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.

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!

 

How "Ball Sense" Applies to Tribes

I recall roughly a year ago when many Tribes players were still amped and hopeful for the release of Tribes:Ascend, when a post was made on the "Tribes:Ascend" thread of the Tribalwar forums by SmoothP. It was essentially an essay about "Ball Sense" and it's relation to the "essence of Tribes". It has stayed fresh in my memory even a year later. I think it's important to post here, because of its clarity and its truth- "Ball Sense" is present in Tribes to an extent not found in other shooter games, and it's because of this fact that the game is loved to this day.

Football, Baseball, Soccer, Hockey, Basketball, Lacrosse, Rugby, Handball, Hurling... What do all these things have in common? They are team sports played with balls. As soon as children learn to walk, they start playing with balls. Throwing them, kicking them, catching them, hitting them. Ball games are part of the human experience, our brains are wired for them. As hunters we used projectiles to take down prey, and even in ancient cultures we find evidence of using balls in recreational sport.

In Sweden, they have a term that translates into English as "Ball Sense". We all as humans have some innate amount of ball sense, and begin improving it from birth. When throwing away a piece of trash, people often throw or shoot it into the trash can. Our ball sense is what lets us make that shot without computing how far away the trash can is, how fast and in what direction our chair is rolling, or how high we need to arc the shot in order to get it over the corner of the desk. An average person may not be able to throw a football 50 yards and hit a wide reciever running at full steam, or make a jump shot while falling down after getting bumped in midair, but we can *understand* and *appreciate* these acts because of our ball sense.

The essence and beauty of Tribes is that it speaks to these innate human qualities. It engages our ball sense, and stimulates us at a primal level. Watching even pro level CoD is fairly boring... "Oh, he ran around another corner and held down his trigger and shot that guy with a machine gun. *Yawn*" But watching quality Tribes play? It's a highly engaging experience. Seeing the shots, the timing, the skill... it's in our nature to appreciate what's on display! And playing Tribes at a competent level? It's Zen-like. You can "feel" the motion of your player and your opponent. "See" the future before it happens, in an ancient and primal part of your mind. "Know" when at what angle to fire that disc to hit just the right spot at just the right time. Without doing any computations... our minds were *built* with the ability to make those computations without thinking! Playing Tribes brings out those parts of our mind that let us take down wolves with a sling shot, buffalo with a bow and arrow, deer with a javelin. We were made for this!

There is something deeply engaging about making that disc shot, or dropping that perfect mortar round, or lobbing that perfect grenade. Much more engaging than twitch aiming a machine gun or locking on a missle. When a gamer first sees CoD, or CS, they may think, "Hmm, that looks pretty fun, and shooting things is cool." When a gamer first sees Tribes they think, "Wow! That is the coolest freaking FPS I've ever seen." They find it entralling. Because of our innate ball sense, they can immediately appreciate a great shot, even while its in flight. I know, I've introduced at least a dozen people to Tribes.
And that is why *every* loadout needs a primary weapon that is based on ball sense. Because ball sense is the essence of sport... of Football, of Baseball, of Soccer, of Hockey, of Basketball... of Tribes.

- SmoothP 

When I read this for the first time, I smiled and nodded, pretty much the whole way through. And when I take a step back and think to myself "Hey, this is about Tribes", I realize that the name of the game is a piece of deserving poetry.

It was because of a completely unintentionally borked physics system of the original game that players will able to ski and jet to achieve crazy speed- and it was over months of online play that a playstyle involving shooting slow moving explosives at fast aerial targets was developed and refined. Mid-air discs and long-arc explosives are celebrated even to this day, in the current title, Tribes:Ascend.

And now, Tribes players are very much like the tribal warriors written in the lore of human history, relying on primal instinct and hand-eye coordination. We don't throw spears at prey and predator to ensure we survive another day, but our "Ball Sense" is "alive" in some sense of the word when we score that mid-air disc to ensure our survival in the game. (You could also argue that we are just as brutal and territorial as tribal warriors are- just look at the amount of bashing and trolling that occurs on our community forums.) There is no other name more appropriate for this game than Tribes.

 I will admit, mid-air frag videos were one of the very first things that caught my attention about Tribes (though I stayed for many more reasons). We should never overlook how important Ball Sense is to the essence of Tribes. Because I can say surely, when you get to that point where you are confident that every shot you take will hit the enemy- when you can nail every MA you try for- it surely is an incredible experience. It makes you feel like a beast is inside of you.