40 Tips to Help You Become a 50. (Hardcore Mode a.k.a.

Man Mode)

1. When defending maps like Atacama Desert, Oasis, and Arica Harbor where you
know you'll be doing some heavy-duty armor control, use tanks or rockets to
make little craters in the ground where you want to put anti-tank mines. Craters
are an excellent way to help hide mines from enemies, improving your chances of
a successful kill or two. Shoot some seemingly random craters into the ground
and then fill them up.

2. Mines do not need to be lumped together. Get a feel for how far away they can
be from each other while still chain-detonating. By distancing them correctly, you
can cover a larger area of ground.

3. RELOAD, RELOAD, RELOAD, but ONLY when safe.

Even if you've only pulled the trigger once on a fresh clip, reload the first chance
you get. A shoot-out with an enemy could come down to who has those last 3
bullets in the clip. If you didn't reload, you may die, leaving your enemy alive, but
at 3% health. Safety first, kids. Reload.

4. Move like a spider. Creep. Move slowly and deliberately. Make sure that YOU
would be afraid of playing against yourself. Check around your corners and look
both ways before you cross the street. Safety first.

5. Go down with your ship. If you load up a tank, you stay in that bitch til she
goes up in flames. Same with choppers. You are guilty of betrayal of your
brothers and your country if you exit your armor and abandon it prematurely.
Even if it's about to blow, the enemy can always repair it.

6. Snipe back. If your team is getting slaughtered by one or two dickheads with
M95s sitting six miles back, find them. Find a good, inconspicuous bush or group
of trees or whatever cover you can find, and "sweep" the horizon, looking for
your snipers. Watch closely for their whitish-grey bullet trails and their bright
muzzle flashes. Be very, very patient, and eventually the sniper will reveal
himself. If you can't find him, you're fucked.

7. The Heartbeat Rule: You know the situation; you're taking fire from every
direction. You're in a direct firefight with another guy, and you're both hiding
behind corners of different buildings. You both wait about 3 seconds, then pop
out at the same time, firing like wild. Sometimes you kill him, sometimes he kills
you, and sometimes you both die. So here's the rule: from now on, when you get
that impulse that tells you to poke around the corner and shoot, wait an extra
heartbeat or two. It's not coincidence that you and the other guy often come out
from cover at nearly the same time. It's just instinct to wait a certain amount of
time before we get worried about losing a visual on our target. If you wait just that
extra second, your enemy will poke his head out first, he won't see you, and he
will start aiming his gun elsewhere. He will still be looking for you, though, so be
ready to blow him away as soon as you come clear from your cover.

8. Get the f@ck out of the doorway!! Most times, a person will slash open a
wooden door and rush right through. This rule is similar to the Heartbeat Rule.
Before you slash the door, you can't know who is inside and where, unless you
check all the windows first. Instead of doing that, slash the door, crouch, and take
a couple steps back. Just wait a second or two, then go in hot.

9. Spawn, drop. This is for Medics, Assaults, and sometimes Recons. The second
you spawn, drop what you got like it's hot. There's absolutely no reason not to
drop ammo or meds the very second you spawn.This can also go for recon guys
with motion mines. No reason at all not to. Just do it.

10. Grenades = the multi-purpose weapon of joy. BFBC2 is a creative game. We

are given loads of different types of resources and weapons to be creative with.
Grenades can be used for more than just blowing the hairless legs off those
punk-ass enemy soldiers. A well-placed grenade can kick up just enough dust for
you to safely cross the street while under light to moderate fire. Another great
use for grenades is detection of enemies. Enemy soldiers will shout out,
"Grenade!" if a thrown grenade lands close enough to them. Instead of going
upstairs blind without knowing if any enemies lie in wait, toss a grenade through
the window or bounce it off the wall near the stairs to make it land upstairs.
Listen carefully to hear if any enemies scream like bitches. Think of grenades as
a poor man's motion sensor mine.

11. Smoke: Use it. Smoke can get an entire team safely into enemy territory if
used properly. It's one of the best ways to get to a tricky M-Com Station to arm it
while under heavy fire. Smoke can also be used much the same way to disarm a
station while defending, since enemies will often have snipers ready to fire on
anybody trying to disarm an armed station. Most people underestimate the
usefulness of smoke, and are usually caught off-guard when a whole squad
moves quickly under a screen of smoke.

12. Communicate. Since you're a man and you're playing hardcore, you don't
have a map or orange markers showing you where enemies are. Because you
don't get any help that way, communicating with your squadmates is the best way
to have "eyes" everywhere.

13. Cut the nonsense. The battlefield is not the place to tell stories or make small
talk. Keep it clear, short and professional. "Heavy tank rolling in on far left side,"
is clear, concise, and informative. "Copy" or "Roger", or "Ten-Four" lets your
squadmate know that you heard him and understand the information he gave
you.

14. Call out the deaths. If you get shot, say, "I'm down", and if you can, let your
squadmates know where your killer is or at least which direction he shot you
from. Conversely, call out when you kill an enemy if he was buried deep in your
territory, or if he was a threat to your team. This lets your team know that they
don't need to hunt for him anymore.

15. Be the ultimate soldier. That doesn't mean end the game with a lot of points
and a super kill/death ratio. It means be a medic when your guys are going down,
be assault when your guys need ammo, be a sniper when your guys are being
sniped, and be an engineer when there's hostile armor around.

16. Common Sense: Battlefield is as much common sense as it is skill. We as

gamers get used to the strange, unnatural laws of video games, thus causing us
to set aside our common sense while controlling a virtual man with an assault
rifle. Battlefield is different, it's much more realistic than most war games and
follows more realistic natural laws. In BFBC2, common sense will save your life.
Use it.

17. Go by your instinct. Every time. It will save you.

18. Don't load up armor alone. If you take a heavy tank and roll into enemy
territory alone, you're dumb. You won't have another guy to jump out and do
emergency repairs, so you'll end up jumping out to do it yourself. Then you'll
either get shot, or a clever enemy will sneak up and jump in the tank while you're
outside of it. Choppers are even worse to take off in alone. They are designed to
have a pilot piloting, and a gunner gunning.

18. Use the buddy system. It works.

19. Learn to work with your team. If you're a badass and you get to the next
enemy base before the rest of your team, don't arm the crate and expect to take it.
One man usually can't arm a crate and keep it armed all by himself. If you find
yourself far ahead of your team, crouch, find a good, dark spot to wait, and stay
quiet. Wait for your team to catch up before you start shooting people and
making a lot of noise.

20. Noise - you guns make it. Don't spawn on your sniper squadmate and start
blasting with your M60. A sniper is meant to stay hidden, so by spawning on him
and shooting, you're exposing his position. This goes for tanks and buggies as
well. The machine gun on a tank doesn't damage other tanks, so there's no
reason for you to shoot recklessly and risk attracting the attention of enemy
engineers.

21. Spawn carefully. Don't spawn on your buddy, who's in the middle of a
firefight, then bitch because you "died right when I fucking spawned!!". Watch
your squadmate for a couple seconds first to see if he's in a spot that you can
spawn safely to.

22. Don't get greedy with ammo and health. Know when enough is enough. You
don't always need to be at full health or be completely stocked with ammo. Many
people die because they stay in the line of fire waiting to pick up another precious
grenade from the ammo box.

23. Don't get greedy with the knife. Only knife somebody if you KNOW that you
can. If he's more than 5 feet away, keep your gun trained on him and slowly
approach him, crouched, until you're within dogtag range. Then do the dirty.

26. The ol' switcheroo: When attacking, it is common for an entire team to try to
use brute force to gain ground and make it onto enemy turf. When this happens,
players will often take the same route every time, death after death, and get
nowhere. When this happens, just go a different way. If your whole team is trying
to break enemy lines on the left side of the map, that means that most of the
enemies are also there, trying to hold their lines. By switching your route, you
can catch the enemy off-guard and sometimes even gain easy ground. Do this
fairly often so your enemy cannot set up at strong defensive positions.

27. Match your gun to your setting. Don't enter a mostly close-combat map with a
sniper rifle. Much the same, don't enter a map like Harvest Day with wide open
landscape equipped with a PP2000 or any other short-range weapon. Become
comfortable using different guns at different distances.

28. Be an engineer to be sneaky. Don't underestimate the impact or, rather, lack
of impact, that using a silenced weapon can have. Sound is crucial to this game,
so the less you make, the better. You can take out a whole team if you're sneaky
enough with your Ump-45 or that nasty little Uzi.

29. Flank. There's a reason this tactic has survived for so long. It works. Come up
from behind your enemy or from the sides.

30. Stack your bodies. When disarming a crate, you raise your chances of a
successful disarm with every man you add. Snipers will be watching the crate,
ready to pick off any defenders trying to disarm. It makes a sniper's job much
tougher if he has to kill 4 men moving around the crate as opposed to just one.

31. Don't get stuck. Never get pinned down while trying to attack. If you're stuck
and cornered, just spawn at your base and try a different route. Firefights can
bring the movement of a squad to a standstill, which can be extremely dangerous
because of how fast tickets can be drained.

32. Helpful sniping vs. disgusting sniping. There's a huge difference. And there's
a pretty easy way to tell which kind of sniper you are; your scope. 12x scopes are
generally used by dirty bastards who actually need the extra scope magnification
because they're way the fuck out wherever, hunkered down for an entire game,
shooting at your head. This is called "dirty" or "disgusting" sniping. Another
huge reason NOT to use the 12x scope is because it's a safety hazard to you
(assuming you're not doing dirty sniping.) If you're a helpful sniper (finding
enemy snipers, stopping hard-to-see enemies, etc.), then you should not use the
12x. Since you're going to be right in the middle of the fight, you want to be able
to use your rifle at medium-to-short range just as much as long range. With a 12x
scope, you will have trouble using your gun at closer ranges. Stick with the stock
scope, and use a spec like lightweight or extra ammo to your advantage. Also,
don't be a bastard. Snipe for your team, not for yourself.

33. Powersquad: Medics. When you're in a pinch, you can use up to 3 medics in
one squad, and you'll be amazed how much you can accomplish. 3 medics and
one assault with smoke can get you in almost any tight area to arm or disarm a
crate, and can also help move your squad through though enemy lines. Power
squads: use them.

34. IED's: having tank trouble? When you're having trouble with an enemy tank,
try this: strap a minimum of 2 C4s to the front of a buggy or quad bike. Leave
your detonator equipped, and hop on. Drive as close as you can get to the enemy
tank, jump off about 20 feet early, wait for your vehicle to make contact or come
close to making contact with the tank, then detonate.
35. Learn how to hold a spawn. If you're the last man on your squad left alive,
don't try to kill enemies, arm crates, or switch kits. Just find cover and sit tight.
No matter what, stay alive.

36. Take a seat between repairs. When repairing armored vehicles such as
Bradleys and T-90s, exhaust your repair tool to the point of overheating, and
immediately get inside the vehicle. Many engineers will die because they stand
idle outside of the vehicle waiting for the cool down.

37. Use the assets given. If you've ever played Onslaught Mode, you've noticed
that if there's a mounted MG, there's an enemy on it. If you're in a tank, there's an
enemy on an AT Turret. It's very common for a tank to be blasting your team's
base, and even though there's an Anti-Tank Turret at the back of your base,
nobody is using it. Get in the habit of going for the turrets as soon as you see or
hear enemies approaching. A good run on a mounted MG can clear out whole
teams, and AT Turrets can quite easily take care of tanks (that's what they're
there for.)

38. The attic is a great place to defend a crate from. This mostly applies to
situations where the M-Com Station is in the second story of a house. Arm the
crate and immediately climb the ladder to the attic. From here, you can look down
and have a good view of the stairs. If you're an assault guy, toss some ammo
down for yourself and you can drop grenades down on the stairs. The enemy will
have a hell of a time getting in to disarm.

39. Use your ears. The sound design in this game is excellent; use that to your
advantage. Listen for footsteps and enemies communicating with each other.

40. Remember where your enemies are. When you die, take note of where your
killer is (if you can). Often, people won't relocate, and you can sneak around to
where you know he is and potentially get fresh dog tags.

-Agent Quiet Shepherd, FBI