Game Modes
A game mode is the difference between a competitive match and a fun one. It bundles the things that have to change together:
- the plugins the server loads, and the order it loads them in,
- a block of console variables, exec'd after the match type's config,
- and optional launch parameters.
Modes are created under Settings → Application → Game Modes. They need Game Plugins turned on first — a mode has nothing to load without them.
What ships with it
Two starter modes are seeded on every boot, so a fresh install has something to pick besides Competitive:
| Mode | Wraps | Only exists for |
|---|---|---|
| Retakes | B3none/cs2-retakes | CounterStrikeSharp |
| Deathmatch | NockyCZ/CS2-Deathmatch | CounterStrikeSharp |
Both are unranked out of the box, and each wires itself to its catalog plugin as soon as the registry has synced — on a very first boot they exist with no plugins and pick them up on a later pass.
Both need CounterStrikeSharp
These are third-party projects, and the maintained ones are all built for CounterStrikeSharp. On a SwiftlyS2 deployment — the default — neither will install, and selecting one is refused by name rather than silently starting a server with nothing loaded. See Runtime compatibility and Game Plugin Runtimes.
Editing them is safe. The name and description are re-applied on every boot, but Enabled, Safe for competitive play and the cvar block are left alone once you have touched them, and modes you created yourself are never touched.
Creating one
Give it a name and a slug, pick the plugins it needs, and write the cvars. The plugins list only offers what is in your catalog, so install what you need first.
Plugins load in the order shown. Anything hand-placed in /opt/5stack/custom-plugins still wins a collision, so a file you dropped there yourself is never replaced by a managed one.
Console variables
The cvar block is exec'd last, after the match type's config, the global config and any plugin's own cvars, so anything you set here beats all of them:
mp_freezetime 3
mp_respawn_immunitytime 2The full order a server applies, each layer beating the one above it:
| Order | Layer |
|---|---|
| 1 | The match type — Competitive, Wingman, Duel |
| 2 | LAN tuning, on a LAN region |
| 3 | Global |
| 4 | Each loading game plugin's own cvars |
| 5 | The game mode's block, above |
On workshop maps CS2 silently drops a handful of cvars from an exec'd config. 5Stack re-sends those directly, and a value set in a mode wins over the same value in the type config — the same order they would have applied in.
Global configuration
A cvar that should apply to every match, whatever its type, belongs in the Global tab under Settings → Application → Game Type Configs, beside LAN, Competitive, Wingman and Duel.
It is a layer rather than a type: it is exec'd on top of whichever type config the match already got, so it is the one place to put something cross-cutting instead of pasting it into three configs and keeping them in step.
Global is deliberately unscoped — it is the "every match" layer, and a global with exceptions is just a type config with extra steps. To narrow something to particular matches, put it on a game plugin or in a game mode instead.
Nothing ships in it
Global starts empty and has no shipped default — Revert to Defaults on that tab clears it rather than restoring anything.
Where a mode is used
| Surface | How |
|---|---|
| A custom match | Game Mode on the match options form |
| A draft lobby | the same field, on the lobby's options |
| A community server | a mode set on the server itself, shown as a badge on the Community Servers page |
Setting a mode on a long-lived server changes it for everyone on that server, so the server is recreated to pick the plugins up. On-demand match servers get a fresh pod per match anyway, so there is nothing to restart.
Unranked modes
Every mode has a Safe for competitive play switch, off by default. A mode without it is unranked, and that is a much narrower statement than it sounds like.
An unranked match is a completely real match. It plays on a real server, and stats, demos and round data are all recorded and shown exactly as they always are. The only difference is that it does not move anybody's ELO, and it is left out of the stats leaderboards.
The decision is frozen when the match is created
Whether a match counts is written onto the match itself at creation, not worked out later from the mode. Flipping a mode's switch changes what happens next, and never rewrites whether matches played months ago counted.
A match with no mode at all counts, as it always did.
Ranked servers
The guarantee that actually protects matchmaking is stronger, and lives in the database rather than in a switch:
A Ranked server never inherits a mode
Servers of type Ranked — the pool matchmaking draws from — cannot carry a persistent game mode at all. The database refuses to store one, and refuses to move a server that has one into the Ranked pool.
A fun match has to ask for its mode on the match itself. That means a server handed back to matchmaking always comes up on a clean plugin set, without anyone having to remember to switch anything off.
Matchmaking never sets a mode on the matches it creates, so a queued match is competitive by construction.
The one exception is a plugin whose Ranked Matches switch is on, which every ranked server loads regardless of mode.
Runtime compatibility
A mode does not declare which framework it runs on — that is decided by the plugins it selects. A mode is runnable on a runtime only if every plugin in it publishes a build for that runtime.
Selecting a mode whose plugins have no build for the runtime your deployment runs is refused, naming the plugin that is missing, rather than booting a server with none of its plugins and nothing to say why. This applies wherever a mode is picked: a match, a draft lobby, or a server.
Two plugins that exist for different frameworks resolve to a mode that runs nowhere, and the panel says so before you get as far as starting anything.
Changing and retiring a mode
A mode cannot be changed once its match is Live or in Veto, alongside the other settings that are locked at that point.
Retiring a mode archives it rather than deleting it: it disappears from every picker, but matches that were played under it keep saying so. A mode no match has ever used can be deleted outright.