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Map based hacks

From Quake Wiki

Revision as of 16:04, 28 March 2013 by Scampie (talk | contribs) (Specific hacks)

This page is intended to be an explanation of the tricks written about on this page: http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=37116 and Preach's excellent blog posts on the subject: http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/category/map-hacks/

If the people who have used the tricks in here, or know a lot about them (i.e. Preach, Negke) could add stuff, that would be fantastic.



Map based hacks are keys added to entities that add functionality to the entity that it was not originally intended to have. They are possible because of the way Quake C works and allow the level designer to effectively replace functions in entities with other functions from the Quake C code.

Theory behind the hacks

info_notnull

The 'use' field

Specific hacks

Many of these hacks are taken directly from this thread over at Func_MsgBoard.

info_notnull explosion

One of the most well known tricks allows the creation of a triggerable explosion using the info_notnull entity. It is created as follows:

  • Create an info_notnull entity.
  • Add the key (use : barrel_explode).
  • Give it a targetname and create some kind of trigger that targets it.

When the trigger is fired, an explosion will occur where the info_notnull is. Be careful, since the explosion is more than just an effect and will injure the player if they are near enough. This is especially true of barrel_explode, as it is one of the most powerful explosions in the game. Fortunately, there are two other explosions that can be used instead by setting the value of the 'use' key to one of the following:

  • OgreGrenadeExplode - Ogre grenade explosion (low damage and fairly safe)
  • tbaby_die2 - Spawn death explosion

Note that these explosion functions remove the info_notnull entity from the level when the explosion animation has played, so it is not possible to use them multiple times unless the trigger is fired repeatedly at intervals of less than 0.5 seconds. For larger explosion effects, it is possible to set up multiple small explosions in the same way and trigger them in a sequence using trigger_relays.


Increment the Monsters Killed

This is a useful one if you have placed monsters in a map that the player will not ever be able to kill, such as in combination with another hack which requires a precache. It is also quite simple!

  • Create an info_notnull entity.
  • Add the key (use : boss_death10).
  • Give it a targetname and create some kind of trigger that targets it.

How does this work? boss_death10 is a function used by Cthon that is triggered at the end of his death animation which increments the counter that tracks the monsters you have killed. This also removes the entity that calls it, so you must have one of these info_notnull entities set up for each increment you want to do. Misuse of this hack also lead to situations where you have 'killed' more monsters than exist in the map, such as a counter showing the player has killed 11/10 monsters.