RSP

RSP (Acronym for Ready Steady Pan) is a variation of the 6v6 competitive format, with the main gimmick being the fact that each competitor have as their main source of damage the Frying Pan, alongside some secondary weapons to help them during the fight.

Class Limits

Classes are limited as such :

• 2 Scouts
• 2 Soldiers
• 2 Pyroes
• 2 Demos
• 0 Heavy
• 0 Engineer
• 0 Medic
• 1 Sniper
• 0 Spy

Each teams can have at least two times the classes played at the same time, with the exception of the Sniper due the to game-changing abilities the Jarate does have. Also, the Heavy is banned due to his large health pool which gives him an unfair advantage towards other players who are forced to melee against him, the Medic is banned because of his passive health regeneration, and finally, the Engineer and the Spy are banned only because they cannot equip the Frying Pan.

Weapons

The Ready Steady Pan gamemode have a whitelist which allows players to only use the Frying Pan as a melee weapon, with some secondaries added into the mix.

Scout

• Secondaries
  

Bonk! Atomic Punch
Crit-a-Cola
Mad Milk

Soldier

• Primary
  

Rocket Jumper

• Secondary
  

Gunboats

Pyro

• Secondary
  

The Thermal Thruster wasn't allowed during the Season 3 of RSP since the Jungle Inferno Update was released not before the tournament but indeed during it, but it will be planned to be usable for Season 4.

Demoman

• Primaries
  

Ali Baba's Wee Booties
Bootlegger

• Secondaries
  

Sticky Jumper

Sniper

• Primary
  

The Machina is technically allowed, but even though you can aim with it, you are not allowed to fire this weapon to ensure fair matches.

• Secondaries
  

Jarate
Razorback
Darwin's Danger Shield

Overall, these weapon restrictions were specially made to create loud matches, where Soldiers and Demos could pit themselves against each other with their pans, while the Scouts and the Snipers would give more of a support roles with their secondaries.

Maps

The RSP format is being only run by the pan.tf team, so there is only one list of maps. The maps that were played for the Season 3 were:

• cp_process_final
• koth_warmtic_rc4
• cp_gullywash_final1
• koth_stallone_b2
• koth_trainsawlaser_pro_rc1
• cp_warmfrost_rc1
• koth_airfield_b7
• koth_product_rc8

Seasons

Currently, 3 seasons of Ready Steady Pan were played, which are as followed :

• Season 1 (June 26th 2012). It was played during the TF2 Retrospective event, also known as RETF2, which happened at the Euskal Encounter XXII, at Bilbao (Spain).
• Season 2 (July 6th 2013 - July 8th 2013). It was played during the Retrospective2 event.
• Season 3 (October 22nd 2017 - January 6th 2018). Players were able to join the tournament by registering themselves on pan.tf, a dedicated website for the Season 3 of Ready Steady Pan.

Popularity

Even though this competitive format was originally played during the first two seasons of RETF2, making it originally popular mostly in Europe, the gamemode acquired much more notoriety due to how unique it was, and due to the long hiatus the format has been enduring between Season 2 and Season 3, and the numerous players who really wanted this format to come back, bringing the 3rd edition of the Ready Steady Pan tournament to gain much more participants than before, with players from Europe, America and also Oceania gathering altogether in one unique tournament which was, of course, much bigger than the previous ones.

The format became quite popular on the TF2 competitive scene due to the matches being funny and entertaining to watch for the common player, enjoyable to play at for the competitor, and finally pretty easy to setup since it was possible for players during the Season 3 to host their matches via serveme.tf with the said maps and whitelist that comes with the gamemode.