Utilizing terrain in Vehicles by Crayfish

The below is a post I saw in the Epic Forum by Crayfish.  I'm not a vehicle player but this post got a lot of good comments on it so I thought I'd copy it here.

Again all credit to the original poster: Crayfish


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This is a guide to some of the techniques of using terrain to minimize the vulnerability of vehicles in UT3, while retaining offensive capability. Some are general principles of war/wargames, but others are specific to UT3 and its otherworldy mechanised arsenal.

HULL-DOWN, TURETT-DOWN & HIDE POSITIONS.
A Hull-Down position is where a vehicle uses a terrain feature to cover its main body or 'hull' while the turret or other offensive structure is exposed. This allows the vehicle to see and fire accross the battfield while only presenting a small area that is vulnerable to attack.
A Turret-Down postion is where the entire Hull and Turret are covered by a terrain feature, but observation is still possible from the turret hatch. As the vehicles in UT3 are controlled from a 3rd person turret hatch type view, this position offers all the normal advantages without any of the a**ociated risks.
In both these cases, the protecting piece of ground may be a rock directly in front of you, or a rolling hill 100s of meters long between you and your opponent. What is important is how it effects you opponents line of sight (L.O.S). As you move around the battlefield, try to continualy think about how the lie of the land between you and the position of your opponent effects thier L.O.S.



USING COVER LATERALY.
Many terrain features are too high to shoot or see over, but the can provide offensive advantages, by moving lateraly in and out of thier cover. Here we see a Goliath Tank using a building as cover to mount offense from. It moves lateraly out from cover to fire, then moves back into cover during its protracted re-load time, when it can't protect itself. By repeating this process it can continualy command an area of the battlefield while minimising its vulnerability to counter attack.
If circumstances allow, always REVERSE out of cover lateraly when using the Goliath. The Goliath has a rear mounted turret, so moving the back of the tank out first to fire means the turret achieves L.O.S much sooner and exposes a much less of the tank to the opponent. (see pics of the red-team tank in the bottom left corner below)

With the right window of opportunity full hide position cover like this can also be used to do front line repairs.
*A NOTE ON FRONT LINE REPAIRS.
Even in reasonably safe hide postion cover, always have the vehicle between yourself, and the expected path of your opponent during repairs. This way, in the event of your position being breached, your vehicle can provide you with some cover and warning of the danger. *You exit the vehicle in the direction you are looking from it before you press E.

HELLBENDER SKY MINE SPAMMING.

The Hellbenders chain-detonated Sky Mines can create a killing zone of 3d space. The undetonated Core's small size means they can be fire though small openings from good terrain cover positions. Once chain-detonated inside an enemy position, they cause devastation over thier area of effect.


On defence, Sky Mine spamming can be equaly lethal. Here we see the Hellbender making use of the lie of the land to protect itself while defending an entrance. The Hellbender presents the smallest of targets, while it saturates the other side of the entrance with chain-detonated Sky Mines.
A FURTHER NOTE ON THE HELLBENDER
*If you are using the rear turret to snipe at enemy infantry, remember to reverse into position. This is because the rear turret only has limited decline when facing forwards, stopping you firing down on enemies from high ground.

NECRIS VEHICLES.
The Necris Vehicles in UT3 provide the most creative possibilities in the use of terrain of any FPS game I've seen.
THE NEMESIS.
The Nemesis has a turret that can be raised or lowered into 3 pre-set configurations.
In its low position, the turret rests between the two runners (tracks) and gives the vehicle and extreme low profile and its fastest traveling speed. This is the ideal mode for moving around the battlefield from one exploitable terrain feature, or objective to the next. *The turret can only fire directly forwards in this mode.
The middle mode has the turret raised to a normal tank height, allows full turret movement with slow rate of fire and medium traveling speed.
The high position raises the turret right up above the runners and gives super fast rate of fire, making many excellent Hull-Down postions available. *This mode gives the lowest traveiling speed.
Below we see the Nemisis using its different turret modes to create some excellent Hull-Down, Turret-Down and hide positions.




THE DARKWALKER.
The awsome Darkwalker is surprisingly one of the most capable vehicles when it somes to using terrain for cover.



FLYING VEHICLES.



INDIRECT FIRE.
UT3 has a couple of excellent vehicles that can make use indirect fire.

*The scorpion can also make use of the lie of the land to use as 'ramps' for launching its boosted 'suicde' ability.


GOING AGAINST VEHICLES THAT ARE USING COVER
FLANK ATTACK.
Its almost never a good idea to attack a strongpoint head on unless absolutely nessesary. Its always better to bypa** it or attack it from another angle. UT3 is a dynamic game, that will generaly offer greater oportunities for offensive manouver than defensive strongpoints. So your first choice of action against a vehicle held strongpoint will be some kind of dynamic flanking attack.


AVRIL BLINDFIRING.
Another UT3 weapon that can be tacticaly used to negate terrain is the AVRIL Longbow guided missle. By firing it 'blind' and then guiding it onto its target, you can fire over and around terrain features and minimise the amount of time you expose yourself to counter fire.


SHOCK-BALLS.
The Shock Combo from the Hellbender, Paladin or hand held Shock Rifle can also be used against other vehicles making use of terrain cover. Its area of effect allows you to attack its radius width beyond your line of sight.



FINAL THOUGHTS.
For the most part, UT3 is a fast moving and dynamic game where movement and accurae firepower are more important than positioning. But the principles of use of cover can be taken advantage of in many more situations than the overt examples used in illustration above. Continualy try to dynamical apply these principles as you move around the battlefield.
Crayfish.

*Note some of the turret positions in the images are incorrect, this is because of an issue with the replayer that doesnt display correct turret movement.
*Thanks to MechikTaj of Beyond Unreal forums for contributions on Hellbender front facing turret decline and exiting vehicles direction select.

Pretty awesome job finding and posting that! I like it! Gonna re-read in full now.

Hmm, that all should have been common knowledge to experienced players!

Might not be experienced, but you have to have a certain mentallity when play such games!  Like in real life, are you gonna stand in an open field tryin to shoot an enemy, or you gonna use cover! Just common sense!

Originally posted by Danjel8 Especially with the nemesis... in the right hands that thing is deadly.

... or a bot's, especially anything over adept.  From my experience against them, I'm usually more scared of the bot in the Nemesis than the one in the Darkwalker, while playing maps with both of them in it.  The Darkwalker bot tends to have a twitchy aim, that may miss, but Mr. Nemesis bot doesn't seem to know how to miss.. much..

Bots.. they may be absolute morons (most of the time), but just try and take one (with a decent enough skill level) in a Nemesis, while you're on foot.

im horrible in vctf :( but i think i finnaly know how to "use" vehicles :D

surprising how many peeps don't know which weapons to use against particular vehicles. The Avril fire and lock on is a point in case but I dont ever fire vertically then lock on. Its worth mentioning that it may not be a good idea against a rapid moving vehicle but for big targets where you're not exposed then seems a good tactic. Ive got ideas from this if nothing else. A tutorial tht makes you think about your deployment, usage and foot strategy = excellent. Tnx mate.