So I wrote the very first words of this thing before 3.0's first public beta release, when the official manual was still very much out of date. I continued to work on it off and on (mostly off) for several months, and finally finished off the first version today. Warning: it really is huge. The archive containing the .pdf and some custom crosshairs is 1.28 mb. The document itself is 50 pages of text and images.

Comments and criticism are appreciated, from the most piddling of typos to sweeping disagreements about how I've structured it.

It needs a cover image of some sort, so if any of you namby-pamby art-type people want to come up with some sort image brimming over with justice and freedom and what have you, go for it. If anyone makes something especially righteous, it'll be the cover of the next release and they'll get credit in the manual. For whatever that's worth.

#nslearn people - you're welcome to upload this over there. Hell, anyone can distribute it however they please, although I'd appreciate it if you kept the original archive intact. Since it professes to have the fixed shotgun crosshair along with the manual, it'd be weird if there were copies floating around without that crosshair.

For the bored and the curious, here's the download link: enjoy.

I don't know whether to applaud or laugh.






Good job...I think.

Looks good. A bit wordy at times, but I'm probably worse when it comes to that. I didn't read through everything so I can't comment much on the facts though (I did notice that Primal Scream was supposed to double your RoF. I don't think that's the case...). Unless you managed to sneak in some big factual errors here and there that I didn't notice, I'll say good job.

Scrolled through it, very nice. Good job.

I'll look at it.

What's with the crosshair files?

Kavasa. You've been on this board a long time, and you're always making fun of stupid people, which earns you points with me. But this manual needs some work and fact checking. LMG can only kill 3 skulks? 7 pistol shots for a skulk? You even said that carapace increases the armor coefficient and SLOWS THE SKULK DOWN FFS. Nowhere in the manual are there any damage tables, you don't describe the effects of the Arms Lab upgrades, you have no numbers at all. The numbers are the nuts and bolts of this game. Damage isn't randomized. The LMG always has a base attack power of 10 HP per bullet, 20 for the pistol, 30 for the knife, skulk bite does 75 HP, focus does 150, etc and it never changes from game to game or server to server. The math is the most reliable part of this game, and it's what separates the people who know from the people who just don't.

Be precise. Look up the exact numbers, make sure your facts are triplechecked by reliable sources, IE coders and PTs.

Maybe this manual is just version 1.0? Good effort, but I have to mark you down for technical merit.

Very nice! At least 1/2 of pubbers would find this manual still very usefull..
It's nice that it's detailed and you cover common things, never diescribed in official manual (shortcuts, bhop etc..) I would certainly recommend it to any newbie, that want's to learn the game.

heh manuals are being made all over the place...

Yes snoz, and we love you for it.

Very nice, but alas most new players won't have the time/patience to read through this....sigh

Swift - actually I did at one point say you could get 5 skulks into a single LMG clip - but it will never, ever happen. The very best shots in this game are thrilled with a 15-bullet kill, and average 20-bullet kills. For that matter, my usual 25-bullet kill is above average. A big part of that is the scatter cone - at any real-use range, it's big enough that even three skulks in a single clip is almost never going to happen. So I stand by that number.

For this reason, precise damage tables are a low priority for me, because which fact is more useful, especially for the newcomer:
1. A base skulk kills a marine in 2 bites, or
2. A base skulk does 75 points of damage per bite?
I mean, they'll probably make it in as an appendix at some point, but the meat of the manual is always going to be "real world" application. And yes I realize how dumb the idea of real world video game stuff is. Sorry.

Again - I'm not saying you're wrong, that stuff should be in there and will at some point. Just explaining why it wasn't a priority for the first version. Making all the screenshots and doing the initial framing and writing was enough drudgery for a while.

I was under the impression cara does still increase armor coefficient; the "slows you down bit" reflects how long ago that section was written. Editing your own stuff is so tiresome, but I still should have caught that.

The crosshair files are, uh, crosshairs. They even get their own little section in the manual. Wither was apparently a fan of them (I was playing on lm just now and he kept mentioning them).

Eclipse - yeah, but you never know. And it's not like I slaved over it night and day. All told, this is somewhere around 30 hours of work, I think.

snozzle - yeah, once someone (apparently yourself) started updating the official manual I was like "well, hell." I thought about dropping it, but I already had on the order of 30 pages of text written, and I'm covering some of the non-official stuff that doesn't get covered otherwise.

Carapace does not change the armor coefficient. It is only changed by the number of hives.

at lease someone has done this.
ok
but who will read it?
dun think those nubs n00bs...

A for effort........aeffort......how about just gj

nice, but already out of date...

Actually it does not. It simply increases the number of AP each lifeform has. At the moment, armor is still going to go first regardless of HP, on all lifeforms. Hive's are the only thing linked to armor absorbtion rate.

good work, but it needs a lot of editing and polish to be any good. once i get back to the states, i could probably help you out some. in the meantime, i'd recommend you convert the manual to HTML. PDF and word are best for when whatever you're working on is written in a linear format (i.e. a novel) or you plan to print it. hyper text allows for more navigatable content and easy cross referencing. plus, some people might be discouraged with having to download a file just to load it up. it'd be great to have more visuals as well.

</.02>

Legat - someone's already updating the official manual, and doing a fine job of it. My manual is intended to be an exhaustive "here's how real public play works" manual.

cam (god that's weird, my real name is Cameron) - yeah, I can't edit my own stuff the second I've written it, my brain glosses over errors, typos, and poor phrasing. I'll go over it in a month or two and re-write awkward stuff.

Any specific suggestions for the additional visuals? I've got a "stuff to fix" textfile where I'm compiling all the stuff that'll go into the next version. The carapace entry is listed there now.

Also - I did set up bookmarks for this document, so you can use those to navigate around. And the next version will make all website addresses clickable links, and I'm thinking of setting it up so the first instance of any unfamiliar term links to that term's entry in the glossary.

Snozzle's already got the quick access html manual going, I think I prefer pdf format for my project. Again, it's supposed to be an exhaustive manual for public play, so the idea is a new player downloads this once and then has it available to refer to for any questions he might have.

well, if you need any help, just send me a pm. i haven't had time to look too thoroughly, but things like diagrams for bunnyhopping, just occassional screenshots so all that text doesn't look too overwhelming, stuff like that. a decent layout would help too . tell me if you're interested.

There is another tutorial on a new NS website:

http://www.naturalselection.pexgames.com

It's interesting how it tells players not to burst fire and only to full burst. I burst fire and I have to say it's about 33% better in controlling your aim and ammunition consumption than just sitting there and going full auto. The LMG/HMG description really isn't that effective, it just says aim at the alien and pull the trigger. You have to aim infront of the alien especially if he's running. Your grenade description is a bit strange imho. ".. these are not useful for clearing lame."

cam - I'm looking for help in general but the best way to do that is, I think, to email or pm me or whatever.

BattleTech - Well, the way I'm thinking of it is thus: fundamentally, LMG/HMG aim are just ability to track. I can't impart that through any writing, people will either figure out how to lead fast moving targets or they won't. Also, our definitions of burst fire here are probably different. I'm saying "don't burst fire in the way you would in CS", since you don't have to wait for the reticle to shrink back down. If you've got an alien in your crosshairs, you should be shooting it. That of course doesn't mean just spray bullets all over the walls in hopes that some hit. I'll re-work the handgrenade description though. I was thinking they're not as useful for clearing lame as a GL is, which is true, but they're better than nothing.

Thanks for the additional comments.

I'm a newbie and read the manual. That massive lug of a manual, but it was worth it. I found it to be helpful!! So thanks!

I like the stagery for the commander the best. I haven't had of the twisted version of the slash and burn. But I thought the welder did damage like the gorge's healspray. Also, the manual needs some storys like in the first official manual. Overall, it's pretty good.

Its a pretty good manual, just want to point out that half-life is based on the Quake1 engine, not Quake2. That argument raged for awhile on msgboards until someone actually just asked the developers.

Update: I have accumulated several suggestions and fixes from various people (including Timmy's there) and will be working on an updated edition of the manual once I get through midterms.

Also link no longer works.

Please update the link or unweb this topic

What good is a manual if you can't even see it?! rawr!

p.s. The link needs some fixage to happen to it.

yeah, i want to read

werd

I'll unweb until we know the link is active again

i'll temporarily put it on my ftp in case someone needs a copy:


ns_manual.rar