Gameplay

Swarm is a class-based teamplay modification. The mod consists of two Races: Human and Xen, up to 8 teams, of any racial combination, and five modes of play: Team Deathmatch, Capture the Object, Destroy the Object, Escort the Player, and Survival.

The most obvious scenario is Human V Xen, however it is possible to have Xen V Xen, Human V Human, or any other combination of Races up to 8 teams. A mapper can control which classes a Team can have, therefore allowing combat between different sections of a Race. An example would be where some renegade assassin have gone over to help the Xen. In this case you would have 3 teams, 1 Xen, 1 Human that could only be Assassins, and 1 Human that could be any class.

Team deathmatch is essentially Half-life Teamplay, but with different weapons depending on your class. The team score is determinded by the sum of the points on your team. The team with the most points at the end of a round wins.

CTO represents the standard Capture the flag scenario. Other uses would be to use object as key for a door, or some secret papers etc.

ETP requires a randomly selected player to get safely to an escape point/s.

DTO initially required the destruction of an object; it has now been extended to allowing any set task to trigger it. The simplest example of this is to use a func_breakable, skinned as a plane, car, computer etc, set to trigger the DTO on death. Another example is using a monster_* to trigger the DTO on death, can you say end of map champion?

SUR requires the nominated team to survive for the round without being wiped out. Players on nominated team do not re-spawn, players on other teams will if re-spawn is set in swarm_map_data entity. Idea behind this is the ‘Alamo’ concept, you must defend a fort, base etc, against overwhelming force.

A more indepth discussion of the SWARM game play system is available here.

A discussion of the SWARM worldcraft FGD file is available here.

Maps rotate as they would in a normal Half-life game, either by score or by a time limit. Your team may choose to operate as a team, or alone. The mod is best played strategicly, using all of the variously classes abilities together to win a round.

Swarm is compatible with HLDM maps. Swarm will default to Team Deathmatch mode on these maps.