Expert Quake v1.31
Client Documentation

-----------------
Expert Quake Info
-----------------

        Expert Quake is a QW mod originally based on JTEAM, or "The
Complete Enhanced Teamplay" by John Spickes.  Expert Quake supports
deathmatch, arena, teamplay and CTF modes, with a massive list of 
features that can be enabled or disabled in any mode where it makes
sense to do so.  For instance, both the grappling hook and the 
alternate powerup set are available in deathmatch, arena, teamplay
and CTF.  Expert Quake is so configurable that it can be reverted
to normal Quake behavior in all but a few trivial ways.

        Expert Quake is the product of extended design focusing on
game depth and playability.  Through many means, including balance
and lowered lethality, simple-minded tactics such as camping and 
ambushing are eliminated in Expert because they are ineffective, 
and reflexes and ping have a reduced role in the game.  Only 
through great skill and teamwork can players excel at Expert.

        The Expert Quake web page :

http://www.planetquake.com/expert/

        Specifically the design document for Expert Quake is at :

http://www.planetquake.com/expert/qgame.html

---------------
Necessary Files
---------------

Depending on the features a server has enabled, you may be required to
download files before joining the game.  

The full set of custom files that are specific to Expert Quake will
always be available at the Expert Quake home page:
http://www.planetquake.com/expert/

To play on an Expert CTF server, the custom maps for Threewave CTF
will typically be required:
http://threewave.planetquake.com/

Some Expert CTF servers may also use maps from the CTF Expansion
Project:
http://www.frag.com/ctf/

.. or from All-Star CTF:
http://www.planetquake.com/academy/allstar/allstar.htm

Expert Arena servers will use the maps for Rocket Arena:
http://www.planetquake.com/servers/arena/

.. and possibly from the Rocket Arena Archive:
http://www.88.com/rama/

----------
Game Modes
----------

CTF
---

Expert CTF behaves similarly to Threewave CTF for most CTF basics, with
some exceptions.

The status bar is altered to include information about whose team you're
on, what the status of each team's flag is, and what each team's score is.

The Expert Hook behaves differently from the grappling hook used in
Threewave (see below).

Instead of glowing, the flags make a 'flapping' sound.  This is because 
1) Having the flag glow causes severe framerate problems for some
people.
2) Having the flag make noise is less surreal.
3) There is no longer an ambiguity with powerup glows.

Players do not get free points for teammate's captures.  Instead,
through the Expert scoring system's Assists and Bonuses, players
will get points reflecting the extent to which a player has benefitted 
his team (rather than presence on the server).  The best individual 
players on the server should have the highest score, regardless of 
team.  Team score is separate, appears in the status bar, and reflects
the number of captures each team has made.

FlagTrack
---------
FlagTrack is a highly mobile game, similar to both CTF and keep-away. 
It can be played on any maps good for deathmatch, and doesn't require 
modifications to the map.

There are two teams, and multiple flags per team.  To capture, bring
your team's flag together with an enemy flag.  Any player can carry 
_either_ team's flag, and holding onto flags is the primary method by
which a team defends it's flags.  Flag carriers can drop enemy flags 
but not their own flags.  After a capture, a carrier retains his own 
team's flag.

Flags are spawned on top of the item in the level furthest away from 
all other players and flags in the level.  This happens both at the 
beginning of the level, and after any flag is captured.

The flagtrack status bar is a tracking readout, allowing players to
track their team's flags on the ground and their team's flag carriers.
The status bar automatically chooses the right target to track based
on the situation.  The tracking readout shows the distance to the 
target (numeric), the angle to the target (graphical) and the vertical
distance to the target (graphical). 

A typical flagtrack situation might involve a red player carrying a red
flag, trying to guard another red flag on the ground until another red
player arrives to carry it.  If that red player arrives carrying a blue 
flag, the arriving player can drop the blue flag and the red player 
carrying the red flag can capture it by running over it.  In this case 
the arriving player recieves an assist.  Alternately, the arriving red 
player carrying a blue flag might pick up the red flag on the ground,
which constitutes a capture as well.

Arena
-----
Expert Arena is different from Rocket Arena in the following ways:

Players don't drop packs.  All fights start perfectly even, including
ammo.

Slightly more ammo is given out on spawn.

If the "Performance" feature is enabled, players not in the arena are 
invisible.  This has been tested to reduce bandwidth requirements,
although it's not clear if the savings come from not getting updates
about other players at all, or from not getting animation frames and
such. 

-----------------
Modeless Features
-----------------

These features may appear in any mode.  Note that not all Expert servers
will have all these features enabled.  To find out which are enabled,
type "settings" at the console.

Balanced Weapons
----------------
On a server with Balanced Weapons enabled, the damage, rate of 
fire, projectile speed, armor penetration, and rate of ammo 
consumption for each weapon are altered.  The best weapon to 
have then changes depending on the situation a player is in,
making weapon acquisition and control far less important and 
making skill with ALL the weapons vital.

Armor normally absorbs some percentage of damage done to you.
Weapons with armor penetration reduce the damage reduction by
the percentage shown.

Classic Weapons:

Weapon            Damage      Rate  Speed Ammo Used   Armor DmgRate
------            ------      ---   ----- ---------   ----- -------
Axe               20          0.5   N/A   N/A           0%   40/sec
Shotgun           24=4*6      0.5   N/A   1 shell       0%   48/sec
Super Shotgun     56=4*14     0.7   N/A   2 shells      0%   80/sec
Nailgun           9           0.1   1000  1 nail        0%   90/sec
Super Nailgun     18          0.1   1000  2 nails       0%  180/sec
Grenade Launcher  120 rad     0.6   N/A   1 rocket      0%  200/sec
Rocket Launcher   120,120rad  0.8   1000  1 rocket      0%  150/sec
Lightning Gun     30          0.1   N/A   1 cell        0%  300/sec

Balanced Weapons:

Weapon            Damage      Rate  Speed Ammo Used   Armor DmgRate
------            ------      ---   ----- ---------   ----- -------
Axe               80          0.5   N/A   N/A           0%  160/sec
Shotgun           40=5*8      0.5   N/A   1 shell      30%   80/sec
Super Shotgun     70=5*14     0.7   N/A   2 shells     30%  100/sec
Nailgun           13          0.1   1700  1 nail       50%  130/sec
Super Nailgun     15          0.1   1000  1 nail       50%  150/sec
Grenade Launcher  75 rad      0.6   N/A   1 rocket      0%  125/sec
Rocket Launcher   100, 85 rad 0.8   1000  1 rocket      0%  125/sec
Lightning Gun     12          0.1   N/A   1 cell       30%  120/sec

Shotgun and Super Shotgun fire 8 and 14 shots respectively.  Each
piece of shot does 5 damage, so these weapons have a maximum damage
of 40 and 70.  The rocket launcher does 100 damage outright to any
target it hits directly.  Any targets that aren't hit directly may
receive "radius damage", or splash damage.  The closer you are to the
point of impact, the more splash damage you take.

Balanced Items
-------------
In normal Quake, the armors are progessively more powerful.  With
Balanced Items set, the armors are all of similar power, but different
usage.

Absorption% is the percentage of each hit that the armor will absorb
(rather than your health).  Total Absorption is the total amount of
damage that your armor can absorb before being destroyed, and Value
is the product of the two (overall power). 

Classic Armor:

Armor       Absorption%       Total Absorption        Value
-----       -----             -----                   -----
Green       30%               100                     30
Yellow      60%               150                     90
Red         80%               200                     160

Balanced Armor:

Armor       Absorption%       Total Absorption        Value
-----       -----             -----                   -----
Green       30%               190                     57
Yellow      45%               130                     58.5
Red         60%               100                     60

Alternate Weapons
-----------------

There are no alternate modes for the nailgun or for the lightning gun.

To switch between conventional and alternate weapon modes, hit '9'.
The equivalent impulse is "impulse 210".

Throwing Axe, alternate for Axe
        Medium flight speed
        75 damage on direct impact, 50 damage on bounce
        0.7 second refire.
        Players spawn with 4 axes
        Axes that have come to rest can be picked up, and axes can be
        gotten from backpacks.  Up to 15 axes can be carried

Pulse Rifle, alternate for Shotgun
        Fast flight speed
        60 damage on direct impact
        0.5 second refire
        30% armor penetration
        Requires no ammo.
        
Pulse Spread, alternate for Super Shotgun
        Medium flight speed
        25 damage per bolt, 3 parallel bolts
        0.7 second refire
        30% armor penetration
        Uses one cell.

Fleshripper, alternate for Super Nailgun
        High flight speed
        50 damage per gib, 6 to self
        0.3 second refire

Squirrel Bombs, alternate for Grenade Launcher
        Like a grenade, except the projectile regains it's original 
        velocity after a bounce, exploding only on hitting a target
        or vertical surface.
        100 splash damage
        0.8 second refire

Mortar Launcher, alternate for Rocket Launcher
        Ballistic flight path (arcs through air).
        90 radius, less damage dropoff with distance from explosion,
        smaller max radius.
        0.7 second refire

Expert Hook
-----------

EQ treats the hook as an action, like jumping, which is completely
independant of weapons use.  The hook is a movement tool.

To use the hook, bind a key to "+hook", eg to use your right mouse
button for the hook:

bind mouse2 +hook

Hold down the button you have bound to fire and extend the hook,
release the button to release the hook.  You can fire and switch
weapons at any time.

The key you bind for the hook should be about as handy as your
fire key.  Advanced players continuously use the hook, including
in the middle of combat.

The "ball" of the Expert Hook has much higher flight speed than
most other hooks, but the "pull rate" or "reel-in rate" is lower.

The hook will not attach to players, instead inflicting 10 points 
of damage and releasing.  The hook will only allow you to hold 
to a surface for 3 seconds, to deter ambushing.

For performance reasons, the Expert Hook uses 2 instead of 3
chain links, doesn't create links on shorter hooks, and updates 
the link positions only 1/3 as often.

Alternate Powerups
------------------

Fiend's Pentagram, alternate for Pentagram of Protection
Grabbing this gives you Fiend jumping, which is the ability to
jump like a fiend, and Environment immunity, which protects 
you from slime, lava, and drowning in water.

Ring of Will, alternate for Ring of Shadows
While wearing the Ring of Will, you aren't pushed around by
people's weapons, and your weapons bump other people around 
even more than normal.

Glyph of the Lich, alternate for Quad Damage
If you shoot an enemy player, you gain half the _health_ damage 
you do back as health.

Ark of Life, alternate for 100 Health
Grabbing this restores you to full health and full green armor.

Status Bar
----------

The status bar is present in every mode, and displays different
information in each mode.  The server stores each player's status
bar configuration in an infokey variable called "statusbar", which
players can set directly, even before joining a server from a .cfg
file.  For example, for 400x300 resolution:

setinfo statusbar 3

An infokey "hud2" can be used to center the statusbar, so that the
entire statusbar can be seen through the HUD display introduced 
in Quakeworld 2.0.

Legal values for the 'statusbar' infokey variable are listed in the
table below, along with impulse that will set the statusbar 
variable. 

Resolution        Impulse           sbar
------            ------            ------
off               70                0
320x200           71                1
320x240           72                2
400x300           73                3
640x350           74                4
512x384           75                5
640x400           76                6
640x480           77                7
800x600           78                8
1024x768          79                9

If your resolution doesn't match one of these, use the option with the 
next-lowest vertical resolution.  You can also set 'statusbar' directly 
to the vertical resolution, for example "setinfo statubar 384"

The status bar refreshes at different rates in different game modes. 
Each client can also set a custom refresh rate by setting the 
infokey "refresh".  "refresh" values of less than 0.2 seconds will 
behave as though "refresh" had been set to 0.2 seconds.

impulse 141 triggers an immediate status bar refresh.

Player Identify
---------------
In all games modes, the name of the player closest to the center of
your view appears in the statusbar.  This is accurate to within a few
degrees.  If there are no players within about 50 degrees of view arc,
no name will appear.

The statusbar is refreshed only periodically, and there is network
latency between the server and client, so player identify is not
perfectly accurate.

TeamAudio
---------

TeamAudio is a system for communicating with teammates using
pre-recorded audio messages.

There are two kinds of TeamAudio messages: local and global.  Global 
messages go to a player's entire team.  Local messages go to teammates 
within a certain radius (without decreasing volume).  Local messages 
can be enabled in both basic teamplay and CTF, and Global messages 
are only available in CTF.

When TeamAudio is enabled, typing "speech" at the console will dump 
text explaining what TeamAudio is, what impulses are attached to which 
messages, and what options are available.  Typing "usage" at the console 
explains what each of the TeamAudio messages is meant for.  impulse 160 
will bind the to the F5-F12 keys to the TeamAudio impulses.  The
impulses are also listed below so that you can bind the keys of your
choice.

In addition, impulses 180 and 181 bring up 'quick-help' charts of
messages.  Impulse 180 centerprints a listing of the global Team-Audio
messages and their keys, and Impulse 181 centerprints a listing of the
local Team-Audio messages and their keys.

Global Audio Messages

        "Is our base secure?"           - F5 -  IMPULSE 161
                Used by a Flag Carrier to ask if the base is safer than
                the field for the flag carrier.
        "Roger, base is clear."         - F6 -  IMPULSE 162
                Reply to tell the Flag Carrier that the base is safe,
                for the moment.
        "The base is under attack!"     - F7 -  IMPULSE 163
                Reply to tell the Flag Carrier that the base isn't safe yet.
        "Our base has been overrun!"    - F8 -  IMPULSE 164
                Used to warn everyone that the base's defense has been 
                beaten, and needs to be secured again as soon as possible.

Local Audio Messages

        "Link up for an assault,        - F9 -  IMPULSE 165
         wait for my signal."
                Use this to tell everyone nearby to hold up and make an 
                organized attempt at an attack.  Good for assaults on 
                well-defended bases or camper entrenchments.
        "Attack now!"                   - F10 - IMPULSE 166
                Tells your assembled group to begin the attack.  
        "Enemy units incoming"          - F11 - IMPULSE 167
                A general purpose 'heads-up' to everyone.
        "Cover me!"                     - F12 - IMPULSE 168
                This can be used in CTF by a flag carrier, or by an 
                attacker needing cover.

Loadmod
-------
Loadmod is a feature unique to Expert Quake.  Based on some
operator-set ratios, it checks each map's total armor and health
counts against this and, if one is too low for the current
maxplayers, it spawns more into the map dynamically.

Performance/Bandwidth tweaks
----------------------------
The Performance feature of Expert Quake is designed to improve
client framerate and network efficiency.  Most changes are 
a sacrifice in terms of eye candy for less lag and higher framerate.

When the Performance feature is enabled:

Nailguns and lightning guns fire less often, and each nail/bolt
does more damage.
The nailguns and lightning gun have no muzzle flash.
All flickering lights have constant intensity.
In Arena mode, players not in combat are invisible.

There's also an optional rocket model available at the Expert page
http://www.planetquake.com/expert
which disables the glow around flying rockets.  Since this is a
a replacement model, each player can choose whether they want 
glowing rockets or not, even on non-Expert servers.

Reference
---------
Until a classic quake port of Expert quake can be done (if one is),
those of you running Classic Quake may want to check out DaScott's
QDM mod, which handles most of the balance issues.  Also, for more
information on balance and gameplay, see Myrkul's Game Design and
Level Design documents on http://www.planetquake.com/expert/
