So you
want to be a linker?
As a TRN I get a lot of questions that I can
easily answer. One that I can’t quickly answer is, “How do I use this uplink
thing?” I usually refer people to the Team
Tactical website or give them my macro, “To use the uplink you must find it <L> then deploy it
<.>. Next you switch to the tactical map <M> and make sure the
uplink tab in the top left is selected. Then you click on the ship you wish to
give orders to.” But I am
actually quite passionate about linking, it’s what
really got me interested in the game in the first place. Therefore I’ll put
down a few thoughts about the link.
What is the uplink?
Why should I care?
Players of the game
quickly learn two things. Firstly, there is a lot of shooting going on.
Secondly, you don’t seem to die a lot of you are in your own base but you die
fast if you’re in an enemy base. (This changes a lot
in later servers when you actually want to spend very little of your time in
your own base and more tearing up enemy bases.) But these bases can actually be
created by players. Anywhere you want a base on a map you can make one. To do
that, you’ll need cargo.
Cargo is undeployed base units. While they seem to magically appear
on the ground or falling from the sky they actually are built by supply ships
that are in orbit above the battlefield. If not given any orders the ship
defaults to automatic mode. It will drop
units to build basic base cargo. If no one is linking, this is better than
nothing. But you want better than that, right? So you need the uplink in order
to communicate with the ship. But to know what to order, you’ll need knowledge
of making good bases.
Base building – the very
basics
The power cell (PC) supplies the power.
Everything requires power except for the skypump (SP)
and the darklight (DL). The repair pad (RP) provides
a place for units to spawn from when they die and a place to repair damaged
vehicles quickly. Note there is no reason to have more than one RP deployed
in a base, it sucks up power and offers nothing in return. The refuel pad
(RF) refuels vehicles and, more importantly, stores and generates auxiliary
weapons. You main defense units are the flak turret (FT) (defense against
pulses, missiles, and at medium range it will attack vehicles) and the gun
turret (GT) (provides unlimited autocannon fire at
close range, targeting missiles and vehicles). The missile launcher (ML)
provides good long range defense by firing a hunter-type missile, more powerful
than the ones tanks use. The DL provides stealth, units within it’s zone do not appear on radar and are more difficult to
target. SPs are not really part of the base, they are
used to allow supply ships to warp in and move on the board. Since they are
defenseless they are often placed within a base, see the section on warping in
new ships.
So let’s design a
forward base. We’ll assume you have a starter base already and want to make one
closer to the enemy. Why closer to the enemy? As team mates die, they can spawn
closer to the enemy base and keep the attack momentum up. Remember the cardinal
rule of wulfram, “Always be on the offensive, a team that sits in a base loses.” The
other reason is that now enemies have to get through another base to get to
your starter base, or they have to go around (flank) and that wastes time. Ideally
you will have four pieces of cargo already on the ground, but you can try this
on the fly if there’s not a lot of enemy attacks.
Obviously, the PC is first – you’ll need to power up the other base units. Next
is the GT/FT combo. Remember to place them about 150m away from the PC – and each
other. They explode violently if destroyed, damaging everything in their blast
zone. Next is the RP, this will give a spawn point as the enemy is now well
aware you are base building. A RF will give your team mates weapons, and give
you mines. Mines are important. Your fledgling base needs to be mined, place
them in an irregular pattern about 100m away from the base and about 80m apart.
If they’re strung out like a string of pearls they will all explode at once –
useless. Now you can top it off with another set of FTs
and GTs. A secondary PC, deployed right over the
first is a good insurance policy. It will not generate more power, but will
serve as a backup in case the first is killed. Voila! A good
base.
Pick the perfect
spot for a base
Contrary to what
you may think, a base is best put on flat ground with no terrain blocking its
view. Terrain is always an advantage for the attacker, never the defender. The
more line of sight your offensive base units have, the
more effective they will be. The new base should be close to the old one as
well. Ideally the bases should almost interlock, the offensive units from the
previous base can help defend and vice-versa. A good way to choose a new base
location is to take a PC from the starting space and head to some open ground
towards the enemy. As soon as you can deploy the PC, do so. That’s your spot.
Enough! I can make a
base, teach me to link!
Fair enough. Using the link is actually very
easy. The most difficult theoretical part is understanding
how to build bases. If you have that down, then you’ll get through this with no
problems. First thing, get the link. Press L during the game to see where it is. You’ll
then have it automatically targeted and you simply have to go to it and land on
it – just like any other cargo. Pressing . deploys the link. You are now the linker. Switch to the
tactical map by hitting M.
As linker, you will spend a lot of time looking at the tactical map. You
shouldn’t be fighting at this point, you should be
safely in a base. The linker is the only person who should spend any amount of
time in a base. Notice the tabs on the top right corner marked Map and Uplink. Make sure Uplink is selected. Now scan the map for your
ship. When you click on it you will see the “queue” for the ship. Think of this
as the order list. On the bottom of the list is the three setting the ship can
be put on. Autonomous randomly puts RPs, FPs, and PCs into the queue.
This setting is ok for teams with linkers. Manual
repeat will do whatever is in the queue and then repeat the queue list
again. If only one thing is in the queue, manual repeat will just make that one
thing over and over again. Manual
will construct whatever is in the queue and then stop. Never, ever, leave
the ship on manual. If you loose
the link, stop linking, go offline, whatever – the ship
will sit idle. Never let a ship sit idle. Select the items you wish in the
queue and the ship will begin to make them.
A few notes on
interest. There is a maximum of four undeployed
cargoes on the ground per team at any time. The ship will still build a fifth
item – but when the counter hits zero it will simply hold it, it will not start
building a sixth cargo. Cargo stolen from an enemy and unlocked on a repair pad
does not count towards the four maximum. Encourage your team to steal cargo
rather than destroy it whenever possible. Cargo falls, seemingly randomly in
the sector the ship is. This calls for caution if enemies control nearby
sectors. Never allow falling cargo to be intercepted by the enemy, consider a
bombardment or moving the ship.
Ah. The bombardment.
Often the most misunderstood function of the supply ship. I’ll mention it here
since everyone wants to know about it but the reality is that you’ll rarely use
it – effectively. It is selected in the queue list and an eight minute timer
begins a count down. Your team will see that it has been ordered and they will
see periodic updates as to when it is going to happen. When it does happen,
(often called “the fireworks”) death rains down from above – imagine pulse
shells screaming sector-wide down on any enemy targets. The important thing to
note is that it only affects the sector directly below the ship. New players
often order bombardments as soon as they get the link, but at the start of a
game, the ship is over one’s own base. Futile. The
bombardment only targets and damages enemies, if there are none, then the bombardment is aborted. A waste
of eight minutes of ship time. Even if you kill one tank who happened to be attacking your base, you could have
ordered and deployed a FT in that time. Bombardments should only be ordered
over enemy base units or when the ship is so close to the enemy sectors that
dropping cargo will result in them being intercepted.
Warping in new
ships, moving around yours
Meet your new best friend, linker. It is the
skypump. The SP is the base unit that give your ships
power. It allows them to move. A linker with a board of active SPs is a happy linker. Let me explain. Ever notice the
messages about “warp push” and “warp glimpse”? Warp glimpse is the period of
time where, if two SPs are active in a sector with no
cargo ships, a new ship prepares to warp in. Warp push is the period of time
that the ship actually moves in. With one SP active in a sector, that sector
will have a fine line surrounding it on the tactical map. Two SPs (or more) will show a thick line. When warp glimpse
arrives and you have a thick line around a sector you will see a swirly icon in the top right. If warp push arrives and you
still have the thick lines then all the pumps in that sector will be destroyed –
but you’ll have a new ship for your efforts. More ships is
a distinct advantage to your team. Note you can have a maximum of three ships
per team.
Ships can only move
into sectors with at least one SP. When you click on a ship and then select
move ship you will be presented with a list of sectors the ship can go to,
indicated by green arrows. No arrows? Your ship can not move. A ship can
function in a sector with no skypumps, but it is
immobile.
The key to warping in new ships is to
remember that SPs are defenseless. It’s hard enough
keeping enemies out of your bases while encouraging your team mates to be
attacking the enemy bases. Don’t waste resources and fighters protecting SPs. The classic way to warp in a new ship is over a base.
Say you have a starter base with a ship over it. Order three SPs. The first one you deploy in a sector next to the base
and move the ship there immediately. The enemy will try to destroy it, but you
can move the ship fast enough that it shouldn’t matter. Once the ship is there
the SP can fall with no real harm to your team. Now you can deploy two SPs in your base and you’ll have another ship without
having to defend those two
Start
game, middle game, end game
Start game: So map cycle has hit and you’re the lucky
linker. Good for you! The first thing you do is cancel everything on the queue
and order a refuel and three SPs. Why?
Your team mates want to see you’re thinking of them and nothing says loving
more than a refuel pad to those missile-loving friends of yours. That will buy
you some time to do the “warp in a new ship” trick I described above. In the
beginning of the game you’ll want to get your three ships as fast as you can.
Encourage the team to fight, encourage them to keep the enemy at bay, encourage
them to get the heck out of the base. Now with two ships you set one to three SPs and slap on manual
repeat. The other one should be PC, FT,GT,RP and manual repeat. Time
to build a mini base a little forward from your position. As linker you
are responsible for mining the bases too, so keep moving. If there’s
a lot of people playing on your side, ask a trusted one to help with
cargo. Keep encouraging your team mates to fight on for glory. Announce that
they’ll have bases everywhere once the third ship comes in. With the third
ship, you can start ordering fancy stuff. At this point you should have one
ship doing PC/FP/PC/RP manual repeat,
the second GT/FT manual repeat and
the third DL/ML manual repeat.
Things will be dropping like crazy and at this point you can start asking for
more help deploying should you need it. Your job is to make sure that each base
has a backup PC, is well mined, has a DL, has appropriate GT/FT placement, and
has a ML if it can fit. DLs and MLs
should be placed as close to the PC as possible. Tweak the cargo drops as
needed.
Middle game: Coming soon…
End game: Coming soon…
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