Red-Tape Recorder

Red-Tape Recorder
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Kill Icon
Basic Information
Used by:	Spy
Slot:	Building
Contributed by:	Z Ducksink
Released:	August 2, 2012 Patch
Availability:	Craft, Drop, Purchase or Promotional
Tradable:	Yes
Giftable:	Yes
Craftable:	Yes
Nameable:	Yes
Craft No.?:	Yes
Medieval:	No
Available Qualities
Unique Genuine Strange Collector's
Loadout Stats
The Red-Tape Recorder 1 - 100 Reverses enemy building construction -100% Sapper damage penalty

The silhouette shows that the Red-Tape Recorder can be applied to the building. Note that the tape reels spin.

A level 1 Sentry de-constructing itself while being sapped.

“

Did I throw a 'wrench' into your plans? Hahahaha! Click to listen — The Spy on reverse-engineering

”

The Red-Tape Recorder is a Sapper replacement for the Spy. It is a reel-to-reel tape recorder with three Chinese characters ("反炮塔", fǎnpàotǎ) on the front printed on a frayed, white label. Translated into English, these characters can be closely translated as "Anti-Turret (Device)" or "Anti-Sentry (Device)".

Instead of damaging an enemy's buildings, the Red-Tape Recorder reverses the building process; any applicable upgrade animations are played in reverse, followed by the building packing itself up into a toolbox. As a result, this destroys the building and leaves the toolbox behind as a large ammo pickup. Destroying the Recorder will allow the building to reconstruct but not restore any lost levels, unless the building is in the middle of an upgrade animation, which will allow it to continue upgrading to the next level.

The Recorder breaks into four metal fragments upon removal. The fragments can then be picked up, each piece giving 3 metal.

The Recorder has five different sounds for when it is sapping a building.

This weapon functions the same way as the default Sapper in Mann vs. Machine.

This item was awarded in Genuine quality to players who pre-purchased Sleeping Dogs on Steam before August 14, 2012, or August 17, 2012 in Europe.

The Red-Tape Recorder was later contributed to the Steam Workshop, at Valve's request.

Function Times

Building	Progression	Time taken	Damage
Sentry Gun	Level 1	10.7 s	14 / s
	Downgrade	3.4 s	-
Combat Mini-Sentry Gun	Level 1	10.5 s	9.5 / s
Dispenser	Level 1	21.4 s	7 / s
	Downgrade	3.4 s	-
Teleporter	Level 1	21.4 s	7 / s
	Downgrade	3.4 s	-

Function times (in seconds)
Recharge time		Normal: N/A MvM: 15 s
Values are approximate and determined by community testing.

Note: Values are approximate and are determined by community testing.

Crafting

See also: Crafting

Blueprint

Spy-cicle		Reclaimed Metal		Red-Tape Recorder
x3	+		=

Related achievements

 Pyro

Firewall Ignite 5 Spies who have a sapper on a friendly building.

 Demoman

Spynal Tap Kill 20 Spies within 5 seconds of them sapping a friendly building.

 Engineer

Get Along! Manage to get to, and then remove, a sapper placed on your building while you were several meters away. Fistful of Sappers Destroy 25 sappers on buildings built by other team members.

Quick Draw Kill a Spy and two sappers within 10 seconds.

 Spy

Joint Operation Sap an enemy sentry gun within 3 seconds of a teammate sapping another. Sap Auteur Destroy 1000 Engineer buildings with sappers.

Sapsucker Sap an enemy building, then backstab the Engineer who built it within 5 seconds. The Man with the Broken Guns Backstab an Engineer, then sap 3 of his buildings within 10 seconds.

Mann vs. Machievements

Sly Voltage As a Spy, sap 10 robots at once.

Update history

August 2, 2012 Patch

• The Red-Tape Recorder was added to the game.

August 3, 2012 Patch

• Increased The Red-Tape Recorder’s downgrade speed from 1.6 seconds to 3.0 seconds.
• Fixed building health compounding after being downgraded.
• [Undocumented] Fixed the Homewrecker not destroying Red-Tape Recorder Sappers in one hit.

August 15, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Red-Tape Recorder to the drop system.

September 13, 2012 (Item schema update)

• Made this item in genuine quality tradable and giftable.

February 22, 2013 Patch

• Fixed buildings not always being downgraded at the same rate by the Red-Tape Recorder.

Bugs

• If a building starts with full health when it is sapped and does not take damage during the deconstruction process, the Spy will not receive credit for destroying the building and its destruction will not be recorded in the kill feed. This is because the Sapper is destroyed at the end of the deconstruction animation, before the building has lost all of its health.
• Alternatively, if the building does not start with full health or is damaged during the deconstruction process, it will reach 0 health before the deconstruction animation completes, which will interrupt the animation and "snap" it into the toolbox state. However, the building's destruction will appear on the kill feed and the Spy will earn points.
• Buildings destroyed by the Red-Tape Recorder will not fire the OnDestroyed logic output, which can adversely affect map logic. This includes the Administrator notification for destroyed Engineer Robot Teleporters.
• Dispensers that are being sapped by this weapon will function as normal instead of being disabled.
• Occasionally when removing the Red-Tape Recorder from a Mini-Sentry, the Mini-Sentry will revert to a buggy level 2 Mini-Sentry.
• If a Teleporter is sapped by the Recorder, and the Recorder is removed in-between upgrade animations, the arrows pointing to the other end of the Teleporter will be removed.
• If the Red-Tape Recorder is placed on and removed from a building that is still under construction, it will deal some damage to the building.
• Sometimes, the Red-Tape Recorder does not revert buildings when sapped.
• The Red-Tape Recorder does not glow when crit boosted.

Trivia

• This weapon's name references the term "red tape", which refers to bureaucracy that hinders or prevents action or decision-making.
• A vaguely audible message can be heard when placing the Red-Tape Recorder onto a Sentry Gun. When slowed down 70% to 80%, spy_tape_03.wav appears to say: "Let's make some noise..." with a laugh, followed by the tape's normal noise.
• The custom animations for the world view were not added, which caused the item to clip into Spy's hands. The animations are confirmed to be shipping soon.^{[citation needed]}

Gallery

• 

  RED first-person view.

• 

  BLU first-person view.

• 

  Concept for the Red-Tape Recorder drawn by Sexy Robot.

• 

  Promotional image featuring the Sleeping Dogs promotional items.

See also

• Red-Tape Recorder strategy
• Sleeping Dogs