Do teleporters make for a good early warning system?

Question

I've been sitting on my engineer's arse for a while now carefully crafting my dispensers and sentries to the state of the art in area denial duties near mission critical top-secret intelligence conveniently stored in a lightweight briefcase. Once I'm done with that, however, I noticed I have really little use for teleporters, however.

• I could use those to bring people from base to the intelligence room, but spies would use that easily, making the move downright stupid.
• I could do the other way round, but then I'd let my defending teammates accidentally warp away from the intelligence room.
• I could place the teleporter from the spawn to an offensive area, but then I wouldn't be able to tend to them.

At a loss of what to do with the teleporters I figured that they could make for an EWS (early warning system) for the base. Here's an example on the map I was playing on:

B┌───────────────
T│              ←
L│ T ────────────┐
M│          HA   │ → entry points
T└─┬────         │ I intelligence
▓▓▓│             │ D dispenser
▓▓▓│ ┌───┐ ┌───┐ │ S sentry
▓┌─┘ └┐▓▓│ │▓▓▓│T│ T teleporter
▓│    └──┘ │▓▓▓│ │ H health
▓│I S      │▓▓▓│ │ A ammo
▓│D   ┌────┘▓▓▓│↑│
▓└────┘▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓│ │

The idea is that less savy players would damage the teleport as they go through, giving me enough time to prepare for their attack

By placing the teleport entry near that "battlements" area, I could pass it as a legit teleporter yanking you out of the area. The other teleporter on the stairs however would be harder to justify.

Is this a common tactic? Does it have a chance of working? Or will it just confuse my teammates and waste my time?

Answer

Even if you don't plan on using teleporters, it's a good idea to place them.

For most classes, them taking out your TP won't make a difference, as StrixVaria noticed.

However, for whatever reason, most people who play Spy can't resist sapping teleporters. Sometimes, I even fall into this mind set, and I really should know better. Given that disguised Spies are the only enemy class that your sentry won't shoot, it's a good idea to know in advance that a Spy is around.

For the same reason, I will sometimes place a teleporter at one of our spawn doors even if I don't plan on using it, then use voice chat to warn my teammates if it's either sapped or destroyed as well as info on which class did it (note: This doesn't work if it was destroyed with a standard shotgun, as 4 classes use shotguns: Pyro, Soldier, Heavy, and Engineer). The other thing is that, if it isn't destroyed, I can later decide to use it by building an exit somewhere... but this removes your ability to tell where Spies are, because sapping one end of a teleporter saps both ends.

Other uses for teleporters

If you're defending an area in a map where the objectives only move in a single direction, consider hiding a teleporter exit somewhere the enemy may not look. As long as the entrance is not built, the exit will not spin up with flashy colors and noise, allowing you to build the entrance later once the activity has moved past where the exit is located.

pl_badwater is a good example for this. As RED, point 2 can be easily overwhelmed if you don't already have a defensive emplacement there. However, if BLU does quickly take point 1, they may not check the back area behind point 2 as well as they should. Particularly since the door between point 1 and point 2's back area is closed prior to point 1 being taken.

pl_frontier_final is also an interesting example. There is a back route between points 2 and 3 that is not commonly used. It is too high for RED to normally jump up to it, but putting a Dispenser down can allow you to jump up to it (just make sure you pick up or destroy it. Using this passage, you can sneak back to point 1 and place a teleporter exit, allowing you to move troops behind them.

Check more discussion of this question.

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