This guide is not meant to be a full tutorial on mapping in Quake Live. It's focus is solely on the special characteristics in the Race-Mode.

It is recommended to play race on www.qlrace.com servers which contain advanced entities which are compatible to those in Defrag. This will be explained later in this guide.

Quake Live uses so called race points (race_point) to start the timer, end the timer and for checkpoints.

A chain of race_point entities consists of a start point, zero or more check points, and a finish point. Each race_point in sequence should target the next point, with the finish point having a targetname, but no target.

The spawnflag "suspended" (spawnflags 1) changes the visuals of the flag. With no spawnflag the flags have a base, with spawnflags they float in the air.
When using the "suspended" version, since the flag is bouncing up and down, the flag should be placed a couple units above the ground, otherwise it will visually break into the floor.

Notes

• The flags have a bigger radius than the visuals suggest. As a player you don't have to hit them exactly to trigger them.
  
  
• On one map you can have several race_point chains at the same time.
  
  
• You can have several starting flags which lead into a normal chain of flags.
  
  
• You can have a starting flag leading into different chains of checkpoints and endind flags. However, when hitting the starting flag, the game will randomly choose one ending flag, the other ones will be inactive for that run.
  
  
• You can use CTRL+K to link flags to eachother in GTKRadiant.

Defrag-compatible entities only work on qlrace.com servers and were implemented by p0thunter.

To see these new entities in your Editor, you can use this updated entities[github.com] file and put it into your "Steam\steamapps\common\Quake Live\baseq3\scripts" folder. It includes all Quake Live and all Defrag entities. It also includes a couple notes to the original Quake Live - entities.

Notes

• You don't need the updated entities file to use the defrag entities. It is just a visual help.
  
  
• Remember that you can't use these new entities offline, only on a server that supports them.
  
  
• You can't mix the original Quake Live raceflags with the new triggers.
  
  
• At this point, most defrag entities are supported.
  Supported entities include:
  target_startTimer / target_stopTimer / target_checkpoint
  trigger_multiple (fixed: wait -1 / separated 'wait's for each player)
  target_init / target_score / trigger_push_velocity (spawnflags 3 only)
  target_fragsFilter (no spawnflags supported) / target_speed
  trigger_teleport (keep_speed flag) / target_teleporter (keep_speed flag)
  
  
• See this page about mapping with defrag entities: http://ws.q3df.org/level_design/defrag_tutorials/
  
  

• Brushes with func_rotating attached to them can break when being touched by players, especially when being touched by several players at the same time. Therefore they should only be used for visual purposes, for example for a ventilator on a ceiling.
  
  
• Target_push with no spawnflags breaks the game when being touched. This is fixed on qlrace.com servers. However, it is still recommended to always use "spawnflags 1" on target_push.
  
  
• When placing powerups or keys you should attach them to a trigger_always entity. They work without, but don't spawn immediately when the map is loaded if you don't do that. Other items work fine without a trigger_always.
  
  
• When placing items (weapons, ammo, powerups, etc) in your map, you always have to add "gametype" "race" to them.
  
  
• For testing maps use the official qlrace factories.
  
  
• Since you can't test maps with defrag entities offline in Quake Live, you could test them in defrag. You'd have to compile for Quake 3 then though. Also Quake Live - specific entities won't work in defrag.
  
  
• If you have any questions visit us on the qlrace discord channel[discord.gg].