Bombing Run

Bombing Run (abbreviated BR) is a team-based gametype introduced in Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004.
Gameplay
It can best be described as Unreal-style American football where the goal of the game is to grab the ball, take it through enemy territory, and score in the opposition's hoop. Players can pass the ball to other teammates by launching the ball to them. The ball carrier drops the ball when they are killed. Just like American football's scoring system, if the ball carrier manages to run through the goal or launch the ball into it, the ball carrier's team is awarded with 7 and 3 points respectively. The ball carrier regenerates 3 hit points per second until the traditional health limit (100) is reached, but the ball carrier cannot attack while in possession of the ball.
Bombing Run maps tend to have good open fields to pass, which include clever placement of ledges, platforms, etc. for trickjumping. These maps are usually quite big, which allows players to effectively retreat in order to defend one's own goal. Strategic weapon emplacements are also characteristic for the defenders to have an effective weapon to kill the ball carrier; the shock rifle and rocket launcher are favorites in BR and typically placed near the goal. BR maps are generally geometrically symmetric with a single axial plane of symmetry, although this is not always the case.
Origin
Bombing Run was added to UT2003 and UT2004 after the success of the mod FragBall for the original Unreal Tournament.
Unlike Bombing Run, FragBall does not prevent the player with the ball from using weapons. To throw the ball, players must equip the Impact hammer (Unreal Tournament's mêlée weapon). There are rarely FragBall servers online, and the single player play is acceptable but not spectacular. FragBall is most often played on LAN parties.
Unreal Tournament 3 did not carry on the Bombing Run game type, but was recreated in a mod by at least one small team called "The Reliquary". This 2-man mapper/coder team consisting of relic1974 and WarHead respectfully single-handedly brought the game back to UT3 (also known as Unreal Tournament 2007) with 10 maps. This included a to-scale but modern version of the infamous "Temple of Anubis" map along with a mixture of other older map remakes plus a variety of new custom maps.
Ball-handling and point system
There are several options that the player is faced with when they pick up the ball. The most instinctive option is to charge all the way to the enemy hoop while attempting to dodge every shot for survival. It is very dangerous, but if the player manages to score this way, the team's score increases by 7 or 3 points if they run through the hoop or launch the ball through it, respectively.
The ball can also be passed to a teammate. When this is done and the ball carrier scores, the ball carrier's points are again determined by the system. Half of the ball carrier's awarded points are also added to each teammate who had touched the ball during the possession. Hence, for example, if the ball carrier runs through the goal and receives 10 points, each teammate who touched the ball during the possession receives 5 points. If the ball is given to the opposition, the possession is over.
If the ball carrier is killed by an enemy player, the player receives 3 points for the kill plus 12 adrenaline. A ball carrier also receives 25 adrenaline when scoring a goal. In BR, the typical kill results in 2 adrenaline, as opposed to 5 adrenaline per kill in deathmatch (DM).
BR inculcates several key skills that are not predominant in the other gametypes of UT:
* Ball running
* Ball passing and receiving
* Field goal scoring
* Blocking
* Mid-air "catching" of the ball
Styles
* Standard: the most common style, which is all-around: getting the ball, passing, teamplay, and killing ball carriers and opponent defenders.
* Deathmatch (DM): the player attempts to score as many kills as possible during a match.
* BR-only or Ball running: with aggressive play for the ball, the player picks up the ball on several occasions and often passes it to teammates. Players who use this style do not kill much, and many of the cases are telefrags.
* Camping: the player stays put within their own territory, normally near the goal, in order to make their goal more difficult to score on.
* Ball spamming: spamming of projectile (non-hitscan) weapons (e.g. rockets, shock combos, flak balls) on the ball.
* Assrunning or Hunting: hunting specific enemies who are threats to the team's defense. Ball runners and DMers are the most common targets for hunting.
Instagib Bombing Run
Instagib Bombing Run is a variation of traditional Bombing Run which uses only the Shock Rifle and gives the players the ability to kill another player with one shot. Team damage is turned off so that one does not kill his/her own teammates. When reading posts in forums, normal BR versus instagib BR are often abbreviated IG BR (or iBR) and NW BR, for InstaGib and NormalWeapons. The instagib community once consisted of upwards of a dozen various clans and was extremely competitive. Of the dozen or so clans that once existed, only four remain somewhat active, Deadly Breed, ToD, ROTS, and TMWB. These were some of the very first clans as well.
iBR can be played with several mutators which allows for faster more dynamic gameplay and a lot more of blood is spilled during a match, because one shot kills. During the beginnings of iBR in the USA, servers were generally set to 135% speed, Translocator = True, Low Gravity, and .35 Air-Control. After a few years and the popularization of Arena maps, multi-wall-dodge became popular as well, but the gravity, speed, and air settings generally remain the same. Due to the combination of settings and the ability to dodge (a dodge in UT is the ability to suddenly jump to one side), one may see this form of iBR as a graceful ballet of skilled self passing and artful moves in an attempt to carry the ball through the goal.
Translocator
Whereas the default configuration for a Bombing Run server includes the , a personal teleporting device, some Bombing Run players prefer to play without it enabled. Advocates of TL-BR (Translocator Bombing Run) argue that the game is slow and easy without the Translocator, and that this makes the game boring to play, practically resembling TDM (Team DeathMatch). Non-TL players instead argue that having no translocator forces teams to work together to push the ball upfield, therefore putting more of an emphasis on shooting skills.
Map Types
There are two main map types that are popular for IG BR, which consist of what are known as the IGL maps, and Arena maps. IGL refers to the once popular but now defunct ladder website which allowed for tracking competition between both IG BR clans and other gametype clans. The IGL maps were the default maps that came with UT2k3 and eventually 2k4, and the arena maps were usually created by the user community (although some may argue that BR-Colossus is an arena map). The main difference between the competition maps and arena maps is that the competition maps contained corridors and hallways that allowed for much more secretive and graceful movements and rewarded a co-ordinated team approach, rather than the large arena maps which were essentially a large box with perhaps a few obstacles located here and there.
Boosting
Mastering a so-called boost-shot (throwing the ball and then shooting it with super shock rifle to correct its trajectory and increase its speed) is very important in Instagib Bombing Run. Also important is fast reaction and movement skill. So as to be able to pick up the ball without getting shot and score a goal or try to survive and pass it to a teammate which has a higher potency to score a goal. In addition, some of the more skilled players practice a tactic called "Player Boosting", where one is shot in the back and achieves a much higher speed, making him more difficult to hit. This is generally done to someone who is carrying the ball.
Catching
Catching is the ability to Translocate in the ball while it is out of possession of another player. The most effective way this is done is when someone has attempted to pass the ball to another player or has simply thrown it at the goal in an attempt to score 3 points. The player essentially grabs the ball out of the air when s/he materializes, thus stopping the progression of the ball and taking possession.
Strategy
Bombing Run is played out similarly in strategy, at times, to Capture The Flag due to its two team nature and the design of its maps. Yet, the fact that the ball carrier can't use weapons adds some elements of strategy over simply carrying the flag in CTF.
The best Bombing Run strategy is to pass the bomb frequently. Because the ball carrier is being hunted by the entire enemy team, that player's health is likely to be in serious jeopardy. By passing the bomb to healthier players, a team is ensured a longer run. The Ball Launcher's alt-fire is very useful for this purpose because it locks on to nearby teammates for a more accurate pass. Also, support is necessary for the Carrier to make it all the way to the enemy hoop. Lots of dodging is recommended for the Carrier. Usually everyone playing in the match will go for the ball carrier, so there isn't anyone staying behind to guard the hoop (this works because players respawn by their hoop, in the way of the Carrier).
If a ball carrier is being assaulted by the enemy in his own base, a good tactic is to throw the ball off the map so it will be reset farther away from the Hoop.
Offensively, many players use what is called "punting" to get across maps faster, or to shoot the ball in the enemy goal for 3 points from a greater distance. To punt, you must have a Shock Rifle in your inventory, and it must be the weapon that pulls up when you launch the ball. Simply launch the ball high into the air, and, while it is sailing, shoot it with the Shock Rifle. This will give the ball a great deal of additional momentum, which can easily be seen by practicing this strategy on BR-Colossus. Although the ball gets reset fairly shortly, so excessive punting is not possible.
Maps
The following is a list of Bombing Run maps (in alphabetical order):
* BR-Anubis
* BR-Bifrost
* BR-BridgeOfFate
* BR-Canyon
* BR-Colossus
* BR-DE-ElecFields
* BR-Disclosure
* BR-Icefields
* BR-Serenity
* BR-Skyline
* BR-Slaughterhouse
* BR-TwinTombs
The residual popularity of Colossus is a result of its position as the UT2k4 demo map, while the other maps are favoured due to their dynamic gameplay.

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