Tk bulding

[F50]

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)?

[your face]

Also speedbuilding can be used when you are building near a death pit, such as on Uncreation, or Transit.

[Hendrich]

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.

[Bissig]

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.

[Hendrich]

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. 

[Roanoke]

This is why we should try to modify or replace the build timer.

[your face]

But that would mean no more speed building.

[KillerWhale]

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.

[kevlarman]

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.

[Archangel]

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 :/

[Roanoke]

But that would mean no more speed building.

Yes, because building would get faster, ergo speedbuilding wouldn't work.

[F50]

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).

[Ellohir]

dying reset my build counter

¿Bug or feature?

[Urcscumug]

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).

[gimhael]

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.

[F50]

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).

[Undeference]

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.

[Archangel]

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

[Urcscumug]

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.

[KillerWhale]

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.

[Undeference]

It could be prevented pretty trivially

How could it be prevented?

By not resetting the build timer when the player dies.

[gimhael]

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).

[Undeference]

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, 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).

[Urcscumug]

It's at least a nifty trick. It was worth mentioning, since I for one hadn't thought of this before.

[zybork]

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.

[jit]

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.

[Roanoke]

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.

[Urcscumug]

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.

[Dante]

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.

[ACKMAN]

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