Here is the content of a very interesting email conversation between myself and Drex of the Quad Damage Clan regarding sentry placement on rock1:

"> Okay now, you've made me look stupid! Now you /have/ to give me that tip.
> I'm not familiar with Rock1 at the moment, learning the map. Let me know.

"Well, like I said before there are plenty of places the sentry can be placed. I've seen it in the gas room, in the hallway leading to the gas room, in the hallway leading to the flag room, in the flag room, just about anywhere on the catwalk in the courtyard, on top of the entrance into the base, in the sniper nests above the entrance, even outside of the bases in the water. I like to put it above the entrance to the base. [See Fig 1] However, it is very hard to keep it there. If a soldier or demoman places a grenade up there, forget it...your sentry is gone. However, like you were saying, this is definitely a high traffic area. Another good place I have seen is above the entrance to the courtyard on the catwalk. [See Figs 2 and 3] This one is harder to get to. Anyone walking in gets nailed by your sentry. The only point I think it is vulnerable from is if the other team blows a hole in your floor and a soldier or pyro pops up and unloads on your sentry. Okay...this one is going to be hard to explain. [See fig 4] It is very vulnerable, but pretty much can stop the other team in their tracks. As you walk into the courtyard from the main entrance, the hallway to the right which leads to the gas room or showers is a good place. The sentry should be positioned so that the tip of the gun sticks out into the courtyard. Now this area is very dark, so it will be hard to see. Anyway, by having the gun stick out just a little, its range spans the entire courtyard. This means if someone does get by, gets the flag, on their return trip to the gas chamber, your sentry has the whole courtyard to lock onto them and nail 'em before the deliver the flag. Boy is it hard to explain where to place them. Like I said earlier, I've just about seen them all over. I've seen them placed in every nook and cranny on the catwalk. I've even seen people stack them on top of each other. This is very foolish because if one goes, they both go. Hope I've helped you out some. Just let me know and keep in touch. I've got another friend who enjoys playing engineer as well. I'll talk to him and get a few more tips. See ya later. Drex " [End email]

Now that I've gotten to learn rock1 a little better, I have established some of my favorites for sentry placement. For the best, I would have to go with the last suggestion he made -- the sentry in the hallway from the courtyard to the gas room facing outward. [Fig 4] This is almost indestructable, and the first round I played with this setup not one person made it through the courtyard to capture. The flag was taken plenty of times, but the great secret to this is that they have to run toward the sentry to get to the gas room, and they can't do a thing about it. With snipers and the like in the courtyard, there was no way they could get past. I am just mad I didn't figure this out. :) The beauty part is, the nose of the sentry just protrudes past the wall, so that's all that's exposed to attack from the enemy, while the sentry has their whole body to target. Man that is a good idea.

Second favorite? Either on top of the door to the atrium in front of your courtyard, [See fig 1] or directly in front of one of the doors leading to the ramps which go up to the entrance to your courtyard. [See fig 5] This is also a very essential choke point. If you have two engineers, both of them should build a sentry in front of each door, leaving room for your teammates to walk through. There is absolutely no way any enemy can get through with two sentries on each side of him. I'll say that again. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR AN ENEMY, OR EVEN THREE OR FOUR, TO GET PAST TWO FULLY UPGRADED AND HEALED SENTRIES IN THESE POSITIONS. The only place which enemies can get in, then, is through the hole in the courtyard floor, and it is very easy to place a soldier or two inside the rail tunnel to prevent this from happening. I put this as my second favorite because more often than not you only have one engineer, so you should put it in a place where it can do the most damage by itself (choice number one). But if you do have 2 or more engineers, this is the place to put your sentries. [Heh, on second thought, you could just put a dispenser in the other doorway, thus blocking entrance. See fig 5. Then stand up on the top, fig 6, and jump down on any attackers surviving your sentry/disp.]

My third favorite spot is above the entrance to your courtyard, on the fence on the catwalk which goes between the guard towers [see fig 2]. It provides a pretty quick kill, and is very difficult to get at other than from the hole which a demo made with his detpack in the floor. Not much to be said about this one; try it until it works, then move. [REC]r3ptile-EG pointed out that the sentry can destroy itself when it fires rockets at an enemy directly below it; just make sure that you place it far enough out so that it cannot shoot at its feet. [See fig 3] You build this sentry by hitting the 'special' key, jumping while facing the wires on the catwalk, hitting '2' while in the peak of your jump. Then rotate it out with the spanner.

Fourth favorite spot -- in the gas canister room, just behind the chair, facing the door. [See fig 7] Any enemy trying to release the gas will get a faceful of lead for his efforts. The beauty of this is, the chair protects the sentry from any assault from the flag carrier. This is pretty easy to maintain, though it does take a bit of a jog to go refill it. It's pretty low-maintenance; not too many enemies come through here, which is kind of a down; you want to kill as many of them as quickly as possible and as close to the entrance of your base as possible. I don't really recommend this unless you're having tremendous problems keeping your sentry alive and preventing gas release; but if that's the case, then this will certainly take care of it.

This was originally on my news page, but I moved it here because I deleted all my old news. Read on:

I was reading the message board on Sgt. Coolguy's news site and I came across this very excellent idea posted by Matt regarding improvements to be made on The Rock:

"Here's what I'd like to see: 1. A new room opposite the entrance to the courtyard, called the jailkeepers room. It would contain 2 things. First, a switch which turned on red capture beams in all the doorways leading out of the courtyard for about 1 second(that would get more people into those jails, which is an innovative and underused idea). And second, a SECOND key which would be taken to a relatively easily accessed switch in the nearby cellblocks which would open ALL the cells for 5 seconds, allowing for a mass jailbreak. Right now, you CAN'T get your guys out of jail. This could be a fun secondary mission in the enemy base.
2. When the gas attack goes off, DON'T open the gasmasks on the losing teams side. What's the point of setting off the gas if none of you opponents dies? I can't believe they changed this. Now that you survive underwater as well, we really need to get this switched back. It's a lot of work to get in there and set off the gas. But it was an INCREDIBLE rush when you wiped out the ENTIRE ENEMY TEAM! I really, really miss that.
3. For the little people who can't stand not having all the gasmasks open- Make 3 safe zones in addition to the gasmasks on the WINNING team side. First, the gas chambers on BOTH sides(already like this, I think). Second, the water(already like this, too). Third, the Warden's office. It's logical. The Warden would protect himself. And it would let quick players who are too far from the water have a second opportunity for safety.
4. Our prisons take care of our inmates. Sometimes to a stupid degree. Let's put health packs in every cell. This will make it a smigin tougher to kill those sitting ducks. Maybe improve the odds on the jailbreak. They still lose their ammo, but get full health and keep what armor they had. I LOVE the idea of a mass jailbreak in my area or the enemy area. It would suit the map PERFECTLY. That's it. That's all the changes. It's my favorate map, but they really crippled it when they wen't all POLITICALLY CORRECT and let EVERYBODY have a gasmask. Ohhh! Let's be NICE! We don't want to HURT anyone! Please. -Matt "

A response to this was made, regarding the prison cells by death2all:

"The jails were a stupid idea to begin with. "why" you ask? Because you can just type in "kill" in the console to kill yourself and respawn . Also, if the maker of the rock did find a way around that, then people in jail cells should get a gas mask, or just respawn back in the jail."

Ok, that was kind of in Gibberish, but I get his point -- the jails aren't being used right. It doesn't make sense to be able to suicide and get out of jail. I agree with Matt -- the jail cells were a good idea but there are some things which need to be worked out -- teammates should be able to free their imprisoned friends, for instance. I think this would add a lot to my already favorite map. I hope someone can perhaps get in touch with the creator of this map and let him know about these really excellent suggestions regarding improvements to this map.[Editor's note: this has been done, and the author refused. He is done with the rock.]