Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

If you're lucky, yes, you can have competent teammates...

AS for mines, again, they have a very massive cost (75,000 xp, with me earning about ~3500-5000 a day depending on how lucky I've been to be on teams with competent players), so that can't really be counted. At the moment I'm stuck with the frag grenade.

It's the same problem I'm having in saving up for the thumper for the sentinel class. 100,000 xp is just... bluuuh x.x

First bundle package of weapons is released, for the infiltrator.

Replacing the primary weapon is a sticky bomb launcher, like the raider's normal weapon if you could detonate it remotely.

Replacing the secondary weapon are explosive throwing knives, which do excellent damage on a direct hit but also do some splash damage.

Replacing the grenade is smoke grenade, which instantly stealths you and keeps you protected from destealthing (unless you fire a weapon) for two seconds. So you can fire a weapon, drop smoke, then run away, for example.

And then tehre's two skins, Mercenary (sleeveless) and Assassin (hood and cloak with gas mask).

I remember having some good times with Starsiege: Tribes and to an extent Tribes 2 'back in the day', so I was pretty excited to see this hit open beta.

It seems faster and more open than other Tribes games, and the psuedo RPG elements rather than the weight and armor class -based restrictions are...interesting.

Overall, it seems like a surprisingly fun package(and the music is pretty damned high-quality, in my opinion).

Actually going to re-download this and give it another go.

Was reading the wiki and I really felt I didn't give it enough of a chance.

Will try it out more tonight after its done downloading, and will likely buy something for the XP boost if I like it.

The music is pretty epic, especially after you grab the flag.

As an aside, really like the new knives.

They are laser knives which explode.

That is all.

Melissia wrote:I'd say that it heavily favors pathfinders who nkow how to stay close to the ground on a team who knows how to shut down the enemy's generator and KEEP it shut down.

No generator = easy skicaps, staying lowto the ground = no saber lockons.

Doombringers cannot effectively stop a skicap without the generator either...

They just need to block, the generator isn't terribly important to any pathfinder who knows where the turrets are. As a pathfinder I think I've been killed by a turret once, after running into someone in midair while facing the other way.

And blocking, plus forcing evasion with the chaingun, is where the sabre comes in. The carrier/possible capper is forced to use his jetpack and risk a lock, or bleed momentum and likely get taken down by defending lights or mediums.

Honestly, in this version of Tribes the generators aren't that important. The turrets track better, but still not especially well, and you spawn with your chosen equipment (in previous games you started with a default weapon set, and switched "classes" at an inv). The only thing they connect to of real importance is the sensor tower, and that can taken down fairly easily on its own.

I kill pathfinders with my turrets all the time, same with killing pathfinders with walls.

Mind you I'm talking about tec light turrets and dbr force field walls.

Melissia wrote:I kill pathfinders with my turrets all the time, same with killing pathfinders with walls.

Mind you I'm talking about tec light turrets and dbr force field walls.

The tech turrets are a pan, or rather, actually useful compared to the old deployables which only worked in very specific situations.

I was talking about the base turrets, but then I usually play mid, so I don't cap much. Its actually been a bit difficult for me to get used to the smaller maps, back in the day mids were always useful, now in some maps the bases are so close that they serve no purpose.

I do love playing Doombringer with the Heavy Bolt Thrower. I haven't seen anybody else using it, strangely enough.

I really like what they did with the Infiltrator, and hope they continue with that. Those knives are a pain in the ass and the skins look absolutely wicked.

I've rarely see anyone use anything but bolt throwers TBH., for pathfinders and doombringers.

But that's not at all a surprise given how powerful those weapons are.

Same with engineer thumpers. TBH engineers are probably the strongest class right now, rivaled by pathfinders..

As a tech, i've found the best way to setup turrets aren't at the flag, it is where I think the pathfinder will ramp up his next hill (so for the map with the two floating ships, I put one off to the right next to that little hill and one on the hill out front usually)

then when i'm not thumping attackers or repairing turrets, I'll relocate them randomly.

Base turrets aren't super deadly, but they do help thin the enemy out, if there are no attackers and gens are up, might as well repair them.

God, I really hate the infiltrator craze right now. Not enough technicians and I'm often times the only Doombringer on my team.

About 9k XP away from finishing upgrading my Doombringer to completion, then on to my Raider.

Karon wrote:God, I really hate the infiltrator craze right now.

I love it. Nothing like dueling someone that thinks his invisibility matters.

I just found about this game and it's pretty fun. Zooming around as pathfinder in that snow map is just awesome.

I was wondering where should I spent 250 gold (I got them from that facebook like thing)? So far I have unlocked engineer and sentinel (I accidentally unlocked sentinel when I though it was engineer) and couple upgrades for other classes. I was wondering if thruster was any good? Can you do like super tight turns with it?

Unlocked the Technician and upgraded him to deploying two turrets.

I enjoy this.

I do not, however, enjoy multiple infiltrators with jackals on the enemy team camping our generator whilst my team ignores them.

I am finding the slow gain of exp gain really annoying. Especialy when the weapons are 100,000exp each.
I really want the Stealth Spinfusor, but it is too expensive to earn the exp for. Seems I will be sticking with the Rhino SMG.

Playing sentinel is certainly...interesting. A weapon like a sniper rifle is a challenge when the zoom level is so small and targets are fast-moving and far away.

'The point'(rather, the playing style that others would want you to play) would of course be to stay mobile and snipe at 'moderate' ranges, but the advantages of your weapon(effective range, accuracy) largely become irrelevant when someone spinfusors you from behind.

I've definitely gotten some good shots off and am not *too* terrible as a sentinel, but " it ain't easy".

EDIT: apparently you can change zoom levels, though

Ronin-Sage wrote:Playing sentinel is certainly...interesting. A weapon like a sniper rifle is a challenge when the zoom level is so small and targets are fast-moving and far away.

'The point'(rather, the playing style that others would want you to play) would of course be to stay mobile and snipe at 'moderate' ranges, but the advantages of your weapon(effective range, accuracy) largely become irrelevant when someone spinfusors you from behind.

I've definitely gotten some good shots off and am not *too* terrible as a sentinel, but " it ain't easy".

EDIT: apparently you can change zoom levels, though

The "way" to play sent is two fold

1. remove/wound enemies that are on their way to grab your flag, or finish them off afterwards
2. destroy outdoor baby turrets, shields, ect.


I generally go midfield, and look BACK at my base, it isn't uncommon to have an enemy heading straight towards or straight away from me, which is easy pickings

illuknisaa wrote:I just found about this game and it's pretty fun. Zooming around as pathfinder in that snow map is just awesome.

Katabatic was always one of my favorites, though I'm disappointed they haven't remade Broadside 2. Crossfire is close though.

Indeed, the sentinel isn't exactly what most people who aren't used to tribes (like myself) imagine it to be. Its not a super sweet 1-shot kill everything marksman. Its an operative with a bunch of gadgets with a half-assed "sniper-rifle".

Drop Jammers are probably the best item on the Sentinel has - incredibly useful on certain maps when you place it around the generator.

CTF is certainly more straight-forward(IMO) for sentinel play. Discovering the fact that you can actually zoom in further(doh!) has really helped.

Karon wrote:Indeed, the sentinel isn't exactly what most people who aren't used to tribes (like myself) imagine it to be. Its not a super sweet 1-shot kill everything marksman. Its an operative with a bunch of gadgets with a half-assed "sniper-rifle".

Drop Jammers are probably the best item on the Sentinel has - incredibly useful on certain maps when you place it around the generator.

More than any class (well, weapon combination), the Sentinel has suffered from the smaller maps. Now, if you want to do well with the class, you need to be able to snipe while moving, or be willing to sit on top of your base.

Well the game is reportedly balanced around CTF entirely - the other modes aren't really taken into account when it comes to balance.

You can't balance a game around multiple modes, and I'd rather they focus on CTF since it is clearly the most fleshed out and best.

Karon wrote:Well the game is reportedly balanced around CTF entirely - the other modes aren't really taken into account when it comes to balance.

Which makes sense, as that's how the prior games were designed.

I do wish they would add a dueling mode, though.

dogma wrote:[I love it. Nothing like dueling someone that thinks his invisibility matters.

A good infiltrator would use his jackal or spinfusor to knock you around and then, if he had to use his invisibility, hide behind a hill first to disguise his initial movement and give some time for his energy to regenerate, and then use his invisibility to get away, not to continue attacking unless you're a flag carrier. Let the soldiers, raiders, and brutes duke it out, the infiltrator has a more valuable tool-- disruption.

Honestly, most inf players suck. Heh, I played spy on tf2 for a while, so I have practice with this kind of class and frankly Inf is stronger than spy anyway (especially with the jackal and sticky bombs, so much explosive power at once).

Karon wrote:Not enough technicians and I'm often times the only Doombringer on my team.

I wish I was on those games, because I run in to games where half the enemy team is tec and/or doombringer. When you see six turrets on the enemy generator and then six more on the enemy base, and then three doombringers on the point, you know the true meaning of defense.

And when you take hte flag anyway, you know the true meaning of being awesome =D Infiltrators are actually quite good at flag taking when done right, as you can use invisibility to mask your approach as long as you're going 170 or below. Sure it's not a speedcap, but sometimes that's all you need.. And the Jackal is great to use against chasers, although taht might just be because I'm not good with the SMG.

dogma wrote:

Karon wrote:Well the game is reportedly balanced around CTF entirely - the other modes aren't really taken into account when it comes to balance.

Which makes sense, as that's how the prior games were designed.

I do wish they would add a dueling mode, though.

I wish they would add a king of the hill mode, or some other capture point mode. Or at least another variation on CTF.

Though I will admit this is quite possibly the only FPS game that has done CTF right in the past five years.

Melissia wrote:A good infiltrator would use his jackal or spinfusor to knock you around and then, if he had to use his invisibility, hide behind a hill first to disguise his initial movement and give some time for his energy to regenerate, and then use his invisibility to get away, not to continue attacking unless you're a flag carrier. Let the soldiers, raiders, and brutes duke it out, the infiltrator has a more valuable tool-- disruption.

Honestly, most inf players suck. Heh, I played spy on tf2 for a while, so I have practice with this kind of class and frankly Inf is stronger than spy anyway (especially with the jackal and sticky bombs, so much explosive power at once).

That only works if they get the drop on their target, which usually doesn't happen outside, at least not against other lights and mediums. Throw in the fact that outside its relatively easy to predict where someone is going to move, either to get out of LOS, or due to the slope of terrain, and its pretty easy to pick off infiltrators even when they're cloaked.

It also helps that they aren't completely invisible when cloaked.

That being said, I'm one of the only people that plays something close to a dedicated mid from T2, largely because the small map size makes it difficult to get a good rhythm going. Because of this I tend to come from angles that most Infiltrators don't expect to see the enemy coming from, like their base, so I almost always see them before they see me.

If I could bring myself to play Soldier, I would do even better.

dogma wrote:That only works if they get the drop on their target, which usually doesn't happen outside, at least not against other lights and mediums.

Actually I find heavies are the bigger problem. The jackal does enough damage to kill most lights and scare off most mediums. I'll be surprised if they don't nerf the jackal against players (not against buildings/tanks, where it's perfectly fine), because it really does do a bit too much damage compared to the SMG and spinfusor and is more versatile than either to boot. Tecs often get kiled instantly, and certainly inf/pth/sen do.

Mind you, I got a huge run of kill streaks today, including several relentless ones.

dogma wrote:Throw in the fact that outside its relatively easy to predict where someone is going to move, either to get out of LOS, or due to the slope of terrain, and its pretty easy to pick off infiltrators even when they're cloaked.

That's why you move unpredictably, turning off ski mode and moving to the side or even back up the hill instead of going along a predictable path.

And in fact the predictable path is exactly why the jackal is so powerful. I've killed more than my fair share of chasers because they moved so predictably (I prefer weaving about if I have the flag and am not going sanic fast). Players who are used to tribes have a bit of a disadvantage against the remote detonated sticky bombs, whereas I'm used to dealing with them from playing TF2 all the time (which is also where I learned my invisible movement patterns).

Infiltrator is worlds more powerful than spy ever was, of course, although I'd still argue that thumper engineer is better than infiltrator, and impact noobtron / bolt launcher pathfinder is a close second to thumper engineer.

dogma wrote:That being said, I'm one of the only people that plays something close to a dedicated mid from T2,

I admit, I started ignoring your post at this point. I don't care about T2, and the more vets rant about it, the less I care. After hearing several rants about how "T2 was better ascend's maps suck everything was better back then they were the good old days blahblahblah" I'm really tired of hearing about the fantasies of tribes veterans misremembering their old game.

Melissia wrote:That's why you move unpredictably, turning off ski mode and moving to the side or even back up the hill instead of going along a predictable path.

From any given point there are basically two paths of travel: the one favoring speed, and the one favoring what I'll call tactics (basically, not speed). The problem Infs face is that as a mid I can disc the first, hit the second with a nitron, and then swap to my assault rifle to fill in the small areas not hit by the initial blast. Any hits generally can be followed up by more assault rifle fire, or another disc.

Melissia wrote:
Infiltrator is worlds more powerful than spy ever was, of course, although I'd still argue that thumper engineer is better than infiltrator, and impact noobtron / bolt launcher pathfinder is a close second to thumper engineer.

Definitely more powerful than the spy, sure. Spies were easy kills for me as a sniper after I got Jarate.

I've had good success with all disc/e-pack classes. So, Pathfinder, Soldier, Brute. Granted, The disc hasn't changed much since T2 (bar damage and blast radius), so that favors me as a guy that lost years of his life to T2.

Melissia wrote:
I admit, I started ignoring your post at this point. I don't care about T2, and the more vets rant about it, the less I care.

I'm not really ranting, Ascend is good, its just different. I've heard the noise about people saying Ascend sucks because it isn't T2, and its stupid. I think it has some balance issues, primarily in the sense that I would like the damage gap between light and medium to disappear, or see lights gain some additional foot speed, but the whole "ARGH! Its not T2!" Shtick is stupid. T2 had problems too. For example, heavies were useless.

dogma wrote:The problem Infs face is that as a mid I can disc the first, hit the second with a nitron, and then swap to my assault rifle to fill in the small areas not hit by the initial blast. Any hits generally can be followed up by more assault rifle fire, or another disc.

That's not really a problem I've had, tbh. Pathfinders only tend to get me with bolt launchers or not at all (mostly because the damage and AoE on the bolt launcher is ludicrously high, better than anything the soldier can bring even), or if I'm carrying the flag and almost dead and they impact noobtron me.

dogma wrote:I've had good success with all disc/e-pack classes. So, Pathfinder, Soldier, Brute. Granted, The disc hasn't changed much since T2 (bar damage and blast radius), so that favors me as a guy that lost years of his life to T2.

I've had a huge amount of success as infiltrator, especially after the jackal was released. Which is why I'm thinking they'll nerf it, but at the same time they still haven't nerfed the bolt launcher and I think they actually buffed the tec's thumper, so who knows.

dogma wrote:I'm not really ranting, Ascend is good, its just different. I've heard the noise about people saying Ascend sucks because it isn't T2, and its stupid. I think it has some balance issues, primarily in the sense that I would like the damage gap between light and medium to disappear

You mean the one where lights do more damage than mediums? That'd be nice for that to disappear. I might actually use mediums.

I mean I do more damage than a grenade launcher using raider as infiltrator, easily more. And as far as player vs player combat goes, pathfinders are probably generally better than that.

Though add in their two turrets and the thumper and tecs are still stronger than either.

dogma wrote:or see lights gain some additional foot speed

It's part of the armor upgrade system, but admittedly it's still not very fast.

Melissia wrote:I've had a huge amount of success as infiltrator, especially after the jackal was released. Which is why I'm thinking they'll nerf it, but at the same time they still haven't nerfed the bolt launcher and I think they actually buffed the tec's thumper, so who knows.

I doubt they'll truly nerf the bolt launcher, they might reduce its blast radius, but that's it. It sits, roughly, where the plasma gun used to sit in the weapon scheme (slightly tricky to use, but very rewarding), and that worked well.

Melissia wrote:
You mean the one where lights do more damage than mediums? That'd be nice for that to disappear. I might actually use mediums.

I mean I do more damage than a grenade launcher using raider as infiltrator, easily more.

Its selective. For example, I would get rid of the light disc launcher and just give Paths the standard disc (or, as said before, make Paths faster on foot). I would also make the disc the standard weapon for the Soldier.

I haven't used the Jackal yet, as I don't like Inf, but I'm sure what you're saying is true. I haven't run into it because, as I said, I float around mid.

Melissia wrote:
It's part of the armor upgrade system, but admittedly it's still not very fast.

Yeah, I also dislike the armor upgrades (I dislike all survivability upgrades). Weapons and perks I'm fine with, though certain choices regarding options I question (all default classes should have a disc launcher right away).