======================================================================== |EavyDarkmatchII: "DarkMatchPlus" Stefan Daniel Schwarz | ======================================================================== Introduction ------------ Do you enjoy playing in the dark? If you liked EavyDarkmatchI, you will love EavyDarkmatchII! Even if you had a problem with the old version (its networking support was broken), you'll have great fun with the new one this time. Unless you're afraid of the darkness! Are you scared? Well? Then go play it now! Just don't forget to bring your flashlight... Changes since the first version ------------------------------- * Networking support didn't work in the first public version, the server was dark but clients weren't, so it only worked well for Single Player games. Hopefully you used that chance to practice. Now Multiplayer is fully supported so you're encouraged to play it over a LAN or the net against human opponents. If you want to run a public Internet server, please let me know, I'll publish the information on my website and I'm also going to play on your server regularly. Run a DarkMatch server... * Mod configuration menu: You'll notice a special menu entry that allows server admins to comfortably configure the Mutator options through the graphical user interface. You can easily customize the properties the way you want them to be. The available possibilities are described below. Please read it so you know how each server setting works... * Additional DarkMatch gametypes: The mod comes as both a Mutator (which will work with other mutators as well as gametypes) and a Gametype (I included all the standard gametypes). There's no difference between running the mutator with a standard gametype or a DarkMatch gametype without (or with) the mutator. Using one of the DarkMatch gametypes is helpful to recognize it easier in the serverbrowser (you can't filter for mutators but you can sort according to gametype), though, so it's better to use a gametype unless you have to use the mutator since you want to play another gametype which isn't included with the mod... * All known bugs have been fixed. The old version used some simplified lighting code which disabled some lighting it shouldn't have turned off, while leaving some lights in place that should have been removed, that code has been completely rewritten for the new version. Now it handles all lights properly while keeping some special lighting. Mod configuration menu - explanation of options ----------------------------------------------- Activate Light Manual instead of automatic activation. If it's on, you'll spawn with the light turned on. If it's off, you'll spawn with the light turned off. This setting is disabled by default. Colored Light Light color equals team color. If it's on, your light color is the same as your team color. If it's off, your light color is the default color. It's enabled by default but only works with team games. Flash Light Use flashlight instead of searchlight. If it's on, your light will be smaller than usual. If it's off, your light will be the standard one. Default is disabled since it's not useful for the big levels. Player Light Glow while light is active. If it's on, you will pulse while your light is activated. If it's off, you will not pulse, being hidden in the dark. Default is enabled since it makes toggling the light useful. Realistic Light Recalculate light radius each tick. If it's on, your light size will be bigger if it's far away. If it's off, your light size will always be the same size. Default is disabled since it can have a performance impact. Toggle Light 'Mutate EavyDarkmatchII' activates/deactivates light. If it's on, you can toggle your light with the mutate command. If it's off, you cannot toggle your light with the command. Default is on so you should bind the command to a key. Crouching Toggle If this option is turned on, your light will be turned off while you are crouching. It's off by default. Turning it on is recommended for newbie servers so they don't have to mess with the keyboard setup... Some hidden options ------------------- In this version, not all options are available through the menu, yet... There are a couple of hidden properties that shouldn't be changed, some work-in-progress features that didn't make the cut for this release (I didn't want to hold it up any longer because of any unfinished stuff). I'm not going to explain them since they're currently unsupported and untested, they will be made available once they are fully functional, now I'll only mention some of the useful configuration variables that can't be changed through the config menu. They are not very important so you don't have to bother with them at all, but if you know how to manually edit the UnrealTournament.ini, here's an explanation of them (they are all located in section [EavyDarkmatchII.EavySearchlightI]): EavyCrouchingToggle=False This one is available from the menu (Crouching Toggle - see above) EavySpecialLight=False Special lighting system, currently not useful, leave it alone (off) EavyLightBrightness=250 Brightness of flashlight/searchlight (better keep the default of 250) EavyLightHue=167 Color of default searchlight (0=Red, 170=Blue, 80=Green, 32=Gold) EavyLightSaturation=142 Saturation of light (feel free to play with this and EavyLightHue) EavyLightRadius=13 Radius of searchlight (flashlight radius is always 7) How to bind the toggle command to a key --------------------------------------- Open your User.ini in the System folder with a texteditor, go to section [Engine.Input], then edit one of the key settings - example for "F" key: F=Mutate EavyDarkmatchII Save and close the file. Now you can toggle the light with the F key. It only works if the server allows it but it's allowed by default. Another way to bind a key is to use the game console while playing. Open the console by pressing the associated key (Tilde by default) and type: Set Input F Mutate EavyDarkmatchII Press Enter to execute the command and close the console. Now your F key is set to toggle the light. You can bind it to any key you want as long as the name is valid (check the User.ini for a listing of all keys). Known bugs ---------- All known bugs have been fixed. There is a features, however, that could be mistaken for a bug. Let me quickly explain its purpose here. Bot visibility not influenced: I thought about this one for a while. I eventually decided not to change the player visibility when it's dark. That means that bots will see you without having to rely on their light. This is an obvious disadvantage for the human players but they have an advantage of their own. Bots won't turn off their lights, human players can (when the server allows it which it does by default), so to balance this I decided not to recalculate visibility based on player brightness/ darkness. So you can't hide from the bots but it's fair since the bots can't hide from you, either, otherwise it would be too easy to just turn off your light and wait for some bots to come along and get fragged... Planned features ---------------- There are a couple of features that didn't make it into this version. I have a lot of ideas for future enhancements. Here I'll list just a few. - Night&Day timer that automatically turns on/off all the level lights. - Additional equipment like flares, nightvision, power-ups. - Flares, night vision equipment, other appropriate powerups - Lite-Boy: The more frags you get, the brighter your glow, the less frags you have, the darker your glow - so the good players will be easily spotted while the bad players can hide in the dark much better. - Even more customization options... Credits ------- Special thanks to Andrew 'Drunken Master' Scholer (for helpful advice), Geoffrey 'Quicken' Dunn (for useful code), Cliff 'CliffyB' Bleszinski (for his support), and last but not least all the cool members of the unrealscript@egroups.com Mailing List. Greetings to the beta testers, too, of course. And Epic for making the Game of the Year/Millennium. Please contact me at... ----------------------- mailto:EavyDarkmatchII@unreal.eavy.de http://unreal.eavy.de/EavyDarkmatchII/ <<< "Stefan Daniel 'Eavy' Schwarz" >>>