Wayhey! We’re at the halfway point now, it’s time for an obligatory “thank you” from me for reading thus far.

Okay that’s enough thanking you for one day, let’s get down to business, does anybody notice how often people leave their support such as medics and engineers open, then whine “omgs medic wherez mah healzzzz” or “need a teleporter here x9001″.

It seems to happen all too often, it’s even dumber when the medic charges headlong into battle in front of the class escorting him, then complains “omg protectyourmedic n00bzzzzz”…. let’s get started

19. Don’t endanger your medic

“V. I. D.” – Sun Tzu

Look at it in terms of “time cost.” If you die, you have a 10 second respawn and a 5 sec walk back to the battle; it’s not pleasant, but it’s not a huge deal. Your medic has a 10 sec respawn, plus a 5 second walk, plus a 90 second charge time for his uber.

So you should be trying to kill the enemy medic at all costs. If you know your medic has just used his uber, it’s semi-acceptable to endanger him since you don’t have much to lose and you’re going after an enemy who does, but yet you shouldn’t charge out without a plan to get your medic back to safety.

If you’re an overhealed heavy and you see a rocket heading towards your team, don’t hesitate to jump in front of it and tank it out with the soldier; even if it’s a crit, you have plenty of health to spare.

To use another example – from Pokemon – Blissey is a pokemon with a ridiculously high HP; she (there are no male Blisseys, don’t ask why) is known as a “wall.” That is, she is meant to switch in to sponge up any incoming attacks. Replace Blissey with heavy and you have the same idea; assist by blocking any attacks to your medic.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Escorting

Escorting a key player is one of the most important things in the game, the most common type of escort relationship is that of a soldier/demo/heavy and a medic. At other times, it could be a fighting class escorting a scout to the intelligence room by clearing the sentries.

The escort has one key role: keep his VIP alive until his aim is accomplished. This can be done by meatshielding (soaking up rockets or bullets), elimination (destroying the threat), or retreating (laying down suppressive fire until you can get support).

In most cases, the escorted class is a medic, engineer, or scout. IT could also be a key attacker such as a demoman to take out a well-positioned sentry gun.

The best way to escort a player would be to physically block the attacker from being able to directly hit his preferred target (the medic) while forcing any attackers to come into his effective range.

Escorting is best seen in clanscrims where the pocket soldier or demoman’s goal is to defend his medic while pushing.

End Serious Zone

20. Watch your time.

“One second is nothing, one million is a statistic” – Josef Stalin

You have a minute on the clock and you’re about to respawn as a medic. Don’t use the normal uber, use a critzer, there’s a high chance that the uber wouldn’t even be charged in time to create an impact on the game, but the critzer might.

Don’t bother building up and coordinating two ubers if you have 60 seconds left on the clock (come to think of it, if you HAD two ubers, you wouldn’t be in that rut in the first place); try to make use of it so that you can cause maximum damage from a safe distance and then sweep in during the final seconds with a big push.

A suicide charge should be used only as a last resort since it will definitely be your last shot. If you want to suicide rush, try to coordinate it so that you can actually take the point.

21. Heavies, Soldiers and Medics first

“Women and children first, then men, then dogs, then cats, mimes, and finally bankers” – Oscar Wilde on the financial crisis

You’re a scout: you can run fast. So…. WHY THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU TAKING THE TELEPORT WHEN THERE’S A HEAVY NEXT TO YOU?

Rude, crude and mean, but very, very logical. Heavies should always be given priority for the teleport; the same goes for soldiers.
Medics are another important class that should be given priority for the teleport. Why? Simple. Although a medic is a fast class, a medic is also a very important class – he needs to be at the front so that he can get health to the people that need it the most – your frontline fighters.

Another special mention of a “fast” class that should be given priority is the engineer, who needs to get to his base faster (because it’s in need of repairs or something like that). Especially if it’s his teleporter, and you know his stuff is under attack.

To sum it all up, here’s a general list of who should get the tele, in a fight, it may vary.

First priority: Heavies, Soldiers, Medics.

First/Second priority: Engineer.

Second: Demomen

Third: Pyros, Spies.

Last: Snipers, Scouts

For your benefit, I’m providing the spray I use below, it works wonders on public and semi-pro servers.

22. Reload, Reload, Reload

“Be prepared” – Sun Tzu

You should spend every second of the fight doing something. If you’re not fighting, you should be healing, and if you’re not healing up, you should be fighting. If you’re not doing either, you should be on the way to the front or heading back from it.

There is one thing you can do while healing or fighting on the move – reloading. You never want to go around a corner – or into any battle, for that matter – with one rocket in the launcher (stupid!). You don’t want to rush in, ubered, with just one sticky in the launcher (stupider!), and you certainly don’t want to successfully outmanoeuvre a heavy only to find that you are out of scatgun ammo (stupidest!).

Make sure that your gun is loaded when you reach the front lines, for weapons which have “interruptible” reloads, you should be reloading all the time.

23. Metal for engies, Healthkits for medics

Do you really need that one rocket that you used to rocket jump? Especially when there’s an engineer that desperately needs to upgrade his gun to level 2?

Likewise, a medic can’t heal himself, so do you really need the health to patch up that 5hp of fall damage?

I’ve said this a million times before, and this will be the last time.

DON’T TAKE THE !@#%!@#&*AMMO AND HEALTH!!

This has been a community service announcement brought to you by me, thank you.

24. Don’t reload, switch to your secondary

“Six bullets against your one?” – James Bond

Mr. Bond got it right there: six bullets are better than one.

You’ve fired off four rockets, and your enemy (a soldier) is still alive. It’s close combat, and he’s fired off his rockets too, so what do you do?

Some will reload their launcher with a single rocket (I often do this if my opponent is injured), which is alright if you are confident of finishing him off in one. But in a one on one, it’s often better to swap to your shotgun and gun him down – you have six shots.

There is also the situation when, as a scout, you’re in close range against an enemy, depending on the situation, you may see fit to reload your scattergun to finish off your opponent in a single shot

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Weapon Proficiency

Sometimes, you’ll find yourself out of ammo for your primary weapon. At these times, it helps to be good or at least have some skills with your secondary or even your melee weapon. You should be capable of doing some damage with a shotgun, pistol, SMG, or even a blutsauger or syringe gun.

Take the time to study the power and effective range of your weapons so that you can be ready for a situation where you’re out of ordnance.

The players who will likely find themselves running out of ammo will be soldiers, demos and heavies (rockets run out fast, and the minigun is a bullet hose), so these are classes who should be well versed in shotgun and stickybomb use. The bottle and the KGB/fists should also be in your arsenal if you need to knockout a weakened opponent at close range.

End Serious Zone

Wow, we’re almost at the halfway mark now, let’s keep going, the most important rule is here! (rule 18)

24/7 2fort
Instarespawn custom sniperfest
I’m really bored so I go join red
And then roll soldier and start beatin all the rest
I don’t like the stupid lucksman players
Arrows don’t need no skill at all

Rocketjumpin all alone
My team are all on the phone
I’m on a side with 5 AFKs
Stupid WM1 pyro
I don’t like the way he blows
I feel like I need to ragequit

I doubt anybody will get what just happened…. let’s see what happens next time…

13. A battle on your terms is a battle won

“Play your advantage against his weakness, bring a gun to a knife fight, bring a machinegun to a gun fight, bring a laser to a machinegun fight” – Oscar Wilde

The enemy is faster than you, but you have more firepower; everything else is even. Obviously, you shouldn’t engage him in a fight of maneuvering, but rather try to force him into an area where your firepower matters. A narrow corridor is a prime example, his speed will count for nothing, but your firepower can be concentrated and focused on him.

Likewise, if you are a scout against a demoman, demomen are poor(er) at close range than at other ranges, and they can’t always hit you if you evade well, but obviously, you don’t want to charge him head on.

So, make use of the area, and lure him to an area where you can dominate him; once again, using Gravelpit as my example, try to force him to point A instead of engaging him in the corridors where your advantage is greatly reduced.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Concept Content: Battle Simulation

This is the longest concept content section, and for good reason: Before we try to do decide what to do, we must know the kind of situation we want to face the enemy in; therefore, it often pays to try and “simulate” a battle by considering what will happen if you were to engage him, weighing your strengths against his.

Let’s try a real tough fight (not like that scout vs. demo example). I’m a Soldier defending on Gravelpit, I’m patrolling the A to C corridor and run into an enemy demoman approaching from A

To most players, the soldier and demo are often considered *approximately* equal.

What we need to do is to find a situation where I can stack the odds in my favor.

Let’s review what we all know, and then we can calculate the “ideal” decision; it’s critical that you know that fight conditions are never ideal, and this is only a rough sketch.

Since we have the leisure of time here, we can annotate each factor in this fight. Key points in the fight (i.e. the points which will determine the fight) are in bold. Potential factors (i.e. points which may become important, but currently aren’t) are in italics.

-          The demoman is faster

• He can decide where to fight

-          Demoman often prefer to set up stickies if they have the time

• If allowed to do so, he can make maneuvering very hard for me
• I must attack as soon as possible, or retreat.

-          The soldier has direct fire, but no indirect fire

• Open terrain favors me since his advantage is reduced

-          I have 25 more health

• It’s not much, but it acts as a valuable insurance policy

-          Demomen can’t attack at close range without splashing themselves

• At close range, I have my shotgun, or my shovel, he has a bottle.

-          His sticky launcher holds 8 stickies, against my four rockets

• His “direct” weapon has more ammo than I do, which means that when I’m dry, it’s shotgun time

-          I have a shotgun, and he doesn’t

• That last point doesn’t seem so bad, after all, the shotgun is the most versatile weapon in the game, and the demoman doesn’t have that

-          Demomen have a limited range

• My rocket launcher can hit him even when he can’t hit me

-          Soldiers can rocketjump, demomen can’t do it without blowing all his stickies

• Right now, I’m indoors and can’t rocketjump, but if I can bring him to an area where I can, I can outmaneuver him easily

As shown above, there are actually many factors in a fight between two sides, careful consideration must be taken before you try to attack anyone

End Serious Zone

14. Get behind their doctor!

“Screw the Geneva Convention” – Oscar Wilde

The enemy medic is the most vulnerable part of their formation. He’s usually more concerned spotting for targets (as above), and will likely see you, but what can he do about it? If he continues healing, he’s an open target; if his medic buddy falls back, he’s left his back open; if he turns and defends himself, he’s not healing.

Don’t be afraid to rocketjump over enemy lines just to kill their medic; he or she should be your number one target in a battle.

If you manage to kill their medic, then it’s usually more than worth it; even if you have to die while doing so, killing a medic costs him charge time, spawn time, and time which his team has to do without it. If I had to get a killcam shot, this is what I would want to see on it:

See point 19 – Don’t endanger your medic.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Target Prioritization

Target Prioritization is the art of picking out the most important target in a group of enemies, and picking the most effective use of your ammo using a few criteria.

One way involves picking out what will do the most damage in terms of time taken, very useful for defenders.

For example, a medic with an uber is worth 100 seconds (90 secs give or take Übercharge time, 10 sec spawn time), a soldier is worth 10 seconds (10 sec spawn), a level 1 sentry is worth 15 seconds (5 to build, quite a while, I assume 10, to get it safely), a level 3 is worth considerably more since it takes a long time to build safely.

Another factor is the threat factor, where you evaluate which one is the most direct and immediate danger to you, and act accordingly, for example, the demoman firing at you is an immediate threat, the soldier coming up is not.

Finally, there is the position factor, where a player’s strategic position comes into play, if a soldier is attempting to take high ground like the roof of gravel B or containers in granary, he becomes a priority target as opposed to a soldier who isn’t trying to get into a good position.

End Serious Zone

15. Know your effective range

Don’t be stupid, that minigun isn’t going to do anything to the snipers across 2fort. Stop firing. Yes good job boy, you like suppressive fire. But at this range it’s more “fire” than “suppress”. Besides, he’ll nail you way before you kill him, and it’s a waste of your ammo.

No, really, I’ve seen many players do this and spray their ammo all over the place, then go onto the bridge (without going back for ammo for some reason) and get slaughtered by me, waiting there with a full barrel of rockets as they try to punch or taunt kill me since they don’t have a shotgun either.

Some weapons do little damage at long range, and some do good damage at long range, so, against a heavy, make use of the fact that after you exit the minigun’s medium range, he’ll only be doing 5 damage a bullet, but your rockets will still do well.

Likewise, don’t try to engage a heavy at close range as a soldier in direct combat (if there’s cover, then it’s fine if you use it to your advantage).

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Effective Range

Your effective range is the range at which you can actually kill your opponent effectively. That may have seemed obvious, but it helps to know the range at which you should be engaging your opponents before giving your position away.

Effective range is the range at which your weapons are capable of dealing maximum damage, in most cases, this is at point blank, however, when self-damage is taken into consideration, it may be medium or even long range.

End Serious Zone

16. Play the decoy

“Besiege Wei to rescue Zhao” – Okay, for once, something Sun Tzu actually did say

You might not be well equipped to deal with the target at hand, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not useful. You can act as a decoy, drawing enemies away in order to spread out their defense.

For example, a spy stabs a heavy, cloaks, and beelines his way out of there. Which direction should he run in?

A good answer is back towards his lines, to safety, where he can heal up and go on another sortie, but there is a downside – the enemy knows you’re gone.

The better answer is to run the long way back to your lines, or to some obscure place (e.g. on dustbowl, run for the trench tunnel). You don’t even have to all the way – just pretend to go that direction, and turn around when you’re fully cloaked. Why, you ask?

Simple – by running somewhere obscure, enemies will devote time to finding you, send a pyro to hunt you, and check with their medics. This draws enemies away from their posts engaging your soldiers, demos, and heavies.

If they stay at their posts, you are free to do whatever bad stuff you want to them again, lather, rinse, repeat as needed until all flakes are gone.

Of course, on Gravelpit, this can be put to good use. Should you try to attack B and be repelled, you can try to send a decoy scout to A. You have better mobility since you can switch between the two targets easily. However, they have the two unsavory options of either rushing to defend A and leaving B open (and even then they may lose A anyway), or sitting at B and giving A away.

17. Don’t rely on ambushes

“Don’t use a steak tree, use a ham bush” – Leonidas Trotsky

You can rely on ambushes to give you an advantage over your opponent, but don’t count on them to win a battle, and don’t obstinately stick with the same trick after it has been proven fruitless.

Many stupid pyros have tried the same thing over and over on me with no effect but their unfortunate and very predictable demise. Yes they win the first time through, but it’s really hard to fall for it again.

Think about this scenario on the map Blackmesa, most people would fall for this trap which involves stickies doing damage through grating. The idea is that people would come through the one way door into the blue corridor, and be stuck as they would have to go through the passage; the demoman is then free to blow them up.

It often works once on most players, but over time people will learn to come through alternate routes. Spies may use the dead ringer to force a premature detonation or simply cloak past, scouts may use bonk to bypass the area (though forcing the enemy scout to use bonk instead of a pistol is a victory in itself), and enemy snipers and soldiers can kill the demoman before moving in.

I’ll come back to this situation later with a slightly different picture

See also Point 18 – Don’t count on enemy stupidity

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Diversions and Ambushes

Despite the bad name I may have given it up there in an actual combat situation, an ambush is an excellent diversionary tactic when used in combination with a larger plan.

A pyro running straight (or better yet, jumping) into a pack of enemies (preferably while screaming “Allahu Akbar!”, “CHARGEE!” or “BANZAI!!”) is something that will instantly draw all attention away from your team’s follow up (preferably from another angle), and buys you some time to attack.

This gives you a period of time to follow-up while the enemy stops, drops, and rolls (or dies).

End Serious Zone

18. Don’t count on enemy stupidity

“Hm… he’s a soldier and he’s out of rocket ammo, so as a scout, I can run in and get in a few shots as he tries to reload all four.”

Wrong; you must always assume that the enemy will make the best possible move (you learn this in chess too). Assume that he’ll switch to his shotgun, or that he’ll reload just one rocket instead of four and fire it off at you to juggle you before finishing you off with the shotgun. Just don’t count on him giving you an opening by reloading four rockets.

Always assume that that he’ll make the best possible move in response to what you’re about to do, assume he’ll reflect your rocket, that he’ll see your stickies, that he knows you’re there. If he does do that stupid thing, you’re on top, if he does the smart thing, then it’s all even.

This is the NUMBER ONE mistake that most players make, and it’s appropriate that it’s right in the middle of this guide, do not ever assume your opponent is stupid. That assumption will cost you

Surprised? You didn’t really think this was over did you? Well, in either case, the ubercharged.net Competitive TF2 guide is back. For this installment, I’ll be speaking about something that I’ve been messing with over the past few days: resolution and FoV. Now, most players never really bother to change these, but editing these settings can seriously help out your playing (within limits of course).

When you first install TF2, the default FoV settings are 75° for your main field of view, and 54° for your viewmodel field of view. These settings look like this (resolution is 1440×900 16:10 aspect ratio).

Alright, this is reasonable, but you’re missing a good part of what you’d normally see. With these settings, it’d be easy to miss a sniper or something. Lets crank the main FoV up a bit. This next shot is 1440×900, with FoV set to 90, and viewmodel FoV set to the standard 54.

This is even better, you get a larger picture, but that viewmodel still looks a bit big to be, let’s tweak its FoV. This next screen is 1440×900, with both FoV sliders increased to their max value.

Now this here will be good enough for most people, and I find that maxing out the FoV on projectile weapons helps aid my prediction skills, probably as a result of it being closer to the crosshair. The other day, I was playing around with resolutions and FoV in Far Cry 2, and I figured, why not try this in TF2? So I did, and here is the result (1440×640, 2.25:1 cinema aspect ratio, FoV maxed out):

As you can see, that’s a major increase in FoV. The wider the display, the more peripheral vision you can have. For reference, lets see a shot with some bots in it.

So check your settings and max out your FoV. You’re only hurting yourself otherwise.

So yeah, a bit of a short return, but I hope this helped. As always, just drop me a line via Steam or the forums if you’ve got any questions.

I don’t know if you’re noticed, because you might not have done if you don’t have functioning eyes, but Team Fortress 2 can get a little bit hectic at times. Rockets and grenades flying everywhere, bullets flying this way and that, and you standing in the thick of it all whilst randomly firing at everything and wondering what the hell is going on. Of course, this is no bad thing! It’s what TF2 is all about, after all. Yet one of the “Bad things” that can emerge from this awesome emerges from the very piece of technology that is desperately trying to deliver all the fun to you – And often fail at doing so…

Yes, I’m talking about the humble computer! They come in all shapes and sizes, and sadly not all of them have the power to shoot lasers and run a game such as TF2 at a blistering rate with no hint of slowdown. Indeed, the only thing that can often be done to render the game playable is to knock down the graphical settings a little (Or a lot!) and end with something that looks like this…

Now, to be fair, this doesn’t look bad. Not the best thing ever, but I doubt you stabbed your eyes out after looking at it. However, you may have expressed some variation of an opinion that surprised me when I was showing off this screenshot to people. This opinion consisted of such odd comments such as “Damn how you can play the game with it looking like that!” and “Wow your computer must suck lolol”, as well as many others. In other words, the way my game looked proved to be a big deal to some people. And I found myself asking this…

Why?

Carnage – It’s fun in any form!

Don’t get me wrong, if I could run Team Fortress 2 at its highest settings I’d be there like a shot. Yet even if I ran the game at a disturbingly low level of settings, I’m sure I could still have fun with it. After all, it’s moments like the one at the start of that video that are what truly makes the game fun… Moments where you succeed in a bizarre situation. Where you kill tons of people at once with an Uber. Where you are screwing around and not playing seriously in any shape or form. None of the above need super-powerful settings in order to encounter them, so it seems a little odd that everyone is striving to achieve such settings when they build these “Super 1337 gaming rigs” that can apparently send a man to mars. The fact that their enjoyment of the game seems reliant of such settings just completely boggles the mind.

Perhaps it’s just the hivemind of the gaming community as a whole that’s led to such a situation… After all, not many top games released nowadays don’t boast about “Stunning graphics” somewhere in their advertising. The fact that sources such as this also tended to hype up TF2’s unique graphical style on release also probably played a part in people wanted to make it look as good as possible. To be honest, I don’t know exactly why good graphics are such a big deal nowadays anyway, apart from making things look good. After all, games like pong baiscally had no graphics at all, but if something like that has stayed fun for years. And yes, I’ve no doubt TF2 is exactly the same.

Arguments against low settings are graphically inferior.

Now, there’s probably a select bunch of people out there who simply can’t get the mentality of merely having fun, and would fire off certain reasons why everyone should be playing on the highest settings possible. One notable example of this I’ve seen over time is that you can apparently buy or build a PC that can run TF2 well for not very much at all… A couple of hundreds dollars or so seems to be the average when it comes to this, although throw a bit more in for super power if you so wish. Well, this is all very well and good, but the fact remains most of us just don’t have that sort of money. Heck, even if most people did, I’m willing to bet that the majority would be more willingt to spend it on other things than trying to squeeze out a bit more performance from the PC they may not even play games on much. Heck, perhaps they’d spend it on an Xbox 360 and then play the inferior version of the game for the rest of their lives, who knows. Yet the fact remains – Not everyone can easily spend their way to greatness.

It’s also worth nothing that out very own competitive TF2 guide noted that actually having lower settings can help, because it will prevent your computer flying out of the window in a rage-fest if your FPS suddenly drops as a result of all the madness happening on the screen. So any illusions that having a brilliant looking game helps you play better are duly shattered, because it’s actually far more logical to say that the opposite is true. And yes, I really do hope people don’t think they get more skillful as the game starts looking better and better, but places such as the Steam forums suggest such idiocy is certainly possible.

There’s also an aquaintance of mine who simply said that if you couldn’t play a game on the highest setting you’d have to be an idiot to buy it in the first place. But don’t worry about him. He’s dead now. I killed him.

And to my partners in graphical crime…

I know you’re out there! Tweaking those configs and lowering those settings just to get a better experience, and not caring what it looks like as long as the end result is fun! Come to think of it, most people who read a site like this would probably take such an outlook as this, but for that, I still love you. Why? Because you know it’s all about the carnage and laughs, no matter how pixellated it may look.

In the early 1970’s the Blu team lost their foothold in the area surrounding a town code named “2Fort.” What remained of the Blu team Headquarters was left to rot for what is now 30 years. As the Blu team began to push back the Red team, investigations into the old Blu team’s HQ began. During one expedition, a report addressed to Blu high command was discovered.  The following is an exact duplicate of the document.

The following cannot be accountable for any inaccuracies as it shows signs of being tampered with.

Date: July 17th, 1972
Location: Disclosed
Codename: Digs

Monthly Report

This past month has had our men running rampant with confusion. Of late our intel has continuously pointed towards the suspicion of a government controlled agent. This government controlled agent, or “GCA”, only appears on our radar due to its bizarre behavior. The said GCA uses multiple disguises to blend in with our military personal-not only infiltrating our bases and recovering our intel, but mingling among the men earning trust of every soldier until it has secured a position of trust where no one will suspect said GCA. While every resource we can pull together is spent on locating the GCA, it is hard to find an exact drawing of it. This difficulty is due to its believed ability to “cloak.” This is believed to be the most accurate sketch at this time.

Drawing by Daniel Marcel Gaina (DMGaina)
As of now this is all we can come up with. For the next few days we will put Sgt. Nick on his trail.

Date: July 21st, 1972
Location: Disclosed
Codename: Digs

Report Update 001:

We have made major strides towards finding out the identity of the GCA. During the first section of this report we detailed that Sgt. Nick, one of our top soldiers, is on the case. However he fails where the GCA exceeds, and that’s mingling with the men. One might refer to Sgt. Nick as a lone wolf.  When he was approached by a shady agent of our own, he grew very suspicious. Using the only technique he knew, he killed the agent, much to the dismay of those spectating.

Image acquired by a nearby security camera.

Will update when we get more information on the GCA.

Date: July 23rd, 1972
Location: Disclosed
Codename: Digs

Report Update 002:

After performing an autopsy on the suspected agent it turns out he was not the GCA we are looking for. Sgt. Nick is now on indefinite leave with pay while we sort this out.

Back to the GCA problem, we are growing closer to figuring out what it looks like. Yesterday the guards on post duty noticed a shadow crossing the lawn. This is our current color sketch of the GCA after combining previous sketches and information from the “shadow figure” incident.

Color sketch by LeKnives
Our security cameras have been knocked out so this is the best we could come up with.  It is believed the mask in hand is what the GCA uses to disguise itself as a friendly. The weapon, code named “The Ambassador,” is thought to be the spy’s weapon of choice due to the gunshot wounds found in injured soldiers of late.

A potential breakthrough in the case has just occurred. Will update report tomorrow with any additional information we find.

Date: July 24th, 1972
Location: Disclosed
Codename: Digs

Report Update 003:

The GCA has slipped up and accidentally gotten itself caught on camera. The following picture is photographic evidence of the definite form of the GCA.

This photo was recovered, soon after a kill made by the GCA, by a sentry in standby mode. While we are having trouble pinpointing the GCA’s exact current location, we have reason to believe that it stays out in the open more than in hiding. However, we are having trouble figuring out how our men are not noticing it. Our scientists are attempting to replicate the means by which the GCA is able to “hide in a plain site” but all efforts have failed.

Our research in the GCA’s unique espionage style has led us to believe that it closely mimics an animal to blend in. Most likely it moves slowly and moves in a horizontal fashion. This is very odd timing due to the amount of crabs recently seen near the bomb carts who share a similar movement pattern. We will have to conduct research on these crabs as to they may be linked to the GCA.

Once again, will be updating in the next few days. Hopefully with the GCA captured.

Date: July 26th, 1972
Location: Disclosed
Codename: Digs

Report Update 004:

It is now evident the GCA mimics the movement of a crab. Silent and slow but can go unnoticed without much trouble. During the battle of Pipeline we noticed a shimmering shape near the cart in what looked like a man crouching and walking like a crab. Our security camera, now back online, caught a glimpse of the shimmering figure in the following photograph.

With this photographic evidence, it is now clear that this is not just a government controlled agent it is a government conspiracy against crabs. It’s the perfect plan! Create an agent so skilled it can mimic that of an animal. But why pick crab? Crab night! The most eagerly anticipated annual dinner of the Blu team. Have the team’s favorite meal turn against them and boom it hits their morale like a sack of potatoes in the head. We will investigate further as soon as the situation allows.
Will update soon.

Date: July 31st, 1972
Location: Disclosed
Codename: Digs

Report Update 005:

We still have yet to capture the GCA, which we have renamed to “Spy Crab”. However, all suspicious activities surrounding the “Spy Crab” have ceased. It is almost as though the “Spy Crab” has vanished into thin air. Even without the “Spy Crab” in our custody we have enough information to pin the government for a conspiracy against crabs.  Once again Operation D.I.G.S (Discover Important Government Secrets) has been a partial success.

Reply to Report:

Date: August 3rd, 1972
Location: Behind You
Codename: FYI I’m a spy

IMPORTANT!

TO ALL CONVICTS OF LOCOMOTIVE SECTOR ONE

It has come to my attention that a notable portion of the prison population have abstained from attending the satanic murder rituals in the designated happy corner at section UC1 of the campus. Reports from the field have indicated to me that not only are our play-things refraining from offering up their depraved souls for holy cleansing in the coals of our Lord the Locomotive Deity, but they are so far fallen as to offer up weak nonsensical excuses for their absence.

A list of invalid excuses for absence that have been and/or will be made is as follows:

• “I didn’t know that section UC1 had moved 300 miles South.”
• “I have recently lost my arm/my leg/control of my bowels and feel less-than-inclined to make the trip.”
• “I have been stabbed/bludgeoned/molested/shot/yelled at.” (or any combination)
• “I watch Neighbours.”
• “I’m not a prisoner.”
• “I don’t know who the Train God is.”
• Any excuse which, in any way or form, mentions or insinuates the word ‘but’. There are no buts.

Any convict who makes, or appears to our staff to be avoiding making these excuses will be incarcerated in the mines of a free Korean MMO of our choice for an indefinite period of time.

I would like to remind all convicts that continued absence from section UC1 will result in dire consequences. All absent prisoners to date have had derogatory remarks entered in their criminal profiles and, as above, any peon that deliberately continues to avoid their designated happy corner in section UC1 will be assigned to WoW duty in the gold mines. It is absolutely unacceptable for any UC member to deny the Train God their soul, and we will enforce his will in the strictest method possible.

Your patience hasn’t been noted,
General Balls
UC Warden

IF YOU WISH TO MAKE AN EXCUSE TO OUR STAFF UNRELATED TO THE ONES LISTED PREVIOUSLY, DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING AS IT WILL INVALIDATE IT

Despite our vigilance, and the subsequent posting of the UC1 Server’s new IP on the server banner to the right of this page, it seems that several prisoners have voiced concerns over their inability to find the happy corner after it’s recent move to Los Angeles. While it is certainly my place to question the mental capacity of such convicts, bypassing this phase allows me more time to both remind you all of the section’s location and think up suitable punishment for such incompetence.

Now read closely, because I’m not going to repeat this for the illiterate. The new IP for UC Server #1 ‘The Cult of the Locomotive’ is:

63.215.74.192:27015

Alternatively, the lazy amongst you can click the first server banner on the right to join UC1.

You have no excuse now,
General Balls
UC Warden

Alrighty, last time I saw you guys, you were busy readin’ through the first part of this awesomely long and awesomely fun guide… so what are ya waitin’ for? Get back to reading!

Thanks for all your support in part 1!

7. Medic combos are NOT invincible

No, no, and NO, just because you have a medic on you doesn’t mean that you can’t be overwhelmed. While it’s a general rule that you should engage their med first, doing so is not always possible nor is it practical.

To learn why they are not invincible, we have to learn how to beat them; there are a few primary methods.

Number one is simple: kill the medic, enough said, point proven. But what if the medic is out of range?

However, sometimes, the best way is simply to “saturate” the target zone; that is, hit the target faster than a medic can heal him.

Best example? Heavy vs. Heavy-Medic.
You’re the heavy against an overhealed heavy with a medic; they’ve not noticed you and you can get the first half-a-second of shots in just before he gets revved, what do you do?

Conventional wisdom tells you that you should go for his medic first, as you can take him out quickly, but it’s not always easy; the medic will hide behind the heavy, worse still, the enemy may kill you.

Few players realize that if they go for the heavy and open fire at close range, they can kill the enemy heavy first even though he has a medic. A dumb HM combo will engage you (and lose), but a smart HM combo will cut their losses and run for support. A smart team will only fight back if they are supported.

Now that I’ve explained that, realize that even though you have 300 health which is being regenned at 24 a second, you are still vulnerable to being overwhelmed by a large quantity of rockets, grenades, baseballs, small-arms fire, arrows, or any combination of the above.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Target Saturation

Saturation of the target zone means to lay down enough fire to pretty much kill anybody in the zone. Once you reach that point of saturation, there is little need to lay down any more fire on that area.

For example, there are three soldiers and four demomen bombarding the right trench exit on Dustbowl Stage 2.

Do you really need SEVEN people on that little hole? I’d think that three is the most you’ll need, maybe less if you have a heavy or a medic helping out.

End Serious Zone

8. Don’t count on crits

“Luck is nothing” – Oscar Wilde

If you go out and assume that you can win because you’ll crit, then you’re doing it wrong. If you base your strategy on luck, you’re playing the odds, and as we all know, it’s a gamble you’ll more likely lose than win.

You can hope for a lucky crit to reverse an otherwise hopeless situation (Soldier on the point, you’re a sniper with a machete), but don’t expect to come off tops. Expect to see yourself at the respawn room shortly, but sometimes, luck does turn out in your favor….

The best endorsement for this rule happens in clan to clan scrims, where crits are disabled entirely, but of course, this guide is mainly for the average casual player, not the clanscrimming person

9. Take the high ground

“It’s over Anakin, I have the high ground!” – Obi-Wan Kenobi

Taking the high ground is a massive advantage for one reason: you can hit him easily. The opposite is not so.

Let’s take Gravelpit point C as our case study, I’m a soldier guarding the point, and my enemy, Bob the blu soldier, is down at point A shooting up at me, while I’m shooting down on him.

Unless I’m standing next to the wall (which is suicide in most cases), I’m nigh invulnerable to his fire since he has no way of hitting me with direct or indirect fire, assuming I have rudimentary dodging skills.

The reverse paints a different story, on the high ground, he has nowhere to run, if he ducks into the alcove, I can pin him down with suppressive fire and even kill him by bouncing splash damage off onto him. Jumping won’t help him, either.

Now let us consider the indirect class, the demoman. A demoman would have no trouble shooting up, however, they wouldn’t always be able to reach point C due to range limits, and even so, a grenade would be dodged by a good player.

See also point 11 – watch your deep-dead zone for a way to counter an enemy who has the high ground.

10. Dodge to the RIGHT of your enemy

“Know your opponent’s anatomy you must” – Sun Tzu

The weapon bias means that his weapon travels very slightly to the left of where he is aiming. By dodging to the right of the enemy (your left, if you are facing him), you make yourself harder for him to hit.

Better still, for a right hander, it’s easier to turn left than it is to turn right. (You learn this in fighter school by the way; just don’t turn into an enemy’s attack.)

Just try it; hold a joystick in your hand, and see which direction it’s easier to turn in, left or right?

Note that for targeting sentries, the reverse is true. Make it such that you can edge the gun, usually done by going to a “left turn corner” where the rocket launcher can shoot the gun.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Weapon Bias

Let’s say that I’m a medieval knight who’s jousting with a really long lance. I’m right handed (and so are 90% of you so I won’t likely get bombarded by hate mail).

Which direction will my lance point if I want to hit someone dead ahead of me?

It’ll point very slightly to my left (since it’s on my right, I have to tilt it to the left at about a 30 degree angle off my arm, the lance is, in fact, acting as my “firing line”), so the weapon will lead from right to left.

As you can see from the screenshot below, my huntsman (I’ve used the huntsman to demonstrate it) is trained perfectly on the head of the enemy, but unfortunately for me, the weapon bias on my huntsman saves the engineer from my long-range brain surgery tool.

What you’ll notice is that while small, this miniscule aiming degree change can make up for a lot of error over long distances. If the degree of error is say… 10 degrees (not a lot), that can add up to a lot.

The best way I can put it is this: If you’re in Dallas, Texas, and you want to travel to New York on a holiday, a 10 degree error means that you’ll end up in Cleveland, Ohio, which should be enough of an incentive for you to get aiming better…

End Serious Zone

11. Watch your deep-dead zone

“Aim low” – Dodgeball

While taking the high ground is good, know that you have a blind spot, directly below you. As mentioned before, a demo would have no trouble shooting up, and he can hit you with no trouble since you’re not keeping watch for him. It’s an ideal spot to sneak up on the defenders. As demonstrated below, you’ll notice that there’s a small area my revolver cannot shoot at without exposing me to everyone or falling down.

Likewise, when an opponent has height advantage on you, try to sneak up on a side where he’ll not be expecting you. Try a rocketjump, stickyjump, or simply launch grenades (or have your teammate do it for you; be sure to have adult supervision if you are under 13).

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Concept Content: Indirect Fire

Indirect fire is any type of fire that is not direct; direct fire involves aiming at the target through the reticule. It is any fire that does not travel in a straight line. The only classes in the game with indirect fire are therefore the demoman and the medic (who uses the syringe gun anyway aside from combat medics?)

One advantage/disadvantage of indirect fire is that such rounds are affected by gravity, giving them the possibility of shooting over cover but also limiting their range.

Grenades are excellent in flushing enemies out since they deal great damage, and they can be bounced off walls to reach the target more effectively, resulting in a better “flushing capability” than rockets.

End Serious Zone

12. Scout, Scout, Scout

“Knowing your enemy is half the battle, the other half is knowing yourself” – Oscar Wilde

If you don’t know the enemy team’s composition and they know the position of all your guns, you’re asking to be defeated since you won’t know what’ll come at you – an uber demo, an uber soldier, uber heavy – and you won’t prepare appropriately.

By having one player call in the enemy coming in, you can be prepared to counter them. This player can be a scout (on Gravelpit), a spy (dustbowl), or any player on your team with an eye for detail.

As a medic, you don’t have to aim your gun to heal someone, so use this time to act as a spotter for people. When charging in with an uber, call out targets for your Überee and direct him out of there once your uber runs low.

In an actual battle, everybody should call out enemies coming in – specifically demomen and spies – ubers, intel locations, and many more things.

Hooray for video posts! I know you guys love them (*ahem*), and you’ll love this one too. No really.

The Australian competitive team Intensity pulled together an 11-minute frag video, featuring the usual 6v6 shenanigans–but unlike most other videos, the editing is nothing short of incredible. Props to decap and Torn Productions for their awesome work.

The video is a 440MB monster, so I dare not embed it on this page. Check it out on PLDX instead, or please to be clicking on the screencap below.

On a side note, that cooperative double-airshot at 10:05 nearly made me JIMP.

Foreword

Welcome to Thirty-Six Rules of Fighting, this guide was first published on the now-defunct Team Fortress 2 wing of Gamereplays.org. But now, it’s here on Ubercharged for your reading pleasure, ain’t that great?

Anyway, let’s jump straight to the point, I’m EchelonThree, the writer of this guide, and one thing which pisses me off the most is how common-sense seems to disappear when it’s most needed.

So I was thinking for a while, and thought to myself, “Hey, what are the biggest mistakes that could have been most easily avoided?”

Then I played a while more, and within a few rounds, “Hmm… we wouldn’t have lost if some people had some basic knowledge of standing on the point”.

I’ve also considered that clan players aren’t likely to need a guide on how to play, so what I’ve attempted to do here is to shift the emphasis of the guide away from advanced players and on to beginning and improving players.

I guess that’s why I’m here now, writing this guide for all of you to read, enjoy, and perhaps have a good laugh at what I feel are the simplest, but yet most often ignored things…

Oh wait, I’m publishing on Ubercharged now! So I need to include this nice little guarantee for all of you, I promise the following in thie part and the parts to follow:

-          NO twitch aiming! (I promise, nothing on adjusting your mouse sensitivity, you shouldn’t rely on equipment anyway)

-          NO fancy tricks! (No fancy tricks, just good, effective ones)

-          NO frills (Nope, we won’t go into the damage spread of the shotgun to 5 decimal points.)

-          100% idiot proof! (Moron-Proof too!)

-          100% effective! (If it isn’t, TAKE IT UP WITH ME!)

-          THIRTY-SIX simple ways to improve your play!

-          All feedback replied! (Really!)

-          Not 100% satisfied with this guide? Take it up with me!

-          Provides all your daily TF2 nutritional needs! (it’s high-fiber!)

So, have fun, and enjoy the guide!

-          EchelonThree

Introduction or… How to Use This Guide

I’ll be publishing a new part of the guide each week for the next five weeks.

In a battle, the action often happens too fast for you to see, but behind every fight, there are tactics and strategies working their magic, creating an advantage for one side or the other. This guide will break down some of those principles for you.

The key principle of this guide is that it won’t tell you many things that you “shouldn’t” already know; what you’ll learn is everything that you should know but isn’t ever put into practice, along with things that you probably didn’t know, but yet play a major role in-game.

The guide works like this, we’ll learn a few pointers about what to do (or not) in battle through these thirty-six key points and tactics. On the way, there will be mini-guides (the aptly-named “Serious Zones) which teach concepts of fighting, some concepts are simple, such as area-denial, and some are long and complicated, such as battle simulation.

Without further rambling ado, here are thirty six stratagems that seem obvious but are rarely seen in combat.

Oh yeah, at the end, I do give out my mailing address (for the impatient ones, it’s echelonthreeguides@gmail.com , feel free to send in any questions, suggestions, complaints, or advice to me, thanks!

The Guide

1. Don’t be too aggressive

Question: Do you want to end up like this?

If you remember my defense guide (for playhaven and ubercharged readers, it’s still being updated), there was something I wrote about a rear and a forward guard. The forward defense team goes and kills off any defenses, while the rear guard stays in reserve and pushes forward or covers a retreat for the forward group. (On a public server, a group of 4 can easily accomplish this.)

Now, if you push too far forward, your support players will be too far behind your forces to cover them effectively, and the concentrated enemy offense can break your lines one at a time.

Also see point 5 – If Fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!

2. Stand on the point

“Offensive point capture may not proceed should one of the defenders be standing on the point; make good use of this fact to prevent and stall for your teammates to come to your aid. At no point must you waver and desert your point lest you grant the enemy the advantage.” – Sun Tzu

While you may not be able to stop the capture, you might be able to stall the enemy long enough for help to arrive in the form of a pyro, demo, soldier, or any other class that’s good . Even a scout standing on the point could give your team a chance to reach it and assist and make a game saving defense.

A point only takes a few seconds to cap, as such, it helps to apply this strategy at all times and ensure that you have someone on the point at all times, like a heavy.

3. Splashing is better than missing

A good soldier will be able to dodge your rockets in a duel every time if you go for a direct hit. If you go for a splashshot, you’re assured of getting a minor hit on him and at least doing some damage. It doesn’t take much brain for you to figure out what to do.

Of course, if you are confident of getting a direct hit on a target (think along the lines of your average (that is, dumb) sniper, gunhumping engi, or watch-me-I’m-invincible heavy), then take the shot and you’ll be rewarded with excellent damage.

4. JUMP!

A height advantage is crucial in defeating your opponent. You must obtain every possible edge you can get and by doing this you achieve that. As a soldier, jumping can grant you a slightly better firing angle, as a heavy, it gives you the element of surprise when you jump down on someone and rev your gun, as a scout; whatever… let’s put it simply: you’d damn better be jumping.

Jumping also helps you defensively: you can evade splash damage if you time it right. Be warned though, during your jump it’s easy to predict your movements.

A smart soldier will “break fire”; that is, instead of timing his shots in a single volley of 1-2-3-4 (which will be easily evaded by jumping), he will 1-2—3—4, taking advantage of the fact that you have jumped too early and are unable to jump to avoid damage, or worse, timing his shot to juggle you.

See also point 9 – Taking high ground.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Breaking Fire

Breaking fire is better known in the business as “holding fire” or “lifting fire”, that is, to stop firing on a certain target and waiting for the enemy to attack or attack someone else instead of mindlessly suppressing him.

This is a very useful technique in TF2, by holding your fire; you force the opponent from being able to predict your shots, more importantly, you conserve your ammunition for a more important target and have time to reassess the situation.

See also 34 – Fool your enemy.

End Serious Zone

5. If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight!

If you see an opportunity to take the fight, you should do so, and attack immediately to win the battle if possible. If defending, you should then pull back to regroup and resupply so as to absorb a counterattack.

On offense, if you see that you will win the fight if you attack, then you must do so; many games have been lost by pulling back to “build up ubers” when there were no sentry guns, then attacking with ubers when there were too many sentries up.

6. Don’t rely on sentries

“In Soviet Russia, sentry guard YOU!!” – Leonidas Trotsky

Sentries are the core of any defense, and any defensive team should have at least one engineer, after all, a sentry doesn’t miss anything, it sees the sniper hiding in the corner, and it sees the demoman sneaking behind you.

Sure they’re easy to take down with an uber, but the very fact that they often cause medics to use uber to take them down should be a good enough factor – the enemies have wasted an uber that would have been used to wreak havoc on your team.

Anybody who stands still for more than a few seconds in the path of a sentry gun is very likely to wind up as a kitchen colander if he doesn’t think fast.

Many people therefore base their defense on the fact that they have sentries set up all over the place, right?

Wrong.

A simple fact that any good player would know is that sentries are extremely easy to defeat – it’s the people covering the blind spots that screw you. More often than not, sentries which are unguarded wind up like this one here:

A sentry gun isn’t supposed to be a miracle solution that kills anybody and everybody who comes into an area, it’s supposed to keep anybody and everybody out of that area. Your job is to make sure nobody gets an angle on your gun, and to use a counteruber should an ubered demo come in.

In reality, you aren’t guarding the point; you’re guarding the sentries that are guarding the point.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Area Denial

Area denial is the concept of keeping a key area out of enemy hands by preventing them from occupying it, that is, having a strong deterrent that assures them of death or heavy damage should they enter.

A sentry or a sticky field is a good example, enemies will have to stay away or be blown up, shot to death, maimed, impaled by rockets, or any combination of the above. Heavies? Not really, a heavy can be outsmarted or evaded, but you can’t dodge a sentry gun’s bullets if you’re in the way.

Generally, when applying area denial, the objective is to defend the most area with the least required manpower, and maybe a bit more for backup. An engineer’s sentry is an excellent method, the engineer can lend in his shotgun to the main fight, and the sentry watches his back.

End Serious Zone

The Engineer is possibly the most misunderstood class in Team Fortress 2, and that’s saying a lot when people still claim that there’s not such thing as a skilled Pyro or a useful Sniper. But while people generally know what each class does and the different kinds of play styles for each, people’s usual interpretation of an Engineer’s play style is “Build sentry, build dispenser, ensure neither dies while the sentry guards an objective” and that skill is only down to how well they deal with Spies and how well they place their sentry. And so the Engineer is generally regarded as just something you have on defence to stop Scouts from capping everything.

Some of the more enlightened will recognise two Engineer play styles, the second being that of the offensive Engineer- an Engineer who goes around building ambush sentries to confuse, delay, and weaken the enemy.

However, while these are the two extremes of Engineer playing, they are not the only way to play the class. How you do that, as the Engineer would say, falls within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy.

As is rather heavily implied by the title, there are four basic ways to play the Engineer, although each has variations, and there are a few Engineer players who don’t fit any of those four groups. Each play style is based on a different interpretation of what the Engineer is useful for. The Turtle Engineer, The Pod Engineer, The Aggressive Engineer, and The Offensive Engineer. The first one we’ll cover is the famous Turtle Engineer, the original play style of Engineers and still the most common, especially on attack/defend maps like Dustbowl.

The Turtle Engineer

Building of Choice: Level 3 Sentry
Weapon of Choice: Wrench
Personal Philosophy: “You don’t cap a point covered by a level 3 sentry, and a level 3 stops momentum pronto.”

The basic strategy of the Turtle Engineer is, as covered above, “Build a sentry and dispenser, upgrade them, keep them alive.” While it’s simple, it’s hard to argue that a defence isn’t stronger with a level 3 sentry guarding the objective or an important chokepoint, and if the team helps out by guarding the sentry from Spies and Demomen, it can form the cornerstone of a powerful defence. This is also the type of Engineer that benefits most from other Engineers- two sentries can cover each other’s weaknesses, and even a good Spy will have a bit of trouble dealing with two Engineers at once with sentries covering each other- stab and sap won’t work as well, and they can split up with one unsapping while the other attacks him.

Additionally, the more Engineers there are, the more sentries there are, adding knock back to ubers and killing people in the range faster, and the more dispensers there are, meaning that if a sentry is destroyed the Engineers can work together to quickly get a new one built and upgraded using metal from the surviving dispensers.

However, while this remains the most popular style for a reason, it is not without its faults. The Turtle Engineer can be cleared out by an ubered Demoman without a lot of effort, and in most cases it will take a long time to set up a new base- the Turtle Engineer is by far the slowest to set up of all the types of Engineers, and so suffers in fast paced games. Additionally, on any map where the team’s objective is something more than just defend, Turtle Engineering leads to stalemates and while it stops your enemy from winning, it doesn’t help your team win. In many maps, especially CTF, Turtle Engineering can also be very tedious, with long stretches of doing nothing but sitting and waiting for an enemy. If the team doesn’t help a Turtle Engineer, they’ll often get constantly overrun by people attacking their sentry from out of range, or a spy attacking at the same time as another player, an experience which can be very, very frustrating and rarely helps your team.

Because of these weaknesses, Turtle Engineers are a rare sight on most 5CP maps (except for the last point on Badlands), and almost never seen on Arena maps, due to the long set up time for their bases. The exception to this is Lumberyard, where a sentry can be built that covers the middle point without running directly into the enemy team. This type of Engineering is also arguably the easiest, since simply putting a sentry down on a point and hitting it can be effective. However, skilled Turtle Engineers will find excellent sentry spots and be able to build and more importantly re-build their bases rapidly to keep a constant obstacle for the attackers. And if you ever doubt the usefulness of a Turtle Engineer, have fun trying to take out a sentry farm.

So that wraps up the famous defensive-centred Turtle Engineer. Next time we’ll look at his polar opposite, The Offensive Engineer.