Mercenaries Guild

Karith consists of 173 base locations, 7 of which are A ranked spots

To be considered a A ranked spot the spot has to have the following:

 

• Ease of access from starting location
• Map Control
• Quick access to likely enemy base locations
• Ease of Defense

 

For humans these spots are:

 

• Elevator room (Ele)
• H Default Left (left)
• H Default Right (Right)
• Slow door (Slow)
• Dark Stair (Dark)
•  Soda in A default (Soda)
• Gimp hall that nobody ever builds in (Gimp)

 

 This post will cover H Default Left for Humans

 

Left, while not offering Map Control or Easy access to enemy base locations, does offer an easy move in any stage and is not that difficult to defend provided you deal with snipers.

 

This area offers large runups over the top making it easy to defend  while the bottom has a much shorter distance.  it is common for large aliens to simply wait around the corner leading to outside feeding off of players who chase retreating aliens.

 

Building

 

There are several different permutations for this location, this post will cover general theory and not exact builds.

 

RC: typical build is to shove RC into the corner and build around it this gives the RC good defense on two sides but gives it no cover from snipers or maru hops.

 

The box on the right by the lower door does offer some cover to the base from snipers and keeps rants from running a direct assualt.

 

Arm: the arm has several possible positions in this area, from close to the RC to hiding under the stairs.

 

Medi: as with arm there are many different styles to bulding but generally it is placed close to the arm for ease of use.

 

 Turrets: general build style with turrets for this location, and for almsot all open floor locations to to build them in a ring formation, while this offers all around coverage to does not concentrate fire well and is easy to isolate single rets and take them out.

 

Defense

 

Large guns covering bottom, chain or luci for example. 2 - 3 out of 5 players per team

hitscan jets covering top for maximum damage while attacking and retreating.  1 - 2 per 5 players

adv Ckit to maintain structures. 1 per 5 players

Backup to both help maintain structures and cover defense. 1 per 5 players

 

Example:

 

12 players

• Builder
• Builder backup
•  4 - 6 to cover bottom
• 4 - 6 to cover top

 

The defenders can also be used to assualt A base if the location is known, however no more than 50% should be used to assualt at one time unless it is confirmed that the OM and large aliens are down. Still best to leave at least 2 -3 in base to cover.

 

You will have to watch out for adv goons coming in over the top and using small ledge to snipe or using the stairs to cover them while sniping.

 

Karith consists of 173 base locations, 7 of which are A ranked spots

To be considered a A ranked spot the spot has to have the following:

 

• Ease of access from starting location
• Map Control
• Quick access to likely enemy base locations
• Ease of Defense

 

For humans these spots are:

 

• Elevator room (Ele)
• H Default Left (left)
• H Default Right (Right)
• Slow door (Slow)
• Dark Stair (Dark)
•  Soda in A default (Soda)
• Gimp hall that nobody ever builds in (Gimp)

 

 This post will cover Elevator Room for Humans

 

While Ele does not offer Map control or ease of access to enemy locations it does offer superior defensive abilities and is easy to access after S2.

 

Building

 

Place RC behind boxes on the left side slightly away from the side wall, allows placement of defense on the back end.

Place arm against RC tightly with medi in front close enough that it does not block the vent.

Place both nodes over top of the Arm giving it cover from attack after SD.

Place 1 ret on top of box covering the RC

Place DC on box to protect RC rear

Place ret behind DC to protect RC side (replace with Tesla at S3)

Place 1 ret each on both the left and  right boxes covering medi, nodes and vent(at S3 replace right ret with tesla covering vent)

Place 1 ret on front box to protect DC

 Place one ret on front edge of left box to protect against speed marus and sgoon pounce attempting to reach arm and nodes in SD this ret will likely fall first, it must be maintained.

 

Defense of Ele should consist of:

 

Chain jets covering front door, 1 - 2 for every 5 players on the team

Pulse batt to cover vent, backup the builder, and reserve cover on base proper 1 per 5 players on the team

Adv Ckit to maintain structures, 1 per 5 players on the team

Jet assault to push outside. Useful for A base rushes, 1 - 2 per 5 players on the team. Reserve Pulse Batt will generally travel with scout on assault runs.

 

Example:

12 players

• Builder
• Builder Backup
•  3 - 5 Defenders
• 5 - 7 Assualt 

 

Builder maintains structures with help from backup

Defenders cover front door and work button for incoming allies

Backup works with defenders

Assault team attempts to attack A Base either via front door or vent

 

 

 

Here paper finds a room with a single entrance, and manages to stack turrets in a manner that maximizes damage in a tight area.  Its nearly impossible to do any damage w/out dying.  Is it possible to snipe away at turrets?

 

If you want to be better at Tremulous, its a good idea to spend some time as a spectator.  Pay attention to how better players strategize, and handle gameplay.  Since I'm on a laptop (no mouse) for a few weeks, offensive classes are really tough to play, so I'm going to try and improve my building.

There are many great builders in this game, and most of them frequent the Pure Tremulous servers.  One of my favorites is Paper Cut.  In an attempt to improve my building-fu, I'm going to document anything I see or find from Paper elsewhere.  The purpose of putting them here isn't really to expand or regurgitate what Paper may have already published, but more to provide a single location where others may review photos, demos, videos and posts.

Warning: Incoherent and rambling.

MG now has a new download system. I figured I should write a bit about what it does and how it works, as not all of its coolness is immediately apparent.
This is probably going to be a reasonably technical post, if you just want to know how to set a server up look at http://tremulous.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=77919#77919

The old system involved a single folder, base, which contained all the maps and mods. For servers running TJW's mod or domination, symlinks were made. There are also folders such as tremex that only contain the mod files.
The problem were:

1. Organisational mess, many hundreds of files in one place.
2. Servers that don't use base or another folder we have symlinked couldn't use mg.net for downloads.
3. If there is a folder a mod writer or server owner can upload mods to, then users cant dowload maps.
4. People who download all the maps also end up with a load of mods in there base folder.

The new system fixes all these issues via the creation of a new sub domain, downloads.mercenariesguild.net. In this domain there is a folder for maps, and a folder for each mod. The mod folders only contain files for there respective mods, and and the maps folder will only contain maps.
When the client looks for a file, the server first checks if there's a mod with that name; and will send the file if one exists in that folder. If the file doesn't exist, or there is no folder for that mod then the file is looked for in the maps directory.
This is better than the old system because:

1. Any server can download maps regardless of what mod they run.
2. If a mod has specific files on the server, it can still download maps
3. Server owners / mod writers can have ftp access to there mods folder, with out being able to mess with other mods and while still being able to have maps download.
4. People can sync there base folder with the maps folder and not get any mods or other files.

In the future it is planned to allow mappers to upload files. This is still a work in progress but is a somewhat desirable feature, so will hopefully happen reasonably soon.

First off, let me start by saying this is not supposed to be some gloom and doom rant about why Tremulous and its community sucks. As is obvious to anyone who has talked to me, I love Tremulous (the only "game" I play) and I love its community (which is why I try to do as much as I can for it.)

As of late, the mood, demeanor, and quality of posts in the forums (www.tremulous.net/phpBB2) and in IRC (#tremulous@irc.quakenet.org) have been rapidly changing. What was once in my experience a great, open, fun environment to hang around in, has become a veritable battlefield of opinions and spammers. If it's not "old" players versus "new" players, its "good" players vs. "n--b" players. That or it's some 12 year old kid spamming utter idiocy.

None of this appeals to me, and I'm sure it doesn't appeal to you either.

What once was

I don't want to make it sound like some sort of utopia, but when I first entered this community it was a really great place. "Old" players helped me out, showed me the ropes in-game, and I was able to chat with like-minded people in IRC on all sorts of tremulous-related (and unrelated) topics. Chat was quick and fun, with no real disrespect coming from any direction. As long as you didn't spam or directly insult anybody, everyone was cordial and willing to answer any questions or requests one had. I still recall my first run-in with Lava Croft, who is infamous for his attitude and method of talking to newbs, or anyone with "dumb" ideas. After getting over the initial shock of his statements, I understood a lot of what he was saying (he's really not bad) and now am pretty good friends with the guy. Discussions on the forums were relevant and pointed. Someone would make a well-thought-out suggestion, and there would be a flurry of replies from competent people with answers and comments. Spammers and Lamers were either ignored, or quickly dealt with. Almost everyone SEEMED to be an adult, or at least mature enough to respect each other enough that even when someone did insult another, it did not result in vulgarities and horrible phrases being thrown around. One of the main reasons I became addicted to Tremulous (Hi, my name is Khalsa and I'm a tremaholic) was because of all these reasons.

What is now and never should be

Today and what seems like will be tomorrow, everything is reversed! "Old" players sit in-game kill whoring (just sitting around, camping, racking up kills with no intention of winning the match) and either making rude, insulting posts and comments, or not being helpful at all. The IRC channel has become caustic - full of spam, insults, and idlers. Questions go unanswered or worse - people asking questions are insulted for their "stupidity." 12 year old kids (or what seems like, and I hope, could only be coming from a 12 year old) flood the channel with useless banter and pointless comments. The forums are even worse! Maturity has been thrown out the window - insults, spam, two-word replies, and idiocy rule supreme. While the moderators sometimes try to clean things up, they have basically lost control, and often don't try at all. Vulgar images and comments flood every thread. What once was a kid-friendly place has become a kiddie place. The feedback forum is only good for comic relief, and troubleshooting consists mainly of 1) basic stupid questions 2) replies consisting of "STFU", "SEARCH!", or "IDIOT." Large-scale flame wars span the rest of the boards, with the Clan section being the worst. Only 1 out of 50 threads contain anything useful, which is quickly buried under the steaming pile that is the replies. I login sometimes and feel like I'm sitting in a 90's era AOL chatroom - YES, it's really THAT bad.

What happened?

Who knows? Maybe trem has been flooded by a significant amount of younger people, maybe the old people have moved on or given up. Maybe banning Poland caused such a huge rift in the community that we have now been invaded by Poland. Maybe the lack of direct support to the community from the devs has allowed this to happen? Maybe this is just what happens when Open Source communities grow? Where did this huge shift occur? What caused it? One can only guess. (Post your thoughts in the comments please.)

What can we do about it?

While many of us at }MG{ have discussed the problems (especially recently) we have not really touched upon the solutions. I think I'll mull this one over a bit more and create another post about what we at MG can do, and what we can do as a community on the whole. I would love to see some of you post replies stating what you think we can do. Hopefully we can come up with a solution.

Khalsa

Before you read on, let me give you fair notice that the quotation that follows may cause headaches -- if not hemorrhages -- in the brain of a reasonable, intelligent person. No, really, I think a little part of me dies every single time I see posts like this on the trem.net forums. Consider yourself warned.

Browsing the forums today, I was greeted with a nice little treat of a post from the mind of one DHRUVINATOR. You might (though I highly doubt it) also know him as the leader of the {S}pikers clan. The post read exactly as follows:

"Tremulous atm is losing players fast in activity wise im sure the realease of Tremulous 1.2 will sort this out. But for now theirs more players not deciding to play as often as new players coming in. Their are very good/more intresting/more variabled games to choose from. Tremulous has 2 factors aleins or humans no story line and not many weapons and boy weres the grenade launcher every fps got to have one fo them they rock!
Im not dissing or flaming trem,(yeah ive played trem for a long time now but after your a certain level its not that intresting) just updating on how i and other people i have talked to feel like so trem 1.2 bring something cool into it !! btw look into the other fps games e/g FEAR, warock and get some ideas

Bye Bye ow my ass hurtz."

I know, my dear, poor reader. Just remember that you were forewarned before I dropped the pain of blatant idiocy upon your shoulders. Allow me to ease your pain, sweet Atlas of stupidity, by assuring you that I promptly rebuked, scolding the poor boy. While I had intended to gently let the child know that what he said was misinformed and wrong -- not unlike a parent telling their young, uninformed toddler that the mudpies he makes are not for eating -- I found that I quickly spun onto a tangent a bit more menacing than I'd originally planned.

"Before I get started, I'd just like to say:


Protip: Tremulous has been in development for going on seven years now. There have been players and members of the community that have been around nearly that long. You, like a large majority of the current community (myself included) have been around for less than a year, and only joined up when Tremulous went to standalone. You haven't been playing Tremulous "for a long time". Now that we have that established, let's look at your other points:

1.) Tremulous has no storyline.
2.) Tremulous only has two opposing sides.
3.) Tremulous doesn't have enough weapons/isn't varied enough.

Tremulous has as much storyline as a solely online multiplayer game comprised mostly of custom made maps that were not created by the developers of the game. Humans go too far into space, run into aliens, aliens start infesting, mercenaries are brought in to fight against them. Really, you can't ask for much more than that in a freeware multiplayer FPS. Also, what's wrong with only having two sides? It seems to work well for a few other games in recent history that you might have heard of: Counter Strike, Enemy Territory, Gears of War, Battlefield series? I mean, I could go on, if you wanted me to. As far as variation goes, how much more could you possibly want? You've got two mostly balanced, completely different teams -- both of which have multiple choices as far as what to use against the enemy (though admittedly less for the alien team). Honestly, you expect Tremulous to play like every single FPS out there? I mean, people have been playing Counter Strike, Quake 3, Enemy Territory, and other FPS games for years when there has been little-to-no significant changes to those games within that time. I'm sorry Tremulous doesn't play exactly like FEAR, Warrock, Halo, Counter Strike, Enemy Territory, or any other standard, run and gun, make things go boom FPS.

Actually, wait. No, I most certainly am not. I like my Tremulous the way it is: a nice mixture of shooting, tactics, and base management. I like, and appreciate, the subtle differences between alien classes and human weapons. I like that the community -- that is, the actual members of the community and not the people that play Tremulous like idiots and only chime in with ideas like "OMG ROCKET LAUNCHER FLYING ALIEN HUMANS NEED MORE POWER" -- has a decent amount of input on the game. I even like the way I can play on tjw's server to see the changes that will be made to Trem, and appreciate that these changes have been well thought out and tested, and that they work.

The only thing I am sorry about is that you happen to have such a short attention span that you lose interest in what could very well be the greatest freeware shooter in existence, which has endless replayability and new maps made constantly, in under a year.

tl;dr:
Sorry you have ADHD. Gtfo."

I am sorry, stupid Tremulous players, that you are simply too mindless to appreciate the godsend to the online multiplayer world that Tremulous is. Say, why don't you go download yourself a copy of Nexuiz -- I hear they have grenade launchers.

<< Mercenaries Guild Chat >> | Note to possible recruits: Pester David so you can apply for MG sooner. :) | Note to possible players of mg servers: pestering kev may or may not get them updated faster

 

--

:D 

A couple good movies out.

Smokin' Aces

Actors: Ryan Reynolds - Richard Messner

Alicia Keys - Georgia Skykes

Jeremy Piven - Buddy 'Aces' Isreal

Plot: A dying mob boss takes out a $1 million contract on the life of his former protégé, a Vegas magician turned gangster who has agreed to testify against the mob. The FBI attempts to protect their key witness as an array of hit men and women descend on Lake Tahoe in a race to take the magician out.

Random Quotes:

~Hollis Elmore: You shot me, and you murdered my friends... and you dumped us in the lake. Darwin Tremor: Pretty much.

~ Bernard "Beanie" Alfonso: Damn girl, you just went from Beyoncé to Bigfoot in less than 6 hours.

~ Buddy 'Aces' Israel: You're looking at me like, like... I just asked you the fucking square root of something.

-----------------------------------------

The Number 23

Actors: Jim Carrey - Walter Sparrow/Fingerling Virginia Madsen - Agatha Sparrow/Fabrizia Logan Lerman - Robin Sparrow

Plot: A man (Carrey) becomes obsessed with a book that appears to be based on his life but ends with a murder that has yet to happen in real life.

Quotes: Walter Sparrow: Nasty Evil Dead Dog

Thats all for now!

So D*S has a "dueling" server that they've struggled to get near the top of the list. Seriously, a "dueling" server. In protest of all the stupid list spamming, and being a server operator who truly does not care if people know of my server, I have lodged my protest by changing my server's name to all boxes in the hopes that more will follow suit and maybe we will get this nonsense stopped. R1CH had/has a fix for it for the master server and while we had some fun with it when it was first released, most of us were ultimately glad it happened. Sadly, the change was short lived as the dev's decided to move the master server.

 

All unknown players have NO PERMISSIONS >:) and level 4 admins and up are hidden, so }MG{ members can show up as whoever they want! Take no offense at my nasty little MOTD though, I was being cranky!

 

I still need to add more boxes though, R1CH is protesting the same way I hear, and I have to make it so his server stays up top! :D

 Edit: Success!  I've added some characters so the server is second in line, just below R1CH's!  Yay!  I've half tempted to go all atcs with something like 20 BP :P but nah, I don't want to turn people off to tremulous (though I should change my motd to avoid that!)