Spy Detection:

Spy detection is the one skill you have to learn for Dustbowl, because spies can win the map on their own, so you need to be able to spot these pesky fellows fast. It's amazing the number of people who don't have the slightest idea about spies, so don't be a clot, read this and make yourself a better team player. In particular, this entire section is dedicated to a player called 'Trim', who I've met many, many times on one particular server and who nearly always plays HWGuy and who's spy detection method is to just hose everything. Yep, that's it. You can even be a spy on the same team and he'll still hose you with the chain gun. So I'm taking this opportunity to start a new idea: Anyone who is useless at spy detection is from now on to be called a 'Trimster'. So you might call someone 'You complete and utter Trimster' or 'Why are you hosing me, you're a Trimster of the highest order'. 'Trim' is actually Mongolian for 'Cretin'. No, really.

Right, seeing as so many newbies don't actually have a clue what the spy class actually does in TFC, a quick recap (it's a radical idea, but you could always try reading the manual before playing the game). The spy can disguise himself to look like a player on the other team. Yes... a shocking revelation. So if there's a spy on the (blue) attacking team, he can disguise himself to look like a red defender. He can then run around throwing grenades at sentries and dropping hallucination grenades to confuse you further, and all the time he looks like one of your team. And to top it off, he can feign death. He can lie on the ground and look like a dead body, but all the time he's able to look around and see what's going on. When the moment is right, he can jump up and run around again. Uncanny.

But, and this is the important bit, there are actually nine ways you can detect a spy. Some are better than others, but when there are so many methods, why don't people learn at least one or two of them? I dunno. Well, it's just laziness isn't it, but heck... let's try and educate some folks. Here we go then, the nine ways you can detect a spy:

1) He's throwing grenades at a sentry.

Well... it's not exactly hard is it? There's a red defender throwing a grenade at one of his own team's sentries. Why would a red player do that? Does this register on your walnut-sized brain as being even the slightest bit odd in any way at all Trim? It's a spy. Press the fire button then.

2) He spurts blood when you shoot him and lets out an 'argh' noise

Just give him a quick shot with a weapon (or bash him with a crowbar) and see if any blood comes out. If there's no blood, it's one of your own team, but if you see some come out, it's a spy. Special note: one shot is all you need. Special note just for Trim: You don't need to empty the entire contents of your HWGuy chain gun into the potential spy to find out. Trust me, if there's no blood on the first shot mate, you won't get blood on the 200th either, and it really is someone on your own team. Infact, it's probably me. Sigh.

Ahh, now hang on, because there's one small problem with method 2. If you're playing on a friendly fire-on server, or FF (that's one where you can kill your own teammates as well as the enemy), then anyone you shoot will spurt blood. So what we need are some more exacting methods.

Read on...

3) He can't fire when disguised.

Oops, something about spies I forgot to tell you earlier. When they are disguised, they can drop grenades, but they can't fire their weapon. When they do, they instantly lose their disguise. So this technique is a kind of 'reverse detection' method. If you see someone on your team shooting or waving a crowbar about, or an engineer waving his tool about (oo er), it's not a spy. I repeat, it is not a spy (got that Trim?). Because if it was, the moment they fired, they would lose their disguise. Now, of course, you can let others know that you are not a spy by waving your crowbar about or firing into the air. But of course, this relies on your teammates knowing about spies which might be a bit tricky if you're stuck with a bunch of Trimsters.

4) Are there any such classes on your team?

Press Tab (or whatever key you have set up to show the scoreboard). Now look down at what classes the other people on your team are playing. Are there any demomen? Any medics? Any scouts? No? Right, well if you see one of these, you know it's a spy. So simple, even Trim can do it. Hopefully.

5) Spies move faster than other classes.

Aye, they do. They are the third fastest class in the game. Infact, the only class that they don't give away by this method is the Pyro. Spies are slower than scouts and medics, so if you see a slower than normal scout or medic, it's a spy. But you don't often get these on defence, so it's more likely that spies will disguise themselves as an engineer, soldier, demoman or HWGuy (gulp, Trim mate... there's someone who looks like you). So if you see any of these four classes running around faster than they normally would, it's a spy.

6) While disguised, spies are holding a standard weapon for each class.

Spies can't change weapons when disguised. What I mean is, if they are disguised as an engineer, they can't make it look like they are holding a spanner, then a shotgun, then railgun. Their disguise only shows one weapon. This is most useful for the engineer, since the spy engineer is holding a railgun (the little green zappy ray gun doobry) and most engineers on defence are either running around with either their spanner/wrench or their shotgun. But if you see an engineer with a railrun running about, give him a shot to see if any blood comes out (now remember Trim, just one shot now). Of course, if you are playing as an engineer, you can help your teammates by not running around with the railgun. This should mean people won't shoot you (the Trim factor has to be taken into account of course though). For the other classes, it's a bit trickier, since the spy soldier carries a rocket launcher, the HWGuy a chain gun, the demoman a pipebomb launcher, and so on. In other words, common weapons for these classes. But there's a reverse logic you can use here, because if you see a soldier with a shotgun, or a HWGuy with a crowbar, you know it's not a spy since it's not the standard weapon for that class. And one final point here: to make it 100% clear to your teammates that you're not a spy, shoot your weapon into the air or at the ground. They should then be able to tell you're not a spy. It's not really that tricky with a bit of practice and... dare I say it... thought.

7) When spies are feigning death, you can 'feel' yourself run over them

When you see a dead body on the floor, you can easily check it to see if it's a spy feigning death or not. Simply run over the body and for a brief second you'll stop and then carry on forward. It's a bit tricky to describe, but once you know what to look for it's a doddle to spot. If you run over a 'real' dead body, you won't see a thing, but you will be able to spot a moment's pause if you run over a feigning spy. Oh, and if you want a good method to get rid of him quick, simply stand on top of him. He won't be able to get up as long as you are standing on top of him, so stay there and then aim down with a shotgun.

8) If you set fire to them, spies will burn

If you've a pyro on your team, then he can give each suspect spy a brief blast (I said brief, just a single burst of flame) and then see if the suspect catches fire. If they do, it's a spy (because you can only set fire to the enemy), but if there are no flames, then you've just toasted one of your own team. Say sorry now. A word of warning though: on a FF server, you can set fire to your own team as well, so this method won't work.

9) Spies' names will be the same as yours

Oh dear, bit of a bug with TFC this one. Start up TFC, and click on Multiplayer > Customize > Adv Options > Center Player Names. Now whenever you play the game and point your crosshairs at another player, their name will be displayed in the middle of the screen and not at the bottom (it will also tell you their health and armour status, and it even works on sentries, so you might want to do this. It's useful). How does this help with spy detection? Well, when you point your crosshairs at an enemy player, it will still tell you their name. The problems start when there's a disguised spy, because you can't give it the name of the actual player because it would instantly give away that it's a spy. So what the game does is to subsitute a random player name from your team instead, except that on most occasions it will choose your own name. So when you are suddenly faced with a player who has the same name as you, it's a spy.

And here's method 9.5: Stick a scout or another spy on your team and if they touch each player in turn, any spies will be instantly unmasked.

So, armed with all these methods there really is no excuse not to be able to spot a spy a mile off. The single most obvious thing to look out for is the throwing of grenades. Spies are mainly used on attack to take out sentries, so keep a watch out for this.

And remember... don't be a Trimster. Learn how to spot spies.

  

Content by TODave
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