Friendly fire
| “ | Watch, he'll turn red any second now...
Any second now...
— The BLU Soldier on one of the hazards of friendly fire
|
” |
Friendly fire is used to describe a situation in which a player can damage or even kill a teammate.
The ability to inflict friendly damage was originally an option available to servers during the Team Fortress 2 beta. Overall, this made setting up an ÜberCharge quicker and assisted Spies, as it discouraged Spy checking. Valve removed the feature upon release as it was known to cause errors within the game's code and harbor potential for griefing. The low focus on accurate shooting also meant that friendly fire could become an impediment if several classes attempted to cooperate with one another.
Full friendly fire is still available as a server option, but is rarely used in standard play. Because the feature has remained relatively unchanged since the beta, there are several unexpected situations that are covered below. Killing an ally reduces the player's Kill statistic (and goes into negative numbers), but still rewards a scoreboard point.
On some servers friendly fire is temporarily enabled for various reasons, such as while waiting for enough players to join, after the round ends, and during Stalemates.
Contents
Console option
mp_friendlyfire 0/1
In regular play
- If a Medic is healing an enemy Spy that kills a teammate or destroys a building, the Medic receives an assist as if he were on the Spy's team.
- If a player kills an enemy who is then autobalanced to the other team, the kill feed reports the death as it were a team kill.
Special scenarios
General
- It is impossible to damage or destroy an allied building.
- Certain taunts that use a weapon capable of friendly fire, including Grenade, Hadouken, and Fencing, can damage all allies in the area of the taunt. However, others do not, such as Arrow Stab or Uberslice.
- Critical hits and mini-crits are still in effect. Most weapons which have special conditions to crit, such as the Ambassador or Bushwacka, also continue to work properly.
Scout
- Mad Milk does not affect teammates negatively.
- The Flying Guillotine does not damage allies.
- The Sandman's ball does not damage or slow allies.
- The Fan O'War does not mark allies for death.
- The Wrap Assassin's bauble damages teammates, but does not apply bleed.
Soldier
- For about the first 128 Hammer units of their flight, Rockets pass through allies, but deal splash damage from the resulting explosions.
- The Righteous Bison, which uses bundles of flame particles to simulate projectiles, does not damage teammates.
- The Mantreads do not damage teammates.
Pyro
- Flamethrowers do not ignite or damage teammates.
- Airblasting a burning ally extinguishes them and gives the Pyro 20 health, however no knockback is resulted from airblasting a teammate.
- For about the first 300 Hammer units of their flight, flares from the Flare Gun, Detonator, and Scorch Shot pass through burning teammates, but the Detonator and Scorch Shot deal splash damage from the resulting explosions and still set teammates on fire.
- The Manmelter does not ignite or damage teammates.
- The Hot Hand does not provide the speed boost on hit when slapping a teammate.
Demoman
- For about the first 128 Hammer units of their flight, Grenades and Stickybombs pass through allies, but deal splash damage from the resulting explosions.
- The Chargin' Targe, Splendid Screen, and Tide Turner cause the Demoman to pass straight through allies. However, if the ally is up against a wall and the Demoman charges at them perpendicularly to the wall, damage is dealt and the resulting 'cheer' sound effect plays.
- The Ullapool Caber deals melee damage to allies, but does not explode on hitting an ally.
- The Loose Cannon does not damage teammates on collision, and Double-Donking cannot occur as a result of this.
Heavy
- The Huo-Long Heater's fire ring does not ignite or damage teammates.
- The Holiday Punch does not damage teammates from behind as per norm, however it does not force them to laugh.
Engineer
- For about the first 300 Hammer units of their flight, level 3 Sentry Gun rockets pass through teammates, but deal splash damage from the resulting explosions.
- The Pomson 6000 does not drain ÜberCharge or Cloak from friendly Medics or Spies.
- The Short Circuit's primary fire attack damages teammates, but its alt-fire attack does not.
- The Widowmaker does not re-gain metal on hitting a friendly player.
- The Gunslinger's three-hit-combo does not affect teammates if the former two hits were on teammates. However, hitting an enemy twice leads to third hit dealing a crit to a teammate.
- Sentry Guns do not target teammates, and do not lock onto them if aimed at using the Wrangler.
- Teammates cannot be telefragged.
Medic
- The Crusader's Crossbow heals teammates, rather than hurt them.
- The Ubersaw does not build ÜberCharge upon hurting a teammate.
- The Blutsauger does not heal the Medic using it on hitting an ally.
Sniper
- Most primary weapons do not damage teammates. However, a fully-charged Machina shot deals damage, as well as dealing penetrating damage to teammates.
- Jarate does not affect teammates negatively.
- Shooting teammates with the Cleaner's Carbine damages them, however it does not fill up the "CRIKEY" meter.
Spy
- It is impossible to backstab teammates or sap allied buildings.
Gallery
Examples
A Heavy killing a Scout on his team with friendly fire enabled.
A Medic getting an assist for healing an enemy Spy that backstabbed a Sniper from his own team.
