There comes the point in every Rocket League player’s career when you realize that those jaw-droppingly impressive tricks aren’t ‘flukes’. The higher you climb the ranks, you’ll see players landing the most incredible shots. You’ll also realize those players are doing it purposefully, so the question is, HOW are they learning to do these amazing things?
If you’re on PC at least, they are likely using Bakkesmod, a great community-made training tool, and if you want a piece of the action, you’re in the right place! In this Rocket League Bakkesmod Guide, I’ll explain everything you could want to know about Bakkesmod, from how to install it to all the weird and wonderful things you can do with it.
Bakkesmod has some fantastic built-in features, but there are also a ton of incredible Plugins you can use to make it even better! I’ll give you the run-down on how to use these too. I will also dispel a few myths surrounding Bakkesmod’s use. If you’re ready to pull off Aerials like a pro, let’s begin!
Bottom Line Up Front
Bakkesmod is an incredibly powerful training aide for Rocket League, and you will see improvements in your gameplay through utilising it. As far as Psyonix (the developers) are concerned, you’re allowed to use Bakkesmod without fear of bans.
Nothing teaches Rocket League better than actual gameplay, but Bakkesmod gives you access to many great practice tools to improve every facet of your game. If you play on PC, you owe it to yourself to try it.
What is Bakkesmod?
Bakkesmod is a Mod-tool you can run alongside Rocket League that grants access to some incredible features that aren’t in the game by default. Most of these features come in the form of Training aids, which are so extensive that over 20% of the PC player-base currently use it. Bakkesmod doesn’t give any advantages in actual matches, and most of its functions are restricted to the Training modes.
Is Bakkesmod Safe?
The most commonly asked questions about Bakkesmod all concern how safe it is to use. Traditionally, Mod-tools for other games can get you in a spot of trouble if the developers aren’t a fan of them. If you’re caught using them, you can have your account suspended or, even worse, permanently banned!
Fortunately, that is not the case with Bakkesmod and Rocket League. This topic is infrequently brought up on the Rocket League Subreddit and was addressed a few months back by one of the Psyonix staff members.
Unless something dramatically changes with Psyonix policies or how Bakkesmod functions, this is how things are likely to stay.
When it comes to modding, it’s always best to lean on the side of caution. Just because Psyonix is happy with you using Bakkesmod, it doesn’t mean it won’t clash with other Anti-Cheat providers in the future (Battle-Eye or Ricochet, for example).
In the PC gaming space, you never have to dig far to unearth horror stories about ‘false flags’ and false positive bans. There’s rarely concrete evidence of what triggers these, as they usually come with a vague message about why a ban was given out. I’m not telling you this to scare you, but to be on the safe side, I recommend closing Bakkesmod when you’re not playing Rocket League.
Installing Bakkesmod
Fortunately, installing Bakkesmod is simple! First of all, head over to the official website https://bakkesmod.com/. Click the big button to download the file and unzip it into a folder of your choice. Next, install the program wherever you want. For ease of use, I like it to have an icon on my desktop.
When you run the program for the first time, it will update itself. The only thing I would recommend changing is this setting (pictured above). This is a personal preference, but I always like having as few programs running on startup as possible.
How to use Bakkesmod
Alright, now I’ve convinced you Bakkesmod is the best thing since sliced bread; let’s go through how to use it! Make sure Rocket League is running, and then start Bakkesmod. When you’re playing Rocket League, press F2 on your Keyboard to open Bakkesmod, and it’s as simple as that!
It will appear as an overlay over the game, and you can open and close it whenever you please by pressing F2. You can also change this to something more convenient in the ‘bindings’ menu. You can do so much with Bakkesmod so let me show you some of the best and most impactful tools you now have access to!
‘Quick Settings’ Modes
Air Dribble, Normal and Wallhit modes change what happens when you press directions on your D-Pad. If you’re on Keyboard, these bind to the Number Keys instead. These modes work in Freeplay and throw the ball either towards or away from you from various angles.
It may not sound like much, but these are perfect for warming up and practising ball control. As the ball instantly spawns, you have to be much more reactive than if you set up these scenarios manually. You can even use these settings when you’re already on a wall to improve your air game. Each mode does something a little different, and I’d urge you to try them all out to get a feel for them.
Spice up your Custom Training drills
Custom Training drills are a fantastic tool pre-baked into Rocket League, but once you get used to them, you’re really learning how to beat the drills instead of refining techniques. This is where the Variance options come in. These settings change the angle and direction the ball will come at you in these modes but will keep the objectives the same.
The higher you crank the Variance, the more dramatic the effect. It keeps the drills fresh but, most importantly, stops you from being able to just memorize the routines so you’ll always get something out of them. Variance changes only work in Custom Training, so if you try to use them in Free Play with the Air Dribble mode, for example, nothing will happen.
Build the car of your dreams!
We all know how important your drip is in Rocket League, and the ‘Items’ menu lets you customise your car in just about any way you can imagine!
The catch is these customisations are only visible to you. To anyone else, your vehicle matches whatever in-game parts you have selected. All the options in this tab are disabled by default, so make sure you tick the box on the top of the list to enable them.
After that, you can pick literally any cosmetic item released in all the years that Rocket League has existed and slap it on your car. You can save your finest creations as Presets and if dressing up your vehicle is important to you, be prepared to spend a ton of time here!
Bend Gravity and Time to Your Will
At first glance, the ‘Current Game’ tab might look rather pointless, but it does have its uses and can be used in any training mode. You can manipulate gravity with these settings to force some pretty unique situations, but the ability to slow down time is where you’ll get the most use.
Learning tricky techniques like air dribbling is tough when you’re a new player. In instances like this, slowing down time is helpful. You can precisely pick what speed to play at, and trust me, if you can pull off a technique in slow motion, you WILL eventually be able to do it at full speed. This helped me immensely with learning Aerials and revealed a bunch of issues with my accuracy that I can now work on.
Training Your Shot Accuracy
As I said a little earlier, Training Drills are great but have limitations. In an actual match, when you shoot, you’re not just trying to get the ball in the Goal; you’re also trying to avoid your opponents. This is something the ‘Goal Blocker’ can help with. You can find this option under ‘Custom Training’.
When this setting is enabled, you can draw a shape in the rectangle that appears. That rectangle represents the Goal, and as you can see in the picture, the square I drew is the only part of the Goal that isn’t covered. This tool is fantastic and works great with the Shooting Drills that are already available.
Know Your Opponent
This one is less of a training aide and more just a cool thing to know, but you can make Rocket League display MMR (Matchmaking Rating).
You can turn this on in the ‘Ranked’ tab. This is a great feature, but if yours is lower than expected, don’t get hung up on it. As you improve (and since you’re taking time to practice with Bakkesmod, you’ll improve fast!), it will go up eventually.
One feature that really is useful in the ‘Ranked’ tab is enabling ‘POV Goal Replays’. Whenever a goal is scored in Rocket League, the game shows it from a cinematic angle, and it can be a little hard to see precisely what the goal scorer did.
If you turn this feature on, it shows you how the Goal was scored from their perspective. It’s much easier to see all the minor movements a player makes from this angle, and you can try to incorporate their techniques into your own.
Want to Go Incognito?
If you want to hide your identity online, there’s a tab dedicated to that on Bakkesmod under ‘Anonymizer’. This has limited uses, but it could be a handy tool to counter stream-sniping if you’re a streamer or content creator.
The Wonderful World of Rocket League Plugins
There’s enough to play around with on Bakkesmod to keep any player occupied for a long while. Still, there’s always more you can sink your teeth into in Rocket League, and Bakkesmod enables a truckload more options, modes, and QoL changes through ‘Plugins’.
At the time of writing, there are HUNDREDS of Plugins available to download. Bakkesmod also comes with a few pre-installed (pictured above). I will review some of the best pre-installed ones here so you know how to use them. In the next section, I’ll explain how to download new ones and showcase some of the best.
Defender Plugin
Sick and tired of being forced to play Defender every game? Well, since you’re back there, you may as well be of some use!
The Defender Plugin works in Free Training mode and is excellent for brushing up on those good ol’ defensive skills. When this Plugin is turned on, the ball is repeatedly hit by an invisible force straight towards the Goal.
The Plugin doesn’t stick to the same shot every time and does a decent job of giving a fledgeling Goalie a workout. It’s certainly not perfect, as a big part of defending is reacting to where your opponents are. Hopefully, if you’ve been letting in some embarrassing shots, this will help smooth that over with your team.
Recovery Plugin
If things are coming together during training, but everything falls apart when you’re being shunted by other cars, this Plugin can help.
The Recovery Plugin periodically bumps your car in a random direction to simulate a collision. Much like with the Defender Plugin, it’s not perfect as you can’t react to what you’re crashing into, but it does teach quick repositioning. If you’re going to give this Plugin a go, I recommend turning the cooldown timer up as, by default, you get thrown around just a little too often for it to be helpful.
How To Install New Plugins
Bakkesmod has a feature that takes you directly to bakkesplugins.com, and installing Plugins from there couldn’t be easier. Simply go to the Plugins tab in Bakkesmod and click the ‘Open Plugin manager’ button and then ‘Install from Bakkesplugins’. This will open the Bakkesplugins website.
On the website, pick any Plugin you want to download and click the download icon. Click ‘Install with Bakkesmod’, and it should download. If you’re prompted to allow a link on your web browser, confirming the prompt allows Bakkesmod to download the file directly. Once you’ve done this, viola! Your Plugin will be in the same list as the pre-installed ones.
As I mentioned a little earlier, there are a lot of Plugins here. Feel free to explore the website but if you want a few recommendations, here are some fantastic Plugins to try.
Dribble Trainer
Out of everything Bakkesmod can do, this is the Plugin I find myself returning to the most. Dribble Trainer is used to improve your Airdribbling game. When it’s turned on, the ball will spawn on the top of your car and every time the ball hits the ground; it respawns above you again.
It’s a straightforward Plugin, but it doesn’t need to be any more complicated. Dribble Trainer also paints a cross under your car and the ball making them easy to line up. Airdribbling is a skill that takes weeks, even months, to master, and if you’re just starting out, you can use this Plugin with time slowed down to give yourself a fantastic custom training tool.
Hitbox Viewer
Most players know that cars in Rocket League have different hitboxes, but how different are they really? There are a crazy amount of misconceptions and inaccuracies regarding this topic. Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about any of that, as there’s a Plugin that displays your car’s hitbox.
This Plugin works in every training mode and has to be activated in Bakkesmod’s Console (accessed with F6). The command you need to enter is ‘cl_soccar_showhitbox 1’ to turn it on. Change the 1 to a 0 to turn it off.
This Plugin is incredible and helps to explain why the ball doesn’t bounce off your wedged-shaped car the way you’d expect. There are a few cars where the hitbox doesn’t completely line up with their models as well, so if you’re 100% sure you should have made that shot in the last match, you may just be right! Try out this Plugin and see for yourself; it’s a real eye-opener to play with the hitboxes on display for the first time.
Boost Whiff Training
Since we’ve just looked at car hitboxes, did you know boost pads have a hitbox much bigger than it seems? The Boost Whiff Training Plugin displays the hitboxes in question, and as you can see, they are much wider than the pads themselves. Their hitbox extends vertically, so you can still trigger them with a low jump.
This won’t be a Plugin you use every day, but it’s good to learn how far away from a boost pad you can be to still trigger it.
RocketStats
Earlier, I said you shouldn’t get hung up on your MMR but if you’re the competitive type and want to track your MMR and Win/Loss ratios, RocketStats is a Plugin you need!
RocketStats is one of those rare Plugins you can use during actual matches, and it shows you a few handy stats on a small bar that you can move around to suit. RocketStats shows your MMR but also the MMR of everyone else in the lobby. After the match, it shows how much MMR everyone has gained and lost and can also track your wins and losses across a session. If you’re wondering why there are no pictures, I’m on a legendary loss streak right now; nobody needs to see that.
In the future, RocketStats will let you download Themes to show off your stats with more of a personal touch. If you stream Rocket League, this could be an update to keep an eye on!
Instant Suite
If you’re about to sit down for a hardcore evening session on Rocket League, Instant Suite is a Plugin you can use to ensure you get as many games in as possible. Once Instant Suite is active, it will instantly re-queue for a match the moment your current one finishes in whatever playlist you are in.
In fact, Instant Suite starts queueing BEFORE the Item, and EXP windows disappear on the post-match screen, so you’ll always have minimal downtime. You can also set Instant Suite to take you to the Free Training mode between matches.
In all fairness, Rocket League has pretty streamlined menus without needing Plugins so think of Instant Suite as more of a nice QoL improvement. Make sure you turn it off ahead of time if you need a bathroom break too!
Predictdator (ball prediction)
This impressive Plugin predicts the ball’s trajectory when hit and displays its path as a bright line across the pitch. This is another tool that helps with learning ball control and air dribbling.
Predictdator makes you feel like a Rocket League scientist but has limited uses outside of looking exceptionally flashy. Still, if you’re just starting out and are trying to learn how the ball interacts with the environment, it’s worth playing around with.
Workshop Map Loader & Downloader
Finally, let me leave you with one final Plugin that can be used for training and to bring content into Rocket League you couldn’t imagine in your wildest dreams!
Workshop Map Loader & Downloader can transform Rocket League into a platform for incredible custom content like new stadiums and courses. Much of the content you can download here requires you to set up new folders and download extra things like texture packs. There’s a lot to it, and some of the content you can find with this Plugin is a little experimental. Regardless, there are a ton of amazing maps to sift through, and if you want to set everything up, there’s a handy tutorial on the Bakkesplugins page
Useful Resources
https://bakkesmod.com/ is the official home of Bakkesmod and is the only website you should download the mod tool from.
If you want to try out some Bakkesmod plugins, you’ll find the best selection here. This is the website that Bakkesmod can directly access but is still worth visiting if you want to just browse or download the Plugins manually.
FAQs
Question: Is there anything else I can use to improve my game outside of Bakkesmod?
Answer: Arguably, the best tool to improve at Rocket League is already baked into the game from scratch, 1V1s. I know some people don’t enjoy 1V1s, but nothing exposes weaknesses in your gameplay better than being forced to play without a team to back you up. You’ll learn how to shoot, defend, when to push and the value of not over-extending when the only person you can rely on is yourself.
Question: How much does Bakkesmod cost?
Answer: Bakkesmod is completely free, and if you’re about to download it from a website that says otherwise, close that page immediately. You can donate via PayPal, and there is a Patreon on the official website, but these are the only ways money should be changing hands.
Question: I’m getting the following message on Bakkesmod, ‘Mod is out of date, waiting for an update ‘. How do I fix it?
Answer: If you’re getting this error message, it usually means Rocket League has had an update, and Bakkesmod currently isn’t compatible with it. In this instance, it’s a waiting game. It can also mean your Rocket League needs an update as the error message doesn’t distinguish which program is outdated.
You can sometimes force an update by navigating to the menu pictured above, but you will probably only need to do this if Rocket League has recently updated. Finally, if none of the above works, completely deleting Bakkesmod and giving it a clean install has been reported to fix problems by several users.
Question: Is using Bakkesmod cheating?
Answer: No, it’s not. Most of Bakkesmod’s enhancements are restricted to training modes, and taking them into online matches is impossible. The only exceptions are stat trackers and things like Instant Suite that quickly searches for matches. None of these grant any advantages whatsoever. The best way to think of Bakkesmod is like an FPS Aim-Trainer but on wheels!
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