As a marine, stick to groups. That'll save you a lot of dying. Play co_ maps to learn the aliens, marines, weapons, etc. This'll get you prepared for ns_ maps, which is really where the fun is at. It's actually where the strategy is, instead of mindless killing.
You'll get the hang of most things within a month or so, and you'll know what to do on each map, etc.
Well, marines are a lot more flexible in their roles. You can be a builder, shooter, or commander. Aiming is the most important thing here. Your commander orders you and stuff, but your main purpose is to aim well.
Aliens however are more concrete with their roles. Your form has a role it is best suited for. A skulk for example, is more suited to parasiting and ambushing marines, than say a fade who can blink and swipe. Practice with a skulk and move onto gorge, etc.
<!--QuoteBegin-SmoodCroozn+Feb 27 2005, 03:23 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SmoodCroozn @ Feb 27 2005, 03:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> It IS influenced by Starcraft a LOT.
Well, marines are a lot more flexible in their roles. You can be a builder, shooter, or commander. Aiming is the most important thing here. Your commander orders you and stuff, but your main purpose is to aim well.
Aliens however are more concrete with their roles. Your form has a role it is best suited for. A skulk for example, is more suited to parasiting and ambushing marines, than say a fade who can blink and swipe. Practice with a skulk and move onto gorge, etc.
And remember...
DMS = safe MDS = risky SMD = suicide <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> D = defensive chambers M = movement chambers S = sensory chambers
If you are going to build Defense, Movement, or Sensory chambers, ask your team what type they want. The response will probably be defense chambers, but it is a good idea to check with your team.
The proper way to cloak is <b>not</b> sitting in the middle of a hall waiting for people to walk into you. What you want to do is hide on the cieling and wait for the marines to go by. Then you drop down and try to bite all their butts (literally).
If you cloak in the middle of the hall you will get 1 kill and die. That is a very bad idea. Avoiding deaths is half of the time more important than getting kills (CO gives XP, NS gives res).
<!--QuoteBegin-SmoodCroozn+Feb 27 2005, 03:23 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SmoodCroozn @ Feb 27 2005, 03:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> It IS influenced by Starcraft a LOT.
Well, marines are a lot more flexible in their roles. You can be a builder, shooter, or commander. Aiming is the most important thing here. Your commander orders you and stuff, but your main purpose is to aim well.
Aliens however are more concrete with their roles. Your form has a role it is best suited for. A skulk for example, is more suited to parasiting and ambushing marines, than say a fade who can blink and swipe. Practice with a skulk and move onto gorge, etc.
And remember...
DMS = safe MDS = risky SMD = suicide <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> err tard you forgot
MSD
i saw terror do it and it completely stomped exigents jetpack rush. (maybe not rush, but their jetpacks. stangftw w/ fokos)
also, as an alien NEVER EVAR rush into a room with marines in it by yourself.
always ambush rather than rush.
also learn to bunnyhop as an alien. it makes the game more fun in my opinion. you dont need to learn how to do it right away, infact wait until you get the fundementals of the game down, like how it works.
When you want to ask your team something on chat, use the team chat key not global chat and don't spam a mic <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I'd say combat (co_) puts bad habits into players.
If u intend to play NS for strategy, play NS_ maps from the start, as a marine, try to build what your commander places, by holding your use button, not spamming it - nothing worse than "beep beep beep beep beep beep" same goes for getting ammo, you don't get it any faster by spamming use <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Don't ask your commander for anything, get the feel of the standard marine, if he gives you a weapon/item then its a plus, if he gives you something that isn't imediately noticable, check on weapon slot 4, you will either have a welder or mines - the welder fixes armour and damaged buildings, where mines are a good deterent to over ambition on the alien teams part.
If you intend to go into commanding - let your team know your new to the game, ask them for advice, a good public bunch of people usually populate the servers, they normally don't abuse a comm, if they are first told the comm doesn't know the game properly yet - But in saying that, the best way to learn the commanding basics, is to spend a few games as the base guard, watch what those commanders build in base - placement of the buildings on publics aren't the best usually, but still, watch the order of build. You will get a picture of the latest upgrade the commander has started, display on the left hand of your view, so you can see exactly whats going on, when its going on.
As the alien, once your happy with your marine, play a skulk and gorge for the first while. As a skulk use your slot 2 weapon, to tag the marine with a yellow circle, this is the parasite, and one of the most important things available to the alien team. Keep back from marines, don't allow yourself to be killed in silly ways, pick your moments to attack - from round a corner, from a dark area, when there is more than just you waiting to attack.
Use the gorge to place rts first and foremost, let the more experienced gorge build the chambers, offence chamber and upgrade chamber. These are expencive and will waste res in inexperienced hands. Also a gorge can lure marines into a trap, just spit at where you think the marine is, and if he hasn't heard or spotted the skulk near by, hopefully the skulk will kill him, before he kills you. *the 2nd hive ability BILE BOMB DOES NOT AFFECT MARINES only structures* Gorges can also heal friendly structures and players using his slot 2 weapon.
If the team has sufficient res towers up, then when you feel confident with your skulk, try either the lerk or the fade, lerks main asset is the spore ability, it strips armour and health from marines, making it easier for the other life forms to make a kill, later you will have umbra (at 2 hives) which is a defencive cloud, for stopping *BULLET BASED WEAPONRY ONLY* it has no effect on siege, or grenades. On the third hive you gain an area of effect ability, that increases the attack speed and damage of yourself and others arround you.
If you prefer to try out the fade, slot 2, blink is the most important thing you have, combined with lastinv this will get you into the marines personal space, allow you to hit him, and then get back out of there, don't stay too long, try for either 1 or 2 *ATTEMPTS* to hit, if you don't kill him, get out anyway, fades are fragile, and a beginner is easily caught out by this - they see experianced fades, and can't kill them, assume fade to be tough, but its not the case, generally you are missing your target completely. The fades 2nd hive ability is metabolize, that gains you health then armour, and at the same time energy is reclaimed, it is extremely handy for continued hit and run. (slot 3 weapon).
If you MUST play combat to try out the alien lifeforms, ONLY upgrade one of each upgrade chamber, otherwise your learning proccess is broken, completely, but play a few NS games first to see the chamber build order, for instance, like the release of NS 2.0, when beta 6 arrives, sensory will be used WAY TO MUCH, every commander worth his res, will be able to counter it in a few weeks (again), but if thats the build order, chose a sensory chamber upgrade first (remember only one), then whatever is normally dropped 2nd, then the last. e.g Most games are played - Defence Chamber, Movement Chamber, Sensory Chamber (in that order) so when you get in combat, pick a lifeform get the exp to go it and get a first upgrade, then play about with it, if you chose redemption, and are a lerk, and its not working out, DON'T get a 2nd DC upgrade (remember you are learning to play NS style here) wait till the next round/map then try another one.
Try onos late on in your learning, it can be powerful, but used wrong is a walking target worth 75 resource. Don't use this at all untill you have seen it used from both a marine and alien perspective.
*EDIT* - I forgot to say, lerks can fly, by taping jump alot, you can also glide once in the air, by holding jump, tis conserves energy.
<!--QuoteBegin-c4t+Feb 27 2005, 10:12 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (c4t @ Feb 27 2005, 10:12 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> very nice writeup dark <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> heh, I don't normally go for the helping people, but he did say "thanks in advance" after all <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
When playing NS, keep an eye your res. If you've got 50+, go and build a hive if one is free, or upgrade chambers if they haven't already been built. You'll really help the team by doing that. (If you save up and go Onos when there's only one hive and no upgrades, you will die very quickly and annoy the team by wasting all that precious res.)
As a marine, mines are your friend. Stick them in vents, on the floor near dark corners or doorways, around the buildings in your base. It's very satisfying to get free kills from the other side of the map.
Use your ears. Sound is extremely important in NS. You soon learn to recognise the noise that enemies make as they move, so you can usually tell what is coming and where from. The sweetest sound to a skulk is a lone marine calling for health and ammo.
Parasite - when skulking, always keep Parasite active. Zap any marines you see, as not only does it make them show up as yellow blobs until they die, it does a bit of damage. If you have time, parasite a marine before biting him, and you have more chance of a kill.
Use the mini-map (press C). This shows where all your team-mates and structures are. Enemies in line-of-sight with a team-mate show up as red, and you are green. It's a great way of learning your way around new maps, and you tell where all the action is. Also, marine waypoints show up so you can work out the quickest route to obey your commander's orders.
Train your ears. Think of them as legal-wallhacks. I can tell how many marines are in a room just by sound. I've been accused of cheating by doing that though.
<!--QuoteBegin-SmoodCroozn+Feb 27 2005, 05:23 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SmoodCroozn @ Feb 27 2005, 05:23 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> It IS influenced by Starcraft a LOT. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> hmm, i always thought it was ailens(movie)...
just think this, as a marine, your like a wolf, totally reliant on your teammates, or pack and your commander. as an ailen, think like some sorta spider, waiting for the suckers to come to you, so that you may pick an easy kill. but dont forget, your not alone, there are other ailens out there to help.
hope i helped
(BTW not trying to start a chamber fight, but i think MDS is the best)
Don't start spamming OCs until you are considered an influential and respected member of a server community, at which point no one questions you. Just wait for the glory days, its worth it.
<!--QuoteBegin-Sky+Feb 27 2005, 09:19 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Sky @ Feb 27 2005, 09:19 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Check the frontiersmen and alien strategy forums. Just keep scrolling down until you find them.
Also, the New Player forum has answers to simple questions. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> The forums are kind of hit or miss. Lately there have been a LOT of bad strategies posted in the frontiersman section.
#nslearn or www.nslearn.org are your best bets for information considering there is a filtering process so only the best quality of assistance is given to the public.
You know, FW, you already were more artfull with your ads <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
since there seems to be some confusion, and wrong opinions...
DMS: safe and standard, any team has a decent chance with this order, works well on nearly any server and helps the early fades really own the map.
MDS: an excellent combo expecially with friendly fire active or marines that don't shotty rush. Requires some organization as when going MDS you need to get the second hive up as soon as possible, but the hive going up is safer, because if it ever takes damage that means that you can have a team full of skulk anklebiting in at the hive in a fraction of a time it would take with a DC only team. MC is also the best chamber for lerks, so if you go MDS have an early lerk. Celer lerks = extreamly deadly and hard little buggers to kill. When friendly fire is on, have a gorge spit the hive to bring skulks over if there is any threat detected nearby (a building hive can still be warped to, but only while it is being attacked)
SDM: This can work... although there is a fair bit of controversy over weather or not it requires alot of teamwork. One thing is for sure, the sensory upgrades are useless unless you have all 3 upgrade chambers, so if you go sensory first you should always have 2 dedicated early game chamber gorges. In a sense first game skulks must do damage as much as possible as early as possible to the marines, you must get lots of res per kill and keep the marines in thier base while they are still armor zero, and can't motion track cloaked ambush skulks. DO NOT BUILD ALL 3 CHAMBERS IN THE HIVE! spread them around as much as possible, use the chambers range of cloaking to your advantage; this is easy to do if you have 2 chamber gorges moving out in different directions like you are supposed to. If you have done it right, you should be able to control the res on the map for the first 5 minutes until marines get motion tracking and armor one (fairly expensive if you have < 3 nodes) so you should have time to dilly dally a little before commiting to the second hive, and you should have enough res to really fade up the map and keeping the rines at bay even after the benifits of the sensory upgrades are useless. If you suspect your team to not be capable of doing any of the things mentioned in this tut, don't go SDM.
SMD: Very similar to SDM except that you will be relying on lerks instead of fades for your midgame killings. If the marines haven't bothered locking down any of the hives this can be a viable strategy, due to the fact that scent of fear/celerity lerks are almost unkillable if the players are using them properly. Lerks cannot basesmash alone, you need fades, so don't use this strat if you know the marines have locked down a hive or look like they are going to be able to lock down a hive. It is a little more lenient on res so it can be this strat can be good if your skulks have done a good job of defending res spots and holding hives, but have not been able to push the marines out of thier res spots, but you will need to get the third hive and DCs up for onos and fades before the map is infested with shotty JPs or HA HMGs, since lerks are useless against both for any long period of time.
DSM: Never use this. By second hive the marines will have armor one motion tracking and probably shotguns. The sensory upgrades are all but useless that late in the game. All you are doing is crippling your higher lifeforms when they need to basesmash the last hive to get the movement chambers the onos will desperately need so they aren't useless agianst turtlers in MS without celerity.
MSD: Even worse then DSM, the only lifeform that will even be moderately usefull is fade, and bases will be impossible to remove once they are set down by the marines.
Other chamber tips: Gorges, use chambers to your advantage! one gorge with 2 ocs and a DC can hold off an infinate string of LMG/shotty marines, as long as they don't come in groups. GLs or heavy armor will still distroy this type of extreamly humble WOL, but it is easy to lay and hold for long periods of time throughout the early game. The same thing is true for 2 gorges an MC and an OC; use spit and healspray to your advantage, with that MC there you will be able to use them almost infinately without running low on energy, and this WOL has the advantage of being able to be set up the moment the game has started (although WOLs that require two players in to maintain are absolutly useless unless they are placed in an etreamly incoviniant spot for marines, and inconviniently taken spots are much more likely to have grouped marines attack them, or GLs be sent to them)
Don't underestimate the value of a sensory in the masking of a building hive. I personally always shoot hive locations, buy 9/10 marines do not. If the rines don't have much res they may ignore your building hive simply because the scout didn't see it, or decide they can lock up the hive location slowly just to be eating wave after wave of skulk when the hive goes up and thier lockdown base isn't finished (it would need to be pretty frigging strong to hold an active hive locked down for long anyways).
Other lifeforms, keep a mental note of where your gorges have dropped thier chambers. A: you don't want marines killing them because no one knew where they were so they weren't gaurding them. B: Getting to the DC location can be a huge help by halfing your healing speed of just regeneration alone C: MCs can be a great chamber for non adren fades or leap skulks to swing by, and they help make spore lerks and bile gorges absolutly unstoppable, as both those abilities become extreamly powerfull when the adreneline issue is no longer a problem D: sensories are just usefull. Nothing can hold a room more dangerously then a legion of cloaked focus skulks waiting in ambush.
Comments
You'll get the hang of most things within a month or so, and you'll know what to do on each map, etc.
Skulk = Ling
Gorge = Drone
Lerk = Mutalisk
Fade = Hydralisk
Onos = Ultralisk
Well, marines are a lot more flexible in their roles. You can be a builder, shooter, or commander. Aiming is the most important thing here. Your commander orders you and stuff, but your main purpose is to aim well.
Aliens however are more concrete with their roles. Your form has a role it is best suited for. A skulk for example, is more suited to parasiting and ambushing marines, than say a fade who can blink and swipe. Practice with a skulk and move onto gorge, etc.
And remember...
DMS = safe
MDS = risky
SMD = suicide
Skulk = Ling
Gorge = Drone
Lerk = Mutalisk
Fade = Hydralisk
Onos = Ultralisk
Well, marines are a lot more flexible in their roles. You can be a builder, shooter, or commander. Aiming is the most important thing here. Your commander orders you and stuff, but your main purpose is to aim well.
Aliens however are more concrete with their roles. Your form has a role it is best suited for. A skulk for example, is more suited to parasiting and ambushing marines, than say a fade who can blink and swipe. Practice with a skulk and move onto gorge, etc.
And remember...
DMS = safe
MDS = risky
SMD = suicide <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
D = defensive chambers
M = movement chambers
S = sensory chambers
Just to clear that up.
If you cloak in the middle of the hall you will get 1 kill and die. That is a very bad idea. Avoiding deaths is half of the time more important than getting kills (CO gives XP, NS gives res).
Skulk = Ling
Gorge = Drone
Lerk = Mutalisk
Fade = Hydralisk
Onos = Ultralisk
Well, marines are a lot more flexible in their roles. You can be a builder, shooter, or commander. Aiming is the most important thing here. Your commander orders you and stuff, but your main purpose is to aim well.
Aliens however are more concrete with their roles. Your form has a role it is best suited for. A skulk for example, is more suited to parasiting and ambushing marines, than say a fade who can blink and swipe. Practice with a skulk and move onto gorge, etc.
And remember...
DMS = safe
MDS = risky
SMD = suicide <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
err tard you forgot
MSD
i saw terror do it and it completely stomped exigents jetpack rush. (maybe not rush, but their jetpacks. stangftw w/ fokos)
also, as an alien NEVER EVAR rush into a room with marines in it by yourself.
always ambush rather than rush.
also learn to bunnyhop as an alien. it makes the game more fun in my opinion. you dont need to learn how to do it right away, infact wait until you get the fundementals of the game down, like how it works.
I'd say combat (co_) puts bad habits into players.
If u intend to play NS for strategy, play NS_ maps from the start, as a marine, try to build what your commander places, by holding your use button, not spamming it - nothing worse than "beep beep beep beep beep beep" same goes for getting ammo, you don't get it any faster by spamming use <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Don't ask your commander for anything, get the feel of the standard marine, if he gives you a weapon/item then its a plus, if he gives you something that isn't imediately noticable, check on weapon slot 4, you will either have a welder or mines - the welder fixes armour and damaged buildings, where mines are a good deterent to over ambition on the alien teams part.
If you intend to go into commanding - let your team know your new to the game, ask them for advice, a good public bunch of people usually populate the servers, they normally don't abuse a comm, if they are first told the comm doesn't know the game properly yet - But in saying that, the best way to learn the commanding basics, is to spend a few games as the base guard, watch what those commanders build in base - placement of the buildings on publics aren't the best usually, but still, watch the order of build. You will get a picture of the latest upgrade the commander has started, display on the left hand of your view, so you can see exactly whats going on, when its going on.
As the alien, once your happy with your marine, play a skulk and gorge for the first while. As a skulk use your slot 2 weapon, to tag the marine with a yellow circle, this is the parasite, and one of the most important things available to the alien team. Keep back from marines, don't allow yourself to be killed in silly ways, pick your moments to attack - from round a corner, from a dark area, when there is more than just you waiting to attack.
Use the gorge to place rts first and foremost, let the more experienced gorge build the chambers, offence chamber and upgrade chamber. These are expencive and will waste res in inexperienced hands. Also a gorge can lure marines into a trap, just spit at where you think the marine is, and if he hasn't heard or spotted the skulk near by, hopefully the skulk will kill him, before he kills you. *the 2nd hive ability BILE BOMB DOES NOT AFFECT MARINES only structures* Gorges can also heal friendly structures and players using his slot 2 weapon.
If the team has sufficient res towers up, then when you feel confident with your skulk, try either the lerk or the fade, lerks main asset is the spore ability, it strips armour and health from marines, making it easier for the other life forms to make a kill, later you will have umbra (at 2 hives) which is a defencive cloud, for stopping *BULLET BASED WEAPONRY ONLY* it has no effect on siege, or grenades. On the third hive you gain an area of effect ability, that increases the attack speed and damage of yourself and others arround you.
If you prefer to try out the fade, slot 2, blink is the most important thing you have, combined with lastinv this will get you into the marines personal space, allow you to hit him, and then get back out of there, don't stay too long, try for either 1 or 2 *ATTEMPTS* to hit, if you don't kill him, get out anyway, fades are fragile, and a beginner is easily caught out by this - they see experianced fades, and can't kill them, assume fade to be tough, but its not the case, generally you are missing your target completely. The fades 2nd hive ability is metabolize, that gains you health then armour, and at the same time energy is reclaimed, it is extremely handy for continued hit and run. (slot 3 weapon).
If you MUST play combat to try out the alien lifeforms, ONLY upgrade one of each upgrade chamber, otherwise your learning proccess is broken, completely, but play a few NS games first to see the chamber build order, for instance, like the release of NS 2.0, when beta 6 arrives, sensory will be used WAY TO MUCH, every commander worth his res, will be able to counter it in a few weeks (again), but if thats the build order, chose a sensory chamber upgrade first (remember only one), then whatever is normally dropped 2nd, then the last. e.g Most games are played - Defence Chamber, Movement Chamber, Sensory Chamber (in that order) so when you get in combat, pick a lifeform get the exp to go it and get a first upgrade, then play about with it, if you chose redemption, and are a lerk, and its not working out, DON'T get a 2nd DC upgrade (remember you are learning to play NS style here) wait till the next round/map then try another one.
Try onos late on in your learning, it can be powerful, but used wrong is a walking target worth 75 resource. Don't use this at all untill you have seen it used from both a marine and alien perspective.
*EDIT* - I forgot to say, lerks can fly, by taping jump alot, you can also glide once in the air, by holding jump, tis conserves energy.
heh, I don't normally go for the helping people, but he did say "thanks in advance" after all <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
As a marine, mines are your friend. Stick them in vents, on the floor near dark corners or doorways, around the buildings in your base. It's very satisfying to get free kills from the other side of the map.
Use your ears. Sound is extremely important in NS. You soon learn to recognise the noise that enemies make as they move, so you can usually tell what is coming and where from. The sweetest sound to a skulk is a lone marine calling for health and ammo.
Parasite - when skulking, always keep Parasite active. Zap any marines you see, as not only does it make them show up as yellow blobs until they die, it does a bit of damage. If you have time, parasite a marine before biting him, and you have more chance of a kill.
Use the mini-map (press C). This shows where all your team-mates and structures are. Enemies in line-of-sight with a team-mate show up as red, and you are green. It's a great way of learning your way around new maps, and you tell where all the action is. Also, marine waypoints show up so you can work out the quickest route to obey your commander's orders.
Sound is very good.
Also, the New Player forum has answers to simple questions.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
hmm, i always thought it was ailens(movie)...
just think this, as a marine, your like a wolf, totally reliant on your teammates, or pack and your commander. as an ailen, think like some sorta spider, waiting for the suckers to come to you, so that you may pick an easy kill. but dont forget, your not alone, there are other ailens out there to help.
hope i helped
(BTW not trying to start a chamber fight, but i think MDS is the best)
Also, the New Player forum has answers to simple questions. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The forums are kind of hit or miss. Lately there have been a LOT of bad strategies posted in the frontiersman section.
#nslearn or www.nslearn.org are your best bets for information considering there is a filtering process so only the best quality of assistance is given to the public.
DMS: safe and standard, any team has a decent chance with this order, works well on nearly any server and helps the early fades really own the map.
MDS: an excellent combo expecially with friendly fire active or marines that don't shotty rush. Requires some organization as when going MDS you need to get the second hive up as soon as possible, but the hive going up is safer, because if it ever takes damage that means that you can have a team full of skulk anklebiting in at the hive in a fraction of a time it would take with a DC only team. MC is also the best chamber for lerks, so if you go MDS have an early lerk. Celer lerks = extreamly deadly and hard little buggers to kill. When friendly fire is on, have a gorge spit the hive to bring skulks over if there is any threat detected nearby (a building hive can still be warped to, but only while it is being attacked)
SDM: This can work... although there is a fair bit of controversy over weather or not it requires alot of teamwork. One thing is for sure, the sensory upgrades are useless unless you have all 3 upgrade chambers, so if you go sensory first you should always have 2 dedicated early game chamber gorges. In a sense first game skulks must do damage as much as possible as early as possible to the marines, you must get lots of res per kill and keep the marines in thier base while they are still armor zero, and can't motion track cloaked ambush skulks. DO NOT BUILD ALL 3 CHAMBERS IN THE HIVE! spread them around as much as possible, use the chambers range of cloaking to your advantage; this is easy to do if you have 2 chamber gorges moving out in different directions like you are supposed to. If you have done it right, you should be able to control the res on the map for the first 5 minutes until marines get motion tracking and armor one (fairly expensive if you have < 3 nodes) so you should have time to dilly dally a little before commiting to the second hive, and you should have enough res to really fade up the map and keeping the rines at bay even after the benifits of the sensory upgrades are useless. If you suspect your team to not be capable of doing any of the things mentioned in this tut, don't go SDM.
SMD: Very similar to SDM except that you will be relying on lerks instead of fades for your midgame killings. If the marines haven't bothered locking down any of the hives this can be a viable strategy, due to the fact that scent of fear/celerity lerks are almost unkillable if the players are using them properly. Lerks cannot basesmash alone, you need fades, so don't use this strat if you know the marines have locked down a hive or look like they are going to be able to lock down a hive. It is a little more lenient on res so it can be this strat can be good if your skulks have done a good job of defending res spots and holding hives, but have not been able to push the marines out of thier res spots, but you will need to get the third hive and DCs up for onos and fades before the map is infested with shotty JPs or HA HMGs, since lerks are useless against both for any long period of time.
DSM: Never use this. By second hive the marines will have armor one motion tracking and probably shotguns. The sensory upgrades are all but useless that late in the game. All you are doing is crippling your higher lifeforms when they need to basesmash the last hive to get the movement chambers the onos will desperately need so they aren't useless agianst turtlers in MS without celerity.
MSD: Even worse then DSM, the only lifeform that will even be moderately usefull is fade, and bases will be impossible to remove once they are set down by the marines.
Other chamber tips: Gorges, use chambers to your advantage! one gorge with 2 ocs and a DC can hold off an infinate string of LMG/shotty marines, as long as they don't come in groups. GLs or heavy armor will still distroy this type of extreamly humble WOL, but it is easy to lay and hold for long periods of time throughout the early game. The same thing is true for 2 gorges an MC and an OC; use spit and healspray to your advantage, with that MC there you will be able to use them almost infinately without running low on energy, and this WOL has the advantage of being able to be set up the moment the game has started (although WOLs that require two players in to maintain are absolutly useless unless they are placed in an etreamly incoviniant spot for marines, and inconviniently taken spots are much more likely to have grouped marines attack them, or GLs be sent to them)
Don't underestimate the value of a sensory in the masking of a building hive. I personally always shoot hive locations, buy 9/10 marines do not. If the rines don't have much res they may ignore your building hive simply because the scout didn't see it, or decide they can lock up the hive location slowly just to be eating wave after wave of skulk when the hive goes up and thier lockdown base isn't finished (it would need to be pretty frigging strong to hold an active hive locked down for long anyways).
Other lifeforms, keep a mental note of where your gorges have dropped thier chambers.
A: you don't want marines killing them because no one knew where they were so they weren't gaurding them.
B: Getting to the DC location can be a huge help by halfing your healing speed of just regeneration alone
C: MCs can be a great chamber for non adren fades or leap skulks to swing by, and they help make spore lerks and bile gorges absolutly unstoppable, as both those abilities become extreamly powerfull when the adreneline issue is no longer a problem
D: sensories are just usefull. Nothing can hold a room more dangerously then a legion of cloaked focus skulks waiting in ambush.