TIP: The Infamous BZFlag F5 Cheat

By: Lord Jesus

Grab yourself a copy of the 2.0.4 version of BZFlag, and use F5 -- the screenshot function -- to insert artificial lag. One method is to press and hold F5 to insert the lag. This is a great technique for dodging bullets and capturing another team's flag.

You can also press and hold F5 to get to other places you normally couldn't get to... like the other side of a wall. Again, this is if you you use the older 2.0.4 version of BZFlag. The delay for taking a screenshot until you release F5 was "fixed" in version 2.0.8. You can read about how it works in this discussion:

my.bzflag.org/bb/

"The basic case is this: the tank moves along velocity vector, then collisions are checked. If the tank has moved too far along in one time step, it is now inside (or on the other side(the F5 cheat!)) of the object it 'collided' with." [emphasis added]

It's briefly mentioned here, too:

http://www.answers.com/topic/bzflag

"F5: To F5 is to take a screenshot of BZFlag, which also creates a small lagspike and makes your tank unhittable for a short interval of time."

As you can imagine, this has been around for quite a while. It's posted here at BZFlag Cheat just in case you didn't get an opportunity to take advantage of it previously >:) Some more information about the F5 technique is easy to find with your favourite search engine. Here's an example:

Google search

Keep in mind that it is not entirely undetectable especially among experienced players. Use it wisely ;) Here's an example of a player, soxs, who got banned for it:

http://gu.bzleague.com/index.php?link=shame

So, now you can enjoy enhanced gaming without having to modify or add a single line of code to your client! To control disk space, don't forget to empty your screenshots folder when you're finished playing. And as always...

Have fun!