OP
Hello, welcome to my beginner's guide to Capture the Flag Player's League.
My alias is Metal, and I'm currently in my 18th season of CTFPL.
The purpose of this guide is to inform the reader of the pre-requisite knowledge required to play, and to give you some tips on what to work on for your first few games.
CTF has a few basic differences from USL that require some adjusting to. Everyone can take a heck of a lot more punishment to their armor, so becoming good at close range fighting is key. There is no such thing as sitting back a screen and shooting, and hoping something dies. Managing your energy is the number one contributing factor to your average length of life.
There are full equipment setups and buy macros on the CTFPL portion of the USLzone.com website. It is absolutely essential that you set up a buy macro. A buy macro generally refers to a macro which re-buys your ammo, energizers, repulsors, and explosives all at once after you die by pressing one button, instead of manually going through the store and buying each item individually.
Additionally, you are going to want to set up a message macro saying "SSS%27" or "XXX%27" to request summons for defense and offense, respectively. S denotes Home, X denotes enemy. It should be noted that as an infantry on defense, you should get in the habit of attaching every death, and not asking for summons at all. Yes, as you get more comfortable with league play, you'll know when a good time is to ask for summons, but starting out, just don't. It prevents the medic from being able to use that load on a heal or tranq instead of summoning your lazy ass.
So you have your buy macro set, your weapon keys set, and you have entered an OvD arena. The next important thing is about how you behave. The overwhelming majority of CTFPL players that you will see in an OvD are very willing to let a newer person play, and will go out of their way to teach them, but ONLY if you demonstrate that you aren't wasting everybodies time. There have been too many cases of a new person coming in, asking to play, which we happily let them do, but then they don't have a buy macro or anything, and remain in the dropship after a death for 45 seconds plus manually buying each piece of ammo while their team gets owned.
I would strongly suggest picking a class and sticking with it. Infantry, Medic, and Squad Leader make the best starting classes, in my opinion. Don't be that guy that insists on playing Heavy Weapons every round as a new player, because you won't be able to mask your mistakes or get carried nearly as easily as if you were an Infantry. And you won't learn anything by playing as a bad heavy weapons. A lot of breaking into this league is knowing what not to do in your first couple weeks of learning. Medic and Squad Leader are both fairly low stress positions where you can observe the whole battle and won't be expected to wreck face 1v1 very often, and they also have fairly simple equipment setups.
Strong USL marines tend to make good defensive infantries, because of both classes' heavy reliance on assault rifle skill. An
offensive infantry uses much much less assault rifle, and is therefore not quite as natural to pick up.
The last thing I'd like to touch on is the choke game. CTFPL bases can always be divided into multiple choke points, and good teams will always play choke to choke. So be aware of how many teammates you have alive around you before pushing to the next choke, if you don't have the numbers, HOLD the choke, and wait for proper numbers to push.
In summary, it's very easy to get into the league. The notion that we are all a bunch of close-minded elitists is silly, we just don't want to waste our time on someone that isn't going to be a good prospect. Demonstrate that you have a buy macro, a proper equipment setup, and the desire to learn, and you'll find yourself starting in plenty of games right from the getgo.
My alias is Metal, and I'm currently in my 18th season of CTFPL.
The purpose of this guide is to inform the reader of the pre-requisite knowledge required to play, and to give you some tips on what to work on for your first few games.
CTF has a few basic differences from USL that require some adjusting to. Everyone can take a heck of a lot more punishment to their armor, so becoming good at close range fighting is key. There is no such thing as sitting back a screen and shooting, and hoping something dies. Managing your energy is the number one contributing factor to your average length of life.
There are full equipment setups and buy macros on the CTFPL portion of the USLzone.com website. It is absolutely essential that you set up a buy macro. A buy macro generally refers to a macro which re-buys your ammo, energizers, repulsors, and explosives all at once after you die by pressing one button, instead of manually going through the store and buying each item individually.
Additionally, you are going to want to set up a message macro saying "SSS%27" or "XXX%27" to request summons for defense and offense, respectively. S denotes Home, X denotes enemy. It should be noted that as an infantry on defense, you should get in the habit of attaching every death, and not asking for summons at all. Yes, as you get more comfortable with league play, you'll know when a good time is to ask for summons, but starting out, just don't. It prevents the medic from being able to use that load on a heal or tranq instead of summoning your lazy ass.
So you have your buy macro set, your weapon keys set, and you have entered an OvD arena. The next important thing is about how you behave. The overwhelming majority of CTFPL players that you will see in an OvD are very willing to let a newer person play, and will go out of their way to teach them, but ONLY if you demonstrate that you aren't wasting everybodies time. There have been too many cases of a new person coming in, asking to play, which we happily let them do, but then they don't have a buy macro or anything, and remain in the dropship after a death for 45 seconds plus manually buying each piece of ammo while their team gets owned.
I would strongly suggest picking a class and sticking with it. Infantry, Medic, and Squad Leader make the best starting classes, in my opinion. Don't be that guy that insists on playing Heavy Weapons every round as a new player, because you won't be able to mask your mistakes or get carried nearly as easily as if you were an Infantry. And you won't learn anything by playing as a bad heavy weapons. A lot of breaking into this league is knowing what not to do in your first couple weeks of learning. Medic and Squad Leader are both fairly low stress positions where you can observe the whole battle and won't be expected to wreck face 1v1 very often, and they also have fairly simple equipment setups.
Strong USL marines tend to make good defensive infantries, because of both classes' heavy reliance on assault rifle skill. An
offensive infantry uses much much less assault rifle, and is therefore not quite as natural to pick up.
The last thing I'd like to touch on is the choke game. CTFPL bases can always be divided into multiple choke points, and good teams will always play choke to choke. So be aware of how many teammates you have alive around you before pushing to the next choke, if you don't have the numbers, HOLD the choke, and wait for proper numbers to push.
In summary, it's very easy to get into the league. The notion that we are all a bunch of close-minded elitists is silly, we just don't want to waste our time on someone that isn't going to be a good prospect. Demonstrate that you have a buy macro, a proper equipment setup, and the desire to learn, and you'll find yourself starting in plenty of games right from the getgo.
Phenylephrine HCI 
Clique 
Gentlemen