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I'm just wondering what you think of camping at a base right after a flag capture - using either shockwave, machine gun, laser, or normal bullets. I personally think it almost amounts to cheating, and cannot be considered a "strategy" because it has no counter.

I think there seriously needs to be an immunity grace period before you can be killed, though I'm sure that's already been proposed and is on the todo list somewhere.

that would change official matches quite a bit.

No, I like it, and although I hate it myself, I have good reasons which I will explain. Spawn camping is not cheating, since the player is not getting anything that nobody else can, and although you understand that, just had to mention it. Second, it is a very nice strategy I might add. It can be closely compared to Genocide flag, and to destroy spawn camping will lead into destroying Genocide flag, because there is no difference in either-they both kill an entire team, and they are both nearly as unstoppable (killing a tank carrying Genocide is dangerous, not often done). Moreover, spawn camping is just as stoppable as anything else. You may lose at first when you spawn, but you respawn elsewhere and can come back to kill them. So although I do not like it when the opposition does it, I do like it when I do it, and in the sake of not being a hypocrite, I do not feel the good in making it not be able to happen, since it is not cheating and can lead into a whole deal of "well, this other thing is also pretty hard to stop and is annoying, maybe it shouldn't happen". If it's not cheating, let it be.

If i notice that someone is ready to kill I just delay my spawn.. At some point the killer goes for the flag and leaves with it. Now I can spawn behind him and ask him to drop the flag with a bullet or two.

Right dmp. Thats not cheating!

i agree with lan56. I never thought it as cheating, or an advantage. I always took the path DMP has taken. I'd delay respawning, and when the guy takes the flag. I bless with with a bullet in the rear.

the game style settings on a server are what they are eh. so if one can shockwave camp like on hepcat(?) server it is fair play.
if you are playing on that server and its say 10-5, and the 5 person team is getting spanked, it would be eitquette to not shocwave camp on ctf captures, correct? one should keep in mind there is no rule for this, its not the fault player, and it does happen. it would be good etiquette in this situation to stop SW camping...but it is not cheating because its playing within the rules.

when playing ctf matches ducati style, if i don't grab the flag to hide first, then i immediately kill myself and gamble on a spawn position.
is the cheating? certainly not, as this is not a defined rule, or a server setting, this is fair play.

plenty of people will not observe unbalanced teams and take advantage of spawn killing, that would be a judgement call. in an official ctf match, spawn killing is always taken advantage of as a necessity to win and grab the flag again.

it can be frustrating at times
but this is not cheating in any way. If you don't like it, maybe let him kill u once, spawn up and then kill him. or just use the [dmp] method and wait ... personally what i do, is watch my radar until i spawn again making sure the coast is clear.

i like camping . an i like hunting campers too ;)
both sides can do it . and i don't consider it as cheating .
if you see an enemy camper sitting at your base waiting for your flag to be captured so he can kill the spawning tanks , just shoot em .
no more camper ...problem solved ;)
besides , most campers will start to slack and fall asleep ...so it's fun to sneak up on them an shoot em LoL
also , peeps who sit idlely waiting to camp at the enemys' base ..are not helping their own team fight when they need them most ...are actually handicapping their own team .
so whenever i see a lazy base-camper on the other team i really don't care much because they are helping our team out by keeping themselves "out-of-action" ;)

with the danger of a base camper around , maybe people will pay more attention to their own teams flag and try to save it , and themselves , to avoid the double-jeopardy of dieing from a flag capture and a spawn killer ...



"all's fair in love and war."

Lan56, I guess you have a very valid point there, comparing it to the Genocide flag. My objection then is that the person gains points for something that involves little skill and can not be countered by the target, except via preventive means. I see it as extremely unfair that one person can get genocide or camp with shockwave, and instantly boost his score by 10 points or more. If it could be done without the score change, I wouldn't mind so much.

life wasn't made to be fair. genocide takes little effort also. just find the player with the least skill and bam. mega points quick. if you take out the spawn camping take out geno also. its an even easier way to gather points.

Well, if it wasn't for points, it wouldn't be done

If you take away all the sniping vulture tactics, lamers like me won't have any reason to play

its not cheating its very annoying though...

its called "a relay" part of the team hovers near
othersides base...while other team goes down and capturers flag....then they zap you...grab flag...do it all over again
time after time after time...1 good thing is after a few times
you generally respawn out on the field somewhere else...

Workaphobia wrote:I'm just wondering what you think of camping at a base right after a flag capture - using either shockwave, machine gun, laser, or normal bullets. I personally think it almost amounts to cheating, and cannot be considered a "strategy" because it has no counter.

I think there seriously needs to be an immunity grace period before you can be killed, though I'm sure that's already been proposed and is on the todo list somewhere.

I like this may I say tatic, because its a good way to get the rejoiners to leave. Every time they spawn in you just keep pickin' 'em off. Even if he waits, the patient guy that I am I'll wait for him to spawn back in.

Great way to add a couple points to that score.

I agree it is not cheating. If you can't beet it join it. Everyone as done this at one point or another and Iam willing to bet you have too.

I've partly modified my views on this. I still don't like to camp myself most of the time, but I'm not going to complain as loudly when it happens to me Unless it's in the bad etiquette form, when my team's already losing.


But the thing I really have a problem with is geno-camping. It's unfair that the entire team can be blown apart, forfeit all tactical positions, and lose any good superflags just because someone decided to join the game. If there's a limit on the number of geno shots (as there should always be), it's not as bad, but how can you turn the game around if you can't live longer than twenty seconds?

Camping is fine with me, I don't have to keep playing if it gets bad enough.

The tendency of some to camp when winning by a large number of points and having more players is really just poor sportsmanship.

No cure for that.

kill or be killed; the modes operandi of bzflag.

my one issue is not so much with spawn camping, but the fact that the team flag spawns before the team spawns. This allows an opposing team to quickly............way too quickly..........capture the opposing teams flag, especially if there is pyramid near by.

I am not a big fan of spawn camping, since score is not the object of ctf, but ctf is................i grumble about it, and will use it to my advantage to preform a quick capture. I dont consider it cheating, just poor.

What i have realized is that with dual bases, spawn campers can only take a few spawners, and the team flag seems to go to the higher base making the quick capture a little more difficult.

With all this said, realize that if you attempt spawn camping against my team, you are on the top of my killing checklist, much like genocide flag carriers. I will hunt you down and kill you as many times as I can, so long as it doesnt get in the way of me capturing your flag...................



BRING IT ON YOU UNIMAGINATIVE LITTLE TWERPS, I WILL WIPE YOUR HYDRAULIC TANK FLUID ALL OVER THE MAP AND LEAVE YOU SHAKING WITH FEAR WONDERING WHEN MY NEXT ATTACK WILL OCCUR................I AM COMING FOR YOU.

But that's what's fun about it -- getting a lot of easy kills, making the other team furious at you, and capturing their flag helplessly!

I will admit that I get annoyed when someone from the other team is right next to my team's base, and they just kill you and most of your team with a Shock Wave blast, but I like this strategy when I kill most of the other team.