Oddities:

And here we are, in the final section. By now you should be fully educated in the wonderful world of Dustbowl. You'll understand a bit more about the map itself, you'll know what to do with each player class, you'll know the best sentry locations, how to spot a spy, how to do rocket jumps (and where to do them), and also what not to do on each map too. Your brain should have swelled from a small tangerine-sized organ into a throbbing water melon. I like using the word 'throbbing'.

So what else can I possibly reveal? Surely there cannot be more to tell? Well not really, just a collection of oddities and momentos, things that didn't really fit in anywhere else, but things that I couldn't quite leave out. I guess a good word to use would be 'crap'. Yes, let's call it that then:

The Crap Bits Of Dustbowl.co.uk

Scandanavian rocket scientist Sven Glenlarkensen is here to offer his scientific insight into crucial Dustbowl aspects:

Here I am on the bowl of dust with rocket enjoying it. Cappoint 3 is lot far away and sentries built here muchly (maps are three on bowl of dust. Third one is win and game new start). Gun is big when held by large man of fat. Quickly many shells fired and death. But not for man holding, no? lol. Cannot you see ammo where bag is? Green is good in this case, and you then can 'go' with traffic light similar. Spying is top fun and try by all recommend. Knife is ready and much sneaking happens before stab of back. lol. Defence of base red at Cappoint 3. Bridge is trench over and not fall down. Much ouching armour health. lol. Remember must that movement of flag is important of most. Bowl of dust defenders are required to stop attack men early. Timed of game, so early stop is result excellent for red men. If in blue trouble, spy men used often for sentry killing and death. Then, scout and fast men (or women... lol) can hold flag and moved fastly, and cap of bowl of dust map three happens too soon for red men of fat and large guns to stop.

Thanks Sven. Top stuff.

Dustbowl Is Barf!

It's true! There are two places where quite clearly the map makers went totally bonkers one afternoon and decided to add in two strange 'features':

1) The Invisible Ledge

On Map 2, with the attacker's grate in front of you, go into the building to your right. Go up and out onto the flat roof, and then turn round and walk slowly over to the little gap down the back. And then walk out. Coo, you can float! What strange power is at work here?

2) The Secret Basement

Was I the very first person to find this? Dunno, but I like the idea that I did. Anyway, to view this, you'll need to be in spectator mode. Go over to the cappoint on Map 1 and go into the building that has the window overlooking the cappoint.

Go down into the high floor and you'll find yourself in a little basement that is completely sealed off from the outside world - there is no way of getting in here. What makes it even more odd is that Valve took the trouble to put a light in here. What did they get up to in this room?

Where is Dustbowl?

You know, Dustbowl is an amazing place. Think about it.. it's always swelteringly hot, there's never a cloud in the sky, and despite all the explosions going off, the walls or the buildings never take any damage at all. Where on earth could such a place actually exist? Hmmmm....

Well, it's time to blow the lid off the whole Dustbowl secret. It's time to bring that secret to the rest of the world. For far too long this map has been shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Valve want to keep something quiet about Dustbowl, and I can now reveal the terrible, terrible secret that Valve have wanted to cover up for all this time:

Dustbowl is in Merthyr Tydfil.

Merthyr. Grey houses. Coal mines. Rain. The only town about which I've said, when driving back from a nice holiday in Tenby one year, 'I really must remember not to go there again'. Admittedly it was a Sunday and there weren't many people about (read: deserted), but even my car gave a noticeable sigh of relief when we got out the other side. However, it was during this passage through that I noticed something strangely familiar. I stopped my car and looked across at it:

I decided to climb the wire fence. It scorched my hands because it was baking hot. 'What weirdness is at work here?', I thought. The whole of Merthyr is covered in a blanket of grey cloud, and yet in this one place the sun is shining down through a circular hole in the clouds. It hasn't rained here for years. I climbed to the top of the fence:

Yes! There it was! It was the entrance to the alleyway on Map 3! I had found Dustbowl... at last! I came back down again and walked around the high cliffs surrounding the map. I saw a route up that I could climb. I slowly made my way up, eventually reaching the top. I looked down. It's the grate at the start of Map 2!

Yes, the terrible secrets of Dustbowl were revealed. It's in Merthyr Tydfil. Residents queue up to watch the games from small viewing gantries overlooking the map. It's always raining there, except for the area that Dustbowl itself sits in.

So now you know. But... do you somehow wish you didn't...?

Signs Of Gheyness In TFC Classes:

• Scout - bit effeminate.
• Medic - bit 'nursey'.
• Soldier - wears beret.
• Engineer - likes beating other engineer's sentry erections with his tool.
• Demoman - likes to hold large throbbing thing with both hands and pump things out the end
• Spy - likes dressing up (yes, okay, and 'stabbing people in the back' - hoho)
• Pyro - goes around saying to soldiers 'Mmmm, I'm hot baby'
• Sniper - likes pointing a long thing at other snipers
• HWGhey - well... what more proof do you need?

Dustbowl Believe It Or Not:

If you hit the 'Grenades' sign with a crowbar on Map 2 while waiting for the grenade pack to respawn it respawns faster. This doesn't work with the engineer's spanner/wrench though for some reason.

In the extra tunnel that opens up after a while on Map 1, if you stand in the dark bit, crouch down and move towards the right hand wall you go through a hole into a chamber with an extra grenade pack (this is actually detailed in the TFC manual, in the section relating to 'Map Tips'. I can never quite work out why people don't use these grenades more).

After you've capped Map 2, play as an attacking demoman, grab the flag and set a detpack on the actual cap itself while waiting for the grate to open. If you stand on top of the detpack as it goes off you get catapulted over the wall that the grate is in and can start running towards the cap (remember that your own detpacks can't kill you as long as you're carrying the flag). Twice I've managed to cap Map 3 before the grate has even had time to open.

Play as a HWGuy defender on Map 2. If you collect some grenades you'll get 2 normal ones and 2 MIRVs. But, if you stand on the grenade pack until you pick up three grenade packs in a row, you end up with 6 normal ones and 8 MIRVs (you should only have 4 of each). This bug can be removed with a server setting however, so don't expect to find it happening on every server you play Dustbowl on.

There is a way for defenders to get grenades on Map 3 (this is the one without a grenade pack anywhere, remember). If you see an attacking spy before he's had time to disguise himself, try and kill him and then pick up his ammo pack that drops when he dies. The game thinks that he's already switched to the defenders and so allocates his grenades to the defence. But if you pick them up you can make use of them yourself.

On Map 3 play as an attacking demoman. Now go and stand in the trench near the final cappoint. If you set a detpack off down here, it will destroy any sentries in the cappoint/bridge area (but not any in the alley). This is due to a bug with the trench walls. Because they are sloping/leaning outwards the blast from the detpack is deflected up and straight out. If the walls had been programmed as straight the blast would just have gone straight up to the sky.

Finally, if you build a sentry on top of the signpost that overlooks the cappoint on Map 2, it's invincible. The map maker forget to set this area as 'area normal' and instead used 'area void'. What this means is that anything in this area is considered out of bounds and so can't be destroyed. Because the game isn't meant to let you build a sentry up there it doesn't bother to work out if any grenade blasts have destroyed anything on top of the sign. As far as it's concerned, nothing can be built there, so it doesn't need to check, so if you put a sentry up there it doesn't bother to work out if it's been destroyed or not. Why didn't I put this location in my sentry guide? Because it's using a flaw in the map to effectively cheat.

Then again... perhaps I've just been out in the Dustbowl sun too much...

What Do You Say If...

• You get killed
• Say 'Lag'

• You get killed easily
• Say 'I was lagged'

• You get killed very easily
• Say 'Cheat'

• A sniper kills you
• Say 'Aimbot'

• A HWGuy kills you
• Say 'Newbie class'

• A soldier kills you
• Say 'Wallhack'

• An engineer kills you
• Say 'Sentry kills don't count'

• A demoman kills you
• Say 'Spam'

• A scout kills you
• Say 'Crap class'

• A medic kills you
• Say 'Lame tactic'

• A pyro kills you
• Say 'I was typing'

• A spy kills you
• Say 'I knew you were a spy all along'

• If you finish bottom of the scoreboard
• Say 'I just joined as you were capping the final map'

• If you finish top of the scoreboard
• Say 'It was all my own work'

• If you're playing on defence and the attackers win
• Say 'Nextmap'

• If you're playing on attack and the defenders win
• Say 'Teams'

• If someone does something stupid
• Say 'Bellend'

• If you get hosed by a HWGuy on your team
• Say 'Trimster'

• If someone says something about this site
• Say 'Really? I quite liked it actually'

• Finally, if you see me on the server
• Join the same team, play as sniper, repeatedly shoot me in the head and say 'Spycheck'
  

That 'Other' Assault Map:

A short interview asking me what I think of Avanti.

TODave, do you prefer Dustbowl or Avanti?

Dustbowl.

Cheers mate.

But wait, surely there must be some point to this last page? We can't have some load of old flapdoodle just cluttering it up. Okay, for the very last time, here are some little one-off nuggets of information to store away in your brainbox for retrieval during a crucial Dustbowl game:

• The most powerful ammo bags are the grenade packs on maps 1 and 2. These will give you a huge health and armour boost.
• The nearer you get to each cappoint, the less each ammo bag contains. Some of those nearest the cappoints on each map will only give you armour and no health at all.
• If you're playing as sniper on attack, see if you can target a sentry when you're waiting for the grate to open at the start of each map. Simply aim at the sentry from behind the grate, and the moment it goes up, you can take it out straightaway, and if the engineer is standing near it, he may get caught it the explosion too.
• As attackers, don't drop your excess ammo packs near the grate before each map starts. When the grate opens, a defending engineer can lob an EMP grenade down and set them all off at once in a massive explosion.

• Keep the teams even. Take a look at the scoreboard. If there are 10 defenders and 5 attackers, then switch over to the attackers. It's no fun being outnumbered by 2 to 1, and it doesn't exactly give you a great challenge when you outnumber the enemy so much, so change teams. You may have to do this between maps (or during a map) too. But it's the gentlemanly thing to do. Yes it is.
• Help your fellow engineers build their sentries. Three engineers can have a sentry up to Stage III in about 6 seconds with full ammo, but even two working together will be quicker than just one. If your own sentry is up to Stage III, don't stand there watching your fellow engineer, get over there and help him. Now.
• Dispensers aren't just for health and armour replenishment, you know. Stick them up to block off steps, corridors and other attacking routes. Or build one right over a dropped flag. When someone comes to pick it up, blow the dispenser and watch them go into orbit.
• Pipebomb any dropped flags. Demomen are very underrated on defence in Dustbowl. Use your green pipebombs to lay a nice blanket around the flag and set them off as soon as anyone tries to pick it up.. You'll get loads of kills and will be the hero of the red team.
• Play on defence, and when the grate opens on Maps 2 or 3, go through the grate yourself and attack the attacking team. Try it as practically any class you like and then watch as they chase you around trying to kill you. Is it as barking as it seems? Possibly not... all the time they are chasing you, they aren't working on moving the flag up (actually I'm not overkeen on this tip since it's a bit of a bellended thing to do, but hey... once in a while is okay).
• When rounding the corner on Map 3 to go into the alley, if playing as an attacking soldier always fire off a couple of rockets into the exit from the respawn to give any defenders coming that way a bit of a hammering. You don't need to stop and fire, just do it as you walk past. This is what I'm on about:

Super Secret Mega Tip: When playing as an attacker on Map 2, if the defenders have dropped back to the cappoint area (ie, away from where the grenades are), as you run out the grate look ahead to where the grenade pack should be. If it's not there, start heading towards it because it will respawn by the time you get there. The respawn time on the grenades is around the same time as it takes to get from the grate to the grenade pack. If you're playing as scout, you may have a 2 or 3 second wait at the grenade pack for them to respawn, and if you're playing as HWGuy, you'll see it reappear on your way towards it. But, if you're playing as soldier, just as you get to the grenade pack it will respawn without you having to stop moving at all. As Sven would say: Much coolness is result of timed grenade spawning.

Super Difficult Mega Tip: Okay, I've only ever managed to do this once. Play as attacking soldier on Map 3. As you go round into the alley, rocket jump up into the exit from the defenders respawn. Go round the corner but don't go round the next corner where the respawn door is because there's a gun in the ceiling that will kill you. Wait here and when you hear the door open, run round, go through the door, run through the respawn and if you time it right you can go out the door overlooking the cappoint the other end by following a defender who has just respawned and gone out. If you do this when the flag is near the cap, you stand a good chance of capping the final map, since they will all be looking across the bridge for attackers. Very difficult, needs someone coming out the respawn at both doors before you can do it, and it's a real once-in-a-blue-moon tactic.

And remember... always, always keep an eye out for the giant Hungry Horace living under the bridge on Map 3:

So is that really it then? No more juicy bits of info to pass on? Nope, none at all. It's time to sit lie back and dream of Dustbowl....

• email: t_o_dave@ntlworld.com
• IRC: #team-smile

 

Content by TODave
Design by MeTa