Configuration examples/Vampire mode with catch up

OpenArena contains various Special game options that were not included inside the original Quake III Arena game. Enabling them gives some new twists to gameplay, and you should try them.

On the forums, 7 suggested a "Ketchup vampires" configuration: he tested a balance of the vampire mode, catch up and award pushing options values.

Using vampire mode (gaining health when damaging an opponent) changes the balance of the game, making the players change their tactics. Catch up (players leading in frags cause less damage to trailing players than vice-versa) compensates a bit the advantage a player gains with vampire health. Awardpushing makes very nice to push other players into deadly pits with your weapons, because you can get much vampire health at once this way.

7 suggests using "open" and "floating" maps (like oa_shine, suspended, or wrackdm17), because "closed" maps (maps without wide open spaces) make for very defensive play in vampire mode, and without using "floating" maps (maps suspended in space) awardpushing mode doesn't make much sense.

Important: currently (OpenArena 0.8.5), g_catchup works only with non-team-based matches. During team-based matches, its damage reduction does not occur. Using vampire mode can be very funny anyway!

WARNING: Parts of the configuration have not been touched/covered in these examples, like server name or "friendly fire" option. You can play using simply the configurations you find here, but in order to have a complete server configuration, you should integrate them with the other commands you can find in Servers#Server config example.

Settings

Vampire mode with catch up

Copy/paste the following lines to a plain text file, naming it, for example vampire_catchup.cfg, and place it inside your baseoa folder (under your OpenArena installation or user data folder). Then launch OpenArena and execute it (example: \exec vampire_catchup.cfg).

//Match settings (adapt as you wish)
set g_gametype 0 // 0 = Free For All, 1 = Tournament, 3 = Team Deathmatch, 4 = Capture The Flag, 5 = One Flag Capture, 6 = Overload, 7 = Harvester, 8 = Elimination, 9 = CTF Elimination, 10 = Last Man Standing, 11 = Double Domination, 12 = Domination 
set timelimit 30 // maximum match duration
set fraglimit 100 // some game modes check for fraglimit, others check for capturelimit
set capturelimit 8 

//Special game options
sets g_vampire 0.3333333 // This gives you health for 1/3 of the damage you do to your opponents
set g_vampire_max_health 998 // This should not be set to 999 or higher
sets g_elimination 0 // Default value is 0. Enabling this allows to use various features from Elimination mode (like the weapons) inside other modes. Useless if you are already playing Elimination/CTF Elimination/Last Man Standing mode.
sets g_catchup 2 // Your attacks give less damage to players that are many frags behind your score (x% for each frag starting from the sixth). You can set it higher to have a bigger damage reduction.
sets g_awardpushing 1 // You get score (and, with vampire mode, health points!) by pushing your opponents to deadly falls with your fire.

// map oa_shine // Uncomment (remove the // at the beginning of the line) this to simply run a page. You can instead create a real map rotation script if you wish.

Vampire mode, catch up and g_elimination features

Taking the previous example and enabling also g_elimination option can be funny, too. G_elimination allows to use some features from Elimination/CTF Elimination/Last Man Standing modes outside them: it removes all the items from the map, and you begin the game with many weapons and armor. Please read Elimination#CVARs to know what are the variables that allow you to customize Elimination settings (not all of them affect g_elimination option). If you like, you can use vampire option also directly in the "real" Elimination mode, but remember that catch up currently (OA 0.8.5) does not work with team-based gametypes, like the true Elimination is.

You could place these settings in a file called, for example, vampire_catchup_gelim.cfg (but use the name you wish).

Note: in this example we put in more ammo than the standard values, because with Vampire mode, a "life" can last more, and we don't want to run out of ammo (with g_elimination, you don't find ammo boxes around)... This becomes more important if you use higher g_vampire values.

//Match settings (adapt as you wish)
set g_gametype 0 // 0 = Free For All, 1 = Tournament, 3 = Team Deathmatch, 4 = Capture The Flag, 5 = One Flag Capture, 6 = Overload, 7 = Harvester, 8 = Elimination, 9 = CTF Elimination, 10 = Last Man Standing, 11 = Double Domination, 12 = Domination 
set timelimit 30 // maximum match duration
set fraglimit 70 // some game modes check for fraglimit, others check for capturelimit
set capturelimit 8 

//Special game options
sets g_vampire 0.3333333 // This gives you health for 1/3 of the damage you do to your opponents
set g_vampire_max_health 998 // This should not be set to 999 or higher
sets g_elimination 1 // Default value is 0. Enabling this allows to use various features from Elimination mode (like the weapons) inside other modes. Useless if you are already playing Elimination/CTF Elimination/Last Man Standing mode.
sets g_catchup 2 // Your attacks give less damage to players that are many frags behind your score (x% for each frag starting from the sixth). You can set it higher to have a bigger damage reduction.
sets g_awardpushing 1 // You get score (and, with vampire mode, health points!) by pushing your opponents to deadly falls with your fire.

//Elimination starting health and ammo (customize as you wish)
set elimination_startArmor "150"
set elimination_startHealth "200"
set elimination_machinegun "999" // We don't ever want to be permanently out of ammo
set elimination_shotgun "200"
set elimination_grenade "50"
set elimination_rocket "250"
set elimination_lightning "900"
set elimination_railgun "100"
set elimination_plasmagun "500"
set elimination_bfg "5"
set elimination_nail "100"
set elimination_mine "25"
set elimination_chain "750"

// map oa_shine // Uncomment (remove the // at the beginning of the line) this to simply run a page. You can instead create a real map rotation script if you wish.

Restore standard configuration

These are the default settings in OpenArena 0.8.5. You could place them in a file called, for example, vampire_catchup_disable.cfg. Executing it will undo the changes previously made.

//Restore Match settings
set g_gametype 0 
set timelimit 20 
set fraglimit 20 
set capturelimit 8 

//Special game options
sets g_vampire 0 
set g_vampire_max_health 500
sets g_elimination 0 
sets g_catchup 0 
sets g_awardpushing 1 // Enabled by default since OA 0.8.5

//Restore Elimination starting health and ammo
set elimination_startArmor "150"
set elimination_startHealth "200"
set elimination_machinegun "500"
set elimination_shotgun "500"
set elimination_grenade "100"
set elimination_rocket "50"
set elimination_lightning "300"
set elimination_railgun "20"
set elimination_plasmagun "200"
set elimination_bfg "0"
set elimination_nail "0"
set elimination_mine "0"
set elimination_chain "0"