Master the arsenal in Counter-Strike: Source! Learn about guns, grenades, and gear, including their stats, costs, and how they affect gameplay. Make informed purchase decisions to dominate the match.
Arguably one of the most important components of any FPS is the selection of firearms available for you to discharge into the enemy team, and CS is not an exception. There is a plethora of guns and gear for you to pick up and shoot off, and all of them are available to you in game if you have the cash to make it happen.
In this section, we'll talk about all of the goodies available for purchase in a CS match, and then follow it up with a quick discussion on weapon slots and what to use. Let's look at the guns themselves first.
Firstly, the layout and what everything means:
- Side: Some guns are only available for purchase by one particular side (e.g., the M4 for CTs and the AK-47 for Ts). The only way to acquire a firearm you cannot buy is to loot one off an opponent's body.
- Cost: The money needed to purchase the gun or equipment from the buy menu. Remember that when you respawn after you die, you always get the starting pistol (P2000, USP-S or Glock-18) free of charge.
- Ammo: Rounds per clip / total ammo carried. Generally cannot be refilled until a new round starts.
- Kill Award: The amount of cash awarded to you for killing an opponent with the weapon. The "standard" award is $300, but some weapons, such as shotguns and the AWP, have different awards.
- Damage: The amount of damage done by an unarmored shot to the chest or arms from one meter away. Multiply the damage by about 4 for headshots, 1.1 for shots to the abdomen or stomach, and .75 for leg shots.
- Fire Modes: Describes how the weapon fires its ammo and how quickly it can do so. Semi-automatic weapons require one click per shot, and automatic weapons can be sprayed. Three-round bursts fire three shots before requiring another click.
- Accurate Range: The farthest distance from which a no-recoil shot (i.e. the first bullet in a spray) will land within your on-screen crosshairs.
- Movement: Determines how fast you can move with the weapon out. The fastest speed you can move at is 250 units (when you have your knife out).
- Armor Pen: Shorthand for armor penetration, this determines how much of the gun's damage is actually dealt as damage against armored foes.
- Penetration Power: Describes how well the gun can wallbang, i.e., shoot and hit enemies behind cover. Guns with higher penetration power can shoot enemies from behind thicker cover (say, sheet metal over a wooden plank) for generally more damage.
- Reload Speed: How long the gun takes to reload. This measures the reload animation time, and in most cases, the clip is replenished before the animation finishes. It is often faster to quickly switch from and to the weapon right after the clip is reloaded to save time. Most shotguns are reloaded one shell at a time, and thus the reload animation can be canceled by firing.
- Shortcut: The keystrokes necessary to purchase the weapon. In all of them, "B" refers to the key that opens the buy menu.
- Shares Slot With: Some weapons occupy the same loadout slot as others do. This describes what weapons do that.
- Special: Right-clicking with some weapons triggers a special action, which will be briefly described here.
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