Can some one point me to the rules and objective of NS.

I've never seen it before but I'll give it a try.

First, learn the basic skills. These should be pretty easy to pickup from the site and the little (annoying) in-game help pop-ups. This is basic stuff, like how to build on a resource nozzle and how to reload at the armory (hint: mostly, this involves your right mouse button and your +use key). I assume you know how to shoot already, but fair warning: leaping skulks are very small and move a lot faster than scouts, and combat is much more careful and thoughtful than it is the frenetic TFC world. Whereas TFC is a 24/7 clusterfuck (though it was a pretty awesome one, once upon a time), NS is more like Pinker's punctuated equilibrium.

Second, learn basic tactical skills. For instance, as a marine, try not to engage skulks at point blank range. As a skulk, try to engage marines at point blank range. You learn this primarily by watching other players and learning from your own fuck-ups. This is how I learned to look up a lot.

Important point: prior to finishing this stage, you are a true blue noob. LISTEN TO MORE EXPERIENCED PLAYERS. If they tell you to go suicide rush the marine base, you suicide rush the marine base, k? The learning curve isn't too bad so long as you don't do anything to mess up your team, like camping in base demanding weapons while your team's expansion base is being torn to shreds. Basically, this is a TEAM oriented game.

Then, you learn strategy. Keep an eye on the map. Learn why your team is fighting so hard over certain points, and why sometimes you have to be really quiet and NOT shoot the giant alien birth canal, while at other times you have to fire blindly at it whilst being chomped on by stupid flying things. This stage takes some time, but stick with it, and before long, you'll go from "Hmm, this is kind of cool" to "OMFG THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER." Yes, you have to reach this point before you understand why NS is awesome. Many players only experience stage 1 or stage 2, and go, "Meh." We do not speak of them.

However, basic idea:

The marines are fighting the aliens. The marine commander is like the player in a real-time strategy game, except the players on his team are his units. As a marine grunt, you build things and shoot things and try to help the team, so that the commander can tech up and prevent the alien expansion, and so that you can (EVENTUALLY) get cool toys.

As an alien, you're trying to expand, get resources and hives (think of hives as alien expansion bases). No commander, so everyone has to cooperate and chip in with regard to building and protecting certain locations and so forth.

As a marine, listen to the commander first and foremost. On aliens, there's generally 1 or 2 players who take a lead kind of role in organizing defense, but otherwise, people tend to chime in at different points in the game. DO NOT BUILD UPGRADE CHAMBERS WITHOUT DISCUSSING THEM WItH YOUR TEAM. PLEASE FFS JUST DON'T.

Since they more than likely play the-game-that-shall-not-be-named, it makes sense that we do not speak of them. (Ah, but speaking about them is a world of difference. )

COUNTER-STRIKE

You should probably go off yourself right now before the entire forum comes and gang-bangs your ass.

lol

Follow players, do what they do. Eventually, you'll understand why they are doing it.

For all other relevant advice, read Sun Tzu.

Common terms:
RT - Resource Nozzel - those steaming nipples your team puts suckers on to get resources
HMG - Heavy Machine Gun (probably didn't need to tell you that)
SG - Shotgun (not Sentry Gun)
TF - Turret Factory (just to confuse you, this makes sentry turrets)
Siege - This is a special turret that shoots alien structures through walls but does not harm players directly
HA - Heavy Armor
JP - Jetpack (sometimes "Jigglypuff")
MT - Motion Tracking (nerfs cloaking, puts up little blue motion blips, marks moving aliens on map) - contrary to popular belief, being cloaked and or moving slowly does not always make you immune to MT (50/50). Even when it does, odds are, some marine saw you move into the position where you started walking.
IP - Infantry portal - the thing that spawns marines
PG - Phase gate - ie. rapid engineer teleporter
DC - Defense Chambers - good for higher alien life forms, especially Onos
SC - Sensory Chamber - gives aliens those pesky cloak and focus abilities
MC - makes aliens go fast and thus take half as many bullets / get to trouble points more quickly. Also charges energy of all aliens in area. (Good for melting marine structures with never-ending bile bomb.)

Common nub stuff:
- If someone says PHASE - do NOT get ammo at the armory!
- Never get full ammo. It's a waste of time (time being THE most precious commodity), slows you down, and odds are, you ain't going to live to use all of it. Even if you do, ammo is cheap, and the commander can drop it anywhere. (Possible exception is the HMG as it ammos up quickly)
- If you evolve to gorge, don't drop any upgrade chambers without asking your team what kind they want. (DC first is never a good thing)
- Try to avoid blocking a retreating Onos (big, pink elephant). If yer a gorge healing him at this point, you are doing a lot more harm than good. Don't follow him into a trouble area, wait outside.
- If yer a gorge, in a building hive, spit on it periodically so other aliens can teleport to it. Especially useful if you hear marines coming. If you are some other lifeform, you can press +use on a hive for the same effect.
- Don't ask the commander for a shotgun (best way not to get one)
- Don't keep going for the higher life forms at first. Stay to gorge, and cap RT's, and your team will love you - then practice the higher life forms when you have two or three hives and the marines are losing. Your death is not likely to be pointed to as a waste of res that cause of the loss of a game at that point.
- In relation to the above - do not make plans to evolve into something before the game begins.
- All alien units are better acting as ninja's than tanks (even the Onos). In and out, hit and run, get the drop on them, hit from behind, tis the key. Hit undefended targets first. Do as much damage as you can, and, lest ye be an expendable skulk, get out before you die.
- For Marines, the key to surviving combat is to force the assailing alien to run down as much hallway as possible before reaching you, keeping it in the line of fire as long as possible. Keep an eye on the mini-map, and listen for the pitter patter of little skulks, lest ye be ambushed. If you have MT, keep an eye on the main map (C) for aliens attempting to take your objectives (ie. hives/base)
- If yer an alien in marine base, your best targets (generally) are: Observatory (stops distress beacon from summoning marines home), Advanced Armory (has little feet on it, stops marines from getting big guns), Arms Lab (weakens marines), Phase Gate (temporarily halts marines advancing on your hive) - double the attack value of anything "dancing" - as it means it is upgrading. Do not waste precious time attacking the Command Chair unless you know it is weak (has waaaay too much health).
- If you are a marine in a hive, and the aliens do not know you are there DO NOT SHOOT THE HIVE - it will alert all aliens to your presence and allow them to teleport to you.
- When n00b marine, rule #1 is: Stay OUT of the command chair (FFS)!
- When you finally do get in the command chair (after several hundred marine games) do not:
-- Drop a TF in base (instant eject)
-- Drop anything more than an Armory and IP in base, before dropping an at least one RT

Good luck.
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"Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity."
Thothie

Unless this has been changed since I was last around (which, hell, it probably was), the problem with MT was that it was speed-based, not "walk or not" based. I guess it's to prevent bhopping while the walk key is down or something. But unlike, say, cloaking, it has a hard threshold, so if you drop down some steps or take wall obstacles improperly, you briefly surpass the speed threshold and show up on MT.

I might be wrong, though. Either way, I seem to do okay even after there's MT, but I'm rather patient and careful not to do my walking around obstacles.

Plus, cloaking is still 100 percent within an SC field. It still is, right? Please tell me nobody nerfed that.

you're right, except that cloaking is the same way too. with the new cloak meter you can see it drop a tiny bit when you accidentally wall-strafe or strafe while moving your mouse(i have to not touch my strafe keys when i cloak, its pretty annoying). as long as you never surpass your maximum walk speed you will always remain 100% cloaked and 100% immune to MT, the problem is not accidentally surpassing it once in a while.

Except the cloaking effect is not a hard threshold. Most people will still miss you if you decloak 1% for half a second. Not the same when there's now a giant blue dot hanging over your location for the next couple seconds.

I also have to avoid the strafe keys. In fact, I not only walk forward only, but I also take stairs very carefully and avoid any wall architecture that could cause a sudden speed change. It SUCKS. Grr. GRR.

Why exactly would you want advice from anyone here...

they all suck horribly at NS anyways.

I think, with the cloaking <-> MT thing, it's just plain buggy, is what it is. I suspect the cloak meter is client side, but the MT work/notwork has to be server side, and thus they often do not agree.
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"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -Delo McKown
Thothie

The only way to stay cloaked, and off the MT, is to walk in a completely straight line. Because of the way HL calculates velocities, turning even a little puts you over the threshold. If you walk in straight lines, stop, turn, then keep going, you don't show up.

Even then, I've seen it fubar. I've seen fail to work at +use walk speeds, last time I had a guinea pig to test with.

Plus everyone seems to have additive/gama h4x that makes cloaking just useless. >< But it'd be at least be nice to be able to creep up to a hive without getting the blue light of dewm on you.
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"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." - Douglas Adams
Thothie