[bf1942] Server side modding maps

[James Gurney]

Awesome, thanks Andreas!

On 8/13/2004 12:02 AM, Andreas Fredriksson wrote:
> 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