So, here's what I'm trying to do right now, and probably nobody knows the answer but here goes. What I'm trying to set up is an entity that emits a constant sound, but is also toggleable. So when you turn it off, the sound goes silent, and when you turn it on, the sound starts up again.

Problem 1: if you are out of hearing range when it turns on, the object will be silent when you get close.

Problem 2: if you save and reload the savegame, the object will be silent.

The basic cause is that sound() calls are fire-and-forget and quake assumes the sounds are short-lived so the above situations won't be much of a problem.

I've tried various solutions, the latest is various versions of "restart the sound every 1 second or so." The problems with that are first, when you approach the object its sound starts up suddenly instead of fading in, and second, you can hear obvious repetition when standing next to the object.

Increasing the frequency of sound() calls reduces the sudden start, but worsens the repetition. I'm going to try and improve this hack by having 3 or four different sounds, and playing them at random, so that you don't hear any obvious repetition of sounds.