Game Basics

The Basics of Renegade X. A quick guide for starters.
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1. What is going on?

Each team has a base with buildings. The gameplay consists of buying individually-operated units for credits and using them to destroy the enemy.
The Barracks/Hand of Nod (abbr: bar/hon) allows the team to purchase advanced infantry classes.
The Weapons Factory/Airtstrip (WF/strip) allows the team to purchase tanks, APCs and other vehicles.
The Advanced Guard Tower/Obelisk of Light (AGT/Obi) both provide excellent defence for the base (having more firepower than any other unit) and detect all stealthed units within the range.
The Power Plant (PP) provides the energy for the AGT/Obi to operate and allows to cut production costs. With a PP destroyed, primary base defences will go offline and all the units purchased will cost 50% more.
The Tiberium Refinery (ref) fields Harvesters that automatically mine tiberium and then unload it for about cr300 worth of credits at the Refinery. A new Harv is produced for free each time the old one is lost.

2. Why did my buildings just get destroyed, all of a sudden?

The answer to this question provides critical insight into the dynamics of the gameplay in RenX. A building can be rendered inoperable in 3 ways:
- by tanks shooting at it from the outside,
- by the MCT being destroyed inside of it, and
- by a Nuke/Ion beacon reaching it's countdown when placed next to it.
The Master Control Terminal is a screen inside the building, shooting at which gives a huge damage multiplier to the attacker. Targeting the MCT with repair tools is also the best way to repair the building's shields for your team.
The most common approach to destroying an MCT involves C4.

Almost every infantry character carries a round of Timed C4. This C4 will stick to the units it's placed on, it will stick to the MCT it's placed on, and will detonate in 30 seconds unless disarmed by repair tools/advanced repair tools. Three Timed C4's are needed to detonate at the MCT to destroy a buidling, and a single Timed C4 also eats about 40% of a Harv's health pool and can also one-shot a MLRS/Arty if placed on it. Remote C4s are for these purposes the same thing, but are detonated manually by right-clicking after thay are deployed, and 2 remote C4s do roughly the same damage as a Timed C4.

Now what is important is that Engineers carry Timed+2remote, while Advanced Engineers (Hotwire[hw] and Technician[tech]) carry 2Timed+2Remote. From this you can deduct that an adv. engineer carries enough explosives to one-shot an entire enemy building, left to his own. If all of a sudden your base's building goes up in flames without warning, someone has placed enough explosives to deal that blow. If that happened, seek to blame either a lone wolf Tech/Hotwire, or a group of engineers, or a group of mixed infantry that all used and detonated their Timed C4 charges.

However, destruction can also be achieved by just shooting the MCT with regular weapons from inside the enemy building. A couple of heavily armed infantry dudes will be able to fry the MCT from the inside literally within a few seconds, especially when complementing the Timed C4 damage. However, the moment you damage a building, the enemy team will be alerted to that fact and will dispatch defenders to both take you out, repair the building and disarm any C4 you have placed. This brings us to the next important Renegade concept: proximity mines.

3. How are mines used?

To prevent access to the critical Master Control Terminal, advanced engineers (Hotwire/Technician) can be purchased for a mere 350 creds and mine all the routes of access to your buildings with Proximity C4s. One HW/Tech carries 3 Proximity mines, which can be refilled from the Purchase terminal. Normally you place mines in groups of three by the doors that lead inside your buildings, along with solo mines by the MCT itself, and in critical junctions on the map where the enemy infiltrators are expected to move by. There is a limit to the number of mines, and if you over-mine, the most oldest mine ever placed gets removed from the map automatically. Normally HW/Techs place three proximity mines at every door and use the rest for further security in case of buildings that have extra access. The number of mines presently deployed by your team is displayed on a counter in the HUD. A decrease in the said counter means someone is probably trying to get access to some place they shouldn't be in. This usually pointed to by typing "MINES" into the team chat.
Proximity mines can be deactivated by Repair Tools, meaning Engineers, HW/Tech and any infantry with a purchased repair tool can disable mines one by one instead of dying to them when they detonate upon activation. Proximity mines do various damage to various infantry classes, but in general, if your Mines counter decreases, it's a signal someone might be trying to be present somewhere they ought not to be, and all the mine spots must be checked manually to, first, determine the point of attention, and second, disable any threat present.

The best thing about the FPS aspect of Renegade X is that no matter your aiming skill, you can always pick a class and be really useful even without ever having to rely on aiming skill. Generally a Hotwire/Technician can take ownership of the proximity mining operations, replenish the deployed mine stock as needed, repair buildings otherwise damaged, and disable Beacons, while another HW/Tech player might go the countrary path: repair the fielded tanks and other vehicles, disarm enemy mines and try to blow up the enemy MCTs.

The said interaction basically fully covers the dynamics of mines, C4 and MCT sabotage and infiltration. Once again, a solo AE (HW/Tech) can disarm any mines and place enough timed and remote C4 to kill a building. A solo engineer or anyone with a bought reptool can also disarm mines; and nearly every infantry can place some explosives if they get past the proximity mines, or attack the MCT instead. NOD chem troopers, bought for mere cr150 at start, burning down the MCT from inside the buildings, are a quick and likely cause of a very early victory. However, before we discuss rushes and game roles, lets cover the topic of superweapon beacons.

4. How do the beacons work?

The Ion Cannon/Nuke beacons are items that infantry can purchase from any Purchase Terminal, and activate while being in close proximity of an enemy building. After being deployed, they take 50 seconds to fire, of which both teams are alerted. They must be deactivated by reptools or advanced reptools within 40 seconds of placement, otherwise the countdown is imminent and the target buidling will get destroyed. The beacons look like little glowing boxes rotating a bit above ground and take quite a while to disarm. They give a high-pitched ticking sound and can be located by that sound, but generally: once a beacon is placed, the defending team will rush to examine all of it's buildings, pinpoint the one targeted (by spamming 'q' in the chat) and hopefully find the beacon itself. To counter that, beacons are often placed in counterintuitive places (like roofs, or small nooks, or in the bush), and also often they are defended to prevent a disarm.
Many an advanced tactic will involve getting to an 'exotic', hardly accessible spot of a buidling by air, for example, where the beacon can only be disarmed by someone who also has access to air units. The Airstrip lights are often used to conceal the beacon among many similar glowing objects. Multinuking involves placing many beacons at the same timem, to guarantee that at least some of them will proceed to maturity. Stealth Black Hands are the perfect unit to place beacons, but more on that later.

5. What's going on in the field?

The last way to defeat an enemy's base is to destroy it's buildings by tank fire. By deploying many various vehicles and working together closely, one side can gain a formidable advantage in field presence and either try to attack the enemy's exposed buildings from a safe range, or at least deny the enemy most of the credits by constantly destroying their harv while keeping the allied harv safe.
Every vehicle has an effective range, and if after targeting an enemy unit it does not get highlighted with a red box, it means you will not be able to damage it.

With this, it can be said that you have gained enough tactical insight into the game process to approach the gameplay process with a decent understanding of what you are doing.

6. What units are available?

This is the hardest part of the guide for the author; one must be able to mention everything relevant while maintaining coherence and brevity. Generally, the more expensive tank units are not necessarily better performing, but in the end, it's up to you to familiarize with every type of unit and pick your personal favorite to match your desired play style. The purpose of the list is to illustrate the uses of each unit and give a hint as to the skill required, so as to further the ease of discovery of the unit functionality by the newbie player.

For Infantry, there are Tiers of infantry, with each successive Tier performing better and better compared to the previous one.
The five generic classes are considered tier 0:
- soldier, armed with an automatic rifle. low damage
- Shotgun guy, good for close quarters only, high skill required.
- grenade/flamer: these have very specific uses and can cause a lot of mischief; not much skill required.
- marksman: ranged sniper (shoot semi-automatic fire!), extreme skill required
- engineer: can fix, can disarm, can heal infantry, can plant some explosives, not much skill required.
The paid infantry classes are Tier 1 and include:
- officer, great anti-infantry damage at a great range, perfect against flame/chemo, medium skill.
- rocket guy, good vs air, vs harvs, vs tanks, slow but steady damage, guided missiles; low skill.
- GDI Macfarland is a shotgun guy on steroids and NOD Chem trooper is a flamer in steroids, chem can navigate thru tiberium freely.
- the cr500 Snipers are silent and deadly, have particular uses, somewhat good vs air and light armor, but require the highest skill.
- GDI gunner is a Rocket soldier with unguided missiles and an almost infinite range, some skill still required
- NOD SBH is a stealthed unit that can deploy nukes easily or sneak into an enemy building with some coop, or steal enemy's empty vehicles. This will be your bread and butter unit.
- GDI Patch is your generic tier1 infantry, good vs other infantry mostly
- the Laser Chaingunner is almost like a tank; huuuge damage vs everything, good hp; high skill required.
And the cr1000 infantry is, of course, Tier 2 and includes:
- the Ramjet snipers are basically improved snipers with shots that leave a slight trace. Deadly against infantry, but highest skill of all needed in game
- the Railgun/Personal Ion Cannon guys are more expensive than a medium tank and can kill everything within their range (their only limit) while safe from enemy damage between reloads. They can disassemble all sorts of units while being hard to kill with tanks, they can one-shot most infantry; they have their niche uses that must be well understood by the player. They do need some skill, although hitting a tank with their weapons is quite straightforward. Consider their EMP and Smoke grenades as well.
- the Moebius and Mendoza are a bit similar; Mendoza can solo even a mammoth tank, Moebius packs the best DPS in the game. These units need extensive study on behalf of the player.

For Tanks, everything is sort of straightforward. [oh god somebody else please write this for me]

7. What are Rushes?

Normally multiple types of units are present on the battlefield, some of which serve a good counter against others. A Rush is the rapid deployment of a mass of particular units which the enemy is definitely not expecting. Therefore they are uncountered and can dominate the enemy base by surprise, either focusing on a particular building, or just running amok and destroying everything in sight. Rushes are assembled by the following procedure:
- start a proposal survey (from the radio commands), see if there are players interested
- Define the unit, the number of units expected, the target to attack, and the place to gather
--- for example, "meds for HoN, 3 more needed, meet at WF"
- once enough units, send a "Move out", and lead the way.
The same procedure basically applies to such tactical operations as three SBH with repair guns, multinuke, stealth-tank Technician infiltration, mass air, and mass flames. Mass infantry rushes are conducted in a similar manner.

8. How do I form situational awareness?

A challenging thing to learn in RenX is using the GUI/HUD properly. Through the mass updates, chat, teamchat, commander's chat, the minimap and 'q' spotting, one can manage to get a very up-to-date status of the battlefield, response to threats very operatively and efficiently, and coordinate activities with their team mates. Specific 'q' spam can mean different things in specific contexts, and radio commands can be employed with grace. You adapt to the gameflow by reading the situation; learn to process all of the incoming data together and monitor such things as mine counter: the fate the game can lie in these things.

9. How to have fun in Renegade X?

First of all, personal Kill/Death ratio and score mean almost nothing. You can be the most valued player with 0 kills and even with 0 score. You can spend the entire game with a <100 score just trying to sneak ninja in, but when you succeed, you sabotage a building which your entire team of 19 could not achieve together. You can lead a successful covert ops where only one of, say, three, will get the full score credit, but you participated in that and helped it happen.
Find the roles that suit your skill and gameplay style. Maybe you like to go as a support guy, healing friendly tanks mostly. Maybe you want to be responsible for the base defence and employ an air unit or an apc for that purpose. Maybe you want to spend your time cratefarming until you get that enemy uniform that allows you to sneak way behind the AGT/Obi defense and again, singlehandedly decide the fate of the game. Maybe you like to specialize in harvester killing and economy control. Maybe you'd like to put effort to ensure tech and silo buildings are working for your team and not your enemy. There's a thousand of things to do even in a very disorganized battlefield. That's the fun of it.
Continue to learn. Read most of the Wiki. Learn to perform what's needed right now by your team. Proceed from being just a guest player that decides nothing to a formidable force that can carry an entire match. Learn to master your aim skill, and you can become a decent shooter in maybe 40-60 hours of play. Watch some videos that highlight specific competencies (you will have to see that Poi youtube video about getting headshots at some point anyways).
Many RenX players consider Renegade X to be the best game available. Enjoy!