Game Report 17/10/14

Last game of the year with Tag Recon, as the Uni semester is finishing and exams are coming.
Gamemodes:
Old:
Mini HvZ - same as always, 5 second stun for zombies. Ever popular and usually works if you choose the right number of original zombies (OZs) (and alter stun times or add human victory conditions if necessary). Usually requires at least 7 players.
Capture the Flag - same old CTF, two teams, get both flags to your flag post to win (you obviously start with your own), one-shot-respawn, drop the flag if tagged.

New:
None

Blasters:
Regulars:
Strongarms - the usual comparison blaster. The slam-fire ability was a bit more evident this time, with it being used to put out 6 darts very quickly, though it left the user vulnerable, especially if anyone survived the 6 dart spray.
Sweet Revenges - my usual dual wield pistols. They've been slightly altered since last time, with the left hand one getting a boost by the way of a spring addition, and the right one losing the brass stubs that chamber loose darts better, but dislike Kooshes. Still worked great as always.
Roughcuts - performed as per usual.
Single Shots (e.g. NF, Firestrike) - not used at all.
Elite Rayven (Barricade motors, 2 IMR 14500s) - OP as usual, but not used
Elite Stryfe (Barricade motors, 2 Trustfire 14500s) - see Rayven. 
EDIT: Please do not use Trustfires, use eFest, AW or Windyfire IMRs instead.
Elite Alpha Trooper (OMW 5kg spring) - quite OP compared to the standard of the other blasters, and its rapid fire and high capacity was used to great effect in a mini HvZ game, letting the user survive for quite a while and fend off multiple zombies easily.
DT Snapfire (AR removed) - still extremely inaccurate. We ran across a problem when one of the players shoved in a dart too far, causing the turret to get jammed up. This is a direct result from removing the dart pegs, as well as the darts sticking out slightly more than with other revolver blasters. Other than that it worked fine.
Elite Spectre - same as usual, a slam-fire-less Strongarm with one less shot.

New:
None

As exams are fast approaching and assignments are due, most people seemed to be busy doing the assignment due at 6pm or studying for exams. We still managed to have a few decent games though.

The play area was an entirely new one. While previous play areas were primarily tambark with surrounding grass, this new play area was entirely concrete. While this did increase the threat of injury from falling, it also made dart pickup much, much easier as the brightly coloured darts stood out against the dull grey of the concrete.
While it lacked the cover that the trees offered, this new play area had a number of other features such as obstacle bollards and benches that acted as obstacles more than cover. It's also relatively enclosed, with only a few select paths out of the area, unlike the more open areas we usually play on.
The old play areas were basically tiny parks, very open with some trees, tambark and grass for the surface. This new play area is effectively a concrete L, with some obstacles scattered around.

CTF worked largely the same as it normally does, either one person rushes the flag and takes it and wins, or both teams rush the flags, resulting in a flag swap. This time around though the flag swap didn't make a huge difference to the length of the game, as about a minute after the flag swap there was another flag rush that resulted in a victory.
Normally in these CTF games, to rush the flag you would first take out the opponents on your side of the field, then sprint in and back out quickly to avoid getting tagged. However, due to the nature of the play area and locations of the flags, running the flag would usually require you coming quite close the remaining opponents. This made it a lot easier to stop a flag rush as a defending player, which in my opinion made the games a lot more fun. In the old play areas it was easy to just circle around all the opponents and capture the flag, however due to the obstacles and enclosed nature of the play area, you would be forced to run the gauntlet of remaining players, through the bend of the L shaped play area.

HvZ was also helped by this new play area. In the old play area, a human trying to escape zombies could very easily just turn around and run away, as the area around the play area is extremely open. In this new play area however, unless you ran away down one of the 3 paths, you would be confined to a small area that forced you to stun to survive rather than be able to just run. This made the game move along much more quickly, and in my opinion it was even more fun than usual. In the past games often the humans would escape and survive simply because there was a lot of space to run away in, and this made the first few tags take much longer to achieve. In the new play area, it was much easier for the 2 OZs to surround and tag a single human, provided said human was not extremely proficient in reloading. From there it was much easier than usual for the zombies to box in the humans, forcing them to use up valuable darts to survive rather than just run away.

Overall while we didn't get as many games in as hoped, the new play area proved to actually work really well with CTF and HvZ from smaller player numbers. I expect that if we were to have a large turnout in that area it would get extremely claustrophobic, due to how enclosed and small it is.