Let's make a list of hidden mechanics
Laosh'Ra
Join Date: 2011-12-09 Member: 137232Members
Join Date: 2011-12-09 Member: 137232Members
What is this about?
Natural Selection 2 has a couple of mechanics that new players can easily overlook. So basically, this is about stuff you might not figure out while playing your first ~10 hours.
The purpose of this thread is to combine our knowledge in order to help out rookies and there might also be a couple of things even some veterans did not know yet.
For every mechanic, there is a subjective tip/example of use/comment following it. If you disagree with something or have an idea for improvement, feel free to share it in a reply.
What is this NOT about?
This is (mostly) not about stuff you will very likely come across by yourself within your first few games. So it's not a get-started tutorial, but more like an in-depth look for rookies who already know the very basics. Because let's face it, most people will probably jump right in to get some hands-on fun for their money.
This is also not about subjective things such as tactics or behaviour, so let's try to avoid that (or at least put it in a seperate list, feel free to create a new thread).
This is also not about making huge lists or pointing out very specific numbers, let's try to keep it simple and practical, easy and fast to read and remember (something rookies would actually read as guide in their steam overlay).
Assume the reader has never been (properly) a Commander before. This also means that the list should not include any Commander-only content.
Where does this come from and what does it lead to?
Long ago I started a wiki-page (feel free to update it, several people already have) and a forum thread (please don't update that one, it's too old).
Since there are still sales every now and then, this list might still be useful for a number of new players:
-it could be used as a steam-guide (done: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=277017674)
-it could be used in the ns2 wiki
-it could be cross-referenced in the "Getting Started" section of this forum
-it could be the basis of a video
-it could be used as loading-screen tips
List of in-depth mechanics (build 268)
Frontiersmen (Marines)
Flamethrowers can burn away Lerk Spores, Lerk Umbra and Gorge Bilebomb projectiles.
Burning up spores can help a lot, a lerk on fire is also easier to track.
Flamethrowers disable passive abilities of alien structures when setting them on fire.
Focus on the structures you wan't to destroy (e.g. Hive or Upgrade Structures) but occasionally take a short break to quickly set everything else on fire again.
Powernodes are the only structures that don't cost teamresources. They are also invulnerable while they are still a blue-print.
You can build up the blueprints to around 95% until any other structure is finished (if you get overrun, the node still remains prepared).
A destroyed powernode is rebuilt much faster if you use a welder.
You can also repair nearby Marines while you wait for the emergency lights to activate.
Welders build up structures a little bit faster than a builder tool.
Make sure not to accidently hit other nearby blueprints with the welder as they can then be quickly destroyed.
When dropped (manually or when dying), weapons, mines and welders remain on the ground for 25 seconds until they disappear. Since b267 you will see a bar above the item indicating the time left.
(Briefly) picking up such an item will reset that counter, e.g. to give teammates more time to recover their weapons (this is sometimes called "recycling").
Your active weapon determines your movement speed, e.g. you run quite fast with a pistol, axe, mines or welder being active. Your speed also increases by dropping your main weapon, e.g. to reach your dropped weapon faster after dying.
Usually, it's best not to throw away your main weapon just for some speed increase. Sprinting with the axe/welder active can help a lot though, especially when passing areas that seem to be safe enough.
Mines chain-react if you place them too close to each other.
Pay attention to mines of other players too, especially right after they are researched.
Mines detonate if infestation spreads onto them.
This is rarely an issue if you use them defensively. On offense, keep in mind that your own mines (and grenades) can hurt you but not teammates.
Frontiersmen (Marines): Exosuit
You can step on eggs to instantly crush them.
Try to memorize egg locations when attacking an alien base so you can crush them while fireing at other targets at the same time. The minimap might also help here.
The railgun pierces through multiple targets.
Position yourself accordingly. This is especially effective against structures because the Railgun deals double damage against them (and because they are easier to hit in a line). If the structures are slightly elevated, you can usually shoot a horizontal blast that hits all targets on the ground and still goes quite a distance.
Kharaa (Aliens)
While dead, you can left-click the map to chose where you want to spawn. You will hatch from the nearest egg.
Plan ahead where you want to go and chose the best hive to start from, also take into account how many eggs a hive has left if it is under attack.
When evolving into a higher lifeform, you can press "q" to request Nutritient Mist from your commander which will drastically speed up the process for 2 Team Ressources.
This is usually worth it for Lerks, Fades and Onos whereas it depends on the situation for Gorges as they evolve rather fast on their own (7 seconds).
If you are in range of an observatory or a scan, bright waves are shown on your model and Marines can see your position through walls and on the minimap and if you have cloaking, it will be disabled.
Avoid staying in detection range too long, especially if your team plans a surprise attack on a base. When an area is scanned, it might be better to retreat from there until the scan is over.
While cloaked (camouflage or shade), you can still move slowly without uncloaking (shift key for skulks, ducking for other lifeforms). A cloaked onos will still shake the ground, even when moving slowly.
Even while cloaked, Marines can still spot you as a blur in the air. They can usually notice that blur more easily while you move or turn.
Whips and Hydras can survive without infestation, but Whips will not attack and Hydras do not grow (build up) themselves (Healspray still works though).
As a gorge, it usually doesn't matter if you place hydras on infestation or not as long as you build them up properly.
Kharaa structures do not regenerate health on their own, you need a gorge or a crag to heal them. Drifters also don't regenerate.
Occasionally check the health of hives and upgrade structures and make sure they are eventually getting healed.
Mines can be detonated by destroying them with ranged attacks.
Parasites take quite long (10 hits) to detonate a mine. Lerk spikes work, but spray a bit much when far away. Gorge Spit and especially Bilebomb usually work great.
You can taunt as an egg.
This is obviously very important to know on your quest for world domination.
When a Power Node was destroyed, partial rebuilding of it can be undone by damaging it.
Not always worth it, but can be useful to delay Marines a bit when they conquer the area.
You can queue a jump (pressing and holding jump before touching the ground let's you instantly jump again).
Can help with preserving momentum, but it might make you a predictable target if you do it constantly.
After evolving your upgrades, you can still change them. The change costs as much as the initial cost and also takes as long to evolve. Any evolution will restore all your energy.
Since upgrades are much cheaper than the life forms themselves, this can be useful to adapt to changes in the game e.g. switching from celerity to adrenaline as soon as new abilities are unlocked. Filling up your energy can be useful for Gorges that built up hives. Since upgrades are free for skulks, you can freely alternate between Carapace and Regeneration whenever you are hurt/healed back up.
You can destroy allied Clogs by attacking them, even if they are not your own.
It takes a while to destroy them, but that might save your Onos if the path to retreat is blocked. You might want to inform the Gorge so this situation does not repeat itself.
You can determine the Marine weapon upgrades by the sound of their Rifles.
This takes some experience, pay attention to it whenever you play on the Marine side to get to know the different sounds. When you identify them as an Alien, consider sharing the information with your Commander.
Kharaa (Aliens): Skulk
If the Marines have no armor upgrades, you only need 2 bites instead of 3, if you also hit them with a parasite.
Technically not a mechanic on it's own, but it's absolutely exactly enough damage to kill a marine and extremely helpful in early-game. But remember that they will most likely notice you if you hit them with parasite: time it wisely.
You can increase your movement speed with properly timed wall-jumps.
Describing this technique with text is not easy, maybe watch a tutorial video to learn it.
Leap (unlockable right-click jump) can be used in midair and also allows you to turn instantly in midair.
Use leap to get into melee range but also to become a difficult and confusing target.
Kharaa (Aliens): Gorge
Bilbebomb has a big splash radius and the damage-over-time stacks with itself.
Having Aura, you can often hit Marines who approach a corner without exposing yourself. Due to stacking, Bilbebomb rushes with multiple Gorges are very devastating against piled up structures or ARCs.
You can use Bilebomb to destroy dropped weapons (they have 400 health), preventing marines from picking them up again.
There is not much point in Bilebombing rifles. Communicate with your team for cover and for actually knowing about dropped weapons.
Weaponslot 4 controlls Babblers with a ball. You can order Babblers to stick onto a lifeform as a meat shield by hitting them with the ball.
You can bounce the ball off a wall to easily target yourself with Babblers.
Babblers have a limited lifespan.
This is rarely an issue if you use them as meat shield
Build-up Gorge Tunnels spread infestation around them
This can be useful to cover ressource nozzles, allowing your Commander to secure a harvester location without cysting there.
If you look directly below you at the floor when heal spraying as a Gorge, you will regain twice as much health. Nothing around you will be healed though.
If you can manage, alternate between looking around and on the ground while healing, so you still see where you are going.
If more than one Gorge is building up the same structure with healspray, it will be less effective.
This is still faster than building up with a single Gorge.
Healspray can instantly extuingish flames on a burning lifeform or structure.
Even in a safe area, aliens can still die by burning, so try to heal them once even if they ignore you in order to quickly get to a hive. As mentioned elsewhere, burning structures usually lose their passive benefit, e.g. Hive healing.
Clogs block line of sight for sentry guns, providing cover.
Consider attacking instead, especially if you have Bilebomb. Still, preparing cover will not as easily alert the Marines.
You can destroy your creations by holding down "use" for a while when facing them (a little progress bar appears).
This can help if the order of placement was unfortunate. E.g. you might want to destroy a forward tunnel before placing a new one to prevent the entrance near the hive from being automatically picked for destruction.
Kharaa (Aliens): Lerks
Spores prevent sentry guns from targeting.
Use Umbra before an assault (as it lasts a bit) and Spores for dealing damage and coving your teammates.
Exosuits are imune against spores.
You can still prevent marines from welding an Exo with well-placed spores.
You can hold down the jump button (flap) to hover, which costs no energy and is completely silent.
Great for sneaking up from behind.
You can cling onto walls and ceilings by pressing shift and letting it go when touching the surface to cling to.
Conserves energy e.g. when spiking an Extractor. This makes you an easy target though, so find a way to be warned before the Marines can hit you.
If you want to descent very quickly while flying, you can press duck.
Avoid colliding with the ground as this will cost your momentum.
The Lerk bite is poisonous and will gradually lower a Marines health (20 per second), but without killing the Marine.
Can be combined with spores as they bypass armor.
Kharaa (Aliens): Fade
Shadowstep also works upwards, if you aim in that direction. Like blink, it can also be used in midair.
In general, it seems marines have a harder time tracking (partially) vertical movements.
Kharaa (Aliens): Onos
Stomp detonates mines and it briefly stops sentries from fireing.
Since stomp also damages structures, it can be helpful if you do not dare to get too close to a fortified position.
Both Sides
When finished building, Kharaa structures increase their maximum hitpoints and armor over time for a few minutes, until they are 'mature'.
Marines often don't know how old a structure is, but this mechanic can be quite relevant for hives as they start out at 62.5% effective health and take the longest to mature: 3,5 minutes. Cysts start at ~16% health take 2 minutes to mature. Shifts, Shades and Hydras also undergo quite a relevant change, but not nearly as dramatic.
Personal ressources are capped at 100, everything beyond that will be distributed to the rest of the team. Team ressources are capped at 200, everything collected beyond that is lost.
Even though the rest of your team could benefit from you reaching 100 P.res, few games last long enough for this to happen and you usually contribute much more to the team by spending it.
Clogs and Babblers take at most 50 (clogs) and 5 (babblers) damage per projectile/attack.
This also applies against grenades of the Grenade Launcher.
If infestation is removed, most alien structures take significant damage per second.
It is often very useful to take out the only cyst near a harvester before attacking the harvester itself. On the alien side, you can ask your commander to "recyst" as soon as you cleared out the area.
There are different damage types. By default, 1 point of armor blocks 2 points of damage (normal damage). Mines, Pistol, Gorge Spit are less effective against armor (1:4), Onos Stomp and Exosuit Miniguns are more effective (1:1). Exosuit Railgun, Exosuit Claw, Switchaxe, Onos Gore (default attack) and Grenade Launchers deal double damage to structures. Fade Swipe and Lerk Spikes deal double damage against players whereas Swipe is less effective against structure armor (1:4). Flamethrowers and Welders deal 250% against Clogs, Cysts and Hydras.
You might not be able to memorize this all, but at least keep in mind that these exceptions exist when developing a feel for weapons/attacks on your own. Practical examples: a Skulk with full carapace can survive a mine because it's not very effective against armor. Pistol makes a good finisher when used instead of reloading. With good positioning, Flamethrowers can quickly kill 3 Hydras in a line and bring down Clog walls. It can be worth dropping a welder for the duration of attacking a structure with an axe, then picking it up again (except Cysts). Minigun is great at eating away the armor of an Onos, also because the weapon spread doesn't matter much for a big target.
---
feel free to post your own contributions, or discuss and criticise current ones. E.g. it is quite debateable which things are easy to overlook or not, e.g. chain-reaction on mines or welders on powernodes.
As for those examples: Mines usually detonate without the player being there. I've personally witnessed people building up powernodes with the "use" button although they had a welder with them.
things unconfirmed (hard to test in sandbox mode):
"umbra: 33% reduction against shotguns and 27% for lmg or something like that."
does lerk bite poison stack?
do flamethrowers remove bile from structures/marines/exos (after bile bomb impact)?
Natural Selection 2 has a couple of mechanics that new players can easily overlook. So basically, this is about stuff you might not figure out while playing your first ~10 hours.
The purpose of this thread is to combine our knowledge in order to help out rookies and there might also be a couple of things even some veterans did not know yet.
For every mechanic, there is a subjective tip/example of use/comment following it. If you disagree with something or have an idea for improvement, feel free to share it in a reply.
What is this NOT about?
This is (mostly) not about stuff you will very likely come across by yourself within your first few games. So it's not a get-started tutorial, but more like an in-depth look for rookies who already know the very basics. Because let's face it, most people will probably jump right in to get some hands-on fun for their money.
This is also not about subjective things such as tactics or behaviour, so let's try to avoid that (or at least put it in a seperate list, feel free to create a new thread).
This is also not about making huge lists or pointing out very specific numbers, let's try to keep it simple and practical, easy and fast to read and remember (something rookies would actually read as guide in their steam overlay).
Assume the reader has never been (properly) a Commander before. This also means that the list should not include any Commander-only content.
Where does this come from and what does it lead to?
Long ago I started a wiki-page (feel free to update it, several people already have) and a forum thread (please don't update that one, it's too old).
Since there are still sales every now and then, this list might still be useful for a number of new players:
-it could be used as a steam-guide (done: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=277017674)
-it could be used in the ns2 wiki
-it could be cross-referenced in the "Getting Started" section of this forum
-it could be the basis of a video
-it could be used as loading-screen tips
List of in-depth mechanics (build 268)
Frontiersmen (Marines)
Flamethrowers can burn away Lerk Spores, Lerk Umbra and Gorge Bilebomb projectiles.
Burning up spores can help a lot, a lerk on fire is also easier to track.
Flamethrowers disable passive abilities of alien structures when setting them on fire.
Focus on the structures you wan't to destroy (e.g. Hive or Upgrade Structures) but occasionally take a short break to quickly set everything else on fire again.
Powernodes are the only structures that don't cost teamresources. They are also invulnerable while they are still a blue-print.
You can build up the blueprints to around 95% until any other structure is finished (if you get overrun, the node still remains prepared).
A destroyed powernode is rebuilt much faster if you use a welder.
You can also repair nearby Marines while you wait for the emergency lights to activate.
Welders build up structures a little bit faster than a builder tool.
Make sure not to accidently hit other nearby blueprints with the welder as they can then be quickly destroyed.
When dropped (manually or when dying), weapons, mines and welders remain on the ground for 25 seconds until they disappear. Since b267 you will see a bar above the item indicating the time left.
(Briefly) picking up such an item will reset that counter, e.g. to give teammates more time to recover their weapons (this is sometimes called "recycling").
Your active weapon determines your movement speed, e.g. you run quite fast with a pistol, axe, mines or welder being active. Your speed also increases by dropping your main weapon, e.g. to reach your dropped weapon faster after dying.
Usually, it's best not to throw away your main weapon just for some speed increase. Sprinting with the axe/welder active can help a lot though, especially when passing areas that seem to be safe enough.
Mines chain-react if you place them too close to each other.
Pay attention to mines of other players too, especially right after they are researched.
Mines detonate if infestation spreads onto them.
This is rarely an issue if you use them defensively. On offense, keep in mind that your own mines (and grenades) can hurt you but not teammates.
Frontiersmen (Marines): Exosuit
You can step on eggs to instantly crush them.
Try to memorize egg locations when attacking an alien base so you can crush them while fireing at other targets at the same time. The minimap might also help here.
The railgun pierces through multiple targets.
Position yourself accordingly. This is especially effective against structures because the Railgun deals double damage against them (and because they are easier to hit in a line). If the structures are slightly elevated, you can usually shoot a horizontal blast that hits all targets on the ground and still goes quite a distance.
Kharaa (Aliens)
While dead, you can left-click the map to chose where you want to spawn. You will hatch from the nearest egg.
Plan ahead where you want to go and chose the best hive to start from, also take into account how many eggs a hive has left if it is under attack.
When evolving into a higher lifeform, you can press "q" to request Nutritient Mist from your commander which will drastically speed up the process for 2 Team Ressources.
This is usually worth it for Lerks, Fades and Onos whereas it depends on the situation for Gorges as they evolve rather fast on their own (7 seconds).
If you are in range of an observatory or a scan, bright waves are shown on your model and Marines can see your position through walls and on the minimap and if you have cloaking, it will be disabled.
Avoid staying in detection range too long, especially if your team plans a surprise attack on a base. When an area is scanned, it might be better to retreat from there until the scan is over.
While cloaked (camouflage or shade), you can still move slowly without uncloaking (shift key for skulks, ducking for other lifeforms). A cloaked onos will still shake the ground, even when moving slowly.
Even while cloaked, Marines can still spot you as a blur in the air. They can usually notice that blur more easily while you move or turn.
Whips and Hydras can survive without infestation, but Whips will not attack and Hydras do not grow (build up) themselves (Healspray still works though).
As a gorge, it usually doesn't matter if you place hydras on infestation or not as long as you build them up properly.
Kharaa structures do not regenerate health on their own, you need a gorge or a crag to heal them. Drifters also don't regenerate.
Occasionally check the health of hives and upgrade structures and make sure they are eventually getting healed.
Mines can be detonated by destroying them with ranged attacks.
Parasites take quite long (10 hits) to detonate a mine. Lerk spikes work, but spray a bit much when far away. Gorge Spit and especially Bilebomb usually work great.
You can taunt as an egg.
This is obviously very important to know on your quest for world domination.
When a Power Node was destroyed, partial rebuilding of it can be undone by damaging it.
Not always worth it, but can be useful to delay Marines a bit when they conquer the area.
You can queue a jump (pressing and holding jump before touching the ground let's you instantly jump again).
Can help with preserving momentum, but it might make you a predictable target if you do it constantly.
After evolving your upgrades, you can still change them. The change costs as much as the initial cost and also takes as long to evolve. Any evolution will restore all your energy.
Since upgrades are much cheaper than the life forms themselves, this can be useful to adapt to changes in the game e.g. switching from celerity to adrenaline as soon as new abilities are unlocked. Filling up your energy can be useful for Gorges that built up hives. Since upgrades are free for skulks, you can freely alternate between Carapace and Regeneration whenever you are hurt/healed back up.
You can destroy allied Clogs by attacking them, even if they are not your own.
It takes a while to destroy them, but that might save your Onos if the path to retreat is blocked. You might want to inform the Gorge so this situation does not repeat itself.
You can determine the Marine weapon upgrades by the sound of their Rifles.
This takes some experience, pay attention to it whenever you play on the Marine side to get to know the different sounds. When you identify them as an Alien, consider sharing the information with your Commander.
Kharaa (Aliens): Skulk
If the Marines have no armor upgrades, you only need 2 bites instead of 3, if you also hit them with a parasite.
Technically not a mechanic on it's own, but it's absolutely exactly enough damage to kill a marine and extremely helpful in early-game. But remember that they will most likely notice you if you hit them with parasite: time it wisely.
You can increase your movement speed with properly timed wall-jumps.
Describing this technique with text is not easy, maybe watch a tutorial video to learn it.
Leap (unlockable right-click jump) can be used in midair and also allows you to turn instantly in midair.
Use leap to get into melee range but also to become a difficult and confusing target.
Kharaa (Aliens): Gorge
Bilbebomb has a big splash radius and the damage-over-time stacks with itself.
Having Aura, you can often hit Marines who approach a corner without exposing yourself. Due to stacking, Bilbebomb rushes with multiple Gorges are very devastating against piled up structures or ARCs.
You can use Bilebomb to destroy dropped weapons (they have 400 health), preventing marines from picking them up again.
There is not much point in Bilebombing rifles. Communicate with your team for cover and for actually knowing about dropped weapons.
Weaponslot 4 controlls Babblers with a ball. You can order Babblers to stick onto a lifeform as a meat shield by hitting them with the ball.
You can bounce the ball off a wall to easily target yourself with Babblers.
Babblers have a limited lifespan.
This is rarely an issue if you use them as meat shield
Build-up Gorge Tunnels spread infestation around them
This can be useful to cover ressource nozzles, allowing your Commander to secure a harvester location without cysting there.
If you look directly below you at the floor when heal spraying as a Gorge, you will regain twice as much health. Nothing around you will be healed though.
If you can manage, alternate between looking around and on the ground while healing, so you still see where you are going.
If more than one Gorge is building up the same structure with healspray, it will be less effective.
This is still faster than building up with a single Gorge.
Healspray can instantly extuingish flames on a burning lifeform or structure.
Even in a safe area, aliens can still die by burning, so try to heal them once even if they ignore you in order to quickly get to a hive. As mentioned elsewhere, burning structures usually lose their passive benefit, e.g. Hive healing.
Clogs block line of sight for sentry guns, providing cover.
Consider attacking instead, especially if you have Bilebomb. Still, preparing cover will not as easily alert the Marines.
You can destroy your creations by holding down "use" for a while when facing them (a little progress bar appears).
This can help if the order of placement was unfortunate. E.g. you might want to destroy a forward tunnel before placing a new one to prevent the entrance near the hive from being automatically picked for destruction.
Kharaa (Aliens): Lerks
Spores prevent sentry guns from targeting.
Use Umbra before an assault (as it lasts a bit) and Spores for dealing damage and coving your teammates.
Exosuits are imune against spores.
You can still prevent marines from welding an Exo with well-placed spores.
You can hold down the jump button (flap) to hover, which costs no energy and is completely silent.
Great for sneaking up from behind.
You can cling onto walls and ceilings by pressing shift and letting it go when touching the surface to cling to.
Conserves energy e.g. when spiking an Extractor. This makes you an easy target though, so find a way to be warned before the Marines can hit you.
If you want to descent very quickly while flying, you can press duck.
Avoid colliding with the ground as this will cost your momentum.
The Lerk bite is poisonous and will gradually lower a Marines health (20 per second), but without killing the Marine.
Can be combined with spores as they bypass armor.
Kharaa (Aliens): Fade
Shadowstep also works upwards, if you aim in that direction. Like blink, it can also be used in midair.
In general, it seems marines have a harder time tracking (partially) vertical movements.
Kharaa (Aliens): Onos
Stomp detonates mines and it briefly stops sentries from fireing.
Since stomp also damages structures, it can be helpful if you do not dare to get too close to a fortified position.
Both Sides
When finished building, Kharaa structures increase their maximum hitpoints and armor over time for a few minutes, until they are 'mature'.
Marines often don't know how old a structure is, but this mechanic can be quite relevant for hives as they start out at 62.5% effective health and take the longest to mature: 3,5 minutes. Cysts start at ~16% health take 2 minutes to mature. Shifts, Shades and Hydras also undergo quite a relevant change, but not nearly as dramatic.
Personal ressources are capped at 100, everything beyond that will be distributed to the rest of the team. Team ressources are capped at 200, everything collected beyond that is lost.
Even though the rest of your team could benefit from you reaching 100 P.res, few games last long enough for this to happen and you usually contribute much more to the team by spending it.
Clogs and Babblers take at most 50 (clogs) and 5 (babblers) damage per projectile/attack.
This also applies against grenades of the Grenade Launcher.
If infestation is removed, most alien structures take significant damage per second.
It is often very useful to take out the only cyst near a harvester before attacking the harvester itself. On the alien side, you can ask your commander to "recyst" as soon as you cleared out the area.
There are different damage types. By default, 1 point of armor blocks 2 points of damage (normal damage). Mines, Pistol, Gorge Spit are less effective against armor (1:4), Onos Stomp and Exosuit Miniguns are more effective (1:1). Exosuit Railgun, Exosuit Claw, Switchaxe, Onos Gore (default attack) and Grenade Launchers deal double damage to structures. Fade Swipe and Lerk Spikes deal double damage against players whereas Swipe is less effective against structure armor (1:4). Flamethrowers and Welders deal 250% against Clogs, Cysts and Hydras.
You might not be able to memorize this all, but at least keep in mind that these exceptions exist when developing a feel for weapons/attacks on your own. Practical examples: a Skulk with full carapace can survive a mine because it's not very effective against armor. Pistol makes a good finisher when used instead of reloading. With good positioning, Flamethrowers can quickly kill 3 Hydras in a line and bring down Clog walls. It can be worth dropping a welder for the duration of attacking a structure with an axe, then picking it up again (except Cysts). Minigun is great at eating away the armor of an Onos, also because the weapon spread doesn't matter much for a big target.
---
feel free to post your own contributions, or discuss and criticise current ones. E.g. it is quite debateable which things are easy to overlook or not, e.g. chain-reaction on mines or welders on powernodes.
As for those examples: Mines usually detonate without the player being there. I've personally witnessed people building up powernodes with the "use" button although they had a welder with them.
things unconfirmed (hard to test in sandbox mode):
"umbra: 33% reduction against shotguns and 27% for lmg or something like that."
does lerk bite poison stack?
do flamethrowers remove bile from structures/marines/exos (after bile bomb impact)?
Comments
(Note: the normal list also contains knowledge that can be very helpful for Commanders, e.g. that there is infestation around Gorge Tunnels)
Frontiersmen (Marines)
ARCs can only fire on structures while they are visible on the minimap. They can shoot through walls, but have their armor removed while deployed and move much slower on infestation.
If you want to keep your Marines near the ARCs instead of sending them in the hive, consider placing an observatory to avoid the need of constant scans.
Distress Beacon teleports all living marines to the Command Center which is closest to the observatory. If there are Infantry Portals in the same room as the Command Center, Marines currently respawning there will instantly be revived (this does not apply for Infantry Portals elsewhere on the map). However, the beacon will not teleport to techpoints that have no finished Command Center.
Observatories are usually prime targets for Aliens attacking your base because they have no armor. You can place them elsewhere on the map as a backup for the beacon, also providing passive scanning range at the front lines.
One target can be welded only by one MAC at the time, however, one target can be built by multiple MACs for increased speed.
Since b267, MACs will also repair nearby things when assigned to follow a certain target (e.g. Exosuit) as long as their target is repaired and not too far away.
MACs cannot repair anything while attacked themselves and they cannot repair anything that is being attacked.
MACs are very fragile but like drifters they are not so easy to hit if you keep them moving.
Spawning medpacks over techpoints can reveal Hive positions: if the medpack hovers instead of spawning on the ground, there is a Hive.
This is technically an exploit, but it is widely accepted and some people even consider it best practise.
If you power surge an unpowered structure and start research/production, progress won't be lost when power surge ends. You can apply another surge and continue from where it stopped.
Power surge is usually most useful for a distress beacon or to power a phasegate in order to bring Marines to your base.
Recycling a structure always takes 12 seconds, the refund given is proportional to the percentage of effective health the structure has when the 12 seconds are over. At full health and armor, the refund is 75% of the original cost.
You can weld a damaged structure before recycling it for increased refund. Partially built structures also have lower health.
Infantry portals can only be build near a Command Center, but they will still function if the Command Center is destroyed (unless the power is down of course).
Remember that this will prevent you from beaconing to said techpoint.
Kharaa (Aliens)
Upgrading Biomass also adds a minor amount of maximum health for lifeforms.
The gain is rather minor compared to the benefit of other upgrades.
The Shade's "Ink" ability temporarily stops ARCs from targeting anything inside the cloud.
A single shade can buy you some time against ARCs, but the cooldown is too high to prevent ALL the shots. The cloud also costs Team ressources.
The effects of Crags, Shades and Shifts do not stack with themselves, e.g. having 2 Crags at a Hive will not heal it faster. However, Crags can only heal up to 3 targets at the same time.
You can build a 2nd Crag and shade/shift backups at a hive and then echo them out as soon as you actually need them elsewhere.
Echo can be used to teleport the Shift itself.
You can sometimes save structures by echoing in a Shift, echoing out the structures and then echoing out the Shift again. Costs some T.res though.
Crags heal faster than the not-on-infestation-damage.
This also applies to Cysts, which can be useful if Marines cut the chain all the time.
When they are fully matured, Whips start hurling anti-armor projectiles onto enemies (this has more range than its melee attack).
It was usually more effective to place Whips around corners so Marines cannot shoot them as easily from a distance.
Hallucination cloud can also be used to create hallucinations of Harvesters by using them on empty, infested resource nozzles. Using the cloud on an empty tech point will hallucinate a Hive, even if there is no infestation.
A hallucinated Hive can be used to draw sentry gun fire.
Marines can hear it if a Hive is dropped/placed near them (1-2 rooms/corridors away).
Technically not a hidden mechanic (many things can be heared) but it can easily influence the outcome of a game. It takes a short time for a Marine to disappear after death, so even when the last one is cleared out you might want to wait ~5 seconds.
Selecting a parasited Arms Lab will show what the Marines are currently researching.
Skulks will usually not tell you that they parasited an Arms Lab. Either request it specifically or use it as a nice-to-have detail if you happen to notice it when it actually occurs.
Infestation will slowly eat away the armor of Marine structures, including Power Nodes.
It takes quite long to do significant damage with this, but it can draw the Marines attention for the rather low price of a few Cysts.
Selecting a Marine will display current and maximum health and armor.
This can be used to determine the current amount of armor upgrades on the Marine side. 30 Armor is 0, 50 is 1, 70 is 2, 90 is 3.
Miscellaneous / Both Sides
You can assign control-groups to structures for visible attack-indication and faster access.
You can use this to quickly to 'jump' to a structure if it is under attack. It is also useful for researching tech e.g. at the Arms Lab without having to jump away from your current view position at the front line.
You can assign waypoints similar to other RTS games by holding shift and setting multiple orders, including activation of abilities.
You can order a MAC to guard an Exosuit (in order to repair it at the front lines) and move it to a point in the base as the next order. When the Exosuit dies, it will continue with the next order and move back to base. You can also order ARCs to move to a location and automatically deploy as soon as they arrive.
Clicking on Marines/Lifeforms/Structures will display their current and maximum health and armor even if they belong to the enemy. This information is not available for your teammates on the field.
This can be used to point out to the team that an Onos is low on health and worth chasing down. It can also help you to determine the current armor level of the opponent Marine side: 30 armor for level 0, 50 for 1, 70 for 2, 90 for 3.
things unconfirmed:
will distress beacon teleport to unfinished/being-recycled command centers? i guess blue prints will not work in any case. can anyone else confirm that IP-revive will not work while the obs is in a different room?
is there still a limit on how many targets can be healed by a crag at the same time? does the same go for healwave? does healwave apply to structures?
do marine control groups remain persistent even when some/all marines die?
does parasite also show research going on in other structures besides the arms lab?
Also as a marine, kill the cyst's around structures first it will make them easier to kill.
When you press Ctrl while in the air, you accelerate faster towards the ground (applies to all lifeforms really). If you master this carefully, it can be a useful tool to juke bullets from marines - however, try not to fall completely to the ground, cuz you will stick to it and you will be very vulnerable.
Your active weapon determines your movement speed, e.g. you run quite fast with a pistol, axe, welder or mines being active.
^ Mines are super heavy - you run really slow with those, so you should edit that.
- Gorge Tunnel spread investation around it, so structures don't need cyst connection if a GT is near. (E.g. Nano Grid RT's)
- Gorge Balls bounce back from walls, if you wanna stick babblers to yourselfe.
- As a skulk you should take down RT's before Power Nodes. (well this is not really a mechanic)
- Flamethrowers destroy Bile Bombs in air. Not sure what happens if you flame something that was hit with it already.
- Lerk can jump off ground to gain a little speed (not sure if that really works ?, source)
- Drifters detonate mines (?)
Spikes, spit and bilebomb detonate mines.
also let me know if you are not satisfied with how i incorporated your contributions (i try to keep it compact). never experienced that yet, can anyone confirm or debunk this? interesting, i think i'll try that one out personally. video is ~1.5 years old so we should definately test this again before putting it on the list... i considered posting this but figured it might be covered by stating that power nodes are free. while i absolutely agree with you it's not really a mechanic (as you pointed out), let alone a hidden one. *learned something new*
Plus comme LETS MAKE A LIST OF TIPS TO DISPLAY DURING LOADING SCREENS
* Flamer removes bile bomb from marine structures
* Marines act as line of sight for ARCs. If the comm is low on res to scan, get in the freaking hive!
* Onos stomp stops turrets from targeting briefly, as well as structure damage and marine damage
* It takes Armor 2 for a marine to last an extra bite from a skulk, so armor 1 only prevents the parasite + bite (which 99% of skulks on pubs don't do). Ergo, for most engagements, Armor doesn't make a difference until you hit A2.
* Welder does more damage than axe vs lifeforms. No reason not to take one and weld your pals/close combat. It's also better than axe vs structures that are vulnerable to fire.
* Pistol does more damage than assault rifle -- but as noted, once armor is gone. This means, however, that's it's really good to switch to pistol to finish off a lifeform than reload the assault rifle first.
EDIT: Would love to see all these tips added to NS2+ for loading screens (or vanilla, now the CDT is on the case).
Lerk Spores confuse Sentry guns, stopping them from firing
Also, babblers have the same damage absorption qualities of clogs.
Might be good to list the buildings vulnerable to fire
So far, I know that cysts and hydras are, not sure about any others
Flamers dont burn bile off, as marty said they do POP bile bombs in mid-air though
Lerk is the only lifeform which has its gravity modified by crouch.
Lerk temporary extra speed on takeoff is gone IIRC.
They do???
Afaik there aren't any others. It used to be only cysts before the balance changes, because the flamethrower originated as infestation counter. (you know, dynamic infestation and stuff)
- Here I need your help: the crag's healing wave is only healing lifeforms, but no structures like the hive, correct?
Things changed so often, it is hard to remember all the small things. Nice list! Didn't know about the shadowstep jump.
They do heal structures. That's part of the reason you see crags and whips so often next to harvesters in the first place.
2)Gorges can bile bomb dropped marine weapons
33% reduction against shotguns and 27% for lmg or something like that.
Fade shadowstep is a good one, as there's not much of an indication that it's been researched.
Lets talk about stuff that is really not obvious. I will include commander related stuff, as even some advanced players don't have this knowledge, and as a field player it is always useful to know what commander is capable of:
Babblers have limited lifetime. At least they had, correct me if I am wrong.
Obs beacons to nearest CC, not the room it is in, being in the same room as CC is not required as well. Beacon mechanics are very confusing at first, so this should be added.
Beacon instantly respawns all the marines that are already respawning in IP in same room where you beacon. Example: beacon to Control goes off in 0.5 seconds and you just started respawning. You will respawn instantly insted of waiting usual ~8 second. If you are respawning at Sub and beacon goes off in control, you will respawn as usually. This is so not obvious, I had NSL commander arguing with me.
Hallucinating a hive will draw all sentry attention to it. Very useful.
You can hallucinate harvesters, if you cast a cloud on empty resource node that is infested. So not obvious, I only used it successfully twice in my 1.6k hours and never seen others do it.
If you power surge unpowered structure and start research/production, progress won't be lost when power surge ends. You can apply another and continue from where it stopped.
If you look at the floor when heal spraying as a gorge, you will regain twice as much HP, nothing around you will be healed tho.
One target can be welded only by one MAC at the time, however, one target can be built by multiple MACs for increased speed.
You can assign control groups to stuff like arms labs, armory, proto, not only the icon will flash when structure is under attack, it will allow you to start researches without moving your view to base. Binding at least one Obs to a key is a must.
You can queue any order that is executed by clicking on map. This includes casting drifter clouds. Say, you can queue order drifter to go to tech point and cast hive hallucination, then go back to forward base and cast three mucus, then go to some hallway and start patrolling between that place and other place of your choice. This applies to guard command as well. Say, you can tie MAC to one exo, then queue follow and weld to another, then go back to base. If first exo dies, mac will start following another, if that one dies as well (damn noobs), MAC will try to escape to base. Also, you can order arcs to go to certain location and deploy as soon as they reach it.
If you hear multiple request as a commander, you can according status messages in top right corner to go to one exact request, then another, and another, space key only leads you to last one.
And last, but most important. You can taunt as an egg.
And marines! Don't forget you can control group your mariiiinnessss!!
...but they don't follow your orders anyway, this feature is next to useless
uuuurgghhh1!!!!
are you sure about this, dragon? In testing, I found that dropping the pistol does not speed you up (at least after dropping your rifle first).
That's because the pistol has zero weight.