I did have safe wep scripts all set up but got a new hdd and forgot to save my cfg.
Now I've got qw back on and want to play some pickups again! I'm having trouble getting the same safe wep settings that I had before.

I like to select the weps by having one bound to every key:
e = rl
q = gl
r = lg
mwheelup = sng - ng
mwheeldown = ssg - sg
mouse1 = shoot
I had it set up like this so i pressed for instance the 'e' key to select RL but it would keep SG out and then shoot a rocket when i pressed mouse1 then return to SG.

Just can't seem to find out how I did that again, I have cl_weaponselect and cl_weaponhide both set to 1???

Also when searching the answer I saw this comment "You could use a hud item or view weapon to show (pre)selected weapon." - how do I show this on HUD please?

Afaik this is sort of built into EzQuake, perhaps you need an update. Otherwise you can take a look at this thread: http://www.quakeworld.nu/forum/topic/5900/my-heaviest-real-nonblocking-weapon

About the showing of the 'real' weapon, I'm not sure that works outside of QTV. I use it for the sdTV stream, but don't think it works in-game. Could be wrong though.

Isn't it 'cl_weaponpreselect 1' you are getting at skint?
Anyway it is described here

Yeah it's meant to be default but for whatever reason it's not working, even on fresh install of nQuake... it's driving me nuts trying everything!

If I have preselect 'on' does it show the weapon you currently have selected as your gun model or should it show sg then switch to whatever weapon when it shoots? Am I being that dumb!

http://ezquake.sourceforge.net/docs/?weapon-handling - I thought it would just work as it says here from a clean install of nQuake and the only thing I'm changing is weapon keys from the menu.

r_viewpreselgun 1

?

meag .... you are my fucking hero!!! all this was just me being dumb! THANKYOU!

I did do hours of research to no avail