W:ET Aiming Tutorial by BossHK

(Now when ET is elegantly old, its time to release old goldies. Gonna be straight copypaste from pubforums, cba to edit much nor fix fonts/forms etc. If you want to read from original source(recommended), check here: http://fearless-assassins.com/topic/23840-aiming-tutorial-for-wet-by-bosshk-enemy-territory)

Introduction

I got inspired to put this tutorial together after Blade just released his aiming tutorial here(FA forums). Why? Why two aiming tutorials? I don't know, maybe because I have been kinda lazy to make any tutorials lately and now I just got inspiration to put my knowledge to the table too. Two tutorials also mean more perspectives. :sarc

Okay, so who am I and why should you listen to me? I'm a finnish guy who has been playing W:ET since 2004/2005. Starting from etpub server, moving to NQ servers, discovering jaymod 2007/2008 and loving etpro since end of 2008. Started playing with crappy equipments and zero knowledge about internet gaming, ending up to shoot 60-70 accurasies at jaymod servers. It has been a long but a memorable, lovely way.
I'm a little bit perfectionist. Getting good became an obsession to me back then. I wanted to gather all available information, spec better players and just practise to aim. Eventually I became one of the best players of that etpub server. And then I started my journey around ET 'world'.
To this day I have gathered a lot of information and experience about aiming and now I'm gonna share it all.

Oh, those 70acc pictures: http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5599/uceserveraccownage.jpg and http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/112/g2pradarstenover72acc.png
Also FA server with high ping: http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/5599/557accfa1temple.jpg

This tutorial will go in next order: First we pick our equipment, then we configure it. After that we discuss a little bit about mindset, how to handle this learning to aim thing. And last we go in game and set our config and start practising aiming.

Overview

There is a lot of information available at internet. But my approach is to simplify as much as possible. Seriously, you need to know and tune only some things and then it is just practise. I'll try to list all the important things below that we will go through:

[*] Hardware (PC, monitor, mouse, mousebad, keyboard, headset)
[*] Configuring hardware
[*] Mindset
[*] In-game things (aiming techniques, how to practise effectively, some config settings, secret pro tips)
[*] Extras to learn more

So lets get started!

Hardware

Hardware sets a base starting point to you. It also determines how much you can use of your potential. With good enought components and parts you will be better aimer than with crappy components. That is the fact. Lets take a quick example: Its like going for drag race. Imagine normal 100hp car versus 900hp race car. No matter how good the normal car driver is, he just can't win with that underpowered car. Or some rally drivers: they are not driving for world championship with some random Nissan Sunny. They wouldn't use their full potential with that poor car.
Or just me: I tested ET three years ago at my friend's computer. He had basic 60hz tft monitor, Logitech G5 mouse, no mousepad, and all settings were default. I shot around 30acc with those parts. The difference was just so huge compared to what I had been playing with. It was a huge downshift. I just couldn't impove much from that point(30acc), it became so hard to control what I was doing, it felt like I was playing in tar. It felt like the whole computer was fightning against me. It didn't allowed me to do what I wanted to do.
So, hardware is very important to bring out your full potential.

PC
The most important part here is the CPU(processor). ET has been published 2003 and uses Q3 game engine. Back then the games were heavily CPU orientated. Nowdays the graphic card is maybe the most important part for gaming in modern games. But as been said, ET is CPU based game. It can use 1 core. So ideally the best processor for ET would be 1 core processor with high clock rate. Nowdays there are 2, 4, 6 and even 8 core processors available. Whats the best? It doesn't matter. You should get 125fps with almoust any modern processors. Graphic card doesn't matter for ET, everything is fine. RAM doesn't matter that much, just make sure you have it enought to run basic tasks + ET(4gb is totally fine).

Monitor
Nowdays almoust everyone are using LCD or TFT monitors. What matters here most is hz and latency of monitor. Hz should be 120 and latency 2ms. Thats it. For ET other aspects are kinda meaningless.
120hz is kinda must. If you are using 60hz now, just imagine how it would feel if everything is 2x smoother. When you have used 120hz, there is no return to 60hz.

Keyboard
Only thing that matters here is the fact that keyboard should support at least 4 simultaneously presses.

Headset
For ET any headset is good. Of course 'better'(generally better) headset is usually more comfortable and might be better for other tasks like listening music etc. Just make sure you use headset and not speakers for ET. Why? Because with headset you can hear with 'pinpoint accuracy' where enemies are and what is happening around you and even further away. You can predict situations and prepare for them since you are able to hear around corner what is happening there and so on...

Mouse
Which mouse to pick? Do I need the latest high-end superduper DPI monster? No, you don't. There are three major things to be considered when choosing a mouse:

1. It should fit to your hand. I mean, it is a lot nicer, more comfortable and even better to play with mouse that feels good and you can handle it nicely.
2. Sensor should be able to handle the kinda fast paced Enemy Territory.
3. Cord mouse. DO NOT use wireless mouse to gaming. (Because of lag/delay it causes. Yes, every wireless have it(maybe excluding Razer Mamba))

How about optical or laser sensored mouse? Which one is better? Well, the laser technology has been improved lately, but generally the optical sensors are still better in term of handling fast movements.
Now, this whole mouse topic is just a way too huge to start discussing, there are so many different things to be considered so I simplified it to those three steps that I mentioned. For step 2. I have this list: https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AosJbEwEG9GpdEpBMGc1ZXo0S3BLQm1YQ09jeVZ6bEE&w=100&h=650

You should look Perfect Control and Malfunction Speed. Obviously both of them should be as high as possible.

Perfect Control = the mouse performs exactly as it should
Malfunction Speed = the mouse loses control and effectively stops working. Basically anything can happen, like mouse throws cursor to random position or its like you didn't do anything at all.

So pick a mouse that has good sensor and fits to your hand. Sometimes it can be hard to test mouse before buying but if you have a chance, use it.

Do you need more slippery mouse feets? Well, its highly recommended to get ones. Its easier, less frictioner to move the mouse and also the feets last longer. For example Hyperglides are nice special mouse feets.

Mousepad
Mousepad is a must have. It is like enabling your mouse's potential. If you don't use a mousepad, I don't care what mouse you have, what settings you have, what you have done, how good you are, who you are. It is a must have.
Mousepad gives you a smooth, stable/steady surface to move the mouse and better reading accuracy for your mouse. Though, be careful especially with laser sensored mouses that the sensor works on that specific mousepad. Generally a black surface without any design/figures is the best.
Cloth, plastic, glass or hybrid pad? Personal preference. Plastic ones clearly wear out fastest, which is kinda big minus.

Configuring hardware

Now when you have gathered you rig, its time to configure it aka use all potential it have. Even if you don't have and you are not going to get all the parts I recommend, you can still tune your current hardware, so keep reading. Without further ado, lets do it!

PC
Basically nothing to do here. If you want to run ET with specific amount of cores, use this program: http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=tutorial&mode=item&id=170

Monitor
Setting the refresh rate higher: Control panel-->Monitor-->Settings-->Preferences-->Display-->Refresh rate. Change it and press Use and Ok. Most normal monitors support only 60hz or max 75hz. More advanced up to 120hz and CRT monitors even over 200hz.

Keyboard
Nothing.

Headset
Not much to do here but you can boost weapon, footstep and other important sounds by boosting middle frequency sounds and lowering a little bit bass and high frequencies. I'm not an expert about this, but just do try&error method. Open your sound card settings and find a page where you can change those frequencies. This is how I have configured it: http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/9563/audiosettingsforet.png The difference is kinda big and nice.

Mouse
Now, a huge overload of information rumbles over me. I don't want to start writing. So I dig up my "I simplify everything" -idea and I'm gonna give you bunch of links. Yepii! Before doing that, I have summarized all the things you are going to do:

1. Windows sens(put it to 6/11) + disabling windows in-build acceleration
2. Polling rate
3. Find a reasonable DPI

Your source of mouse related things: http://phoon.us/mouse/ (or http://www.funender.com/quake/mouse/index.html if first one doesnt work)
(If you are wondering what is that windows sensitivity multiplier: http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4346/mouseinfosensexplained.png)
Read through all sections carefully, the page has summarized mouse things very nicely. If you are wondering at mousefix section that do you need the mousefix, yes you need it.

What is 'windows sens'?: http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/2961/winsens.png
When having winsens at 6/11, you have 1:1 ratio, meaning that every 1 pixel you tell your mouse to move, the cursor moves 1 pixel(thats the idea).

Disabling windows acceleration:
Win7: http://donewmouseaccel.blogspot.com/2010/03/markc-windows-7-mouse-acceleration-fix.html
WinXP/Vista: Read the mousefix section, download program.
WinXP manual way:

1. Press Start
2. Select Run
3. Type regedit and hit enter
4. Open the tree HKEY_CURRENT_USER-->select control panel-->mouse
5. Right clicking, modify the SmoothMouseXCurve and SmoothMouseYCurve hexidecimal values to the following:

(Remember to take backup copies from original values if you want later restore them)

SmoothMouseXCurve:
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
00,a0,00,00,00,00,00,00
00,40,01,00,00,00,00,00
00,80,02,00,00,00,00,00
00,00,05,00,00,00,00,00

SmoothMouseYCurve:
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00
66,a6,02,00,00,00,00,00
cd,4c,05,00,00,00,00,00
a0,99,0a,00,00,00,00,00
38,33,15,00,00,00,00,00

6. Press OK after setting both(X and Y) values and you are done.

Some people like to use in-game acceleration (cl_mouseaccel) to make faster turns etc, but in my opinion it just hurts your overall mouse control. (Mouse acceleration: when you move your mouse constantly starting from a point (for example from the middle of your screen toward right), it will move faster while getting further and further from the starting point) Also fast tracking becomes harder.

Changing the polling rate of your usb port gives you faster mouse reaction time and smoother mouse movement. I can tell you to set it to 500hz(2ms), it is stable and you won't notice any difference compared to 1000hz(1ms). Again, read through the polling rate section at http://phoon.us/mouse/. (Btw, ET does NOT use direct input as mouse input, but wm_mousemove, so use that mouserate checker to check your mouse polling rate)

Changing polling rate at win7/vista: http://www.ngohq.com/news/15043-how-to-increase-usb-sample-rate-in-windows-vista-7-a.html
Same thing with video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxhAKJ-Dyes&playnext_from=TL&videos=rt0Tl7Xg7Qo

Now, how much DPI is useful for you? It's been made easy for you, go to http://phoon.us/mouse/ (or http://www.funender.com/quake/mouse/index.html if first one doesnt work) , fill in all the blanks at 'settings' tab at top of the page, go to DPI section and press 'calculate'. Do not use much higher value than that recommended because you might face huge negative acceleration problems. Though there is program called Rinput that fixes this. (http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=news&mode=item&id=4053)

Where the negative acceleration comes from? I will copypaste this from another person.

Quote

One place where it can be introduced is the mouse->computer path, such as USB. If a mouse uses 8 bits for a dimension, it will only be able to report at most 2^(8-1)-1=127 counts per update (in theory 128 in one direction is possible, but I haven't seen it in practice). At a polling rate of 125 Hz, that comes down to a maximum of 125*127=15875 counts per second (CPS) or pixels per second (if mouse input is mapped straight to pixels), taking averages every poll. If the mouse is 400 counts per inch (CPI), that means a top speed of 15875/400=39.6875 inches per second (IPS). Note that this is all per dimension; diagonally the top speed would be just over 56.1266 IPS. Since I've never seen a mouse from the 400 CPI era that can actually track at that speed, and I don't think you'd reach it often anyway, it's not usually a problem. But what if we have an 8-bit 800 CPI mouse? It will still have a top speed of 15875 CPS, but the IPS is halved to 19.84375 IPS. That speed is easily reachable, and the mouse probably still tracks (older optical might could get in trouble). Increase to 1600 CPI, and it's halved again to a very low 9.921875 IPS.
What can we do to improve this? The formula for top speed in IPS is (2^(bits-1)-1)*rate/CPI, so you can increase the size of the fields in the report, increase the polling rate (this is something that might work without getting a new mouse), or decrease CPI (and increase sensitivity in the game to get the same turning speed) at the cost of precision. This is why many newer mice report with 12 or 16 bits, although their claims that 16 is much better than 12 are false. (2^(12-1)-1)*125/1600=159.921875 IPS, which nothing that I know of will currently track at, let alone most human gamers. A 16-bit 1600 CPI mouse would have a whopping top speed of 2559.921875 IPS, or over 65 m/s, 234 km/h, or 145 mph, if its sensor would somehow track that well. But it is slightly easier to handle by today's hardware with 8-bit bytes.
Another similar problem can happen when a game uses pointer input, rather than raw mouse input. If you use 1024x768, you'll probably have a horizontal top speed of |_1024/2_|=512 pixels per frame or |_(1024-1)/2_|=511 PPF depending on the direction. If the game is smart it moves its base point away from the direction the mouse is moved in, but no game that I know of does that, and it actually reduces the maximal deceleration. That probably only gets significant at speeds higher than the former top speed though.
What can you do to improve that? Increase framerate (analogous to mouse polling rate) if possible, ideally to the mouse polling rate or a submultiple (like your ideal framerate is also the refresh rate of your screen or a submultiple), increase resolution (analogous to the maximum value a mouse report can hold) if you aren't fillrate-bound, or scale the pointer down at the cost of precision (analogous to a mouse's CPI). In games, if you like high sensitivity, you can also increase the game's sensitivity instead of scaling the pointer down.

More copying:

Quote

It's the age-old "cursor hitting side of screen"-problem.
See, ET gets your mouse position by returning it to the center of your screen n times per second (I can't remember the exact number). It gets the distance your cursor had traveled from the center, returns it to the center and then moves your aim accordingly.
If your DPI is high enough for your pointer (the cursor you see on your desktop) to move fast enough to be able to reach the side of your screen, you get dramatic negaccel. Your movement will basically just stop at first and then slow down considerably, which is terribly crap. This is negated on higher resolutions where the pointer has more space to move, for instance I play ET at a resolution of 1920x1080, which means that the pointer will not have time to hit the side of the screen at 1600dpi which I play on.
Rinput (amongst other things) fixes this.

How do you know if you have negative acceleration? Well, maybe the best practical way to notice it is this:
Start ET and join server. Now put your mouse to left edge of your mousemat and in-game aim somewhere(corner/door...) that you recognize. Now move mouse slowly to center of mousemat or till to right edge of mousemat if you want. Check how much your character has turned in-game. Now move your mouse fast back to left edge of mousemat. If your aim returned to same place where you started, you don't have negative acceleration and everything is fine. But if your crosshair didn't returned to starting place but it returned less, you have some negative acceleration.

Also at http://phoon.us/mouse/ (or http://www.funender.com/quake/mouse/index.html if first one doesnt work) there is the negative acceleration calculator. Fill in blanks at top of the page and press 'calculate'. Now, the value that the calculator shows, yes its real, but remember that also your mouse's sensor have limitations. So, obviously the lower one(mouse sensor or calculated value) is your bottleneck now.

Mousepad
Just keep it clean/relatively clean.

Mindset

I think its time to move on to this section and think a little bit about how to deal with this whole 'im gonna improve my aim' thing. If you feel like you can't handle all the info or this seems too complicated or something, just be patient and do one thing at time. Technical part is kinda short after all, eventhough it has much text and you can find a lot of info about those topics. So, be patient and don't give up. No one can became a champion if they give up! :yeye

Be excited! Be eager to get new information, learn new things! Being positive is a huge plus, be happy about all little things you have learned and practise them. You just increased your mouse's polling rate? Feel the smoothness and power of your mouse! Track enemies like never before! Practise practise practise! Cheer for that triple headshot.
You got tripled and you insta died? That random pro just knew you were behind that wall? Don't blame cheats, crappy mouse or lag. It was you. Try to make a quick analyze what went wrong. Did you strafe enought during fight? Maybe you couldn't track him well enought. Maybe he had better strafe-aim combination. Practise more. After all it comes to practise. The more you practise, the better you will be. Be ready and willing to practise if you are looking for to get a decent aim. To practise a lot you will need a positive attitude. If you hate to start the game and join the server just to get owned, why are you playing this game? Or maybe you enjoy about this game because different reasons, like cool people, nice chats with friends or something else. That is totally okay, but then this tutorial is not so useful for you. But as been said, if you are looking for to get better aim, be ready to practise. And now, lets move on.

In-game things

Okay, now you have tweaked your hardware and you are ready to start practise. But before you do that, you might want to tweak some config settings to make sure everything is as you like. (Btw, if you are new to configs, read this through: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VYMQTLOO (well, since MU has been shut down by FBI, here is the same text as a tutorial I made: http://fearless-assassins.com/topic/36202-enemy-territory-how-to-config-cfg-file-enemy-territory/) So, two 'must-have' cvars:

com_maxfps "x" (sets cap on the frames per second. 125, 76 and 43 common 'tweak' values, as better for jumping. 71 has slightly reduced recoil. Use the one that you have stable everywhere)
com_hunkmegs "x" (sets how much RAM ET uses. Default is 56 but you should use at least 128. 128, 256 or 512 are nice values, though 256 is totally enought)

Now, other "tweaks" are kinda personal preferences, e.g do you like to see blood when you get shot, do you like more sharp or less detailed world, how dark or bright the world should be, what kind of crosshair you like to use etc.
In my opinion the best way to learn what do you prefer is to make your own config. Either from scratch by creating new .txt file, putting cvars and commands there and then saving it and renaming .txt to .cfg or just editing the config that you already have. Or maybe you like to download someone else's config and edit it, thats how you get and idea what about to put into cfg.

If you want to create your own cfg, these two website provide all the existing cvars and commands:

http://www.antman.info/wolf/cvar/
http://www.antman.info/wolf/cvar/cmdcvarlist.html

Now, its finally time to start practise. How to aim? Move your mouse and press some buttons at keyboard. Sounds simple, right? Well, the truth is far away from it. Lately, when I have analyzed a little bit about my aiming and speccing some good aimers, I have noticed couple of things:

1. Good aimers don't move their crosshair nor mouse much at fight situation (except if person is very low sens player, then mouse will move a lot for sure)
2. They know where to aim already before enemy even pops up to screen
3. Their movement and positioning is calm and calculated (not always, but helps to get easy win from fight)
4. They know what they are doing. They have a huge amount of repeats, they have played thousands of times the same maps and same situations.

When I think about those four things, I can form a picture of cold machine. Well, if we put all feelings and emotions away, that is not far away from truth. Seriously, those are the things that make you a good aimer along with good hand-eye coordination.

So, some techniques to aim or improve aiming?

1. Aim with your keyboard. This is actually a very powerful method, you don't need to move mouse much from side to side and at same time you are dodging enemy bullets, aka strafing. So basically don't move your mouse much or at all but just move your aim with keyboard.
2. If enemy is even some distance away, crouch. Crouching increases your accuracy (Standing: http://www.enemy-territory.net/images/MP40StandingContinuous.jpg versus Crouching: http://www.enemy-territory.net/images/mp40crouchingBurst.jpg) and you are harder to hit.
3. Always try to get a first hit before your enemy does. This gives you an advantage because if you hit first, enemy gets a knockback effect and its harder for him to start hitting you. Though experienced players know how to counter this by doing quick dodge and starting to shoot back at right time when they are not getting knockback.
4. Obviously obvious, aim at head level. Headshot makes 50hp damage(though first hs makes 40hp damage because of helmet), bodyshot 18hp. At long distance bodyshots make 9hp dmg and headshots 10hp dmg. Generally if enemy crouches, you should crouch too.
5. Generally try to limit your mouse movement. All poor aimers are moving mouse a way too much. This might be hard at first, but when you learn where enemies are propably coming, this becomes easier and easier. You know, when you know that enemy will come that way, you can just aim there already and be prepared to fight. Practise is a key here too, when you have faced enemy 5930 times same way as this, you know how most of the enemies will react and you know what you need to do to beat him.
6. In fights, after you have learned the basic strafing pattern, try to make some unpredictable moves, like crouch during strafe and strafe a little bit longer to other side etc.
7. Sensitivity. Get one that you are comfortable with. Personally I have played with very high sensitivity, uber low sensitivity and all between those and I can't say what is the best. But how you know what sens is good for you? Well, one quick and effective way to find it is to go to a server, find some little solid point, preferably at head height, and start strafing in front of it while trying to keep your crosshair at that point. If your crosshair is bouncing around and jitters, your sensitivity is probably too high. In turn, if you notice that crosshair is falling behind target when you change your strafing direction or you must picking mouse much, your sensitivity is probably too low. This training is also good to get known your mouse controlling, which I will talk next.
8. Mouse controlling. Ultimately this is the key to your aiming. Controlling the mouse movements gives you a feeling that you are in charge, you tell your mouse to move and crosshair will move exactly as you wanted. Practise this as you want, idea is just to move your mouse around fast(snap) and trying to end up aiming to direction you wanted, or just run around while tracking one same point. Do slow movements and fast ones. Your mouse(crosshair) should obey you, do exactly as you wish, go where you want it to be.
9. When you are dueling and you get shot, still keep that crosshair steady, don't start to move your mouse to 'fix' your aim, just keep it there and keep strafing.
10. After all everything comes up to practise and repeats. You get experience, you start to remember things, like at which height to put your crosshair here to get a headshot, you can tell after 0,5 second if you are propably gonna win or lose that fight etc.

You wanted some secret pro tips? Too bad they don't exist. Except one. But it isn't a secret. Here it is: practise.

I think this is all I am able to give you. The top aiming, shooting that 70acc, it is something that cannot be shared, it comes somewhere inside me, its like sixth sense, you know what to do now and what you are gonna do next. The smoothness, the harmony, it all comes somewhere deep inside and cannot be put into words. It all is in spinal cord and comes up when needed. I can give you all the technical things and I can analyze my and others aiming at some level but I can't describe the final touch, the feeling, the thing that I know I'm gonna get this fight. How I could possibly share the feeling that I know I'm gonna win this fight because I have hit x amount of bullets to enemy and I need to hit x amount more and enemy just made a mistake by crouching at wrong time and I see I'm gonna land a headshot in 0,25 second and that will be crucial for me to win this fight and all what I need to do now is to make sure I keep doing this what I have done whole fight, not to differ from my aiming-strafing route and I will land that headshot and I'm gonna win that duel. Meanwhile I also got that sixth sense telling me that everything is not fine, someone is coming soon behind me, I need to keep calm and just finish this duel which I'm gonna win and then I will do a fast, 140 degree snap to left and face that enemy, crouching when my crosshair will be there because I have processed the fact that I'm gonna face him at uphill road, me being bottom. Now back to that duel, that headshot is landing, I hear lovely 'cling' sound and I hit 2 more bullets to him, he falls, I start doing that snap, I remember I'm gonna crouch and I have already a good chance to win that duel based on fact that I have a good chance to land easy headshots when enemy needs to fight from up to down, makes it hard at that slanting slope.
Did you catch my drift? Its just something you personally know, the experience that has came via practise. All those little inexplicables things that only you know, somewhere deep inside you. Nerd? No. Pro? Definitely.

Extras to learn more

I'm gonna throw in all kind of links related to ET, not only aiming things. And only links that haven't yet been in this tutorial:

http://www.users.on.net/%7Efrankros/DPI-calc.php
http://www.eve-films.com/forum/showthread.php?40381-FraGTaLiTy-s-Epic-Gaming-Mice-Guide-for-PC-Shooting-Games
http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1265679
http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=1846538
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/2133/keyscssd0.jpg
http://denarii.info/ethitboxes/
http://lightandmagic.multiply.com/calendar/item/10007
http://www.supern4ut.com/
http://widescreengamingforum.com/fovcalc.php
http://www.funender.com/quake/articles/strafing_theory.html
www.trickjump.me/tutorials/
http://enemyterritorytips.wordpress.com/
http://www.enemy-territory.net./basicskills.html
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/mouse.htm
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2803
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/02/does-dpi-matter-in-gaming-mice-one-mouse-maker-says-no.ars
http://www.challenge-tv.com/putty/q3table.html (Do not use this wrong aka make youself unhittable)


Please comment and ask questions and make suggestions what to add or how to improve this tutorial if you have any ideas. I hope you had nice read!

:l33t

© BossHK 10/2011