Enemy Territory: Quake Wars: Tactical Assault

May 1st, 2009

ETQW Old Wipe v0.2 has been released.
This small Windows utility is intended to assist ETQW mappers, players, and server admins in making sure they have the latest version of maps for ETQW, as easily and painlessly as possible.
MD5 hashes are used to compare a given file against an existing hash, to determine if they're identical or not. While this can be done with any run of the mill md5sum application, ETQW Old Wipe seeks to make this a simpler process.
It's available in the downloads section.

QWTA development is ongoing, although in a bit of a slow period at the moment. For the most part, what's being worked on for v0.3.2 is greater (optional) compatibility with BaseETQW.

April 15th, 2009

Version 0.3.1 has been released!
As usual, download links are in the downloads section. Changelog is as follows:

QWTA v0.3.1: ========== CHANGES: * Cvar g_showPlayerArrows redefaulted to 2. * Made some changes/improvements to the realistic damage fallback code. * Player respawn timers reverted to be identical to BaseETQW. + Player feedback indicates BaseETQW gametypes are incompatible with + long respawn timers. A single-life last-man-standing gametype is planned + for a future QWTA release. * Cvar g_useGibKills added. + Default 1. + Allows certain attacks(Currently only Covert/Infiltrator backstabs) + that don't normally instagib, to instagib so victims can't be revived. * Cvar bot_useVehicleDrops added. + Default 0. + Enables/disables bots to attempt to call down new vehicles. + WARNING: See "Known Issues" section of the readme before enabling! * Some technical changes to how the Jupiter is implemented. * Cvar g_useClassLimits added. + Default 1. + Enables/disables the use of class limits. * Force Escalation introduced as a concept. + Vehicles no longer have Rank requirements to be called in. + Force Escalation is an average XP count of all players on a server. + Vehicle Drops now use Force Escalation to determine when each vehicle + can be called in. Force Escalation reflects ongoing conflict in a battle, + and as it becomes more pitched, FE rises as central command takes further + notice of the hotspot, and lends more aid. * Class limits will now dynamically adjust according to critical classes. * Players using temporary class limit increases will be kicked out of their class upon death, after the temporary increase is removed. * Cvar g_modVersion added. Reports the version of QWTA that is in use. * Current version of QWTA is now displayed in the lower-left of the main menu. BUG FIXES: * Fixed Dark Matter Cannon having zero range blast radius in realistic mode. * Fixed a variety of GDF GPMG and Gatling Gun vehicle weapon damage issues. * Fixed negativePush flag not being copied over to inherited damageDefs. * Fixed an unlikely potential crash by returning a BS value from a method. * Fixed some minor Limbo GUI issues. * Fixed issue with class limiter that was preventing bots from giving up their spot to a human player when on a dedicated server. * Fixed issue with the class limiter that was allowing players to bypass it by switching teams.

A significant new development is the use of Force Escalation to control when vehicles are available. Force Escalation(or "FE"), is an average of all the XP of all players on a server. To call in a vehicle drop, you have to meet the FE prerequisite in order to call it in, as well as the actual drop-charge cost(visible on the context menu for now). FE prerequisites are as follows:
GDF Vehicle FE Prerequisites: Strogg Vehicle FE Prerequisites: Something not readily apparent to some is that the Icarus and Husky use half your vehicle drop charge, while all other vehicles use the full charge.

Enjoy!

April 4th, 2009

Version 0.3 has been released!
Download links are available in the downloads section.
QWTA is now fully compatible with ETQW v1.5, and supports both Windows and Linux.

QWTA Official server is located at: qwta.servequake.com:27733
(Please be advised, this server is hosted on a tiny 50/1000 Cable connection, on a linux machine next to my desk, in western Canada.
It'll probably lag a fair bit, and may go up or down for unspecified periods of time without any notice. :D)

March 30th, 2009

Getting pretty near a release of QWTA v0.3.
Found a few last-minute bugs that need fixing before I let it out into the wild. Got exams(and a project for school that I've been avoiding doing well past when I should have been working on it) over the next few days though, so it'll probably be after that, hopefully towards the end of this week.
For now, here's what the QWTA v0.3 changelog is likely going to be:

QWTA v0.3: ========== CHANGES: * Threw out all previous changes and restarted QWTA development from scratch. * Previous versions of QWTA: v0.21, v0.2, v0.11, and v0.1 not built off of. * QWTA is now compatible with ETQW v1.5. * Spectator controls improved. + Attack: Next player. + AltAttack: Previous player. + Jump: Freefly spectator. * Dark Matter Cannon now has Quake 4 Singleplayer-style Dark Matter Gun visual/audio effects and gravity pull behavior. + Projectile pulls nearby objects(players, vehicles) towards it. + Projectile deals damage to nearby objects slowly. + Projectile hurls nearby objects away from detonation point when exploding. + Gravitational effects penetrate walls and other cover. * Hammer has a limited EMP effect upon exploding. * Hammer and Dark Matter Cannon warning text upon firing removed. * Player respawns now take twice the length of time they do in BaseETQW. * Vehicles no longer spawn into the map, they must be called in by players via vehicle drop. (Use the quickchat menu->vehicles->vehicle drops.) * The ability to use vehicle drops is given freely to all players, however: * Vehicle drop charging now begins at zero and charges up from there. * Vehicle drops take longer to charge than in BaseETQW. * Vehicle drops have a campaign rank prerequisite before they can be dropped. + Generally, the more powerful the vehicle, the higher the rank required. * Vehicle drops make use multiple types of deployment transport: + Jotun drops via parachute. + Magog drops via cable. + Strogg drops via orbital reentry. + Strogg drops via teleport. * Bots have a rudimentary understanding of vehicle drops now. + They're pretty stupid about it, but they do call for vehicles sometimes. * Jupiter Assault Tank added. + This is a heavy GDF tank that uses the BFG10k as a main cannon. * BFG10k added. (Vehicle weapon only for now.) + Delay on firing. + Projectile fires energy beams at nearby targets(Up to 8). + Projectile detonates with high damage upon impact. + BFG Effect operates upon targets(Up to 8) that have line of sight between the detonation point, and the Jupiter tank, 0.5 seconds later. * Hyperblaster now behaves more like the Quake 4 Singleplayer-style weapon. + Projectiles do not hit instantly. + Hyperblaster ROF is slower. + Splash damage occurs upon projectile impact. + Hyperblaster damage raised, but can no longer do headshots. + Hyperblaster scope can get rapid target locks upon any enemy unit. + Hyperblaster does not cause a lockon warning on target. + Hyperblaster projectiles cannot be decoyed away with flares. * Shotgun and Nailgun core behavior returned to ETQW v1.2 style behavior: + ROF slower. + More pellets per shot. + Smaller spread. + More damage. + Damage falls off less over distance. * Blood spurt effects occur when players or corpses are shot or stabbed. * Class number limits added. + Class numbers restricted based upon class, and player count on server. + Bots understand class number limits. * Screen fades to red when unconscious. * Screen fades to black when fully killed. + This intentionally blocks the vision of the dead. * Radar split into two distinct types: Radar and Infrared. + Radar cannot detect infantry. + Infrared can only detect infantry. * Psi Radar/GDF Radar use only normal Radar. * 3rd Eye Camera, MCP, and command centers, use both radar and infrared. * Mxyzptlk's megatexture autodownload added. * Cvar pm_realisticMovement added. + Default 1. + Enables/disables "realistic movement". + Enables/disables strafejumping. * Cvar g_realisticDamage added. + Default 1. + Enables/disables higher, "more realistic" weapon damages. + GENERALLY, bullets do 3x normal damage and explosions do 2x normal, when firing upon infantry. + GENERALLY, vehicles take reduced damage from small arms fire. * Cvar g_realisticSpread added. + Default 1. + Enables/disables "more realistic" weapon spreads. + GENERALLY, firing without aiming a weapon first is much more inaccurate. + Bots are aware of this, and will aim more often when enabled. * Cvar bot_useStrafeJump redefaulted to 0. + For use with pm_realisticMovement. Bots will not attempt to strafejump. * Cvar g_allowMineIcons redefaulted to 0. + Disables minedots by default, serverside. * Cvar g_allowMineTriggerWarning added. + Default 0. + Enables/disables mine trigger warnings, serverside. * Cvar g_allowAPTWarning added. + Default 0. + Enables/disables APT and BDT(APT mode only) HUD warnings, serverside. * Autodetects the gametype other QWTA servers are using, hides the gametype of other mods, including BaseETQW. (Easier to see on the server list.) BUG FIXES: * Fixed BaseETQW bug: Corpses are now considered "flesh". + BaseETQW doesn't consider corpses to be flesh, so they wouldn't bleed. * Fixed BaseETQW bug: 3rd Eye Camera now updates its radar origin when moved. + BaseETQW doesn't update the 3rd Eye's radar origin, making attaching it to vehicles or other moving objects, effectively useless for radar purposes. (The commandmap radar area would move, but the actual radar detection area would not.) * Fixed BaseETQW bug: Removed cause of a console error message with Magogs. + A $null_entity item wasn't being checked for in some circumstances, causing error messages to sometimes be printed to console. * Fixed BaseETQW bug: The "Volcano-Icarus Map Exploit" no longer works. + A serious exploit exists in BaseETQW 1.5, that has been fixed in QWTA. + Variations on maps other than Volcano are also addressed by this fix.

March 7th, 2009

The pain of harddrive failures...
The machine this website and most of QWTA's development files is hosted from, lost its harddrive(Yes, yes, no RAID.) the other day.
No data's been lost, but I've been busy restoring my poor little home server to working order.

February 24th, 2009

For when the Hammer just isn't a big enough gun...

A little revival from the Quake 2 era, the BFG10k returns in QWTA as a prototype GDF weapon, mounted upon the Jupiter Tank. :) Yep, this has the full BFG10k weapon behavior implemented:

You may have noticed that QWTA seems to be turning out a lot of developmental work oriented towards Quake 2 or Quake 4 features, and not much in the realism department... That's not strictly true; QWTA does remain a realism-oriented mod(In the sense that an alien invasion can be considered "realistic".), but it's also meant to help bring some of the well-known highlights of the Quake universe(The Strogg portion of it, anyhow. Quake 1 and 3 have no place here.), to this realistic setting. After all, what fun are alien invaders without truly alien weapons, or the last-ditch human efforts to beat back the Strogg?
BaseETQW's Dark Matter Cannon didn't quite measure up to the Quake 4 Dark Matter Gun. QWTA seeks to corect this.
BaseETQW's Hyperblaster didn't really feel much like the Quake 2 Hyperblaster or Quake 4 Nailgun. QWTA seeks to correct this.
BaseETQW has no mention of the pride and joy of human weapons design, the BFG10k... Guess what else is making it into QWTA? :)
The DMC/DMG and Hyperblaster are fairly obvious how they've been converted, thematically... Some might wonder what place the Jupiter Tank, with its BFG10k main gun, has, though? Essentially, I've rationalized it like so: ETQW takes place before Quake 2 or Quake 4. The BFG appears to be a human-designed weapon(Drawing a bit from Doom here.), yet the GDF in ETQW appear to be below the general technological level needed to develop such a weapon. Sooooo.... The BFG10k in QWTA/ETQW is a prototype developmental version of the handheld weapon seen in Quake 2. It hasn't been miniaturized for production yet, so needs a whole main battle tank to carrry it around on the battlefield. :)
So there's the general reasoning behind why QWTA's picked up some exotic features.
Back to the realism! QWTA's in-development version currently has blood effects(As did earlier versions of QWTA.), and has the beginnings of a class-number-restriction system:

You might've also noticed how QWTA doesn't have vehicles laying around maps anymore. Instead, they're called in from central command, to be airdropped. The exact mechanics of that are still up in the air, but it seems like there's good hope in making vehicles a rare, powerful commodity in QWTA.
QWTA's more realistic damages and radar changes of old should be being re-implemented sometime soon too. :)

February 17th, 2009

A little Dark Matter goes a long way...

Still tweaking the behavior of the Dark Matter Cannon to get something more interesting working with the gravitational effects, but it's coming along nicely. Vehicle drops with all vehicles are available now, and they'll likely be tied in future to campaign ranks(the unranked version of ranks) in some way. In-map vehicles are probably going to get taken out entirely, which would make vehicle drops the only source of vehicles, which should let them be well-earned and powerfully tide-turning in some cases.
Also starting to delve back into QWTA's original radar changes now(Remember, QWTA was started over from scratch. The original radar plans included infantry being invisible on most radar.), beginning with fixing the fact that in BaseETQW the 3rd eye camera's radar doesn't update when you move it. So, now you can stick it on a vehicle to have portable radar. :)

January 31st, 2009

Something a little different for QWTA's future.
(Note the core goal of QWTA remains a "realism" mod, but it's also taking further initial steps to differentiate from BaseETQW.)

Still an early version here, but what I've essentially got ingame is this(All this applies to both infantry and vehicle hyperblasters):
Hyperblaster uses projectiles instead of (instant-hit) hitscan traces.
Hyperblaster ROF slowed to Quake 4 Nailgun levels.
Damage upped. (Low-velocity+Low-ROF weapons have issues competing with instant-hit weapons otherwise.)
Small explosions on impact of each hyperblaster bolt. (No new effects for those yet, but you can actually kill stuff with splash damage. XD)
Hyperblaster now able to lock on and home in on players, vehicles, deployables, etc.
Hyperblaster bolts can't be decoyed away with flares. (Although their range is smaller than other lockon weapons, so you can run away out of range.)

January 14th, 2009

Alright, I'm a raging liar. :D
I've gotten drawn back into playing ETQW a bit--less than I used to be, and the urge to do QWTA things has arisen again. More or less, QWTA's development has been picked up again. I think I'm actually going to scrap the old QWTA and start again(Won't take long.), with a slightly different design philosophy and approach.
We'll see how it works out...

July 14th, 2008

Well, it pains me to say it, but:
QWTA is dead.
1. I haven't played ETQW in around 6 months. Sorry, much fun as it might be to play the game--Despite the Enemy Territory: Wolfensten influences, and the "pro gamer" influences-- there's only so much enjoyment one can squeeze out of the same 12 maps over that sort've timeframe. Maybe if Splash Damage had ever bothered to release anything new to the game but gameplay nerfs and bugfixes... (Like a mappack? tbh it would have been time better spent in my books than providing modding tech support for the game.)
2. I'm an SVN noob apparently, and I've been quite frustrated with trying to teach myself how to do branches and merges properly to keep up with ETQW's SDK patches.
3. I despise working with ETQW's code and scripting. It's just plain not fun. Modding something shouldn't require one to:
a) Search through 15 different folders to find the correct 3 files to edit.
b) Discover that because of inheritance scripting you have to look again to find the file that has the right data in it because even though it's NAMED logically it actually doesn't have what you want in it.
c) Play hide and seek with 50 different dependency files for the scripting of the game, all of which will crash the game if you forget to include one evne though they have nothing whatsoever to do with your mod.
d) Compile the game code 2 different ways, one of which is optional. And lament the third way of compiling your scripts that Splash Damage-even though they use it themselves--tells everyone else not to use.
e) Discover that a typo in one of the script files of the game causes crashes when its executed, because the game doesn't check its script files on load, no... It waits until you're in the middle of the game and the code is needed, before trying it. Good luck debugging what's wrong when you have to debug through the game's script parser. This is why compiled code is good and scripting is bad.
Bottom line? I'm not having fun making QWTA, and from the ....zero servers who I've ever seen run it, the ETQW community has little interest in it either, which, while not a driving force behind my decision, doesn't give much incentive to bother if I don't feel like it. Maybe I'll pick up QWTA again at some point in the future, but I doubt it. ETQW's just too annoying to mod. I'd rather mod something I can have fun with, rather than treat as a chore.
The QWTA site will stay up a while, and then be taken down.

May 25th, 2008

QWTA v0.21 and earlier is not compatible with ETQW v1.5. I'll see what I can do to get an interim update out soonish. Bit busy with Real Life lately; work, school, trying to redevelop a social life, etc.
Not much exciting planned for QWTA v0.22 other than v1.5 compatibility, as QWTA's development has been stalled for a while due to preoccupation with other pursuits that I work on in the modding world.
Hopefully that'll get sorted out and released soon so I can turn my full attention to QWTA development again.
Expect QWTA v0.22 sometime this week or early next, whenever I can find the time to sort it out.

February 23rd, 2008

QWTA development is still going, but more slowly, due to Real Life constraints(Work has me on a lousy schedule for having free time when I'm in the mood to program anything.) and other, more interesting, modding projects. (Simple-to-edit ETQW's scripting might be, it isn't exactly a learning experience in anything other than "Where has Splash Damage hidden THAT function now?")

January 27th, 2008

Version 0.21 has been released!
This is merely a fix for two problems that were discovered after the 0.2 release of QWTA.
Download links are available in the downloads section.

January 24th, 2008

Version 0.2 has been released!
Download links are available in the downloads section.
Test server is located at: qwta.servequake.com:27733
(Please be advised, this server is hosted on a tiny 50/500 Cable connection, on a linux machine next to my desk, in western Canada.
It'll probably lag a fair bit, and may go up or down for unspecified periods of time without any notice. :D)

January 15th, 2008

Well, ETQW v1.4 has been released, so just waiting on the 1.4-compatible SDK before putting the next version of QWTA out the door.

January 2nd, 2008

Version 0.2 is coming along nicely...

December 16th, 2007

Version 0.11 has been released.
This is a patch for a crashing problem discovered with QWTA 0.1 under Linux.
Windows installations of QWTA do not require this patch to operate.
Download links are available in the downloads section.

December 14th, 2007

Version 0.1 has been released!
Download links are available in the downloads section.
Test server is located at: qwta.servequake.com:27733
(Please be advised, this server is hosted on a tiny 50/500 Cable connection, on a linux machine next to my desk, in western Canada.
It'll probably lag a fair bit, and may go up or down for unspecified periods of time without any notice. :D)

December 9th, 2007

Coming along nicely for an initial version.
About half of the core/fundamental(Read: The subset of planned changes that'll make gameplay very different. Not the nice fancy stuff yet.) changes for QWTA have been done, and the remaining ones should be following sometime in the near future(Between work, xmas shopping(argh, forgot), and MBII, it's a little tricky to work time in to learn how ETQW's code and script works and apply it, heh.).
Also will need to do some quickie testing with a few people (and bots! XD) to ensure the core changes don't horribly, horribly break things.
After that, I should be able to toss an initial v0.1 release out the door for people to try out. I'm HOPING that that'll end up being before christmas.

November 21st, 2007

Whee, the Beta SDK 1.2 has been released! QWTA development has begun!
(Well, in the form of reading over the source and trying to figure out where everything is, anyhow. XD)

November 8th, 2007

*sigh* One of the Splash Damage developers has mentioned that the SDK will be delayed some more for some reason or other... Hard to start a mod without access to sourcecode. >.>

October 28th, 2007

Well, the site's up anyhow. :D
Might go up and down, and do strange things as I do work on it over the next little while...