ubercharged.net

Come one come all. Stock up on scripts! Can’t have an autopistol without scripts!

So in the desire for content and my laziness to make some pics for the 10 or so other articles I’ve had ready to publish for months, I’m gonna do something completely different. One that doesn’t require me to fire up GMod or go through my screenshots or draw something. I’m going to dump some of my scripts upon the hapless readerbase of UC!

So let’s get started.

First up, if you don’t or haven’t used scripts before, they’re in team fortress 2\tf\cfg. If you don’t know where this is, I recommend you get a job, pr a PC.
And how it works is basically every time you switch classes, the command lines in that file get executed from top to bottom. I’ll try to accommodate anyone who’s never used any, but I won’t go into fine details either if it’s deep.

Before adding anything else, you’ll want to add defaulters so that whatever you change for a specific class gets reset, thrown. Common to mine are:
-attack; bind mouse1 +attack; bind mouse2 +attack2; bind 1 slot1; bind 2 slot2; bind 3 slot3; unbind CAPSLOCK; unbind semicolon; unbind '; unbind [; unbind ];
, but if you use more you may like to change those around, depending on what you have. If one of your binds for a class is different, you can either replace it (for example, replace bind 1 slot1 with bind 1 "slot1; +reload"), or just dump what you actually want below the lines that defaults things (it’ll overwrite them).

Now, on to the real deal.

Demoman

Targe bending script

Okay well, I was going to include this but Valve has gone and fixed that so I guess it’s moot.
Targe does seem much less effective now that it’s gone though, even with the buff.

(I was also going to include a Bonk! slowdown nullifier, but Valve has gone and made Bonk! Atomic Punch good, so go on. Use it.)

The Autofire Swapper 9000
//Demoman sticky autofire------------------------------------------
//Beta 1.0 - Code:
//Code taken from TF2wiki.net scout autopistol
alias "autofire" "bind mouse1 +demofire; bind 1 _primary; bind 2 _secondary; bind 3 _melee"
alias "regular" "bind mouse1 +attack; bind 1 slot1; bind 2 slot2; bind 3 slot3"
alias "autoDet" "bind mouse2 +demofire; bind 1 _primary2; bind 2 _secondary2; bind 3 _melee2"
alias "regularDet" "bind mouse2 +attack2; bind 1 slot1; bind 2 slot2; bind 3 slot3"
bind "semicolon" "regular"
bind ' "autofire"
bind "[" "regularDet"
bind "]" "autoDet"
// AutoFire
alias +autoshoot "alias repeat_function +repeat; +repeat"
alias -autoshoot "alias repeat_function stoprepeating"
alias repeat_function "+repeat"
alias +repeat "+attack; wait 6; -repeat"
alias -repeat "-attack; wait 6; repeat_function"
alias stoprepeating ""
alias +adet "alias repeat_function2 +repeat2; +repeat2"
alias -adet "alias repeat_function2 stoprepeating"
alias repeat_function2 "+repeat2"
alias +repeat2 "+attack2; wait 6; -repeat2"
alias -repeat2 "-attack2; wait 6; repeat_function2"
alias stoprepeating ""
alias _primary "slot1; alias +demofire +attack; alias -demofire -attack; -apistol"
alias _secondary "slot2; alias +demofire +apistol; alias -demofire -apistol"
alias _melee "slot3; alias +demofire +attack; alias -demofire -attack; -apistol"
alias _primary2 "slot1; alias +demofire +attack; alias -demofire -attack; -apistol; alias +demofire2 +attack2; alias -demofire2 -attack2; -adet"
alias _secondary2 "slot2; alias +demofire +apistol; alias -demofire -apistol; alias +demofire2 +adet; alias -demofire2 -adet"
alias _melee2 "slot3; alias +demofire +attack; alias -demofire -attack; -apistol; alias +demofire2 +attack2; alias -demofire2 -attack2; -adet"
//End of code------------------------------------------------------
Basically, press semicolon for regular stickies that can be charged and ‘ to autofire stickies, which will shoot them as fast as possible. I enjoy using the latter with assault Scottish Resistance demoman.

Press [ for regular detonation (cannot hold mouse2 in tandem with autofire), or press ] for automatic detonation. So press and hold mouse1, then press and hold mouse2, and you’ll spam stickies as fast as possible.

Don’t forget to press 2/slot2 to activate them once you’ve changed though.

WARNING: this script utilizes the “wait” command, which by default is not allowed on servers (and banned in competitive matches), and crashes your game. The UC servers allow the wait command, though, so drop on by.

Engineer

Destroyer script

bind "SEMICOLON" "destroy 3"
bind "'" "destroy 0"
bind "[" "destroy 1"
bind "]" "destroy 2"

What this does is allow you to remotely destroy buildings; sentries with semicolon, dispensers with ‘, entrances with [, and exits with ]. Well okay, not exactly useful per se, but I find it easier to destroy everything with this. Plus if you’re dead, you can deny someone a point.

Medic

Autoheal

For all you medics out there.

First, turn on “remember last active weapon” in multiplayer>advanced, and turn off the Valve autoheal. Now add this to your medic configs.

alias +reverse "-attack"
alias -reverse "+attack"
bind 1 "slot1; -attack; bind mouse1 +attack"
bind 2 "slot2; +attack; bind mouse1 +reverse"
bind 3 "slot3; -attack; bind mouse1 +attack"
bind "SEMICOLON" "bind mouse1 +attack; bind 1 slot1; bind 2 slot2; bind 3 slot3"

Now, when equipping your medigun, you’ll automatically latch on to anyone in front of you immediately.

“But Clank!” you yell. “Why can’t I just use the Valve autoheal noob?”

Well because the advantages of this script go way beyond Valve’s implemented autoheal.
1) You can heal without holding down the mouse, and hence getting tired
2) You heal faster than the Valve autoheal, which has a delay. Very bad.
3) You’ll automatically latch on to anyone. So you could, say, at setup, go get a cup of tea and not have to worry about whether you’re building uber or not (so long as your crosshair points a decent way)

“But but what if this causes me to accidentally heal spies?”
Well, firstly, the advantages are significant enough that your constant healing and uber building far surpasses any heals you might accidentally give Spies. Secondly, if you’re checking for everyone, that’s taking a lot of time out of potential uber building, which also means your team is horrible at firing a single shot. Lastly:

That is all.

Sniper

Hax script for aiming. Just wait for it to line up and hit the button.

VAC Warning: use of game altering cheat codes is strictly forbidden. Your attempt to distribute such has now resulted in your account being banned.

Spy

Well, I have just one for you.

bind ] "disguise 8 -2; slot3; wait 25; +attack2; wait 15; -attack2; taunt; wait 3; +attack2; wait 2; -attack2; wait 400; lastdisguise;"

This lets you repeatedly tap ] till you get an invisible taunt as the spy, useful for invisible taunting. However, due to the inherently unreliable nature of the wait command, you HAVE to tap ] until it actually executes. Sometimes I find it easier to just do it yourself.

WARNING: this script utilizes the “wait” command, which by default is not allowed on servers, and crashes your game. The UC servers allow the wait command, though.

Wrap-up

Well, that takes care of that. Feel free to add any comments, and perhaps suggestions for any scripts that could be useful. If you don’t have it and it’s just an idea, go ahead and post that too, and I’ll possibly work something out. Next issue if I continue to do this will either be more generic autoreload and viewmodels, or “fun” scripts.

I’ll be around on the forums (button on the top right hand corner), and if enough people are interested will start a thread. Clank out.

This is an old story, but one that deserves repeating, either as an example of Valve’s attention to its fans, or as an inspiration for those who want to create something for their beloved TF2 world, whether it be movies or music. In this particular case, it starts with a picture.

Dedicated fans should recognize the omnipresent Announcer, complete with ashtray, microphone, and glare that disapproves of everything you have ever done. However, the picture above is the original concept art for the Announcer, purchased by Valve from Makani, an artist from Austin, Texas. Mind you, it was chance more than anything else that led her into specializing in video games.

“I got hired at a video game company, therefore I got in to video games. I was interested in any type of concept art, and when you’re right out of college you take whatever you get. Of course I’ve always liked video games, and having worked in the industry, I can’t really imagine doing movies or anything else now, games is way more fun.”

She has video game fever on her off-time as well, making sketches of her favorites and sharing them online. Fans and fellow artists alike praise her skill, but she never expected attention from a certain well-known company.

“I basically just opened up my email one day to find an email from Kathy Gehrig saying my art had made the rounds at the studio and they wanted to invite me up. I then googled Kathy Gehrig… I thought it had to be some other “Valve Software” or something.”

Despite her disbelief, Makani had in fact been contacted by Valve, the very people who brought us Left 4 Dead, Portal, and of course, Team Fortress 2. They found Makani’s site and, liking what they saw, invited her to their offices in Bellevue, Washington. They paid for her ticket too.

“Everyone there was awesome, I got to talk a while with some of the main artists there, and I got to meet Gabe towards the end of the interview. Everyone was just very nice, very humble. I was nervous of course but it was just general nervousness, everyone was very easy to talk to.”

Valve was interested in giving Makani some future contract work with their TF2 merchandise, doing drawings for posters and shirts. She also met with the people behind Team Fortress 2, including Moby Francke, and after her interview, they all went out for sushi. Inbetween mouthfuls of rice and fish, Francke shared a bit of the history behind TF2’s cartoony style that gamers enjoy today.

“Back when he applied, Moby said he wanted to make something Pixarish in style,” Makani remembered from their discussion, “TF2 went through a couple different iterations… Army… Gladiators… and another that was space themed… He said the present version happened after they left the artists alone for too long.”

Fan contributions have a small but significant presence in the game, and only Valve knows how large it will grow in the future. However, Makani was one of the very first to make her mark within the game, showing what talented fans can do. Makani let fans of TF2 everywhere know that if they persevere, then they too shall find their russian prince, holding out a sandvich on a silk pillow. At the time of my interview with her, Makani only knew that she would be doing promotional items and had to wait for further information from Valve. She was nervous about the work to come, but only a little.

“When it comes down to it, it’s just doing nicer fanart if I have to draw anything at all, and I think I can do ok with that.”

Note: this interview is at least one year old, something I apologize profusely for, and so some of this may be out of date. Makani went through a tough spell for a while, but as of her latest journal entry, it’s clear she’s doing fine. Also, as to what she may or may not be up to… well, let us refrain from being junkyard dogs and leave it at that.

You’re probably wondering why we haven’t been releasing avatars. You see, we kind of overinflated our security budget and ran into a little financial bother. Some fairly recent security breaches startled me into hiring more and more crack mercenaries, until of course, they started asking for money.

“Maybe if you actually released some avatars, instead of hiring all these mooks, people would stop trying to rob you and this crisis would be over.” My accountant had a point, but what of security in the meantime? Tygrys had the solution, we take up martial arts! So I fired the entire security team, created a budget that would turn our workforce into masters of the ancient arts of combat.

Tygrys, it turns out, is already a master of Karate (I’m not sure how it works without a jar myself, but… just remind me never to upset him) so he found this pretty easy. I was less adept; turns out it’s less about roughing people up, and more about finding your inner-peace (which is considerably hard to do when you’re unconscious most of the time). Tygrys spent most of his time meditating and crafting avatars depicting the lost beauty of close combat, so it wasn’t a total loss.

T&T Industries is pleased to announce the release of our third avatar pack, the “Melee Masters Avatar Pack”; featuring all classes and team coloured variants.

Think yourself a master of close combat? Then these avatars are for you! Show off your talents as a martial artist and challenge your adversaries to a deadly melee when you’re wearing one of these as your display picture. Created by Karate Master Tygrys Murdock with a little help from Drunken Master Tesla Tank, quality is guaranteed.

But that’s not all, download now and get these bonus avatars; featuring tenth class targelander Demoman and a dishonourable backstabbing Spy.

Signed: T&T Industries Chairman of marketing

Willbur McTrackingster

Get the pack here. With thanks once again to arma2.pl and the Crazy Hussars team for hosting us. You can find our other packs below;

Classy Classes
Winter Warmers

I would like to talk to you about a game on cp_dustbowl some time ago. I don’t remember how long ago, as I didn’t think it relevant at the time.

I was on a team of twelve, attacking. Considering I can’t play Soldier or Demoman to save my life, the enemy team was full of pyros, our team had two snipers and I would’ve hated to come off as a burden to the team, I was playing Medic. Overall, it was a mediocre game. I could never hold an übercharge long enough to deploy it and my teammates were unable to protect me. I tried to harvest fun out of grinding assists, knowing that my patient wouldn’t have lived to kill as many enemies as he did without me, but that became harder as more time passed without any meaningful communication within our team. And yet we weren’t close to losing, as we had a sea of time rolled over from the previous stage that we captured swiftly. Strange, I don’t remember that happening. It must’ve been before I joined. Or maybe I just forgot.

At one point, I was building my charge with a Heavy and a Demoman behind the double doors. Considering myself safe, I took advantage of the lull to ponder. Would this assault be any different from the other ones that had failed? It seemed like such an effort, each defeat leading up to this decisive moment, but my enthusiasm was dimmed when I thought of the defending team, who shared no part of my plight. And then I wondered wether even my teammates did. I was essential to the team, but did that have as much to do with me as the fact that I was a Medic? Would I be missed if I switched?

When I looked back again, I was in 2fort. The map must’ve ended while I stood there. I took a few seconds to adjust to the change, until I remembered that 2fort is everything but change. I wandered to the balcony, where I saw two snipers. The same ones as before? I hoped so. At least then I could be certain that I hadn’t spent too much of my time there.

In my curiosity, I healed one of them. I had never bothered with healing snipers before because I figured they would hardly even notice the overheal, as opposed to the conventional party whose lives depend on me. After a second of healing, my Sniper’s health suddenly shrunk to almost zero. He was headshot! Headshot and lived! Never before had I felt so directly responsible for anything taking place on the battlefield. This one Sniper may not have made a difference in this map’s strange ecosystem, but to me, he was more critical than the intelligence. And then I heard the sizzle of a critical shot, and with the flash of beige on the top right of my screen, I knew that my Sniper had killed his assailant. For a second, I deemed this experience, the surprise the Sniper must’ve felt to have cheated death, the ironic bemusement of the player he shot, that amazing, statisfying shot as though I had done it myself through blind fire, to be more significant than anything I had done before. Until I was yelled at by a Heavy for healing snipers. And I complied.

Still, so far all of my points had been earned through assists. It is often said that Medics have a great impact on the battle, yet I could only taste this a few seconds ago. Me healing that Sniper was so unconventional, so sudden that it made me feel like a person whereas my carreer of building ubers had not. Of course, healing Snipers would make me useless as I had read somewhere, and I didn’t want to earn the loathing of my comrades. If I could not experience the thrill with a Sniper, I would do it as a Sniper. And so I went to the class selection screen.

Once there, however, my path to the Sniper’s loadout cabin was blocked by a tall, hulking man with his arms crossed.

“Why are you stopping me?”, I asked him. “This server has room for three.”

“I am the Team”, he replied in a voice of authority. “Pay reverence to my word. There are two snipers already who are playing their part on the battlements. You, however, are the only Medic. As long as there is no one else like you, I need you to remain as such.”

“Is there hope that I may pass in the future?”

“That I can not guarantee. In the meantime, you must fulfill your role as the Medic.”

And so I returned to my duties, healing soldiers and trying to break stalemates, while I tried to stay positive until my turn as Sniper.
Somebody once told me that the clouds in the sky were once set up to move, but the functionality was broken by a last minute change in the engine. It was because of this, as well as the fruitless everlasting standoffs in the sewers, the steadfast sentry nests and the deadly silence that overwhelmed me as no one made an effort to communicate, that I lost all sense of time. Minutes became hours, single lives felt like entire mapcycles. The snipers I passed after every respawn helped little to retain the dream of being one of them. They seemed so reserved, laid-back, immune to the downs that I experienced, that I could hardly imagine it. Whereas before I had checked the class screen every death to see if the guardsman had moved, eventually I took to staying there until he moved.

My respect for the guardsman degenerated into apathy. Who is he to decide what I do? And yet, when I noticed his intimidating posture and his intelligent expression, I was reminded of the many scathing articles about those who turn their back on the Team. And so I returned to waiting.

Until one occasion, when I hadn’t seen a soul other than the guardsman in years – if it were years – another person entered the hall. I was rendered speechless as he walked right past the guardsman and grabbed a rifle, shield and knife with only as much as “Ahh, sorry mate” on his way out, putting the number of snipers at the limit. “What is this?”, I cried, indignified. “Why did you stop me but not him?”

The guardsman lost his patience and yelled: “because you are the only one who values my opinion above your own. I’m closing it down now. Have fun playing Medic with three snipers.”

I launched TF2 yesterday, and immediately wondered if I’d launched the wrong game. I expected to see a bunch of stereotypical caricatures running around killing each other with guns and rockets and bombs and flamethrowers.

Instead, I felt like I’d opened up a multiplayer game of Oblivion or something.

Instead of seeing black guys spamming sticky bombs all over the place, I saw a bunch of idiots running around with shields, battle axes, Shivs, swords, bows and arrows, and warhammers. At the same time, they were frantically searching for random drops of tricorne hats, crowns, judge wigs, berets, and…Spartan Hoplite helmets. (And let’s not forget the crappy metallurgical simulator included free with the game, from which you can create cloth hats out of metal).

So what the hell gives, Valve? I thought this was a class-based multiplayer shooter, not a goddamn medieval RPG. TF2 is about shooting people.

…WITH GUNS! AND ROCKETS!

(Not arrows!)

Seriously, I’m sure the TF2 community is more creative than that. I find it hard to believe that this crap is the only kind of thing that makes it through the Contribute! page. Once in a while, the people who know what they’re talking about should get a say.

himmelstoss: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=876987
himmelstoss: ^ excellent idea for the next tf2 update
Robin: hirin that dude

That said, is it any wonder that TF2 sucks as much as it does, with such crackpots on the development team?

And as for hats, why did they have to decline in quality so much? The first few generations of hats were made of win, and then their quality dropped precipitously. Now, the hats are either completely out of style or just downright butt-ugly. Blah.

If TF2 keeps going this way, what with the medieval weapons and meme references, I can only speculate on what’s next:

Tygrys, being awesome as usual.

The ROBE and WIZARD HAT (for Scout): combined with the new unlockable, the WIZARD WAND, the Scout can cast +5 Eroticism on anything! Including his mother! But as a tradeoff, he doesn’t get critical hits!

Mac Steam isn’t Valve’s best moment

Mac Steam, prior to its release, seemed to me to be the second coming of Jebus. Then, when it finally launched, it was less of this:

…and more of this:

The fact that TF2’s not yet out on the Mac notwithstanding, I at least expected to be able to play Portal at a framerate that wouldn’t lead to severe optical hemorrhaging.

I couldn’t. At the recommended settings, the bloody thing ran at 9 FPS, dropping to 2 FPS when I fired the damn portal gun. I’m on a Macbook right now with a 2.26 GHz processor and an nvidia 9400M graphics chip. The specs are better than those of the Windows desktop I use for TF2, yet at the same settings that the Mac version recommended for me, I can play Portal at well over 45 frames per second.

The problem? Steam’s like an elephant. It’s big, it’s clunky, and it never forgets.

This screenshot is taken from the activity monitor shortly after launching Steam. The bloody thing uses 124.8 megs of real memory just to stay open. And let’s not forget the fact that it takes up about 20-25% of CPU cycles when it’s idling and doing nothing at all.

I would have expected that the 2 GB of RAM on this laptop would have been enough to handle Steam and Portal. How dead wrong I was. When Portal’s running – at lowest settings, 800×600 – I had no RAM free. This problem persisted even after I closed all other applications and killed some miscellaneous helper processes, such as Growl and iTunesHelper. Basically, Steam and the ported Source engine eat up memory like a zombie eats brains. And the CPU thing is ridiculous, too.

The problem is that Steam refuses to use the native GUI controls, instead opting for a butt-ugly custom GUI, presumably because it’s OMGSHINY! That doesn’t change a thing. Of all of Valve’s works, Steam is without a doubt the worst. It’s clunky, it’s ugly, and it’s downright inefficient. What is it, after all? It’s a damn web browser, combined with an unreliable chat system, an application launcher, and an in-game UI. Clearly, Valve does not subscribe to the KISS principle (and why would they? They’re nerdy developers, after all. ).

In short, the announcement that Steam was coming to Mac was like getting a call from your girlfriend saying she wanted to come over. But when you opened the door, it was her mom instead. Blech.

There’s no doubt that the Medic is a very important class to have on your team. They keep bulky classes healed, give them the advantage in fights, and build up the devastating uber or kruber that can break a defence or stop a charge dead in its tracks. Everyone wants a medic on their team. But actually playing the Medic seems to be another matter entirely. Despite the medic’s undeniable usefulness, even in the hands of an amateur, the simple fact is that a lot of people don’t want to play the medic. Sure, they’ll play it for the sake of the team, but they’ll be quick to anger, refuse to heal people who don’t explicitly thank them in chat, and generally think the world owes them for bothering to play medic. Not the signs of someone enjoying themselves.

So where’s the disconnect? If the Medic is so useful, why do so many people dislike playing the class so much?

Gameplay

Team Fortress 2 is, after all, a first person SHOOTER. And as the Medic, you’re going to be doing very little shooting. This can get a little boring for some people, because in the end they don’t want to hop around while keeping the medigun beam on a Heavy, they want to be shooting people- even if the latter is less useful to the team. It’s the same reason that some Medics seem so eager to go rambo all of a sudden- “ze hurting is more rewarding than ze healing” as the Medic himself would say.

Priority Target

People shoot for the Medic first. It’s just a fact. In higher level games like PUGs or even just serious servers with semi-comp players this is even more apparent. Once I ran into a Soldier using the Direct Hit who purposely rocket jumped right into the opposing team’s Medic’s face over and over to hit him with the DH up close and finish him with the Equaliser, not caring if he died in the process. That’s about the level of determination people have in regards to your death if you’re a Medic. There’s good reason for it- even if you’re not stopping them from killing someone, you’re building an uber, so they want you dead before it’s ready. Even if it is ready, they want to force you to waste it before you get to the rest of the team to minimize the damage. The only time people WON’T shoot you before your target is if you don’t let them, or if they’re a Spy or Sniper going for the easy target. After a while, this starts to get old, after the tenth time you get hit from behind with a rocket and then finished off before you turn around.

You Don’t Control How Well You Do

Here’s the one that scares people out of playing Medic on a losing team time and time again. As the Medic, your main concern most of the time is staying alive while keeping your team alive. If you find a good Medic buddy, you can go on a rampage and get stuff done while keeping your buddy alive. If your team is bad, you’ll often end up hopping from buddy to buddy as they’re gunned down, leaving you with nothing to show for it but a scattergun to the teeth after you run out of meatshields. And yet, the difference between you rocketing to the top of the scoreboard and rotting at the bottom is often independent of your skill. The fact is, without good players to support, the Medic just won’t do well.

You Need a Lot of Rescuing

Closely related to the last point, the sad truth is that a lot of time your team is going to be a pack of morons, and you need to be the one to get them in shape. But as the Medic, you’re not going to stand up in a fight with most other classes most of the time. So your Medic buddy, or just any random person you’re healing at the time, needs to kill them for you. And if they can’t, you’ll die. Over and over again. This is also one of the top sources of rage for Medics; a Medic buddy who can’t or won’t protect them. If they die, expect the buddy to get the blame. Often, even if it’s not their fault, if the Medic’s mad enough.

However, I enjoy playing Medic. It’s hard to see why, with all of that against it, but let’s look at the good parts of playing the Medic.

A Different Skillset

I’ll be honest; I’m a bad shot. I miss plenty of the time, and my habit of playing on servers with high ping doesn’t exactly help matters. My aim is less than superb, and I’m not exactly a pro at getting the range for confrontations right either. But playing the Medic, that starts to matter less, and my abilities to find cover, dodge shots, keep an eye out for enemies, and gauge the safeness of an area matters more.

Help From Others

Let’s be honest- if a Pyro had your back and he got attacked by a Scout, there’s a good chance you won’t save him. But if a Medic that was healing you was, you’d at least try to save him if you knew. And while a Heavy sometimes throws a sandvich to a Soldier, most of the time it’s the Medic who gets a free lunch.

Helping Your Team

Even with the odd disconnect of you feeling powerless and like you aren’t helping, if you compare how a team is doing before and after the addition of a Medic, it’s pretty obvious how much of an effect the Medic has. Lots of fights start turning against the other team, and the heaviest hitters on the Medic’s teams start killing people more, and being shot down while running for health less.

So yes, playing the Medic is frustrating. You can feel powerless, die with full uber, and get killed constantly despite your best efforts. But it’s all worth it when you keep a Heavy alive as he mows down an entire team, or uber a Pyro and watch the world burn.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past week or so, you will know that the Heavy has received significant buffs to spinup time and movement speed while revved. These have made several players very upset, and they are now adamant that the Heavy is overpowered and Team Fortress 2 is, for the 119th time, ruined forever.

The problem, in fact, is that what with everyone playing Heavies because they’re oh so fresh, people are neglecting their one true counter: the Civilian. The Civilian has always been something of an “evil opposite” to the Heavy, having a mere 1/6 of Heavy’s health, and no weapons, animations or even voice acting, compared to the Heavy’s high damage weapons, which are second only to Demomen, and his distinctive Russian outbursts. The Civilian, however, has one main advantage: speed. Even with the Heavy’s buff in speed while revved, he cannot keep up with the veritable speed demon that is the Civilian, in fact, only Scouts and Medics could hope to beat a Civilian in a foot race, and over long distances, even a Chargin’ Targe Demoman’s speed boosts will not be enough.

“But,” you may be saying in disbelief around about now “speed alone cannot defeat a Heavy! Especially not with the reduced spinup time!” Well, that’s where the element of surprise comes in. Civilians typically use the Scout model, and as any experienced Spy will tell you, Scouts have smaller profiles than any other class and thus are harder to spot. This, combined with the Civilian’s total lack of voice acting or distinctive sounds makes them the stealthiest class in the game, more so than the Spy because his cloak makes a rather easy to notice sound. Those Civilians who do not use the Scout’s model have it just as easy, though they need to employ different tactics: no-one expects that “Pyro” to actually be able to counter their Heavy. They expect him to charge and die horribly, whereas the truth is much more dangerous: he is a Civilian.

So, we’ve gone from what seems like a one-sided battle with the Heavy coming out on top every time to something a little more complex. The Heavy has more damage capability and more health, but the Civilian has the advantage in Speed and in Stealth. Ubercharges, perhaps, are the decider. As anyone who has been assaulted by an Uber Spycrab will tell you, part of the power of Ubercharges is their unexpectedness. Everyone hears the Medic shout “I am fully charged!” and starts to prepare for a Soldier, Demoman, Heavy or perhaps a Pyro to come rampaging in and brutally murder everyone. How many people expect an invincible Civilian? None. Speed, again, is paramount. You only get ten seconds to play with, and half that time will be spent getting there with the Heavy. Furthermore, even fewer classes are expected to be Kritz targets, generally it is reserved for Soldiers and Demomen, so it’s even more of a surprise when a Civilian, charged with amazing power enters the scene, dealing a whopping x3 damage with every single shot. Clearly then, in the realm of Ubercharges, the Civilian comes out on top.

Yet another advantage the Civilian has over the Heavy is that he will never run out of ammo, doubly so against a Heavy that has the Sandvich or Dalokoh’s Bar rather than the Shotgun. This makes an already strong class even stronger: hit the Heavy when he has run out of ammo and is retreating and restricted to melee range, and you can finish him off without there being a chance of retaliation. If he has a Medic buddy, don’t fret, just work on the Heavy once you’ve taken down the Medic and victory will be all the sweeter. Just make sure that during this attack that the Heavy doesn’t manage to refill his ammo, because although it’s easy to dodge a Heavy, while you’re busy dealing with his Medic, he might be able to hit you once or twice, dealing around 6 damage, which is just an inconvenience.

A mistake that many newbie Medics make when choosing who to pocket is going for classes like Heavy and Soldier, or occasionally Demoman, who are all slower than the Medic and just hold him up when he’s trying to reach the frontlines. Around halfway to the front, a Medic will begin to outrun a Heavy or Soldier, and he will no longer be able to charge uber on them on his way to battle, thus depriving his team of that ubercharge, which just five seconds earlier, could win them the game. Of course, the Civilian is still a little slower than the Medic, with 100% speed compared to the Medic’s 107%, but this difference is negligible unless you are playing a map with an incredibly long path from spawn to the frontlines: a well known design flaw in maps. Of course, this small difference in speed is not ideal, but the Civilian’s ability to defend a Medic against Heavies, where all other potential pockets fail is well worth it.

Then what should we make of all this? Is the Heavy buff too much? Perhaps it is. Can we still cope? Of course. We just need to stop neglecting that so often neglected class, the Civilian, and start to play counters to enemy team composition rather than play such obviously countered classes like the Spy, Sniper and Demoman. Memorise the above graphs, they will come in handy when you are told to “play something useful”. Perhaps you may want to set one as your spray.

To conclude:
Civilian is OP. Nerf Civilian.

Disclaimer: This was not meant to be the second renaissance of music or similar, only a fun alteration of the lyrics to suit the TF2 universe. The unrestrained rhythm of the music doesn’t help as well. So don’t start fuming out of your nostrils already.

Based on this specific version of the song.

“YOU”

“YOU!”

“YES YOU!”

“STAND STILL PYRO!”

When we changed servers and went to 2Fort
There were certain engineers who would
Camp the point any way they could

By pouring their derision
Upon anyone we killed
And exposing our location
However carefully hidden from the BLUs

“What have we here Pyro?
Console commands?
A cheat code?
Oh a guide no less
A strategy guide everybody!
The Pyro reckons himself a proper player”

“Heavy get back
I’m all right Medic
Keep your hands of my metal”

“Absolute rubbish Pyro
Change back to Engineer”

“Repeat after me”
“A level 3 dispenser is made from a total of five hundred metal, with one hundred metal as the build cost and subconsequent upgrade of two hundred metal…”

But in the fort, it was well known
When they got home at night, the thin and
Psychopathic announcer would thrash them
Within inches of their lives.

We don’t need no intel camping
We don’t need no sewer control
No cheap kills outside the spawnroom
Engies leave them Pyros alone!
Hey! Engies! Leave them Pyros alone!
All in all it’s just another camper in 2Fort.

“Wrong, Do it again!”

All in all you’re just another camper in 2Fort.

We don’t need no intel camping
We don’t need no sewer control
No cheap kills outside the spawnroom
Engies leave the Pyros alone

Hey! Engies! Leave us Pyros alone!
All in all you’re just another camper in 2Fort.
All in all you’re just another camper in 2Fort.

Today is Earth Day, a day of introspection. It’s a day when we look at our impact on the planet.

But Earth Day is a real-world thing, and this site is about the world of TF2. So where does TF2 come into this? The problem is that TF2 has a pretty significant real-world impact. The rest of this article is food –no, a feast– for thought. Enjoy.

Update: This article was written before the 4/20 update, which generally discouraged idling, and made much of this article obsolete-ish. In light of the update, consider these data as retrospection. The text of the article has been unchanged. -himmels

The facts

First, consider these data: (Shoutout to FireSlash of TF2stats.net for providing the raw data!)

(click to enlarge)

The graph above shows the number of TF2 players online at various times. Data were taken at 507 hourly time slices from March 25th at 8 AM EST to April 15th at 10 AM EST, obtained via TF2Stats.net’s recording system.

The red line traces the total number of TF2 players in-game. As is evident, the number of TF2 players goes through daily cycles, peaking around noon EST and 7 PM EST.

The blue line is the daily average number of players. It’s interesting to note that this fluctuates in an approximately sinusoid manner, peaking on the weekends.

And down there, that orange line: that’s the insidious little bugger I want to talk about. The orange line represents the number of players who are idling to get themselves more hats via the random drop system. Unlike the total number figure, the number of idling players does not fluctuate from week to week. Over the 507-hour period shown above, the average number of idling players was 5310.

It might give a good idea of how horribly wrong the random drop system has gotten. Idling has become an epidemic—no, a pandemic. Though this number fluctuates between ~20% and 40%, on average, 32.1% of TF2 players that are in-game are idling.

32.1%. That number assesses the damage pretty well. It means about one in three people who are in-game aren’t actually playing. Clearly, idling is a problem, and it’s one that has to be dealt with.

Idling’s environmental impact

The fact is that idling isn’t just a game issue. Today is Earth Day, after all, which is why I wanted to talk a little about the environmental impact of idling, which isn’t negligible by any means.

With the abolition of the idling program, the only way to idle these days is to keep TF2 running. Even with hacks like -textmode, this means that each computer is running at full power, under full load.

Well, 5310 computers running at full blast has a pretty sizable environmental impact. Let’s assume that the computers are being used only for idling, as is often the case at night – in other words, they could be shut off (drawing 0 watts on the line), but they’re instead being used for idling.

My aging desktop computer has an Nvidia 8600GT. In my tests, under full load, it runs at around 300W. Newer computers generally take more electricity than my computer, but for the sake of this article, let’s assume that 300W is the average power consumption of the average idler’s computer. So when an idler idles, he/she uses 300 watts instead of zero.

In that case, in one hour, the 5310 idlers suck up 1593 kilowatt-hours (kWh). In a month, that becomes 1,162,980 kWh. I don’t know about you, but I think that 1.16 GWh is nothing to laugh at.

Let’s also assume that each kWh of electricity releases 1.5 pounds (0.7 kg) of carbon dioxide, as that’s the approximate U.S. national average – see Carbonify’s carbon emission calculator for more info. Then idling is responsible for the release of 872 tons (791 metric tonnes) of CO2 into the atmosphere every month. Annually, that’s 10,470 tons (9495 metric tonnes) of CO2.

The American Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that those 10470 tons of CO2 are equivalent to:

• the annual emissions of 1,816 passenger vehicles
• the burning of 1,068,417 gallons (4,044,398 L) of gasoline
  • At the US average price of $2.86/gallon (as of April 19th), that’s over $3m USD
• the burning of 22,089 barrels of crude
• the annual emissions of 1153 houses
• the annual sequestration potential of 2025 acres (819 hectares) of pine forest

[Data comes from the EPA's greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator]

And what about your wallet?

It’s not like these hats come for free, either.

The American national power cost is, on average, 10.93 cents per kilowatt-hour (this figure is significantly higher in states like Connecticut, at 19.87¢/kWh, and California, at 15¢/kWh). At the national average, this means that TF2 players are throwing away $174.11 per hour. Now, that number is obviously quite inaccurate (can you count the assumptions I’ve made to get to that figure?) It may not even appear to be a lot. But it should still give us pause. In the course of an eight-hour night, that’s almost $1400 down the tubes. In a month, that’s $127,000. And this doesn’t even include the cost of keeping all those idle servers running–and at any given moment, there’s around 319 of them.

Miscellanea/notes on the statistics

Keep in mind that my estimate of 300 watts per computer is rather conservative, being based off my own aging computer. It’s probably lower than the actual average, which I suspect is somewhere around 400-450W. I’ve also ignored laptops for the purposes of this discussion. I obviously make a number of other assumptions of varying degrees of validity, so take these figures with a grain of salt.

Many of you will bring up the point that my assumption that all the computers are being used expressly for idling is flawed. Certainly, it’s flawed, as people often keep TF2 idling in the background while they, say, work on academic stuff/browse the web.

Even then, graphics cards consume significantly more power at full load (in-game) than rendering 2D graphics (i.e. web browsing, desktop). The difference in power consumption varies, but you can look your card up on Tom’s Hardware to get the specific numbers. On my 8600GT, the power difference is a measly 25.5W; on a top-of-the-line GTX 280, that becomes 160.7W.

And what are we idling for?

So with all that said and done, what are we idling for?

FOR PIXELS, that’s what. Hats are pixels. They are bloody pixels, and no one cares about them any more. If you have a hat, you can hardly be considered unique, as hats have become commonplace enough. No one gives a crap any more that you have 33 hats.

Clearly, the whole random drop system is a mess. But trying to pin the blame on any one party is like trying to determine whose crap smells the worst in a sewer.

I do think that idling needs to go. As it stands, it’s an enormous waste of money, and what’s more, its environmental impact cannot be ignored.

To those idlers out there, in light of these statistics, I hope that you all desist from idling further. The impact of one person idling is negligible; the impact of thousands, not so much.

Valve isn’t exactly blameless here either. First of all, the random drop system was, is, and always will be an incredibly idiotic idea. There are no two ways about it. I apologize if I’m sounding like a SPUF whiner, but the system is half-baked, broken, and downright unneeded. What’s more, Valve has even encouraged idling by releasing new hats and random-drop only weapons.

When the idling program existed, the graphics card wasn’t necessarily needed. Now, the GPU must be running to idle – and if the Tom’s Hardware statistics I linked earlier are any indicator, then this has greatly exacerbated the impact of idling.

To anyone from Valve who’s reading this: there’s an easy way out of the mess, and that is to give everyone all the weapons and all the hats. This means that TF2 can do away with the useless crafting system at last. And the best part is, it wouldn’t make TF2 any less fun.

Anyway, Happy Earth Day, everyone. We have one planet to use, protect, and enjoy. And while it’s fine to have a little fun playing TF2, it’s definitely worth being responsible about it.

It has been a good two years since I put out the call on the internet for a piece of machinima to be made. I had thought of the idea a while ago back in 2008 and was going to try to make it for the Ubercharged community when I found out that making it myself would require something weird called “actual work and talent”, since I don’t have that I decided to post an article and see if anyone on the Ubercharged community could help get that machinima onto the intertubes. Alas, the machinima had the epicness of late 2009 and we were in 2008 at the time, so the machinima never saw the light of day…until now!

That’s right! Someone else must have seen the gleaming shard of epicness wedged in the depths of fraps and gmod. Someone who had actual time and talent! So without further adieu I present to you…