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
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.
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
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:
. Good guide 