first impressions (on the Mac)

[ProductArchitect]

As quick background: I discovered Cube2 years ago when researching 3D engines, then recently started playing Sauerbraten with my son -- which in turn led to trying Red Eclipse. I'm very much NOT a hardcore gamer, so we play maps that we've edited with extra healthboost, plenty of ammo, etc and use /addbot 10 for weak bots to fight. (Now if only I could slow the bots down, and/or get monsters in multi-player mode....)

Since Red Eclipse is more recent, I thought we should give that a try. Here are some first impressions.

- the high-tech weapons are cool, and showing the 'bullets' getting depleted around in a circle is clever and useful
- nice to play familiar Sauerbraten maps ... and try some new ones

But:
- annoying that weapons aren't automatically picked up (maybe there's a setting?) ... I'm looking for convenience not realism

- no luck getting a server running (at least on the Mac), e.g. with Sauerbraten I just go to the appropriate tab at startup, fill in some fields the first time, then click start/run/whatever (after the needed port forwarding)

- frustrating that many of the very basic Sauerbraten commands that I've learned don't work ... I can appreciate enhancements, but there seems to be too much change for its own sake. The Cube2 community is relatively small, so it's a shame to introduce an extra barrier.

- documentation is hard to find ... which would be MUCH less of an issue if the Red Eclipse was designed as a superset, with (nearly) all of the Sauerbraten docs applying

Anyway, I will hope to eventually get the server up and play some more. We'll see how my impressions change over time.

Scott

[fawstoar]

A little insight...

- You can only carry two weapons, the pistol, and 1-2 grenades at a time, so picking up weapons automatically would be horrible. In order to get ahead in this game, you need to find combinations of weapons you like, but also be able to switch out and use random combinations as they are thrust upon you via weapon pickups. It's not quite like Sauerbraten where you just acquire weapon after weapon; you have to be resourceful and learn where weapons spawn so you can use them when needed.

- Agreed, running a server is a bit more involved with Red Eclipse, but the wiki has some documentation on it that should help you out.

- You have a point, but you'll have to take it up with Quin. I'm guessing the commands aren't changed/added for the sake of changing them and that it's more out of convenience, but I don't know. These forums have some scattered documentation on the commands, though.

- If you need help with anything, the best places to go are generally the Wiki, the forums, and the IRC chat, more or less in that order. Between the three of them you can sort out pretty much anything, but the documentation is indeed lacking. There have been some initiatives to help with this but it's a time-consuming and tedious job due to the huge number of commands and the small number of people that actually know what they all mean. Most of the community will be happy to help you, however.

Hope that helps you out!

[DijitaL]

Documents ( a few might be slightly outdated )
viewtopic.php?f=53&t=2337

Look and Fee (again some are outdated )
viewtopic.php?f=53&t=2014

srbs pastebin ( most of the variables in the game and commands)
http://pastebin.com/u/srbs

Some Game Variables
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/r ... Vars::Game

I have been working on a neat little menu for customizing Red Eclipse. It is not finished, but it has about 50 different vars that can be changed so far.
From changing the radar type to chat colors, to the HUD size and color.

When I get back to my house I can send the cfg and such to you, as to try it out.

there is also a

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

kidmode 1

you can enter in as well, if some of the blood and gore are in question as well. ( though there is not that much I think.)

- documentation is hard to find ... which would be MUCH less of an issue if the Red Eclipse was designed as a superset, with (nearly) all of the Sauerbraten docs applying

That reason has a simple fix, US the community needs to chip in and fix that.

[riidom]

if you use the arena mutator, you can pick two weapons of your choice (plus pistol) to start with (F6).

[srbs]

- frustrating that many of the very basic Sauerbraten commands that I've learned don't work ... I can appreciate enhancements, but there seems to be too much change for its own sake. The Cube2 community is relatively small, so it's a shame to introduce an extra barrier.

- documentation is hard to find ... which would be MUCH less of an issue if the Red Eclipse was designed as a superset, with (nearly) all of the Sauerbraten docs applying

If I remember correctly, Red Eclipse is not a mod of Sauerbraten, but a game built off of the cube engine base. Not all of Sauerbraten's commands are part of the engine and so not everything got put in RE. If you have some commands you want ported over, there may be a solution for someone here to write for you.
Just remember that you can always ask for help in this forum or on IRC.

[ProductArchitect]

(Back after some computer trouble and the usual real-life stuff.)

Thanks for the feedback. I've played around some more, and like the additional customization. Lots of options! It would be nice if the variable names were longer -- making things "self documenting" would reduce the need to find full documentation. These could be added as aliases (and only for select items), somewhat like -h and --help etc. on the UNIX command line.

My best find to date: setting jump speed near zero. I was really bothered by the wildly jumping bots/NPCs. And: setting ammunition high and reload time low. All are things that can't be done by users/admin in Sauerbraten (AFAIK). Now I just have to write them down and add to my config file.

Question: is there any way to have different params for bots vs. players? As noted, I'm a casual player not a hardcore competitor.

Scott