Quake3World

I cant remember the exact term to use and I know Q3 does this in the code.

Its basically when you add up the bits to figure out the options, and you have say 16bits and have
1 bit for say low grav
2 for no team damage
4 for no fall damage
8 for no quads

so if you had a 3, it would be lowgrav and no team damage

but I just need the correct term to call this, bitwise addition? or using bitwise options?

Bitwise OR?

Bitmask is a term that's used for such a bitwise number (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitmask).
You state that you have a 16 bit number, but it's actually a 4 bit number. One bit for each setting.

"bitwise operation" is also a good general term.