Tribes 2 // Mod Development Handbook GitHub

36 · tac2 — Team Aerial Combat 2

Not “tactics” — Team Aerial Combat 2, subtitled “The Ground Assault” — a vehicle-only aerial combat conversion maintained long enough to ship its own Linux builds (section 21).

   
Full name Team Aerial Combat 2 — The Ground Assault [mod-script]
Lineage Base — defaultGame.cs 75.5% similar to base, 68.5%/62.8% to Classic 1.1/1.5.2
Version span v0.40 through v0.92, per bundled installers and patch archives
Linux builds tac2-040-042-linux.zip, tac2-040-043-linux.zip — see 21 · Linux
Scope 1379 files at its latest snapshot (tac2 updated 02-20-10), 196 mission files

Lineage and maintenance history

defaultGame.cs opens with a maintenance credit, repeated with dated entries throughout [mod-script]:

//Major overhaul and update 19-03-03 SaNTa

Similarity scoring places defaultGame.cs closest to vanilla base (75.5%) rather than either Classic release (68.5% for 1.1, 62.8% for 1.5.2) — a base-lineage mod, heavily rewritten (“major overhaul” is an accurate self-description, not marketing). The two folders present in this workspace — tac 2 and tac2 updated 02-20-10 — are the same release at two snapshots; the later one adds two extra map-update directories the earlier copy lacks. Installer archives spanning TAC2Setup.zip through tac2-040.exe document the version range from 0.40 to 0.92.

Five vehicle-only gametypes, one running joke

TAC2 does not extend the stock gametypes — it replaces the entire roster with five custom, vehicle-only modes, each a thin exec() stub pointing at its real implementation: TAC_CTFGame.cs → TAC_CTF.cs, TAC_TDMGame.cs → TAC_TDM.cs, TAC_CnHGame.cs → TAC_CnH.cs, TAC_ChaserGame.cs → TAC_Chaser.cs, TAC_RetrievalGame.cs → TAC_Retrieval.cs. These stubs bear essentially no textual resemblance to base’s CTFGame.cs/DMGame.cs — they are wrappers around wholly original files, not modified copies.

Every mode shares the same ground rule, restated across the rules text [mod-script]:

“Dont touch the ground…it hurts.”

Ground contact is lethal or near-lethal by design; play happens entirely airborne. Team Deathmatch scores kills only from manned vehicles and drains a point per second if no vehicle is airborne — the rule enforced mechanically, not just by convention. Chaser requires destroying the enemy’s Wildcat; Retrieval has players escort an MPB carrying an “Artifact” to a Retrieval Station, shepherded by a custom “Jericho” vehicle.

196 mission files ship, many suffixed “(Pure TAC)” or “(PureTAC)” to distinguish TAC-purpose-built maps from adapted stock ones, with duplicate near-identical filenames suggesting iterative revision rather than one-shot authorship.