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Arcane Dimensions Traps
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It is hard to image Quake without some kind of trap, whether it be a spike
shooter hidden on the ceiling or a large pit of lava waiting for one wrong step!
There should be something lurking around a corner, high above the player or
just below waiting to kill the unobservant player.
The World fights back
| Shooter Type |
Description |
| trap_grenadeshooter |
fires a GRENADE (Ogre/Player) in the direction of angle key |
| trap_lightningshooter |
fires a LIGHTNING (Shambler/Cthton) bolt in the direction of angle key |
| trap_rocketshooter |
fires a ROCKET (Player/Lava/Fireball) in the direction of angle key |
| trap_spikeshooter |
fires a SPIKE (NG/SNG/Laser/Wizard/HellK) in the direction of angle key |
| trap_gasshooter |
Fires a stream (Steam/Flames/Poison) of dangerous particles |
Quake only has one trap entity, the shooter. Unless of course you
count a crusher built from brushwork or liquid hazards as an alternative forms
of misfortune. Originally
introduced in the second map (E1M2) the shooter guarded an elbow like
corridor, where the player is encouraged to keep moving to avoid damage
from shooters and fight the enemies at the same time.
The shooter is a trap which is often masked by shadows while the target
location is highlighted with glowing lights! An object designed to catch
out players who take little notice of their surroundings and pay the
price by losing some health as a reminder!
With so many different types of offensive projectiles available it seems
fitting that the shooter should get an upgrade. Arcane Dimensions adds the ability
to fire multiple types of spikes, grenades or rocket, bursts of lightning
and even deadly clouds of poison at the player.
The trap shooter is typically setup with a trigger multiple dictating
when the trap should be active or not. There is also a toggle option and
the ability for the shooter to track a moving target instead. Its perfectly
possible to have a trap shooter in the middle of the room rotating around
in a circular motion while shooting lightning bolts at the walls!
One surprisingly good way to setup a trap_gasshooter is to place it
behind a breakable
wall so that when the trap is activated the wall will be destroyed. The gas
shooter can be blocked by any bmodels (doors and platforms) and
will damage any breakable object if it is touched.
Swings and Roundabouts
The Quake Mission Pack 2 called the Dissolution of Eternity by
Rogue Software added several new trap entities; Swinging pendulums,
fast moving saw blades and deadly electricity shooters.
To give the pendulum more visual options an extra ring was added to the
top of the pole so that it can be seen to rotate around a metal bar properly.
The pole shaft is available in two different lengths (short and long) so
that the pendulum can be setup in smaller spaces, behind door frames and
high up on the ceiling without being obvious to the player below.
| Pendulum Type |
Description |
| trap_pendlong |
Long (192 units) Pendulum |
| trap_pendlongx |
Long (192 units) Pendulum working on X axis only |
| trap_pendshort |
Short (128 units) Pendulum |
| trap_pendshortx |
Short (128 units) Pendulum working on X axis only |
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| Bit |
Spawnflag |
Description |
| 001 |
REVERSE |
Starts at pendulum swinging at frame 12 instead 0 |
| 002 |
ONESWING |
Will do a single swing (back + forth) when triggered and stop |
| 064 |
STARTOFF |
Starts off (invisible), when triggered will spawn and start swinging |
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| New Entity Keys |
Description |
| targetname |
Must exist, otherwise pendulum will do nothing |
| dmg |
Damage to do for each contact, def=5 |
| waitmin |
Damage throttle to touch function, def=0.5s |
| wait |
amount of time (seconds) before starting swinging. def=0 |
The Pendulum trap cannot start swinging on spawn, it must be
triggered first! The startoff spawnflag option will start the
pendulum invisible and wait for a trigger to enable it.
Once triggered the
pendulum can do a single swing or continously swing back and forth
until triggered to stop.
The default impact damage is 5 per touch with a 0.5s throttle on contact
so that the touch function does not instantly kill players.
The bounding box is constantly changing every frame so that the pendulum only
impacts at the blade and if it hits any monster, they will instantly gib!
| Sawblade Type |
Description |
| trap_sawbladex |
Rotating Saw Blade X Axis only |
| trap_sawbladey |
Rotating Saw Blade Y Axis only |
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| Bit |
Spawnflag |
Description |
| 001 |
STARTON |
Start moving straight away if targetname is setup correctly |
| 002 |
REVERSE |
Start going backward through path_corner chain |
| 064 |
STARTOFF |
Starts off and waits for trigger |
The saw blade is designed to follow a chain of path corner entities and
will speed up or slow down gradually when it is triggered to stop.
The blade cannot rotate or turn around corners, but is designed to fly
back and forth along a trail of path corner entities instead. The saw blade
can easily be setup to travel over floors, across ceilings and
even up walls!
The debuff system is about adding an extra layer to combat by making the
player panic and look for methods to counter the effects.
Several of the monsters in Arcane Dimensions have special attacks
which can cause Bleeding, Poisoning and Burning debuff effects.
| Monster |
Debuff Type |
Description |
| Scorpion (Black) |
Bleeding |
A fast jumping sting attack |
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| Minotaur (Black) |
Poisoned |
Once reached the minion (gargoyle) spawn limit
switch to a posion spikes attack |
| Mummy |
Poisoned |
Throw poisonous lumps of flesh |
| Spider (Green) |
Poisoned |
Spit 3 globs of poison (arc attack) |
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| Pyro (Yellow) |
Burning |
Stationary attack using flame thrower |
| Wraith (Red) |
Burning |
Instant attack (Hitscan) with corkscrew effect |
Bleeding
Inspired by the
Black Crab
attack from
Half Life Series
, the bleeding debuff effect
will instantly half the players health and then slowly restore five points of
health back per second afterwards. While the debuff effect is active
a loud heartbeat sound can be heard and the screen will flash a red colour.
The Bleeding debuff is designed to make the player vulnerable during combat to
lesser attacks and create a feeling of panic. The restoration process will carry
on regardless even if the player is consuming health packs and only stop if there is no
more health to restore or has reached the maximum health of 100. The bleeding effect
cannot directly kill the player, but it can certainly help!
Poisoned
The poison debuff can only be applied to players who are not poisoned
already. The debuff
takes one point of health per second, cycles between two pain sounds
and flashes the screen with a green colour.
The length of time for the poison debuff is 3-5 seconds + the active skill
level. This debuff
can easily be countered by picking up any health pack or using a suit or
pentagram powerup.
Burning
The burning debuff is the most dangerous because it can easily stack
up to the maximum time of 10 seconds with the help of a flamethrower.
The debuff takes one point of health per second,
cycles between two pain sounds and flashes the screen with an orange colour.
The length of time for the burning debuff is 3-5 seconds + 5 * skill level.
This debuff
can easily be countered by picking up any health pack or using a suit or
pentagram powerup.
It is completely possible to have all three debuff effects active at once
and this will cause plenty of visual/sound issues. To resolve this problem
the debuff system has a priority level of Bleeding first, poison second and
Burning last. The highest priority debuff effect will always have control
over the screen flash and sound effects being played.
Debuff Protection
The debuff system is often seen as a souce of frustrating
because the player does not know how to stop the debuff damage.
There is also the issues of a lot of stuff going on at the same time,
the screen is flashing, there are screams of pain and worst of all
the health bar is ticking down slowly!
When placing monsters that use the debuff system for special attacks,
level designers should always consider counter measures for the player.
It is recommended to place additional health packs,
pools of water or healing triggers so that the player can cancel
any debuff damage.
There are two additional items which can negate the debuff damage, the
Environmental Suit and the Pentagram of Protection. These familiar powerups
can also prevent any debuff damage from even starting, which means
they can easily be used as secrets for tricky areas of a map
that rely on the debuff system as an additional challenge
for the player.
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