Sentinel UT3

Version 1.0 final

25^th July 2009

Miles Asvachin

http://mrevil.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/unreal/

mailto:miles@cheese83.freeserve.co.uk

Custom models and textures by Warby.

Description:

The ADS-3 "Sentinel" automated defence system was designed to help defend large installations when available personnel are limited in number. It comes with everything necessary to set up a barrier of formidable firepower. This includes components to create cannon, and the hand-held Sentinel Deployer. The Deployer can be loaded with components and then used to construct a cannon on-site virtually instantaneously, or to repair or upgrade an existing cannon.

The Deployer is pre-programmed to create one of two Sentinel classes:

Heavy Floor Cannon: Mounted with the most powerful regenerative energy weapon that Evil Corp. has ever used for a commercial automatic cannon, and covered in tough armour, the floor cannon can withstand a lot of punishment, and dish it out too. The floor cannon has a modular weapon mounting system allowing various different weapons to be fitted (such as the minigun shown above) to suit all situations.		Light Ceiling Cannon: By sacrificing power output, the size of this cannon has been reduced significantly, keeping its profile low whilst leaving enough room spare to fit extremely sensitive optical and auditory sensors. Not even the most stealthy of mice could creep past one of these. The reduced power output limits the types of weapons that can be fitted, but several options are still available.

Installation:

Extract the zip to "My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\".

Usage:

There are two mutators to add Sentinels to a game: The main "Sentinel" mutator, which gives all players the Sentinel Deployer and replaces pickups with components, and the "Nightshade Sentinel" mutator, which allows Nightshades to deploy a special, improved but non-upgradeable Sentinel. Although both mutators will work together, it probably makes more sense to only use one or the other.

There is a third mutator, "Sentinel Deployer Ammo Regen", that gives a constant supply of components to every player's Sentinel Deployer.

When starting a game, add one of the mutators to the active list as you would with any other mutator.

To use the Deployer, hold primary-fire to activate the helper symbol. The symbol will indicate what action the Deployer will take when you press secondary-fire:

• An arrow indicates that you might be able to deploy a Sentinel, with a downwards arrow being a Floor Sentinel, and an upwards arrow being a Ceiling Sentinel (for these, you need to be looking up at least a little, and aiming at a flat surface). This symbol doesn't guarantee that deployment will work however, since the area may still be blocked by an object (such as a Sentinel or another player), or the area may be entirely unsuitable (Sentinels are not water-proof, for example).
• A green cog when aiming at a Sentinel indicates that you can open the upgrade menu.
• A red circle indicates that no action can be taken.

Additionally, if you are close enough to a Sentinel, holding secondary-fire without first holding primary will allow you to repair it if it is yours or on your team (uses ammo), or sabotage it if it is not (no cost). Sabotaging an enemy Sentinel does not cause it to attack you (unless it is already), can sometimes destroy its upgrades, and gains you some components, so it's worth doing.

To use the upgrade menu, click on an upgrade or weapon in the lists on the left. You can then read its description and see how much it costs. If you have enough components, click on "apply" to install it (double-clicking on the upgrade in the list has the same effect). In the case of weapons, installing a new one will cause the old one to be destroyed. Some upgrades are only available if other upgrades have already been installed. Some upgrades may cease to be available if another, mutually incompatible upgrade has been installed.

Some upgrades and weapons are configurable. To configure them they must be installed, then select them from the current upgrades list (or the current weapon list), then click on the "configure" button in the bottom right of the menu. The upgrade's configuration menu will then open.

You can destroy your own Sentinel from the menu by clicking on "recycle", which will also recover some components for reuse. The "lock" button prevents other players on your team from upgrading your Sentinel. The same button can be used to unlock it again, should you so wish.

You may also like to read the list of all weapons and upgrades, and descriptions thereof.

Configuration:

The mutators have their own configuration menus. Access a menu by clicking on the mutator in the Enabled Mutators list when you're going to start a game, then clicking on the Configure button at the bottom of the screen.

Sentinel

The main Sentinel mutator has many options, so they are gouped together under four tabs.

• Main

  • Allow Upgrades: Uncheck this to prevent players from upgrading Sentinels. Useful if you want Sentinels to be more "deploy-and-forget" instead of being a central focus of the game.
  • Max. Sentinels Per Player: The number of Sentinels that each player can have deployed at once. Set to 0 for no limit.
  • Max. Sentinels Per Team: The total number of Sentinels that all players on one team can have deployed at once. Set to 0 for no limit. Has no effect in DM.
  • Max. Difference In Deployed Sentinels Per Team: The maximum allowed difference in the number of deployed Sentinels on each team. Set to 0 for no limit. Has no effect in DM.

• Random Ammo

  • Spawn Random Ammo: If this is checked, then additional small crates of ammo may be spawned randomly around the map.
  • Initial Spawned Ammo: If random ammo is on, then when the match starts it will be spawned until the total ammo in the map is this much. If pickup replacement has already spawned at least this much ammo then no random ammo will be spawned initially. Set it to 0 to have no limit. Beware that with no limit, ammo crates will be spawned at every single path node in the map.
  • Extra Ammo Spawned Per Player: For every player that enters the game, this much more ammo may be randomly spawned. For instance, if Initial Spawned Ammo = 400 and Extra Ammo Spawned Per Player = 50, then with two players in the game the total ammo in pickups (from pickup replacement + random ammo) can be up to 500. With 10 players in the game it can be up to 900.

• Ammo Replacement

  • Replaceable Pickups: This is a list of all types of pickup which may be replaced with ammo crates. Select one to configure if and how it is to be replaced. If you want to replace a pickup that isn't listed, it is possible to add it to the list by editing UTMutator_Sentinel.ini then it will appear in the menu.
  • Replacement Ammo Size: Choose the size of ammo crate to replace the selected pickup with.
  • Percent Replaced: This fraction of the selected pickup type will be replaced with ammo. Set to 0 to not replace any. Set to 100 to replace all.

• Advanced

  • Start With Deployer: Whether or not players are all given a Deployer when they spawn. Note that if this is unchecked, then no one will be able to deploy Sentinels unless you add the Deployer to the game by some other means, e.g. with the standard weapon replacement mutator.
  • Override Map Settings: If unchecked, then maps with a SentinelConfigurationActor in them (custom maps with a Deployer/ammo added by the mapper) will use their own settings instead of the ones in the ini, and no pickups will be replaced with ammo (the mapper is assumed to have already placed a suitable quantity). Has no effect on normal maps.

Nightshade Sentinel

The Nightshade Sentinel mutator has only one option.

• Deployable To Replace With Sentinels: Controls which deployable is replaced by the Sentinel. Can be 0-3, corresponding to the order they appear in the Nightshade's deployables icon bar.

Sentinel Deployer Ammo Regen

Only one option for this mutator too.

• Regen rate: This many components are given to each player holding a Sentinel Deployer every 5 seconds. It doesn't have to be a whole number.

Additionally, there are some extra settings that can be configured by editing UTMutator_Sentinel.ini, which can be found where you installed the mutator, in the Config subdirectory.

• [UTMutator_Sentinel.UpgradeList_Upgrades]

  This section allows you to set exactly which upgrades are available to players. You can disallow an upgrade by commenting out the corresponding line with a semi-colon in front of it, or even add new custom ones if you should ever have any. The list is replicated to clients, so custom upgrades will work without clients having to install them first, and clients cannot cheat by adding upgrades to their own local list. Don't put any weapons in this list!

  • ClassNames: The fully-qualified class name of the upgrade to allow.

• [UTMutator_Sentinel.UpgradeList_Weapons]

  The same as the upgrade list, but specifically for weapons.

  • ClassNames: The fully-qualified class name of the weapon to allow.

Running on a server:

If you start your server from the command line, add this: ?mutator=UTMutator_Sentinel.UTMutator_Sentinel for the main mutator, or ?mutator=UTMutator_Sentinel.UTMutator_NightshadeSentinel for the mutator that gives Sentinels to Nightshades.

Sentinels for mappers:

First of all, for everything to be available in UEd (assuming you are running it with the -useunpublished switch) you must copy the Sentinel files that are in \My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Published\ to \Unpublished\.

It is not possible to place Sentinels directly in maps (yet), but you can place the Deployer and ammo just like the standard weapon and ammo pickups. The Deployer is special like the Avril, so it should be given its own pickup base rather than being placed in weapon lockers.

To make it work even when the mutator isn't running, you must add a SentinelConfigurationActor (in the actor browser, under Info). The actor has some configurable properties the same as the ones found in the ini, and normally these settings will be used instead of the ini values so you can set sensible values for the maximum number of Sentinels in the map. Do not place more than one of these actors, or it might not work as expected.

Modifying the Sentinel:

If you are a modder and want to create new weapons etc. or otherwise modify aspects of the Sentinel, then you can. I would prefer it if you don't modify the Sentinel mutator itself, but rather compile your mods into their own packages to work with it. This makes it possible for users to mix and match different mods, and avoids possible problems with having multiple versions of the mutator floating around. You will need a copy of the source code, which you can find on my website. There is no documentation to go with it, but hopefully the comments in the code will be enough for you to be able to work it out.

To make custom weapons or other upgrades, simply create the appropriate class and add it to the appropriate list in UTMutator_Sentinel.ini. Most aspects of the Sentinels' behaviour should be modifiable via upgrades. Most things that can't, should be modifiable by creating a mutator. If you want to do something but find that it is not possible without a feature being added to the API, contact me and I'll see if I can add it.

Credits:

• Warby, for the custom models.
• Robster Craws for various ideas.
• Font from http://www.fixedsysexcelsior.com
• Some sounds from http://www.soundsnap.com
• Various people on the Epic forums and UT3 mods mailing list, for answering the occasional inane question, and beta testing.

Change log:

Change log

Known bugs:

• The Sentinel Deployer doesn't have a proper icon in the weapon bar (limitation of UT3).
• The Nightshade Sentinel doesn't have a proper icon in the deployables bar (limitation of UT3).
• The Rocket Launcher locks on to your own Sentinels in non-team games.
• Idle rotation sound is a bit wobbly in net games.
• In network games, if you downloaded the mutator from the server, or otherwise have not installed the INT file, line breaks in the upgrade descriptions appear just as an "n" character (bug in UT3).
• Bots are not very clever in choosing where or when to deploy.
• Bots sometimes try to repair/sabotage Sentinels from a little too far away :\.
• The Sentinel's weapon causes your view to jump around if it rotates through you.
• Sentinels will sometimes fire on nearby enemy Sentinels even if they are not in line of sight.
• Sentinels sometimes fall through the floor when bounced off another Sentinel when deploying.
• Changing maps on a server without using "seamless travel" (e.g. an admin using a console command) results in "duplicate netindex" log spam, possibly resulting in players being disconnected and other ill effects (bug in UT3).
• Surveillance Module's camera may not show projectiles in multiplayer games if you can't also see the projectiles directly.
• Nightshade Sentinel mutator's config menu doesn't update the name of the replaced deployable until the menu is closed and opened again.
• The Disturber may cause a "General Protection Fault" crash.

If you find any bugs or have any suggestions or comments, feel free to e-mail them to me.