Tip 18 - The spies have scotts accents!

URL: http://half-life.morat.net/tfc/guides/


Yersh. Thish place isn't exactly alcatrashh, but it'll do. We've got everything we need here, nerve gash, terrorishts, even a shecret tunnel!


There was no excuse for these prisons being sited as they were. The red prison being there for those convicted of playing computer games, the blue prison for those who liked snorting nerve gas.

The tiny little... canyon? lake? pond? Something, between the bases, with its unclimeable wallskept them in.
But they had to do something to pass the time....

Rock2. It isn't the second in the series, and it doesn't have rocks in it.

I'm not sure I'm going to bother with a great deal of detail on different offence and defence plays here - well, maybe a few defence ones...

The key to this map is the gas suits.

When a gas cycle is activated you will survive it if:
You are currently invulnerable due to having picked up a gas suit.
You are in or near the wardens office.
You are underwater.
You are in the gas chamber.

Hang on... back up... you are INVULNERABLE when you have a gas suit.

Bingo. Armour damage only from enemies.
Nowadays you get a glowly orange second skin, to let the enemies know. But they still can't do diddly abou it till it wears off.

The suits are:
High left entry hall, on the route from the sniper deck to the yard gantry. This one is VER rarely taken by the nemy in a clan match.

In the small room near left side of the yard - with the team only door. This one will often be taken.

In the enemy respawn. (Far left of yard) this one is nearly always taken. But if you CAN get it, especially as a spy, you can then breeze through the laser - and the enemy will almost always accept you as one of their own. (Enemy, be aware of this :)

Near side right of yard, past the showers, there's a small room up there - too far away from anything but the showers to be of any use - but unless the enemy is heavily guarding the showers will almost never be taken.

Far side right, not up the stairs, follow around to the right. This suit is also of little use to the attackers - but will rarely be taken unless the flag runner was pursued heavily / the enemy is GC defence oriented.

A concjumping scout is also fast enough to grab the suit in HIS sniper deck, and use it in the enemy yard.

While suited:
Destroy fixed defence. Run past enemies, get as close up as you can to try and make them kill themselves.
Get the key to the yard / advance it as far as possible.

If you get it right, here is what happens.
(Scout 3 Caps - gas goes off)
Scout 1 grabs suit, invulnerable gets key to the yard. Meanwhile scout 2 has got a suit from further away.
Scout 2 grabs key from where scout1 left it (having died as hit suit wore off) and proceeds to run it toward the GC (a concjump helps here)
Scout 3, now able to leave the GC as the doors open, can finish the cap, if the enemy managed to stop scout 2, otherwise he can hold the door open to speed up the next one.

This is frighteningly hard to stop.

You've got two ways to do it.
First of all, stop the enemy getting any suits. Easiest way is to get them yourselves.
Secondly, use explosions and concs to keep them AWAY from your key, until their suits wear off.
A sentrygun can push them into a corner and keep them there, too :)


Both using the suits, and preventing their use, require heavy comms. Tell each other which suits you are going for, and give warning when a cap is about to occur (either yours or the enemies)

Chain capping using the suits is definately the way to win this map - and it doesn't matter whether you or the enemy starts the gas cycle - just that you know about it, and are able to capitalise.


Alright. Lets build a defence.

Rock2 is, as you may have noticed, one of the easier maps to lock down on defence with 6 defenders.
Now, if you've got 2 atackers capable of breaking the nemy defence and putting you into the lead, then yes, feel free to do this.

Assuming that you don't want to force a draw though, you'll want to get a few caps first.

So lets build some smaller defences. 4 men or less on defence...

Full wardens side.
Ignore the route the enemy uses in - they all have to go through the yard.
Ignore the gas chamber - if the enemy gets your key to the yard, then it's a cap.
However, you can bring a lot of fore to bear at the one place to stop that happening.

You'll want a sentry gun in the WO coridoor. A slightly better place than inside the respawn, is just outside it and hugging the yardside wall. This is harder to hit from either the yard side or by people dropping down from the gantry.
It also doesn't obstruct your own team as they leave the respawn.

You will want a GOOD soldier in the yard. To harass heavy offence, to knock light offence off course, and to stop them standing still and killing the SG.

You've now got 2 slots free.

Good choices for these are additional engineer, demons, and heavies. And of course extra soldiers always go down well.

These all, basically, deathmatch anyone entering the yard, stop people going across the gantry to kill the SG, and/or keep them out of that doorway in case the sentrygun goes down.

A demon has the added advantage that they can reseal the tunnel (It can often be worth blowing your own yard to facilitate this)

One thing to be careful of is good offensive concing - they can use a couple of attackers to knock all of your defence out of place, letting their last attacker through.

One further point to consider with this defence is that it is very hard to spy against - it sees everyone entering the yard, no one except the engineer should EVER move closer to the wo than that respawn, and it generally causes a lot of explosions, which spies find hard to get through :)

Oh - a sniper. On the gantry, moving about, wherever. HAS to be good enough to fence an enemy soldier in while they deathmatch your soldier - without hitting your own soldier - but one of the few snipers this good can certainly do as much or more than another soldier would.

Final point. Be VERY careful about getting involved in sub-melees. If it looks like your teammate can handle it without your help, don't pour friendly fire in. You will often just help the enemy escape. Instead, stay ready for the other attackers.


Ok, wardens side defence.

If the enemy can adapt to it, this is risky - but. There is one HELL of a choke getting to the gas chamber.
If you plonk all of your defenders there, with the key dropped there, then you can make it so that their attack HAS to kill ALL of you. And the sentry gun. To get past.

It works because the enemy FIRST has to get the key, and THEN has to get it to the GC.
You'll want heavy clases for this, a well timed pipefield, a forward roaming soldier, and a HWG at the back.

It CAN work with only three defenders. But...

The counter to it is to let the key return, and take it, and hide it.
Then you don't have he added security that they have to go for the key, and they can time the real attack (the one with the key) whenever they like - so you'll get hammerred by heavy classes until you leave a hole, then (asusming their comms are good) the scout will slip past you, and cap.

And since rock2 is usually a low scoring map, one cap (or gas suit chain of caps) is usually enough to tip the game to a win.


Fully forward defence.

This is stupid stupid stupid. Especially on this map.

But the way to do it is to keep your tunnel sealed (and spammed when they blow it, so they don't get through b4 it reseals)

Keep your front door locked down.
Use a sentry gun or two to stop them getting in through your sniper deck - and pray they don't ffind a way around.

You can press forward to their door - but someone going out their sniper deck windows and CJing will often be a real problem.

Full forward defence is risky enough that even I shun it. When it works, it works. But when it breaks, they WILL cap. No damage limitation.


Offence - hah!

Offence on this map is HARD. Chain capping using the suits is great, but first you have to cap.

Full light classes CAN work - keep them conced and disorientated, kill the SG (or conc past it, a skip jump WILL do)

Do it often enough, and they'll miss a crucial shot, and you'll cap.

Or, more likely, they'll pull an extra man onto defence, and lock the game.


Spies.

I think this is one of the better maps for spying. A pair of spies, mixed in with other attack, can work wonders.
Or at least get that sentry gun down :)

Heavy. Equal theior yard spam with your own, kamikaze that sentry gun, and slowly, oh so slowly advance the key.

This can also work, but tends to lead to a gas chamber lockdown.


LET THE ENEMY CAP

Sounds stupid - but it starts the gas cycle. And if you are more prepared for it than them, then YOU can do the chain cap, leaving them with one cap and you with a couple.
(This was first really demonstrated with MORAT vs SM - in season 2 UKTFCL. MORAT broke SMs streak of wins using it)


Hold back, force them forward.

Hide a couple of people. Only attack with three. Make it look like you have 5 on defence (one presumeably an engineer in your WO where they've not seen him yet)

Have your offence play at less skill than usual.

When the enemy moves an extra man onto offence, no matter how breifly, hit them with your full offence.

Hopefully you'll get the cap before they work out what you're REALLY using as your offence, and can pull back.


Change classes on attack quite often. Heck, even if you keep the same '3 medic + 1 soldier' setup, rotate who is the soldier.
Your attacks get predictable, and a slightly different style can work.


Apologies for this tip being minimal on offence :)


Stab yourshelf in the heart! Yesh! That will shtop the gas killing you.

...

Stupid spy. *takes key and walks off*



i