FZ: In Tribes1 the scout were the only vehicle with a weapon, and it was not really useful at all. It was hard to hit with and not too strong. Will the vehicles in Tribes2 be able to aim better and cause some real damage with it's built in weapons?

DG: Yes. The scouts have dual chainguns on belly mounts that track strafing fire like fighter. The bomber can carpet bomb areas with multiple bomblets, as well as allowing the bombardier to use a blaster-like belly turret between bomb drops. The assault tank has a very heavy turret mounted on it that the gunner can use to pound people with either heavy plasma or mortars. The ground scout, the heavy air transport, and the mobile point base however, are unarmed and rely on escorts (or passengers) to defend them.

FZ: Will there be any new place able objects in Tribes2? If so, any specific one you like the most?

DG: Most of our new object types are weapons and packs. The basic deployables are almost all the same with the exception of the fact that we now have indoor and outdoor deployable turrets. The indoor turrets are lightly armored, but shoot rapidly. The outdoor turrets are much harder to kill and fire more powerful bursts, but have a bit slower rate of fire.

FZ: You never saw any dogfights between scouts in Tribes1, as it was too hard to hit each other.
Will it be possible to have dogfights in Tribes2 (not counting transports firing at each other).

DG: You bet. And they're fun. Our scout fliers are MUCH nimbler than they were in Tribes 1, allowing even loops and inverted flight. Special tailgunner seats are designed on the bomber and heavy transport simply because the scouts can get into the blind spots of those vehicles and devastate them if no one is protecting their "six".

FZ: The maps in Tribes1 were big, but still it didn't take too much time getting from one base to the other. How much bigger will the maps in Tribes2 be?

DG: We have three basic sizes of maps. Small, medium and large. The small ones are designed for 10-15 players. They are basically about the size of Broadsides. The medium ones can easily hold up to 30 or so players and are about the size of Rollercoaster. The really big maps can accommodate over 50 players and are about four times that size. In other words...big.

FZ: What new gameplay modes will there be? Could you explain one of them briefly?

DG: The Siege gametype sets up the game to have one team be the defender of a base and the other team attacks and tries to destroy that base. Once the base is destroyed, the teams then swap sides and the defender is now the attacker and visa versa. Once both sides have played both roles, the times to destroy the base are compared. Whichever team successfully defended the base longer is the winner. (Of course, you could easily look at this as whichever team destroyed the base more quickly is the winner...it's sort of a "glass half full/half empty" kind of thing.)