme slo-mo.
Barrakketh on
Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
So if and when some good maps come out, can we get a list going in the OP or something?
I'd be happy to create the next thread's OP for this purpose, as I'm rabid to get into some new maps and I've been browsing the Swarm Armory forums to look at the works in progress.
Here's a couple promising screenshots from a WIP called "Whiteout", spoilered for huge:
and here's a really promising video (click through for HD) of a WIP called "The Facility":
This one's really impressive--notice how interactive the switches on the map are, and how there's (what seems to be) a laser beam trap oriented so that you have to roll through it to reach the switch to turn it off.
So, it looks like there's definitely talented mappers out there working on stuff that we'll be able to play soon! It's a good thing, too, because I took a look at some of the tutorials for working with the SDK and Hammer and I think it might be beyond my available free time.
Hmmm...can someone who has made a map for Alien Swarm tell me how difficult it is to make a map compared to one for, say, TF2/CS? I figured that since there's very little in the way of elevation changes in a top-down isometric shooter, it'd be an easier way to start learning the Source engine. Plus, y'know, I won't have to make roofs.
We really need to do all the speed runs before the tesla gets nerfed again. I'll be in the chat room waiting for people.
I did all the speed runs legitimately without ever using a Tesla. The flame thrower is way better for speed. It doesn't slow you down when you do a single puff of it and it stops an entire screen of aliens from hitting you.
I could still host with the unpatched tesla and people could connect to me just now. And then I restarted steam like an idiot and forced my game to update. Fuck!!!
alset85 on
override said: I can't wait until Toady causes pressurized water to be able to actually damage things. I want to hit goblins with a shit cannon of such pressure that the meat is ripped from their bones
Posts
Either that or they had another one RIGHT under it, and given how annoying the buggers are, it wouldn't surprise me.
Flamer has always been superior, especially on Hard/Insanity where the aliens are in literal hordes.
a whole squad with dual flamers or flamer/ammo crate is a win button.
I think the patch also broke the ignore two player console command. Can anyone verify?
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BlindProphet
I used it fine.
They did fix changing the weapons/health/run speed without sv_cheats. No more infinite hornets and health and super fast running for speed runs.
Steam | Live
I went into another game and the tesla cannon was fixed so I think the stats glitched for our game or something.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BlindProphet
Mine reset in the next game too.
Worked fine when I logged out and back in to the game though
Tesla Guns, Tesla Guns!
Your right, it's still busted. I guess the bug occurs randomly and depends on which character you pick. I doesn't work for some like Vegas.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BlindProphet
I'm going to try updating my video drivers, but this really shouldn't be necessary, as source games have never had issues on my PC.
It's getting +25 damage per shot per point of the Damage Bonus skill. Vegas doesn't have damage bonus, so it's normal when he uses it. Sarge, Wildcat, etc. have 3-4, so it's a one-shotting machine.
Was actually not bad and i made quite a lot of points off it.
Gamertag(SSF4/MW2)StokedAidzzzSC2 ID Stoked.655
Uploaded SC2 Replays
If I could suggest a few things to new players I've encountered, it would be these things:
1. much like real life, any bullets that don't hit an alien have a very high chance to hit your friends. With that said, don't shoot unless you KNOW it's going to hit aliens, and not your allies. Friendly Fire is by far the biggest problem for new players.
2. as a supplement to #1, while you'll want to avoid the drones (generic melee bugs) as much as possible, do NOT go strafing through your teammates' lines of fire. This is guaranteed to result in a friendly fire hit for you, and you'll be the one at fault. Whenever you're moving down a hallway, or through a door, keep in mind that you'll want to leave some room for your teammates to shoot through. hugging opposing walls in tight hallways helps.
3. Tesla Cannons and other electrical damage items will APPEAR to do a lot of damage, but when you see that shiny electrical effect covering an alien, that just means that they're slowed down. They still can (and will) attack you until you properly kill them.
4. Flamethrowers and explosive weapons do massive damage, both to swarm and to marines. Don't be that douche that keeps torching/exploding his teammates.
For techs, you'll encounter two types of hacking scenarios. The first one (for doors) will be a minigame requiring you to turn the circuit pieces to form a full linked circuit from one end to the other. The other (mission objective) hacks require you to adjust the movement of each of the 1 bits so that they line up horizontally. If you complete these before the small red indicator reaches the end of it's progress bar, you'll get a "fast hack" experience bonus, and eventually an achievement.
For medics, you'll eventually have two methods to heal your team. Initially you only have heal-packs, which have to be dropped, and create a healing force field bubble of sorts to heal any team members inside. I'm pretty sure you can drop multiple packs next to eachother to stack the healing effect (for infections, more on this later). Later you'll unlock the medi-gun, which behaves pretty much exactly like the medi-gun from TF2, without the ubercharge however. The medi-gun and heal-packs don't have infinite supply, so ideally your team is still avoiding getting hurt as much as possible. When the medic runs out of healing ability, people will start dying quickly, especially on hard/insanity runs. Lastly, infections are pretty much the worst thing that can happen to your healing supply, as they last quite a while and consume a lot of healing to keep the infected marine alive. Tesla Cannons and Electric Armor can reduce how long infections last, but the infected will still require healing to survive it. If a marine dies to infection, usually anywhere from 1 to 3 parasites will pop out of his/her corpse, which can quickly destroy an entire team if they pounce. SynTec residential and later levels have the highest frequency of parasite appearances, so be prepared for infections there, as they WILL happen.
For Special Weapons players - your main asset to the team is your massive main weapon, either an Autogun (great overall weapon, with auto-aim assist) or a Minigun. The upside of these guns is you can unload on groups of swarm, and watch as the piercing bullets mince them to bits. The downside, however, is that you only get two massive ammo magazines, and when you pick up ammo, you'll consume an entire ammo crate to get just one magazine for your autogun. This is generally bad for the rest of your team, as an ammo crate can give them anywhere from 5 to 10 magazines, depending on their weapon choice. The best way to offset this is to carry a secondary weapon you can fall back on for when you don't need the mowing power of your main gun. Alternately, you can just carry ammo packs in your second slot, so you can supply yourself at will.
For Officers, your vindicator will be your best friend. Regardless of which officer you pick, the vindicator will be one of your best weapon choices for him. Some officer players even fore-go a second weapon, instead doubling up on vindicators to maximize availability of the beast. Don't forget that the vindicator and the standard assault rifle both have grenade-launching alternate fire modes. The incendiary grenades on the vindicator are GREAT for clearing out swarm egg nests. If there's a mission where a tech is not needed, it is generally a good idea to double up on officers, then keep a SW guy and a medic.
This turned into quite a handful. I won't elaborate on which weapons to use, because a lot of that comes down to playstyle. Just make sure not to hoard your special item usage too much. Most maps are smaller than you'd think, and items get replenished between stages. If the situation looks like it's going to be troublesome, or someone's about to die, be a sport and use what you can to help.
I would like to extend the last point a bit though:
If it's useful now, then use it now.
Doesn't do you or your team any good if you die and force them to choose what gear they need to leave behind. This is especially painful on maps that require certain things, such as Residential's need for incendiary weaponry. You're given a generous loadout of grenades or mines or flares or whatever for a reason. Let the vets save their gear for when they know it'll be most effective, you just worry about keeping yourself and your teammates alive, even if it means using most, if not all, of your special-situation gear early on.
Better to die 50 feet from the exit with nothing to your name than to die 50 feet from the entrance with nary a bullet out the barrel.
That said, learn quick when it is appropriate to use said gear. A single drone doesn't legitimize using 4 grenades.
But a lone parasite jumping around like a maniac does :P
"asw_skill_accuracy_tesla_cannon_dmg_base" = "0" client cheat replicated
"asw_skill_accuracy_tesla_cannon_dmg_step" = "025" client cheat replicated
(It's supposed to be 0.25)
The worst.
On a scale of 1 - 10, where 10 = "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU", what's worse: A bad pub in this game, or a bad pub in Left 4 Dead 1/2?
I'd say L4D is worse. Maybe just because of VS.
All three of my teammates died before we made it to the ventilation ducts (in this case because of a random lag spike more than their lack of skill) and I had to complete the last third of the mission by myself and then survive the panic event while waiting for the elevator. Running around like an asshole spraying four clips of flamer fuel proved to be the correct strategy and I made it to the exit with about 20% health.
You could never, ever, ever survive that percentage of a map in L4D by yourself.
I'm too biased to answer this question, because just the other day the same pubbie welded us out of the bridge control room in Deima Surface four times in a row.
His defence? "u need 2 rush guys"
I took advantaged of this limited time offer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7XfW-w2V8g
Flamer is still better for solo runs though. It doesn't require as much reloads and it covers a larger firing arc.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BlindProphet
Chainsaw the door down on him while he's welding.
"You need to weld faster man."
Steam ID
Or you know, alternatively, you could get good enough to actually do them without relying on exploiting a bug.
A couple of times, with pubs, I've accidentally shot a guy with a round, maybe two tops, when they round the corner. Then they have to go and just unload. What the crap guys?
But have the decency to put him back out.
I have no remorse about friendly fire when someone runs in front of my minigun when I'm guarding our rear on Deimos Bridge, though.
EDIT: Fun fact - it's possible to beat Timor station when your whole team is dead. I'm not sure whether he touched the flap that lowered on the landing pad, but one guy got killed and knocked onto the Bloodhound on a pub last night and we were treated to a "Mission Complete" message in x-treme slo-mo.
I'd be happy to create the next thread's OP for this purpose, as I'm rabid to get into some new maps and I've been browsing the Swarm Armory forums to look at the works in progress.
Here's a couple promising screenshots from a WIP called "Whiteout", spoilered for huge:
and here's a really promising video (click through for HD) of a WIP called "The Facility":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft5rsFOGBwU
This one's really impressive--notice how interactive the switches on the map are, and how there's (what seems to be) a laser beam trap oriented so that you have to roll through it to reach the switch to turn it off.
So, it looks like there's definitely talented mappers out there working on stuff that we'll be able to play soon! It's a good thing, too, because I took a look at some of the tutorials for working with the SDK and Hammer and I think it might be beyond my available free time.
I did all the speed runs legitimately without ever using a Tesla. The flame thrower is way better for speed. It doesn't slow you down when you do a single puff of it and it stops an entire screen of aliens from hitting you.
I abused the crap out of it
Now I'm back to rocking the FlAm0rzzzz!!!!111
Steam ID