How does a sentry pick its target?

Question

I know my question is worded horribly...

             H
      {o}      D      S

The S in this case is the sentry. The D is a demoman, running towards sentry with Grenade Launcher. The H is a heavy, firing at the sentry. The o is a scout, and he is concurrently capping a point ({}signifies a cap point)

Will the sentry shoot the scout first? Demoman first? How does it pick its targets? Is it random?

Asked by Retrosaur

Answer

Whoever is closest to the Sentry Gun within its range will be targeted by it. If the target moves away such that another target becomes the closest, the Sentry Gun will switch to that next closest target. This is why during an ÜberCharge, it's recommended that a Medic stand between his patient and the sentry to tank its gunfire, so that his patient can damage it.

Highly-coordinated team movements could theoretically cause a sentry to turn back and forth without allowing it to open much fire and cause too much damage, but given a typical game's fast pace, I haven't observed that happen yet.

Note that it doesn't matter what a target is doing; only their position relative to the Sentry Gun matters. Whether the Scout is on the control point or not, if he's the closest to the Sentry Gun then it will fire at him. Whether the Demoman or Heavy is firing at it, whoever is closest will be targeted.

Also, if there's a Spy using Your Eternal Reward, then as long as he is disguised he will never be targeted by a Sentry Gun, even if he backstabs somebody while already disguised and within its range.

Answered by The Annoying Pyro

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What is a “Pally”?

Question

Frequently, playing the Scout in TF2, I hear this phrase:

Thanks pally!

What does the pally in this sentence indicate? Is it his imaginary friend? A paladin? Is it a nickname for something?

Asked by Retrosaur

Answer

It means pal, like friend or buddy. Like saying buddy instead of bud, you can say pally instead of pal (or at least the scout does). It is not a reference to paladins or anything else - it's just a scoutism.

Answered by Sadly Not

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What is the timing to reliably reflect rockets, arrows, and grenades in Team Fortress 2?

Question

I seem to have terrible timing when trying to reflect rockets, pipes, and arrows. What is the timing that I need to use to reliably reflect these? Is it right before they hit me, or is it further out? Does the distance the projectile is from me matter? Or is the determining factor the amount of time it takes to hit me? (Since DH rockets and arrows are faster than standard rockets, there's a difference between time and distance.) Does lag compensation affect this?

Asked by Jeffrey

Answer

The compression blast range appears to be slightly shorter than the range of your actual flamethrower, from personal experience. You can compression them anywhere within that range and you'll reflect. The angle that it gets reflected back at is dependent on where your cross-hairs are aimed when you hit the compression blast.

Additionally, for grenades, there appears to be some determining factor with return velocity depending on your distance from them. I can't find a lot of info about that though.

Rockets will travel indefinitely until they hit an object. Arrows seem to function similarly to grenades, but less noticeably so due to their natural high speed and lack of "bounce".

In regards to lag compensation, the compression blast is NOT lag compensated. You're going to have a harder time reflecting rockets / grenades / arrows if your lag is higher, especially when dealing with the higher velocity ones like the Direct Hit rockets and arrows.

Edit: As per the link in the comments, edited the above to indicate that the compression blast is NOT lag compensated.

It's hard to say "when" you should compression blast. It's a function of distance and velocity, rather than time from fire. With any projectile, it's nearly impossible to reflect at short range without some sort of luck / godly reaction speed. At longer distances, the Direct Hit and arrows can still be relatively difficult to reflect. Again, it's about the distance, not the time before it hits. The best way to get a feel for it is to play it and learn it intrinsically, not go by a paradigm that there's a hard rule for timing it based on seconds.

Answered by TheQ

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How can pyros rocket jump in Team Fortress 2?

Question

I've heard people talk about pryos being able to rocket-jump in TF2. Since they obviously don't have a rocket launcher, how is this done?

Asked by Jeffrey

Answer

You need to have excellent timing and accuracy with reflecting an enemy rocket. You wait for the rocket to get close to you, timing the reflect to aim it at your own feet and jump and crouch, much like a Soldier would. Except it's not your rocket.

Answered by StrixVaria

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Which weapons are considered “upgrades” in TF2?

Question

I've been looking for weapons that are upgrades from the default weapons in TF2.

Ex. Third Degree. It's techinically an upgrade since there are no downsides and it hits players via Medigun beams.

Are there any other weapons like this?

Asked by Jimmy Chen

Answer

Have a look on the official wiki http://wiki.teamfortress.com/ Most of weapons are "upgraded" in TF2, we can't list all of them here. If you're looking only for "full bonus weapons" (which is not really true), here's your list :

• Gunboats
• Mantreads
• Equalizer
• Ali Baba's Wee Booties
• Bootlegger
• Chargin' Targe
• Splendid Screen
• Dalokohs's Bar
• Fishcake
• Apoco's Fists
• Pomson 6000
• Golden Wrench (the truely only one upgraded)
• Krietzkrieg
• Amputator
• Solemn Vow
• Razorback
• Darwin's Danger Shield
• Cloak & Dagger
• Saxxy

Answered by samsamX

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What is the range of the Heavy's taunt kill?

Question

I've seen videos where players kill others with the taunt kill from a couple meters away , kill others from on top of them, to killing them below them.

Ex 1: Player A = Heavy Player B = Enemy Player

A-->________B
Results in kill.     __B______
     |        |
     |        |
A-->_|________|
Results in killA-->B
Results in kill.

So what exactly is the range of the heavy's taunt kill?

Asked by Jimmy Chen

Answer

Community testing has found that the range at which this taunt will kill is actually pretty respectable for such a situational attack. The taunt can and will kill people who are standing the equivalent of 9 players away, of any class, from the Heavy performing the taunt in a horizontal line, or about the length of one of the storage units at Granary. The taunt's vertical range is approximately the distance between the ground level and second floor ceiling of 2Fort.

Source: Community Wiki page

Answered by Glider

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Can a spy reach the shack outside the second spawn point in CP Granary?

Question

While discussing sentry jumping and the ethicality thereof, Transall claims that…

There's a bunch of junk to the side of [Granary's second spawn point] ledge that [spies] can use to jump onto it.

Edit: Just looked and it's only true for blu's spawn. You can still get up to the boxes by taking the ramp in the garage.

I'm having trouble making heads or tails of this. Here's the relevant screenshot:

Sure, I can jump onto the tires and that might let me get a poorly placed teleporter, but that seems to be it. I also can't find the "garage ramp" Transall refers to.

Can a spy reach the other team's ledge?

Asked by badp

Answer

You need to crouch jump to reach the ledge from the tires.

I believe Transall wasn't referring to this area when he mentioned the ramp, as there are no container boxes on which you can stand here — you can only stand on the ones around the central control point.

Answered by The Annoying Pyro

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Does gifting items in TF2 to another player give them Premium status?

Question

Concurrently me and my friends are F2P players on TF2, and I'm planning to upgrade to Premium soon (by buying a key from the shop).

If I gift him an item from the shop, like a key, or a hat, or anything, does this grant him a premium status?

In other words, If I buy something for him, will he become Premium? Or will he stay F2P?

Also, if I gift something to him, do I myself become Premium? Then I could really save and let me simply send out a key or something.

Asked by Jimmy Chen

Answer

No, to obtain premium you must purchase atleast ONE item on the steam store, meaning that you have to charge your Steam wallet with a minimum of 5€.

Answered by Marco Sacristão

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What causes replays to come out very dark?

Question

Using the built in replay editor, replays look fine (as they do in gameplay):

But after saving the replay to a file, they come out very dark:

Note it doesn't look too bad here since it's small, but bring up the fullsize and you'll see the difference. Also here's the full video to see the darkened issue:

This seems to be a reoccurring problem for people: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1875348

What could be the cause?

Win7 64bit
6GB RAM
i7 CPU
ATI Radeon HD 5800
1400x900

Asked by Zeno

Answer

Per Steam support, this (the codec part) solved it:

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

You may wish to select a different rendering output codec.

Note that video compression techniques often rely on reducing the range of colors and brightness used in a frame.

Using a different codec may create better results.

You may also try increasing the Brightness Levels in the in-game Video options menu prior to rendering the replay.

For more information and options, please refer to the TF2 Wiki replay article linked below.

http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Replay

If you have any further questions, please let us know - we will be happy to assist you.

Answered by Zeno

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What do these numbers represent in trading?

Question

I'm really new to trading. People make offers and ask something in return. Sometimes they ask for 5.66 ref, or 1.33, or 0.66, or 0.55, or 2.66

What do they all mean? I understand it is for metal but a metal cannot be 0.66 so where's the catch? Is there a system to understand?

Asked by Guillaume Bois

Answer

3 reclaimed metal combines to 1 refined metal.

So, 2.66 refined metal means: 2 refined metal + 2 reclaimed metal.

9 scrap metal combines to 3 reclaimed metal, which combines to 1 refined metal.

So 0.55 refined metal = 5 scrap metal.

Answered by David B

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Capture replays on Team Fortress 2 without QuickTime

Question

In order to save Replays in TF2, one need Quicktime, it is crappy nd terrible in Windows, I have several codecs installed in my system, is there any way to make TF2 use them?

Asked by HackToHell

Answer

Valve have said in a forums post a while back, that they will look into it if they can come up with a different solution for Windows users, but for now we are stuck with it. However, there is an alternative. See this post for more informations:

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22253906&postcount=6

Using it is at own risk.

It is not possible to force TF2 to a completly different codec though.

Answered by scorcher24

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What do these TF2 acronyms mean when trading?

Question

I'm really newb at trading. People make offers and ask something in return. Sometimes they ask for 5.66 ref, or 1.33, or 0.66, or 0.55, or 2.66

What do they all mean. I understand it is for metal but a metal cannot be 0.66 so where's the catch. Is there a system to be able to understand?

Asked by Guillaume Bois

Answer

3 reclaimed metal combines to 1 refined metal.

So, 2.66 refined metal means: 2 refined metal + 2 reclaimed metal.

9 scrap metal combines to 3 reclaimed metal, which combines to 1 refined metal.

So 0.55 refined metal = 5 scrap metal.

Answered by David B

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Native class limiting

Question

I remember someday it became possible to limit classes on tf2 server without using plugins, but now I cannot find any reference for that.

Any hints variable names for class limiting?

Asked by BarsMonster

Answer

Yes you can, but it might not be the kind of class limiting you're looking for:

sv_highlander 1

...makes it so you can only have one of each class; it's only useful for Highlander 9v9 matches obviously.

Answered by badp

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What is the purpose of disguising yourself as your own team?

Question

In Team Fortress 2 as the spy, when you change to your Disguise Kit, you are presented with an option to change the team you are disguised as. Why would you ever want to disguise yourself as someone from your own team? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the disguise kit?

Asked by esqew

Answer

Friendly disguises are mainly used to hide from the enemy that there are Spies in your team, as well as to fool an enemy into thinking your team employs a certain class when in reality it does not. There's little more utility for friendly disguises than that, but they're very handy during setup time when the enemy can see you through the setup gates, as well as when you're among your teammates. There's more of this in the community Spy strategy wiki article.

Remember that since you're disguising as your own team, the opposing team will see you as an enemy player (whichever class you're disguised as) and act accordingly, and enemy Sentry Guns will target you as well. When you're about to infiltrate into enemy lines, use your cloak and/or switch to an enemy disguise.

Any of the cloaking devices works well; in fact, if you use the Dead Ringer with a friendly disguise, you will drop a fake corpse of the class you're disguised as. If you were disguised as an enemy, you would drop a fake Spy corpse, which often sends a stronger signal to opposing players of a possible DR Spy.

Answered by The Annoying Pyro

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Bonus points (specifically) and how to get them

Question

Is there a comprehensive list of ways to earn bonus points in TF2? I have seen here and there one way to do it with this class or the other, but there seems to be no complete list that I've found.

Is there just one way per class?

Asked by cornbread ninja

Answer

After in game testing:

• Any extinguishing of a teammate by non-Medic action: via Jarate, Mad Milk, Dispenser, or air blast.
• Destroying sappers using the Homewrecker as Pyro
• Destroying sappers on friendly buildings other than your own as Engineer
• Killing a Medic actively healing an opposing player as Scout
• Stunning a player with Sandman is 1 bonus point. Moon-shot stuns (long distance) are worth 2 bonus points.
• Healing teammates with tossed Sandvich/edible. This is the act of them picking it up, you do not receive healing points.
• 2 Headshots with the Huntsman grants 1 bonus point as sniper.

If you have damage indication turned on (Advanced → Show damage as a number over players) you will know you gained a bonus point when a purple "+1" (or "+2") appears on the player or teammate that let you gain it.

All other points go towards their respective categories. Cart pushes are added to capture point totals. All backstab and headshot bonuses go to kills. All direct or indirect healing goes towards healing @ 1 per 600HP healed.

With the rate Valve adds user content to the game, I am unsure if any of the newer weapons grant bonus points upon successful use, but it appears that bonus points are essentially granted for selfless team-centric acts.

Answered by tiddy

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How can I tell teammates from spies?

Question

I'm going through the painful trial and error process of determining whether or not a player on my team is a spy or not. So far what I thought was the most successful procedure was dealing some damage; a spy usually loses cover immediately and goes for the backstab. However, this isn't guaranteed; a spy being healed/near a dispenser/bold enough will just endure the damage without losing cover.

So — how can I "spy check"? What are conditions that let me look/test a player and say "no, this guy is legit."

Asked by badp

Answer

There are a number of things that will let you know immediately if an ally is a Spy or not:

• You cannot move through enemy Spies.
• You can attack enemy Spies with melee weapons.
• Friendly spies without a disguise are not enemy spies. Enemy spies disguised as spies, however, always appear disguised.
• Most weapons will not pass through enemy Spies, while they will pass through allies. An exception to this rule is the Medic's Crusader's Crossbow, which does stick in allies.
• Teammates don't take knockback from your weapons. If they do, they're a spy.
• Watch for allies moving the wrong speed. In particular, for Scouts, Medics, low-health Equalizer Soldiers, and Gloves of Running Urgently Heavies who move too slowly.
• Enemy Spies cannot enter your spawn room. Team-specific doors will also not open for them... Team-specific doors include all spawn doors and the secondary spawn door between RED spawn and point B on pl_badwater.
• Enemy Spies cannot shoot or stab without breaking the disguise. This does not apply to the Electro-Sapper, but that only works on Engineer buildings.
• Enemy Spies that are disguised as Spies cannot fake holding the Electro-sapper or Disguise Kit.
• Spies burn with their team color (redish-orange for RED, bluish-orange for BLU).
• Spies disguised as Heavy that are faking having the Gloves of Running Urgently will be missing the skulls and health-loss that normally occurs with the G.R.U.
• Spies will be missing any hat particle effects. This includes: any Unusual Hats, The Treasure Hat, and the World Traveler's Hat on a map the owner has purchased stamps on.

In addition, certain classes have weapons that help them identify Spies:

Scout

• Mad Milk - Covers an enemy Spy in milk, making him drip white. This lasts through cloak
• Fan O' War - Hitting an enemy Spy with the Fan O' War makes a white skull appear over their head. This lasts through cloak
• Sandman - Hitting an enemy Spy with a baseball at medium range or longer stuns him and the word BONK appears over his head

Soldier

• Black Box - You gain HP when you hit an enemy. This includes disguised Spies.

Pyro

• Anything that will set someone on fire. This includes Flamethrower, Backburner, Degreaser, Flare Gun, Detonator, and Sharpened Volcano Fragment. This lasts through cloak, except the Dead Ringer, or if the spy-cicle extinguishes them/
• If you see a teammate on fire, try to airblast them. If they're really teammates, you will extinguish their fire and earn one bonus point. If they never really were on your side, they will be knocked back.

Demoman

• Ullapool Caber - Hitting an enemy Spy will make it explode, likely killing him, but it also deals you damage.

Engineer

• Southern Hospitality - Hitting an enemy Spy will cause them to bleed. This lasts through cloak, except the Dead Ringer

Medic

• Blutsauger - You gain HP when you hit an enemy. This includes disguised Spies
• Sadly, the Übersaw effect does not trigger on disguised enemy Spies

Sniper

• Jarate - Throwing this at a Spy will immediately cover him with it, making him drip yellow. This lasts through cloak.
• Sniper Rifle - A headshot with the Sniper Rifle will kill a Spy in one shot. Keep in mind that the hitboxes for each class are different. A fully charged bodyshot will kill a Spy in one hit.
• Huntsman - Any shot with the Huntsman will leave an arrow sticking out of the Spy. A headshot will kill a Spy in one hit.
• Sydney Sleeper (charged shot) - Same effect as Jarate. A fully charged Bodyshot will kill a Spy in one hit.
• Tribalman's Shiv - Hitting an enemy Spy will cause them to bleed. This lasts through cloak, except the Dead Ringer

Spy

• Any of your knives (Knife, Your Eternal Reward, Conniver's Kunai) will backstab a disguised enemy Spy. This includes bringing up the "can backstab" animation. Note: Your Eternal Reward can also be used to see if an enemy Spy is using a Dead Ringer, as you will not gain a disguise if they are.

Last Note

Spies can avoid death if they have the Dead Ringer out. Keep that in mind and listen for the telltale zapping decloak sound. However, note that that sound can be suppressed if they have the entire Saharan Spy Set.

Answered by n/a

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How do you create a graffiti in Left 4 Dead 2?

Question

I was playing Left 4 Dead 2 and I saw a player paint a graffiti on a wall (I also saw it done on Team Fortress 2)

How is this done? What is it purpose?
Is it different on those two games or is it something at the engine level?

Asked by Juan Manuel

Answer

The place you configure your sprays is in the options menu, under multiplayer.

From this place you can import an image of the proper dimensions, which will show up when you use the spray command (default T) in game.

Answered by Raven Dreamer

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What does the “Eliminating The Impossible” item set really do (if it does anything at all)?

Question

So a new update brought us the "Nine Pipe Problem" and the wiki tells me that if you equip the "Private Eye" and the "Nine Pipe Problem" you complete the "Eliminating The Impossible" item set which can reduce mystery solving by up to 88%"

What does this really do?

Asked by fireDude67

Answer

Nothing... at the moment.

According to the item schema, mystery solving is an actual attribute, but it would appear to have no effect in game. Obviously, it's not clear at this point, but a future update might actually make the attribute do something.

"name": "mystery solving time decrease",
"defindex": 391,
"attribute_class": "mystery_solving_time_decrease",
"min_value": 0.000000,
"max_value": 1.000000,
"description_string": "Reduces mystery solving time by up to %s1%",
"description_format": "value_is_percentage",
"effect_type": "positive",
"hidden": false,
"stored_as_integer": false

No item sets since Australian Christmas have had effects that change the attributes of weaponry/damage resistance, so it would be odd for Valve to release a new item set with beneficial stats, suggesting that it may just be a joke attribute, and part of the theme of the item set.

As the TF2 wiki also notes:

The item is a reference to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Specifically, it alludes to the phrase "three pipe problem" introduced in the short story The Red-Headed League, and refers to the amount of tobacco needed to ponder over and deduce the solution to a particular puzzle.

which further suggests it could just be part of the item set theme.

Answered by Thomas McDonald

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TF2: native classlimiting

Question

I remember someday it became possible to limit classes on tf2 server without using plugins, but now I cannot find any reference for that.

Any hints variable names for class limiting?

Asked by BarsMonster

Answer

Yes you can, but it might not be the kind of class limiting you're looking for:

sv_highlander 1

...makes it so you can only have one of each class; it's only useful for Highlander 9v9 matches obviously.

Answered by badp

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What good are the class config files?

Question

Everytime I see somebody type a script for TF2, even if it is a script specifically for one class, I see people put it in the autoexec.cfg. It seems as though the best place to put a rocket jump script would be in the soldier config, and the best place to put a sap script would be the spy.cfg.

Is there a reason people use the autoexec.cfg rather than the class config files?

Asked by Sailing Judo

Answer

The individual class configs only need to be used if you have a bind conflict, as it won't matter what your binds for the Spy are while playing Scout, as long as they don't impede your other controls.

Generally, it's just laziness and not wanting to avoid all the binds in the other class configs.

Answered by reaverxai

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