Quake Deathmatch Level:

The Iron Fortress v1.2 (skydm1.bsp)

Author: B.Birke, Email: donut@prima.ruhr.de
Editor: Worldcraft

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Content of this text file:

(1) Features
(2) About The Level 
(3) Playing With ReaperBots

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(1) Features:

- Players: Designed for 4 to 16 players, but a one-on-one duel is 
   possible as well.
- 8 Deathmatch start points (and one single player start).
- Weapons: 2 Super Shotguns, no Nailguns, 4 Super Nailguns, 2 Grenade
   Launchers, 2 Rocket Launchers, 2 Lightning Guns.
- Quad Damage, Ring of Shadows, Pentagram (in the lava pool, right of
   the Runebridge, when you look towards the crusher); one of each.
- 2 Red, 2 Yellow (1 secret) and 2 Green Armors.
- 2 Mega Health Packs.
- no underwater areas.
- no acid slime; lava mainly as a light source and decoration (it's
   really difficult to fall into it).
- Secrets: Two secrets, for which you have to make either rocket 
   jumps or other dangerous steps. The secrets don't give a real 
   great advantage in a deathmatch game, because knowing the secrets
   shouldn't be the reason for good deathmatch scores. If you use a
   newer version of Quakeworld, turn off the glow (if possible) from 
   Quad and Pentagram, so that a player who wants the 666 can't see if 
   it's there and has to make a riskful jump into the lava !

V1.2 enhancements:
- more shadows in the ceiling areas; they don't look any longer like
  "R_FULLBRIGHT 1" enabled.
- hint arrow on the lava pool with the 666.
- added rocket box on the long catwalk.

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(2) About The Level:

The Iron Fortress has got the following main areas:
- Starting box: Small, cube-like room with three runegates, Mega 
   Health, Thunderbolt and the "Single" starting point (for those who
   have to noclip to the secrets :).
- The Jesus Stairs: Big Hall with stairs showing a Jesus face on the 
   central pillar.
- Red Armor House: Hall with a red armor in a small house.
- Runebridge: Room around the big blue bridge with runic ornaments.  
- Crusher: Doesn't it look nice ? ;)

Framerates are a little lower than those in id's DM levels. On my P133 
at 320x200, it takes an average of 30 to 40 ms per frame when running 
around and not shooting. This can go up to an extreme of about 
50 ms/frame when looking over wide areas from certain places. 
Nearly all starting points and teleport exits have got the proper 
ground plates, except the top of the Jesus Stairs' central pillar and
the teleport connection between Crusher and Startbox.
The level is designed to take full advantage of Quake's true 3D 
environment, which means that you often have to deal with opponents 
straight above or below you. Because of this, NOBODY should play this 
level with a joystick or keyboard-only control. Use mouse or trackball
to look up and down quickly!
All areas and platforms in this level are connected by elevators and 
teleporters to make you reach every place in the map within a short 
time.
Some of the edges in the game have invisible ("clip" texture) walls to
keep you from getting stuck on them. I did this to elevator rails, 
some edges on the Red Armor House, and the stairs beside of it.

Here are some tips from the Ghost Of The Iron Fortress:
"On the burning runestone, take a rocket to fly into the sky!"
"See the thing which can be your certain death from above!"

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(3) Playing With Bots (Reaper, Omicron v1.02 or better)

Bots are good to play with in The Iron Fortress. However, especially 
Reapers have problems to reach certain places in the game, such as the 
Crusher (in and out again), the Ring of Shadows (bridge switch) or the 
pentagram. They don't "like" elevators, teleporters or jumps. This is
why their behavior is very different from that of human opponents.
ReaperBots can detect and attack enemies above or below them much 
easier and faster than humans. Because of their perfect aiming and
almost-zero reaction time on Skill 2 or 3, a greater number of these 
bots will not give you any chance. They fire at you with shotguns, and
you can't evade their shots anyway. Furthermore, you have the known
problems with ReaperBots: New bots will telefrag you when you're at 
the starting point (even in Quake 1.06), and some weapons are picked 
up, even if there is nobody going over them.

Omicron Bots behave much more "human". They go into the crusher (if 
you did before), can move on the ceiling catwalks with Quad and 
grenade launcher and sometimes even get the ring with a rocket jump
(but not over the bridge). They can, however, not get the pentagram
in the lava.