User:Silv/PlayerGuide

This is an outline for a new player guide. The goals of the guide:

The goals of the guide:

• Teach mechanics of the game at a conceptual level. That is, without numbers and excessive details.
• Teach good gameplay, focus on guiding people to be good teamplayers.
• Teach the tradeoffs, what classes are good at what.
• Explain mechanics that are less obvious like "EMPed vehicles receive less healing".
• Explain RenX specific jargon (e.g. "med = medium tank").

Non-goals:

• Explain all mechanics in details.
• Explain all map specific things.

Structural goals:

• Be easy to read top to bottom.
• Have a logical structure to experienced players can find stuff in the guide.
• Clearly separate important from less important stuff.

Outline

• Overview
  • Setting
    • Universe
    • Infantry, tanks, air, superweapons
  • Notational matters
  • Teamwork
  • Goals
  • Tactics (economy, pushes, rushes)
  • Money, Victory Points, Command Points
• Buildings
• Roles
  • Anti-infantry
  • Anti-vehicle
  • Anti-building
  • Sniper
  • Taxi
  • Repairer
• GDI

Infantry

• GDI
  • Infantry
  • Vehicles
• Nod
  • Infantry
  • Vehicles

Don't forget

• Pedestal
• Status effects
  • EMP
  • Corrosion
  • Tiberium
• Discourage SBH / Mammoth / MRLS

Player guide

Welcome to a player guide for Renegade X. This guide will teach you the basics of the game and give you some useful tips.

Overview

Renegade X (RenX for short) is a multiplayer first person shooter game set in the Command & Conquer (C&C) universe. Renegade X is a fan make remake of Command & Conquer: Renegade with improved graphics and game play. It's developed by Totem Arts, a group of volunteers from all over the world. Although Renegade X is set in the C&C universe EA has not endorsed and does not support Renegade X.

In Renegade X you jump into the C&C world, usually seen from above, as a soldier. You have the opportunity to walk into iconic buildings, and blow them up. You can wield a powerful personal ion cannon, and blow things up. You can drive a massive Mammoth Tank or sneaky Stealth Tank, and blow things up. You can, on some maps, even take to the skies in powerful attack helicopters and, well, you know. You can also be an engineer and repair things so they don't blow up. Oh, and you can rain down nukes or orbital ion cannon blasts on your foes.

Renegade X is a team game. On each map you will join the ranks of either GDI or Nod in a fight to wipe out the enemy base by blowing up their buildings. That's more easily said than done though and you will only succeed by working as a team. To take the fight to the enemy base your team will need tanks, which will need support. You'll need to capture valuable neutral buildings and stop them from being recaptured. You'll need to take the enemy by surprise and stop them from doing the same to you. You can be the best player in the world, but without a team you will still lose.

Basics

So you're just jumped into your first map and are looking around what to do. Welcome! This section of the guide will give you a basic idea of what's going on.

Initially you will spawn as a soldier, the most basic infantry class. A soldier is, well, good at not much really. Still, even the lowest soldier can take out an expensive Raveshaw with good shooting and evasion. You will be inside one of your team's buildings and conveniently looking at a purchase terminal. Using the purchase terminal (default key is e to use) you can change your class, buy vehicles and buy other goodies but most of that is going to be too expensive right now.

But before you head out, let's first look at how the game works.

Buildings

Renegade X is ultimately all about the buildings. Yes, you play as infantry and can buy and destroy vehicles but the only thing that decides a match is that a team has lost all their buildings. As long as your team still has buildings you are not yet defeated, you will keep respawning and you can always, always, buy some classes that may let you win the game.

Buildings are not easy to destroy. They have two health bars: armor (blue) and health (green). The armor on a building can be repaired, lost health can't be repaired. Any damage you do will first decrease building armor and only once that's gone decrease building health. Any time your team decreases the health of a building it's one step closer to victory, this is known as doing permanent damage (usually called perma). When the health of a building drops to zero the building is destroyed. Destroyed buildings aren't removed or anything but they won't do their job anymore. What that means depends on the building.

Barracks / Hand of Nod

The GDI Barracks (bar) and Nod Hand of Nod (hon) are infantry production buildings in the original C&C games. In Renegade X they allow buying advanced infantry classes. When these buildings are destroyed their team can't produce advanced infantry anymore. That really stings.

Furthermore these buildings contain the pedestal (ped), a silverish circle on the ground with three lights in it in the middle of the barracks and at the top of the Hand of Nod ramp. If the opposing team manages to place a superweapon beacon on the pedestal and defend it the resulting nuclear explosion or ion cannon strike will destroy the entire base, instant win. This is extremely hard to pull off and therefore rare, but it's useful to know what people mean by pedestal / ped.

Weapons Factory / Airstrip

The GDI Weapons Factory (wf) and Nod Airstrip (air) are vehicle production building. These buildings allow buying vehicles. If they're destroyed vehicles can't be bought anymore with the exception of the most lightweight anti-infantry tank (Humvee / Buggy) and armed transport (APC).

Sometimes the Airstrip is referred to as strip instead of air. This refers to the large runway of the airstrip rather than the thing in general or the small control tower building. Most commonly this is used to tell teammates that an ion cannon beacon is placed at the end of the airstrip opposite the building, if people just hear air they'd rush to the wrong place.

Tip: It's not always the best move to destroy the Airstrip before destroying the Hand of Nod. While destroying the Airstrip does hurt Nod it also forces them to switch to infantry classes. In public games at least Nod infantry can be more dangerous and at least more annoying than their tanks.

Refinery

The Refinery (ref, same building for GDI and Nod) generates income. It gives a bit of credits to everyone on the team every second and automatically sends out the Harvester to collect Tiberium. When the Harvester returns to the Refinery everyone on the team gets a bunch of credits. When the Refinery is destroyed the amount of free credits every second drops significantly and the Harvester is just plain gone.

Most but not all maps have a Refinery and there are plenty of differences in where the Harvester gets its Tiberium. Some maps like Eyes have the harvester go to a very dangerous central location where it's easy to destroy and others like Islands just have it mine a field inside the base.

Power Plant

The Power Plant (pp, same building for GDI and Nod) doesn't do anything directly but hurts when it's gone. When the Power Plant is destroyed all purchases are significantly more expensive and the advanced base defense, if present on the map, is gone. Like the Refinery the Power Plant isn't in all maps.

Advanced Guard Tower / Obelisk of Light

The GDI Advanced Guard Tower (agt) and Nod Obelisk of Light (obi) are advanced base defenses. They shoot enemies that get into their range and really pack a punch. In most situations you can them to kill you very quickly. These defenses aren't perfect but are formidable. Several maps with advanced base defenses like Under and Field are known for long drawn out game and the advanced base defenses contribute significantly to that. When destroyed the AGT and Obelisk simply don't shoot anymore.

The main weakness of both the AGT and the Obelisk is that taking out the Power Plant disables the advanced base defenses as well. The building still needs to be destroyed to win but no longer presents a threat.

Helipad

On a few maps the Helipad (same building for GDI and Nod) allows building helicopters. If the Helipad is destroyed no more helicopters can be built. Not all maps that allow helicopters have a Helipad, if it's not present the Vehicle Factory and Airstrip produce helicopters instead.

Repair Facility

The Repair Facility (rf, sometimes called the repair pad, same building for GDI and Nod) repairs tanks on top of it. It repairs pretty quickly making it much easier to keep tanks alive. If multiple tanks are on the repair facility all get healed at a slower rate and if a tank is being healed by the repair facility repairing it with a repair gun has little additional effect. If destroyed the Repair Facility simply doesn't repair anymore.

Additional base defenses

On some maps there are additional / non-advanced base defenses. These come in three groups: automatic ground defenses (Guard Towers, Turrets), automatic anti-air defenses (Anti-Air Towers (GDI), SAM Sites (Nod)) and manual defenses (Gun Emplacements, Rocket Emplacements). These don't require power so destroying the Power Plant doesn't stop them. While much less powerful than their advanced cousins these defenses are still quite potent and it's not uncommon to rush an enemy base just to take out a few turrets. Note that unlike major buildings it's possible to repair these defenses completely, however they have a lot less hit points.

Credits

To get more powerful classes (with better weapons and armor) or vehicles you need credits. Credits come from a variety of sources. The Refinery and Harvester give credits to the entire team. You get some credits for killing enemies and damaging / destroying buildings, healing your teammates and buildings. You even get some credit for assisting, a tank you just healed destroyed another tank, get some credits. You severely damaged but didn't destroy the harvester and someone finished the job, get some credits. TODO: Is this always the case with assists or only get some VP?

When your team is strapped for cash it's hard to get the classes and vehicles that you need and that makes the game much easier for the opposing team. So protect your Harvester and keep the Refinery and Power Plant alive. Additionally various maps have a neutral Silo that can be captured. A Silo gives a bit of income every second so capturing it and holding it is very good for your team.

Levels and Victory Points

Credits are not the only number that matters though. In addition to having credits you also have Victory Points. You earn VPs for just about anything that also gives you credits, except just standing around waiting for income. Some things like destroying a building even give VPs to the entire team. When you pass certain VP thresholds you gain a Veterancy level. When you have a higher level you will do more damage and have more health. Minor downside: if you have a higher level and an enemy kills you they get more VP.

While blowing up even a soldier doesn't really help the enemy team achieve their goal of building destruction it does give someone a bit of credits and VPs. So try not to get yourself killed too much. The amount of VP given is based on the class or vehicle type and veterancy. It doesn't matter all that much when soldiers get blown up but when you repeatedly get your mammoth tank destroyed you're feeding quite a lot of VPs to the enemy team.

There's also something called a bounty. If a player kills a lot of enemies without dying themselves they get a bounty placed upon them, whoever kills them gets a bunch of credits and VPs.

Commanders and Command Points

Each time can elect a commander. The commander gets special powers to guide the team, if you see red text slightly above the middle of the screen that's usually your commander talking (there are a few automatic things that can put text there, but you'll know the difference). The commander is always easy to find as well, there's a green square (well, square corners) with "commander" below it in your field of sight if the commander is present on the map, if you can't see it look around. The commander can place more of such markers though not all commanders choose to do so.

Most of the time you'll hear from your commander when they're setting up a rush. That's generally something like "rockets to bar target hon via long", that tells you they want you to come to the barracks, change to a rocket soldier class, wait for their signal and then follow them through long (the long tunnel, which is part of the map Field / Field X) and fire at the Hand of Nod as soon as you can. More on rushes later.

To support the team the commander has a bunch of support powers ranging from a Radar Scan or Spy Plane to figure out where the enemy is to offensive and defensive buffs that make units around the commander do more damage / take less damage.

Try to follow the instructions of your commander but still use your own head. E.g. you're repairing a building that's under fire it's probably better not to join that rush. When in doubt follow the commander though, if nothing else it's a great way to shift responsibility.