Unlinked Killstreak Kits And Their Uses.

A list of ways to use the unlinked killstreak kits and information about how to make cosmetics work with the sheens client-side.

Overview and History

Overview

This guide will explain which weapons have sheens viewable by anybody, and how to add client-side sheen visibility to cosmetics and weapons.

History

On July 2nd, the Gun Mettle update was released. After this update went live a number of problems surfaced, loot from mvm didn't come out with the right quality, killstreak fabricators weren't linked to a specific weapon, and attempting to interact with the fabricators crashed the game to the desktop. There was also an error with a number of items that shouldn't have been craftable added to the crafting system, such as stock weapons, select Poker Night at the Inventory promo items, and the Alliance of Valiant Arms promo, the Black Rose.
Two days later a patch came out that fixed the item generation errors, fixed the crashing, and restored the craft system's integrity, but that still left the large number of Normal quality australium weapons, tradable Black Rose weapons, and most importantly a host of unlinked professional fabricators and specialized fabricators.

Cosmetics

Cosmetics by default do not support killstreak sheens, and are not parsed by the system for killstreak eye effects. This means that no matter how pro the kit you put on your cosmetic is, you won't get the eye effect.

How to Enable Client-side Cosmetic Sheens

To add the sheen client-side you have to find the material file for the item you're trying to add a sheen to, and add these lines:

"VertexlitGeneric"
{
	"$sheenmap" 		"cubemaps/cubemap_sheen001" 				//added
	"$sheenmapmask" 		"Effects/AnimatedSheen/animatedsheen0"		//added
	"$sheenmaptint" 		"[ 1 1 1 ]"					//added
	"$sheenmapmaskframe" 	"0"							//added
	"$sheenindex" 		"0"							//added
	"$sheenPassEnabled" "1" 						//added
	
	"Proxies"
	{
		"AnimatedWeaponSheen"							//added
		{									//added	
			"animatedtexturevar" 		"$sheenmapmask"			//added
			"animatedtextureframenumvar" 	"$sheenmapmaskframe"		//added
			"animatedtextureframerate" 		"40"			//added
		}									//added
		
	}
}

The first block goes in the body of the code, after the first brace "{", the second block goes under the proxies area. The first bit gives the information on how to modulate the texture based on positioning, the sheenpass allows it to display the information, and the bit under proxies allows it to animate, giving it the "moving over the item" look. Here's a Pastebin[pastebin.com] of the finished material file.

Notes on File Structure

Telling you specifically how to setup your paths for each item you want to edit is beyond the scope of this guide, but all of the material files you want to copy are in the tf2_misk_dir.vpk, and you're going to want to extract them and put them in /tf/custom/ as explained by likely many other guides. Follow the path structure, you'll end up fine.

Remember, if you right click an item in GCFscrape, you can select properties and get the path under the location entry.

Example

Weapons

History

Killstreak weapons are not a new thing, they were the original target of every killstreak kit and fabricator you see around. What is new is being able to attach kits to weapons that cannot themselves get kills.

Rules for Eye Effects, pre-unlinked

When you get to 5 or 10 kills the system parses your weapons. If your active weapon has a professional eye effect, it applies it and stops looking. If your active weapon does not have a professional eye effect, it searches passive weapons like the demoman's shields or the Manntreads, and then stops. This makes there be 2 classes of weapon; Class A which is active and Class B which is passive. Most of the weapons listed below should classify as Class B, but without testing them I cannot be sure.

Weapons that probably work

These weapons have the correct information in their material file to support the sheen, I don't know for certain if they work, as i have not personally tested them.

• Sandvich
  
• Festive Sandvich
  
• Robo Sandvich
  
• Dead ringer (already piggybacks in viewmodel from other weapon, not visible in worldmodel)
  
• Hitman watch
  
• Dalakohs bar
  
• Nostromo Napalmer
  
• Cigarette Case (can't equip afaik)
  
• Sapper
  
• Wrangler
  
• Concheror
  
• Mad milk
  
• Grappling Hook
  
• Fishcake
  
• Whichever energy drinks c_energydrink, c_energydrink_blu and energydrink_purp are, I think that's crit and bonk atomic, not certain.
  
• Buff Banner.
  
• Battalion's Backup
  
• Breadsapper
  
• whatever c_breadmonster is, could be the thing inside the jar of Bread milk and Bread Jarate?
  
• 8mm Camera

Weapons that don't work

These weapons do not have the correct information in their material file, and you would have to add the correct information as in the cosmetic section to be able to see it client-side.

• Cloak and Dagger
  
• Razorback
  
• Base Jumper
  
• Crossing Guard.
  
• Bread Jarate
  
• Bread Milk
  
• Enthusiasts Timepiece
  
• Saxxy

Action Slot Items

I don't have any personally gathered information on this front, but I hear that the spell-casting implements contribute to killstreaks and count kills made with spells. I've heard they also give you an eye-effect, which makes sense under the Class B of weapons section mentioned earlier, as you can select action slot items like the grappling hook by pressing 6 (or any button bound to "slot6")

Other Items

While the above sections comprise the things it would make the most sense to put a kilstreak kit on, there are really no restrictions on what you can put it on.

• Killstreak Metal
  
• Killstreak Gun Mettle Campaign Pass
  
• Killstreak Gift Wrap
  
• Killstreak Crates
  
• Killstreak Upgrade to Premium Gift
  
• Killstreak Rancho Relaxo
  
• Killstreak Dueling Minigame

These are some examples I found while browsing the market. Buying these seems to be strictly for collectors of that item or bugged item collectors though.

Definition of Terms

Being someone who reverse engineers things I have a habit of not using things in exactly the right way. To be as clear as possible, this is what I mean when I use these words.

Parse

To go through as a checklist, if it's not on the list it is not checked.

Killstreak Fabricator

The recipe that, when complete, outputs a killstreak kit. Comes in 2 qualities, specialized and professional. Specialized only has a colored sheen, Professional also has an eye effect after 5 and 10 kills.

Sheen

A glowing effect that passes over the weapon periodically.

Unlinked

A Killstreak kit or fabricator without a targeted weapon. Most killstreak kits are linked to a weapon that makes it so they will only ever apply to that weapon, when you go to apply the kit only weapons that are that base weapon will be available to select from. With Unlinked kits, when you go to apply them everything will be seen as a legitimate target.

Linked

A Killstreak kit or fabricator with a specified target. It only works on that target weapon.
e.g. An Axtinguisher kit works on an Australium Axtinguisher, a Strange Axtinguisher, and a Unique Axtinguisher, but does not work on any Postal Pummeler.

Client-side

Something that only shows up to you, other people don't see the changes you've made. Like a custom skin, sound, or model, it only affects you.

Server-side

Something that shows up to everyone on the server, unless they have a client-side alteration overwriting it.

[Kat]

This works as of 2021, Thank you for the guide!

[xsorburax]

i think the unusual banana hat collector uses unlinked fabs with an untradeable item to perma trade lock the bananas to his account and restores the killstreak so its not killstreak anymore but still untradeable

[random guy]

hmm, where are these files stored? is it easier in the sfm directory?

[Ryuke [TBM α]]

You'd have to extract all of the texture definition files then search through all of them for the required markers. One of the problems is that the name we know an item by generally isn't the name the item was created with, so even with that bit of automation you'd still need more to parse the tf_english.txt to give them a human-usable name.

[random guy]

hmm, would be nice if a script could be written to check every cosmetic and print out a list of ones that have it

[Joy Killer]

i'll probably be curious and get an unlinked kit in the future so this will help me when i get one.

[Shoog]

Great guide, I'll be sure to read more thoroghly when I finally use my Unlinked kit on one of my Hats!

[Getting better, just no computer]

Good guide though I will never get one.