My tips to all players in Combat Arms:

There are several components to how I play well. I'm certainly not the best, but I can hold my own against anybody out there. I've got many years of FPS experience and I KNOW what I'm doing out there.

Contents:
1. Sound.
2. Withdrawing
3. Reloading
4. Aiming
5. Assault Rifle Firing
6. Sn iper Rifle Firing
7. Manuevering
8. Other Weapons
9. Camping
10. Sportsmanship

1) Sound

This is an incredibly powerful thing that great players use to their advantage at all times. It doesn't require an amazing sound card, but I would strongly recommend headphones, turning off your music, and listening very closely.

- Limit your own audible footsteps by sprinting into dngerous hotspots, or walking in quiet situations.

- Track an enemy's movement around you when they can't be seen. Listen very closely and you can determine to within a few feet where they're at and where they're going. It's not chams; it's careful listening.

- Listen to your teammates's footsteps around you and be sure to correlate them to dots on the radar. If they don't match up, you've got one of the enemy sneaking around you and need to address that immediately!

2) Withdrawing

Perhaps a lot of people are turned off by this idea. But if you're in a losing fight, GET OUT.

- Learn how to find cover quickly that the enemy has to put themselves in a bad position in in order to fight you. It's hard to teach this, but always try to keep a backup plan of retreat somewhere in your head in case the fight turns sour.

- If a teammate is nearby you, find cover somewhere behind them and the enemy so that your teammate can address and distract the enemy from killing you.

- Along similar lines, do not rush the hot chokepoints of gunfire unless you're feeling like Rambo or playing against noobs or just want to die. Always find ways of cutting off the enemy's access to such chokepoints or flanking them. It is not dishonorable to avoid a hail of frontal gunfire, actually it's exactly what you want to avoid.

- Use running away to lure an enemy. If an enemy has spotted you but not shot at you for whatever reason, and you've seen him out of the corner of your screen. Try this on occasion. Don't respond or look over. Just continue on your path, find a nice spot, and give the enemy a present of surprise when they think they're the ones catching you off-guard!

3) Reloading

Simply, don't do it in a firefight unless you're behind good cover.

- Make use of your pistol! I've found the G23 pistol to be invaluable in an incredibly high amount of the true gunfights I have. It fires nearly as fast as an automatic, has a good amount of ammunition, and is fairly accurate. Do NOT be shy about using it when your main weapon is depleted, it will surprise your enemy and it WILL kill them if they're not ready for it. I wouldn't even recommend pistol servers for training this, because it's unrealistic. You have to get used to using that pistol as a legitimate backup weapon because it IS one.

- Always reload behind cover or where you're absolutely positive you won't be rushed.

- If you ARE attacked while reloading, STOP RELOADING. This is one of the most dangerous positions you can find yourself in and one of the most common ways I see people die. Immediately change to your pistol and fire away while desperately trying to find cover. If your main weapon wasn't depleted entirely, switch to your pistol then your main weapon again QUICKLY. It should go back to the main weapon you were just using, but it will take a bit of time for your character to ready the gun. Find cover!

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4) Aiming

This is practically impossible to teach. But I'll do my best to give you hints.

- When moving ANYWHERE into ANY new area, check every corner nearby quickly and be ready to fire as you do it! If your mouse sensitivity does not allow you to do this, then it's probably too low. I can't tell you the number of times I've been called a cheater just because I always look in every corner.

- Along the same lines, before rushing an area, especially through a chokepoint such as a door, run to either side of the door and peek through the corners of it to see if an enemy is camping close to the left or right behind it.

- When rushing someplace, keep your crosshairs at where your enemy's upper body or head would most commonly be in the area. But do not remain fixed to this point ...

5) Assault rifle firing

This changes slightly from weapon to weapon, but the concepts hold fairly true with nearly all of them.

- Close range: SPRAY. Just do it, spray your butt off. BUT, here's the trick. Don't waste bullets doing it. Always be sure your reticle includes your enemy in some way.

- Mid range: Fire in short bursts. How many shots? That depends on how far away they are. If it's close mid range, probably 5 to 10 shots. If it's long mid range, 3 to 5 shots.

- Long range: Scope in occasionally, but only where you are not in the open or seen immediately. Scoping in will get you killed quickly if you're spotted and not behind cover, you'll move very slowly and not fire as quickly. You will be far more accurate though. Just click in quick single shots. Do NOT hold down for a full auto spray. It is infinitely more accurate to fire quick single shots. You don't need to change your gun mode to do this, just click fire a lot.

6) Sn iper rifle firing

Don't go crazy with this! You're not some elite sni per from Enemy at the Gates who only has a sni per rifle and a pistol. Being good at this game means being good at choosing the right weapon for the right time.

- Actually, the biggest tip I can give you regarding using a sni per rifle is to just not use it unless you're looking at a very long range shot.

- Yes the L96 is a one-hit kill and a VERY dangerous weapon to contend against, but if you miss that one shot, you're in some deep trouble. It takes a few seconds to take the next shot, and by then you could be dead.

- Remember that assault rifles can cover the range of half of all the maps and sni pers are more suited to great stealth, surprise, and distance.

- The best thing you can remember when engaged in a sni per fight is when to change to an assault rifle. If the middle of your enemy's body is showing at all, you can continue sni ping at them.

- If only their HEAD is poked out though, try to get in a spot where you only see their head between you and your cover, that way they're only seeing your head too! Then pull out your assault rifle, scope in, and fire single shots at their head. This is far more accurate than most sni per rifles.

Added (2009-06-29, 11:07 Pm)
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7) Manuevering

Another very hard skill to teach, this is the crutch I use for less than perfect aim. I have never been the best shot, but I can damn well guarantee that I could put any of you on your a ss by manuevering myself around you. When I make an enemy spin around and eventually completely lose their aim then kill them, I refer to it as "breaking their neck." It's pretty amusing.

- Do not be afraid to sprint in close-range firefights. In fact, do it a LOT. Sprinting makes you quite hard to hit, especially if you're jumping and turning and putting rounds into the enemy.

- If you're in a position where you are outnumbered, do absolutely everything possible to limit the number of guns pointed at you. Try to get it into a single-way fight and make the enemy come at you in turns.

- That doesn't mean kill everybody but one, that means finding cover so that only one person is firing at you. If you can't do this, then you shouldn't be where you went and deserve to be dead.

- If you ARE going to die in that kind of situation though, aim for JUST ONE of them, do not put your bullets between them or try to take them both out. Just do your best to kill ONE. I promise you that is infinitely better to your team, your score, and your pride than just shooting a couple of people for 20 hp.

- Use everything on the map! Spend time with your clan or by yourself just trying to get everywhere. Learn to use every trick you've ever seen (don't glitch, anything involving just sprinting and jumping is okay though) when in an actual firefight. Let me give you an example:

Two Towers: Alpha is camping their spawn sniping. If you're unaware, there are about six ways to rush into Alpha's spawn. I went through one of the very uncommon ones, made my way into their own tower after killing a few of their snipers who were firing at my team. I was then trapped in their tower with several snipers looking at me.

Then, I remembered a trick I learned for getting on and off the tower and how that required landing at different levels of the tower on the way down. So I jumped off the top of the tower, onto the supporting ledges in between me and the ground. I continued jumping down support beams, and eventually made it to the bottom outside part of the tower, jumped out, and killed everybody at the bottom who still thought I was at the top of the tower. Then I made my way back up the tower again.

- There are COUNTLESS examples of how to use everything in the map possible to manuever yourself around the enemy. Just remember that they can do the same things themselves and to always mix it up and choose different ways to manuever yourself around the enemy.

- LEARN EVERYWHERE YOU CAN GO ON A MAP AND HOW TO DO IT AT ANY TIME. I cannot stress this one enough.

8) Other weapons

- Don't use your knife unless you just want to embarrass someone who's not paying attention. It rarely works in close combat situations, unless you've got a ninjato or something. Then it's a MAYBE.

- Use mines! Plant them just out of sight in chokepoints. This can mean planting them at the top of a ladder, just out of sight from a ground ledge that is commonly rushed, or even just right in the middle of a staircase that is rushed up. If you do the last technique, it's best to sit close by and kill players as they attempt to go around them. Their immediate focus will be on avoiding the mine, but you'll make their next focus be on getting out of spawn again!

- Use grenades sparingly. Do not just randomly toss them around, you only get one or two a round. Some examples of intelligent throws:

Explosive grenades: Into a small to medium sized room where you know the enemy is firing. Learning to throw through windows is of incredible use here. Be creative! The more unexpected a particular grenade toss is, the more likely it will kill someone. Or, use throwing a grenade behind somebody to force them to come up back to you to die.

Smoke grenades: The best examples I can think of are wide-open areas where the opposing sniper usually holds an advantage. I.E. - Rattlesnake when you're Bravo rushing the Alpha base. A few smokes in the open between you and the tower will cover you greatly. Just be sure you get out of the open by the time they go away. Or, Snow Valley. When capturing the flag on CTF here, throwing a smoke to mask your retreat will greatly improve your chances of getting out of this sni ping hel l hole.

Fire grenades: Chokepoints.

Flash grenades: Into large rooms that contain camping enemies JUST prior to rushing. Best example of this is Warhead when rushing the enemy warehouse. You can easily throw it through several places.

Added (2009-06-29, 11:07 Pm)
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9) Camping

Oh please, I can hear the tears as I type this. "Camper n00b!!" Yeah well remember what I said earlier about always checking every corner? This is why. A good player will NOT complain about being killed by a camper. They KNOW that if they were paying enough attention, they should have been looking where the camper was and they should have killed them.

- Change spots OFTEN unless you're in an un-nadeable, un-flankable spot. If you kill an enemy in an easily reachable camp-spot one round, you had better move out of there before he respawns and gets to you the next round. It will keep the enemy on their feet and get you far more kills.

- If you're camping one area for a long time, be sure you have several really high quality spots to pick between that are difficult to flank or that you can watch the flank yourself at.

- Don't stand still when killing someone while camping if they've spotted you. Use your knowledge of the map to quickly manuever for the kill. If you must, fall and take some damage as well. It will surprise your enemy and it is better to take a bit of damage than to be dead.

- Take spots where only your head shows or in places where people rarely hide. A lot of times, the best spot is away from the corner behind a bit of cover.

10) Sportsmanship

- Stop calling people hackers. You can ask your teammates what they think of the same player, but chances are they're just as clueless as you. There ARE many hackers in the game, but they're usually fairly obvious. Keep your trap shut and play the game realizing there ARE people much better than you.

- Also learn, however, to look for people who are always seeing you through walls (keeping their aim on you even when you pop out of the strangest of locations is a SIGN, NOT PROOF, of chams.). Keep an eye for players whose aim FLICKS to another player perfectly after a kill. This is a SIGN, NOT PROOF, of aimbot. Anyone can do it once or a few times, almost no one can do it consistently.

- Say nice shot when someone gets a ridiculous shot on you. Very often times, it just was a lucky shot and the person on the other end is very happy about it. Calling it BS is just annoying and immature. No one will respect you for it.

- Say gg even if you did poorly or lost in a clan match. It shows class.

- Stop ... calling ... people ... hackers. You're not an expert on spotting cheaters most likely. You have to KNOW what to look for. Another player with an exceptionally high amount of kills or no deaths does not imply they're cheating. Get this, they may just be GOOD. Good players do tend to eventually take hackusations as compliments, but it still gets annoying and very frustrating when nobody just says "ns" or actually compliments them for how they're playing.

- If you're on voice communication doing a clan war, be a good teammate and if you're killed in a ridiculous fashion, SAVE IT. Don't yell into your mic "OH MY GOD THAT WAS SUCH BULL WHAT THE HECK" because chances are you're just ruining your other teammate's chances of hearing the enemy themselves and distracting them. Shut up, tell your team where the enemy is coming from, and perhaps type out that you thought it was bs. But nobody needs to hear your whining about how you stink.

Anywho, I think that's all I've got for now.