Gamecode Improvements (Patreon)

This month I'm working a lot on gamecode improvements.

First, I switched to the FTEQCC compiler, which allows me to refactor the gamecode in a much cleaner way. The goal is to refactor the entire Quake gamecode in a way that makes it more usable as a starting point for modders, including Retroquad-specific features.

A big portion of the things I'm implementing in the gamecode are not Retroquad-specific, and some of them are compatible with vanilla Quake, so they should be pretty useful for qc coders.

Some of them (e.g. the slope-oriented ammo boxes displayed in this screenshot) requires engine extensions that are also present in other engines such as FTEQW.

As much as possible, I try to implement new features in a way that's compatible with other engines, but some things are going to be Retroquad-specific. An example is the improved autoaim, which sets the aimtarget entity that I created for Retroquad; this doesn't exist in other engines.

The next engine version and the improved progs.dat will both be released this month. I should likely add a version number to the progs.dat, since there will be more improvements to it afterwards.

Some of the gamecode improvements:

• • Improved hop-dash.
• • Improved autoaim.
• • Smart backpacks.
• • Prevention against health & ammo pickup wastefulness.
• • Non-crushing buttons.

There are also several bugfixes and behavior improvements. For example, picking up ammo boxes will no longer disrupt your attacks if your weapon stays the same.

There's also some behavioral changes introduced to make the gameplay more consistent. For example, the rules for picking up and switching weapons are now the same for ammo pickups, weapon pickups and backpacks. This also makes weapon pickups behave more like in Doom, where you won't pick up a weapon if you already have it with full ammo.

So, yeah, the goal is not to simply make a "cleaned up Quake" gamecode. It is to make the gamecode clearer for programmers and more intuitive for all kinds of players (specially non-Quake players).