[bf1942] Server side modding maps

[Andreas Fredriksson]

In general it's safe to modify things like what objects are spawned by
objectspawners, but you can't change template properties too much
because that will break network simulation in a lot of cases. Anything
that happens only at the server is ok.

Off the top of my head, these things include:
- changing the template names (the "spawnees" if you will) or spawn
times on object spawners
- moving control points or changing their radius (this is simulated by
the client IIRC but it will still do the right thing)
- ticket levels
- changing damage values on projectiles (all damage calculations happen
at the server, of course)
- maybe a few more things

If you're prepared to have a bit of HUD information mismatch you could
also change the armor values, but it will break the engineer's
percentage view and the in-vehicle armor health bars.

Please note that if you change an object spawner to spawn a vehicle not
originally in the map all clients will take a precache hit because they
will have to load the resources for that vehicle when it first appears.
This penalty will be significant on some hardware (i.e. several seconds
in the worst case). Normally, all vehicles known to exist on a level are
precached at loading time.

Typical things that will just break the gameplay experience:
- changing physics-influencing parameters of a vehicle (all physics are
simulated on the client and you will get terrible network updates)
- changing ammo or firearms parameters (same thing)

Hope this helps,
// Andreas 

-----Original Message-----
From: James Gurney [mailto:james at globalmegacorp.org] 
Sent: den 12 augusti 2004 19:24
To: bf1942 at icculus.org
Subject: [bf1942] Server side modding maps

We've been working on modding the server side maps to correct certain
problems in DC (exploding humvees, for example). However, it's very much
a case of trial and error to see what properties can be modified on the
server and then honoured by the client (ie, without requiring a client
update as well). Some stuff works, some stuff doesn't..

So, does anyone have a list of which properties can be modified and
honoured without requiring a client update? And by "anyone", I mean.. 
Andreas? Andy? :)

James