The blue player circlestrafes anticlockwise around his red adversary, firing continually as he does so. Red, unable to keep track of the moving blue, misses with most shots. Blue is at an advantage.

In video games, particularly in first-person shooters (FPSs), circlestrafing is the technique of moving around a target in a circle while facing it. Circlestrafing allows a player to fire continuously at an opponent while dodging counterattacks. By rapidly circling the opponent, the player evades the opponent's sights. Circlestrafing is most useful in close-quarters combat, where the apparent motion of the attacking player is greatest, and thus the chance is highest that his opponent will become disoriented and lose track of him. The effectiveness of the circlestrafing maneuver is mitigated when the opponent's weapon fires projectiles that travel instantaneously, or fires a large number in a machine gun-like fashion. Image File history File links The blue player circlestrafes anticlockwise around his red adversary, firing continually as he does so. ... Computer and video games A screenshot of Tetris for the Nintendo Game Boy A console game (better known as a video game) is a form of interactive multimedia used for entertainment, which consists of a moveable image displayed on a screen that is usually controlled and manipulated using a handheld... Jump to: navigation, search Doom, one of the games that defined the first-person shooter genre. ... Jump to: navigation, search In Euclidean geometry, a circle is the set of all points at a fixed distance, called the radius, from a fixed point, called the centre (center). ... Combat, or fighting, is purposeful conflict between one or more persons, often involving violence and intended to establish dominance over the opposition. ... Apparent motion is used in at least two senses. ... A projectile is any object sent through the air by the application of some force. ... A machine gun is a fully-automatic firearm that is capable of firing bullets in rapid succession. ...

Manual circlestrafing is achieved by walking sideways while turning smoothly. On PC games such as Quake, the popular control combination of using the mouse to control angle and the keyboard to move the character makes circlestrafing fairly simple to perform, although the inevitable (and often panicked) "pedaling" action of the mouse—raising it at the end of the mousepad and setting it down on the other side—can give the circling avatar a jerky, febrile path. Players reduce the need to "pedal" by turning up the in-game mouse sensitivity, but increased sensitivity may compromise their targeting ability. Alternately, they can use trackball pointing devices, and for this reason trackballs are some gamers' preferred pointing devices. Jump to: navigation, search Zombies attacking the player. ... Operating a mechanical 1: Pulling the mouse turns the ball. ... Optical mouse on a mousepad A mousepad (or mouse mat) is a surface for enhancing the movement of a computer mouse. ... Jump to: navigation, search Logitech Marble Mouse Trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball housed in a socket containing sensors to detect rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down mouse, but with the ball sticking out more. ...

Some games feature a system to handle the turning automatically, which means that the player only has to move sideways to travel along the perimeter. A prominent example is the "Z-targeting" system of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which locks the character's viewpoint onto an enemy when the Z button is pressed. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was a video game released in 1998, and the first Zelda game for the Nintendo 64. ...

Many players of first-person-shooters circlestrafe continually for most close-quarters battles, often combining this with unpredictable changes of direction and transverse dodging. Two skilled players fighting in this manner will frequently attempt to circlestrafe around one another, their movements describing intricate and complex patterns like spirals and figures-of-eight. Circlestrafing is an effective means of lessening the advantage held when one player has a more powerful weapon than the other, and by closing to melee range and circling, an attacker with an otherwise ineffective weapon can defeat an opponent whose powerful explosive weapon (such as a rocket launcher) cannot safely be used at such close quarters.

Some players also combine circlestrafing (and similar rotary dodging motions) with dodge-jumping, in the hope of avoiding splash damage from rockets fired at the ground at their feet, while simultaneously affording them a better (i.e. steeper) angle at which to fire such ground-directed shots of their own (with the rocket being fired at the apex of the jump's trajectory). There is also some additional dodging value due to the jumper's added vertical motion. In older FPS games which allow air control (where the simplistic in-game physics allows a player to change direction mid-flight) this enhances the unpredictability of the player's position. In later FPS games, which largely remove air control, this maneuver is, if not entirely ineffective, at least much less effective, and thus more rarely seen. Although only the blue player in the centre takes a direct hit, everyone within the circle takes damage. ... In first-person shooter games, air control refers to the ability to control ones direction of motion in mid-air. ...

When the attacked player merely stands still and tries to turn to track his attacker, he will be defeated: the circlestrafer presents a moving target, the victim a static one. In such cases, circlestrafing is a highly effective technique. Countermeasures do, however, exist:

• The defending player himself circlestrafes, generally in the contrary direction to his attacker. Done properly, this ensures the attacker cannot duck "behind" the attacked, and makes the attacked player as difficult to hit as his attacker.
• When combined with a backward motion, the defensive counter-circlestrafe described above results in the two players spiraling apart. This often happens when players have weapons that require them to keep some distance between each other and their respective targets before they can be safely or effectively used.
• In games that permit it, a rocketjump allows one player to leap high above the field of combat, avoiding his circlestrafing nemesis and pelting him with gunfire from above.
• Keeping close to an obstruction, such as a pillar or, ideally, a wall, allows a player to prevent his opponent from flanking him. Mutual-circlestrafe conflicts often end when the action spirals into a confined space such as a corridor or doorway in which the required free movement is blocked.
• A target with an indirect (or area-denial) weapon can use it to confuse his opponent or disturb the delicate pattern of his circlestrafe. Bouncing weapons such as grenades, or delayed-action weapons like time-bombs, can have this effect, allowing the target the opportunity to flee and regroup.

Many bots are programmed to employ circlestrafing, and extremely rapid and fluid circlestrafing is a tell-tale sign that a player is in fact either a bot or an aimbot-assisted human. For an overview of the Quake game franchise go to Quake series. ... Bot may refer to: Internet bot: a type of computer program Larval Bot Kill Bot Bot, Tarragona: a small municipality in the comarca (county) of Terra Alta, Tarragona province, Catalonia, Spain video game Bot, see Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, small, bloblike creatures that jump about and have no... Jump to: navigation, search An aimbot, sometimes called auto-aim, is software used in online multiplayer first-person shooter games that assists the player in aiming at the target. ...

See also

• Straferunning
• Bunny hopping