ABOUT THIS GUIDE
Hello! This guide is meant to serve as a quick link you can send to anyone who asks about picksays and ‘pickmes’ (which are just picksays, but for emotes.)
There’s not really anything on the wiki, given the ‘Guide to Macros’ page on the wiki just links back to Keybinds (literally a troll link), and has been ‘WIP’ for over 10 years.
WTF IS A PICKSAY?
A picksay is the name of a macro (macros are fancy hotkeys/keybinds e.g. you bind it to ‘J’)
You feed a bunch of phrases into a pool, e.g. “Hello.”, and “Salutations.”
The picksay macro then picks one phrase and makes your character say it or emote it.
Thus, in this case, your character will say “Hello.” 50% of the time, and “Salutations.” for the other 50% every time you press ‘J’.
If you didn’t use a ‘picksay’ macro, you’d have to bind two seperate ‘say’ macros, one for saying “Hello.”, and another for saying “Salutations.”, which takes up valuable hotkey space and also just feels awkward.
This lets you say a wide variety of things with just one button press, which seriously helps in a server focused on fast-paced combat. It’s also just nice to not listen to the same ‘GO GO GO!’ say macro spammed over and over. Variety is better for roleplay atmosphere!
HOW DO I MAKE A PICKSAY?
- Open up CM13. If you’re already in-game, good job!
- RIGHT CLICK on the top-most section of the game tab.
- CLICK on ‘CLIENT’
- CLICK on ‘MACROS’
You should now see this (Ignoring the shitload of already-present macros)
- CLICK on ‘NEW MACRO…’
You should now see this:
Awesome! Now, just select what keys you want to bind your macro to. In the example I’ve shown, I’ve bound it to CTRL+ 1.
That means, whenever I press CTRL and also press 1 at the same time, the macro will activate, and my character will execute the pick-say.
Simple enough, it’s like setting a hotkey.
Now, the command line is what’s actually important- It tells the macro what to do. It could be say, pulling rollerbeds for example. For this guide, we want pick-says, so that’s what we’re gonna do.
PICKSAY TEMPLATE
The template for all picksays follows this:
pick-say"[PHRASE];[PHRASE];[PHRASE]"
Your phrases can be any length, and you can fit as many or as few phrases as you want.
For example, this is a picksay for telling marines to push.
pick-say"CHARGE!;PUSH LADS, PUSH!; GO GO GO!; FALCONS, LET’S GO!; LET’S MOVE IT!; WHAT, YOU WANNA LIVE FOREVER?! FUCKING MOVE IT!; YOU CALL YOURSELVES MARINES?! FUCKING PUSH!; ADVANCE, YOU WORTHLESS MAGGOTS! ADVANCE!; CHARGE EM DOWN!; GET YOUR REAR IN GEAR AND LET’S GO!; COME ON, PUSSIES!"
What about saying stuff over the radio? That’s simple. Let’s say you wanna make one for those bastards in CIC who won’t stop hounding you to flank the hive with 4 marines.
(The prefix for the command channel is :v, so we need to put that in front of every phrase.)
pick-say":v With all due respect sir, go fuck yourself.;:v Yeah no, I’m not doing that, sir.;:v How about you take that order, and shove it up your ass?;:v Sir, are your parents siblings by any chance? Because that’s the stupidest god-damn order I’ve ever heard.;:v You may as well order me to press a gun to my head and pull the trigger if you’re gonna tell me to do that shit."
(If you use this you will be executed by firing squad for insubordination/desertion/sedition)
PICKME TEMPLATE
These are just picksays, but you add a *me in the front of every phrase instead.
These convert anything you say into an emote!
For instance, let’s say you want to have a bunch of emotes to use when you’re idling because you’re a ERP HRP neon floor-length hair goodie-two-shoes.
pick-say"*me twirls her finger in her hair absent-mindedly;*me giggles at a random thought.;*me sniffles a little.;*me stares into the ceiling, bored.;*me taps her foot impatiently.;*me sighs."
You can even combine emotes and text into the same macro, for example- a picksay for when you kill a stupid bug, and want to celebrate.
pick-say"YEAH! EAT SHIT, BUG! YOUR MOMMA’S NEXT!;PATHETIC. IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT, YOU ALIEN SHIT?;*me looks down with revulsion at the alien corpse.;GET SOME! GET SOME!!! GET SOME!!!;HOW’D YOU LIKE THAT, HUH?! HOW’D YOU FUCKING LIKE THAT!!!;*me spits on the xeno carcass, disgusted."
Some other examples:
pick-say “BACK, BACK!; FALLBACK!; *me motions to back up.; BACK OFF!; WE’RE PULLING OUT! LET’S GO!; *me gestures to withdraw.; STEP BACK AND REGROUP!; WITHDRAW, ON ME!; FALL IN, WE’RE BACKING OFF!”
pick-say “QUEEN IS OFF OVI!; HOLY SHIT IT’S THE QUEEN RUN!!!; QUEEN! QUEEN!!!; BIG BITCH ACTIVE!; QUEEN!”
pick-say “STACK UP ON ME!; FORM UP ON ME!; GET IN POSITION AND FOLLOW ME!; SQUAD, GET ON MY SIX, WE’RE GONNA MOVE OUT!; RALLY ON ME!”
pick-say “HOLD! HOLD!; DON’T PUSH! WE’RE HOLDING!; MAINTAIN POSITION!; STAY PUT, MARINES!; DON’T PUSH THE ENEMY! JUST HOLD AND SKIRMISH!”
pick-say “Stop running away from me, I’m trying to heal you.; I’m healing you, stand still.; Get your ass back here, I’m not done fixing you.; why are you running? WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?!; Come back, healing you."
pick-say “Cap.; Cap them.; Don’t slash. Cap.; CAP; what the fuck are you doing stop slashing the tall that was literally the most free cap ever you idiot”
CHAINING PICKSAYS WITH MACROS
In the instances where you want to combine both an action with some speech, you can actually chain commands together. Let’s say, I want to say “CONTACT NORTH!” and then make my character face north without manually direction locking them. Well, with \n, you can do just that!
Let’s have an example.
Northface\nPick-say “CONTACT NORTH!;TARGET SPOTTED, NORTH!; ENEMY SIGHTED NORTH!; BOGEY IN RANGE, NORTH!”
Bind it to say, SHIFT+N, and now your character will now scream out some variation of a ‘ENEMY NORTH OF US!’ phrase, and ALSO face north at the same time for that soulful immersion boost!
There’s limitless possibilities with chaining picksays with other macros!
You can do loads of cool stuff, like telling people to GTFO when you use a drag rollerbed macro:
pull roller-bed\nPick-say “OUTTA THE WAY!!!; MEDEVACCING, MOVE!; MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!; LET’S GO! YOU’LL BE OKAY!”
Or telling people you’re using your UBS to breach open doors!
toggle-underbarrel-attachment\nPick-say “I’M BREACHING, LET’S GO!; MOVE IN, BREACHING!; BREACHING!; UBS UP, BREAKING AND ENTERING!”
Seeing your in-game speech translate or at least correlate with real, in-game ACTIONS is awesome.
Of course, you can also just pair picksays with a pickme using \n, though only one will show up on your overhead goonchat text (it’ll be whatever you put last), e.g. some kind of sigh or expression of disappointment, followed by some variation of ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’.
Pick-say “*me sighs.; *me facepalms.; *me stares with disappointment.; *golfclap”\nPick-say “Good work, dingus.; You fucking tool.; What the hell is wrong with you?; You’re why eugenicists exist.; Oh my fucking god.”
=
[CHARACTER] facepalms.
[CHARACTER] says “You’re why eugenicists exist.”
The sky’s the limit with these! You can be as creative as you want!
WHY USE PICKSAYS?
Now, why would you want this? Let’s think of a classic situation in-game.
Let’s say your character is the Squad Leader SGT Jakob Aaberg.
Jakob has a problem- He wants to lead his squad, but if he stops to type orders while shooting bugs, he’ll probably get capped or killed by the scary xenos!
Knowing that the ability to say orders without compromising his safety is crucial, he decides to make some picksays!
But alas, his first test of leadership comes…
Jakob’s squad is bald, and is fearRPing a single hivelord, much to Jakob’s chagrin. The hivelord is even resting, knowing the deltards are simply too scared to even shoot her!
BUT FEAR NOT! FOR JAKOB CAN SPAM HIS ‘PUSH’ PICKSAY MACRO OVER AND OVER TO INCREASE MORALE AND INFUSE HIS MARINES WITH A SENSE OF GREAT HONOUR AND BRAVERY!!!
SUCCESS! HIS SQUAD, INVIGORATED BY JAKOB’S AMAZING LEADERSHIP, TAKE THE COCKY HIVELORD DOWN!
But what’s this?! A prime berserker AND her prime healer drone girlfriend, AND the FUCKING QUEEN??? HOLY SHIT!!!
JAKOB ONLY HAS A FEW SECONDS! IF HE STOPS TO TYPE, HE’LL GET CAPPED! BUT- AS A LEADER, HE MUST WARN HIS SQUAD SOMEHOW!!! BUT WAIT- THERE IS A WAY!
YES! FOR JAKOB HAS EXPERTLY MASTERED THE ART OF PICKSAYS, AND MADE ONE SPECIFICALLY FOR WHEN THE QUEEN IS ACTIVE!!!
In a fraction of a second, Jakob has informed his men of the grave threat, and to withdraw!
The INCREDIBLE big brain move allows Jakob’s poor deltards far away from the resin fortifications, and fight on open ground! Fighting off-weeds in open terrain, the foolish prime xenos under-estimate the deltards and are slaughtered by AP rockets and AP gunfire! Success! Jakob celebrates with his victory picksays, a true testament to HRP.
Hark, even the CO has arrived to give his personal congratulations!
BUT WHAT’S THIS?! THE CO DOESN’T HAVE PICKSAYS??? HE’S TYPING OUT HIS 400 WORD ESSAY CONGRATULATING DELTA SQUAD BY HAND??? HE EVEN HAS HIS TABLET OUT!!! HE’S TAKING TOO LONG ROLEPLAYING, HE’S NOT PAYING ATTENTION!!!
OH THE HUMANITY! MARINES… THE MAJOR HAS FALLEN! JONES IS SLAIN!!! IF ONLY HE HAD USED THE ART OF PICKSAYS…
uhhh okay i dont know what the fuck I’m even doing anymore, what the fuck is this guide becoming???
goodluck and have fun using picksays guys
