Tips for hiding a tek transmitter

[St1ckyBandit]

So I'm currently working on building one of these puppies and I would like to keep it as hidden as possible. Any advice? 

I have a few questions as well:

How far does the beam of light go ?

Do you still get hit with the upload timer ?

Can you place them at an angle like on a slanted roof ?

Thanks

[zero064]

I've never tried to hide one, but I'm interested to see if anybody has come up with a practical way to do it. That beam of light goes up (and down) a long way, far enough that anybody nearby can see it.

I suppose you could find spots where the beam would project up into rock. Then you're really limiting where you can use the thing, and for me the whole point of the transmitter is to have convenient exit points from the map.

There is a timer on any items you leave in there.

[Joebl0w13]

Just now, zero064 said:

I suppose you could find spots where the beam would project up into rock.

Yup. I've placed it in a few caves. That's about the only thing that will block it.

[carbonark]

You can sometimes get it to place pretty far sideways, if you're low enough in the map then it should project out anywhere visible

[Pipinghot]

3 hours ago, St1ckyBandit said:

So I'm currently working on building one of these puppies and I would like to keep it as hidden as possible. Any advice? 

I have a few questions as well:

How far does the beam of light go ?

Your post made me curious so I tested a few things.

 

* The beam of light goes all the way to the top & bottom of the map, as long as you are within render distance of the transmitter.

* Having said that, the rendering of the light beams is inconsistent, if you're above (like if you're flying over someone's base) then you have to regularly look down in the direction of the transmitter in order to have the game render in the beams. Once the beams are rendered in, if you look horizontally or above yourself the beams will de-render after a couple of seconds and they won't be visible until you look down at the transmitter again. This is true even if you're very close to the transmitter.

* The beams will also go through multiple layers of terrain. I put my test units on the top of a cliff and the beams were visible at multiple points on the cliff as the rock formations went in & out. If you're in a position to make the beams render in then you can see them anywhere they're not buried in the terrain.

What I didn't test is whether you can hide them by putting them inside caves. I'm guessing this works for the most part since someone has to be within render range of the transmitters in order to get the beams of light to render in. However, even when you're not close enough to fully render the transmitters in there are still sparkles in the air that surround them which are visible from a longer range.

 

My suggestion for you would be to get on a local/host copy of the game and place them where you would like to place them on your server, then  use the "fly" and "ghost" commands to see what results you get in the specific locations you want to try.

3 hours ago, St1ckyBandit said:

Do you still get hit with the upload timer ?

I didn't get a timer on my local/host copy and (as far as I know) this is true on a regular server also.

3 hours ago, St1ckyBandit said:

Can you place them at an angle like on a slanted roof ?

Yes.

[Gooberino]

Honestly you won't really get to hide it. When I play solo pvp every once in a while I just accept they're gonna get blown up every couple of days. They're dirt cheap nowadays with genesis/extinction anyway.

 

Your best bet to hide it is to have an alt who can turn it off once you're done using it. Too many ppl run ESP they will find your transmi in 5 seconds if you don't turn it off. And even then...

[carbonark]

1 hour ago, Pipinghot said:

I didn't get a timer on my local/host copy and (as far as I know) this is true on a regular server also.

You still have timers when using a tek transmitter on official servers and some unofficials. The timer is there to prevent uploading any items in between saves. You won't see that in single player saves since there aren't necessarily consistent saves and frankly the reasons for implementing in don't really matter there.

[wizard03]

7 hours ago, St1ckyBandit said:

So I'm currently working on building one of these puppies and I would like to keep it as hidden as possible. Any advice? 

I have a few questions as well:

How far does the beam of light go ?

Do you still get hit with the upload timer ?

Can you place them at an angle like on a slanted roof ?

Thanks

I have NO clue how to hide one of these things.....the spot light to space is always going to be the giveaway XD
The beam of light goes to space
Yes, upload timer is the same
I have seen multiple bases with the spotlight tilted at a wild angle, so Im gonna say yeah. Honestly, good luck on this one dude. I don't think this is able to be hidden =/

The only cleaver thing I can think of is maybe building an ocean thing way off in the corner of the map

[Pipinghot]

6 hours ago, carbonark said:

You still have timers when using a tek transmitter on official servers and some unofficials. The timer is there to prevent uploading any items in between saves. You won't see that in single player saves since there aren't necessarily consistent saves and frankly the reasons for implementing in don't really matter there.

Doh!   Yeah that should have been obvious about the Official servers. I wasn't thinking about the reason for the timer being there.

Thanks for the correction.

[St1ckyBandit]

Thanks for the replies. I did some singleplayer testing and it seems the only way to hide them is in a cave or at an extreme angle pointing into a mountain, like some of you guys have touched on.

It definitely helps that you can place them straight onto the ground but sometimes its best to create your own angle with a sloped ceiling.

I managed to find a half decent spot near my base and pointed it towards a mountain.