The bomb’s ticking. You’ve just done an AWESOME retake, you’ve defeated the terrorists
and begin defusing the bomb. But there’s no time! You have to retreat. BUT WAIT! Do
you have enough time to get far enough away? MAYBE YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO DEFUSE!
No, best play it safe and run away to live to rush B another day.
BUT MAYBE THERE’S NO TIME TO RUN AWAY EITHER Yes. Yes, just stand there and think about
how you lost your team the whole fu-
Bang.
If only there was a way of knowing when you need to run away. Which is exactly what I’ve
done. It’s 3.31 seconds. But it can be greater, can be lower.
Because much like knowing the meaning of life is 42, the answer doesn’t mean much without
knowing how you got there. Because this answer depends on your armour, which bombsite it
is, where you are, and even… WHEN you are.
WHEN you are matters because back in 2018, on May 21st, they updated it so that it would
more consistently defuse the moment immediately AFTER it reached 0.000 seconds. ‘WHAT?’
I hear you cry. ‘Does that mean you can defuse when there’s just-‘ -AND yes it
does mean that. You can defuse when there’s 0.000 seconds left. I would say to take my
word for it, but I’m pretty sure EVERYBODY ever has already done it and linked me to
picture proof on my twitter page. Just check out (and follow) my twitter page, I’m sure
there will be some today because it’s a curse I must live with.
Let’s move on.
The bomb does 500 damage. WELL, it should. But since I last tested this in 2015 it has
been changed so that, on some maps, like Vertigo and Nuke, it only deals 400 to give you more
time to escape. I guess this is because on these levels, more of it is situated close
to the bombs and so a blast affects places you might feel should be safe, having spent
a good 5 seconds or more running away. It might not be realistic, but the Counter-Strike
Gods have spoken, and places like the next floor down, or the next room along are less
punishing on these particular maps than they are in the others.
Rather interestingly, for the first half of 2013, Inferno and Nuke both had a smaller
bomb radius of 400 units, which was increased to ‘make it consistent with other maps’.
So it’s interesting they’ve gone back on this again with Nuke, but not with Inferno.
One argument in favour of a larger bomb explosion radius would be that it forces players to
leave the site if they want to survive, rather than to PUSSY OUT and to hide in a corner
that they know is safe so as not to risk getting shot by lurking enemies. I feel this COWARDLY
approach to surviving the round is the case with this one here on Inferno, or this one
on Dust2… or this one on Nuke. Not completely safe. But maybe safe enough that you’d risk
it, if you have enough health to pull it off. I certainly use them… if I live for long
enough that is. And I know what you’re thinking: what if
the bomb was set to less than 100 damage? To do this you make an info_map_parameters
in your level, change the C4 Explosion Radius to less than 100- yes, I know it says radius
but what it actually means is damage- and then you load that map up and test it.
Here it comes… Any second…
…could have defused by now… …ah, there we are. You’re still alive.
So we know already that how long you have to make it out of the blast radius depends
on when you are, and which map you’re playing on. For Vertigo and Nuke, you don’t have
to run as far as on other maps. And on Office you don’t have to run at all…
Actually, what WOULD happen if a hostage was caught in the C4’s blast radius? I’ve
always wanted to know.
Meh.
For a visualisation of the bomb’s radius, there’s a console command map_showbombradius,
which shows bomb radius. It’s more useful for map developers than it is for players-
by default it shows the radius from the centre of the bombsites, so it gives you a rough
indication of what sort of distance you have to be from it before it doesn’t hurt you
any more. Well… roughly. I still sustained a few points
of damage when I was BEYOND that range. Whenever you run away from the bomb and still
take a point of armour damage, you could be BEYOND the blast’s radius- by as much as
17 units! This is because the game does not see you as a single, infinitesimally small
point, but as the hefty, blobby mass that sticks out in all directions, much to your
dismay. With grenades, I mapped out the zone of maximum
damage looked a bit like this. With C4, something else is happening as well.
Because it’s planted at ground level, and you’re generally 64 units above that, I
found that being 64 units above the bomb meant it did less damage to you than if you were
at the same height as it, 64 units below, or even 128 units below! And I didn’t find
that crouching helped. So if you’re given the choice, you stand more chance of surviving
if you have the high ground, Anakin. Because you’re already standing roughly 64 units
above the bomb’s epicentre. It also means that jumping’s a viable strategy
to shave off a few more points of damage. But obviously, only if you’re already stood
above the bomb as it detonates. The other thing you have to consider is what
you’re wearing. Armour will effectively halve the damage the blast inflicts. This
doesn’t mean that you can stand twice as close to it or anything like that, but it
does help to considerably shorten the time required to vacate said lethal blast zone.
You can test this by blowing yourself up over and over again, edging closer and further
away until you find just the right amount of explosion to not quite kill you.
Luckily I already did all this hard work a few years ago, so all I had to do for this
video was to test whether the lethal cut-off distance was still correct, and then to steal
this image from an older video of mine and to upscale it to 4K. Points of interest include
how damage suddenly drops from 2 to 0 as you leave the ‘radius’, how at most distances,
wearing armour halves the damage taken from the blast, but also how at point-blank, 300
is not half of 500. This is because the armour can only absorb 200 points of damage before
it’s completely used up. This isn’t really a problem when you’re stood on the bomb,
but only because you have bigger problems to worry about. That being, your health will
be depleted sooner. That and you’re stood on a bomb that’s about to explode.
But it does mean that for maximum protection, you’ll not only want 100 HP, but also at
least 50 armour! But I’m not really interested in these distances.
I’m interested in how long it takes for you to cover these distances, if you want
to survive with at least 1 point of health left. Because that’s what’s cool. If you’re
stood at the bomb and begin sprinting in one direction with a knife out, in terms of time
before you’re out of the lethal blast radius: On most maps, without armour, it will take
4.34 seconds to reach a non-lethal blast distance. On a normal map with armour, this is reduced
to 3.31 seconds. This drops slightly further on maps like Nuke
and Vertigo when you’re not wearing armour, down to 3.27 seconds.
And shortest of all is on Nuke and Vertigo with armour, where you can make it to safety
from the bomb in just 2.35 seconds. Yeah I know, it’s not much at all is it.
Bear in mind that leaving it this late, the blast will still inflict 99 damage, so if
you’ve taken any damage in the round you’re going to have to leave a little longer. And
-not sure why you’d forget this, but I briefly did- defusing still takes 5 seconds, so it’s
not like the time you should leave for defusing should change based on any of these factors.
With CS:GO’s competitive rules, the C4 takes 40 seconds to explode. So here is how it will
sound as your options to escape gradually drop to 0 as the countdown progresses.
And if a CT was to dramatically rescue a hostage from this situation and live to tell the tale,
how long would he have? Wearing a hostage slows the player down to 200 units a second,
so to escape to the non-lethal blast zone, on a map like… dust2, wearing armour would
take 4.07 seconds.
The next thing to consider is the route you need to take to escape. Because these numbers
are only if you’re running in a straight line. If you have to turn any corners or anything
then you’ll have to leave longer. And, like I’ve said before, changing your height will
also alter your distance, and thus damage received from the explosion. All these factors
are heavily dependant on which map it is that you’re playing on, which bombsite you’re
running from and even which route you’ve chosen to run down, and there really isn’t
any way that I can cover all of the different combinations. Even if I wanted to. Luckily
for me, I don’t have to.
Because I know something even better.
There is a way for you to move faster than running, which 2kliksphilip will demonstrate right now.
Left it a little too late, it seems. Try again, 2kliksphilip.
Poor 2kliksphilip. Again.
Again. And again. And again.
And… …there you have it. In a best-case scenario,
this drops the time required to escape the lethal blast zone to just 1.24 seconds- and
even faster if you move while in free-fall! Even in a worst-case scenario it still takes
just 1.66 seconds. So it seems like falling is a fast way to escape the blast!
…Even if you might not live for long enough to appreciate it.
*SPLAT* BUT… there is another. Did you know that steps in CS:GO are instant?
You ping from one to the next. It’s why they need to be clipped off, or you’ll suffer
from an annoying vision-jolt.
Steps can be up to 18 units high before they become a wall that needs to be jumped to clear.
And while there’s a limit to how high they can be, there’s no limit to how narrow they can be.
Meet my Stairway to Heaven.
Take it away, 2kliksphilip.
And there you have it. With a stairway to heaven, without armour on a map like Dust2,
you can reach safety in 1.11 seconds. But on Nuke, with Armour, you can escape the blast in 0.59 seconds.
But there are downsides to this approach, too.
And that’s it, check out my video where I show that 0.000 second defuses are a thing.
And another one where I made a calculator for bomb radiuses which I haven’t updated
since but is still a bit of fun.
And screw it, since I’ve bought servers now I’ll be hosting this de_elysium map
on them for a while. Have fun.