Valve’s recent adoption of “Die In Pain, Rest In Piece” is great news for those who love high speed, adrenaline and explosions.  That’s you, by the way.  A huge surge in the number of DIPRIP servers means budding Mad Maxers can find car-combat whenever they want, but the sudden bounty of vehicular violence has changed the way you have to play in two words: team deathmatch.

In the old days it was driver for themselves, and with only four or five cars flying around the refinery it was more cat and mouse than straight up combat.  Now we have teams of sixteen competing to steal each other’s flag, with only one small problem: for most players the “team” just means they can’t blow up half the cars.  On a Counter-Strike Server you’re forced into teamplay because you will just die otherwise, no question.  Team Fortress 2 servers have the idea right in the title, as well as quick-command menus so even the un-en-microphoned can co-operate easily.  But there’s something about tearing around the place in murder-mobiles that turns everyone into a rogue leather-wearing loner who plays by their own rules.

There are no voice-commands, and very few players use microphones for anything other than swearing.  So how can you take advantage of a team that isn’t a team?

1.  Run with the Herd

You spawn in your base with a horde of similarly-colored cars.  You see that lovely flashing objective on the other side of the map and the urge is to tear off and be the hero.  The only problem is that there’s another horde of slightly (but very importantly!) differently-colored cars over there and they will blast you into the stratosphere.  Stay with the pack, or at least follow other cars - that way they can “detect” incoming missiles, giving you the chance to fire back while they’re busy “exploding to smithereens”

2.  Run away!

The duel to the death is a powerful urge, but in team-based DIPRIP servers nothing is mano-a-mano.  While you’re locked in machine-gun aiming handbrake skids with an enemy one of his friends will cruise past and blow you from the face of the Earth without looking twice.  When you’re damaged it’s time to take off for a health powerup - every second you stay alive is a second you hold the battle lines away from your base.

A note on running: God, that turbocharger button is gorgeous, isn’t it?  It just calls for you to hammer it and take off at Mach 5.  But when you’re running from an enemy car charging away in a straight line is the absolute worst thing you can do - the increased distance makes it embarrassingly, and fatally, easy for guided missiles to track you.  Use the turbocharger to make a break for the nearest corner, pillar, building, teammate, anything solid that can take a missile impact instead of you.

3.  Stock Up

When you do get detonated (and you will.  A lot.) the urge is to charge right back into the battle and get some revenge.  But if you turn up at the high-speed war with nothing but the wimpy few missiles you spawn with you’re just in time for “Your Ignominious Death: Part II”.  Learn where the missile powerups are and make a quick supply-circuit every time you spawn.  Then when you get to the battle you can actually do something about it.

4.  Take one for the team

When somebody actual gets the flag barrel they have to be the priority - the points for a successful capture far outstrip those for a kill.  There’s a nasty tendency to treat the barrel like a relay baton, waiting for the current carrier to explode so you can snag the points, ignoring the fact that the reason they blew up (ten people machine-gunning him) will have the exact same effect on you.

Take one for the team instead.  It’s worth it in terms of sheer gaming joy as well as points.  Charge headlong into the pursuers, emptying your little-used mortar barrel at long range, ripple firing every missile you have (their tight formation behind your buddy makes them hard to miss) before turbo-ramming whichever car is closest to him as your heavy-machine gun chatters high calibre death into their flanks.

Shouting “WOOOOOOHAAAAAAA!” as you do so is technically optional, but you’re going to do it.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 12:47 pm and is filed under D.I.P.R.I.P.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.