Tribes Ascend now live

Highly recommended! I've spent that last couple months beta testing and it's a worthy successor to T2. Can't say enough good about it.

Two of my boys (age 7 & 11) play it as much as I do.
 
It's not an MMO, just standard FPS... It's free to play and everything can be earned in-game, you can buy boosters and "gold" to unlock classes and weapons faster. The standard classes they give you are actually quite good, and it's pretty cheap to unlock new classes.

There are some things I don't like how they did, but it's a decent successor for Tribes/Tribes2 compared to Tribes Vengeance. The lack of custom servers/maps is a little annoying but you get some 16 v 16 CTF going on some classic remade maps and it's a lot of fun.

I found myself enjoying it more than I thought I would, the graphics are actually quite nice cranked up, but distract from the competitive gameplay.

I'm sad a lot of new games coming out aren't allowing for maps/modding by the community. Mainly because that's how they can make money now by selling these items because the game itself is F2P

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/s684g/tribes_ascend_a_free_to_play_scifi_fps_launches/

Decent overview on reddit.
 
I will def. be checking this out tonight. When I was in high school (05 grad) we had the exe folder for the original tribes sitting on several different PC's with shared drives. we could come into the computer labs during lunch and before school and play. everyone used a different alias and it was fun figuring out who was who in real life. Ahhh the memories!

Anyways, I'll be on tonight for a while under my username.
 
I never played the original tribes and cant say i was impressed with this one
 
I'm having a lot of fun with it. With custom and private servers it should get even better. Lots of special server flags (think mutators from UT).
 
low settings you can pretty much play it on anything.. low to medium is a huge jump in performance difference.. medium to high is even bigger. personally i hate the lack of graphic options which put me off a lot on the game. kinda bored with the game though from beta, to many elitist pricks in the game. maybe one day i'll go back to play it again but until then i'll stick with LoL.

for those of you running SLI the games based on the unreal 3 engine which already has an SLI profile, you just need to use nvidia injector to change the profile to match the unreal engine 3 settings and SLI will work. though i found it a bit buggy, couldn't run high settings on my 8800GT's even though i was getting 60fps constant(tried with and without vsync) and only using 425mb of vram with both GPU's sitting at 80% load but it would stutter and get random pauses. so it may or may not work for you. medium i get 385mb vram @ 60% gpu load on both cards.
 
It's fun and it's nice to see a lot of the familiar player names from Tribes 1 returning. Still, having a hard time motivating myself to play it competitively. The new Raindance map looks mighty sweet, though.
 
Got an error trying to DL it this am. sigh. I think I had the same issue with the beta. This is on a clean install with no previous tribe game on it too. Want to play! Have to wait until tomorrow.
 
low settings you can pretty much play it on anything.. low to medium is a huge jump in performance difference.. medium to high is even bigger. personally i hate the lack of graphic options which put me off a lot on the game. kinda bored with the game though from beta, to many elitist pricks in the game. maybe one day i'll go back to play it again but until then i'll stick with LoL.

for those of you running SLI the games based on the unreal 3 engine which already has an SLI profile, you just need to use nvidia injector to change the profile to match the unreal engine 3 settings and SLI will work. though i found it a bit buggy, couldn't run high settings on my 8800GT's even though i was getting 60fps constant(tried with and without vsync) and only using 425mb of vram with both GPU's sitting at 80% load but it would stutter and get random pauses. so it may or may not work for you. medium i get 385mb vram @ 60% gpu load on both cards.

What elitist pricks? The only thing I hate is the effing noob heavies camping towers with Sabers, and anyone using an automatic gun.
 
I still have this gut reaction of EWWWW when I give free to play games a shot. I really find the whole thing distasteful not having to earn things just buying your way to the top of the gear ladder.

With that all said Tribes Ascend is a truckload of fun. I can see myself playing it just as much as I did Team Fortress 2 (and I never bought any stinkin hats! :D though I started when Orange Box came out). So even if your like me and really dislike the free to play business model give it a try anyway. Won't cost you a dime and you might have some fun. :)
 
Played it and enjoyed it until I found out you have to "unlock" stuff and i noticed people flying across the screen like a freakin rocket with their upgrades.
I want an fps game where I can just sit down and shoot and not have to grind for weeks to get certain unlockables and perks. And this would make any sort of competitive future worthless for this game.
I'd much rather pay for the game and not have all these unlockables / leveling crap.

Was hoping I could find a decent competitive replacement for CS 1.6

Guess I'll stick with quake live for a bit longer
 
you can fly across the map like a rocket without anything. I have not payed a cent and have no problem capping the flag / killin bitches.
 
Same here. To rocket across the map at great speeds you just have to learn to ski and skiing in this version of Tribes is easy. Just hold down the space bar to slide down hills and use your jet pack to climb up and keep your speed up.
 
you can fly across the map like a rocket without anything. I have not payed a cent and have no problem capping the flag / killin bitches.

Yeah, I started playing yesterday, been doing pretty well with just the stock weapons on the soldier and pathfinder.
 
Played it and enjoyed it until I found out you have to "unlock" stuff and i noticed people flying across the screen like a freakin rocket with their upgrades.
I want an fps game where I can just sit down and shoot and not have to grind for weeks to get certain unlockables and perks. And this would make any sort of competitive future worthless for this game.
I'd much rather pay for the game and not have all these unlockables / leveling crap.

Was hoping I could find a decent competitive replacement for CS 1.6

Guess I'll stick with quake live for a bit longer

I can tell you are not an original tribes player (not a bad thing at all), but you dont need any of the unlocks to do well in the game, even starting with the basic classes.

I exclusively use the base unlock class (soldier) and am usually top kills with most flag returns and sometimes flag caps (I play Defence or flag chaser) with assault rifle and thumper.

I'ts all I play and I do great.

Skiing does not take any unlocks at all to get up to speed, you just need to know the proper techniques of tribes skiing.
 
The players with the unlocks are really freaking annoying at first, but with time you'll find yourself able to compete with the basic stuff. And once you can do that, you're pretty much better than them. :D

This is a great game by the way. This feels competitive to me... NOT COD or BF3 (the whoever saw whoever first and sprays bullets to get the kill a second later). In this when someone comes up on you, you can recover and battle it out for a good minute sometimes. It's f***ing amazing. :D
 
I can tell you are not an original tribes player (not a bad thing at all), but you dont need any of the unlocks to do well in the game, even starting with the basic classes.

Skiing does not take any unlocks at all to get up to speed, you just need to know the proper techniques of tribes skiing.

Very true. I joined a naked server that required you to check into a supply station get your perks/addons and i decided to go nude the whole time as a pathfinder and was still able to dominate and cap just fine.
 
Unlocks on the basic suits help considerably. And the perks have their uses...like super heavies on flags, reach let's you bypass smashing into them.

I noticed a massive difference with the 10% mass decrease on pathfinder in the final suit unlock...much easier to direct yourself and have energy to things when needed.
 
Very true. I joined a naked server that required you to check into a supply station get your perks/addons and i decided to go nude the whole time as a pathfinder and was still able to dominate and cap just fine.

I'm not worried about sucking or dominating other ppl. I'm talking about the competitive and balance aspect to it. I'm sure a very skilled player can still dominate less skilled player without any of the perks / upgrades. But from a competitive point of view it's not really fair and puts the balance into question.
 
I'm not worried about sucking or dominating other ppl. I'm talking about the competitive and balance aspect to it. I'm sure a very skilled player can still dominate less skilled player without any of the perks / upgrades. But from a competitive point of view it's not really fair and puts the balance into question.

the balance i don't have a problem with. the problem i have with their perk system is that weapons are retardedly high XP so your only option of every getting said weapon is buying it..

at least in the beta(don't care about the final version since i'm not going to bother playing it after dealing with the beta) it was 100k XP just for an upgraded primary weapon, or you could just pay them 5 dollars and get the weapon instead. whats the point in even bothering, ya might as well just pay the 30 bucks and unlock all the weapons/classes.
 
Played it and enjoyed it until I found out you have to "unlock" stuff and i noticed people flying across the screen like a freakin rocket with their upgrades.
I want an fps game where I can just sit down and shoot and not have to grind for weeks to get certain unlockables and perks. And this would make any sort of competitive future worthless for this game.
I'd much rather pay for the game and not have all these unlockables / leveling crap.

Was hoping I could find a decent competitive replacement for CS 1.6

Guess I'll stick with quake live for a bit longer

The class that flies the fastest accross the screen is the pathfinder, he is free and his fastest loadout is his default loadout. This is a game that has alot things to learn, you have to give it a little longer shot to figure it out. If you do you wont give such wrong examples.
 
But from a competitive point of view it's not really fair and puts the balance into question.

Most people who play competitively will just buy all of the weapons/perks they need. It's not like there are unattainable weapons only available for those with higher rank.

the balance i don't have a problem with. the problem i have with their perk system is that weapons are retardedly high XP so your only option of every getting said weapon is buying it..

at least in the beta(don't care about the final version since i'm not going to bother playing it after dealing with the beta) it was 100k XP just for an upgraded primary weapon, or you could just pay them 5 dollars and get the weapon instead. whats the point in even bothering, ya might as well just pay the 30 bucks and unlock all the weapons/classes.

Is this a complaint or a statement? The amount of XP required to unlock weapons is lower now... not like you care though because you're unable to deal with a Beta. This is a free to play game and expecting to be able to unlock everything in a short amount of time without paying for anything is unreasonable. Developers have to get paid some how and a incentive for people to actually buy something must be there otherwise this game would fail. I doubt this game would even exist with out the free to play model and the vast amount of user feedback because of it has made it a better game then if it wasn't.
 
Last edited:
cod, cs players will not really like this game. bf or mechwarrior fans will. I played 4 rounds, totally default soldier, lowest I placed was 3rd and I was tops in kills for three rounds.
 
cod, cs players will not really like this game. bf or mechwarrior fans will. I played 4 rounds, totally default soldier, lowest I placed was 3rd and I was tops in kills for three rounds.

Wait till you get past level 6 or whatever it is where they actually match you up with ppl who are not newbs :D
 
It's not that hard to accumulate XP.
  • Watch some how-to-ski videos. The other players are not necessarily going faster because of "upgrades". An average player without upgrades can out-ski a fully-upgraded noobie pathfinder.
  • Focus your XP spending on one or two roles. I played sporadically over a few weeks and got most of the upgrades that I wanted from earning XP.
  • It's a free game, but seriously consider spending at least $10 on the game. That will give you something like 800 gold, which is enough to buy a better weapon for your favorite class. It also gives you 50% more XP in every game so you can buy other upgrades a lot sooner.
  • You can get 250 fold for liking T:A on facebook. That's enough to get the bolt launcher for the pathfinder (otherwise it's 100,000 xp)
  • Don't waste gold on easy-to-unlock items like new classes. It's easy to earn 18000 XP to unlock a new class over a few days. Spend your gold on the 100,000xp weapons.
  • They are always giving away free stuff for the soldier class. On Friday I found a code for a free spinfuser and a free pack. I think that's well over 100,000 XP worth of stuff.
  • The final upgrade for a lot of weapons is usually more ammo. Don't waste your XP on this. If you are new you will usually die way before you run out of ammo. However, extra grenades are always good.
  • Play the game for a few minutes every day. You get 1200xp for your first win of the day. If you are a paid player, I think you get 1800xp due to the extra 50% for XIP's.
  • Look at the available badges in your profile. They give you 250 - 1000xp (or more) per badge. Some are really easy (like take out 5 base assets).
 
I too would be interested in free item codes and/or where to find them. Fun fact though..

Go to "Secret Code" under the Extras and type in "GOTTAGOFAST" - it will change your km/h to the old school in-game measurement of speed.

I purchased the VIP Starter Pack a long time ago so I got some gold,plus free VIP status, 30 day booster, and other fun stuff, but I'm just starting the game now. I've not used my gold to buy anything except all class unlocks (before reading above...but thankfully I still have quite a bit of remaining gold) and the Infiltrator Elite Pack (new weapons + skins)

Can anyone experienced post suggestions for a new player regarding classes, gametype, and role to start out at? I'm actually a little more comfortable going defense (one reason Tech seems like a role I'll enjoy) but offense is good as well. I'm especially curious regarding the Sentinel, Infiltrator, Technician, and Raider but if it is good to start elsewhere, let me know? What ever classes are suggested, please let me know of any weapons/items for them that it is worth spending Gold on due to the fact they're either 1) That good compared to the default 2) Hugely expensive in XP or 3) Both of the previous.

Thanks! While I wait for Planetside 2 and Firefall launches, Tribes Ascend and Global Agenda (perhaps a bit more to the latter...) will give me my "persistent world FPS" fix.
 
You can probably find more detail at one of the tribes forums. Here are some good loadouts for newbies looking to fill a role in capture the flag (not deathmatch). Most of the upgrades are between 1000 and 7000 xp, so you can generally buy one after every two or three games.

Jug (for havoc in their base or ours):
  • Upgrade grenade, mortar, and armor.
  • A nice secondary perk is Egocentric (lets me fill a room with big green boomies without getting hurt too bad).
  • Upgrade the Health Regen pack if you spend a lot of time in the enemy base
  • IMHO, the extra weapons (MIRV and gun) are not worth the effort or gold
  • Jugs can be good for newbies because you can take out a lot of baddies fairly easily.
Tech (base upkeep and defense):
  • Upgrade turrets all the way (allows you to deploy 2 at a time)
  • The repair tool is cheap to upgrade and it's nice to repair things really fast
  • Upgrade your grenades so you can carry more. They're really handy when clearing out a gen room.
  • Buy the thumper with gold. It's one of the few weapons worth buying.
  • Consider buying motion sensors if you spend a lot of time on gen defense
  • Remember that all your deployables self-destruct when you change to another class
  • This class can also be good for newbies because techs don't go 1-on-1 very often. I've survived entire matches without dying once, but still racked up enough kills / repairs to place in the top 3.
Raider (I only use it when clearing indoor spaces that are filled with cloakers)
  • Buy/ save up for the jammer pack. I use it to de-cloak the cloakers that harass me when I'm a jug.
  • The default shield pack is ok, but I tend to do better as jug when I'm in an enemy base.
Soldier
  • Keep an eye out for free spinfusor upgrades
  • A well-balanced class
And that's it, I have a pathfinder that's fairly upgraded. I tend not to play sentinel (sniper) or capper very often because my connection can be flakey sometimes and those two roles need solid connections.

Also, identify which roles you enjoy for specific maps.
 
Thanks. I set out for my first play session as Tech and bought the Thumper (full size) because it was so incredibly expensive XP-wise - I luckily still have quite a bit of gold to spare.. Any opinions on the secondary weapon unlocks? One looks to be a shotgun and the other a pistol, but I don't know if either are worth it because it looks like you have to give up the Tech (improved?) Repair Gun, but someone commented that if a Tech picks up one of the normal repair guns from the base, it becomes better than normal.

One thing I noticed when fighting on the CTF map that was basically "Sand + Lots of pyramid-topped towers", is that a couple of people in heavy armor were camped out on the top of a nearby tower assaulting my base with a green-colored weapon that seemed to have a ton of splash damage, able to hurt those even inside the flag-base "barrier" if htting close to the ramps on the side. I want to say it was the "ultra spinfusor" thing, but I can't remember. Sort of a strange combo of acting like a rocket launcher but with sniper range/accuracy. It was the primary thing taking down base cannons...and needed to be dodged adeptly while I attempted to repair them
 
Last edited:
I am going to disagree with virtus, do not buy the thumper with gold, it is a very good weapon but it is way to expensive, save up xp and use your gold for weapons that cost 42000xp or 75000xp. Those are the ones with the best xp to gold ratio. You can buy close to three weapons with the gold of one thumper.

I will post more later, but I guess it is too late.

Edit, if you want to role with tech it can be a good diverse defensive class.

http://forum.hirezstudios.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=313&t=59977&p=760384#p760384

Check out that thread for the xp to gold conversion.

At 75k xp each the sparrow and motion sensors are good things for the tech. The sparrow allows you to take the tech into more combat situations you can use him like a soldier, it complements the short range of the thumper with the ability to get people at longer range and in the air. The motion sensors strip people of their energy so you can use them to decloak infiltrators, and remove shields from brutes and raiders while defending.

A really powerful way to use the tech is to save up credits at the start of a match and buy shrikes, you can heal your shrike with your repair gun and then use it to run over flag cappers and anyone else who comes near your base. Doing this would make you a very useful addition to any pub game. Before you have credits to buy a shrike defend the flag or generator with turrets and motion sensors / thumper. When you buy the shrike switch over to the smg and grenades. When you have enough XP enable the pilot and wheel deal perks so you can buy shrikes cheap and eject when they are destroyed to continue chasing with the smg. Each time you die or lose a shrike return to base and setup your turrets again.
 
Last edited:
I still have gold left that I wish to spend wisely and appreciate any input you can provide.
 
I still have gold left that I wish to spend wisely and appreciate any input you can provide.

I'd keep playing and find classes you enjoy to play. No point in spending gold on a class you never play.

Those guys hitting you with big green shots were Juggernauts with Mortars, you have it unlocked already and can try it out. It's meant for long range base rape essentially. It can be annoying but it's pretty useless up close out in the open unless you aren't paying attention. So they have to switch to their spinfuser which won't last long if you're able to to jet around them and dodge their shots. They're slow and don't have a lot of energy so they don't do well solo. At least in my experience they're easy to kill. Only indoors can they cause you troubles because you have less room to escape the mortar shots.
 
Here is a repost of something I gave as advice for the 3000 gold + booster average user.

Take your gold and save 1200, this will allow you to buy an extra 30 days of booster if you need it. Spend the rest on weapons that cost either 42000xp or 75000xp. These are where you get the most gold to xp ratio. IE you are using your money most wisely. Pick the weapons in the class you think you will use the most. Also keep in mind that skins will only be unlocked with gold, so if you think you ever will want one better save 1200 gold or so.

I quickly bolded the weapons I think are good or powerful for various classes. All weapons are red, and I put comments next to many. If it is not bold I would wait to purchase that with XP or gold till last.


240/42K = 175 XP/gold

- (PTH) Bolt Launcher (Turns pathfinder into a powerful killer), Explosive Nitron ( also an upgrade to make him kill), Thrust Pack Helps pathfinder chase flag cappers. A common PTH chasing loadout is thrust plus bolt launcher.
- (STL) T5 Grenade, Recharge Pack Both of these turn the sentinel into a chaser / midfield dueler. The recharge pack is most important for chasing flag cappers so you can get a shot. Sentinel is the most powerful class in the game if you have good aim.
- (SLD) Spinfusor, Why use when you have the thumper? I guess it is nice at longer range but you sacrifice the machine gun to use this Eagle Pistol Only needed if you just had to have the spinfusor, AP Grenade, Utility Pack (new!)
- (TCN) Sawed-off Shotgun ( I just dont see the point in this go for thumper and you have short range covered)
- (RDR) Grenade Launcher Beastly power and spam for indoors or flag clearing, limited range Whiteout Grenade (not sure if this will stick it is under balance scrutiny but right now it is pretty good for blinding people to clear flags, Jammer Pack This is how you get past all those pesky tech turrets.
- (JUG) Spinfusor Disc You buy this if you want to use the jug outside and combine it with the X1 LMG
- (BRT) Sticky Grenade (haha no one would ever use anything but fractals with a brute)

420/75K = 178.57 XP/gold

- (INF) Prism Mine, (default sticky grenade is one of the best grenades in the game dont waste xp or gold on any other grenade for infiltrator)
- (SLD) Proximity Grenade (new!) (doesnt seem to be panning out)
- (TCN) Sparrow, Take the sparrow if you are married to the tech otherwise other classes are better. Motion Sensor Drains energy and lets you defend from remote locations. Very useful for gen defense, or fighting raiders and brutes with shield packs and jammers.
- (DMB) Mines (This is very important if you want to defend as doom which is what you should really be doing)
- (BRT) Nova Colt Gives the brute is only long range capabilities, decent, Heavy Shield Pack This helps if you manage it well indoors especially (not sure the brute is really a good class for most people).

780/100K = 128.2 XP/gold

- (PTH) Light Assault Rifle (expensive and kinda sucky but it is the only long range choice for the pathfinder, so if you flag cap or chase you should get it, otherwise you can wait a bit)
- (STL) Phase Rifle The BXT1 is better in every way but the skill floor is a little higher, phase should be one of the last things you buy unless you are married to the sentinel or just cannot ski while zoomed Falcon If you snipe you buy this gun first it shreds anything it is awesome one of the top guns in the game.
- (INF) Stealth Spinfusor This complements the inf better indoors and probably in all cases. But you might want to stick with the next weapon. Jackal The jackal is currently new and under balance scrutiny, it is very powerful if used well. If you like playing this invisible class this is probably a good buy but no promises since future nerfs could very well happen.
- (TCN) Thumper Pure ownage, destroy anyone at close range, especially indoors one of the best guns in the game.
- (JUG) MIRV Launcher, (Great fun weapon, but it is too overlapped with the mortar, only buy early if you are married to jug, or just cant control your desire to kill with fireworks) X1 LMG This weapon is a must for any outdoor jugs, buy early if you want to clear flags, it allows you to defend yourself against those pesky lighter classes who can fly so much better. Combine this with spin fusor discs to have one of the most versitile loadouts in the game.
- (DMB) Heavy Bolt Launcher, (does not fit the class great, but it is powerful, I would say only buy if you are married to DMB and you do some sort of indoor defense, or you just have terrible ability to track players with machine guns)



Also make sure you farm the badges, they give you bonus XP. Some of them are really simple you can easily build up 60k xp in just a few hours of play. I think for the fun factor you should spend your early xp unlocking all the classes first.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top