WEAPONS  OF  DESTRUCTION 6.04

Weapons of Destruction is a modification to Quake II. It can be played without any download as a server side only mod, but most of the better features such as the hook will require that at least the configuration file be downloaded by the client (that's you the player). The config file goes in your Quake2\weapons directory. You should edit the file to bind your keys properly. The mod is relatively small, and once downloaded can be use in single player games as well as multiplayer, so I suggest going to WOD's homepage and getting the full download. I have the wod readme file and the wod commands file here if you want to read them. Go get the mod!  You won't regret it. The instructions for installing the mod are in the readme file. 

If you are trying to figure out which features or weapons have been banned or fragbanned from a server, please check out this page. A specific set of feature/frag banns can qualify the server as a competition WOD server.

If you are going to play WOD with any chance of success, you need to modify the config file. I have posted some info on doing this. see this page for info on my  autoexec.cfg file (to help those newbies with a descent example to follow.)

Specials:

Along with a whole load of alternate weapons, you get a few extras. You have a grappling hook (swinging version-not Lithium style), a scanner (radar that detects players), decoys (holoduke type but better), Trip bombs (you make em yourself out of grenades and energy cells), tractor beams (push and pull other players).. Laser sight, Kamikaze,  nightvision, zoomlense (sniper mode) The Quad Damage has been converted to a Jetpack. The Invulnerability remains. There are no runes, or tech powerups.
There are gobs of New Weapons!!!

Hook:

The hook cannot be bound to a key like the one in Lithium or Chaos (other mods), because it actually requires three commands to work (hook action,  hook shrink, hook stop) these are put together for you in the configuration file into a macro (alias) called "+hook". The hook is standard equipment, you don't need to pick it up, and does cause damage to other players if you hit them with it. (It does not stick to other players and pull you together). The hook locks on impact with walls, ceilings, etc.  and if the key is held, will retract pulling you along. The hook does not disengage automatically. You will continue to hang until you press the hook key again. You can swing yourself in any direction with the movement keys while hanging, and there is another key to lengthen (hook grow) the line so you can lower yourself. This hook is more susceptible to problems from lag than the red laser hook of lithium. You will not be able to achieve multiple hooks in succession to ratchet your way up complicated boards. If you try, you will most likely fall to the ground before you can hook again. If you are a LPB go for it, if your ping is over 150 or 200 forget it. The good thing is you don't get the flying trapeze act you see in some Lithium games, where certain players are able to flip from wall to wall while flinging rockets at you. This hook is difficult to learn, and you can get stuck on very small ledges and lips when trying to reach higher levels. You will immediately start to swing as if gravity actually has a hold on you, so you will not follow a straight line path to your target. If you hook a wall high up, and there is a small protrusion running across the wall (like a ledge), you will probably get stuck on it as you go up. The hook retracts slowly (relative to lithium) so you will hit the wall first then get dragged up the wall. When stuck, you have to release the hook button, press the hook grow button, use movement keys to swing away from the wall, then press the hook shrink key(not the hook action key unless you want to disengage and fall). You will never be able to do this while under fire, but if you are alone and trying to reach a power up or a ledge to camp on, that's how its done. The hook was programmed this way on purpose, I asked if it was going to be changed and was told NO. If you are playing with a high ping (like me) you will have to use a lot of advanced fire prediction and shoot the hook while you are still running and you will be waiting for it to activate and watching it shoot out while everyone is shooting you. Alternately you can stand still and let everyone get an easy frag.  Trust me the thing can work, it just takes practice. I wrote all this because it was not explained well in the documentation. UPDATE: there is now even more info on the hook available see my hook tricks page. TOP

Scanner:

Ok, the scanner is similar to a radar screen in a space sim (Wing Commander, X-wing) where you are the center and the enemy shows as a dot. The scanner does show altitude as either above or below you by displaying a small gray dot either above or below the colored dot. The scanner displays as an overlay in the center of the screen. It does block your vision somewhat, but currently cannot be moved to the corner. If you are unclean enough to have ever seen the scanner in Zbot, this one will look the same. For more on Zbot look here. The scanner is standard equipment, it requires no power to operate, the server can disable it and often does. The scanner is best used for situations where there are few players on a large map. It helps to prevent having everyone lost, looking for someone to frag. It also works well for campers in certain locations. If you can tell where the other player is (the scanner only gives you relative distance, it does not show walls) by knowing the map layout, you may be able to predict when the player is going to turn the corner and fire in advance. TOP
 

Decoys:

These are standard equipment, you don't pick them up. Only one active at a time. Decoy "dies" when player dies. Decoy has limited AI, it can shoot a shotgun at any player in its field of vision, including the one who created it. It will move slowly toward any target it acquires, firing at will. It makes a noise when it sees a target, (which is a dead give away that it is not a real player).

Alarm:   This noise is useful if you are using  the decoy as an alarm system. You can place it facing the other direction, (so it does not see you) and it will remain still waiting for an enemy to approach. It will shout when someone enters the room, alerting you. You can remain under cover or you can be watching a different entrance. Decoys also can work as part of a trap
Trap:    You can set a trip bomb (napalm or plasma are best) and place the decoy facing the laser beam. When it sees the enemy (hopefully not you) it will walk into the beam and set off the bomb. This works well in narrow halls or at the top of elevators.
Clearing trips: Decoys work well to clear enemy trip bombs. Just drop one in front of the beam and push him with a tractor beam. You sometimes have to pull him back through the beam if it doesn't trip the first time.
Panic/Distraction: Probably what they were designed for in the first place. You can easily drop off a decoy a split second after running across an enemy player. You now have a 50% chance that the player will draw on the decoy instead of you. If he does and the decoy dies, you can pop off another immediately after that one dies and keep up the double team effort. The decoy will probably get off at least one shot and it only takes 4-5 shotgun blasts to kill a player at 100% health. So even if the player ignores the decoy and shoots at you, he will be taking damage from the decoy. This increases your chances of delivering the final fatal blow. The other benefit, is that decoys can attract homing rockets. If your adversary is across the way just drop the decoys between you and him. The homing ("homo") rockets tend to lock on the closer target, and you can pick off  the other guy with ease. Just remember that it works both ways. Don't shoot homing rockets and expect them to go around your decoy.
In Your Face: Remembering that homing rockets will track a decoy, you can try to get players to kill themselves by dropping decoys very close to the players face while he is using the rocket launcher or bazooka. The rocket/grenade will explode on contact with the decoy catching the shooter in the blast. I think shooters are given a handicap when calculating blast effects by the game (meaning they take less damage from the blast than anyone else in the blast radius) but I've caused the death of many over zealous rocket jockeys by giving them something up close and personal to shoot at.

You have an infinite supply of decoys, they use no power, they are standard equipment. Decoys will follow and kill any player. The frag is recorded like a suicide for the dying player. The creator of the decoy does not get a kill. Decoys die easily, usually one shot of anything will do it. If you press the decoy button a second time when one is already active, you kill "destroy" the active decoy. TOP

Trip Bombs:

Trip bombs are placed with the "L" key. {cmd laser}. You walk up to any solid surface, and stick the bomb with the "L" key. The bomb is placed in the center of your view, a laser beam will extend in a second or two at a 90 degree angle from the surface it is placed on. (if the wall is slanted, the beam will slant as well.) The beam will extend infinitely to the first obstacle it encounters. Note, the bombs can be destroyed by shooting them. Don't whine that someone is putting trip bombs all over , just take them out. You can also use the decoy trick explained under decoys. Trip bombs can only be placed if you have enough cells (hyperblaster ammo) and enough grenades. Trip bombs can be placed on floors and ceilings. (Just look up or down and hit the key). Trip wires can often be jumped over or crawled under. Do not assume a passage is blocked when there is only one line across it. If you want to block a passage, crouch (or look low) and place one line then look high or jump and place another. Trip bombs use what ever the last grenade type selected was for the bomb. This means if you used the napalm grenade last, the trips you place will be napalm trips. It usually takes two regular grenades to kill a player, while it takes 5 grenades to make one napalm or plasma grenade. It is therefore usually more efficient to just place two regular trips together instead of placing high powered majik grenades as trips. (Although it is a lot more fun to use napalm or plasma.)  The grenade will glow different colors depending on the type of grenade used. See grenades for more info but napalm is red, and plasma is green. Be careful when disarming a bomb. If you shoot the bomb it will explode and it will go off as if tripped normally. The plasma has a big blast radius (probably about 15 feet) so don't be too close.
Placement of trips is very important but they are also useful as last resort throwaways for the "I know I'm gonna die so I'm gonna take you with me frag". When you die you lose your inventory, so you may want to start tapping that grenade key in your final moments to take down your killer. The good thing is you don't have to switch weapons to place a grenade, so think ahead when binding your keys so you can be firing your primary weapon and slapping down trip bombs at the same time. Note that some walls are not as solid as they should be and the beam may pass through causing a player in another room to trip the line without getting caught in the blast. Some notes on placement: stairways are good if they are hard to see down or are particularly steep.( Players often slide down these steps out of control.) The tops of ladders are good (either the floor in front of the ladder top or across the top from the adjacent wall. (Players often do not look up when climbing) Under water  offers some advantages. You can place lines just below the surface of non transparent water and often get an easy frag. Note that napalm will generally not pop up through the surface of water although  it will continue to explode beneath the water. If you have an area with shallow water (shallow enough that you cannot crouch down and see under water) it is an excellent napalm trap. You can either  use the bazooka or napalm trip bomb and the unsuspecting will continue to walk right into the explosions without knowing there are any there. Be careful, if you respawn in the same area where the napalm just went off, it may look safe, but you better wait to be sure. If you used trip bombs in Duke, you may remember some areas where the lines would be invisible. This rarely happens in quake. The only time I ever notice it is when you place one on the floor under water. Sometimes the beam does not break the surface.
Remember that you need both cells and grenades for a trip bomb. If you selected a majik grenade last, you will be set to lay majik trip bombs. You will need the minimum number of grenades for the type of bomb you are setting (i.e. 5-majik 1-regular 10-cataclysm). If you only have 3 and you used the napalm last, you will not be able to set anything unless you select regular grenades first then you can lay 3 regular trip bombs. What's that you say? Cant find any cells on this board? You can get cells from a hyperblaster, freezegun, BFG, or a handy backpack. Note that some powerups change from adrenaline to backpacks after they are picked up, so check back often. TOP

Tractor Beams:

Probably the least used and last new feature that any player learns. I think the earlier versions of the mod did not have working tractor beams but the text did not mention it, so when they finally started to work (later versions) people took a while to notice. The tractor beams are standard equipment. They require no ammunition or energy. They are not really a weapon, but rather tools that have their own use. There may be a way to deliberately crush an opponent with them but I haven't figured it out yet. I've been killed a few times by people using beams, but I don't know why it only happens sometimes. You can't score a frag even if it does kill the player, but there is one way to get a frag with the tractor beam. (See end of section)
The beams are mainly used to push people into lava, or off narrow walkways. They work well at pulling flyboys down from the air with their jetpacks. (although they will usually kill you at the same time) They work like any other weapon. The beam appears as a green laser and is aimed with the usual cross hair. I don't think you can hold the button down and sweep an area, you have to have the player exactly in your sights and then hit the key for it to work. You can push/pull any player, or decoy, not weapons/powerups etc. You can also move large gibs or dead bodies. Players can be thrown quite a distance under the right circumstances. The fall can often kill a weakened player. Areas with lava are prone to tractor pulls. Be careful if you hear the tractor noise and see a constant barrage of names saying 'cant take the heat', 'so and so melted', or 'someone fell into the lava'. Some players are very good at being spoilers. They do not get any frags for pushing you to your death, but you lose a point for every suicide. Watch carefully for the green laser. The enemy may be hanging from the ceiling in a normally unused corner of a lava field. Or he may be crouching in a narrow crevasse waiting for his next victim. Do not be afraid. He is weak. He is foolish. Use your hook and pull yourself right into his face and take great joy in squashing him like the bug that he is. You can also use your hook as an anchor. Just shoot the ground next to you and while he is busy trying to push you, send him a little package like a plasma grenade.
If you are really lucky (or skillful) you may pull off one of the most satisfying maneuvers of WOD gaming. During an impossible situation when you are out gunned, (perhaps you are holding a blaster and being chased with machine rockets)-hook yourself up to the ceiling and turn both your weapon and the tractor pull on your enemy. If you do  it right, you can pull him right up to you, killing him with your blaster and grab his weapon just as he drops it, all while hanging from the ceiling. The weapon will automatically switch if you are holding the blaster and you can rain destruction down on the next unwary victim.
Be careful with the beams as they sometimes seem to act in reverse. This is especially true in close quarters. It seems that you push the enemy into the wall but he is reflected back toward you as if he were pulled. Don't get discouraged if it seems like the beams don't work at all. The aim must be very precise. Just keep tapping the key as you are trying to keep the enemy in your sights.
Also remember that if there is no lava around to push someone into (waste of time anyway since you don't get the frag) you can make your own lava with a well placed napalm trip bomb. Just wait for that player to step up to the plate and give him a tractor nudge in the right direction (namely right through the beam of that trip bomb) That way you CAN use the tractor beam to get a frag. TOP

Lasersight:

A red dot visible to yourself AND all other players which appears approximately on the spot where your weapon will impact. The sight has a locator feature which causes the spot to brighten when passing over a player. In theory a very useful tool, but in practice almost useless. The one thing it does do is tell your target that you are aiming at him. Most players will become very agitated and begin jumping around so you cant get off a shot. If you didn't have a crosshair already (I think the server can deactivate it as an option) the laser sight might be more useful. As far as the accuracy for precision weapons (sniper gun, railgun), I haven't really tested it. I don't believe it is any better than the default crosshair. If you are seen using this, it will be assumed that you are a newbie. Perhaps on a server with fixed FOV and no crosshair, this would become the best method for sniping, or long distance shooting.
 TOP

Kamikaze:

Press the "end" key (if you bound it there) and you become a ticking time bomb. You have about 5 seconds to get near at least one player or you will kill only yourself and lose a point. You score 1 for everybody you take with you. Don't expect your friends to welcome you with open arms while the clock counts down. They can see that you have turned pure white and will try their best to stop that bomb. If they kill you before it goes off, there will be no explosion.
This is best used in uncommon circumstances. If you have a fragfest going on (over 10 players) and you see a bunch of guys below you all running around with nothing but blasters. Just start the countdown and wait till its almost over then jump right into the middle of everyone. This often happens with a bunch of guys under water and you can see them from above the water. (The water is good because it slows them down when they try to run away.) Unfortunately  it seems that a lot of servers are deactivating the kamikaze, instead of just fragbanning it. (You can either featureban or fragban or both) So you may not get a chance to see it at all.
 

NB: Invulnerable-Kamikaze?? This used to be my favorite little secret, but was changed in the latest revision. I made a few demos of the effect and I asked to have it reinstated but was denied. Maybe if you like it, you can request that it be put back. It was an undocumented/unintended side effect of combining the invulnerability with the kamikaze. The player would explode with the force of a nuclear blast, and continue to explode for the entire countdown of the invulnerability powerup. The effect was that every other player in any room the SuperKazi walked into was instantly killed. The event was so quick that I doubt if any player could even see the SuperKazi unless he refused to respawn and looked through his dead eyes. I am fairly certain that no player ever saw it and lived. I have a demo here that I re-cammed with keygrip so you can watch the action from a third person perspective. I never felt that this was too powerful of a weapon, since the player had to get his hands on the invulnerability in the first place (which takes forever to respawn)and the player can barely see anything while exploding. The trick for the other players is not to respawn for 20 seconds so they don't get killed twice. I wish this would come back, or that the regular kamikaze would include some "burn time" before exploding. Its just loads of fun to run up to people while you are on fire and take them down with you. The current explode in a split second effect is somehow anti-climactic. TOP

NightVision:

Its supposed to work with VooDoo cards but it does NOT work with my Diamond Monster 3DII. It turns my screen a rather opaque green and zooms in slightly. It does nothing to help me see in the dark. I cant say what it should look like but if it could do something like make players in dark corners glow it would be great. As of this writing it does nothing for me and I don't think I even have a key bound for it. TOP

ZoomLense/Sniper Mode:

If you didn't already know, you can change the FOV (Field of Vision) in Quake which has the effect of zooming in just like you had binoculars or a high power scope  on your gun. "So that's how those guys pick me off from across the board!" Yup it was always there, you just had to bind up some keys. Anyway, WOD does it for you with two predetermined zoom levels assigned to some of the function keys on top. I never used them, as I have a rather detailed zoom script (alias) in my config. I should have a link for it somewhere in these pages. TOP

Jetpack:

rather self explanatory. It is  a powerup. It is located wherever the Quad damage used to be. You need to pick it up to use it. TOP

New Weapons: Super Blaster, SniperGun, Machinerocket, streetsweeper, bazooka, homing rocket, flamethrower, PlasmaGun,BFG,

I don't know how much I can say, these are documented pretty well at the WOD homepage.

Super Blaster (alternate blaster):

requires cells-packs a punch but slow refire rate. So slow that I wonder if just using the regular blaster would be better, but one shot often kills a weak player.

SniperGun (alternate shotgun)

The shotgun is about the worst and weakest weapon that remains (if you see someone using it, its probably a decoy) The snipergun is one of the most powerful. I've spattered guys who just picked up the megahealth with no problem. It has the worst refire rate of any weapon. This is a gun for a skilled player only. If you pick up the shotgun, switch to the snipergun and hope you can get off one clean shot, but run for the nearest other weapon (whatever it is) This gun works like the railgun but fires 5 shotgun shells at once. The benefit is that it leaves no trail like the rail does. The downside is the slow refire and the slow slug travel speed. Guys at any type of distance will easily sidestep the slug (although they cannot see it) The aim also is off the cross hair for me which increases with range. Best used against stationary targets. (corner crouchers love to eat sniper slugs) Elevator riders make easy targets. And long narrow hallways can be excellent paths to shoot down. The gun does not appear to travel through multiple targets like the rail, but has a bit more oomph. WeaponListTOP

Machinerockets.:

One of the most fun and easy to use weapons. The regular machine gun (normally a very weak weapon) has been upgraded to fire tiny rockets. The ultimate spray and pray weapon. Use it like a firehose and don't worry about ammo, we'll make more.  WeaponListTOP

StreetSweeper (alternate chaingun):

Remember when these were all the rage? It seemed like every gang or two-bit hood just had to have one. Designed for crowd control its best used here against an individual.  It uses shotgun shells-and lots of them. A very powerful weapon that can give you the confidence to go into the most crowded room and come out a winner. Turn your attention to each player one at a time and watch them turn to dust before your eyes. WeaponListTOP

Bazooka (alternate grenade launcher):

A quieter  rocket launcher. The bazooka which lamely lobbed grenades  and was only good for shooting around corners has been upgraded. Fire grenades in a straight line and watch them explode on impact. One of the better weapons. The real benefit comes from Majik. All of the Majik grenades are able to be chambered in the bazooka (or the regular launcher). So bind a key to "use napalm grenade;use bazooka" (include the quotes and the semicolon) and you can be unleashing  fiery doom just a split second after picking up that silly old grenade launcher. You can splatter them with plasma or create a cataclysm and send em all to hell. The bazooka uses the last grenade selected, so be careful. If you were just playing with a cataclysm device, you don't want to be shooting that thing at your feet. I prefer to use napalm because of its long burn time. You often get players walking in after the main event and donating their souls to your frag count. It is nice to use while running into and out of rooms. Just get a glimpse of your target, pop one off, and turn tail and run. The area of effect is large and like I said you often pick up stragglers. It works great for flushing out campers or clearing small rooms. It may well be the Captain's favorite weapon. WeaponList TOP

Homing Rockets (alternate rocketlauncher) (rocketlauncher now uses flamerockets):

Often referred to as Homo rockets. Often Fragbanned. If you get on a server and pick up the homolauncher, take note of your score and  fire off a few until you get a kill. Did it count? If it did and you don't mind playing without a challenge, you have your weapon. It has been modified from earlier versions. You only track players you can see at the time of firing. (you used to be able to fire blindly into any room and track anyone in the room) The rounds can be shot down by hostile fire. Note, I often see homing rocket duels where both rockets seem to track each other and collide between the players. I have killed many players simply by firing my blaster at them while they tried to use the homo rockets on me. (Note, the Captain doesn't want any kind of homo anything being fired at him.) Just remember to keep your head while under fire. Do not turn and run from homo rockets. Sidestep, crouch, jump, move, but keep your eye on the ball and keep shooting back. If you catch a rocket as it leaves the launcher, you may just blow that thing up right in his face. Don't forget the decoy trick as well. See decoys. WeaponList TOP

Flamethrower (alternate railgun):

Uses rail slugs for ammo (don't ask how its just a game). The railgun defaults to the flamethrower when you pick it up. Flames tend to stick to the target and slowly burn him. They also tend to fall from walls and ceilings and can cause secondary burns to hapless players who take a wrong turn. I haven't had extensive experience at the wrong end of this thing but when I do, it does seem to have stopping power. It seems to stop you from rushing the player who is using the weapon, so try to strafe instead. The flames are kind of slow and don't work well at long range. Distance can be your friend. I don't like to use this gun myself as it tends to backfire and burn the user. Flames can be put out with "What else?" WATER. When on fire go jump in a lake. Never use this thing under water. It doesn't work. I never checked but I don't think it does any damage at all to players who are below the surface. Switch to the rail gun. WeaponListTOP

PlasmaGun (alternate Hyperblaster ):
Bigger, Better, Faster, Stronger, What the hyperblaster should have been from the start. Nice matchup against the machinerockets.  WeaponListTOP

BFG:

Same old Same old. There is a lot of info on this gun get the FAQ.