## Alternate Fire Mod README

by Neil "haste" Toronto
Alternate Fire is a Quake III Arena modification that gives you new ways to frag and be fragged, along with a few other cool features.

- Every weapon has a unique secondary attack.
- Quad Damage, Regeneration, Haste, and Invisibility are replaced every other respawn with alternate powerups.
- Every ammo box, if damaged enough, will explode.
- A few other changes have been made to smooth out gameplay and make things more interesting in general.
- Bots know how to use most of the new features.
- It implements the same hit-scan lag compensation as Unlagged, Alternate Fire's sister project.
- Some new variables have been added.
- It comes with a powerful opt-in chat filter.

## Requirements

You must have Quake III Arena and Point Release 1.29h or higher installed to play this mod. Anything less will give you strange errors and possibly crash Quake with weird messages like "FS_FOpenFileRead: NULL 'file' parameter passed." You can check the version of the last point release you installed by pulling the console down (with the "~" key) and looking in the lower-right-hand corner of it.
Some of the new effects will be just a bit more taxing on your graphics card and CPU. Don't be surprised if your frame rate drops a little, especially when your computer has to render multiple lightning webs. However, don't expect a dramatic decrease.

## Short Lists

### Secondary Attack Short List

You can set your secondary attack in the "Control" menus, under "Shoot." You'll find it directly underneath the "attack" binding.

1. Liquid Metal Protection (gauntlet): When you are firing, you are impervious to splash damage, falling damage, and 1/2 of all other damage.
2. Flares (machinegun): They have a somewhat slow trajectory, attract homing missiles, and set off proximity grenades.
3. One-shell Shotgun (shotgun): One shell. That's all. You fire more quickly, and it has a smaller spread. It's better than the primary attack in many instances.
4. Sticky Proximity Grenades (grenade launcher): They stick to walls, ceilings, and floors, and blow up whenever an enemy gets too close.
5. Homing Missiles (rocket launcher): Keep your opponent busy with these while you either run the map or attack him with something else.
6. Lightning Web (lightning gun): These can fill up a hallway and make it nearly impassable for 20 seconds, or until the creator dies.
7. Radius Rail (rail gun): Would you like to rail someone without actually hitting him? Are you an HPB? This attack is your favorite.
8. Orbiting Plasma (plasma gun): Launch a few of these if you want to keep your enemies outside your comfort zone.
9. BFG Overload (BFG): Are things getting too crowded? Have you got a BFG with ammo in it? Do you like to see people run for their freaking lives? Drop a BFG bomb and watch the fun!

If you want particulars, you can find the long list here.

### Alternate Powerups Short List

These powerups will take turns respawning with the normal powerups.

- Accuracy: You get a bigger, meaner crosshair. You WILL nail anything inside of it when you pull the trigger.
- Vitality: Your max health becomes 300, and you can get up to that with normal health pickups (25's and 50's).
- Speed: An even hastier gift from the Vadrigar, these boots will double your speed! Near the end of the powerup, however, they weigh you down like lead.
- Hologram: Is that a player, or a hologram? If it's a hologram, you had better find the player in stasis and take him out before his hologram stomps you!
- Vampiric Health: Both the mega health and the small health spheres alternate with two sizes of vampiric health.

You can find a more detailed list here.

### Other Changes Short List

These were changes that were just screaming to be made, and I couldn't release this version without them.

- You can shoot down rockets, homing missiles, and grenades. (Ever railed a rocket?)
- Teleporters, by default, will teleport slow projectiles like rockets.
- If you fire too many shots in a row with your BFG, it will overheat and blow up in your face. It also does considerable damage to players around you. Let it cool down a bit between volleys.
- The lightning gun, if fired underwater, will discharge. The amount of damage done to the attacker and everyone around him depends on how much ammunition was in it.
- The lightning gun's bolt will not penetrate water but stops at the surface, where it does a good deal of splash damage.
- You can no longer just touch your own flag to return it - you have to carry it back!
- You can play a really wild CTF match by setting g_multiFlag to "1" (or voting it to "1").
- One of over 70 Alternate Fire hints will show up on your screen in the first few seconds of any Alternate Fire game.

Read more about these changes (along with some tips and strategy) here.

### New Variables Short List

New variables were added to accomodate new gameplay and functions. Some were added just for the heck of it. All the server-side variables can be voted on.

- g_teleportMissiles
- g_selfDamage
- g_fallingDamage
- g_explodingAmmo
- g_returnFlag
- g_multiFlag
- g_forceChatFilter
- g_forceNameFilter
- g_filteredWords, g_filteredNames
- g_delagHitscan
- g_offhandGrapple
- g_grappleSpeed
- cg_profanity
- cg_chatFilter
- cg_nameFilter
- cg_allowForceFilters
- cg_blood, com_gibs
- cg_showHints
- cg_hintNum
- showhint
- cg_delag
- cg_predictRailTrails
- cg_newPhysics
- cg_speedometer

A detailed list is here.

## Credits

My gratitude goes to these people, who make projects like this work. Here they are, in no particular order:

- id Software: for the awesome game, game engine, and code
- "Pappy-R" and PlanetQuake: for the web space and pimping
- "das_runt" and Speakeasy.net: for the first Alternate Fire server
- "Bender": for the great ideas and brainstorming
- "Octovus": for more great ideas, bug finding, and gameplay consultation
- John "Ronin{TRIAD}" Fisher: for the shooting-down-rockets idea and the alternate powerup models
- "Kell_Dragon": for the BFG anti-spamming idea
- "Allchemic": for the awesome new logo
- Samuel "Clutz" Kerr and his Aussie mates: for all the testing and ticking proximity grenades
- Mark "Ebola_One" Leckie: for his ideas on Hologram cosmetics that were way too obvious for me to come up with myself
- A bunch of other people I have no hope remembering
- A few thousand more people: for downloading this mod and trying it out

If you've contributed something and I forgot to credit you for it, email me and I'll fix it up!