PC Game House

COUNTER-STRIKE: ALIASES/ BINDS

Lesson 1: What are Aliases and Binds

An alias is a name or a name representing a of a set of actions. An example is an alias would be to buy a Desert Eagle.

Normally you would select the purchase menu, then the pistols menu, and then the gun itself, don't forget the ammo. This is time consuming if you are not sure where this particular weapon is.

buy menu, select 1, select 3, buy secondary ammo, buy secondary ammo, buy secondary ammo, buy secondary ammo, buy secondary ammo,

Once you play enough you begin to get into a pattern of weapons you like and equipment you regularly purchase. An alias allows you to automate the steps of this process.

alias deserteagle "buy; menuselect 1; menuselect 3; buyammo2; buyammo2; buyammo2; buyammo2; buyammo2;"

It should be easy enough to see the similarity of the alias to the keystrokes needed in the game. This is great, but unless you drop the console and type "deserteagle" nothing much is going to happen and that is not much faster.

Binding a method to call an alias with a predefined key. You bind a key to an alias that will be called when that key is pressed.

bind F1 "deserteagle;"

This means that when you press F1 in the game, and the alias "deserteagle" exists, it will be called. Stepping through each of the steps separated by ';'.

Lesson 2: What is this autoexec.cfg file?

The autoexec.cfg file is a file that is called just after the config.cfg file on most machines. I've heard it is not called for some people, but you can put exec autoexec.cfg at the bottom of the config file to call it, or type it into the console.

The config.cfg file is actually all of the bind and game settings that you had selected in the Half-Life menus, username, logo, movement, and such. Before you start, it would be a good idea to back this file up just in case.

Using the autoexec.cfg, or any other text file we create, we can make alias's and binds. I however tend not to mix the two. Leave the binds in the config.cfg, and the aliases in the autoexec.cfg, it will help you keep from binding the same key twice and getting frustrated in the end.

autoexec.cfg is not the only file you can have to put aliases in, you can make several but as I stated before, they will must be called with "exec XXXX.XXX" to get the loaded into the game. You will have to see how this happens on your machine. To verify that the autoexec.cfg is being called without help you should create a text file with the following text:

echo
echo -- Autoexec.cfg is loading --
echo

When you start a game, you should see this scroll by when all of the other system info is lading just before you get onto the server. If you see it you will not have to adjust anything, just add to this autoexec.cfg file. If you don't make sure that your text editor did not append a .txt to the end, the file should be "autoexec.cfg" in your cstrike directory. Otherwise add the "exec autoexec.cfg" as the last line of your config.cfg file.

Lesson 3: General Ideas

Most people wanting to set up an alias know what they want to happen, when I started I just wanted to be able to buy that MP5 and 4 clips as fast as everyone else was.

Decide what it is you are going to want and start making the aliases one at a time. You will find some parts are repeated, and some people alias those as well. For instance my MP5 alias is bound to F1 as follows in the config.cfg:

bind "F1" "mp5; 3X; twknife;"

This is actual binding it to three aliases that also contain aliases. Start with "mp5;"

alias mp5 "buy; m_3; m_1; clmenu; dev1; echo MP5; dev0;

buy; brings up the purchase menu, m_3; and m_1; are actually both aliases as well 'm' as in menuselect and '1' for one, '3' for 3 and so on. This buys the MP5, the first item on the third menu. clmenu; is a little problem introduced in beta 5, I've got my MP5, but that menu is still up, clmenu is an alias that will wait, call slot10, wait, call clot 10.... several times slot 10 is basically the clear menu command now. This all will be covered later. dev1; and dev0; are aliases for developer 1 and developer 0; and simply allow you to echo small amounts of text to the screen. In this case, I get a single line on the screen saying MP5. If you leave developer on, you will see some interesting stuff, but it goes fast and will become cluttered, so remember to turn it off.

3X; is simply an alias to buy 3 clips of primary ammo. twknife; is an alias based on RzE or Lestat or someone's alias to make the knife the quick weapon. Quite handy and highly suggested. It will take your best weapon or your side arm if one is not available, switch to the knife and back again so that you can hit the quick weapon button. 'q' I believe is the default from Half-Life and that's where I still have it. Nothing like trying to get that knife out when the clip is empty and the enemy is close, now with a single key anytime I want it's right there, 'q' again and the gun is back up at the ready.

That is the basic dissection of my mp5 alias. This can be extended, I know that many people will add an armor purchase to this and maybe a few grenades, I have this on a different key, but that is a personal preference. I don't like to spend $1000 just because my armor was slightly damaged last time.

Lesson 4: What can I do?

This is a list of common things you might want to use while making your aliases. Aliases don't all have to be about buying guns with the touch of a key. A good example is the quick knife alias. It just makes some things a little easier. You can use aliases to do all kinds of stuff, it's late and people are getting annoyed by all the gun fire coming from the room, you don't want to hop out and turn the volume down only to return and be dead or have the server full again. Try binding a key to this:

//Volume Control
alias v1 "volume 0.25; bind v v2; developer 1; echo Volume 25%; developer 0;"
alias v2 "volume 0.5; bind v v3; developer 1; echo Volume 50%; developer 0;"
alias v3 "volume 0.75; bind v v4; developer 1; echo Volume 75%; developer 0;"
alias v4 "volume 1.0; bind v v1; developer 1; echo Volume 100%; developer 0;"

bind "v" "v2;"

4 aliases, what is that all about? This brings up a good subject for this section. You can change what a key is bound to in the game. Be careful here though, it can cause problems of it's own, but it is quite useful to have one key cycle though options. In this case we bind the key initially to v2 when the v2 alias is called, we set the volume to .5 or 50% and then rebind the 'v' key to a new alias v3 and so on. This will get very messy if you do not make sure the key the alias is being bound to is the same in ALL places. Change it in the config and forget to change it in the alias or worse yet switch keys, and you can get some unpredictable results.

Make sure the last points back to the first so that it loops and does not get to the end and finish, it's not quite as useful that way, but if you have an idea to use it this way go for it.

Sometimes you want something to happen only while a key is down for example is setting C4.

// C4 Setting
alias +C4Set "weapon_c4; +duck; +attack"
alias -C4Set "-attack; -duck;"

bind "c" "+C4Set;"

The key that you bind this to will will activate the first alias denoted with the +, until it is released denoted with the -. This particular one will pull out the C4, duck and attempt to plant it as long as you have the 'c' button depressed then it will "un" attack and unduck.

Lesson 5: What is available to me?

I will break this into sections of names for calling certain things directly typing "use" and then one of the following will bring that weapon to the ready if you have it.

Weapons
weapon_glock18	weapon_usp
weapon_deagle	weapon_p228
weapon_mp5navy	weapon_m4a1
weapon_p90	weapon_tmp
weapon_m3	weapon_xm1014
weapon_ak47	weapon_sg552
weapon_scout	weapon_awp
weapon_g3sg1	weapon_m249
weapon_c4	weapon_knife
weapon_flashbang	weapon_hegrenade

You may not know exactly which weapon is in which slot, so calling them by slot is also available.

slot1, slot2, slot3, slot4 can be called to retrieve items from these slots, primary, secondary, knife, and grenades respectively. So something like this,

alias GetSlot4 "slot4; W2; slot4; +attack; W2; -attack;
alias GetSlot2 "slot2; W2; slot2; +attack; W2; -attack;
alias GetSlot1 "slot1; W2; slot1; +attack; W2; -attack;

would be equivalent to pressing 4 and the attack key to ready a grenade, or 2 and the attack key to ready your sidearm. This can be used in combination with the knife slot or simply using the knife to have it be set for your quick weapon (although on beta 6 your sidearm is a better choice since you can't run anyone down with the knife),

alias QucikKnife "GetSlot1; use weapon_knife; lastinv;"

Now you would be holding your primary weapon with the knife set to quick for those times you don't think you can reload before they can.

General
+showscores	Bind this to a key to have it display the scores until it's released
r_netgraph	This will show a graph at the bottom of the screen showing packet loss and such, with the 1.0.1.5 patch or later you can also see actual numbers for FPS, and packet. 1 turns it on 0 turns it off.
graphheight	is related to r_netgraph as it set's the actual height of the graph, 25-50 is about where I like it.
gamma	Change the gamma settings in the game.
brightness	Adjust the game brightness.
volume	Adjust the volume without leaving the game and getting to unsightly graphical errors. 1.0 is normal, .5 is half and 2 is twice as loud.
radio1	First team radio menu.
radio2	Second team radio menu.
radio3	Third team radio menu of course.
buyequip	Skips straight to the buy equipment menu.
buy	The normal purchase menu will all the options.
buyammo1	Buy 1 clip of ammo for primary weapon.
buyammo2	Buy 1 clip of ammo for secondary weapon.
developer	Set this to 1 to display echo's to the screen 0 to turn it off
echo	Output some text.
lastinv	Basically your quick weapon call.
+attack	Just like using your attack key.
+duck	Just like using the duck key.
+jump	Just like using the Jump key.
pushlatency	See fine tuning your connection.
rate	See fine tuning your connection.
slot1-10	Your number keys should be assigned to these.
setinfo	lefthand 1; Render the weapon in the left hand you will need to switch to any other weapon to see the effect.
setinfo	lefthand 0; Render the weapon in the right hand you will need to switch to any other weapon to see the effect.
+showradar	Show / hide the radar display.

These are just some of the useful commands/variables. There are many more available to you. I .am half life has them listed. Not all are available in CS though, and you probably should not play with them until you are sure what they do.

News \|About PCGH \| Services \| Pricing \| Order PC-CD \| Now Playing \| Game Guide \| Download \| CS Stat \| Clans
© 1999-2000 : PC Game House -- [html design by Bamn]