Vehicles In Tribes 2

Starsiege:Tribes was meant to be an infantry take on what was formerly a mech simulator franchise. One of the talking points about Tribes is that it was one of the first games to offer vehicles in an infantry shooter. And this was a big deal for the game before skiing was “discovered”- vehicles took a back seat after that. In Tribes 2 base, Dynamix attempted to bring the spotlight back onto the vehicles and tactics dealing with them by implementing skiing as a severely nerfed feature. When infantry speed was brought back to Tribes 2, vehicles took a backseat again. Now, during the T2 Draft Tournaments, we are lucky to see 2 or 3 vehicle maps get played during a season. For some people, vehicle maps are fun. For some, vehicle maps suck. Most everyone can agree though, vehicles are not the focus of Tribes- it's all about the infantry.

In other shooters infantry normally walk and it takes them a while to get from point A to point B, and vehicles help them move around much faster. With the skiing, jetting, and disc-jumping in Tribes games, vehicles that aide your speed become negligible. In other games, vehicles have much more armor, can dish out more damage, and can take more of a beating than an infantry could. With the player’s ability to suit up in heavy armor with a mortar and shield pack in Tribes, this reality does not exist- heavies become the damage takers and damage dealers.

Not only could players do many of the things the vehicles could do, but it also often became inconvenient for players to get a vehicle ready. In the amount of time it took for a pilot to fix his vehicle station, order a havoc, and wait for 5 other players to load up into it, 6 fully suited heavy armors could already be at the enemy base with carefully planned routes. Not to mention, many of the vehicles had weird handling.

There needs to be incentives to use vehicles in a Tribes game that are different than incentives in other games. Vehicles ought to augment the abilities of the player, and of the team. Vehicles work the best when they are fill a “support role” in the game, and not distract from the infantry play. Some vehicles in Tribes 2 Classic were better at doing this than others. As well, vehicle weapons need to work in a similar manner to infantry weapons- the skill it takes to use them should be consistently proportionate throughout.

Mobile Point Base (or “MPB”) 

This is the prime example of a supporting vehicle- one that compliments the gameplay in a subtle yet effective manner, adding in another gameplay element without throwing it in your face. The mobile point base is essentially a deployable truck. When deployed, the MPB extends an inventory station, a base turret, and a medium-range sensor. All 3 of these things are powered by the MPB, and independently of the base generator. The ability to roll this wherever you want makes it great for keeping your team going even when your base is trashed by the enemy. As well, the developers of Classic added an additional teleporter function to the MPB. Players could teleport from the vehicle pad to wherever the MPB was deployed- this feature was neat, but not used much. This vehicle needs no gunners, or any other passengers other than the driver.

The MPB had very hefty shields, but it had a weak spot in the back where the inventory station was- damaging the inventory station would also damage the vehicle, so double damage could be done by focusing on the back of the vehicle. The MPB could be taken out in seconds by spamming mortars, grenades, and mines near the back, so MPB drivers would have to be careful about where they deployed it. The only thing this vehicle really suffered from was horrible wheeled physics which made it hard to get into position. But this flaw would be an easy fix for a developer. This vehicle is one that just simply needs to be there, moreso than others. It would not be a vehicle CTF map without it.

Wildcat 

The grav bike of Tribes 2, this vehicle always felt like it needed more of a purpose. The problem with the grav bike is that it wasn't notably a good killing machine in any way, even after a heavy chaingun was mounted to its front. While it was fast, the bike's physics were glitchy, because of the tessellation of the terrain. If you landed on a patch of terrain at the right angle, it could cause the bike to flip without much warning, often killing or fatally wounding its pilot. Experienced pilots knew how to tame the gravbike and pitch it upwards on terrain so this wouldn't happen, but piloting it in this way would slow it down considerably. Only the light armor could use the bike. And honestly, when I think speed in Tribes, I think of a light armor cruising along a route, not driving in a wonky hoverbike.

Players in light armor who were equipped with discs, mines, a chaingun, and a grenade launcher were every bit at dangerous and speedy as the grav bike. The only real role the grav bike served was to add insult to injury during blowout games, where players would stop taking the game seriously and goof off trying to run people over. Sometimes cappers would use gravbikes at the beginning of setup routes to get going fast without using a disc-jump, saving precious health- this was about the most helpful the gravbike could be.

Besides changing the driving mechanics to not be as wonky and tippy, I would likely want to increase the amount of thrust you take while ejecting out of the vehicle. And possibly give it a deadlier but slower gun that doesn’t require having to keep a constant bead on someone (a chaingun and wonky physics don’t really work together well…)

Instead of having the vehicle explode if you capsize it, I would think about simply just ejecting the player at much less damage sacrifice, requiring the player to go and flip the vehicle upright before using it (at a sacrifice of time spent flipping it). This would make the vehicle mechanics more forgiving and enable players to really get a feel for it. In game theory, having players die in order to learn something is generally frowned upon, but unfortunately this was what happened with the gravbike in T2. I mean, dying happens enough in an online game, but it shouldn’t occur on a vehicle because you hit a pebble the wrong way.

Jericho Tank

I can find one or two roles for the Jericho, but there is only one that I really agree with in the overarching metagame.

The Jericho is a powerful hovertank that can really take a beating. Running tanks into other tanks often causes them to blow up and cause Unexpected Errors for players, to the frustration of many- this has actually been exploited in recent tournaments in order to stop flag standoffs. The tank turns fairly slowly, but it can strafe and move in any lateral direction very fast- which is very out of character for a tank. Its shields run off the same energy reserve that is used to power its boosting- but its energy reserve is so huge that the tank is pretty much undefeatable when used by an experienced tank pilot. Missiles don't do much to the tanks when they were shielded- neither do mines, mortars, or shrike blasters. You have to coordinate an attack with one or more of these to take one down.

The tank has a pilot and gunner seat, so it takes 2 men away from battle when used. The guns on the tank are unreliable when the tank is moving, due to the crazy projectile inheritance- but tactics were developed where a pilot would position the tank at an ideal spam location and exit the vehicle and target the spam point with his TL, giving the gunner a bullseye to aim for. This is something a walking heavy and light armor could do already, without the aide of a vehicle.

During a game, people using a tank effectively either find themselves high-arc spamming from afar, or spawn-camping the enemy turf, running them over and mortaring them at point blank, putting them in disarray and making it hard for them to amass an effective strike against them. Neither of these are notably hard to do, but can be extremely effective.

There is one supporting role that I find commendable for the tank, is that is a defensive flag-holding role during heated standoffs- flag standoffs are interesting in that they can abruptly change the pace of a game and help a losing team turn the momentum of the game to their favor if they come out on top during one. To be fair, tank standoffs can get fairly boring for the watchers- nothing can happen for long periods of time due to the difficulty in taking a tank down- this would have to be addressed. However, if the tank was to fulfill a role at all, turtling the flag would be the role most people would be comfortable with (it'd be better than a normal infantry base turtle, at any rate). The discussion lies in how to go about making it interesting.

A possible solution would be giving people the ability to board tanks if they got close, somewhat like Halo. The challenge for the boarder would be doing it without getting run over, and for the tank pilot, it would making sure he was able to maneuver to successfully run a player down without being boarded. Or maybe even make it as simple as making concussion grenades effective on players even inside vehicles. To further emphasize the defensive nature of the vehicle, weapons would need to be switched out to something a little more defense-friendly.

Another possible solution- that would be killing two birds with one stone- would be making the infantry ELF gun more useful by having it quickly drain the energy from vehicles, assets, and players alike. The lock-on feature of the ELF would probably be removed to counter-balance this, but if someone was able to get close enough to a tank, avoid getting ran over, and keep a steady bead on the tank with the ELF gun, a tank could be shield-less and vulnerable in seconds. This would make for a type of interesting standoff game I would like to see.

Shrike

This is the ‘jet fighter’ of Tribes 2- which is a bit of an inaccurate term when considering how it behaves. But to a player new to the game, that is what the vehicle resembles at first. Actually, the vehicle is a “turbo-grav”, which is somewhat a cross between a helicopter and a jet. It can hover in place with vertical jets, and you can use the vertical jets to propel it forward by nosing the vehicle down, or propel it backward by nosing it up. But the second you engage the forward jets, it becomes an agile aircraft, able to fly fast (usually faster than heat-seeking missiles) and take turns rapidly. It has two front-mounted blasters that can slice through players and vehicles rather quickly (again, using the same energy reserve as the one used to power its shields).

Killing enemies is made possible by shooting, or ramming, as with most vehicles. Some shrike pilots have become ridiculously good at doing both. It is not an easy feat, due to its mechanics- the craft is directed very loosely by the mouse, requiring precise mouse movement and understanding of the “directional lag” the ship has. It is easy to miss your intended ram target and instead crash into the ground in a ball of fire. But when a pilot becomes good at ramming, he sways the battle of a vehicle map. Shrike pilots can put a serious dent in the enemy offense by ramming heavys in the midfield as they are making their way to the friendly base. In the midfield, they are also in an amazing position to ram enemy flag carriers- and they can easily keep up with even the fastest of cappers.

Shrikes can also be used by medium armors to get to speed rapidly before ejecting en route to the flag stand. This makes medium flag capping a favored method of flag capping on vehicle maps due to the increased punishment a medium armor can take compared to a light.

There are a few vulnerabilities to the shrike- and these are worth noting because without them the shrike would be horribly overpowered. A well-placed mine-disc will blow up any shrike up instantly. And shock lancing a shrike will send the shrike toppling, often crashing into the ground below if the pilot is close to the ground.

While the shrike is extremely powerful, I would not argue it is overpowered. The ability for a shrike pilot to own the midfield is more of a flaw with the map rather than the vehicle- a well-constructed vehicle map has hills and other various obstacles placed randomly that a shrike pilot will need to avoid, while still keeping lanes open for evading missiles. A wide-open vehicle map just doesn’t fly, because of shrikes, but also because of many other reasons. (I'd use Raindance here as an example of a wide open map).

Thundersword Bomber

The Bomber can hold up to 3 people- a pilot, a bomber, and a tailgunner. While the pilot doesn’t have anything in the way of weapons, the bomber has access to a rapid-firing plasma cannon, and a regenerating payload of bombs, each bomb doing the damage of a mortar round. The bombs can be dropped at rapid succession, but after unloading around 10 or so, there is a cooldown period while bombs are being regenerated. The bomber doesn’t really technically aim the bombs, the pilot does that by adjusting the bomber’s pitch and speed- the bomber just decides when to let the bombs fly, by determining whether a faint bomber reticle on the ground is located over the specified target or not. The tailgunner position on the back is an open exposed position where a passenger stands and can utilize all of their weapons, but is vulnerable to nades, mines, and weapons fire. The bomber is a bit harder to control compared to the shrike, and requires some skill by the pilot. It requires knowing how and when to evade attacks and travel to safety, and requires knowing good bombing routes to give the bomber limited exposure.

If a good bombing team is able to set up a bomb route before the other team can get other vehicles up, the other team is more or less screwed. The bomber is extremely powerful- its only real threat is missiles and shrikes. And if your tailgunner is a heavy armor carrying flares and an ammo pack, you have more than enough flares to evade missiles for half the map, or more. That tailgunner can also launch missiles at enemy shrikes, making all but the most experienced shrikers incapable of keeping a bead on the bomber to take them out. And even then, if a bomber manages to take out the enemy vehicle pad, they can usually keep it down with successive bombing runs. AA turrets and other fire are easily avoidable by the bomber.

You can’t ever really feel like a bomber earns their kills- they aren’t really doing much at all. The pilot does most of the critical thinking, and most of the work- but hardly gets enough credit for what they do.

The bomber is not effective enough for what it does. Sure, it keeps 3 people alive for a good deal of time, and in the process of their lives they can kill a lot of people. But the length of a single bombing run is short, and the time duration between bombing runs is too lengthy- even if a bomber crew was able to take out multiple priority targets in one run, by the time they swing back around most of the damage would already be accounted for. As well, consider the fact that the most important base assets are inside, protected from the bomber. And it takes at least 2 people to run a bomber, if not 3 if they want to survive for any amount of time. If all 3 of those players were instead running as HO on decent routes, they would be able to sustain constant pressure and aide or distort the flag game much longer and much more effectively than a bomber could (and remember, the flag game means everything).

Any good aspects of the bomber- including its emphasis on teamwork- are overshadowed by all of these harsh realities of the bomber. In another shooter game, the bomber would probably fill more of a role. But in Tribes, its role is that of an annoying gnat that occasionally be effective when the stars align. It might be possible to adjust it, but I doubt it…

Havok

The Havok is the aerial transport of the game, and two similar vehicles were found in the first Tribes. The Havok is essentially a heavy turbograv with platforms along its hull for up to 5 other passengers to stand on. There are no weapons. The havoc essentially moves like the shrike and bomber, but much more slowly and gradually. Havok passengers are exposed but are able to use all of their weapons freely, just like the bomber tailgunner. The havoc could be used as an aerial platform, keeping all occupants in the air and firing- but most people quickly learn how ineffective that can be. The havoc in Tribes 2 was mainly used to shuttle HO (or other odd stealth roles) across the map to the enemy base in one payload. However, this was not very effective. It’d take forever for all the spots to fill up, and once HO dropped onto the enemy base, they would get in each others' ways, accidentally mortaring one another to death. A HO in Tribes 2 classic with the right routes could get to the enemy base in a fraction of the time it took for a loaded havoc to get there.

As true as this is, I still think there is a spot for an aerial transport in the game- just not one that allows 5 passengers. In Tribes 1 a light personal carrier existed with only two passenger spots- and I think that is reasonable. It does not imply the pilot needs to sit around forever to load up, and because of its decreased payload, could probably be given a bit more maneuverability and survivability. The havoc is touted by many Tribes 2 base players as being a staple to the series, and that should be respected to some point. A smaller havok does fill my canon of a vehicle aiding the gameplay, and not providing distraction from it.

Tribes 2 Competition Mapping Thumb Guide

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This is more for me and other mappers. Just writing out my thoughts, since I've wanted to do this for a while. This essay delves into the design aspects of a map, rather than the technical aspects. For the technical aspects, I will post up Anthem's mapping tutorial found on GamerHaus (formerly Goon Haven).

Mapping for Competition

Mapping for competitive CTF is a huge give and take of Offensive Features versus Defensive Features. Maps should always be slightly tilted towards O- slanted towards D will make for slow maps. The O are the ones that make things happen. It's still nice to throw a "challenge" at O now and then, but always at the cost of something else in D being removed (add a turret and remove a sensor, etc.) There's no exact measurement of this give and take, it's something you feel out, and it is really an art.

Do not be discouraged if people do not take to your map right away. People in competition can be picky and whiny, and a map almost always play bad on the first run since people are exploring the map and getting used to it more than playing a serious competitive game. It can often take 2 or 3 runs on a map to get a real sense of how the map plays.

Fog/Visible Distance: Starts at roughly 600 meters. This value drops when terrain is wide open, or low, or if there are not many obstructions (buildings, rocks) in the midfield.

Bases: Generally, no more than 2 or 3 rooms away from entrance to gen room. The simpler the base, the better.

Small Bases: At least 2 entrances.
Medium Bases: At least 3 entrances.
Large Bases: No. Do not make them (or if you do, make them wide open).

Smaller entrances create choke points, make for easier turtles, avoid.

Some maps have turtles that are better than others because of these factors. Ex: Pandemonium is much better than No Shelter because Pande has 2 entrances to a 1-room base.

Keep in mind the placement of inventories and gens that are close to entrances. Having outdoor inv mortar spam is bad but passable. Outdoor gen spam is bad, in most cases. If a base is going to have inv spam, consider having invs self-powered (or powered by more than 1 gen) to balance this factor out.

Terrains: Hand-made terrains can take a while. For procedural generated terrains, Multi-ridged Fractal and Voronoi/Worley noise are very good for Tribes gameplay due to their tendency to create bowls and ridges to ski along and change direction. You usually want a hierarchy of detail (big features, little features, small features). Hills that encompass OOB borders are generally desired by the community (Feign, Damnation, Opus).

Flag: Give and take very big here- many things to tradeoff, but always keep slanted to O.

You want at least 2 cap routes available (side to side, back to front). Front to back nice to have. Flag stands that are approachable from multiple angles is considered a plus for O.

Flag stands should be concave. If you make a flag stand convex, consider using higher hills/more fog in the map, but generally do not do it. Flat flag stands can sometimes work, but generally will cause deadstops. There should almost always be spawns near the flagstand (I aim for roughly 50% of my spawns near the flagstand). Do not put spawns ON THE FLAG.

Work with the terrain features to pick an ideal place for the flagstand. The last "uphill" that cappers touch before touching flag on fast cap routes will roughly start 150m away from flag. The hills cappers start out on on set-up routes will be roughly 300m away from flag. Keep this in mind when picking location for flag on procedurally generated terrain, or make sure to build these features in.

List of Gives/Takes for Balancing Offense and Defense
If you add one from the D list, add one from the O list too. But generally keep things slightly O-tipped.

Good for Offense:

• Smooth Terrain
• More Fog
• Inv Spam
• Gen Spam
• Self-Powered Bunker
• Open Flagstand
• Big Enterances
• Lack of Plasma on Base Turret (one extra step for D...)
• Campable Gen Rooms

Good For Defense:

• Sentry Turret
• Limited Enterances
• Multiple Sensors
• Multiple Base Turrets
• Limited Routes
• Jutting Pieces on Flagstand
• Lava/Water around Flagstand
• Less Fog
• Multiple Bases/Multiple Power Sources
• Plasma Turret Default on Base Turret

Use the lists as just a guideline. As I said before, this is not exact science, it's something you must feel out.

Game Objectives & MMO Games (Part I)

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This document has been sitting on my drive collecting dust for a couple of months now, and I've been meaning to finish it for quite some time, but have been too busy. A recent conversation with a few friends reminded me about it, and I figured it would be worth posting if only to provide fellow Tribes players arsenal from which to construct their own gametypes. By providing arsenal, I mean the "4 root objectives" that every multiplayer shooter uses- either alone or in combination.

I will eventually write a second part to this where I discuss different directions a Tribes MMO game could take. It would be much more interesting to post what other people come up with, however- so if you have any interesting ideas for gametypes that would work well in an MMO format while still staying true to the essence of Tribes, post them up here (use the terminology I provide here, of course). This is simply rhetorical and for fun- there are no plans to make an MMO.

Tribes MMOFPS Format

The primary objective SOE set fourth in its MMOFPS Planetside was territory acquisition- and that objective simply makes sense when talking about the logic of an MMO, and really ought to set the standard for other MMOFPS games. As of now, no notably successful MMOFPS games have been made other than Planetside, so the genre stands largely uncontested. In Planetside, there is much land to be used to play on- it'd make sense the acquisition of the land would be the primary objective. The format Planetside uses for players to achieve the primary goal is a system of capturing bases, either by destroying the base gens (or otherwise taking their power offline), or by hacking the base. Bases were connected with a lattice sytem- so you could only take bases connected to a base you already own, in order to “sweep” the continent you were playing on.

In Tribes, the primary gametype the community was built around was CTF. And in Tribes CTF, the primary objective- the objective which decides who wins and who loses- is the number of flag captures your team has. The “base” game, involving defending your base and attacking the enemy base, is a secondary objective- while the base game is normally very important in achieving flag captures, it is not always needed- especially on maps that lend itself to “cluster” or “spawn” play. This appears to be diametrically opposed to Planetside's system based on land acquisition.

In the later years of Planetside, the win-game was altered a bit- instead of just hacking the base in order to claim it, you hacked the base to acquire a “flag” from the base, and then you had to take that flag back to a base you already owned to claim the new base. This played similar to standard CTF- but the difference is you had to have a teammate hack the base first, and even before the flag game existed, hacking the base took some time. You had to protect your hacker while he was doing it, and if he died another hacker would have to start all over again.

Already we can see how the team-centric Tribes gameplay might just “fit the mold” of an MMOFPS, but instead of trying to force it, it seems more logical to address all of the different objective systems used in traditional shooter games, and see which combination of objectives tailor themselves to the gameplay of Tribes, and of an MMO.

These objectives likely go by other names in the realm of game theory, but I am using my own names and definitions for simplicity.

Objectives

Object-centric Objectives – In gametypes that use object-centric objectives, each team has an object, and one team scores by taking an object away from the enemy team while their team is still in possession of their object. The classic version of a gametype that uses object-centric objectives is Capture the Flag. There are multiple variations of game rules that use this type of objective- objects can be touch-returned or have the need to be “brought home”. In “reverse CTF” the position of the flags is reversed- so instead of having to run to the enemy side to get the flag, you begin with the flag, and have to bring it to the enemy side while your flag is still on its stand. Another derivation of this gametype simply calls for one team to hold onto an object for as long as possible without having to deliver it anywhere.

Touch Objectives – Touch objectives need to be touched in order to satisfy the win condition. One team tries to prevent the other team from doing this. Often gametypes that revolve around a touch objective will give each team a turn at attacking and defending the goal. In the first round, if one team ends up touching the goal, in the subsequent round, the other team tries to touch the goal in less time than the first. Again, the gametypes that use a touch objective can have many varying rules.

Hold Objectives – Hold objectives require players to stand within a limited distance away from a specific object or location in order to win. King of the Hill is a classic example of a game-type that employs use of the Hold Objective. With touch objectives, either you are awarded points for the time you are within the “win area”, or you win by standing in the “win area” a specific duration of time. In the former case, the amount of points determines who wins, but in either case, it's about surviving in confinement, which can prove challenging in a shooter game.

Destroy Objectives – Destroy objectives require players to destroy an object (such as a generator) to satisfy a win condition. An object has a certain amount of health (or some other vital) that needs to be brought down to 0 by causing it damage with weapons fire. (Note- this is not the same as objectives requiring a bomb to be planted to detonate an object- that is usually using some other objective type such as a hold objective).

These 4 objectives are the traditional “root” objectives of which all other objectives are based off (in some combination or sense) for shooter games. You either have to kill something (destroy something), sit still for a while (hold), get to a certain location (touch), or bring an object back to your team (object-centric) in most shooter games to win. In a sense, you can call these objectives the “mother objectives” (the sauces of tasty videogame cuisine). Even arena and deathmatch-style games belong to an objective type here, and that is “destroy”- you want to destroy the other team's members before they destroy your team members.

The reason I point out these 4 root objectives is it makes it easy to craft a gametype using them. One thing worth nothing is that these objectives can easily be used to define the metagame of previous Tribes games. Your HOF (heavy-on-flag) sits on your flag as long as possible to protect it, a capper is obviously aiming for the flag (object-centric), your HO (heavy offense) are trying to take out the enemy generators, turrets, and HOF (destroy), and usually all of your team members want to touch an inventory station to load out with gear (touch). All of these actions (with the exception of flag capping) are secondary objectives.

How does Tribes fit the picture of an MMOFPS though? In an MMOFPS, land acquisition is the primary objective. But as you can see, that primary objective is completed by performing the root objectives over and over again to acquire land. Hacking an enemy base is actually a form of “Hold objective” where you need to hold the room the hacker is in and protect him- the duration of the “Hold” being how long it takes to complete he hack. All the other ways I described that you can use to take over a base in Planetside can be explained by Object, Touch, Hold, and Destroy.

But how do we apply this knowledge to Tribes when making a gametype suitable for an MMO?

Weapons & Skill

Attempting to address the weapons in Tribes 2 is similar in experience to cooking a meal. Just the thought of the final product makes your mouth water. Sometimes it looks like it will be easy with all the parts laid out in front of you. You might burn yourself along the way. Cussing will certainly be involved. Your eyes might tear up. You have to wait a while. Generally, it's a bitch when doing it with other people. And it's uncertain if it will even taste good at the end. But you dream of the enjoyable end-product, and you think it's worth it. Right?

Weapons in Tribes have been debated- and still continue to be debated to this day (really, this game is how old?) I've put much thought into the reason the weapons are the way they are- and if changes were made to them, what would be the ideal way to do it. Not ideal in the sense that everyone agrees with it, but ideal in the sense that would give every weapon a purpose (or a “niche”), require skill to use, and still fit into the overarching metagame. There are certainly some weapons that are never used in competitive play. And some weapons people abuse to some extent or another, without having a particular goal in mind other than to kill people, or grief people. And to some extent, this will never go away.

I want to address each weapon in Tribes 2- what I think about each one's role in the game, if they do their job well, and how I would change them (if I'd change them at all). But before I dive in, I want to share the overarching theory I applied to each of the weapons when considering them- I do this, because the terms I use will come up many times in the writing. Specifically, I want to talk about the idea of skill.

Skill

Most people talk about weapons in terms of skill. How skilled do you need to be to use a weapon? Does this weapon take skill to use? Or is it a noob tube? Ideally, you want to be sure that a weapon's effectiveness is proportionate to the amount of skill it takes to use it- and keep that proportion constant on all of your weapons. But what the hell does skill mean anyway? People throw the word around when talking about weapons without elating to their meaning. To me, skill can be broken down into 3 components.

1. “Twitch” or Motor Control Skill – The how well you do the basic executions, including aiming, and Leading. How quickly can you press the buttons, and how precise can you make your player movements and weapons fire. Requires good hand-eye coordination in a virtual 3D space. Can use critical thinking, over time is “learned” and becomes instinct.
2. Analytical or “Tactical” Skills – Knowing the best way to going about your basic executions. Knowing when or how much you need to lead. Knowing the optimal position you need to be in to do something. Knowing your constraints and how to work within them. Knowing when you can fudge the rules. Requires critical thinking.
3. Strategic Skills – Understanding of the overarching game, and determining the best plan of action to reach a goal. Requires critical thinking.

You can think of it like this:

There is a problem. To succeed, I need to determine the best plan of action to take. I need to determine the manner in which I am going to do this plan of action. And I need to do the execute the plan as best as I can.

There is a hiearchy in play here. Strategy, Tactics, Twitch.

When you're coaching a team, you're thinking top-down, focused on strategy and developing and refining tactical and twitch skills. When you're first learning a game, you're learning bottom-up, starting with twitch, and overtime mastering strategy.

This idea of skill applies to all aspects of the game, but it's especially important to keep these distinctions in mind when concerning weapons and tools- they are the primary reason anything gets done. So without further ado, let's jump into the weapons.

Weapons

Disc Launcher
This is the bread and butter weapon of Tribes. This is the shit. Essentially a rocket launcher, it's a staple to most every loadout. There is nothing wrong with how this weapon functions- and why fix what's not broken? There is one thing that needs to be addressed, and that is the fact that T1's projectile inheritance was 50% of the player momentum, and T2C's projectile inheritance was 75%. I'd go halfway with inheritance to compromise with both camps. This of course applies to more than just the disc, but it is worth bringing up ecspecially in this case because of the impact of mid-air discs to the game. Of course, the explosion impulse needs to be mapped to a function as opposed to a linear impulse, to get the feeling of disc jumping just right.

Chaingun
Essentially fires projectiles at a fast clip, in a somewhat tight cone of fire. It's the weapon of choice for airborne targets. It's pretty unreliable at a distance, but becomes largely more effective when together with many other teammates – it's a good way Tribes promotes teamplay without forcing it. This is a controversial weapon for many people because of it's apparent lack of skill required, and the reliance of “spray and pray”. I however would disagree to some extent- there are many things you need to be able to do to be effective as a player when using the weapon.

For an example of what it takes to chaingun effectively, look at what happens when you chase someone (a prime example, because when you are chasing a flag carrier, you are trying to chain him out of the sky a majority of the time). When you are chasing, you have to lead the target to some degree to get hits- and that's not always easy with a fast moving object moving across your screen. And in order to be more precise with your leading from a distance, you need to be zoomed in at least a bit, and this means you can't always see the ground below you- and if you are in the air and chaining someone, sometimes the ground is not visible in your view at all. But chasing requires you to move fast in a hurry to intercept the capper- so hitting the right bowls and hills is essential. Because of this, chasing a capper with the chaingun requires a good sensibility of where you are in the air- you essentially need to manage your lead on the target and your own position and movement all at the same time.

Sure, anyone can stand on a hill and chainwhore enemies passing by- but he likely could be doing a million more effective things than that.

The chaingun doesn't need a change from T2C. Unlike the chaingun in T:V, it should have a spin up and spin down- this is one of the important balancing factors for the weapon. You need to commit to shooting the chaingun because of it's spin up, so you need to choose when to use it wisely.

Another thing I want to address about the chaingun is the use of scripts to change network interpolation. The fact these variables were built into Tribes 2 and were made open for editing suggests it's not really a cheat, but it wasn't easy for a common user to change these variables without using a script, so it was either you had it, or you didn't. I personally didn't notice much of a difference when I accidentally turned off my interpolate script for a month, but I can say it definitely adds something of an advantage. People like having that amount of control over their network settings, and it's no different than wanting to play on a server that gives you a better ping than another. For these reasons, I'd suggest an equivalent of the interpolate script with a GUI to be written into a game from the get-go to allow everyone access to these net tools.

Blaster
The blaster is one of those weapons that is begging to be used, but doesn't really seem useful at anything in particular. I like to equate it to the pistol in Half Life, or the Assault Rifle in UT- pretty much any wimpy weapon in a game you start out with that you quickly find a replacement for (makes sense, since it IS the player's default weapon). Many people in T1 and T2 used a script that automatically threw the blaster away after spawning- just the idea makes me roll my eyes. 

The blaster did try to fill a role to some extent- it's ability to penetrate shields made it a useful weapon for spawn LDs in widdling down the health of shield pack heavies. Many indoor HD decide to give a weapon slot to the blaster instead of the mortar, since it's obviously more useful than something that can take out your base. So it seems like it wants to be a weapon for defense. But the fact of the matter is, the projectiles travel so slow, and the projectiles do so little damage, that most any other weapon would be more effective taking up that weapon slot (even the ELF). The blaster also seems to want to fill the niche of the disc launcher, but fails on every level. There are a few things I can think of that would help the blaster fill a defensive role better.

One technique- one we've seen two Tribes projects use (Legends, and Enemy Territory:Tribal Wars) is turning the blaster into an assault rifle of sorts, firing quick rounds. Something that functions like a chaingun but with a tighter arc, and having each shot do less damage per shot. Also, the projectiles still eat up your energy and penetrate through shields. And the gun would have to be semi-auto, and the projectiles could only travel so far. This would make the blaster inherently more useful in tearing up shield HO by many LD players working together, and firing upon the heavy from a distance (which is ideally where spawning LD players want to be anyway).

There is another solution I have thought up that couples the blaster and another weapon together, but I will get to that later. Basically, the blaster needs to be useful for something. Or in better terms, more effective at what it could be useful for.

Grenade Launcher
Again, another weapon that I don't believe needs to be changed. It is yet another weapon that can mess people up and fast, but it's pretty much only useful on land targets. To successfully land a mid-air nade, you need to not only account for the grenade's delayed fuse, but the arc that the nade travels in as well, and the grenade hitbox- MAs are almost never seen. The rapid fire of the grenade launcher makes it great for spamming flag stands, and the delayed fuse makes it a decent weapon at defending indoor areas because it can bounce around corners (the grenades bounce everywhere though, so a D player needs to be cautious when using it indoors). Sure, it can deal a great amount of damage and very fast- but if you become prey to it, it means you probably should have been moving around a bit more, and not as predictably. No change on the grenade launcher.

Plasma Rifle
The plasma rifle, like the blaster, seems to want to be the disc launcher- it fires a slow moving projectile. This weapon is a bit more successful at mimicking the disc launcher than the blaster is, but it still falls short. The projectile can do a lot of damage, but you cannot disc jump with a plasma burst- in fact, you can't knock around people much at all with the plasma, but you can with a well-placed disc. So plasma rifle falls short of the niche. This is a weapon I think needs to be changed.

And I might have to put my foot in my mouth for saying it, but I personally liked the direction Tribes Vengeance took with this weapon, turning it into an area of denial weapon. Area of denial weapons had not been done in Tribes before this (you could argue that the mortar might've been one, but mortar rounds don't linger like burner rounds did)- and the concept works great for protecting areas of an indoor base, or blanketing cap routes. It was a bit silly that the burner used energy- this is one thing I disliked about the weapon. But otherwise, adding another tool like this to the defensive utility belt could be a welcome thing if done right.

For one, the plasma rounds should travel slow, and only “explode” into a lingering fire once touching something. The fire damage should not stack (in order to prevent spamming doorways by turtles- a turtle would have to choose an area to cover with the lingering plasma, instead of laying it out all in one concentrated heap. And if he covered an entire area of the base, he'd also realize he'd be cutting off that area for personal use, too). As well, I don't think the plasma shots should travel as straight as the burner shots- they'd have to arc a little bit (not as much as the grenade, but to some degree). This would add for a bit of difficulty a defensive player would have to overcome in order to not accidentally hit himself or a teammate in the face with burning plasma.

This weapon would likely require a LOT of fine tuning, but I've always liked the idea of an area of denial weapon in Tribes. It forces players to change up their routes a bit, or otherwise address the risk vs. reward of running into an area on fire.

Shocklance
Clutch. Gimmicky. Unfair. Uneffective in the overall meta. Many things can be said about this weapon, and it makes for a pretty controversial weapon. But why not have it be controversial, it's really the only melee weapon in the game! 

The assassins choice... and deadly in the hands of people who use it well (and horrible in the hands of the inexperienced). This weapon didn't do much damage on a frontal attack, and the refire time for it is ridiculous. But a hit to the back of the head meant instant death to any player- including shielded heavys, and this is what made it a weapon of choice for many LDs. You HAD to be good at it though. If you missed a backlance, that means you just wasted a lot of time that could have been used firing another weapon without as much risk. But if you nailed a backlance, you just saved yourself a bundle of time, effort, and ammo. And backlances weren't always easy against a target who knew how to move. 
 

I'd keep the shocklance's functionality relatively similar, with one added challenge- having to hold fire to charge a shot. And only a fully charged shot could deliver a backlance. This makes the weapon just that much harder to use, and not as easy to “cheat” with. You would need to be a master of timing, opportunistic, and precise.

I come to this perspective from a varied background. I practiced with the shocklance for a few months before even becoming somewhat effective with it- I've since become rusty and horrible at it, and never use it. And I have also been on the receiving end of a backlance, but I can appreciate the difficulty it takes to do because of how much practice I had with it- so I never really considered it cheap. It really is a do-or-die weapon. You miss, you give away your position and can't fire anything for a second or so. You pretty much become cannon fodder.

Laser Rifle 
The laser rifle was the sniper rifle of Tribes. It pushed all of your suit's energy into a single shot- and a full charge on a light armor certainly meant death for the unfortunate soul. The difficulty came in waiting for your energy to recharge to take another shot, or to even jetpack out of the way. And you had to be in light armor, with an energy pack, to use it. It became a very niche weapon, used primarily by LOFs, and by the dreaded Osnipers.

There is a huge cultural component to the mentality many Tribes players harbor towards players who take the laser rifle out offensively. Although its technically a legit tactic in the game, it is frowned upon by many. I've racked my head about why I dislike Osnipers. Maybe it's because it doesn't seem to fit with the overarching metagame in competitive Tribes, it doesn't seem to server a purpose other than to distract the enemy defense. Maybe it's because it makes me feel like someone is trying to play Call of Duty or Counterstrike in a Tribes game. Maybe it's because many Osnipers went for headshots on players buying vehicles from their vehicle bay. All I know is, I'm not alone when I say: Osniping is lame.

That is why I approve of the idea of the laser rifle requiring energy AND ammo to fire, like the one in Tribes Vengeance- at the very least, it made it so shots were more precious, and an Osniper would have to take a deployable inventory along with him to do damage in any stretch of time (often to the dismay of their team). Let's not forget, LOFs are discouraged from being sniper-happy all the time too- Tribes isn't about having camping snipe wars, it's about perpetual action. Snipes should be done frugally and deliberately by the LD and LOF. Because of these reasons, I'd probably limit the ammo on a sniper rifle to a single digit number. Likely no more than 8. This admittedly would be a constraint put in place to discourage what is considered “misuse” of the weapon by a culture of players- but it likely would be the only game design decision of this kind made for this game. Aside from the ammo requirements, there would be no other changes made to this weapon. Following the KISS method sometimes is the best way to think about making weapon changes.

In short, Osnipers suck, and sniping as an LD is honorable, but sniping LDs smell bad. 

ELF
The ELF is arguably the black sheep of all of the weapons in Tribes 2. Some find it irritating, some people find it does more harm to your team than good. Most people think it's wimpy. It certainly doesn't take much motor skill to use. The fact of the matter is much of the competitive community never saw a use for the ELF- but overlook the fact that when used surgically, it can help out defense a lot.

The writers of the Tribes 2 Classic mod spent a lot of time going through each item in the game and revamping the values to ensure each item was balanced while also playing a role. They got much flak over many of these changes from passionate people- as we all know how passionate Tribes players are. One of the writers claimed he got two fairly long e-mails in the same day right before the final push for Classic- one was an argument that the ELF was worthless, and one was an argument that the ELF was overpowered. The fact that this happened just accentuates the fact that you can't please everybody all the time.

When you press fire on the ELF, the weapon uses your energy reserve to emit a beam that basically latches onto the closest player in a specified cone, and drains their energy at a pretty respectable clip. In Tribes 2 base, this weapon was devastating, because energy meant much more. Without the speeds you got in Classic, you had to rely on jetting unpredictably to stay alive- so being grounded by the ELF meant a timely death.

In Classic, speed is king. Arguably more important than energy. Because of this, competitive players have argued that the speeds that you can achieve essentially nullified the weapon because of it's limited range- that you're better off firing another weapon at a person instead of draining their energy. And the weapon is known for changing its target to a closer friendly player on a whim.

My case for the weapon is that it's great when used on enemy shield pack HO when the HO is between you and your friendly LD. All armors carry only 3 mines- and to take out a HO's shields in a timely manner, you either have to use up 2 mines for mine-discs, or have two LD on a HO at one time mine-discing. And then you have to kill the HO, often with yet another mine-disc. When a team fields many HO at you, and they are perpetually coming in, you don't have time to resupply ammo to get all the mines you need to take out those HO. You need to harm the HO.

The ELF is a great solution for this (for the team who knows how to work together). You get one person behind the HO to ELF them while the others give the HO punishment in the front. The HO loses his shields fast, can't jet away, can't traverse backwards, and is now forced to fight. Many mines are saved in the utilization of this technique. Of course, you never see competitive players doing this- they rather stick to their tried-and-true methods for HO disruption.

I like the ELF. I like the idea of a weapon that drains energy- I think it has its place in a game that is all about movement, when jetting is a huge factor to movement. I will agree that the way the ELF does its thing could be changed to be more effective, and not have the risk of being as detrimental to your fellow teammates. And require more precision motor skill than simply just pressing the fire button. Some aiming should be involved here.

While the changes I've thought of thus far for weapons have been relatively simple, this one is a bit more complex. Remember when I mentioned I had an idea for the blaster? This is where this comes in- the idea of coupling both the blaster and ELF together into one energy weapon. Combining two weapons into one of course means you have one less weapon to work with in the game. But this weapon would fill a niche and be great at what it does- stopping shield HO.

My idea is that the weapon would be a charged weapon- holding fire charges a shot, pulling energy from your reserve. The longer you charge it, the larger the shot, the slower the projectile moves, but also the more damage it inflicts. The projectiles pass through shields. And a fully charged shot has the capability of completely draining its target's energy pool. You can decide to fire the weapon like a semi-auto, clicking rapidly to make many pea shots at a player- this would essentially make it function like an assault rifle. Or you could decide to charge up a huge slow-moving energy blob that fizzles out a player's energy and leaves him a sitting duck. Voila, the ultimate shield HO disrupting weapon, that still requires skill to use.

I'm going to apologize right here and now for turning the piece on the ELF into an essay...

Missile Launcher
When I was a fresh face to Tribes, I absolutely hated the missile launcher. I hated the fact that I had to always carry flares. I hated the fact that if I ever tried to use another grenade and used my jets, I was met by a high-pitched siren and shortly after by a missile to the face. I hated how it seemed like the weapon required no skill to use.

Of course, this was back in base, when I humped my jet key to no end. Since then, players have jumped to classic and can move faster, and I've learned better energy management. I just recently learned that you can only be locked onto if your energy reserve falls below your heat gauge- whether this was a feature in Classic or something they implemented in Base is beyond me, but a nice thing to know regardless. Missiles don't bother me so much- it's just something I've taken to be a part of the game: if you're going to cap, you're likely gonna carry flares. But I won't lie, I've often wondered what kind of grenade I would take with me capping if I didn't need flares. It would probably change the meta quite a bit, all the way from the game at the stand, to the base defense game. Think of all of the things that would change if you didn't have to worry about missiles.

I've been on the fence on whether or not the missile launcher needs to be changed from Tribes 2 Classic. After all, it does require your reticule to be on a target for a second or two, so in some sense it requires “skill”. It's pretty much the only other weapon you can rely on to take out base assets from a distance, besides the mortar (and mortars can bounce off assets, making them unreliable when firing at assets on a small floating platform). And it's the only weapon that can deter vehicles (though it was horrible at actually killing them when there was a skilled pilot behind the wheels).

There was one concept for a rocket launcher a respected member of the community had recently come up with, that seems relatively sane compared to some of the more exotic ideas out there. And it would be simple, too. The rocket launcher wouldn't need a lock to fire, and the rocket would travel straight- until something with a heat signature was in it's path. It would then track the object, and continue to tail it until it hit the object, or found an object with a hotter path to follow. The rocket would travel pretty fast (fast enough to reach flying vehicles), but its turn radius would be pretty narrow. This would require the user of a rocket launcher to lead its target, and make sure nothing with a stronger heat signature was in its path. 

On the upside, the rocket could now be fired dumb-fire on stationary assets. Flares could still be used to sway the missile away, but it wouldn't ensure the rocket would always hit the flare- with it's limited turn radius, the rocket could potentially drive straight into the ground in an attempt to track the flare (meaning that using a flare to stop a rocket might not always be the best solution for base defense, because it could cause the rocket to fly into something else at your base). A capper would no longer need flares to shake a rocket. But the capper and the shrikes would have to make evasive maneuvers to get off the rocket's path. The rocket launcher would still have a fairly slow refire rate, so the fact that the rocket initially travels straight would not mean it would be used in place of the disc.

Of course, this is just one idea for the rocket out of many. I recall many ideas being thrown into the mix at the Ascension forums when we were talking about changing it, and none of them really grabbed me. The question is, what would a good alternative to the rocket launcher's current functionality? If it even needs to be changed at all? Maybe it's good to have missile launchers the way they are, in order to “keep cappers honest” and refuse them extra firepower when they don't need it.

Mortar 
This was another weapon I hated the ever loving crap out of when I was new to Tribes. Fast forward to this year, when I used the mortar weapon in Tribes Ascend and complained that it was horribly underpowered, and you can see my perspective has changed a lot. The mortar is a huge part of the overarching meta in Tribes. A mortar is essentially a grenade launcher with a longer refire rate, a longer fuse, but a huge blast radius, and the ability to obliterate most everything in its range. It's the reason that the primary objective of Tribes is jested to be “Capture the Flag, and Stop the Heavys”. A heavy has a lot to be worried about- he is essentially a walking mini-boss, everyone wants a piece of him, because he is the only one who can carry around a mortar. He is slow, he is big, he is clumsy, and there are many ways that he can die. But he is relied on to take base assets out, and if he is caught in the same room as the mortar he just fired when it goes off, he adds himself to the list of it's victims. Sure, you can kill people easily with the weapon. It's not an especially “hard” weapon to kill people with- but that's not the point. The skill required to use the weapon lies it's utilization.

This is one weapon I wouldn't mess with. The only thing I would change is it's blast-radius. A mortar should not be able to take out the entire room in the Stonehenge base- it should take out most of it, but not all of it. Here is another place Tribes Vengeance did something right- the blast radius was just right in Vengeance. Not too big, but not too painfully small (like in Ascend). It was “just right”. 
 

In Conclusion 

For the most part, I love the weapons in Tribes. It's a huge factor of what Tribes what it is. But there is always work that needs to be done. But changes shouldn't happen for the sake of change (a pattern we are seeing in many games these days)- it needs to aimed at improving the functionality that is already there. Sometimes changes should be simple. Sometimes, a difficult situation arises that allows for more complex answers. But the final gameplay experience should always be on the forefront of your mind.

So I just shared my ideas, what about you? Do you have any idea of how you'd refactor and balance the weapons? What weapons really worked, and what didn't? Do you still hate the ELF? Really, you do? Why? :( 

Seriously though, any constructive comments are welcome here, let's keep the ball rolling!

 

Light Defense Guide

Forward

This "Light Defense Guide" is the collective effort of StormcrowIV and Enigma, two kind high-level LOFs who have long played Tribes 2 competitively, and still do to this day. The guide first came in the form of multiple thread posts, and I have put forward my best efforts to merge and organize the posts together into one tangible article.

Not only does this guide provide a newblood Tribes player everything he needs to know to be a solid light defensive player, it speaks volumes about the metagame of the most popular form of Tribes still being played today (Tribes 2 Classic), and the metagame's underlying structure- a structure that should be respected by any faithful successor to the Tribes name. That is why I found it important to post this guide on this blog, and why I will endeavor to post other guides up on this blog that further illustrate what the metagame of a Tribes game should look like.

I will add, I do not agree with everything Stormcrow says here (ecspecially when he mentions the use of only certain weapons) but he does good to mention at the end that this is just his playstyle he developed after years of playing, and everyone "works in their own ways". I commend him for this.

The guide is mostly the writing of Stormcrow, with a few wise assertions made by Enigma added where appropriate. So without further ado:

Light Defense Guide

Basic Positions
There are two primary players in Tribes 2 Classic CTF: the flag D and the flag O.

The flag O is the capper or "FC". He grabs the flag and gets it back to his base via numerous routes, loadouts, and clearing methods.

The flag D is the LOF or HOF, and he stands opposed to the capper. For this guide, I'll be discussing the LOF only. His sole purpose in life is to see the capper, determine the capper's plan for taking the flag, and foil that plan without compromising his position on the flag.

Everything else in the game exists to support or distort these two positions.

The primary enemies of the LOF are HO and LO.

HO are there to clear the LOF by spam (firing from long range, usually with the mortar) or point clearing (getting into the LOF's face and tearing him to pieces-this is usually timed with the enemy capper).
LO are there to distract the LOF by making him compromise his position so that the capper can come in and grab on an uncontested flag stand, or to kill the LOF, so the capper can grab an uncontested flag.

With that groundwork laid out, let's get back to business.

Light Defense

When you are playing light defense, you are either playing as regular LD, or as a LOF.

Equipment

An LD should carry a CG, spin, GL, and flares.
An advanced LD might also incorporate concs, frags, and a sniper rifle (depending on the team he's playing with and against)
Note: NO LD should carry a shocklance or ELF. Ever. If you are not considered a godsend with the weapon, don't do it unless specifically told to for certain situations (Jagged Claw, or standoffs on indoor MMD, for example). Yes, it can be useful, and yes, there are times when it will help you. There are 9x as many times where any other weapon would have been more useful for your role, however. The shocklance can be a clutch mechanical weapon, but dynamically, it is horrifically weak.

Role

The role of the LD is twofold: negate enemy offense and chase enemy flag carriers. The single greatest way to sabotage your defense is to play on or near the flag as an LD. You will never help your LOF or HOF by clogging up the flag stand. You will help them by distracting or killing enemy offensive players trying to kill and distract them.

The LD must aggressively pursue spamming HO.

Note that I say pursue, not necessarily kill. Killing is the most effective way to get a HO off a hill for a period of time, but the longer he's shooting at you, the more he isn't shooting at your LOF. THIS is why the shocklance is a bad weapon for LD. The time you're setting up to SL the HO in the back, he's still killing your LOF and clearing your flag. If you miss, you're screwed within the duel (you have to wait before changing weapons, while the HO will probably starting chaining you at very close range, bye bye!) your LOF is now screwed because the HO got to fire more stuff at him, and now you're dreadfully out of position. Remember: you're a defender. Whatever the offense wants to do, is probably bad. Stop him from doing what he wants as quickly as you can without sacrificing your objective (protecting the LOF).

The LD must aggressively pursue incoming HO who might point clear.

Get these guys off their routes so their timing is messed up (in case the timing was coordinated with a capper) and slow them down to kill them easier. Nothing like a HO flopping at the bottom of a hill eating a rain of mine discs.

Note: These two mean you must be a talented and resourceful dueler. HO are completely overpowered from a numbers perspective and you have to defeat them. You don't have time to suit up before pursuing these guys all the time, either. You have to inflict massive amounts of damage to the right players within a very short period of time.

The LD must adapt to the team being played.

If this team employs a medium to chaingun the LOF to death, then charging out to attack a HO spammer 500m away as the medium skies in isn't a good idea.

The LD must chase flag carriers.

The LD's job is to clean up after the LOF, as well. If a capper gets out, you need to break off your HO-killing and chase the FC down. Again, the shocklance takes away a vital weapon slot for this task. Do not snipe, unless you were designated as a snipe LD. If you do, you are no longer chasing, which your team was counting on you to do. DJ to an interception (never go directly after the capper) and get the capper off his route. If you don't have a hilariously easy MD on him, you should be chaining the whole way. The single lucky shots here and there add up quickly, especially when you're talking about a capper taking DJs to get home. You won't be the only one chaining, either. If you slow down the capper, your team will have a better chance of setting up an egrab or an offensive return.

The LD must escort the flag carrier home.

If you're chasing an FC and your team grabs the flag, stop and cover your flag carrier.

This is pretty debatable, but here's why I think this is the better option:

To succeed against the enemy flag carrier, you have to ski into the enemy base alone, fight off their defense and spawning offense alone, kill the FC alone, then fight through turrets etc to return the flag...after you just DJ'd twice and ran out of ammo chasing the guy down.

To succeed when escorting your flag carrier, you have to distract or kill 2-3 light chasers (who weakened themselves with DJs) with the help of your teammates.

If you return your flag, your defense is unorganized and will be unable to defend it because of the instability of the game that occurs when chasing an enemy across the map and getting a clutch e-grab. If the enemy team has another capper waiting in the wings (I promise they almost always will), then you just gave them a free cap, and nothing you just did was worthwhile. If you escort your carrier home, you still have their flag (so you prevented them from scoring [which is the point of the defense!!!] and the game goes to stand-off-a stable form of the game-and things move from there.

The LD must be vigilantly aware.

This is most important. The LOF can't see everything. Call out cappers and LO with priority. Give directions (left right, back front) and whether they are setting up or going in (EX: "Capper setting up back route." "Capper right, now"). You're there to help the LOF, and the LOF's main asset is knowledge. If you give that information, through sensors or your own reporting, you are being a massive help.

LOF (Light On Flag)

Being a LOF is very hard work, but it's incredibly exciting and satisfying to excel at. It's like T2 as a whole. You'll get your ass kicked at first, but with enough work and practice, you WILL know that there's nothing better out there. I honestly believe that there is no better position, no better game, no better feeling than shutting down an enemy flag O. You're the most exposed player-the entire enemy offense is gunning for you-and you're the only one who stands directly opposed to the only player who can score points in a game of T2 CTF. You are the shit. Here's how to make the most of it.

Equipment

Weapons

A LoF should carry a CG, spin, and a shocklance, sniper rifle, or grenade launcher. This heavily depends on how his team is built up and, more importantly, what the LOF needs to get the job done.

CG and spin are basics.

The shocklance is good for guys who can't yet body block exceptionally well. It gives you a ton of reach and will either stop, throw off, or slow down incoming cappers when shot in the front. Do NOT go for back lances on incoming cappers. It's a show trick, nothing more. Stonehenge is a great SL map. The small window of a flag stand means that an SL shot on a light will almost always send a capper into the wall. That's assuming you go forward, of course. I'll cover that in a bit.

The grenade launcher is a solid weapon that great for chasing and self defense against HO coming in to attack you.

The sniper rifle lets you clean up your own mistakes. It's also highly distracting. Do NOT do NOT do NOT be a sniper. Be a sniping LOF if you must. If you spend more than half a second throwing a snipe at someone, don't snipe anything except a guy carrying your flag. It has uses, but seriously, the LOFs who carry and frequently use sniper rifles have practiced a very, VERY long time. Awareness will always be more valuable to your team than the couple of points of damage you're inflicting, while draining your energy, compromising your position, giving your location away.

Grenades

A LOF should carry flares, frags, or concs.

Flares are always a great, safe bet. Good for chasing and keeping your assets alive, you can't go wrong with flares.
Frags are good for nade+mine throws at range, and for self-defense.
Concs, same thing, but concs are harder to use.

Concs can cripple a HO at short range by stripping their pack, but they are incredibly inconsistent at doing so. The real value of concs comes from their knock-back, which IS consistent. If you get a conc to explode within 5m of an enemy capper, he will never grab your flag on-route. This is the grenade I switched to when I decided that I needed another tool, and it hasn't let me down since I invested in the time to learn the loooong fuse and long distance throw. Throw up and at an angle. ~40 degrees upward while jumping forward= ~70m detonation. Draw a mental map of where the capper will be there, throw accordingly, laugh.

Once you learn that, try it with nade+mines. These do damage in addition to huge knockback, but the mine can be shot in your face and backfire. Like the sniper rifle, these things can be distracting, and I'd recommend mastering the basic techniques (covered below) before worrying about this stuff. Stick with flares to start.

Role

The role of the LOF is the most simple in principle, but the hardest in practice; keep the flag out of enemy hands.

The LOF must know proper LOFing techniques.

Enigma says:  

As a LOF you always want to keep your head on a swivel, you need to know the primary capping lanes for the map and keep glancing back and forth while being aware of immediate threats and dodging fire. Just being around the flag is important, but you need to be around the flag to prevent those grabs at the right moment. The more knowledge you have of enemy positions, the better you can judge when you need to be at the flag. As a LOF you're extremely vulnerable, so being directly on the flag is often not wise. You need to be off flag, ideally in the path of the enemy's strongest route, and with some ability to avoid splash damage (bump in the terrain, on a spire, behind a little hill, etc) but able to quickly respond with a mine disc on the stand.

There are three techniques a LOF can reliably use to keep enemy flag cappers from capturing his flag. Two techniques use a foreward position, and one technique uses a backward position.

Before jumping into that, let me walk you through a pretty simple guide to how capper/LOF relations work. All of these variables can be mixed around and added or removed, but these are the most basic steps to a flag grab.

1. The capper sees LOF and spams GL on his approach.
2. LOF sees capper, moves into position to BB, MA, or MD.
3. Capper throws mine anticipating to MD LOF's actions.
4. LOF throws mine anticipating capper's actions.
5. Discs are fired.
6. Someone dies, someone wins. Note that the someone who dies isn't always the one who loses.

Watch Enigma's video here and focus on how quickly these steps occur. I'm not even talking about seconds here. This video also gives amazing examples of every technique I'm about to discuss.

Let's go through the techniques. First, the forward techniques:

1. Body Block (BB) This involves going forward into the capper's flight path and stopping or severely hindering his movement with your own player model. This is the surest method of pissing a capper off because it's the easiest to clear for the capper. If you miss your BB, the enemy carrier has a free shot at your flag. You are very vulnerable to being MA'd or MAMD'd. It also compromises your position, so even if you block one capper, you are unable to stop a second capper because of the movement it requires. You can add to this method, however, by chaining the capper as he comes in, or by trying to MA him in addition to setting up for the BB.

Once you get better as a LOF, you'll get a feel for how to approach a BB and when you should and shouldn't do it against lights. Against medium cappers, it's very very helpful, because an MA won't always throw them off. Against HO cappers, it's necessary because it's the only way to stop a HO's movement.

2. Mid Air/ Mid Air Mine Disc (MA/MAMD) This involves jumping forward and attempting to MA the flag carrier as he is coming in for your flag. It's tricky to do reliably, but it's very effective. MAing a capper moving in a mostly straight line is all about timing and confidence. If it feels right, do it. But if he's too far away, you'll probably miss, and if he's too close, you'll probably get a mine disc to the face before you can fire. Likewise, you have to anticipate when the capper will throw his mine and/or fire so that his shot doesn't destroy your mine, taking you out of play. It's very tricky when you get into this contest with the better cappers because they WILL anticipate your shot, so you have to vary your timing to keep the upper had. MAs will stop lights and will normally stop mediums. MAMDs are immediate stops on lights (death) and mediums, and will stop HO grabs if they are placed properly. Yes, you can (and will have to learn to) place mine discs on incoming players. An example of this can be found here.

Notice that I account for my speed, the flag's movement, how the terrain will affect the flag movement, the enemy player's movement (assessed via where the flag will be), and throw my mine and fire the disc so that it separates the enemy from the flag (keeping him from picking it up) without throwing the flag so far out of my own path that I cannot return the flag.

You have to practice your MDs until you can do those kinds of calculations in a heartbeat and make those kinds of shots before you realize it needs to happen, because that's what being a LOF is all about. It's the fullest integration of reflexive chess and once you get your feet in, you'll never be okay with any other kind of gameplay.

And now, the rearward technique:

3. MD on Flag Stand This involves moving back-out of range of the capper's shot-or up, to get a better angle on the stand, in order to MD the flag as the capper is grabbing it. Difficulty comes from the capper anticipating your mine and discing it while it's still in your face, or you hovering in a single spot and getting MA'd by the capper. Both things will prevent you from making the stop. Varying your timing and moving, rather than hovering, will ensure the success of this technique. Furthermore, make sure that you are moving downward as you throw your mine. This adds your momentum to the throw, getting the mine away from your player faster. This makes the MD easier, and it drastically shortens the time the capper can use your mine against you.

This is the safest and easiest way of stopping a light flag carrier. It will cripple medium cappers as well, so it's very effective, and the vast majority of your stops should be with this technique. It does nothing against HO, however.

You can always mix and match these techniques, too. Go forward for a BB then MA the carrier. If you miss the MA, you still have him BB'd. Jump backward into his flight path while still MDing the flag stand. Both of these things double your chances of preventing the capper from grabbing.

My personal stops will often involve throwing a mine+hand nade forward, then attempting either MAMDing or MDing the stand while flying backward over it. I'll also try to mix it up by MDing 5 meters in front of or behind the stand, so the capper is not expecting it. Subtle things like that will always keep the capper on his toes, and his shots are only a little easier than yours-a little doubt in your enemy's head goes a long way.

Perform these proper techniques at an incredibly proficient level.

Enigma says:  

There are trade-offs for body blocking (BB) and mine discing (MD) that you have to take into account given the situation. If your enemy is in light energy you know that a mine disc will take them out, miss it and they're out scott free with 100% health. If your target is capping medium energy, it will take 2 mines and a disc to kill them. This is really only an option if your foe is dumb and lets you stack an extra mine on the stand or if you have a backup LOF.  

Body blocking is the safest method of stopping caps, it can also be the hardest as it requires precise positioning. It puts your reticle on the direct path of the capper which guarantees damage with chaingun. Even if you miss the BB you can easily chew up 50% of a light's HP or more. BBing is also a very easy way to get mine-disced by the oncoming capper and that is often a good thing. I consider it a victory when the capper gets killed or knocked off course from the splash damage off me. 

If the enemy is heavy capping, they not only have the hit points to shrug off a mine-disc on the stand, but if they get out cleanly with the flag they can almost always get home with their hitpoint buffer. BBing a heavy capper is the safest bet, but even if you're successful you have a heavy in your shit ready to punish you and clear the flag for a delayed light capper. You need to be quick, clever, and try to disc the heavy before he discs you and be ready to fall back if need be. 

Always try to put yourself in the path of the capper, even if you go for a mine disc you can BB them on their out-route as seen below.

2 LOFs can often interfere with each other by setting off early mines. The safest method of preventing grabs is to mix it up and have one BB and one MD. Worst case scenario, a body blocker that gets MA'd will put the capper's disc in refire cooldown to prevent them from stopping the MD on the stand from the backup LOF.

The LOF must stay alive.

A dead LOF isn't a LOF. You have to preserve yourself. Don't die to spam in order to stay on the flag half a second longer when there isn't a capper coming in. If you see a capper, then do what it takes to make the stop, even if it mean dying (back to what I said about how dying doesn't necessarily mean losing for the LOF). This means you have to...

The LOF must be aware of EVERYTHING.

A LOF has to be aware of everything going on.

- He has to keep mental tabs on which cappers he knows are set up on fast routes because he hasn't seen them in awhile.
- He has to keep track of spamming HO so he can avoid their mortars.
- He has to be aware of shifts in enemy offensive tactics so he can call for adjustments. If I see that a HO stops spamming, I know that HO is coming in to attack up close and I call in an LD to stop him. If the enemy team stops spamming, I know that a capper may be coming in. If they stop spamming and start sending LO, I know I need to keep an LD close by to cover the flag when I die. This stuff is what makes or breaks a LOF. Without this grasp of the game, LOF is an impossible position.
- A LOF has to keep track of cappers and decoys.
- If a capper grabs and darts to the left, the LOF has to know if the LD over there is dead or too busy fighting a HO to chase the FC. If so, the LOF knows that taking a snipe shot takes priority over maintaining his position.

The LOF MUST to know where the enemy flag is.

If you fail to return a flag as your friendly capper is coming in, you have probably cost your team a cap. If you know your team has the flag and the enemy carrier gets out, you need to know whether your next move needs to be to take a pot shot snipe at the FC or if it needs to be a lined-up shot in defense of your carrier.

Enigma says:
When the flag is in the field you have more control over the flag game because it opens up many options on defending. You can disc the flag against an object or flag stand to block off potential cap routes, or leave it in the field to force cappers off their practiced routes. Mine disc the capper as he tries to grab, return the flag just before the capper grabs, or you can disc the flag away when a capper is incoming and watch him fly right by. The latter being a great solution when the enemy capper is medium or heavy armored and a single mine disc will not instantly kill them. It does take a little practice and timing though. The biggest benefit to playing the flag in the field is the timed return. Wait until just before your capper will cap to return the flag. You’ll be preventing the enemy from getting an emergency grab or forcing a standoff.

Closing Thoughts

In poker terms, being good in T2 is more about rigging the deck than winning hands. If you have a bad CG, don't get into a short-range flying duel. If you don't like getting MD'd, stay fast or stay off the ground. If you don't like getting sniped, stay low and fast and strafe at the apex.

A lot of LOF play centers around preventing the capper from using this philosophy. You want to reduce the capper's options as best as you can so that he has to play at your table, rather than letting the enemy offense run the show (which is what normally happens).

Reviewing and Thinking Critically

Enigma says: 

The best advice I can give you is to watch your demos and be super critical about your decisions, positioning, weapon selection, and make note of anything that's getting by you too much for comfort and how you can counter it. Every time you play you should be trying to work on something.

Economy of Movement

Demo review sessions are what I attribute to my rise from silly sniper to LOF and a specific concept from either Darkstrand or Fling always stuck with me. They called it economy of movement. Essentially, you have to be decisive about what you're going to do. If you go forward to face the capper, great, you have tools. If you go backward to face the capper, great, you have tools there too. If you hesitate or start forward then doubt yourself and back-pedal, you're eating a mine disc on the stand.

You must make a decision and commit to it. Once you make this a habit, your demo reviews will get even more helpful, because you'll be finding concrete mistakes to learn from, rather than realizing you should done something, or you, know... anything.

Getting MD'd on the stand tells you you should have moved. Duh.

Getting MD'd by your own mine because you didn't anticipate the capper's shot gives you substantial insights into how a capper shoots, letting you adjust for next time.

 

Choosing your Playing Style

I'd also like to point out that Enigma and I are both successful LOFs despite having different approaches to doing things. He carries flares and chains cappers as they come in, doing a guaranteed amount of damage while I prefer the all-or-nothing nade+mine combo. Do what fits your style and do whatever it takes to keep your flag out of enemy hands. No matter how goofy it is, if it works, it works. I have to say that a lot of the conventional stuff is conventional for a reason, however. There's not a lot of trail-blazing to be done in an eleven year-old game, but everyone works in their own ways. I'm offering the strategies that work for me and the things I was taught to do. How you use it and mold it to fit your playing style is up to you.