Invisible cursor and black background when launching Tribes Ascend

When running Tribes Ascend (for the first time in my case), can't see mouse cursor, nor the background of the home screen (if you manage to blindly accept the EULA).  A problem with corrupted textures, according to technical support from Hi-Rez. The solution was to start Validate/Repair in the support utility (Hi-Rez Studios Game Support and Diagnostic Utility), found in the start menu or gear button of the Tribes launcher.