q3 scale is probably a safe bet. 

Alright thanks. Well I can probably figure this out, but what are the player dimensions, like width/height, jump height, jump distance, etc.? Also is there any other dimensions like this worth knowing? I looked up the LG is 600 units long, and the RL & GL have a 120 and 160 unit splash. 

64 units is the lowest ceiling you can fit underneath.

16 unit steps are OK, but 8 unit look better 

Yeah, I see a lot of 16 unit steps, what's the deal? I assume that's also the max step height? 

yes, a 17 step will stop you dead.

i think jump distance is like 220~ units? madfox posted them a little while ago, iirc. 

the largest gap player cannot fit through is 32 units wide -- this goes for holes in the floor and for doorway width

player eye level is 48 units off the floor

player can jump up onto a 40-unit-tall crate but not 48.

you can fall down from about a 256-unit drop without taking damage (assuming you just walked off the edge and didn't jump.) 

The minimum water needed to swim is 29 units, the highest ramp jump I've done is 128 units. 

Also, for steps, I found that monsters have stricter requirements than players, and smaller monsters (grunt) can walk up steeper stairs than, say, fiends. i.e. the step width also matters.

I wanted to make staircases that fiends/shamblers/etc. could chase the player up or down, and ideally the stairs would be as steep as possible. I'll post the metrics I found when I can fire up Quake. Not sure if this is common knowledge or if I was screwing something up? 

by width, I meant the dimension that determines staircase slope 

you should just play Aerowalk to get what scale works well in qw 

Horizontal jump distance is something you have to be careful of. The quake player physics allows you to go gain lots of speed through bunnyhopping and use aircontrol to speed up during the jump. So testing the jump by holding forward and leaping may not be enough. 

I'm using NetRadiant and trying to get started with mapping. I'm using the Darkplaces engine and have no interest in supporting other engines - what's the difference between choosing Darkplaces and Quake at the initial game selection screen?

Also, if I pick Darkplaces, where will the editor expect wad files to be located? dpmod instead of id1? 

wad files are only for editing maps. once you compile a map, the textures you've used get included into the bsp file. 

I found the safest dimensions for steps are 8 units high, 16 units deep steps: any monster should be able to walk up or down them.
12 units high, 16 units deep steps: grunts can walk on them, fiends can't. 

Fiends can't walk up 16 unit high steps? I know they get stuck easily from lack of height and width, but I thought everything could climb 16 unit steps. I've almost always used 16 high x 32 deep. 

But sometimes big monsters have problems if the steps are not broad enough (floor). 

I made a test map just to check. The fiend has no trouble "walking" up or down 16 high steps, but when jumping in the up direction, he usually goes nowhere but straight up (no forward movement). Jumping down is no problem. Maybe they jump better over 8 high steps. I try to avoid steps and confined areas where fiends are concerned, they tend to get stuck too easily. 

My triggers triggers the wrong targets! For example my t31 triggers t32! Any suggestion what might be wrong or where I should start looking would be great as everything seems to be set up correctly as far as I can see? I'm using GtkRadiant 1.5.0 and I'm messing with e1m1 from the original map sources.

BTW I also get solid trigger brushes in-game for some reason, probably connected to the above issue. 

yikes... i never thought people actually used the auto target/targetname system. :S
it can be very helpful to give meaningful names to your entities to help keep track of, not only what they are, but what areas they belong to and such.
anyway, that aside, what are your triggers triggering? without more info, can't really say much.
i'll hazard a guess and say it's probably auto linked doors. try putting the DOORS_DONT_LINK flag on doors that are triggered but near to other doors. 

Compiled with -onlyents, am I right? run a full bsp process. 

Found it! I had an old ent-file in another directory that screwed things up! As I had named the edited file the same as the original (e1m1), DarkPlaces found it! But as I haven't changed any of the triggers or entities in the map I'm still confused why it screwed things up as the ent file works with the original e1m1 map? 

The cause is likely that you added a model to the map! The ent file records an index for which of the brush models to use for each trigger*. If you altered the list of models by adding or removing one, then the model entry for trigger t32 in the ent file might end up pointing to the model for t31 in your recompiled map.


*NB for those with technical know-how: this is not the modelindex field in this case. Brush entities in a map have the model field set to e.g. "*20" if their model is the 20th one baked into the map. 

the maximum distance that a player can jump and not fall into water,lava or other traps:
225

the maximum distance that a player can jump straight up and get up to another object:
42.5

the maximum distance that a player can fall and not be injured:
275

The minimun gap in floor spacing, slatted bridge, or floating squares of lava:
35

The maximum height that a step can be before the player must jump:
17 

since the 35 is wrong, i suspect some of the other numbers too... 

Max fall height is 256. And why should it be 42.5?