The Disguise Kit, also known as the Spytron 3000 Disguise Kit, is a default PDA weapon for the Spy. It is a seemingly ordinary cigarette case that, in addition to six normal cigarettes, contains hidden Spy tech.
The Disguise Kit allows the player to disguise as any class of either team. When selected, the Disguise menu appears, allowing players to select class disguises individually via the correct keys, or to switch between team colors. If the player disguises as a friendly Spy, the player's current disguise (if they have one) breaks.
Disguising is carried out over a couple of seconds, during which smoke particles surround the Spy. These smoke clouds do not appear if the Spy was completely invisible when beginning to disguise. Once finished, a line drawing of the Spy briefly appears on the player's screen to indicate a successful disguise. The class, name, health, and weapon of the Spy's current disguise then appears in the HUD. The status of enemy Medics currently healing the Spy is also shown. Note that the line drawing also appears when the current disguise is broken.
Pressing the "last disguise" button allows the player to change their disguised weapon to one from the slot they currently have equipped.
Taunting while not disguised and with the Disguise Kit active results in one of two possible taunts; either the Spy flicks away his used cigarette and takes a new one from the case, or the Spy activates his crab-walking kit, grins, and does a short dance while clicking his fingers and cigarette case like pincers. There is approximately a one-tenth chance of the latter occurring when taunting with the Disguise Kit active.
Keys
Open Disguise Kit
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4
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slot4
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Cancel/Close Disguise Kit
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Q
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lastinv
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Last disguise
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B
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lastdisguise
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Toggle disguise team
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-
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disguiseteam
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Toggle disguise team
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R
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disguiseteam
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Function times
Function times (in seconds)
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Effect
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Disguise
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Activation time
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2 s / 0.5 s
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Values are approximate and determined by community testing.
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Demonstration
Related achievements
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Master of Disguise Trick an opposing Medic into healing you.
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Costume Contest Kill a Spy disguised as your current class.
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Hypocritical Oath Kill an enemy Spy that you have been healing.
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FYI I am a Spy Backstab a Medic who has healed you in the last 5 seconds.
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Insurance Fraud Kill an enemy while you're being healed by an enemy Medic.
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Update history
December 21, 2007 Patch
- Fixed cloaked/disguised/disguising Spy reporting his achievements to everyone else.
February 28, 2008 Patch
- [Undocumented] Added "Toggle Disguise Team" binding in Options -> Keyboard to toggle the disguise team for the Spy's PDA.
- [Undocumented] Changed PDA menus to accept keys bound to "slot1", "slot2", etc., and "slot10" cancels.
- [Undocumented] Fixed "lastdisguise" command not remembering if you were disguised as your own team.
May 21, 2008 Patch
- Improved prediction of Spy's speed changes when disguising.
March 5, 2009 Patch
- When disguising, Spies now always start showing the primary weapon in their disguise, and can then switch it with the last-disguise key.
December 7, 2009 Patch
- Fixed Spies being able to disguise while performing a taunt.
December 17, 2009 Patch (WAR! Update)
- Added alternative Spy disguise menu, which lets you choose disguises using just the 1-3 keys.
June 17, 2011 Patch
- Fixed a server crash caused by disguising Spies.
March 22, 2012 Patch
- [Undocumented] The Disguise Kit now appears in backpack when viewing stock items.
July 11, 2013 Patch
- When disguised as a teammate, the Dead Ringer will drop the body of the player the Spy is disguised as.
July 11, 2013 Patch
- Fixed the Spy getting the afterburn immunity while disguised as Demoman wielding the Chargin' Targe.
June 11, 2014 Patch #1
- [Undocumented] Modified the Disguise Kit menu. It now has a Spy Mask icon in the upper-left corner and a white line above the class portraits.
June 11, 2014 Patch #2
- Fixed not being able to taunt with the Spy's Disguise Kit.
- Fixed the Spy's disguise menu staying open after changing class.
December 12, 2014 Patch
December 23, 2014 Patch
- Fixed disguised Spies using the incorrect grapple color.
- Fixed the Resist powerup shield using the wrong color for disguised Spies.
- Fixed not seeing the powerup icons for disguised Spies.
January 27, 2015 Patch
- Fixed a client crash related to Spies disguising as players and then switching their disguise weapon.
July 2, 2015 Patch #1 (Gun Mettle Update)
- Changing to a new disguise while already under a disguise takes 0.5 seconds instead of the normal disguise time of 2 seconds.
- In the disguise menu, pressing 'reload' will also toggle the disguise team.
June 21, 2022 Patch
- Fixed the Spy using incorrect disguise weapons when disguising as Soldier, Pyro, Heavy or Engineer with no member of the same class on the opposing team.
Notes
- A "minimal menu" option is available for this weapon, enabled via the Advanced options menu. With this option enabled, the player uses fewer keys to disguise; first selecting the class type (offensive, defensive, or support) and then selecting the individual class. All options for this menu use the same three keys.
- The BLU Spy has white cigarettes inside his Disguise Kit, despite them appearing brown on the player model.
Bugs
A Spy disguised as a Sniper equipped with an impossible loadout for a Sniper.
- Sometimes, the class the Spy is disguised as appears to be carrying invisible or transparent weapons to the enemy team. This also includes weapons worn on the player, such as the Gunboats or Ali Baba's Wee Booties.
- When removing a disguise in third person, the cosmetic items of the player the Spy is disguised as appear on the Spy for a split second.
- Rarely, disguised Spies have missing bodygroups. This can cause situations such as a headless Pyro or a hatless Scout.
- When a Spy is disguised as a Sniper with the Huntsman or Fortified Compound, arrows do not appear in the Sniper's quiver.
- If a Spy disguises and then removes the disguise while wearing any item that goes in the
bip_head
bone (i.e. most items that goes to the Hat equip region), the Spy's equipped hat becomes slightly out of sync with the player's movement, occasionally clipping on the character's player model.
- A Spy disguised as a player with a health reduction weapon, such as the Vita-Saw, shows the disguised class's normal maximum health, instead of the maximum health after the health reduction is applied.[1]
- Likewise, a Spy disguised as a player with a weapon that increases maximum health, such as the Battalion's Backup, shows the disguised class's normal maximum health, and any extra maximum health acts as Overheal, which decreases after the disguise is applied.[2]
- Sometimes, the Disguise Kit makes an error sound while trying to disguise and does not do anything. This can be fixed by respawning or going to a resupply locker.
- When holding the disguise kit, the disguise menu can disappear after some time, causing the player to be unable to disguise. This can be fixed by switching from and to the disguise kit again.
- If the player a Spy disguises as is not the same class as the Spy's disguise, the weapon the Spy is holding might either disappear or be incorrect.
- A Spy disguised as a player with a weapon that uses additional wearables, like the Thermal Thruster or the Quickfix's backpack, the additional bodygroups will not appear. The player will still appear to be holding the weapon.[3]
Trivia
- Crouching and looking up while holding the Disguise Kit causes the Spy's model to glitch and preform a sort of crab-walk, named by the community as the Spycrab.
- The outline shown when disguising or undisguising uses a special texture magnification effect.
- The
pda_click
console command displays the Spy pressing the red button on the Disguise Kit, only visible to other players. Using this command does not disguise the player, and is just for miscellaneous reasons. Also, the animation does not perform if the player is crouching.
Gallery
Disguise Kit dialogue menu.
The Spy outline that displays over the player's field of view when disguising and undisguising.
References
See also