Rocket Arena: UT version 1.6 Documentation by Brandon ‘GreenMarine’ Reinhart and Mike 'Mongo' Lambert I. Introduction Thank you for downloading Rocket Arena for Unreal Tournament! Get ready to feed your need for one on one and two on two deathmatch. Before you start playing with RAUT, please read the instructions in this file. If you don't, you might get confused when you try to set up your first game. Rocket Arena is a special kind of deathmatch game designed by David 'CRT' Wright. There are no pickups, no items to manage. You start with every weapon, fully loaded with ammo. There isn’t any health, when you die you lose. The goal is to play the best you can play and to improve your raw gaming ability at the same time. You will play in small arenas against a single opponent or with a partner against two opponents. Its not going to be easy, but if you work hard, you can prove to the world that you are the best of the best. Good luck! II. Getting Started Note: Rocket Arena for UT requires the 413 Unreal Tournament patch. There are engine features in this patch that Rocket Arena uses. You can get the patch at unreal.epicgames.com or www.fileplanet.com . First, unzip the RocketArenaUT distribution archive. You can unzip the archive anywhere. The file should contain this documentation as well as a "RocketArenaUT.umod." The UMOD file is a sort of custom Unreal self-extracting installer. Double click the UMOD to start the installer. If you are using Linux, you’ll need to download a UMOD unpack script. There are several available on the net. Choose to install the UMOD in the same directory you have Unreal Tournament installed in. Once that is done, the setup program will unpack the game and set everything up. You'll also notice a "RocketArenaBonusPack.umod" included in the zip. If you have the Epic bonus pack, and wish to enable such models in RA:UT, then install this umod as well. PLease note: Installing this umod when the Epic bonus pack is not installed may cause your UT to malfunction. If this happens, just remove the line "ServerPackages=RocketArenaMultiMesh" from your UnrealTournament\System\UnrealTournament.ini file. Start Unreal Tournament normally and use the Category option under Practice Session or Start Network Game to start a game. Now read the rest of this document for more setup and options information. III. Starting a Practice Session Pull up the Practice Session window and select the "Rocket Arena" category. Right now there is only one game type available in the category, but future releases might introduce new independent gametypes. Note that the Rocket Arena gametype is actually a set of several different "arena games." The first release includes "Clan Arena" and "Multi Arena," but future releases will include new arena games like "Round Robin" and "Red Rover." We'll talk about the specific rules of Clan Arena and Multi Arena in a bit. One important piece of information to note before we go on! Rocket Arena currently doesn’t work with Mutators. Future releases will, but for now, Mutators are disabled. If you add a Mutator to a Rocket Arena server it will be removed before the game starts. After you’ve picked a map to start with, click the Rules tab. If you set a time limit the server will change maps after that much time has passed (in minutes). If you don't set a time limit, the map will never change! Click the "Game Rules Config" button. The first option in the Game Rules Config window is your Pickup Match type. Every map in Rocket Arena contains several small arenas and one full sized deathmatch map. The full sized map is called a "pickup map" where large games can be played. Right now there is only one pickup game available, traditional Clan Arena. See the Clan Arena section below for the rules. The next section of "Game Rules Config" lets you set up default values for the maps you run. Every arena can have a different set of default values. There is a MAX of 8 arenas per Rocket Arena map, including the pickup map. When the a new game of Rocket Arena is started (meaning a new map has been loaded, or the map has changed) the arenas will be initialized with the default values. Usually, you’ll want to set the same defaults for all 8 arenas. The arena selection box tells you which arena you are currently setting the defaults for. The Round Limit edit box lets you set how many rounds will be played per match. We’ll talk more about rounds, matches, and the rules of Rocket Arena below. Self Damage and Team Damage let you set those variables for the obvious damage behavior. Remember, with self-damage turned off you can do huge rocket jumps, so customize this to your play style. Now close the "Game Rules Config" and open the "Weapon Config" menu. The "Weapon-Config" menu lets you set per-arena default weapon loadouts. If you don’t change anything, players will start with every weapon, full ammo, and full armor. You can use this menu to change the default loadout. There is no support for the Redeemer. Using the Redeemer in a one on one match isn't exactly a test of skill, so I haven’t even programmed any support for it. Sorry. The Enabled checkbox turns a weapon on and off. Ammo selects the amount of ammo. 999 is the max ammo for any weapon. Setting the ammo selection to -1 means "use the Rocket Arena standard ammo default." The other Practice Session menus work normally. You'll notice there isn't any bot configuration menu! This is because you add bots from inside the game using the custom Rocket Arena administration menu. So hold on! Press the start button to load up your match and you'll be greeted to the arena. Your match is ready. Now read the sections on "Game Administration" and "The Rules of Rocket Arena" to figure out what the hell is going on! IV. Starting a Server You set up a server like you would a normal Unreal Tournament server. Just make sure you select the Rocket Arena gametype. The same instructions for setting up a practice game apply. One big thing to take note of! There isn't any extended remote server admin support in this release. I know that sucks! The next release will definitely have all of the in-game admin controls available from the remote server admin tool. For now, you'll have to make due with logging in to your own game to make administrative changes. Read the section on "Game Administration" for instructions on the RA administration tool. One other thing. Bots are messed up in network games. I can’t guarantee they’ll work right at this point, so I suggest you avoid using them. (They work fine in single player practice matches though!) If you want to host a dedicated server from a batch file, then here are the two ways of running a server: unrealtournament RA-CliffyB?game=RocketArena.RocketArenaGame -server Or, if you use the command-line "ucc" tool: ucc server RA-CliffyB?game=RocketArena.RocketArenaGame Note that you can replace RA-CliffyB with any of the included maps. And if you've set up a map list, then it will follow the order in the list automatically for you. To use a different ini and log with RocketArena, for example, if you want to run for multiple servers using the same installation, use: ucc server RA-CliffyB?gametype=RocketArena.RocketArenaGame ini=raserver.ini log=raserver.log V. Using the Navigation Menu When you first join a Rocket Arena game, you'll be greeted with a navigation menu. The actual layout of the navigation menu depends on what kind of gametype the current arena is running. With all of the shipping RAUT maps, you'll start with the Multi Arena navigation menu. You can abort its flying about by pressing your left mouse button. Using the menu is simple. Next Arena cycles from arena to arena. Use this to move around the server. Join Arena moves your team from a spectating state into a waiting list. You can’t join an arena until you’ve created a valid team. Join A Team pops up a list of teams that are in this arena. You can join any team that isn't grayed out. In 2 on 2 maps, you'll want to either start your own team or join a team that needs a partner. Create A Team lets you create your own team. Just type the name of the team and press enter. Once your team is created you can join the current game, but make sure you’ve got enough players. Or, if you would rather just have all of those details taken care of for you, just hit "Enter Arena" to have the game create a team for you and place you in the waiting list. Spectate lets you move around the current arena as a spectator. And to make things even easier, many of these commands can be bound to keys using the key configuration window, for when you don't feel like bringing this Navigation window up. Note that if you are playing in a local game with bots, that a bot team will automatically be placed in the arena as an opponent, and they will leave when you leave. In Clan Arena, there are several different options. Auto Join Team makes you join the team that has the least number of players. The Join Blue/Red Team buttons add you to the team you choose. A couple notes on teams and navigation! You cannot leave an arena while you are playing. You have to wait until the match is over. If you logout while playing, your team will be disbanded and your opponent will win. If one member of a team leaves the arena between matches, the team will be disbanded and the other member will have to find or create a new team. In a "Practice Session" if you create a team in a 2 on 2 arena, a bot partner will be added for you. VI. The Rules of Rocket Arena Rocket Arena has pretty simple rules. First of all, there isn’t just one game going on at once. There are actually a number of games going on equal to the number of arenas in the map. In addition to that, they might not all be the same game type! In the first release of Rocket Arena there are two gametypes. "Multi Arena" for the small arenas and "Clan Arena" for the large ones. We’ll talk about the two games separate since they are each a bit different. You can tell what kind of game the current arena is running by looking at the header on the navigation menu. It also lists the name of the current arena. Multi Arena Multi arena games are a series of 1 on 1 or 2 on 2 matches. A match consists of several rounds. The winner is the person with the majority of round victories. That means that if the server operator sets the number of rounds to 3, the first team to get 2 wins takes the match. Both 1 on 1 matches and 2 on 2 matches are considered to have "teams" of players. In a 1 on 1 match, the team is just a one man operation. The team that wins a multi arena match stays in the arena and has to defend his title. The team that wins is moved to the end of the waiting list. The team that was "on deck" to play moves into the arena and the whole waiting list advances one position. When you spawn into a multi arena game you have all the weapons, full ammo, and full armor (unless the server operator has changed the default loadout). There isn’t any health and there isn’t any ammo on the floor. Your only job is to use all of your elite deathmatch skillz to take out the enemy. The HUD has a few extra bits of information for you to use. First, it displays the health of everyone on your team and the names of everyone on the enemy team. (Spectators will see the health of both sides.) Second, it displays a countdown you can use to track the current period of the match. Third, it displays your position in the waiting line when you are waiting to play. If you happen to kill your opponent without losing any life, the game will announce to everyone that you played a "Perfect" round. If you win every round in a match without losing any life, the game will announce to everyone that you played a "Flawless" match. Clan Arena In Clan arena teams can be of any size. It's a lot like traditional deathmatch with large teams fighting in a full sized arena. Unlike traditional deathmatch, you don’t respawn when you die, you start with full ammo and weapons, and there aren’t any pickup items. The first team to lose all of its teammembers loses the round. VII. Config Options If you go to the Rocket Arena Configuration menu under the "RA:UT" menu on the main UT menu bar (while running RA:UT), you can choose between various game options and the game admin tool. Right now there is only one measly little option. You can choose whether or not the game voice is male or female. Actually, there are two other options that aren't under that menu. Under the normal button binding preferences menu, you can bind keys to Next Arena and Popup Main Menu. Next Arena lets you easily browse around the game using a key. Popup Main Menu will open the Navigation Menu whenever you hit it. Makes things a bit easier. VIII. Game Administration First things first. A big THANKS to Warren at Infiltration for letting us base our administration menu off of his own. It’s a great system and really easy to use. The Admin menu is accessed from the Mod menu’s Rocket Arena Configuration entry. Just open the menu and select the Admin tab. If you are connecting from a remote client and haven't logged in as admin yet, you'll need to enter the admin password to become authorized. Once that is done, you can freely access the menu’s options. In practice sessions, the admin menu works exactly the same, but you don't need to log in. The first two options on the menu Game Rules and Weapon Config work exactly the same as the setup menus of the same name. One slight difference is that while they still change the default values, they also change the values for the current game. So if you take out the rocket launcher, for example, the next set of players to spawn in that arena won’t have one. The Players KICK/BAN option lets you do just that. Kick out punks who are giving you a hard time. Just highlight their name and give them the boot. The Bots ADD/REMOVE menu lets you add bot teams to a game. I said teams, not individual bots, so if you are adding bots to a 2 on 2 arena, every team added means 2 bots. If you have an area with 6 bot teams in it already and you set the number to 4 it'll remove 2 teams. The "modify" button isn't finished so its greyed out, but in a future release youll be able to customize the teams that you add. The Restart Game option restarts the game. Pretty simple. Admin Logout logs you out. IX. Credits Programming: Brandon "GreenMarine" Reinhart Stefen "Eavy" Daniel Schwarz Mike "Mongo" Lambert Art: Shane "2LowG" Caudle Steve "G Man" Garofalo Map Design: Cliff "CliffyB" Bleszinski Warren "Taskmaster" Marshall Rich "Akuma" Eastwood Eric "Ebolt" Boltjes Sidney "Clawfist" Rauchberger Cedric "Inoxx" Fiorentino