A new MH is coming

[gopostal]

I'm pretty stoked to let you guys know that I'll be beta testing a new way of running a monster hunt server this coming weekend. Well, actually it is running already but the server is passworded for the moment until I finish a couple more minor bugs.

For too long I have labored thinking that I could never access the core MH mod without breaking maps but the guys at Excal Holland gave me a great jump start and I have taken off with it. In just the last week I've been able to dispose of some major pains that have bothered me, like the stuck queens and the invisible skaarj weapons. Not only that I've been able to add custom headshot messages, custom first blood messages, fix the razorjack, stop a BUNCH of the server errors, and I've also worked the code to be much faster server side. You should notice less lag now from the get-go.

Now what I'd like from you guys is for you to list all the things you know to be wrong or insufficient in regular MH. I've hit most of my high spots, but are there other things you dislike or want to see added? This is certainly the time to do it. When I get this thing up over the weekend to, it would be very cool if you could pop in and give a couple of maps a go. Server logs are one of the best indicators of where this thing sits, and what else needs work.

Pots if you aren't otherwise busy perhaps you wouldn't mind a local beta testing? You seem to be gifted at finding the obtuse flaws in things, stuff I'd never notice in years. Get with me if you feel like running it a bit.

Thanks guys. Hopefully I can have you a fresh new MH to use in short order.

[BIOMECH]

All hail the godpostal

[*POTS*]

Now what I'd like from you guys is for you to list all the things you know to be wrong or insufficient in regular MH. I've hit most of my high spots, but are there other things you dislike or want to see added?

I really dislike the way master servers are currently handled by the mod itself, instead of pointing to the UT.ini like all other mods do: it just looks for the GameSpy master server and if it's down for some reason there's no way to fix that, unless you edit the source code of the mod on the fly, which is impossible to do.


Here are a few more things I'm thinking of:

1 - do you think it could be possible to add spawn protection? I'm not sure whether it could be useful or not, just an idea;

2 - a "toggle" command for some items like the Searchlight and the ScubaGear would be interesting I think (there used to be an InventoryActivate command for most of the Unreal1 pickups but it doesn't work for MH); plus that would make finally possible to take advantage of the Translator;

3 - the "Red Team Syndrome" (you know what I mean right?)

As for other well known bugs take a look here:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1641

Pots if you aren't otherwise busy perhaps you wouldn't mind a local beta testing? You seem to be gifted at finding the obtuse flaws in things, stuff I'd never notice in years. Get with me if you feel like running it a bit.

Yeah why not?


All in all it sounds like a good project, keep up the good work!

[Blood Asp]

I Would be happy to help in mapping just to let you know.
Now:

1. This could be particular to any type of gametype but maybe you could make some sort of unique *Emitters* similar to UT2004 but in a way UT99 could handle, that way people could make pretty awesome effects to monsters/projectiles/the map itself, and that way you could easily tell !!THATS A BOSS MONSTER!!

2. What would be nice is more intelligent AI For monsters, and maybe some better system then things like Alarm Points for controlling monster movements, sometimes people can find alarmpoints confusing along with other things e.g. Ambushpoints, fearspots etc

3. Another thing that would be good for a project: A thing Like Team Monster Hunt, BUT!

Instead of 2 teams fighting monsters to get highest score/reach the end first, have 1 team as humans/skaarj alliance/robot whatever, and the other team as the monsters *Strength and projectile type also configured on how many players/how large the map is

That would be good!

[gopostal]

I really dislike the way master servers are currently handled by the mod itself, instead of pointing to the UT.ini like all other mods do: it just looks for the GameSpy master server and if it's down for some reason there's no way to fix that, unless you edit the source code of the mod on the fly, which is impossible to do.

At some point I'm going to work up some sort of dedicated master server, focused on MH, and pay it five years in advance and forget about it. This issue should go to bed. Give me time and it will.

Here are a few more things I'm thinking of:

1 - do you think it could be possible to add spawn protection? I'm not sure whether it could be useful or not, just an idea;

2 - a "toggle" command for some items like the Searchlight and the ScubaGear would be interesting I think (there used to be an InventoryActivate command for most of the Unreal1 pickups but it doesn't work for MH); plus that would make finally possible to take advantage of the Translator;

3 - the "Red Team Syndrome" (you know what I mean right?)

As for other well known bugs take a look here:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1641

1. Done. I'll add that and make it admin configurable. Nexgen's isn't robust enough anyway. That's a glaring omission to the game considering spawn rape is a common problem.

2. I already redid the searchlights/flashlights. They are now powerful enough to be useful, as well as functional. I increased the light power and area, and now they are much better in a dark room. Oh, and I embedded a command into the mod that allows you to use your own personal lantern at any time. You enter
mutate light
mutate dark
to turn it off and on. It works really well, throwing off enough light to help you but not enough to ruin a map for others. The scuba is fixed now too, it will not "breathe" outside of water and auto shuts itself off when not needed. As for items, well there is code but it's sketchy when it comes to using it in UT. It's better to work around it (grab anyone?).

3. Been working on that one. May or may not be fixable, I'm not sure.

I'll peruse that thread you posted right after I finish this.

Pots if you aren't otherwise busy perhaps you wouldn't mind a local beta testing? You seem to be gifted at finding the obtuse flaws in things, stuff I'd never notice in years. Get with me if you feel like running it a bit.

Yeah why not?


All in all it sounds like a good project, keep up the good work!

I'll email you the mod and the particulars. It loads oddly, so read the instructions.

[*POTS*]

2. I already redid the searchlights/flashlights. They are now powerful enough to be useful, as well as functional. I increased the light power and area, and now they are much better in a dark room. Oh, and I embedded a command into the mod that allows you to use your own personal lantern at any time. You enter
mutate light
mutate dark
to turn it off and on. It works really well, throwing off enough light to help you but not enough to ruin a map for others. The scuba is fixed now too, it will not "breathe" outside of water and auto shuts itself off when not needed. As for items, well there is code but it's sketchy when it comes to using it in UT. It's better to work around it (grab anyone?).

The personal lantern is a great idea I must say.

BTW I have a mod named Enhanced Items installed who knows when (it was probably part of the Arena Match mod but I'm not 100% sure) and it contains also the following mutator:
EnhancedItems.NoAlwaysAutoActivate
"Disable Auto-Activate,UT enables auto-activation for all items. Use this mutator to disable that feature on maps with Unreal items."
Not sure if this may be of help.


OK I've successfully installed the new MH mod. The INI file got tons of settings so I haven't had the chance to check out all of them so far.
Here are the results of what I've been able to see:

MH-Arden
1 - The tentacles are gone for no apparent reason; I've tested also on other maps and looks like it happens only with Arden. Could it be a custom class or a temporarily glitch?!
2 - The Enhanced Sniper Rifle can't be dropped (happens on all maps)
3 - The Skaarj Snipers are automatically equipped with the Enhanced Rifle; this is not a bad thing, but they look stronger than before... Maps like Minas Tirith may become impossible. Oh well since this rifle is a server-side setting it's up to the admins... (*)
4 - The Skaarj Weapons are no longer invisible... the Skaarjs simply don't drop them at all now! Or is it just me?

MH-Tomoko2
5 - The Queens are no longer stuck in teleport mode (YAY!). Their shield is gone as well but they look more "active" and they seem to fire at a faster rate then before so I think it's OK

MH-AF-WTC-105
6 - In Stand-By mode (those seconds before the match starts when you can fly around the map) the monsters can see you and they go crazy trying to kill you (but if I recall right it used to happen before as well)
7 - As for the Queens, see point #5
8 - The Insta rifle inflicts 1500 HP of damage no matter what the overall health of the monster is. I mean if I kill a Pupae with 50 HP it stills scores 1500 for me. I don't think it used to be so on MHM but I'm not sure. (happens on all maps)

MH-Canyon-Revamp2
Nothing special here, just Skaarj Troopers and a Queen and the same results I had before.


(*) Changed the following line in my Mayhem.INI:

Code: Select all

UseAltSniper=False (default was True)

and I got the following uber-error:


P.S. Is it possible to configure a client-side antiboost like on Herm's server?

[Edit]
Ops I just noticed there's a newer version you sent me and you're already aware of the buggy rifle; well just forget about that.

[gopostal]

I just emailed you an update. I coded up spawn protection and added it in. I'm glad you are getting results like this, so let me hit on them...

1. I'm not sure about this. As soon as I get done here I'm going to test this on server and see for myself. I'll let you know. I did not script any sort of monster replace at all though.

2. I'm going to remove the redone rifle. If people want to add custom sniper, they can themselves. It's creating too much confusion within the mod.

3. Removing the rifle will clear this up. Skaarj are only equipped with whatever sniper rifle is "dominant".

4. Yeah, isn't that cool? BTW, I made the minigun the default weapon if they had none. What do you think?

5. The shield will work, she just seeks to fight more now, rather than teleport constantly. I've tested this on server and she will go to shield, just not nearly as much. Her behavior will be different depending on the map too. Mappers who use a proper queendest for her will see a more normal queen, but the maps without will see a queen that attacks more and does less milling about or defending with shield.

6. I've dinked with this some, but we might be stuck with it unless someone steps up and explains to me how to address it. Monsters have code that makes them "aware" of enemies, that's why the invisible pickup is worthless too.

8. Missed a switch on this. It is now fixed. You will not get score greater than the health of the monster, and never more than 1000 at a time even with the SSR.

Ignore the sniper rifle error. I'm removing it completely. That came from a map having sniper rifles existing in it, but I'm not going to fix it. The rifle idea just didn't work out.

I started to add client side config of the antiboost but to be honest aside from you few guys NO ONE used it and it only confused people. :/

[*POTS*]

4. Yeah, isn't that cool? BTW, I made the minigun the default weapon if they had none. What do you think?

It's all or nothing, I mean it's either everyone can actually see and grab a dropped weapon or nobody should be allowed to, so go for this fix!
It would personally pizz me off more if someone could luckily grab a dropped insta while I couldn't TBH.

5. The shield will work, she just seeks to fight more now, rather than teleport constantly. I've tested this on server and she will go to shield, just not nearly as much. Her behavior will be different depending on the map too. Mappers who use a proper queendest for her will see a more normal queen, but the maps without will see a queen that attacks more and does less milling about or defending with shield.

Might extra-check this on MH-ShootingGuys, that map is notorious for its Queens. I'm actually thinking of a map where the Queen(s) is/are able to teleport hmm...

6. Monsters have code that makes them "aware" of enemies, that's why the invisible pickup is worthless too.

Not to mention that invisibility can be dangerous if you have FriendlyFire enabled, you're invisible and someone shoots a deemer right in front of you, right Fuzzy?

8. Missed a switch on this. It is now fixed. You will not get score greater than the health of the monster, and never more than 1000 at a time even with the SSR.

Hope it may work for the Redeemer as well, even if the shockwave could mess the score-counter. Need to test this.

I started to add client side config of the antiboost but to be honest aside from you few guys NO ONE used it and it only confused people. :/

OK what if I set this to False:

Code: Select all

bUseAntiBoost=True

and then I load the HermMod as a client-side antiboost instead? In this case if I want to run a client-side antiboost I can use the HermMod (actually the question was mainly referred to the MHM folks, since we don't have a translocator). It should work I think and you won't have to waste your time adding an extra-option.

Oh BTW seems I can't find the line for the notelefrag-translocator. What if I want to disable it?

Anyway more about this tomorrow.

[gopostal]

Config line added for the MH trans. Should have added this, it was an oversite on my part.

MH-Miam has a well done queen destination room towards the end. Try it there?

In testing I have seen the shockwaves of the redeemer score as many as four times per redeemer. I think this is lag dependent because locally it doesn't happen. On server though it tends to double or triple over. Limiting any single damage to 1000 will help this, and the worst case scenario is a 4000 damage deemer hit. Considering some monsters have 50K, this isn't a huge deal.

Yes you can disable the antiboost I made and use your own. In fact I'd encourage it to make sure I did everything correctly in coding mod compatibility.

Oh, and my sniper rifle has been totally removed. Normal sniper is the only one now.

POTS I cannot thank you enough for all this. Damn in an evening you advanced me a week!

[Blood Asp]

MH-Miam has a well done queen destination room towards the end. Try it there?

MH-SkaarjReactor
MH-LongCorridor(2006)

Those are 2 other maps you could try with that have some queendest points.

[Blood Asp]

a few things came up as idea's to me whilst playing ut2k4 invasion


Maybe sliths and other toxic creatures could create a poisoning effect on players? which drains a set health per second for * seconds

and gasbags and other fire like creatures could cause fire effect on players also damaging health over time for a set time.

Those are just 2 idea's i thought would be kinda a good addition and make a higher challenge.

[-HellFire-]

Are you trying to change UT in UT2k4 or something

[Blood Asp]

Why not? Monsters often work better i have yet to see a monster in UT2004 get stuck by spamming a minigun at it lmao. Just 1 problem in UT2004 is that the titans like to throw invisible rocks O_o ouchies

[gopostal]

I'm not looking to fundamentally change MH, or even to mod it out more so than I have. What I'm doing is creating a solid base set of monsterhunt classes that anyone can use, but also will not break existing maps. You can't really compare 2k4's monsters with UT because Epic fundamentally improved the code for them, essentially making them extended bots. That's just not possible here, the code is just too primitive to fix.

Just this morning I had to add several sections to remove checks for SkaarjTrooper errors in the logs. For them to be able to hold a weapon they are given the setting "bIsPlayer", which coincidentally is the same setting as normal players :rollseyes: This gives many logging errors because the game tries to add all the SkaarjTroopers to the players teams. This is also why you have to F5 through all of them when they are in a map. The game thinks of them as partial players. I'm trying to stop that, though.

Working on that forced red team color thing too

[-HellFire-]

Working on that forced red team color thing too

Boring Red indeed, hope you can fix it.