ST-CS-10-339-75
March 2002

2.  Capabilities  (S)

The first generation of Counter-Strike cheats typically offered one function each, often in a crude and semi-functional manner. Second generation cheats improved upon these functions but remained un-integrated. Third generation cheats, available today, offer comprehensive, easy to use integrated cheating environments.

There are however only so many ways in which a player can cheat and as such all current cheat applications offer essentially the same functionality.

Aimbot

The most powerful cheat is the combined aimbot and autofire. The aimbot automatically keeps the player's crosshair locked onto target. In the video footage, it is absolutely clear how the aimbot has locked onto the target and is perfectly and smoothly tracking during the reload time.

The aimbot can aim at a specific body part (head, chest, stomach, pelvis, etc) and can be set to track through walls. However, dead accurate shooting through walls is such a giveaway the vast majority of aimbot users turn this functionality off.

The aimbot can be configured to aim but not to autofire, thus handing the player firing discretion.

The author apologises to those shot through the head in the course of research. Disappointingly, immediately after this video capture occured, a Counter-Terrorist player said "good AWP work", clearly failing to realise that this sort of AWP work is so impossibly hard that a cheat was in use.

Anti-Recoil

Counter-Strike's two methods of emulating recoil, jerk and offset, can both be removed.

When this feature - anti-recoil - is active, miss decals are inaccurate and consistently overshoot the real bullet paths, which now start centered and gradually work their way down from the crosshair as auto-fire continues. Interestingly, anti-recoil does not work when the user is airborne.

The top left image is a standard AK47 full-auto hit pattern. The crosshair was lowered from the center of the hit-sensitive wall to ensure that when in full auto, the rounds would not overshoot. The top right image is the AK47 with maximum recoil reduction, firing from exactly the same position as the standard AK47 image.

The bottom left image is the maximum recoil reduction AK47 when fired at the center of the hit-sensitive wall. The final image, bottom right, is the AK47 with anti-recoil when fired from the ladder. Most of the shots fired failed to connect with the wall.

Hide Flash/Smoke

The flash effect of the flashbang and the smoke from smoke grenades can be removed. In the video footage, the smoke removal is not shown since a verbal description is sufficient; namely, the grenade sits on the ground where it was thrown and absolutely nothing else happens. There is simply no smoke emitted.

Vision Enhancement

Several types of vision enhancement exist. The top-left image is the normal view.

Glow adds a shimmering, sparkling red (terrorist) or blue (counter-terrorist) glow to player skins.

Lambert makes the player fully bright - as if being viewed in full light - at all times. Also affects the arms and weapon of the cheating player.

Nightvision inverts bright and dark. Comparing nightvision to normal, it can be seen that down the entrance corridor the bright light outside has become dark.

Model and Environment Enhancement

Two forms of model enhancement exist. The first, barrel hack, places a long thin coloured tube down the player's line of fire. In the screenshot here, a single shot has been fired and the punched out pane in the glasswall can be seen.

The second, spikes, adds three long thin rods to every player. The rods all pass through the center of the player, one rod lies on the X axis, one on the Y axis and one on the Z axis. The rods pass through walls, giving away the players position.

The two environment enhancements are white walls, which removes all textures from the map and so makes spotting hostile player easier, and information overlays, which overlay various textual data on screen.