MeanGoof's Scripting Tutorials:
 (17 July, 2002)
 (By: "Meangoof")
 (Former [TiC]Clan Guest)


 Lesson #2:
 Buy Scripts for CS:
 

In Lesson #2 we will cover the following:

Lesson #2  Part #1  What is a buy script ? :

Lesson #2  Part #2  Commands used in buy scripts:

Lesson #2  Part #3  Server lag issue:

Lesson #2  Part #4  Buy menus Hierarchy:

Lesson #2  Part #5  Strategies for buy kits:

Lesson #2  Part #6  A simple buy script:

What is a buy script ? :

A buy script is a tool that you put in place to expedite the ritual that takes place every time you respawn after a round of counterstrike. By that I mean the ceremony of opening up the buy menu half a dozen times to buy all the goodies you can afford so you can get on with the frags in the new round. One problem though, if you don't buy your stuff very quickly, you will be left behind by the rest of your team who will be getting out to the frags first because they found a faster way to buy all of their stuff. This faster way is what buy scripts are all about. You pack all of the functionality to buy the kit you want to buy behind a particular key, and all you need to do when you respawn is hit that key and whammo, all your stuff has been purchased and you are the first one to go.

It is a little bit more complicated than that, but you get the picture.

In essence, what you buy is limited by:

a) What options are currently available on the map you are playing. For example, on oil rig, if you are the VIP, all that you can buy is ammo for your pistol.

b) The amount of money you have.

But before we go on making buy script, I need to cover a few new commands that we have not seen yet.


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Commands used in buy scripts:

1.) buy :

When executed, this command opens up the buy menu. On my computer, this command is bound to my b key on my keyboard.


2.) buyequip :

When executed, this command opens the buy equipment menu, bypassing the buy main menu altogether.


3.) buyammo1 :

When executed, and if you have enough money, this command buys you some primary ammo.


4.) buyammo2 :

When executed, and if you have enough money, this command buys you secondary ammo.


5.) menuselect :

A two part command to select a particular option from a menu. Example, menuselect 1 selects the first option of the menu that is currently opened.


6.) slot10 :

Selects the cancel option of the currently opened menu.


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Server lag issue:

One thing you must always be aware of when writing buy scripts is that the buy commands are very sensitive to your ping on the current server. Because of this, many buy scripts will work fine when used on a particular server, but will fail miserably when used on another server that has a high ping. Why is that? The reason is because the buy command requires to communicate with the server, so if you issue the buy command and follow this with the immediate execution of particular menuselect commands, the menuselect commands will end up being executed before the buy menu is even opened. Needless to say, issuing a menuselect command without any menu options available because the menu is not opened, will get you nowhere fast.

So how do we solve this problem. Well, if I worked for Valve, I would create a new CS command to synchronize with the server before I issue my menuselect commands. but since I don't work for Valve, I have to use the kludge that they have provided us with, known as the wait command. The number of wait commands you use depend on the type of connection you have (dial-up use more than DSL or cable), and on the ping of the particular server that you will be playing on. Since most of us play on more than one server, the above information is pretty useless. So if you want your buy command to work on all the servers that you play on, test it on the server that has the highest ping, if it works there, it will likely work on all servers. The drawback from this approach, is that the execution time of your script will be slower than it should be when you are on a fast server (but it will still be much faster than going through the menus manually).

So the folks at Valve, if you read this, in your next version of half-life, it would be nice if you could create synchronization commands.

Before I go through a buy script with you I am first providing you with the hierarchy of the buy menus.


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Buy menus Hierarchy:

When you buy something, you have to manually navigate through the buy menus. Well your scripts are not immune from this, they too have to navigate (albeit much faster) through the menus. So for reference, here is the hierarchy of the buy menus:


For Counter-terrorists:

1 Pistols - 1 USP Tact $500
- 2 Glock 18 $400
- 3 Desert Eagle $650
- 4 P228 $600
- 6 Five-Seven $750
- 0 cancel

2 Shotguns - 1 M3 Super 90 $1700
- 2 XM1014 $3000
- 0 cancel

3 SMGs - 1 MP5/N $1500
- 2 TMP $1250
- 3 P90 $2350
- 5 UMP45 $1700
- 0 cancel

4 Rifles - 3 M4A1 $3100
- 4 Steyr Aug $3500
- 5 Steyr Scout $2750
- 6 AW/M $4750
- 8 SIG 550 $4200
- 0 cancel

5 Machine Guns - 1 M249 $5750
- 0 cancel

6 Primary ammo $60

7 Secondary Ammo $40

8 Equipment - 1 Kevlar $650
- 2 Kevlar + Helmet $1000
- 3 Flashbang $300
- 4 HE grenade $300
- 5 Smoke grenade $300
- 6 defusal kit $200
- 7 night vision $1250
- 0 cancel

0 Cancel


For Terrorists:

1 Pistols - 1 USP Tact $500
- 2 Glock 18 $400
- 3 Desert Eagle $650
- 4 P228 $600
- 5 96G Elites $1000
- cancel

2 Shotguns - 1 M3 Super 90 $1700
- 2 XM1014 $3000
- 0 cancel

3 SMGs - 1 MP5/N $1500
- 3 P90 $2350
- 4 MAC-10 $1400
- 5 UMP45 $1700
- 0 cancel

4 Rifles - 1 AK-47 $2500
- 2 SG-552 $3500
- 5 Steyr Scout $2750
- 6 AW/M $4750
- 7 G3/SG-1 $5000
- 0 cancel


5 Machine Guns - 1 M249 $5750
- 0 cancel

6 Primary ammo $60

7 Secondary Ammo $40

8 Equipment - 1 Kevlar $650
- 2 Kevlar + Helmet $1000
- 3 Flashbang $300
- 4 HE grenade $300
- 5 Smoke grenade $300
- 7 night vision $1250
- 0 cancel

As you can see, there are slight differences in the menus depending on which side you are playing.


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Strategies for buy kits:

Before we go all out with gun blazing writing buy scripts, we have to do some thinking about how we can built them so they can be useful. After all, the stuff you buy will depend on many things like: what map you are playing, are you T or CT, how much money you have, as well as your personal tastes, it will also depend on what the team strategies are.

One approach would be to develop a list of possible kits that you could buy given that you have a particular amount of money. One example follows:

If you had $800 (starting amount on many servers) you could have the choice of the following kits (others are possible too, this is just an example):

kit a - Desert Eagle $650, secondary ammo $40 = $690.

kit b - Flashbang $300, HE grenade $300, Defuser kit $200 = $800.

If you had $1000

kit a - Desert Eagle $650, Secondary ammo $40,HE grenade $300 = $990.

Kit b - Same as kit a, but defuser kit instead of grenade = $650+$40+200 = $890

And so on. You get the picture. Before you get started on buy script, you must know how you want to organize each one so that they meet your need (which is to buy you what you need for the current situation faster than if you had to go through the menus manually.)

One strategy (and this is one amongst many) would be to create three buy keys. One buy key to buy your primary weapon with primary ammo, one buy key to buy your secondary weapon with secondary ammo, and a third buy key to buy equipment. The reason for this approach is that you don't need to buy everything every round. If you survive a round, your may not need to buy a new weapon, but may need to refill your equipment. To supplement this approach, you may want to create a cycler key that will allow you to cycle between different amounts of money that you want to spend (i.e. the cycler would change the buy script that your other three keys are bound to, so that they don't buy anymore than what you specify in the cycler). This would allow your buy key to change with the value of the cycler, giving you more buying power as you amount of cash increases. By using a combination of a cycler and three buy keys, you limit the number of keys you have to remember (if you had a key for each different kit you want to buy you would end up with so many different keys that you would end up not buying what you want because of finger problems).

Just remember one thing, the approach is up to you, whatever you feel comfortable with. This class is not about cycler scripts (that was last class) it is about buy scripts, and this section is solely to give you some ideas on how you can go about giving some structure to your buy scripts. There are those who just want one kind of weapon and some kevlar and grenades every time they respawn, no matter how much money they have. So one approach is to put the items in the order of priority in the script and try to buy the whole kadoodle each time, and when you run out of money, the script will stop purchasing (just as if you went into the buy menu manually and tried to buy something that you can't afford).

Okay, enough about buy script strategies, now we will get on writing a simple buy script.


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A simple buy script:

In this section I tried to keep the script as simple as possible, while still exposing all of the issues associated with buy scripts. We start with the following simple script that I will then dissect line by line:


alias wait4 "wait;wait;wait;wait"
alias wait8 "wait4;wait4"
alias wait16 "wait8;wait8"
alias +buyFlashbang "buy;wait16;menuselect 8;wait16;menuselect 3;wait16"
alias -buyFlashbang "slot10;wait16;slot10;wait16"

bind "f1" "+buyFlashbang"

The first three lines of the script are there for the purpose of creating a wait16 command. I did it in three lines because to do it in one line would have required me to type the wait command 16 times on one line, and I am too lazy to do that.

The fourth line: alias +buyFlashbang "buy;wait16;menuselect 8;wait16;menuselect 3;wait16"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This line creates a new command known as +buyFlashbang. When executed, this command will buy you a flashbang grenade. The first thing this command does is to execute the buy command. The buy command, as explained earlier, opens up the buy menu. The next thing done by this command is to just sit and wait for 16 game tics. I used this number arbitrarily, you may find that only two tics are sufficient on the server you use, this is something that you have to fine tune, but it is required. If this wait command(s) was not at this position, the menuselect 8 command would execute immediately after the buy command is started (and before the buy menu was opened) causing the script to fail. Incidentally, the 8th option on the main buy menu opens the equipment menu, which is why the third command executed by the +buyFlashbang command is menuselect 8. Again after the menuselect 8 command I have put another wait16 command (this is something that you should fine tune). The second to last thing that the +buyFlashbang command does is to select the third option from the equipment menu, which happens to be the flashbang grenade (menuselect 3). And finally, I added a wait16 command to give the script a chance to complete the selection.

The fifth line: alias -buyFlashbang "slot10;wait16;slot10;wait16"
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This line defines the -buyFlashbang command. Since this is a +/- command, when the key bound to this command is pressed, the + version of the command is executed (fourth line above), and when the key bound to the + version is released, the - version is magically executed for you. So if you were to bind the f1 key to +buyFlashbang, when you press the key it would buy you the goodies, and when you release the key it would do the funny things you see written in the fifth line.

The slot10 command closes down the menu. I am not sure why, but in all examples I have seen out there on the net, it appears that this command needs to be issued at least twice to close the menu properly. You also have some wait commands in between to give each slot10 commands a chance to execute properly. In this case, I put 16 (overkill, but will probably work on every server).

That's all there is to writing buy scripts. By the way, the script above may not be the best way to buy stuff from the equipment menu. There is a command called buyequip which automatically gets you into the equipment menu, so another script that would do the job would be:

alias wait4 "wait;wait;wait;wait"
alias wait8 "wait4;wait4"
alias wait16 "wait8;wait8"
alias +buyFlashbang "buyequip;wait16;menuselect 3;wait16"
alias -buyFlashbang "slot10;wait16;slot10;wait16"


That is all, write this script into a script file. I would not myself put the bind directly into the script file, I would instead type it directly from the game console or use the kb_act.lst file in combination with the games controls menu. So type it in and let's get on the server to try it out.



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This page was originally created by [TiC]EVIL 28Aug01. Last updated 02/06/03.