Quake - Gamebusters Part One ---------------------------- This is a directory containing all the support material for the 'Quake' Gamebusters articles. There are some Quake demo files here to show you how to do some of the things I have written about in the article. Play these demo files by typing 'playdemo in the Quake console. AF.DEM - This is a demo file for Quake which I created for my own customised introduction. If you can't be bothered to make your own then this one will be fine. It also shows you how to get ALL the secrets on Level 1 of Quake. Nightmare.DEM - A demo showing you how to get 'nightmare skill level' and also another secret room. This level is designed for experts, so be warned! RocketJump.DEM - A demo showing some of the applications of Rocket Jumping, and how to get it right! Tough.DEM - A demo exactly the same as AF.DEM (shows you first level and how to get ALL secrets) but this time on Nightmare skill level! Just to show you how hard it really is! autoexec.cfg - This is the file which you must create to customise the Quake introduction. Copy this file to Quake/id1/ along with the AF.DEM and you will have a new Quake introduction. --------------------------------·oO0Oo·------------------------------ Here's an Ascii text version of the article so you can cut and paste syntaxes instead of having to copy them exactly. The original file was created on Wordsworth 3.1SE. Gamebusters : Quake - By Gareth Murfin Here's the first part of a technical guide for Quake. This guide is designed to help you customise Quake and make it easier to play and win. I will assume that you have Quake running at an acceptable rate and that you are acquainted with the actual game. This guide is slightly more advanced than the usual Gamebusters guides, so if you're an absolute beginner, you may want to take things a bit slower. Controlling yourself Quake features a TRUE 3D environment which means you can't use a simple control method like you can on Doom. The best way to win in both single and Multiplayer is to use the mouse and keyboard simultaneously. Usually the mouse is controlled by your right hand and the cursor keys by your left hand. I recommend you change the Quake default settings to the following : Freelook on, lookspring off, lookstrafe off. This will allow you to look around the room freely with the mouse. Now change the mouse sensitivity to about 15, this allows fast 360 degree rotation so you can kill people who decide to creep up on you. Now go to 'Customize controls' and make sure you have the following set up :- Attack Mouse 1 Jump/swim up Enter Walk forward Up arrow or Mouse 2 Backpedal Down arrow Step left left arrow Step Right right arrow Configuring your control method like this will make things a lot easier because you can freely look round the room, sidestep, run or fire without having to look down once. I recommend using sidestep a lot to dodge oncoming gunfire instead of trying to back pedal and run. Also realise that the 'Help' key zooms in on the opposition, so you can accurately hit them even if they are in the distance. If you are using a PC keyboard then the help key should be 'Page Down'. The Console Quake features a 'Console' which allows you to access otherwise inaccessible commands and normal commands more quickly. Think of the console like a Shell in Workbench, it even features tab completion of commands and a command history. To bring up the console, press the tilde key (~). Here are some useful Console commands : Record [track] - Records your own Quake demo with optional CD audio track. e.g. Record AF.dem E1M1 5 Playdemo - Plays back Quake demos. e.g. Playdemo AF.dem Kill - Kills your character, incase you're trapped somewhere Ping - Use in net mode to see the speed of everyone's connections, the higher your ping the slower your connection Screenshot - takes an exact screenshot of your current Quake game and saves it as Quake00.pcx, (Use Ppaint to view pcx files, The full Ppaint 7 was on AFCD26) Crosshair 1 - Turns gun crosshair on for aiming (Crosshair 0 to switch it off) Impulse <1-8> - Will swap to a different weapon, 1 is shotgun, 8 is Thunderbolt. +attack - Makes you constantly fire your current weapon until -attack is entered into the console. Bind - Attaches a command to a key. e.g. bind R "+impulse 7" - this would mean pushing 'R' swaps your current gun to the Rocket launcher. Bindings and aliases Binding is a great function of Quake, it allows you to attach long tedious commands to one key on the keyboard. This allows you to perform long winded functions in seconds. Aliases allow you to attach a whole string of commands to one word, which can then be binded to a key. Here are some examples of possible bindings and aliases : bind S "save AF" - Binds 'S' so that you can save your game as AF by pressing S at any time. bind D "Record AF.dem E1M1 5" - Binds 'D' so that you can record a demo by pressing D. Alias rocket "impulse 7 ; +attack ; wait ; -attack ; impulse 3" - This alias will make you get out your rocket launcher (impulse 7) then fire a shot (+attack) then swap back to the shotgun (impulse 3) Bind R "rocket" - This would bind R to the Alias 'rocket'. Cheats Like all ID software games there's plenty of cheats, these will only work in single player mode. Here's a selection of the best : God - You can't be killed (on/off) Fly - You can fly (on/off) Impulse 9 - full weapons and ammo Impulse 255 - Quad Damage Impulse 11 - Gives you a Rune Noclip - Walk through walls Notarget - Monsters don't shoot you until you shoot them Give x - Gives you x number of S=shells N=Nails R=Rockets C=Cells H= Health Points Give x - Gives you weapon x (1 - 8) Map EeMm - Skip level; e is the episode number and m is the map number (e.g. MAP E1M1) Sv_gravity <1-3500> - Changes gravity 1 is low 3500 is high Sv_friction <1-1000>- Changes the friction 1 is low, 1000 is high Rocket jump cheat : There are some secret rooms in Quake which cannot be reached by normal jumping, so you must use a special technique called 'Rocket Jumping'. This involves aiming the Rocket launcher at your feet, and running forwards. Then jumping and when you are about to reach the peak of the jump fire the rocket launcher directly down whilst still pushing forwards. This will result in you being thrown up into the air much higher than a normal jump so you can get to the really secret rooms. But beware you will lose about 50% of your health so its better to practise first in one player mode using infinite weapons and health. (There's a Quake demo file on the CD showing you how to do this.) Fixing a Save Game file Every once in a while Quake Amiga will crash, this happens even on the PC and Mac versions. If Quake happens to crash whilst trying to save your game then it could corrupt the data so that your save game will not load any more. This could mean losing hours of play and having to start all over again! However there is a solution. Here is what you should do : Make a backup of the save game file and keep it safe somewhere, it will be in Quake/id and you will recognise it by the SAV prefix on the end. Load the save game file into a decent text editor such as GoldED or Blacks Editor. Go to the very end of the text file and find the last characters. If there is no " on the end, then add it manually. Now you need to add the closing brackets, so you must add underneath the last line } { } each on a separate new line. The corrupt save game file could look something like this "absmax" "-223.000000 1361.000000 -87.000000" "origin" "-224.000000 1360.0000 and after fixing, it should look like this : "absmax" "-223.000000 1361.000000 -87.000000" "origin" "-224.000000 1360.0000" } { } Now Quake can understand the save game file again. although it isn't 100% fixed so you must play the game until you finish the current level before you save again. This is so Quake can generate the missing data itself. Customising the Introduction As soon as Quake starts it plays an introduction showing you how to play the game. This is quite good but it gets boring after you've seen it a hundred times so wouldn't it be good if you could make your own introduction for Quake? Heres how.. First you need to record your own Quake demo, as described earlier. Record an interesting demo and then fire up your favourite text editor again and make a simple text file with the following text in it : // $VER: autoexec.cfg startdemos demos Now save this file as autoexec.cfg in Quake/id1/. So that's Quake/id1/autoexec.cfg. If this file already exists then simply add the words to the bottom of the file. Now load up Quake and voila, you have customised the introduction, it even returns you to the console afterwards so you can start a game. If you want to make your introduction play behind the main menu instead, then simply add 'menu_main' to the bottom of the script. Secret difficulty setting Quake has literally hundreds of secrets and I couldn't begin to explain them all here, but this one is so good it will keep you playing Quake for a lot longer. It's a completely new skill level aptly named - Nightmare. It really is just for advanced Quake users because it is very difficult. To access it you must do the following : Walk through any of the three halls and proceed to the entrance of the fourth episode. As you drop through the pool, keep as close to the side as possible and pull backwards. If all goes well you will land on a high, narrow beam which leads round to a door on the left. Go through the door and you'll find a teleporter, just before you enter this shoot the button on the wall. This will allow you access to another secret level later on in the game. (There's a Quake demo file on the CD showing you how to do this.) Thats it for this month, join me next month for an indepth look at Quake deathmatch play on the internet and how to make scripts to help you win!