What IS ratting?

by **Behemoth** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 1:01 am

Ratting is taking time in tight quiet levels patiently waiting for your opponent to come around corners and catch them by surprise, camping is a large part of ratting naturally because of this. Theres not many tunnel rats around anymore, in fact i dont consider any of the current players to be able to do rat games.

by **DKH** » Tue Nov 05, 2013 3:15 am

You are either trying to provoke more drama, or you just exposed serious ignorance regarding the abilities of players on this ladder. Either way, I'm a bit disappointed. --DKH

by **Behemoth** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 5:59 pm

Out of all the current players i've only ever seen mark392 do ratting with me, and i've played practically every d1,d2 and d3 player for the past 10+ years doing 1on1s, so no, i'm not stirring up drama and i'm not ignorant either.

by **Drakona** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 6:01 pm

What would you say the current crop of players mostly does, then? Cuz it sure ain't dogfighting.

by **Behemoth** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 6:07 pm

Hit-run mostly, which is different dont you agree? you're an aggresive hit-run/dogfighter drak, from just the several games we've played i can tell that just from your style.

by **Drakona** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 6:20 pm

That's interesting -- Jedi drew that distinction for me too, some time ago. I played him in Take2 and did better than expected and he said, "Yeah, I'm not a rat". I thought he was kidding until he explained that he's actually hit and run and those are different things.

I thought anything that happened in the tunnels was ratting. No? There's a third game I'm missing?

by **ryusei117** » Thu Nov 07, 2013 7:47 pm

If you think about it, it's possible to camp in a big room, waiting to dogfight your opponent, and it's also possible to engage briefly in a dogfighting room before running. The same applies to tunnels: you can camp in them, and you can hit-and-run in them. So although dogfighting and ratting are at odds, isn't it logical to consider camping and hit-and-run as supplementary tactics that can be applied to dogfighting and ratting alike? You can even camp in a dogfighting room, and then fire while running away as soon as your opponent appears, thereby using three gameplay styles at once …

On a side note, would you guys consider sniping (keeping to long sight lines and using high-velocity weapons) a unique style at odds with dogfighting and ratting? Or would it fall into the ratting category? Whatever the case, sniping works very well with camping and hit-and-run—but aggressive sniping does exist. If you catch your opponent in a long tunnel while he has no fast weapons selected (an embarrassing mistake

), you don't have much reason to run while hosing him with Vulcan.

by **Duper** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 3:23 pm

lol.. ratting is dogfighting in a 20x20x60 space.

It's Descent speak for combat in confined spaces. It's from "Tunnel Ratting".

In descent 1&2 we obviously didn't have wide open spaces (generally speaking) So those that preferred to fight in the standard 20x20x X size tunnel was called a "Tunnel Rat". It involves a whole different set of tactics, especially when smart missiles and smart bombs got involved.

When I think of "ratting" I think of Spaz's levels.

Also that's where TC gets her name; someone who hunts tunnel rats. ^_^

by **LotharBot** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 5:26 pm

DUPER!!!!!

(Come play! I have nothing else of value to add.)

by **Duper** » Fri Nov 08, 2013 7:40 pm

I'll be there!