Overview
New to NS2? Not good at NS2?I’ve got your back This guide will contain information on what to do and how to improve, including general tips for aliens and marine players.
marines: the how to guide
I’m going to to make an arbitrarily unorganized numbered list of things to do as a marine player to help you get good starting out.
1. Stick with your team. This is a team game and you’re dead alone.
2. Listen to team orders, this is a team strategy game. if you do not follow the strategy and help your team you will lose.
3. Aim at the feet of the guy in front of you. When an alien comes to bite his knees the alien will be in front of his knees, although most likely jumping up and down.
4. In the very start of every map aliens will either rush with many skulks in a pack or ambush as individual skulks, they can be in any corner, behind any object, listen for sounds and react.
5. This is not counter strike, you have to aim up and down and spin around, do not follow traditional aiming habbits and just hold your cursor head-level towards the horizon, the aliens are short and run on cielings and walls, you will be aiming and following targets in patterns you are NOT used to, be prepared to abandon conventional target following routes.
6. Do what the team is doing, srsly, stick with your team.
7. the default C button opens up the map, this should be open 50% of the time you are in-game and not a commander, you need to be aware of everything going on at all times. You can hear aliens more often than not before you see them so holding C isn’t a big deal, but if you find they have silence learn to only have it up when you’re not on the front lines.
8. The starting weapon is good, the pistol is good, the axe is okay. Really, you should be able to hold your own with the starting automatic rifle, considering it’s average and respectable stats and that there should always be like 2-10 of them together, even onos fear it, but ONLY if you’re sticking together and focusing targets, which you should be doing it’s a team game.
9. Lerkers – are terrifying against marines with starting rifles but if you have a welder among you and focus on hitting your target and strafing back and forth in short patterns you’ll ruin the lurker, his needle attack has great range but penetrates armor like a marshmallow.
10. Fades – you need 3 guys together with starting rifles or a shotgun, and you always need armor level 2-3 so he doesn’t 2 hit kill you easy-breezy. They run away when they’re scared, but half the time they still have good health so chasing them is a gamble unless you have 2-3 people chasing him together
11. Gorge – dump your rifle clip into them, switch to your pistol and dump your pistol and then axe them if they’re trying to do something otherwise switch to rifle and keep reload-dumping it, they can self heal. Their projectile is hard to land once you’re strafing back and forth, if they’re on you trying to cast healing spray to heal and damage you at the same time pull out your axe and let them appreciate your superior damage output
12. onos – This guy is terrifying to face as a noob but just appreciate that he costs 60 resource to spawn, you cost 0 and your damage and armor upgrades are free, the onos gets his upgrades at a cost so an upgraded onos costs near 70-80 resources, it’s well worth sacrificing 5-6 marines to kill one, you might think the numbers are bad but the economy will favor you heavily if you do, the alien will NOT get to be an onos again for a really long time from his own player-specific-resource-pool. Onos will run away when uncertain about their ability to survive, take the cause of their uncertainty and chase them, 5 marines chasing an onos with jetpacks and the onos is doomed unless the alien players are really good and counter your jetpack swarm.
13. Conserve ammo, skulks are going to walk on walls
Items —
starting rifle – your bread and butter, learn it love it live it. This weapon is good and gets a lot better with upgrades, don’t diss it and think it’s a toy, an unupgraded starting rifle kills a skulk in something like 14 bullets at the start of the game and has a 35 round magazine, that’s 2 skulks per clip per person in the marine group, you better always be in a group until you’re real good.
2 people with starting rifles can kill a fade with proper armor upgrades pretty handily or at least force it to retreat, 5 on an onos? gg
pistol – real damage, just not a real clip, you’re good for 1-2 skulks or finishing off a bigger guy in a clutch situation with this
axe – only the manliest men need apply, it 2-3 hits a skulk, finishes off an aggressive gorge prty handily too
shotgun – Lurkers can no longer try to bite you without dying assuming you can aim, fades will no longer blitz your team, they will be forced to hit once and then flee before dying, onos are still a problem, mass aliens are still a problem. Get a jetpack with this and you’re golden
Flamethrower – this kills the skulk. Lurker, fade. Scares the onos and does awesome damage and splashes for AOE. Get a jetpack and you’ll be really hard to hit due to flames obscuring alien vision coupled with jetpack mobility.
Grenade launcher – This removes kebab. 2 weapon level 3 upgraded marines with jetpacks can single handedly remove hive and cleanse stains, restoring your spaceship corridors to brand new. You need a team for this, you will lose 1v1 to any competent alien and lose your GL, but behind your team? shooting nades around corners and into onos? You are a terrible diety amongst the xeno scum. Bask in their fear and agony. You need to be good at evading aliens with a jetpack with this. You need to be good. When good, you will be feared by the aliens while the best on the enemy team headhunt you specifically to get your weapon out of the picture. On foot you are extremely vulnerable and must be behind your team and stick to the biggest group of marines your team has at all times to be effective, shoot nades into your team to kill skulks biting their ankles, shoot grenades into the doorway the aliens need to funnel through to kill your teammates. Win.
Remember: aliens seem OP? can’t kill a fade on your own with starter equipment? Onos camping your base while you’re helpless to stop it? Aliens spend resources on evolutions, lurkers fades gorges onos cost money, your weapons cost money. Onos seem OP? Try a master GL+jetpacker in your hive, that seems OP too. It goes both ways, marines combine jetpacks with all their weapons, aliens get their onos
and above all things don’t just comm cuz no one wants to comm if you don’t know how, learn to comm in a bot match, the game has training modes, look up strategies after you figure out the hotkeys and command tree, and you DO need to figure out the hotkeys and command tree, marine command needs to be able to hit spacebar to jump to a marine request for health or ammo, hit E and then the corresponding ability button to instantly drop a healthkit or ammo pack on that marine
Defend your resource towers on your own without the comm telling you, hit the C button, look for flashing red resource towers, run to them. Your team’s resource tower is also your resource tower, the less resources you have the less weapons you have, the less buildings and weapons your team has, the more screwed you are. If you’re not sure what to do try to kill an enemy resource tower, this is huge. If you’re alone find a teammate to walk around with while doing what the commander says and attacking the enemy
Killing cysts cuts the chain off, the cut off cyst chain and all corresponding buildings begin to bleed to death this isn’t that big of a deal anymore cuz of the chain cyst summoning thing now though.
And above all things, don’t be a coward. If chasing the onos turning the corner and finishing him off means you die to the skulk chasing you, do it. that’s a 60 resource evolution you just killed, you’re a 0 resource spawn. Make that trade, win the economy. Marines can out-economy aliens so hard and easily it’s awesome
Aliens: an introduction for noobs
Aliens are fast and diverse and have a lot of options available to them but since I’m tired I’m going to write off a numbered list for you to peruse to begin you on your quest of getting-good
1.Stand near the hive to heal
2.Gorges can make gorge tunnels between locations, this is huge. Gorge tunnel next to a shade (that makes surrounding alien stuff invisible) at the center of the map? base of operations, gorge tunnel everywhere important for #1 alien mobility and map control
3.Control the map, punish unprotected resource towers, make sure to protect your own resource towers
4. Jump, strafe, never ever go at a marine in a straight line they kill you in like 1/2 a second of shoot ing at you with their default weapons but you are fast and small and agile, use it. Spam your mouse while jumping to make your skulk spin around to freak the marine out.
5. Work together, aliens are a team, work as a team. Communicate, give warnings, offer opinions, don’t be a jerk.
6. skulk – fast agile deadly weak, easily killed. This is your default knee biter, jump strafe wall jump ambush from the cieling do everything, you’re fast, you’re fastest with celerity, with leap you’re scary, with teeth you bite knees, bite knees. Your bite is an AOE attack but the closer to the center of the screen you are the more damage you do per bite. unless they removed that. Late game? Kill resource towers and xenocide rooms of marines, a single good skulk-suicide bomb and turn an alien defeat into an alien victory
7. Gorge – heal allies, build/heal structures, setup cysts to create walls, hydras to ambush, gorge tunnels to increase team mobility, shoot acid at marines, but the most important thing, along with gorge tunnels, is bile bomb. It eats armor, eats buildings, it’s a damage-over-time effect that stacks on itself incredibly so, it will eat things fast. it turns marines into 5 skulk-bite kills into 2 skulk-bite kills, it melts exosuits it’s good.
8. lerker – area denial, needle unarmored amrines down fast, bite marines, avoid shotguns. Don’t fly into grenades, spread your smoke around to damage marines but most importantly mess up their vision so they can’t shoot your skulks worth crap, a lurker’s gas is huge vision denial which is critical for attacking an enemy base, you can’t shoot what you can’t see.
9. fade – you’re a big boy now. Kill people, avoid shotguns, avoid flamethrowers. Right click to move really fast and fly foward, kill people. Did I mention you’re a big boy now? Use your right mouse button to move around the map disturbingly fast and just attack constantly so the marine team can’t keep up, I don’t ever see anyone use fade’s energy orb thing that absorbs bullets but im sure it’s good to put in front of bile-bombing gorges while attacking a marine base
10. Onos – You’re the biggest kid on the block. You have life, You cost a ton of resources, running away is more important than killing people, around shotguns run away if your life drops to half life. Kill people, smash power outlets, destroy buildings, win the game. But most importantly do NOT die, just the fact taht the marines know you exist will make them limit their mobility out of fear of death. Stomp knocks people down, then kill them. Don’t die though, seriously, the longer you live means the more onoses your team has out at once, 5 onoses are not 5×1 onos, they’re like 10×1 onos in terms of effectiveness. Bide your team work with your team and when you have enough onoses to just meat shield into the enemy base and kill their power do it
11. attack together, your teammate fighting a marine 1v1? Go help him, even if you don’t get a bite the marine might just stop trying and give up where otherwise he might have killed your teammate. It can happen
12. Work with the team, follow the strategy.
13. Communicate, letting aliens know what the marines are doing and where they are vulnerable is important
Basic strategy
Alien necessities:
You need creep to build, those glowing orange things call cysts spread creep, they need to chain.
Destroying power in a room drastically lowers visibility, giving you a large fighting advantage in teh room when it’s already hard to see and shoot small aliens like skulks and lerkers
The F key gives you alien vision so you’re immune to darkness
Aliens fighting together win together, aliens fighting alone die alone.
When attacking a fully developed marine base you need to focus on the most important bulidings, early-mid game, You need to kill the observatory and phase gate first, then infantry portals, then the rest of the base
late game: add power to the list above
Defend your resource towers you are very resource-dependant with very expensive upgrades and evolutions
Shades make things invisible, you can put shades on gorge tunnels in the center of the map and marines might never know it’s there
You can be invisible in a shade and wait for a marine to walk up to you nearby and then eat them
Silence is golden, aliens are very loud in this game and marines can hear them a while away, holding shift to keep quiet and move slowly as a skulk, especially in the beginning of the game is a big deal, when you’re near the enemy
kill phase gates and call phase gates out for the team
marines necessities:
Stick together, the total of a marine group’s firepower is not the sum of it’s parts, it’s a multiple of it’s parts
Play the economy game, after weapons level 3 and armor level 3 and jetpacks you don’t need resource towers nearly as badly as the aliens do, if suicide-charging an alien evolution like a fade or onos will get them killed at the cost of your 20 resource shotgun do it, 60 resource onos kill and 40 resource fade kill is a positive trade for you. Kill alien RTs if you can
marines are expendable but need to work together
if an onos runs away from you after a fight he’s probably scared for his life, chase him this is when he is most vulnerable to dying
When an alien runs away often they run to the nearest hive to heal, if you have jetpacks it’s very reasonable to charge into that hive and finish them off in one clip, leaving them feeling VERY helpless.
You need to learn to be good with the starting rifle and jetpacks, Those are the two most important marine items to be good with
Exosuits need repairs
If you have a jetpack it’s a very good idea to grab a welder so you can be a very mobile and fast-responding team healer. Giving your fellow marines their armor back is very important so a skulk can’t finish them in 2 bites but has to do it in 3-5 bites, this is a huge deal, it goes from a 50-250% increase in survivability, that’s big, repair your teammates.
Stick together, work together, fight together. Marines are a team and need to work like one
Make sure to be a fast responder to alien attacks on your resource towers and base, marine commanders can’t distress beacon summon you if their scanning tower is dead and aliens often target that first, you need to get there to try to stop it instead of expecting a beacon if you’re within reasonable time, phase-gates included.
Phase gates are very important, they get marines back into the fight asap instead of having to walk slowly across the map again, they’re also critical for fast-reaction base defense and map control.
whatever you do, do NOT run away when the guy in front of you starts fighting an alien in the hopes that you’ll survive, trust me you have nothing of expensive value to keep unless you’re in an exosuit, so help your teammate fight, even if it’s a fade or onos, they can miss their attacks and 2 starting rifles can pressure the onos or fade off of your teammate giving him time to run away and heal and get his armor back, this is very useful to do.
That’s all for now post in comments if I’m missing something critical I’ll add it
Miscellaneous tidbits
Adding another section because I ran out of room for both, adding things of importance for both teams.
This goes for both teams, sounds are huge. Aliens can hear running marines but not crouching/walking marines, marines can hear running aliens without silence from a mile away. You have walk button the default should be the shift-key, use it when you want to get the jump on an enemy you hear, don’t let them hear you, the moment you hear an enemy moving nearby stop running unless you’re doing something very specific like rushing to build a suprise phase-gate inside the alien hive hoping the aliens are busy somewhere else. Skulks, especially in the early-game need to learn to walk when they hear marines and find a nice hiding place if they’re solo-skulking to get a nice ambush-advantage on the marine.
Also if this helped you please rate it up so more people will look at this and get good.
If there’s any problems again or things you would like to add please mention them in comments I’ll read what you post.