Welcome to STM's SubVein Tricks and Mechanics! In this thread, I will teach you some lesser-known tricks and to understand some of the mechanics of the game Subvein. Hopefully, you'd learn a thing or two and can apply them to your fights.
Updates (18th March 2012, GMT+8 17:10):
Updated Knife and Invisibility info.Table of Content:1) Length-related info
2) Jumping in Subvein
3) Understanding how the Knife works
4) Weapon Accuracy System
5) Critical Shot Chance System
6) B.LagComp and P.LagComp
7) Rocket Jumping
8) The Seeking System (Incomplete)
9) Invisibility
10) Car Spawn Teleportation
11) Bullet Collision and Walls (Incomplete)1) Length-related infoYour mutant is a 2m tall guy, and about 1m wide.
All his attacks originate at the 2m height (ie his head).
Using Barrier (Ctrl), which used to be Crouch, does NOT decrease your vertical hitbox.
Assuming you are running at default speed and are not carrying a weapon that induces a heavy movement penalty, a mutant can jump as far as 5m. Height of Jump is discussed under "2) Jumping in Subvein"
Sprinting/Dash does make you jump a bit further.
Corpse Construction only increases your hitbox width, it does NOT make your mutant any taller.
Vehicles have variable hitbox widths and heights.
The horizontal range of getting into a car is 5m from the center of the car. Does not work if blocked by a wall.
The vertical range of getting into a car is 3m from the center of the car (a car that is 2.75m above you can be entered without jumping).
If you are having trouble entering a car because players have spilled weapons all over the car, try jumping on top of the car before pressing E.
2) Jumping in SubveinNote: This is yet to be confirmed by Ben. Mostly speculative, but the practical use of it is correct.Due to certain game mechanisms, just before you land and when you just jumped, the game thinks that you are on the ground when your mutant is not fully on the ground. This is due to the "Phantom Legs".
Normally, a mutant is able to jump up onto a 2m tall platform. However, if you had held down the Jump button (default: spacebar), you would notice that just before your character really lands, your character jumps again, allowing this 2nd jump, you will be able to jump an additional 0.25m higher, allowing you to jump on a 2.25m tall platform but not any higher than that.
Apparently, the mutant is assigned by the game 2 sets of legs; one is the mutant's hitbox legs, the other is the Phantom legs which are 0.25m longer than the mutant legs. I suppose its purpose is to make vertical movement like walking on stairs and slopes more smooth in the game by acting as some kind of detector, while the mutant legs are the collision. What happens that makes this "first" and "last" frame of jumping/landing possible is that, the game thinks that the mutant is still on the ground when the Phantom legs are touching the ground. Thus, when your character is 0.25m off the ground, he is able to jump again. Then why won't your character jump twice on the first jump? Because it is the Phantom legs that initiate the jumping, and as long as they haven't left the ground yet, they are disabled after the initial jump.
This has found an application in the Mental skill Disabling Drop, which relies on the player to fall from a height to trigger a reduction in the enemy's rate of fire based on how high you have fallen. You can delay your Disabling Drop and hence influence the final outcome of your Disabling Drop. This is because the game doesn't consider Disabling Drop to have worked unless your mutant feet touch the ground, but because your Phantom feet are longer than your mutant feet, you can jump again just as you are about to land and thus delay Disabling Drop from occurring.
Video demonstrating delaying Disabling Drop.1) Hold down Spacebar - you will keep jumping but without Disabling Drop occurring.
2) Now, hold down ONE direction key and hold down jump. You will keep jumping in that direction but Disabling Drop does not occur. The moment you release spacebar(or press any other key) and land, you will unleash Disabling Drop.
3) Start from a high height. Now perform number 2, jumping off that high height onto lower ground. When you land, Disabling Drop does not occur, and you can keep jumping in that direction without DD triggering. When you finally stop and land, you unleash Disabling Drop - the same level of ROF reduction and penalty you would have unleashed if you had landed on the first landing.
The 4th one here requires some skill and timing to pull off.
4) Do either number 1, 2 or 3 (2 will be the easiest to pull this off). Just after any jump, quickly release the Jump button, change direction, then hold down Jump again.
* If you climb up a ramp, you will cancel out the ROF reduction. For example, you jump from 10m high, supposed to deal 150% ROF reduction. While performing the DD-delay trick, you go up a ramp in Downtown which will lead you to a height level of probably about 2m above where you originally landed. You will find that when you finally stop, you instead deal only 130% ROF reduction.
From this, you can also infer the workings of Disabling Drop:
* When you go above the height of the ground you were on, the game starts recording the height, and takes the highest point you reach as the reference point for the height you are going to fall from. When you land properly, it will check the height between the reference point and the point in which you have landed, before applying Disabling Drop.
In summary, you can jump again just 0.25m before actual landing, allowing you to jump 0.25m higher and also delay Disabling Drop.
3) Understanding how the Knife worksTo clear some misconceptions for the newbies out there, the Bat and Lightsaber are exactly the same as the Knife, except they have altered graphics and sounds etc; no real stat changes.
The knife in Subvein is actually a gun that shoots a fast-moving, invisible bullet which can go through Force Fields and Bullet Time (however, Silver Shield will absorb some of the damage). It triggers the Silent Stabbings and Specialist missions, and a "Humiliation" message.
Although the knife CAN be aimed vertically, the Knife's range is less than 2m and thus you will not be able to stab someone who is below you, while the guy below you is able to stab right up at you. Knowing this will help you realize that if you and an enemy are having a knife match on the stairs, and you are on lower ground, you will have the advantage as you can slice his legs whereas your enemy will be slicing way above you and therefore miss.
4) Weapon Accuracy SystemThe game client and the server must have same information as to where your bullet is going, otherwise gameplay is going to be a real mess. This explains how weapon accuracy is calculated in Subvein.
In Subvein, when any weapon is spawned into the game, it is given a unique accuracy pattern that is accepted by both the game client and the server. Yes, unique, such that even if there are two identical guns (ie: two AKs), they each have a different accuracy pattern. This pattern is applied based on the number of shots you have fired and will reset upon reloading and when you reach a certain number of shots like 255. How is this pattern determined? Every shot to be fired from the gun is randomly assigned a value. This value determines the angle and direction the bullet will spread when fired. When the gun is eventually fired, the game then multiplies the value by the sum of the gun's Spread, Recoil and MovementRecoil to determine the final inaccuracy of the bullet being fired. This is how the accuracy system in Subvein works. Note that the shots fired is not the same as the ammo number.
[Case Study for Understanding]
To understand this in a practical manner, first go to your Subvein's data folder and modify the weapons.ini. Change the USP's shootstyle to 1, spread to 15, force to 0, recoil to 0, and movementrecoil to 0. Copy and paste the USP's stats into the Deagle and Shock Revolver, but change the Deagle's clipsize to 1, and for Shock Revolver give it a recoil of 1.5 and movementRecoil of 15 and spread of 0. Start Subvein, create a Practice Mode server with custom weapons enabled and no gangsters. Get 10 points in Energize. A good map to test this is Downtown. Position yourself on the crate outside the base and face the road lines.
Shoot your USP without moving your cursor. Note the pattern of each bullet. After firing all 12 bullets, you will reload. Shoot 12 bullets shot by shot again. Notice that the pattern is the same - 1st shot is same as the 1st shot, 2nd shot is same as the 2nd shot. Now, shoot one shot, then reload, then shoot once again. Exact same 1st shot pattern. This proves the point that the one pattern is applied to all magazines and the pattern resets on reload.
Now Energize the USP. Shoot every bullet you can. You will notice that the pattern is exactly the same as before the USP is energized, but with the ends cut off due to the increase in ammo consumption. This proves the point that the accuracy system is tied to the number of shots fired and not the ammo number in your magazine.
Drop the energized USP, buy a new USP and shoot all 12 bullets and note the pattern. You'd notice that the new USP's pattern is different from the energized USP's. This proves the point that each weapon has its own unique pattern.
You can try the Deagle to further prove the above points.
Now use the Shock Revolver. Move backwards towards the crate. Now fire shot by shot and take note of the direction and degree of inaccuracy of each bullet. After you have noted and have reloaded, stop moving. Now fire the Shock Revolver like an auto (hold down left click for auto fire, you can use burst fire if you like). You will notice: if the 3rd bullet is supposed to go upwards, it will go upwards, albeit a lesser degree. If the 4th bullet is supposed to go upwards too but at a lesser degree than the 3rd bullet, you will notice that even in a lower recoil, the 4th bullet will both go upwards and also spread less than the 3rd bullet.
[ / Case Study]
In summary, the accuracy system is Subvein is not completely random.
5) Critical Shot Chance SystemCritical Shot is also predetermined by the game client and server by assigning a unique pattern to each gun, much like the accuracy system, but unlike the accuracy system has a few fundamental differences.
* Critical Shot is unique for each magazine - magazine 1 is magazine 1, magazine 2 is magazine 2. This is unlike the accuracy system where it is one pattern for all magazines. Note though, that all magazine 1s have the same pattern. If clips=0 (infinite magazines) or =1 (like superweapons, 1 clip), then the pattern is always the same for that gun.
* Critical Shot is, unlike the accuracy system, based on the ammo number. Thus, if you are using Energize, it is possible to skip bullets that are supposed to be Critical and the pattern may appear to be different, when in reality it is just a missing bullet from the original pattern.
* Whether a bullet is critical or not depends on another randomly applied value to the bullet, much like how a value is assigned to determine a bullet's accuracy in the accuracy system - if the Critical Shot level is equal or greater than the value assigned to the bullet, then the bullet will be critical, otherwise it will not be critical. This will imply that if I increase the level of Critical Shot halfway through, I will simply add more bullets into the existing pattern to become Critical, and then if I suddenly lowered the level of Critical Shot again, the bullets that are in the 1st pattern remain critical while those that only appeared after I leveled Critical Shot will no longer be Critical.
This same mechanism is also used for the Cyber skill "Phasic Bullets". It is possible for a bullet to be both Phasic and Critical.
Also applicable to Clip Magnet but with one fundamental difference: Clip Magnet is based on shots rather than individual pellets. Ie: If you use a shotgun that fires 5 pellets in 1 shot, you fire one shot that happens to steal ammo, then regardless of whether all pellets hit or not, you will steal the same amount of ammo. If you fire one shot that doesn't, then tough luck.
[Case Study:]
Using Deagle A, I fired each shot slowly and noted the number of each bullet being shot that was red (ie: the 4th shot I fire is marked as "4"). This is done until the Deagle is empty. It should be noted that in each magazine, the number and sequence of critical shots may not be the same.
Refilling Deagle A from 0 to full ammo, I fired each shot again and noted that the pattern is exactly the same. If I were to refill Deagle A from 6 clips remaining to full ammo, the pattern is reset to the very first magazine.
Deagle B has a different pattern from Deagle A.
Therefore, like the accuracy system, Critical Shot is calculated for each weapon as soon as it spawns and the weapon will follow this pattern for as long as it exists. But unlike the accuracy system where the accuracy system calculates for one magazine and then applies to all other magazines (therefore for accuracy, reloading will reset the pattern),
Critical Shot is calculated for each individual magazine separately (therefore each magazine has a different pattern and reloading will simply trigger the next magazine's pattern).
Now, I energized Deagle A with level 10 Energize. Deagle A will now hold a total of 6 ammo per magazine instead of 7 (supposed to be 5, but it came off as 6 due to a bug). The ammo consumption is 140%.
This time, Deagle A follows a different pattern, but is derived from the original pattern based on each magazine. Why do I say so?
1) The 1st and 2nd shot of the energized pattern is also the 1st and 2nd shot of the original pattern.
2) If the 3rd shot is supposed to be critical in the original pattern of each magazine, the energized pattern has one missing critical bullet. (eg: original: 3rd and 7th shot are critical, energized only 6th shot is critical)
3) If the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th shots are supposed to be critical in the original pattern, they'd be 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th in the energized pattern respectively.
4) If no bullets are critical in the original pattern, then there are no critical bullets in the energized pattern as well.
This means that unlike the accuracy system, which is based on the number of shots fired and thus only affect the ends of the pattern, for
Critical Shot each bullet in your magazine is assigned "Crit" or "Not Crit", and since Energize increases ammo consumption such that you will skip bullets,
it is possible for you to skip a Critical bullet and go right on to fire the next bullet instead.A final experiment is to vary the level of Crit. Get level 2 Crit. Using a USP, fire 3 clips of bullets. Take note of the number of the bullets that is critical. Refill your ammo, increase your Crit level by 2, then fire 3 clips and again take note of the number of the bullets that are critical. Keep doing until you reach Crit level 10. You will realize that the number of bullet that is critical in the first level will also be critical in subsequent critical levels, those in the second level will also be critical in the third level and beyond but not critical in the first level. Unleveling the skill will remove bullets that are critical only at the higher levels, then slowly right down to those that are critical at the lower levels, so the pattern will remain the same. You can deduce, therefore, that
each bullet is actually assigned a value as to what % of Crit is required for it to be critical.[ / Case Study End]
6) B.LagComp and P.LagComp[
This section is outdated because Subvein now has a new netcode system, but I'm not removing it as a way to preserve the history of Subvein]
Bullet Lag Compensation and Player Lag Compensation are special settings in your game client that graphically alter the speed/placement of objects you see in game to compensate for lag and thus make the game feel more smooth even though your bullets and player placement aren't really altered; its purely graphical. The higher the setting, the more the game applies the compensation.
B.LagComp makes your bullets appear to pause slightly upon firing (only noticeable in high ping with high B.LagComp settings), then shoot off at a slightly slower speed. This graphical effect compensates for the time it takes for the server to register your mutant as shooting, and aids in your aiming significantly. As for bullets belonging to other players, they are made to appear faster and start off slightly away from your opponent's origin to compensate for the fact that it takes some time for the enemy's shooting to be registered to your client from the server.
* B.LagComp seems to have one flaw. At extreme close range (point-blank), your enemy may appear not to be shooting but is in fact shooting and hitting you.
P.LagComp makes enemy players appear faster by extrapolating the position of the enemy player based on the direction he is moving. This compensates for some of the leading you may need to do based on the movement of your enemy.
* P.LagComp has several major weaknesses. Firstly, players who use a high P.LagComp setting will find it extremely difficult to track erratic movement because the client is not able to correctly predict the true location of the player and must be corrected by the server should the player suddenly change direction. This results in warpiness, ESPECIALLY if enemies are sprinting erratically (even more so with Dash!) near ledges which can be fallen off. The speed may also be overwhelming for players especially if the enemy they fight against is darting around with a high level of Dash. Last but not least, it severely puts the player at a disadvantage when engaging in close quarters combat as enemies can take advantage of the warpiness to appear to be right infront of you when they are in fact behind you, and movement is most erratic at close quarters.
High B.LagComp and P.LagComp settings are invaluable for the lagging ranger/sniper, but it is not a godsend as it still does not guarantee that a graphically client-sided hit is a server-sided hit and you are put at a disadvantage in other areas such as close quarters combat. Your gaming experience may also feel very uncomfortable.
It is recommended that you adjust the LagComp settings according to your own preference and then stick to it (unless you plan on sniping, where I recommend switching to max on both settings, then switch back when you decide not to snipe).
7) Rocket Jumpingv0.522 Videov0.602 VideoRocket Jumping in Subvein is possible, although there are several variations and at the moment require quite a lot of cash to pull off and are thus quite rare. Basically, rocket jumping in Subvein is simply using explosives to propel you up into the air to reach high places.
The variation shown in the videos are specific to the Blast Cannon (Blasty) weapon. We generally refer to this weapon's rocket jump as
Blast Jumping.
*
Form 1 - Rocket Jump: The generic
jump and shoot your feet. This also works with the Bazooka and with some skill, the Grenade (but those 2 will damage yourself). This jump is intended for heights that are too high for you to jump over, but the walls are too short to perform Form 2.
*
Form 2 - Wall Climbing: Form 2 is
unique to the Blast Cannon, because the Blasty is the only explosive weapon that can be fired rapidly.
First, position yourself directly next to a wall and point your cursor in the direction of the wall, then look far away in that direction. This is because the Blast Cannon can lob its projectile over walls (as seen by the cursor turning blue), and to prevent the Blast Cannon from lobbing and thus overshoot, you need to point it far away in the direction of the wall such that the projectile will collide the wall instead and propel you upwards.
Secondly, jump and shoot (you can hold down left-click) and keep walking towards the wall (otherwise you'd be blown backwards). There you go, the explosion resulting from the explosive pellets hitting the wall propels you upwards, letting you climb the wall for as long as it goes (some walls last forever ie Collision walls) and will effectively allow you to reach any high place in the map.
Knowing Blast Jumping will allow you to use the Blast Cannon as not only a powerful weapon, but as an excellent tool for escaping and scaling heights.
The other variation of the rocket jump is the
Car Jump. When a car is destroyed, it will explode, and this explosion will propel you into the air. The more cars, the more powerful the force, the greater height you reach. However, Car Jumping will damage yourself, and the height you get blasted up to is fixed (generally more than enough), I think about 10m (
RESEARCH), and Car Jumping is generally quite costly.
Car Jumping must never be done with any other vehicle other than the Buggy or the Loafer, because the explosion damage for most cars are too high and will kill you; only the Buggy and Loafer deal tolerable damage, and only those 2 vehicles have low enough armor to be easily destroyed (especially by 1 Bazooka). How to Car Jump?
* Find a Buggy or Loafer, park it at place where you'd like jump from
* Jump on top of it.
* Destroy the car. Jump just as it is about to explode. If you are using a gun, this will take while and you need to estimate the car's armor (don't worry about the flames, they won't hurt you if you aren't INSIDE the car, its just an indication that the car is reaching 0 armor).
* Profit. The car will explode, and you get propelled into the air.
Note: Car Jumping is
best done with a Bazooka; just jump ontop of the car, then jump and shoot it. It will hurt you a bit more, but you go up higher, and it saves a lot of time. If you are low on health, use Barrier (default: Ctrl) to absorb the damage while you are shooting.
Note2: You shouldn't use grenades to blow up the car because the grenade will bounce off the car and is rather bugged when it bounces off a car.
Note3: Please watch out for nearby enemies and beware of smoking/flaming cars when attempting this. They can very well spoil your jump;
standing on top of a car makes your hitbox bigger and thus get you killed.
In summary, you can use explosions to launch you into the air. Generally, with the Blast Cannon, or with a Bazooka together with a Loafer/Buggy.
8) The Seeking SystemSeeking projectiles go after the target where they need to change angle the least, and it seems to aim for the players' feet. An unfortunate problem of the seeking system is that it will also aim for gangsters instead of prioritize hitting players.
9) InvisibilityInvisibility is a Mental skill that allows the player to fade out and become unseen. Invisible players who have just disabled their Invisibility appear instantly with a highly visible white circle around them, which indicates that they will suffer from a penalty (weapon damage reduction) for a period of time.
* Invisibility can be deactivated by casting again when Invisibility is currently active. Knowing this will allow you to pop out, wait for the penalty to end, then shoot, so that you can achieve maximum damage.
* A player is temporarily revealed when he is damaged by an attack such as bullets or Venom Shot, or is frozen in place by Shockwave. If the player does not deactivate Invisibility in this state, he will fade back to Invisibility once the status effect(venom/Shockwave) wears off or he stops taking damage.
* Invisibility will cause seeking projectiles to INSTANTLY stop seeking at the said player and seek another target, even if players or gangsters can still see you.
* Invisibility masks the effects of any active ongoing skill you have. Knowing this, you can "cancel" some skills. Notable are Bullet Time, Blackhole and Force Fields. For Blackhole, the duration continues but Blackhole's effects do not occur. For Force Fields, the duration of the Force Fields is delayed while Invisibility is active. For Bullet Time, you can instantly mask BT, allowing any bullets currently in your BT to be released (if you have Stolen Seekers, your bullets will still continue to be slowed by Stolen Seekers) and will also freeze the duration of BT.
*
Special exception goes to Self-Repair: it is possible to heal both yourself and nearby allies while Invisibility is active by casting Self-Repair, THEN Invisibility.
*
Deactivating a skill does not count as casting a skill. Therefore, if you have Bullet Time, Blade Fury, Energize or Self-Repair turned on while you are Invisible, you will stay Invisible. Knowing this with the above point will allow you to cancel Bullet Time mid-combat and choose to stay Invisible for the rest of the duration. One thing noteworthy for Blade Fury is that if you deactivate Blade Fury while you are invisible, you will burst the blades, which basically reveals where you are.
10) Car Spawn TeleportationIf your character is in his spawnzone which is surrounded by walls and attempts to buy a car, it is very possible that when he buys a car, he will warp out of the spawnzone onto a nearby area past the walls.
This happens because the game realizes there is sufficient space to purchase a vehicle, but due to positioning near a corner (even if the walls are just low walls, as long as the walls are high enough (0.75m) to obstruct vehicle movement), the game is unable to properly spawn you inside a vehicle in the same spot, and will thus decide to warp you outside of the said corner.
11) Bullet Collision and WallsMore research needed.
Only info I can give is that it seems that the bullets have a tendency to collide the walls instead of hit the intended target if the target has planted himself against a wall.
