The Official Unofficial General Guide To Marines N

<div class="IPBDescription">17 pages</div> The official unofficial general guide to marines NS v1.04
Created 03/01/03
Written by Lux

Hi everyone.

All right you have gotten owned by other clans using a slew of strats which all end in killing you! How are they doing it? When you were alien they had 2 hives before you even had hmgs! What’s going on? Do not despair! I have written this guide to help the new and beginning clans, and anyone else to whom this guide may help. The goal of this article is to promote the growth of skilled and active clans in the ns community.

First let me introduce my self to those of you who don’t know me so you know where I am coming from (no I did not just make all this stuff up) I have been playing Natural Selection since a few weeks after its release. Quickly I created a clan d6, after its failure I joined TAU (#tau) and learned quite a bit from them, after about 3-4 weeks in TAU I was asked to leave because I was essentially to active. At this point I founded #findnsscrim, which is now doing quite well. Next I joined eR (#er) and am still with them. In all I have played around 100+ scrims, too many to count; I have played with every top clan in the ns community and met a lot cool people, most importantly I had a lot of fun along the way <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->

Here for you now is a guide for clans that need the help, for clans that don’t scrim often or new clans who would like to compete. This guide is general and does not nearly cover everything you need to know, or everything I know, I have included only a few general strats because I think its beneficial if clans can develop their own strats. It is written in a way that inexperienced clans can understand, clans that may or may not have ever scrimed before, but a basic understanding of Natural Selection is required.

This article was originally written in Microsoft Word 2000 so much of the formatting got deleted, if you want to view this file in its formatted state you can get it here: <a href='http://www.leut.net/lux/ns/ns_guide.doc' target='_blank'>http://www.leut.net/lux/ns/ns_guide.doc</a> or <a href='http://www.geocities.com/luxlux64/ns_guide.doc' target='_blank'>http://www.geocities.com/luxlux64/ns_guide.doc</a> or <a href='http://www.geocities.com/darkgoosey/ns_guide.doc' target='_blank'>http://www.geocities.com/darkgoosey/ns_guide.doc</a>
It is a lot easier to read. I added all the space in between the paragraphs because on the forums it would not allow me to indent

No one helped me write this article but I would like to encourage all new clans to sign up for CAL (http://www.caleague.com/?div=natsl), they are doing an excellent job of creating the best league for ns clans to compete. If you need to talk to me I can be found on IRC on gamesnet in #er and #findnsscrim.

For those of you who don’t want to read the entire article I have made an outline:

A. Introduction
B. Basic ideas and things your team can do
I. Scouting
II. Regulation of Resources
III. Guarding base
IV. Expansion
C. Advanced ideas and things your team can do
I. Upgrading
II. Pressuring
III. Strategy
IV. Skills of NS
V. The next step…
VI. Conclusion

For future references you are the person this guide is directed to, they is your opponent in most cases. Below is a list of the abbreviations I use in this article.
Infantry portal = ip
Resource tower = res / rt / res nodes
Resource points / money = res / $ / money / rp
Prototype lab = proto
Jet pack: jp
Heavy Armour = ha
Motion tracking = mt
Heavy machine gun = hmg
Light machine gun = lmg
Grenade launcher = gl
Offense chamber = oc
Defense chamber = dc
Gorge = gorg / fatteh
Hit points = hp
Turret factor = tf
To advance your technology = tech
Strategy = strat

To get started you need to under stand the underling goal of all marine actions: You need to kill their hive before the time limit runs out (by time running out I mean when they get 2 hives up and are able to defend them) that is the only way to win. There are many ways to do this. I will detail the different ways later but its important you keep these main objectives in mind, every action your team makes should help this final goal.

Next is the build order. This is not a pub, there is no room for a sloppy build order. You need to have a build order that fits your strategy. This article does not detail build orders but in general build the minimal amount of buildings necessary to defend your base and to achieve your tech requirements.

The next section covers what your troops can do in order to further your strategy:


I. Scouting


Many clans will attack at least once in a base rush or more likely an attempt to parasite you. From this you should have a pretty good idea of where their hive is. Often you cant tell though so it is a good idea to send out a scout or two at the beginning so you have an idea where their hive is. Knowing the location of the hive can help you a lot:

- First, it tells you where you will eventfully attack. For instance if their hive is Great Viaduct (ns_nothing) jet packs might be a more viable option then a hmg ground rush.
- It tells you where they will attack from, this is very useful especially in defending the base because you can set up mines more heavily in the direction they are coming from.
- On most maps there are 2 “edge” hives and one “center” hive in between the other two. If they are in an edge hive, for instance Maintenance Access (ns_eclipse) you know that it will be harder for your opponent to destroy those res nodes because they are so much further away. If they were in Maintenance and you built at South Loop it would easily get killed because its closer to their spawn point then yours.
- The last important thing the hive location tells you is it hints at where they will build. If your opponent is in Eclipse hive (ns_eclipse) he will most likely build at Triad. Don’t count on it but 9/10 times the first resource they build is the one closest to their hive because its easy to defend for them.


II. Regulation of resources


It is very important to most alien strategy’s to kill the marine’s res nodes because marines are ONLY limited by the amount of rp they have, where as aliens are limited by the amount of rp they have AND the number of hives (ie: no matter how many resources the aliens have they cant get upgraded units and other upgrades till they have 2 or more hives up) Essentially this is why it is so hard to aliens to win. Keeping this fact in mind you can see that if you can kill their resource towers they will not be able to expand or build heavy defense. Often this is TOTALY forgotten in scrims. A team will be so intent on destroying their defense or killing the hive that they don’t realize the entire map has been taken over by one guy. Often if you can kill resource towers “on the way” to other objectives (if you are going to attack the hive and on the way you see a resource tower you could have some one go kill it while you attack to keep them distracted) or early in the game (this is because even though you might lose a few men and a little time the damage you cause by killing their first or second resource tower is a real hamper on the time it takes for them to get upgrades and defenses) or when you have jet packs it is viable. Remember the alien resource towers are very strong and take a considerable amount of damage to kill. Hit and run attacks will often not work because they can readily be healed by gorges, again usually the resources are build near the hive so if you attack it and don’t kill it chances are they will quickly heal it, making the effort in vain; However hit and run attacks can work with a jp with a welder because you can move around faster then the skulks and because you can fly. One jper can take down many resources, especially if a diversion is made. Regulation of resources is usually a secondary objective in most marine strats.


III. Guarding base:


I have seen very skilled teams go down because they do not guard the base well enough. Your base comes first ALWAYS! If your base dies its over for the most part. If you have to choose between killing their hive and saving your base, always save your base. When you are attacking with your group of 3 or 4 guys you encounter little resistance, you might feel confident and even lock down the hive (lock down is explained later) in your haste to kill the hive, in that key moment, you fail to judge the situation and make the wrong decision of killing the hive. Here is why: If your base dies it is being attacked by guys, after they finish killing it they will either come back to the hive and get crazy healing (while you cant get healing) or go gorge and make a new hive; You will likely run out of ammo because you have no commander, even if you do kill the hive you will still be limited by ammo and some hives you cant knife; the aliens can keep building hives and eventually you will die. If it is a question of saving the base that probably means they have 2-5 guys attacking, many times after these base rushes it’s a good time to counter attack. But ideally you don’t want everyone running back to save the base, its very costly and if they can get all your guys to go back you will lose not only the buildings in the base they killed but leave holes for your opponent to freeload on your undefended resource nodes.

In order to keep the base well defended at all times there are a couple of things you can do:

The best way is to leave a guy at base, this is really handy because he can build things as well as protect.

Another way to defend your base is mines: these things are powerful, usually they kill a skulk with no carapce in one hit, but due to mine bugs on many servers if you place 2 mines next to each other they cause a chain reaction, this is a pain in the **** because you pay 8 rp for one explosion, on the plus side the one explosion is large and often will often be deadly. Placing mines is key. Never drop a pack of miens on a mine that is laid, or ANY item on a mine that is layed, or even near it! Don’t ask why but it’s a bug that causes the near by mines to explode, the simple way to stop this is drop your mines in a corner, far away from where the mines that are placed are. The most effective mine placement is around buildings. The reason for this is usually openings and entry points (the only other viable place to place mines) are a lot bigger then the structures (for instance the doors on ns_eclipse; if you lay 5 mines on the edge so they are horizontal, if one of those miens blows up you have a gap, and dedicating a guy to constantly fill that gap is costly and inefficient). When an enemy attacks he will go for the buildings, well placed mines can cover a building entirely, I like to put mines on the ground facing up so that the laser beam is not visible and thus its more likely to get over looked by a rushing skulk. Another benefit of mines around buildings is they are MUCH harder for the gorge to shoot at; if you put mines on the doors the gorge can come and blow them up but if they are deep in your base then you are more safe.

Another way to defend your base is coordination with the people in the field. I have seen many strange strats that attempt to not have a base guard. The most successful of these is the base guard who is versatile. If you can have a base guard that can go build resources or do quick little tasks near by the base this can help out a lot. Example: Their hive is Maintenance access (ns_eclipse) and you are planning a major attack. You have a guy going solo and scouting out their resources near eclipse; the guy at base is free to build at station access or triad. This type of strategy is a little risky because if suddenly the base guard dies while he is out no then one is left and that could be the end of that game. Other times people will fan out, putting guys in all direction so that the base guard can move about and build resources. I advise for beginning clans always have a guy at base, and don’t just put the least skilled guy because when they rush with 2 gorges and 4 skulks he better be on the mark (more about how to counter the large rushes later)

Turrets – Turrets are essentially useless, except for siege, especially at base. Do not bother making turrets if you plan to win, quickly. A turret factory costs 25 rp + 2 turrets @ 19 rp each = 63 res, that’s the equivalent of 7.8 mine packs ~39 mines. Hopefully you can see why the turret is not viable for base defense. And even with 4 turrets a good rush can easily take that down.


IV. Expansion


In order to upgrade you will need resources. I am not going to go into the formulas for resources, but it is important that you have a good idea of how much resource each rt will bring in. At some point you will need to expand, to at least one res node. If you are the guy who is building the resource (not the commander) make sure you can hold that resource, and the commander should always ask you if its clear. Never start building a resource tower if you are alone and can hear aliens, that is suicide. Expansion when ever possible should be coordinated with attacks. Usually the best thing to do is build rts when it will hurt them to draw guys from their base to attack that specific node (the one you are building) example: They have eclipse hive (ns_eclipse) and you are sending in a 4 man jp rush with shot guns, if you do build a resource at any of the res nodes on the other side of the map (near maintenance access) it will be very difficult for them to send guys to kill it because they will be distracted at the hive. If they don’t know about the hive attack all the better, you are diverting guys away from the primary goal of the attack, in this case even if the resource dies the guys you divert might have left a critical hole open in their hive defenses.

For the commander you should always be ready to recycle resources. If there is one skulk attacking recycle it quickly and he wont be able to kill it before you get your money back. Try and judge if some one can get to the tower in time to save it, usually good clans send out scout teams of 2 to kill the resources, if that happens the best thing you can do is tell the nearest guy to get there and he might be able to distract them till they recycle it, or he might be able to save it.

I just thought id mention this also because I have seen a lot of people handle this situation poorly: if there is a skulk attacking a resource and if you go to the left he goes to the right, using the resource tower as a shield, don’t just stand there! Kill him. For this task I usually use my pistol, its best if you can get him when your moving towards him or jumping, usually he then has to move and cant stay perfectly still behind the thin post of the res node and if you aim is good you will get him. Do NOT just stand there and fire into the resource tower, this will do friendly fire damage to the resource tower and once you realize you are out of bullets the skulk continues to bite and eventfully kill the node or just jump out at you while you reload.

In the defense of resource towers mines are very useful as well. Mines can be placed near or even on resources, often the best spot is by the legs so that the mine goes into the model of the leg and is almost invisible. Although skilled aliens will attack around the mines they are still helpful because if you send a guy to help save it the guy is not faced with the same dilemma as the one in the paragraph above, he can simply shoot one of the mines or strafe back and forth till the alien moves and hits a mine. Also mines can be placed on the doors and choke points near resource towers, often the best spots are dark corners where a skulk might hide if some one was sent to guard the resource.

One last note about resources: keep an eye on their health, if a resource is half dead it may not be worth the money to buy a welder and weld it, in some cases it would be about the same cost to recycle the res node and build a totally new one. This is usually up to the commander, some times you need the welder, mainly if your base is damaged, but 10 rp to repair a res node is usually a waste.


Now that you have a good idea of what your people on the field could be doing lets talk about some of the more advanced things which commanders can do and the various strategies of NS.


I. Upgrading


It is important you upgrade based on your team’s strat. I will list all the upgrades and tell a little about them:

- Motion tracking – This allows you to see all enemy movement as well as which hives are built or being built. This upgrade is the only sure fire way to protect your base against large rushes because you can see them massing around your base. It has significant advantages, you can see where everyone moves, and usually you can spot the gorge because he moves the slowest. Also you can see where your opponent is grouping and plan a counter attack or plan an attack where they are not grouped. The set backs of this upgrade are its high cost. Often if you have a good sound set of speakers you can detect movement just as well but admittedly not as far of range. MT does not show enemies that are standing still, do not get too cocky if you have mt. A lot of clans will rush MT, personally I think it slows down the tech too much, but if you have the extra cash it is a powerful tool.

- Armor level 1 – For 20$ you get +20 armor, basically you can take 3 hits instead of 2 (skulk hits). This upgrade is required if you want to get lvl 2 or lvl 3 upgrades of armor. This is the most cost effective armor upgrade and VERY powerful because of its cheapness and because it can be purchased early on before aliens have defense chambers. A marine that can take 3 hits instead of 2 is much more likely to survive. Most clans rush to armor level 1 as soon as they get a rt up or even before.

- Armor level 2 – with this upgrade you get an additional 20 points of armor. This usually allows a marine to take 3-4 bites but is not nearly as cost effective as level 1.

- Armor level 3 – Rarely will you see armor level 3 in scrims, but it will give each guy 110 armor. The only time armor level 3 is viable is when you have an extreme excess of resources, otherwise the rp is better spent on other upgrades or equipment.

- Weapons level 1 – this adds +20% damage. Because it only takes about 9 shots to kill a skul with no carapace this upgrade is not really needed until the aliens have upgraded. But always remember if you don’t upgrade this you will be fighting level 3 carapace skuls with level 0 weapons and you will get owned pretty quickly. Level one weapons is best researched after level 1 armor.

- Weapons level 2 – this adds an additional 20% damage (+40% from your base damage). This is the optimal upgrade for killing aliens with any level of carapace.

- Weapons level 3 – this adds another 20% damage (+60% from your base damage). This upgrade is essentially useless, the only time you really need it is if you are fighting fades. Like armor level 3 this upgrade is only viable if you have a lot of excess rp.

- Jet packs– Jet packs for the price of 9 rp each are worth it. If you have a jet pack you can fly around and this makes is very difficult for skulks to kill you because they can only attack melee. Make sure your team knows how to use them effectively against a group of attacking skuls and also against lurks.

- Heavy armor (HA) – This gives marines a suit of hundreds of armor points. The reason heavy armor is so powerful is because its armor points can be quickly replenished by a welder. The draw back of HA is that it is slow and even with full armor you can still die in about 10 skulk bites, also HA is 50 for the upgrade and 25 rp to equip each person. Often it is used in groups with some one welding the HA from behind to make a slow and deadly advance.

- Armory upgrade – The armory upgrade gives you access to HMG and GL. These guns are needed to kill hives if you cant siege because it is near impossible to kill a hive with just lmgs when there are 2-5 oc and 3+ dc and a gorg healing the hive directly, no matter how many people you have. It takes approximately 2 and a quarter hmg clips to kill a hive, the difference between killing a hive with 3 hmgs vs 1 hmg is that the DCs can heal the hive but I have tested 9 dcs healing vs 3 dcs healing vs 0 dcs healing and the effect is negligible. The difference defence chambers have on a hive is only a few seconds different. Keep in mind also the hive can heal its self but only at a VERY slow rate (1 hit point at a time). Also remember that a hive has about 6100 hit points. The Grenade launcher is a powerful gun which deals 200 damage a shot and double versus buildings. Its slow explosions and 4 nade clip make it only practical as a supporting gun for killing buildings. GL can bounce off walls and so is very effective for remotely killing buildings. The gl against a hive is usually ineffective (I am not sure about this but I think it’s a bug: if the gl does 400 damage to the hive per hit then it should take about 16 hits to kill, I know to kill a hive it takes in fact much more so I would assume the hive is not considered a “building”. If that is the case then you can see that 32+ hits is not a viable strategy for killing hives). The armory is one of the longest upgrades so if you plan to use it in your strats leave a fair amount of time for it.

- Siege Turret upgrade – Had to include this one because it is an upgrade technically. The tf is only useful if you get siege and to do that you will need this upgrade for 25 rp, it is a quick upgrade.

There are a few powerful combinations of these upgrades, the most common: Weapons level 2 + Armor level 3 + jet packs and armory upgraded, depending if the attack is with hmgs or not. Some clans prefer to get motion tracking right away then armor level 1 and then weapons upgrades if they have enough cash. Others like to get Armory upgraded with jet packs and no other upgrades. It is up to your clan to decide which upgrades will serve them and which are not useless. In my experience the weapons level 3 and weapons level 3 are wasteful. I recommend these upgrades based on cost effectiveness based on their abilitys: Armor 1, guns 1, jet packs, armory upgrade, guns 2, these are really all you need but if you have extra cash: armor 2, ha, armor 3, guns 3. Obviously your clan should try various combinations of upgrades and the order you upgrade in, this is just a sample of what I like.


II. Pressuring


Pressure is very important, and can take many forms. Pressure is the attack (or pressure) of an attacking group focusing on a specific goal; putting pressure on res towers would mean attacking res towers etc. Almost any attack could be considered pressure but if you understand the aims of your attack you can do a much better job.

The most common use of pressure is an attack which will not likely succeed but will contain an area long enough for rts to be captured and research to be done (depending on your strat); if you pressure the hive, the aliens have no choice but to defend their hive. Even if you cant penetrate into the hive just sitting out side and killing their scouts creates a big distraction. Usually if you sit out side their hive they will think you are regrouping for some kind of rush and may focus on killing you instead of killing your resources, which they should be doing.

Many variations of pressure are used, but most involve an almost constant pressure on the alien hive; this, although often failing seemingly in uselessness do hamper aliens, also on the off chance the pressure does get to the hive or their destination you will be better off then if they were just sitting.

The main idea behind pressure is that if you can keep your opponent busy in defending your pressure you will be able to expand much faster or do what ever your specific strat demands. If you don’t pressure your opponent at all he will be the one making the decisions about attacks; in ns it is always best to be on the offensive, this way you control when and where the attacks happen. As the old saying goes “the best defense is the best offense” in ns the attacker has more control of the situation and is more likely to succeed.


III. Strategy


You now know some things you can do to hurt and slow your opponent. You can expand, tech and create diversions all that is good and jolly but the essence of a strong team in ns is the ability to function as a team in achieving a common goal, this is done by using a strat. In the writings above I have said a lot about the team’s strat, this simply means your overall plan of attack. Good clans are not locked into one specific strat but have a good variety of strats that can be implemented on the spot to counter different threats, but if you are new to ns it might be best if you start with one strat and then begin to develop other strats as you play more and get better. This is the part of NS that is like a real time strategy. Usually this is all in the mind of the commander but its important all players understand the strat and are able to make decisions to further the goals of the team if something unexpected happens or the commander is unable to walk them through their tasks step by step.

Building your own strats will depend on your strengths as a team. A team that has very good 1v1 skills and can push deep into their territories is going to likely have optimal results when they rush, where as a team that is less skilled might play a conservative strat. I know a lot of starting clans try to make their own strats, this is a good thing but also it helps to see other clan’s strats that work and especially to see the strats that don’t work; obviously I am not gona give out eR’s strats but I can give you some strats I have observed over the many scrims I have played and observed. There are far to many strats, or variations of the strats below, to list in one article; here are some:

1. High risk, ****-out strats

Of all the various strats, the **** out strats are the most rare and often most difficult to execute. These strat’s success often rests on one single rush or action. The problem with these strats is that once you do them your clan will become known for that specific rush and it will progressively work less and less.

An example of such a strat is the HMG ground attack. If you upgrade the armory right after its built you can get HMGs with in a very short time, usually before some times before they have carapace. If you don’t spend any money you will have enough money for 4 hmgs. There is not much Alien can do against this, usually they are taken by surprise and they don’t have enough to put up ocs or prepare any kind of defense. Once you arrive at the hive you only need to shoot one half of your clip to kill it (if 4 are alive), which is fairly easy. Problems with strats like these is they take little consideration of the base, often your base will get killed while you do an hmg rush with 4 or 5 people. Also if the people die you have no rts and no res, aliens will be much further along in the game then you, and you cant rush again because they will be better prepared. Strats like this can work, but are very risky.

2. Slow advancement strats
Slow and cautious advancement can be applied to many different situations. The advantage of advancing slowly is that you can regroup and pick the best spots (compared to a rush which you might end up in some unplanned area). Slow advancement although strong will attract a lot of attention and often get parasited frequently, but if the goal of an attack is to delay or distract your opponent then it is good to go slowly and carefully because chances are you will live longer; your opponent will think you are coming and retract guys that might be attacking your base or resource towers. A lot of top clans will vary the speed they advance in order to ensure the best possible outcome of their attacks.

3. Conservative strats
The conservative strats are strats which minimize the chance of failure at the cost of speed. A good example of a strat like this is to camp and hold hives. A clan with jet packs and HMGs, if playing conservatively, could put an HMG jper at each hive and hold it. It is almost impossible for them to die if they are camping it. It can only be done with great coordination from aliens, even then it is still very difficult to kill that one guy. After the conservative clan makes sure that aliens are not expanding then they can upgrade freely while aliens are limited by one hive. There are many other variations on conservative strats; these are very powerful and extremely hard to stop. The only set back of the conservative strat is that it usually takes longer then a traditional rush. Currently in CAL time has no effect but in 1.1 the rules will likely split ties by declaring the winner the one who beat the other faster.

4. Rush starts
i. Tech - The tech rush involves quickly upgrading and attacking before aliens are able to get up defenses. This type of thing requires that a few resource towers be held. If you can hold the rts you can tech very quickly and eventfully rush the hive with superior upgrades and equipment. Most every clan will tech up before they win, the extent of the rushing towards a certain upgrade is different in each clan. If an opponent builds many offense chambers you would want to tech to gl but if they have no defense you might consider a jp rush or another rush.

ii. Welders + jp - Few people use welders in rushes. If there are no defenses at a hive and you have a jp + welder one person can do massive damage to the hive before he goes down. Even if there are offense chambers if you float around the hive in the right manner you can dodge the ocs and because friendly fire is on in tournament mode the ocs will do additional damage to the hive. If you attack with a group of 2-3 people (2-3 are on the ground) and one guy with a welder who are they most likely to go after? The people on the ground obviously because they are easy to kill. The guy with the welder can just hover around the hive and weld it. Even with out upgrade the welder damage adds up to a lot, many people over look the welder attack. Also if you have a welder + jp make sure he has 99 fps so he can stay afloat long enough to kill the hive.

iii. Hmgs + jp - The hmg combined with jetpack is extremely powerful, and the most common of all rush strats. It only takes about 2 and a quarter HMG clips to kill a hive, not much math to do here folks, it will die very quickly. The most cost effective hmg rush with jp is 2 hmgs with back up guys to get the hmgs if the guys with em die. With only 50 rp more you can get 4 hmgs and it only takes half a clip each. There is NO defense for a 4 hmg rush once they are in the hive. The only problem HMG Jpers will encounter is lurks, out side the hive they are fairly easy to kill with an hmg, inside the hive it takes a LOT of hits, keep in mind killing a lurk in the hive with an lmg is pretty much impossible when the lurk is moving. Remember if you are in a hive rush to shoot the hive, don’t waste your ammo killing the guys because once you die it is not gona matter how many guys you killed, all that will matter is weather you have killed the hive. Rarely will you see hmg jp lock downs, this is because by the time you have hmgs and jps they will have a few ocs.

iv. Shotguns + jp - The shottie jp rush is a fairly uncommon strat but not as rare as the HMG ground rush. Shottys are a lot cheaper then HMGs because you don’t have to upgrade the armory and it can be achieved a lot faster then hmgs. Each shot does 200 damage if all the pellets hit. If you have only moderate resources a shottie rush is a good alternative to the typical hmg jp rush. A good measure for shot gun’s damage is it takes about 40 shots to kill the hive, with 3 dcs (this is with one guy shooting it). The shottie rush can work in almost any situation. Like the welder attack you will be close to the hive and if you pay attention to where you move you can make the ocs hit the hive, always a nice damage bonus. The shottie rush will work faster depending on how many shotties you have. I would advise against shotty ground rushes.

v. lock down - A lock down means you are in their hive and you can kill your opponents as they spawn. This requires you to kill their entire team. It works because when some ones spawns they are disoriented and pitted against 3-4 people, they are lucky if they can even escape the hive area. It takes 8 seconds for an alien to respawn, in 8 seconds you can fire your entire LMG clip and reload it before the next guy spawns. I like to kill the alien that spawns and then unload what is left of my clip into the hive or the resource tower. Once a hive is locked down the only way for a team to regain control of the hive is if enough escape from the hive area, regroup and attack together. It is extremely difficult to reclaim a locked down hive but it is almost as difficult to lock down the hive in the first place. If you are going for a lock down make sure your team knows not to start shooting the hive or they will likely get killed. Locking down a hive takes a lot of communication because killing 6 people that are healing 20 hp constantly is very difficult. Remember lock down will only work if you can get into the hive and sit there, locking down a hive with offense chambers is near impossible.

vi. Resources - Rushing resources is often forgotten in the haste to upgrade or rush. Although this is not a stand-alone strat it is often used in conjunction with other strats. Remember killing resources will hamper the alien’s progress. Resources are usually quick to kill if a big group of marines are attacking it.

5. Siege
Because of the reduction of range combined with the requirement of targets to be cited, the siege strats are less common. Nevertheless they are very potent. With siege you can sit in a pre-selected area in which you can camp while your siege does the work for you; this puts you in a strong defensive position and will force aliens to attack you. Siege is good for hives which have to much defense to attack with a basic rush. Siege is about as expensive as an HMG rush; 1-2 sieges can kill a hive very quickly. There is no circumstance where siege is absolutely necessary, my opinion is to avoid using siege because if you spend the money on weapons or upgrades you get almost the same effect but the weapons are much more versatile in their application.

6. Relocation strats
This involves moving your base to a new location, usually a hive, this way it is harder for aliens to expand. Relocation is possible also if your main base dies. I seriously doubt the relocation strats will work in league play but some people still do relocation strats still so I thought I would at least include it. You basically gather all your guys at your base and rush quickly to a new location before the aliens realize it and hope to get your base up in time to respawn. The marine spawn is usually in the middle of the map (it is about equal distance to either hive), so unless you can get to a center hive (which is usually further away) you will be limited to one end of the map and have access to fewer options, especially your resources. The relocation will work on some maps better then others. Also the relocation is very expensive, the cost of relocation is the cost of a com chair + the cost of the resource tower at your base (it will die once you get rushed) + the cost of whatever you built at your base, often just one ip, it adds up folks.


IV. Skills of NS


Team work is the most important factor in a team’s success. No matter how good you are individually if you team doesn’t know where you are going or where they should be you will not be able to organize and work effectively together. The best way to build team play is by playing, scrims are the best way. Going over strats helps some clans, while others need to just play the same strat over and over till they feel comfortable.

The next most important thing is individual skill. Although ns is very team play based do not forget that individual skill is extremely important. If you have perfect team play but little skill you will do decently but ultimately your clan will have to work much harder then a team lacking team play. Often referred to as first person shooter (fps) skill is basically the ability to track and aim effectively; every scrim I have played in there are many situations where I must kill an opponent in a 1v1 fight, no matter how good my team is that one battle depends on me and my skill, these little battles make a big difference, especially if you are guarding a resource, or worse the base, you cant afford to lose these critical battles. Scrims unfortunately wont help your fps skill. I have played computer games since doom 2, I am gona have an edge in ns. Don’t get me wrong, raising your fps skill is not impossible, just takes a lot of work. I would advise if you are having trouble with fps skill to practice in pubs, practice your aiming, try taking on 3 skulk at once and refining your techniques in general, shooting the various (incorrect) hit boxes, seeing through the muzzle flash, moving around when you are fighting, when to reload etc… many skills are required to be a strong fps player and I am not gona list them all here.


IV. The next step…


Hopefully this general guide helps you in some way. The next step after you have mastered these basic ideas of ns clan play, listed above, is to become proficient at adapting your strats to other clans and creating your own diverse strats to counter them. An excellent clan can make new plans and execute them expertly with great efficiency during a scrim, they know when to push when to hold and when to counter, often times with few words spoken.

If you haven’t noticed in scrims yet ns is flawed because marines are only limited by resources. Thus this guide will essentially be useless in 1.1 due to major balance changes but I have heard rumors that 1.1 play testing has not even started yet…duno but the future of ns looks very bright, hopefully the potential to make ns a deeper game will be achieved in 1.1 and some day we can hope to see ns in the CPL among the top mods ever made.

I realize I am gona get flamed no matter what I say right here…just remember this guide is for common benefit and if you have a problem with it let me know POLITLEY, or go write your own guide, I am not gona stop you.

Keep your eye out for an alien strat guide written by HAMBONE from the ham clan (#hamburg), he should be posting it soon on the NS Archives Forums (http://nsa.wideloader.com/), if he does I will drop the link here.