It's Friday night. You're home from a long day at work and you sit down at your $2000 gaming rig to play a game originally released at the end of 2004. You see a familiar logo at the multiplayer screen. You click it (DUN DUN DUN). You select a server. Your body is ready. You start a best-selling novel while waiting for all the models to load. You connect. A new round just began. You finish that novel... You spawn, your palms sweating. But you have no guns. First order of business is always to find a weapon. Try to memorise where the weapon locations are on popular maps (de_dolls, ttt_67theway_v3, ttt_minecraft_b5 etc). Someone starts following you. Second order of business: Make sure you are alone or in a large group when you find out your role. If you're in the abandoned corner of a huge map with a traitor right next to you, prepare to die. Of course, this can always work the other way round...

In no particular order, here are the weapons of TTT:

PISTOLS
1. The Glock - This versatile pistol is a favourite of many, because of the machine-pistol function of holding down the trigger.

2. The Desert Eagle (Deagle) - This is the definitive pistol of TTT (and CSS). Why? Because of the 1 shot kill headshots and extreme damage. In the wise words of many others, "Easy to use, hard to master".

3. The Pistol - Also known as the Five-Seven, this is just a pistol. It seems a mixture of the Deagle and Glock, with a decent rate of fire, high accuracy, and mid-high damage.

MAIN WEAPONS
1. The M16 - A popular weapon, with a slow-to-mid rate of fire, but with a high quality scope and good all around damage. Use from mid-long range, and you MUST APPLY to the face, otherwise you do much, much less damage.

2. The MAC 10 - More powerful than the CSS version, the MAC10 is a must have for CQB. With an epic rate of fire, and a surprisingly high DPS, this gun is one mean, lean, killing machine. From mid-long range the MAC10 isn't that effective, but this thing can have a detective dead in under 2 seconds from close range when used correctly.

3. The H.U.G.E 249 - This gun is best characterised as a monster. With 150 bullets, no reloads, and a 2-3 bullet instakill when applied to the head, this thing is a one man army. Unfortunately, there is no extra ammo for it, you only have 150 bullets. Another downside is the lacklustre damage when applied to the stomach, coupled with generally high recoil.

4. The Sniper Rifle - A port of the scout from CSS, this is your average boomstick. Instakill headshots, large damage to the stomach, and a high powered scope are good and all, but put against any other gun at close range and there goes your traitor round. The sniper also has an extremely low rate of fire. Essentially long range only.

5. The Shotgun - The shotgun, (also known as the XM1014 on some servers and in CS:GO) is a high powered auto shotgun. I'm not going to call it an instakill, put if you're right behind someone, they're dead. High recoil and awful range are what hinder this otherwise excellent weapon.

THE TRAITOR WEAPONS

1. The Knife - The knife is quite an excellent weapon. You can use it as a melee weapon, dealing 2.5 times as much damage as the crowbar, or you can throw it, instantly killing anyone it hits. It's silent, it's concealed, it's the perfect stealth weapon.

2. C4 - C4 is a timed explosive that goes boom when the timer runs out. It's one of the easiest ways to get kills, but you can't be seen near it without calling it out. The problem is that it gives off a loud beep, that makes it easy to detect.

3. The Jihad - Arguably the most fun weapon in TTT, you walk into the middle of a crowd, spend 2 seconds arming the bomb, and boom, the crowd dies. But so do you.

4. The Silenced Pistol - It's a pistol. But silenced...

5. The Silenced M16 - It's an M16. But silenced...

6. The AWP - Pretty much a sniper rifle that kills instantly when it hits the abdomen or higher. The downside: This thing is so bloody loud that you can't be near ANYBODY.

THE DETECTIVE WEAPON

The UMP Prototype - The UMP Prototype is a life saver for detectives. A high damage SMG that stuns and throws off the targets, but has a relatively small clip. I'll let you be the judge.

Innocents are essentially the cannon fodder of Terroist Town, with their sole purpose either to wait around and eventually die, or kill that guy who tried to kill another guy who was killing that guy who killed another guy. They don't have the arsenals of traitors, or the sheer ability that Detectives have, they just have the fear that the guy behind them has a thirst for blood.There isn't really a proven formula to play the innocent, but there are a few good rules to follow.

1. Don't RDM. Seriously, don't RDM.

2. Stay in small, "trusted" groups, so a Jihad will think you aren't worth the trouble of dying for.

3. Follow the TTT equivalent of Murphy's Law: "What can go wrong will go wrong". Alone in an empty corner of the map, and see someone getting dangerously close to you? Assume he's a traitor and get back to civilization. DO NO KILL SOMEONE BECAUSE THEY ARE SUSPICIOUS, because that's RDM, and RDM is for (insert general insult referring to another human being).

4. Survive.

Detectives are essentially the medics, the lawmakers and the targets of TTT. Step 1: HELP PEOPLE. That's literally all there is to know about playing Detective. Someone asks for health? Buy a health station. Someone's been murdered? You go over there and test the living daylights out of that unfortunate soul. Another thing: Some servers have this thing called a sling. It's essentially the spiderman gun from the toybox/steam workshop. If you only have 1 credit, don't buy it. I understand you want to have fun and all, but your duty is to serve people! To honour the badge! To serve and protect! Go and helpa poor soul, and then watch him stab you in the back.

The traitor is easily the most fun class in TTT. Whether you're killing from the shadows, watching your C4 go off under the nose of a Detective, or running into the middle of a crowd about to spread the joy of explosives. But, to play the T well, you must learn the fundamental rules.

1. If you're detected, you can't load a save. You must stay undetected. Burn bodies with incendiary grenades, throw them off roofs to make it look like an accident, frame someone with the same weapon as you, the possibilities are endless.

2. Talk with your teammates. Tell them where you just planted C4, tell them where you're going to Jihad, tell them where a lone prey lurks. Even if you don't have a microphone, you can still use your keyboard. Some of the most satisfying rounds in TTT are ones where you cooperate with your fellow revolutionaries, forming the perfect plan, and executing it with unrivalled precision.

3. Treat every situation like you would in a Hitman (Blood Money especially) game. Look for unique ways to kill your opponents, plant C4 on large props to crush people (It has been done!), look for walls that explosives could breach, find the perfect sniper's den...

4. Always respond when asked about certain events in chat. Even if you are found out, you can always take someone else with you to the grave.

5 (OPTIONAL). When someone calls a KOS on you, which they inevitably will, respond calmly and cooly in microphone chat, and die with honour.

Trouble in Terroist Town is an amazing mod, and I have had some excellent times in it, but you can always take this game one step further. Look up advanced strategies. Learn maps off by heart. Watch others play. Like chess, there is some type of joy that cannot be explained that comes from learning the ropes, and watching your play evolve. And with that, I bid you farewell. Thanks for reading!