First time player

[Analogy]

Hey, I just heard about this mod and thought I'd check it out. I have to say, though, that my first experience was lacking to say the least. I'm not sure if my team was just full of noobs, but the aliens seem incredibly overpowered to me. Aliens get more speed, hp, and dps than humans, and it was showing in how they could consistently overrun our base giving us no chance to leave and go on the offensive.

I'm not saying this because I was getting owned and not getting kills, I was actually leading the team in kills.

Another slightly unrelated question, does the engine have any lag compensation? I'm used to the Half-Life engine where you aim directly at your enemy, can you do the same here or do you have to lead?

On another side-note, the buy interface blows chunks. You should not be forced to sit around clicking while aliens are raiding your base. I know it's possible to make binds, but binding everything possible would take up half your keyboard, and forces you to go back to the mouse for anything that's not bound yet. Figure out a way to make the buy menu keyboard-driven instead of mouse-driven. As much as I hate to use Counter-Strike as a reference for how to do things well, their buy menu system works very well. I've never personally played NS but I've seen a friend play it and its gestures-based system seemed to work very well too.

[Nux]

Allo! Welcome to Tremulous.

In my opinion, aliens are easier for new players but humans are alot more effective for experienced players.

For your lag problem I suggest you find a server you have a nice, low ping with. Some servers use 'Unlagged' to help laggy people, but I and others hate it. If you want to check whether a server is running unlagged and other server info there's a server info button on the server list page. When you're on a server you can also press the key to left of the 1/! key and above the tab key to bring up the console. Just type '/serverstatus' and look for 'g_unlagged'. 1 means on 0 means off.

[Steely Ann]

Alrighty, lemme see.

I'm not sure if my team was just full of noobs, but...

Chances are your team just sucked.  Here's a tip: Practice, practice, practice with the shotgun until it fits you like a glove, as it is good at taking down everything but Tyrants, especially if you have a chaingunner, shotgun buddy, or lasgunner with you.  As well, try playing with max sensitivity and see if you like it; I love it because it helps me swings around my shotgun when I need to.

does the engine have any lag compensation

Tremulous 1.1 (current version) does not come with lag compensation; you must lead every f*cking weapon there is, including the shotgun, which makes me feel really, really stabby.  However, many servers run TJW's Unlagged mod, which puts lag compensation in for both human weapons and alien slashes.

As for the buy menu, yes it does suck.  That's why I bound all my buying to keys a looooooooooooong time ago.

Also, try and find a newbie-friendly server like Darklurker's Lair (Unlagged, by the way) to play in until you get the hang of things, as veterans frequently join SST and the like to killwhore on the aliens team.  I'd also like to point you to the forum's shiny new Strategy/Tactics section here.

Edit:  Curse you, Nux! *shakes fist*
Oh, and I suppose I might as well ask: Is Analogy your in-game alias?  It'd be fun to come and bug ya some time.

[Raytray]

Unlag for lag compensation.

Oh and humans are great. Just make sure you can aim.

Also, set up binds to buy your weapons and loadout.
http://mercenariesguild.net/index.php?option=com_openwiki&Itemid=46&id=binds

[Nux]

Muhahaha! >8D

Ahem, Steely Ann is right about having a gunner-buddy. As human, teamwork is a powerful thing. As alien.. it's a little more like a frenzy.

[Seffylight]

Take a shotgun and a friend, you should be alright.

The really experienced players seem to mostly agree that the human team is the more powerful one.

[AppleJuice]

Heh, actually humans win almost every single 1v1 I've been in.  Aliens seem overpowered at first, but humans have the overall advantage.

Oh, and lasgun > shotgun.
(Just my opinion)


I would play on unlagged servers if I were you.  Most people who dislike unlagged dislike it because they do not want to adjust.  Leading involves luck - it's not pure skill like some would claim.  Aiming directly is skill.  Some argue that unlagged takes away the ability to dodge - to them I say, you just suck in unlagged.

[Steely Ann]

<3, AppleJuice.  Stop readin' my mind!

Oh, and before anybody else beats me to it, f*ck Counter-Strike and its crap-tacular counterparts.  Seriously.  That game viciously beat, raped, and dumped in a ditch what "Tactical Shooter" is supposed to mean.

// No idea why I bother with the asterisks on the forum when I cuss up a storm on servers, anyway.  Fuck it.

[Nux]

I don't want to turn this into a "Unlagged: Good or Absolute Scum" topic..

..in fact I might just make such a topic if enough people show interest ^^..

..but I'd like to give reason for why I don't like unlagged.

Unlagged is trying to make the game more fair by making everyone just as laggy as each other. That's all it can physically do. The people who get lag have lag because they live on the other side of the earth. There's no getting round the fact that information can't travel that fast.

So everyone now lags. What I mean by this is everyone has unexpected things happen to them. Say for example a goon chomping me from the other side of the room. I'm paying for that goons lag. Why should I? Why can't he play on servers he has good ping with?

Also, leading your fire (e.g. shooting away from the mara to kill it >.<) trains the mind to aim frantically. This doesn't help people develop aiming skills so much as it trains them to wildly fire in their direction until unlagged tells them they hit. Before you say "but there is a very specific gap you need to fire into to make the shots reach the mara" there's very little accounting for what that mara does and where unlagged says it went in that duration.

[TinMan]

You can get most buildables and weapons on just your number keys:
http://neonpulse.net/files/games/tremulous/base/autoexec.cfg

[Undeference]

Unlagged is trying to make the game more fair by making everyone just as laggy as each other.

Wrong. There are a few systems for other games that do that, but that's not what happens here. Unlagged works the other way around, by removing the lag: it silently rolls back everything to the point at which a hitscan attack goes off, then puts it all back. In effect, it makes everyone shoot/slash like they are on a LAN with the server, even if they don't move like that.
You just have to shoot where they appear and ignore where you think they really are.

[Nux]

What I mean by this is everyone has unexpected things happen to them. Say for example a goon chomping me from the other side of the room. I'm paying for that goons lag. Why should I? Why can't he play on servers he has good ping with?

To clarify, when there is a discrepancy between what I see and what is actually the case I think there's cause for concern. When that discrepancy is due to another persons high ping but I pay for it, that's cause for frustration. You can't remove lag. You can try and actively put things right as unlagged does, but all that does is gives more false information.

It's not what good it does for high pingers that I'm worried about. It's what bad it does to low pingers. Experienced players can tell the difference as they are used to picking up on minute changes. So when a sure-fire hit somehow misses and a sure-fire miss somehow hits, players get angry.

[Undeference]

It's not perfect, but there is something that limits that to some degree.
Also, while that goon is lagging, you're shooting at a stationary object. You probably have a better chance of killing the goon than it does of killing you.

[Nux]

Also, while that goon is lagging, you're shooting at a stationary object. You probably have a better chance of killing the goon than it does of killing you.

That would be right if a split-second later it didn't appear right in front of me and chomp my head off. That's how it happened on his computer so unlagged says it happened on mine too.

[AppleJuice]

Also, while that goon is lagging, you're shooting at a stationary object. You probably have a better chance of killing the goon than it does of killing you.

That would be right if a split-second later it didn't appear right in front of me and chomp my head off. That's how it happened on his computer so unlagged says it happened on mine too.

Just don't play with warpers, then.  The same thing happens in lagged, if someone has high, unstable ping - he warps.

[Nux]

I'm glad you said that.

I was just playing a game on metalheads server (g_unlagged 1). The leading players was called 'player'. He had a good ping. I had a good ping. He warped like hell. He warped more than the high pingers.

So it's not just a case of not playing with high pingers (though if you don't play with high pingers there's no point in unlagged anyway). I made a demo of it but demos don't record any of the warping =( they record what the server saw so everything looks smooth.

[AppleJuice]

Well, in my experience, most warpers have high pings.  Someone with a low ping could still warp, as I do when my fps crashes.  Every night at 11 PM my fps starts spiking from 90 to 30 every other second, causing me to warp, even though I have sub 50 ping (right now I'm only able to fix this by restarting).  An unstable ping/fps is the main cause of warping.  High ping is just the usual complement.

There is a point to unlagged when playing with low pingers (no leading at all?).

[Nux]

If your FPS is getting worse over time, that sounds like a memory leak. Not sure why it would do that though.

This isn't an FPS problem. Though he has a low ping, the server is 'correcting' his position in my view to account for other peoples views. My FPS is unaffected.

Not sure what you mean when you say:

There is a point to unlagged when playing with low pingers (no leading at all?).

If you mean unlagged means you don't have to lead: You don't have to lead with low ping games without unlagged.

If you mean you get to lead with unlagged: Why should I lead with a hitscan weapon?

EDIT: Alright, that's enough 'off-topic'ing. I've made a new thread for this discussion.

[player1]

@OP:

Play more. Either side can be amazing. Depends on which team the good/skilled/experienced players end up on. I've witnessed a Human team win Tremor in under three minutes. Rush the enemy, try not to feed, stay with your squad, defend your buddies, use complementary loadouts.

The lagged discussion has moved on, and I will leave it to interested parties...

As said above, make keybinds for Human buying (also for Alien evolving, possibly for Human and Alien building, too). Not quite as cool as the loadout combos used in Tribes, but much better than default.

P.S. The terms Counter Strike and Natural Selection are as much anathema to a true Tremster as the name of That Scottish Play is to a thespian. Beware the thunderbolt from on high! (Or haven't you ever seen that Simpsons episode?) In that vein, Good Luck!

[A_Total_noob]

Greetings to the new recruit.

let me clear a few things...

1.While aliens have much more HP, it doesnt necessarily mean much.
While a tyrant has 400hp, a Battlesuit, when the damage reduction is replaced as hp, has 250hp.
L. armour and a helm leaves you at 150hp.


2.One of the things about playing with the humans is teamwork.
Often, you will find there is a goon (short for 'dragoon'), or tyrant on the enemy team which is a excellent player - usually, this means that its almost impossible to kill the guy by yourself.
Basically, while I dont recommend saying "Someone accompany me", if I were you, if I see a fellow battlesuit/shotgunner/etc leaving the base, I would follow him. Now, if he runs into...'trouble', you will be there to help him, and will probably net the kill as he is killed.

3.The more expensive weapon is not always the best-
different weapons suit different playstyles.
I personally adore the shotgun and the flamer, but you will probably kind a fav weapon yourself soon.

Basically, the 'painsaw' deals 200dps, however is the cheapest weapon of them all. This makes it a excellent weapon for rushing bases, dretches, and 'that' goon who hasnt noticed you.

The shotgun, at roughly 56 damage per shot and 150 credits, can often be more useful than a lasgun at 250credits.

Infact, the free rifle is sometimes more useful than a lasgun, however the lasgun too has many perks. What im trying to say is that dont pick a weapon based on its price. The only 'BFG' weapon here is the Luci (Lucifer Cannon) - at 250 damage for a full charged 10 unit shot, it can take down anything short of a tyrant in one shot. While it does have certain limitations, its safe to say its the 'best' weapon in the game as a overall 'uber l33t killz0r' weapon.


4.Try not to build unless you really do know how to. Watch how people build, then once oyu think you are ready, try it yourself.

5.Watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doTBT46wMvA

Heh heh heh - I laugh everytime I watch it

[Analogy]

Wow, thanks for the responses everybody!

I'm not gonna come out for or against unlag, it's just what I'm used to from playing Half-Life engine games. I'm sure I can get used to leading targets on servers that aren't unlagged.

Is Analogy your in-game alias?

Affirmative.

Oh, and before anybody else beats me to it, f*ck Counter-Strike and its crap-tacular counterparts.

Agreed. I hate the tactical shooter genre with a passion. Nothing is less fun than weapons that don't go where you aim them, inability to move faster than a crawl and getting one-shotted by snipers when you so much as poke a toe around a corner. I've been playing the Source mod Dystopia for a while now but unfortunately it's lost so much of its former popularity that it's basically unplayable nowadays.

While a tyrant has 400hp, a Battlesuit, when the damage reduction is replaced as hp, has 250hp.

According to tremwiki Battlesuit reduces damage to 20%, so wouldn't that make it 500hp?

The more expensive weapon is not always the best

So I've discovered. Psaw rushing is probably one of my more effective techniques at the moment, that and chaingunning.

[temple]

According to tremwiki Battlesuit reduces damage to 20%, so wouldn't that make it 500hp?

Not if you get hit in the head.

New to tremulous?

Use the shotgun all the time and use the dretch all the time.  You will learn the hard stuff quick.

And listen to people in game.

[Steely Ann]

Analogy

No, no, no.  I meant that Counter-Strike is exactly what real Tactical Shooters absolutely are not, yet it's bizarrely managed to gain that label; what the fuck?  
Now everybody and their goddamn grandmother thinks "Tactical Shooter" means an arcade shootout with remotely realistic weapons and voice-chat.  
Operation Flashpoint is a hell of a lot closer to my ideal of a tactical shooter, even if its engine is god-awful laggy.

Hell, check out Dslyecxi's kick-ass article over here, if you want.  Should give you a good idea of what I mean.

// I hate Mondays so much...
// And screw in advance anybody who points out my post time.

[Analogy]

Okay I've given the game a good chance. I'm done, anyone who doesn't think aliens are seriously overpowered is an idiot. Aliens take an incredible amount of firepower to kill while humans die instantly. No thanks, goodbye.

[Kaleo]

I'm used to the Half-Life engine...

You mean the source engine, don't you...

Worst engine ever... Stick in the bin/anus.

[A_Total_noob]

No, but theyre not !

Ach, hes already gone :-/

[Seffylight]

And nothing of value was lost.

[Loke]

RAAAAAAAAAGEEE

[kozak6]

I wonder if he even played as an alien before making up his mind.

The way he posted, he seemed more human centric.

[player1]

n00bz r so cute

These bugs don't die! This game r 2 hardz 4 me! I can't play, am too lame to stick around to get past the learning curve, and give up far too easily! Instead of enjoying this obviously cool FREE game, I'll go back to playing some inane WWII game where everybody hackz and aimbotz, but at least there are no bugz! Oh the bugz! They still haunt my dreams...! I'll go download another game and give that one a whole day-and-a-half, or twice as long as I gave this one. Farewell forever, and don't forget how lame I was. In short, I am lame. I now retire from the field of battle, or to paraphrase Chief Joseph, I am lame no more forever.

Oh, and to truly prove how stupid I am, I'll sing the Stupid Nation Anthem: If u don't think exactly what I think, u r outside of my head and I hate u 4 that.

colonROLLcolon

:roll: times sideways eight

I am t3h n00b, hear me whine: "Y O Y don't dem bugz die?"

I wonder if he played continously as noob Human for 18 hours straight, mainlining caffeine and creatine: "But I bought armor and a helmet!" *sniff* "Die!..." *moan* "Bugz! *cry* "Die!..." whine... sweat... twitch... "DIE!" *waaaaahhhhhh* "Mommy!" "This sucks!" "Why are my testicles the size of M&Ms? They're now twice as large as my brain, and four times as useless."

1st post Monday @ 6am
last post Tuesday @ 45 minutes after midnight

wow given the game a good chance, huh?

in short, plz never come back to find this message that sez:

GOOD RIDDANCE!!! (with rid-dance being the dance I do to be rid of you)