Tribes 2 // Mod Development Handbook GitHub

33 · AirKill

A training mod for one specific skill, by -=[cK]=-Broesmeli of the Cyberknights clan (http://www.cyberknights.ch).

   
Version 1.0 [mod-script]
Lineage Base — 66/176 .cs (37.5%) byte-identical to vanilla base; 0% to Classic
Ships as -mod Airkill
Scope 313 files: full script set (weapons/, turrets/, vehicles/, packs/), five dedicated training scripts

What “airkill” means

Not literal aircraft. An air kill is Tribes 2 slang for landing a disc hit on an opponent while both players are airborne — off a ski jump, mid-jet, or skiing a slope — a recognised trick shot the competitive community prized. The readme’s own phrasing confirms the reading [mod-script]:

“I created this MOD for train airkills.”

“Train” as a verb, not a noun. The mod exists to practise landing that specific shot, evidenced by five dedicated files — Training1.cs through Training5.cs, plus TrainingGui.cs — building a purpose-made practice interface rather than repurposing an existing gametype.

The readme’s other line of note is a bot-compatibility warning [mod-script]:

“DON’T PLAY WITH BOTS! They have problems with the INV-Stations!”

Confirmed base lineage

Fingerprinting all 176 .cs files: 66 (37.5%) are byte-identical to vanilla base, none match Classic. Key files by similarity: weapons/sniperRifle.cs at 95.6% (barely touched), weapons/disc.cs at 87.7% (moderate tuning — the disc is the air-kill weapon), player.cs and defaultGame.cs both around 87%.

The outlier: a rewritten station system

One file breaks the pattern sharply. station.cs is only 28.9% similar to base — by far the heaviest edit in the mod, against a background where almost everything else is a light tuning pass. A manual diff shows roughly 330 new lines appended, defining a custom Mobile Base Teleporter datablock and audio set, and rewiring StationVehiclePad::gainPower / losePower and the teleport-trigger logic.

This plausibly explains the readme’s bot warning: bot pathing expects stock inventory-station behaviour, and a rewritten teleport/power system is exactly the kind of change that would confuse it without touching anything a human player would notice as broken.

The rest of the mod’s weapons/, turrets/, vehicles/ and packs/ trees largely mirror stock item names rather than adding new content — the design effort concentrates on the disc and the station system, consistent with a mod built around one skill rather than a general overhaul.