Quake Combat+ mod

Quake Combat+ is a refinement & continuation of Quake, SMC & Quake 1.5, built on Darkplaces, aiming to provide the ultimate Quake singleplayer combat experience and perfect the existing works without straying far from the original design/balance to retain compatibility with the many great custom-made user maps out there.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Introducing the most in-depth horde of eldritch monsters. For every new measure of power the player has, the monsters have even more.
New attacks. New enemies. Polishing and fixing of flaws. An in-depth approach to making nightmare a true challenge and addressing the turret problem.
Note that all these new features are in addition to the excellent work SMC and Quake 1.5 already did for the monsters.

GRUNT:
-The Grunt occasionally performs a brief strafe between shots. The primary intent is to keep him mobile in nightmare mode without reducing the onslaught of attacks significantly.
-Nailgun-wielding variant adds variety, as well as converts some excessive player shotgun focus over to the nailguns via ammo drops.
-HP increased by 5 to partially align with the power increase player starter weapons have received (see weapons section below).

ENFORCER:

-Also sometimes performs a brief strafe between shots for the same purpose.
-Rare chance they will come as Defender variant (completely overhauled from Q1.5 version) which has a power shield, proximity mines, shotgun & rapid fire laser.

KNIGHT:
-Vanilla polishing: Melee attack damage frames now matches the animation. What you see is what you get.
-On nightmare difficulty, wont always make an alert sound when it spots you, granting an element of stealth. Also a minor movement speed boost on nightmare.

OGRE:
-The Ogre now moves around more between attacks on nightmare difficulty. However, they sometimes use a multi-shot grenade attack like the Q2 Gunner.
-Their accuracy takes the z axis into account.
-Grenade attack damage reduced by 12.5% (40-35), conversely increased grenade blast radius by 12.5%. This is because the ogre grenade was the strongest ranged attack in the game tied with vore/shambler's, and simultaneously had almost no blast radius. Now taking a grenade in the face is slightly less punishing, but you have to be more weary of the ones on the floor.

SCRAG:
-Bugfix (Vanilla): Scrags no longer fire spikes after dying, nor from their old position after teleporting (SMC).
-Bugfix (vanilla): Scrag pain animation now works properly (interrupts their attack), granting viability to melee attacks in particular.
-Scrag teleporting introduced in SMC is overhauled and toned down.
-Low chance to poison the player on Nightmare difficulty. Jump in water or grab a med kit to cure poison.
DEATH KNIGHT:
-His headless sword swing death animation will damage you if they connect. You'd better keep shooting/moving, or kick them away!
-One of their slow melee attacks, their ranged attack, and general movement are all slightly increased in speed on nightmare difficulty.
-Bugfix (vanilla): melee attack trace origin is moved a few units higher if you're above them. This prevents them being unable to hit you when standing on their head or otherwise simply being above them, yet doesn't increase the general range of the attack.
-Like the ogre, he performs his ranged attack slightly less often on nightmare. Instead the focus is movement and melee, and as mentioned, he is generally faster now.
ZOMBIE:
-Zombies can be blown up while on the floor.
-Can be killed by melee if you have a berserk pack, or the chainsaw if you're lucky enough to find either. Lightning gun also has a chance to kill, but it's absolutely a waste of ammo in most instances.
FIEND:
-Will jump down to you when has a slight elevation advantage over you. Prevents them being helpless when on a ledge a little bit higher than you.
-Will jump less when climbing up stairs towards you, since this often fails - generally they move and jump a little smarter.
-Rare chance of teleportation.
-Increased the distance of the fiend's jump attack by a random range of 0-15% per jump on nightmare.
-On nightmare mode, there's a low chance for an invisible variant named the "Nightmare". You can still see their footsteps, hear them, and see them when they attack. Use the flashlight to assist with visibility.
VORE:
-Vanilla granted +40% speed to the homing voreball on nightmare. This is now reduced to +20%.
-Refined jumping on the ceiling behavior introduced in SMC.
-Some Vore variants spawn vorelings that nibble at your feet- the vorelings are now highly polished and far less annoying.
-The speed of the Frantic Rush maneuver introduced in SMC now scales based on difficulty.
SHAMBLER:
-Explosive damage resistance reduced from 50% to 35%. Explosives are a little more viable now, but it's still generally not a good idea.
The "shambler dance" strategy is still viable to not discourage melee attacking when low/out of ammo.
Shamblers have delicate design, not much room for change. Keep reading and note some things below still apply to shamblers however.

Other Vanilla Monsters:

-Rotfish swim slightly faster on nightmare.
-(Vanilla bugfix): enemies wont instakill you when landing on your head.
-Rottweilers, like knights, will sometimes not play their alert bark on nightmare when they spot the player, granting an element of stealth.
-Cthon occasionally will toss a fireball without any target leading for unpredictability. Also some fixes for compatibility with custom maps.

New Monsters:

These are Q1.5/SMC enemies, which were well-implemented yet suffered a certain lack of finishing polish. Now their potential has been fulfilled. They spawn in at random and either replace an existing vanilla monster, or spawn in in addition to them (= more monsters), so encounters get very hectic and require a high degree of skill on tougher difficulty modes, though new player mechanics and powerups will help you along the way.

AFRIT:
-Vastly overhauled flying behavior. The problem was they spawned in with ground enemies at random and, like scrags, always attempt to match your elevation. This resulted in them getting in the way of ground enemies and not acting like flying enemies. Now, they always spawn higher up and will not spawn at all if very low ceiling. They play more defensively, staying back and up in the air more. They sometimes perform flying strafes, maintaining higher elevation. They sometimes fly upwards while shooting projectiles at you over the heads of ground enemies.
-Bugfix (Q1.5): Afrit have a delay between each pain animation interrupt like all the other enemies.
-Rotates faster which addresses some erroneous behavior, and other likewise subtle polishing.
REIVER:
-Overhauled, advanced AI. One of the most fearsome enemies you will face.
-Can phase through walls dynamically, flanking you while you're camping a bottleneck for example. Wall-phasing is clearly telegraphed by sound.
-Variety of attacks, all with greater polish.
-Ignores friendly fire from others, though others do not ignore his.
YAKMAN:
-20% chance to replace a Shambler, creating diversity to often repetitive shambler encounters.
-The yakman projectile magic attack is overhauled to fire element magic with better visuals and wider spread. Sets player on fire on nightmare.
-Now has a chance to refire/fire twice on nightmare, as per Quake standard.
-Bull rush attack now has a slight acceleration period, rather than going 0-60mph in an instant.
WARLORD:
-Heavily overhauled. Every attack fine-tuned. Grenades emit light so they're easier to distinguish. Melee attacks have more accurate damage frames & reach + he may go into a melee-focused frenzy for a period. Skull attack is more dodge-able. Shield ram attack is used more intelligently. New effects and more.
-Highly mobile, even performing fast dodge maneuvers.
-No longer has hidden invulnerability frames.
-35% explosive resistance, like the shambler.
-Everyone fears the Warlord! Most rarely anger from his friendly fire. He also brushes off other monster's friendly fire, focusing on the real monster - the
player! On nightmare difficulty he is even more focused -- very rarely does he lower himself with petty demon infighting.
-Has a low chance to drop one of three powerups: Time Dilation Rune, Berserk Pentagram, or Ring of Shadows.
FREDDIE THE CYBORG:
-Has a chance to spawn in tech base maps, bringing Q1.5/SMC's random enemy spawns over to that map theme (previously none). This adds much needed enemy diversity to tech bases which Quake limited to only 3 enemies originally.
-Greater diversity to his nail gun firing patterns.
-Gets a slight movement speed boost on Nightmare.
-Made movement better match the animation.
-Functional melee: Will attempt to charge you and melee attack within a moderate range. Melee attack is faster.

JIM THE DRONE:
-Lol I did not pick these names. Has a chance to spawn in tech base maps, bringing Q1.5/SMC's random enemy spawns over to that map theme.
-Merged rocket & laser type: commonly fires laser, sometimes a rocket. Additionally, refined these attacks, e.g. wont fire rocket at close range.
-Reduced health by 40%.
-Attempts to improve movement intelligence and prevent them getting stuck on geometry.

HYDRA:
-Swim speed now scales with difficulty level.
-Melee attack now works properly.
-projectile attack no longer obscures vision nearly as much.

SPIDER:
-Most commonly seen among zombies. Sometimes hidden on the ceiling, don't let them get the drop on you.
-Spiders no longer jump at you from absurd ranges. Medium-close range only.
-Spider's ranged projectile causes poison on nightmare difficulty.
-Removed spider's 25% resistance to shotguns and nailguns.

THE PLAYER

New Powerups:

BERSERK PACK:
Doom berserk pack makes a return! Boosts melee damage by a range of x2-3. Also Increases knockback and flinch frequency. When active, the flashlight has a red tint - no need for HUD elements. Only lasts for the current life and level, if you die or quickload berserk status is gone. Keep your finger off the qucikload key and stay alive to reap the rewards!

AUTO SHOTGUN MOD:
Rare backpack drop from grunts. Makes the shotgun fully automatic, better than even the SSG. If you are lucky enough to find one, enjoy it while it lasts (current level only).

TIME DILATION RUNE:
Slows time for 20 seconds. Helps with big crowds and navigating traps. Rare drop from warlords.

BERSERK PENTAGRAM:
Grants berserk status AND invulnerability. However there's a catch: during the invulnerability effect you can ONLY use melee (axe & kick). Rare drop from warlord.

Ammo & Health Pickup Fixes:

-Vanilla fix: Running over an ammo pickup of any kind whilst firing your weapon will not reset firing animation and fire rate cycling.
-Vanilla fix: No more unnecessary vanilla forced automatic weapon switching when picking up ammo boxes.
-Reduced collision size of all health pickups to allow for selective tactical retrieval, allow jumping over them, and prevent picking up through walls. All other pickups retain oversized collision boxes.
-Since the differences between small and large ammo pickups are very subtle, reduced the size of small ammo pickups by 20% to better distinguish them from the larger ones. Large health packs are also 15% larger for this same purpose. Additionally, the printout at the top of the screen will distinguish between big/small ammo: "You got the small shell box".

Melee Weapons:

Melee attacks are in general more functional now. Much effort has gone into reinforcing their role, from allowing kicking between weapon animations (e.g between SSG blasts), to AI changes allowing opening for melee attacks (e.g scrag pain animation bugfix), to the new berserk pack increasing their viability while active.

MIGHTY BOOT:
-You can kick during weapon animations, such as between SSG blasts or axe swings. The kick is more viable to combo with other attacks now.
-Faster kick and transitioning to being able to shoot/switch weapons etc.
-Changed kick traceline to a (tiny) tracebox. This means instead of your melee attacks hitting like a tiny pin prick, they cover more area like, say, a boot strike.
-Bugfix: resolved input buffering. If you spam kick it wont line up multiple kicks in a row.
-Base damage and range increased by 20%.
-In addition to bonus damage, Berserk pack also increases kick knockback by 20%. Jump/airborne kicks also inflict +20% knockback. Base knockback is reduced slightly over Q1.5 though.
-Kicking objects/walls/enemies knocks the player back slightly.
-You can no longer stunlock certain enemies with kick spam.
-Bugfix: When picking up weapons while kicking, kick will not be cancelled/overriden by weapon auto-switch.

AXE:
-Increased damage and range slightly
-Makes a sound when striking objects (previously none).
-Has a low chance to make enemies flinch (force a pain animation).
-In addition to bonus damage, berserk pack increases chance to force a pain animation.
-Changed axe traceline to a (tiny) tracebox. This means instead of your melee attacks hitting like a tiny pin prick, they cover more area like, say, an axe head.

OGRE CHAINSAW:
-Now has a chance to force pain animations like the chainsaw in Doom, resulting in stunlocking weaker enemies. Tougher enemies (e.g Shambler) and armored enemies (Ogre, Death Knight) have high resistance though.
-Increased range and damage slightly. Has the most range of the melee weapons.

The kick is by far the most useful melee attack and the only mainstay.
The axe is better now, but still should only be used when ammo is a concern, or with the berserk pack.
The chainsaw can stunlock weaker enemies, kill zombies without any powerups, and has the most reach of the melee weapons, yet it is still mostly only a context-sensitive alternative to the axe - rarely useful.

Firearms:

Note: despite the mods that came before, the weapons until now were largely vanilla in terms of performance and balance. Quake Combat+ makes
(mostly) reserved changes: low-tier versions are given unique advantages to not become redundant once "super" versions are found, and to generally assist you with the hardcore enemy roster of Combat+. Additionally, new effects, bugfixes, feedback, death animations etc make the arsenal more addictive than ever.

SHOTGUN:
-Fires an extra pellet (slight damage increase) and has a very low chance to force a pain animation per pellet.
-Improved various effects (sound, impact effects, recoil, death animation variety etc)
-If all pellets hit, sound feedback is slightly adjusted for meatier results.

NAILGUN:
-Increased projectile speed significantly to give it a unique advantage over the super nailgun.
-Increased damage to 10.
-On nightmare mode both nailguns do not get vanilla's forced aim assist (extra size vs enemies).
-Restored vanilla firing sound, and improved various effects (sound, impact effects, recoil, death animation variety etc).
-Bugfix (vanilla): tapping fire/shoot with the nailgun will no longer cause the weapon to muzzleflash and vibrate (animation), but not fire a
nail. Now you can single-fire/burst fire the nail gun effectively with a single mouse press or short hold.

GRENADE LAUNCHER:
-Grenade Velocity increased by 20%. Makes the GL more enjoyable and versatile to use; viable at medium ranges or vs enemies with
moderate elevation advantage on you, and more effective at bouncing off walls.
-Increased rate of fire slightly to give it a notable edge over the rocket launcher.
-Grenade hitboxes VS monsters is ever so slightly more generous.
-Improved effects slightly.
-Q1.5 fix: Will not split ogres & death knights in half with 1 grenade - low health required. Vanilla balance restored (2 for ogre 3 for death knight).
-Q1.5 refinement: much less chance to set enemies on fire and have them running around (was 40%, now 15%).

SUPER SHOTGUN:
-OPTIONAL: now fires twice between each rechambering animation, but said animation is slightly longer. This is to increase fun factor, DPS vs the tougher enemies of Combat+, emphasize kick combo'ing during the longer animation, and add a aspect of shot management (shoot -> no delay -> shoot -> delay during the rechamber animation). Pressing '3' will manually rechamber the first shot. Next/Prev weapon cycling will not rechamber.
-If the above option is disabled and set back to vanilla function, the weapon will have a slightly faster fire rate. Enemies are tougher, and the starter shotgun buffed, so this is necessary.
-Reduced horizontal spread moderately. Increases accurate range slightly.
-improved various effects (sound, impact effects, recoil, death animation variety etc)

SUPER NAILGUN:
-OPTIONAL: Q1.5's delayed barrel spin-up is now optional,; can be set back to vanilla. However be wary if doing this as the delay did help with balancing VS the weaker nailgun. To help with balancing here, I've made it so that once the delayed barrel enters full spin-cycle, the rate of fire is faster than vanilla - starts off slower rate of fire, ends up faster.
-On nightmare mode both nailguns do not get vanilla's forced aim assist (extra size vs enemies).
-Very minor touch-ups to effects.

ROCKET LAUNCHER:
-Q1.5 fix: Will not split ogres & death knights in half with 1 grenade - low health required. Vanilla balance restored (2 for ogre 3 for death knight).
-Q1.5 refinement: much less chance to set enemies on fire and have them running around (was 40%, now 15%).
-Minor touch-ups to effects. Not much else to do here.

LIGHTNING GUN:
-Increased range significantly (singleplayer only). However any damage dealt past the vanilla range is reduced by 20%.
-Reduced ammo consumption rate and increased max cell capacity. You'll need it.
-Vastly diversified death animations.
-Bugfix(vanilla): Lighting gun damage actually goes to the center of the beam and crosshair, instead of way below.
-Minor subtle new effects.
-A couple bugs introduced by either SMC or Q1.5 fixed.

LASER GUN:
-Bugfix (Q1.5): laser gun fires on the first frame of a button press, not after a split second of animating and doing nothing. Allows single shot and burst fires.
-Increased rate of fire and projectile speed.
-Now has a chance to be found when playing custom maps.
-Very minor effects improvements.

PROXIMITY GRENADE:
-Proximity grenade were largely a non-factor in Q1.5, because they would rarely be found especially when playing custom maps. Now they are a little more common, rarely replacing existing small shell/nail boxes.
-Active prox grenades emit subtle beeping so they stand out more and prevent unfair deaths.
-Enemies hit directly with a proximity grenade take damage and possibly flinch. No longer sticks to enemies (too buggy).
-Bugfix (Q1.5): you cannot pick up further grenades once you are at max capacity. You can now also only carry a maximum of 6 promixity grenades.
-Enabled comboing: you can throw proximity grenades during weapon animations (e.g between SSG blasts).
-Decreased the delay that subsequent impulses are registered after throwing a prox grenade. This means you can shoot/kick/swap weapons faster after throwing a grenade.
-Increased the detonation delay on proximity mine explosions slightly. Should give just enough time to increase survival chances with reflexes.
-Adjusted the prox nade pickup visuals so they stand out better and distinguish from active armed proxy nades.
-Bugfix (Q1.5): fixed animation issue when spamming prox grenades and shoot simultaneously.
-Bugfix (Q1.5): taking damage won't interrupt throwing prox. grenades.

Core Movement Changes:

-You come to a stop twice as fast after running (less sliding). You can set back to vanilla in the in-game options menu if desired.
-Your view pitch range is increased: 80 degrees angle when looking up (was 70). View pitch (how far you can look up or down) is movement related as
when something is directly above you the only way to get them in your crosshairs is to move/reposition yourself to meet the arbitrary angle restriction.

Ammo Capacities & Counts:

-Shotguns no changes.
-Nails max ammo capacity increased by 50 (200 - 250). Picking up a nailgun grants 50 nails (was 30). Nailboxes no changes. Grunts drop slightly more via backpack.
-Rockets no changes.
-Cells max ammo capacity increased by 20 (100 -120). Lightning gun drains ammo at a slower rate while firing.

Changes are to deal with the greater enemy counts in Combat+, and to address weapon biases and flaws (shotguns saw way more use than nailguns, lightning gun ate all cells in an instant).

Nightmare+ Info:

-Enemy spawn rates are higher, including some new spawn conditions (e.g a Yakman has a 1% chance to replace an Ogre).
-Enemy blast radius of AoE attacks is a little larger, with an exception or two (e.g NOT spawn/tarbaby explosions).
-Berserk Packs (which are megahealth that also grant berserk) give you 50hp, not 100.
-30% chance that any given quad damage will be replaced by a berserk pentagram, ultimately granting a weaker rampage.
-The spirits of demons you've slain seek vegeance before they are transported to hell! New spirit attacks as detailed prior.

Miscellaneous:

-Proximity bomb traps may be encountered when backtracking in tech base maps.
-Added tips menu to the in-game options.
-Included co-op support. UNTESTED!
-Earthquakes (SMC random effect) happens a lot less, and no longer impart velocity on the player.
-Reduced base chance of enemies setting on fire to explosive weapons to 15% (was 40%).
-Removed screenshake when shamblers corpse hits the floor (it wasn't smooth).
-Removed slow-mo on player death, since it was causing quickload slow-mo bug.
-Reduced the frequency in which dogs howl (was too often to an unbelievable extent).
-Performance optimization of some of Q1.5's effects.
-Autosave (if enabled) triggers when discovering secrets, picking up keys, and using them on a door. Removed autosave running on a 2 minute timer.
-Bugfix (Q1.5): autosave option is respected between games (doesn't disable by itself when launching the game).
-Bugfix (Vanilla): fixed one instance of "you get" message (picking up backpacks) to match all the other many past-tense instances of "you got".
-Bugfix (Q1.5): Added a short delay before FIRE input is accepted after dying, so it doesn't immediately load last save if you're shooting as you die.
-Bugfix (Q1.5): Fixed camera sway from intermission passing into normal gameplay.
-Bugfix (Q1.5): Added config failsafes (e.g prevented black blood issue).
-Bugfix (Q1.5): fixed typos in spider and afrit player died messages.
-Bugfix (Q1.5): Fixed a bug with various enemies not firing their event targets when killed.
-Bugfix (SMC/Q1.5): Watersplash sound when shooting water will play at the location the water is hit, not at the player's location.
-Fixed small wall torches shooting flames across the room (Q1.5 Source Release Fix).
-Pressing 'Fire' while dead will reload last quicksave, as in Q1.5 Beta (Q1.5 Source Release Fix).
-Bugfix (Q1.5): Fixed Death Knights that are split in half while in projectile animation not resetting their color.
-Fixed floating lamps in base maps (Q1.5 Source Release Fix).
-Various other minor "who cares" pedantry.