Tip 24 - You talkin to me?

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

There's no one else here - you must be talking to me!

Ok. Here it is in simple language.

The laws of communication.

1. A player shall not, through action or inaction, spam up the chat channel overly.
2. A player shall answer questions directed at them, and ONLY those directed at them, save where this conflicts with the first law.
3. A player shall tell their team EVERYTHING, except where this conflict with the first or second laws.

(Sincerest apologies to asimov)

Right - tell your team everything they need to know. Simple, eh?

You've got four basic tools for doing this.

1. Message mode 2.

The simplest. Bind a key to it (u by default) hit it, and type away.

Now, this has obvious disadvantages in combat - but you have to decide whether the damage you could do to the enemy rather than type is worth more than the message you send.

It has an advantage that you can say exactly what you want to say, and suitable abbreviations can help your typing speed.

2. say_team

Ok, this does less - but is faster.

bind q "say_team Quick! Need help!"

You can bind up a whole selection of these for different purposes, hit it mid combat, and it'll work. You can bind a whole selection, or require multiple key presses in a big menu system. This gives some flexibility, but be careful what you bind.

You'll NEED some of the things that you say a lot (cap coming in 5 seconds) (incoming enemy medic) a lot, but some of the things that you don't say as often, but are important your team knows FAST too (Holy *** entire enemy team in our ramp room!)

Special things - in a message %h becomes the amount of health you have, %a your armour, and %i the person you last looked at.

So say_team "I'm behind you %i, with %h/%a"
Might become "I'm behind you (1)Player, with 100/200" thus ensuring they know that they are doomed.

3. The VGUI

It's the same as say_team, only a prettier menu.

4. Voice comms.

What can I say? GET VOICE COMMS.

They combine the best of message mode (can say anything) with the best of bound messages (speed, can do it mid combat)

The disadvantage? It slows down your compter, needs bandwidth, and isn't terribly reliable. Further, your teammates all need special software, and to get it set up before hand.

Still, it's well worth using.

There are a few different voice comms packages out there -

a. Roger Wilco

The first, and arguably the best. Like all of these, it runs client server - which means one of you needs to devote more bandwidth to it, although it doesn't NEED a base station.
However, basestations ARE available. And for linux, which is a big plus. It supports passworded channels, voice or key activation (either start talking and it'll notice, or press a key) but has no advanced features BEYOND passworded channels.

You also have to drop out of the game to get it to connect, and depending on soundcards may have to edit a .cfg file to get it to work with halflife.

It also has AWFUL sound quality.

But it's pretty reliable, and uses VERY little bandwidth and power (runs fine over a 56k pref TF1.5)

b. Battlecom

Windows only, very similar to RW, but with a more polished front end. Also built in to directX as of DX8.

Better sound quality, a couple of nice features including the ability to set a hotkey to change channels mid game - it's only downside is a much greater requirement on the processing power.

You'll noticeably drop fraerate while using this. Also there have been some reliability problems with it - though these are allegedly fixed now.

Has a windows only basestation.

c. TeamStream / TeamSound / Whatever

Um, it's a blatant clone of battlecom - except it doesn't even have WINDOWS base stations.

Unreliable, won't work with EITHER of my soundcards, I really don't see the point.

d. EGN.

Apparently this no longer exists. It was a combined ICQ/RW thing - nice idea, maybe :)

e. First Contact

Ok, this is the most promising.
It automatically joins a channel when you join a team, so there's no faffing about prearranging base stations and whatnot, just run it up and start the game.

It's integrated INTO the game, so it can be controlled through the console (or the VGUI if you build a script) and its status messages (like 'xxx has joined the channel') pop up on screen mid game like any other in game message.

It includes server browser, and stuff to help you find a game/channel with people you know.

On the downside - it is NOT reliable. It uses a fair whack of bandwidth, and has a real big problem.

When roger wilco crashes, it just goes away quietly - at the very worst, you in game sound disappears.

When this goes down, and it will, it an bring halflife down with it. Which isn't exactly a good thing.


f. COMING SOON!

Voice communications is being built into a new patch of halflife. So begin using them now, and steal a march on those who won't know what to do with them.

Oh, expect some kind of /ignore function, to be able to mute annoying people.



So, now you know how to say things. What do you want to say?

There are half a million different communications scripts out there. Here are basically what you want:

a. It has to be easy for YOU to use. You don't want to hit the wrong message mid battle.

b. It has to contain the stuff you need. Rarely play spy? Then you don't need huge sets for describing what you are disguised as. But often play engineer? Then you want stuff saying where you're building a gun - to ask for amore ammo, to warn that you're not guarding it anymore, to say it's been blown up and so forth.

Similarly, you may want to devote more space to attacking than defending, or vice versa.

c. It has to NOT ANNOY YOUR TEAM. 'Threw gren2, lookout!' just gets annoying. Anyone nearby can see and hear - anyone NOT nearby doesn't care. (The fact that the script was lovingly crafted, and actually said WHICH gren2 they used made it more depressing)

Keep your messages short, and relevant.

d. Cryptic, but not overly cryptic. Abbreviations are good, if a message is too long, then a teammate may not get the information, or may get overloaded trying to read them. Or get shot while reading it.

But if you make it too compressed, then your teammates miught go 'huh?' or spend too long working out what it means :)


Some specific things you might like to say.

Incoming [Type of enemy] [route]

The route is very important - you can keep it short, maybe having 'main' and 'secondary' or you could have lots of routes, specific to every map.

Similarly, you need to be able to say a group of enemies, but exact details of class aren't so important.

Personally, I have: Light class, Gun class, Wolfpack, Sentry gun, Spy (fast but harmless, dangerous, group of enemies)
And for places, I have: Water, Main door, Ramp room, flag room, Upper room, main route to flag, second route to flag

I also have a key to quickly change the number keys into saying classes - so I can say what the spy is disguised as, say what class I am, or provide more detail on the other binds if neccesary.


Can a demon please [open|close] [our|enemy] tunnel / grate / whatever

Thats fairly obvious. Most maps have something that can be blown up.


Thanks. ok. Yes. No. Sorry.

Those are just useful :) I put Thanks / Ok on one key, and No / Sorry on another


Something to rapidly tell people about spychecks being in place. Something to say 'I'm on your team!'

'Cap in 5 seconds' is VERY useful both to your attack and your defence, epecially on rock2.

'Group up at....' 'attacking NOW' to give more information to your team

And 'out of position' or something similar.

Need medic [position] is more helpful than just need mdic alone.


Ah, go download some scripts, try 'em, see which you like :)

I find it helpful to write out all the commands and keypresses on a piece of paper :)

i