Behind the Scenes #3 news

One of the weakest areas of CSP gameplay mechanics was knifing. It was like holding a little pointy gun that never seemed to hit your target.

This was my original post in the Beta Thread:

"doublethink" wrote:

Knife Hit Detection

Since we were all excited for the new knifing animations we had quite a few rounds of knife fights, but the hit detection for knifing is too narrow. In other words, the cone of attack is extremely thin. It needs to be made into more of a melee style swipe, like cs1.x =)

Mizzack re-wrote the functionality of the knifing hit detection so that it has a much wider arc, and more closely matches what a player would expect coming from 1.6. Its' actually still a bit challenging to hit people, but in a skill based way rather then unexpected behavior and frustration.

We tested this a great deal and are happy with the results for the current internal build.

Another major issue for us was Spectator Mode. Here was my post in the Beta Thread:

"doublethink" wrote:

Spectator Mode Bugs

Lets face it, a good deal of time playing CS is spent in First Person Spec.

In CSP theres some missing features:

1) Weapon Models have detached muzzle flashes.
2) No weapons show their View Punch (POV) Animations.
3)

"smartin" wrote: Spectator mode doesn't show flashes

The reason I listed this in exploits is the lack of flashes in spec could be used to give additional info to remaining teammates over vent.

Amogan went through the code and reworked these features so they behave as they should. It really adds to the polished feel of the game to have continuity between what you the player see match what someone spectating you sees. :)

To re-cap these features were:
1) Flashbangs
2) Correct X/Y/Z orientation of the muzzleflashes
3) Weapon kickback, otherwise known as View Punch Animations

This is another one for all the 1.6 die hards out there.

One of the things I absolutely hate about Source is the laggy weapon switching. The first time I ever loaded up CS:S I noticed it the first time I pulled pistol. The animation seems to last forever.

As it turns out, it isn't forever, but Redstar had some hard numbers to justify my intuition:

"redstar" wrote:

Proper Weapon Switching Speed

Weapon switching comparison:

UPDATE: It is possible to fire 4-5 bullets from the m4a1 in 1.6 before CSP can fire one.

For this test I timed the delay* between the moment you switch and the moment you can start firing in both CS 1.6 and CSPromod 1.04b. I tested all the weapons and I concluded that this delay is the same for all the weapons and combinations possible in CS 1.6
In CSPromod 1.04b, the Galil is the only weapon which fires quicker than all the other ones, it shouldn't.

Here are the results of my testing:

Counter-Strike 1.6

-delay*: 0.69/x/0.71 (in seconds) delay= 0.70 seconds

CSPromod 1.04b

-delay*: 0.98/x/1.02 (in seconds) delay= 1.0 seconds

___________________________________________

Difference : 0.30 seconds

Once again this difference is significant in-game and must be tweaked.

300 milliseconds, or 3 tenths of a second is a lifetime in the heat of the moment. Thankfully amogan hardcoded these values to exactly match the behavior found in 1.6 for this latest internal build.

But the fun didn't stop there:

"redstar" wrote: Hi,
I did a lot of timing comparisons between CSP 1.04b and cs 1.6 weapons rate of fire (ROF)

Here are the results:

___________________________________________ CSPromod BETA 1.04

CSP ak47 rate of fire ( 30 bullets )

3.05
3.07
3.05
2.98
3.05
3.05
3.05
2.98
3.00
3.05
Result: 3.05 seconds

____________________________________________ Counter-Strike 1.6

CS 1.6 ak47 rate of fire ( 30 bullets )

2.85
2.85
2.90
2.90
2.90
2.87
2.90
2.90
2.85
2.90
Result: 2.90 seconds

Conclusion: Difference between 1.6 and csp: 0.15 seconds

___________________________________________ CSPromod BETA 1.04

CSP famas burst fire mode rate of fire ( 25 bullets )

5.50
5.46
5.46
5.51
5.50
5.51
5.50
5.50
5.50
5.50
Result: 5.50 seconds

____________________________________________ Counter-Strike 1.6

CS 1.6 famas burst fire mode rate of fire ( 25 bullets )

4.54
4.51
4.50
4.50
4.51
4.50
4.50
4.50
4.50
4.50
Result: 4.50 seconds

Conclusion: Difference between 1.6 and csp: 1.00 second

___________________________________________ CSPromod BETA 1.04

CSP knifing rate of fire for 10 hits (left click)

3.85
3.79
3.81
3.81
3.81
3.81
3.79
3.81
3.81
3.81
Result: 3.81 seconds

____________________________________________ Counter-Strike 1.6

CS 1.6 knifing rate of fire for 10 hits (left click)

3.42
3.39
3.40
3.42
3.40
3.37
3.40
3.42
3.40
3.39
3.43
3.42
3.42
3.40
3.40
Result: 3.40 seconds

Conclusion: Difference between 1.6 and csp: 0.41 second

Thanks for reading, those values are really important!

And the response:

"amogan" wrote: Anyway I have now tweaked every listed weapon to the max, any further differences are CPU/tickrate related.

If you recall back to my previous entry, the grenade throwing speed, and now the weapon switching, reload times, and Rate of Fire changes are all helping CSP move towards the correct feel of gameplay that lies in some of these crucial details.

Its hard to explain the importance of things like this without coming off as an elitist, but suffice to say we are this tedious about what we do. Graphics wise, we love source. But we feel part of what made CS:S fall short of many peoples expectations was the lack of attention to detail.

Thanks for reading!

Until next time, Happy CS-ing. :geek:

-Mike