R8.0 Sentry Guns & You (Updated from R7)

The Sentry Gun in GTFO is not as basic as the ingame descriptions suggest. Here i will list the updated changes to the Sentry as of R8.0 and hopefully help folks find more effective ways to deploy them.

The Sentry Changes

As of GTFO R8.0 and the recent patching the Auto Sentry has a new gimmick!

Piercing ammo! The devs want it to hit and stun multiple enemies (but this isnt how it works as i'll explain later) Also it now targets the BODY of enemies, not the HEAD.
ALL OTHER SENTRIES TARGET THE HEAD as 1st priority!

SNIPER and SHOTGUN sentries have a Bio Tracking bonus!

But what does this mean?



Basically:

When a player/bot uses the Bio Tracker tool, any marked enemy will be fired upon 50% faster by SNIPER and SHOTGUN sentries! (This bonus DOES NOT apply to the Burst Sentry or the Auto Sentry)

ALL sentry guns have PERFECT accuracy now.
In normal operation they will NEVER miss a shot. (They can still miss in certain situations which i will cover later haha)

In fact they are so perfectly efficient now, if you ever manage to get 3 injured enemies in front of a BURST sentry it will kill all 3 with 1 burst. Never wasting a single bullet.

ALL sentry guns target the CLOSEST enemy in range.
AFTER a target is locked, the sentry will attempt a HEAD SHOT
If no head shot is available, the sentry will target the TORSO.

Backstab and critical damage was REMOVED from ALL sentry guns for R6.
They will deal their full basic damage from any direction.

While this makes the sentry a much more reliable tool than previous versions it, sadly, also massively nerfs them as you can no longer use them for flanking critical damage.

As always, the Sentry has 3 states.
GREEN for standby
RED for active
WHITE for empty

Your personal sentry is always visible on the HUD, which also gives you a distance readout in meters. Use this! If ever you need to know "can my sentry shoot that far?" the answer is on your screen.

Also any player can look at any Sentries LCD screen and see its remaining ammo in real time.


Like most of GTFOs weapons, the sentries stats are averaged out so they remain active for similar amounts of time when fully loaded. (nerfed to around 60 seconds these days)

As always. The GTFO sentries all deal FULL FRIENDLY FIRE damage. Even with upgraded targeting logic sentries DO NOT DETECT PLAYERS If any player steps in front of an active sentry, they will get shot.

Burst Sentry [No Bio Tracking Bonus]

The original GTFO sentry gun.
DOES NOT RECEIVE BIO TRACK FIRE SPEED BONUS
PRIORITY TARGETS HEADSHOTS

Rarely used in previous versions of GTFO due to unreliable targeting, now considered by many to be very reliable after it was fixed, buffed then nerfed.

The burst sentry deals light damage at a steady 3 shots per second and currently holds around 260 rounds giving it a maximum operational time of around 80 seconds.
(In R6 launch the burst fired 50% faster and held over 350 bullets which was massively over powered.)

Its targeting range reaches about 20-25 meters, if any hostile enters the GREEN cone, it will be targeted and fired upon. The turret takes 2 seconds to "activate" when deployed and will start firing after 1 second.

Pros:

• Easy to use
  Just drop it facing bad things and watch it go!
  
• Effective against small sleepers
  Kills them in 2-3 bursts
  
• Short/Medium range support
  Almost all fighting in GTFO takes place closer than 20 meters.
  
• Efficient
  Upgraded targeting logic means not a single bullet will be wasted*

Cons:

• Low fire rate
  At 1 burst per second many enemies will easily run right past an improperly placed burst sentry.
  
• Low damage output
  Giant sleepers take dozens of shots to kill with this sentry, they will soak up all the ammo if your team does not deal with them!
  
• Makes DMR/Sniper users sad (Pretty sure this is a pro lol)
  The upgraded targeting means the sentry will DECAPITATE giants on its first shot, preventing any sniper rifle user from scoring a head shot kill.

*Sentries can still miss! Check the end of this guide for more info.

How 2 Deploy Burst Sentry:

As a general purpose sentry you can liberally use the burst turret anywhere!

Its primary role is to take pressure off the team during alarm scans but nothings stopping you dropping it in a pinch when things go wrong.

A common new player mistake is placing burst turrets outside of closed doors you intend to defend.

This will exhaust its ammo supply for nothing. If you are defending a closed door KEEP THE TURRET ON YOUR SIDE. This saves tool kits for a cfoam user to refill or a mine deployer to collect its paycheck.

Broken doors are good choke points for Burst Sentries.

Sniper Sentry [Gains Bio Track Bonus]

Essentially the same sniper rifle players can use but stuck on a trolley.
Currently gains a 50% fire speed bonus when enemies are marked by a bio tracker

Holds 32 rounds fully loaded, instantly kills all basic enemies, has the same range as the player sniper rifle (50+ meters) REQUIRES 4 SECONDS TO LOCK ON before it fires, once locked will fire 1 shot every 2 seconds. 64 seconds up time at 100% tool ammo.


Yes, this turret can shoot that far.

Hit hard by the removal of critical damage for Sentries, Sniper Sentry can no longer head shot kill giants from behind using backstab bonuses but its still an extremely powerful tool specialised for dealing with strong enemies.

Pros:

• Its an automated aimbot sniper rifle
  One shot. One kill.
  
• Extreme long range support
  If your team needs to move around, its still watching.
  With good placement this sentry can fire through multiple rooms! Unaffected by fog/low light or floor grates this turret will find that pesky crawling shooter hiding in the toxic fog.
  
• Efficient with tool kits
  32 rounds. 32 kills.
  
• Deals 80 damage
  Only giants can survive this...and 81hp players
  
  Cons:
  
  
• Deals 80 damage
  If your big brain prisoner pals step into this turrets line of fire, they are taking a dirt nap. No one ever has 80+ hp lol
  
• Lock On Delay
  A 4 second "warm up" time needs to be factored into your placement location.
  
• Low fire rate
  Needing 2 seconds between shots makes this Sentry less effective against hordes of small enemies and dangerous used in close quarters.

How 2 Deploy Sniper:

Now, the GTFO community will tell you to use it for long hallways and never take it because its so slow and burst sentry is meta, which is cool and logical...HOWEVER

You can have a great deal of fun with this thing. Sure its much harder to use but the reward for finding a sweet spot to place it is having your team mates wonder where all the enemies went and why the game suddenly got so easy.



Personally i love this tool, its potential increases as you become more familiar with GTFOs mechanics. For example, in the picture above the Sniper Sentry is covering the entire west side of the room, any enemy entering the room from either the bulkhead or security door will be targeted and fired on greatly reducing the pressure on defenders.



In this case the turret is sniping enemies 2 rooms away beyond visual range. Endless possibilities.

Shotgun Sentry [Bio Track Bonus]

An older concept sentry from previous rundowns...which has been fixed! nerfed into oblivion haha

The Shotgun Sentry has a very short range, very low ammo capacity (52 rounds) and a 1 second fire rate.

It also benefits from the new Bio Track marked bonus to gain +50% fire rate...Sadly all this does is burn tool ammo 50% faster.

HOWEVER...Unable to kill a basic enemy in 1 shot and bio tracker boosting making it blow its load in under 20 seconds AND PRIORITY TARGETING HEADSHOTS causing all the pellets to miss reduces this sentry to just a sad joke. Using it is a total waste of tool kits and will get your team killed as angry sleepers just walk past it laughing at you...then killing you lol

Use the Sniper Sentry. With the Bio Scan speed buff its a broken power house that can lay waste to vast numbers of enemies with no problem.
Use the Burst Sentry, "it just works"
Heck, use the Auto Sentry. Its funny and surprisingly effective.

I hope the Shotgun Sentry will one day be fixed because a rapid fire high damage close quarter defence tool would be super useful in tight hallways where the Burst Sentry is too slow to help and the Sniper Sentry is just too dangerous to use. (80 Friendly Fire damage will down team mates instantly in most cases)

Pros: It makes 5 use tool kits vanish in under 20 seconds or your money back!

Cons: You are literally throwing the game by taking this tool. Nothing you do will make it usable. Source: trust me bro i've tried.
Its a waste of a tool slot and unless your team is understanding/goofing around you will likely take ALOT of abuse running this sentry haha

Booooosting your tool

Because sometimes we all need a little help to preform ;)

With the addition of boost crystals in R5 came a selection of sentry specific bonuses. These come in all 3 flavours, muted, bold and aggressive.

SR Sentry Boost:



A short range damage buff for your sentries.
No actual range is specified in game so your guess is as good as mine...maybe 7 meters like the player version?
These boosters are fantastic for juicing up the Burst Sentry. They pair well with its natural short range and good damage output often giving it enough of a buff to 1 shot basic sleepers.

They work with the Shotgun Sentry...but why would you burn boosts on it?
Dubious value for Sniper Sentry as its already over killing most enemies at long ranges.

Generic Sentry Damage Boost:



Just a basic +dmg modifier with no strings attached. Great for any Sentry, kinda redundant on the Sniper Sentry as it already hits hard (Check out the sweet glow stick boost as well!)

Damage boosting the Burst Sentry has the funky "feature" of making it hit multiple enemies per burst rather than dealing over kill damage. Not sure if this is intended behaviour but its amazing watching 1 Burst kill 3 strikers.

Sentry CPU Boost:



Replaces the boring stock cooler on your Sentry CPU with an after market RGB solution.

But seriously, this booster speeds up FIRE RATE and TARGETING SPEED of your Sentry...massively if you stack them.
It has NO EFFECT on turn speed as sentries already react INSTANTLY to targets.
Now you won't notice much effect overclocking the Shotgun or Burst Sentries...Sniper Sentry on the other hand...Lets just say if you want to have a great deal of fun, CPU Boost the Sniper Sentry as much as you can my friends.

The Auto Sentry is somewhat of an outsider, its really does not benefit much from +dmg or +speed as its damage is so low any boost is meaningless and it fires so fast speed just makes it eat more tool kits.
There used to be a neat sound channel bug in the game where speed boosted Auto Sentries caused all audio to mute for all players. I think its been patched...definitely worth trying though for a giggle.

Current Sentry Limits

There are targeting limitations that apply to ALL sentries. These "features" will cause them to miss:

If the targeted enemy body part is too far ABOVE/BELOW the TARGETING CONE. The sentry CANNOT AIM AT THEM and will glitch out. Try not to place sentry guns too high up on stair cases or ramps unless you are doing something funky.

You can see this "feature" most clearly with giant sleepers. If a giant stands close to any sentry, the gun will try to aim up at the head/torso and be unable to do so, instead shooting off into space and missing.

If the enemy has no defined "head" the sentry will shoot where a head should be, unable to target the torso causing it to miss every shot.

This is a problem unique to armoured enemies as they have no "head shot" damage zone despite having a head that will come off when shot.

In regards to special enemies, such as daddy hydra or mommy birther, all sentries WILL damage their weak points...HOWEVER! Targeting logic still applies!

As there is no head for these enemy types, it will default to TORSO shots as the target is still hostile, wasting its ammo reserves hitting armour plates.

Sentry animations DO NOT MATCH what the sentry is doing!
You will hear the Burst sentry fire 3 shots, it may have only fired 1 bullet.
You will see enemies heads explode and never hear the Sniper sentry fire.
You will watch the wall get covered in bullet holes from the Auto sentry "missing" but its actually hitting every enemy.
This is normal. Welcome to GTFO prisoner.

Also a funny bug with empty sentries post-battle: manually reloading it while its empty on the ground will cause it to shoot you (or whomever loaded it) in the face. I don't know why but its pretty funny. Always let your friends refill your sentry ;)


Feed me!

Auto Sentry - Now in HEL flavors! (No Bio Track Boost)

A somewhat specialised Sentry gun with a unique niche. Its often considered by many to be a useless or inferior tool but it has some very specific uses and actually dishes out a good deal of damage. IT WILL NOT TARGET HEADSHOTS. As of the latest patch this sentry will penetrate the first target.

GIVEN HEL PROPERTIES and BODY TARGETING PRIORITY IN R8 BECAUSE WHY NOT?!

The Auto Sentry has a very short range, around 15-20m in game. It deals a pitiful 2-3 points of damage per shot and holds a beefy 570 foam nerf darts which it fires at 10 per second, giving it just shy of 60 seconds up time when fully loaded.

So what is the point of the Auto Sentry?

Surge Defence.

Surge Defence is its main. Any time you encounter a Surge event this Sentry will provide the space for your team to take care of business by causing any enemies it hits to enter a "stunned" state.

But what is a Surge Event?

A Surge Event in GTFO is when the MAXIMUM amount of enemies will appear AT ONCE and will keep spawning AT THE MAXIMUM RATE until the Surge event is over.

In R6 there is only 1 Surge class alarm...but R5 has some nasty ones haha

Pros:

• Surge Protector
  Fires fast enough to stun large numbers of enemies. No other tool can do this.
  
• Striker Chip Damage
  If you have high damage weapons, such as the HEL revolver/DMR any minor damage caused by the auto sentry will allow you to 1 shot head shot small sleepers without the need for a muted +dmg booster.
  
• ????
  err low team damage? Its pretty safe to use at close quarters...don't quote me on that.
  
  Cons:
  
  
• Low direct damage
  This Sentry isn't designed to kill things on its own.
  
• Devours Tool Kits
  Auto Sentry is very thirsty, its high fire rate and lack of damage eats tool kits like candies if you don't help it deal with enemies.
  
• Over Specialised
  Outside of its intended purpose there are few ways to use this Sentry...other than goofing around of course.

How 2 Deploy Auto Sentry:

Step 1: Drop in front/behind the surge wave
Step 2: Start blasting
Optional Step: Don't die

If you place this tool poorly it will shower your team with nerf darts making it extremely hard to aim.

But what about the new HEL/Body shot properties?

Well...the sentry still targets the NEAREST enemy and wont switch target until it looses tracking, then it goes to the next closest enemy...it cannot factor in multiple targets.
What this does is cause its shots to go high, the sentry is physically is lower to the ground than a standing sleeper and much smaller than a giant so it has to aim UP to hit them.
Your penetrating rounds will almost always miss and be mostly wasted in standard operation. Sad face =(

[3LØØÐÞ3®Mîñútë]

Just to be more precise the sniper sentry does 48.1 Dmg in example with an big striker its
48,1 * 1,5 (front head multiplier) = 72,15 so a second sniper sentry shot is then 120,25 Dmg of 120 HP
You could even go for 6 Hel Revolver shots after the first sniper sentry hit for a fast combo.

Nonetheless a very well written guide with some humor inside +1 :)

[TheNastyNord]

Good read! Thanks for the info and GTFO!

[PrediN@ter]

Thank you so much for this. Its hard to learn all of the little tricks even playing this game. Any information on tools will make this game more enjoyable and manageable.

[Hellbughunter]

I must say I found the auto sentry realy usfull at keeping enemys at a distance. Espetially at blood doors stoping the hybrids from shoting.

[Nayser]

what about combining auto sentry with sniper/burst? Auto can keep them in place while the other kills.

[Yarnu The Dog]

Nice information playa, liked it a lot.

I found a lot of utility from the AUTO SENTRY, particularly for staggering in chokepoints. Never had the chance to find a SENTRY booster, even though I mainly ran that in my party. Keen to try the stacking like you say.

Keep on at it.