TGMC:Crusher
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This page is a part of the TGMC wiki.
TGMC is a project based on the CM-SS13 codebase. |
| UNDEFINED XENO | |
 Crusher |
Difficulty: Intermediate |
Statistics and Evolution Path
The Crusher is a Tier 3 caste and does not evolve further.
- Slash the damage dealt when slashing marines. In the code, it is referred to as melee_damage.
- Melee, bullet, laser, energy, bomb, bio, rad, fire, and acid are soft armor values representing the percent reduction in damage received of that type. Most relevant in most cases are the "melee, bullet, laser, bomb, and fire" values.
- Speed is calculated inversely, meaning the lower speed value you have, the faster you are. Xenomorphs are always running, meaning they have a -1.0 boost added to their base speed. (Chart displays running speed)
- Toss Distance is how many tiles you'll be able to fling something with Crest Toss.
| Health | Plasma | Slash  |
Speed | Max Charge Speed | Melee | Bullet | Laser | Energy | Bomb | Bio | Fire | Acid | Crest Toss Distance | |
| Base | 400 | 400 | 24 | -1.1 | -3.2 | 90 | 75 | 75 | 75 | 130 | 100 | 40 | 100 | 6 |
The Crusher
The Crusher is a well armored bruiser and a valuable siege-breaker capable of destroying fortifications. The Crusher leads front-line assaults, smashing through almost anything in its path.
Playing the Crusher
You are a caste vital for tearing down heavy fortifications and serving as a highly effective frontline troop capable of making openings for other xenomorphs to take advantage of. Your main objectives are:
- Charge into barricades, walls, sandbags, and sentries to damage and destroy them.
- Charge through lines of marines, knocking them over and making them vulnerable to your allies.
- Stomp horizontal marines, inflicting serious injury.
- Toss cadehugging marines out from behind barricades using Crest Toss. Ideally into the clutches of a waiting Shrike.
- Use Crest Toss to throw marines out of position or away from your injured allies.
- Act as a highly potent bruiser, capable of taking heavy damage and dealing it right back at your foes.
- Deliberately set off mines. You have the most explosive resistance of any caste and will take very little damage from them.
- Keep in mind that while you are very strong and durable, you are less strong and durable than you think and focused fire will quickly kill you.
While your Charge ability is active, you will begin to build up speed after traveling 7 tiles (one screen length) in a straight line. As soon as your Charge triggers you will make a stomping sound that both you and marines can hear. While in this state you are immune to staggering effects. As long as you continue to move in straight line you will steadily gain more momentum and speed until you reach your maximum speed at 14 tiles. The more momentum you build up, the more damage you will do to anything you collide with. Using charge you are able to run through weaker objects like tables, lockers, window frames, etc. but these objects are capable of slowing you or even stopping you if you have not built up enough speed. In general you want to take advantage of long straight corridors in which to charge through so you can maximize your effectiveness, but even without that you can still knock down marines and steadily tear up marines even with a weaker charge.
There are a few important things to keep in mind while charging.
- Charging will constantly drain your plasma, so manage it carefully as you will stop charging as soon as you run out of plasma. You can deactivate your Charge ability in order to conserve your plasma when you aren't charging.
- Remember the help intent shuffle. You will often be charging into groups of marines that will try to body block you to prevent your retreat. You can't be body blocked as long as you are on help intent, as it forces the marine to switch tiles with you. Switch to help intent as you try to move away from the marines and you will be able to freely move.
- Be mindful of what you are charging into, the help intent shuffle will not save you from particularly dense crowds of marines or serious hazards.
- Razor wire will ensnare you for five entire seconds if you run into it. If there's even a single marine around when this happens, you're probably dead.
- Plasteel barricades are one of your greatest threats. Marines may open the barricade as you charge into it in order to let you inside their fortifications, before closing the barricade behind you. At this point you are trapped and will is most situations quickly get gunned down unless there is another opening to escape through. If it all possible focus down metal barricades or sandbags instead.
- Charging into a turret instantly destroys it. Smart marines will put turrets behind plasteel barricates, but most will not. Take advantage if you can, but it's more important to avoid getting trapped than it is to kill a single sentry.
Stomp and Crest Toss are your other abilities used for crowd-control and securing kills for your allies. They are moderately lethal in a one-on-one fight and you may be able to defeat marines lacking a shotgun when you're familiar with the Crusher's abilities, but it is always better to have backup.
Stomp is an ability intended for use when standing on top of a horizontal marine, or multiple, even if they manage to stand up while you share the tile. On activation you will crush the marine beneath your feet inflicting a ton of damage. Other castes such as Praetorian are also good at knocking marines over and making them vulnerable to Stomp. Work well with your fellow xenomorphs and you will be incredibly effective.
Crest Toss throws a target that's directly in front of you over your head, sending them flying a few tiles behind you while on any other intent other than harm intent. This ability can even be used across barricades, tossing the marine out of cover and making them vulnerable to your allies. On harm intent the ability will instead throw the target a few tiles away from you, which can be incredibly useful for getting a marine away from a heavily injured ally. You can also use Crest Toss on xenomorphs. Think about it.
Uniquely, the Crusher can also pick up smaller xenomorphs and carry them around, protecting them while giving them incredible mobility. This can be done by grabbing them and clicking on yourself, or them doing the same to you. This is best done with a Spitter, but they can't use their scatter spit while on your back, and they still have to stand still to use their acid spray. Do be extra careful however because they may still take a bit of damage while on top of you, and they are significantly less tanky than you. Crusher riding is about mildly effective, however it can become a deadly force when using rapid advance as a quick getaway. Using rapid advance to get away will allow you to charge in, crest throw and potentially stomp a marine, and with the added damage from a spitter it can be a deadly combo in the event you hit them with the charge.
Rapid advance is most notably used for breaching in areas without enough space to get a run-up, and for quickly escaping a tough spot and crushing marines who aren't expecting a crusher to crush the same lane in the same 2 seconds. It has a fairly lengthy cooldown for an ability that can save your life and allow you to crush walls before marines can think to run away from the wall. Another big use of the ability is to allow yourself to quickly get out of a plasteel cade trap (where they open plasteels cades and close them before you can get out).
Also, as being the xeno with the best armor, you absolutely need to be stuck to recovery pheros like a plasma-addict and any time your sundur goes down 25%, your survivability plumets to that of a slower warrior. Keeping yourself at 95% and above sundur is key to surviving. Asking a prae or the king to give out warding pheros will also more than double your survivability, albeit you will still take a LOT of sundur if you try to tank.
Crusher Abilities
| Ability | Description | Plasma Cost | Cooldown |
 Toggle Bump Attacks |
Allows you to toggle bump attacks on and off. This allows you to slash any enemy creature by running into them. The red arrow means it's on, you attack when on HARM intent; the green arrow means it's off, you push when on HARM intent. | N/A | N/A |
|---|---|---|---|
 Rest |
Used to rest and get up. You heal faster when resting on weeds. | N/A | 2 seconds |
 Psy Drain |
This ability is used on dead Marines. For every Marine's psyche drained, the Hive will gain between 30 and 90 psychic points, depending on the number of Marines spawned; and 1/8 of a larva. | 50 | N/A |
 Toggle Charging |
Toggles charging while moving. Speed and plasma consumption scales with how long you have been moving in one direction. Unable to charge diagonally. Upon contact with an entity, you will deal roughly 22.5 brute damage while still charging. | Avg. 3 per tile | N/A |
 Stomp |
Inlicts a lot of damage and stuns all targets on the same tile. Knocks down all adjacent targets briefly and tosses them a tile away, hurting them a bit. | 100 | 20 Seconds |
 Crest Toss |
Throws an adjacent target behind you, sending them flying 3-6 tiles away and doing damage. Works across barricades. If on harm intent, Crest Toss will instead throw the target away from you. | 100 | 12 Seconds |
Primordial Evolution
Once the hive has enough psychic points, your queen has the option to unlock powerful primordial evolutions for each strain. Primordial evolutions grant additional abilities for the relevant class.
For the Crusher, this primordial ability is Rapid Advance.
| Ability | Description | Plasma Cost | Cooldown |
|---|---|---|---|
 Rapid Advance |
Charges up the crushers charge, then unleashes the full bulk of the crusher into a direction. Any direction can be chosen, not only cardinal ones. | 175 | 30 |
Tips & Tricks
- Charging through a sentry will tip it over and render them useless unless marines put the sentry back atop.
- Your charge is just as good at destroying marine squads as it is breaking down barricades, but be careful how you use it. Don't be afraid to pull back before you charge through a group of marines if there are too many and it looks like you could be trapped. Play carefully and remember to use help intent and crest toss to get yourself out of a bad position.
- Crushers are very strong fighters overall, so don't be afraid to fight alongside other melee castes. You don't always have to be ramming things.
- Bodyblock for downed xenos when you can, but remember that you're actually less resilient than a fortifying Defender, and far more valuable at tier 3 than they are at tier 1. Don't get carried away.
- Sadly, you cannot damage tanks with your charge, and the tanks main cannon may very well strip you of a lot of armor. You are still immune to explosives though so you are the best xeno to take shells from it and shrug them off to keep the tank from attacks the castes that can deal more damage to the tank.
| TGMC Roles 
| ||
| TerraGov Marines | Command | Captain, Field Commander, Staff Officer, Pilot Officer, Transport Officer, Mech Pilot |
| Vehicle Crew | Assault Crewman, Transport Crewman | |
| Engineering and Supply | Chief Ship Engineer, Requisitions Officer, Ship Technician | |
| Medical | Chief Medical Officer, Medical Doctor, Researcher | |
| Marines | Squad Leader, Squad Smartgunner, Squad Engineer, Squad Corpsman, Squad Marine | |
| Civilians | Corporate Liaison | |
| Silicon | Combat robots, Synthetic, AI | |
| Xenomorphs | Tier 0 | Larva, Minions |
| Tier 1 | Drone, Runner, Defender, Sentinel | |
| Tier 2 | Hivelord, Carrier, Hunter, Wraith, Bull, Warrior, Puppeteer, Spitter | |
| Tier 3 | Gorger, Defiler, Widow, Ravager, Warlock, Behemoth, Crusher, Praetorian, Boiler | |
| Tier 4 | Shrike, Queen, King, Hivemind | |
| Others | Zombie, Emergency Response Teams, Sons of Mars, | |