Team Fortress 2 RCON Basics

We recently showed you how to book a free games server and one of the advantages or doing that is you have access to the game's RCON commands. By entering various RCON commands into the game's console you can adjust settings such as map rotation, voice chat options, time limits and much, much more. This guide will show you how to access the console of Team fortress 2 and will provide you with some commonly used RCON commands. Please note this guide is directed at a beginner.

Activating Developers Console for the First Time

If this is the first time that you have used the developers console for Team Fortress 2 then you will have to activate it by following these steps. Note: I have added a red dot next to the option I am referring to help highlight its location.

• From the start up screen select "Options" a pop up box should then appear.

• Under the "Keyboard" tab press the "Advanced" button.

• Another popup box should appear and within this box you need to check off the "Enable Developer Console" option.
• Press "OK".
• Press "Apply".
• Press "OK" again.

Now you will have access to the developers console where you can enter the RCON commands. To access it press the Acute/Tilde key located under the Esc key on most keyboards. If you are still unsure which key I am referring to it's the one with the ~ symbol on it. Press it now to check if you have done everything correctly.

Getting Started with RCON

• After you have found your server and the game has loaded up jump on the Spectator team to prevent the game from starting while you are messing around in console.
• Press the Acute/Tilde key to access console
• Type rcon_password add a space then type in your password, then press enter.

Be careful when entering your password here because if you enter it incorrectly enough times you will be banned from your own server. If no error messages come up then you are good to go! At this point you can now start entering RCON commands and edit the game the game they way you like it.

Changing Maps

The best place to start if you are new to RCON commands is to change a map. The following steps will show you how to do this and for this example I'll change the map to 2Fort.

• To find out what maps are available on your server type the following: rcon maps * then press enter.

If done correctly a lift of available maps should appear in the console window. Apart from showing you what is available, bringing up the map list can make selecting maps much easier since they have to be spelled correctly in order to work.

• The change map command is as follows: rcon changelevel add a space then enter the map name. Example: rcon changelevel ctf_2fort
• To change to another map just replace "ctf_2fort" with another map name.

Commonly Used RCON Commands

Passwords

rcon_password followed by your RCON password. To log in as admin

rcon sv_password followed by a desired password for server entry

Banning/Kicking

rcon users To show the users currently on the server

rcon addip To add an IP to the ban list

rcon banid To add ban an ID from the server

rcon kick To kick a user from the server

rcon removeid To remove an user ID from the ban list

rcon removeip To remove an user IP from the IP ban list

rcon removeip To remove an user IP from the IP ban list

Maps

rcon maps * Displays all maps available on server

rcon changelevel followed by map name. To change map

Communication

rcon say "I have the RCON" will display "I have the RCON" in the chat window. Use this command to communicate with players currently on the server via the console.

rcon sv_voiceenable followed by 0 or 1 To enable or disable voice on the server.

rcon changelevel followed by map name. To change map

rcon sv_alltalk followed by 0 or 1 To enable or disable all talk on the server(Both teams can talk to each other).

Game Options

rcon mp_friendlyfire Followed by 1 or 0 To turn friendly fire on or off.

rcon mp_disable_respawn_times Followed by 1 or 0 To turn respawn times on or off.

That should be enough to get you started and as you may have guessed already there's a lot more RCON commands that can be used. If you want to edit the game further have a search around for more RCON commands. Happy gaming!