NIQ for Quake II

brought to you by Mike Fox (a.k.a. Artful Dodger)

email me

Downloads
Latest News and Important Notices
What is NIQ?
Overview of Features
Downloading and Installation
Configuring NIQ
NIQ Servers
Known Problems
Future Plans
Source Code
Credits
Copyright and Distribution

For the very latest news, check the official NIQ for Quake II web page at www.planetquake.com/niq.
To report a problem or to make a suggestion, first make sure that the problem/suggestion isn't already in either of the Known Problems or Future Plans sections below. If not, send your problem/suggestion to mfox@matrox.com.

What is NIQ?

NIQ is a 100% server-side mod for Quake II which completely removes all items (weapons, ammo, powerups, techs etc.) from the game. Except for certain items such as keys which are required to complete some maps in singleplayer or coop mode (and, of course, the flags for CTF), there are absolutely no items to be found anywhere.
In NIQ, it is the server (game) which controls which weapons all clients (players) have and it is the server which is responsible for incrementing each client's health and ammunition automatically, at the same rate for everyone. All clients in NIQ always have the same weapon as everyone else and can differ only in terms of how much health, ammo, and skill each has.
While regular Quake II and many of its modifications are very entertaining, these games tend to emphasize knowing the current map inside out in order to do well. You have to know where the most powerful items are and try to get to them before someone else does. If you don't take the time to pick up these items (e.g. the quad damage, megahealth, BFG) then someone else will and when you meet, guess who will win, unless you have a *lot* more skill.
The idea behind NIQ is to change the game so that you don't have to worry about running around looking for items and you don't need to have the current map memorized to survive. The emphasis is entirely on seeing how well you can do with the current weapon against other players who have the same weapon as you.
NIQ also lets you control exactly which weapons will be used in the game and you can specify whether weapons are used in order, or randomly. You can also set things up so that, for example, you have the rocket launcher 75% of the time and the railgun 25% of the time. Don't think that you will want to get rid of the wimpy blaster for NIQ games. The blaster has been goosed up to do 50 HP of damage without using any ammo, which makes it a serious weapon (it normally does 15 HP of damage in deathmatch, 10 in singleplayer). By default the regular shotgun and machinegun are removed from the game, but you can put these back in if you like. The BFG is actually a lot of fun when everyone has one so I recommend that you leave it in.
Finally, NIQ allows for some interesting situations which you don't normally encounter while using other mods. When was the last time you had an 8-player (or more) BFG battle, a grenade launcher party or a railgun or rocket launcher fest where everyone has the same weapon? And for singleplayer/coop mode fans, NIQ offers a different and challenging way to play these games.

Overview of Features

The following apply to deathmatch mode. Features which are specific to NIQCTF and singleplayer/coop mode follow below.

Each time you join a game, you will be given the same weapon that is being used by everyone else, along with some ammunition for that weapon. The server will hand out ammo for the current weapon up to a limit and at a rate which can both be configured if the defaults are unsatisfactory.
The server will periodically (default: every 60 seconds) switch to a new weapon, using the list of weapons in the file niqweap.txt. The weapons can be cycled either in order or randomly (the default). When selecting weapons randomly, the next weapon can be completely random, or NIQ can be configured to make sure each of the available weapons is used before restarting the selection process.
The time remaining (seconds) until the next weapon switch is shown on the HUD.
If there is only 1 weapon specified in niqweaps.txt, weapon switching is disabled and that weapon will be used forever, with no time remaining shown on the HUD.
Your health continuously increases, but not while fighting (firing a weapon), drowning, or burning in lava or slime. The default setting has your health going back to 100% fairly quickly. This is so that someone who wins a close battle doesn't have a huge health disadvantage for too long if he runs into someone who is freshly respawned (with 100% health).
The blaster is replaced by a superblaster which uses no ammo and does 50 HP (configurable) of damage. This is a very powerful weapon.
Most of the weapon selecting commands are disabled.
When you run out of ammo, your weapon doesn't change. You have to wait for more to be given to you. I've tried to choose initial amounts and increment rates which work well, but these can always be changed in the file niqammo.txt if desired. Basically, the idea is to not run out of ammo too easily, while not making it too easy to simply fire at will (as you can do with unlimited ammo enabled). Learning how to deal with running out of ammo is part of the game.
The give commands (when allowed) can only give health and keys etc., or more of the current ammunition. Infinite ammo is also supported.
There are absolutely no items in the game to be picked up or dropped. The only items which a client can have are the current weapon and (except for the blaster) ammo for the current weapon.
Grenades are not usable. They can only be used as ammo for the grenade launcher.
Custom scoring. NIQ tracks each client's score as a float which takes into account the number of times each client gets killed as well as how many kills and suicides he has. The default scoring is +1.0/-0.5/-1.0 for kills/killed/suicides but this can be changed if desired. For example, to restore the regular scoring method, just set niq_killedpenalty to 0.0. Note that the HUD shows your score rounded to the nearest integer, but the scoreboard shows your actual score to 1 decimal place.
Custom scoreboards. The custom scoreboards for NIQ shows each client's name, and the number of kills/killed/suicides, ping time and score, sorted by score. The default number of clients shown is 12 but this can be changed (more will not fit on a 320x240 screen though). If a client is not in the top 12, his score is shown below the list (so all clients always see their own score). At the very bottom of the scoreboard, the scoring method which is being used (i.e. the number of points for each kill/killed/suicide) is shown. Clients can press the '1' key (use Blaster) while the scoreboard is up to select which scoreboard is used in the following order. NIQ 320x240 scoreboard as described above NIQ 320x240 adds damage factors and truncates names to 10 chars NIQ 512x384 adds rank, and time (needs at least 512x384 resolution) regular deathmatch scoreboard regular CTF scoreboard The CTF scoreboard is only available with NIQCTF in ctf mode.
The number of clients in the game is shown each time a client enters the game or disconnects.
MOTD support. It is possible to put a brief custom message into the file niqmotd.txt. At present the MOTD stays up for about 5 seconds.

NIQCTF Notes

NIQCTF is very similar to regular NIQ with (obviously) CTF support included. It is based on Eavy's Q2CTF+ mod. This is identical to regular Q2CTF with the exception that it is possible to play Q2CTF on the regular and deathmatch maps.
Obviously for CTF to work, the flag items have to be left in the game and these are present in NIQCTF and can be picked up, taken and captured as usual. As in regular Q2CTF, when the flag carrier is killed, the flag is dropped for someone else to pick up and will return to its base automatically if this does not happen within some period of time.
As with regular CTF, the grappling hook is always available. When the current weapon is changed by the server, clients who are using the grappling hook at the time of the change will continue to use it, otherwise they will see their weapon replaced by the new one. Since there are only 2 'weapons' at any time in NIQCTF (i.e. the grappling hook and the current NIQCTF weapon), clients should bind a key or button to weapnext or weapprev to be able to quickly switch between them. The Artful Dodger finds that using MOUSE1 for weapnext and MOUSE2 for FIRE works just fine.
Most NIQ options also apply to NIQCTF.
As with regular Q2CTF, you can set ctf=0 and play a deathmatch game (with no flags) and have the grappling hook available. This mode makes NIQCTF identical to NIQ in deathmatch mode, with the exception of the grappling hook.

Singleplayer and Coop Mode Notes

These notes apply to using NIQ to play singleplayer or coop mode games. NIQCTF does not support singleplayer/coop mode just as Q2CTF doesn't support these (deathmatch=1 is always forced).
Although the NIQ mod was originally intended as a deathmatch and CTF mod, its actually quite fun and challenging in singleplayer mode as well. Coop mode has been tested briefly and seems to work fine as well.
The main difference is that in singleplayer/coop mode, clients only get health as the result of killing some monster and the current weapon will only switch after N kills. These settings can be controlled through the file niqmonst.txt and through the NIQ configuration file (see Configuring NIQ). The idea is to remove the possibility for players to simply hide and wait until their health returns to 100% and/or until they get a better weapon (of course, these tactics don't work very well in deathmatch games).
Generally, the tougher the monster, the more health you will get for disposing of it. Note that by default you do not get any health for killing the insane guys (the POWs), but if it makes you happy to put them out of their misery go ahead. If you *really* want to, you can always edit the file niqmonst.txt and specify how much health you want to gain (or lose) for killing them but killing a POW will never decrease the number of kills needed for the next weapon switch.
By default, there is a message at the top of the screen describing each monster as it is killed. This is kind of fun to have and is also informative and is useful when you're not sure what you killed (e.g. with that quick BFG shot before you ducked out of sight).
In singleplayer/coop mode, your health *can* increase while your are fighting (firing your weapon).
All key items (keys, CDs, markers, the commander's head) have been left in the game. Monsters are allowed to drop these if applicable since some custom maps have monsters dropping keys or CDs when they are killed and these are usually needed to complete the game.
Some maps may require the rebreather and/or environment suits to reach certain areas, so these items have been left in for sp/coop. If you have problems selecting these through the item menu, just bind keys to "use breather" and "use environment suit", but the menu is *supposed* to work ok now.
Except for keys etc., monsters and the POWs will never drop anything when killed.

Downloading and Installation

NIQ and NIQCTF are 100% server-side mods. If your only goal in life is to connect to an NIQ or NIQCTF server as a client, you don't need to do anything except maybe read the information on what NIQ is/how it works. Of course to play NIQCTF, you will need to have the official q2ctf patch from idsoftware.
If you want to start an NIQ server or play NIQ in singleplayer/coop mode, you will need to download the latest version from the Downloads section and unzip it into the directory \quake2\niq (recommended).
NIQCTF requires a couple of additional steps. Because Q2CTF is itself a mod to Quake II, clients connecting to a Quake II server which is running a Q2CTF mod will expect the mod to be in the ctf directory since this is where clients will look for the pak0.pak file which contains the Q2CTF maps, graphics and sounds on their own machine. This means that you will have to find a way to have NIQCTF and whatever is currently in your ctf directory (usually Q2CTF) co-exist. The easiest way to do this is probably to make \quake2\ctf\q2ctf and \quake2\ctf\niqctf directories. Assuming that Q2CTF is currently installed in \quake2\ctf, copy the file gamex86.dll into \quake2\ctf\q2ctf. Then unzip the NIQCTF files into \quake2\ctf and copy the NIQCTF gamex86.dll into \quake2\ctf\niqctf. You can then either manually copy the dll which you want to use from \quake2\ctf\q2ctf or \quake2\ctf\niqctf into \quake2\ctf before running the server or write a little batch file to do this for you. This will make whatever ctf mod you choose to run on the server transparent to clients because they will see a mod called ctf running in either case. Note that if you don't have q2ctf, you can download it (including the pak0.pak which NIQCTF uses) from idsoftware.
Note that EAVY's version of Q2CTF installs a \quake2\ctf\maps directory which contains .ent files for placing the flags in the regular and deathmatch maps. Each base is marked with a red/blue banner so bases can be identified even if the flags aren't there. I've deleted the file jail3.ent because this was placing the red base near the pyramid with the result that the red flag was never visible. See Q2CTF+ for more information on this mod, but it is more or less completely identical to Q2CTF except that you aren't limited to the usual 5 Q2CTF maps.
After unzipping NIQ and/or NIQCTF, you can edit the file niq.cfg (niqctf.cfg) as desired, but most of the default settings should be fine, at least initially. You can also edit the files niqweaps.txt, niqammo.txt, niqmonst.txt and niqmotd.txt. See "Configuring NIQ" or the files themselves for more information. Since many of the NIQ variables are now shared for sp/coop/deathmatch modes, I've included configuration files for each of these. Just use the appropriate .cfg file when you start the game to have the settings for the mode which you want to play in. For NIQCTF, you can also use most of the Q2CTF+ options. See the file readme+.txt (included in the .zip) for more information on this.
Start Quake II with the usual
quake2 +set game niq +exec your.cfg +exec niq.cfg
or
quake2 +set game ctf +exec your.cfg +exec niqctf.cfg
command line, where "your.cfg" is your custom .cfg file, if any (and don't forget to add +set dedicated 1, +set maxclients xx in order to set up a dedicated server). It is recommended that you use the included niqsp.cfg or niqcoop.cfg for singleplayer and coop mode instead of niq.cfg.
By the way, here is a useful binding for reporting your status to your team (%a, %t and %w aren't needed since you can't have armor or techs in NIQ and everyone knows what weapon you have).
bind CTRL "say_team I'm %l with %h, and %n"
(For NIQCTF, there is a chance that the server has been setup incorrectly. If you connect fine but get a bunch of "can't find pic" and "can't find sound" messages and you can't see the flags and/or the grappling hook, check what the server's gamedir is (GameSpy tells you what this is and I think you can type it in at the Quake II console to get its value). Probably the server does not have NIQCTF installed in the "ctf" directory (e.g. it might be in niqctf) so on your system, the file pak0.pak (from q2ctf) will not be found. The only solution, apart from getting the server operator to install NIQCTF correctly, is to create a directory with the same name as the gamedir name in your own quake2 directory (e.g. niqctf) and copy the pak0.pak file from your ctf directory into that directory. This should fix any problems once you reconnect to the server. Note that if you don't have q2ctf, you can download it (including the pak0.pak which NIQCTF uses) from idsoftware.)

Configuring NIQ

For server operators (or in sp/coop), the following variables can be set either at the console or in a .cfg file which can be loaded when NIQ/NIQCTF starts. Most changes to these variables will take effect immediately and apply to all modes in NIQ and NIQCTF.
default values NIQ NIQ(dm) NIQCTF Description niq_weaprand 1 1 1 0/1: weapons are switched in order/randomly niq_weapall 1 1 1 1: make sure each random weapon gets a turn niq_weapsecs NA 60 60 number of seconds that each weapon is used niq_blasterhp 50 50 50 damage done by superblaster niq_healthinc NA 10 5 health increment amount if niq_autoinc=1 niq_healthmax 100 100 100 maximum allowed health niq_switchmsgs 0 0 1 0/1: don't show/show weapon switched messages niq_killpts NA 1.0 1.0 points gained for a frag in dm niq_killedpts NA 0.2 0.2 points lost for getting killed in dm niq_suicidepts NA 1.0 1.0 points lost for killing yourself in dm niq_sboardlines NA 12 12 size of NIQ scoreboard (0 means don't use) niq_autoinc 0 1 1 0/1: use/don't use automatic health/weapon switching niq_switchkills 5 NA NA number of kills needed to get next weapon in sp/coop niq_killmsgs 1 NA NA 0/1: hide/show messages describing killed monsters niq_sndflags 1 3 3 flags for controlling which sounds are used niq_flags 0 0 0 controls whether handicapping is enabled
In NIQCTF, we show switch messages by default because if you are using the grappling hook when the switch occurs, you won't see the new weapon until you switch to it.
The value of niq_autoinc controls whether your health increases automatically every second (niq_autoinc=1) or as the result of killing a target (niq_autoinc=0). In sp and coop mode this also controls whether weapons are switched automatically every niq_weapsecs seconds (niq_autoinc=1) or if you need to kill niq_switchkills monsters before the weapon will be switched to the next one (niq_autoinc=0). The default setting of 0 for sp and coop mode forces you to kill monsters to get health and to get the next weapon which is probably more fun since you can't just hide and wait for your health to get back to 100% or for a better weapon to appear. Using niq_autoinc=1 in sp or coop mode can be challenging though, if your goal is to see how quickly you can get through a map.
If niq_weapsecs is set to -1 in deathmatch/ctf mode, or if niq_switchkills is set to -1 in sp/coop mode with niq_autoinc=0 the current weapon will only be changed each time the map changes.
The value of niq_sndflags controls whether certain NIQ sounds are used. Add up the following values for each of the sounds which you want to use in the game:
sound value weapon switch sound 1 switch warning sound 2 health increase sound 4
e.g. to have just the weapon switch and switch warning sounds, set niq_sndflags to 3, to have all sounds, set it to 7.
At present, niq_flags only controls whether handicapping is enabled (1) or disabled (0).
Controls value handicapping on 1

Something fun to try in NIQ / NIQCTF is to set niq_weapsecs to 10 (seconds) or so, so that the current weapon will switch very rapidly.
Or, set niq_autoinc to 0 and niq_healthinc to 25 or so. This will mean that instead of being given health automatically, you will only get health (25 points worth) when you kill someone.

niqweaps.txt

Contains a list of weapons to use in the game. Weapons can go into the file more than once (up to 50 entries are allowed) in which case they will appear more often (in both random and sequential cycling modes). If there is only 1 weapon specified in this file, weapon switching will be disabled and the given weapon will be used forever, with no time remaining shown on the HUD.

niqammo.txt

Controls how much ammo is initially given for each weapon, the rate at which the ammo for that weapon is handed out and the maximum allowed ammo for that weapon.

niqmonst.txt

For NIQ in sp/coop mode, controls how much health you get for killing each type of monster (tougher monsters give you more health).

niqmotd.txt

You can put a short (40 cols or less, and maybe 2-3 lines) message in here which will be inserted into the standard NIQ MOTD for regular deathmatch games.
Note that if NIQ does not find any of the above files, it will use default values. By default NIQ/NIQCTF look first in the gamedir directory, then in the niq and ctf directories respectively.
Lines in the NIQ/NIQCTF .txt files should not exceed 128 characters in length.

NIQ Servers

The following servers are known to be running NIQ or NIQCTF from time to time. Since there is now a custom GameSpy filter for NIQ and NIQCTF, this list will probably no longer be updated. If you run an NIQ/NIQCTF server, just make sure you register it with PlanetQuake or another of the master servers which GameSpy uses. For more information on how to do this (basically you add 2 lines to your .cfg files) visit PlanetQuake. Also, see www.gamespy.com for information on how to create and use custom tabs.
Name IP Port Details HellraiserII[%]'s NIQCTF SRV 149.112.36.157 27914 NIQCTF 19:15 - 06:00 EST NHTIQ2_NIQ_1.00. 206.230.130.104 27910 NIQCTF (deathmatch mode) Clan Fuq--Niq room 163.120.91.20 28000 Might run NIQ sometimes One of the following servers will be running Wednesday May 27th from 19:15-21:15 and possibly on subsequent Wednesdays. AD's NIQ server #1, or, 204.50.135.57 27910 NIQ/NIQCTF 19:15-21:15 EST wednesdays AD's NIQ server #2 204.50.135.67 27910 NIQ/NIQCTF 19:15-21:15 EST wednesdays
To connect directly (without using GameSpy or a master server list), just type in "connect 149.112.36.157:27914", for example.

Known Problems

deathmatch/CTF

No known problems.

singleplayer/coop

I haven't gone through the entire game with the changes to allow triggered events to be triggered automatically, so there may still be a few things which need to be done here. Please let me know if you find any problems.

general

I've occasionally seen the following error messages with NIQ/NIQCTF as well as with regular Quake II and many other mods. There hardly ever seems to be a problem when they appear, although they are somewhat annoying. If anyone knows their cause and/or how to fix them, please let me know. I suspect that a lot of them are related to lag?
"Client has overflowed"
"netchan_transmit: dumped unreliable" (in the console of a dedicated server which is running NIQ).
"SZ_GetSpace: overflow without overflow set"
"WARNING: message overflowed for XXX"
Most mods and regular Quake II have the occasional "can't find pic" message which doesn't seem to cause a problem. This seems to be related to lag and/or a slow server.
Occasionally when firing the chaingun or hyperblaster continuously for a while, the weapon will seem to stop firing and the screen will seem to shake for a few seconds and there may be a pile of "client has overflowed" messages. Things seem to come back to normal if you stop firing for a few seconds. I've seen this happen with other mods as well, so it isn't specific to NIQ. It could be related to lag and/or running on a slow server.

Future Plans

These are arranged in rough order of the probability that I will actually do them.
Now that the Eraser bot code is out, I'm hoping to do NIQBOTS if the code which I need to muck around with is fairly straightforward. Probably the biggest limitation of any of the bots which I've tried (I've spent hundreds of hours playing against the Reaper Bots for Quake I) is the fact that they often can't get to powerful items which their human opponents are able to reach with relative ease. This puts them at quite a disadvantage against human opponents of roughly equal fighting skill. For this reason I think that merging NIQ with the Eraser Bot code might be worth trying and I'll look into this once NIQ and NIQCTF seem to have settled down. One possible problem will be if it is necessary but not possible to modify the bot logic because the necessary source code is unavailable. For example, obviously bots in NIQ/NIQCTF don't need to waste CPU cycles executing item-finding / selecting logic because their are no items to find or use (except for the grapple and flags). On the other hand, it may be necessary to add logic which takes into account the fact that health and ammo will autoincrement etc.
Merge NIQ with Q2CTF+ which will let a single mod support all modes (CTF/deathmatch/singleplayer/coop with or without the grappling hook).
Add support for reading in a list of maps to be used. Even better would be to let this list include suggested minimum and maximum numbers of players for each map so that the best map for the current number of clients would be chosen each time. The maps could be executed either in order or randomly (using all maps at least once). I *think* that with NIQCTF, you can use the mapxxx.lst files to set up map cycling but I haven't tested this.
Player ID support in NIQ would be nice (its in NIQCTF for free because this is in Q2CTF).
Add an option to disable the grappling hook in NIQCTF so that in non-ctf mode, NIQCTF would be exactly like NIQ in deathmatch mode.
Add optional automatic handicapping (now that voluntary handicapping is available). Each client's damage factor would be adjusted up or down depending on his ping and/or skill. The tricky part would be to do this in a way that keeps as many people happy as possible.
Some way to indicate to other clients that a client is using more or less than 100% damage would be nice. e.g. a client who has > 100% damage could flash in blue (the color usually used for quad damage) and a client who has < 100% damage could flash in green (the power armor color).
For singleplayer/coop, have the amount of health which you get for killing a monster depend on which weapon was used (you should get more health when using a weaker weapon). This would turn the file niqmonst.txt into a table of monsters vs. weapon used to kill the monster, i.e. 10 columns instead of 1. This would be better than having, say, a multiplier for each weapon since not all weapons are equally effective against all monsters (e.g. killing flying monsters with the grenade launcher isn't too easy).

Source Code

I plan to upload the sources for NIQ and NIQCTF when I get a chance. Look for these to appear in this section.

Credits

A lot of thanks goes out to the guys at Matrox who helped Beta test NIQ and NIQCTF and provided encouragement and helpful ideas. In particular, Olivier Rousseau (Flatulus), Martin Paradis (Aes_Sedai), Louis de Carufel (Mr.Bungle), Steve McDuff (Demolition Duff), Eric Le (DynaByte), Rudy Yang (Stonecutter), Pierre Gervais (Cacou), Wil Renczes (Hawkins) and Benoit Miller (Fulg). Thanks also to Vince Lupo (Destroy), Matt (of Weapons of Destruction fame), Dave (Fargo) Kosak, Rodger Ballard and Joost Schuur for helping me with distribution issues. Thanks to Stefan Schwarz (EAVY) of the Handy-Team for his mod to Q2CTF which lets us play CTF on the regular and DM maps. And of course, thanks to id for putting out Quake II and Q2CTF in the first place.

Copyright and Distribution

The Quake2 source code is Copyright 1997, id Software. All modifications and additions made to the Quake2 source code to produce "NIQ" and "NIQCTF" can be used by anyone however they want, but please try to keep the files for these mods intact and unmodified.
NIQ and NIQCTF are provided "as is". While every attempt has been made to make these quality modifications to Quake II, if you use them, you do so entirely at your own risk.
Authors may feel free to use the NIQ sources however they want, subject to the above restrictions.

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