Crouching

Crouching is the state the character is placed in when inputting DOWN on the directional keys.

Crouching provides 40% less damage to all forms of collisions with any damage-inducing collisions including bullets and explosions. Crouching may be performed 0.33 seconds immediately after firing any weapon.

The effects of crouching varies in two different situations:
 * 1) When idle (standstill pose - "normal" crouching)
 * 2) When jumping (airborne pose)

Standstill Position
The standstill position is the single frame composing the character's idle animation when no inputs are being made and the character is standing on solid ground. When in this state, the character takes full damage and has 100% of their Hit Box active for collision detection. The character receives no benefits whatsoever and is at their most vulnerable in this position. The character inputting left and right to run assumes the same conditions on the Hit Box as the idle position.

When crouching in this position, the character will assume a different position than the idle position, and cannot input left or right (the input DOWN has priority over LEFT and RIGHT)

The character's Hit Box will be cut vertically in half (but not changed horizontally). In addition, the character will receive 40% less damage from all damage based collisions, making crouching crucial to survival, especially when the player is in a bind.

However, the cons of using this method is that the player is unable to move left or right, making it impossible for the player to escape a tight situation and still retain a 40% benefit from damage. To overcome this problem, the player must rely on the next method - one that has been overlooked as it is essentially invisible.

Airborne Position
The airborne position is the single frame (one frame taken at random from the walking animation) when the input UP is made (i.e. jumping)

When in this state, the same effects as the standstill position apply. However, the player is unable to register any other animation until they hit solid ground (unless firing a weapon, which will still trigger the airborne stance against the underlying physics, even if the face value physics show the armed stance) and so will be unable to enter the crouching pose.

However, the player still receives a 40% damage reduction benefit even if their character is not shown to be crouching. This is because the input DOWN is coded in-game to reduce damage by 40% at any moment it is pressed, no matter what (except when shooting). The input DOWN is only set to perform the crouching pose when the character is in the standstill position. The act of performing this trick is known as crouch jumping, frog hopping or bunny hopping

The cons of using this method relate to ghosting, which is the problem experienced when keyboards fail to register specific combinations of keys being pressed simultaneously. Using the airborne trick to move around and duck at the same time requires the input of three keys pressed simultaneously. Some combinations of the directional keys are ghosted and cannot be used.

The combinations that work are: This leaves the sequence LEFT, UP, DOWN which is necessary for bunny hopping in the other direction. This problem can be overcome by holding down, tapping (instead of holding) upwards and then holding leftward to move.
 * LEFT, DOWN, RIGHT (No applications)
 * UP, DOWN, RIGHT (Correct sequence for crouch jumping) THIS SETUP IS GHOSTED ON WASD

The sequence UP, DOWN, RIGHT is very awkward on the left hand (as the index finger and middle fingers are taking up, leaving only the thumb to input right). To overcome this awkwardness, the player can crouch lock in order to have the game hold DOWN for them. Crouch locking is performed by holding down and then clicking the chat. However, this results in the problem of having to left click somewhere on screen, resulting in the wastage of one bullet.

Alternatively, inversion crouch locking can be performed by holding down, pressing to invert your conj and crouching key setup, letting go of down, and pressing  again to reset your controls.

Crouch locking can also be performed by pressing down and then twice - however make sure the field in your chat box is empty or you may send an accidental message.

The player can then input up and left as right as normal to crouch jump and move left and right at the same time, without worrying about ghosting. However, the player cannot walk normally unless they tap DOWN in order to escape the crouch lock.