Tribes: Ascend/Standard Equipment is provided for all classes and contains the following 5 pieces of equipment:
Skis
Main Article: Skiing "Skis" are jets on the player's boots that make it possible to slide on surfaces to maintain momentum. The skis in Tribes make a player completely frictionless. This allows them to utilizing the terrain to travel at a much higher speed than they could otherwise attain. Skiing is an essential skill to master and being unable to ski effectively will allow other players to easily catch up to and kill you. As a general rule, the player should ski down every slope, and jetpack up every hill. Skiing on flat terrain will not slow the character, but they will also not build up any speed. For this reason try to have momentum before utilizing flat land. There is a full skiing tutorial in the game itself, but primarily this is just something that takes some practice in order to do well.
Jetpack
The Jetpack is what allows players to build their momentum in the first place. The jetpack by itself is much faster than walking, and allows access to areas above ground level. Using the jetpack consumes energy, a regenerating resources that comes with all armor. Characters using jetpacks have a great deal of directional control, but are still constrained to following momentum. By letting oneself fall from a great height, and then applying skis, a player can harness their built-up momentum and apply it to a different direction. This requires a ramp of sufficient inclination. If at any time a player smashes into an object that is not close enough to their current trajectory, they will take damage (past 50km/ph) Therefore it is important to work with the terrain, and find slopes that are suitable for falling and skiing down.
Melee Weapon
Main Article: Melee
All classes have a short range melee attack utilizing either claws (for Blood Eagle players) or a back-mounted sword (for Diamond Sword players) or a energy-sheathed left fist (all other Skins). These weapons both have equal range and damage; dealing 900 damage from approximately one character width away and can kill most lightly armored targets in a single attack. The first upgrade of the close combat perk increases the damage to 1800 if used on the opponent's back. When mastered the Sonic Punch perk can grant the ability to knockback and force flag drops on enemy players in a conal radius in front of the player. Melee attacks are relatively difficult to land considering most players are moving. For this reason they are commonly used on unsuspecting targets, such as Sentinels or repairing Technicians.
Armor
Armor comes in three types, light, medium, and heavy. A player's armor affects their health and weight:
- Light Armor: Reduced health/weight.
- Medium Armor: Normal health/weight.
- Heavy Armor: Increased health/weight.
All weapons deal equal damage to players, there is no hidden armor value. There is however a significant walking speed difference between the three armor types. Heavy armor users go slower than light armor users because they have drastically more weight, and thus do not accelerate as much from hills and falls. A higher weight is not an entirely bad thing though, a heavier body means less knock-back from other players' fire. All armors also allow the player to regenerate health. This happens after a 15 second delay which can be reduced through armor upgrades.
Laser Targeter
The Laser Targeter serves to point to enemies and objectives for the team and, with sufficient credits, can call down orbital bombardments and resupply stations. There are three Call-In options:
- The Tactical strike (4000 Credits)
- Supply Drop (2000 Credits)
- Orbital Strike (10000 credits)
Note that the Laser Targeter in Tribes: Ascend is not the same as the one in previous Tribes games (where it helped to target Fusion Mortars and other weapons.