This is great information, thank you!

So where would be "the good place (tm)" to record it for posterity?

After all let's be frank, func_msgboard is lovely, but it is not best searchable archive around (it is quite a good archive otherwise, like historically).

There used to be quakesrc.org (I think was the name), which was quite a treasure trove, but then it died and for a time, it looked like all the knowledge was lost.

Is for example quakewiki.org community approved?

I remember there were some dramas around doomwiki not being hosted on community resources at first and then company hosting it tried to monetize it and as far as I understand that caused doomwiki to move away. Then there was a period of confusion because of this.

quakewiki.org seems like community hosted, and it seems it is slowly getting beter, month to month, but is it acceptable put this there? 

quakewiki.org is legit, but hasn't had a lot of user contributions so the breadth of information there isn't much.

However there is a page about network protocols:
https://quakewiki.org/wiki/Network_Protocols

And there is an intent to make sub-pages dedicated to each protocol. I did one for Fitzquake:
https://quakewiki.org/wiki/Fitzquake_Protocol

So, the information you were looking for should have been listed in pages for "netquake protocol," "protocol 999," and "FTE protocol," if those pages existed.

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In terms of func not being very "searchable", do you mean the search interface is missing some feature(s), or do you mean something about the contents of the the posts and threads that means the information can't be found (e.g. people aren't using consistent terminology in their posts?) 

I decided to write this draft:

https://quakewiki.org/wiki/Map_metrics

Some information might be wrong (I just assumed - I need to take look at the source to backup my claims).

It's also pretty rough and could be shortened, reflowed a bit or split into multiple subpages, but for now I think it's okay. I will work on it following weeks. I decided metrics section should be as expansive as possibile and should be linked from main page between "compiling" and "entity guide" page. If anybody thinks else feel free to edit.

I started with map boundaries and plan to add other metrics as I go (discovering and documenting them I remember seeing somewhere pretty good collection of some metrics to base from).

I plan to add footer backlinks here later.

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Now that I know what to search for I noticed my QSS emit "Using protocol fte999" so I now know when it is using bigcoords, thank you very much Spike!

By the way how much stable is master branch? Seems pretty solid for me.

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metlslime I mostly meant it is lacking knowledge base structure, but what you pointed out too. It's hard to start searching deeper if you don't know what and how.
And I admit I totally missed "search" button first time around.

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Do you guys know if admins of quakewiki.org visit here? I would like to ask how to make backup I would be really sad if it dissappeared one day same way quakesrc did. 

I plan to extended protocol pages later. A do not know enough about the protocols atm to extend those pages meaningfully. 

When i kill an enemy i get knocked out of the map and stuck there, This has happened once before on a test map but i just used Undo till it fixed itself. I cant do that this time. My map. I can post condump if needed. 

Is there a way to use more than one sky texture in a single level? Maybe a map hack? 

 

I made some sky boxes you can add to the original. They are a bit wobbly, but you can try them out. It is a sphere static with a project animation. See page three.

https://www.quaddicted.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=392&p=3 

SilentMonk - if you use a skybox and a QuakeC mod, you can issue a console command through the mod to change which skybox textures you're using. You could for instance have a sunset texture when the player starts outside, trigger the console command while they can't see the sky (a windowless interior room), and next time they step outside night has fallen.

This approach does hurt your map's ability to be engine-agnostic - it doesn't degrade gracefully in older engines, and it relies on custom engines having a consistently named console command. I set up something similar in the final map of the Travail pack, but in the end rather than changing the skybox we just hid it with some completely black brush entities to make night fall. I actually wanted it 100% black to make some special effects work properly, but that wouldn't always be preferable to having stars. 

Thanks for your answers @madfox and @Preach. I should have mentioned that I am particularly looking for a solution that works without using a mod. Sorry for not being more specific. But that was still very valuable info I can probably use in the future. 

Is there any way - in standard Quake - not a mod - to have the keys - in a single map. Rune, Base, Medieval - overriding the model which is specified by the choice set in "worldtype" 

I think this is possible with map hacks.

One possible obstacle is if the key models you want can’t be precached somehow.

Check out the “teaching old progs new tricks” thread just in case. 

thank you, I had read about this possibility. It would be a major hassle though to set it up correctly and if I do it this way there would only be the static model in the map. I guess with some more trickery it could be killtargeted at touch and somehow give the player a key. But this introduces some more possible problems down the road. In this case I was hoping for a different solution with a "real" rotating key model instead of a static frame. 

SilentMonk - the only thing that worldtype does is control what type of keys the world has. Why would you not just set it to the type you want?

If you're trying to have more than one type of key at the same time, that's a no-go. Even if you could do it, the gameplay effects would be illogical, because everything else in the game doesn't make any distinction between keys from different worlds:

• The player inventory and HUD only supports one, so if you could spawn sliver keys from two different worlds, the player could only pick one up at a time
• Doors only code what colour of keys open them, and the player only remembers the colour of key collected. So you couldn't create a door that opens for the silver keycard but not the silver runekey - all silver doors are opened by any silver key

What Metlslime is suggesting is an alternative which does work. For one type of door, you use "fake" keys. To create a door that is opened by the "Green Keypass":
• Give the door a targetname instead of a key flag, so that it only opens when triggered
• Create a trigger_multiple in front of the door which sends a message to the player "You need the Green Keypass"
• Use hacks to create a spinning BSP object to represent the Green Keypass
• Create a trigger_once around the keypass which:
---- kills the BSP object
---- kills the message trigger
---- spawns a trigger which opens the door (through another hack) around the door

This doesn't work 100% perfect in co-op (in effect all players gain the Green Keypass when one of them touches it), but for a Single Player map it's pretty indistinguishable from actually having a third key. 

Thank you very much Preach for this long and informative answer. I was under a wrong assumption all the time - but your info closed all the gaps and cleared things up for me!
And thanks again Metslime! 

I know you want to avoid using a mod but just in case: in progs_dump 2.0.0 you can use any model for a key and customize it's name and a bunch of other goodies. 

Thank you @dumptruck_ds I have had a look already. It offers a lot of great things I have been dreaming about. 

Let's say I'm making a little "episode" of several levels. Would I be able to rig up a "Congratulations" screen of text like the normal ending of Quake?

I tried searching through end.map and wasn't sure where to look. Tried searching this forum, but I failed to produce search terms that narrowed it down. 

The end txt 9is captured in the boss_gate function. When captured four runes and defeat the old one with the messier object entering the transporter thing simultaneously, you'll get to the end screen. From there it is altering the progs.dat txt file with your message.

You need a setup with each episode a rune. Then make an end map in which you encapsulate the defeat of the oldone, or one of your own end bosses.

It can be easier to use the freeware version and use the killing if Cthong as your end level. That way you can look at the original files to compare with yours. 

the text for the intermission screen is in quakec, not in the map itself. So to change it you would need to make a mod. 

How engine-agnostic are transparent textures (or is the correct term "fence textures"?) I remember seeing them for the first time in the Rubicon Rumble Pack, but now, as I'm slowly getting back to Quake after a bit of a hiatus, it seems maps that *don't* have them are almost in the minority. I'm talking about things like vines, foliage and grating, as well as various little 2d details that almost look like sprites (I assume those all rely the same basic technique).

Has this become such a standard feature that most/all modern engines support it, kind of like skyboxes? And what happens otherwise? Are the transparent parts displayed as a solid colour, or would the map just not run at all? 

Out of recent Quake sourceports, I've only used Fitzquake Mark V and Quakespasm (and QuakeSpasmSpiked). They both support these just fine. Despite Mark V having some useful features and the 'proper' underwater warping, I would recommend QuakeSpasmSpiked.

If the engine for some reason does not support these type of textures, then it should look something like this:

http://gila.deathmask.net/various/mvwq_fence.png

It's a screenshot from Alkaline start map using Mark V WinQuake version. As you can see the fence textured brushes aren't transparent and instead rendered with solid colors. Also, these blue sloped windows on the right should be translucent. 

Thanks very much for the screenshot and the info regarding QS and Mark V.

Which engine are you running in that screenshot, though? It'd be good to know which one do *not* support transparent textures.

As for the recommendation to use QSS, I was actually asking more from a mapper's than a player's perspective. I'm aware that QSS will run just about anything you throw at it; I'm more concerned about creating something that will only be playable in a limited number of engines. For that reason I'd rather not use QSS as my (sole) testing engine. ;)