Name : Mass Destruction
Format of Quake-C: progs.dat, QuakeC source.
Author : Matthew Stewart-Smith (matthewss@btinternet.com)
	Other patches by me : NiMBUS gun (nimbus.zip)
	Levels by me : Refinery 4 (refin4.zip)
			(mydm1.zip)
Editor(s) used : Joe for Linux, a different version of Joe for OS/2,
MS-DOS Edit
Utilities used : iD's QCC for Unix running under Linux, FastQCC
for DOS, and FastQCC under Linux when I noticed that it had source
code included.

Description
-----------

This patch brings exactly what its name says to Quake, particularly
deathmatch. Note that it will probably not work very well with 2
players. The more players, the better.

Following is a list of features with descriptions:

Random items (by Charlie Turano [Trent], cturano@ix.netcom.com) :
In deathmatch, items respawn in random places! This should make things
a bit fairer. You can't guard the big weapon because you don't know
where it will be next! Note that I have had weird QuakeC "program
errors" while using this on some levels. Not very many levels though.

More cells : Because the weapons in this patch depend heavily on
cells, the thunderbolt takes 10 rather than 30 seconds to respawn (in
a random place; see above), and when collecting either this or cell
packs you get twice the number of cells you would normally. You can
also carry up to 200 cells.

NiMBUS gun : (press '8' to toggle NiMBUS/thunderbolt) Requires 75
cells to fire just once, and worth every one of them. In
single-player, this will easily clear a room of monsters and leave the
gibs showering down. In deathmatch, fire it in the general direction
of a player and (s)he will gib instantly, as will any other players
nearby. Enables the pentagram of protection for 1 second while firing
so you don't get toasted too. And try it with quad damage... ;-)

Homing rockets (by Chris Hilton, chris@ichat.com) : (press 7 to toggle
normal/homing rockets) I made these turn a bit (50%) more sharply and
stopped them increasing their speed over time (which previously
decreased their accuracy over long distances), but otherwise they are
unchanged. I also found the HomeFindTarget() routine immensely useful
in at least 3 other situations where it was necessary to find a target.

Vulcan cannon : (press '5' to toggle super nailgun/vulcan) I have no
idea quite how realistic or not this is, but it's a great addition to
your arsenal, particularly in deathmatch. Fires shells which explode
on impact. Uses 5 nails per shot. Quad damage makes it an ultimate
gibber.

Double-power shotguns : Both single- and double-barrelled shotguns are
twice as powerful. Their effect is similar to in Doom, i.e. you can
kill a player with 100% health and no armour with a single blast from
the DB.

Lightning turret : (impulse 20 or 'U' to toggle) Automatically fires
lightning at anything killable within a 400-unit (don't know exactly
what Quake's distance units are meant to be) radius. Oh, yes! :-> Uses
ammo twice as fast as the thunderbolt, and half of the power. You need
to have the thunderbolt to use it but it doesn't have to be selected
as your current weapon. BTW, it works underwater.

Shield : (impulse 21 or 'S' to toggle) A deflector shield that absorbs
damage and takes it away from your cells instead of your health. You
don't need the thunderbolt or anything, it will work as long as you
have cells. Also stops you moving when you are hit. Your cells still
disappear rather rapidly though, so don't stand still while you're
being shot! This shield won't make you anywhere near invincible,
although it can buy valuable time to allow you to run away. If you run
out of cells while the shield is active, it will still be considered
to be 'switched on' and will activate as soon as you pick up some more
cells. Note that you emit light (a la quad damage or pentagram) with
the shield active, so you might want to switch it off in the dark so
as not to attract attention to yourself.

Backpack mines (by Robert Parratt, a friend who does not have an
e-mail address currently) : (impulse 22 or 'M' to lay a mine) 
Deadly mines that look like backpacks and so are likely to be picked
up :->. Place them near a dead body to make them look less
suspicious. They make a very satisfying clicking sound half a second
before exploding very violently (other players nearby will also be
killed). The timing is perfect... just long enough to shout "shit!"
but never long enough to run away. You need 10 rockets to place a
mine. Each player is only allowed to place 2 at once, otherwise things
get out of hand. A player's mines explode when (s)he dies. They will
also explode anyway after 5 minutes.

Chainsaw (by Peter Wickis a.k.a Shinote, pwickis@bu.edu) : (replaces
axe) Allows you to chop your opponents into meaty bits, just like the
good old Doom chainsaw. This is implemented in a rather tacky way, and
isn't as good as Peter's original patch (except for the sounds),
e.g. it doesn't animate, but it works just as well. GREAT with quad
damage.

Mega-armour : When armour is spawned (or respawned) there is a random
chance that it will be mega-armour. This is much more effective at
stopping you losing health than normal armour, and you get 255 points
of it. Mega-armour is coloured light blue-grey.

Different protection suits : When you pick up what looks like a
biosuit, there is now a random chance that it will be any one of four
things:
Biosuit - just the bog-standard biosuit that protects you against
water and slime.
Heavy biosuit - also protects you against lava. Make sure there is a
way out of the lava though!
Grounding suit - provides complete protection against electric
weapons, i.e. the thunderbolt and lightning turret. Absorbs the energy
and uses it to charge your own supply! :-> Will quickly waste the ammo
of someone who has the turret active.
Armoured suit - gives you 512% of armour that will prevent you from
losing any health when you are hit. Allows you to survive a backpack
mine and have 40% health left (starting at 100%). Note that the status
bar reading will start at 0, then it will go down from 255 to 0
twice. So don't be alarmed when you see 0 in the armour section of the
status bar after picking up this suit.

N.B. I could find no levels with a biosuit and lava on them, so there
is a random chance that armour will be a suit instead when it is
spawned or when it respawns.

Laser Sight (by Scott Ramsay, sramsay@smart.net) : (impulse 45 or 'L'
to toggle) You've probably seen this one before. That laser sight that
turns blue when over something killable. Very useful in
deathmatch. But also bear in mind that your laser sight can be seen by
other players and will warn them of your presence.

HUD : (impulse 23 or 'H' to toggle) When the laser sight is aimed on
something killable (i.e. when it's blue), this will give you
information about your target (health, armour, weapons,
powerups). This is constantly updated as long as you have the laser
sight on a target. The information will look something like this:

JRandomLuser hlth:59 armr:150 yel
Shells:57 Nails:168 Rockets:12 Cells:42
Weapons: 1 2 3 7 (3)
Stuff: Inv. Gr.Suit Quad

This means that the laser sight is targeted on a player called
JRandomLuser. He has 59% health, and 150% armour, yellow type. The
next line is self-explanatory. The next line indicates that this
player has weapons 1 (chainsaw), 2 (shotgun), 3 (DB shotgun) and 7
(rocket launcher), and has weapon 3 selected. Also, he has
invulnerability, a grounding suit and quad damage, so you should
probably leg it very fast.

Autofire : (impulse 24 or 'F' to toggle) This will automatically fire
your currently selected weapon when the laser sight acquires a
target. GREAT with the shotguns. Doesn't seem to work with the
nailguns, I have no idea why. Also always fires twice, and I have no
idea why this happens either. N.B. this is not very intelligent and
will fire the rocket launcher at close range if you let it!

Known bugs
----------

* Gib sound sometimes doesn't play when using shotguns at close range.

* I have seen all my weapons disappear when picking up... was it a
suit or a backpack? I can't remember...

* On some levels (including D2MAP07, WARZONE and WATERPIT), Quake
gives you a "runaway loop error" (after playing for a few
minutes). This is something to do with the random items and I have
not yet tried to fix it. Just play a different level. The levels
mentioned above are all small 'arena' type levels... this might be
just a coincidence or it might be that these types of levels are
more susceptible to this bug.

* Laser sight entity sometimes stays hovering in the air above a dead
player.

--

This patch should make large deathmatches much more fun! Please e-mail
me and tell me what you think of this patch, and feel free to suggest
possible improvements.

Enjoy!
Matthew Stewart-Smith (a.k.a. NiMBUS)
matthewss@btinternet.com
