******************************************************************************* Tribes Copyright 2004, Apathetic Aardvark Email: sinenomine@gmail.com All rights reserved Version 1.2 9/08/2004 ******************************************************************************* Index/Table of Contents ******************************************************************************* Disclaimer.........................................................i Version History....................................................ii Armor Types........................................................iii Weapons............................................................iv Backpacks..........................................................v Deployables........................................................vi Vehicles...........................................................vii Stations & Base Defenses...........................................viii Frequently Asked Questions & Tips..................................ix Credits............................................................x ******************************************************************************* i) Disclaimer (Legal stuff) ******************************************************************************* Copyright 2004, Apathetic Aardvark All rights reserved. The following sites have my permission to post this; www.gamefaqs.com Any site, magazine, or other form of media, that is not included on this list caught hosting this guide without my written consent is in violation of copyright laws and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the laws. In addition, a terrible curse will be placed upon you and any subsequent generations of your family. ******************************************************************************* ii) Version History ******************************************************************************* 3/10/2004 - Wrote the guide 9/08/2004 - updated 12/2004 - Finished FAQ section ******************************************************************************* iii) Armor Types ******************************************************************************* There are three classes of armor in Tribes. Each hold distinctive advantages and disadvantages over the others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Light Armor Light Armor allows an user to carry up to three weapons. Mortar guns can not be used in light armor, though mortar ammunition can be. The Laser Rifle is exclusive only to light armor as well. Light armor offers minimal protection against wounds, however, it does allow for the easiest movement. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Medium Armor Medium Armor allows an user to carry four weapons, but not Mortar Guns or Laser rifles. Medium armor is optimal for deploying objects like turrets as you can move around with them faster than in the heavy armor. While movement is considerably lower than in light armor, the protection is substantially better. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heavy Armor Heavy armor greatly hampers most movements, however, it can wield four weapons including the powerful mortar launcher. Heavy armor can hold any deployable as well. Heavy armor users make great base and flag defenders as well as base attackers. ******************************************************************************* iv) Weapons ******************************************************************************* Tribes has an arsenal of eight primary weapons along with many assisting weapons as well. Some of these weapons feed off of the users jetpack energy rather than take standard ammunition. Also, if you die with your finger on the trigger you will continue to discharge two or three more shots of most weapons, even if you don't have that much ammo left. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blaster One of three standard guns you will always have when you respawn. The blaster draws energy from the jetpack. The blaster fires in somewhat quick pulses. This is pretty much a horrible weapon and should be discarded for anything else in the arsenal. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Plasma Gun The plasma gun shoots similar projectiles to the blaster. They move much slower but are much larger and have a small range of splash damage to damage nearby targets. This weapon is most effective when used to detonate a mine at close range, anything beyond this range and the projectiles dissipate too quickly. This gun draws off of normal ammunition rather than the jetpack energy supply. Recommended for a solid melee weapon when using heavy armor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chaingun Depending on your Internet connection, this is either the most useful or useless gun in the game. The chain gun is highly destructive at close range. However, at long range only about two of the eight shots will come anywhere near the location of the crosshair. These are the first two shots so of course people have written scripts [not cheats] to auto fire the chain gun only two bullets at a time. This gun of course takes bullets and does not feed off of your jetpack energy supply. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Disk Launcher This gun goes by many names, such as the stormhammer and spinfusor. This is without any doubt the best all around gun in the game. Discs are quite strong, able to kill light armor combatants in two shots. They travel fast and have a large splash radius. For best results, try to aim for the enemies feet as the blast radius will do extra as they are pushed upward and into it again. The stormhammer is also good for stopping people dead in their tracks. Hit someone with a mid air disc whom is charging at you and most of their momentum will be lost. This weapon, along with the chain gun, are the most common weapons used for dueling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grenade Launcher Talk about carnage. The grenade launcher fires grenades long distances and they generally explode on contact. If fired into the ground they will bounce some before exploding. This becomes the greatest asset of this gun, fire it in to an enemy bunker and you will likely damage everything inside. This is one of the more popular guns as it works well for base busting and for chasing some one down. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Laser Rifle This gun may only be used by someone in light armor. It also requires the use of an energy pack backpack. The Laser Rifle is the sniping weapon of tribes. Compared to other games it is relatively weak though. A head shot does deal more damage than a body shot, but still fails to kill even a light armored combatant in one hit. Firing this will deplete your entire jetpack supply so a quick escape is seldom possible when using this weapon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Electron Flux Gun [ELF Gun] The elf fun is one of the more underrated weapons. While it does very little damage to targets, it will drain their energy supplies quickly. This is most useful for holding someone who is trying to escape down, but also plays a big roll in knocking down the shield on turrets, which will also prevent them from firing. The range on this weapon is rather short, so you'll need to be in a pretty close proximity. This weapon will drain your energy while in use, but VERY slowly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mortar Gun In terms of raw power, nothing can match the mortar gun. This gun lobs green shells of death up to very long distances which explode with a vengeance. This weapon is able to kill any light armored combatant in a single shot with a hit which registers close. It has an enormous splash radius which allows it to decimate enemy bases. Be careful not to fire one off in your own base, even with team damage off you'll probably blow up some deployables! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grenades Not a true gun like the others, hand grenades can be tossed directly in front of you at short to medium distance. These do about the same damage as grenades from the launcher but are much more difficult to score a hit with. Grenades do not count against your weapon total as you only need your hand to fire them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mines Anyone may deploy mines as well. Mines will burrow into the ground as best as possible when deployed. They deal enough damage to kill a light armored person in a single shot and do splash damage as well. They will only blow up if stepped near or shot at. They are best used in mine/disc or mine/plasma explosions as they will do more damage with the projectiles aide. Use your mines wisely, you can only hold a few! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Targeting Laser Not really a weapon, it does no damage at all while giving your position away with a green line! This was initially designed for painting the distance to a turret, but, it is more frequently used to spot incoming enemies or to lead allies to a flag carrier. This will slowly drain your jetpack while in use. ******************************************************************************* v) Backpacks ******************************************************************************* In addition to the weapon one may carry, one backpack [or deployable] may also be worn at a time. Backpacks are very useful. Most use your jetpacks energy to do their task though. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ammo Pack - The ammo pack roughly doubles the amount of ammunition you may carry. Shown below is the chart for ammunition you may carry in a particular armor with and without an ammo pack. Mines and throwing grenades are also increased. Keep in mind, if you die with ammo remaining other people may pick it up and use it, so try not to die in enemy territory with a full load of goodies for them! B = Bullet P = Plasma D = Disc G = Grenade M = Mortar [no ammo pack/ammo pack] Heavy Armor B-200/350 P-50/80 D-15/30 G-15/30 M-10/20 Medium Armor B-150/300 P-40/70 D-15/30 G-10/25 M-10/20 {can not use mortar} Light Armor B-100/250 P-30/60 D-15/30 G-10/25 M-10/20 {can not use mortar} ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Energy Pack - By far and away the best pack in the game. The energy pack allows you to fly farther for longer. It also allows you to use the laser rifle when in light armor and maintain and ELF Gun attack longer. Most flag capturing routes are designed for an energy pack. You are at a severe disadvantage without one. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shield Pack - The shield pack is great for defending. When active, it slowly drains the jetpack battery of energy. But when hit, instead of dealing damage to your life, it will drain it from your energy until you are out of it. This is great for door or flag defense. It may also come in useful in duels, but realize you would be sacrificing mobility for defense, which is generally a no no. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sensor Jammer Pack - This is by far and away the most useless backpack in the game. This pack jams the ability of pulse sensors, so you won't appear on a radar unless someone can actually see you. However, this will not stop motion sensors from picking you up as you move by. This pack drains your energy when active as well. The only bonus to this is you can keep many people nearby invisible to sensors as well, so if you're moving a convoy in an APC, you can keep them blind unless someone notices a hulking behemoth flying by.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Repair Pack - One of the more under rated packs. These packs float around near bases so they may be repaired. You can repair any person, vehicle, deployable or station with one of these. You need to be reasonably close to the target and your energy will be slowly drained. Do not presume someone is a newbie just because they run around with one. While rocket turrets get blown to bits quite frequently, they are the most useful turret which is why they are an attractive target. ******************************************************************************* vi) Deployables ******************************************************************************* Rather than using a pack, some people may wish to use deployables. Almost all of them are in some way beneficial to the defensive setup of your allies. Most armors can carry the items, except for the turrets, and remote stations, which only medium and heavy armor can hold. Most of the deployables stop to function when damaged more than 50% of their health. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remote Pulse Sensor - Much like their large and medium pulse sensor brothers, these will detect anything which has energy which is not obstructed by a wall or mountain. They can be jammed just like other pulse sensors can. One very peculiar use for these I have found is the ability to imprison a flag. Since these are generally not able to be destroyed in one or two shots you can impede on someone skiing right off of the pedestal. However, the primary use of allowing you to see things coming far sooner is far more valuable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remote Motion Sensor - These may sound similar to pulse sensors but they are not at all. Motion Sensors only pick up on objects that move. You can usually walk a step or two before one will notice you. Deploying these are pretty much a waste of time as they have small range and their most common use, next to remote turrets, is useless as remote turrets have them built in! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remote Sensor Jammer - Similar to the Sensor Jammer Pack, the remote sensor jammer blocks all pulse sensors within a small area. Any friendly item or object in that very small radius can only be seen by motion sensors and of course people with eyes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remote Camera - Although this first seems good in some way, the camera has a very limited use. You can place them in places and see them later using a command screen, but, it has no ability to damage other objects and just seeing what your enemies are doing puts you down an useful man. The only plus is they can be deployed pretty much anywhere, so you can make nice sniper ledges if you so desire. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remote Turret - These little buggers are equipped with motion sensors, so it is difficult to get by them without them shooting. However, baby steps will work if there is nothing else to shoot at you. Otherwise, just peg these things with some gun. They have no shielding and are easily destroyed. if you find one in the middle of no where, hit it enough to prevent it from shooting, but not enough to destroy it. Remember, teams can only have ten remote turrets out at one time, why give them the ability to place it somewhere useful? Also, to prevent turret stacking, only so many turrets can be placed in too close of a proximity. These may not be deployed in light armor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remote Ammo Station - These are just like your base ammo stations except they may be placed anywhere. They have about 3000 energy to start with and will supply you until they run out. They are great on flag perches for a quick resupply so you don't need to go back into the main base. They may not be deployed by light armor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Remote Inventory Station - Just like the big stations, remote inventory stations allow you to buy and sell weapons and packs. You can NOT change your armor class in these stations though, nor can you buy more stations. They have a set amount of energy and will be useless once emptied [unless you sell things to it]. These are great for use in the middle of a turret field so you can resupply them when needed, or out behind the mission area to give your flag cappers an edge even if you have no main base! Use the energy wisely! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beacons - Not really a true deployable as it doesn't take up a backpack room, you can use these to paint a target to shoot at or just place it at the start of a route so you don't get lost the next time around. These are small and blow up pretty easily. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Health Patch/Kit - These also are not deployables but are quite useful. The patch is small and gives a very small amount of life back, they are generally only on levels without stations. Kits are given to you when you spawn, it will bring back about 40% of your life in light armor, less in heavier ones, and you may only hold one. Try not to die with it still on you as you can essentially refill your enemies! ******************************************************************************* vii) Vehicles ******************************************************************************* Tribes was one of the first FPS's to involve the use of vehicles. While they are simplistic and more or less useless compared to the vehicles of today, they are still worthy of mention. Only light armors may PILOT the vehicles. When the vehicle explodes, all personnel inside will have damage assessed to them, often fatal to light armor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LPC - Light Personnel Carrier, these may carry two passengers around. They are pretty damn slow and very bulky making them easy targets. If Disc Launching [more on this later] didn't exist these might be an useful way to move troops, instead they are just a laughing stock. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HPC - Heavy Personnel Carrier. these can carry up to four passengers! They are bigger and slower than the LPC. Again, if better forms of moving around for heavy armor didn't exist, these may be more useful. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scout - This is a single man vehicle [though there are tricks to fit more in it! It moves are very quickly and is pretty small. It can fire rockets which do a good deal of damage but are hard to aim. On some maps you can try to capture flags with these. Another great use is jumping out just before hitting someone and making them part of your bumper. ******************************************************************************* viii) Stations & Base Defenses ******************************************************************************* A crucial aspect to most maps is the base. Without a base you are unable to get supplies, save for a few remote stations and scavenging. While you don't get any points or win games because you keep your base up, you'll find they often go together that way [in most maps, some are not meant to be defended]. While base defenders and automated turrets go unrecognized in the scoring field, they do matter. All turrets may be controlled by human players but do not necessarily need to be. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fusion [Plasma] Turret The most frequent turret you'll see playing Tribes. Plasma turrets shoot large balls which do considerable damage. They are however very slow moving balls of death and do not have a very good aim, missing almost all of the time. Other than this they do provide a small boost to the sensor network. Unlike the Plasma gun, the projectiles of the turret to not dissipate nearly as quick. The plasma bolts take littler energy which gives them a good amount of shield protection against attacks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ELF Turret Very similar to the ELF Gun, the elf turret shoots out beams of energy which drain opponents of energy [and often momentum]. They deal slightly more physical damage to Tribesmen while draining their energy packs less quickly than their handheld counterparts. Since these turrets use virtually no energy to fire, they are shielded very well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mini-Fusion [Plasma] Turret Oddly the mini plasma turrets are far more dangerous than their larger brother. They use motion sensors instead of Pulse sensors, which greatly increases their accuracy but does not add to your sensor grid. They are less damaging but their attacks fire much faster. They are heavily defended and a real pain to destroy at times when they are sitting on a ceiling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rocket [Missile] Turret These turrets can be nasty if you don't know what you're doing. They use pulse sensors to locate a target and then fire powerful rockets at them. If you are not generating any heat [IE Jetpack] the missile will have virtually an impossible time locking on to you. If you see one come at you, stop jetting at once and it will probably fly over you harmlessly, or at just scratch you. They fire very slowly as each rocket takes a good two thirds of its energy supply. This makes the shielding weaker than the other turrets, so they are much easier to blow up with weapons you wouldn't normally use to blow up other turrets. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mortar Turret This is the only turret which is not automated. These shoot mortars from an energy supply which is also connect to their shielding. These are generally placed in terrible locations in which you can't strike any target of value. The only real upside is the unlimited ammunition. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pulse Sensors Most bases come equipped with a medium or larger pulse sensor. These have very large fields of scanning which will detect any un-obstructed energy source which is not being jammed. They can be blown up just like anything else. It is recommended to keep these functional as without them you can only see enemies with direct eye contact. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ammo Station These will refill any ammunition you are depleted of from the guns you are holding. They also recharge health and give you a health kit if you do not have one. They will not replace deployed objects though. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Command Station From this station you can issue orders to your team, which is dreadfully annoying to players or control any of your teams deployed devices and turrets. While controlling a turret may be fun, it is generally useless unless you are VERY good at it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Inventory Station The most crowded of all the stations, from here you can buy and sell pretty much any object in the game. Listed below is a price listing for inventory stations. Most of these items may also be bought and sold to remote inventory stations as well. If you buy a new armor or weapon to replace one you have, you will auto sell the items you have in most cases. Prices for ammunition are PER unit, so it will cost more to fill up totally. Item Cost ---------------------- Armor ---------------------- Light Armor 175 Medium Armor 250 Heavy Armor 400 ---------------------- Weapons ---------------------- Blaster 85 Chaingun 125 Plasma Gun 175 Grenade Launcher 150 Mortar 375 Disc Launcher 150 Laser Rifle 200 Targeting Laser 50 ELF Gun 500 ---------------------- Backpacks ---------------------- Energy Pack 150 Repair Pack 125 Shield Pack 175 Sensor Jammer Pack 200 Ammo Pack 325 ---------------------- Deployables ---------------------- Inventory Station 3200 Ammo Station 2500 Motion Sensor 125 Pulse Sensor 125 Sensor Jammer 125 Camera 100 Turret 350 ---------------------- Miscellany ---------------------- Repair Kit 35 Mine 10 Grenade 5 Beacon 5 ---------------------- Ammunition ---------------------- Bullet 1 Plasma Bolt 2 Grenade Ammo 2 Mortar Ammo 5 Disc 2 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vehicle Pad and Station These are two different targets and either of them not working will result in you not being able to buy a vehicle. The vehicle will also be unable to spawn if something is standing on or directly above the pad. Anyone may buy a vehicle but only light armors can pilot them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Generator - This/These are the heart and sole of any base. Without them, no main equipment will work. Make sure you guard these as well as you can. Not all maps have generators, some maps have many. They come in full size and portable [though you can't move it] sizes. They need to be at least at half health to supply power to everything else. ******************************************************************************* ix) Frequently Asked Questions and Tips ******************************************************************************* 1) What modes of play are there? Capture the flag - You try to get your opponents flag a set number of times while defending your own. Either capture the most when time expires or hit the set number to win. Capture and Hold - You take possession of various switches, generally inside of a small bunker and gain points for every several seconds you hold them. The first team with the required number of points wins. Defend and Destroy - Each team will have a few targets to destroy in the enemy base. You win when all of the targets are down AT THE SAME TIME. In most of the maps the targets can be repaired. Find and Retrieve - There will be a certain amount of flags scattered around the map. You need to get them all to your base at the same time. Unlike CTF missions, the flag will not be returned upon touching it, you will need to manually return the flag to the base. Deathmatch - Just kill like mad, most kills = winner. There are other modes which people have created as well, the most common are dueling and duel tournament. 2) What's the best armor class? Probably light, though heavy does have a lot of useful roles as well. Disk jumping gives them the speed of light armor, but they still lack the quickness gained from lower weight. 3) What's a disc jump? This is somewhat hard to explain, but basically point the disc launcher into the ground and fire while jumping at jet packing at the same time, you will get an enormous lift off which can be used to ski very well. You can do these just pointing into the ground or by launching off backwards. This gives heavy armor equal speed to most light armors. 4) You just said ski, how can I do that? Skiing is accomplished by rapidly jumping as you slide down a hill. If done properly you'll gain great boosts of speed, if done wrong you'll just stop entirely. A script called jump.cs is frequently used by everyone to just hold the jump button down, rather than break it. This aspect was built directly in to Tribes 2. 5) What's an MA? An MA is a mid air shot with a disc, grenade, plasma or mortar shot. These particular weapons are generally difficult to score one with, as opposed to a sniping weapon or an elf gun. MA's are effective at stopping someone’s momentum and bringing them to the ground in a hurry for a follow up shot. 6) Help, our generator was destroyed and no one had a repair backpack, how do we get more? Repair Backpacks are often found in the generator room just hovering there. When taken, they will not return for a half minute or so. 7) What is no fog? No fog is a cheat which people started using when maps such as Obfuscation were added to the CTF rotation. Using glitches in the video card people were able to see clearly rather than have to play on sensor readings, giving them a HUGE advantage. Fog maps were removed from most server rotations to keep this fair. 8) Where can I get auto aim? You can't. The closest thing is a script which fires two chain gun bullets so the crosshair remains accurate. This is not considered a cheat as it is able to be done just by clicking shoot rapidly enough. 9) What is a Mine-Disc? A mine disc is when you toss a mine out in front of you and detonate it with a disc almost immediately. While you may damage, or even kill yourself, it is a very solid and cheap way to cream the crap out of most anyone near you. 10) How do I do those fancy voices? Hit v to bring up the voice menu and work the submenus from there. Learning the more useful ones is recommended to save time. Do not be annoying and spam them though. 11) How do I avoid Rockets from turrets? When in its range, release the jetpack when it rises up to fire, or, after it has fired, release the jets immediately and you *should* be able to fall under the path of the rocket, but not always. 12) I heard there are ways to hide inside of the ground, is this true? In the demo, yes, it was possible and in earlier version of the game. However they have been patched to my knowledge. 13) How do I say cool things like everyone else?! Press the "v" button to bring up a few lists of what you can say. Using the default voices, anyone in the game will be able to hear you. There are many voicespacks which others have made which allow them to say and hear additional and often non-sensical things. 14) Should I even bother playing the single player training missions? I wouldn't, the computer offers little in the way of challenge, as its bots don't even leave the ground or switch weapons. The only fancy thing is a hidden "level" in one of the training missions. 15) Is there any praticle use to sensor jammers and other deployables other than turrets and remote sensors? Not really, they generally die in one hit from most weapons and have very limited ranges. In any form of clan match your team will be playing a man down, essentially, if someone runs around deploying unneeded objects. ----Tips----- - Always mine your flag, even though most players know well enough to clear the mines, it does force them to take a shot at the mine instead of you, provided you are not standing directly near it. This gives an extra free shot on them. - Do not forget to clear the mines from your flag when teammates come back with the enemies flag. - Destroy Rocket Turrets early and often. They are generally placed in the worst of positions and keeping it down will allow much easier access to an enemies base. Likewise, taking offline pulse sensors will limit the enemies ability to see your team coming, until it is too late. - Always fire a few grenades or mortars into an enemy base before going in yourself if time permits. This will damage or disable most internal defenses. - While going around repairing objects and placing defenses is rather boring, every good team needs a person to do this task. - Once all the generators are down, most defensive structures powered by them become destroyable in a few shots. - Always send at least one person to "Bum Rush" an enemy base immediately once the map begins, with any luck, that person will be able to damage some stations causing the other team to have to repair right away, while fighting over who gets to use the station. - If you knock out an enemy generator in a dark room, toss a few mines around it, the poor repairman will get a blast out of them. - When playing on Stonehenge, do not bother to repair... it is a waste of time entirely. The ski routes are better designed for no energy packs anyway. - If your teammate with the flag has virtually no life, is being chased and seems to be moving slow, just kill him or her. If you can kill them while the enemies are still a ways away, you're in better shape. It's far more difficult to get a "sitting" flag when everyone around you has a red arrow over their head. ******************************************************************************* x) Credits ******************************************************************************* CJayC - for creating GameFAQs.com, the best site on the Internet! [KSoD]Darkslayer - Former teammate and good friend for supplying me with the inventory station shopping list! ___________________________ Apathetic Aardvark - 2004 | ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯