Ok well rested friends. You must be new to Natural Selection. Here is the basic lowdown of tips and hints to make your transition all the easier.

Lets start with the Marines. Why? Because you WILL start as a marine. As a Marine you have someone else telling you (ordering) where to go and what to do, and you WILL stay close to the other Marines and thus have the illusion of safety in numbers. You are not good enough to play Alien, yet.

Life as a Marine:  
You build. You stay near the group. You follow your orders.
You shoot any enemy that attacks.

You DONT become Commander. You DONT chatter on the Headset. You DONT make demands. You DONT shoot at enemy structures without being instructed to do so. You DONT whine for stuff.

Simple. Like I said.

I hear the "whys". I hear the questions. But just listen up! You are a soldier. You do not question your orders, you just follow them.

Marine Relations:
You will need the squad's love more than they need yours. In fact, your joy in the game will be significantly effected by whether the Commander likes you. Here is the simple plan how to get the Commander’s respect and how to help your squad and yourself.

- When you spawn after dying, stay at base and Ammo up, awaiting orders and/or teammates. Never run off alone.

- Do not demand weapons/ammo/health.  You are not part of the elite team that deserves this. You are Skulk Bait.

- Do not take weapons that are specifically dropped for other Marines. This pisses off your team, and you do not deserve the weapons. They are worthy, not you.

- Do not harass the Commander for Orders. He is not there to entertain you. Let him know once that you are available, then defend the base.

So what do you do then, to get to be a part of the heavy armored, jetpak wearing, HMG toting Marine death squad you envy?

- Wait at base till they respawn and load up. Then follow them offering support and, like I said, bait.

- Learn from them, get involved in their tasks, do the building, and make a difference.

These guys are the ONLY ones the Commander is watching, protecting and outfitting. Mind your tongue, help them out, and suddenly you are part of that group.

Or you can go back to the Losers hanging around base whining for a shotgun. Your choice.

Now go, play, and enjoy the death fade to black. Again and again. Trust me it will be fun.

Marine goal:

Marines have a pretty simple Mission. Accomplishing it is where it gets difficult.

1)  Build defenses around main base.
2)  Obtain more resource collectors, perhaps build a second base or defensive position.
3)  Take a hive and build defenses within it.
4)  Make sure upgrades or research path is developing.
5)  Take a second hive and build defenses within it.
6)  Constantly respond to these defensive position and base being attacked.
7)  Take out the third hive.
8)  Hunt down remaining Aliens.

Final Marine Hints:

-  Marines must be offensive. If you do not get out of Base quick enough and take control of a Hive room, you have lost.

- Do not forget to defend Base. I have seen many times a game where the Marines are winning and then suddenly no Commander.  A Skulk had sneaked into base and wiped out the Commander and the Commanding Station.

- Cover the builders, check the ceilings before advancing and have one Marine checking behind you as you advance. These Aliens come out of nowhere and fast!

Aliens  

Ah, played Marines enough and think you have the game down. Lets flip it over then. I hope you learned the maps pretty well as a marine, because now they just got TWICE as complicated.

Welcome to life as an Alien.
No you can't be a Loner.

Sure other guys can go it alone. But they don't suck. They actually kill more than they get killed. Their constant feeding helps the team.

You are not them. And the Hive is counting on you to help the team. Really.

Here are the simple steps:

1 - You start as a Skulk. Follow the other skulks to learn path to the marine base. Congrats, you have passed the first test and you now are a hunter. Move on to step 3.

2 - You failed to even follow your teammates. So evolve into a Builder (Gorge). Exception to this rule is if there are already 50% of the team becoming Gorge. You do not want an Alien team of just GOrges. That means Death.

Ok Gorge, do NOT build any upgrade chambers (movement, defensive and sensory). You have no clue which upgrade chamber the Aliens should choose first, second or third on this map. How could you?

You can build NO MORE THAN 5 offensive chambers near the first hive. You can also go explore the map, placing resource chambers where you can. Do NOT say you will go build a hive, because you won’t find it or live long enough to do it. Just go, run off, be quiet and stay away from trouble for at least 10-15 minutes.

3 - Hunter! As a Skulk you have learned the path to the Marines and you have died quickly. Rinse and repeat 5 or 6 more times. We do not expect you to KILL any marines, as you have no skills for that. But maybe you can harass them enough to slow their process some, or at least distract them so WE can kill them. Here are some simple Skulk hunting tips:

- If the marines know where you are, don’t charge them.

- Do not go over to that other Skulk hidden in the corner, or you will blow his cover. Find your own damn hiding spot.

- Charge and attack when you see other Skulks attack. Let the biting spam begin.

- You are more effective lurking around a corner making the Marine's sweat your presence for 5 minutes than KILLING one marine. Keep that in mind before you charge that gunfire. A Skulk chuckling in the shadows keeps more Marines at bay than you can ever hope to kill.

- If Marines are cleared, try to destroy the infranty portal first.

- The ceiling is your best friend.

- Parasite. Parasite. Parasite. Always parasite before attacking.

- If the marines are starting to explore further out, pick a spot, lay in wait and then drop on their heads. Element of Surprise is your best weapon.

Your job for the first 10-15 minutes is to slow the Marines progress and expansion.

4 - The game is 15 minutes old and hopefully your has a second hive. Welcome to defense, the life of the Alien Side. See, you have 2-3 places to defend, the Marines often just one. You will spend much more time running to save a hive than ever. Here is what you do in the middle game.

Skulk - remain Skulk if low on RPs or if your team needs attacker’s quick, such as the case when a hive is under attack. Otherwise, upgrade to a more advanced Alien.

Gorge - build up defenses and webs around hives. Also build more chambers offering abilities to your fellow Aliens. Gorge can also go to battle scenes as a medic, healing the attacking aliens, placing webs, and building offensive chambers.

Advanced Aliens:

The Lerk (flyer)

This is your first  (and with one hive, your only) distant fighter. Very weak armor, but hard to hit if it KEEPS MOVING. Start with the machine gun needles and learning the art of flying (it really is an art in this game).

- Learn to find high hidden perches. The skies are yours alone until the marines get Jetpacks.

- Attract enemies by playing the wounded bird hopping on the floor, then hightail it out of there when they approach. You are great bait to get them to advance and become lunch for your hidden Skulks.

With 2 hives, you get the Umbra ability. This defensive cloud gives you the armor your need, but quickly exposes your location. You shouldn’t be stationary to begin with, so get flying! Umbra’s true strength is when you spray an area to protect your fellow charging aliens, not yourself.

The final ability is your spore cloud. This cloud of poison forces the marines to move out of their well defended positions, thus opening them up to attack from your brothers. A great element of this attack is that it is silent. You can be hidden up in the rafters shooting spore clouds on the marines below without being revealed.

Final thought on the Lerk, one of the most versatile and fun aliens. You also have a nasty bite, and you can close the distance faster than any other alien. So get chompin!

The Fade (tank)

This nicely armored alien is the devastating range fighting machine. Your  Acid rockets and later on, your bilebomb does great damage and has splash damage. Launching this artillery  under the protection of a Lerk’s Umbra or a Gorge healing is a near unstoppable force, and this example is what I mean about Teamplay as an Alien.

The Fade also can close distance fast with the Blink ability. It also works very nicely as a get-away tool. Once close to the enemy, the Fade’s swipe attack is devastating.

- The bilebomb is the most effective weapon at taking out structures from a distance. It is this ability and the Evolved Alien called the Ohnos that brings out the Marine phrase "Game over man!"

- The Fade is very difficult in juggling abilities. To launch an acid rocket and a bilebomb, then fade up to the marines and start swiping like a blender, you need to switch weapons numerous times. Until you get very good at this difficult key manipulation in the heat of battle, start by sticking with one or two forms of attack at a time. (just stay at range, for instance).

5 - Alien Endgame:

Aliens have three hives, and are now cleaning the map. Here are some thoughts.

- Advance on Marine fortified positions with the devastation  of protected Fades fighting from range.

- The final Skulk ability of Xenocide is truly amazing.  An entire counter-attack Marine squad rushing to take out a hive can be wiped out by this device. Drop into the middle of them and explode. Simple and Deadly.

- The final Gorge ability is basically Bot-Skulks. A-I controlled Skulks that you spew forth that can cause havoc to the marines caught in your webs. Yes, The Gorge is now a Hunter as well.

You will eventually have the marines down to just defending their base. Send in the Ohnos and watch the beauty. We will not discuss the Ohnos because this is a beginner’s guide, and the beginner is not ready for such an Alien. Not that the Ohnos is that difficult to use, but nothing is more sad than seeing one rendered useless due to poor play.  One hint - an Ohnos can not do much of anything versus Marines up on ledges or turrets up on crates.

6 - The Marines are pinned down ,gasping for air in the spore cloud, getting bilebomed to death, and their structures and turrets are slowly getting destroyed.

Just outside of the base, the Gorges builds Regeneration Chambers for Aliens to fall back to. Offensive Chambers are can be built closer to base to aid in the battle.

The Marines are respawning like mad. They will fight to the bitter end. Your main goal at this point? Destroy the Infantry spawn Portals. With these gone, there is no more Marine Reinforcements and just the lonely Commander quivering in the Command chair.

Final Alien Hints:

- Make the Marines fear you, with unconditional attacks, Surprise death from the ceiling, and that rich Alien chuckle from the shadows. This makes the Marines more cautious and defensive, and if they are not advancing and advancing quickly, they usually lose.

- Parasite the Marines and keep them in view. Hive sight is an amazing tool, and much faster than typing "I need help with 4 marines and the water hive".

- The vents are your secret passageways to get to the enemy fast. Use them, learn them, and defend them.

- Do NOT gestate into a new Alien out in open view. Use hidden corners, well defended hives, and vents.

So that is it, a basic guide for beginners to Natural Selection. Most of all, have fun. There is no rush to be the best, and the most powerful team is the one that works together.  

Like I said earlier,

Enjoy the fade to black.

edits -
Changed references to Lerks where I meant Skulks
Added GOrge point that there should not be too many Builders at once.

wow thanks
i will try again soon

BTW is there a key to 'chuckle' as an alien?

Nice guide KidC.

As for the chuckle:
I'm not sure if there is a hotkey, but on the pop up menu it's, down-left-up. You can do it real quick without waiting for the text once you get the hang of it. Kind of like a reverse smiley face gesture For marines the same gesture does a random taunt. The perfect finishing touch for the dead enemy to hear before they switch to follow cam or spawn back in.

Very good guide, thanks

 

Nice post, helped out alot.

Pulls no punches, I like it.  Thanks for taking the time to write it.

I liked the quit your whining part

I don't need it, but thanks for your time to help others.
I don't want to say I'm a show-off, but I like finiding ways to learn by myself, discovering tactics and stuffs, and it works really well for me. I already got used to the two sides! But I won't denie it learned me some things about the Onos, don't want to say I suck using this one, but let say that the first time I evolved in it, it was quite painfull   , but now it's getting better.
 

Extremely informative for this absolute newbie here, As I haven't even gotten in a game yet    Think I will spectate a lot of matches as well. Thxs again for your time.

Ouch.... I gatta start fixing my behavior as a marine. As a marine, it's not shameful to die as a bait. You dont even have a personal score.

hey man thats a leet guide for n00bies like myself

i feel a new confidence and i am gonna go play NS now



thanks alot dude  

Quote (ub3rbr0k3 @ Nov. 01 2002,18:34)

Ouch.... I gatta start fixing my behavior as a marine. As a marine, it's not shameful to die as a bait. You dont even have a personal score.

actuly i think you do...

hehe nice one, but it would be SO MUCH cooler if you would see that in a game...................................

Wow, that was a good guide! But i guess i should start off with the hazard course before i get too confident about multiplayer

Wow good guide... now I know what to do for the beginning, and how to better use the Skulk!

thanks for that. much knowledge was gained

yep. great guide.

thx kid c... very nice guide... learned me alot

hail kid c

Very very nice guide I will use those tactics in my next game.

thx a heap for the guide. i've been looking for a while (ok a day) for a basic guide like this to play, and its really helpful. what would be even more helpful is a detailed guide to being a commander. i mean being a playtester, u have to assume that you have been playing for ages, and u know the game, the newbies out there in MP land dont.  So atm we in aus are all newbies, and noone knows how to command very well.  doesnt help much.  anyway yeah good guide, well done, much appreciated.

Is this why every game I join has 12 marines and 3 aliens?  I know the commandment was for newbs to always play marines, but it seems pretty dumb to when everyone else always plays them too.  "I'm the f*&king commander because I was a beta tester.  Now go out and kill those two aliens for an hour."  Fun.

Anyway, aliens aren't that much harder to figure out than the marines.  Unfortunately I haven't yet been in a game where the aliens had more than 2 hives so I don't know much about their endgame.

Maybe this guide is why servers keep ending up with 8 marines, 4 aliens, and half the commanders booted out.

Good Guide dude ! It teached me alot
Anyway, can someone tell me why te Skulk Teeth doesnt do that much damage as the first machine gun from the Marines  

NiW, Game On  

It was good, but It would've been MUCH better had you said WHY one shouldn't build certain buildings, or whine about things, or not play certain aliens. Still, for the n00b that wants to jump in fast and figure more advanced things out later, its good.

THERE IS NO HAZARD COURSE, the button is in by mistake.

Most important thing for beginning players to know.

Oh, and use All Seeing Eye to find servers, the built-in browser insists on refreshing all 30000 cstrike servers as well.

AWESOME guide, especially for someone (like me) who is completely new to the game upon release.

Will be using a lot of the advice posted there in my first real gaming session with NS tonight.

TJ out.

THERE IS NO HAZARD COURSE, the button is in by mistake.

Most important thing for beginning players to know.

Oh, and use All Seeing Eye to find servers, the built-in browser insists on refreshing all 30000 cstrike servers as well.

Are you sure you're not running the game from the desktop-shortcut? If you're running it from the start menu it should work fine.

QUOTE (Wolv @ Nov 5 2002, 08:39 AM)

THERE IS NO HAZARD COURSE, the button is in by mistake. Most important thing for beginning players to know. Oh, and use All Seeing Eye to find servers, the built-in browser insists on refreshing all 30000 cstrike servers as well. Are you sure you're not running the game from the desktop-shortcut? If you're running it from the start menu it should work fine.

The shortcuts are identical, I checked.

I think the cause for this is the first two masters timing out all the time when updating, the backup one must not support querying servers of only X type.

QUOTE

Lets start with the Marines. Why? Because you WILL start as a marine. As a Marine you have someone else telling you (ordering) where to go and what to do, and you WILL stay close to the other Marines and thus have the illusion of safety in numbers. You are not good enough to play Alien, yet.

I would like to add to this and disagree a bit. Don't be afraid to join aliens if they are terribly outnumbered! Even if you are new to the game, if marines outnumber aliens 2-1 or something extreme as that, don't join the marines! The aliens could use you no matter how inexperienced you are at that point.

Besides that one little thing in that instance, listen to Kidc!

A well writen guide for new NS players.

Very good.

Thumbs up!

Nice guide.

To fix the query all servers and hazard course, left click on the desktop icon and under 'start in' type 'C:\SIERRA\Half-Life' if you use hl. (With no ') And make sure you have your filters set if you use the ingame browser.

Lag Adders v1.03 "Alien facts for beginners" Guide

Sooo... I made a lil brainstorming and came up with
a few tips for alien newcomers. I hope they help a bit.

How to respawn when you're stuck
As a beginner it is likely to end up stuck somewhere (most
of the time as gorge being caught in a building you created).
Bring up the console by using the '~' - key (called tilde), then
type 'kill' and press enter. You'll suicide and respawn.

Alien Resources
Each alien has its own resource account, so don't think
the number of resources you see is the amount for your
whole team. It's all yours! (You still should use it wisely
to get the highest benefit for your team).

Alien Buildings
Alien buildings grow all by themselves. Although, as a
gorge you can use the 'use button' (default key is 'E') to
speed up the building process, when standing next to a
growing building. (note: you can't use this to repair buildings).

Gorge Healing Spray
As a gorge, you cannot only heal fellow aliens but also alien
structures with your healing spray (weapon no 2).

Alien Defense Chambers
Alien defense chambers heal not only the aliens but also the
alien buildings. The more defense chambers in the area,
the stronger the healing effect.

Marine Turret's vulnerable spot: the Turret Factory
Marine Turrets go offline as soon as their nearby turret factory
is destroyed, letting you chew them down one by one without
firing at you.

Webflinging like Spider-Man (almost)
To make reasonable good webs, you need to consider that a
web strand always consists of 2 shots. One is the beginning of
the web and the second shot the end spot. Once an enemy
steps into it he'll be slowed and unable to attack for a moment.

Flame-Symbols on Doorways
The little flaming symbol on airduct openings and doors actually
means, that marines can use a welder on it (to weld it shut as far
as I know, there may be a few that are actually opened with a welder).
So if you play alien, just keep it in mind but don't stand there and
try the use button on it. It won't do anything for us aliens.

Using Marine Tripmines to Alien's advantage
You can shoot marine tripmines to blow up marines standing next to them.

Marine Infantry Teleporters
You can actually use marine infantry teleporters as well. But beware - those
will bring you into the nmy base (90% of the time). So if your team is still
struggling for control of the level, it is usually wiser to destroy it than to use it.

Movement Chambers
The movement chamber acts as teleporter. It will bring you to the hive you are
farthest away from. You can also use it as a gorge to free yourself, if you got
stuck building something else.

Doing Area Damage with Fade Acid Rockets
The fade acid rocket (fade's weapon no2) does more damage when you
shoot at the ceiling directly above your target. This also makes a very
effective area of effect damage.

Stay in Skulk Form to go where you need to go
Most of the time it is smarter to look for resource nodes or enemy buildings in
your starting form. Once you reached your destination, look for a good hiding
place and then morph into gorg or onos. This way you can reach your destination
much faster and you didn't lose resources if you get shot on your way.

Gorges, use your babblers!!!
Once your team has 3 hives, Gorges get their 4th (and coolest) weapon: Babblers!
They look like normal skulks, but basically they work like the snarks from Half-Life.
It is very amusing to see those marines wasting their costly ammo on a bunch of
illusionary Skulks. They're also nice to assist fellow aliens in an attack. Or eating up
an unguarded base... etc. etc. ... do whatever you want with them, but USE THEM!


Have fun experimenting with these tips I'm sure in time
you'll come up with even cooler stuff!

Edit: Removed a paragraph that became obsolete since 1.02

Quite good a guide. I can't say if it helped or not, as I'm still sitting in File-f***ing-Planet's DL queue for the newest Half-Life patch (found out about NS today!), but one point of discontent regarding the guide:

I was almost put off from reading the guide by your overly harsh "You are **obscenity**, I tell you!"-attitude in the Marine part of the guide. It might be true, but you can tell it less self-centeredly...

I can exclaim that "I can probably kick most of your **obscenity** in Warhammer 40.000!", but I won't. Why? Because it's an apparent thing that new players are not as good as the "ol' graybeards" are. And, as seasoned scarfaces you should encourage new players to their role of "bait". Tell them it's for the better of all; For The Greater Good! That way, you won't have discontent rebels groaning about their low position and whining for whatnots...

@ LagAdder: That Alien guide you just posted was much better than the guide this post was founded off of. For content anyhow. Should make a stand alone post of that, if you haven't already.

I personally didn't like this guide. It did talk about some basic tactics, but the read was awful. I did in fact read this before I actually played, but by the time I was done reading it, I decided to do exactly the opposite of much of what you said. Esspecially when someone tells me that I 'WILL' do something, I almost always 'WON'T'. So I didn't, and it paid off. I joined Aliens first, and learned all their functionality. I immediately went fade and started taking out anything and everything with acid. The last thing I learend to do was build. SO glad I went the other way around. I saw the map, and the enemy I was fighting, in CQB. It's much easier to fight an enemy you KNOW rather than one you've only seen once before you died.

As for the Marines, I didn't listen to my commander. He was a moron. And I did solo. And I learned the enemy. When we finally got a Commander that didn't have a death wish for his troops or thought he was god, we listened, used TW, and had a grand ole time destroying Hives.

But hey, to each his own.

"You do not question your orders, you just follow them."

I think i'll avoid Servers with KidC in them. He sounds quite bossy

Nice topic KidC, well done

Aacheron:

QUOTE

Quite good a guide. I can't say if it helped or not, as I'm still sitting in File-f***ing-Planet's DL queue for the newest Half-Life patch

FilePlanet's public DL's are lame. Use it to get the exact filename you're looking for, then plug that filename into FileMirrors.com. You might have to try 3 or 4 of resulting DL sites to find one that's really speedy, but in the time it takes to find that site and get the file DL'd, you'd have only moved from number 266 to 206 in the FP DL line.

If FileMirrors doesn't have it at least try the filename in Google, anything is better than waiting on FP.

***Poster's note: This is my first post on this forum and I appreciated both guides above. I've been anxiously awaiting NS for months and have been doing my part to spread word-of-mouth. Several posts in the recent slashdot article that (hopefully) boosted NS to greater glory complained of a shortage of fast, non password-protected servers. If this is half the game I expect it will be look for speed public Ohio server coming soon.

I look forward to playing with you old-schoolers while this is still a relatively small community!***

The most important etiquitte you need to know when starting to play:

If the teams are uneven, JOIN THE SMALLEST TEAM.

It happens every **obscenity** time. Some NSPlayer joins and then promptly runs onto the Marine team.

Bam. What was a playable 7-6 match is now a **obscenity** 8-6 match.

Since I have rcon on the server I play on, I kick if people unbalance teams.

So ALWAYS press TAB and then join the team with the least players!

-GenmaC

megamerlin agree with u fully

genmac i find that almost all of the time i play NS the teams are uneven- there needs to be a better balancing tool introduced into all servers

Nice guide. Sorry for spam. =P

yeah i thinks this guide is good. But it so laong to traduice for the french community :/

This guide should be in the darn manual. I direct every new player that I get hooked on this game to it.

QUOTE

- You are more effective lurking around a corner making the Marine's sweat your presence for 5 minutes than KILLING one marine. Keep that in mind before you charge that gunfire. A Skulk chuckling in the shadows keeps more Marines at bay than you can ever hope to kill.

That is the most useful part of the guide in the alien side. People need to remember it.


The only gripe I have about this guide is the part about telling newbie aliens to go gorge. This may have been ok back in v1.00, but remember that the more gorges on a team, the slower each one will gain precious resources. I see the gorge as the 'commander' part of the alien team. The gorge places static items on the map just as the commander does. Only the most experienced players should be gorging.

Since the topic 'Things new players should know' has been locked, i'm posting this here.

I've been playing for about 3 weeks now, and thru reading the forums every day these are things i never picked up- sorry if they're already here somewhere...

Alien: The items in your top right represent how many hives you have. With each hive you can build one type of upgrade chamber as gorge. Ie when you only have one hive, your team has to choose whether to build defense, sensory, or movement chambers. If you go and build a movement chamber, your team cannot build ANY defense chambers until either a) that movement chamber dies, or b) you get another hive.

When you have flashing symbols in the middle right, that means you can upgrade your alien. Eg a flashing defense chamber icon means you can get a defense upgrade.

Once you have an upgrade, you will have a symbol representing it to your middle right. The symbol will have 1 to 3 identical icons, depending on what level that upgrade is.

You don't cost anything to the team unless you use resources. So dont sit there hiding for ages unless you know ur gonna kill something quickly- go and attack and die. (this goes for marine too) When you attack marine buildings, or make a marine turret fire, it distracts the marine commander and he gets messages 'Building under attack!', 'Turret firing!!' etc.

Once you have 2 hives (2 icons lit in the top right), use LEAP as skulk to get around- its a huge boost in whichever direction you are facing. It doesnt cost anything so look slightly up and leap away.

All the little noises aliens make, marines can hear. That means when you regenerate or cloak, nearby marines hear and know! If you run around the corner and cloak, marines no doubt will shoot at empty space until they see your blood.

I never evolve into lerk. I think its a waste of resources and i'm much better at skulk anyway. If you have 33 out of 33 resources remember the excess resources will be given to someone else (eg for getting that 2nd hive), so if you have 33/33 and arent spending any, and are killing / parasiting people / distracting / wasting nme ammo then you are a VERY valuable asset.

Also while you are dead all your resources go to others- at beginning this means if you are a bad skulk/gorge, you are best off dead

If you cant kill anything as skulk- use weapon 2 (parasite) just shoot at every enemy you see including buildings. This enables EVERY member of your team to see exactly where that marine/building is UNTIL IT DIES. So if you parasite their main base eg every turret, comm center etc, for the entire map your entire team will know where they all are. (I usually play a 'recon' skulk- parasite + comm everything all map)

Marines: knife is more powerful than either of your starting guns. If you have a welder use that on buildings, otherwise use knife.

When you damage an enemy building, that buidling will glow red (on all alien screens) and all aliens will be alerted. This is a good way to distract aliens (if you want to do that..)

If you get hit with a parasite EVERY alien can see where you are until you die. No point creeping around silently when you have a parasite. If you get a parasite, dont travel with a secret hunting mission or go defend a secret installment, as aliens will come find you, and hence find what/whoever you are with. You can use parasite in your favour too to distract the aliens- If your team is going for one hive, run off towards the other and damage as many buildings as possible. Watch your back, you will die. soon. (unless you hide in a vent- which is also good fun albeit a bit useless)

If you have no special guns/armour then you are free of charge- dont waste this value by asking for loads of health- just go die and respawn.

dont waste ammo on offense chambers since there is usually a defense chamber behind it, healing it for free. Offense chambers also arent very powerful and inaccurate. Yesterday as a basic marine with normal armour i knifed 2 defense and 2 offense chambers without dying. Jump over the offense chambers at the front to get to the def chambers at the back. In this situation the def chambers will get healed half as quickly as offense chambers (i dont think they heal themselves.. but i may be wrong!)

Hope this helps someone!

- After$hock

All I have to say is I think that the existence of fileplanet is worse than popups. A popup is annoying, but ctrl-w and your good.
But fileplanet is fake and a load of crap.
You need a 10k file, please wait 2 hours.
My friend, search for mirrors, and always go for the german sites.
I swear they have the best speeds.

thx thx thx....although i think i need more help....i mean
0-17?

This is a great set of newb guides, thanks to the posters! I read them and the manual and *then* jumped into a game. I actually survived and was useful in my newbish way. The original post was placed on our gaming group BBS and served to help new NS'ers from CoFR as well!

I don't think kidc has ever played on a public server with teams of about 4 vs 4 or 6 vs 6 or so. You only want ONE gorge in situations like that, ESPECIALLY at the start of the map. Telling 50% of the team to stay at the start and build 5 offense chambers ASAP is the stupidest thing you can do. You need to get recource towers and a second hive as fast as you possibly can, and the best way to do that is with exactly one gorge building only resources, starting with hive locations first because they're furthest from the marine spawn, while everyone else skulk rushes.

You tell everyone to go gorge and build offense chambers, and the gorge trying to follow the plan I outlined above is pretty much hosed. That's just plain stupid. Sure, it might work if the marines turtle and waste time building 10,000 turrets in their home base before they step outside their front door, but in any other situation, all those gorges will only divert badly needed resources, and make it take forever to get the essential second hive. Heck, unless your team has about 12 players on it, two gorges cannot split the pot and build anything for at least 2 minutes, even longer if resource towers are not the first thing built.

One thing wrong with this guide if your a n00b don't gorge. Don't build O chambers at start get 2nd hive first then You can go gorge and start building D. Offence chambers are a waste of rcs early on that are better spent building 4 nodes then a hive. The best defense before you can fade is




The thing for newbie to do is get a mic and get it working commutation is the key.

I'd say, tell newbies not to go gorge, and when they're a little more experienced (know where resources are, where marines attack from, etc) to only go gorge if less than 20% of the team is gorge; this means that if there are 5 players and one gorge, they should leave it that way, while if there's 6 players, they can go gorge. Also, tell them to ask the current gorge if it's alright. If you have one gorge who's already built up a lot and now needs to save for the second hive, a second gorge is only going to suck resources from where they're really needed, and will make the rest of the team's transformation to fade slower.

Also, warn them strongly about going gorge to get more resources for an evolution...if they're doing their job well, by the time they die, they'll already have enough resources stockpiled to go back to that class if they die.

My advice for starting out.
General get familiar with the map know the locations and the best paths to get their this game takes teamwork people still run around or scream for waypoints this isn’t a game where you can goof off like quake running around with the rocket launcher shooting everything that moves. .
http://www.tribes2maps.com/ns/
Here are the layouts of each map.


Marines

Commander, forget covering the base with turrets they are useless you can get the same job defending on mines and marines. Phase gates are priority if go around building turrets that’s like 100 starting rcs better spent elsewhere. Not much more I can say there. But I am tired of commanders that depend on turrets they cost too much and it’s the main reason the aliens win. Every time I lost as marines it was almost always because the commander spent the first 10 mins of the game building defenses while the aliens take a hive and key positions on the map

grunts, First off learn to shoot. Second don’t all build at once, Stay at base and defend, this is a big point there no reason to rush to build or grab places you can’t keep I seen n00bs marines lose to the alien rush too many times because of this. As a skulk I can’t remember how many times I mange to kill an entire team that are massing build in one run. Have only 1-3 guys build while the others defend if the hive is close it is easy for the aliens to reach the base before the spawn portals are up making it real easy to kill if your just standing there same thing about after you get the armory don’t all get ammo unless your out completely.
Once base is set. The commander should have you take a hive or a key point or if they feel that strongly in your abilities rush to the enemy hive. You should stick together but not so close that a few skulks own you marines gift at start is range. If you spread out but still able to cover it makes the skulks job even harder. Keep your back to the wall and knell in a firefight most of all after you unload a clip switch to your pistol and vise versa.
Once phase gate if your commander tells you to jump though it do so too many players decide to wait at base for ammo and gear, Follow the commanders orders and also use your head.

Aliens

Gorge, you only need one gorge at the start, the major reason aliens get own is gorge fights. O chamber are useless a group of marines will kill it fast unless they are total newbies forget them, the nodes are the key you may build defense chambers if people want to use upgrade. But the main thing is to build about 3 nodes then save for hive if you do have gorge building the defense chambers or nodes this is where they should un-gorge its much faster if they are not drawing resources. I find more then one gorge not all that useful until the second hive or everyone else has max out on rcs is up because otherwise your just draining rcs from the main gorge. When hive is building you can start building the defense block off major points with walls of O chambers and D chambers to heal them. As soon as the hive goes up build two movements there and one at other hive so people can upgrade and get to each hive faster and then go back to defense and grab nodes makes its faster for the other players to fade.

Skulks- First off don’t go lerk if you get 33 rcs unless you know your going to use it The lerk can’t do much and once you max out on rcs everything is going to the Gorge(s). After the first rush. Keep in groups and learn to read waypoints. Its best way to know where the action its very important to know the map. Every map have key points where the marines can either siege or control a hive it’s important to keep them from building to much D, commutation is the key you don’t have a commander overseeing the entire map keep the marines from grabbing to much. Once the 2nd hive is up use fades and lerks pretty much stick together and take the 3rd hive or other key locations you pretty much won from there.
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I have something against not firing unless the comm. tells you to. I havn't seen too many comms tell you not to fire at structures. Maybe the commander commanding you not to attack structures is a clan thing or something


- should I?