GUIDE: Natural Selection 2 - Marine Commander Guide

Being the commander in NS2 is a huge responsibility. While a large amount of the playerbase are incredibly helpful and supportive to new commanders, there are always going to be those guys that get frustrated and yell at you for doing a bad job, as a bad commander can negate even the most skilled players. When a new commander experiences this, it shatters his confidence in the role, and he ends up shying away from it even more than before. What I aim to give you today is a solid base to be a successful commander. I'm not guaranteeing that it will stop people from yelling at you, but hopefully, if you follow this guide, players will see that you at least understand how the role works.

Your first lesson is before you even get into the comm. chair. Don't command if you don't have a microphone or are unwilling to talk on it. No exceptions. While you can give your troops orders through the menu, voice commands are about a million times more effective, and can portray subtleties and urgencies that automated menu commands simply cannot.

HINT: Talk to your marines! Be clear in your commands. Ask them their opinion, and ask them what they want. Try to let them know well in advance what you plan to do. Encourage them when they do well and try not to get upset if they make a mistake. You're the coach of this team!

EARLY GAME:

Ok, so now that you're in the chair, you'll find yourself with around 50 starting resources. Rookie commanders are quick to just… build a whole bunch of stuff and waste that res. Don't do that. Start with an armoury  and send two groups of marines to the two closest resource nodes. How many players are on your team? If you are on a big server (24 players) you should consider an extra infantry portal. If not, you can possibly waive it for the time being. By now your armoury should be built and your marines should be awaiting orders at two resource nodes. Build the two resource towers and then an observatory at your main base.

HINT: You can construct power nodes in an area for free! Click on the unbuilt power node and select ‘socket power node'. This is useful if you are waiting for the resources to build something, and your marines are simply standing by.

Research phase tech at the observatory. Phase gates are probably the single most important structure in the marine arsenal. When used correctly, they can grant you near infinite map control. There are a lot of marine build order strategies that apply well in certain situations, but early phase tech is by far the most versatile. Next, you'll want to build an arms lab at your base.

From this point on is when things start to get situational. Are your marines maintaining a strong presence on your so-far captured resource nodes? Try for a forth one. Are your marines dying a lot? Build a second infantry portal. The next thing you want to do is try and secure a second tech point, if you don't already have one (you should not build a second command chair at this stage.) As soon as phase gate research is complete, put a gate in your main base and one at your second tech point. Put an armoury there as well. If you have a resource tower that's kind of far out, consider putting a gate there. Now that you've gotten yourself a foothold in the map, it's time to look at upgrades.

Don't waste your time with the shotgun and advanced armoury  At this stage in the game, the LMG is perfectly fine against the skulks and lerks that the aliens are able to produce. If your resource towers and power nodes are getting hit hard, get welders. Welders are cheap (only cost 5 res) and are a great way to keep these hit and runs at bay. Mines are also a fantastic early-game purchase, but I feel like the arms lab upgrades are more important, and will have a more global effect, as a lot of your troops will be hesitant to spend the 15 res that mines cost (even though it's totally worth it).

HINT: If you have a player that is particularly confident with his shotgun, it may be viable to get shotguns before your first arms lab upgrade.

Again, look at your marines. Are they exercising fierce control of the map? Research weapons 1 to help them extend that dominance. Are they dying a lot? Research armour 1 to give them a bit more survivability.

MID-GAME:

By now, you've laid enough groundwork for your troops. They should have a front to push, footholds to defend, and upgrades in the pipe to keep their res occupied. Here you start to move to more of a fluid support role. If your troops are pushing a hive, consider putting an armoury and a phase gate in a close location to help them siege. Look for undefended resource nodes and try to capture them, or at least deny them to your opponent. Drop health and ammo when needed.

HINT: Pressing spacebar immediately takes you to an alert such as a request for ammo. Press ‘A' and ‘S' while in the support menu to quickly drop ammo and medkits respectively.

Keep your arms lab upgrades rolling. Start with the level 1 upgrade you didn't get earlier, and then just alternate between the two. Ask your team what they prefer, and again try to assess how they are performing in battle and what would help them the most. If you can spare the res, getting shotguns at this stage isn't a bad idea.

Soon, you'll want to get a command chair and an observatory set up at your second tech location. While holding three tech locations can be good strategically, as you can use the observatory to distress beacon marines there, and can deny your enemy of getting their third hive upgrades, marines actually only need to control two tech points in order to access the entirety of their upgrades. When that second comm. chair is going up, you can upgrade your armoury to an advanced armoury, and then start saving for a prototype lab. 

HINT: Is one of your bases being heavily seiged, with all of your marines out and about? Click on the observatory and click 'distress beacon'. It only costs 10 res and it teleports all marines to the command centre closest to the observatory.

LATE GAME:

Once your prototype lab is built, you have officially hit the ‘late' stage of the game, which can be the longest stage if both teams play well. It's time to play with the toys from the lab. Research jetpacks before exosuits. Again, JETPACKS BEFORE EXOS. This is a point that I cannot stress enough. Jetpacks are more useful than exosuits 90% of the time. Jetpacks are also the natural counter to Onos, NOT exosuits! Exosuits are a very late-game siege weapon. Jetpacks are also pretty much required to support your exosuits anyway, and they are so cheap (only 10 res) that marines can pretty much buy one every time they die.

You are now at the point where you are pretty much free to do whatever you want. With all upgrades and jetpacks researched your guys are pretty much self sufficient. You might as well grab grenade launchers and flamethrowers - good weapons for sieging bases - and work on your exosuit research. My personal preference is grenade launchers before flamethrowers, but if the enemy has a lot of whips, it might be worthwhile to reverse that. If you haven't already, a robotics lab is a sound investment. Setting up turrets and mines at your more remote resource towers should help them hold out that little bit longer. Researching ARCs at your robotics factory will also help set you up for those end-game sieges.

FINISHING THE FIGHT:

If you haven't won by the time the Exosuits come out, here are some tips for getting those final sieges down. Don't ever buy the single mini-gun exo, and urge your teammates to do the same. It's just not worth it when the dual min-gun model is only 25 res more and a hell of a lot better. Make sure exos never go alone. For every one exo, you should have at least two support marines with jetpacks and welders. ARCs are great. Make sure they are well defended, and always try to get at least 3 together before sending them out. MACs are a good idea as they can support both your exosuits and your arcs.

HINT: Scan frequently! By this stage of the game, the enemy should have three hives, which means that his bases will be cloaked by shades. Click the support menu to scan an area, temporarily revealing stealthed structures. This technique is particularly important when seiging with ARC cannons, as they can fire through walls as long as the structures are revealed.

Try to hold as many tech locations as possible. On a map with five tech locations, holding three of them means the enemy only has two hives and therefore less upgrades. Be wary of beaconing when you are sieging with exosuits. Ensure that the threat is legitimate - aliens may attempt to 'bait' a beacon to a certain base, as beacons will NOT teleport exosuits, and they can then easily pick off the unsupported exos.  Drop weapons! You'll probably have an abundance of res at this stage, and your marines may be dying frequently. Dropping jetpacks and shotguns is always a safe bet, and dropping mines is an easy way to defend forward bases.

Keep this up and you should eventually be able to starve them out. Thanks for reading guys, and try to remember, Natural Selection 2 is a very fluid game. Every match you play is different, and strategies that worked in some matches may completely fail in others. This guide is meant only as a basis - feel free to try out new ideas and strategies as you become a more confident commander.

HINT: Don't be afraid to hop out of the command chair, to help build/repair structures or fend off an alien attack on your base.

Click here to watch me play through a full game using a similar build order. Check out my twitch.tv stream to see me commanding in action!

Liked this guide? Check out my other Natural Selection 2 guides:

• Alien commander guide
• Alien lifeform guide
• Marine quick tips

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IMPRESSIONS: Natural Selection 2 Preview (PC)

It's been a good month for source mods. First, Black Mesa Source made a surprise 'coming soon' announcement and released shortly thereafter. Then, Natural Selection 2 appeared on steam, alongside the announcement that it will release in October. The original Natural Selection was one of the most popular half-life mods, doing things with the half-life engine that even the devs didn't think possible. The NS2 dev team is the size of your average basketball team, but has produced the SPARK game engine from the ground up as well as a game that looks as polished as any triple A 100-man-team blockbuster release. It's games like Natural Selection that make me proud to be a PC gamer, supporting the true innovators of gaming.

Unknown Worlds are one of the true innovators of gaming.

So, being a very early adopter and pre-ordering the game over a year ago, I have been rewarded with NS2 beta access. Like any beta, it was full of holes at first, but has been steadily improve up to this point, where I feel it's just about as good as it's gonna get and ready for release. NS2 is such a complex game with an already dedicated fanbase, so I've split this preview into two parts:
1.) What New players can expect, and
2.) What veterans can look forward to.
If you are a veteran Kharaa hunter, feel free to skip ahead to the second section.

NS2's artsyle is reminiscent of all your favourite sci-fi action films.

What new players can expect:

Natural Selection is an FPS/RTS hybrid game that pits the unique race of Kharaa aliens (picture a mix between Starship Trooper's bugs and Alien's Xenomorphs) against a sci-fi standard group of space marines. The best way to explain this game is to imagine your traditional RTS game, Like Starcraft or Command and Conquer. You know all those little soldiers that you build and command around the map? Imagine of each of them was a human player, who played the game as a tactical FPS.

The commander role is one of Natural Selection's most unique features

This hybrid gameplay is achieved by the 'commander' role that is filled by one player on each team. The commander views the game from a to-down tactical view and builds structures, researches upgrades, and commands his troops. Upgrades for the marines include a host of new weapons, while the Kharaa commander can research new life forms and abilities for his teammates to evolve.

There are four main Kharaa life forms, the skulk - a fast scout, the gorge - a support class with a heal, the fade - a flying class that's great at harassing, and the onos - a huge rhino-like tank

Games play out like an RTS, each commander will expand his base, collect resources and try to destroy the enemy base. Games end when either all marine command stations or Kharaa hives are destroyed, and can last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours. While the commanders do play a vital role, individual player skill is not to be understated. Games are large enough to give you a sense of epic RTS scale while small enough to make your individual effort feel worthwhile. Both the FPS and RTS roles require teamwork and co-operation to be effective. It works really well and when your team gels together it feels really great.

Marines can use phase-gates to quickly travel around the map

Natural Selection 1 was what we call a 'difficult to learn, even more difficult to master' kind of game, especially when it came to commanding. Fortunately, NS2 has a plethora of tutorials available on youtube and accessible in game, as well as an 'explore mode' that lets new players learn maps and practice commanding

NS2 can be quite the clusterfuck for new players, so be sure to check out the tutorials first!

What can veterans look forward to?

It feels like NS. It feels better than NS. This is the NS that Unknown Worlds has always wanted to make. Unburened by the overbearing publishers and tight release schedules that other devs face, Unknown Worlds have taken the time and the effort to make a game that is, first and foremost, a true sequel to NS. While most of you will feel right at home upon jumping into your first game, it wouldn't be a proper sequel without a host of new features. Let's have a look.

NS2's graphics are effects are light years ahead of the old HL1 mod that started it all

The biggest new change is the additon of the Kharaa commander. This was done to help alieviate disparity between the teams, as well as allowing Kharaa players to experince the unique RTS flavour previously reserved for the marines. Anyone familiar with Starcraft's Zerg or Warcraft 3's undead factions will recognize the 'infestation' mechanic utilized by the Kharaa. Khaara commanders will need to first build cysts that spread infestation in an area before being allowed to place any other structures. The commander is in charge of all evolution upgrades, and can also do some cool things like build specific life form eggs (Onos, Fade ECT) that respawning players can spawn as. It's nice to not have to rely on one or two fragile gorges to manage your base.

The Kharaa commander must build a network of cysts to expand his base

Khaara evolutions have been streamlined a bit.  You can now upgrade all traits at once and most life forms have only 2 or 3 abilities. Gorges have been tweaked to be more of a defensive class that heals teammates and attacks from a distance, while still being able to build 'temporary' structures, such as a small turret and walls that can block off an area. Most of the other classes are more or less the same, although, sadly, the Onos can no longer swallow marines whole. The Kharaa also have a new 'alien sight' mode, which will bring back memories of the Predator's heat vision.

Alien sight lets you quickly acquire new targets, even in the dark.

The Khaara aren't the only ones with new toys to play with though. One of the new marine structures, the robotics lab, allows the commander to build MACs that he can control to perform build and repair tasks, as well the ARC - a deployable siege turret. Marines now have personal resources - just like the Khaara in NS1 - that they can use to purchase new weapons independently of the commander. All areas have a 'power node' that must be constructed to build structures in that area, and if it is destroyed, structures in its radius stop functioning.

MACs allow the commander to continue base building operations without bugging his teammates

Weapons have seen some tweaks as well. the knife has been replaced with an axe, and the standard machine gun has an alternate 'mellee attack' that will use the butt of the rifle to hit enemies in close range. The heavy machine gun is gone, replaced instead with the flame-thrower. Grenades have been completely removed, and while the grenade launcher was first introduced as an 'attachment' to the standard machine gun, it has since appeared as a separate gun.

No more spamming the commander with 'CAN I GET A SHOTGUN PLEASE??'

These are all welcome additions, but the coolest one by far is the exosuit. This allows an individual marine to finally stand toe-to-toe with an Onos, as well as make them feel like an absolute badass in the process. It's built alongside the jetpack in the prototype lab, and can be upgraded to dual miniguns for double the carnage.

The Exosuit is the spirtual successor to the old heavy armor upgrade from NS1

NS2 has been a long time coming, but it's day has almost arrived and it's looking like it was worth the wait. New players will be at first bewildered, and then enthralled by its unique gameplay, and veterans will be surprised at both how familiar and how different the game feels. The original NS still has an active community to this day, and I won't be surprised if it's sequel will maintain one for many years to come.

Pre-purchase Natural Selection 2 on the Steam store - for a limited time, all steam pre-orders are upgraded to the digital deluxe version for free, which includes the game's soundtrack, a digital artbook, and an exclusive in-game marine model.

Liked this article? Check out my TF2 basic pub strategy guide!

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