General tips

Introduction
by Raj (a.k.a. "velocity")

I started thinking about writing this guide a few months after ET came out, because although it's easy to find lots of info for newbies, the intermediate to advanced stuff is hard to come by. There are a lot of things I wish I had known about when I was starting out, so in this section I've written some things to keep in mind.

Be a good sport. This sounds obvious, but, whoever you are there's probably someone better than you out there. So, don't feel bad when someone kicks your ass. Even the best players have bad days, just do the best you can and have a good time.

Figure out what you want to improve at, and then focus on that. For example, if you are a really weak gunner, then maybe you should work on your shooting skills. So, choose an aggressive role that puts you out on the front lines. Don't be the engy that hides in the fueldump for 20 minutes waiting for a covert ops.

Play frequently, and play intelligently. A lot of people just go and play mindlessly on pubs- and it's a lot of fun... but they're not necessarily getting better. You might be able to get 100 kills per game as a rambo medic, running around and fragging noobs, but this might cause bad habits in you like being careless, underestimating your enemy, etc. Similarly, being an XP whore can blind you from seeing the "big picture" of how the game really works. So, play against good players and think while you play.

Make an effort to improve. Tweak your config, and experiment with mouse sensitivity. Record yourself playing and replay it later. This way you can analyze your play and see what things you do well and what things you need to work on. You can also learn a lot from others. Spectate good players, join a clan, sign up on the forums. Read my guide :)

Well, that's all I got to say, good luck and enjoy this guide! In the next section we'll get into some specific tips you can use.

Basic Tips

2. Specialize. Pick one class and get really good at it. Also pick 2 or 3 other classes and get some skills in those. Here are what I'd consider the most useful classes:

• Engineer: they're always in need. Also rifle nades are very handy
• Panzer: take out enemy MGs, spawncamping, mass fragging
• Field ops: ammo, damaging tanks, spawncamping, clearing an area, trapping enemies
• MG: extremely useful when you are playing defense
• Mortar: very handy, good mortars are hard to come across
• Medic: a good medic is a huge asset to your team

3. Communicate! Agree on which medics will cover which areas. If dyno is planted, make a mental note of what time it was planted and then tell your team what time it will blow up. If you get killed by a covert ops, hit v10 ("Enemy in Disguise!). If you notice an enemy running to an objective, tell your team.

4. Kill effectively. Gib the enemy's body as soon as you kill him, otherwise a medic might just revive him! In clan matches this is so important because there are often lots of medics, and they are all more skilled than the average medic you see on a pub.

In addition, figure out when your enemy respawns so if the enemy reinforcement time is close to 1, wait a little before you kill your enemy. That way they'll have to sit around for another 20-30 seconds before they spawn again. It's not too hard to manually figure out the enemy spawntime, but there's also a useful program called Heron Spawntimer that can do it for you. Be careful though- Heron may be prohibited in certain leagues (if you are playing for a clan).

5. Work as a team. If you're in a clan, you'll do this anyways since your team will have specific strategies, and it will be easy to communicate since you'll use TeamSpeak or Ventrilo. If you are on a pub, it's a lot harder, but there are still some basic guidelines you can follow:

• If you hear gunfire near you, go there and help out
• If you see an engineer running alone, go run with him
• Do your job (e.g. pass out ammo)

6. Be stealthy. It's said of some of the best clans that they are "everywhere and nowhere at once". For example, you're an engineer and you go to construct something because the coast seems clear, and then suddenly 5 guys pop out from nowhere and decimate you. Get VERY good at leaning around corners, taking cover behind walls, etc. If multiple guys work together on this, it can be very effective for ambushing enemies. Keep in mind stealth isn't always desirable; especially if you're on offense, there are times you just need to run in and fire like crazy.

7. Don't hesitate to fire if you're using an SMG (MP40/Thompson/Sten). Unless you're purposely trying to escape your enemy's attention, you should open fire on them as early as possible. Don't hesitate, because the guy who gets the first shot off often has an advantage. Also, don't be afraid to shoot if your enemy is at a far distance, ESPECIALLY if they are standing still or moving slowly.

Run with your gun out as much as possible, and avoid reloading too often. For example, if you're a medic and you're going to revive someone, don't run around with your syringe out- keep your gun until the very last second, then pull out your syringe. If you're an engineer, don't run with your pliers out, thinking that it's your teammate's job to cover your ass. You need to be prepared because you never know when you're going to get attacked.

If you notice a teammate taking fire, join in the action as soon as possible. If you can join right away, you can turn the fight into a 2 vs. 1. If you join too late though, your teammate will die so basically the enemy just ends up fighting two 1 vs. 1's, which is easier. I mean think about it, would you rather fight 5 guys who are all shooting at you at the same time, or would you rather fight each of them one by one?

Keep in mind of course that there are exceptions. Obviously you shouldn't run to help a teammate if he's getting slaughtered by 5 enemies. A 2 vs. 5 is no better than 2 1 vs. 5's- either way you lose.

8. Have inner defense and outer defense. When you're defending, some people should stay near the objective (inner D), while other people run out and frag the enemy (outer D). If you only do inner D, then you'll give the enemy too much chance to group up and rush you. It will become a mess, and enemy field ops will keep coming in and airstriking your spawn. If your enemies aren't that skilled, this may not happen, but if they're any good then you can count on it. For example, if you're Axis on goldrush, and the ENTIRE team stays in the bank, that's really risky. All it takes is one big rush from the allies and they can break up your defense. A covert could throw smoke to blind the MG's, then rifle nades and panzers could clear out almost the entire Axis team very quickly. Of course, this takes some coordination and teamwork on the Allies' part, but like I said, if they're worth their salt, it will happen.

On the other hand if you only do outer D, then what if one or two guys manage to break past you? A good example is Axis on Oasis when they are guarding the flag. Too often everyone runs out to fight the enemy, and then one dude manages to sneak through and capture the flag at the last second so now your whole team gets forced back to the second spawnpoint.

9. Move intelligently. A common problem with less experienced players is that they don't move well. Here are some things to remember:

• Don't get close to teammates- if you cluster up, you're panzer fodder
• Don't move predictably- use sprinting, jumping, and zigzags
• Sprint during firefights, and move side to side. Don't run straight towards the enemy because that makes you easy to target.

10. Learn how to survive on the front lines. Many players like to stay behind the action and support their teammates, especially medics. There's nothing particularly wrong with this, and in fact knowing how to stay alive, and out of the action, can be a valuable skill for a medic.

However, you need to learn how to be aggressive. You need to be able to get into lots of fights and come out alive. Especially if you want to become skilled with an SMG (MP40, Thompson, or Sten), then you need to actually get into the action.

If you want, here is my own story of how this particular tip helped me to improve:

ET is my first FPS, so for a long time I wasn't very confident about my fighting ability. I was a medic who stood back out of danger and supported teammates. I got very good at that, but I still lost in most fights. Then, one day I downloaded a tutorial called "Aiming by RaZiel" which talked about how to improve your shooting. In the tutorial, he talked about how he is an aggressive player, and after watching some frag videos of his, I was very inspired. So, I started going out to the front lines more and being more of a "rambo medic". I was amazed. Instantly my kills skyrocketed and quite often I was highest fragger on the team (well, on pubs at least). My accuracy also went up a few percent after a very short time. What I realized was, I had this ability in me already, I just didn't use it because I wasn't confident.

So, the moral of the story is be confident and be aggressive, get into lots of fights so you get practice. Search on google for "Aiming by RaZiel", it's a great tutorial, even though it's a 99 Meg download. There are lots of other things which will help you like tweaking your mouse sensitivity, tweaking your config, etc. These will be covered in this guide.

11. Strike when your enemy is off guard. For example, on fueldump, the best time to try to infiltrate is right after the tunnel grate blows, because the Axis often doesn't have their defense set up by then. Make the first infiltration attempt count, so take at least a medic along with you, don't just send a covert and engy off to their doom. If you fail the infiltration, the next time will be even harder because the Axis will have defense set up by then. If you try more than once and it doesn't work, refocus your resources on the primary objective so you don't waste time on a risky strategy.

In general, the longer you take to launch an assault, the more the enemy's defense improves. Landmines get planted, MGs get set up, etc. Try to beat them to the punch. For example, on Goldrush, you should try to storm the bank as soon as the doors are blown so you can get the gold before they get people in the bank. Meanwhile, you should also be spawncamping them to trap them so they can't go and kill the guys who are stealing the gold. This takes really good timing and coordination.

12. Try to push enemies back. Some people like to say that, if you get spawncamped, it's your fault. This is true to some extent- you need to keep your spawn "clean" by preventing the enemies from advancing.

13. Defend choke points. If there is some small tunnel the enemy is coming through for example, make it hell for the enemy to get through the tunnel. As long as you can contain the enemy, you don't have to worry about them running around and causing havoc.

14. Be alert and aware. Just like a driver should be constantly checking his mirrors and looking at the road signs instead of just keeping his eyes on the car in front of him/her, you should always be looking around and checking to make sure you know what's going on. Here's a pretty complete list of things you need to watch for:

• Compass map: helps you see what teammates are around you. Your map can be used for many things such as figuring out if there's a medic nearby, determining if someone is an enemy or a covert ops from your team, finding out if footsteps are just a teammate or an enemy approaching, etc.
   

• Announcements: pay attention to major events happening like "Dynamite planted!", "Bridge destroyed!", etc. Even if you're not an engineer, you should know what's going on so you can use your knowledge of the map to figure out where the enemy will be headed on this stage of the map and how your strategy should vary.
   
• Respawn time: this is very important. If you are capturing a flag, do it right near respawn time so that your team respawns there before the enemy has a chance to recapture it. Also, this is probably obvious, but if you're low on health and/or ammo, it's often more efficient to /kill and respawn right away rather than bug your teammates to resupply you. (If you don't know about /kill, basically it's a way to commit suicide in the game. We'll talk about this in the scripts and tweaking section).
   
• Chat: read the chat! Try to limit your typing to when you're dead though so you don't get caught with your pants down.
   
• Enemies: keep scanning the scene with your eyes so as soon as someone appears on your screen, you'll be the first one shooting. Check common spots where enemies may be hiding or camping you, especially as you come out of the spawn. Every once in a while, just turn around and see what's around you. When you see an enemy, try to notice as much as you can about them, including: their class, their rank (look at the symbol on their helmet), their weapon, etc.
   
• Teammates: try to scan your teammates so you know who is around you. Not only does this let you check for covert ops, but then you can work together more effectively because you'll know the classes of everyone around you and how much health they have etc. If you know the other people really well (e.g. as in a clan) then you may also know things like what everyone's strengths and weaknesses are.
   
• Grenades: listen and look carefully for nades especially coming out of the spawnpoint, near a dead body, near a choke point, or near dynamite if you're the one who has to defuse it.
   
• Arty/airstrikes: this is obvious, just listen and look for smoke or explosions, and don't underestimate it!
   
• Other miscellaneous things: satchels on the ground, fireteam symbols, coordinates of teammates given in fireteam display or team chat, landmines, smoke, how many landmines your team has left, how much health and ammo you have left, ammo/health packs lying on the ground, the sound of gunfire, the sound of an enemy's gun reloading, how many shots your enemy has left in his clip (for example, if you notice an enemy has just finished a fight, he's probably going to have to reload soon), etc.

15. Be paranoid. If there's a spot that might potentially be mined, IT IS: jump over it. If a guy might potentially be following you behind your back, HE IS: turn around. If there's a smoke grenade and you think some enemies might be coming, THEY ARE: toss nades into it and also keep your eyes peeled in case the smoke was just a distraction. If you're going to plant dyno and you think there might be an engy waiting to kill you, THERE IS: do a quick check of the area before you plant. Don't get cocky, that's the quickest way to get yourself killed.

Newbie Tips
written by mercurial and velocity

This section is dedicated to helping out new players and clans alike, because face it, we were all new once! I'll start with very basic things that even the most advanced players often forget. With these basics firmly in mind, you're well on the way to becoming recognized.

mercurial's advice for players:

1. Figure out a key configuration. The default settings are designed for minimal finger movement, but don't be afraid to experiment with it!

2. Take a look at how the game works. For example, you do not always have to get a direct hit to the enemy to do damage due to the way "hitboxes" work.

3. Find your game style. You will soon find whether you like to play defense/support or run into groups of enemies and pump them full of lead. Fragging solo can rack up a lot of XP for you, and help you develop skills in one on one combat. But remember, ET is about teamwork, and if you want to be a truly great player, you have to be more than just a good gunner.

4. Get into a clan. Once you become good on pubs and master the basics of ET, you might want to take things a step further. Simply ask clans if they are recruiting, and most will take some interest in you. Sometimes clans might notice you on a pub too, and someone will be impressed and tell you to join or try out. To really get noticed on a pub, you are going to have to show what you're made of as a player. Winning a lot of one-on-ones are always impressive, or using nades intelligently, etc. It's kind of sad that the rambos get all the attention, but that's how it is I'm afraid :p

mercurial's advice for new clans:

This is going to be a challenge just to write about, let alone to actually perform! So if this is your current status... good luck!!

Well, (having read "how to start a clan") you have a few good players, and a hell of a lot of staying power! You will need to find a way to be effective. As a new clan it is very possible you dont have a system like ventrilo or teamspeak, so you will need to have discussions with your clan mates about hotkeys (see the tweaking and scripts section). Also, you could have some kind of shortened "code". For instance on gold rush if 2 engies were called to the bank to steal the gold, "f cvr bank door" this may seem comlicated, but its just shortening things really, possibly too much work, but a little less to type. Personally I'd stick to the hotkeys!

Learn how to use fireteams effectively. Not only does it let you divide up your communication so smaller groups can talk to each other, but also that way you can assign responsibilities more easily. (e.g. FT Alpha, cover the side route!)

velocity's advice for new players:

1. Learn basic skills. Read the following sections:

Basic Skills
The Interface

2. Play a support role at first. At the start, I'd recommend playing medic. It's a great class for a newbie, because it lets you stay out of harm's way and get acquainted to the game; plus, you get an MP40 or Thompson so you get practice firing with an SMG. (Sub-machine gun). Panzer is nice too because you can get some easy kills, but it won't help you become a better gunner.

3. Don't bother with sniping... A lot of new players like to play as a sniper because they can stay out of harm's way and pick off enemies in the distance. Don't even bother. It's not that I'm trying to say sniping has no place in ET; however, if you sit in a corner you won't learn important things like teamwork tactics, listening for enemy foosteps, what routes are best to take, avoiding landmines, etc.

4. If you see someone kicking ass on a pub, ask him for tips. Most good players don't mind sharing some knowledge with you or helping you. Just ask them for tips in-game, or maybe try to get their AIM/MSN address.

5. Leaning is very usfeul. You can press Q or E for leaning left or right. If you position yourself correctly at the corner of a hallway or something, you can lean around the corner without being seen. Also, if you're about to fire a panzerfaust and suddenly a teammate runs into your view, you can cancel the shot by leaning.

6. Tweak your settings. Tweaking is one of the very few things you can do which will give you immediate results. For the most part, getting good at ET means lots of practice, but a lot of people have told me just changing their mouse sensitivity made them improve very quickly. Also, your FPS (frame rate) is VERY important; it's better to run a shitty resolution like 640x480 if you can get a good FPS than to enable all the fancy effects. I bet a lot of the so-called "noobs" playing ET aren't actually as bad as they seem, they just have shitty computers, bad connections, or poorly tweaked settings.

Here is a short list of "reading assignments" for you:
Mouse sensitivity
Crosshairs
Tweaking and scripts

Advanced Tips

If you're a more experienced player, most of this guide is stuff you already know. So, instead of reading through tons of material just to learn 2 scraps of useful information, here is a condensed list of "things you may not have already known", starting with the more obvious things at the top of the list, and the most obscure tips at the end.

Basic Advanced Tips (1-12)

Here are some tips that most advanced players already know, but worth mentioning anyways in case you don't ;)

1. Lean around corners. Note, although you cannot fire while leaning, you CAN throw a grenade while leaning.

2. You can shoot around corners. You probably know this already but... hitboxes are very wide, so if some enemy is ducking behind an object, you may still be able to hit them even though you can't see them.

3. Use headphones and turn the volume up. This will help you determine where footsteps or gunfire are. With practice, you could in theory kill noobs with your eyes closed (literally) just by turning until the volume in your left ear is equal to the volume in your right ear... That means they're right in front of you.

4. Note the time dyno was planted. Then just subtract 30 seconds and let your team know when to expect it to blow up.

5. Memorize all the common mortar spots and angles. I mean this quite literally. You should memorize precisely where to set up your mortar, where to aim, and what angle. Write it down if you need to!

6. Some facts about guns...

• Firstly, MP40 and Thompson are the same in ET. I know they "feel" different, that's because of different gun graphics and sound effects.
• Level 3 light weapons is useful because it reduces your spread, *however* in etmain, you don't get spread reduction until level 4 due to a bug.
• On some shrub servers, level 3 covert ops (breath control) reduces SMG spread as well. Mobile MG's don't have headshots, all shots are 20hp damage, no matter what.

7. You can practice with bots. If you're on a slow connection, playing ET might be difficult to impossible... If you want to mess around and practice your shooting, you could try playing with bots. It's not the same thing, but it's something... Read more here.

8. Be smart about capturing flags. One thing you can do is, as soon as you capture the flag for your team, have everyone /kill themselves so they all spawn together. It helps if you have voice comm (TS or Vent) because then you can give your team a warning. Another tactic that might work in some circumstances is, say you capture the flag with a few seconds to spare... Switch to panzer, and as soon as you spawn at the flag, fire at the ground. Your teammates who just spawned there won't be killed since they have spawn invulnerability, yet it will kill any enemy who is nearby and trying to recapture the flag. 

9. For every medic you have on your team, everyone gets an HP bonus. Here is a detailed explanation of how it works, copied from the medic section:

To read this chart, notice that the HP is listed as 3 numbers, for example "120-134-151". What this means is you have 120 initial HP when you spawn, but your max HP is 134. If you have level 3 battle sense, then your max HP is 151.

One interesting thing to note here is that non-medics always spawn with their max HP, unless they have level 3 battle sense. So, if you're at the beginning of a campaign or something, and nobody has had a chance to get a lot of XP yet, then don't bother dropping health packs around the spawn- nobody needs them. However, if there are some teammates who have level 3 battle sense, then you definitely should drop health packs for them at the beginning. If you don't, then their +15 health bonus goes to waste because they spawn with less HP.

10. Dynamite radii are buggy. Sometimes you can plant dynamite pretty far from an objective and it'll still blow. Check out the dynamite trickplants section for more info.

11. You should cap your FPS to 43, 76, or 125. Read more here.

12. You can shoot rifle nades through doors. Read more here.

Less obvious tips (13-18)

This is stuff that isn't widely known, but it is "common knowledge" in the sense that it does come up on forums from time to time so you may have already heard.

13. Spread is affected by jumping or turning. So, try not to jump around or turn too much in firefights. A good technique is "aiming with your feet", which means, if your enemy is to your right, instead of TURNING to the right, strafe to the right to line your crosshair with them. Strafing left or right does not affect spread, but turning does.

14. You can do some crazy things on shrub servers. For example, walking through walls, hiding inside the tank to become nearly invincible, etc. Check out the section on shrub tactics.

15. You can steal a uni through a window. This can end a game pretty quickly on Battery. Read more here.

16. The probability of getting a headshot varies depending on what angle you face the enemy from. Read more here.

17. You can transfer charge between 2 engineers. Read more here.

18. You can disable MG's by knifing or shooting them. Read more here.

Really Really Obscure tips (19-22)

These are ones I never heard of until someone submitted them to the guide.

19. Exploit the objectives camera. While you're in limbo, you can look at the objectives camera to "spy" on certain areas; in some cases you can even get the enemy's spawn time this way. Read more here.

20. If you want to relocate your mines, just go spec. This can be useful if you planted a bunch of mines, but now you're on the next stage of the map so you want to disarm those mines so they don't take up extra slots. Read more here.

21. You can give yourself rifle nades. Read more here. Note, I haven't tested this much so I don't know which servers allow or disallow this.

22. Use 2 heavy weapons at once. Well, kind of. Read more here.