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The Assault Week is coming to an end, but before concluding, let's discuss
Assault the Base.
ATB is my own Assault variant, it's still Assault, but works differently. At
first glance the changes are very subtle, but their gameplay impact is
special, quickies are gone while proper teamplay is especially rewarded.
PlanetUnreal's excellent Assault Bonus Pack feature article covers all of the details, but for now, take a look at the summary.
The most notable differences are team scores and time limit. You might be
surprised to see that both teams get the full time to assault the base. A
big change from regular Assault as it used to determine victory based on who
was faster. ATB, however, awards victory to the team with the highest score.
So how do you raise your score? There are a lot of different ways, killing
your opponents is just one possibility, and not even the best one! The
single most important score bonus is achieved by conquering the base, but
the time it took you doesn't determine the time your enemy gets, instead
remaining time is added to your team score. By looking at the timer, you can
instantly see the score bonus, as it's based on minutes and seconds.
While it's often the single highest bonus, other bonuses are also very
important, sometimes even more so. Destroying an objective awards you the
usual ten point bonus, but in addition, all team-mates around you will also
get the points. If you destroy an objective while being backed up by four
other team-mates, the team score gains a total of fifty points, the
equivalent of saving fifty seconds. The other scoring rules which were added
as part of the Assault Bonus Pack also apply to ATB, of course, so kill
bonuses and penalties near objectives or spawnpoints are added/subtracted as
well.
What does it all mean? No more lone wolves who complete a map in less than a
minute! Doing so would give you a big time bonus, of course, but the other
team could use the full time to improve their score. As you can see now,
there are suddenly a lot of tactical and strategic decisions to make, do you
go for the final objective right away or better to wait for backup? Waiting
would give your team additional points, but if you wait too long, the enemy
might defend against your attack! A bad attack could be balanced by a good
defense, and vice versa, as your team scores change during both rounds of a
match. Assault never was so exciting. But don't take my word for it, go to
PlanetUnreal's MotherShip ATB server right away (while it's still up and
running), see it for yourself now.
In closing, I'd like to thank PlanetUnreal for their outstanding support,
especially QAPete's efforts. Thanks a lot. And special thanks also to all
ABP/ATB players out there. Assault isn't dead, far from it, please keep it
alive and spread the Assault Bonus Pack.
In closing Assault Week, I'd like to thank Eavy and the team of talented level designers that he assembled for the Assault Bonus Pack for their hard work and dedication to Assault, and for their contributions to this week-long series of features. Thanks to their efforts, UT Assault has been 'legitimitized', getting many of us (like me) to crack open Assault once again and rediscover how much fun it can be.
QAPete
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