The Missons (Part 1 v)

The Missions (Part 1)

I have been sitting in front of my computer pondering what to do for my next edition of “Vettie’s Views”. My good friends over at The Sunder Junkies have posted the mechs of the month for July and I have already done reviews on the Catapult and the Blood Asp. I have not posted anything on the Hellhound or the Crab, but Have lots of stick time in both and I am sure pilots will find them both to be exciting and fun mechs to drive,

I am somewhat at a loss as to what to write about. I was fully expecting that MP4 would have been released in June or maybe even by July 4, but I don’t see that happening. So many loose ends yet to tie up. If MP4 had been released then I could go over some of the changes and try to help you get going with this latest fun pak.

So, what to write about? Hmmm, I have an idea… bear with me and I promise, little to no medical stuff… (If you wanna know about that then post a comment or send me and email).

Today I am going to try to put together a column about one of our favourite (or most despised) maps, Royal Guard. Why is it that this is the most played mission play map in the game? What? You don’t think it is? Have Oneshot check his server logs and I will bet that Royal Guard is played more than any other.

I have thoughts about it. Number one is that the name of it is the easiest to remember when folks want to vote in another map. “Uh, I cant think of nothing, how about Royal Guard cause I hate this map” and then they type “Vote Royal Guard…” and people think to them selves, well Royal is better than this one, or we just played this one and we haven’t played Royal all night and on and on and they end up voting for it.

Another reason, and many who have played this game for years will disagree, is that Royal Guard is actually a fun map. No, really, it is. It has everything you could want in a mission play map. Even better if weather and visibility are turned on because the map does have snow, looks very cool with a light fog and looks completely different during night drops.

There are basically three objectives for the attackers. Kill the HQ, kill the comms array OR kill all the enemy. The HQ is planted way on top of a couple of layers of palace grounds that are mostly surrounded by walls and other structures once you enter the walls. The Comms Array is nestled nicely behind a couple wall, tucked away in a corner, yet still reachable from outside the palace grounds.

As an attacker, you can go for the objectives and they can be hit from outside the palace walls. A pop sniper from the front gate could take out Comms while a jumper from the rear could hit HQ. Also, Comms and the HQ are “hittable” (new word there) from the East side of the palace. A well placed sniper on the Library building can lay waste to the Comms and one with longer range and a good Idea of roughly where the HQ sits “could” take it out over time. Of course, there is the old “lets get some fast mechs and charge the objectives” option as well.

The East, West and North side of the palace grounds are basically urban settings with lots of buildings to run around and use as cover. Some of the front gate (south side) has urban terrain, but not as much as the other three sides. The palace itself is surrounded by walls. The walls are tall enough that mechs can walk beside them and not be seen, but the walls are not so high that they can not be jumped by a jump capable mech. There are two gates, or rather, openings in the perimeter walls, one on the South side generally referred to as the “Main Gate” or “Front Gate” and one on the East side. These aren’t really gates so to speak because there are no “gates”, just openings in the walls.

Oneshot or Magnus or somebody did a pretty good job matching camos to terrain for this map on Sunder II and I think that “camos” make a huge difference, especially if the snow is falling, the night has fallen and the radar is team only or off completely. Not just this map, but all maps. When I ran a server, I always tried to match the camos to the playing field. It adds another element as far as I am concerned. Mechs sneaking around in the distance with other elements are just a little harder to see and it plays both ways.

The palace sits on top of multiple tiers or layers. The ground level has the walls and a few buildings on the southwest corner. The first tier or layer also has some walls, a few more buildings on the north side, the Comm Array and a catwalk. The final tier houses the HQ but actually has no walls around it. On the south side there are two hard points for defense as well as some wall based turrets and a couple of ground based turrets. The second level wall also has turrets and another hard point resides on the east side. The top level has only the palace itself and the HQ.

It’s the basic story from when you were a kid. Capture the “fort”, King of the Hill style. The guys in the fort shoot at you (or threw lots of snowballs) with there play guns or sticks used as faked guns while you tried to make your way into the center of the fort and capture the flag, thus winning the round.

The Attackers start deep on the south side of the map and they have many options as far as what sort of attack. A few can start taking down turrets, a few can go east and west and some can go up the middle. Perfect three pronged attack! Or the attackers can all concentrate together and go the same direction making it very difficult on the defenders to hold back such a powerful horde. Taking down turrets is optional, but it always helps, even if you decide to wait until you are past your 1st hurdle, either over the wall or through one of the gates. If you don’t take out at least some of the turrets, it will bite you. Those thing peck away at you, slowly melting away your armour making it easier for the defenders to finish you off.

As far as defending on Royal Guard, well that is just as hard as attacking. Maybe that is why so many like the map; it is a well balanced map. Not to easy to kill objectives and not to easy to protect the objectives. I have already mentioned how the HQ and Comm array can be destroyed from a distance, so the defenders cant afford to sit idle and wait for the wave to come, they must get out and defend. Some go west and shoot at jumpers as the pop up to blast a turret. Some go to the rear and watch for “base rapers” or speedy mechs shooting at HQ from behind, some go to the east to catch those little sneakies up on the library or creeping in the East gate and some go south to meet and greet those entering the main entrance.
Many battle are fought along each and every wall, from inside to outside or from either inside or outside. The attackers are trying to get inside and jump the wall only to find one or two defenders waiting there blasting them as they descend from their jump. Sometimes the defenders get a little anxious and jump to the outside and take on the attacker(s) before they jump the wall. Occasionally, the defending team will send out a greeting committee from either side and try to pre-empt the attack from the east or west, often drawing the attackers away from the palace grounds and into the city surrounding the castle.

Many duels have been fought on this map between two or more mechs and it is a shear pleasure to watch two or more skilled pilots in different but evenly matched mechs battle to prevent invasion or to destroy the objectives. The moves, the weapons loads and the abilities always give me a smile.

Another tactic I mentioned but did not detail is the “base raper” mech or mechs. One thing I dislike, but it is a valid tactic, is for a pilot to take a very fast mech with rocket launchers or Heavy Rocket Launchers or even Arty Strikes on a team only or no radar map and rush the objectives. Its hard enough to kill some of those mechs (Tenchi for example or Ares) when you can see them coming, much less when you don’t have the help of radar to pick them up. On the other hand, if the radar is set to normal, I have been known (as well as a few pirates that shall remain nameless, D-Day, Smaga, Cow) to take a Commando loaded with speed, jumpies and regular rocket launchers and head for the objectives as fast as possible. Again, we only do that if the radar is normal and we take a mech that can be killed in two shots. Yeah, its fun, but I don’t see the fun doing that with the radar turned off. It’s a valid tactic, but its just not that fun for the other people in the game.

You see, Royal Guard offers it all. A great map to defend on with lots of cover and walls that are big and objectives that are well placed and not easily killed if you are careful. From the attack point of view, Royal offers cover, objectives that can be met but are not too easy and a time limit forcing you to be on the attack. There’s buildings, there’s objectives, there’s hard points, there’s turrets, there’s mechs, there’s fog (can be), and there’s snow (can be). The map is rated at 110% heat efficiency so you can use beam weapons without the immediate over heat issues and there are plenty of chances to use ballistics at range or close up if you prefer. Yep, pretty much everything you would want in a map, sans water and caves.

The best thing about Royal Guard is that it is actually fun to play, no matter how many times you have played it, Royal Guard is still fun. Maybe that’s why it is played more than any other Mission Play map. Maybe.

I still think its because it’s the only map that players can remember the name when it comes time to vote another map in play.

Sometime ago, I wrote some reviews on several of the mission play maps, but sadly I have lost the originals and/or the backups for those articles. I really enjoyed revisiting the Royal Guard Mission from my memory and I think I will forge ahead and so some more of them. TO really do them justice, I gotta get back in the cock pit cause the old memory banks ain’t what they used to be. I hope you liked this issue and please post comments or your own stories about Royal Guard and let me know if you enjoy reviews of the maps and want to see more.