Wyzcrak

HLTV stands for Half-Life Television. It's essentially a broadcast (and recording) device the server uses to allow many people (potentially hundreds or thousands, but, on our server, fifty) to spectate the game being played on the server without actually being connected to the server.

It works by proxy. The "HLTV Proxy", as it's called, connects to the Natural Selection server and consumes one of the player slots on the server. The server recognizes this "player" as an HLTV Proxy and begins sending it data about the entire game, including every player, in real-time. The HLTV Proxy then broadcasts this game data to any and all clients (people or other HLTV Proxies) connected to it. The broadcast can be delayed (such is the case in competitive leagues), but there is no delay on our HLTV proxy.

To connect to our HLTV Proxy, open Natural Selection and connect to the following address, just as if you were connecting to a game server:

tgns.tacticalgamer.com:27020

Once you're connected, you'll likely find yourself staring into a seemingly random location in the ready room. Press your left and right strafe keys ('a' and 'd', if you're using the default binds) to change the camera from player to player (you cannot spectate the marine Commander's view). Press your jump key ('space', if you're using the default binds).

Wyzcrak

Voicecomm relaying is enabled on our HLTV proxy. This allows spectators connected to the proxy to hear what players are saying to each other during the game.

But there's a slight problem. Our Natural Selection server uses an included (but not default) high-quality voice codec (called "Speex"). This makes gameplay much more pleasant, as it's much easier to hear and understand your teammates.

Here's where the problem comes in: the Natural Selection client is configured by default to receive voice data using the lower-quality codec (called "Miles"). When you connect to the actual server (not the HLTV Proxy), it tells your client to expect voice data sent using Speex. However, Valve did not build the HLTV server to tell your client about this detail when you connect to the HLTV Proxy. So, when your client gets voice data streamed from the HLTV Proxy, it tries to "play" it with whatever codec it "last" used during the current session. If your client isn't ready for the Speex data, the effect is "garbled voices" as it proceeds to "play" the Speex data (voices) using the Miles codec.

To avoid the garbled voices, you must hear a player's Speex voicecomm on a server before connecting to the HLTV proxy. If you're on the server playing before you go to the HLTV Proxy, you'll surely hear Speex voicecomm before you leave, so all will be well once you connect to the HLTV Proxy.

If you wish to connect to the HLTV Proxy without first connecting to the server, I'd recommend the following procedure each time you want to connect to the HLTV proxy. It looks like a lot, but it takes all of 30 seconds to do this once you're used to it, and having the voicecomms working adds a lot to the HLTV experience:

1. Create a local Natural Selection server (choose "Create Server" from the menu once you start NS)
2. In the console, issue this command: sv_voicecodec voice_speex
3. In the console, issue this command: sv_voicequality 5
4. In the console, issue this command: voice_loopback 1
5. say something and make sure you hear your own voice
6. In the console, issue this command: voice_loopback 0
7. In the console, issue this command: connect tgns.tacticalgamer.com:27020

The voices on the server are now understandable as you spectate, connected to the HLTV Proxy.