Equilibrium by AZ Development Team
v1.0b Documentation

1. What is Equilibrium?
2. Server creation information
3. Map making information
4. Can I help out at AZ Dev?
5. Full Additional/modified cvar list
6. Credits

1. What is Equilibrium?

Equilibrium is a teamplay based mod built around one core gameplay concept. The concept is highly generic and can be applied to almost any form of play, and I will explain it as such. The game starts with the two teams starting at 50:50 score. When a team gains points it drags the score towards their end of the balance, and likewise for the other team. This is applied in Quake by fragging the opposite team, which gains your team points, and to win the game you must gain a 100% share of the points. However, if you are winning it is fairly easy for the other team to turn the game around, all they have to do is keep fragging faster than you in order to drag the balance back to equilibrium point (50:50) and then towards their side of the scale. There are various modes in Equilibrium for Q3A.

Equilibrium Teamplay

Equilibrium teamplay is a generic mode which works as described above, consisting of two teams who fight for 100% share of the points. This mode will work on any FFA or standard map, and as such will probably be the most common in online servers (once we get some).

Equilibrium CTF

Equilibrium CTF is also built around the generic scoring system, however only 1 point is gained for fragging someone and therefore most of the points can be gained by capturing the enemy flag. This will work with any CTF map.

Equilibrium Showdown

This is the main mode in Equilibrium for Q3A. The scoring system is identical to that of Equilibrium Teamplay, however there is one vital difference: There are reset buttons in the team's bases. If your team is losing badly, you can preform an all-out kamikaze attack in order to reach the reset switch, and if you press it the score will be returned to 50:50. Specialist maps are needed for this at present, however plans are under way to get this working in standard maps and CTF maps as well.

Equilibrium Tournament

This is a 1 on 1 version of the equilibrium concept, using the standard tourney gameplay but with the equilibrium scoring system.

2. Server Creation Information

There isn't much to creating an equilibrium server, other than understanding the scoring system. In Equilibrium Teamplay the points per frag is defined by the fraglimit value. The points per frag formula is 50/FL, where FL is the fraglimit; so a fraglimit of 5 will mean that 10 points will be given per frag (and hence 5 outright frags to win). A value of 20 is most appropriate for team games.

In Equilibrium CTF, the points per capture is defined in the capturelimit cvar, using 50/CL to calculate the points per capture. The points per frag in CTF games is always 1.

Equilibrium Showdown uses the fraglimit cvar in the same way as Equilibrium Teamplay.

An additional cvar that applies to all modes is eq_negfrags, which when set to "0" means that when a player kills himself his team does not lose points, and when set to "1" the team will lose points. I implemented this to give the server operator more choice in the gameplay he/she prefers.

3. Map making information

In order to create maps for Equilibrium Showdown, you will need the new entity definition file which you can get here. Place this in your Q3Radiant directory, and create a map with 2 bases and a neutral zone in the middle (as per teamplay or CTF maps). Then, you need to add the special entities.

eq_redplayer_spawn is the starting spawn point for new red team players. You can have more than one (this is advisable) and I suggest you place it in the center of the red base.
eq_red_spawn is the standard spawn point for red players when they die. It is advisable that you have more than one of these, just like you would add more than one info_player_deathmatch. Place them in the red base preferrably.
eq_blueplayer_spawn is he starting spawn point for new blue team players. You can have more than one (this is advisable) and I suggest you place it in the center of the blue base.
eq_red_spawn is the standard spawn point for red players when they die. It is advisable that you have more than one of these, just like you would add more than one info_player_deathmatch. Place them in the red base preferrably.
eq_red_resetbutton - This is the reset button that the red team can use. NOTICE, this should be placed in the BLUE BASE in an easily defendable location. Putting it in the red base will result in the game being too easy to reset. This entity should be attached to a brush as you would attach func_button to a brush, setting the standard parameters.
eq_blue_resetbutton - This is the reset button that the blue team can use. NOTICE, this should be placed in the RED BASE in an easily defendable location. Putting it in the blue base will result in the game being too easy to reset. This entity should be attached to a brush as you would attach func_button to a brush, setting the standard parameters.
eq_blue_door - This is a door entity that will only open for the blue team. It behaves identically to the normal door entity.
eq_red_door - This is a door entity that will only open for the red team. It behaves identically to the normal door entity.

Once you have all those entities, EQ Showdown should work properly with your map.

4. Can I help out at AZ Dev?

We're currently looking for new artists, mappers and modelers. If you are interested in helping, mail me with samples of your work and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

I may also be interested in taking on a new assistant programmer in the near future, so if you are interested (and have prior experience of Quake 2 or Q3A mod making) then get in touch.

5. Full additional/modified cvar list

CVAR | DESCRIPTION | POSSIBLE SETTINGS
cg_eqtheme | Stores the directory name of the HUD "Theme" (i.e. the way the HUD graphics look). | Any directory name under the "eqart" path. I suggest you place any new themes you make into a .pk3 file and distribute it (send it to us and we'll put it on the AZ Dev. webpage), so that there are no problems with pure server settings etc. The core Equilibrium distribution contains the following themes that can be set: "" - The default theme. If a theme is loaded and found to be invalid, then Equilibrium defaults to this theme to prevent weird HUD problems. "Vortex" - A non-animated theme based around a red/blue vortex gradient and fire/ice logos for the red and blue teams. "Elemental" - An animated theme based around the main elements of the universe: fire, ice, and water. If you are distracted by moving components on the HUD, then use vortex or the standard theme instead.
eq_negfrags | Server side. This cvar determines whether or not a team loses points when it's players kill themselves or each other. | "1" - A team loses points when it's player commit suicide or kill each other. "0" - A team does not lose points when it's players commit suicide or kill each other.
fraglimit | Server side. This has been modified for the equilibrium scoring system. What it represents is the total number of outright frags required to win. | Anything up to around "50" can be set to this, beyond that results are unpredictable as the scores are stored as integers within equilibrium, and so setting beyond 50 means that "points per frag" would be below 1, and as such could round down to 0. This would mean a team could never score! "Points per frag" is defined by 50 divided by this value. If fraglimit is set to "0", then "points per frag" depends on the number of players on the scoring team, and is defined by 50 / (2.5 X NumPlayers).
capturelimit | Server side. This has been modified in the same way as fraglimit but defines the points per capture instead. | Set in the same way as fraglimit, with the same restrictions.

6. Credits

Equilibrium by AZ Development Team
Concept by Pete Evans

Head Programmer
Iain McGinniss

Sketch & Concept artist
Andrew Wooden

Texture and 2D Artist
Peter Ibrahim

Map Designer
Sam Farrand

Musician
Andrew Plummer

Head Beta Tester
Pete Evans

Beta Testers
The ourm8s E-Group
Jonathan Davey
SAS
Leviathon
Lewser
The Blastradius.com team

Special Thanks To:
ID Software of course!
Brandon Reinhart for that truly inspirational .plan update
John Romero for responding to one of my e-mails once >8^)
Barrysworld for being such nice chaps
John Carmack for being my idol >8^)
Jade McLure for all the feedback he gives