These tips are focused on public-server players. To play an offensive mini-sentry engineer effectively, you must ignore conventional engineer wisdom. The mini-sentry is not an area denial weapon like a level 3 sentry, and you should not sit behind it or bother wrenching on it (it's non-repairable). You must be aggressive and clever, both in your mini-sentry placement and in how you engage enemies with your shotgun.

For the purposes of this guide, you'll want to equip the Gunslinger and the Frontier Justice. The Gunslinger allows you to place mini-sentries and gives a 25 bonus to health, and the Frontier Justice gives you revenge crits for sentry kills and assists (after destroyed or demolished).

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Setting up a Minecraft server on your home Windows computer is fairly easy. With basic knowledge of computers and networking, you can be playing with friends over a local area network (LAN) or the Internet in minutes. Just make sure your computer is up to the task. You should have at least a 2ghz dual-core processor (CPU), 2 gigabytes of memory (RAM), and a fast Internet connection (if your friends are connecting via the Internet). Not sure if it'll work? The only way to know for sure is to give it a try! So read on.

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I'm not the first to ask for or dream up a Steam PC game rental or rent-to-own service, but until they offer it, I don't see the harm in speculating. There is undoubtedly a huge market of untapped potential here. Other companies have offered rental services, but none come even close to the reach Valve has with Steam. Here is my idea for a Steam Rent-to-Own service:

Rent-to-Own Model

All game rentals cost a flat rate of $1 per day, and there is no limit to the number of concurrent rentals. The $1 is charged at the beginning of the day, adjusted for each time zone, and is good for that day. If the rental is started after noon, the $1 charge starts at the beginning of the next day.

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For better screenshots in Skyrim, you should first turn off the HUD. This removes the compass, the cross-hair, destination markers, and other screen objects. Just open the developer console by pressing tilde (~), then type in tm and hit enter. The HUD will disappear, including the developer console itself. The game will still be frozen, but don't worry it hasn't crashed. It's because the dev console is still up. Hit tilde again to leave the dev console and resume play.

Once you're done taking screenshots, you can bring the HUD and everything back by going through the same process. Though this time you'll have to do it blind. Hit tilde and the game should freeze, though you won't see the develop console. Type in tm just like before and hit enter. If you did it right, everything should pop back up. If it doesn't, hit tilde again to exit the dev console, and then try again.

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This is the floating island I created in Minecraft. No, it's not as amazing as this one, but it is a one-man creation, and damn, floating islands are hard to make in Minecraft (not using any editing tools). Anything not in the shape of a cube tends to be difficult.

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These tips are focused on public-server players. The key to a successful scout here is to avoid damage, flank opponents to take advantage of lax teamwork, and not get caught in an awkward position.

Most public players prefer a direct engagement and are not good at holding back. Scouts should avoid direct engagement, employ hit and run tactics, and not be overly concerned with getting a kill right at that moment.

The strength of a scout comes from weakening players, confusing them, and picking off stragglers. Medic kills are also vitally important and one of the key areas where scouts can really turn the tide (more on that later).

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-- After patch 1.3, this is no longer needed. If you haven't yet, turn off V-Sync to reduce mouse lag! --

Prior to patch 1.2, Skyrim had an odd issue with the vertical mouse movement being synced to the frame rate. After patch 1.2, you should now experience consistent mouse movement regardless of frame rate (now you may want to disable v-sync), but your vertical and horizontal movement may still be out of sync. If they are, you can try adjusting the fMouseHeadingYScale and fMouseHeadingXScale variables, which can be found in the [Controls] section in Skyrim.ini:



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Turning off V-Sync in Skyrim will improve mouse responsiveness, particularly in the menu, and may also increase frame rate. To turn V-Sync off, you need only add iPresentInterval=0 to the [Display] section of Skyrim.ini. Skyrim.ini can be found here:


If the [Display] section or iPresentInterval variable don't already exist, create them as needed. For example:

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-- After patch 1.3, this is no longer an issue. If you haven't yet, turn off V-Sync to reduce mouse lag! --

Skyrim has an odd "feature" that causes vertical mouse acceleration to be tied to the current frame rate. This means that in areas of low frame rate (busy city areas), the vertical mouse movement will be lower and out of sync with the horizontal mouse movement. In areas of high frame rate (and with V-Sync off), it will be the opposite.

V-sync should keep the horizontal and vertical movements in sync as long as your frame rate stays not too far below 60. If your frame rate does drop below 60 by enough, you may experience slower vertical mouse movement. If you turn V-Sync off, you'll probably notice in caves and other confined areas that vertical mouse movement feels much more sensitive. Staring at a wall exacerbates this.


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