Greetings shaavra,
Welcome to the BZFlag forums.
I think I may have seen you once or twice before, but glad to see you've finally registered here on the forums.
Some small notes:
Registering within the forums automatically registers your callsign, so you'll need to add your password from the forums to authenticate within the game.
This is when the 'Join Game' menu is selected from within the game and the password from the forums is added to the 'password' field.
With regards to some of the forum threads on tactics or improving skill, generally most will refer to mouse or keyboard specific set-ups.
Additionally most of them will generally be mostly for a mode or map specific, this is due to most modes requiring differing playing styles.
Something which does apply to virtually most maps and styles is to get really good at using the radar and to be able to dodge ricochet shots.
However, this will not work that well on servers which have very large shot limits or very fast shots.
(So be aware of the settings a server may have. [This can be easily done with the '/set' or '/diff' command, although the '/diff' command only lists variables which have been changed from the default settings and will list none, if all variables are at their default settings.)
Additionally being aware of the flags players have and the effective counters to each of them and the settings they have is another factor to consider as well.
A small sample of some general notes which mostly relate to some techniques and variables.
Laser can sometimes be easily countered if it has a long reload time.
Guided Missile turn rates will either make it easy or difficult to dodge locked-on missiles.
Additionally, Guided Missiles *can* kill stealth tanks, something which some players are not aware of.
Locking and firing upon a tank, before it grabs stealth and if it does not move, it will kill them too. (Useful if you know where ST flag spawn zones are, if they are any, as it may be possible to set an ambush on players trying to grab ST.)
Guided Missile also has an 'activation' time, so tanks at close range will not die, if the missile has not had enough time to 'activate'.
Plug-ins are another thing to be aware of, specifically ones which introduce custom flags or change or add change the effects of flags.
RogueGeno, UselessMines, UselessRampage are just some of the few which do alter the effects of flags.
The
Grenade flag is one example of it, but there is many others which may be found on servers.
Hopefully this gives a bit of insight into the subject.
Feel free to ask for clarification or additional details as it was done briefly and did not cover many subjects.
Either within this thread or a new one.(Additionally, I may be contacted by private message within the forums as well.)
-Zehra