Introduction

Rapid Response Team (RRT) is a fast-paced style of gameplay within the 666th Devil Dogs. It is more commonly known in other outfits as a Quick Reaction Force (QRF). Signature differences from standard squad play include frequent galaxy drops, point holds, beacon drops, and sundy-busting. RRT are the first ones on point. RRT steals bases. RRT only gets kicked off a point from overwhelming enemy numbers. RRT doesn’t follow the zerg - we direct the zergs by [back]capping points and taking out enemy spawn points and armor columns when necessary.

Basic Rules

Don’t have time to read up the full RRT guide? Just keep these simple rules in mind.

  1. Keep up: RRT works because all squad members are where they are supposed to be. When you squad leader calls for you to redeploy, you hit that redeploy key immediately. Every second matters in RRT.
  2. Stay put: When the call goes out to hold an area, stay indoors and close by whenever possible. Do not go wandering off where the squad medics can’t reach you. In addition, wait for a revive when you die. In many situations where RRT operates, we don’t have the luxury of easy spawn points. Spawning at a sunderer across the base will just result in your death and reduced squad strength.
  3. Bacon: AKA the Squad Beacon. Every RRT squad member is expected to be able to place a beacon. That beacon can easily be the difference between holding a point and getting wiped. If you are alive and we need to place the beacon, volunteer! In some critical situations, we won’t have the luxury of waiting, and anyone alive will simply be told to place beacon anywhere ASAP. Remember that maxes cannot place beacons. To reduce confusion, we use the following terms: Bacon is crispy (beacon is active) and Bacon is burnt (beacon needs to be replaced).
  4. Squad Composition: When in doubt, ask your squad leader. In general, a full-ish squad will have 3 medics, 2-3 engineers, 1 infi, and the rest heavies.
  5. Comms: RRT usually runs with stricter comms. Medics should always call out if they’re down (and mention where!). For other classes, it is squad-dependent. Other valid callouts: breaches, buildup of enemies in a specific direction, flanker in a window/higher elevation, max that needs repairs from an engineer, anything related to the beacon. Invalid callouts: “I need heals”, “watch out”, “I’m down”.

Classes and Loadout

Heavy Assault

RRT heavies are the first one in the door, leading the charge. During a point hold, cover major areas that no engineer turret is covering (windows, stairs). If there is an enemy MAX, get your rocket launcher or C4 ready. Heavies will be asked to take out any vehicles/aircraft, and will frequently be ordered to take an exposed point while the rest of the squad waits in safer cover.

Medic

Your job as a medic in RRT is to keep everyone alive. Watch your minimap for dead bodies. Cover a different area than other medics in the squad. If you run out of revive grenades and it looks quiet, feel free to redeploy if there is a beacon available. A single revive grenade can easily change the tide of battle.

However, do NOT run around with your med tool as your primary weapon. Assault rifles are deadly in closer quarters, and reviving an ally just for them to be instagibbed is not helpful for anyone involved. Medics should generally stay back and let heavies take the brunt of the damage, but you can be opportunistic and pick up quite a few kills by playing it safe.

Most importantly, if you die as a medic, call it out to the squad (“medic down double doors”). RRT cannot function without medics. In terms of priority, revive in this order: medics, Maxes, heavies, and then everyone else.

Engineer

Engineers watch major firing lanes, keep maxes repaired, and to keep the squad topped up on ammo. In addition, the engineer is the primary smoker for the team as they can have unlimited ammo. Keep in mind that at max rank, you can throw down two ammo packs to cover more of the squad.

You should place AI turrets at the top of stairs, or covering hot doorways. If you are covering a door, you should generally be farther back so you don’t get grenaded or C4’ed, and it also opens up more firing lanes for allies.

Infiltrator

RRT Infiltrators have two main jobs: recon and hacking terminals. RRT usually does not have the luxury of bringing up a sundy from an adjacent base, so it is up to the infiltrator to hack out a sundy when possible to help the squad recover, and perhaps more importantly, allow pubbies to push with us. In addition, if the squad is definitely about to be overrun, infils should run out and stay hidden, potentially allowing a clutch beacon to bring the entire squad back.

Light Assault

Light assaults do not see much use in RRT. The one exception is that light assaults have been used to place beacons on top of towers to make it difficult to remove. If you want to play light assault, you better be damn good at it, and you should alway seek the permission of the squad leader to do so.

MAX

Maxes are used to break enemy point holds, or to give extra staying power when holding our own point. When you need repairs, call out to a friendly engineer. If the engineer was on a turret, it is your job to cover the same firing lane.

Want to know more? RedeemerBlood has a great guide specifically for maxes.

Camo

RRT wears yellow camo - Shatter Camo is a good option.

Shatter Camo

Spawning

RRT uses many different types of spawning to get back into the action as fast as possible. Here’s a quick guide:

“Direct spawn [Tawrich Depot]”

This means you should have a spawn point directly at a base. Sometimes, the spawn point will go away due to overpop on the base in question. In that case, you should spawn-hop, or ask the squad leader for a beacon. To increase spawn-hopping speed, you can hit your redeploy key 1-2 seconds after your loading screen pops up. This starts the redeploy countdown timer even though you’re still in the loading screen.

“Spawn on [Galaxy/Valk/Sunderer]”

Standard spawn rules apply. If you’re too far away from the Galaxy or Sunderer, you may not be able to spawn, and you may need to either spawn-hop, or sometimes it is more efficient to pull a valk (but check with your squad lead first!).

“Redeploy”

This means you should hit your redeploy key (U by default) immediately. You should not wait until you die. It does not matter if there are still enemies around. The squad leader may have information you don’t, and we’re probably trying to save another base.

“Recall”

This means that you should redeploy to the warpgate. This is usually followed by a call for one or more maxes (they cannot direct spawn into a galaxy). Somebody should volunteer and call out to pull the galaxy, and then wait to pick up the maxes.

Once you spawn in, you should head out the left door to what’s known as “Left Parade Ground”. On Esamir, Amerish, and Hossin, this is what it should look like. Unfortunately this video is from my previous outfit - we’ll have to record a new video with [666] tags someday.

Common Squad Compositions

RRT has several standard squad compositions we use when the situation demands.

Standard Loadout (or Point Hold)

By far the most common RRT loadout: 3 Medics, 2-3 Engineers, 1 Infiltrator, remaining heavies. Engineers cover stairs with turrets, heavies cover any other doors and windows, medics stay defensive, infi does recon.

MAX Pen

Standard loadout, except heavies swap out to maxes. Pull Galaxy from warpgate and go to left parade ground for pickup.

Sundy busting

Standard loadout, except bring extra C4, tank mines, etc. Infil not necessary, and you should feel free to swap to light assault if that makes it easier.

RAT pack (Rapid Anti-Tank)

This is a harasser squad. Everyone should be an engineer, and each harasser should have 2 people in it. With a large enough squad, at least one harasser should be a Walker for AA, and everyone else should go Mjolnir, Halberd, or Enforcer. Usually this is used as a morale booster when there aren’t many good fights, and to also clear out any armor/sunderer nests. Use Stealth, fire suppression, and even mine guard if applicable. GSD is useful in certain bases - you should equip this based on your area of operations.

Anti-Armor/Anti-Air (Tactical Interdiction Teams, or TITS)

Drop the squad on high ground overlooking an armor column. Heavies with lock-on rocket launchers, engies with AV turrets, one medic (you can “snipe” with Reaper or A-Tross), possibly AV/AA maxes if given enough time.

Sundy Ball

Cheap, versatile, and self-sustaining loadout. Squad should be all engineers, with basilisks (and possibly a few walkers). Should have 1-2 blockade sundy leading the way, 1 ammo sundy, and 2 repair sundies. This is usually only a thing during combined Ops, as RRT usually likes infantry play more.

Galaxy: The Majestic Sky Whale

Galaxies are so important to RRT that they deserve an entire section here. Many of the notes here can also apply to Valks.

Loadout

In limited situations where you know you are ditching the galaxy into a heavily contested zone, you can consider Composite armor or Stealth. However, RRT switches AO’s so frequently (many times even in-flight) that it’s usually not worth it. The standard galaxy loadout will survive 95+% of drops.

Volunteering

When the squad leader calls for a galaxy, you should confirm with your name: “binarypenguin has [alpha] galaxy”. If there are multiple simultaneous callouts, the squad leader can pick who should pull the galaxy.

Spawning a Galaxy

Learn how to directly spawn vehicles from the death/redeploy screen. We don’t have time to wait for you to run to the air terminal, especially at a base like a tech plant.

Flying

To achieve the fastest speed when flying a galaxy, you should tilt your nose down by about 30 degrees and hold spacebar. This engages the vertical thrusters and converts it into forward speed. If you do not have a waypoint yet, climb and get some altitude to burn off later (flying down increases your speed). You should be flying at around 183KPH (max racer frame) when flying in a straight line with this method, versus around 160KPH without spacebar.

If you already have a waypoint, you can choose to fly low (less time for AA to track you) or high (harder for ground AA to hit you). Generally low is the correct way to go, as you can use mountains and hills to block ground-based AA. In addition, you should look at the map to try to fly around any hot zones. Galaxies maintain their course when there is no input (unlike Valks), so it is usually safe to pull up the full map to look around.

Drops

The galaxy pilot (or sometimes the squad leader) will call out for drops when the squad is in the galaxy. In general, you should be dropping your passengers off as low as possible instead of way up high. Since RRT is about speed and precision, the 10 second drop time is not helpful, nor is bouncing your passengers all over the map if they hit any non-flat surface or obstacle on the ground.

One of the most common mistake during drops is changing the trajectory of the galaxy right before a drop, which results in flinging your occupants all over the base. This can be fatal to the squad, and should be avoided. For novice pilots, the best way to handle drops is to just keep flying. Do not slow down over the drop point, and rely on your passengers to drop on your command / drop on waypoint.

For advanced pilots: flinging is caused by pulling up your galaxy as your approach the drop zone, or sometimes even rolling your galaxy. For safe drops, maintain existing altitude when approaching the drop zone, or wait until the galaxy is stable before calling for a drop. With enough experience, you can hit your analog throttle key to slow your galaxy so it is perfectly over point.

Tactics

Drops and Breaching

When breaching a doorway, or dropping down from somewhere: toss grenades first to soften up the enemy, and then heavies and maxes always go first. Medics should hang back to revive people (up to and including throwing a speculative revive grenade on hot points).

Smoke

RRT loves using smoke to blind enemy forces. By default, RRT squad members should run with HS/NV scopes. Engineers (and sometimes medics) should run Hunter QCX with smoke darts as their secondary weapon. You can also use underbarrel grenade launchers.

Keep in mind, maxes and engineers cannot see through smoke, so make sure you aren’t hurting the team more than you are helping.

If you are a squad leader, make sure that you’re clear on whether the squad is running a smoke or non-smoke loadout. HS/NV scopes take 1.6x longer to activate, limit your FOV, and make it so you can’t see cloaked infils.

Recon Darts

Information is king, so we always need some form of recon darts or motion spotter up when we hold a point. Infiltrators have a built-in slot for this (recon darts or motion spotter), but engineers and medics can also equip a Hunter QCX with recon darts to help out.

Tech plants

We always drop to the balcony. Squad leaders make sure there is a beacon on the landing pad side towers. Is it easiest to drop on the large landing pad on top, which allows for beacon placement too. With the right galaxy pilot, you can also drop directly onto the balcony. Alternatively, you can “thread the needle” to provide some cover from A2G, and place the beacon on the middle level.

Once inside, the squad should pull a few sunderers in the vehicle bay (at least 1 repair sundy) to prevent tunnel ambushes.

Single-point Amp stations

Amp stations are slowly being converted to 3-points, but there are still a few single-point amp stations out there. Use GSD sunderers to charge straight through (with a mineguard sundy leading the way), and pull extra repair sundies once inside to keep everything healed up.

Bio labs

For a proper bio lab steal, we need to take out the Generator, then SCU, before touching all the points. Once the base timer starts ticking, enemies can spawn in as reinforcements - thus, we aim to have the SCU down before having the base tick down. The squad should take and hold one point to prevent any backcaps.

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