Placing Beacons
From Reborn
Contents |
Introduction
When placing a beacon there are several ways to do so. The most popular way is of course using a stealth character for stealth reasons. When doing so it is best to first set your beacon, then wait at least 5 seconds before placing your timed C4 near it (note that if roles are reversed and you are defusing, ALWAYS, ALWAYS defuse the C4 first - if you don't then you will absolutely never survive defusing the beacon). If you set the C4 before your beacon or right after, it usually will go off before anyone comes near. After you place the c4 hide until you are invisible again, then back off as far as possible, while still having the beacon in vision. When an Engineer comes, do not shoot at them right away, wait for them to start repairing the beacon then shoot them in the head and kill them.
If a defender, comes to the beacon first stay away from him even if he sees you, you need to stay alive as long as possible, and you do not want someone to start C4ing you. When you know you have it, leave so you don't have to get killed. The other effective option is to have an APC and an engineer. It is also best to have a teammate in the APC with you. You then approach the building you are targeting, when you reach it, get out and plant the beacon immediately. It is good to have a teammate in the APC with you so that no one on the other team can steal the APC and crush you. As soon as you plant the Beacon go into the APC and kill any Engineer that approaches. If your APC eventually gets destroyed place your Mines around the beacon and defend using your Pistol as best as you can. If you have a good team that is willing to cooperate, it is always good to have several stealth characters to cover your beacon. If you have a well organized team it is also good to place beacon in multiple buildings at the exact same time. This divides the Engineers and most likely one will work, especially if you beacon 3 at the same time. And the last method I have, which isn't as good as the last is laying several beacon on the same building. This is not as good because the Engineers can repair one, then the next in a short amount of time.
Logic
When you are placing a Beacon, you can put it anywhere like a noob. But the odds are, if the base is well defended, that it will be disarmed. But there are certain places in, on top, and around buildings that buy you extra time, are hidden, and hard to get to. The good places also allow little room for many Engineers to disarm them and often have better odds of working.
Nice spots
If possible it is usually a good idea to place Beacons on the top of buildings. This makes it harder to get to and can be defended well. A Beacon on top of a building also can be defended by snipers who can kill the disarmers. Note that on some buildings, a roof beacon is illegal and you will be kicked or banned. Do not place a beacon inside a powerplant cone or where it is impossible to reach with a repair beam.
There are many places where a beacon can be safely placed in such a way that it will be blocked by other objects to make it difficult to see; the Nod Powerplant has many sections that are difficult to get to, and between the pipes in the enclosed exterior of the GDI Power Plant will be very difficult to see and offer only one path to get to the beacon.
Trees are a popular place to plant beacons, although their distance from nearby buildings might mitigate some of the damage potential. Placing a beacon in a tree will confuse most players who are accustomed to looking on the ground in the base, and while looking up to disarm it they will not easily see where gunfire or beacon defenders are coming from. Some trees can be passed through, and placing a beacon within the trunk is quite possible.
On other levels there are good spots to place Beacons as well. If a building is being bombarded by tanks and there are no base defenses. Sometimes it is best to go right to where the tanks are shooting and place it there. The tank shots produce great cover.
Favorite spots indoors to place Beacons are in tight spaces. This buys you much needed time. And even if they come inside, the beacon is out of view and they will become confused. Whenever someone finally figures it out, you are waiting to shoot at them. In all buildings I find, unless you have outside cover (snipers, APC, tanks) it is better to place the beacon inside than outside. Even better is inside next to a wall, this confuses the enemy into thinking it is outside.
Random Comment: Indoor beacons are usually not detected, but only if you can get inside the building, chances are the buildings are all mined.
Bad spots
There are certain places where you should not place Beacons, these places may seem good, but are not.
This could be the most popular beacon spot in the game and probably has the lowest percentage of working. It is quite popular to place the nuke on the side of the Barracks. If they hear the beacon in the barracks, GDI swarms to it and disarms the beacon a high percentage of the time. It also has no cover from friendly units other than yourself and possibly another stealth character which isn't enough. Do not fall into the trap of placing your beacons in the previous few places. It only gives the other team 300 points per beacon and makes the situation worse for your team.
Extra: Don't put it on a MCT this is n00bish and also almost cheating because the beacon can become invisible if put on the right place
