Note: This is MY guide, and not all of the tips I will include are supported by Irritant. And this is intended for players who aren't the best at AA, and wish to become better. Finally, these aren't in order. With that said...


1. Stay in motion. A moving target is much harder to hit than one standing motionless. Plus, some servers have anticamp running, so if you stay in the same place for too long, then you suicide. If you are unsure if a server is running anticamp, then DON'T CAMP, just to be sure. And even if a server isn't running anticamp, DON'T CAMP!

2. Teamkilling=BAD! Teams are displayed by the colored orbs above the player. Your team is displayed by the colored bar at the bottom of your screen. If the orbs match the color of this bar, then DON'T SHOOT THAT PLAYER!

3. Get new weapons. If you're caught running around with a blaster, you're most likely going to die. But if you have a better weapon, like a rocket launcher or a chaingun, you can unleash pain on your enemies, and your frag rate will shoot up.

4. Use powerups! Even if you don't like using them, powerups can turn the tides in a seemingly hopeless game. The most powerful powerups is (arguably) the quad damage. As the name implies, this multiplies all damage done by your weapons by 4. Of course, there's also sproing (jump really high), haste (jump really far), and invulnerability (you won't die), but the quad damage makes even the blaster a force to be reckoned with. This being said, some weapons are better with the quad than others. For example, the disrupter may be very powerful with the quad, but it's still pretty hard to land hits for some people. The weapons that I find the best with the quad are the chaingun/shotgun, beamgun, and rocket launcher. These inflict massive damage with the quad. But be warned, the rocket launcher's blast radius is much larger with the quad, and it's alot easier to kill yourself! Below is a table calculating the amount of hits required to kill an opponent from each weapon, quad and no quad (thanks Danger!)

Weapon	Without Quad	With Quad
Blaster	4 hits	1 hits
Blaster Alt	10 hits	3 hits
Rocket Launcher	1 hit	1 hit
Rocket Launcher Alt	1 hit	1 hit
Beamgun	4 hits	1 hit
Beamgun Alt	5 hits	2 hits
Chaingun	5 hits	2 hits
Chaingun Alt (Close Range)	1 hit	1 hit
Chaingun Alt (Mid Range)	2 hits	1 hit
Chaingun Alt (Mid-Long Range)	3 hits	1 hit
Smartgun (bad shot)	3 hits	3 hits*
Smartgun (well-placed shot)	1 hit	1 hit
Smartgun Alt	2 hits	1 hit
Disruptor	2 hits	1 hit
Disruptor Alt	1 hit	1 hit
Vaporizer	1 hit	1 hit
Vaporizer Alt	1 hit	1 hit
Flamethrower	1 hit	1 hit
Flamethrower Alt	1 hit	1 hit
Grapple	5 count	4 count**
Grapple Alt	1 count	1 count

*The conditions of my first electricity test were hard to replicate, so this value could actually be much smaller.
**This value could be because of fluctuations in my counting speed, and not due to any impact caused by the quad.

5. Use alt fires. Every single weapon in Alien Arena has an alt fire. Be it a small instant hit ray, a sniper mode, or even a shotgun, mastery of the alternate fires is crucial. Make sure that you know the location of your alt fire button, and make sure that it's easy to hit, because you're gonna need it. A complete list of alt fires is as follows:

Blaster: a short little ray, instant hit, but very weak
Alien Smartgun: a mine
Chaingun: a shotgun VERY USEFUL!
Flamethrower: fiery bombs
Rocket launcher: homing missiles (need cells)
Disrupter: sniper mode, does more damage
Beamgun: a blast, similar to the Blaster's regular fire
Alien Vaporizer: a huge bomb
Grapple hook: a shorter grapple designed to kill people

6. The grapple hook. You may have overlooked this simple tool, but it can do so much on the battlefield. Not only can it take you to hard to reach places, but it can KILL PEOPLE! That's right, you can actually latch onto people and kill them. But be warned. Some people don't like players who use the grapple to get the flag faster, just so they can have a higher score. It can sometimes feel cheap. But you don't have much of a weapon to defend yourself, so it balances itself out. But that doesn't stop people from not liking it.

7. Movement. Moving frequently may be important, but it isn't the only important thing with moving. First of all, you need to move with DEPTH (don't just move left and right) when locked in battle with someone. They will find it harder to hit you, and you'll have a better chance of living. Also, bunnyhopping is very useful. To bunnyhop, just jump, and continue to jump right when you hit the ground. Not only can you go at very high speeds like this, but it makes it EVEN HARDER to hit you. And here's another little tidbit. If you jump while pressing the keys that make you move left or right, you'll jump farther. Good for clearing that bottomless pit. But perhaps the most important thing to remember is to MOVE UNPREDICTABLY! If you're opponent can't figure out where you're going to move next, you have the advantage over them. All the tips above used correctly can make you as hard to hit as you could ever want.

8. Learn your opponents. When playing someone, make sure to learn their strategies (favorite weapon, path through the map), so that you can predict where they're going to be AND find the best way to kill them. It's also important to make it harder to predict yourself, though. For example, become skilled with every weapon in the game, and take different paths through the maps every time, so that you can't get predicted, and you can take your opponent off guard.

9. LEARN THE ARSENAL! So, you can kill someone. You move perfectly. You use alt fires. You grapple people to death. You don't camp or teamkill. But if you don't know when you should use certain weapons, you're a walking target. Learn when and where to use your weapons, and you'll be good to go. Weapons have secrets, too, but I won't disclose these secrets. You have to experiment with the arsenal and find them out. I'm not here to tell you everything, I'm just here to get you off to a solid start.

10. Better you have the items than your opponent. It's very important and helpful to be the one who gets all the weapons and powerups, so that you're adversary can't. Won't that make your job easier? What you should do is time your passing so that you get the newly spawned weapon/powerup before your opponent has a chance to. Won't it be easier to kill someone when they have a blaster, but you have a beamgun/quad? If you answered no...then change your answer to YES!

Lastly...

11. HAVE FUN! Seriously, this is a legit tip. You won't play well if you're discouraged and annoyed, but you will play well if you keep it cool, and have a good time. This is perhaps the most important tip in this entire guide, because it helps no matter what you're doing. When someone owns you with a rocket, congratulate them. When you jump off a cliff, laugh about it. Not only will you have fun and do better, but we'll like you more.


Wow, that exhausted all my thinking cells. I hope that the newer players find my guide helpful, because it contains tons of tips that I've pioneered in AA and other games. Plus, it's self updating. Whenever I think of something new, I'll add it! How awesome!

Well, that's all for now, hope to see you guys in the arena.