So, I've begun studying Adrift through film from various members of the community and I've come up with some rough ideas about the map. I don't have recommended starting strats yet, but I've been able to figure out some things about the flow of the map:

• One team is always on defense
• Base control falls apart without control of the attic
• Winning relies on containing the defensive team

Defense

From the way Adrift plays, one team typically ends up playing defense from their base, trying to push out through either the Hallway, Attic, or Tunnel. To hold defense in the base, players have typically attempted to fan out with one person controlling your attic, two guys controlling your balcony, and two guys guarding the hall door and the tunnel door.

However, I think what we'll need to do more of, is to have the person guarding hallway move into the hallway itself at the first corner that leads out to mid. From there, that person can help guard the hallway, guard the lift, shoot across to the other hallway, and clean up guys at mid. Additionally, it provides support to the person you'll need to the hallway. The people playing the tunnel need to try to move down and control the ramp to provide additional support at mid or flank out to the opposing team's hallway. Most importantly, you need to prevent the enemy team from jumping from mid to your attic. Once they position guys there, they typically back half of your team up into your base and move into offensive position. Here's the breakdown:

• 1-2 Attic
• 1-2 Tunnel/Ramp
• 1-2 Hallway

From there you can get enough crossfire angles to push out of your base and move into offensive position.


Offense

Offense on this map is about containment. Because of the sightlines and paths of this map, it is very easy to restrict a team to their own base. Defenders only have three ways out of their base, while offenders have five ways (the three defender paths, plus the two lifts).

To hold a team in their base, you need to maintain control of the jump up to their attic, their entrance to hallway, and the ramp in their tunnel. From there, the opposing team cannot exit their base. Breaking into their base is about getting someone inside behind them and forcing them to turn around and shift position. The easiest way is to kill the person sitting on jump up to their attic and then to take top control in their base to start shooting down on people.

However you push into their base, all that matters is that once someone enters their base, everyone else needs to take advantage and force 2-on-1 situations. If someone pushes over the tunnel lift or through tunnel, hallway players can peek shoot to put shots into combatants on that side of the map, which then frees your tunnel pushers to shoot the guys on the other side of the hallway (or vice versa).


Random Ideas

Here are a list of ideas I randomly had while watching film and experimenting in Forge. Please post feedback.

Offense:

• Lift into opposing team's base and use thruster pack to get behind cover immediately.
• Using pulse grenades to clean up people in hard to reach places
• Using AR backup to shoot down on enemies to conserve your own ammo and disrupt defenses
• With two players, having them walk together, then having one throw hologram and stop moving to bait a bolt shot into a Pulse Grenade + Headshot trap
• Lifting with camo to confuse enemies

Defense:

• Using turret in Hallway to allow that player to work solo
• Running one person with camo in a group to disguise how many people may be leaving the base on a flank
• Flaking out through bottom-mid more often
• Frag bouncing from the hallway to oust players in your attic

Grenades are a huge factor in this map. I've found myself running my Grenadier a LOT when playing here, if only to force players to back up and away.

I haven't run camo quite as much, as most of the time this map feels like I need to me more mobile. But maybe I'll run it on defense when playing flag, see how well that works.

Due to the multiple sticky detonators which spawn on this map I often run explosives specifically for the sticky detonators.

Here are some openings I recommend:

Your goal at the opening is to secure power weapons and key access points on the map. Thus in 4v4 you could send two players to the middle of the map, one to scattershot, and one to sticky detonator. If your two solo guys encounter resistance in the form of more than one enemy, they'd be better off backing off and helping with the middle.

I tend to personally favor going to the middle and sending a couple 'nades to the enemy's attic. Often this nets me a first strike, weakens the people exiting the attic (Leaping out of their attic is the best way they can escape the grenades), or at least slows them down. Especially in objective gametypes I find myself running mobility more and more often to get a head start on power weapons and key locations. I typically run frags for this opening, but I was thinking a pair of pulse grenades would lock someone in their attic. Two pulse grenades glowing in front of you keeps you from moving forward, so that might be better. I just don't like pulse grenades due to needing grenadier to start with 2. Hopefully that changes soon, because that would make sense. However it started dumb, so it's equally likely to stay dumb.

Sticky detonator is wonderful in this map, scattershot less so. Perhaps sending two to sticky detonator and two to middle would be better. You should definitely never send more than 2 to sticky det though, because if they don't meet opposition that's two less rifles you needed 5 seconds ago. These guys can quickly come to mid and help out though, so having someone there is important, especially for red team.

In objective games you still want to secure power weapons because you can defend better with them than without them. In one game I played a teammate of mine was only going for kills so he ran for sticky detonator off the start and then camped the base the entire game (He went 43-6 I think). It was a very effective defense, luckily for him some of us were also interested in offense and scored 2 flags.

Also I may not really like their presentation, but these guys have looked at openings on Adrift and other small maps, with practice their info is useful:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZMa-WT1 ... w&index=10

For reasons I have yet to understand the youtube embedding works some times and not so much other times.

I really love grenadier on Adrift, especially for objective gametypes. Spamming a doorway with grenades is a great way to hold off any attackers. And as much as it pains me to say it, the boltshot is a must on this map, regardless of gametype. I can't think of any good reason not to run around with the Mauler Jr. on this map.