Tremulous Forum

Community => Strategies and Tactics => Topic started by: F50 on January 22, 2009, 02:56:21 am

Title: Tk bulding
Post by: F50 on January 22, 2009, 02:56:21 am
I was on a server one day (as aliens), our base was almost completely gone, when someone said "wanna speed build F50?". I said "sure" and was promptly tked. I was stunned. Then I realized that since dying reset my build counter, I would be able to build really quickly this way. Upon further examination, it did not seem to effect stage points, only the helpful tker's stats.

Is this a commonly used tactic? Does it have any negative effect (other than filling the spawn queue)? What about in MGDEV (future 1.2)?
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: your face on January 22, 2009, 03:37:49 am
Also speedbuilding can be used when you are building near a death pit, such as on Uncreation, or Transit. :P
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Hendrich on January 22, 2009, 04:06:47 am
Ah, I was wondering when someone caught on.  ::)

Yes, I know that the Devs have caught on to this, even though its not wildly known. And yes, MGDev has a system where the more people die, your stage drops down (Which is pure bullshit). Its a useful tactic on FF enabled servers, but I suggest that servers put FF off, I know its supposed to add realism and makes you weary of using bullets/ammo only on enemies, but, comon, its a game about aliens.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Bissig on January 22, 2009, 09:23:42 pm
Ah, I was wondering when someone caught on.  ::)

Yes, I know that the Devs have caught on to this, even though its not wildly known. And yes, MGDev has a system where the more people die, your stage drops down (Which is pure bullshit). Its a useful tactic on FF enabled servers, but I suggest that servers put FF off, I know its supposed to add realism and makes you weary of using bullets/ammo only on enemies, but, comon, its a game about aliens.

This has been reverted. Stagedown is gone.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Hendrich on January 22, 2009, 10:03:34 pm
Quote
This has been reverted. Stagedown is gone.

Ah, then all is good. The last time I played there it had it, so I didn't know.  ::)
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Roanoke on January 22, 2009, 11:18:56 pm
This is why we should try to modify or replace the build timer.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: your face on January 23, 2009, 12:46:20 am
But that would mean no more speed building. :(
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: KillerWhale on January 23, 2009, 02:13:45 am
Many servers now, much to my dismay, have an auto-spec/kick for teambleeding, disallowing the tactic of team-fueled speedbuilding.

It is rather nice when you're in a hurry though.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: kevlarman on January 23, 2009, 02:15:21 am
Ah, I was wondering when someone caught on.  ::)

Yes, I know that the Devs have caught on to this, even though its not wildly known. And yes, MGDev has a system where the more people die, your stage drops down (Which is pure bullshit). Its a useful tactic on FF enabled servers, but I suggest that servers put FF off, I know its supposed to add realism and makes you weary of using bullets/ammo only on enemies, but, comon, its a game about aliens.

This has been reverted. Stagedown is gone.
that was never how it worked anyway, you had to feed to lose stages, not suicide.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Archangel on January 23, 2009, 02:48:58 am
Many servers now, much to my dismay, have an auto-spec/kick for teambleeding, disallowing the tactic of team-fueled speedbuilding.

It is rather nice when you're in a hurry though.


That's actually a viable scrim tactic. And I've never seen that qvm feature :/
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Roanoke on January 23, 2009, 03:35:55 am
But that would mean no more speed building. :(
Yes, because building would get faster, ergo speedbuilding wouldn't work.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: F50 on January 23, 2009, 04:47:45 am
While it really helps when you need it, or just don't want to be stuck building all game, it feels very...metagamey. I think perhaps you should lose stage points (not equal to stagedown) for tks (perhaps -1/4 stage point per tk?) making it more of a last-resort tactic (although still useful when your really in a jam).
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Ellohir on January 23, 2009, 12:22:10 pm
dying reset my build counter

¿Bug or feature?
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Urcscumug on January 23, 2009, 02:10:17 pm
Here's where the real question comes. What should reset the counter? Because there are lots of ways you can reset it. Death and respawn is only one (and it can come in various ways: tk, suicide, feed). You can respawn as soldier then as builder. You can switch team or spectate then rejoin (yeah you lose all your stuff but you don't care anyway, all you want is to speedbuild). You can even reconnect and rejoin.

You can't possible keep track of the counter across all these situations, not just because it's often impossible, but because it's silly too.

Getting rid of the timer altogether is not good unless you're ready to offer an alternative, because it's the only thing preventing speed-building to any extent.

So I'm afraid I don't see any solution to this case of bending the rules. It may just be one of those things that needs a human referee to notice and punish it (like evil deconning).
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: gimhael on January 23, 2009, 02:22:29 pm
The slow-buildpoint-return stuff currently implemented on MGdev will make the speedbuild much less useful. I think that's better than hacking up stuff to keep the build timer active over respawns.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: F50 on January 23, 2009, 09:14:40 pm
You can't possible keep track of the counter across all these situations, not just because it's often impossible, but because it's silly too.

So I'm afraid I don't see any solution to this case of bending the rules. It may just be one of those things that needs a human referee to notice and punish it (like evil deconning).

True, but switching teams and deconning are always against the rules (a moderator should immediately !warn, !denybuild, or !ban depending on circumstances upon noticing it), tking is not always against the rules. When tking is against the rules it is because you are hurting another member of your team. In tk speedbuilding this is not the case.

IMO, speedbuilding is more like glich-building, something that should be prevented in reasonable cases (it would be silly to prevent various forms glich-building in /devmap, for example).
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Undeference on January 23, 2009, 09:28:14 pm
It could be prevented pretty trivially but I think it's not used enough to impact most games. It seems to me that the positives outweigh the negatives only on small/mostly unoccupied servers.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Archangel on January 23, 2009, 09:55:53 pm
You can't possible keep track of the counter across all these situations, not just because it's often impossible, but because it's silly too.

So I'm afraid I don't see any solution to this case of bending the rules. It may just be one of those things that needs a human referee to notice and punish it (like evil deconning).

True, but switching teams and deconning are always against the rules (a moderator should immediately !warn, !denybuild, or !ban depending on circumstances upon noticing it), tking is not always against the rules. When tking is against the rules it is because you are hurting another member of your team. In tk speedbuilding this is not the case.

IMO, speedbuilding is more like glich-building, something that should be prevented in reasonable cases (it would be silly to prevent various forms glich-building in /devmap, for example).

teamswitching isn't against the rules on any sane server, after all, they only allow switching when the balance isn't affected
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Urcscumug on January 24, 2009, 12:22:53 am
It could be prevented pretty trivially but I think it's not used enough to impact most games.

How could it be prevented? I ask just out of curiosity, because I don't see any way that wouldn't have this and that negative side-effects.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: KillerWhale on January 24, 2009, 12:41:14 am
That's actually a viable scrim tactic. And I've never seen that qvm feature :/

As for a scrim tactic, it may work, but it tells the other team that you are building at the time, and may give away the lack of four goons or whatnot.
It also prevents either party involved in the building to get timed-evos, which can be the difference between win and lose.

As for the QVM feature, Dretch Storm has the auto-spec, and House of Nuts has the auto-kick. I'm sure there are other servers too, but I don't get around much.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Undeference on January 25, 2009, 08:05:12 am
It could be prevented pretty trivially

How could it be prevented?
By not resetting the build timer when the player dies.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: gimhael on January 25, 2009, 08:43:36 am
The build timer is stored in STAT_MISC, which is also used for pounce/trample/lcannon charge and possibly more stuff, so not resetting this on death may have undesired side effects (e.g. you get killed with a charged luci, respawn as builder and your build timer is active).
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Undeference on January 25, 2009, 11:48:34 am
The point is that I don't see any issue here. If there were an issue, I imagine that the moderators would already have locked this thread for discussing cheating/bug exploitation, and it would already be fixed.

How difficult the fix would be (again, trivial) is moot. If you want to discuss implementation details for your mod in Modding Help Center (http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?board=13.0), I might make some suggestions there. But that discussion really does not belong in Strategies & Tactics (really, guys? I don't think this is much of a tactic).
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Urcscumug on January 25, 2009, 11:53:56 am
It's at least a nifty trick. It was worth mentioning, since I for one hadn't thought of this before.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: zybork on January 26, 2009, 06:44:12 am
In transit, I usually go and jump over the edge after building something, especially when I move the reactor in stage1 to be able to get a rifle and defend it, because sure as hell none of my teammates will do it ::)

I too often made the experience that nobody will help the builder in any way, so to get helped by a teammate in that way never came to my mind before either.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: jit on January 26, 2009, 09:03:04 am
This is a great trick in scrims to get your base up quickly. Most times it is used when the other team has dismantled your base so you tk your builder and have your base up in less than a minute, or in the beginning of a scrim and get most of your turrets up. Also, if you forgot to build and SD is only 2mins away, this is also another useful way to getting your base up.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Roanoke on January 26, 2009, 05:10:13 pm
I too often made the experience that nobody will help the builder in any way, so to get helped by a teammate in that way never came to my mind before either.
All too true.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Urcscumug on January 26, 2009, 08:53:01 pm
Often it's lack of communication. Because it's also true that the builder doesn't ask for help, or doesn't even think about it. And it's sad because there are situations where a single buddy with a dretch or rifle would make a difference for the builder.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Dante on January 30, 2009, 07:52:37 am
I personally don't see a problem with "fast-building," and think that it should be left as it is.  As far as FF settings go, I prefer to have it on, since it makes the game just that much more challenging.  With friendly fire enabled, you have to constantly be aware of where your teammates are, and what they are doing.  It also cuts down considerably on the luci-spam.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: ACKMAN on January 30, 2009, 01:33:25 pm
That's actually a viable scrim tactic. And I've never seen that qvm feature :/

Anyone have seen this?

http://patches.mercenariesguild.net/index.php?do=details&task_id=160&project=0&order=id&sort=desc&pagenum=2

Anti-TK patch
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: Dante on January 30, 2009, 01:39:45 pm
Many servers now, much to my dismay, have an auto-spec/kick for teambleeding, disallowing the tactic of team-fueled speedbuilding.

It's already been discussed in this thread, although the linkage is appreciated.  Please read prior to posting in the future.
Title: Re: Tk bulding
Post by: ACKMAN on January 31, 2009, 09:18:50 pm
That's actually a viable scrim tactic. And I've never seen that qvm feature :/

Anyone have seen this?

http://patches.mercenariesguild.net/index.php?do=details&task_id=160&project=0&order=id&sort=desc&pagenum=2

Anti-TK patch

Archangel quoted that post saying: "That's actually a viable scrim tactic. And I've never seen that qvm feature :/"

And i answered him