The arenas may include various kinds of thing that may interact with you.
If you are interested in weapons you can pick-up and use, please read Manual/Weapons. If you are interested in items you can pick-up, please read Manual/Items (flags are covered in later in this page instead).
Environment[]
Accelerator Pads[]
Accelerator pads, or Acceleration pads or Launch pads, will make you perform very long jumps.
Similar to "bounce pads", but usually with horizontal push much bigger than vertical push. They affect people, while projectiles do not bounce.
Bounce Pads[]
Bounce pads (a.k.a. "jump-pads") will make you jump very high, usually to another platform.
Very similar to "accelerator pads", but usually with vertical push much bigger than horizontal push. They affect people, while projectiles do not bounce.
If you jump over them, instead of simply walking over them, you will get a little higher push. If you rocket jump over them (making the rocket explode on their surface), you will get an enormous push.
Lifts[]
Lifts will usually be activated when you get over them. They usually stay in their lower position, and then go up to their raised position when someone gets on them.
Platforms[]
Unlike lifts, moving platforms always move.
Gates and Teleporters[]
Gates and teleporters are situated statically in some scene maps. They take you from one room to another. Movement is sometimes bi-directional, sometimes one-way only. Gates and teleporters work the same, the only difference is that gates also allow you to see what there is where they will bring you. Their aspect may vary (e.g. they may be similar to mirrors, to doors, to platforms, to force fields, or be completely invisible).
It is not advisable to stand in the exact place where players re-appear while exiting from a teleporter, because you would be instantly killed (a.k.a. "telefragged") when someone would be teleported there: player standing on the spawning point dies, player spawning lives.
Gates and teleporters work with people, but not with projectiles. Projectiles fired against a teleporter will not be teleported, but will simply impact on its surface or continue flying behind it (depending whether the map creator made the gate as a solid object or not). Trivia: along with other features, in the Alternate Fire mod the non-instant-impact projectiles are teleported instead, so you may see them appearing from a gate (even seemingly out from nothing) there.
Gates are also known as Portal teleporters, or simply Portals.
You will find many more standard teleporters than gates in the game, due to the fact that gates, like mirrors, may cause a lot of more polygons to be drawn in the scene. Map creators: see Creating a portal page.
"Personal teleporter" is instead an holdable item, not a "map element" (we mention it here just because we are talking about teleporters). If you get it, then you can activate it with ENTER (by default), and it will teleport you to a random player spawn location.
Water[]
Under-water swimming is possible for a limited amount of time (until player gets out of breath and begins to lose health: after about 10 seconds without breathing, you start getting severe damage, and die quickly if you don't find air). Press jump key ("spacebar" by default) to go to the surface, and even quicker is when you also (so together with space) look upwards and press forward (default W). Pressing the crouch key ("c" by default), instead, will help you go deeper. Swimming is slower than usual running, its speed is similar to walking. Jumping can sometimes help you getting out from a pool. Standard armor does not protect against this kind of damage; wearing the "battle suit" power-up gives complete protection against drowning.
If the water is not deep enough to swim: if there are just few centimeters of water on the floor, you will not notice problems other than running a little slower than usual; if there are some more centimeters of water, you will run more slower (at the speed of walking), and will "slide" a little.
Fog of death, Lava and Void[]
Jump in either "fog of death", lava or void and you will die a surprisingly quick death. You'll also lose a point. "Battle suit" will completely protect you from lava, but not from "fog of death" and void: instead, the battle suit reduces their damage by 50%.
Slime[]
Green liquid that will damage you if you touch it, but not as deadly as lava is. "Battle suit" protects you from it.
Fog[]
The simple fog, unlike the "fog of death", will not kill you, but will simply disturb your visual, hiding far objects.
Triggers[]
You may find some buttons around, that activate some mechanisms (like doors or traps). Some are activated when touching them, while others are activated when shooting at them. Triggers may be invisible and intangible (e.g. activating some mechanism while just entering a certain room).
Doors[]
Usually, doors will automatically open when you get near to them, or when you shoot at them. Some may need to activate a trigger somewhere, or may be time-activated.
Fixed weapons[]
Some maps may include some weapons (rocket launcher, plasma gun, grenade launcher) attached to the walls, and automatically activated when someone approaches the area, or manually activated by a trigger button.
Other traps[]
Other traps may include moving pendulums, moving walls, trapdoors, hurting or instant-killing objects.
Force fields[]
Some maps may include force fields that can give you health, armor, weapons, ammo or power-ups when you are inside them, instead of the standard picking up things (aspect and effect depends from map creator).
Be aware that there may also be some shining/lightning objects that are programmed to hurt or kill you when you touch them... a very different kind of force fields!
Slick surfaces[]
Slick surfaces are surfaces with reduced friction (e.g. "slick" parameter may be applied to icy surfaces). They cause you to slide.
Shooters[]
Maps may include some built-in weapons, known as "shooters". Shooters act as traps, and usually fire when activated by some kind of trigger (example: when a player enters a room, some grenades may be thrown in). Grenade launcher, Plasma gun and Rocket launcher are the weapons that can act as "shooters".
Spawn points[]
You may not see them, but without them you would not be able to play. They are the places in the map where the characters and objects appear. They exist spawn points for players, for teams, for weapons, for power-ups, etc. Spawn points positions and related items may vary depending from the gametype.
It is not advisable to stand in the exact place where you spawned. If someone else would respawn on a certain (players)spawn point while you are standing there, you would be instantly killed (a.k.a. "telefragged").
[]
Some gametypes will include some more items in the arena.
In base game you cannot drop any item you have, unless you die, but some mods may include additional commands to drop some kind of item. In base game, in extreme need of passing a flag to a teammate of yours, you may have to suicide yourself (/kill).
Red and blue flags[]
The red and blue flags are used in Capture the Flag and CTF Elimination game modes. Red flag is usually in the "red base" and the blue flag in the "blue base". You have to grab the other team's flag ad bring it to your own base, defending your flag in the meanwhile. Red and blue flag will also appear in the two bases during some other gametypes, but you will not be able to pick-up them (you may have to bring something to them, instead).
Neutral flag[]
The "neutral flag" (also known as "white flag" or "grey flag") is used in One Flag Capture gametype. It usually spawns in the middle of the map, and you have to bring it to the enemy base.
Note: in Domination gametype, the fixed "domination points" currently look like flags, and are "neutral" at the beginning of the match, until a player touches them for the first time (then they are colored and bring points to that team). They look like flags, but they are different items.
Skulls[]
Some skulls may simply be decorative elements of the arenas, but we want to talk about the skulls used in Harvester gametype. They will appear in the middle of the map when you kill an enemy, and then you will have to bring them to the enemy base.
Obelisks[]
Obelisks are objects that are used in Overload mode. You have to reach the enemy base and shoot at the obelisk: you have to destroy it to score. But it can get very much damage before being destroyed, and its health points automatically regenerate.
Domination points[]
Domination points are objects in the map that are used in Domination mode. When you will touch one of them, it will take the colour of your team, and your team will begin to score points as the time passes. If an enemy touches it, the point will change colour, and the enemy team will begin to score points. You have to conquer and maintain the domination points around the map. They look like red and blue flags, and like neutral flags until someone touches them for the first time.
Double Domination points[]
Double Domination points are objects in the map that are used in Double Domination mode. They are "A" and "B". Your team has to conquer both of them and maintain them both for ten seconds, in order to score.