Tribes 2/Maps/Katabatic

Katabatic is arguably one of the most-played maps in Tribes 2. The map came with Tribes 2 and is still a popular choice for newbies and is run on some servers 24/7.

Overview

Terrain

Katabatic is a snowy map that has decent visibility and very rough, mountainous land. A middle, straight path links both teams' bases. The path branches off into two other paths. The rest of the terrain is quite mountainous and tough to travel with ground vehicles. Since the bases are on low land, this gives attackers the advantage—as they have high land and mountains. Each base has a tiny tower with a self-powered station and a repair kit. In the northeast and southwest of the center of the map (marked with rocks), each team has a "Remote Base" which powers itself, contains provisions and items, and is also guarded by a turret with accompanied by two inventory stations.

Flag Position

The flags are in the open for the most part, except for the two walls which sandwich it. On top of one tower is an AA turret which can easily shred a Flag capper into pieces if they are not careful.

Bases

The bases are decently sized with plenty of spots to entrench, camp, or hide. The base has four entrances, two big entrances which face alternatively and have ramps which lead into the base. On the opposite side of the big entrance is a small window just big enough to fit through. This area serves as a good resting spot for cloakers and campers. Inside the base is a link to both entrances. From here, you can access the generator room from four ways. Along the way on one route are many crates and storate areas in which infiltrators may hide.

Community Review

Since the map is very often played, most veteran Tribes 2 players think the map is quite overplayed, and gets boring easily.

Here is a description of the map written by one of them:

"Ever since the start of Tribes 2, Katabatic has been a favorite map of new players. It's a snow map with flags 1000 meters apart, which is average for a Tribes 2 map. The fog only allows you to see for about 600 meters. There are mountains surrounding both bases, and the remote towers sit in the middle of the map, each on top of its own mountain. There is a clear, flat pathway between the bases, as well as a pathway that goes around the mountains on each side, eventually connecting to the back of the flag bases. Katabatic consists of semi-open flag stands, vehicles, a medium-sized underground base, a self-powered remote tower, and a self-powered mini-tower. Basically what this means is that there are three completely independent locations at which you can get to an inventory station and suit up. If one of them is rendered offline, you can just go to another one. Katabatic is one of the few maps where you have almost every strategy that Tribes 2 has to offer at your disposal. For the reasons stated above, Katabatic is probably the absolute most newbie-friendly map in the game... ...Katabatic is a map where newbies basically get to run free and have nothing get in their way, and therefore, give them no motivation to get better at the game. They can just run around like clueless idiots for a couple hours and remain terrible, never learning how to actually play the game well." - Kryand