Quake Tracker for Quake Classic. A more balanced, friendly and up close version carnage. Game: Quake Classic Player: Single and Multiple Creator: Azazel (frolich@iag.net) Description =========== I lowered the rocket and grenade damage levels and drastically increased that of the axe. Ten seconds of invulerability is also allowed when a player respawns, during which the player *is* allowed to fire on opponents. As an extra, I also allowed for an optional 'tracking rocket' that moves slower than the normal rocket but can lock onto a target (anything that can take damage and isn't a trigger or door) and track it. To show the competition how they could improve, I also added statistics to the engine that show accuracy ratios for each type of ammo, damage emitted ratios (total potential damage output versus damage inflicted) and damage received ratios (how much damage you take between deaths). Usage ===== Make a directory under your Quake directory called 'balance' (or something similar) and extract the file 'progs.dat' into it. Then start up quake with the command line option -game balance. There are two additional impulse commands you should bind for the full game to work. impulse 20 Switch to tracking rockets. You must already have the rocket laucher before you can use tracking rockets. impulse 30 Show performance statistics. These statistics are also output when the level ends (by timelimit, fraglimit, or exit), but you must pull down the console to see them. I usually use the following bindings: bind 9 "impulse 20" bind p "impulse 30" Although the tracking rockets are nice, they can be painfully slow at times and can relatively easily be dodged. Additionally, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE AXE! One who is good at dodging and can make effective use of the axe (i.e. they can hit you with it about 15-20% of the time) is a very terrifying opponent, indeed! Details ======= Weapon Damage ------------- * The Axe does, on average, 100 points of damage. I figure if you can get in that close and actually hit your opponent, you deserve a reward. ;} * The rocket does, on average, 75 points of damage, although there is the slight possibility of a critical hit of 100 points of damage. * All other weapons are the same. Tracking Rocket --------------- The tracking rocket can be a lot of fun and, at times, quite amusing. The best place to view the rocket in action is on the Ziggaurat Vertigo map, E1M8. Movement: The rocket has mass and thus inertia. This means that if the rocket must change directions it has to do so slowly and in an arc. The speed of the rocket is slow enough that it is possible to travel around corners to hit its target. A good opponent knows, however, how to trick the rocket into hitting a wall or other obstacle. Tracking: If a damageable target (other than a door or trigger) is on your aim vector (for those with auto-aiming on), the rocket will auto- matically lock onto that target when fired and will track it until either the target or the rocket is destroyed. Seek Mode: If a target cannot be acquired when fired, the rocket goes into seek mode. A 45 degree cone is scanned for targets. If a target is found, it is locked onto and tracked; otherwise the rocket continues travelling in a straight line until it lockes onto a target or hits an obstacle. Tracking Messages: The tracking rocket will display messages on your screen indicating its current status. When a target is acquired and is a PC (as in a multiplayer opponent), that characters name will be displayed in the tracking message. Statistics ---------- Statistics are borken down by ammo type, not weapon type. While this is slightly less informative, it was, by far, the easiest to implement. The stats display comes up in to places. If you have a key bound to "impulse 30", then striking that key will dump your stats to the console. If the level ends (via timelimit, fraglimit or player exit), the stats are automatically dumped to your console. To view these stats, just press the tilde (~) key. The stats display is in the following format: Axe : 0/0 -> 0 Shotgun : 0/0 -> 0 Nails : 0/0 -> 0 Lightning: 0/0 -> 0 Rockets : 0/0 -> 0 Inflicted: 0/0 -> 0 Received : 0 Foreach ammo type, the first and second numbers are the number of shots hit and the number of shots fired, respectively. The number on the right of the arrow is the percentile ratio of the two numbers. The Inflicted ratio is the total amount of damge inflicted versus the total amount of damage emitted. More on this later. The Received has two displays. If you have never died, the number is the total amount of damage you have taken. If you have died, a triple will show up indicating the minimum, mean, and maximum amount of damage taken before dying. This is updated each time you die. Damage Inflicted ---------------- The Inflicted ratio is highly sensetive to the use of rockets. Because rockets and grenades are area damage weapons, the total emitted damage is higher than a nail or a shotgun shell. This tends to increas the emitted damgage much faster than the inflicted damage, thus driving the ratio through the floor. I could have neglected the area effect of these weapons, but that would artifically inflate the ratio and possibly lead to > 100% ratios. I figured lower ratios would lead to slightly less inflated egos. For those who depend heavily on grenades and rockets, an Inflicted ratio of 4.5 - 6% is pretty good. Thos who scorn such weapons have been known to get ratios of up to 20%.