SoldatUT v3

SoldatUT is a standalone package designed to test the feasability of a 2D gametype to be featured in our upcoming UT2004 mod, Marshmallow Duel : Mowbray's Revenge.

Whilst it tries to provide seamless and quality gameplay in of itself, there are some places where you will find quality sacrificed over portability. Basically, whilst this mod has to be compatible with core UT2004 elements such as vehicles, maps and players, the final version of MD:MR will not. So, when you see vehicle weapons flicker, the game crashes at random, or you wonder why some maps behave a bit strangely, just remember that in the final version of MD:MR we will have the luxury of designing all our content from the ground up with 2D portability in mind.

We need your input to help make our mod better, so if you have any problems or suggestions for making a better 2D gametype, please send us an email using the contact addresses provided.

Simply extract the 'system' folder in this zip archive to your UT2004 install directory, keeping folder paths.

If you have an older version of SoldatUT installed, please delete the 'mduel2D.u' and 'mduel2D.ucl' files from your UT2004\System directory.

You may also want to add ServerPackages entries for the mod, this is entirely up to you but if so then you may use

ServerPackages=SoldatUTv3

in your UT2004.ini.

The mod will not do anything at all until you have some maps installed for it. Check the Marshmallow Duel : Mowbray's Revenge files page for download locations.

Controls for the player are easy - strafing controls your direction of movement, whilst the mouse moves your aim reticle. Your usual forward/backward keys can be used for jumping and ducking, as can your jump/duck keys (shock!)

Underwater movement is a bit off, mainly because there will probably be no water in MD:MR and so I didn't bother coding it properly. You should use your strafe keys to swim and your jump/duck keys to swim up and down. The easiest way to surface is to look up and move your player forwards.

Vehicle control is the same as in normal UT. Forward and reverse to, erm, go forwards and backwards, and strafing turns the wheels. To turn around, you must get up enough speed to turn the vehicle about 45 degrees, after that the game will flick it around for you. The easiest way to do this is usually to hold brake and strafe, and go into a power slide. Reversing while turning also works quite well in a tight spot. Whilst the vehicles are fixed to the same plane as everything else, they are allowed to rotate - so youll be needing to turn the wheels to keep your vehicle pointing in the right direction. Oh, you aim the vehicle's gun (if applicable) the same as you aim the normal weapons.

For onslaught games, you can replace vehicles on your server by setting which vehicles will be spawned at what type of factory. Simply edit the file "SoldatUTVehicles.ini" in your UT2004\system folder to set which vehicles to spawn at the different factory types. You can also set whether to allow vehicles to collide with players or not. This is off by default, so that you cannot use them to push your team quickly across the map. However the tradeoff is that you can't run over the opposing team.

Creating 2D Maps

Essentially the only thing you need to do differently to make a 2D map (besides saving it with a different filename) is line all your pickups / pathnodes / playerstarts etc in two dimensions - X and Z to be precise.

When you put down a playerStart, this sets the Y location at which the player will spawn. After this, all their movement is constrained, so they can never move on the Y axis after this (not even through teleporting, etc).

It does not really matter what you do with other items, so long as they are placed so that they can be touched by players. So obviously, they need to be at the same Y position.

You can do this easily by going to an object's properties, then the advanced tab, and setting bEdShouldSnap to true. Then you can snap all your actors into place on the same Y coordinate.

The 2D camera is placed just over 700UU away from the player, so make sure that if you put a box around your level, for example, that there is enough room (at least 1200UU to be safe, particularly for the lightning gun zoom) for the camera to actually see the players.

Bots will follow the paths you give them as normal, so make sure you put all your path nodes on the same 2 dimensional plane.

If you are making a 2D onslaught map, the only other thing you need to worry about is leaving enough room for your vehicles to move. You should also set the max height for air vehicles fairly low, so that players can't use them to fly across the whole map without being seen.

That's all there really is to it. Just remember that when you look into your front view, this is how the map will look ingame. Use as much of your third dimension as you like for background / foreground graphics, but remember that all the important game elements MUST be on that 2D plane.

Adding map voting for 2D gametypes

1. Open your UT2004.ini or whichever INI you are using for your server.
2. Find the [xVoting.xVotingHandler] section. If it doesnt exist yet, follow the instructions at the above site to create one.
3. Go to the bottom of this section and add the following lines (this will add all the 2D gametypes, feel free to pick and choose):

GameConfig=(GameClass="mduel2D.mduel2DDMgame",Prefix="2DDM",Acronym="2DDM",GameName="SoldatUT v3 DM",Mutators=,Options=)
GameConfig=(GameClass="mduel2D.mduel2DTDMgame",Prefix="2DDM",Acronym="2DDM",GameName="SoldatUT v3 TDM",Mutators=,Options=)
GameConfig=(GameClass="mduel2D.mduel2DBRgame",Prefix="2DBR",Acronym="2DBR",GameName="SoldatUT v3 BR",Mutators=,Options=)
GameConfig=(GameClass="mduel2D.mduel2DCTFgame",Prefix="2DCTF",Acronym="2DCTF",GameName="SoldatUT v3 CTF",Mutators=,Options=)
GameConfig=(GameClass="mduel2D.mduel2DINVgame",Prefix="2DDM",Acronym="2DDM",GameName="SoldatUT v3 INV",Mutators=,Options=)
GameConfig=(GameClass="mduel2D.mduel2DDOMgame",Prefix="2DDOM",Acronym="2DDOM",GameName="SoldatUT v3 DOM",Mutators=,Options=)
GameConfig=(GameClass="mduel2D.mduel2DONSgame",Prefix="2DONS",Acronym="2DONS",GameName="SoldatUT v3 ONS",Mutators=,Options=)

Once that's done, go to (or create) your [xVoting.DefaultMapListLoader] section and change the line MapNamePrefixes= by adding the new map prefixes to it, separated by commas. It may end up looking like:

MapNamePrefixes=DM,DOM,CTF,BR,AS,ONS,VCTF,2DDM,2DBR,2DCTF,2DDOM,2DONS

4. put the soldatUT maps in the map cycle list or set bUseMapList to false to enable selecting from all of the installed maps.

Some onslaught maps have trouble rendering the powernodes and cores on the map for clients.

Vehicle passenger weapons generally would not work without creating new classes for each. Instead of going to all this work, most have just been replaced with null weapons. The exception is the hellbender turret, just to show that they are possible.

The onslaught turrets have been replaced with hellbender turrets for the same reasons as above.

Hellbender turret sometimes will not fire over the top of the car.

Laser pointer does not come from the weapon when driving a vehicle.

Vehicle weapons aim a little off when vehicle is slanted (on a hill, for example).

Vehicle weapons flicker on clients when being driven by a remote player.

Vehicles use forward/backward to move, instead of strafe keys.

A very few weapons still draw an overlay when zoomed.

Vehicles sometimes develop a jitter (and often explode!) when the computer lags a bit.

Stationary turrets can sometimes look the opposite way than you intend.

The leviathan and cicada are not supported at this time.

Bots will sometimes drop weapons outside the 2D movement plane, and they cannot be picked up.

Underwater controls are fucky.