This should cover the basics. These must be mastered. Notice I did not include "AIM" in any of the list.
If you need an example, we'll take a time to review A-K. Then you practice on your own time, as there's nothing else to tell you until you understand and condition your game so you can use these naturally. Next I'll tell you how to use them intelligently.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 4153
Joined: June 2003
Posted: July 27 2003,13:35
Let's evaluate this. Everyone should know this. So this is review.
The gray and red dots are 2 players. Here the gray is the person attacking or opening for. His gray shade triangle represents his line or area of vision of you. And the red arrows is where he has to shoot you with the ESR in order to pick up a frag.
Now if you reverse the roll, this is your area of vision and sight, and thats where you need to open fire and hit in order to pick up a frag.
This is what I called, your enemies "Area of Sight" and "Line of Fire". This is where you dont want to be in... but this is where you want your enemy to be at.
Fragging is not just about aim. It's about position yourself where you maximize your area of sight and fire with your emeny, and minimize their area of sight, and fire to you.
This roughly translate into this: you have more opportunities to shoot at them, then they do at you. Simple enough?
Lession 1. Personal Settings - (to maximize Area of Sight) ---------------------------------------------------------
This roughly translate the fluidity of your movements on the dance floor and your orientation. Now I wont lie to you. Your game system hardware *WILL* contribute to this factor.
A. Hardware.
1. The most importat pieces of hardware for this is your Controller, Mouse, and Mouse Surface. Without this you wont be able to move smoothly.
2. After that it's visual, or FPS - frames per second. This translate into your computer's ability to split out video at 60 fps and a decent refresh rate. This translate to CPU speed, System Memory, O/S settings, and Video Card.
My advice is do what you can do about the hardware, but dont break your bank. The most cost-effect and bang for your buck improvement is your controller, and mouse.
The RatPadz is $15 (free shipping too); and the Logitech MX500 corded mouse is $50.
As far as FPS, do what you can afford. A pentium 3 900mhz system is quite decent for Unreal Tournament, anything less is not recommended. A minimum of 512mb of system Ram. Anymore is a waste, unless you're using it for other applications such as Photoshop. For Video card, the miminal would be the nVidia GeForce3 Ti 200, skip any of the Geforce "MX", any Ti series are good. All of the GeForceFX series are good (the cheapest is as fast as the Geforce 4 ti 4200!). For ATI, the 7500 is the minimum, then 8500, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800. But dont waste your money. Buy the one for the monitor size. For example, if you dont have a 22" monitor you dont need the 9800 pro. In order to spit out 60FPS for bigger monitor at the highest refresh rate, you need more high end cards. However for 800x600 resolution monitors the 9800 performs just as well as the GeForce3 ti 200.
B. Internet connection speed. In other words your bandwidth will contribute to this as well. Nothing we can do here, you're at the mercy of your ISP.
C. System systems. The optimize resolution for your monitor+video card combo. The right mouse sensitivity... fast enough to turn, slow enough to aim smoothly and not shake. Also not too fast that you easily lose your orientation, but not to slow someone can flip out of your sight and you cant turn fast enough to see them.
You will have to experiment on this. Windows XP has a setting to add extra smooth precision for mouse. This is why I recommend Windows XP. The rest you'll need to play and adjust, then re-adjust and play again, and so on, until you found a good setting for you. Note: I'll still messing with this myself, I found a range, but I havent decided how much speed to sacrifice for precision.
Lession 2. Maximizing your Area of Sight and Line of Fire. -------------------------------------------------------
The above illustration is showing 2 stories.
Gray - is trying to frag Red in it's Area of Sight, and line of fire.
Red - is trying to avoid Gray's line of fire, while trying to move out of Gray's area of sight.
Gray will try to improvise and move to keep red inside his area of sight, and aim his cross-hair to keep red also within his line of fire.
This scenario is when Gray has the better aim, and red has the better movement. Ofcourse, if Gray has both aim and movements advantage, red doesnt stand a chance.
There is a potentional danger to red as well. In order to stay away from Gray's line of fire, he has to move around him quickly, but this also could be he will lose Gray without his own area of sight and line of fire.
Being in Red's situation, it is important that red stays out of Gray's line of fire... and if possible even his area of sight, while keeping Gray within his own area of sight, and as much as possible line of fire.
As long as this scenario exist for Red, he will stand a chance against an opponent with a better aim. Because he minimize Gray's open shot counts, while increasing his own opportunity to fire. He may not get to frag gray with the first 5 fires, but this will give him an opportunity to fire 20 or even 50 times to frag Gray... while cutting gray's chances to get a straight fire.
Simple enough right? You'll be surprise as simple as this is, many players dont think about doing it while playing. They forget. They would go face-to-face Rambo style. This is suicide if you're facing someone he is superior than you are with aim precision.
Here, gray responded by flipping forward (double-tab forward), to get out of Red's line of fire, which a quick (and importantly smooth) turn of the mouse to his right, he place red back into his line of fire.
This will go back and forth until one of them slips, or until one of them get lucky. This is often refer to, "Dancing".
Lession 3. Dancing on the Dance Floor. -------------------------------------------------------
In order to be a great dance. =X you need fluidity in your motions. This means from the pre-requisites everything from A through F must become second nature to you. At will you must be able to do any one of those movements.
3 advice: NEVER stand still. NEVER run in straight patterns. ALWAYS be running -- NEVER use the "WALK" feature.
This only applies if you're on the dance floor.
Ofcourse this doesnt apply to snipers, because they are not on the dance floor.
Let's look at this illustration again:
You will either, flip forward, dodge right (or left), or even translocate in order to move. Where you want to move is right out of your opponent's line of fire (and if possible even his area of sight), while at the least keeping him in your area of sight (and ideally your line of fire).
This means you also needs to have good orientation of where you are, where your opponent is, and whats around you (if you are at a corner, etc), because you dont want to accidentally trap yourself doing so. How many of you have done that? I have and I admit it.
There's one move thats been under-rated and hardly used, but is VERY affect against "fast flippers" -- people who can quicky double-tap forward and zip right past you covering a large distance. When they do this, they easily fly past out of your screen, and usually they end up to your far side or even behind you with a few seconds of an open shot at your blind side such as this illustration:
Here you have plenty of options, but you gotta think fast. Here's a few option you may think of doing:
A- Flip forward and do a 180-degree with your mouse. B- Dodge left or right and do a 90-degree turn. C- Teleport out.
Which one will you do?
These are my opinions:
A - You need a fast mouse, and smooth screen scrolling to do this, otherwise you'll lose yourself and orientation. Plus you lose seconds doing a 180.
B - this is a little better, but puts you pretty close by, if you're comfortable with close-combats, this is good. Otherwise A may be a better option to put distance between you and your opponent. Also depending on which way he flips (to your right side or left), you can either follow the same direction or go the other. The same direction will put you closer, while the other will put you farther. You can also do 2 dodges so eventually go into a 180.
C - this is pretty safe, but it can cause you to lose him from your line of fire for longer periods of time. Also it forces you to switch to your translocator then back to your weapons, making you defenseless momentarily. You need to be a translocate master for this.. someone who have their keys bind in such a way they can switch back and forth so fast they are never defenseless.
There's also other combos of the above which I wont go. But consider doing this, and this works for me in plenty of these situations.
This is what happened. Gray attempt to flip forward and zip past red. Red sees this, but before gray can pass him, he tap his backward key so he can pull-back. As he pulls back he keeps gray within his line of fire without needing to turn his mouse.
I dont notice a lot of people making use of going in backward direction. I use it quite a lot, more so that flipping forward. It is really one under-rated move. It has easily help me pick up an average of 5 more frags to my count.
(A) Short Distance Combat. Up close and personal. You need precision and fast reflex to turn quickly and aim quickly.
(B) Long Distance Combat. Across the room combat. Make sure your aim and vision is tight. You will need a clear screen and good video card. You need to see your target from great distance and a killer aim. You dont need fast reflexes or agility here. Just a smooth mouse and vision.
(D) Hit & Run. You sneaky $%^ of a $#$#. I hate you. lol. You hit, run... and hit again.
(E) Sniping. Ask Raven. You stay out of sight at all times. And take out heads.
(F) Berserker. This applies only to Team or Open DM with more than 4 players (per team). You go out in the middle of the dance floor and get some.
I'm not going to cover C, D, E, and F. I'll only cover B briefly. There isnt much advice to give for it. However, A is a more difficult and advance practice. I call it an art.
Lession 5. Long Distance Combat. -------------------------------------------------------
Let me emphasis, in order to see great distance, you need a decent monitor and at a good size (17" minimum), with a decent video card.
The key is to be able to move the cross-hair within 5 pixel precision at the distance when the 2 of you are a room apart. In order for this you need a pretty decent mouse.
After that it depends on your mouse sensitivity you need steady hands. At great distances you do not need to move your mouse too much, so you may set your sensitive to slow, so your mouse can cover smaller screen areas without jumping around. Agian 5-pixel precision.
This will now depend on your mouse dpi. If you're using a mouse-ball type mouse, keep it clean all the time. A dirty mouse and surface will prevent you from moving within 5 pixels at a time.
This is a trade off for short distance combat, as up close a slow mouse cannot turn as quickly.
And to be realistic you cannot expect to do long distance all the time. So find a comfortable setting for your mouse speed. I recommend practice mouse turns at higher speeds. So you can turn quickly, and keep your hand moving steady and about to move less than 5 pixels.
How to cover both short and long distance? You mouse sensitivty should be set fairly high enough for you to make a full 180 turn in a second without any problems. But a higher sensitivity makes it difficult to cover 5 pixel movement. So practice practice practice. I'm train my hands so at great distance my mouse does not move more than 1 inch when my sensitivity is set to 2.75.
(this is a useful trade for sniping too. You need steady hands).
To help with this, I recommend atleast a 3rd generation optical lens mouse, and a multitextured surface for the mice. This allows the optical eye to a lot more precised when it's reading the texture.
The logitech MX 500, and RadPadz are a great combo for this.
Other than that, there's not much skill involve, just a lot of training at precision so you can fight long distance as well as short distance.
What if you're combating someone who is better at long distance combat. My advice, dont combat them at his strength. Only do this with someone who is equal or inferior to you.
As for aiming, your target will appear like a 5 pixel dot on your screen, keep your cross hair locked on him.
Secondly... survive. Make sure you're not an easy target for him as well. Strafe, dodge, flip and keep your cross-hair lock him him.
This should cover straight and direct distance combat.
Other things to watch for. He may get tired of distance combat after a while of stale mate, and surprise you with a change in combat scenario. Be prepare for it. Be may shoot the translocator to get close, or decide to hide. Be ready to shift your style as well. If you like to keep it distance combat... avoid letting them get close.
The double-tap back is a very useful key here. As they flipp or teleport forward, you leap back keeping distance between the two with your cross hair always lock on him.
If you're reaching the end of the room, start to dodge left or right, allowing him to come closer for a second and use your double tab again to circle while still leaving some distance, then double tap back twice and you'll be able to keep that distance.
You can also shoot your translocator as well in a similar fashion, but it takes away your shot count. The more you shoot, the more chance you have at picking up a frag.
I've exploited this with with a lot of players who has a weakness at distance combat, and they try to close the gap. I double tap back a lot to keep that distance between us, especially when I discover that my long range aim is superior.
It's not fair, but it's a strategy that works well with hardware crippled players, who can barely see me from across the room and they have to come closer in order to see who's shooting at them.
Now reverse the role. In my earlier days my long distance shot was quite good, but there are always people better. My experience are from my matches at early 1v1 with {CoC}Slenny, {CoC}Gargoyle, and early ~SiN~clan 1v1s.
This is where i started to develop my short distance combat. Real short. Not medium distance, but up close, given that most early player with low mouse sensitivity are a weakness in turning when we're real close. So against these people, I HAD NO CHOICE but to do the exact opposite. This is were I put my pride in because this is a work of art and it WILL strain your hands as you will be combating like a ghost.
Group: Super Administrators
Posts: 1135
Joined: June 2003
Posted: July 29 2003,16:22
HAHAHAHA, sorry I will cover E briefly here. let me just start off by saying heads will roll(or just burst in a nice gooey mees)
1. Find a sniper rifle with a nice full load of ammo(your gonna need it)
2. Find a nice out of the way spot and squat(which is the crawl(mine is hotkeyed to the shift button)make it easy access)the reason is it will take more bullets to kill you if your found out(2 from sniper rifle if your not armored)
3. make sure the are more ppl than bots busy on the dance floor and take aim at someone, if you hit, keep them in LOS and try again. If they tele out you can see where the tele goes, so follow it, when they appear, shoot.
It takes 2 shots to kill a man if you miss the head the first time. If they have armor(wise thing) and the K.O.H.(another smart thing) it will take up to 5 or 6 shots
4. After you take some shots, hopefully you'll have killed someone, good job. Now for the most important part MOVE!!!!!!!!!! and don't go back for quite awhile. (beginners will probally have to reload at this point anyhow)
5. After you reload, find another out of the way spot. and repeat
6. The best position death wise to give is from above, you'll always hit the head, it is also the most difficult in aiming, because of the angle and movement of the dancers.
7. Know the map inside and out, learn where the teleport circles take you and map out your plan of attack. (here' a verbal example: In most bathrooms, starting with the electrical plug on the wall. Wall plug to top of dresser to mirror to floor plug again. vent in floor where deemer is in some maps the tele right there leads to Wall plug then dresser top then mirror.
Get to know these quick avenues of exit, it may one day save your life
One thing to consider is to download the program under the help section that allows you to play maps offline
This way you can go into etheral and fly around the room to find some hidden areas. also put the bots to kill efficiently and you'll have some fun. but they are stoopid when it comes to being hit from a distance unless your really up in skill(say god mode) ==============================================
On the flip side....
If your the kind recipient of a sniper bullet you'll need to look for these signs of where he is:
1. There is always a tel-tel flash of the shots being fired
2. for those who have no concept of "One shot One kill" look for the trail of bullets coming out like the chaingun
3. Know which direction the bullets are coming from. If they hit the wall in front of you, turn around, see previous tips. That will give you which side of the room they are on.
4. Know where the sniper spots are in the room, especially the hidden ones and look in those spots first. Most n00bs will stand and stop where the rifle and ammo are, Kill them, they deserve to learn the hard way.
5. If the bullets are hitting the ground all around you most likely they have an overhead shot of you, be careful this is the most deadly one as they will always hit you in the head. So use your tele to get armor and health and if your still getting shot at, get up there and encourage them to find someone easier to hit, or die like Wilder
As stated, if your looking for me.... I mean a sniper, look for the signs of where he is, in absence of the obvious, triangulate the tratectory of the bullets and isolate the position from that, then either go after them, or move out of LOS of the sniper. And if he's still there after a minute, go kill him, he should have moved by now ;)
==============================================
Escape from being spotted.
1. Have many different hidey spots in any given map, the most obvious ones are gonna be known by most all(except for extreme n00bs) only go here for loading up
2. Have your escape plan worked out already, have the next spot in mind.
3. Be alert, no one likes dying by a sniper, especially if it's consistantly the same person your killing, He WILL hunt you down. Listen to the teleporters, footsteps and weapons fire. You can tell when your going to die if your not careful
4. Be good with the translocator(tele) it'll help get you out of danger fast, and know where your going when you use it. (AKA know the map in and out)
5. the best defense is don't get caught, and if you do get spotted, try to kill the spotee and then MOVE!!! if not, just escape to the next locale, never stay in same spot if possible
6. The best spots are sometime out in the open where no one pays attention the most(snipers have to be hiding so they look at those spots first) so sometimes in a well lit corner on the floor is the best spot some days ;)
7. But then again, if no one cares your popping heads like a teenager in the bathroom on zit popping day, then stay put. Just be alert to the sounds around you and escape when your finally found.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
IMPORTANT NOTE: THE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS SPOKEN HERE DO NOT OR MAY NOT BE REPRESENTATIVE OF EVERYONE USING THE ~SiN~ TAG. FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO SNIPE, YOU MAY NOT WIN A MATCH OR EVEN BE IN THE TOP HALF OF THE LIST IN THE END. BUT WITH PRACTICE AND PATIENTANCE YOU WILL BE A FORCE TO BE WATCHED FOR AS (ask Wilder) YOU CAN MAKE THE POTENTIAL WINNER NOT WIN BY MAKING HIM MISS VALUABLE TIME ON THE FLOOR AND THE PRECIOUS (FPH) BY RE-ARMING. AND IF HE LOOKS FOR YOU SAY GOOD-BYE TO FIRST
But dont waste your money. Buy the one for the monitor size. For example, if you dont have a 22" monitor you dont need the 9800 pro. In order to spit out 60FPS for bigger monitor at the highest refresh rate, you need more high end cards. However for 800x600 resolution monitors the 9800 performs just as well as the GeForce3 ti 200.
You stay out of sight at all times. And take out heads.
