Game winning strategies

Alright guys, time to share. What are the most effective ctf game winning strategies for tribes 2, and why? Include number of players required, loadouts, vehicles, individual roles and possible counter strategies. One of the reasons I love Tribes 2 so much is because it's like a super evolved game of rock/paper/scissors.
«13

Comments

  • The thing that made tribes tribes is the fact that there was no "i win" strategy. You could come into a game with one, but as the enemy responded you had to change it on the fly. Generally speaking from my time in competition we came into a map with 3 different gameplans depending on how we expected the other team to respond and at times just went with the flow.
  • Yeah Wilcard is right. If you come into a gsme with a strategy then you lose. I think Tribes depends on teamwork...hence the name Tribes. Good communications on the fly is the key as are skills.
    Zamo
  • Yeah, coming into a populated game with a strategy never works out the way you want it to. I have seen some good teams with guys who would go in and bomb/distract all the good shrikers looking for easy points and then a good flag carrier would swoop down and grab the flag (the flag has to be open, of course).
  • One strategy that NEVER fails is continuous base rape. Get a good jug into the bottom of there base like in Kata and easy caps.
  • One strategy that NEVER fails is continuous base rape. Get a good jug into the bottom of there base like in Kata and easy caps.

    May as well say the best strategy to win is to grab their flag and cap it....You aren't talking about a strategy...Base raping is part of the game its HOW it gets done that is part of a strategy.
  • One strategy that NEVER fails is continuous base rape. Get a good jug into the bottom of there base like in Kata and easy caps.

    May as well say the best strategy to win is to grab their flag and cap it....You aren't talking about a strategy...Base raping is part of the game its HOW it gets done that is part of a strategy.

    I agree, the strategy is indeed the how and not the what. Analogous to the contrary, going to work is arriving there on time rather than the route you took to get there. Wildcard, thank you for getting our participants back on track. Please keep this in mind when detailing the strategies that you all have found to work. :)
  • To be honest talking about strategy is kinda silly you will NEVER get coordination on a pub...its the nature of pubbing. Though if you want a simple 12 man opening strat that can be used on most map:

    2 cappers
    2 ho
    1 hof
    1 deployer
    2 lof
    2 mid(escorts carrier or retreives flag)
    1 shriker
    1 swing player

    Though you can't get more complex then that without knowing a map and what you will be facing. I will say though most people underestimate the role of the deployer in winning a map. A good/smart deployer can certainly make a HUGE difference.
  • To be honest talking about strategy is kinda silly you will NEVER get coordination on a pub...its the nature of pubbing. Though if you want a simple 12 man opening strat that can be used on most map:

    2 cappers
    2 ho
    1 hof
    1 deployer
    2 lof
    2 mid(escorts carrier or retreives flag)
    1 shriker
    1 swing player

    Though you can't get more complex then that without knowing a map and what you will be facing. I will say though most people underestimate the role of the deployer in winning a map. A good/smart deployer can certainly make a HUGE difference.

    Why no bomber bro? I have found them to be a major suppressive factor.
  • 2 cappers
    2 ho
    1 hof
    1 deployer
    2 lof
    2 mid(escorts carrier or retreives flag)
    1 shriker
    1 swing player

    12 shrikers
  • Because a bomber requires a minimum of two players on your team to participate. If you want your bomber to stay in the air for more than 1 run, you'll also need a third person. Three people on your team in a bomber is absolutely NOTHING compared to three people all in heavy armor shooting mortars. Hell, even if you assume the other team can't take out your bomber and only use a 2 man bomber, you'd still be doing WAY more damage if they were both in heavy shooting mortars.

    This is of course assuming they aren't absolutely terrible players in heavy armor, but if you're talking about game winning strategies, it's best to assume that.
  • Because abstract the sad fact of the matter is vehicles were pretty much phased out with classic. You are lucky 1 shriker is listed up there...and even then their usefulness is limited compared to base. Sure sure vehicles are still fun to play with but in a competitive setting it wouldn't really work.

    Its really one of the reasons I quit the game...classic in my eyes was a huge step back for the tribes series. Base opened up so many gameplay options and then classic shut the door on most of it. Saddest part in my eyes was the shrike being reduced to ramming duty....its capable of SO much more, but the changes in classic make it so only a VERY few could do it.

    I could go on and on about this subject but I'll stop now before i bore ya.

    and to dudebot...I wish(ignoring the 4 shrike per team rule), but thats what we have aerial dogfight for. Now if someone would just get a server of it up.
  • I'm working on it. But my server guy seems to be taking a long time for it. Either he's really got a lot to do or just doesn't like me. :\
  • Cool Cool. Did I mention I lub ya kryand?
  • Because a bomber requires a minimum of two players on your team to participate. If you want your bomber to stay in the air for more than 1 run, you'll also need a third person. Three people on your team in a bomber is absolutely NOTHING compared to three people all in heavy armor shooting mortars. Hell, even if you assume the other team can't take out your bomber and only use a 2 man bomber, you'd still be doing WAY more damage if they were both in heavy shooting mortars.

    This is of course assuming they aren't absolutely terrible players in heavy armor, but if you're talking about game winning strategies, it's best to assume that.

    According to a random weapon stat sheet that I picked up on a random website somewhere that I can't remember:

    The bomber bombs do 3,300 hit points to all types of armor, ammunition is unlimited, .84 seconds to reload, and does 1,100 damage to base assets, 30 meter blast radius, is more difficult to stop than a mortar chucking heavy(but I would say on par against 3), and don't forget that the tail gunner can in fact be firing mortar with each approach.

    The fusion mortar on the other hand does 1,300 damage to scout, 1,000 damage to assault, and 700 damage to heavy, is less accurate, takes 2.8 seconds to reload, and has a 19 meter blast radius.

    Based on these statistics, the bomber bombs have a clear advantage over the fusion mortar. Even if we multiply the mortar's stats by 3 in damage, divide by 3 in reload time and multiply by 3 in everything else, superiority is still unquestionably awarded to the bomber, when the tailgunner's arsenal is taken into consideration. I do question the credibility of these stats, however.

    Another way to look at this is... a bomber can take out 3 heavies with 3 bombs, but 3 heavies may not necessarily be able to destroy 1 bomber when piloted correctly and when accompanied by a tailgunner who knows what he's doing.

    From a practical stand point, I do agree that 3 heavies is a lot to give up in a 12 man initial strategy, but in 16 on 16 and up, the bomber may be valuable enough to make such a sacrifice.
  • Because abstract the sad fact of the matter is vehicles were pretty much phased out with classic. You are lucky 1 shriker is listed up there...and even then their usefulness is limited compared to base. Sure sure vehicles are still fun to play with but in a competitive setting it wouldn't really work.

    Its really one of the reasons I quit the game...classic in my eyes was a huge step back for the tribes series. Base opened up so many gameplay options and then classic shut the door on most of it. Saddest part in my eyes was the shrike being reduced to ramming duty....its capable of SO much more, but the changes in classic make it so only a VERY few could do it.

    I could go on and on about this subject but I'll stop now before i bore ya.

    and to dudebot...I wish(ignoring the 4 shrike per team rule), but thats what we have aerial dogfight for. Now if someone would just get a server of it up.

    You're not boring me at all bro. I will take your word for the effectiveness of vehicles in classic, as I have never played a competition, and so have no experience of and have never witnessed the effectiveness of vehicles beyond their use in a pickup game.
  • edited January 2009
    Here is a quick strategy that works on an individual level: when refilling your life bar on the inventory station, quickly press q repeatedly. Pressing q uses your health pack, refilling a small portion of your life in tandem with the inventory station gradually filling it as well. After you use your health pack the inv station will instantly give you another one allowing you to use it again and again until your life is full. This is great when there is someone waiting to get into the inventory station that you're using.

    p.s. sorry about the triple post, major bad, i know.
  • What you are missing in your views about the bomber is with that 1 shrike in the air the chances of those 3 men getting there and doing damage are slim. If they do get there they are not making more then 1 pass. The damage that can be done with a bomber on one pass is extremely limited. Granted it does good damage, but as kryand points out those 3 people could be mort spamming the base and destroying EVERYTHING outside in that one life.

    Lets look at it in a real situation. A single run. 1 bomber with 3 people in it and a heavy in tail dropping morts. And also 3 heavies doing their thing:

    The bomber would coming in assuming there are no shrikes until he gets to their base. He drops his bombs in a line. Everyone on the ground shoots missiles and the tailgunner counters with flares. They get past the base and the tailgunner shoots a mortar(inaccurately I might add its hard to fire from a moving vehicle like that), but has to switch to his missile launcher because a shrike is on them now. The shrike toys with them till they are a good distance from his base and then destroys the bomber....3 people stranded in the middle of nowhere and the shrike flies off laughing...1 guy countered 3.

    Now lets look at the three heavies. The three heavies all have different routes to the enemy base and as they get close they stop on a nearby hilltop. They spam their mortars and missiles on all assets they can see. At this point one or more of the ld might or might not going to engage the ho. This pulling of the ld gives the capper room to move in and grab. The HO seeing the ld coming(or running out of ammo) starts his ski down the hill and drives into the enemy base pulling out his disc/grenade launcher/plasma and goes to town on the base till he is killed.
  • Because a bomber requires a minimum of two players on your team to participate. If you want your bomber to stay in the air for more than 1 run, you'll also need a third person. Three people on your team in a bomber is absolutely NOTHING compared to three people all in heavy armor shooting mortars. Hell, even if you assume the other team can't take out your bomber and only use a 2 man bomber, you'd still be doing WAY more damage if they were both in heavy shooting mortars.

    This is of course assuming they aren't absolutely terrible players in heavy armor, but if you're talking about game winning strategies, it's best to assume that.

    According to a random weapon stat sheet that I picked up on a random website somewhere that I can't remember:

    The bomber bombs do 3,300 hit points to all types of armor, ammunition is unlimited, .84 seconds to reload, and does 1,100 damage to base assets, 30 meter blast radius, is more difficult to stop than a mortar chucking heavy(but I would say on par against 3), and don't forget that the tail gunner can in fact be firing mortar with each approach.

    The fusion mortar on the other hand does 1,300 damage to scout, 1,000 damage to assault, and 700 damage to heavy, is less accurate, takes 2.8 seconds to reload, and has a 19 meter blast radius.

    Based on these statistics, the bomber bombs have a clear advantage over the fusion mortar. Even if we multiply the mortar's stats by 3 in damage, divide by 3 in reload time and multiply by 3 in everything else, superiority is still unquestionably awarded to the bomber, when the tailgunner's arsenal is taken into consideration. I do question the credibility of these stats, however.

    Another way to look at this is... a bomber can take out 3 heavies with 3 bombs, but 3 heavies may not necessarily be able to destroy 1 bomber when piloted correctly and when accompanied by a tailgunner who knows what he's doing.

    From a practical stand point, I do agree that 3 heavies is a lot to give up in a 12 man initial strategy, but in 16 on 16 and up, the bomber may be valuable enough to make such a sacrifice.
    Another way to look at is I've been in the top levels of Tribes 2 competition for years, and I can tell you that no remotely good team has ever wasted time getting in a bomber rather than just going HO to the enemy base. I don't really mean to sound like an elitist prick here, but there really isn't any way to argue this without citing my experience if you are going to rely on some questionably-significant numbers to support your point. For players who can't use heavy armor worth a damn, maybe riding around in a bomber is the better option. In any other case, being on the ground gives you so many more options and puts you in a much better position than simply carpet bombing an area once and then getting shot down.
  • What you are missing in your views about the bomber is with that 1 shrike in the air the chances of those 3 men getting there and doing damage are slim. If they do get there they are not making more then 1 pass. The damage that can be done with a bomber on one pass is extremely limited. Granted it does good damage, but as kryand points out those 3 people could be mort spamming the base and destroying EVERYTHING outside in that one life.

    Lets look at it in a real situation. A single run. 1 bomber with 3 people in it and a heavy in tail dropping morts. And also 3 heavies doing their thing:

    The bomber would coming in assuming there are no shrikes until he gets to their base. He drops his bombs in a line. Everyone on the ground shoots missiles and the tailgunner counters with flares. They get past the base and the tailgunner shoots a mortar(inaccurately I might add its hard to fire from a moving vehicle like that), but has to switch to his missile launcher because a shrike is on them now. The shrike toys with them till they are a good distance from his base and then destroys the bomber....3 people stranded in the middle of nowhere and the shrike flies off laughing...1 guy countered 3.

    Now lets look at the three heavies. The three heavies all have different routes to the enemy base and as they get close they stop on a nearby hilltop. They spam their mortars and missiles on all assets they can see. At this point one or more of the ld might or might not going to engage the ho. This pulling of the ld gives the capper room to move in and grab. The HO seeing the ld coming(or running out of ammo) starts his ski down the hill and drives into the enemy base pulling out his disc/grenade launcher/plasma and goes to town on the base till he is killed.

    GREAT SCENARIO! I see exactly what you mean, thank you for your knowledge! It's interactions like these that makes us all better players, and it shows when we are put in similar situations.

    Is there any way for the bomber to survive the shrike attack, short of close air support from another shrike? If the answer is no, then I would completely agree with you both that a bomber, and a shrike covering it would be a total waste in a 12 on 12 game, as 33% of your players would be tied up in bombing!
  • Is it possible for a bomber to survive a shrike? That is a tricky question...In general the answer is going to be no. An even reasonably skilled shrike pilot will ALWAYS be able to take down a bomber.

    That being said though I did have some success fighting shrikes as a gunner in a bomber early in base. Its should be noted that it took an EXTREME amount of skill and coordination between pilot and gunner, but even then was not a sure thing. Though again this was in base...classic is a different beast.
  • edited January 2009
    Another way to look at is I've been in the top levels of Tribes 2 competition for years, and I can tell you that no remotely good team has ever wasted time getting in a bomber rather than just going HO to the enemy base. I don't really mean to sound like an elitist prick here, but there really isn't any way to argue this without citing my experience if you are going to rely on some questionably-significant numbers to support your point. For players who can't use heavy armor worth a damn, maybe riding around in a bomber is the better option. In any other case, being on the ground gives you so many more options and puts you in a much better position than simply carpet bombing an area once and then getting shot down.

    Awesome, and no I don't think you're an elitist prick : ) The only way to gauge any of this is to compare it to our own experience. If a 3 HO is more effective based on experience even if something else looks good on paper, then the 3 HO is the strategy of choice for the winning tribe! I respect your experience and agree!

    Considering the wealth of Tribes 2 competitive knowledge and experience please do not consider this to be a debate over better strategies, consider it as a resource for those who are new to the game, or looking to better their own personal strategies.

    Thank you for the civil debate! You guys rock!
  • Oh by the way heres a tip from the early days in tribes. If you are having problems aiming with your mortar do a suicide run on the base. Place beacons on or under where you want to hit. Under you ask? If a turret is on the roof get inside and plant one on the ceiling for example. Pull out your mortar and boom nifty little lines to tell ya where to aim....
    After awhile you will learn where to aim without them. Now thats old school....who remembers the beacon suicide runs? hehe.

    Oh and you can fire missiles at those beacons too...even if you could hit the item otherwise you can with a beacon on it.
  • Oh by the way heres a tip from the early days in tribes. If you are having problems aiming with your mortar do a suicide run on the base. Place beacons on or under where you want to hit. Under you ask? If a turret is on the roof get inside and plant one on the ceiling for example. Pull out your mortar and boom nifty little lines to tell ya where to aim....
    After awhile you will learn where to aim without them. Now thats old school....who remembers the beacon suicide runs? hehe.

    Oh and you can fire missiles at those beacons too...even if you could hit the item otherwise you can with a beacon on it.

    Awesome tip Wildcard! Beacons have 2 modes, location mode and targeting mode, simply hitting h while you look at it will switch it back and forth between the 2 modes.

    Some great places to put beacons in targeting mode are on the bottoms of vehicle stations in maps where the vehicle station is raised up on a platform. Little things like this can accumulate to decide the outcome of games.
  • I noticed this late in the game and after many unsuccesful bombing runs, but if the tailgunner on a bomber has the sensor jammer pack he can keep missiles from locking on to the thundersword.
  • edited January 2009
    The best winning strategy is to fill in where your team needs it, or attack where the enemy has a weakness.

    Youve got 4 roles
    Base/Gen Attack
    Base/Gen Defence
    Flag Capping
    Flag Defence

    I usually find one of them (or more) is being completely ignored on my team and try to fill that in. The team that carries all 4 of these better than the other one will win. Often you will find a team of 20 and not one of them is serious guarding the flag. Or a team of 15 and no one is capping. Kinda silly.
  • The best winning strategy is to fill in where your team needs it, or attack where the enemy has a weakness.

    Youve got 4 roles
    Base/Gen Attack
    Base/Gen Defence
    Flag Capping
    Flag Defence

    I usually find one of them (or more) is being completely ignored on my team and try to fill that in. The team that carries all 4 of these better than the other one will win. Often you will find a team of 20 and not one of them is serious guarding the flag. Or a team of 15 and no one is capping. Kinda silly.

    In conjunction with the strategy outline above is the communication support built into Tribes 2. Being aware of where the weaknesses are and being aware of when there is a weakness in your own defense is paramount in winning a serious game. Also, acting on those weaknesses, don't be the guy who sits at the vehicle pad yelling for a repair. Be the guy who does it.
  • Hi.
    I AM an elitest prick
    there are a couple uses for bombers. HO are generally more effective, but I can think of 3 circumstances when bombers have been used to at least decent effect:
    1) during timing runs (usually with a medium grabber in a shriker, but also sometimes with speed capping). bombers cause a lot more destruction over a short period of time, and can completely clear and distract a large group of players, so if done properly, this can work out.
    2) as a precursor to a subsequent rape. That is, it would have two passengers, both in medium shield, and they will bomb a certain area once (generally flag stand or mpb) and then hop out and rape. This is particularly used on slapdash.
    3) when the opponents' gens are thoroughly owned/vpad is owned. It's often a forgone conclusion at this point, but it can cause a lot of damage without most players having the ability to do much to the bomber. It's pretty easy to disc a bomber to throw it off, but generally they're too busy getting owned by th 6-7 HO that are skiing around the flag to bother with a bomber 200 m above them.
    (note: in all above examples, there are typically only 2 people in the bomber. I think most teams realized it was kind of a waste to have a third person taking up a relatively useless tailgunner spot, unless they wanted to rape with 3 instead of 2).

    I can think of useful applications of every vehicle except the havoc, which is just useless. I'm also a wealth of information about any and all tactics used in t2 (as well as how they evolved etc, basic and advanced strategies), so if anybody is curious about something, they can ask me.
  • The best winning strategy is to fill in where your team needs it, or attack where the enemy has a weakness.

    Youve got 4 roles
    Base/Gen Attack
    Base/Gen Defence
    Flag Capping
    Flag Defence

    I usually find one of them (or more) is being completely ignored on my team and try to fill that in. The team that carries all 4 of these better than the other one will win. Often you will find a team of 20 and not one of them is serious guarding the flag. Or a team of 15 and no one is capping. Kinda silly.
    that's really what you get when you pub. competition is an entirely different matter.
    as an aside, in real competition, offense is much more important than defense (much like in american football), and you can have an entirely mediocre team in almost every way, but have an excellent and deep group of HO, and still do very well. If you're talking about pubs, generally going HO is the most effective way to spend your time if you're not sure what you should do, as the principle still stands. HO is also one of the easier positions to learn, so it's a win-win :D
  • Because abstract the sad fact of the matter is vehicles were pretty much phased out with classic. You are lucky 1 shriker is listed up there...and even then their usefulness is limited compared to base. Sure sure vehicles are still fun to play with but in a competitive setting it wouldn't really work.

    Its really one of the reasons I quit the game...classic in my eyes was a huge step back for the tribes series. Base opened up so many gameplay options and then classic shut the door on most of it. Saddest part in my eyes was the shrike being reduced to ramming duty....its capable of SO much more, but the changes in classic make it so only a VERY few could do it.
    I disagree with a lot of this. First let me say that base and base++ had a skill curve that topped out wayyyyy too early. Generally nothing good comes from a game where you can reach the top of the skill curve in months. It's only a good thing in my opinion to increase the difficulty of the game. It makes it much more dynamic and interesting, instead of an ELF/timed cap grabfest.
    And that's what base competition really was, it was an ELF/timed cap grabfest with tons of shrikes. The ld could shut down any capper by just holding down the left mouse button. Almost every map available in competition at that time was not a cluster-style map; they had bases somewhat or very far apart, and usually had vpads. The strategy on numerous maps was to have your standard farmer, hd, ld (with elf guns of course), good shrikers roaming around, and then either with mortar spam or bombers, time a shrike grab with your capper, who was either escorted by lights or by meeting a grav cycle (a la +GoD+ on sanctuary). Rinse and repeat. The success rate of these attacks was very low, so it ended it boring, monotonous, low scoring games.
    As to your point about vehicles, I have to say classic has vehicles pretty well balanced and still very useful. Most teams went out of their way to have at least one high quality shriker on their team, because they were extremely useful for a number of different roles (mostly for helping shut down HO trains, but they certainly were great for escorting or e-grabbing in a pinch). Shrikes were just insanely overpowered in base: they flew insanely fast relative to everything, they completely protected the person inside, they were absurdly effective at killing HO, lights, base turrets/sensors, and mpbs. On top of all that, they were still generally used the same way they were used in classic, just to more effect. In classic at least they have to deal with cappers being able to move more quickly and mine disc them if they go for a ram. However I'm not sure what you mean when you say they were capable of so much more in base. Their potential was pretty well tapped into, and almost all functions they were used for in base they were also used for in classic.
  • Yes classic vehicles are so well balanced that beyond an easy way for the capper to get into position they were all but phased out. What about the tank? That was phased out. The havoc? In base that was actually useful. The bomber? Again in base it was useful. You said it yourself pretty much all teams had just 1 good shriker in the air and thats it. To top it off that shriker was reduced to a very simple ram key people and scout around role. Sure sure you could still shoot at assets, but it wasn't the same.

    As for your comment about shrikes being overpowered in base I would have to disagree. A few pilots and myself worked with the devs to ensure balance in the gameplay of the shrike. I don't know if you recall when a shrike had straight firing shots that went on forever....Now THAT was overpowered. I'm happy with the balance that was eventually reached in base, but you seem to miss the concept that the best counter for a shrike was another shrike. It led to a battle for the air as well as the ground.

    Base was a step forward in my eyes...It required a good deal more teamplay, coordination, and each run you made mattered. Classic was just gear up, run, die, and repeat in an endless zerg style. Dying didn't mean nearly as much because if you could ski at all the entire map could be crossed in seconds.

    Can I see where the people who wanted classic were coming from? Sure they wanted a faster game that reminded them more of tribes 1. Theres always going to be folks who would rather have a new version of the same old stuff and hey if thats their cup of tea all the power to them. That won't change the fact that base was a very solid game despite your bias. Heck we get you didn't like base but to make untrue or exaggerated statements is unneeded.
Sign In or Register to comment.