Post by warsprite on Aug 17, 2007 3:39:48 GMT -5
Okay, so some of you [ie: Aush and whoever he told] know that I've been working on a Dystopia manual, and hopefully *shinkick* Aush should have been doing a weapons section. This is what I have right now. Feel free to tear it apart. It's going to loose its pretty formatting when I make it a forum post though =(
The Dystopia v1 Manual
by Warsprite
1.Installation
a. The Installer
b. Starting up Dystopia
2.The Basics
a. The Corps and the Punks
b. Meatspace and Cyberspace
c. The HUD
d. The Minimap
e. Objectives
f. Interacting with Objects
g. Gaining Points
3.You, the Player
a. Choosing Your Load Out
b. Classes
c. Weapons
d. Implants
4.Cyberspace
a. The Environment
b. Moving Around
c. Programs
d. Cyberweapons
e. Tactics
1.Installation
1a. The Installer
Now that you've downloaded the Dystopia v1 installer, you'll want to follow the instructions inside it, and point it to your SourceMods directory, which should be located inside your Steam folder within your Program Files directory. If you don't have steam, you'll need to get it at www.steampowered.com. Once you run the v1 installer, you should run the 1.1 patcher, following similar steps.
1b. Starting up Dystopia
Dystopia should now appear in the My Games window of the Steam launcher. If it does not appear, restart Steam, and/or your computer. To play Dystopia (or any other Half-Life 2 modification) you'll need something called the Source SDK Base. You can get this for free if you already own any source game (Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, Day of Defeat: Source, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2: Episode One or Two). If you have one of these, click the tools tab in the Steam launcher, right click Source SDK Base, then click Install. If you don't have a source game, you can buy one in the Steam store. If you're not looking to spend a lot of money, the $10 price tag of Episode 1 or Half-Life 2 Deathmatch may be appealing. If you're interested in an award winning single player experience, you may want to purchase Half-Life 2. Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source are relatively straightforward team-based shooters.
Once the Source SDK Base is finished downloading, you should be able to launch Dystopia from the My Games menu in steam. Simply double click on the line containing Dystopia to launch the game. The first thing you'll want to do is run the tutorial. Many people scoff at game tutorials, but Dystopia is a much more complicated game than most shooters, so you'll want to go play through the tutorial to get a feel for it. Once you've done that, you may want to adjust your controls and settings through the “Options” menu. Dystopia is a multi-player only modification, so to get started, you'll want to click the “Find Servers” button, and find a server with people playing. I recommend learning the game in less populated servers, before moving on to larger ones. This should give you the opportunity to learn the game in a less chaotic environment. Ten on ten Dystopia games can be rather chaotic for beginners.
2.The Basics
2a. The Corps and the Punks
Dystopia is set on a futuristic Earth that has been consumed by warfare between two factions, the Corporations (or the Corps) and militant hackers known as the Punks. The Punks often choose to attack the Corps on their own, but may also be supported with money and intelligence information from rival Corporations. Generally, the Corporations take the defensive role, but this is not always the case. Occasionally, the Corps will strike against a Punk installation. In Dystopia, the Corps are always blue and the Punks are always red. They have access to the same powered suits, weapons and implants.
2b. Meatspace and Cyberspace
The conflict between the Corps and the Punks rages not only in the physical world (meatspace or ms) but also in the virtual (cyberspace or cs). On any given map there are multiple Jack-in-Points (JIPs) which players using a cyberdeck (deckers) can use to enter cyberspace and alter gameplay elements in meatspace. Depending on the map, deckers may be able to open and close locked doors, enable or disable electricity, operate elevators, activate and deactivate shields and lasers or even cause turrets to change sides and shoot the other team. In some cases, deckers may be able to capture (and even recapture!) spawn points, thus moving their team, and the field of battle, forward. In many maps, having skilled deckers is the difference between victory and defeat.
In both meatspace and cyberspace, a green IFF box will highlight your teammates, while a red IFF box will highlight your opponents (excepting stealthed opponents (see implants)). It's important to be sure you're shooting at an enemy and not a teammate, since friendly fire is always active in Dystopia.
2c. The HUD
Once you spawn, you'll notice all sorts of colored bars and shapes adorning your screen. These are known collectively as your Heads-Up-Display, or HUD, and they display information related to your current status. In the lower left, you'll find three bars. The top red one displays your current hit points as a percent of your maximum. Your current status, as a number of hit points, is displayed to the right of the bar. The white bar below that represents your current armor, and the blue bar on the bottom, your current energy. Your energy is consumed by using implants, and regenerates over time, your hit points can be damaged by both weapons fire, jack-out-trauma (see Cyberspace) and falling, and may be regenerated by a Mediplant (see implants), while your armor may only be damaged by enemy weapons and may not be recovered except by dying.
In the lower right hand corner of your screen, you'll see your ammo indicator, which will display either no numbers, one number or two numbers seperated by a pipe ( | ). If two numbers are shown, the number on the left is the amount of ammo remaining in your weapon's clip, and the number of right is the amount of ammo you hold in reserve. If only one number shows, you are using a clipless weapon (Laser Rifle, Tesla Rifle, Ion Cannon and Grenades) which does not need to be reloaded. If no numbers show, you are using a melee weapon (Katana or Fatman Fist) which does not require ammo.
In the center of your screen is the crosshair, which indicates the direction your gun is pointing. Most weapons shoot directly at the crosshair, while others, particularly the Grenade Launcher, follow an arc. The crosshair's design, color and size may both be changed from the options menu.
If there is a vote in progress, large white text will flash across the center of your screen indicating who called the vote and what the vote decides. A small box will pop up in the lower left hand corner of your screen, above the ammo indicator, indicating the two options you have when voting, as well as what key you need to press to choose the option.
You'll also notice a small map in the upper right hand corner, and a spinning disk with text to the left of it. The map is your minimap, which you can use to find your way around, and the text next to the spinning disk is information about the current objective. We will cover both the minimap and the objectives in the next two sections.
If you press and hold TAB, a transparent scoreboard will appear, which displays the members of both teams, their scores, their frags (or kills on enemy players), and their latency. Latency is the amount of time it takes a piece of information from their computer to reach the game server in milliseconds (also known as ping).
2e. The Minimap
To the right of the objective information, you should notice a minimap peppered with symbols. You are the gray arrow in the center of the map, the blue background represents the map's topology, and the green arrows represent your teammates. Any red arrows that appear on the map point out the location of enemies. If you're confused about where you are or where to go, you can hold down “c” and try to make it to where your teammates are. Enemies will only appear on the map if they are in the line of sight of your teammates, or if they have been reveled by a friendly TAC Scan (see Implant section).
It's important to note that since people can be upstairs or downstairs, enemies and teammates that appear to be nearby may be on a different floor. Arrows that represent players on a floor above you will have a shadow effect underneath them to show that. Arrows that represent players below you will be smaller, yet appear nearby you. Small arrows in the distance represent players that are far away.
Several other minimap symbols are important. The spinning disk symbol shows the location of the objective, while the S with a circle around it displays spawn locations. Ammo crates are represented by three bullets with a circle around them, and Jack-in-Points are shown by a yellow box.
2d. Objectives
Once you've joined a side in a game, there will be a colored spinning disk near the upper right hand corner of your screen, with a small map to the right of it. The text to the right of the disc is the current objective for your team. A spinning disk of the same color will also appear on your screen indicating the direction of the objective in meatspace. This text will expand to show all of the map's objectives whenever there is a change in the objective status (one is captured, or a secondary objective changes). There are three basic types of objectives:
1.Button Press
2.Destroy
3.Cyberspace
Button press objectives simply require you to go somewhere in meatspace and press a button. Of course, there is usually something else you have to do first, to allow you to push the button. For example, in order for the Punks to capture the docks in dys_vaccine, they must push a button to open a door, then run inside the room, and push a second button to capture the spawn. Buttons may be pushed either by clicking them with the mouse (if a coursor appears, as in dys_vaccine) or walking up to the button and hitting the use key (default “e”) if a cursor does not appear (such as dys_broadcast). Some button press objectives, such as the second objective in dys_broadcast, are recappable, but most are not.
Destruction objectives ask that you go somewhere and destroy something. Usually the object will have some kind of defense preventing you from reaching it, that you may wish to disable beforehand. These tend to be fairly straightforward, and are not recapturable. Some of them feature health bars indicating how much more damage must be done to destroy the objective, but not all of them do.
Cyberspace objectives are similar to button press and destroy objectives, except that they take place in cyberspace. The objective symbol on your screen and map will point to a JIP, where you must jack in, move to a point in cyberspace, and accomplish the objective. This may either take the form of pressing a button in cyberspace, or destroying an object in cyberspace. These objectives may only be accessed by the attackers from the objective JIP, but may often be accessed by the defenders from elsewhere, so they can defend the objective in cyberspace as well as meatspace.
Completing an objective provides fifteen points for the person who completes it (for destroy objectives, if multiple people have damaged the object, whoever did the final damage gets the points) and ten “objective assist points” each to friendlies who were nearby when the objective was accomplished. Recappable objectives award less points if they are being recaptured often, to prevent abuse and point inflation.
Points may also be earned by completing “secondary objectives”. Secondary objectives appear below the main objective in the upper right part of your screen, and are ways of helping your team complete the objective that, while helpful, are not necessary to complete the objective. Usually secondary objectives involve either toggling a security system or toggling an access route (ie: opening or closing a door). Not all maps or objectives allow you to earn extra points by doing these things, however.
2f. Interacting with Objects
While playing Dystopia, you'll notice that you can interact with a great variety of the objects in the game. The Half-Life 2 physics engine allows a great deal of interactivity with most of the regular objects in the game (barrels, shelves, boxes), while many of the objects are unique to Dystopia. It is important to note that Dystopia's melee attacks may be used to arrange larger objects to create a barricade at a choke point.
Some objects, but not all, may be destroyed. These include any object with a health bar, any destroy objective, some boards covering doors or windows, plain glass, glass with smaller windows. It's important to note that while most glass in Dystopia can be destroyed, glass with white crosshatching is usually unbreakable.
The game's ammo dispensers are fairly simple to interact with. Simply walk up to one, and it will begin to fill your ammo up. You will stop receiving ammo once you reach the carry limit, but you may return for more at any time.
The turrets require a little more discretion. Like players, a green or red IFF box will highlight the turret, letting you know whose side the turret is on. Turrets come in two flavors, normal “Turret” and the more advanced “Thermal Turret”. While the Stealth implant renders the user invisible to any regular Turret, Thermal ones will detect and destroy Stealthers. A Cold Suit has no effect against Thermal Turrets, since they also have visual sensors. Every turret in Dystopia can be destroyed, it's just a matter of how much effort it takes. Some will explode after they take 200 damage, some require quite a bit more punishment. Destroyed turrets retract into their base at the ceiling and enter repair mode, during which they are not active. However, turrets will exit repair mode after a set time and become active again, so it's important that you use the time they are deactivated to your advantage. Some turrets may be toggled on and off via cyberspace, and others may be captured out right, but some turrets may be neither.
Dystopia also features a large number of clickable buttons. When you scroll your crosshair over one of these, it becomes a cursor, and you can press “fire” to activate the button's function, usually labeled right on the button. Some buttons, however, are not clickable. These usually look like buttons, but don't have the distinctive cursor rollover. You'll have to walk up to these and hit your use key (default “e”) in order to activate them (ex: The second objective in dys_broadcast and the manual override button on the third objective in dys_fortress).
To interact with a Jack-in-Point, you need a Cyberdeck, either a regular one or an Enhanced one. If you'd like to enter cyberspace, simply walk up to a Jack-in-Point, and press F1, or your cyberdeck activation key. The puzzle on the third objective of dys_fortress can also be interacted with by attempting to Jack in, although it is not technically a JIP.
While most doors act in an intuitive manner, and are either opened by walking up to them, or by a nearby button, elevators are generally activated by clickable buttons, and some doors cannot be opened in meatspace at all, either because they need to be activated in cyberspace first, because they are not available until a future objective, or because they are not operable in general.
Lastly, while playing Dystopia, you may notice the large, blue, shimmering barriers present on some maps, generally nearby spawn areas. Generally speaking, these block all weapons fire, and also block passage for members of a specific team. These barriers act to prevent spawn camping, and sometimes (such as in dys_broadcast) to prevent players from going the wrong way. Lasers are generally damaging. Some, like those in dys_broadcast, may kill you instantly, while some, like those in dys_infect, may only damage you slightly when you touch them. Prolonged exposure is not recommended.
2g. Gaining Points
As you already know, you can gain points from objectives, objective assists and secondary objectives. Killing enemy players also gains you points, and credit goes both to the player who dealt the final blow and to players who did a significant amount of damage to the enemy before that. Points may also be gained by healing teammates with a Mediplant, performing TAC Scans (see implants), forcing enemy deckers out of Cyberspace and hacking nodes in Cyberspace. Now, let's get ready to play!
3.You, the Player
3a. Choosing Your Load Out
When you enter a Dystopia server, you'll be asked to either choose a team or spectate. If you choose a team, another screen will pop up asking you to choose one of three classes, Light, Medium or Heavy. Each of these classes comes with a unique set of weapons, a different movement speed, health points (hp) and armor, as well as variable amounts of space for implants in both the head and body. Each class also adds a different amount to the team's respawn timer when it dies, less for the lights, and more for the heavies. You can choose to change your load out at any time by pressing “m”, and the changes will take effect the next time you respawn. If you spawn with a loadout you don't like by mistake, you can press “m” while still standing on the respawn pad to change your loadout immediately, and it will take effect instantly. Be careful not to move off the spawn pad if you want to change your loadout, however.
3b. Classes
The light class is the fastest moving class, but has the least armor and hit points. With only 75 hit points and a mere 25 armor, each hit counts. However, the light class also has the most headspace (5) and bodyspace (7) to cram implants into. The light is the only class with enough bodyspace to use the Stealth implant (see implants). Furthermore, the light's weapons can pack quite a punch when used properly, and can swiftly take down an unprepared medium. The light also comes equipped with four EMP grenades, which temporarily disable the implants of those affected, as well as cause visual and auditory distortion. When used properly, EMP grenades can cripple your opponents.
The medium is exactly that, medium. With 100 health and 75 armor, the medium has significantly higher defenses than the light class, but also significantly less movement speed, headspace (4) and bodyspace (4). The medium also sports a wide variety of weapons, and a more powerful katana than the light. The medium also wields three frag grenades, which pack a powerful punch. Frag grenades, like EMP grenades, can be “cooked”, or made to explode sooner, by holding down the secondary fire while wielding them.
The heavy is a hitpoint goliath. With 140 hitpoints and 100 armor, it takes a lot to bring down a heavy. However, the heavy pays for its defenses with an atrociously slow movement speed and very limited headspace (2) and bodyspace (2). The heavy also packs two spider grenades, which, when deployed, automatically lock on to opponents and scuttle across the floor towards them to explode. The heavy's melee weapon is the Fatman Fist, a hydraulic glove that deals massive damage and may not be blocked with a katana. However, the Fatman Fist lacks the ability to block.
Each of the classes (except for lights using the Smartlock Pistols) come equipped with a machine pistol as a sidearm. The machine pistol has no secondary attack, but is extremely effective at finishing off wounded opponents due to its fast rate of fire, and should not be underestimated. In conclusion, while there is no set limit to the amount of each class you may have on your team, a balance between classes is recommended. Too many lights may mean your team dies too quickly, while too many heavies may mean your team respawns far too slowly, and too many mediums may lead to a monoculture of weapons.
The Dystopia v1 Manual
by Warsprite
1.Installation
a. The Installer
b. Starting up Dystopia
2.The Basics
a. The Corps and the Punks
b. Meatspace and Cyberspace
c. The HUD
d. The Minimap
e. Objectives
f. Interacting with Objects
g. Gaining Points
3.You, the Player
a. Choosing Your Load Out
b. Classes
c. Weapons
d. Implants
4.Cyberspace
a. The Environment
b. Moving Around
c. Programs
d. Cyberweapons
e. Tactics
1.Installation
1a. The Installer
Now that you've downloaded the Dystopia v1 installer, you'll want to follow the instructions inside it, and point it to your SourceMods directory, which should be located inside your Steam folder within your Program Files directory. If you don't have steam, you'll need to get it at www.steampowered.com. Once you run the v1 installer, you should run the 1.1 patcher, following similar steps.
1b. Starting up Dystopia
Dystopia should now appear in the My Games window of the Steam launcher. If it does not appear, restart Steam, and/or your computer. To play Dystopia (or any other Half-Life 2 modification) you'll need something called the Source SDK Base. You can get this for free if you already own any source game (Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, Day of Defeat: Source, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2: Episode One or Two). If you have one of these, click the tools tab in the Steam launcher, right click Source SDK Base, then click Install. If you don't have a source game, you can buy one in the Steam store. If you're not looking to spend a lot of money, the $10 price tag of Episode 1 or Half-Life 2 Deathmatch may be appealing. If you're interested in an award winning single player experience, you may want to purchase Half-Life 2. Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source are relatively straightforward team-based shooters.
Once the Source SDK Base is finished downloading, you should be able to launch Dystopia from the My Games menu in steam. Simply double click on the line containing Dystopia to launch the game. The first thing you'll want to do is run the tutorial. Many people scoff at game tutorials, but Dystopia is a much more complicated game than most shooters, so you'll want to go play through the tutorial to get a feel for it. Once you've done that, you may want to adjust your controls and settings through the “Options” menu. Dystopia is a multi-player only modification, so to get started, you'll want to click the “Find Servers” button, and find a server with people playing. I recommend learning the game in less populated servers, before moving on to larger ones. This should give you the opportunity to learn the game in a less chaotic environment. Ten on ten Dystopia games can be rather chaotic for beginners.
2.The Basics
2a. The Corps and the Punks
Dystopia is set on a futuristic Earth that has been consumed by warfare between two factions, the Corporations (or the Corps) and militant hackers known as the Punks. The Punks often choose to attack the Corps on their own, but may also be supported with money and intelligence information from rival Corporations. Generally, the Corporations take the defensive role, but this is not always the case. Occasionally, the Corps will strike against a Punk installation. In Dystopia, the Corps are always blue and the Punks are always red. They have access to the same powered suits, weapons and implants.
2b. Meatspace and Cyberspace
The conflict between the Corps and the Punks rages not only in the physical world (meatspace or ms) but also in the virtual (cyberspace or cs). On any given map there are multiple Jack-in-Points (JIPs) which players using a cyberdeck (deckers) can use to enter cyberspace and alter gameplay elements in meatspace. Depending on the map, deckers may be able to open and close locked doors, enable or disable electricity, operate elevators, activate and deactivate shields and lasers or even cause turrets to change sides and shoot the other team. In some cases, deckers may be able to capture (and even recapture!) spawn points, thus moving their team, and the field of battle, forward. In many maps, having skilled deckers is the difference between victory and defeat.
In both meatspace and cyberspace, a green IFF box will highlight your teammates, while a red IFF box will highlight your opponents (excepting stealthed opponents (see implants)). It's important to be sure you're shooting at an enemy and not a teammate, since friendly fire is always active in Dystopia.
2c. The HUD
Once you spawn, you'll notice all sorts of colored bars and shapes adorning your screen. These are known collectively as your Heads-Up-Display, or HUD, and they display information related to your current status. In the lower left, you'll find three bars. The top red one displays your current hit points as a percent of your maximum. Your current status, as a number of hit points, is displayed to the right of the bar. The white bar below that represents your current armor, and the blue bar on the bottom, your current energy. Your energy is consumed by using implants, and regenerates over time, your hit points can be damaged by both weapons fire, jack-out-trauma (see Cyberspace) and falling, and may be regenerated by a Mediplant (see implants), while your armor may only be damaged by enemy weapons and may not be recovered except by dying.
In the lower right hand corner of your screen, you'll see your ammo indicator, which will display either no numbers, one number or two numbers seperated by a pipe ( | ). If two numbers are shown, the number on the left is the amount of ammo remaining in your weapon's clip, and the number of right is the amount of ammo you hold in reserve. If only one number shows, you are using a clipless weapon (Laser Rifle, Tesla Rifle, Ion Cannon and Grenades) which does not need to be reloaded. If no numbers show, you are using a melee weapon (Katana or Fatman Fist) which does not require ammo.
In the center of your screen is the crosshair, which indicates the direction your gun is pointing. Most weapons shoot directly at the crosshair, while others, particularly the Grenade Launcher, follow an arc. The crosshair's design, color and size may both be changed from the options menu.
If there is a vote in progress, large white text will flash across the center of your screen indicating who called the vote and what the vote decides. A small box will pop up in the lower left hand corner of your screen, above the ammo indicator, indicating the two options you have when voting, as well as what key you need to press to choose the option.
You'll also notice a small map in the upper right hand corner, and a spinning disk with text to the left of it. The map is your minimap, which you can use to find your way around, and the text next to the spinning disk is information about the current objective. We will cover both the minimap and the objectives in the next two sections.
If you press and hold TAB, a transparent scoreboard will appear, which displays the members of both teams, their scores, their frags (or kills on enemy players), and their latency. Latency is the amount of time it takes a piece of information from their computer to reach the game server in milliseconds (also known as ping).
2e. The Minimap
To the right of the objective information, you should notice a minimap peppered with symbols. You are the gray arrow in the center of the map, the blue background represents the map's topology, and the green arrows represent your teammates. Any red arrows that appear on the map point out the location of enemies. If you're confused about where you are or where to go, you can hold down “c” and try to make it to where your teammates are. Enemies will only appear on the map if they are in the line of sight of your teammates, or if they have been reveled by a friendly TAC Scan (see Implant section).
It's important to note that since people can be upstairs or downstairs, enemies and teammates that appear to be nearby may be on a different floor. Arrows that represent players on a floor above you will have a shadow effect underneath them to show that. Arrows that represent players below you will be smaller, yet appear nearby you. Small arrows in the distance represent players that are far away.
Several other minimap symbols are important. The spinning disk symbol shows the location of the objective, while the S with a circle around it displays spawn locations. Ammo crates are represented by three bullets with a circle around them, and Jack-in-Points are shown by a yellow box.
2d. Objectives
Once you've joined a side in a game, there will be a colored spinning disk near the upper right hand corner of your screen, with a small map to the right of it. The text to the right of the disc is the current objective for your team. A spinning disk of the same color will also appear on your screen indicating the direction of the objective in meatspace. This text will expand to show all of the map's objectives whenever there is a change in the objective status (one is captured, or a secondary objective changes). There are three basic types of objectives:
1.Button Press
2.Destroy
3.Cyberspace
Button press objectives simply require you to go somewhere in meatspace and press a button. Of course, there is usually something else you have to do first, to allow you to push the button. For example, in order for the Punks to capture the docks in dys_vaccine, they must push a button to open a door, then run inside the room, and push a second button to capture the spawn. Buttons may be pushed either by clicking them with the mouse (if a coursor appears, as in dys_vaccine) or walking up to the button and hitting the use key (default “e”) if a cursor does not appear (such as dys_broadcast). Some button press objectives, such as the second objective in dys_broadcast, are recappable, but most are not.
Destruction objectives ask that you go somewhere and destroy something. Usually the object will have some kind of defense preventing you from reaching it, that you may wish to disable beforehand. These tend to be fairly straightforward, and are not recapturable. Some of them feature health bars indicating how much more damage must be done to destroy the objective, but not all of them do.
Cyberspace objectives are similar to button press and destroy objectives, except that they take place in cyberspace. The objective symbol on your screen and map will point to a JIP, where you must jack in, move to a point in cyberspace, and accomplish the objective. This may either take the form of pressing a button in cyberspace, or destroying an object in cyberspace. These objectives may only be accessed by the attackers from the objective JIP, but may often be accessed by the defenders from elsewhere, so they can defend the objective in cyberspace as well as meatspace.
Completing an objective provides fifteen points for the person who completes it (for destroy objectives, if multiple people have damaged the object, whoever did the final damage gets the points) and ten “objective assist points” each to friendlies who were nearby when the objective was accomplished. Recappable objectives award less points if they are being recaptured often, to prevent abuse and point inflation.
Points may also be earned by completing “secondary objectives”. Secondary objectives appear below the main objective in the upper right part of your screen, and are ways of helping your team complete the objective that, while helpful, are not necessary to complete the objective. Usually secondary objectives involve either toggling a security system or toggling an access route (ie: opening or closing a door). Not all maps or objectives allow you to earn extra points by doing these things, however.
2f. Interacting with Objects
While playing Dystopia, you'll notice that you can interact with a great variety of the objects in the game. The Half-Life 2 physics engine allows a great deal of interactivity with most of the regular objects in the game (barrels, shelves, boxes), while many of the objects are unique to Dystopia. It is important to note that Dystopia's melee attacks may be used to arrange larger objects to create a barricade at a choke point.
Some objects, but not all, may be destroyed. These include any object with a health bar, any destroy objective, some boards covering doors or windows, plain glass, glass with smaller windows. It's important to note that while most glass in Dystopia can be destroyed, glass with white crosshatching is usually unbreakable.
The game's ammo dispensers are fairly simple to interact with. Simply walk up to one, and it will begin to fill your ammo up. You will stop receiving ammo once you reach the carry limit, but you may return for more at any time.
The turrets require a little more discretion. Like players, a green or red IFF box will highlight the turret, letting you know whose side the turret is on. Turrets come in two flavors, normal “Turret” and the more advanced “Thermal Turret”. While the Stealth implant renders the user invisible to any regular Turret, Thermal ones will detect and destroy Stealthers. A Cold Suit has no effect against Thermal Turrets, since they also have visual sensors. Every turret in Dystopia can be destroyed, it's just a matter of how much effort it takes. Some will explode after they take 200 damage, some require quite a bit more punishment. Destroyed turrets retract into their base at the ceiling and enter repair mode, during which they are not active. However, turrets will exit repair mode after a set time and become active again, so it's important that you use the time they are deactivated to your advantage. Some turrets may be toggled on and off via cyberspace, and others may be captured out right, but some turrets may be neither.
Dystopia also features a large number of clickable buttons. When you scroll your crosshair over one of these, it becomes a cursor, and you can press “fire” to activate the button's function, usually labeled right on the button. Some buttons, however, are not clickable. These usually look like buttons, but don't have the distinctive cursor rollover. You'll have to walk up to these and hit your use key (default “e”) in order to activate them (ex: The second objective in dys_broadcast and the manual override button on the third objective in dys_fortress).
To interact with a Jack-in-Point, you need a Cyberdeck, either a regular one or an Enhanced one. If you'd like to enter cyberspace, simply walk up to a Jack-in-Point, and press F1, or your cyberdeck activation key. The puzzle on the third objective of dys_fortress can also be interacted with by attempting to Jack in, although it is not technically a JIP.
While most doors act in an intuitive manner, and are either opened by walking up to them, or by a nearby button, elevators are generally activated by clickable buttons, and some doors cannot be opened in meatspace at all, either because they need to be activated in cyberspace first, because they are not available until a future objective, or because they are not operable in general.
Lastly, while playing Dystopia, you may notice the large, blue, shimmering barriers present on some maps, generally nearby spawn areas. Generally speaking, these block all weapons fire, and also block passage for members of a specific team. These barriers act to prevent spawn camping, and sometimes (such as in dys_broadcast) to prevent players from going the wrong way. Lasers are generally damaging. Some, like those in dys_broadcast, may kill you instantly, while some, like those in dys_infect, may only damage you slightly when you touch them. Prolonged exposure is not recommended.
2g. Gaining Points
As you already know, you can gain points from objectives, objective assists and secondary objectives. Killing enemy players also gains you points, and credit goes both to the player who dealt the final blow and to players who did a significant amount of damage to the enemy before that. Points may also be gained by healing teammates with a Mediplant, performing TAC Scans (see implants), forcing enemy deckers out of Cyberspace and hacking nodes in Cyberspace. Now, let's get ready to play!
3.You, the Player
3a. Choosing Your Load Out
When you enter a Dystopia server, you'll be asked to either choose a team or spectate. If you choose a team, another screen will pop up asking you to choose one of three classes, Light, Medium or Heavy. Each of these classes comes with a unique set of weapons, a different movement speed, health points (hp) and armor, as well as variable amounts of space for implants in both the head and body. Each class also adds a different amount to the team's respawn timer when it dies, less for the lights, and more for the heavies. You can choose to change your load out at any time by pressing “m”, and the changes will take effect the next time you respawn. If you spawn with a loadout you don't like by mistake, you can press “m” while still standing on the respawn pad to change your loadout immediately, and it will take effect instantly. Be careful not to move off the spawn pad if you want to change your loadout, however.
3b. Classes
The light class is the fastest moving class, but has the least armor and hit points. With only 75 hit points and a mere 25 armor, each hit counts. However, the light class also has the most headspace (5) and bodyspace (7) to cram implants into. The light is the only class with enough bodyspace to use the Stealth implant (see implants). Furthermore, the light's weapons can pack quite a punch when used properly, and can swiftly take down an unprepared medium. The light also comes equipped with four EMP grenades, which temporarily disable the implants of those affected, as well as cause visual and auditory distortion. When used properly, EMP grenades can cripple your opponents.
The medium is exactly that, medium. With 100 health and 75 armor, the medium has significantly higher defenses than the light class, but also significantly less movement speed, headspace (4) and bodyspace (4). The medium also sports a wide variety of weapons, and a more powerful katana than the light. The medium also wields three frag grenades, which pack a powerful punch. Frag grenades, like EMP grenades, can be “cooked”, or made to explode sooner, by holding down the secondary fire while wielding them.
The heavy is a hitpoint goliath. With 140 hitpoints and 100 armor, it takes a lot to bring down a heavy. However, the heavy pays for its defenses with an atrociously slow movement speed and very limited headspace (2) and bodyspace (2). The heavy also packs two spider grenades, which, when deployed, automatically lock on to opponents and scuttle across the floor towards them to explode. The heavy's melee weapon is the Fatman Fist, a hydraulic glove that deals massive damage and may not be blocked with a katana. However, the Fatman Fist lacks the ability to block.
Each of the classes (except for lights using the Smartlock Pistols) come equipped with a machine pistol as a sidearm. The machine pistol has no secondary attack, but is extremely effective at finishing off wounded opponents due to its fast rate of fire, and should not be underestimated. In conclusion, while there is no set limit to the amount of each class you may have on your team, a balance between classes is recommended. Too many lights may mean your team dies too quickly, while too many heavies may mean your team respawns far too slowly, and too many mediums may lead to a monoculture of weapons.
