Starting Out

Warfare

<div class="IPBDescription">Technology as opposed to Defense</div> People always seem to go Defense by placing a turret factory first, which I find rather pointless, because skulks aren't -that- hard to kill.

I'd rather have one marine stay in base and build the list below while the rest of the team heads for our second resource nozzle, which most likely is in a hive or so.

This is the way I favor:

Infantry portal : 20 R
Armory : 20 R
Arms Lab: 25 R
Weapon 1 : 20 R
2nd Resource Tower: 15 R

Total: 100

Which upgrade is up to you. Some people go with Defence Chamber first, meaning Carapace, and you'd want to counter that.
If any of the prices are different than what I typed, please forgive me. I can't check the prices myself since I lack Half-Life and NS at the moment, and I got the prices from another post in here.

captmorgan

RT's for marines are 20, not 15.

Turrets's are for deterring aliens, it is actually an offensice strategy. With 3 or 4 sentries in your base in the first few minutes, you can employ all your marines out in node capping/denial, alien ability denial by securing hives, etc.

I have found opening up

ip=20
armory=20
tf=15
3 sentries right away=30
rt=20

by the time this is completed, I can afford either another fast RT, or get and obs for phase. I prefer getting my marines out of base as soon as possible, since we cannot survive with 2 rt's anymore like in previous versions. Marines need 4 rt's to have a chance of victory to afford the tech they need to win in a timely manner. I used to just build the tf/ip/armory in such a way that if I electrified the tf, it protected both the armory and ip if i felt really risky since that was a cheaper option in 2.01b.

There is no perfect opening, it depends on your and the alien players. I once opened on origin ip/tf/elec (when elec was 20 in 2.01b) rt in comp lab (aliens started in furnace) rt in xenoform, rt in biodome, tf in biodome, 4 sentries, armory in bio, obs in bio, phase, obs in main, tf in xenoform, sentry spam in xeno to block off access from cargo, weld the vent shut in comp lab, then tech like a women who charges for sex. (in case the word is filtered out) I got another tf in main and spammed about a zillion sentries there, and next thing we knew, hvy armor, wep 3, seiging out dbl node, gg aliens. It all boiled down to aliens started in furnace, I got greedy, and my marines cooperated, and so did the aliens by going out and capping nodes instead of rushing main.

Every game is a gamble in strategy, there is a marine counter to every alien strat, same as there is an alien counter for every marine strat. The counter is skill and teamwork, typically whichever team displays more of the latter counter, wins.

Warfare

I made this strategy for 2.01d. I should've mentioned that =\

taboofires

yeah, he's right in 2.01d. It used to be a bad idea to get arms lab/1 upgrade before the first rt, because both the upgrade and the res cost more. Those 15 res are a big difference with low income like that. I'll have to try it out and see how well it actually works now.

This was the only way I'd do it in 1.04. A tf and a few turrets are a pretty good alternative in v2.any, as your base is somewhat skulk resistant and you can let the marines go cap res faster. Besides, when half the kharaa are gorges, your base is at least a little defended, and your marines stick together at least a little, they won't usually encounter much resistance anyway. Getting upgrades 2-3 minutes later doesn't make for too much of a difference. If you do get a tf, make absolutely sure that you can still afford to drop the rt with the remaining res!