I’ve noticed in my games lately that there seem to still be a lot of players in Plain Sight who still seem to be working on grasping the basics and not seeming to understand various mechanics. This is understandable, since the game is still quite new and there’s bound to be lots of new players every day. However, I’ve also noticed there’s not much in the way of a truly comprehensive guide to help new players make the journey from newbie to competitive. Until now! *dun dun dun*

Here I’m creating a comprehensive strategy guide to Plain Sight, based on my own time playing, observing/talking to other players, and poking around on the forums. Please post any corrections/additions in this thread, and I’ll try to attend to them as soon as possible.

Last Updated: 4/18/10

UPDATE: While this guide is a bit more condensed if you’re just looking for a quick guide, the Plain Sight Wiki is much more comprehensive and is updated constantly, so please look there for further info.

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PLAIN SIGHT BASICS
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Controls
First, let’s cover the very basics. I really dislike using the names of buttons to refer to actions in the game, since anyone can remap any key and might not remember the default button (i.e. I’d rather say “Use the shield” than “right click”). Below is a list of all your actions, along with the default button they’re bound to. For the rest of the guide, when you see a word in ALL CAPS, I’m referring to a button press.

MOVEMENT (A, S, D, W) - I’m hoping this is self-explanatory.

DASH (Left Mouse Button) - Charge up and release to dash forward. If you’re locked on to another player when you release, you will attack while you dash.

SHIELD (Right Mouse Button) - While holding this button down, you put up a shield that blocks all attacks. Be careful, though, as the shield depletes while you hold it up. The shield cannot be activated until you get the first level of the Shield skill.

RELEASE (While holding DASH, hold SHIELD then release DASH) - Cancels any amount of charged-up dashing power you might have.

JUMP (Space) - Makes you jump! Weeeee!

DETONATE (E) - Cause your robot to have a Meltdown and explode, killing all robots nearby.

BREAK LOCK (Q) - Breaks your lock on your current target. Can be held down to prevent locks from being established.

SLAM (Left Shift) - You’ll fall straight down to whatever surface you’re above.

Since the game forces you to play a tutorial which shows you how to control yourself and move about, we’ll skip that part. It is good to note, though, that using RELEASE gets rid of your dash charge and also un-targets your current target if you have one. BREAK LOCK, on the other hand, un-targets your target, but keeps your dash charge intact so you can quickly bolt out of a bad situation.

Targeting

Another basic mechanic that will take some getting used to is the targeting system. The tutorial shows you how to lock onto enemies, but here are some additional points to know:

-When your targeting indicator turns red, it indicates that your “shot” is lined up. However, this doesn’t always guarantee a hit. Sometimes the indicator becomes red when there is part of an object in the way, which you will glace off of and end up missing. Be aware of that little red line and ensure it doesn’t pass through or too close to any surfaces before you try attacking.

-On a similar note, the red targeting indicator tells you that given both players’ current speeds and trajectories, your dash will hit them. If the target suddenly dashes, changes direction, or otherwise messes with their speed/trajectory too much, you will still miss. Make sure to watch for moments when your opponent will be unable to maneuver and release your dash at that point.

-A red targeting indicator is not always required to hit. If you’re close to your target and the indicator isn’t red yet, you might still be able to hit them. Also, once you begin dashing for an attack, the enemy might move INTO a position to get hit. Keep your eyes open for these moments, and with time and experience, you’ll start to learn when dashing early is appropriate.

Powerups

As a match progresses, you’ll notice shiny stars littered around the map. Collecting a star awards you with +1 Energy. In addition, stars will sometimes grant you a temporary powerup. There are four kinds of powerups in Plain Sight:

Flaming Sword: A very powerful buff that catches your sword on fire. While active, your attacks will penetrate enemy shields, rendering them useless. If you hit someone with a Shield powerup, you will lose your Flaming Sword, but they will lose their Shield.

Shield: You get a shield that automatically blocks all incoming attacks and protects you from Meltdowns. If a Flaming Sword hits you, you will lose your shield, and they will lose their Flaming Sword.

Stealth: This fun little buff turns you really small, lets you move super fast, stops the ground from lighting up under your feet, and prevents the color streak coming out of your back from appearing. Your enemies will never see you coming, and you can assassinate them before they even figure out where you are.

Chain Detonation: This buff causes any player caught in your Meltdown to Meltdown as well.

Special Techniques

In addition to knowing the standard controls, there are also some special techniques that you’ll want to get used to using as you play the game.

Skimming: While running across a surface, hold down BREAK LOCK and press DASH repeatedly. This will thrust your little robot across the surface much faster than simply running. Unlike running, however, dashing over an edge or off of a rounded corner will shoot you off into the air, rather then following the curve or simply falling down from the edge.

Air Dashing: By charging up a dash while jumping, double jumping, or triple jumping, then releasing the dash, you can essentially add an extra, super-long jump to your capabilities. Not only does this increase your mobility for running down enemies, it can help you quickly navigate to specific parts of some levels, such as Unreeled Tournament, that can otherwise take a long time to navigate. You may need to tap BREAK LOCK if you targeted an enemy while charging the dash (otherwise you’ll dash toward the enemy instead of the direction you’re facing).

Stomp Canceling: This is a glitch, and may be considered cheating by some players, so be warned. This glitch allows you to perform infinite jumps without ever touching the ground. To execute it, you simply hit STOMP in the air, then press JUMP during the startup animation for the stomp. By repeatedly doing this, you can jump without limit, provided you don’t miss the timing for the jump. Please note that players hosting a game on their machine are unable to perform this technique

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SKILLS AND THEIR USES
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The skills in Plain Sight are split into three categories: Movement, Defense, and Offense. Each category contains three skills, each with three levels, and a powerful Megaperk. For each skill to be unlocked, you need:

Level 1: 5xp
Level 2: Level 1 unlocked + 10xp
Level 3: Level 2 unlocked + 20xp
Megaperk: All skills of the Megaperk’s category unlocked + 30xp

Below is a breakdown of skills and their uses:

Movement Skills

Run: Each level makes you run faster along the ground. In almost all cases, this skill is basically worthless. You should never put points into it unless you know what you’re doing and have a very specific reason, and even then you really ought to think about it. Jumping moves you around much, much faster than running along the ground, and gives you a better vantage point and attack angles. Additionally, if you need to move along a surface quickly, Skimming is available for 0xp and is also faster than running.

Jump: Gives you a double jump on level 1, a triple jump on level 2, and allows you to hover on level 3. This skill is worth its weight in gold, and most builds will take at least one or two levels of it very early on. The third level is not very useful, however, especially given the existence of Stomp Canceling.

Recovery: Each level causes you to regain control of yourself faster after having been blocked. While there are usually better things to get in the early-to-mid-game, this skill is a late-game staple. Once almost everyone has shields, minimizing the time you could be left completely vulnerable from a block becomes essential.

Movement Megaperk: This ability causes all nearby players to become Stunned whenever you initiate a stomp. While Stunned, all the players’ keys are swapped around. They always get switched in the same way, so a good player won’t be out of commission for long, but for at least a second or two, they’ll be utterly vulnerable.

Defense

Shield: With this skill unlocked, holding down SHIELD puts up a shield that blocks all attacks. Each level increases the amount of time the shield can be held up constantly before it deteriorates completely. This skill is one of the most useful skills in the game for almost any build.

Shield Recharge: Your shield deteriorates while you hold it up, but when you’re not holding SHIELD, it recharges. Each level of this skill makes it recharge faster. It’s pretty straightforward, but it’s also not very essential for most builds. Your shield recharges pretty quickly by default, so you’ll only need to worry about this skill if your strategy is to constantly be pummeled by many enemies.

Warning: A terrific awareness tool that lets you know when people are targeting you. At level 1, an ! appears over your head whenever someone has you targeted. At level 2, the ! becomes darker/lighter as the enemy targeting you moves closer/further away. At level 3, the ! also points in the direction of the enemy targeting you, telling you exactly where to look to find them. Players seem to have vastly varying opinions on this skill and its usefulness. I personally find its usefulness to change based on your build.

Defense Megaperk: Enhances your shield so that it can withstand Meltdown blasts. Ultimately not terribly useful, imo, as you should already be skilled at not jumping into the middle of Meltdowns.

Offense

Detonate Speed: Decreases the time you’re left vulnerable after hitting DETONATE but before you explode. At level 3, explosion is instantaneous, and you can optionally hold down DETONATE and release it when you want the explosion to happen. This is, hands down, the most important and essential skill in the game. If anyone tells you differently, they are as the very children of Lucifer himself, spreading lies and deceit in the night. You will always get this skill up fast in every build, because you are not dumb.

Dash Charge: Each level causes your dash to take less time to reach a full charge. This skill is extremely good in the mid-to-late-game, allowing you to quickly rebound from a miss, block, or repel (which there will be more of as people gain more mobility and defense options) and follow up with a second attack.

Dash Power: Each level causes your dash to go further, allowing you to hit people from further away and giving you more mobility with Air Dashing and Skimming. This is a good skill to get in the mid-game, because you don’t want to be out-ranged by your opponents! A build that focuses on high mobility will also find this skill helpful.

Offense Megaperk: Adds a gravitational pull to your Meltdowns, sucking in hapless enemies like lambs to the slaughter. Mwahahaha!

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BUILDS AND STRATEGIES
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Alright, so now that we know what all these crazy skills do, we need to put them together in ways that help us win the most. The way that Plain Sight’s skill system works, all skill builds ultimately converge into the same thing once you get enough XP. Optimally, you’d like to unlock every skill and megaperk, because there’s no downside to this. Realistically, though, most matches last 15 or 20 minutes, and unless you’re absurdly better than all the rest of the players in your game, you’re simply not going to unlock every skill. What’s important, though, is understanding which skills match your play style and synergize well together. Your first 9 or 10 skills or so will be different depending on the strategies you want to use, and which strategies are better will depend on the types of players you’re facing and the strategies they end up using. Once you pass into the late-game however, most builds all start to resemble each other; Players take all of the good skills, and leave the less good ones alone.

All of the builds/strats I’ll be discussing here will be with Deathmatch in mind, because other gametypes don’t see nearly as much play at the time of this writing, and the strategies are generally applicable anyhow.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at some effective skill builds and how to use them well. These builds show you the first 9 skills to take to compliment a certain type of strategy. From there on, you’ll need to choose skills that fit the situation you find yourself in and the players you’re facing.

Balanced

1. Shield LV1
2. Detonate Speed LV1
3. Dash Charge LV1
4. Jump LV1
5. Detonate Speed LV2
6. Dash Charge LV2
7. Dash Power LV1
8. Shield LV2
9. Detonate Speed LV3

This build is a good place for new players to start at. It’s versatile, giving you decent offense, defense, and mobility, and allowing you to adjust your strategy to the styles your opponents are using. If you have trouble watching yourself from all sides, Warning LV1 can be taken instead of Jump LV1 so you’ll have a heads-up and can throw up a shield until you find your would-be assassin.

Heavy Defense

1. Shield LV1
2. Detonate Speed LV1
3. Warning LV1
4. Shield LV2
5. Detonate Speed LV2
6. Dash Charge LV1
7. Shield Recharge LV1
8. Shield LV3
9. Detonate Speed LV3

The purpose of this build is get as much power behind your shield as possible. You’ll have a certain lack of mobility, so if players are staying too far out of reach, simply go collect a few stars. You’ll either end up ambushing players at the stars, or gaining a few points of energy from collecting them yourself. Either way, once you get a little energy under your belt, players will begin flocking to you in an attempt to harvest your ripe energy supply, and you won’t need to chase them. Use the level of Warning you pick up early on to know when it’s safe to let your shield recharge. Whenever possible, target players who get blocked by your shield, hitting them before they recover, and throwing you shield back up ASAP. As you get larger and larger, players will flock to you more and more. Once the swarm becomes too much for your shield to stave off, throw out a Meltdown and watch the multipliers stack up.

Heavy Offense

1. Detonate Speed LV1
2. Dash Charge LV1
3. Detonate Speed LV2
4. Jump LV1
5. Dash Charge LV2
6. Dash Power LV1
7. Dash Power LV2
8. Detonate Speed LV3
9. Dash Charge LV3

For people who don’t like to use shields, this build is a viable option. Unlocking Detonate Speed LV2 is critical, since if you get into trouble you can’t outrun, you’ll have no shield to protect you. Using your dash and double jumping powers, you should be able to outrun most problems you have, then come around hunt down a few opponents before running away and doing it again. Because you have high mobility and zilch defense, you should constantly be moving, and weaving around and through obstacles as much as possible when you’re not going in for a kill. This will make it harder for enemies to swoop in and nab you when you least expect it. Eventually your high-energy color will attract a swarm too difficult to outrun, which is when you let the happy Meltdown time begin.

Star Runner

1. Jump LV1
2. Detonate Speed LV1
3. Dash Charge LV1
4. Run LV1
5. Jump LV2
6. Detonate Speed LV2
7. Dash Charge LV2
8. Run LV2
9. Detonate Speed LV3

This was an idea I ran across on the forums. It’s pretty fun and can coast through the early game with a strong set of points. The idea here is not to engage other players directly unless absolutely necessary. Instead, use your dash and jump to quickly move all over the map and do nothing but collect stars. When you get too big and bulky to avoid everyone, find a nice swarm of players and try to blow up in the middle of them. With properly timed dashes and frequent direction changes, you will be absurdly hard to hit most of the time. The levels of Run can help by allowing you to charge a dash up for a second while collecting a star so you can bolt away as soon as you pick it up (some players will try to hit you as you collect the star), and also helps you continue to move quickly around those rounded corners and sides that stars sometimes land on (Skimming will make you fly out into the air and miss these).

Very nice guide, but I believe you are mistaken on one aspect:
I’ve heard that the Flame Sword doesn’t actually cut shields, it makes it to where you instant-charge. Ex; You hold click down for one second and it’s already max charged. Very helpful when trying to kill someone quickly.

Skimming is a new on to me :D

Radical - 18 April 2010 05:32 AM

Very nice guide, but I believe you are mistaken on one aspect:
I’ve heard that the Flame Sword doesn’t actually cut shields, it makes it to where you instant-charge. Ex; You hold click down for one second and it’s already max charged. Very helpful when trying to kill someone quickly.

Glad you like the guide!

As for the Flame Sword thing, I just went into a practice game to test this, but the robot still charges up like normal while he has the Flame Sword powerup. I’m fairly certain my shields have been penetrated by Flame Sword before, but I haven’t been able to grab someone to go into a 1v1 game specifically just to test it.

On that note, though, do you have any idea what Dash Power actually does?

Dash power lets you dash further, so you can get ppl from furhter away.

Ah, thank you very much. Guide updated!

From the Shielding doesn’t always block attacks thread:

Sherif - 12 April 2010 10:25 AM

A flame sword will cut through a shield unless you have the shield mega perk (which can block flame sword and meltdowns).
If you pick up a shield powerup (it’s constantly on) and get hit by a flame sword - they cancel each other out (i.e. the person with the flame sword loses it, the person with the shield loses it too). This shield perk will also save you from a meltdown.

Ah, thanks a bunch! Guide updated.

Thanks for working on this folks! I’ll have it in the Wiki the moment it’s set up!

Cheers

Also noticed Chain Detonation powerup isn’t listed - when you explode with it, anyone that gets caught in the blast also explodes and all resultant deaths count towards your exp/point pool

Millenia - 18 April 2010 02:44 PM

From the Shielding doesn’t always block attacks thread:

Sherif - 12 April 2010 10:25 AM

A flame sword will cut through a shield unless you have the shield mega perk (which can block flame sword and meltdowns).
If you pick up a shield powerup (it’s constantly on) and get hit by a flame sword - they cancel each other out (i.e. the person with the flame sword loses it, the person with the shield loses it too). This shield perk will also save you from a meltdown.

Oh I see, my bad I thought I heard that it had instant charge from a different source.

Millenia - 18 April 2010 05:07 PM

Also noticed Chain Detonation powerup isn’t listed - when you explode with it, anyone that gets caught in the blast also explodes and all resultant deaths count towards your exp/point pool

Wow, you’re right. I’m dumb. :( Guide updated.

I hope nobody finds anything else missing from the first two sections, because the character limit is damn near maxed out (less than 100 left!)

Ninja Ducky - 18 April 2010 06:56 PM

Millenia - 18 April 2010 05:07 PM

Also noticed Chain Detonation powerup isn’t listed - when you explode with it, anyone that gets caught in the blast also explodes and all resultant deaths count towards your exp/point pool

Wow, you’re right. I’m dumb. :( Guide updated.

I hope nobody finds anything else missing from the first two sections, because the character limit is damn near maxed out (less than 100 left!)

How the hell can someone who just wrote this guide call themselves dumb?

By the way, you wrote “Mouse left-click” and “Mouse right-click”. I hope you don’t mind, I changed them to “Left Mouse Button” and “Right Mouse Button”

Edit: I think this should be in Plain Sight Basics…