. I recommend you play this in the engine. If another engine supports its features then fine, but understand things may not look or work as intended since each engine is different.
Introduction Hook
Conquest takes place 10 years After Quake (AQ). Shubby was defeated, and people weren't expecting another demon invasion anytime soon. So, you can imagine the surprised looks on their faces when the demons came pouring back into our world and began slaughtering us all.
After a few years, the multiple requests for military protection from the demon raids began to make their way through the bureaucratic chain of command. Outraged at the massive loss of life, LT. Commander James Blue Gonner immediately filled out a request for the form he needed to fill out to request a senate hearing. Within 6 months - a monumentous record at the time and a testament to the urgency of the matter - he appeared before the council and managed to convince them to allocate five thousand dollars and even a couple soldiers to deal with the situation, effective in 12 months, authorization pending.
Later the project was scrapped to free up funding for a neighborhood improvement bill. The senators then voted to give themselves a raise.
Tired of waiting for the bureaucratic buffoons to act, Gonner decided to handle things himself. He filled out a Notice of Away Without Leave (NOAWOL Form 11-13) and a Request to Go Nuts and Blast The Hell out of Some Frigg'n Demons (MIL Form 88-11.32 RTGNABTHOOSFD), but they were both denied by his superior officer, who didn't like him.
In the mean time, you, a lowly peasant computer programmer who is out of work, have wandered into a small town on the fringe of demon territory, trusty shotgun in hand...
Gameplay basics
Basically, you stop at the town between each level. Press the B key in front of those glowing spots and you can buy new weapons and armor etc with your gold. You can also buy outside of town, but there's a slight markup applied to all sales to cover for travel expenses and sales managers' new yacht payments.
Weapons
You can carry up to 5 weapons (weapon slots 1-5), and empty slots will select the axe. There are some weapons (like the li'l ripper) that can be used even when they're out of ammo, so you don't always need to keep a slot empty for the axe. You can buy ammo from the shop, but it's often better to just pick up more in the levels.
Note that there's no limit to how many of one weapon you have. You can literally fill all 5 slots with rocket launchers, and the game will handle this just fine. It will even keep them all separately stocked with ammo. The problem with this, however, is that some enemies have really good shielding against heavy-hitting weapons like rockets (see below), so it's best to have a variety of weapon types.
Basically, make sure you have at least 1 rapid-fire weapon (machinegun, pistol, plasma rifle, etc) and 1 heavy-hitting weapon (like rockets, stake gun, etc) with you at all times and you'll be able to handle most enemies' shields. Some weapons, like the e-rifle, provide both heavy and rapid (primary and alt fire). In fact, the e-rifle comes highly recommended as a first weapon purchase.
Check the readme for the different weapon descriptions.
Weapon Mods
Once you've purchased a weapon, you can often apply one of several mods to it that modify how it works. For example, the machinegun can be modded to a super-rapid-fire machinegun, heavy machinegun, or omega machinegun. Grenades can be modded to be cluster grenades or napalms. When you want to change mods, you don't have to sell and re-mod the weapon. Just apply a new mod to the same weapon, and the old mod gets replaced with the new.
Shielding
You can also have up to 3 layers of shielding. Shields protect the player from damage, and this is *very* important in Conquest. Healing boxes don't heal for much, and enemies do a lot of damage, so it's important to protect yourself. Some shields take damage, but they recharge over time. You do not.
Because you can have up to 3 layers, you can mix and match shielding types and come up with some very potent combinations. Layer 1 is the innermost layer, closest to your body. Layer 3 is the outermost layer, the first that an attack will hit, and layer 2 sits between the two layers. The price and quality of your shields can matter a lot, but so does the order of your shielding! For example, if you have this setup:
Example 1:
3) +5 precision (-6 to all attack damage)
2) Standard Yellow (-60% reduction, shield takes medium damage)
1) Standard Green (-30% reduction, shield takes low damage)
then the damage you take and the damage dealt to your shields is very different from this setup:
Example 2:
3) Standard Green (-30% reduction, shield takes low damage)
2) Standard Yellow (-60% reduction, shield takes medium damage)
1) +5 precision (-6 to all attack damage)
Example 1 will block rapid-fire very well, and lower the amount of damage your standard shielding takes. However, a medium or heavy damage hit (like a rocket or railgun attack) will blaze right past that -6 reduction without much loss, and will deal a lot more damage to your other shield layers, and worse, deal lots of damage to the player.
In Example 2, the standard shielding always gets hit first, and will reduce with time (though it recharges itself). However, by putting green first we protect the yellow shielding from taking the full brunt of the attack. Even better, by the time the damage reaches the precision shielding, that -6 reduction is much more effective and the player will take much less damage than in example 2. This makes the combo do very well against both rapid-fire and heavy hits for protecting the player. The main draw-back is that lots of rapid-fire attacks will wear down your standard shielding just as easily as heavy.
So, depending on where your priorities lie, you might choose to layer one way or another. If shielding is more effective at protecting the player when it's on the inside and/or protected by other shielding, then it goes on the inside. Other shielding might be much better on the outer layers.
Check out the readme for the descriptions of the different shield types.
Monsters
There are a number of cool monsters in this mod that I'm quite proud of, like the railgun mech, drone, elemental hell knight, and horror. Note that some of these guys deal a lot of damage, and even the mundane enemies (like scrags) can inflict status effects like poison. Beware of that.
As said earlier, make sure you have a weapon that deals rapid fire damage, and another that deals heavy damage, and that'll get you past most enemies' defenses with ease. It's also a good idea to have a weapon that deals energy damage and another that deals solid hits.
All monsters have shields, even the rottweilers. In fact, the rottweilers are pretty nasty since they don't respond to pain very much. Shoot them down fast.
Also take special care that your shields are able to protect you. You either need to be able to dodge or endure any kind of attack, and you can't always dodge.
Some enemies deal heavy attacks, others rapid, others deal middle-of-the-road medium damage or status effects.
Other Features
Fake pausing
When you enter a shop, the game "pauses". This is the old "freeze the world without pausing the game" code I wrote way back when. It allows the QC menu to operate while no enemies or attacks can hurt you. I personally think this is pretty damn cool. I also had a feature a while ago (disabled it later) that let you hold the shift key to pause the game and display your weapon list, to give you time to ponder and pick one.
Town
You go to town every time you complete a level (except start.bsp). I don't remember, but I think you can sell a weapon back for the same price you bought it if you're in town (minus ammo spent). I was considering adding a firing range to the town with dummy enemies to shoot at just for this purpose.
FRIK_FILE save games
Your character is saved using frik_file, since there's just too much information to be passing from level to level to use parms. I was proud when I got this all working perfectly. ^_^
Feedback
I crave feedback! Gimme!
I'd love to hear what you think of the mod and its individual elements. I hope you can find the time to give it a decent chance. I especially recommend you go see the hell knights, horrors, and defense mechs. They're damn cool. And try some of the more expensive weapons (use the money cheat if necessary, impulse 253) like the plasma arc.
Have fun!
