Author: Golden_Dragon
9,960 Views
2 Comments
|
Introduction
Let's start out with what we all know about this device: in certain gametypes (CTF, BR) you'll start out with this tool that will allow you to transport yourself to wherever you can throw your disc to. Prim fire shoots the disc or gets it back if it was already thrown; alt fire attempts to translocate yourself to that position. You can't translocate if there isn't enough room for you or if there's a team mate at that very spot, but you'll have yourself an easy frag if you manage to transport into an enemy. You can translocate 6 times in a row; directly after your first translocation, the xloc will auto replenish back to 6 at a rate of 0.5 ammo/second. If you hold down your alt fire button while translocating and then press prim fire, you'll switch back to your last held weapon. Finally: you keep all momentum when you translocate.
In most cases, players use this disc as a faster way of travel, so that's what I'll try to address here.
Short to medium distances:
This is usually to cross a corridor, or when you quickly have to gather some weapons. If you start with 6 ammo, you'll have more than enough, so you can be lavish with it. Throw the disc in a low angle, in the direction you'll want to go and translocate almost immediately. Quickly correct your aim a bit and translocate again. If you're not there yet, correct your aim again and translocate once again. Keep doing this until you're where you want to be. This simple technique gets you forward the fastest way possible.
Medium to long distances:
Translocating over short distances is easy. It's the use of the translocator to cover big grounds that gets the skills involved. As a rule of thumb, you can say this: the farther you'll need to go, the longer you'll have to wait before translocating to your disc.If you use the same technique as over short distances, you'll run out of ammo before you're even halfway to your destination. First of all: you'll need to throw your disc higher than before, at about 30 to 35 degrees. Secondly, there's the aim with the thing. In the split seconds you take aiming before you translocate, it's very well possible that at some point, you'll accidentally throw it against a wall, too low or too far off your target. That's okay as long as you don't translocate to it: just bring the disc back (prim fire) and try again. It's not a complete waste of time, since the ammo is still replenishing itself.
...And then there's the situation of the momentum. On many servers, I've seen people throw their discs in front of them, run around for distracting the enemies a bit and then translocate as soon as the disc is at its highest point. While this isn't such a bad technique, it misses one factor: they're not using their momentum! Not only the vertical momentum (falling speed) is saved, but the horizontal as well. If you throw the xloc, immediately do a running dodgejump in the direction of that flying disc and then translocate, you'll keep the forward momentum of that dodge. It's even possible to dodge, translocate, and then do the jump that comes with the dodge (provided that you're fast enough).
It's possible that your destination is a moving target rather than a position (like a ball), or that you'll have to change your destination to something that's closer by (like an enemy flag carrier in that corridor over there). When this happens, the remaining distance becomes shorter, so the time between translocations should also decrease.
Climbing:
When facing a wall that has to be crossed, you should seriously increase your translocation time. The preferred aproach is to simply throw it high enough and wait for your disc to reach the top of the barricade. In practice, things aren't that easy. You'll have to keep an eye for your disc, so you must use your hearing skills to estimate your situation. As soon as someone is throwing some rockets, immediately double jump and translocate (once again: you can jump, translocate, and do the double jump if you're fast enough). The point of this double jump is to prevent some falling damage from 'floating' in mid-air, waiting for your disc to reach the top of the wall.
That double jump is also adviced when trying to climb an object that requires at least two translocations (like the air vents in Colossus), or when you see that your disc isn't gonna land on top of the barricade.
Corners:
While travelling with your translocator, you can save some ammo on the sharp corners. Let's say you'll have to make a 90 degrees turn to the left. One way is to keep on the right side and adjust your disc-throwing aim gradually. However, this will cease your ammo somewhat. The better solution is to aim your disc to the left side, walk around that corner and aim completely anew. This whole operation takes about 2 seconds, not enough for your enemies to take a good shot at you (you started out behind the corner, remember?), but long enough to get an extra translocator ride.
|