Red-Tape Recorder

Red-Tape Recorder
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Kill Icon
Basic Information
Used by:	Spy
Slot:	Building
Contributed by:	Z Ducksink SquareEnix Mr. Bunce
Released:	August 2, 2012 Patch (Triad Pack)
Availability:	Promotional, Drop, Craft, Purchase, Chemistry Set (Collector's) or Uncrate #92 (Strange)
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 community-created promotional building weapon 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 has five different sounds for when it is sapping a building.

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

Sapped Sentry Guns take 33% less damage from the Spy who applied the Sapper, for example when shooting it with a Revolver. Dispensers and Teleporters are unaffected by this.

This weapon functions the same way as the default Sapper against robots 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.

Damage and function times

See also: Damage

Damage and function times
Damage
Base damage	100%	Sentry: 14 / s Dispenser: 7 / s Teleporter: 7 / s Mini-Sentry: 9.5 / s
Function times
Recharge time		Normal: N/A MvM: 15 s
Building destroy time		Downgrade: 3.4 s Sentry: 10.7 s Dispenser: 21.4 s Teleporter: 21.4 s Mini-Sentry: 10.5 s
Values are approximate and determined by community testing.

Strange variant

Strange variant information

Strange Red-Tape Recorder Strange Sapper - Buildings Sapped: 0 Reverses enemy building construction -100% Sapper damage penalty Only the first statistic counts towards the strange rank.

Compatible Strange parts Strange Part: Damage Dealt Strange Cosmetic Part: Fires Survived Strange Part: Allied Healing Done Strange Part: Allies Extinguished Strange Part: Scouts Killed Strange Part: Soldiers Killed Strange Part: Pyros Killed Strange Part: Demomen Killed Strange Part: Heavies Killed Strange Part: Engineers Killed Strange Part: Medics Killed Strange Part: Snipers Killed Strange Part: Spies Killed Strange Part: Cloaked Spies Killed Strange Part: Low-Health Kills Strange Part: Posthumous Kills Strange Part: Kills While Übercharged Strange Part: Defender Kills Strange Part: Underwater Kills Strange Part: Critical Kills Strange Part: Gib Kills Strange Part: Kills While Explosive Jumping Strange Part: Headshot Kills Strange Part: Airborne Enemies Killed Strange Part: Burning Enemy Kills Strange Part: Medics Killed That Have Full ÜberCharge Strange Part: Unusual-Wearing Player Kills Strange Part: Point-Blank Kills Strange Part: Long-Distance Kills Strange Part: Domination Kills Strange Part: Revenge Kills Strange Part: Full Moon Kills Strange Part: Halloween Kills Strange Part: Kills During Victory Time Strange Part: Kills with a Taunt Attack Strange Part: Buildings Destroyed Strange Part: Sappers Destroyed Strange Part: Robots Destroyed Strange Part: Giant Robots Destroyed Strange Part: Robot Spies Destroyed Strange Part: Tanks Destroyed Strange Part: Robots Destroyed During Halloween Strange Part: Projectiles Reflected Strange Cosmetic Part: Freezecam Taunt Appearances Strange Part: Killstreaks Ended Strange Part: Player Hits

Strange ranks

Rank	Buildings Sapped	Name
0	0	Strange
1	3	Unremarkable
2	9	Scarcely Shocking
3	15	Mildly Magnetizing
4	21	Somewhat Inducting
5	30	Unfortunate
6	42	Notably Deleterious
7	54	Sufficiently Ruinous
8	69	Truly Conducting
9	84	Spectacularly Pseudoful
10	105	Ion-Spattered
11	150	Wickedly Dynamizing
12	225	Positively Plasmatic
13	299	Totally Ordinary
14	300	Circuit-Melting
15	450	Nullity-Inducing
16	750	Server-Clearing
17	1500	Epic
18	2250	Legendary
19	2345	Australian
20	2550	Mann Co. Select

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 (Triad Pack)

• 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 the Red-Tape Recorder 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.

March 19, 2013 Patch

• Fixed the Spy not holding Sappers correctly in third person.

April 3, 2013 Patch

• Fixed a bug where Dispensers sapped by a Red-Tape Recorder would continue to heal players.
• Fixed buildings destroyed by the Red-Tape Recorder not always displaying a death notice.
• [Undocumented] The Red-Tape Recorder no longer clears metal from Dispensers upon downgrade.

May 15, 2014 Patch

• Fixed an exploit with the Red-Tape Recorder and Sentry where the Sentry could build up a large amount of health.

March 12, 2015 Patch

• Added Strange quality.

July 2, 2015 Patch #1 (Gun Mettle Update)

• Decreased the damage penalty on Sentry Guns sapped by the Spy from -66% to -33% (i.e. shooting a Sentry the Spy sapped with a Revolver is now more effective).

Bugs

• If a sapped 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.
• 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.
• The Red-Tape Recorder does not glow when crit boosted.
• Occasionally the Red-Tape Recorder disappears in first-person view momentarily. This gives a flashing effect. The length of the view model disappearing can vary from a fraction of a second to several seconds, or possibly even permanently. This effect will still happen even if you reopen Team Fortress 2, rejoin the server, unset and reset draw view models in options, switch to another weapon and back or respawn.
• Removing the Red-Tape Recorder from built Dispensers or Teleporters, said buildings will still work even if they're playing their re-building animations.

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 building. 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.
• A recorder similar in appearance to the Red-Tape Recorder is featured in the SFM short, Expiration Date (from the Love and War or Bread update) from approximately 7:29 to 7:39 in the video.

Gallery

• 

  RED first-person view.

• 

  BLU first-person view.

• 

  The Red-Tape Recorder with its attachment wires.

• 

  Broken Red-Tape Recorder. (Gib)

• 

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

• 

  Promotional image featuring the Sleeping Dogs promotional items.

• 

  At the rear of the BLU respawn room, on the Kong King map.

• 

  Steam Workshop thumbnail for the Red-Tape Recorder.

See also

• Red-Tape Recorder strategy
• Sleeping Dogs