subjective tip/example of use/comment

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).

Assume the reader has never been (properly) a Commander before. This also means that the list should not include any Commander-only content.

Frontiersmen (Marines)

Burning up spores can help a lot, a lerk on fire is also easier to track.

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.

You can build up the blueprints to around 95% until any other structure is finished (if you get overrun, the node still remains prepared).

You can also repair nearby Marines while you wait for the emergency lights to activate.

Make sure not to accidently hit other nearby blueprints with the welder as they can then be quickly destroyed.

(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").

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.

Pay attention to mines of other players too, especially right after they are researched.

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

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.

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)

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.

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).

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.

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.

As a gorge, it usually doesn't matter if you place hydras on infestation or not as long as you build them up properly.

Occasionally check the health of hives and upgrade structures and make sure they are eventually getting healed.

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.

This is obviously very important to know on your quest for world domination.

Not always worth it, but can be useful to delay Marines a bit when they conquer the area.

Can help with preserving momentum, but it might make you a predictable target if you do it constantly.

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.

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.

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

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.

Describing this technique with text is not easy, maybe watch a tutorial video to learn it.

Use leap to get into melee range but also to become a difficult and confusing target.

Kharaa (Aliens): Gorge

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.

There is not much point in Bilebombing rifles. Communicate with your team for cover and for actually knowing about dropped weapons.

You can bounce the ball off a wall to easily target yourself with Babblers.

This is rarely an issue if you use them as meat shield

This can be useful to cover ressource nozzles, allowing your Commander to secure a harvester location without cysting there.

If you can manage, alternate between looking around and on the ground while healing, so you still see where you are going.

This is still faster than building up with a single Gorge.

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.

Consider attacking instead, especially if you have Bilebomb. Still, preparing cover will not as easily alert the Marines.

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

Use Umbra before an assault (as it lasts a bit) and Spores for dealing damage and coving your teammates.

You can still prevent marines from welding an Exo with well-placed spores.

Great for sneaking up from behind.

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.

Avoid colliding with the ground as this will cost your momentum.

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

Since stomp also damages structures, it can be helpful if you do not dare to get too close to a fortified position.

Both Sides

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.

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.

This also applies against grenades of the Grenade Launcher.

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.

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.

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 afollowing it. If you disagree with something or have an idea for improvement, feel free to share it in a reply.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 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).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 tipsFlamethrowers can burn away Lerk Spores, Lerk Umbra and Gorge Bilebomb projectiles.Flamethrowers disable passive abilities of alien structures when setting them on fire.Powernodes are the only structures that don't cost teamresources. They are also invulnerable while they are still a blue-print.A destroyed powernode is rebuilt much faster if you use a welder.Welders build up structures a little bit faster than a builder tool.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.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.Mines chain-react if you place them too close to each other.Mines detonate if infestation spreads onto them.You can step on eggs to instantly crush them.The railgun pierces through multiple targets.While dead, you can left-click the map to chose where you want to spawn. You will hatch from the nearest egg.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.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.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.Whips and Hydras can survive without infestation, but Whips will not attack and Hydras do not grow (build up) themselves (Healspray still works though).Kharaa structures do not regenerate health on their own, you need a gorge or a crag to heal them. Drifters also don't regenerate.Mines can be detonated by destroying them with ranged attacks.You can taunt as an egg.When a Power Node was destroyed, partial rebuilding of it can be undone by damaging it.You can queue a jump (pressing and holding jump before touching the ground let's you instantly jump again).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.You can destroy allied Clogs by attacking them, even if they are not your own.You can determine the Marine weapon upgrades by the sound of their Rifles.If the Marines have no armor upgrades, you only need 2 bites instead of 3, if you also hit them with a parasite.You can increase your movement speed with properly timed wall-jumps.Leap (unlockable right-click jump) can be used in midair and also allows you to turn instantly in midair.Bilbebomb has a big splash radius and the damage-over-time stacks with itself.You can use Bilebomb to destroy dropped weapons (they have 400 health), preventing marines from picking them up again.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.Babblers have a limited lifespan.Build-up Gorge Tunnels spread infestation around themIf 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 more than one Gorge is building up the same structure with healspray, it will be less effective.Healspray can instantly extuingish flames on a burning lifeform or structure.Clogs block line of sight for sentry guns, providing cover.You can destroy your creations by holding down "use" for a while when facing them (a little progress bar appears).Spores prevent sentry guns from targeting.Exosuits are imune against spores.You can hold down the jump button (flap) to hover, which costs no energy and is completely silent.You can cling onto walls and ceilings by pressing shift and letting it go when touching the surface to cling to.If you want to descent very quickly while flying, you can press duck.The Lerk bite is poisonous and will gradually lower a Marines health (20 per second), but without killing the Marine.Stomp detonates mines and it briefly stops sentries from fireing.When finished building, Kharaa structures increase their maximum hitpoints and armor over time for a few minutes, until they are 'mature'.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.Clogs and Babblers take at most 50 (clogs) and 5 (babblers) damage per projectile/attack.If infestation is removed, most alien structures take significant damage per second.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.---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)?