Wirehead Studios

Back in the .99c days I posted a topic about getting dog's abuse on the Euro server after randomly spawning as Arena beside the BFG and actually using it. Now we have another situation. No multiple choice this time, but as before, since I am loathe to swinging handbags at people I will not mention any names. I just need to get this off my chest.

On the Euro server earlier tonight I turned a corner to find two players in the midst of a firefight. One of them could clearly see me, but when I joined in I took out the other who had their back to me. They then told me off for repeatedly shooting them in the back. Shocked as I was, I decided not to get into a slanging match and continued playing. Within minutes they proceeded to shove a rocket up MY arse and called it karma. Then in the next round, after said player had disconnected, someone else did it to me. I said nothing, as normal.

I acknowledge that I've accidentally chatfragged players in my time, but I've always apologized and have recently learned of the gib command. However, to that player I have to say one thing: IT'S DEATHMATCH. IT HAPPENS. IT'S HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE. I DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT IT, I EXPECT IT. I do my best to abide by server rules, but I'm now at a loss as to where strategy ends and lameness begins.

Rant over.

I'm not afraid to name names, nor step up and say what I did and did not do, so let me explain my side of it since I am the player in question here.  Put yourself in this situation.  You get into one firefight after another with one player on the server.  In the course of said firefights, your health gets diminished, then you get shot in the back by the player who was not involved in the firefight.  OK, it's a deathmatch, it happens.  When it happens four or five times in a row, with the same player shooting you in the back every time, it can get a bit annoying.  That's what happened.  Every time I'd get in a battle with Kingu, you'd sneak up behind me and shoot me in the back.

After about the fourth or fifth time I said "If you shoot me in the back one more time..."  That's called venting.  It happens when someone gets annoyed, which I was.  What was I actually going to do as a result though, ban you out of spite?  I wouldn't do that, I've never done that, and I don't even have admin priveleges to Euro even if I wanted to.  So what would the completion of that sentence be?  "Frag you?"  Well that's the general idea, since that's what you do in a deathmatch, but the question is whether or not it's done out of anger.  I continued playing, and noted that you had gone into a chat bubble and stayed there for several minutes.  During that time I did what I always do when someone's chatting - I left you alone and continued battling Kingu.  Now regarding the Karma comment, when you were fighting up by the SSG area with Kingu and I was down below, I fired one rocket up at the both of you, knocked you down and led your landing position with another rocket, which fragged you.  I did NOT sneak up on you, I was out in the open.  You then said "That seemed to have come from behind..." So I said "Karmic debt paid" as a little joke since I had died several times by you shooting me in the back.  I thought it was funny.  It appears you did not.

Now let me be blunt, so there's no confusion regarding how I feel here.  If you shoot me in the back continually and ONLY attack me from behind, I will eventually get pissed off, especially if I'm the only one on the server getting that treatment.  It wasn't just on Edge either, I noticed you kept trying to backshoot me on Iron Yard as well.  I said nothing about it there because we had a fairly good sized game, but it was starting to get a bit obvious at the end of the map.  By Edge, it looked like it was deliberate, and that you were avoiding me unless I had my back turned and was wounded from battle.  If I think someone is doing that, I won't be silent about it, and if it continues I'll go from "fair and easy-going player" to "I will hunt your sorry ass down and pound it into the dirt".  I DON'T want to play like that because I don't like playing in anger.  Part of the reason I avoid pubs is because I do not like cutthroat gameplay.  Spawnkilling, chatkilling, cheapshots, "anything to win" kind of gaming is not what I want to play.  If you want to play like that, then say so, and I'll avoid playing on Euro while you're there.  Now if that's not what you were doing and me getting shot from behind was coincidental, then ok!  I get that, it can happen, things aren't always as they appear and I'm not above admitting being wrong.   I won't hold that kind of coincidence against you, but remember that I can only react to a situation based on my own perception.

Here's my dillema as a player.  Do I play fairly, attacking whoever I see with whatever class I am, or do I concentrate on one player specifically and be an ass when things don't go my way?  Do I fight dishonorably and start choosing only cheap shots, avoiding taking someone head-on, do I switch to my strongest class and pick on one player to the exclusion of others?  Where's the fun in that?  Also, if I feel someone is behaving badly, am I supposed to just clam up and say nothing?  "It's a game" only goes so far, and doesn't excuse bad behavior.  I don't hide behind it in order to do cheap and lame stuff myself, and I expect others to play with honor as well.  If I can't win honorably, I don't deserve to win.  If the only way I can beat a stronger player is through cheap shots, they're still better than me.  That's my perspective at least.  I realize people's opinions are going to differ on what's lame and what's acceptible, but I would prefer open discussion as opposed to backbiting and especially over stewing in silence.  For the record, I don't consider constant sneaky backshooting a strategy, I consider it cowardice, especially when and if it is directed at a single individual.  There, I've said it, nobody can say they don't know how I feel on the subject now.

The other problem is when somebody else just clams up.  If you ever have a problem with anything I say or do, you need to tell me out in the open.  Don't piss and moan behind my back, just tell me.  If you say, "You're pissing me off!" I'll stop and ask why.  I deal with directness a hell of a lot better than snide remarks, and silence won't solve anything - how can I know if someone disagrees with me if they don't speak up?  I had thought that after you had come back from chatting that everything was cool and we were just having a friendly game again.  I certainly wasn't expecting to see a full-fledged board rant, but I'm glad you did rant as I had no idea you were upset.  You don't ever have to be afraid of confronting me over my behavior, nor naming me by name if you think I'm doing something wrong..

Finally...  I'm not angry with you scal, nor am I holding a grudge over tonight's game.  I got annoyed for a few minutes, and let it go.  That's all.

Well, for the record, I wasn't deliberately trying to sneak up and bite you in the arse, nor was I singling you out. If I was going to single anyone out, it sure as hell wouldn't be you. I prefer living :P In fact, I wasn't even aware that I'd done it so many times which is why I didn't feel that I had done anything wrong. I admit that my silence was out of fear of being kicked, I now know that was a non-starter.

My strategy is basically that if it doesn't have a chat bubble and it's moving, it's a legitimate target. What can I say? I suppose I'm just too damn used to playing with bots :P Still, if you're cool, I'm cool. The last thing I want is for anyone to avoid a server on my account.

Plus, you're right about pubs, especially Instagib servers ...

Glad it was just a big misunderstanding, or "much ado about nothing" as Shakespeare would put it.  What you said about your strategy there sounds good to me. :thumb:

Regarding kicking, even on Central I don't kick people unless they do something seriously bad, like repeatedly shotgun chatting players to the face, pitch a tent on the Quad or invulnerability and then backtalk and continue to be lame when asked to desist in the rule-breaking behavior.  Basically if it's ruining the game for everyone else and the person is getting off on being a serious jerk, then they're in danger of getting Das Boot, but I like to see kicking and banning as an absolute last resort.  If someone's an obvious bot, yes, that's an instant ban, but I don't think I've really seen any of those in Gen.  I've found that there's actually been a few times when I've asked someone new not to chatkill and they're relieved that we don't play like lamers.  To me that says a lot about pubs and, sadly, a lot of gamers in general.

As for Instagib, well, instagib is brutal.  It can be fun, and it's a good way to hone your rail skills, but the number of bots and wallhacks out there makes it difficult to enjoy, unless you're one of those few "railgods" out there.  I'll occasionally play on the Ancient Warriors Q2 instagib server, but that's about the only place I play Instagib, and even then only when I'm really in the mood for it.

hmm.. unfortunately, I find I get a fair number of kills by pouncing on the back of someone chasing a third party down..

Granted, pho broke me of chasing people down myself.. rockets aren't very tasty imho.

No, chasing is fine, that's not the same as hiding outside a room, then popping around a corner and ssging someone in the back after you hear them take 3 rockets in order to score a cheap and easy kill.  Usually the person knows someone's after them during a chase.  Chasing is noisy, too, and it involves a fair amount of risk, as you so rightly said.  Also, popping someone that's chasing someone else I don't see as a problem since odds are they're fairly heavily armed and/or armored if they're pursuing someone.  This is getting more into a grey area, but I know how you play.  You certainly don't sneak up on people and then hide to avoid the heavy firefights.  :)

I might also mention that the rules change a bit in Capture the Flag.  In CTF it's expected you defend your flag, which involves camping in one spot, nailing people from any angle, hunting them down with a vengeance, and killing anyone on the other team at any time.  Chatting and freshly spawned players are pretty much fair game because someone without ethics can throw up a chat bubble fairly close to the flag room, wait for someone to be nice and walk away, and then blast them in the back, grab the flag, and run off.  Q3 also seems to have a bad habit of spawning people inside each other's bases... I don't know if this is something map specific, or if it's a Q3 glitch.  Now if someone's chatting out in no-man's land, or in their own base and turned into a corner, yeah, try to be nice, but if they're in your base and near the flag, no apoligies are necessary for blasting them.

Speaking of capture the flag, there are two useful binds you may not know about, "nextteammember" and "prevteammember".  If you're the team leader you can cycle through your team members and see their stats.  I have [ and ] bound to these.  Cycle enough times and you can see a little mini-stat board with health, armor, powerups, and area for your whole team at once.  I use this whenever I'm playing CTF so I know where my people are, and whether or not that "Quad Damage" warning is because the other team got it.  These commands can be bound through the menu system.  :doomed:

When I'm in doubt as to whether hopping in an existing fight is 'lame', I just concentrate my fire on the best player (or the one highest on the current game's ranking) - that way there's less chance of popping a 'newbie', while giving the better players something extra to sweat about. That's what most of the Euro players do when I'm trying to duel it out with someone else too - and it does add to the fun. (just don't get such a fanatic-Tab-killer as Alu has become, because that's just plain creepy) :]

:offtopic: Just on the subject of CTF, after last night's action on the US server, just one question: how do you team-chat?

No bitching here, but this was funny. Referring back to my last post regarding my strategy for DM, one sub-rule of that is that if it doesn't have a chat bubble but it's NOT moving, I tend to leave it alone. This was exploited to great effect once on Trickster. Alu, Tab and I were the only three on the server, and I was having a pretty decent run for a change. I was playing as Doom and every time I went for the blue armour, it was there. However, after Alu and Tab had a quick exchange in Dutch ;) the next time I went for the armour it was gone, and Alu was standing on the platform directly above the spawn point, completely stationery. I let off a few shots but he didn't move, so I assumed he was busy and carried on. Alu remained there for the rest of the game, but the armour was never there when I tried to go for it. After I got painted all over the level the next map loaded up and when I spawned again Tab said "Nice work, Alu!"

I can't remember exactly what my response was, but I'm pretty sure that I acknowledged their cunning and called their parents' marital status into question, if you know what I mean ;)

L.O.L. I do not recall that, but rest assured that it was no 'cunning Dutch plot'.
Alu often just decides to take a few puffs of his joint - or roll one, and the thing most prominently on his mind during play is 'Frag Tabun'. Luckily, I also have a friendly but firm prejudice for fragging Alu, and teamwork during an FFA game is certainly out of the question.

I do smell a wee bit of paranoia here, though...
If you can tell me when the game was, I can look up the demo and get a translation into English by a third (fourth?) party, if you want more than my word. :]

Additionally, I believe it was the marital status of Alu and I that you mentioned, not that of our parents! In that respect, I am happy to say that Alu and I are still happily e-Married, and are thinking about adopting two kids from poverty-stricken Nowheristan.

as Rimmer said:
I'd shoot him on the job if I had to. You guys seem to think a lot during the game. That might be where I'm going wrong. I just seem to switch off my mind and shoot at anything that moves without a chat bubble. if two are fignting I have been known to lob grenades in to highten the fun!

 :offtopic: I seem to do that while playing the guitar as well. (turn off my mind, that is, not the grenades bit!)

If it ain't fun, don't do it. its not a war, it's a game.

Incidently, did you see the pings from the euro server? I had my son on my left, and his cousin on my right, with 300 plus pings, all three sharing my connection. I have a screen shot on the other PC which I'll put up if it's of intrest.  

sorry if I shot anybody wrong, but its FFA.

There are several chat commands, most of which can be bound through the menu system (that part of it actually works).  Here they are in order.  Substitute whatever key you want.

bind t "messagemode" - chat all
bind y "messagemode2" - chat team
bind u "messagemode3" - chat target
bind i "messagemode4" - chat attacker

Chat Target will send a message to whoever is under your crosshair.  This can be useful for holding a little private conversation at times, otherwise during actual play it's fairly useless.

Chat Attacker will send a message to whoever last inflicted damage on you.  Again, fairly useless unless you wanted to set up insult/compliment binds or something like that.

In addition you can bind "team_say" commands to individual keys.  Most of your hardcore CTF players do this in order to communicate specific situations, like "incoming quad", or "I'm on defense", "flagrunner needs help", that sort of thing, so they only have to hit one key instead of typing it.  It means memorizing your keys, but you can get really clever with nested alias variables that echo what you're going to say, before hitting a "commit" key to actually say it.  I don't go that far into it, though I had some attack/defense binds set up when we were playing regular CTF games a while back.  I misplaced my .cfg file for it I think.

Now if you have bots on your team, you can give them orders using messagemode2 and team_say.  Normally there's a bot menu that features team orders, but we haven't added it in yet.  Here's some things I know the bots will respond to.  We'll assume Sarge and Grunt are on your team, and Doom is on the opposing team.  All chats are team chats.

"Sarge get the flag" - Sarge will go after the flag.
"Sarge return our flag" - Sarge will attempt to recover your flag.
"Sarge defend the base" - Sarge will defend the base.
"Sarge kill Doom" - Sarge will hunt down and attack Doom.
"Sarge follow me" - Sarge will follow you.
"Sarge follow Grunt" - Sarge will follow Grunt.
"Sarge camp here" - Sarge will move to wherever you issued the command, then defend his position to the bitter end.
"Sarge roam" - Sarge will go on patrol looking for bad guys.
"Sarge suicide" - Sarge will take one for the team.


Any command that is successful will elicit an acknowledgement from the bot.  For example, if you say "Sarge follow Grunt", then Sarge will say something like "Just call me Tonto, Grunt".  If a bot says something without an order being given, like "I'll defend the flag", then the bot will continue doing that until they either say they're doing something else (example, the flag is taken and they say "I'm off to retrieve the flag") or until you give them an order.  Bots should always obey orders given by live players on the team.

It may not seem like telling a bot to suicide is useful, but it can come in handy if the bot grabs an important item, like a CTF tech (or in Team Arena, a persistent powerup) that can only be lost through the bot's death.  Do not tell a bot to suicide if they have the flag.  It will instantly return the flag to the enemy base when the bot goes pop.  Live players can use the "drop" command to throw the flag in Gen by typing "drop flag", but bots cannot drop the flag.

To be honest, I think it's rather natural and should be expected for a player like Pheonix to get shot in the back more often by one of the non-elite Gen players. Strategically, if you're someone like me, Scalliano, Makou, etc, it's just plain dumb to attack someone like Pho or Tab head on, unless you have a situational advantage, or are stacked with armor or weapons. I'm not justifying expressly hiding and then sneaking in to attack people from behind after a firefight is over, but if I see a player like Pho or Tab coming at me, and I don't have armor or much rocket/rail ammo, then I won't hesitate to get the hell out of there and come back when I'm suited up. On the other hand, if I come around a corner and see anyone with their back turned or in a firefight, of course I'm going to try to get the kills, that's how FFA works.

I won't go out of my way to try to kill Pheonix or Tabun from behind, but I don't think it should be a surpise if it happens that way. Even if someone like me were just to take every fight head-on with no regard for the situation, most likely those direct attempts on Pho or Tab would fail more often than not, so therefore, statistically it's far more likely that more of my kills on them (if any) will be from behind rather than from the front. It would be lame to just avoid any direct fight with one of those players; I will of course give it my best shot and fight them head on if I'm reasonably well-armed and have a decent chance (not having 200 health+200 armor +max ammo for every weapon is not a good excuse to just run away every time), but no one should be surpised if kills from behind and as a 3rd party in a firefight are more successfull.

I know you guys were not making an issue over it, and it's all over with anyway, I just felt like mentioning my view on the topic.

It's understandable, and like I said, it happens.  If I get nailed from behind once in a while by a random player I just make a note to myself to be more careful.  It's when people only take deliberate, repetitive cheap shots that I start getting annoyed.  I don't squawk too often, and like I said, sometimes things aren't how they look which is why I'm glad in this case with Scal we cleared it up.  More often than not it's no big deal, just passing events in the heat of the moment.

I just watched a demo Tab recorded on Place of Two Deaths.  There are several times where Tab or myself stormed into a room firing and managed to pick off the other guy out of random chance.  Same with The Pits.  I don't know how many times I got run over by Tab going up the lift or getting nailed around the corner after being in a fight with someone else.  I don't mind if someone charges in and lobs some grenades or starts the chaingun before they round the corner and sprays the room.  I charge into fights myself, and I get fragged like that a lot without complaint.  I also admire clever use of the grenade launcher in any situation.  I know some people think it's a sneaky weapon, but it takes skill and forthought to bounce grenades into just that right spot where the guy is around the corner, or to predict where someone's going to be and force them into that spot so they try to hatch your little bomb.  I did notice a few times in the demos where Tab seemed to be avoiding me, especially when I railed someone above the spinner room on The Pits.  I don't know if that railgun trail and sudden explosion of gibs actually intimidated him or not, but it was rather amusing to watch him stop and then slowly creep around the corner. ;)

Regarding skill... I started out playing Quake 2 as a practice target.  I got better by taking on more difficult and more experienced players.  There's something to be said about taking Tab, or myself, or any other difficult player head on.  At first glance someone may want to avoid a firefight with one of us, but we're not invulnerable, and by taking us on you will improve your game.  It also gives the newer players a better chance if the more experienced players don't pound on them all the time.  Slimy Place was rough because there were several newer players and the map was so busy I often found myself just shooting at movement not knowing who I was aiming for, sometimes that was someone that spawned right next to me.  I try not to do that, and I'm glad we have that spawn protection for just that kind of thing.

I don't avoid nobody, but I certainly do creep. I do not set up easy kills for myself, but I will go out of my way to punish those thinking they can annoy me and get away with it. :]

'head on' and 'from behind', 'sneaky' and 'dashing in' are all terms which I find hard to use in a crowded FFA. Usually everyone seems to be doing pretty much all of them at the same time..

To really be honest, I don't like huge firefights. I tend to stay away unless I find at least a lone person or two duking it out, THEN I start fighting. Of course, if I can pop a shot while retreating and kill someone in the process that would work fine too.

And yes, I do sometimes perform behind-the-corner frags, but only because I'm approaching and hearing what's going on I pop out and fire. I always like to be on the move, so I just keep running unless someone's on my tail and just won't leave, so I have to hide somewhere to shake him off, or if I can get lucky surprise him with a weapon I just picked up. Heheh.

As for the 'fragging-player-fanatic' issue, I tend to go for Phoenix. *Cackles* It's only natural, since we ARE of opposing elements after all. ;)

Best steer clear of my flamethrower then!  :D

hehe , I think scaliano found pho his weak spot.
altough I can see pho's anoyance. I wouldn't have taken that threath serious.


but I do think im gonna try to sneak up on pho a lot more now :D

-_-

Damn, it was ages ago. No paranoia, as I said, I found it funny at the time, just thought I'd share it for anecdotal purposes  ;)

BTW I love the GL too, especially pulling off blind shots around a corner  :evil:

Speaking of blind shots I need to practice with the Earth Sniper Rifle so I can frag people from around the c orner with a bounced bullet...did it once against AtomicKnight[EOL] and also did it to MN twice, so maybe if I can do so I can become clever with it... :evil:

Just be aware that the sniper rifle's ricochet is not precise.  It bounces roughly along the proper angle of reflection, but there's a random element in there.  If you know it's a fairly narrow hall or corner you can bounce shots off, but it's very difficult.  I have, however, taken people out this way.  I believe I got Atomic up in the sniper's nest after banking about 6 shots off the wall in Stronghold Opposition during Saturday's CTF portion of the game.  The first reflection hit, so I knew his position, but it took several more shots to get a second hit.  This only worked because he was very close to the impact point, and also because he didn't come out of where he was.  If he had moved after I missed once he could have gotten past while I was reloading.  I do remember someone reflecting a shot back into themselves during one of the games, but I forget who.  It's always amusing when that happens.   ^_^

It was Me, when I was turning to catch someone running past me. :smirk:

I don't think living through a full body penetration of a depleted uranium slug traveling at nearly the speed of light  is very normal either, nor is propelling yourself into the air with a bazooka without blowing your legs into chunky salsa.  This is a video game, after all.  ;)

we stil need to try it just for prooving it aint possible.

That also happened to me too...when I was trying to shoot Phoenix I believe. Both Kingu and I sniper-suicided on the same map, if I'm correct... x_x

EDIT: And that 'someone' was me, Kingu, if it WAS on that day... <_<

You are correct

Games: You forget that you cannot prove something is impossible inductively. If you fail, you just didn't get it right, or so your opponent would suggest. Ofcourse, since it is possible to rocket jump, trying it to show just that would be a good idea. Now I just need to get myself a decent pair of blast-proof boots! :]

Except that during that one 3 player FFA on Useless Bloody Loonies a few years ago when me and Omega-X were having a grenade battle, and you had the bad luck of somehow spawning in the crossfire like 6-10 times in a row! :)~  I think that's the only time I've ever seen you at the bottom of the scoreboard...especially under me and Omega.

I love grenades. Especially Slippy grenades or the hand-delivered variety :evil: One thing I like doing is just dropping a grenade where I stand and wait for someone to come along and trip over it.

[color=FFFF00]I might point out that explosives work different from propellants.  Propellants, like nitrocellulose gunpowder, expand fairly slowly.  Yes, it seems fast, but consider it's slow enough to shove a chunk of metal out of a cylinder without causing excessive damage to either.  Explosives expand rapidly and  violently, causing a shockwave.  Explosives certainly can throw things, but tend to shred them as opposed to flinging them.  Using TNT to try to propel a bullet would result in a shattered weapon (and dead or maimed operator) because the rate of gas expansion is drastically higher than that of nitrocellulose.  In the same way it would rip a gun apart if you tried to use it as a propellant, it would rip the person's legs apart that was trying to rocket jump.  Basically consider the effects of stepping on a landmine, which is fairly well documented, and you'll get the effects of an attempted real-world rocket jump.  I think you'd need a bit more protection than iron boots, especially if you intend on having children or even sitting down in the future, assuming you even lived.[/color]

It depends on when you call the 'jump' succesful. Who says you have to survive it? :]

Tab:  Good point.

Krusader:  Earth's hand grenades can actually fly farther than Strogg's if you time them correctly.  They're just not very powerful, though they may get a "feature" in an upcoming release (and no I won't elaborate).  You CAN get sneaky with them though, especially if a player is pursuing you with careless disregard for their environment.  They also drop in place when you die if you have one primed, as opposed to exploding instantly like Strogg's.  I've been fragged a few times by shooting someone and then standing too close to their post-mortem present while fighting someone else.  It's kind of neat when one of your own "this might be a nice feature" ideas nails you in exactly the way you intended it to work. :)

Strogg's grenade launcher is slow, yes, but the blast from the grenades is powerful.  They are equal in damage and explosive radius to Slipgate's, but the explosion doesn't fling you all over the place.  The hand grenades do exactly the same damage as the launched grenades.  One advantage of not having that vicious knockback is if there's more than one grenade in the area someone is more likely to take damage from the additional grenade.  The downside is you can't throw people into fog or void as easily.

Slipgate's grenade launcher is pretty much the most powerful version for the simple fact you can lob bombs everywhere with it very quickly.  The downside is it's not subtle at all.  The grenades bounce very noisily, and winging someone can throw them out of the target area, making a followup shot difficult, and without the target really taking that much damage.  However, if you can pin someone in a small room or a corner it's lethal since it will fling them from one grenade blast right into another, with satisfying results.  It's also the best weapon, second only to Slipgate's rocket launcher, for throwing people off cliffs.

Arena's Grenade Launcher is kind of like "Slipgate Lite".  It has a blast radius almost as large, it can spam them fairly well, and you get plenty of bombs per box, but they also tend to be a bit too bouncy at times.  You also can't use slopes to affect their velocity as you can with Q1 and Q2 grenades.  Q1 and Q2 grenades you can "mine" a slope with by shooting downhill, or bounce them up ramps since ramps increase their velocity.  The damage and damage falloff curve for Arena's grenades is somewhat weak when compared to Q2 or Q3 grenades.

So far though I don't think I've found a grenade launcher I really don't like.  I'll admit that Strogg's may be harder to use effectively at times, but as far as the "sneaky' factor, it's the best one.  I don't know how many times that slow refire has resulted in someone waiting for a grenade to explode, moving in when they thought it was safe, and then catching a followup shot in the face.  I used it effectively for a long time playing Rocket Arena 2 when I was stuck on a bad modem connection and had no choice but to avoid line-of-sight fights with the LBP railwhores if I expected to live more than 5 seconds into the match.  There are all sorts of tricky things you can do with it if you understand grenade timings, but I'm not going to spill all my secrets here.   ;)

Earth grenades work best if held for around 2 seconds then thrown directly at a target.  You can throw them short, or long; the longer you hold the further you throw.  If you practice with them you can get results similar to lobbing a mortar shell.  They're also useful if bounced around a corner into a fight that you don't want to rush into.  Just practice with them and find out how they bounce and fly based on various hold times and you'll see.  They may get slightly different physics later, which can help with their effectiveness, along with that special feature I won't mention.  Right now they are based around Q3 grenade physics, which aren't really too great in my opinion.

Aye, Strogg is the hardest class to master, and the hyperblaster is definitely a difficult weapon to use.  Q1's SNG is a little stronger, though it eats more ammo.  I think it's a little easier to aim for most players.  The one thing the hyper has going for it is that you get a decent number of shots with it.  Trying to hit someone at long range isn't going to work if they're aware of you, so I've found the best techniques are to shove it down someone's throat, run into a fight and attack the weakest player with it, or use it to spray an area with suppressing fire to cover a retreat when you go to look for health and armor.  However, if you're running up against someone with a rocket launcher or Doom shotgun, you're best bet is retreating while running backwards and saturate a narrow hallway with it, letting your attacker run into your blaster bolts.  Charging said players is suicide.  I have a higher kill ratio with the hyper than a lot of other players because I know the weapon mechanics well and I used it a lot in deathmatch playing Quake 2.  There are a few games I played on Warehouse where I got more kills with the hyperblaster than any other gun and managed to hit the fraglimit doing it.  I've also played a lot of flight games that use energy projectiles that you have to lead targets with in order to hit, so I'm more accustomed to using that kind of weapon against fast-moving, maneuverable enemies.

Something else that may help in the next release is we've redesigned the blaster bolt to be more Q2-ish, and I also adjusted the projectile placement.  It was actually ahead of where it was in Q2 during flight.  It may or may not help with aiming, but the blaster bolts are definitely more visible now.