If you hate Clan Arena, explain why!

[Baker]

What are the major differences between CAx and CA+?

Server settings aside (ticrate, etc.), the reason CAx was made was CA+ crashes on most non-DM3/Q1edge maps for some reason.

CA+ also tends to spawn you in the same spot for all 5 rounds, making it sort of predictable. In CA+ the splash damage uses 100 damage scale for rocket/grenade splash damage (CAx has this as an option), this different rocket damage is not the Quake standard but some prefer it because the battles are more about precision, but it also makes the shaft twice as important.

CAx overall is more evolved, like the player totals on-screen and the ProQuake/Qrack compatible pq_teamscores (team totals show in HUD), but CA+ is still a nice mod. It runs on ca.clanhdz.com.

[Stung]

I also would like to propose the argument that damage frags indicate the elimination of the importance of victory in CAx, thus, creating a paradox altogether. A person such as myself may have high damage frags, but so what if you cant win the total rounds. Perhaps damage done per round should give the team the win, not who lasts the longest; thus, staying with the consistency of the importance of damage.

Pros of damage done: Speeds game up. Importance on ability to actually rape your opponent.

Cons: persons or teams doing most damage often get cherrypicked by newbie assholes. Too often do losers, who hide and sneak around and play quake like it is Splinter Cell, get the "Win". (Splinter Cell comment stolen from Spoon)

I would argue that the accumulated damage done - damage taken totals for a team should indicate victory per round.

[PapaSmurf]

Baker: Can you explain more how the rocket damage works in CA+? Are you saying that a direct rocket only does 100 damage as oppose to 120-125 damage?

Stung: Making damage the priority over last man standing changes the game completely, and I don't think it's a very good idea. Surviving is one of the main objectives of quake, and if you find that you're dying early in the rounds, maybe you should rethink your strategy.

[Baker]

Baker: Can you explain more how the rocket damage works in CA+?

Rook is familiar with the actual code because I think he was the co-writter of CA+.

If I recall correctly what Rook told me, it goes like this:

In Standard Quake, a rocket does (about) 120 damage on a direct hit. A near miss causes 120 splash damage at the epicenter of where the rocket explosion occurs.

In CA+, they said "Let's make rockets do 100" and increased slightly the effect of the rocket launcher for rocket jumping purposes.

Or so I recall the rough explanation being from Rook.

The end result is that in standard Quake mods (CRMOD, CTF), a rocket striking close to you can do nearly as much damage as direct hit where as in CA+ a near hit might do 35-50 damage if it isn't right next to you.

I may have some of the details slightly off -- I didn't look at any QuakeC code to verify any of the numbers above -- but in CA+ the splash damage is considerably less in both damage amount and damage radius. It makes battles more intense because spam and non-directs are not as effective, you have to really focus on an opponent to kill them, in my opinion.

I'm not saying CA+ is better or worse, but it is just different.

[Canadian*Sniper]

Normal Nade/Rocket Damage:

void() T_MissileTouch =
{
	local float	damg;

	if (other == self.owner)
		return;		// don't explode on owner

	if (pointcontents(self.origin) == CONTENT_SKY)
	{
		remove(self);
		return;
	}

	damg = 100 + random()*20;
	
	if (other.health)
	{
		if (other.classname == "monster_shambler")
			damg = damg * 0.5;	// mostly immune
		T_Damage (other, self, self.owner, damg );
	}

	// don't do radius damage to the other, because all the damage
	// was done in the impact
	T_RadiusDamage (self, self.owner, 120, other);

//	sound (self, CHAN_WEAPON, "weapons/r_exp3.wav", 1, ATTN_NORM);
	self.origin = self.origin - 8*normalize(self.velocity);

	WriteByte (MSG_BROADCAST, SVC_TEMPENTITY);
	WriteByte (MSG_BROADCAST, TE_EXPLOSION);
	WriteCoord (MSG_BROADCAST, self.origin_x);
	WriteCoord (MSG_BROADCAST, self.origin_y);
	WriteCoord (MSG_BROADCAST, self.origin_z);

	BecomeExplosion ();
};

So direct damage is 100 to 120 while radius damage is 120 at its highest. Does less damage when you're not so close (I'm sure).