How to Be a Good Tech Like Me... well... non-horrible like me.

  • Two Factor Authentication is now available on BeyondUnreal Forums. To configure it, visit your Profile and look for the "Two Step Verification" option on the left side. We can send codes via email (may be slower) or you can set up any TOTP Authenticator app on your phone (Authy, Google Authenticator, etc) to deliver codes. It is highly recommended that you configure this to keep your account safe.
Status
Not open for further replies.

W0RF

BuF Greeter, News Bagger
Apr 19, 2002
8,731
0
36
47
Columbus, OH
Visit site
I shouldn't kid myself, I still have a long way to go in this game. But there are some class-specific things I think are important to not only help yourself but your team as a whole. My own observations from gameplay which may or may not be the same as your own experiences.

1). You are not a l33t DM fragger. The Assault Rifle is a decent mid-range weapon and the shotty is awesome if you're VEERRRRY close, but generally your weapons are more defensive than aggressive. Your weapons will serve to get you out of a jam, but not much else without support from one of the other two classes, whose weapons are much better suited for taking people out. Your primary function is defense and hack support. I often find it's better for me to use cover, drive/ride in a vehicle, or bring a buddy for cover, than to try and face down somebody who's got a bead on me.

2). EMP grenades are really only effective against deployables and vehicles, and generally only on direct hits.

3). Gas grenades are for clearing out enclosed areas. I've seen people running around spamming gas everywhere, and really it's not all that effective unless you can smack them in the face with the cartridge. Some seem to think it is, but in an open area (like all of Sirocco for example) a simple dodge will take most people out of harm's way with little damage. Sometimes it will give you cover to get away from an attacker, or if you can anticipate someone's movements, you can drop it right where they are just about to go. But I like to save my grenades for clearing a room, or for emergency defending against a vehicle or squad of attackers, or for taking out multiple turrets.

4). Autoturrets track faster and fire hitscan bullets. They are generally more effective than rocket turrets, especially in open areas. Rocket turrets are best used sparingly, and only around surprise corners, or in tighter areas where you can benefit from splash damage, because in open space rockets are quite easy to dodge. Don't waste a lot of energy placing 20 slow rocket turrets when 3 or 4 auto turrets will do the job more effectively. Also be wary of placing rocket turrets somewhere where a stray shot can blow up your own deployables. Don't point them towards other deployables if it can be helped.

5). Turrets have a fairly narrow frustum, about 45 degrees in every direction, so you can avoid a turret by simply getting beside or behind it. Keep this in mind if you think a turret makes a good substitute for a human defender. For this reason, these are usually best placed against a wall or in an elevated position so you can't get behind them as easily. Another good idea is to tuck them behind rocks or in other areas where they aren't so easily seen. A turret in the open is easy to spot and take out; one not seen right away can get that extra second or two that it needs to track a target. A great example is the hackable front doors in Garden. People will hack doors and dash right in towards the node room, without pausing to notice the little turret tucked away in the corner behind the door until it shoots them in the back. A lot.

6). Forcewalls are a huge drain on energy and don't do a whole lot to stop the enemy. They may seem cool, an impenetrable force field to block out the enemy, until the other team hacks one or two of your gens. Suddenly, art node offline, supply packs offline, manned turrets offline, laser mines offline, rocket turrets offline, your whole setup goes south faster than a dog in heat and the enemy base-rapes you for the rest of the match. How fun. :tdown: Forcewalls are fairly easy to destroy, as the nodes aren't very durable, and if you take down one node, you have a breech in your wall. Don't think of walls as a way to stop the enemy, but to slow them down in certain bottlenecks so you can either ambush them, or regroup if you're on the run. Doorways and narrow passages are good places for them, especially since you can hide them behind architecture which makes them harder to destroy. Sometimes they're a good way to throw up a barrier to protect yourself for a few extra seconds to hack a gen or set up a turret or mine a doorway. Sometimes I'll wall off an open generator but I've kind of gotten away from this practice. NEVER wall off a deploy point, it's a useless waste of energy. It's a huge drain to set up all the nodes to surround the deploy, the enemy can blow up one or two nodes and take the point anyway, since they're usually in the open, and worst of all it slows down your own teammates when they spawn. If you want to protect a deploy that badly, mine it and tell all your teammates to never ever spawn there. This section is quite long but I can't stress enough how badly wallspamming can ruin your team. Like turrets, effective use depends more on strategy and placement than on quantity. In Lowlands where there are only two gens, I NEVER use walls. One gen is barely enough to get your art node running unless your team is going light on deployables (like THAT ever happens in pubs).

7). Know where your ammo supply stations are, or keep a gunner handy to replenish you. It's funny when you're trying to set up a basic defense how fast you'll run out of supplies, especially early on when you don't have your walls or rocket turrets yet.

8). Don't be afraid to micromanage your team's energy. The lower right corner of your HUD tells you how many of each deployable are in play for your team, and if they are draining energy faster than your gens can keep up, the number turns yellow, then red. If some numbnuts has 17 rocket turrets and a hedge-maze of forcewalls in your art node room, go ahead and "Use" them to pick them up. This also saves you the effort or resupplying yourself later :D If he has a rocket turret facing a boulder, pick it up. If he has a forcewall in the middle of the desert, doing nothing, pick it up. Feel free to be a miser; your deployables have to cover the whole map, and you can't put 12 turrets at every gen and deploy and surround them with forcewalls. You just can't.

9). If you play midfield and hack deploys and gens, try to leave a little present for anybody who may try to come and hack what you worked so hard to capture. Unless your turret is just in the ultimate place, it won't guarantee that your gen will never be hacked, but it will certainly slow down the enemy long enough for you to take care of business. Ultimately that is your best way to defeat your opponent, is to slow their progress so your forward units can make a capture. Without energy they can't make full use of their resources, and without deploy points they are pushed back into their own base. In the end that's a lot more effective than merely trying to make the other guys dead.

Them's my thoughts. Feel free to comment / add / flame.
 
Last edited:

Burning Fish

My brain hurts!
Dec 30, 2003
278
0
0
38
Holland
www.burningfish.nl
Good read. Makes people (like me ;)) remember that as a tech you have certain things to do. Most of the times you're still busy with fragging, it's inevitable, but keep your mind to hacking and defending instead of busting in the enemies base, trying to steal the artifact and then getting shot. But if you think you can do that, do it, the artifacts are still the first priority of the game.
 

iddQd

Yours truly
Dec 26, 2001
1,219
0
0
38
Sweden
It's quite suprising to see that so many guides are written to suport the community :) GJ \/\/ORF!

"CATA ADD" ?
 

Saito

Banned
Dec 30, 2003
1,223
0
0
Good read indeed.

One point I want to make (and you did make it to I belive) rocket turrets are abismal. Even the slow ass gunner can stand still infront of one, fire a rocket at it and dodge away from the blast. The only time they are decent is if placed on high ground to get the splash damage.

Another good idea, pick up your teams bad turrets. I play gunner or ranger mostly, and if I see a dumbly placed turret I frag it. As a tech you control the power drain, plz don't spam turrets, and if you see them pick them up for us.
 

W0RF

BuF Greeter, News Bagger
Apr 19, 2002
8,731
0
36
47
Columbus, OH
Visit site
I agree, BF. It may be good for people to keep in mind that I view the tech from a perspective of defense and support. They can just as easily go on offense and hack an enemy's base and so forth. I pointed out in another thread that I do that sometimes. But I am confident that on any team I play in (particularly in pubs) there will be no shortage of people wanting to be a ranger and do an artifact run, so I'm content to do support work and let someone else do the cap work.

If you go on offense as a tech (or really, as ANYbody), be sure someone is covering your rear. There's nothing more fun than having the enemy arts, then standing around your base, or worse still, frantically trying to dodge rockets, spamming "We need energy! We need energy! We need energy!" coz your node's offline.

:edit: Saito, a favorite habit of mine is picking up lame deployables. Plus having a stash of my own is more convenient than trying to resupply over and over again. :tup: and yes, a couple of nice dodge-moves, and you can face down a rocket turret with the alt-fire on your Assault Rifle :D
 
Last edited:

schizophrenia

[pet]cemetery
Dec 21, 2003
149
0
0
39
Albertville, Alaba,a, USA
www.p3t.org
i think gas is cheap and needs some type of fix. Techs are most played and easiest class to play as imo. Rangers need some type of boost like one hit kill on other rangers and 2 on techs and gunners with the rifle. Gunners need to have it where you can hold a key to lock on all four missle instant instead of having to keep running your cross hairs over them.

mysig.jpg
 
Last edited:

Anathema-

...because we're NOT free
Oct 19, 2003
386
0
0
\/\/0RF said:
1). You are not a l33t DM fragger. The Assault Rifle is a decent mid-range weapon and the shotty is awesome if you're VEERRRRY close, but generally your weapons are more defensive than aggressive. Your weapons will serve to get you out of a jam, but not much else without support from one of the other two classes, whose weapons are much better suited for taking people out. Your primary function is defense and hack support. I often find it's better for me to use cover, drive/ride in a vehicle, or bring a buddy for cover, than to try and face down somebody who's got a bead on me.

I couldn't disagree more. A tech's position on the field is wherever they are most comfortable. As a tech I cannot stress enough to not pigeonhole yourself into a defensive role if you don't want to be .. the tech is not the 'defensive class', it's just the tech class. If you want to be offensive you've got all the tools you need.

I also disagree about the tech's weapon set. It's the most diverse set in the game, allowing a tech to use a great weapon for nearly any situation, unlike the gunner or ranger who have a 'preferred range' or 'ideal conditions', and don't perform as well outside of those boundaries. The CAR is a great weapon to take people out with .. as is the shotgun and the grenade launcher. Just because you have to fight differently then the gunner or ranger doesn't make it inherently better or worse.


\/\/0RF said:
2). EMP grenades are really only effective against deployables and vehicles, and generally only on direct hits.

Generally I agree. The EMP grenade -is- useful against shields, but vs. a person the gas grenade is really the way to go. It should be noted that auto-turrets will often get destroyed within the EMP radius, really the only thing that takes significant damage from a non-direct hit.

\/\/0RF said:
3). Gas grenades are for clearing out enclosed areas. I've seen people running around spamming gas everywhere, and really it's not all that effective unless you can smack them in the face with the cartridge. Some seem to think it is, but in an open area (like all of Sirocco for example) a simple dodge will take most people out of harm's way with little damage. Sometimes it will give you cover to get away from an attacker, or if you can anticipate someone's movements, you can drop it right where they are just about to go. But I like to save my grenades for clearing a room, or for emergency defending against a vehicle or squad of attackers, or for taking out multiple turrets.

I wouldn't use gas vs. turrets :p .. As far as your advice it's generally good .. though you can also use gas as a means to force your opponent into a certain position; best used as an escape mechanism. Even in Sirroco a well placed gas grenade will potentially slow down any number of chasing enemies, plus it will also obstruct their view. For the most part though, saving the gas for an enclosed area (like the shotgun) is a better strategy.

\/\/0RF said:
4). Autoturrets track faster and fire hitscan bullets. They are generally more effective than rocket turrets, especially in open areas. Rocket turrets are best used sparingly, and only around surprise corners, or in tighter areas where you can benefit from splash damage, because in open space rockets are quite easy to dodge. Don't waste a lot of energy placing 20 slow rocket turrets when 3 or 4 auto turrets will do the job more effectively. Also be wary of placing rocket turrets somewhere where a stray shot can blow up your own deployables. Don't point them towards other deployables if it can be helped.

As I point out in my big-ass tech guide, the best solution to setting up turrets is 2 auto turrets for one rocket turret. The auto's do indeed track better and faster then the rocket turret, but adding in one rocket turret for that extra oomph seems best. Also, I point out that crossfire is your friend :)

\/\/0RF said:
5). Turrets have a fairly narrow frustum, about 45 degrees in every direction, so you can avoid a turret by simply getting beside or behind it. Keep this in mind if you think a turret makes a good substitute for a human defender. For this reason, these are usually best placed against a wall or in an elevated position so you can't get behind them as easily. Another good idea is to tuck them behind rocks or in other areas where they aren't so easily seen. A turret in the open is easy to spot and take out; one not seen right away can get that extra second or two that it needs to track a target. A great example is the hackable front doors in Garden. People will hack doors and dash right in towards the node room, without pausing to notice the little turret tucked away in the corner behind the door until it shoots them in the back. A lot.

Well placed turrets are always better then many sloppily placed ones, the only thing I have to say about that is again -crossfire-, instead of putting them back against a wall where they're easy targets for splash damage.

\/\/0RF said:
6). Forcewalls are a huge drain on energy and don't do a whole lot to stop the enemy. They may seem cool, an impenetrable force field to block out the enemy, until the other team hacks one or two of your gens. Suddenly, art node offline, supply packs offline, manned turrets offline, laser mines offline, rocket turrets offline, your whole setup goes south faster than a dog in heat and the enemy base-rapes you for the rest of the match. How fun. Forcewalls are fairly easy to destroy, as the nodes aren't very durable, and if you take down one node, you have a breech in your wall. Don't think of walls as a way to stop the enemy, but to slow them down in certain bottlenecks so you can either ambush them, or regroup if you're on the run. Doorways and narrow passages are good places for them, especially since you can hide them behind architecture which makes them harder to destroy. Sometimes they're a good way to throw up a barrier to protect yourself for a few extra seconds to hack a gen or set up a turret or mine a doorway. Sometimes I'll wall off an open generator but I've kind of gotten away from this practice. NEVER wall off a deploy point, it's a useless waste of energy. It's a huge drain to set up all the nodes to surround the deploy, the enemy can blow up one or two nodes and take the point anyway, since they're usually in the open, and worst of all it slows down your own teammates when they spawn. If you want to protect a deploy that badly, mine it and tell all your teammates to never ever spawn there. This section is quite long but I can't stress enough how badly wallspamming can ruin your team. Like turrets, effective use depends more on strategy and placement than on quantity. In Lowlands where there are only two gens, I NEVER use walls. One gen is barely enough to get your art node running unless your team is going light on deployables (like THAT ever happens in pubs).

Also good advice, covered in my big tech guide ;)

\/\/0RF said:
7). Know where your ammo supply stations are, or keep a gunner handy to replenish you. It's funny when you're trying to set up a basic defense how fast you'll run out of supplies, especially early on when you don't have your walls or rocket turrets yet.

Good advice to be sure.

\/\/0RF said:
8). If you play midfield and hack deploys and gens, try to leave a little present for anybody who may try to come and hack what you worked so hard to capture. Unless your turret is just in the ultimate place, it won't guarantee that your gen will never be hacked, but it will certainly slow down the enemy long enough for you to take care of business. Ultimately that is your best way to defeat your opponent, is to slow their progress so your forward units can make a capture. Without energy they can't make full use of their resources, and without deploy points they are pushed back into their own base. In the end that's a lot more effective than merely trying to make the other guys dead.

Good advice as well.
 

W0RF

BuF Greeter, News Bagger
Apr 19, 2002
8,731
0
36
47
Columbus, OH
Visit site
hey anathema - I'm sure you already know this, but EMP nades and gas nades draw from the same pool of six total grenades. That's what I mean when I say I save my grenades for taking out vehicles / turrets.

:edit: I don't see why crossfire and wall cover are mutually exclusive ideals. You can place autoturrets to cover each other without putting them in the middle of a room. I just happen to think the fact that turrets have a limited range of motion is an important consideration in placement, just like crossfire. And I don't disagree with the use of rocket turrets, only that optimal placement maximizes the potential for splash damage and minimizes the potential for blowing up your own defenses.

Can you link this bigass tech guide? The only reason I wrote this is because I wasn't aware one existed.

:edit again:
best used as an escape mechanism. Even in Sirroco a well placed gas grenade will potentially slow down any number of chasing enemies, plus it will also obstruct their view.
is equal to
Sometimes it will give you cover to get away from an attacker
 
Last edited:

Anathema-

...because we're NOT free
Oct 19, 2003
386
0
0
\/\/0RF said:
hey anathema - I'm sure you already know this, but EMP nades and gas nades draw from the same pool of six total grenades. That's what I mean when I say I save my grenades for taking out vehicles / turrets.

Yes of course I know, I interpreted what you said as advice of using EMP's vs. players. I personally also save all my grenades for vehicles and deployables, most of the time, as I find EMP's to be more useful then gas. Others may feel differently though :)

\/\/0RF said:
:edit: I don't see why crossfire and wall cover are mutually exclusive ideals. You can place autoturrets to cover each other without putting them in the middle of a room. I just happen to think the fact that turrets have a limited range of motion is an important consideration in placement, just like crossfire.

Placing them back in a dark corner gives them the additional advantage of being out of sight. Out in the open though, placing them back against a rock wall will make them easier to hit due to splash damage. If possible, I would recommend putting them a few feet away from the wall, or up higher so they can't be as easily hit. It's all situational :)

\/\/0RF said:
Can you link this bigass tech guide? The only reason I wrote this is because I wasn't aware one existed.

It can be found in the big list of them at the top, or you can [thread=123145]click here[/thread]
 

W0RF

BuF Greeter, News Bagger
Apr 19, 2002
8,731
0
36
47
Columbus, OH
Visit site
Anathema- said:
Yes of course I know, I interpreted what you said as advice of using EMP's vs. players. I personally also save all my grenades for vehicles and deployables, most of the time, as I find EMP's to be more useful then gas. Others may feel differently though :)
That's why I specifically said grenades and not gas nades.
Out in the open though, placing them back against a rock wall will make them easier to hit due to splash damage. If possible, I would recommend putting them a few feet away from the wall, or up higher so they can't be as easily hit. It's all situational :)
At what point did I say they had to be all the way flush against the wall? Also I believe I specifically mentioned elevated areas.
 

Saito

Banned
Dec 30, 2003
1,223
0
0
:edit: Saito, a favorite habit of mine is picking up lame deployables. Plus having a stash of my own is more convenient than trying to resupply over and over again. and yes, a couple of nice dodge-moves, and you can face down a rocket turret with the alt-fire on your Assault Rifle

Yep the rocket turret is suck ass, only in a few situations is it good, plus I am pretty sure the ranger can out run it just on foot with no boosts :(

think gas is cheap and needs some type of fix. Techs are most played and easiest class to play as imo. Rangers need some type of boost like one hit kill on other rangers and 2 on techs and gunners with the rifle. Gunners need to have it where you can hold a key to lock on all four missle instant instead of having to keep running your cross hairs over them.

LOL far from it.

Gas needs not to go through solid walls thats about it. Rangers are good as is they don't need anything, and giving gunners that lock on would be broken.

Techs have the easiest weapons to aim I will give you that, not requiring the twitch reflexes of the ranger, or the prediction of the gunner. However a tech can lose the game for the team easiest of all them by crappy use of power. It maybe the the least demanding on reflexes at times but its by far the hardest in terms of knowing what you have to do.
 

Tsylatac

International Seahorse Inseminator
Apr 5, 2000
263
0
16
www.planetunreal.com
\/\/0RF said:
3). Gas grenades are for clearing out enclosed areas. I've seen people running around spamming gas everywhere, and really it's not all that effective unless you can smack them in the face with the cartridge.

This bit made me giggle :lol: . Good guide :) I barely ever play as tech (only if we need to quickly get a deploy or energy source), but it seems pretty sound.


iddQd said:
It's quite suprising to see that so many guides are written to suport the community GJ \/\/ORF!

It's great, imo, that so many people are prepared to, well done worf, ravage, anathema- and everyone else for doing these :)


iddQd said:
"CATA ADD" ?

Already on it :)
 
Last edited:

spineblaZe

VFX Extraordinaire
Apr 8, 2003
2,423
0
0
44
MN
Visit site
schizophrenia said:
i think gas is cheap and needs some type of fix.[/IMG]

BOOO :p I love shooting gas into a building full of my enemies, only to watch them scramble out to be mowed down by my turrets :D



On a side note, I was in a building last night with constant gas grenades being shot in for almost a minute.... But I was sitting on a health generator with my shotgun in hand :lol: Once they thought it clear, they came in and BAM!! Shotgun to the face. I got a few "WTF's" from that one. :D
 

W0RF

BuF Greeter, News Bagger
Apr 19, 2002
8,731
0
36
47
Columbus, OH
Visit site
Spine, that's a perfect use for the gas nades :tup: :D

Gas is a decent killer but really only if the tech gets close enough to drop it right down your pants, or if you just hang around in the blast radius for a while.

And here's where gas shines as a strategic weapon: area denial. It doesn't have to kill everyone in the room if it makes them scramble. Sometimes, as in your example, that's actually a preferable outcome.
 

CiD

I'm on Offense!
Dec 28, 2003
449
0
0
schizophrenia said:
i think gas is cheap and needs some type of fix. Techs are most played and easiest class to play as imo. Rangers need some type of boost like one hit kill on other rangers and 2 on techs and gunners with the rifle. Gunners need to have it where you can hold a key to lock on all four missle instant instead of having to keep running your cross hairs over them.


if gas is cheap,then so is incendiary granades.rangers DO have 1 hit kills,on everyone,they are called headshots.and lock ons with the Rl are perfect,if all 4 locked on at the same time,the RL would be cheaper than it is in UC.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.