Oswald Rant: Tactics – A Mighty Joe Young Rant

I have been running around Fragging peep’s for a long while now. When I first started this game UrT; it was all about shooting the most and the fastest…a carryover from my Vanilla Q3 days. While this absolutely worked for me as far as frags goes, it cost me a lot of lives. I was up around 70-80 frags a game on the first UrT server I ever played on…Cowboy Carnage TDM…but my death ratio was in the 50-60 range. I was very proud of my ability to “run ‘n gun” and never thought twice about dying so much. Most of you probably remember that Q3 doesn’t have a “Kill-Death” report, it only counts frags. So this was never an issue to me at first.

As time went on and I became more familiar with the weapons and accessories, my kills went even higher; sometimes I would break 100 frags no problem and my deaths dropped noticeably. Instead of rushing around a corner where everyone was getting cut to pieces, I would try and find alternate routes to get behind where the enemy was bunched up. This of course is called: Tactics. It might seem laughable to some readers, this pointing out of something so obvious; but EVERYONE at some point in this game has stopped playing Q3 and started playing UrT…two completely different worlds, worlds in which everyone had to adjust from one to the other. Now I know that not everyone who plays UrT came from a Q3 background, but I believe most of us have. For those of you who came from a Half-Life/CS background…I apologize for pointing this out. For the rest of us though this game meant growing pains in the worst way. And those growing pains became birthing pains when UrT finished gestation and 2.5 was born. My, my. After all that hard work to learn a new game and dominating the 2.3 section, and the nearly aborted 2.4 version, here comes 2.5…

This version that we know and love has caused more Internet forums abuse and keyboard wreckage then we can guess. Enemies became friends, lovers became enemies, Whole IRC servers have crashed because of the unbearable stress placed on their drives resulting from this version and the attention it has been given. Well, we ALL know about that whole thing so we wont go any further with it here. What we did have to do was relearn tactics and aiming and concentration all over again. My “Kill-death” Ratio has dropped way down with the adjustments I had to make, and I’m sure most of you out there had to go through the same process. These days I’m humming along at about 50-15 if I’m on a good stable server and a lot less if I’m getting zinged because of lag. Tends to make you keep your head down more:)

I decided to write this particular piece because I see a lot of peeps on the pub’s make simple mistakes over and over again, and not really working together as a team. It really isn’t much fun to play on a server if peep’s are sniping (verbally) at each other because of bad teamwork…or Tk’s…whole nother can ‘o worms. I am by no means an expert, I never spent time in an Elite Military unit. I do however, tend to lead by example on the battlefield, I always medic when called for, I ignore the “bad-apples” and generally am at the top of the team list when the smoke clears and the fraglimit is hit. These are the reasons I believe I am qualified to speak on tactics to some extant. Of course; any and all of you will be given my e-mail addy at the end of this column; just like always, so you may vociferously and categorically deny the fact that I have a tactical bone in my body:)

I thought that we could go through one of my favorite maps and talk “Tactics” a little bit. This particular map is ut_casa and was created by Sweetnutz. This happens to be one of my all time favorite maps and that is the reason we will be going through it. Now I really don’t know Sweetnutz that well, he sent me an E-mail on my last column and took me apart pretty thoroughly, which is fine with me. Everyone gets the chance to tell me what they think; but he had some valid points, and he made one hell of a map, so I guess he’s all right:)

For the screen shots I have taken here and used for examples I must thank all those who helped me on IRC figure out what the heck the difference was between a JPEG and a TGA file, whew. Also I would like to point out that these were taken on my private server using bots on “I can win” level, and that this was done so I could get more Screenies and less dying:)

To begin with we have our respective spawns, There are some maps that rarely change spawns and this is one of them, usually blue spawns in “Old Alley” and on occasion: “Patio Courtyard”. Red always spawns in “New Alley” albeit in two different locations as well.

[Left]: One of two red spawn areas. [Right]: Looking down on a (rare) Blue Spawn.

One of the first things peeps tend to forget when they spawn in the Red area is to look towards the left down New Alley and once more as they enter towards the fountain courtyard. Most of the time (unless they just got pasted from the right) they will tend to look straight ahead towards the entrance to the patio courtyard with a cursory glance towards their right checking for enemy egress from the main square alley as they whip a hard left and race up the stairs. This affords a great opportunity for blue snipers to open up from the marketplace stairwell facing up new alley, and again from multiple spots in the fountain courtyard, i.e. behind the park benches, behind the storm cellar doorway, behind the trellis work on walkway leading towards the marketplace. In short, this is one area where blue has quite a bit of advantage if they can get set up before red has a chance to mobilize. This is where teamwork is a must for TS and a strong player could help his teammates on TDM. The best way to handle this kind of an attack is to team chat as many peeps as will agree to go with you as you can. One peep HAS to have a flash grenade. Line up next to the corner of the wall facing into the fountain courtyard, you as the team leader should say GO! The flash nader should run around you into the open and let fly while immediately taking refuge from the flash behind the elevated brick terrace shown above. He in turn should say go when he is positive his nade went off (nothing like walking into your own flash-nade) the remainder of the team should rush out and let fly with HE nades as they come, some breaking right and some breaking left immediately seeking cover if no enemies in one piece to tell them different:). If your by yourself in this then I would suggest running around the gauntlet: Through the marketplace and the hallway into the patio courtyard taking them from the rear.

This is where teamwork is a must for TS and a strong player could help his teammates on TDM. The best way to handle this kind of an attack is to team chat as many peeps as will agree to go with you as you can. One peep HAS to have a flash grenade.Line up next to the corner of the wall facing into the fountain courtyard, you as the team leader should say GO! The flash nader should run around you into the open and let fly while immediately taking refuge from the flash behind the elevated brick terrace shown above. He in turn should say, go when he is positive his nade went off (nothing like walking into your own flash-nade) the remainder of the team should rush out and let fly with HE nades as they come, some breaking right and some breaking left immediately seeking cover if no enemies in one piece to tell them different:). If your by yourself in this then I would suggest running around the gauntlet: Through the marketplace and the hallway into the patio courtyard taking them from the rear.

One of two red spawn areas. Looking down on a (rare) Blue Spawn.
[Left]: Some great areas for Red to sit tight and let the smurfs pay dearly for their incursions into the Red’s Turf! [Right]: This is also a great perch for an SR-8 sniper wars.

Of course the possibilities are endless but the main thing I always look for is the easiest route to get BEHIND the enemy and then let them have it:). However, sometimes they are just coming through in waves and you cant seem to get anywhere without being destroyed for every kill you make…a 1 for 1 trade-off isn’t going to put you in front of the pack when the timelimit or the fraglimit is hit. When this happens, the best thing to do is hunt for cover and let them come to you.

Sometimes finding the right sniping position is about the only way to do it. I do recommend that you move to an alternate site as soon as you finish off a team that comes your way, for instance…you can look at the frames above and get an idea, frag four or five smurfs and then jump down behind the dates and figs, they will be looking for you everywhere but because of the position of the canopy at the end of the row; wont be able to see you until they come out into the open on your left or jump over the wall and move to your right…you will see them long before they see you in most cases. Once you have these covered you might want to think about starting a little recon one-shot-one-kill operation. This area where my M-4 is pointing is great for taking out a bunch of blue coming from all directions of their spawn, if they run up top, simply lob a grenade overhead with instant arm, they wont even know where it came from:) If they come from your left…mow them down.

If they come this way…well…you know 🙂

The great part of being Red is the general havoc you can create when you split into small groups and go try and get them as close to their starting point as possible. Or you can go solo, and really piss them off when you get into their area and start bushwhacking them. if you are into sniping there is usually plenty of that on this map as well. This map has a tendency to start attracting flying steel in one area of the map or another. After the first few minutes peeps usually start focusing on the mayhem and big pink clouds that used to be teammates, leaving other access points and routes virtually unused. This is the best time to get in behind the enemy, while he’s busy cutting your teammates to ribbons in Alley Timbers, you can sneak up the Main Square Alley, turn right onto the Old Alley and another Right into theAlley Timbers and waste three, four or more peeps (who have your team pinned down), from behind! The only drawback to this of course; is that you have to haul major ass to get past the blue spawn to your left in case they are spawning and cut your sneak attack short:).This will work great for about five, maybe ten minutes tops…but after awhile even the “noobiest” llama in UrT land is gonna get sick of being pasted and start looking for those alternate routes we were just talking about. Then it’s all about connection and who is the quickest draw on the block because you are going to find peeps around every corner.

One area that I try to avoid as much as possible when I’m flying solo is the Narrow Side Hallway entrance to the patio courtyard, Some peeps swear by this approach and if it works for you then go for it. But remember that particular door way is an easy killing field for any smurfs guarding both that door and the alcove entrance door from the fountain courtyard. They can sit up on top of the patio balcony in the patio courtyard and have their way with your poor little body. I generally like to come up the Main Square Alley at full speed and make a hard left, jumping through the broken wall next to the bridge. This enables me to come up under any possible sniper and lob an HE as I rush them. Again…this depends quite a bit on where their spawn is and if they are busy getting slaughtered in Alley Timbers, enabling me to slip through.

One more quick note on Tactics and I’m going to bed. I see a lot of peeps get pasted when they are ambushed by two peeps, often they barely hit either of the two wankers and die instantly. I wanted to fig out a good way to take one with me and realized it’s a simple matter really…only shoot at one peep at a time! So many times now I can kill one of my assailants and very often both…if I focus on one at a time! Most peeps see two guys coming at them and try and take them both out by spraying first one and then the other and then the first guy again! That is when they see the respawn counter on the bottom of their screen, while watching these two guys slap a band aid on each other and calmly relieve your corpse of it’s weapons before continuing on with some ass kicking.

Always, always, always, always….Take out first one guy…and then the other. This eliminates one set of rounds pouring into your feebly fleshed but well armored body and hopefully the other guy cant shoot a lick and you turn and drop him, when his partner is ant food.

Well that does it for me for now, Maybe I will and Maybe I wont write an answering piece for the smurfs to see what its like to do battle from that side of the map. Maybe I’ll retire from writing these columns, Maybe I’ll win the lottery.

Maybe Oswald will come fly me away from all this, maybe I will get some frigging nookie from my hubby tonight. Lot’s o’ variables. We’ll see:) love writing for the community, and about the community. So as long as I still get good responses ( and bad ) in my E-mail box then I guess I’ll continue with this fun stuff:)

Note to Gold Reaver: try not to get banned from ETG as we wont be able to see you anywhere anymore:)

Quote of the week: “Somebody should have warned the Trojans: Beware of gifts bearing Greeks !”

As always, respond to this however you like in my E-mail, just go easy on the language as I wont tolerate foul mail.

If you expect a response please request one, I generally don’t respond to all the E-mails, just a few that I feel need my attention. And lastly, when responding to my columns, as always….”Have a take, don’t suck !” Opal3399@cox.net mjy_vivian@hotmail.com

Peace ………………………………….MightyJoeYoung aka Vivify]BaR[ aka Vivian:)