Racial differences, vehicles

There are similar differences in the ways the two races handle health and ammo. For the humans, it’s the standard way – you have health, and you have ammo. For the Strogg, the resources are shared. A Strogg can use energy called ‘Stroyent’, which can be extracted from human bodies by the Strogg MediTek incidentally, to convert it into ammo for their weapons or health. Presumably, and this is likely not finalized, they may be able to exchange health to get more ammo and vice-versa. Some Strogg weapons at least are kept from being fired endlessly by heat, so while they don’t have to reload they will need to be cooled.

As mentioned earlier, the classes are analogous to each other but not completely identical. Strogg Infiltrators can stun and partially stroggify human hosts, controlling them like spies. Strogg Meditecs will be able to actually fully Stroggify a human, essentially creating him as a one-off front-line spawn point for any Strogg player who died and wants to spawn closer to the front. The exact and final nature of the abilities of the classes is in flux and undecided – at many points during the presentation the developers stressed that they can and will cut features if they don’t think these have a positive effect on the game, but these examples serve to show how different the opposing factions can be.

Yes, Battlefield fans, vehicles are present in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and they will be about as prominent in the game as they are in Battlefield 2. Of course, ground troopers will have their own ways of fighting back at them, with high-flying or slow aircraft being particularly vulnerable. Given the lack of fighter jets or their alien equivalents, we don’t foresee the air-ground imbalance problems that plague Battlefield 2, for example, and the developers themselves expressed confidence that the anti-air capabilities of ground units will force both the Strogg and human flyers to fly fast and low. It is as yet undecided whether humans will be able to use Strogg vehicles and vice-versa.

The differences between human and Strogg vehicles seem more drastic than the differences between human and Strogg character classes. For example, humans have a tank that works more or less like the modern M1 Abrams, but the Strogg have a giant, two-legged Goliath walker. Just their basic configuration and design will change the ways they are used. The walker is much taller and larger than the tank, making it a target but it also offers an advantageous firing platform – and the opposite is true for the tank. In combat against each other, the Walker is at an advantage in ranged combat but its lack of mobility up close will be a detriment against a circling Titan tank.

There will be a variety of vehicles that fall into a few distinguishable classes – light recon, light combat, APCs, heavy combat and of course the aircraft. They all have different roles and maps are designed with them in mind. Light recon units can be used to jump across rivers, while APCs can swim across. The recons are small and nimble but carry only one passenger, APCs carry many but are large, ungainly and poorly defended. Heavy combat units will be limited in where they can go and how quickly they get there.