quake/articles/1996/art-486
Path: mantis!not-for-mail
From: "Richard Owen"
Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.quake.announce,rec.games.computer.quake.playing,rec.games.computer.quake.servers
Subject: This Sunday's Minos event.....
Followup-To: rec.games.computer.quake.playing
Date: 12 Sep 1996 14:59:05 +0100
Organization: Jobstream Group plc
Lines: 436
Sender: tony@mantis.co.uk
Approved: quake@mantis.co.uk
Message-ID: <01bba0ae$6ceac720$2632dec2@chantry.mantis.co.uk>
Reply-To: richard@mantis.co.uk
Is a Fortress game, at 3pm on the special event server of Minos, UK.
To connect you must use a different port - port 26666. Use this additional
command when launching Quake:
q95 -udpport 26666
then connect to minos as usual and you will be in the fortress game!
The game requires some detailed instructions and several key bindings.
Please read these carefully to avoid hideous death at the hands of the more
clued-up players.
Good luck.
Instructions follow. Within this readme - which I have edited to the player
essentials, there is a list of alias definitions. I have taken the most
important commands from here and produced a mini-config file which binds
these commands to a sensible(?) set of keys. This section could be cut and
saved into text file for execution within quake.
*==============================================================*
* TeamFortress v1.2 readme.txt *
*==============================================================*
Introduction
------------
TeamFortress is a new QuakeC patch which radically changes
team games. It provides far more incentive for teams to
actually work as a team. Each member of the team has unique
weapons, items, and abilities.
It is most fun to play on a map with two, or more, clearly defined
team fortresses, or bases. We're a little limited until we
write a good map for it, but until then, try some of quake's
levels. Define the team areas, and a goal or two.
For example, we sometimes play on e1m1. Its not a big map, so
we play with two teams of 4. One team's base is the room containing
the end of level slipgate. The other team starts at the bridge
outside, and has to finish the level. The first team has to
prevent the other team from finishing the level.
What do you need to know?
-----------------------
Really, if you want to get into TeamFortress as soon as possible,
all you need to know is the command "helpme". Type this in at the
console and you'll be shown the help index.
You should be able to figure it out from there :)
Player Classes
--------------
TeamFortress uses multiple player classes. Whenever a new map is loaded,
all players start in Observer mode.
When in Observer Mode, players can use there fire button to cycle
through all the observation points on a map, and watch the action.
To get out of Observer Mode, players must choose a class.
To choose a class, just use the appropriate alias. Once a player class
is chosen, you cannot change class for the rest of that level.
The classes implemented so far are as follows:
SCOUT: Fastest moving class. Can only wear a small amount of the
lowest absorption armor. Limited to the 2 Shotguns and Nailgun.
Low ammo levels.
Carries a Motion Detector, 2 grenades, 3 concussion grenades.
SNIPER: Medium speed. Wears only small amount of armor, upto medium
absorption level. Limited to Nailgun and Sniper's rifle. Medium
ammo levels.
Carries 2 grenades.
SOLDIER: Slow moving class. Wears large amount of armor, at all
absorption levels. All normal weapons except Grenade Launcher.
High ammo levels.
Carries 4 grenades, 4 nail grenades.
DEMOLITION MAN: Medium speed. Wears medium amount of armor, upto medium
absorption level. Uses the ShotGun and Grenade/Pipebomb Launcher
(pressing 6 toggles between each)
Carries 1 DetPack, 6 grenades, 4 Mirv Grenades.
COMBAT MEDIC: Medium speed. Wears medium amount of armor, upto medium
absorption level. Uses both Shotguns and the Super Nailgun.
Carries Medikit, 3 grenades, 2 concussion grenades.
Regenerates slowly. Has a Bioweapon.
HEAVY WEAPONS GUY: The slowest moving class of all. Lotsa armor, high
absorption levels. Uses both Shotguns, the Nailgun, and
the Assault Cannon (yeah!)
Carries 4 grenades and 1 Mirv Grenade.
RANDOM CLASS: Each time you respawn you have your class randomly
assigned to you.
New Weapons
-----------
Sniper Rifle:
This weapon is used instead of the shotgun by the SNIPER playerclass. It
uses shotgun shells for ammo, and operates in two modes:
- Single Shot. With a reload time of 3 seconds, this mode is what
sniping is all about. One shot from this will kill most players
except for a heavily armored SOLDIER or DEMOLITION MAN.
- Auto Shot. Although this fire mode does a lot less damage than
single shot and uses a lot of ammo, its great for picking off
a wounded target, or a fast moving SCOUT.
The other tricky bit about the sniper rifle is that it is a rifle. You
can't just snap shot from the hip with it. If you're moving too fast,
the rifle simply won't fire. Besides, you're a sniper, you're not
supposed to be strafe-fighting with soldiers! :)
Assault Cannon:
Big! Fires lotsa bullets! Really fast!
What more do you want?
It's used by the Heavy Weapons Guy. Select it like you would the
Rocket Launcher. It takes 10 cells just to power up each time you
pull the trigger, and then starts to eat up your shotgun ammo like
you wouldn't believe!
It also tends to eat up enemies too, so it isn't all bad :)
As you fire the Assault Cannon, it gets hotter and harder to control.
After firing, it has to cool. This can take a while, and is dependant
on how long you fired it for, natch :)
Luckily, cooling require no effort on your part, so you can change
weapons while you wait.
Oh, you can't move while firing either, and you can't fire when
you're not on the ground.
BioWeapon:
This weapon is used by the COMBAT MEDIC. The COMBAT MEDIC's axe has two
modes: Medikit and BioWeapon. In Bioweapon Mode, when the COMBAT MEDIC
hits someone with the axe, they will become infected, and begin to lose
health. Anyone coming in contact with an infected person also becomes
infected. Infection can be cured by the COMBAT MEDIC's medikit.
COMBAT MEDICS are immune to the Bioweapon.
Grenades
--------
Several new types of grenades now exist, and all classes have access to at
least one of them. They are not to be confused with the grenades used by
the grenade launcher.
Use of these grenades is exactly as one would expect. Pull the pin, throw
it, and wait. After 3 seconds it goes off. Just make sure you throw it
_before_ the 3 seconds are up :)
The grenade types are as follows:
Normal : Normal grenades simply explode. They are twice as powerful
as those shot from the grenade launcher.
Concussion : Concussion grenades don't actually hurt anyone, they just
blow everyone away from the grenade explosion at a high
speed, and then make them woozy. They're the SCOUT's best
way of escaping from a roomful of enemies. The ensuing confusion
usually gives him enough time to run.
Nail : Nail grenades are good in large rooms. Instead of detonating,
they raise up into the air and hover. They then begin to
rotate while firing nails. After doing this for a few seconds
they explode like a normal grenade.
Mirv : Mirv grenades are room-clearers. When one explodes,
it divides into approximately 15 individual grenades which
then explode.
New Items
---------
Motion Detector:
This item is the SCOUT's best friend. The SCOUT can specify an amount of
cells spent on a scan. The detector displays a list of all enemies/friends
within a distance around the SCOUT, and their direction in relation to the
SCOUT. The more energy spent, the larger the detection distance.
Bear in mind though that the motion detector only detects motion (natch!
:)
So it won't pick up stationary or very slow moving players.
You can toggle detection of friends and enemies using the aliases "scane"
and "scanf"
or impulse 1 and 2 after the Pre-Impulse. For more information on
Pre-Impulses, see the Impulse Summary.
Medikit:
The COMBAT MEDIC has a medikit which allows him to heal any other member
of his/her team by hitting them with his axe, when it is in Medikit Mode.
Each hit will heal them 10 points and reduce the 'ammo' for the medikit
by 10. You can see how much 'ammo' for the medikit you have by looking
at your inventory. If the COMBAT MEDIC walks over a health box while at
maximum health, the health box will be used to replenish the medikit
'ammo'.
Detpack:
The DEMOLITION MAN has a Detpack. This is a large-scale explosive device.
When the DEMOLITION MAN places it he is unable to move for 4 seconds
while he primes it.
The timer on the Detpack is set by the DEMOLITION MAN. e.g. After the
Pre-Impulse, an Impulse of 10 sets the timer for 10 seconds. For more
information on Pre-Impulses, see the Impulse Summary.
Oh yeah, Scouts can disarm them by running over them :)
New Rules
---------
Reloading:
All basic weapons except the Nailgun and Super Nailgun have clips. When
all
the ammo in a clip is spent, the weapon is reloaded. This can take
anywhere
from 1 second for the Shotgun to 5 seconds for the Rocket Launcher. Ammo
amounts in the clips varies between weapons.
While reloading, you cannot change weapons.
Alias Summary
--------------
Aliases are fine and dandy, but there's just one small problem with them :)
If you're playing a single-player game, aliases that use a Pre-Impulse,
such
as all the Help, Scanner, Detpack, and Setskin aliases, don't work if you
type them in at the console.
If you're playing a single-player game, you'll have to bind them to a key,
get out of the console, and press the key. It's a bummer, but hey!, this
patch is for team games :)
And Pre-Impulses are too good to remove because of it.
The aliases that are automatically created for you by TeamFortress are:
Help Related
helpme : Display Help Index
generalhelp : Display General command help
classhelp : Display Class command help
weaponhelp : Display Weapon command help
itemhelp : Display Item command help
skinhelp : Display Skin command help
teamhelp : Display Team command help
preimphelp : Display Pre-Impulse help
showpreimp : Display a list of the Pre-Impulses used
showimp : DIsplay a list of the Impulses used
General
inv : Display your inventory
showtf : Display the status of all Toggleflags
Class Changing
scout : Change class to Scout
sniper : Change class to Sniper
soldier : Change class to Soldier
demoman : Change class to Demolitions Man
medic : Change class to Combat Medic
hwguy : Change class to Heavy Weapons Guy
randompc : Change class to Random Class
Grenades
primeone : Prime a grenade of Type 1
primetwo : Prime a grenade of Type 2
throwgren : Throw whatever grenade you've primed
Pipebombs
detpipe : Detonate all your pipebombs
Scanner
scane : Toggle detection of enemies with the Scanner
scanf : Toggle detection of friendlies with the Scanner
Sample aliases for the Scanner
scan10 : Scan using 10 cells
scan50 : Scan using 50 cells
scan250 : Scan using 250 cells
Sample aliases for the Detpack
det5 : Set your detpack for 5 seconds
det20 : Set your detpack for 20 seconds
det250 : Set your detpack for 250 seconds
Skin Selection
nextskin : Change skin to the next skin in the player.mdl
prevskin : Change skin to the previous skin in the player.mdl
Sample aliases for Set Skin
skin10 : Change skin to number 10 in the player.mdl
skin20 : Change skin to number 20 in the player.mdl
Team Handling
imin1 : Start/Join Team 1
imin2 : Start/Join Team 2
imin3 : Start/Join Team 3
imin4 : Start/Join Team 4
showscores : Display Team Scores
The sample aliases are examples of how the Pre-Impulses commands are used.
For more information on Pre-Impulses and how to create your own aliases for
Scanner/Detpack/Setskin etc, see the Impulse Summary.
Impulse Summary
---------------
In version 1.0 everything relied on Impulses. Now, it's all bound to
aliases.
This means you don't have to know the impulses unless you want to merge
this
with another patch, in which case you can look at the code, or type
"showimp"
in the console.
The only thing I should mention is Pre-Impulses. A Pre-Impulse is an
impulse
which must be used before another impulse. The second impulse can then be
interpreted in a different way.
For example:
The SCOUT's Motion Detector has a Pre-Impulse of 249. You specify the
amount of energy you want to spend on the scan with an impulse after it.
So if you wanted to use 50 energy to scan, you would do Impulse 249
followed by Impulse 50. The recommended way to do this is to bind
a key to an alias. In the console, you could do this:
alias scan_50 "impulse 249; wait; impulse 50"
bind S scan_50
This would make 'S' do a scan using 50 energy.
There are already aliases created for all Pre-Impulse things, but you might
to make your own, for different time/energy usages.
You will probably want to make an alias to set your favourite skin when
playing Multiskin, so you don't have to use nextskin 14 times if you
like skin 15. Create an alias which does the Multiskin Pre-Impulse(202),
and
then does the Impulse matching the skin you want, e.g. 15.
Team Details
-----------------------
We now handle a basic Team structure. Apart from standard Teamplay,
you can use FortressTeams. In FortressTeams we allow upto 4 different
teams on the one map.
Players can join a team by using the aliases imin1,imin2,imin3, and imin4.
The first player to join a particular team becomes the Team Leader, and
the color of his/her pants becomes the Team Color. Any players who
join that Team from then on will have their colors automatically changed
to the Team Colors.
Once players join a team they cannot change to another team.
Any player who attempts to change their _pants_ color away from the
Team Color will be penalised. Shirt colors can be changed freely.
FortressTeams are a must on any Map that was written for TeamFortress,
since the spawnpoints on a TeamFortress Map are allocated to particular
teams. See the TeamFortressMap Details for more info.
Multiskin Details
-----------------
We now have support for skins in TeamFortress. There are two modes:
Multiskin and Classkin, which is the default. With Classkin, your
skin is set to a skin based on your Class, and you cannot change it.
Multiskin works the same way as the Original Multiskin by Dennis
Noordsij. For now, all skins we use are skins which come with Multiskin,
but we've got a couple of people drawing skins right now, and when
they're done, we'll give them to Dennis to include in Multiskin.
If you download a newer version of Multiskin that has more skins
in it, you will have to edit defs.qc. Right near the end of the
file is line like this:
float MS_MAX_SKIN = 32;
Change the 32 to the number of skins in the new player.mdl.
The latest version of Multiskin's player.mdl can always be
found at http://www.inter.NL.net/users/L.J.Noordsij/qc.htm
We've now have skins for 3 of the TeamFortress classes, so
hopefully by the next release we'll have them all done.
Anyone who's interested in doing mdls/skins for our new
weapons and items, please email us.
Availability
------------
The latest version of this patch can always be found at the
TeamFortress WWW page - http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/~cookj/index.htm
The latest version should also be on the following locations:
ftp.cdrom.com/pub/quake/ <- check incoming, newstuff or quakec/multiplayer
The Quake Stomping Grounds - http://www.stomped.com/files.shtml
Other Stuff
-----------
TeamFortress was written by Robin Walker and John Cook. Various other
people
contributed ideas to it. I can't hope to list them all, but here's some of
them:
Ian Caughley, Peter Wilson, Jason Grant.
Some of the code for TeamFortress was influenced by other people's.
They are as follows:
Mirv Grenade code was influenced by Firewall code from Steve Bond
(wedge@nuc.net)
Pipebomb code was influenced by code from AsmodeusB (tazq@sos.on.ca)
Although we've never seen their code, these people are credited here
because they've got great ideas:
Multiskin, from the first person to work it out, Dennis Noordsij
(lnoordsi@inter.NL.net)
Also, thanks must go to the following people for their comments and
suggestions:
John Wolsch (john_w@bga.com)
Thomas LULLIER (106110.1406@compuserve.com)
Bas Olthoff (reboot@dsl.nl)
Phil Sykes (phil@centrenet.co.uk)
Serendip (an705819@anon.penet.fi)
Frank O'Connor (FrankO@mail.Publix.com)
Chi Tang (ctang@nucleus.com)
Chris Etheridge (etherbi@castlegate.net)
We wouldn't have got past 1.0, let alone 1.1, if it wasn't for these
guys/gals.
And finally, thanks must go to Mike Kaminski (LKKAM@msn.com), for pointing
out the stupidest mistake I've made for a while :)
Robin. (Bro in Quake)
walker@netspace.net.au
_____________________________________________________
Sample cfg file:
{Obviously, these keys are based on my own style of keyboard play. You may
need to alter the actual keys used radically to suit the shape of your own
hands! Note that I trash the function keys, so don't use this in single
player and expect quick-save/load keys!}
-------------------------------------------------
bind F1 scout
bind F2 sniper
bind F3 soldier
bind F4 demoman
bind F5 medic
bind F6 hwguy
bind F7 randompc
bind d primeone
bind g primetwo
bind f throwgren
bind q detpipe
bind , det5
bind . det20
bind / det250
bind [ prevskin
bind ] nextskin
------------------------------------------------
Phew!
There will be an exam on this on Monday! Have a good time!
--
====
Rick Owen
UK Quake server
minos.beyond2000.co.uk 194.217.248.15
http://www.beyond2000.co.uk/minos/