Semi or Burst fire

This article or section needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality.
For help, see the VDC Editing Help and Wikipedia cleanup process. Also, remember to check for any notes left by the tagger at this article's talk page.

This article or section should be converted to third person to conform to wiki standards.

This is a simple tutorial about adding semi-auto or burst fire mode to a weapon. The weapon_pistol.cpp will be used as the basis of this tutorial. The added extra lines are marked bold.

First define a constant. That holds the maximum number of bullets to be fired with 1 trigger pull (mouse click). In semi-auto, you would add 1. For a 3 shot burst add 3 etc.

#define	PISTOL_ACCURACY_SHOT_PENALTY_TIME		0.2f	// Applied amount of time each shot adds to the time we must recover from
#define	PISTOL_ACCURACY_MAXIMUM_PENALTY_TIME	1.5f	// Maximum penalty to deal out
#define	MAXBURST	1

Now look up this part in the code at the declaration of the pistol class. Then add the bold lines. You can copy-paste it over the original part if you would like to.

private:
CNetworkVar( float,	m_flSoonestPrimaryAttack );
CNetworkVar( float,	m_flLastAttackTime );
CNetworkVar( float,	m_flAccuracyPenalty );
CNetworkVar( int,	m_nNumShotsFired );
CNetworkVar( int,	m_iSemi );

private:
CWeaponPistol( const CWeaponPistol & );
};

IMPLEMENT_NETWORKCLASS_ALIASED( WeaponPistol, DT_WeaponPistol )

BEGIN_NETWORK_TABLE( CWeaponPistol, DT_WeaponPistol )
#ifdef CLIENT_DLL
RecvPropTime( RECVINFO( m_flSoonestPrimaryAttack ) ),
RecvPropTime( RECVINFO( m_flLastAttackTime ) ),
RecvPropFloat( RECVINFO( m_flAccuracyPenalty ) ),
RecvPropInt( RECVINFO( m_nNumShotsFired ) ),
RecvPropInt( RECVINFO( m_iSemi ) ),
#else
SendPropTime( SENDINFO( m_flSoonestPrimaryAttack ) ),
SendPropTime( SENDINFO( m_flLastAttackTime ) ),
SendPropFloat( SENDINFO( m_flAccuracyPenalty ) ),
SendPropInt( SENDINFO( m_nNumShotsFired ) ),
SendPropInt( SENDINFO( m_iSemi ) ),
#endif
END_NETWORK_TABLE()

BEGIN_PREDICTION_DATA( CWeaponPistol )
DEFINE_PRED_FIELD( m_iSemi, FIELD_INTEGER, FTYPEDESC_INSENDTABLE ),
END_PREDICTION_DATA()

This created the m_iSemi variable. The code above has something to do with client side prediction, to ease the server load. The important part is that it works.

Now set up our new variable in the constructor:

CWeaponPistol::CWeaponPistol( void )
{
m_flSoonestPrimaryAttack = gpGlobals->curtime;
m_flAccuracyPenalty = 0.0f;
m_fMinRange1		= 24;
m_fMaxRange1		= 1500;
m_fMinRange2		= 24;
m_fMaxRange2		= 200;
m_bFiresUnderwater	= true;
m_iSemi=MAXBURST; 
}

Here comes the tricky part. Look up the ItemPostFrame procedure and add these lines:

CBasePlayer *pOwner = ToBasePlayer( GetOwner() );
if ( pOwner->m_nButtons & IN_ATTACK  ){}else 
{m_iSemi = MAXBURST;} 

This sets the m_iSemi variable to the pre-defined constant. The logic check is funny with only the ELSE part having code. This works, but feel free to make it more elegant. To finish up the modification, add the bold lines into the PrimaryAttack procedure:

if (m_iSemi<=0)
{ return;	}
m_iSemi--;
BaseClass::PrimaryAttack();

Now this will deduct each shot fired from the maximum number of allowed shots as long as you push the button. If the gun fired the definded number of bullets, the gun will cease to fire. You would need to release the trigger and push it again for an other shot/burst. Case finnished. HINT: To make a gun selective fire you would need to set up an extra bool variable (like m_bSemi) and trigger it with something (like 2nd fire). Then replace the m_iSemi--; line with this if ( m_bSemi ) {m_iSemi--;}.