I play Team Fortress fairly often.  My main class is Engineer.  Engineer is dependent upon and to some extent controls the movements of the team.  Engineer is also the class upon which any defense in this game rests.  Without a good engineer, any competent team will defeat any other otherwise competent team, period. 

Dustbowl is the best TF2 map, and was the 3rd best TFC map (after Murderball and Hunted).  It’s also the most infuriating to see people not understanding how it works.  So here is an explanation of how to defend at dustbowl.  I will start with section 1, and if I feel like it move on to sections 2 and 3, and then maybe to other maps. 

I will also include instructions for how to destroy each of these guns.  (In other words: ways in which people owned me.)  Spy can always take a sentry, of course, but I’ve noted if a location is particularly vulnerable.  And of course there are ubers. 

Here we go:

TF2 Attack-Defend maps are defended by smart sentry placement and fast work by Engineers.  The engineer cannot do it alone, of course…every good sentry location has vulnerabilities, and an engineer can only fend off one attack at a time.  The engineer’s job is to set up their gun in such a way that most ways to get to the point will result in immediate death for the attacker.  The rest of the team has two jobs:  defend the routes that the engineer has left open, and defend the engineer from attack.  If you’re not playing engineer, that is all you need to know…look at where the sentry can’t shoot, and go there, or stay near the engineer.  So this post will mostly concern the engineer.  I will also discuss how to destroy a sentry in each of these locations.

What you see above is a list of sentry locations.  The letters are the locations where your first two sentries should go.  If sentries 1 and 2 are not in these locations, you lose.  The numbers are places I will talk about, and are generally not places you want your gun to be. 

A:  If you have only one gun in the first half of Dustbowl 1, it should go here, on the bridge right outside the doorway to the barn containing the point.  OUTSIDE the door, not INSIDE.  Build it inside and I will burn both you and it to death as a pyro, and neither of you will ever see me.  It covers the entrance to the point, it covers most of the point itself, and it covers the back entrance to the point.  Note that it is still possible to sneak around the back if you go fast enough or if the gun is distracted, so the rest of the team should guard this route.  A well-defended engie in this spot has set up a meat grinder. 

To destroy this gun:  use a soldier or a sniper from the far right hand side of the map.  A sniper should shoot the engineer first, a soldier should shoot at the dispenser first.  Demos can maybe hit this from the trench, but it’s not quite as sure a thing.  Spies can try to sap the gun from the front, but better is to use the engineer’s teleporter (which they should have built in the tunnel behind them) to sneak up behind them, stab them, then redisguise while sheltered behind the engineer’s dispenser.  A pyro, if he can slip past the gun, can fry it from down below the bridge. 

B:  If you have a second gun, or for some reason can’t build on point A, build here on the stairs in the corner of the barn.  This is sheltered from almost every direction, covers the point better than any A, but can’t cover the approaches to the point. 

To take down this gun, use any class (pyro, soldier, demo, and heavy are probably best) and jump on the wagon wheel, then on the deck on the side of the barn, and shoot into the doorway.  Spies work better on B than on A, because there’s more than one direction to come from, and there is more traffic through that spot, so it’s harder to spot a spy and harder to kill them.

A demo can shoot through the doorway from down in the trench, but is more likely to be picked off as he’s trying it, and aiming is harder from there.  The front door is a little tougher, as you’re very exposed, since you have to go to the right side of that doorway.

C:  This is not a spot you should use unless you can’t use A or B, or you’ve got 3 or more engies.  It does not cover the point at all, but covers the approaches pretty well, it is hard to hit from a distance, and it provides good cover for the engineer. 

The way to take this gun down is to come around the corner as a pyro and circle the gun.  It might take two tries if killing the engineer delays you long enough for the gun to hit you.  Demo can also hit it from the trench. 

1:  This is a tempting location for a sentry gun, either on top of or inside the resupply shack.  It is not a good spot, though, it’s way too easy to take out as virtually any class.  It can’t cover the sides of the barn that it’s on, and the door is so close that an attacker can get right by without the gun even noticing them.  Don’t do it.

D:  In part 2, this is the first place you should put a gun.  It covers the point entirely, obviously, and it is quite well-sheltered. 

The ways to take this gun out are: 

Rockets from the patio/roof area to the left of points G F and E.  (Sniper will work too if the engineer was stupid enough to build their gun where it is exposed to this direction)  You want to hit the floor as close to the gun as you can.  You’ll probably get the engie first. 

Spy:  people come and go all the time, there are plenty of places to escape and hide, and the engineer is probably running around and exposing himself to attack.

Demo:  From the platform and doorway right outside the tunnel gate.  The gun can’t hit you until you come down the stairs, and you have indirect fire and splash damage. 

Pyro:  Either rush in down the stairs while the gun is shooting someone else or come around through the main entrance to the point, and circle around the gun (if the gun is built too far forward this is possible). 

E:  This is the second best point in this section.  It barely covers the point at all, but covers every approach to it quite well.

Take this gun out by using Sniper, Demo, or Soldier from the gate, or by rushing around the silo and circling the gun as Pyro.  It’s also very vulnerable to spies. 

F:  This location has pretty good coverage, but is pretty exposed to attack.  Most classes can take this by using indirect fire, or charging when it is distracted. 

G:  This doesn’t have quite the coverage F does, but it is sheltered from attack in any direction except the lower tunnels and the patio. 

A pyro can come around the corner from inside the stairwell, assuming there is no gun on E or F. 

2:  This may seem like a tempting location, and it is very desirable for Blu to hold it.  But if you put your gun here, it is not covering the point, nor is it covering the other approaches to the point.  If Blu comes up against a sentry in here, they should IGNORE it and focus on the other routes.   Note that the end of this tunnel is an excellent place for a BLU sentry. 

3:  These locations are utterly worthless.  They look good, and if you use the Wrangler you’ll get good coverage, but no one wrangles as well as the gun shoots on its own, and without the wrangler, everything you want to shoot is out of range.  They WERE the best locations in Team Fortress Classic, but the point has moved. 

Something to consider when placing a sentry at all of these locations is the red highlighted areas.  Any place highlighted in red is somewhere that an enemy can hit you, but you can’t hit them.  You want to have as little of that as possible while covering your objective as well as possible.  Those red areas are also where the rest of your team should be if they are not with you. 

I grabbed the overview map from Teamfortress.com, the rest are my screenshots.

Stupid bullshit in Craigslist car ads.  Updated to fix some conflicts that made rows impossible to win. 

I had felt like doing this for a while, a portrait of Bill Nye during his debate with Ken Ham.  There was that one shot they used a few times, with Nye, eyes shaded as he stands in the background watching Ham, which was just completely badass. 

I kind of messed up on the proportions, made the bottom of the face (middle of the nose on down) a little too short.  I had earlier messed up the top of the head, making it too big.  The combination of the two made him look like Ron Paul (making the nose a little rounder would have completed it).  Anyway, I tweaked it a bit in Paint Shop Pro.

I selected these colors because of compatibility with red-green color blindness. 

There are three different animals, in three different colors.  (they were all drawn in blue, and yes the cat is supposed to look like Doraemon).  I have since gotten way better at drawing animals, but these do work.

This is a set of cards I made for a story time at the Yokota Air Base Library (and fuck you, Kay, I drew them at home) to practice Boolean logic with toddlers.  The idea is to give them sets of criteria with which to select cards.  Like “pick all the cards that are both cats and are blue” or “all the dogs and cats that are not red,” and you get different sets of cards.  2 year olds can do this; but they can only handle up to 2 operators, and between 6 and 9 cards, not the full 18.  Older kids can do all of them.

It went pretty well, the parents were impressed, both at the idea and that their babies could do it.

Put together some avatar sized gifs.  some new frames made to make some of them loop.

Often enough in settings like right-wing online discussions, middle schools, racist cartoons, and terrible (usually old) movies and TV shows, you’ll see mangled English from characters alleged to be or from people who think they are pretending to be Chinese.  The issue I take with this kind of thing is that it rarely sounds like an actual Chinese person.  It usually takes a bunch of 100 year old racist Chinese stereotypes, and things that are actually true about Japanese and Korean speakers but not about Chinese speakers. 

I’ve been living in China a while, and I have observed some patterns in how Chinese people actually speak.  These come from speakers of a variety of dialects, most of which are either mutually intelligible or almost mutually intelligible with Mandarin.  I’ve made no attempt to separate them.  Most of them are more related to grammar (which is relatively uniform in how it works between most dialects, AFAIK) rather than usage (which varies wildly).  Everything here is something I’ve heard an advanced student or a Chinese person who teaches English do.  Some of these are true of most second-language English speakers.  Some of these are more pet peeves, but some might be generally useful in writing believable characters.

1.  In simple past tense sentences, instead of saying, for example “I traveled,” or “We traveled,” a Chinese person (especially a novice English speaker) might say “I was travel,” or “we were travel."  Not "I was traveling,” “I was travel.”

2.  Phrases illustrating time and place of an event or action get put at the beginning of the sentence or after the subject rather than the end.  “I at home ate dinner” rather than “I ate dinner at home." 

3.  When asking what something is, instead of saying "What is THING?” they’ll say “THING is what?"  This is a direct translation from the Chinese "shi shenme,” which goes at the end of a sentence. 

4.  Instead of saying “sing,” they will say “sing a song."  This probably comes from some dictionary entry that traveled well, combined with the fact that in Chinese you almost always say "chang ge” (sing song), rather than just “chang” (sing). 

5.  Chinese speakers, even relatively advanced ones, often mix up “of” and “for,” especially replacing “of” with “for,” but it can go both ways.  This happens when speaking or writing sometimes, but will happen almost every time when they’re reading something aloud.  (YES, EVEN IF THEY ARE LOOKING AT IT.) 

6.  Instead of saying “Do you know about ____?” they’ll often make a statement about what they’re talking about and then say “Does anyone know that?”

7.  Jiaozi (potstickers) are “dumplings."  Technically they are, but that’s the ONLY meaning for "dumpling” that they know. 

8.  “Noodle” means Chinese-style noodles, and does not include pasta, even spaghetti. 

9.  They mix up subject and object pronouns.  Instead of “She hit him,” they’ll say “Her hit he,” or “She hit he,” or some permutation thereof.  It’s usually replacing an object pronoun (him, her, me) with a subject (he, she, I). 

10.  They mix up “he” and “she,” and sometimes “it."  In Mandarin, there are three separate object pronouns for those…but while they have different characters, they are all pronounced "ta."  Makes it a little tough for ‘em.

11.  They misuse the word "fine."  A native speaker when asked "how are you doing?” might answer “I’m fine."  A Chinese speaker (and many other non-native speakers for that matter) might ask "Are you fine?"  (At least they can pronounce the F…Koreans might say "Are you pine?”)

12.  Plurals.  Chinese doesn’t have them as such, so a Chinese speaker will often use a singular form when they mean more than one. 

13.  Chinese speakers have trouble with the implicit subject “it."  They will often simply omit it:  "Is raining” instead of “it is raining."  Or they may circumlocute around it:  "I have pain” instead of “it hurts."  The latter case is more likely when the Mandarin equivalent works that way, as in the case of "I have pain."  ("Wo you teng.”)

14.  Countable and non-countable nouns.  They’ll use “many” for non-countable nouns (“many water”), or less commonly “much” for countable ones (“much students”). 

15.  “Always don’t” instead of “never."  "How come you always don’t?” This comes from “conglai bu VERB” which means “always no VERB." 

16.  Chinese have trouble with English vowels, especially American English ones.  They will often make the following things sound the same: short "a” and “e” sound the same; short “e” and “i;” short “o” and “u;” short “i” and long “e” (bitch beach); long “i” and short “o."  Note that any one person will not have ALL of these problems, usually just 2 or 3. 

17.  A less common problem with pronunciation is treating written English as though it were written in Pinyin.  "X” becomes a sound like an English “sh;” short “e” sounds become like the German “e” (halfway between an English short “e” and short “u”); and “q” becomes “ch.”

18.  Articles; Chinese doesn’t have them, so Chinese speakers have trouble with them.  They’re more likely to use the wrong article than to omit them entirely, but both can happen.

19.  “Another” is often misused, usually in place of “other,” probably because of dictionaries giving it as synonymous with “bie de” in Mandarin (and equivalents in other dialects).  So you get sentences like “I am going to wear my another coat.”

20.  Helping verbs, they’re often omitted or misused.  The auxiliary verbs (have, has, had, do, does did, etc.) do not have an equivalent in Chinese (most functions AFAIK are handled via particles, which aren’t the same thing).  So you get sentences like “What you think about X?” or “What you did last night?"  or "Are you at the party yesterday?”

21.  On the subject of time expressions; instead of saying “last night,” they’ll often say “yesterday night."  Makes sense, but sounds weird.  Also "week before” instead of “last week.”

22.  A less common one, but I’ve heard it a few times, and never heard it outside China:  “chicken” and “kitchen” are more or less interchangeable.

23.  Long E sounds at the end of words sometimes sound like they have an “n” or “ng” at the end.  This is obviously a problem with numbers:  thirteen vs. thirty, for instance.  I see this most in my students, who are mostly from Beijing; so I think this might be related to “erhua,” an R sound that’s added to many words.  The tongue motion is similar, if they’re used to always doing that, it could be tough to stop. 

24.  “Does there have THING” vs. “Do they have THING there?"  Again, this is almost directly translating the Chinese word by word.

Some don'ts:

1.  No Yoda-speak.  Chinese word order is, in most cases, the same as English.  It goes Subject Verb Object…it’s mostly prepositional phrases and questions that are different; and putting verbs after objects is a Japanese and Korean thing. 

2.  Most Chinese speakers have no trouble at all with Rs and Ls.  I hear some Cantonese dialects don’t have the distinction, but at most that’s a few tens of millions of speakers out of more than a billion.  If your story isn’t set in Hong Kong or Guangzhou, don’t do this.  

3.  Referring to oneself exclusively as "me,” as in “Me Chinese, me play joke…"  They’re far more likely to replace "me” with “I” than “I” with “me."  "I” is the one everyone learns first, so they rely on that one more.  Besides usually being wrong, it is reminiscent of a bunch of racist old shit that should die.  Don’t do this unless they’re Bizarro Chinese. 

That’s what I’ve got for now.  If you’re writing a Chinese character, that might be enough to make them convincing. 

I bought a Xiaomi Hongmi.  Then I bought a FAKE Hongmi.  I took pictures.  Don’t buy a fake Hongmi. 

That’s the cheap phone from Chinese phone maker Xiaomi.  The real one has the best specs you can get for the money; from an HTC or Samsung you’re spending at least 2x the price to get anything similar.  The fake one, not so much.

These two kind of set the standard for the third set, I think.  Neither one was something that could be done with the fat end of the marker without sucking. 

zebra and zipper, obviously