
Quake Tracker for Quake Classic.
A more balanced, friendly and up close version carnage.

Game: Quake Classic
Player: Single and Multiple
Creator: Azazel (frolich@iag.net)


Description
===========
I lowered the rocket and grenade damage levels and drastically increased 
that of the axe.  Ten seconds of invulerability is also allowed when a
player respawns, during which the player *is* allowed to fire on opponents. 
As an extra, I also allowed for an optional 'tracking rocket' that moves 
slower than the normal rocket but can lock onto a target (anything that 
can take damage and isn't a trigger or door) and track it.  

To show the competition how they could improve, I also added statistics to
the engine that show accuracy ratios for each type of ammo, damage
emitted ratios (total potential damage output versus damage inflicted)
and damage received ratios (how much damage you take between deaths).


Usage
=====
Make a directory under your Quake directory called 'balance' (or something
similar) and extract the file 'progs.dat' into it.  Then start up quake
with the command line option -game balance.

There are two additional impulse commands you should bind for the full game
to work.

    impulse 20
        Switch to tracking rockets.  You must already have the rocket
        laucher before you can use tracking rockets.

    impulse 30
        Show performance statistics.  These statistics are also output
        when the level ends (by timelimit, fraglimit, or exit), but you
        must pull down the console to see them.

I usually use the following bindings:

    bind 9 "impulse 20"
    bind p "impulse 30"

Although the tracking rockets are nice, they can be painfully slow at times
and can relatively easily be dodged.  

Additionally, DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE AXE!  One who is good at dodging and
can make effective use of the axe (i.e. they can hit you with it about
15-20% of the time) is a very terrifying opponent, indeed!  


Details
=======

Weapon Damage
-------------
    * The Axe does, on average, 100 points of damage.  I figure if you 
      can get in that close and actually hit your opponent, you deserve 
      a reward. ;}
    * The rocket does, on average, 75 points of damage, although there 
      is the slight possibility of a critical hit of 100 points of damage.
    * All other weapons are the same.

Tracking Rocket
---------------
    The tracking rocket can be a lot of fun and, at times, quite amusing.
    The best place to view the rocket in action is on the Ziggaurat Vertigo
    map, E1M8.

    Movement: The rocket has mass and thus inertia.  This means that if the
    rocket must change directions it has to do so slowly and in an arc.
    The speed of the rocket is slow enough that it is possible to travel
    around corners to hit its target.  A good opponent knows, however, how
    to trick the rocket into hitting a wall or other obstacle.

    Tracking: If a damageable target (other than a door or trigger) is on
    your aim vector (for those with auto-aiming on), the rocket will auto-
    matically lock onto that target when fired and will track it until
    either the target or the rocket is destroyed.

    Seek Mode: If a target cannot be acquired when fired, the rocket goes
    into seek mode.  A 45 degree cone is scanned for targets.  If a target
    is found, it is locked onto and tracked; otherwise the rocket continues
    travelling in a straight line until it lockes onto a target or hits an
    obstacle.

    Tracking Messages: The tracking rocket will display messages on your
    screen indicating its current status.  When a target is acquired and
    is a PC (as in a multiplayer opponent), that characters name will be
    displayed in the tracking message.


Statistics
----------
    Statistics are borken down by ammo type, not weapon type.  While this
    is slightly less informative, it was, by far, the easiest to implement.

    The stats display comes up in to places.  If you have a key bound to
    "impulse 30", then striking that key will dump your stats to the
    console.  If the level ends (via timelimit, fraglimit or player exit),
    the stats are automatically dumped to your console.  To view these
    stats, just press the tilde (~) key.

    The stats display is in the following format:

    Axe      :  0/0 ->  0
    Shotgun  :  0/0 ->  0
    Nails    :  0/0 ->  0
    Lightning:  0/0 ->  0
    Rockets  :  0/0 ->  0
    Inflicted:  0/0 ->  0
    Received :  0

    Foreach ammo type, the first and second numbers are the number of shots
    hit and the number of shots fired, respectively.  The number on the
    right of the arrow is the percentile ratio of the two numbers.

    The Inflicted ratio is the total amount of damge inflicted versus the
    total amount of damage emitted.  More on this later.

    The Received has two displays.  If you have never died, the number is
    the total amount of damage you have taken.  If you have died, a triple
    will show up indicating the minimum, mean, and maximum amount of damage
    taken before dying.  This is updated each time you die.

    Damage Inflicted
    ----------------
    The Inflicted ratio is highly sensetive to the use of rockets.  Because
    rockets and grenades are area damage weapons, the total emitted damage
    is higher than a nail or a shotgun shell.  This tends to increas the 
    emitted damgage much faster than the inflicted damage, thus driving the
    ratio through the floor.  I could have neglected the area effect of
    these weapons, but that would artifically inflate the ratio and
    possibly lead to > 100% ratios.  I figured lower ratios would lead to
    slightly less inflated egos.

    For those who depend heavily on grenades and rockets, an Inflicted
    ratio of 4.5 - 6% is pretty good.  Thos who scorn such weapons have
    been known to get ratios of up to 20%.

