Getting Started

Hello New Tremulous Player!
Welcome! Thank you for taking the time to read up before playing. Your fellow players will appreciate it.

In Tremulous, you play as either a human or alien. Your team (the humans or aliens) tries to win by destroying the other team's base, while preventing them from destroying yours.

Some of the people on your team will be *builders*, who can modify, improve, and repair your team's base. The other players won't be building - they'll be trying to kill enemies and damage the other team's base.

You get rewarded for killing enemies. Humans are awarded a bounty of “credits”, used to buy weapons & gear. Aliens are awarded “evo points” (evos), used to evolve into bigger aliens.

An evo point is equal to 175 credits. If you switch teams during the game, your credits or evo points are exchanged for their value in the other team's currency.

If you do some damage to an enemy but someone else delivers the kill, the bounty is divided between you.

You're also awarded 175 credits or 1 evo for every 2 minutes you survive without being killed.

Each team has three “stages” it can achieve by getting a certain number of kills (kills by all teammates contribute to this total). Hit “tab” to see what stage your team is at, and how many kills you need to get the next stage. Each stage unlocks better weapons & equipment (for the humans) or more powerful alien forms (for the aliens).

Tips
Don't be suprised! This game is very fast-paced. You may only get 1-3 seconds between the time you spot an enemy across the map and the time one of you is dead.

Don't get frustrated! It's very easy to die in tremulous, and you'll get shot or eaten a lot initially. Don't give up, polish your skills a little. You'll soon be chomping heads and torching aliens to your heart's content.

Don't feed the other team! If you die recklessly, you hurt more than just yourself. You let the other team reach the next stage sooner, which seriously jeopardizes your team's chances of winning. If you don't know what to do, play cautiously. Rampant feeding will lose you bounty/evos and may get you booted from a server.

Learn about base building! Building structures makes tremulous different from most FPS games, and it's a BIG part of gameplay. It is a good idea for newer players to learn how to build before attacking, because base construction and maintenance is comparatively easier to learn and can make a big difference for your team.

Winning & Losing
A game ends when either:

* A team loses all its spawns and players * A time limit is hit (55 minutes on most servers)

If the time limit is reached the game is considered a draw, otherwise the surviving team are the winners.

Alien Basics
Get used to walking on walls & ceilings! It's a little disorienting, but it's one of the aliens' biggest advantages.

Aliens can evolve, but they can't devolve. So, if you want to build, you need to choose “granger” (the lowest class) at spawn time.

Evo points used to evolve to a class also count toward the next class (as long as you don't die).

For example, let's say you're a dretch with 3 evo points. You can evolve directly to a dragoon (using all 3 evos). You could also evolve to a marauder (using 2 evos, leaving 1). That one remaining evo point can be used to become a dragoon later. If you die as a marauder, that remaining evo stays with you when you respawn as a dretch.

Human Basics
You buy & sell things at an armory (it's the green boxy thing). Press “Q” when standing near one. You must sell your rifle before you can purchase other weapons.

All weapons can be reloaded by pressing “B” near either an armoury, a repeater (energy weapons only) or a reactor (energy weapons only)

Energy weapons can be reloaded by pressing “Q” near a repeater or the reactor. It's a lot quicker than buying ammo at the armory if the repeator has been built in a remote location.

To get a new weapon you must first sell your current weapon. You don't need to select it or anything; merely click the “sell” button when you've pulled up the armory screen. It is the always the first thing on the list so it will be sold first.

You have a medkit! It basically doubles your lifespan, so use it (by hitting “M” when low on health). It takes a few seconds to work, so you can still be killed if you use it while being attacked. Still, it dramatically helps you survive.

Once a medkit is used up you can get another by standing on a medistation (green platform with a rotating cross over it). You get your medkit when you reach full (100) hitpoints, so if you are injured be sure to stand on the medistation until you are fully healed.

Basic Settings & Commands
Pressing your “Esc” key while in game will bring up your option control panel that allows name, system and other settings to be changed or adjusted.

Pressing the tilde ”~” key (the key left of the top row #1 key) in game will bring up the control console that will allow you to view missed chat and actions or issue console commands. (Remember, you can scroll up/backwards through the console if you have missed something and it has scrolled out of view. The wheel on the mouse works best for this.) Press the ”~” again to hide the console.

Your Name
When you first start the game, your name is set to “UnnamedPlayer”. You should change it in the options (either when you begin the game, click options, or when you are in game press the escape or “Esc” button, then options.) Some servers kick UnnamedPlayers (no name, no game!).

Instead of “UnnamedPlayer”, some servers automatically call new players “Newbie#X” where X is some unique integer.

You can color your name by using the ^ character, followed by a number:

* ^0 - Black * ^1 - Red * ^2 - Green * ^3 - Yellow * ^4 - Blue * ^5 - Cyan * ^6 - Pink * ^7 - White * ^8 - Black * ^9 - Red

Default Keyboard Commands (Binds)
Motion

* W - Forward * S - Backwards * A - Strafe Left * D - Strafe Right * X - Sprint (Use while holding one of the above keys) * C - Crouch * Space - Jump * Z - Zoom IN (Mass Driver)

Other

* Q - Armory (Use at armory to buy and sell weapons and upgrades) * R - Reload current weapon * B - Buy ammo at armory * M - Use Medkit * F - Taunt * Y - Activate team chat * T - Activate public or all chat * Tab - See scoreboard * F1 - Vote Yes * F2 - Vote No   * F11 - Take screenshot (Saved as a .jpg in \Program Files\Tremulous\Base\screenshots) * ~ - Activate console

The options menu (accessed by the “Esc” key in-game) will allow remapping of many of the default keyboard binds to other keys or mouse functions (i.e. Adding the Medkit to a 5th mouse button.)

Custom Binds
Custom binds can be created by an individual player to match the way they play and playing style. Binds are added to the autogen.cfg file (located in the Windows directory \Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Tremulous\base) (Linux /home/user/.tremulous/base). You can also create your own .cfg file ( example: hummie.cfg or alien.cfg)with these commands in it and run it from the autogen.cfg file using the exec command. This makes reading and editing custom binds much easier. A typical set of custom binds that might be applied to the number pad and used at the armory for different weapons and combinations of weapons and upgrades would look like-

* bind KP_INS “sell weapons; sell upgrades” * bind KP_DEL “buy ackit; buy ckit” * bind KP_END “buy rifle” * bind KP_DOWNARROW “buy psaw” * bind KP_PGDN “buy shotgun” * bind KP_LEFTARROW “buy lgun” * bind KP_5 “buy mdriver” * bind KP_RIGHTARROW “buy chaingun” * bind KP_HOME “buy prifle” * bind KP_UPARROW “buy flamer” * bind KP_PGUP “buy lcannon” * bind KP_PLUS “buy helmet; buy larmour” * bind KP_ENTER “buy bsuit” * bind KP_SLASH “buy jetpack” * bind * “buy battpack” * bind KP_MINUS “buy gren”

If these commands were saved in a file titled hummie.cfg in the above directory, the console command to run it would look like-

/exec “hummie.cfg”

To run it from the autogen.cfg file automatically, you would add the same command but without the slash to the autogen.cfg file.

Binds can also be used to say things (team chat in this case) at the push or a button-

* bind F3 “say_team We need Telenodes!” * bind F4 “say_team We need a Medstation!” * bind F5 “say_team We need an Armory!” * bind F6 “say_team Base needs Repairing!”

Or you can add color to the text that the bind displays-

* bind F3 “say_team We need ^3Telenodes!” * bind F4 “say_team We need a ^3Medstation!” * bind F5 “say_team We need an ^3Armory!” * bind F6 “say_team Base needs ^3Repairing!”

These are called text binds and using them repeatedly is frowned upon. It is called text spamming. It will get you muted by an administrator or kicked.