- - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BONES - Blatant, Obvious, Nefarious, & Extraneous Scripting ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ :) version 1.03 by Bones/NecroBones (aka Ed T. Toton III) - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTACT INFO AND SOURCE: Contact: tribes@necrobones.com http://www.planettribes.com/necrobones/tribes2/ Mod page: http://www.planettribes.com/necrobones/tribes2/bonesmod.html - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - REQUIREMENTS: Tribes 2, running CTF (Specifically 2-Team gametypes ONLY, and was only tested and designed on and for CTF, but should work with Siege and CNH). Map editing with the mod active is NOT recommended. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BONES AND BONESREF, WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? BONES is the full-blown mod described below. BONESREF is -just- the referee system, and leaves everything else unchanged. They both use this readme file, but just remember that BonesRef is just a base game with a referee system :) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PURPOSE AND DESCRIPTION: Tribes has always been a surpassingly vibrant, rich, and balanced gaming system, even from the first release of Tribes 1. However, despite this, there has always been room for improvement, and a few minor oversights. Back in Tribes 1, I used to play almost exclusively on the Insomniax mod. I'm not a mod junkie, and in fact I really dislike many mods. It seems that a lot of mods are made by people who just want to make as many cool toys as a possible and show no regard towards preserving the game balance or the original intent of the game designers. These things have their place, of course, but for long-term play on public servers, I prefer more subtle changes that enhance the balance, rather than completely change it. This is why I liked insomniax- It was a mod that introduced a few new toys, but maintained the game balance, patched a few holes, and didn't replace the standard weapons as the main staple of the game. This is what I set out to do in Tribes 2. I think of the BONES mod as "Insomniax 'light' for Tribes 2". I started out just tweaking the deployable limits a little. Then I got more ideas, and saw some things that needed fixing, as well as some interesting ideas. Examples: Fixing "bugs" and oversights: * Vehicle "ghost after destruction" fixed, * MPB barrel can be changed. Extending on existing concepts: * One deployable base turret per team (optional) * More turret customizing (additional barrels) Tweaking gameplay to close some holes: * Increased deployable turret limits so they can be used at multiple bases * Railgun to give heavies a decent anti-sniper option Admin Tools: * Referee mode, with all it's toys, items, and options. * Kill/Smack/Warn buttons, to give a less-severe punishment than kicking. So the overall idea was to create a mod that gave some interesting new options, new customizing choices for defense, and admin tools, all the while preserving the existing gameplay and balance. I know the change list below looks enormous, but it's not a total conversion, just a tweak. For the most part, gameplay isn't changed a whole lot. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE: This mod contains a "back door" that will allow me (NecroBones) to become a referee on any server running this mod. In the spirit of truthfulness and fairness, and to dispel fears, I'm explaining this in detail here: * Because T2 has an authentication system, this will not allow anyone other than me to become a referee without being an admin on the server. * This will NOT give me any admin priveledges on your server. * This will place me somewhere between the two referee versions. It will effectively be the SA version of the referee armor, but without the ability to take flags or claim switches, or turn others into referees. * I run my own server, and am a big proponent of game balance and non-interference by referees and admins. I will not interfere with the operation of your server, if I ever log on (I rarely leave my own server) :) * It's only fair, since afterall, I've spent countless hours of my life working on this mod, and I'm providing you with the fruits of my labor for free. The least you can do is allow me to use the ref mode for testing and observation on your server. Obviously there's nothing I can do if you wanted to remove this from the code, but I ask that you please leave it as it is, so that I can at least use it for testing purposes if I log into your server. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - INSTALLATION: Note- Installation instructions for BONESREF is the same as for BONES. Just use bonesref.vl2 and Gamedata/BonesRef as the filename and directory name. Also note however that BONESREF is unrefined, in that it will generate a lot of console errors. Don't worry, this is normal. Some of the scripts are still trying to access objects that aren't being loaded. This will generate an error, but not cause any other problems. UPGRADE: If you're upgrading from a previous version of BONES, start by deleting the BONES directory and bonesmod.vl2 files. Then simply re-create the gamedata/BONES directory, and place the new bonesmod.vl2 file in it. It's that simple! FIRST TIME: Simply create a tribes2/gamedata/BONES directory and put the bonesmod.vl2 file into that directory. Then open up gamedata/base/prefs/serverprefs.cs (or it may be gamedata/BONES/prefs/serverprefs.cs) and add these two lines: $Host::MOTD = "\nWelome to our server.\n"; $Host::MOTDduration = 20; These lines MUST be present (if they're absent, you may get a blank MOTD that never vanishes, which will really annoy the players). The MOTD (message of the day) is text that will be displayed to every player when they connect. You can change it to what you want. The second one is the number of seconds for which to display it. The MOTD can not be any longer then 3 lines, and the lines can't be terribly long. If necessary, you can type these in on the server's console to set them as well. Additionally, if you'd like to have Deployable Base Turrets and Raven Missilers, set the max number per team with these lines: $Host::BonesDepBaseTurretMax = 1; $Host::BonesRavenMax = 1; If those lines are absent, "0" will be assumed. These two variables can be changed in real-time as console commands as well. If you'd like to randomize the map rotation, use this line: $Host::BonesRandomizeMaps = 1; While in that file, you may also wish to change the name of team 3 (the $Host::teamname3 line) to something for your admin characters, such as "Admins" or "Referees" or "Lava Gods", and likewise change the skin ($Host::teamskin3) to something else (I use "basebot", which is the storm bot skin). EXAMPLES OF ALL AVAILABLE ServerPrefs.cs OPTIONS: $Host::MOTD = "\nWelome to our server.\n"; $Host::MOTDduration = 20; $Host::BonesDepBaseTurretMax = 1; $Host::BonesRavenMax = 1; $Host::BonesRandomizeMaps = 1; $Host::DisableAutoShutdown = 1; $Host::DisableFairTeams = 1; $Host::DisableIFFmines = 1; $Host::DisableTeamDamage = 1; $Host::DisableTournamentMode = 1; $Host::DisableWeaponNotification = 1; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - STARTING: Run tribes as: 'C:\Dynamix\Tribes2\GameData\tribes2.exe -dedicated -mod BONES'. If you just want to play with it locally, perhaps with some bots or something, then just run it like this: 'C:\Dynamix\Tribes2\GameData\tribes2.exe -online -mod BONES'. Or you can substitute "offline" for "online" to run it in lan mode. If those dont work, then run the dedicated command above, then run the game normally and log into your own server as if it were running over the internet or lan or whatever. NOTE NOTE NOTE- If you can't get the mod to load, try unzipping the VL2 into tribes2/gamedata/BONES instead of placing the VL2 there. You can uncompress it with winzip... just make sure it uses the stored directory and pathnames. You should see all the scripts and data go under the tribes2/gamedata/BONES/scripts directory. Then try running it again. If THAT fails too, you can always copy everything under BONES to Base as well, so it has two copies to pull from. And if THAT fails, you can also make a backup of scripts.vl2 (so you can put it back for future patching etc) and then zip up all the scripts you just placed under Base into scripts.vl2... that'll ensure nothing is skipped. And it's a last resort that assumes you want to use the mod all the time. Generally speaking, the mod -should- work out of the gamedata/BONES directory, either as a VL2 or as extracted scripts. MAKE SURE YOU DELETE THE DSO FILES BETWEEN EACH ATTEMPT, or else problems may persist without needing to. An easy way to do this is to create a batch file. Just create a file somewhere using notepad, and name it something like "deletedso.bat", and set up a shortcut on your desktop, and put the following lines in it (adjusted according to whatever drive and path you installed the game to): del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\base\scripts\*.cs.dso del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\base\scripts\packs\*.cs.dso del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\base\scripts\weapons\*.cs.dso del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\base\scripts\vehicles\*.cs.dso del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\base\scripts\turrets\*.cs.dso del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\bones\scripts\*.cs.dso del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\bones\scripts\packs\*.cs.dso del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\bones\scripts\weapons\*.cs.dso del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\bones\scripts\vehicles\*.cs.dso del c:\dynamix\tribes2\gamedata\bones\scripts\turrets\*.cs.dso Then all you need to do is double-click your shortcut whenever you mess with mods, install a new version, or apply a patch to the game, or whatever. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Modifications from Base: * New maps included to showcase some features: * The Valley of Death - Takes advantage of new default barrel types, new MPB deployment rules, and ability to set different default barrels on MPBs. Also has joke items within the mission area (specifically Tree Pack, Camo Pack, and Bubblegun). * Disco Inferno - Showcases having Team3 turrets that will fire on both teams, defaults to the new barrel types, and the Disco Hall uses targeting laser turrets and pre-defined pointlights. * Additional gametype added: Aerial Dogfight. See its section below for details. Includes sample maps, also listed below. * Additional gametype added: Artillery Combat. See its section below for details. Includes sample maps, also listed below. * Fair teams enforcement. Players can not change to a team that currently has more players. This can be disabled in serverprefs or on the console with $Host::DisableFairTeams = 1; Setting it to 0 will re-enable the feature. * Bomber and Tank given similar firepower (effectively same chaingun): - Bomber belly-turret is now a twin chaingun, since it's more useful than those horrible fusion bolts. - Tank chaingun energy cost slightly reduced. * Tank made slightly more resilient against missiles. * Vehicle team limits increased * Deployable Turret Improvements: - Increased deployable limits for Clamp Turrets (8 to 12 instead of 4 to 10) - Increased deployable limits for Spike Turrets (10 to 12 instead of 4 to 10) - Increased deployable limit for inventory stations (10 instead of 5) - Increased deployable pulse/motion sensor limits (18 instead of 15) - Improved deployable turret/inventory minimum distances by 5m - 5 turrets allowed per sphere, instead of 4. - Slightly improved deployable turret interference radius (reduced radius by 5m) * MPB Turret Barrel can now be changed by players. * Deployable Base Turret: - Can only be deployed on terrain. - Can not be deployed within 64m of a flag, flagstand, or switch. - Can only be deployed by heavies. - Can only be purchased at full-size inv stations (includes MPB station). - Number allowed per team can be specified in serverprefs. * New Turret Barrels: - Chaingun Barrel (equivelent to a hand-held chaingun with good aim, fires just a hair faster, and has nearly double the bullet spread) - Flak Barrel (Railgun-Turret, basically) = Random spread = Lower damage than AA = Kickback can knock vehicles around - Ion Cannon (long-range projectiles that steal energy) * Railgun: - Mediums require ammo pack to use, and get 15 shots. - Heavies get 5 rounds without ammo pack, 20 with. - 6 second warmup period. - High velocity shots. - Has small damage radius, but splash damage is minor compared to direct hits. - Good anti-sniper weapon, or for indoor/outdoor supressive fire. * Deployable Sensor Jammer Looks similar to the normal one (but upside-down), and instead of simply turning on and off... this one deploys and will stay where you put it. It then operates as a standard sensor jammer from that position. * Demolitionist armor: - Based on medium armor, sacrifices versatility for specific role. - Slightly weaker armor, faster running, better jetting. - Can't use very many weapon types - Can carry a 3-shot mortar. - Has specialized weapons and packs: = Heavy grenade launcher - Like normal grenade launcher, but shorter in range, and heavier in damage. = Explosives Pack - Carries 4 deployable explosive charges that are individually a little weaker than mines, but can be deployed close together and on walls. Also have larger blast radius and detection radius than mines. - Ammo capacity on grenade launcher, missile launcher, and hand grenades greatly improved over standard medium armor. - Can not pilot vehicles. * Mine changes: - IFF mines. Mines now check IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) before detonating. This means mines don't go off when stepped on by members of the team that placed it. Only enemies can detonate your mines now! (You can still shoot hem to destroy then redeploy them though) This can be disabled in serverprefs or on the console with $Host::DisableIFFmines = 1; Setting it to 0 will re-enable the feature. - Death from a teammate's mine is no longer called a "TEAMKILL", however it will still cause a penalty (for now). Since mines are IFF now, this usually will only take effect when standing too close when an enemy sets off a friendly mine. - Increased mine deployable-limit to 30 per team (was 20). * "Referee" Mode added for Admins (in-game super-presence) - Unarmed "Standard Referees" & Super-Armed Super-Admin Referees - Teleport, unlimited jetting/energy, 10x normal health, integral shield. - Standard Refs can't claim switches, take flags, or use non-referee vehicles, but SA's can. - Blue IFF indicator - Explode on death (mild-damage explosion) - Referee Base is 5 or 6km outside battle area (depending on the map). - Referee-only vehicles available at refbase: = Fast, super-tough transport = Fast, super-tough unarmed "bomber" gunship = Fast, super-tough, chaingun-armed "admin fighter". - Refs can see the team-chat from both teams, and observers. - SuperAdmins can turn other people into refs temporarily (players return to normal if they log out or change teams), if the SA has the mod (or at least lobbygui.cs) installed locally. - SA Referees start with SA-only weapons (torpedo launcher, plasma missiles, adminrailgun, 9999 chaingun ammo) * Refs and non-ref admins are informed of and included in team-only votes (specifically kick-votes) on other teams. Referees and admins should be trusted not to abuse this, but need to know what's going on and have a say in these matters. * Admin Punishments (these require the admin's client to use the mod, or at least lobbygui.cs from the mod. Otherwise the option will appear in the menu but will not work) - Kill-button added in lobby. Less severe punishment than kicking, and once again, admins should be trusted not to abuse this, otherwise they shouldn't be admins. :) - Smack-button added as well. Less severe than kicking as well, this simply accelerates the person upward very hard, thus either throwing them into the ceiling, or throwing them away from the area. - Warn-Button is even less severe than the above. It puts a warning message in the center of the person's screen (right over their reticle) that says "You have received a warning! Improve your behaviour immediately!". The warning remains on screen for 30 seconds.. plenty of time to annoy them. :) * Minimum flight ceiling. If a map's ceiling is below 500, it's forced up to 500 to facilitate refs getting on and off the refbase, as well as increasing altitudes available to players (the latter reason is also a valid one, since I absolutely hate the way the flight ceiling works.. The client and the server repeatedly lose sync and you get a rubber-banding effect... This is more of a client-side issue, so the mod can't fix it except to give you more maneuvering room). Besides, I've always felt that the visible distance should be more limiting than any hard-coded limit. * Useless "joke" items available only from Referees or at the Referee base: - Bubblegun (or "lag-gun", hehe!) - Camo Pack (Like the bubblegun, it was originally available to players, but people are idiots and got confused and kept asking questions) - Tree Pack (you become a walking tree :) - Dance-Inducer Gun, can only be used by referees. Projectiles do no damage, but instead induce dancing in a 5m radius. Get a whole crowd together with their targeting lasers going, and tossing some flares, and you have an instant disco. :) * Map aids.. Maps designed to work specfically with this mod can take advantage of the following: - "initialBarrel" variable for pre-placed MPBs to specify alternate default barrels. - A few specific pre-defined flashing pointlights - Nearly indestructible targeting-laser turrets (may change to a more normal toughness later) * MPB Deployment Rule changes: - "Wall" and bridge interiors no longer count towards the building distance check, since they can be valid substrates to park vehicles on, and are more-often-than-not used for miscellaneous things other than being bases in and of themselves. - Minimum distance from a turret or building reduced to 50 (used to be 100). - Can not be deployed within 64m of a flag, flagstand, or switch (uses the same distance setting as the Deployable Base Turret) * Added additional death messages, some of which are based on Tribes 1, others are specific to the new weapons and equipment. * Tournament-Mode and Team Damage voting disable-options (except to turn them back off). Generally I feel these should mostly be left in the domain of the admins to decide, but these serverprefs options will give you the choice. $Host::DisableTeamDamage = 1; $Host::DisableTournamentMode = 1; Using these options will disallow players to vote them on, but will still allow them to vote them off. Admins will also still be able to turn them on. Omitting these variables or setting them to 0 will make Team Damage and Tournament Mode votes work as normal from the base game. * MOTD display upon connect and mission change. * Upon switching weapons, a "weapon notification" appears at the bottom for a few seconds to let you know what you've selected. This can be disabled in serverprefs or on the console with: $Host::DisableWeaponNotification = 1; * Bombardier reticle now visible to all occupants of the bomber * Ctrl-K respawn delay reduced (4 seconds instead of 10) * Corpses now take 32 seconds to vanish, instead of 22. * Flares emit light, orange in a 5m radius * Blaster and Targeting Laser colors changed, but not functionally altered. * Mod looks for a script called scripts/mapfile.cs, which can be used to hardcode the map rotation you want. An example will be released sooner or later. * Map randomizer, so as not to have a predictable map rotation. Can be enabled via a serperprefs option: $Host::BonesRandomizeMaps = 1; Note- not truly random. It picks random offsets, thus skips large batches of maps at a time, giving the appearance of a more random sequence. We had problems with directly randomly picking maps. Missions within 1/4 of the rotation from each other can be played back to back. For example, if you have 40 CTF maps, any two maps must be within 10 of each other to have a chance of being played back to back. This can be controlled using maplist.cs (see website for an example of this script). Randomizer will choose a random starting map when in dedicated mode as well, when active. * Added a 5-hour maximum run-time. The server will terminate itself after 20 million milliseconds of operation. If you run a dedicated server, be sure to have ispawn set up correctly. This helps reduce the server scrogging by making sure the server resets itself periodically. Server shutdowns ocurr at the end of missions, after a brief moment to allow everyone to look at scores. Warnings are given on the chat hud. This feature can be disabled with: $Host::DisableAutoShutdown = 1; - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AERIAL DOGFIGHT AND ARTILLERY COMBAT GAMETYPES * Emphasis is on vehicle combat, and only that. Scoring reflects this: - DOGFIGHT: 10 points per fighter shot down, 20 per gunship. - ARTILLERY: 10 points per tank destroyed. - Penalties for destroying enemy base equipment, to discourage base-rape etc. - Players may opt to become "flagbearers" by grabbing their own team's flag: = Flagbearers always have a waypoint on them, so both teams can find them. = Flagbearers earn double points for shooting down vehicles. = Double points are earned for shooting down flagbearers. = It's in your team's best interest to let your best pilots carry the flags, since they're the ones likely to live the longest and still shoot others down with the entire enemy team after them. = Score doubling is applied for every occupant in the vehicle. That means that if two enemy gunships were loaded with two flagbearers each, the score for one shooting the other down would be 320 points (20 x2 x2 x2 x2). = Flagbearers must remain inside the mission area, or be stripped of their flag. * Significant changes to gameplay as compared to CTF or CNH etc.. - Inventory stations disabled - Players spawn in Medium Armor with repair-pack, blaster, chaingun, spinfusor, and plasma-gun. - The two above changes have many reasons: = Reducing framerate drop by removing stations from the map = Discouraging ground-tactics by removing character customization. = Forcing characters into a configuration that is still mobile, can pilot vehicles, use deployable packs if present on the map. = Driving home the fact that the emphasis is on the vehicles. = Removing the ability to obtain sensor jammers and cloaks, unless the map has them. - Ctrl-K and other suicide methods do not score penalties, so you can always quickly return to base and get into a new vehicle. - Otherwise, all of the normal BONES Mod rules apply. * New vehicles: - Raven Missiler: Shrike variant, armed with missiles instead of blasters. Slow firing, requires lots of energy. Slightly more fast and maneuverable than shrike but with slo acceleration (to give it a fighting chance). Slightly tougher shields, slightly weaker armor. A pain in the ass to use effectively, but really cool. :) Also sucks for air-to-air combat. Available only from vehcile pads that allow both the shrike and bomber. Number per team can be set in serverprefs. The raven has a serverprefs option because it is the only air vehicle that can be used in Artillery mode, and you may or may not wish to allow it. - Hawk Interceptor is exactly matched to the Shrike in capabilities. It has the same speed, maneuverability, thrust, armor, and shields. The weapons are different, but matched in capabilities, with the only difference being the projectile spread. This and the shrike will be the main staple of this gametype. Aptly named for it's ability to come in and destroy its prey. (9 permitted) - Vulture Defender is appropriately named for its ability to swoop in and finish off the nearly-dead, and for circling and waiting for the inevitable. Not terribly fast, but turns well and has heavy blasters. It's a tough and slow fighter, so it does well in packs or close to base. - Owl Torpedoer is a wide-eyed, subtle-but-deadly fighter. Like the Vulture, it is slow and tough. It has a low refire rate, is difficult to use against other air targets, but the torpedoes it fires are quite potent. Also has no engine noise (except for afterburner), and thus can silently sneak up on a target. Like its namesake, it's quiet, subtle, but deadly and potent. - Sparrow Scout is a very fast, but not terribly tough or maneuverable fighter. Armed with railguns. It's not always well matched against other fighters when going nose-to-nose, but it's the fastest vehicle available, and since the railguns will knock an enemy vehicle around, it can be good in a support role when fighting against gunships. - Eagle Gunship is the majestic twin-seater gunship. Similar to the standard bomber, but beefed up in shields, armor, speed, thrust, and afterburner, it's capable of standing on its own in a sky full of fighters. The belly turret is armed with a fast-firing railgun, as well as dumbfire plasma missiles. The tailgunner seat has been replaced with an automatic miniplasma turret (someone can control it from the ground if they wish, but it might do better on its own). This rear defense turret will help keep fighters off its tail, and provide defense above where the belly turret can't see. - Condor Gunship is similar to the Eagle, but not as fast or maneuverable. It has four forward-firing chainguns, and a chaingun turret on the "tailgunner" position. The belly-turret is equipped with shrike blasters, and the same plasma-missiles as the Eagle. - Albatross Gunship is a big bad-ass gunship that still has its traditional tailgunner seat, but the four would-be passenger slots on the old HAVOC airframe have been converted to automatic turrets (people can control them from the ground if they wish). Slow and heavy, this gunship can lend a lot of firepower to a fight, as long as it's escorted and protected against other fighters. Can also act as a "tender" if the tailgunner is willing to repair fighters that pull up next to it. Be careful though, the Albatross is a clumsy vessel, and often it will take damage from its own turrets if the firing angle is not a good one. Players will have to be careful, since it can easily be destroyed if the enemies position themselves such that the Albatross kills itself. - Panther Tank is a plasma-firing tank, using the "mini-plasma" that was developed for the Eagle Gunship. It's more useful than a standard plasma turret for vehicle-to-vehicle combat, since it has a higher refire rate and faster projectile speed. The cost is that the plasma bolts are much weaker. This makes for a versitile but not brutally potent vehicle. Also equipped with a standard chaingun. - Cheetah Tank is a very fast and nimble tank with somewhat reduced overall toughness. It's equipped with chainguns only, but has two types. The normal high-caliber slow-rate tank chaingun, and also a smaller but higher speed one that resembles the handheld chaingun. Between the two, the cheetah is fantastic at high-speed hunting and evasion and shield-suppression. - Lion Tank is a tough tank that fires torpedoes. The refire rate is slow, but the torpedoes are capable of massive levels of destruction if they can hit their mark. Also equipped with the standard chaingun. - Puma Tank is very similar to the Beowulf in capabilities. It has the standard chaingun, but instead of a mortar, it's equipped with a cluster-cannon. A cluster of grenades are fired... in total, they are about as destructive as the tank mortar, but because they're spread out, it can be easier to score at least a minor hit. On the other hand, they're shorter ranged. - Tiger Tank has a chaingun, and a missile launcher. The missiles are similar in effect to the plasma missiles that the Raven flyer has, but the Tiger can only fire one at a time, but at a higher refire rate. The missiles are a pain to aim, but very destructive. - Bobcat Grav Cycle is like the Wildcat, except it's significantly slower, a little tougher, and has twin chainguns on the front. - Hornet Jetbike is a flying bike, equipped with a spinfusor. Not the best air-combat vehicle, but still a good way to get around the map quickly without being a large target. - Support Turbograv is a shrike variant that is designed for support roles. Specifically, it's a repair-vehicle, with no offensive weapons. It can repair other vehicles and equipment faster than a repair pack, making it great for in-field repairs of other vehicles. And while it is capable of self-repair, it does so very slowly, and thus it will still pay off to land for repairs. It has no heat signature, and thus will not receive missile locks. Also has an enormous sensor range. - Support Tender is like the Support Turbograv in that it is designed for in-field repairs of other vehicles, however this is a two-seater based on the bomber's chassis. The belly-turret has the same repair equipment as this vehicle's smaller counterpart, however the turret can also launch flares to get missiles off of itself or the vehicle it is tending. Because the repair-gun is turret-mounted, this vehicle will have an easier time repairing ground-equipment than the smaller Turbograv. - Crusader Artillery Base is essentially the same thing as an MPB, but with a few minor differences in shield and armor strength. More importantly however, it is equipped with a very powreful and long-ranged mortar. The mortar is the strongest of it's kind in the game, more powerful than the base-turret mortar, and significantly longer in range. The detection radius for automatic firing is also large. Manual control will allow long-range supression of the enemy base from behind mountains. NOTE ON NEW VEHICLES: You will not see pictures for these vehicles at the vehicle stations. This is normal. The clients don't recognize the vehicles and thus don't know which picture to show. It's not a bug in the mod. * Included maps: - Arctic Dogfight is a variant of Arctic Flight, adapted as a test-map for the dogfight game. All inv stations were removed, more turrets were added, waypoints were added to the bases (since flag waypoints aren't auto-created), and the two neutral towers were deleted. Dogfight only. - Archipelago Dogfight is a variant of the Archipelago base map. The additional towers have been removed, and multiple additional vehicle pads have been added. Each team has two flags, and the water visibility has been improved. Dogfight and Artillery. - Death Birds Fly Dogfight is a variant of Death Birds Fly. The bases have been simplified, and each of the 3 vehicle pads per team has its own flag and defenses. Dogfight and Artillery. - Long Reach is designed to function as CTF, Dogfight, and Artillery. Slightly unusual design with the flag on a slope, making it difficult to get the enemy flag without sliding down deeper into the enemy territory. 3 Vehicle pads per team, under a suspended roof. Two capturable bunkers. * Map-making guidelines for Dogfight/Artillery, for mappers: - Inventory stations have been disabled, so don't bother including them in the maps. They'll just reduce framerate without serving a purpose. - Bases should be a good distance apart so vehicles have room to maneuver. - Bases should be well armed with turrets to discourage the enemy from camping by the bases to destroy vehicles right off the vehicle pads. Sensors should also be used to improve the turret's scanning area. - Turret Barrel Packs may be placed for the players to use on their base turrets. - It's preferable to power the base using a "providespower" simgroup variable rather than generators, to discourage base-rape. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - REVISION HISTORY: 1.03 * Improved vehicle menu to not show vehicle groupings or count vehicle types that are disallowed from the station in question. A little less confusing this way. * Found another bug with the vehicle menu... geez the vehiclehud is picky! * Adjusted vehicle limits again * Weakened Condor Gunship significantly 1.02 * Removed "Weapon Notification". It didn't work at all in the last version, and rather than repair it, I decided to just remove it. It wasn't all that useful. * Added new vehicles - * Bobcat Grav Cycle (dual-chainguns) * Hornet Jetbike (flying bike) * Support Turbograv (repair shrike) * Support Tender (repair bomber) * Condor Gunship (dogfighting bomber) * Crusader Artillery Unit (MPB-like, long-range mortar) * Adjusted vehicle limits. * Fixed a bug with vehicle-kills not being scored correctly in CTF. * Fixed a bug making the vehicle-station menu not work on some dedicated servers. 1.01 Updated for new patch, etc * Fixed a few bugs and updated for new patch version. * Rebalanced Hawk a little bit * Made Beowulf tanks slightly more resilient against missiles * Made all news types available in the standard gametypes (CTF, etc) * Changed vehicle-selection HUD to accomodate larger lists of vehicles, to make all vehicles accessible, and to facilitate adding more vehicles in another revision. 1.00-F Stuff changed... got it? * Added an auto-reset feature. The server will terminate itself after a predetermined period of operation. If you run a dedicated server, be sure to have ispawn set up correctly. This helps reduce the server scrogging by making sure the server resets itself periodically. * Fixed a bug in the client join that was causing duplicate data that confused player scripts (among other things). This may have contributed to the NULL errors etc. * Added Admin Tanks to the Referee base * Added Weapons on the Admin Gunship and changed the Admin Fighter to fire Torps. * Changed Referee/Admin vehicles to only allow non-refs into the passenger positions (used to allow regular players into gunner seats) * Added optional random map sequencer. * New "Demolitionist" armor with specialized equipment * Added Deployable Sensor Jammer. * Adjusted Referee stats. Only roughly 10x the toughness of a medium instead of 200x, but with a shield, making the shield-pack unnecessary. * Changed Admin Fighter to have 4 extra-powerful shrike blasters. 1.00-E More fixes and features, plus serious balancing on the gunships: * Albatross AA's replaced with mini-plasma * Eagle chaingun turret also replaced with mini-plasma * New Mini-plasma is faster but weaker than standard plasma turrets, and is not available as a deployable. Only exists on Albatross, Eagle, & Panther. * Bombardier reticle now visible to all occupants of the bomber * Fixed a hole in the terrain in Arechipelago-DF. * Dogfight score-hud should be closer to working now. I've had mixed results so far... sometimes works right, sometimes doesn't update the scores. * Chaingun turret weakened (was pissing a lot of people off, understandably, since it was a little too strong). Damage reduced by 20% (just under the handheld's damage, instead of just over it), firing rate slowed back to handheld-speed, projectile spread increased by 6.66%. * New "Artillery Combat" gametype.. Same ideas as Dogfight, but with tanks. * Reticles fixed/improved for the new "mod" vehicles and weapons. * Added "weapon notification" when switching to different weapons. * Added serverprefs options for disabling the IFF feature on mines, disabling fair-teams enforcement, weapon notification, and TD and Tourney mode votes. These can be changed in realtime on the server console as well. * Removed the 1/1000 projectile spread that a recent patch added to the spinfusor. * MOTD has been fixed to not display at all if the duration isn't defined. 1.00-D A variety of fixes: * Albatross AA turrets moved to the front, and the flak turrets were replaced with Ion turrets. Now equipped with 2 AA and 2 Ion in total. Shields adjusted, armor reduced by 25%. This does several things: 1) Was too powerful, reduces it to a sane level 2) Reduces problems with killing itself, since the rear turrets were more of a problem. The Ions will do nothing more than reduce the shields, but do no actual damage otherwise. 3) The kickback from the flaks would knock vehicles around too much. This should not be as big of a problem in the field as the albatross was causing. * Dogfight player spawn now has blaster instead of missile launcher, to further move the emphasis away from trying to do things on foot, and to reduce the number of missiles in the air. Now only missile turrets will fire missiles. This is supposed to be "dogfighting", not "missiling". * Team score messages in Dogfight fixed. Instead of just displaying a number, you should get the proper message now that "so-and-so scored xxx points" etc. * Mission area size increased on both Archipelago-DF and DeathBirdsFly-DF. * Dogfight objective hud (lower-left score hud) started (still not working right). * Cleaned up console spamming from the ion turret barrels. * Removed restriction keeping refs from using inventory stations. It's still not recommended that they do so, but the option exists now. * BonesRef, a variant of this mod, is now available. It is the Referee system, but doesn't change the gameplay away from BASE otherwise. 1.00-C Changed bonesmod.vl2 to run out of gamedata/BONES instead of gamedata. 1.00-B First public release. Public beta has begun! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Special thanks to: * Sapphire Blade and all other players of my old "NecroBones T2" server where our tribe did it's recruiting, for all of their patience while the mod went through it's evolution. * -{-AAP-}- webrecka for pointing out several bugs that really needed squashing. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -