A few general questions...

[legacy-odlumb]

I'm not a nubie anymore, but I'm certainly not a great player either. I'm asking these question here because after playing a while I still can't find answers, and they may be of interest to all.

1) How does one (deliberately) drop the flag other than translocating? I watched some guy the other day stand in one place and drop the flag several times and then pick it up again after a few seconds. He wasn't using the translocater. This would come in handy when you are carrying the flag, but you only have a few health points left, and one of you team mates is loaded up with 100+. Since you're soon to be cannon fodder anyway (unless you can find a whole bunch of health pickups really quickly) it's better if you give the flag to your team mate and cover him/her.

2) I've always been dumbfounded by how quickly some people can switch weapons. I use voice input, and there is always about a 100-200 millisecond delay from when I give the command (example, "flak" to get the flak cannon) to when the weapon is "in hand" and ready to fire. I've also tried using keys (on the keyboard) to call up individual weapons. That seems slightly faster, but not much faster. I've literally seen guys who could switch weapons, aim and fire before my "switch weapon" command brought up the weapon I wanted. Believe me, my machine is not an underpowered computer, it's really fast, and it's tuned for performance. It's also not a lag problem, the same thing happens when I play against bots on my own machine. Is there something I'm missing? How do these guys switch weapons so quickly?

Try this test - get two weapons (shock and flak are good) and just hold down the left mouse to fire. When the first weapon runs out of ammo, the game automatically switches to the next weapon and starts firing. Why is there so much delay between shots when the weapons are switched? That is, between the last shot of the first weapon and the first shot of the second weapon...maybe you don't experience this?

3) I'm a pretty midiocre marksman, and I've played against some folks who were PHENOMENAL marksmen. They almost never missed. I've heard a lot of complaints about cheaters, but I don't think the fact that someone can aim really well means they cheat. What DOES bother me however is when they can't DIE. Someone with 199 health points and 150 armor points (the maximum one can carry) should not be able to sustain more than four flak cannon direct hits. But I've seen some guys take that and more, and they're still alive...

(I've had someone with a link gun at close range strip off 100 points in about the same time it takes me to select the weapon I want, so this is particularly frustrating.)

When somebody is in a fire fight (you know, he has your flag and he's waiting for his team to get THEIR flag back so he can score) and four guys from the opposing team descend on him and start blasting - multiple shock rifle hits, multiple flak cannon hits, with the mini gun filling in the spaces - but in the end he kills all four of his attackers and survives...huh? I'm sorry, but how is this possible? No matter how good you are, you can't face more than one direction at a time, and meanwhile the other guys are shooting at you...

This makes me wonder. How is is possible to make ANY sort of modification on a client machine that would influence this behavior? My understanding is that the server is keeping track of points, and simply updating all the clients as the game plays. Does this mean that people who are invincible are administrators of servers? Just out of curiosity, how is it possible to do this?

4) How does one get voice chat to work reliably? I'm talking voice over UDP. I've HAD it working on a few servers, but there were always many servers where it didn't work at all. But now, even when I can hear other folks talking to one another, they can't hear me. This is probably complicated, so maybe there's a tutorial dedicated to all the intricacies of getting voice chat to work in UT2004? If you know of one, can you direct me to it please?

5) I would like to join a clan. Since I live in a remote area, this would probably be a long distance group friendship. On a really good night I can play with excellent players and make a real contribution, especially in a team game like CTF. I enjoy the team coordination more than just blasting people. I'm free to play regularly. Is there a central advertising place where clans are looking for new members?

6) This last one is not a question, but a comment. Playing against people who "cheat" is really boring. As soon as I realize what's going on I just drop out of the game. I wish these folks would realize that the point of playing is to have fun, not bolster up their immature inferiority complexes. I'm not opposed to losing, I do it far more often than winning anyway.

A game (ANY game) is only interesting as long as winning and losing are possabilities. As soon as either one become inevitable, it's no longer a game, it's somebody's power agenda, and that's REALLY, REALLY boring. Just my two cents.

Thanks in advance for any answers you may have.

Zanoni

[Lert]

I'm not a nubie anymore, but I'm certainly not a great player either. I'm asking these question here because after playing a while I still can't find answers, and they may be of interest to all.

1) How does one (deliberately) drop the flag other than translocating? I watched some guy the other day stand in one place and drop the flag several times and then pick it up again after a few seconds. He wasn't using the translocater. This would come in handy when you are carrying the flag, but you only have a few health points left, and one of you team mates is loaded up with 100+. Since you're soon to be cannon fodder anyway (unless you can find a whole bunch of health pickups really quickly) it's better if you give the flag to your team mate and cover him/her.

Thre should be a bind you could make for that. But since I don't play CTF very much, I wouldn't know from the top of my head what it is, maybe someone else can help you with that.

2) I've always been dumbfounded by how quickly some people can switch weapons. I use voice input, and there is always about a 100-200 millisecond delay from when I give the command (example, "flak" to get the flak cannon) to when the weapon is "in hand" and ready to fire. I've also tried using keys (on the keyboard) to call up individual weapons. That seems slightly faster, but not much faster. I've literally seen guys who could switch weapons, aim and fire before my "switch weapon" command brought up the weapon I wanted. Believe me, my machine is not an underpowered computer, it's really fast, and it's tuned for performance. It's also not a lag problem, the same thing happens when I play against bots on my own machine. Is there something I'm missing? How do these guys switch weapons so quickly?

They are Not switching faster than you are. It only LOOKS that way because they are already starting to switch while you are still concentrating on dodging their earlier fire. It's a matter of brainwidth - you can only concentrate on so many things at the same time, and when you're busy concentrating on incoming enemy fire, and how 'slow' your own weapons switch, it'll always seem as if the other guys can switch faster.

On the whole I think there is about a 1 second delay when switching weapons between the last shot of the previous weapon and the first shot of the next weapon. And it's the same for EVERYBODY, unless they are using a cheat. But to be honest, in my almost two yeas of playing this game online, I've never seen this kind of cheat.

Yes, there is a mutator that allows for fast weapon switch, but if you're on a server that runs it, you'll have it too, so it's still the same.

Try this test - get two weapons (shock and flak are good) and just hold down the left mouse to fire. When the first weapon runs out of ammo, the game automatically switches to the next weapon and starts firing. Why is there so much delay between shots when the weapons are switched? That is, between the last shot of the first weapon and the first shot of the second weapon...maybe you don't experience this?

As I said before, that delay is only between your ears. Everybody has the same delay. There is no 'l33t' way of switching weapons faster than everyone else, short of using a sort of cheat which I've personally never seen used. The trick is to switch weapons based on the situation and to keep confusing your enemy.

3) I'm a pretty midiocre marksman, and I've played against some folks who were PHENOMENAL marksmen. They almost never missed. I've heard a lot of complaints about cheaters, but I don't think the fact that someone can aim really well means they cheat. What DOES bother me however is when they can't DIE. Someone with 199 health points and 150 armor points (the maximum one can carry) should not be able to sustain more than four flak cannon direct hits. But I've seen some guys take that and more, and they're still alive...

You could see their health and shield and such ? A glancing hit from a rocket will do a lot less damage than a direct hit, for example. And flak sends out nine shards that do 100+ dmg if all nine hit, but less dmg if less of them hit. If they didn't die, then they obviously didn't take enough damage to die from.

(I've had someone with a link gun at close range strip off 100 points in about the same time it takes me to select the weapon I want, so this is particularly frustrating.)

Link primary has the highest dmg per second of all the standard weapons in the game (Superweapons not included) .. Four hits of link primary take off about 130 hitpoints, and take just over a second to fire. Combine that with the fact that it takes a second between shots when you switch weapons, yes, you can lose 100 hitpoints to link primary while switching weapons. But it's the same for everyone who plays the game. Deal.

When somebody is in a fire fight (you know, he has your flag and he's waiting for his team to get THEIR flag back so he can score) and four guys from the opposing team descend on him and start blasting - multiple shock rifle hits, multiple flak cannon hits, with the mini gun filling in the spaces - but in the end he kills all four of his attackers and survives...huh? I'm sorry, but how is this possible? No matter how good you are, you can't face more than one direction at a time, and meanwhile the other guys are shooting at you...

Yes, skill differences can be that high. Personally, I wonder why someone is playing on that server if their skill dis that much higher. Ofcourse, if you're lucky every now and then that goes a long way, but if you consistently own groups of three - four enemies, then please go find another server to play on and let us 'lesser gods' have our fair, balanced game. This is a pet peeve of mine.

This makes me wonder. How is is possible to make ANY sort of modification on a client machine that would influence this behavior? My understanding is that the server is keeping track of points, and simply updating all the clients as the game plays. Does this mean that people who are invincible are administrators of servers? Just out of curiosity, how is it possible to do this?

I'm not going to tell you how to make such modifications, because IT IS CHEATING and it'll get you banned from the master server, and people will frown upon you, and you don't want that.

Yes, some people are just That good. Some people just never seem to die - these are the ones that have mastered map control and shield / health timing. Some people just never seem to miss - these are the ones that have mastered aim and leading with their weapons. I've seen people pull off the most amazing shock combo's you can think of, headshots and air-rox that'll make your jaw drop, but None of them were cheating. They were simply That Good. All of them.

4) How does one get voice chat to work reliably? I'm talking voice over UDP. I've HAD it working on a few servers, but there were always many servers where it didn't work at all. But now, even when I can hear other folks talking to one another, they can't hear me. This is probably complicated, so maybe there's a tutorial dedicated to all the intricacies of getting voice chat to work in UT2004? If you know of one, can you direct me to it please?

Wouldn't know 'bout that, sorry.

5) I would like to join a clan. Since I live in a remote area, this would probably be a long distance group friendship. On a really good night I can play with excellent players and make a real contribution, especially in a team game like CTF. I enjoy the team coordination more than just blasting people. I'm free to play regularly. Is there a central advertising place where clans are looking for new members?

Try FnG, my community. We have players and servers in Europe and in North America. We're a friendly non-competitive all-skills-welcomed community that strives to provide a friendly playground for all it's members or visitors, regardless of skill.

6) This last one is not a question, but a comment. Playing against people who "cheat" is really boring. As soon as I realize what's going on I just drop out of the game. I wish these folks would realize that the point of playing is to have fun, not bolster up their immature inferiority complexes. I'm not opposed to losing, I do it far more often than winning anyway.

Again, in 99.9% of these cases, they aren't CHEATIN. They're just That good. But then you might want to find a server more your own skill level, since fair, even games are much more fun anyways.

A game (ANY game) is only interesting as long as winning and losing are possabilities. As soon as either one become inevitable, it's no longer a game, it's somebody's power agenda, and that's REALLY, REALLY boring. Just my two cents.

I don't agree nessecarily .. A game is interesting as long as I feel like I can contribute to it. Whether my team loses or wins, matters little to me. As long as I get the feeling that my presence has a positive effect on my team or the game, then I enjoy it.

Yes, always losing can be frustrating, but I'd much rather see myself losing a series of games where I know that I've fought my best and managed to make the 'other guys' WORK for their victory rather than winning a number of games in a row.

This is only a very mild difference with what you said, though .. So I somehow suspect that we're both after the same thing, in-game.

Thanks in advance for any answers you may have.

Zanoni

You're welcome.

[legacy-odlumb]

Yes, always losing can be frustrating, but I'd much rather see myself losing a series of games where I know that I've fought my best and managed to make the 'other guys' WORK for their victory rather than winning a number of games in a row.

You said it better than I did. Thanks for your response. I'm still looking into the UDP voice chat issue, and I've combed the key bindings / macros for a way to drop the flag without using the translocater without success.

Thanks very much for your response.

Zanoni

[legacy-awaw]

1) How does one (deliberately) drop the flag other than translocating? I watched some guy the other day stand in one place and drop the flag several times and then pick it up again after a few seconds. He wasn't using the translocater. This would come in handy when you are carrying the flag, but you only have a few health points left, and one of you team mates is loaded up with 100+. Since you're soon to be cannon fodder anyway (unless you can find a whole bunch of health pickups really quickly) it's better if you give the flag to your team mate and cover him/her.

Bind a key with the command 'dropflag'.

IF you don't know how to bind keys or want to see a few more of the possiblities, I strongly recommandThe ultimate keybind guide!. :up:

mfg awaw

[legacy-R0An]

Looking for a clan? This is exactly where you are talking about!
http://ut2004.gameamp.com/forum/showForums/162.php