THE LEVEL
---------

Name : Islands

Author : Matthew Stewart-Smith (stewarts@luna.co.uk or
matthewss@btinternet.com - neither of these addresses are likely to
last as I will probably be changing to Demon Internet soon)
	author of REFIN4, which is being put on at least 2 CDs.

Editor(s) used : Quest 1.092, DOS4GW versions of qbsp + vis, Linux
version of qcc, joe (for the QuakeC), GNU Emacs (for this readme file)

Computer used : AMD K5-133, Cirrus Logic 5446, Sound Blaster AWE32,
slightly better monitor than I had when I made REFIN4, OS/2 Warp 4,
Debian GNU/Linux 1.1 (kernel 2.0.29)
I do NOT use Windoze 95. Or NT. And I'm proud of it.

Build time : 1 day

QBSP time : about 30 seconds

Vis time : about 30 seconds (? - I wasn't counting!)

Light time : N/A. I didn't bother with any light sources. I think it
looks OK as it is with everything at full brightness. Of course you
could always add some light sources yourself.

Single player : maybe for testing

Cooperative : no

Standard deathmatch : maybe

Team deathmatch : YES!!!

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

A team deathmatch arena. A large outside area containing 3 islands. On
each of these islands is a base. There is also a 4th base
underwater. Each base contains lots of weapons and ammo. The idea is
that in a team deathmatch, each team takes possesion of a base and
tries to defend it while also trying to capture other bases.

The lightning gun, red armour and various powerups are found at the
bottom of the water, and there is only one of each on the level.

Note that I couldn't get the door on the base with the lookout tower
thingy right. Press the button inside to close it, and it then takes
about 10 rockets to shoot open. After that it will close permanently,
and the only way into the base is to jump onto the roof from the
lookout tower.

This level should be really cool in a large team deathmatch with 3
teams of 5 or 4 teams of 4. If you manage to play such a game, please
e-mail me and tell me what you think. Note that the game will probably
have to be played over a LAN. Due to the amount of detail visible at
once, this level will probably be very slow over the Internet without
at least ISDN.

You might want to try using Reaper Bots to increase the size of the
teams if there's not enough players. Except that Reaper Bots have no
concept of 'bases'.

Remember that you can respawn anywhere. To make things a bit fairer,
you never actually respawn inside a base, only near to one. So if you
respawn near to an enemy base you might just be able to get away.

There is also a version of this level included for use with the
Aircraft patch. The level was designed with this in mind from the
start. The aircraft version is called ISLANDSA.

There is also a QuakeC patch included to make things a bit more fun on
the standard version of this level. See below for details.

THE QUAKEC PATCH
----------------

This patch is based on 3 others:

Althome homing rockets by Chris Hilton (chris@ichat.com)

Tracer by Jonathan Avraham (procedure@hotmail.com)

Guided Missiles by Ken Alverson (KenA@TSO.Cin.IX.Net)

The standard rockets are replaced by homing rockets. These home in on
anything killable that is in front of them. When turning to face their
target they curve round slowly rather than abruptly changing
direction. So you still have to aim in the general direction of your
foe.

Pressing 7 again will switch to guided missiles. Use the standard
Quake controls to fly your missile where you want it to go. Like a
standard rocket it will explode on hitting a wall, player or monster
and you will then switch back to your standard view. Pressing space
will blow up the missile where it is. If you do it right you can even
fly the missiles into enemy bases. But of course other players can
blow you away while you're busy piloting a missile. Also note that
guided missiles are slower and less powerful than standard ones.

Tracers allow you to 'tag' other players. Press R (impulse 13) to fire
one. You need 1 rocket and 1 cell to fire a tracer. If it hits a
player it will stick to them and make a loud beeping sound. This
allows you to hear when that player is near to you. I have modified
the tracers in this patch so that when they hit a wall, they stay
there for 30 seconds (without making any sound) before
disappearing. Tracers have another purpose in this patch; see below.

The bit of this patch that I actually made, which should be very good
for team deathmatch, is the artillery missiles. These allow you to
place a launcher and launch powerful missiles remotely from
there. Tracers are used to tag your intended target. To place a
launcher, press D (impulse 15). You need a lot of ammo to do this. The
launcher will be 'facing' in the same direction you are when you drop
it, and this is the direction the missiles will be fired in. The
launcher will disappear after 3 minutes. A reccomended location for
the launcher is the roof of your base, aimed slightly upwards.

Press F (impulse 25) to fire a missile. This requires 10 rockets. Only
launchers placed by you will be used. The missile will home in on any
tracers that you have placed, or otherwise will just fly in a straight
line. The homing code is based on the Althome code, but artillery
missiles turn much faster and will search all 360^2 square degrees for
their target. The explosion is 5 times more powerful than a standard
rocket (radius 600). Also note that the missile will explode in
proximity (200 units) of its target even if it doesn't hit it. These
missiles accelerate over time so they are less accurate over longer
distances.

The intended use of these missiles is so that you can fire a tracer at
an enemy base and...

Sorry about the rubbish sprite used for the launcher, but when it
comes to editing models I don't know where to start. If you can
reccomend a good model editor (NOT for Win95/NT) please e-mail me. And
feel free to submit models, level patches and sounds in UU-encoded
form. But if they are larger than about 100K please ask first. If you
want to send level patches send them as diff patches if possible.



I hope you like both this patch and the level. E-mail me and tell me
what you think, including suggestions for improvements.

You can make your own levels and patches based on this, but please
(a) give me credit in the README file or whatever
(b) tell me where I can get a copy!

Matthew Stewart-Smith (a.k.a NiMBUS)
matthewss@btinternet.com
stewarts@luna.co.uk
