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I made this crosshair a while ago after a lot of pondering and testing about what the theoretically most-optimal crosshair would be. Recently I accidentally torched my MB2 installation and had to re-input my config and mods, so I remembered how bad the regular crosshairs are, so I felt like I should post this one for the benefit of any other... optimizers.
The crosshair looks like this:
Theoretical Merits:
- Since it has Magenta AND Green, it's highly visible at all times. Except if you're looking at a watermelon. I lose track of single-color crosshairs in certain parts of certain maps.
- It's better than a simple dot crosshair because it has some other stuff around the dot to make the whole thing more visible. I find tiny ultra-minimal crosshairs a little hard to keep track of, sometimes.
- The dot is opaque, but the stuff around the dot is translucent, so it doesn't ruin visibility.
- The vertical oval frames the head of the target, and also implies a head-shape, which is useful in some abstract way.
- The horizontal oval provides some kind of abstract contextualization I can't articulate. Maybe it implies shoulders. I'm sure it's important.
- Very importantly: both ovals fade out towards the bottom of the crosshair, so that when you have your crosshair at head-height, your crosshair doesn't totally block off the target's body and cause you to lose track of what you're shooting at.
Basically it has all the merits of a opaque crosshair, a translucent crosshair, a big crosshair, a small crosshair, a magenta crosshair, and a green crosshair; and it has aaaalmost none of the downsides. And it has these cool ovals that imply the shape of your target, or something.
At some point I'm gonna get around to making a dual pistol version too.
It replaces crosshair 3.
Bonus Gunner Optimization Tips:
Always aim at head height, jesus.
Try playing in first person for a little while to get familiar with where each gun fires from, which is essential knowledge for aiming at close range. I bound first person to mwheelup and third person to mwheeldown.
Bind each gun to a different key around your hand. You should never have to scroll to find a weapon. You should have instant access to any gun (or Melee). Instant, confident access to Melee is essential for surprise kicks.
Download this mouse acceleration driver and play around with it. The way I've got it set up, I have very precise, smooth/slow aim at long range and I can still do almost effortless 180s. If set up properly, it has none of the issues that people associate with mouse accel. Edit: Actually, nah. Just switched to 800 dpi 2 Sens, No Accel, and it seems just as good if not better. If you have desk space.
Try TehPandemic's Battlefront sound pack. It makes all the guns sound considerably less harsh on the ear (while not necessarily making them less punchy-sounding), which, in my experience, makes it much less stressful trying to focus on aiming in a gun battle.
Set cg_thirdpersoncameradamp and cg_thirdpersontargetdamp to the same value. Valid values are between 0 and 1. If they're different values (as is default: 0.3 and 0.6), then when you strafe your crosshair will slide a little bit in one direction or the other. The crosshair remains accurate, but it's a little messy having strafing affect your crosshairs position on the screen. I use 0.6/0.6. 1/1 is completely damped so that the camera rigidly follows your mouse movements, which I think is too blurry and chaotic in situations that demand constant mouse movement. 0.6/0.6 is a little squishier so your view remains a bit clearer in shaky situations.
The crosshair looks like this:
Theoretical Merits:
- Since it has Magenta AND Green, it's highly visible at all times. Except if you're looking at a watermelon. I lose track of single-color crosshairs in certain parts of certain maps.
- It's better than a simple dot crosshair because it has some other stuff around the dot to make the whole thing more visible. I find tiny ultra-minimal crosshairs a little hard to keep track of, sometimes.
- The dot is opaque, but the stuff around the dot is translucent, so it doesn't ruin visibility.
- The vertical oval frames the head of the target, and also implies a head-shape, which is useful in some abstract way.
- The horizontal oval provides some kind of abstract contextualization I can't articulate. Maybe it implies shoulders. I'm sure it's important.
- Very importantly: both ovals fade out towards the bottom of the crosshair, so that when you have your crosshair at head-height, your crosshair doesn't totally block off the target's body and cause you to lose track of what you're shooting at.
Basically it has all the merits of a opaque crosshair, a translucent crosshair, a big crosshair, a small crosshair, a magenta crosshair, and a green crosshair; and it has aaaalmost none of the downsides. And it has these cool ovals that imply the shape of your target, or something.
At some point I'm gonna get around to making a dual pistol version too.
It replaces crosshair 3.
Bonus Gunner Optimization Tips:
Always aim at head height, jesus.
Try playing in first person for a little while to get familiar with where each gun fires from, which is essential knowledge for aiming at close range. I bound first person to mwheelup and third person to mwheeldown.
Bind each gun to a different key around your hand. You should never have to scroll to find a weapon. You should have instant access to any gun (or Melee). Instant, confident access to Melee is essential for surprise kicks.
Download this mouse acceleration driver and play around with it. The way I've got it set up, I have very precise, smooth/slow aim at long range and I can still do almost effortless 180s. If set up properly, it has none of the issues that people associate with mouse accel. Edit: Actually, nah. Just switched to 800 dpi 2 Sens, No Accel, and it seems just as good if not better. If you have desk space.
Try TehPandemic's Battlefront sound pack. It makes all the guns sound considerably less harsh on the ear (while not necessarily making them less punchy-sounding), which, in my experience, makes it much less stressful trying to focus on aiming in a gun battle.
Set cg_thirdpersoncameradamp and cg_thirdpersontargetdamp to the same value. Valid values are between 0 and 1. If they're different values (as is default: 0.3 and 0.6), then when you strafe your crosshair will slide a little bit in one direction or the other. The crosshair remains accurate, but it's a little messy having strafing affect your crosshairs position on the screen. I use 0.6/0.6. 1/1 is completely damped so that the camera rigidly follows your mouse movements, which I think is too blurry and chaotic in situations that demand constant mouse movement. 0.6/0.6 is a little squishier so your view remains a bit clearer in shaky situations.
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