Guys,

  I've thrown together a quick distributable of what I have working in COMBAT Q4 so far.  I'd appreciate any kind of feedback and suggestions on things I can improve to make your lives easier.

http://skew.telefragged.com/mods_SEKRET/quake4/quakebat/

--
Adnan Zafar
adnan.zafar "at" gmail.com


   ____ ___  __  __ ____    _  _____ 
  / ___/ _ \|  \/  | __ )  / \|_   _|
 | |  | | | | |\/| |  _ \ / _ \ | |  
 | |__| |_| | |  | | |_) / ___ \| |  
  \____\___/|_|  |_|____/_/   \_\_|  q4
                                 
        ~/o team shortbus o/~

--------------
Camera
--------------
The camera is controlled the same way it was in Combat Quake III Arena.  The cvars are prefixed with pm_topdown.  

The difference between the older Combat and this one is that Combat Q3 would execute %MAPNAME%.combat files (renamed .cfg files) upon map loading while Combat Q4 does not do that yet.

The reason I havent included that feature yet is because I want to set up different camera configurations per vehicle, not just per map.  Maybe we should do per vehicle camera configurations in %MAPNAME%.combat?  

Give me some feedback.

--------------
UNPURE TEAM DM
--------------
 Commandline: 
   quake4 +set si_pure 0 +set fs_game quakebat +set si_gametype "Team DM"

 Map loading:
   si_map mapname
   spawnServer

--------------
UNPURE SP
--------------
 Commandline:
   quake4 +set si_pure 0 +set fs_game quakebat +set si_gametype "singleplayer"

 Map loading:
   devmap mapname
    OR
   map mapname

-----------------------------
VEHICLE SPAWNING MAP ENTITIES
-----------------------------
To create a vehicle spawning point, you must create a func_spawner which is triggered somehow.

The example map included within (./maps/quakebat_01.map) creates a trigger_timer which triggers a func_spawner, which in turn spawns vehicles at target_null entities.  The trigger_timer is enabled (triggered) upon mapload in ./maps/quakebat_01.script.

The team of the vehicle must be set in the func_spawner as a "spawn_team" flag, with 0 == marines, 1 == stroggs, 2 == no team.

-----------------
UPCOMING FEATURES
-----------------

 - TEAM BASED VEHICLES -

Once the vehicle is outside of the spawn point, it can be 'stolen', just like the UT2k4 vehicles.  

Each spawner has a list of "active" spawned items, which is not necessarily the same as the physically spawned list.  

For example, if a Strogg walker-spawner made one walker, a strogg used the walker and exited it, a marine can now get in (or steal) it.  Once the marine gets in it, since his team is different than the team of the vehicles spawner, the spawner takes this vehicle out of its "active" list, yet the vehicle still exists in the map.  The strogg spawner will now have one less vehicle than it should have in its "active" list and will create another.

The logical thought would be that the Strogg spawner would give up the vehicle and the Marine spawner would take over the vehicle, increasing its "active" list.  The only problem is determining which spawner on the Marines side should assume this new vehicle?  What if all of its active slots are completely maxed out?

My choice to not include this vehicle into the active list of the marine is akin to rewarding the marine for stealing an enemy vehicle and getting an "extra vehicle" for his team.

Shitty idea or not?  What do you guys think?

 - AIMING SCHEME (ALIEN SWARM & ABUSE) -

I plan on making the aiming completely mouse based, so you move the crosshair around on the screen, the camera pans around to follow it, and your character aims in the direction of the crosshair.  The movement keys will also be changed to become +north, +south, +east, and +west.  Do you guys have any problems with this change?