Like knowing all the structures, upgrades, costs, etc? If I do it on a public server people jus eject me for bein a newb OR alien attacks interrupt my learning, especially with building things at far end of tech tree(heavy armor and stuff) and I cant do it on a LAN game cuz I cant buy/upgrade anything until each side has at least 1 player.

Firstly, welcome to the forums.

Secondly, download the v1.03 "server" patch if your heart so desires.

Thirdly, download the Natural-Selection bots. (They are at v0.153 last time I checked)

Fourthly, make a LAN game and add some bots. (Hopefully some will join the marine side)

Fiftly, Learn away (you can put sv_cheats to 1 and kick all the alien bots if you want)!

EDIT: If you don't want to do all that, just put sv_cheats on (sv_cheats 1) and you'll beable to build stuff (you'll have to get out and built it if you don't put the "bigdig" cheat on, just type "bigdig" in the console)

Welcome to the boards!

As Unknown said, the best way to learn the tech tree, resource costs, and map layouts is to play a LAN game with a few bots.

When you're actually in-game though, commanding is *tough.* You won't find many good commanders, because it's a tough role to play. No one wants a new player commanding them, so if you jump in and start messing around, you will most likely be ejected.

If you join a server and your team is pretty well-secured and you don't stand a chance of losing, just tell the current commander you want to learn and ask if you can jump in for a few minutes. They shouldn't really have much of a problem with it.

On the other hand, try jumping in when your team doesn't really stand a chance - it'll give you practice prioritizing things when you've got 6 guys screaming for health and ammo.

I'm a pretty good commander (or that's what the rest of the people in-game say, anyway), and I attribute it to having played RTS games for the last 9 years.

well...there is one problem with the practice-while-ur-winning idea...the Marines have NEVER won a single game that I ever went in. I wanna learn this so I can hopefully get a team to win for once.

QUOTE (Butt monkey salad @ Dec 17 2002, 07:31 PM)

well...there is one problem with the practice-while-ur-winning idea...the Marines have NEVER won a single game that I ever went in. I wanna learn this so I can hopefully get a team to win for once.

You need to play some more.

I do see aliens win more often, but I'm amazed you've never had marines win *once.*

I havent really commanded people yet(only for like 3 minutes maybe)but in every game Ive played since I first played, never saw marines winning. I think a commanders general mistake is, like, putting in more turrets than are needed EARLY on and thats why we dont even reach NEAR heavy armor technology by the time aliens have 3-4 fades and 1-2 onos. In every game (cept 1 where I saw what heavy armor looked like for the first time and possibly last time) the aliens have at least 1 fade b4 we even get 1 upgrade in anything.

BTW, any strats/tips would be appreciated. Right now Im sticking to 1 map, ns_eclipse since it seems to have fairly simple layout.

QUOTE (Butt monkey salad @ Dec 17 2002, 08:08 PM)

I havent really commanded people yet(only for like 3 minutes maybe)but in every game Ive played since I first played, never saw marines winning. I think a commanders general mistake is, like, putting in more turrets than are needed EARLY on and thats why we dont even reach NEAR heavy armor technology by the time aliens have 3-4 fades and 1-2 onos. In every game (cept 1 where I saw what heavy armor looked like for the first time and possibly last time) the aliens have at least 1 fade b4 we even get 1 upgrade in anything. BTW, any strats/tips would be appreciated. Right now Im sticking to 1 map, ns_eclipse since it seems to have fairly simple layout.

In a larger game (20 players or so) the marines have a better change of winning. In a small game (8 players) they have a lower chance. Try joining larger games to experience a fully-upgraded marine team winning, and join smaller games to be the commander and practice (I've done that a couple times in small games because no one else would command and I had to do it. Sure we lost but I was learning).

So get the bots and try it out there. Read-up on the strategies for commanders on the Frontiersmen Strategy forum after you know how a commander works.

I had a couple nice long games this morning where I was the commander. The game size was about 3-4 players for the first and 2-4 players for the second (started out as 2). They didn't stand a chance because they weren't very good at aliens, but it gave me good experience in the chair. I took real long, but I didn't have anyone else to build for me (first game my teammate decidec he wants to turn the base into fork knox and he succeeds, but not once does the aliens go after our main base, as I told him they wouldn't...) and also they didn't bother attacking so I decided to build-up. Very successful games I'd say.

I've downloaded the bot, so now I can do more practicing speeding-up my attacks.

To learn the basics of commanding and the structure costs and abilitys and even formations. Create a LAN game, in the console type sv_chats 1 (so you can play 1 player) and ns_toweramount 100 (so you get resources faster) join marines and start building. Then you can switch to aliens and try assaulting your own defences.

QUOTE (Unknown @ Dec 17 2002, 05:06 PM)

Secondly, download the v1.03 "server" patch if your heart so desires.

Server 1.03? isn't that for people with there own server? You could download this with a home computer?

I STILL DONT KNOW HOW TO INSTALL THE v1.3 SERVER PATCH!!!!!!!!!!

I KNOW HOW!

Just point whatever you're using to extract it to %HLFOLDER%\ns. You'll get a 'do you want to overwrite blah blah' message for a few items, just say yes. It won't affect your client, but if you're running a server, even for local testing, there's some changes which you should be up to date on.