Tip 21 - Quake ground zero

The place. A ruined, um, urban thing, with, um... look - its bits of architecture from the second bit of halflife, mixed ith concept art for CS and bits of TF2 thrown in.

The time. 'less than 40 seconds remaining'

Starring - Andrew Scout, Anthony 'other' Scout and a supporting cast of defenders.

The plot.

The war was half won, the team panted, and took a breath. The enemy flag was theirs!
They set about occupying the flag room, when that dreaded (and very scary) voice of god blard out. The enemy had taken their flag!

Quickly, they hit the emergency button - slamming a cage down over their flag, and held their breath.

Moments passed, then minutes. It was clear that the enemy was trapped inside the cage!

A suicicde later, the enemy has lost the flag... and... oh *** they rememebred the emergency system too.

Both flags taken, but not captured - each team called for backup.

{Cut to battlefield, a pair of armoured personell carriers speed toward each other, men clinging onto the sides firing at each other, cut in close to watch jimmy die - both career toward each other, cut to red, cut to blue, back to red, neither is gonna chicken... suddenyly they both turn, running paralell to one another, cut to ground camera, they both roar up toward it, pan up as they hit a ridge and fly over the camera, engage CGI budget for tacky lens flare, APCs land, all the men clinging on the side fall off - crash through the fence into the map, and then... run out of fuel. Back door falls open with a dull thud.}

Each team screamed at their APC to come pick them up, but it wasn't happening. They'd have to get there themselves.

So they steeled theselves for action, and waited for the cages to disengage.


Epicentre. One of the new maps, with a slightly different style of gameplay. It's a torch map (burn the flag) with a couple of twists.

First of all, the map resets when either team caps. Secondly the flags don't become available for 40 seconds after a reset. Third, it is VERY easy to cap on.

Right, some advanced things to note.

The sky doesn't work properly, you can get up onto the building opposite the APC, and either attack or defend from up there. Demon or sniper is most effective.
This is, IMHO, lame - an attack from there is damn hard to stop - and if you put a defender up there to cover it, they're doing nothing else useful.

And detpacks don't reset when the round resets. So you can lay a long fuse one, and have it go off just as the enemy is starting to set up again. This isn't just lame, it's probably going to be considered cheating by most leagues.

The flag doesn't return for 40 seconds. Don't hang around waiting for it.

DO make sure you grab it as soon as it returns, which means that you have to get killed on spec.

Your offence on this map consists of a scout.

The scout shall be able to do every concjump imaginable to land on the cap point behind the APC - the most basic ones are:
* HH from the far end, out of range of sentries, to fly past/over sentries, and land direct.
* Throw conc in front of you, round corner, and turn the corner using the blast, to throw back enemies, and either fly over APC, or push rapidly along ground one side or the other.
* Over the fence, land on the cap point
* From the balcony before the ruin, over the ruin, to land at or near APC

The scout shall also never be acquired by snetry guns.

The sentry gun positions on the high left or high right ledges are both avoidable by running close to the wall. The right ledge SG cn also be destroyed through the fence.

A sentry gun on top of, or just in front of the APC can be destroyed from out of its range, or conced over.

A sentry gun in the ruins can be ignored completely, either by not going through the ruins, or by hugging the wall under the ledge it is on.

A sentry gun under the balcony can be ignored by moving quickly to the ruins, or approaching the long way around, and nailing it from out of range.

A sentry gun on the main approach can be avoided through the ruins, or across the balcony and over the fence.


Now, if you've got multiple sentry guns, then you'll have to kill one, or conc a bit more.

If the sentry guns are guarded by snipers soldiers and the like, you'll have more trouble. Now your options open out a bit.

You can conc them so that they miss you, or otherwise out fight the defenders.

You can drag a second scout along, to get the flag when the soldier nails you.

You can add a spy, who has more manuverability, becaus ethe SG won't acquire them.

You can add a soldier, or other heavy class, to kill SGs, defenders, and generally open a path for you. They can also carry the flag the last stage, and remember that they can jump the fence.


Now - the forty seconds before the flags are available.

My advice is to have your offence offend, and harass the enemy defence. If you can stop them building a sentry gun, then you'll find it that much easier.

DO remember to die in time to get to the flag, the enemy will be on time the one time you aren't.

A slow offence can use the time to get ready to hit the defence at the right time.

If you are using a LARGE offence (4 man) then one good use for the time is to get the defence setup - you can fall back, and prevent the enemy doing what I just described - getting the defence set up to stop the enemy.


My prefferred O/D split for this map is 2/6 - though it can be worthwhile going for 2/2/4 or 3/5 depending upon how defensive the enemy is being.

The midfield can work reasonably well - harass the support, or make the flag drop early on if you happen to get lucky. Remember, you don't have to stop them capping, just hold them off for 30 seconds while your attack caps.

If the enemy has gone for a HUGE defensive setup (like my suggested 6) then a midfield can also support the offence.


Ok, where to place your six defence.

Single sentry gun, in front of the APC is probably the least bad. SG and disp on either side to prevent access can work too, though can be nailed form out of range.

Up on the high ledge lets you repair it more easily, but can be run past.

Any other position (further from the APC) is a gamble that the scout takes that route in.

Dual sentry guns - one on either platform is obvious - one either side of the APc is obvious too.

One in the ruins, and one on the left ledge covers the APC nicely - each shields the others weakness.

One out front, and one near the fence can work, though you'll need roving defence too.

The other defenders - sniper from the building can work, but isn't advised. Demon with pipefield probably better.

Roaming soldier, HWG can be nice - if the enemy uses a lot of spies a spy can help, but probably an alert soldier is better.


Last tips

There is no big siren reporting when the flag is taken or dropped, so tell your teammates.

Coming out of th top respawn door, conc over to the little sniper cubbyhole - it gets you up onto the balcony nice and quickly (and is also safer than daring the ladder when the enemy midfield might be pointing at you)

Do conc enemies about - they hate it.

You've got a 30 minute map, you only have to cap faster than the enemy more than half the time - but if you're able to do it every time, you should get a team score of about 300...

Oh, you don't get any personal points for capping. Thats intentional, don't worry about it.


And so the teams capped, but the video recorder was broken, and skipped, so they had to do it again. Doomed to 30 minutes of instant replays, the battle continued.

Tune in in 45 seconds time, same bat place, same bat server.

i