Welcome to the NW.CTF Survival Guide! This guide, which will be constantly updated and expanded, is here to help introduce players to the normal weapons capture the flag gametype and community. Abandon all hope ye who enter here and pay close attention so you aren't sent screaming from a PUG with your tail between your legs. I will cover a wide range of topics in an effort to consolidate and spread the wealth of player knowledge that exists in the community. Feel free to contribute, critique, or just talk shit. It is Unreal Tournament after all. Let's Rock!
Now that you have more than just one weapon, you'll want to have keybinds for every single one of them. Some people may disagree with this statement, but fuck them. No, but seriously, at a minimum you should have your translocator and some of your best weapons bound. Choose keys that are immediately adjacent to your movement keys so you can switch weapons quickly. If you're using the arrow keys or some other God awful setup...well, you might be shit out of luck unless your mouse has an assload of buttons. Situational weapon-switching is a crucial skill to develop, and it is the swift and the accurate who win the day and talk the shit.
To give you an idea, here is a screenshot of my keyboard (WASD movement) and my weapon keybinds. Yeah, it's a blurry cellphone image. Big whoop! Wanna fight about it?
As I said before, all of my weapon binds are immediately adjacent to my movement keys for easy access. Shock/Rox are my two favorite weapons so they get Q/E. You'll want to find a setup that's comfortable for you and your playstyle, but again, at a minimum you need a translocator bind. In the next section, I'll talk about having multiple weapons bound to a single key or "Piped Weapon Binds".
Realistically, piped weapon binds are more efficient that normal binds as they allow you to bind multiple weapons to a single key and thus keep your finger movements to a minimum. I'm too lazy to switch to be honest. It's up to you to find your own comfort level with your setup changes, as it WILL take time.
To make a piped weapon bind, separate each weapon in your bind with a | as shown below. (The following binds were shamelessly stolen from Sonic. Where's Vegas bro?)
set input E switchweapon 7 | switchweapon 4 (shock/mini)
set input Q switchweapon 5 | switchweapon 9 (rockets/pulse)
set input tab switchweapon 6 | switchweapon 3 (biorifle/ripper)
You can pipe bind as many weapons as you want to one key, but I'd recommend keeping it at two. Any more than two and it's faster to have them bound to another key. Law of diminishing returns and all that shit. Up next is an extremely important bind, so check your ADD and take your Ritalin before proceeding.
A throw weapon bind is essential. I repeat. A throw weapon bind is absolutely ESSENTIAL! Ammo is hard to come by, especially when almost everyone's an asshole. "Oh hey! I'm nearly full, but let me take both ammo packs even though I clearly see you waiting for them!" FUCK! Sorry about that. Anyways, you'll want to have this bind easily accessible. I have mine bound to my number 2 key, but I know some people bind it to one of their mouse buttons. Pick something comfortable, you'll be doing this a lot, chief.
Throwing your empty weapon allows you to pick up a fresh weapon at the weapon spawn (which never disappears due to weapon stay being on) to avoid waiting on ammo packs.This tactic is easy to learn, but difficult to master, as it is all in the timing and movement. Starting out you will likely want to toss the weapon with a little ammo left. However, once you become comfortable with the process, you will want to master tossing your weapon as it reaches zero ammo. Below is a video demonstrating this process so you can get an idea of the timing.
Also, a word on etiquette. Do NOT throw an empty or nearly empty weapon near the spawn for that weapon. You don't want one of your teammates accidentally picking up your dud and berating the ever living shit out of you for it. Trust me on this one.
With the proliferation and improvement of voice communication software, these binds are a lot less essential than they used to be. However, I still have at least one that I use frequently.
1=Teamsay [%p] with [%h] [%a]
This bind provides your teammates with your current position, health and armor amounts. The position is based on map zones and its usefulness depends on the map really, but the health and armor amounts are helpful for flag carriers. It's easy to convey to your teammates that you are stacked and ready for a flag run by spamming this bind, or even let them know you're running low on health if you have the flag.
%p = Position
%h = Health
%a = Armor
Powerup pickup binds are also useful, especially if you have teammates who are actively timing. Although again, these binds are no substitute for proper TeamSpeak communication.
3=Teamsay ***SHIELDBELT TAKEN!***NEXT BELT IN 55 SECONDS!***
4=Teamsay ***ARMOR TAKEN!***NEXT ARMOR IN 27.5 SECONDS!***
5=Teamsay ***AMP TAKEN!***NEXT AMP IN 110 SECONDS!***
There are a few other useful binds that you might want to have available, which I've listed and described below.
F8=Suicide
Most people already have Suicide binds regardless of the gametype, but I'll mention it here anyways. A suicide bind is extremely helpful for getting back into position, especially during flag standoffs when you return the flag.
9=mutate deluxechat whisperwindow
Deluxe Chat is a mod that allows sending private messages, or whispers, to other players in the server, including spectators. This bind brings up the Whisper Window interface.
0=mutate chatblocker showwinder
Another feature of Deluxe Chat is Chat Blocker. If you find yourself getting overly trolled in the server, or just get tired of that certain someone's stupid fucking bind, use this bind to bring up the chat blocker window and select the check box next to the person you want to block. Vuala! No more douchebag!
That concludes the Essential Binds section of the Survival Guide, but feel free to chime in with any additional binds that you find useful. These are just the ones I use regularly. In the next section, I'll get to the good shit...the weapons. Bring your notebooks.
Coming Soon...