Unreal Tournament 3/Warfare

Warfare is essentially the Onslaught game from Unreal Tournament 2004 with a few new twists.

A Warfare match plays out as a team vs. team contest, with each team able to attack each other as well as take control of strategic power nodes placed around the battlefield. When certain nodes have been controlled by one team, the enemy power core becomes vulnerable to attack.

Warfare matches almost always use vehicles, and players have access to hoverboards. The one exception in the default map set is the Marketplace map where there are no vehicles available (although there are still hoverboards).

Goal
The goal is to destroy the enemy power core, or to ensure that your power core lasts longer than theirs does in overtime. Enemy power cores are invulnerable to attack unless the enemy prime node has been taken over and is under your control. A power core begins with a health rating of 100.

The goal can be accomplished in several ways:
 * By gaining control of the enemy prime node, which removes the invulnerability shield on their power core, then attacking the power core until its health is at zero
 * By ensuring that your team always controls the most nodes, thereby reducing the damage your power core takes in overtime (assuming both power cores have nearly the same health)
 * By activating special triggers on the map that directly damage the opponent's power core regardless of node strategy; examples include:
 * The power surge gained through control of the mining node in the Power Surge map
 * The core flood gained through control of the floodgate node in the Floodgate map

Overtime occurs when the match time designated in the game settings runs out and both power cores still have health. During an overtime period, both power cores begin to lose health at regular intervals, as if they were timers counting down. The rate at which a team's power core loses health depends on how many nodes that team controls -- the more nodes a team controls, the slower their power core loses health, and the faster the other team's power core loses health. Power cores can still be attacked during overtime, if an enemy gains control of the other team's prime node.

Scoring
The scoring for this game type is a little strange; a team receives two points for destroying the enemy's power core either by direct damage or special damage (through triggering a special game event like a flood or power surge). A team receives one point for outlasting the enemy in overtime, when both power cores are losing power.

However, the match does not end until one power core has decreased to zero, making the other team the winner. When the match ends, the winning team will have either one point or two, but the losing team will always have zero. Therefore, scoring is somewhat of a moot point in regards to the team that wins.

Individual players receive a score based on their activity in the game. Points are given for kills, destroying enemy nodes, starting up a node, using the node-buster orb to take over a node, destroying a downed enemy orb, and direct damage done on the enemy power core.

What is a Node?
The node itself consists of a circular metallic base fixed to the ground that is dark with no animation if it has not been activated by either side. A node base that displays as completely dark is not available to be activated by you. A unactivated node that is available to be activated by you will have a swirling, yellow animation above the base. A freshly activated node displays a pillar of light the color of the team that has activated it, shooting up into the air high above the node. A few meters above the base, a round glowing ball will begin to grow, signifying that the node is powering up. As the node continues to power up, pieces of metallic armor will coalesce and begin forming a circular protective belt around the growing glowing ball. When the node has completely formed, the belt will completely surround the elevated, glowing colored ball.

An un-activated node can be activated by running across it on foot. A node cannot be activated by a player in a vehicle or on a hoverboard. When activated, the node slowly begins to build until it completes.

The link gun secondary fire directed at either the glowing elevated ball itself or the node base, will increase the speed at which a node builds. It will also heal damaged nodes.

Carrying the node-buster orb near one of your nodes will have a healing effect on that node, and lock it from being damaged or taken over by an enemy with a node-buster orb.

To attack an enemy node, you must shoot at the elevated glowing ball. You will see a node health indicator which lets you know the remaining health of the node. Pieces of the protective armor will fall off as the node is damaged. You cannot damage a locked node.

A locked node is indicated by several beams of light coming down from the top of the node and surrounding the base, as opposed to the single pillar of light which signifies an unlocked node. A node will be locked to you if:
 * You do not control the adjacent node in the logical pattern
 * An enemy carrying their teams' node-buster orb is close to the node

Node Strategy
The strategic aspect of the power nodes lies in their configuration and placement on the map. The same map may be designed with different node configurations which can change what strategies are most effective.

Essentially there is one prime node for each team. The prime node is usually the node closest to the home team's power core. The prime node for each team is labeled on the large map. As long as you control your prime node, your enemies will be unable to directly attack your power core. Any attempt to attack your core with weapons without controlling your prime node will give the enemy a buzzing noise and a warning message that the power core is invulnerable until they have control of the enemy prime node.

There are additional power nodes throughout the playing field. The nodes have been set up by the map designer in a logical pattern. The pattern is such that one node must be controlled in order to unlock and be able to attempt to control the next node in the pattern. A simple node pattern with three nodes might be laid out as follows:
 * Base
 * Prime node
 * Center node
 * Enemy prime node
 * Enemy base

On the main map at the start of the game, the pattern can be read by following the lines between nodes. For example, in the previous configuration a red line would exist between the base and the prime node, signifying that the prime node is available to be activated by the red team. Additionally, white lines would exist between the prime node and the center node, the center node and the enemy prime node, and the enemy prime node and the enemy base. The lines signify the logical pattern of node control. So the red team can glance at the map and know they need to control the prime node to unlock the center node, and they need to control the center node to unlock the enemy prime node. There is never a need to unlock your prime node; it will always be unlocked to you.

Respawning at a Node
When you die in a warfare game, you do not immediately respawn at a set point unless your team controls no nodes (in which case you will respawn at your base). Instead, the teleporter map is displayed upon death, and you are given a choice where you would like to respawn. You may double click on any node you control (or on your base) to respawn there.

Teleporting To and From a Node
When a node has been taken over, the teleporter for that node turns the color of the team that controls it, and becomes active for players of that team. The teleporters are small, translucent stationary orbs jutting from the ground. The are about half the size of one of your characters.

To use a teleporter, a player stands on top of it, or stands close and faces it, and presses the USE key. This brings up a teleporter map which shows the current status of all nodes and bases on the playfield. The player then double-clicks on the node they wish to instantly teleport to, and they will appear there.

Players cannot teleport to nodes they do not control, or which are under enemy attack (indicated by flashing damage graphics on the teleporter map). Sometimes a node is being built and glows red on the map, making it look like you should be able to teleport there, but until the node completes building you cannot. Nodes pulse on the teleport map while they are being built, and are solid once they have completed.

Node Vehicles
Taking over a node generally gives you access to one or more vehicles or turrets that spawn at that node.

Sometimes it is worthwhile to control a node that has no strategic path value because it gives access to powerful vehicles, or is a strategic spawn point.

The Node-Buster Orb
Node-buster orbs spawn at a receptacle at your base, and also at selected nodes under your control. A player picks up the orb by walking over the orb receptacle after the orb has spawned, or by running over a downed orb on the playing field before the self-destruct timer has expired. The orb cannot be picked up while in a vehicle or on a hoverboard. An orb cannot be taken into a vehicle, but the carrier may use their hoverboard. The orb carrier can shoot and move normally while carrying the orb.

The node-buster orb is a quick means of turning an unlocked node to your team's color. The orb carrier simply runs over the node base and the node is instantly transformed into a fully healed node for your side. The orb disappears after being used to convert a node, and must be picked up again from an orb spawning receptacle.

The location of your orb can always be seen on the main map, and shows up as a yellow hatched circle. Sometimes an enemy orb carrier will approach one of your nodes when you are nearby, and you will receive an audio warning from the computer that an enemy orb carrier is approaching. When that warning occurs, you will be able to see the enemy orb carrier's exact location on your mini-map.

Orb Strategy
It is wise to keep the orb moving. Whenever the orb is available, someone on your team should be moving it to protect a node under attack, or to capture a new node. If you are playing even a somewhat competent enemy, their orb will be moving. If yours is not, the match will be very short.

If an enemy carrying a node-buster orb is killed, the orb will drop to the ground and a timer will become visible. When the timer reaches zero, the orb will self-destruct and disappear to respawn at an enemy orb receptacle. You can speed up the process of destruction by approaching the enemy orb and pressing the USE button, which will have your character fall on the orb and detonate it. This usually results in your death, unless you have lots of health and armor. You cannot damage a fallen orb with any weapon or vehicle.

The node-buster orb will take over an enemy node as soon as it passes over it, with a few exceptions:
 * It will not change the node if the node is locked, due to your team not having controlled the correct adjacent node that unlocks the target node in the logical path
 * It will not change the node if an enemy player is carrying their own orb nearby, effectively locking it as long as that player is within a certain distance and being actively carried (you will see a line of light leading from the node to the enemy player if this is occurring)
 * It will not change the node for a short period of time after an enemy player locking it with their orb has been killed; not sure why this happens, but there seems to be a delay in the system recognizing that the node is no longer locked, even though the visible display of locking has ceased (fortunately this false-locking issue only lasts a few seconds)

Strategies & Tips

 * A good starting strategy is to have one player pick up the orb, switch to hoverboard, and grapple another player on a fast vehicle to make a quick trip to the prime node
 * A good follow-up to that strategy is to have a third player waiting back at the base node respawner to pick up the orb when it respawns and get it moving again
 * On some maps that are very spread out, it may make more sense to not use the orb to start the prime node (which means it must be picked up again from the main base), but instead have another player start it, everyone use link guns to build it, then move the orb along to the next one from there.
 * Do not always fall on an enemy orb to destroy it when it is dropped; if there are no enemies nearby, let it sit and expire rather than destroy it and let it respawn where they can pick it up again quickly
 * Keep the orb moving -- if you do not use the orb well, you will not win any Warfare match; if everyone on the team is not comfortable using the orb, designate one or two members whose job is solely to take over nodes using the orb
 * On the Torlan Gorge map, it is almost impossible to stop a player with the orb from taking over the center node when they drop down from the top, from the shoulder of the bridge; use that approach to quickly take back the middle node
 * When you have finally gotten control of the enemy prime node and can attack their power core, don't ignore the orb; have one player take it to the enemy prime node and stay there to lock it down -- this will prevent it from being destroyed from a distance, or being cheaply taken over by an enemy orb carrier
 * Before running off to try and pick up your downed orb, make a judgment as to whether you will be able to reach it before the timer expires; sometimes it is best to simply head for the nearest orb spawning receptacle rather than get all the way across the map and miss it by that much.