CS2 practice mode

Practice mode turns your CS2 server into a place to learn lineups and try things: cheats on so you can noclip, no bots, as much money as you want, buying anywhere at any time, infinite ammo, and the grenade camera that shows where your throw lands. It’s one button in Quick actions, and everything it does is in a plain config file you can read and change.

Before you start

• The server must be Live.
• You need the Control servers permission on the team. See Roles and permissions.

Start practice

Steps

1. Open your server’s page, click the Game-specific tab, then Quick actions.
2. Under Practice, click Start practice.
3. The round restarts with the practice settings. The Console tab shows exec prac and the game’s answer.

In the game:

• Fly through walls: open your console with ~ and type noclip. Type it again to land. To put it on a key, type bind v noclip once.
• Buy: open the buy menu anywhere on the map. You start with $60,000.
• Throw grenades: a small camera follows each grenade you throw, and its flight path stays drawn for 8 seconds, so you can see exactly where a lineup lands.

What’s in prac.cfg

Start practice runs the file prac.cfg from your server’s game/csgo/cfg folder. Every CS2 server on SLASHPLAY gets one. Here’s what each line does:

Line	What it does
sv_cheats 1	Turns on cheat commands. Noclip, infinite ammo and the grenade camera need it.
bot_kick, bot_quota 0	Removes all bots and keeps them out.
mp_limitteams 0, mp_autoteambalance 0	Lets everyone pick any team, at any size.
mp_roundtime 60, mp_roundtime_defuse 60, mp_roundtime_hostage 60	One-hour rounds, so the round never ends while you practise.
mp_freezetime 0	No frozen start at the beginning of a round.
mp_buy_anywhere 1	Buy anywhere on the map, not only in the spawn zone.
mp_buytime 9999	Buy at any point in the round.
mp_maxmoney 60000, mp_startmoney 60000	$60,000 to start with, and room to hold it.
ammo_grenade_limit_total 5	Carry one of every grenade at once.
sv_infinite_ammo 1	Never reload. 2 keeps reloading but never runs out.
sv_grenade_trajectory_prac_pipreview 1	The small camera that follows your grenade.
sv_grenade_trajectory_prac_trailtime 8	Keeps the grenade’s flight path drawn for 8 seconds, the most CS2 allows.
sv_showimpacts 1, sv_showimpacts_time 10	Shows where your bullets land, for 10 seconds.
mp_warmup_end, mp_restartgame 1	Ends warmup and restarts the round, so all of the above applies at once.

This is the default file, in case you want to start over from it:

// SLASHPLAY practice config
//
// Quick actions > Start practice runs this file. You can also type
// "exec prac" in the Console tab. End practice turns it all off again.
//
// This file is yours: edit it and SLASHPLAY never overwrites it.
// Delete it to get the default back.
// Guide: https://slashplay.gg/docs/games/cs2/practice-mode

sv_cheats 1                               // noclip, infinite ammo and the grenade camera need it

// Just you and your team: no bots, no team limits
bot_kick
bot_quota 0
mp_limitteams 0
mp_autoteambalance 0

// One-hour rounds that start straight away
mp_roundtime 60
mp_roundtime_defuse 60
mp_roundtime_hostage 60
mp_freezetime 0

// Buy anything, anywhere, any time
mp_buy_anywhere 1
mp_buytime 9999
mp_maxmoney 60000
mp_startmoney 60000
ammo_grenade_limit_total 5                // one of every grenade

// Never reload
sv_infinite_ammo 1

// Grenade practice: the little camera that follows your grenade, and its
// flight path (8 seconds is the most CS2 allows)
sv_grenade_trajectory_prac_pipreview 1
sv_grenade_trajectory_prac_trailtime 8

// Show where your bullets land
sv_showimpacts 1
sv_showimpacts_time 10

mp_warmup_end
mp_restartgame 1

End practice

Steps

1. In Quick actions, under Practice, click End practice.
2. The round restarts with your game mode’s own settings. Nobody is disconnected.

In Deathmatch and Arms Race, End practice asks first, then reloads the map, so players reconnect for a moment. Those modes give everyone endless spare ammo, and CS2 only switches that back on when a map loads.

How it works

End practice runs three things, then restarts the round:

1. prac_off.cfg, a second file next to prac.cfg. It puts every setting prac.cfg changes back to the value a CS2 map starts from, and turns cheats off last.
2. Your server.cfg.
3. Your game mode’s own config, for example gamemode_competitive.cfg, plus your own gamemode_competitive_server.cfg if you have one.

Steps 2 and 3 are the same files CS2 runs when a map loads, so the server ends up with exactly the settings it had before practice. We checked every one of the server’s settings, about 1,460 of them, before and after practice in each game mode.

The round restart also clears any smoke or fire still burning from your practice.

Make it your own

Both files are yours. SLASHPLAY puts them on the server when they’re missing and never writes over one that’s there, so your changes stay through restarts, stops and restores. The cfg folder is part of your server’s save. See What’s kept between runs.

Steps

1. Open your server’s page, click Advanced → Files, and go to game/csgo/cfg.
2. Click Edit on prac.cfg.
3. Change, add or remove lines, then save. The first change you make to a server asks you to confirm it’s on your own terms. See Changes on your own terms.
4. Click Start practice again to use your version.

For example, to respawn straight away after you die, add these two lines to prac.cfg:

mp_respawn_on_death_t 1
mp_respawn_on_death_ct 1

If you add a setting, put its normal value in prac_off.cfg too, so End practice sets it back:

mp_respawn_on_death_t 0
mp_respawn_on_death_ct 0

To go back to the default, delete prac.cfg (or prac_off.cfg). The next time you click Start practice or End practice, or the next time the server starts, SLASHPLAY puts the default back. A file you haven’t changed is updated when SLASHPLAY improves the default; a file you’ve edited never is.

Run it from the console

The buttons only send console commands, so you can do the same from the Console tab or with an RCON tool:

• exec prac starts practice.
• To end it, exec prac_off, then your mode’s config and a round restart. For Competitive: exec prac_off; exec server; exec gamemode_competitive; mp_restartgame 1. Or click Reload map in Quick actions after exec prac_off, which works in every mode.

Troubleshooting

Practice stopped after I changed the map. That’s expected. A map change or mode switch loads the mode’s own settings again. Click Start practice again.

Cheats are still on after a map change. A map change resets most settings, but not sv_cheats. Click End practice to turn everything off.

noclip says it needs sv_cheats. Practice isn’t on, or the map changed. Click Start practice.

The bots came back. The map changed, and the mode’s config added them again. Click Start practice, or Kick bots under Teams and bots.

My edit to prac.cfg made practice stop working. Open the Console tab: when the game can’t run a line, it says so there. Fix the line, or delete prac.cfg to get the default back the next time you click Start practice.

The panel says it couldn’t check prac.cfg on the server. SLASHPLAY couldn’t reach the server’s files for a moment. Wait a few seconds and click again.

Related

• Quick actions
• Game modes and maps
• Console commands
• File manager