AssaultCube is a free, open-source shooter based on the Cube engine and taking place in realistic environments. It includes single and multi-player, as well as various modes which can be played over a wide range of maps. The game is lightweight and runs well on old hardware.

This guide starts by overviewing AssaultCube, and then proceeding to showing you how to configure it, make scripts and start your own dedicated server. Keep in mind that this is mostly a tutorial on how to configure and tweak AC to your liking, and merely an overview of the gameplay, not a guide on how to play it. Below is the table of contents, you can click on any link to jump to the respective section.

• Overview
• Configuration
• CubeScript
• Useful Scripts
• Starting a Dedicated Server
• Installation
• Tips
• Screenshots
• Resources

AssaultCube is a first-person shooter taking place over realistic environments. AC is completely free and open-source, and comes with an amazing size of only ~ 50MB. It is available for Linux, Windows and OS X. AC comes with over 36 maps, from which 10 shipped in version 1.2, like ac_avenue, ac_stellar or ac_venison. Some popular maps include ac_desert, ac_shine, ac_gothic or ac_douze. More maps created by the community can be downloaded from http://ac-akimbo.net/.

Version 1.2 was released on October 9, 2013, after three years of development, landing some nice new features. There are still some issues with 1.2.0.x, a few crashes, a problem with the /showscores command, however these will hopefully get fixed in future incremental releases. The gameplay approach is a classic one: you basically run around trying to kill enemies. When not a FFA mode, there are two teams, RVSF (Blue) and CLA (Red).

Trickjumps in AC are a little bit different, in that you will have to shoot the ground with your weapon in order to jump even farther away. All weapons give a small boost in speed if used properly, but most effective are the Assault Rifle and the Submachine Gun. This technique is called "rifle jumping" or "rifle sprinting". There are some really skilled players out there, very good at doing this. AC features both single-player with bots and online multi-player. The true fun is online, however you can play single-player too in several modes like Deathmatch or Pistol Frenzy. Unfortunately CTF modes are not available in bot single-player mode. There are several game modes available. Here is a brief description for each of them:

DM (Deathmatch) and TDM (Team Deathmatch)
You get weapons and grenades and have to kill any opponent (FFA). TDM is the same as DM, but with teams.

OSOK (One Shot One Kill) and TOSOK (Team One Shot One Kill)
This mode is similar to Instagib from other games. You start with 1 HP and a sniper rifle and have to kill any opponents by hitting them once. TOSOK is the same as OSOK, but with teams. TOSOK is probably the most popular mode for AssaultCube, simple, yet so addictive.

PF (Pistol Frenzy) and TPF (Team Pistol Frenzy)
You get a pistol, grenades and a knife and have to kill any opponent (FFA). TPF is the same as PF, but with teams.

LSS (Last Swiss Standing) and TLSS (Team Last Swiss Standing)
You get a knife and grenades and have to kill any opponent (FFA). TLSS is the same as LSS, but with teams.

Survival
The last player who survives wins the game.

TS (Team Survivor)
There are no pick-ups in this mode, so you will have to survive with only the weapon clips and health you get at the beginning of the round. Also, there are no grenades available. The team of the last player who survives wins the round.

CTF (Capture the Flag)
This is the popular Capture the Flag mode. There are two teams, and your team has to capture the enemy flag and bring it to your own flag to score. The team with most flags captured in the end wins.

KTF (Keep the Flag) and TKTF (Team Keep the Flag)
There is only one flag and everybody battles for it. Every 15 seconds that you keep the flag you will score.

HTF (Hunt the Flag)
There are two teams, each trying to kill the enemy flag bearer while your own flag is taken by your own team. The settings menu allows you to configure pretty much any major aspect of AssaultCube, including resolution, graphics details, sound settings and player settings.

Video settings Notice that all the settings that can be changed via the menu can also be changed by using configuration files like autoexec.cfg inside your $HOME/.assaultcube_v1.2/config directory. I made a detailed section about scripting and configuring AC which you can read below (or click here).
You can play AC in single-player mode with bots, however the real fun is playing online. To get online, press Escape to go to the main menu, then select Multiplayer and hit Enter. A list of online games will be shown - the server browser. This shows you the name and IP of the available servers that you can join, the total amount of currently playing users and the number of maximum available slots. Navigate with the arrows to a server that is not empty and hit Enter to connect to it. Notice that servers which are listed in red are private and require a password to join. The HUD (Heads Up Display) is located at the bottom side of the screen and shows information about remaining health, status of weapons ammo and grenades. On the top-right side of the screen there is the minimap, showing a preview of the current map and your location on it. You can also press ALT to see a bigger version of the minimap. The minimap also shows the location of your teammates.

The image below shows the HUD at the bottom, the minimap at the top-right side and the recent events status at the top-left side: The recent events status show who killed who, chat messages, as well as a timely notification about the time remaining on the map.

Below is the semi-transparent minimap when pressing ALT: By default, you can open the scoreboard by pressing TAB. In 1.2 there seems to be a bug though on some systems where the scoreboard isn't displayed, I provided a fix here. So, let's have a look at what every column in the scoreboard means. The first line lists the game mode (in this case TOSOK) as well as the current map and time left on the map.

The frags column tells us how many frags players have, that is, how many kills they did. For each kill you get a frag, with the exception of knife kills, which will give you two kills. The total number of frags per team is also displayed.

The deaths column shows how many times the respective player died. You can calculate the Kills/Deaths ratio by dividing the values of the frags and deaths columns.

The score column shows the player score. This is different from the number of frags for various reasons. For example, in CTF you get points for scoring with the flag.

The pj/ping column shows the packet jump delay in milliseconds as well as the actual ping (lag) the player has relatively to the server.

The cn column lists the player client number. This is unique for each player and given when the player joins the server. You can use the client number to kick/ban players or to send private messages. Since it's a unique ID, you can also use this in scripting.

Finally, the last column lists the nicknames of the players currently connected to the server.

The last line shows the IP, port and the name of the current server. In AssaultCube, hitting any part of the body will drain the same amount of HP, no matter if it's a headshot or a body shot (except for the Sniper Rifle headshot, which instantly gibs an opponent). This is why aiming in AC is a bit different than in other shooters. In normal shooters you would usually aim somewhere around the chest or the neck, or even the head to score a headshot, but in AC it is recommended to aim at the middle part of the body, especially with the Assault Rifle or the SMG, since these weapons have a very high recoil and they do the same damage whether you hit your opponent in the leg or in the chest. You can headshot your enemies only with the Sniper Rifle. This is will give you two frags. Gibbing an enemy with the knife will also give you two frags instead of one. One of the greatest features of AC is the ability to propel yourself or get an extra boost when jumping by firing the weapons. This is called "rifle sprinting" and any respectable player uses it, especially in CTF modes.

Below is an overview of the available weapons. I included screenshots and data about the damage they do, ammo and clip capacity, as well as general information about each weapon. Important information is provided by the TTK (Time to Kill) value, given in milliseconds, assuming all shots are successful hits and the opponent has 100 HP and no armor. However, keep in mind that although the Assault Rifle has a good TTK value, it also has a high recoil and getting only hits can be pretty hard, especially at medium to high range. You will have to learn to use different weapons for different purposes, also depending on the current mode and map. The TBS may also be referred to as ATD.

Damage (close-range vs far-range)
Damage at close range is the maximum damage the respective weapon can inflict. The far range damage I specified here may not be 100% accurate. I calculated it on ac_douze, by counting the number of shots needed to kill an unarmored bot on the other side of the map and dividing 100 by the respective number of shots. (Maybe the middle-way on ac_shine would've been better?) An interesting observation here is that the AR damage decreases by approximately 30% at far range, while the SMG damage drastically decreases by approximately 60%, from a maximum of 16 to ~7 damage. The Carbine's damage doesn't seem to decrease much, still being able to kill an enemy in 2 hits, while the Shotgun is (obviously, since it has a high spread) almost completely useless in far range battles, needing at least 5 successful hits to kill. The Pistol is also a very bad choice for far-range combats, since it barely does ~5 damage per shot.

Before listing the available pick-ups, let's first take a look at how armor works and the importance of armor pick-ups.

Armor
There is a pretty simple scheme on how armor works. You can have a maximum of 100 armor, and there is a threshold over which damage taken is reduced. So, if you have 0 armor you will take full damage. If you have 1-25 armor you will have 16% protection. If you have 26-50 armor you will have 33% protection, if you have 51-75 armor you will have 37% protection, and if you have 76-100 armor you will have 41% protection. Remaining damage which is not drained from your HP is deducted from your armor.

Here is a list, according to the official game info:

• 0-25 armor gives 16% protection
• 26-50 armor gives 33% protection
• 51-75 armor gives 37% protection
• 76-100 armor gives 41% protection

Here is an example of how damage works. Say you have 100 HP and 51 armor and you get hit once by the Sniper Rifle, which normally does 82 damage. If you wouldn't have armor, then your remaining health would be 18. However, you have 51 armor, which, according to the table above, means you have 37% protection. 37% out of 82 damage is equal to 30 damage. In conclusion, 52 damage will be deducted from your HP, and the remaining of 30 damage will be deducted from your armor. This means you will remain with 48 HP and 21 armor. Now you can observe how important armor pick-ups are. If you would've had no armor a single SR shot followed by a pistol shot would've got you killed. With armor, you are more resilient instead, so you shouldn't undermine the importance of this pick-up. You should always be equipped with as much armor as possible. Having at least 26 armor is good because it doubles the protection, but with every shot taken the armor decreases, and so does the protection percentage.

Most of the important settings can be configured via the in-game menus or by typing commands after pressing the forward slash (/) key. However, this guide will also show you how to make your own scripts and use config files (files ending in .cfg) for more elaborate options. In Linux, the local configuration directory is $HOME/.assaultcube_v1.2, where $HOME is your home folder (e.g. /home/username) and .assaultcube_v1.2 is a hidden folder inside your home folder. This directory contains the following sub-folders:

• config - config files are stored here
• screenshots - screenshots are stored here
• packages - additional maps and textures are stored here

The plain text file $HOME/.assaultcube_v1.2/config/autoexec.cfg is read and the commands inside it will be executed each time AssaultCube starts. You can put any scripts and commands here. In addition, you could also use something like the following inside your autoexec.cfg: Now all scripts located in .cfg files inside the $HOME/.assaultcube_v1.2/config/myscripts directory will also be executed. This helps to separate your various scripts in various files, instead of having only one, very long file with all your commands inside it. The following screenshot shows the default key binds: Here is the list of the most important shortcuts:

• Forwards: W
• Left: A
• Backwards: S
• Right: D
• Attack: MOUSE1
• Special action: MOUSE2
• Jump: SPACE
• Crouch: LSHIFT
• Reload: R
• Screenshot: F12
• Drop CTF flag: BACKSPACE

You can bind new keys to actions or even scripting aliases, or radio calls. To bind a new key, use the following command: For example, to bind B to open the Voice Com menu, you can use bind B [showmenu voicecom]. Or, to bind new movement keys (like ESDF instead of the default WASD), you could use this: Here is a key bound to an alias located in the autoexec.cfg file: By pressing O you will cycle through the FPS values of 28, 43 and 60. More about aliases and scripting is explained in a later section. The complete list can be found here. I will only mention the commands which I find most important, as they come listed in the in-game help. To type in a command within the game, press the forward slash (/) character and type the command. These commands can also be put inside configuration files, but this is explained later.

The command to call a vote is callvote. All other commands which call a vote (e.g. kick, shuffleteams, ctf or tosok) are aliases which use this command. These aliases can be found inside the config/admin.cfg file located in the installation directory. Here are some examples:

Force player to spectate mode This calls a vote to force a CN (player) to spectate mode. The alias for this would be forceteam CN 4.

Kick a player This calls a vote to kick a player. The alias for this command is kick CN REASON.

Load a new map There are aliases for each mode, see the example below.

Load a map in CTF mode All other modes can be called using their respective alias, for example tosok ac_desert for TOSOK, lms ac_douze for Survival (LMS stands for Last Man Standing), or tktf ac_power for TKTF.
CubeScript is the scripting language for AssaultCube, and it is almost like a complete programming language (obviously, created for different purposes than regular programming languages). CubeScript offers some powerful features which help configure AC in many ways and write some pretty neat scripts which may come in handy in-game. Here is a complete reference to CubeScript, but I will focus only on the important stuff here.

Writing scripts for AssaultCube involves just a bit of programming knowledge. However, if you find the following hard to understand you can copy/paste scripts inside your configuration files, just make sure the source is reliable. Scripting gives access to commands which can be harmful if not properly used. alias [name] [command(s)]

AC supports aliases as well. Aliases are shortcuts to commands created to ease your typing. You can create your custom aliases. For example: Now all you have to do is type /hello and the message will be displayed, and you won't have to type all that text every time you want to greet someone. Moreover, you can bind it to a key: Now each time you press H, the hello alias will be executed, sending the greeting text to the other players. if (cond) [true instruction(s)] [false instruction(s)]

This is the syntax of the if instruction. For example: Will output 5 is bigger than 3. Notice how the greater than operator comes first, followed by the left and right values. You can put these commands inside the autoexec.cfg file, or you can type them in-game when playing by pressing the forward slash (/) key, the default for typing commands.

Having the ability to use if instructions can be extremely useful. You can make practically whole scripts which will automatically change the behavior of the game depending on some factors. For example, you could change the brightness or the maximum fps cap depending on the currently loaded map. while (cond) [instruction(s)]
You have to be careful and avoid the infinite loops, because AC freezes if the condition passed to the while conditional makes it execute forever. As already mentioned, scripts can be put inside the config/autoexec.cfg, or you can create a folder, say config/myscripts, put all your scripts in there and add execdir config/myscripts inside autoexec.cfg. Furthermore, you can create the scripts folder inside the $HOME/.assaultcube_v1.2 directory and put all your scripts you want to be executed automatically when AC starts inside that folder. These scripts will be executed in alphabetical order, before any other script. Commands inside autoexec.cfg will override these though, since they are executed after. This script will cycle through four different sensitivity values when you press P, and it will echo the currently selected value. Nice shot!
These are various scripts which will use the in-game audio chat messages, but will display custom text. For example, the following will say out loud "Nice shot", but will print three custom messages to other players, cycling them: So, the first time when you press Numpad (Numeric Keypad) key KP_ENTER, the message sent will be "Nice shot!", and if you press it again the message will be "Great shot!".

Good job, team!
Here is another one, for greeting your team: Pressing the Numpad key KP_PERIOD (Del), this script will greet your team for a good job, cycling through four different messages. On some systems (including mine) the TAB key for showing the scoreboard table doesn't seem to work. Here's a fix: Put this inside the autoexec.cfg file. There is an exploit in 1.2 which can render this short snippet as a "cheat". Intention here is to just have a quick bind for going to spectate mode, do not use it to respawn faster since it's regarded as cheating: By pressing the Right Arrow you will automatically kill yourself and change to spectate mode. This script can be used to switch between fullscreen mode and windowed mode. It's rather a workaround, since (at least on Linux), it also needs an alias to set the resolution again, because sometimes when switching back to fullscreen, the actual screen size stays smaller. First, we define the alias cr1366 which will be used to set the resolution to 1366x768. Change this to match your own desired resolution. Then, we bind the Numpad key KP_MULTIPLY (*) to toggle between fullscreen/windowed mode, and we set the resolution at 1366x768. I'm sure there's a better way to do this, like checking if the mode is fullscreen and only then attempting to set the resolution. Notice how you can set custom commands inside the mapstartalways alias. These will override the default values, as well as the values specified in each map cfg file. In this example, we have a fog of 1024 for every new map, and a gibnum (number of gib particles to be shown) of 4. By default, right-clicking is bound to [altaction], which is the scope when using the Sniper Rifle. You can bind this to also zoom in with any other weapon, in addition to having it scope when using the SR. Here's the code: This script can be particularly useful when using the Carbine weapon, since it will zoom in, allowing you to take more accurate shots at distance. The minimum allowed fov is 75. First we define the alias scope which will check if the current weapon is the SR, if it isn't, then change the fov to 75 (zoom in), if the current weapon is the SR, then execute altaction, which will show the scope. You can have binds for mods like CTF. I use the Numpad keys for these. For example, here are two useful binds for the CTF mode: When pressing the Numpad key KP4 (Left Arrow) the team message ">> FLAG leaving left side <<" will appear to your teammates. When pressing Numpad key KP6 (Right Arrow), the other message will appear. Quickly get admin status: Now you can either type /saon in-game to claim admin status, or just press N (you will obviously have to replace PASSWORD with the admin password. To release admin status: Press M to use it. You can have aliases to claim admin on more than one server: Now you can press Numpad key KP1 to claim admin on one server, KP2 on another server and KP3 on a third server. Just remember to replace PASSWORD[1-3], otherwise if you provide the wrong password the server will kick you.

To quickly get admin status, kick or ban a player by CN (client number), and then release admin status: And then you could use it like /k CN REASON to kick or /b CN REASON to ban. This is useful when you don't want to stay logged in as admin so you won't influence votes. The script will get admin, execute the specified command as admin, wait 400 milliseconds and then release admin status. Here is a script that will send some info about your AC settings to other players via the say command, used for global chat: Now you will only have to type /myinfo when you want to send this information to other players. You can add various other information here. The weapon selection menu can be opened by typing showmenu Weapons and you can bind it to a key: Now you can just press L to open the weapons menu and make a quick pick. As an example, the following is part of my configuration file (download). I use ESDF for movement, a few scripts for voicecom chat, several video settings like capped fps and not the maximum fov, as well as few scripts to enhance playability, like the right-click zoom in script shown above. Here is an example of how to start a dedicated server: The server.sh script is located inside the root installation directory. Alternatively, you could use the linux_server executable binary, located inside the bin_unix directory from within the root installation folder.

Replace ADMIN_PASSWORD with a password of your choosing, this will be used to have administration access to the server (by typing /setadmin 1 ADMIN_PASSWORD). Replace SERVER_NAME with the name you want your server to have, this will appear in the server browser. Change MESSAGE_OF_THE_DAY to an informative note about the server, like a greeting or a website link. This message will appear to every player who joins the server.

You can have a look at the official documentation section on starting your own AssaultCube server, as well as the command-line arguments that you can use. The map rotation file (e.g. maprot.cfg) is a file which specifies what maps will be played, in what mode and for how long. There should be a map entry on every line, with parameters separated by the : character. Here is an example: The first line says "Use map ac_desert (first column) in mode TOSOK (second column), for 12 minutes (third column), and allow votes (fourth column)". The second line will use map ac_favela, only this time in mode CTF (second column - mode number 5), for 10 minutes, and allow votes. Actually, the complete format for adding maps is this: However, the values between the [ and ] parantheses can be excluded, so you can only add them as shown above, in the map:mode:time:allowVote format.

The following is a complete list with the numbers corresponding to each game mode:

• 0 - TDM
• 2 - DM
• 3 - Survivor
• 4 - TS
• 5 - CTF
• 6 - PF
• 9 - LSS
• 10 - OSOK
• 11 - TOSOK
• 13 - HTF
• 14 - TKTF
• 15 - KTF
• 16 - TPF
• 17 - TLSS

Another example: Custom maps can be downloaded and put inside the packages/maps/servermaps directory. Maps which are uploaded in-game by users using the sendmap command will be put inside the packages/maps/servermaps/incoming directory. Maps usually will consist of a compressed Gzip archive ending in the cgz extension, and an eventual config file ending in a cfg extension. The config file specifies variables to be used on that specific map by the client, overriding default settings. So for example if your fov variable is set to 400, but the cfg file for a specific map sets it at 280, then this value will be used, overriding your settings.

The packages/maps/servermaps directory is located inside the root installation directory, or you can create it manually inside the $HOME/.assaultcube_v1.2 folder.

There are hundreds of good community-created maps over at ac-akimbo.net, some of the more popular ones include ac_valencia, ac_duel, ac_favela, ac_savana, ac_casa2, ac_safari, bs_dust2, camper, TwinTowers. Ubuntu 13.10 comes with AssaultCube 1.1.0.4, so to install the latest version you will have to download the archive from here, uncompress it and then run the assaultcube.sh script to start it. The current release is AssaultCube 1.2.0.2, you may need to replace the version number for any later release. These are various tips gathered from the forums or from online players:

Tip: Throwing a nade on your head won't get you killed.
Tip: For some players maxroll 20 works better in OSOK or TOSOK than the default value (0).
Tip: Rifle sprinting backwards is most useful in CTF modes when running away with the enemy flag.
Tip: Scripts inside the config directory from the installation folder are a great resource to learn scripting.
Tip: By default, the crosshair is white when your HP is over 50, turns orange when your HP is between 25 and 50, and turns red when your HP is under 25. To disable this behavior, use the crosshairfx 0 command. (Thanks to Waffles for this tip)
Tip: In HTF and KTF modes, pressing ALT to show the minimap will also show you the enemy flag bearer.
Tip: Crouching before the peak of a jump will give an extra boost. Useful to jump from platform to platform on various maps, especially on ac_douze.
Tip: It helps a lot to know the maps and the location of pick-ups.
Tip: Nade trickjumps, although hard to perform in a real game, can get you to places otherwise unreachable.
Tip: You can change the bot names in single-player by editing the bot/bot_names.txt file and adding one nickname per line.
Tip: Having 26+ armor doubles the amount of damage which will not be drained from your HP, from 16% to 33%.

• Homepage
• Documentation
• CubeScript Reference
• Forum

• AC-AKIMBO.net - Maps, Mods, Scripts, Skymaps, Textures and Mapmodels
• Quadropolis.us - Cube engine mapping, modding and mayhem

• Cube Engine
• Sauerbraten

• AssaultCube Strategy Guide (AC Forum)

v0.2.4 r4 (Jan 15, 2014)
- added pick-ups, armor info
- added weapon RT, TBS, TTK, more weapon info, damage info
- added voting info, maprot info, config info
- added several new commands, admin scripts
- added tips
- added new screenshots
- several spelling fixes

v0.2.2 r1 (Jan 10, 2014)
- initial version

• adding/modifying menus
• AC etiquette
• AC funny quotes
• more detailed modes info
• settings menus info
• server browser shortcuts

By Craciun Dan on January 10, 2014 | Updated: January 17, 2014 | v0.2.5 r5