Tribes Ascend Released

[WoW Killer]

This games rubbing off on me. I was just stress testing a beta for a totally different game and as I was jumping down a hill I found myself instinctively trying to ski. I was like "where's all my momentum gone?".

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

I mostly play a doombringer, the main "heavy on flag" class, and I've noticed that 99% of sentinels are terrible at mine placement. "Directly on the flag" is an awful spot, guys, srsly.

Where else do you suggest? Most pathfinders I seen only ever impact the ground around the flag and that usually gets bombed. I mostly put mine near the generator but even then they get blown up before hitting anyone. Not that it matters, I play tech now..... much more fun to hide turrets round corners

 

[Terrible Opinions]

First, if there's anything already deployed there - a doombringer mine, a tech turret, whatever - don't put a claymore right by it. Don't want people clearing two mines with one shot now, right?

With that in mind, I'll show you my basic flag defence setups...

Arx Novena:

Side-to-side routes aren't terribly common, but they can be hard for the heavy to spot, so blocking them with mines or forcefields is common. Those guys don't get me a ton of kills, but they catch a surprising number of unwary raiders and infiltrators. I like to put them a few feet shy of the far doors on each side.

Those guys are the big money. They sit on the little slanted bit of the roof, right above the Blood Eagle symbol. The front one gets destroyed a fair bit, but it still gets quite a few hits. The back one? The back one is a total boss.

Crossfire:
I hate Crossfire, and I rarely play doombringer on it. Mines on the stand can work, but they have extremely short lifespans. Something like this...

... might catch some people, but there's a good chance it'll just get blown up. Now, what you should definitely do is this:

That is the great redeeming feature of Crossfire.

Some people like to put mines behind the boxes (infiltrators like to hide there to regen) or in the doorways that lead to the generator area.

Drydock:
I also hate Drydock.

The mine on the right in the first picture is by far the best spot that I've found, but... flagstand defence on Drydock is pretty hobbled to begin with.

Katabatic:

The mine on the ramp should be up a little higher.

From the Blood Eagle perspective, the arrangement is different. But... I don't know that side of things as well.

Temple Ruins:

Doesn't get many kills, but it screws some people up.

Honestly, juggernauts wreck my face on this map most of the time.

Raindance:
The stand is so tiny there's barely any room for mines. Put them wherever you want. I recommend deploying the drop jammer either in the little room behind the flag or underneath the catwalk in the generator room.

Keep in mind that claymores are generally more visible than doombringer mines, as well.

EDIT: Oh, and Sunstar. I don't have pictures for Sunstar. Flag routes are pretty obvious, but if you have a doombringer, he should easily have that covered. It's not on the same level as Crossfire, but deploying claymores at the top of a conduit (the blue energy regen thingies) can be pretty good if you can predict which way the enemy will go once they hit the top.

EDIT2: All my images got broked. Had to re-upload.

 

[Condiments]

I loved the old tribes games back in the day, and gave this a shot. I've only played one match before I started having technical issues, but damn that was a lot of fun! This is awesome!

 

[Total LOLige]

Like I said, they're unforgiving, but have the highest potential to dominate the game due to the lack of cover and the wide open sight-lines. A lot of "competitive" Ascend groups have been toying around with limiting teams to one sentinel each because they are so good at turning pathfinders to goo, and until the "naked spawn" rule gets worked out, killing them doesn't do much (many of the spawn points in the game are fantastic sniper perches).

If you aren't a good shot, sentinels feel like useless toys. If you are a good shot? You can carry a terrible team on your own.

Captcha: "hug me". Okay, captcha. But just this once.

Also, headshots don't give damage multipliers. You can get them with non-sniper bullet weapons as well, but actual detection of "what is head, what is thing that is not head" is a little spotty. But the last thing snipers need is more damage...

I haven't had much luck hitting lights going at full speed, I can hit just about everything else though. But even when I do manage to hit a pathfinder I find 300 damage doesn't quite cut it and it takes too long to line up another shot and by then they are off. Also, why does non scope shots only do like 10 damage?

The default BXT rifle charges only while scoped. Max damage is 500, but it has fairly aggressive "fall-off" for a sniper rifle, so really long shots are capped at 300. The weapon's charge is slightly slower while on the move. At optimal range, two near-full charge shots will kill a fully upgraded pathfinder or sentinel. Ideally, the enemy flag carrier should be at half health at best if your on-flag defence is competent, making him a one-shot kill.

The alternate sniper rifle, the phase rifle, uses energy in addition to ammo. People usually ditch the drop jammer for the energy pack and use ultra capacitor (extra energy) perks. It's really hard to jetpack around, and energy recharges slower than the BXT's charge, but it can no-scope, doesn't need to be charged up before the first shot, has a higher minimum damage, and has a longer effective range. The fact that energy recharges slower than the BXT charges up really hurts you if you miss your first, full-energy shot, though.

And my claymores ALWAYS get trashed before anyone hits em.

I mostly play a doombringer, the main "heavy on flag" class, and I've noticed that 99% of sentinels are terrible at mine placement. "Directly on the flag" is an awful spot, guys, srsly.

You sir are some sort of Tribes guru genius.

It's a good game more people should know about it.

 

[NightHawk21]

snip

First let me say that's an awesome guide. 2 questions:
1) Would you place claymores in the same locations though since they are a lot larger and easier to see?
2) Can enemies walk through the force fields?

 

[Iron_will]

Can't help but answer.

snip

First let me say that's an awesome guide. 2 questions:
1) Would you place claymores in the same locations though since they are a lot larger and easier to see?
2) Can enemies walk through the force fields?

1) Yes. Though enemies might start getting more careful if you do it too much.

2) Yeah, but they will get damaged. And the damage they receive depends on how fast they were moving through it. It typically kills Paths who are going for your flag moving at 180-200 sanics.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

If there is no doombringer, by all means, use your claymores in either my landmine or my forcefield spots. If there is a doombringer, he'll probably have a lot of trouble keeping his landmines up over time (he can't really leave the stand to resupply), so 1: fill in whatever gaps he's leaving, and 2: don't steal his ammo nuggets. Just don't double up landmines or anything.

Enemies can go through forcefields, but they suffer damage based on how fast they go through it. I think it ranges from about 300 to 800 damage, so almost enough to gib an upgraded pathfinder all on its own. The forcefield does not take damage when people go through it, but it does take damage from bullets and explosives. Aside from that back forcefield on Temple and the side one on Arx, most forcefields get sniped down very quickly.

EDIT: Are my images suddenly broken? I no longer see them.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Hm. I played Hi-Rez's previous title for a solid year (Global Agenda), so Tribes: Ascend pretty much is GA on steroids and focused on the one or two successful elements. Faster jetpacks, more emphasis on team play, no more of these godawful PvE segments...

GA more or less was Hi-Rez saying "We didn't get the Tribes license, but here's our Tribes knockoff anyway". Now that they do have the license, I predict that GA's servers are going to turn into a ghost town.

 

[Carboncrown]

I've been playing since the closed beta and nothing quite compares to the "Ka-ching" you get from giving some air mail to a 200-sanic-capper.
Now I'm sad that I didn't know Tribes games existed before.

Just finished a match where my team didn't want to defend the generator, that was a shit show, the enemy had 3 people camping the generator so my team lost terribly

Protip: Fuck the generator.

3 enemies camping it? Good, now you've got a 3-person advantage on actually capturing the flag.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

I've been playing since the closed beta and nothing quite compares to the "Ka-ching" you get from giving some air mail to a 200-sanic-capper.
Now I'm sad that I didn't know Tribes games existed before.

Just finished a match where my team didn't want to defend the generator, that was a shit show, the enemy had 3 people camping the generator so my team lost terribly

Protip: Fuck the generator.

3 enemies camping it? Good, now you've got a 3-person advantage on actually capturing the flag.

Exception: Sunstar. That barnshield is amazing.

Minor exception: Arx Novena. A forcefield covering a side passage is surprisingly good on that map.

 

[NightHawk21]

I've been playing since the closed beta and nothing quite compares to the "Ka-ching" you get from giving some air mail to a 200-sanic-capper.
Now I'm sad that I didn't know Tribes games existed before.

Just finished a match where my team didn't want to defend the generator, that was a shit show, the enemy had 3 people camping the generator so my team lost terribly

Protip: Fuck the generator.

3 enemies camping it? Good, now you've got a 3-person advantage on actually capturing the flag.

Generator shouldn't be that hard to defend. I play mostly tech now in CTF and you just put the turret down in the corner, and it will at least alert you if someone is coming. Other than that I can everything repaired and people ain't coming in

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Played some of it. I really like how quick paced it is, makes capture the flag alot more interesting. However I find unlocks a bit too slow for my liking unless you spend money, though I guess that's the point. It just a pain when I can't really try a class to see if I'd like to use with without grinding xp on another class.

 

[tombman888]

I'm downloading it now. From what i've seen about it from youtube videos and such, it looks like alot of fun.

Captcha: Save yourself.......

 

[Carboncrown]

Exception: Sunstar. That barnshield is amazing.

Minor exception: Arx Novena. A forcefield covering a side passage is surprisingly good on that map.

EDIT: I done goofed. Granted, though as a soldier forcefields go down pretty effortlessly, and what you call the "barnshield", I call the thing-that-perfectly-catches-my-granades-into-a-wonderful-cabin-of-death. Of course it's just rare to see good HoF on a public game.(God knows I can't do it.)

Generator shouldn't be that hard to defend. I play mostly tech now in CTF and you just put the turret down in the corner, and it will at least alert you if someone is coming. Other than that I can everything repaired and people ain't coming in

The problem is that way too often it's not just the one tech going down there to defend, and especially when people get fixated on attacking the enemy generator.

 

[NightHawk21]

Played some of it. I really like how quick paced it is, makes capture the flag alot more interesting. However I find unlocks a bit too slow for my liking unless you spend money, though I guess that's the point. It just a pain when I can't really try a class to see if I'd like to use with without grinding xp on another class.

I think so too, but try the technician and CTF. Focus on repairing and you should get lots of xp to level up faster. I had like 3k xp after I bought the tech and I got to over 14000 in like an hour or two. And now I'm poor again cause I bought the infiltrator.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

Played some of it. I really like how quick paced it is, makes capture the flag alot more interesting. However I find unlocks a bit too slow for my liking unless you spend money, though I guess that's the point. It just a pain when I can't really try a class to see if I'd like to use with without grinding xp on another class.

I think so too, but try the technician and CTF. Focus on repairing and you should get lots of xp to level up faster. I had like 3k xp after I bought the tech and I got to over 14000 in like an hour or two. And now I'm poor again cause I bought the infiltrator.

The vast majority of EXP gains are based on time played. You get a 25% bonus for winnining, and a 25% bonus for having a high score relative to the rest of your team. There's also the 1200 EXP first win of the day bonus and the bonus EXP from the bronze/silver/gold badges.

It's really hard to balance "rewarding people for actually playing the game and not just dicking around" and "not rewarding all the good players for stacking teams", and I think the EXP system that they use is actually pretty good.

 

[NightHawk21]

Played some of it. I really like how quick paced it is, makes capture the flag alot more interesting. However I find unlocks a bit too slow for my liking unless you spend money, though I guess that's the point. It just a pain when I can't really try a class to see if I'd like to use with without grinding xp on another class.

I think so too, but try the technician and CTF. Focus on repairing and you should get lots of xp to level up faster. I had like 3k xp after I bought the tech and I got to over 14000 in like an hour or two. And now I'm poor again cause I bought the infiltrator.

The vast majority of EXP gains are based on time played. You get a 25% bonus for winnining, and a 25% bonus for having a high score relative to the rest of your team. There's also the 1200 EXP first win of the day bonus and the bonus EXP from the bronze/silver/gold badges.

It's really hard to balance "rewarding people for actually playing the game and not just dicking around" and "not rewarding all the good players for stacking teams", and I think the EXP system that they use is actually pretty good.

Ya I don't think its too bad. Its pretty fair to the point where it doesn't seem like you have to grind forever. I just wish it was a little more clear. Instead of showing just the 4 bars, they should show a chart like:
4 kills +40 xp
2x Repair +20xp
1x air mail +50 xp
2x double kill +200 xp
1x triple kill + 150 xp

Something like that. I think I've figured it out now, but there were some game yesterday when I was doing shit (like 3 kills, 4 assists, and 10 deaths) and was getting like 100-200 xp and some games where I was getting about the same and only breaking 100xp because of bonuses.

Still the tech is nice cause you get like 5-6 repair bronze medals/ fully dead structure, and there are bigger repair challenges. First game I played with the tech I got a lot of bronze and 2 of the repair challenges and made over 1200 exp.

 

[RastaBadger]

I've been playing the beta for a while now. It's good but I have 1 problem with it.
It's still not fast enough.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Played some of it. I really like how quick paced it is, makes capture the flag alot more interesting. However I find unlocks a bit too slow for my liking unless you spend money, though I guess that's the point. It just a pain when I can't really try a class to see if I'd like to use with without grinding xp on another class.

I think so too, but try the technician and CTF. Focus on repairing and you should get lots of xp to level up faster. I had like 3k xp after I bought the tech and I got to over 14000 in like an hour or two. And now I'm poor again cause I bought the infiltrator.

I've only done one or two games as a technician. I might have to give it a proper go then, takes awhile adjusting after playing mainly as a pathfinder.