In Quake, what's the difference between Armour and Health?

Question

Obviously when your health is 100 you can't pick up any more (normal) health, but you can add armour. But do they act different against damage? Or is armour just extended health?

When you've hit with armour, you do lose health too. Would it be better then to have 80 health, or like 50 health with 20 armour ? (wild value guesses)

Asked by user717572

Answer

Quake3World has an extensive guide to how armour and health work:

When you are shot, Quake3 applies 2/3 of total damage to armor ..., then the rest is taken off health. If your armor is insufficient to cover the 'debt' the leftover damage comes from your health

So when you take damage it takes 2/3 of the total an applies it to your armour. It then takes the remaining 1/3 plus any left over if your armour was totally destroyed and applies that to your health.

If that takes your health to below 0, you die.

For example, if you have 100 health and 20 armor you can take 120 damage before you die; if you have 100 armor and 20 health, however, 60 damage is enough to frag you.

The function of armour is to reduce the amount of health you lose when you get shot etc. In terms of benefit any armour is better than none, and the stronger your armour the better as it means that none of the 2/3 "armour" damage will get applied to your health.

Answered by ChrisF

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Quake 3 Cheats - Enable Give All Persistently

Question

I have disabled pure server to try out some of the built-in cheats. I like using '/give all' but as soon as you die you lose all weapons. Is there a way to persist this throughout an entire map, even after respawning?

Answer

You could bind it to a key (ie, in your client's config file, /bind keyname give all) and press the key every respawn, but that might get tedious.

If you want the server to do this for you, you're going to need a server-side mod, I believe. The stock game doesn't support things such as this.

I think you're going for a CTF server, but Rocket Arena (or more specifically, the Clan Arena mode) is pretty much what you're describing. Rocket Arena 3 for Quake 3 is one good mod for this.

Another option would be to try and tweak OSP Tourney mod (download link there is busted, try here instead) to do something similar. They have a Rocket Arena-style mode, and it's likely that there are options for spawning players with non-default loadouts.

Beryllium also looks promising, you can generate a config file online and download the mod from this site.

There may be other mods out there that are easier to use and come with more features that you'd like, but you're going to have to do some searching to find which one works the best for your situation.

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Quake 3 Private Server With Bots

Question

I'm trying to get the right combination of settings for my server so that I can do the following:

• Start 7 bots (works fine)
• Allow up to 4 humans to join (works fine)
• Require password for all humans (not working)

Here are the relevant settings:

//set Maximum number of clients - we have overhead of 7 bots included here
sv_maxclients 11
sv_privateClients 4
sv_privatePassword "******"

What appears to be happening is that 4 of the bots fill the private slots, because when I view the server in my Favorites list, it says "3/7" participants.

If I make ALL of the slots private, (max 11, private 11) it shows "0/0" participants (though all my bots join) and I get "SERVER IS FULL" message.

Any guidance on the right settings?

---

UPDATE: Full Server Config and Version Info

Server Config:

//set Gametype to 4 for Capture the Flag Mode
g_gametype 4//Capture The Flag settings below
//set timelimit. Timelimit of 30 is default for CTF. Set to 0 for no limit.
timelimit 30
//set frag capture limit before level changes. Set to 0 for no limit (Default: 8)
//capturelimit 8
//turn on friendly fire. Friendlyfire off is default for CTF. 1=on
//g_friendlyFire 0//set host name that shows up in server list. Change below to your server name preference and remove the //
sv_hostname "My CTF Server"//set message of the day that players see while connecting to the server. Must be set before level loads. Change below to your message of the day preference and remove the //
//g_motd "Happy Capturing!"//set Maximum number of clients - we have overhead of 7 bots included here
sv_maxclients 11
g_needpass 1
g_password "*******"//set remote console password used by client
rconpassword "*******"//set max allowable rate for a client. 8000 to 10000 recommended. Max: 25000 (Default: 0)
sv_maxRate 10000//turn on/off pak cheat check. 1=on, 0=off (Default: 1)
sv_pure 0//Set map selection, cycle order, and start first map for Capture The Flag
set d1 "devmap q3ctf1 ; set nextmap vstr d2"
set d2 "devmap q3ctf2 ; set nextmap vstr d3"
set d3 "devmap q3ctf3 ; set nextmap vstr d4"
set d4 "devmap q3ctf4 ; set nextmap vstr d5"
set d5 "devmap q3ctf5 ; set nextmap vstr d1"
vstr d1//set voting. 1=on, 0=off (Default: 1)
g_allowvote 1//set power multiples for quad damage (Default: 3)
g_quadfactor 4//syncronous clients is necessary to allow client demo recording.  Setting to 1 allows recording but play is not smooth and is not recommended for normal use. (Default: 0)
g_syncronousClients 0// add bots
addbot uriel 3 blue 50 Uriel
addbot anarki 3 blue 50 Anarki
addbot bitterman 3 blue 50 Bitterman
addbot lucy 3 blue 50 Lucyaddbot sorlag 3 red 50 Sorlag
addbot grunt 3 red 50 Grunt
addbot xaero 3 red 50 Xaero// fun
give all

Version Info: Q3 1.32b linux-i386 Nov 14 2002

Answer

Instead of using private/reserved slots, what you're probably wanting is a server password.

Try:

g_needpass 1
g_password "myquake3arenaserverrocks"

instead of your sv_privateClients/sv_privatePassword lines. This would make it so that all human clients connecting would need to know the password. I think that entering the password to join the server is part of the GUI and the user will be prompted for it automatically.

If you're sure you want to use private slots, I believe if you've got sv_privatePassword set, and all the slots left are private slots, you'll have to pull the console down and type:

/password "myprivatepassword"

before connecting to the server. You could also put this in a config or on the command line instead. (on the command line it would be +set password myprivatepassword)

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Starting Quake 3 Arena Server Using Config File

Question

I would like to know how I can accomplish the following:

• Start dedicated Quake 3 Server using a config file (rather than manually entering settings each time)
• Setup bots in the config file
• Setup teams in the config file (e.g. CTF game)

Can someone point me to an example of how I can do this? I've been searching and cannot find an example of how to add bots or teams to the config file.

Answer

There is a method for doing this on a listen server that GameSpy describes by creating a .cfg file, and then exec'ing that config file from the console in the full game. That article also has a sample .cfg that you can edit if you want different options than the ones they used.

Config files must be placed in baseq3, which is a subdirectory of the main Quake 3 install directory. There will likely be other .cfg files in here. You can name them however you want, you just have to remember that name when exec'ing them from the console.

The GameSpy tutorial uses console commands to add bots to the game, but I believe you could just as easily copy those console commands to a cfg file as well. If you want to get even fancier, you can run the Quake 3 .exe with command line options to automatically load your configuration at startup. (ie, quake3 +exec my_listen_server.cfg)

However, not all of these things may be fully supported in the "client" version of Quake 3. You may want to consider setting up a dedicated server console, even if you're just going to be connecting to it from the same machine. The dedicated server is designed more towards being scripted and automated, and using it might be a better choice if you're getting deep into config files and command line options. Whether or not it makes sense to invest the additional effort depends on what your final goal with the game is.

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How do I specify 16 slots in quake 3

Question

Is there a command that I can run in game to open up more slots during a game of Quake 3 arena?

Answer

Add this line to your server.cfg:

seta sv_maxclients 16

From here:

sv_maxclients 16 - maximum number of players on the server.

You can try using rcon to change this while the server is running:

/rcon seta sv_maxclients 16

..but even if that is possible normally, most hosting companies disallow that because you pay by the number of server-slots.

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