Game Mechanics

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Game mechanics are the functions and control features through which a game is played. They define the gameplay of the game and usually suit the game's genre. The Insurgency series is a tactical shooter franchise and features numerous mechanics typical to that genre. Most game mechanics are shared across the entire Insurgency series.

Stat Mechanics

Health

Health is the amount of damage an entity can take until it is killed or destroyed. In the Insurgency series, characters have 100 hit points of health, but this is depleted very quickly when taking damage, with characters typically being killed in 1–3 hits depending on the weapon, ammunition, hit placement, and use of armor. Entities such as static vehicles, fuel containers, and the Technical also have health that is depleted if they are damaged, usually resulting in them exploding upon destruction.

Unlike other shooter games, the Insurgency series does not feature healing outside of using a full resupply at a Supply Crate, although some Limited Time Game Modes and custom rulesets allow for special health and healing mechanics (such as the ability to heal up to 300 hit points by killing enemies in Task Force 666).

Stamina

Stamina is the measure of how exhausted a character is. It allows characters to sprint, jump, and focus for as long as they have stamina. High stamina allows characters to do these for longer periods of time, while low stamina likewise shortens how long characters can do these. Low stamina also increases weapon sway and can slightly affect vision.

Available stamina largely depends on weight, which decreases available stamina as weight increases. Stamina is automatically regenerated by not using it, though taking damage reduces stamina regeneration rates.

Weight

Weight is the measure of how encumbered a character is. It largely affects movement speed and stamina, and is determined by the weapons and equipment carried by a character; the more items are carried, the more weight a character has. The player has a total weight limit that cannot be exceeded, and the game will prevent players from equipping items that would exceed the weight limit in their loadout, even if enough Supply Points are available to; however, picked up items are largely exempt from this.

Movement Speed

Movement speed refers to how fast a character or entity can move. Character movement speed is largely influenced by stamina and weight, and influences acceleration, deceleration, friction, slide speed, and lean speed. The lighter a character is, the faster they will move in general. There are eight types of movement with their own speeds:

• Walking: The basic character movement with a slow but tolerable speed, not affected by weight.
• Tactical Walk: A slower type of walk, toggled by pressing LEFT ALT on PC. It makes less noise than the regular walk and is not affected by weight.
• Sprinting: The basic character running speed, activated by holding LSHIFT on PC. It allows characters to move faster than walking, at the cost of pointing their weapon sideways, making more noise, and depleting stamina.
• Jogging: A special type of run, only available in Insurgency: Sandstorm's Hardcore Checkpoint mode and other custom modes with limited movement speed rules. It replaces regular sprinting in these modes and is essentially between walking and sprinting in terms of speed, with the notable characteristic of having the character point their equipped weapon upward while jogging.
• Crouch-Walking: Movement while crouching. It is slightly slower than the regular walking speed, but makes less noise. Players attempting to sprint while crouch-walking will immediately stand up before sprinting.
• Crawling: Movement while in the prone position. It is one of the slowest movement speeds, even compared to the Tactical Walk, and forces the weapon to be pointed sideways, but makes less noise and offers the lowest profile. Players cannot sprint while crawling.
• Sliding: A special movement maneuver performed by quickly crouching while sprinting. While sliding, the speed is slightly above sprinting, but loses momentum quickly. Once the slide loses all momentum, the character crouches.
• Driving: Movement when driving a Technical. It is one of the fastest attainable speeds in Insurgency: Sandstorm, but with static props strewn across most maps there are very few chances to reach very high speeds, although in general it is easy to reach well over sprinting speed.

Damage

Damage is the amount of health taken away from a character or entity per action. In the Insurgency series, damage dealt by actions is almost always high, owing to the low "time-to-kill" (time taken to kill an enemy from initial contact with frequent attacks) typical to the tactical shooter genre. Damage multipliers are applied based on weapon caliber, ammunition, and hit placement, while damage can be reduced by armor.

Position Mechanics

Crouch

The crouch is a position toggled by pressing LEFT CTRL on PC. When crouching, the character goes down on one knee and bends their back, reducing their profile and allowing them to take cover behind low objects. Moving while crouching will result in the character crouch-walking.

Crouching in Insurgency: Sandstorm gives the added benefit of less recoil; the character is braced a lot better whilst crouched compared to standing.

Prone

The prone is a position toggled by pressing Z on PC. When going prone, the character lies flat on their stomach, greatly reducing their profile. Moving while in the prone position will result in the character crawling.

Assuming a prone position in Insurgency: Sandstorm gives the added bonus of extremely reduced recoil, since the character has a very stable position. When stationary, proning will also allow the use of bipods on a flat surface.

Lean

Leaning is a position toggled by pressing either Q or E on PC. When leaning, the character tilts either left or right (depending on the keybind pressed), tilting the camera and moving it slightly to that side. It can be used to peek or fire from cover while providing a lower profile by only exposing the upper half of the body, and works better when leaning right (as this is where the weapon is held). Leaning speed is affected by weight; the heavier a character is, the slower they will lean.

Slide

The slide is a maneuver performed by quickly crouching while sprinting. The character slides on their knees, maintaining a speed slightly above sprinting with the low profile of crouching, but with little control and being unable to use their weapon. The slide ends upon losing momentum or hitting an obstacle, at which point the character enters the regular crouch position.

Jump

Jumping is a maneuver performed by pressing SPACE on PC. The character leaps up while bending their knees, allowing them to jump over small obstacles, leap between close structures, or gain further ground by leaping from heights. Jumping height is determined by weight and speed; lighter characters while sprinting will jump farther than heavier characters while walking. Jumping can only be done while standing, and weapons are disabled while jumping.

Vault

Vaulting or climbing is a maneuver performed by pressing SPACE on PC or A on consoles while near an obstacle. The character climbs over or onto the obstacle with their weapon pointed up, though they can still look around. For shorter obstacles, the character can also fire their weapon. How fast a character vaults is determined by weight and speed; lighter characters will vault over objects faster than heavier ones.

Weapon Mechanics

Aiming

Aiming is an action performed by pressing RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON on PC or RIGHT TRIGGER on consoles. The character will look through the weapon's sights, allowing for more precise fire. How fast this action is performed is called Aim Down Sight Speed (ADS Speed). How fast a character will ADS is determined by weight and attachments. A lighter weapon, such as a pistol or carbine, will ADS faster than an machine gun or Sniper rifle. ADS time can also be improved by equipping certain attachments, specifically the Aiming Grip.

Focus

Focus is an action performed by holding LEFT SHIFT on PC while aiming. The character will hold their breath and slightly zoom in their sights while stabilizing their weapon, removing almost all weapon sway for as long as it is available, making it especially useful for stable aiming and precision. Focusing uses up stamina and cannot be done if the character is already out of stamina. If stamina is fully depleted while focusing, weapon sway will suddenly increase while the player's vision gradually returning to normal.

Recoil

Recoil is the force imparted by a firearm discharge. Recoil is usually determined by the caliber and fire rate of a weapon, meaning that a weapon firing a 7.62x51mm round at 700 RPM will have more recoil than one that fires a 9x19mm round at 600 RPM. Recoil is split in both horizontal and vertical planes. Vertical Recoil determines how high upwards the weapon will kick when fired, while Horizontal Recoil determines the side to side kick when fired.

In order to be accurate when firing, the player needs to counter recoil. In order to counter vertical recoil, the player can either choose to aim lower on the target and let the vertical recoil push the weapon up towards more vital areas, or look down in order to counteract the force. Horizontal recoil is harder to control than vertical recoil, usually only negated through attachments.

In Insurgency: Sandstorm, recoil can also be braced by lowering stances. A crouching operator will experience less recoil than one standing up, and a prone operator will barely feel recoil. Also, equipping a Bipod on certain guns will be able to practically negate both vertical and horizontal recoil when mounted on surfaces.

Reloading

Reloading is performed when a character loads their weapon with ammunition by pressing the R key on PC or X/■ on Xbox and PlayStation. Most weapons in the Insurgency series are magazine-fed, and reloading them usually involves switching the used magazine for a fresh one. Reloading a partially used magazine is called a tactical reload or partial reload, while reloading an empty magazine is called an empty reload. Empty reloads are generally slower than tactical reloads, due to the chamber needing to be loaded with an external charging handle. This is true for almost all weapons, with notable exceptions including the MR 73 and Mosin-Nagant (with the stripper clip attachment).

In Insurgency: Sandstorm, players can perform a quick reload by double tapping the reload input with a magazine-fed firearm. During a quick reload, the character will discard their used magazine and quickly load a new one. While this is the fastest possible reload and is ideal for most situations, any rounds still in the old magazine will be discarded, meaning it is only ideal if the magazine is already empty or a full magazine is needed immediately.

Fire Modes

Fire modes are set modes on some firearms that determine how they will fire. These are associated with auto-loading firearms that do not need to be manually cycled (thus excluding weapons such as bolt-action rifles and pump-action shotguns). There are three common types of fire modes:

• Automatic fire, in which the weapon continues to fire for as long as the trigger is held down. This is ideal for close-quarters combat or suppressing fire.
• Burst-fire, in which the weapon only fires a quick burst of a certain number of rounds (commonly three, though some weapons fire two or even five). In real life, many weapons' burst-fire modes are essentially a "limited" automatic fire mode and will only fire up to that many rounds when the trigger is held (e.g. tapping the trigger fires one round, holding it down either fires three or fires the remaining two); however, because that is fairly complex, many video games (including the Insurgency games) have burst-fire modes simply fire the entire burst immediately.
• Semi-automatic fire, in which the weapon fires one round per trigger pull. This is ideal for long-range fire.

Many weapons in the Insurgency games, particularly rifles and submachine guns, are selective-fire, meaning they can switch between different fire modes at will. Even so, most weapons cannot switch between every fire mode; for instance, the M16A2 and M16A4 are limited to burst-fire and semi-automatic only.

Weapon Length and Weapon Collision

Weapon length is the length of the weapon. Weapon collision occurs when the weapon is too long to remain pointed forward in the current environment, such as in a very narrow space or when the character is facing a wall. This results in the character pointing the weapon in the high-ready (upward) or low-ready (downward) position, meaning they cannot fire at anything in front of them until there is enough space for the weapon to point forward again. Longer firearms such as battle rifles and sniper rifles will require more space than shorter firearms such as submachine guns and handguns.

HUD and Menu Mechanics

Heads-up Display

The heads-up display (HUD) is the method by which visual information is transmitted to the player during gameplay. The Insurgency series, as a tactical shooter, has a minimal HUD that only features a handful of elements, namely interaction prompts, objective information, ammunition count, fire modes, element markings, match time, and server chat. Many of these HUD elements are not always present on the HUD and only appear contextually or have to be toggled; for instance, ammunition count generally only appears when spawning in, reloading, or checking ammunition, and fades away shortly after.

Compass

The compass or commo rose is a navigation device that displays all cardinal directions with a needle that magnetically points north at all times. In-game, a minimalist compass called the Radial Menu is overlaid in the HUD so they can read it and deduce which direction they are facing and the general directions of other things in their surroundings. Some vocal responses are affected by the direction faced when using the response (e.g. facing west when using the "Enemy Spotted" callout will have the player's character say the direction), while others highlight the direction of the response for other players on the team. A physical military compass can also be toggled should the Radial Menu prove insufficient.

Tactical Map

The Tactical Map is an active map that highlights and actively updates the positions and statuses of teammates, objectives, any spotted enemies. As a map, it also provides an overhead view of the map being played on, level boundaries, and the name of the current map and gamemode.

Supply Points

Supply Points (SP) are a currency introduced in Insurgency. They are a limited amount of points used to equip weapons, equipment, and attachments, and serve as a way to limit player loadouts. The amount of SP given to each player varies based on class, gamemode, custom ruleset, team win-loss history, or MVP designation.

Appearance

Appearance is a menu in Insurgency: Sandstorm that allows players to customize their character's appearance for Security and Insurgents. There, players can edit and save loadouts, purchase cosmetics, and preview the outfit's appearance with different armor and vests.