Quake (DOS)

See below for using Q95.bat to play Quake Online or to set up VQuake

Overview

You are a very pissed-off soldier. Your friends are all dead and you are out for revenge. Your enemy, code-named Quake, is over-due to meet his destiny. Your mission is to help him make the appointment. You pump a round into your trusty shotgun and get moving.

Quake is one of the first true 3D first-person action games. Looking up and down is now just as important as looking left and right. Enemies are no longer on a nice level playing field. They are in front of you, behind you, above you, below you and even above and behind you. No place is safe. You need to be looking around constantly in all directions. And you need to be looking around as fast as your eyes can - in other words, instantaneously. Plus, you need to be moving just as swiftly. Enter the Assassin 3D.

The Assassin 3D was designed for Quake. It provides fast and intuitive turning and moving. The Assassin 3D death-matcher is the hunter not the hunted. You can now perform maneuvers that have previously been difficult to execute. And you can execute them with ease.

Operation

Note: The following directions are for DOS versions of Quake. For Directions on Windows Versions Click Here

Copy ASSASSIN.CFG into your QUAKE\ID1 directory. Move to the game directory and run the Assassin Launch Program.

cd \games\quake
alaunch quake
~ (brings up the Quake Console)
exec assassin.cfg

To play VQuake, modify your command line to alaunch quake vquake

If you have an AUTOEXEC.CFG file, you can add the exec assassin.cfg line into it. or Create a new AUTOEXEC.CFG file in your id1 directory with the line exec assassin.cfg

Note: You need Quake version 1.06 or later for the Assassin 3D to operate. Patches are available on the Id Software web site (www.idsoftware.com). or Click Here to get the patch from Version 1.01 to 1.06.

Default Operation Table

Listed below is the default operation of all the Assassin 3D controls. For convenience, the user can reconfigure any of the button assignments. Refer to the Button Reconfiguration section for details on how to reassign buttons.

Tricks and Tips

1. Refer to the Doom Tips and Tricks; many of the same techniques apply to Quake (i.e. programming weapons, storming your opponents, toggling speeds, etc.).
2. Try out all three Skill Settings and get the feel of the automatic pitch leveling. This feature is helpful to some and annoying to others.
3. Quake's console allows for a significant number of creative and new features. For instance, you can bind a button to do the following: change weapon to rocket-launcher, fire, wait, change weapon to double-barrelled shotgun. Then, with a single press, you will fire off a rocket and be ready for more action with your shotgun. Since the Assassin 3D supports up to 17 buttons, making use of those extra buttons is a big plus.
4. Quake is a true 3D game and it has quite a bit of up/down aiming in addition to the left/right aiming. Practice exploiting the Assassin 3D aiming advantage by constantly being above or below your opponents.
5. At the point that you are using the Advanced Skill Setting, practice looking up and down to match the terrain. If you are going downstairs, look a bit down. If you are heading up a ramp, look up. This keeps a better eye on what is important (what is ahead of you), but it also just makes playing more fun. This technique puts you one step closer into the fantasy world.
6. Imagine that your opponent is directly above you on a ledge. Try running out, spinning around, aiming up and firing! Sounds complicated, but it's easy. Just move the Joystick forward and spin the trackball 180 and at the end of the spin, pull your fingertips toward you (causing you to look up). This is highly effective and you can dance from one side of the ledge to the other with this technique. It is not a disadvantage being below your opponent with your Assassin 3D.
7. Since the CH Products-protocol joysticks only allow one button press at a time to be detected, it is very difficult to perform the rocket-assisted jump manually with this joystick. Instead, bind the full feature to a button. This removes the need to hit two buttons simultaneously.
8. Rather than using buttons for swimming up and down, try just pointing the direction you want to go and push forward. When you jump in deep water, for instance, aim down with the trackball and dive. It is quick and saves two buttons for other features. If you need to swim up, the Jump button is also a Swim-Up button.

Skill Settings

Just like Quake has three different skill settings, the Assassin 3D has 3 as well. These are designated Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. These 3 Assassin 3D skill settings can be selected at any time while playing Quake. You can easily practice with different settings and choose the one you like. Or, you can start with the Beginner setting and gradually progress to the Advanced setting.

Note: Regardless of the skill setting that you have selected, you can override the speed by moving the throttle on your joystick. If you are walking and want to run, just move the throttle to the opposite end. Alternately, if you are running and want to walk, just move the throttle to the opposite end. This can be done as often as you like.

Beginner Skill

Pressing the Beginner Skill Setting button (Trackball - Left Button) immediately changes two aspects. First, the maximum speed is set to walking speed. Secondly, any time you are moving, the pitch level automatically and smoothly returns to level. So, you can look up and down, but you can't do it while you are moving. This skill setting allows you to focus on coordinating the controls with a minimum of skill. Typically you will progress past this skill level in a very short time.

Intermediate Skill

Pressing the Intermediate Skill Setting button (Trackball - Middle Button) immediately changes two aspects. First, the maximum speed is set between walking and running speed. Secondly, when you are moving full speed, the pitch level automatically and smoothly returns to level. This setting allows you to move faster than the Beginner Skill setting and only kicks in the pitch auto-leveling feature when you are moving rapidly. This setting is good for moving through the castles shooting monsters.

Advanced Skill

Pressing the Advanced Skill Setting button (Trackball - Right Button) immediately changes two aspects. First, the maximum speed is set to running speed. Secondly, all pitch auto-leveling is disabled. You determine 100% of the time where you are looking.

Note: The Advanced Skill Setting is definitely the one to use for deathmatching. It provides for 100% "free-look" combined with 100% high-speed movement.

Special Quake Configuration

All Assassin 3D Quake configuration, except for Button Reconfiguration (see next section), is stored in the file QUAKE.INI. This file is located in the C:\FPGAMING directory. Simply edit the file and modify as desired. Additional file editing information can be found in the Assassin 3D Configuration chapter.

The format for the reconfiguration is:

Label = Value

Quake Buttons

The "Quake Buttons" parameter allows the 3 buttons on the Trackball to be sent to Quake. By default, these buttons are used for setting the Skill Settings for the Assassin 3D. If you are an advanced user and would like to use the 3 additional buttons for Quake features, this is the parameter for you. Simply add the following line to your QUAKE.INI file:

Qbtns = 1

Also, refer to the Assassin 3D Game Configuration chapter as you will want to set Pitch Leveling to be disabled and the speed settings to be at maximum. For instance:

Plvl = 0
FMS = 320
FFS = 160
SMS = 320
SFS = 160

The latter 4 settings are only needed if you do not have a throttle. These settings will make your maximum movement speed full-speed.

Button Reconfiguration

All buttons can be easily reconfigured while you are playing Quake. In all, up to 17 buttons can be configured. There are two methods that can be used for programming your buttons. The first method is to modify your configuration files. The second method is to configure your buttons directly within Quake.

Modifying Configuration Files

The configuration files are kept within the ID1 Quake sub-directory (i.e. C:\GAMES\QUAKE\ID1). The default file provided by FPgaming is called ASSASSIN.CFG and configures the buttons as shown in the Default Operation Table. This file can be edited and changed to match your preferences. Quake has some amazing features and macros that can be programmed to any of the Assassin 3D buttons.

Note: The ASSASSIN.CFG file will be automatically edited and updated by the DOS games Configuration Program. You may want to edit or create an autoexec.cfg file in your ID1 directory with a line that says...
exec assassin.cfg
This will automatically configure the Assassin 3D buttons upon Quake initialization - very cool! If you are taking your Assassin 3D to play Quake on another system, remember to bring this file.

Note: All your Quake configuration, not just button configuration, can be kept within the same file and be instantly set upon startup. For instance, your network name, pants and shirt color can all be stored.

Note: This section barely touches the surface of what can be done with Quake. Refer to the TECHINFO.TXT file in your Quake directory for detailed information about configuration files.

Configuring Directly Within Quake

There are two ways to directly program buttons into Quake. First, you can use the Customize Controllers sub-menu and secondly you can use the Quake Console.

To program your buttons via the Customize Controllers sub-menu, hit the Escape key and select Options from the main menu. Then select Customize Controllers. You can program a button to each main feature within Quake. For instance, to program the Attack feature to the joystick trigger button, just press the down or up arrow key until you reach the ATTACK line. Then press Backspace to clear what is there, followed by Enter to change, followed by pressing the joystick trigger button.

To program your buttons via the Quake Console, hit the tilde key (~). This brings up the Quake Console and you can type in any Quake commands directly. Using the same example above, to program the Attack feature to your joystick trigger button, just type the following:

bind AUX1 "+attack"

Note: Refer to the Quake TECHINFO.TXT file located in your Quake directory for more information.

Following is a table of all the Quake button names for the Assassin 3D buttons:

Using Q95 for playing Quake online  

There is a bug with Qlaunch.exe that Id Software is working on. It doesn't allow external controllers to operate. This command line will not work at this time: alaunch quake q95.bat. However, there is a work around. Copy your q95.bat file to q95a.bat. Edit q95a.bat and you will see the following:

Qlaunch quakeudp.dll quake.exe -mpath %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9

Change this text into the following:

Qlaunch quakeudp.dll c:\fpgaming\alaunch.exe quake -mpath %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9

If you don't want to go through this effort, just click here to download Q95A.BAT. Save this file in your Quake game directory.

Then, run q95a.bat just as you would q95.bat. This batch file now calls alaunch before calling quake.

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This page was last updated 06/13/04