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 Reloaded Mod 1.3 Preview, new cVars

JayBaen
post Dec 20 2003, 08:40 PM
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Well ... I thought firstly that I'd start using this forum for what I originally intended it for ... discussion about server creation, upkeep and admining.

You'll notice that I've recently added our Outcast server configs for download and discussion. In addition, we here at RJ have been doing our part to support the community of users of the Vulcanus based Admin Mod "Academy Mod" for Outcast and its more recent cousin "Academy Mod Reloaded" for Jedi Academy (JK3). We're fortunate that it's author, Mike "TheChosenOne," is a very friendly recipient to email and suggestions. I've recently tugged on his ear to get his thoughts on a few changes that seem to be plaguing most clan's issues with Academy, mainly ForceRegen and its tie to saber combat and the ability to change (easily) the cVars that alter hit-detection.

Here are some snippets from a couple of recent emails between the mod's creator and yours truly (edited for clarity):


JayBaen: I did have an idea/request for you to ponder. It may not be possible with the SDK to make this change, but it would solve an issue I have with the way ForceRegen is working in Academy vs. Outcast, esp. in regards to Dueling. (snip) Would it be possible for you to ADD another CVAR?

g_ForceRegenTimeDuel “X”

With this setting, it would seem to ‘bridge the gap.’ One could set an overall ForceRegen time for the server (g_ForceRegenTime “75”) that allows for quick regen, while keeping the regen at default (g_ForceRegenTimeDuel “200”) for Dueling. This way, the community at large could visit any server and know that the dueling was consistent (if set to be so by the admin) while having the luxury of quick ForceRegen for getting around a map.


TheChosenOne: Great idea. I already implemented it into 1.3 code and it works great. Keep ‘em coming!!


JayBaen: It seems that they’ve changed the opening character on a couple of CVARs in order to ‘protect’ them from accidental use. At least, it seems this way … and from the reloaded.cfg that you ship standard in 1.0, I’m not sure if you’ve caught the change yet.

One of my favorite CVARs to change was:

g_SaberAlwaysBoxTrace, with a setting of 1. It increased accuracy/collision by an immeasurable amount.

Of course, I’d love to change this in Academy to the same. But I can’t … why? … because the CVAR is now:

d_SaberAlwaysBoxTrace

and … if you try and change it, you are informed by the console that it can only be altered with Cheats Enabled. Boo.

Any thoughts?


TheChosenOne:

Done and done!!


I have disabled the Cheat Protection on the following cVars

//--Advanced Saber

// seta d_saberGhoul2Collision "0"

// seta d_projectileGhoul2Collision "0"

// seta d_perPlayerGhoul2 "0"

// seta d_saberBoxTraceSize "0"

// seta g_saberTraceSaberFirst "0"

// seta d_saberAlwaysBoxTrace "0"


You will see this in JA Reloaded 1.3

Thanks for the ideas and let me know if you need anything else J


So, don't think all our valuable time and thoughts are going to waste. Please get on in the Academy server and throw as many ideas our way as possible ... we will bend the ear of the guy who makes the changes ... biggrin.gif

JB


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JayBaen
post Dec 21 2003, 11:10 AM
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BTW ... after some further rummaging around over at LucasForums I had found the way to manually overwrite the cheat protection on some of these cVars which is to add the seta variable to your shortcut for launch ... or in a *.bat file you use to run the game. Our *.bat file for Academy testing currently looks like this:

"jampded.exe" +set vm_game 0 +set dedicated 2 +set net_port 29070 +set net_ip <YOUR.IP.HERE> +set fs_game reloaded +exec server.cfg +seta d_saberalwaysboxtrace 1 +seta d_saberspstyledamage 2

Note that I unprotect those variables after execing the configs for the game (where I also have the variables defined -- and, I exec the reloaded.cfg at the end of the server.cfg -- not in the *.bat file). Without using the write-protected variables in this fashion, they aren't accessible -- unless you do what ChosenOne is doing for the community and actually altering the code.

So, in the mean time, until 1.3 is released, this is our option (and will continue to work for other variables he hasn't changed).

JB


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WhiteDragon
post Dec 21 2003, 11:10 AM
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Nice work JayBaen!

It says here that they only will be taken out of cheat protection when 1.3 ships. But I was on your server last night, and it was already much better. Can you implement them now? Or what other configs are you using? I'm very interested because we desperatly need to fix this dmg cvar crud. JKA is still way to undeveloped. With the server's as expensive as they are, I don't know how much longer I wish to support a game the programmers themselves do not.

JayBaen is server King!

Lates............

***EDIT***

Looks like you answered my question before I could hit submit! hehe

Thanks smile.gif


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JayBaen
post Dec 21 2003, 11:29 AM
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Also ...

I do not use the reloaded/academy configs as he ships them for 2 big reasons:

1) They are filled with errors and duplication. Either items are not spelled correctly, or items are duplicated within the same cfg and/or between that and the main server.cfg.

2) The academy/reloaded.cfg should be used for academy/reloaded cVar changes only and the server.cfg for anything not academy/reloaded related.

ChosenOne has tried to do the novice installers the favor of having only one config and rolling up most of his favorite entries into one reloaded.cfg. If you decide to use what he's shipped in the InstallShield, you may as well delete nearly all the entries in your server.cfg as some flavor probably exists in his. I'd go the other direction and scrap most of what he has and use only what you need to tweak the mod.

Now, that's completely opinion, but works better for us. Why? Because firstly, if you ever decide to not use any one particular mod, you simply scrap it, and your unmodded server can stand on its own, with all of the tweaking/settings you need in the server.cfg. Secondly, you remove the risk of duplication. CVars that are present in both configs with conflicting entires are supposed to take the last found execution of them, but I've seen many cases where the server just gets confused. It's better to not have the issue -- like good html coding ... keep it slim as possible.

I hope some of this helps. Keep the discussion going. It would be great to start getting some consistency (and stability) going in the community.

JB


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TheBeast
post Feb 10 2004, 09:27 AM
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Just wanted to let you know guys, that the Jedi Academy Reloaded MOd is not quite dead yet.

if you go to the Jedi Academy website (the community, not the game) and check out that last post... something tells me that this was not entirely Chosen One project... but some kind of Jedi Academy one... so they have appointed some other guy (Orion, which I know a bit and I think he can take the place of Chosen... but maybe not fill it as well as CHosen smile.gif)

So we may be getting updates and such in some time... making our experience in JK3 a bit more entertaining smile.gif

I will give the JA+ Mod a try.... in the near future.
(about that... maybe we should setup a 'play date' laugh.gif ... something like a RJ Thursdays)

- Beast


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JayBaen
post May 13 2004, 09:54 AM
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By the way,

The Academy Mod project was completely Chosen One's project ... BUT, after some lengthy reading over at LucasForums, I've noted that he began taking quite a beating from other coders about how he and many like him have "ruined the game," after which point, he gave up the mod. I think Orion is (trying to?) keeping it alive because so many people still use it.

I haven't seen a peep about this mod in months. Anyone else?

JB


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InfiniteWarrior
post May 13 2004, 10:57 PM
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Nope. No peeps. Other than that Orion took up the flame.

But... haven't heard any more peeps on that score, either. So I think maybe, Jedi Academy mod is dead.... unless... someone else creates a whole new mod wub.gif or... maybe we all get together and pool our remarkably imaginative resources to come up with an entirely new game.

Maybe Aliens vs. Jedi, since Aliens vs Predator has been done. Which reminds me.... wonder if my avatar could be modeled. <-- Don't know where that came from.

In fact... wonder if an alien model can be ported to JKII... Hmmmmmmmm.... moves and all. Wouldn't that be fun? A wall-crawling saberist... 'Course, all the best kills come from the ceiling ....

Well.... I think ChosenOne knows that he didn't ruin the game for anyone. Too many servers used his mods and loved him for the effort. smile.gif Was this just speculation? 'Cause, I'd hate to think that a few naysayers crimped his style. sad.gif
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JayBaen
post May 14 2004, 12:29 PM
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Here's a couple of threads for your reading pleasure. Keep the following names in mind while you look:

zERoCooL2479 = ChosenOne - Author of Academy/Reloaded mods.
Slider744 = Slider - Coder of JA + Mod
Alegis Gensan = Janos Oudrin - Coder of DCMod
Marker0077 = Obi-Wannabe - Admin of Cool-Mods.com (and frequenter of our Outcast server)
Kurgan = LucasForums Board Admin

Now, shortly after reading the following article, I decided to pull Academy mod from our server. 1) it's buggy as hell. 2) his presentational skills leave a bit to be desired.


This first article, I'll aptly name "The Crying Game"

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?...threadid=120794


This second one is just a little info for you, with a little rebuttle RE: DCMod (for Academy).

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?...threadid=118776


There was one that was just the height of Chosen basically throwing in the towel, but darn if I can't find it.

At any rate, I thought you might like to get it from the horses mouth(s).

JB


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DelphiGT

"There's nothing in this universe that can't be explained. Eventually." -- House, M.D.
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Ruggiero
post May 14 2004, 05:36 PM
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"rebuttle?"

Tuttle? Buttle?

R


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InfiniteWarrior
post May 14 2004, 06:47 PM
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Veddy interesting read. Thanks, Poobah.

K. I admit, I'm a little lost here. The original topic (of this thread) was Reloaded, which is a JA game mod. The last bit (both here and - for the most part - with these guys) are talking about the Jedi Academy mod (for JO) and how that original mod was ripped off for Omni and JA+ (for JK3).

So.... here's where I get lost. Who's coding is buggy? And who's presentational skills are we talking about? And which mod are we talking about now, anyway? smile.gif Academy for JO or some other?

I mean absolutely no disrespect - nope, none, nada; just trying to get to the meat of the issue at hand so as to be able to speak intelligently on the subject.

Personally, I'm speaking on the subject of ChosenOne's coding and Academy for JO. Those forum posts are in response to a real sticky issue C1 brought up: the ripoff of his code for Academy mod, followed by a lot of praise for his mod over the ripoffs by Slider, et al. (And Slider really does look pretty pathetic with all those excuses.)

On that subject, I note that many, many servers have run Academy and are pleased with it. I've heard nothing but praise for it and the only real issue that's come up is the admin hack, which was fixed by Orion.

Perchance, ChosenOne threw in the towel on Academy simply because he was tired of being ripped off? He certainly didn't ruin the game with it - not for me, anyway.

Now.... as I await confirmation of the proper subject of this thread - I'm honestly not sure what that is at the moment smile.gif - I must ask anyone who knows....

What language are these mods written in? And where does one find the original source code? (The original modder, I suppose.) And can someone point anyone to the tools to modify it - bless God, with permission - to try. I'd really like to see the source of (especially) C1's Academy mod for JO - with which I am eminently impressed. Toward that end, I will try to get in touch with him.

In the meantime, the question at hand .... and don't get me wrong, I'm all for trying new things - who's mod is buggy and what's the reason for discarding Academy for JO?

On a side note, just for the record (since we've given it a good test run), I'm of the opinion that C1's Academy beats DC, hands-down. But, that's just my opinion. :\
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JayBaen
post May 15 2004, 10:03 AM
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Thx for the input Infi, much appreciated. I'll try and clarify my ramblings a bit.

1) You're correct, this thread is supposed to be about Reloaded mod for Academy. I only brought in these articles to read to try and show the "top coders" states of mind between each other regarding any/all of these varying Mods for either game, not to make a point from myself about either one, really.

2) Do I feel for Chosen regarding his code being used by others (so he claims), of course. Do I think his ability to state his case in a mature manner stinks, yes.

3) As far as Academy mod for Outcast goes, the admin hack is still very alive and present. Just saw it in action yesterday on a 1.6 server -- all night. Whether or not Orion fixed it in the Reloaded mod, I don't know as we don't play the game, but he did NOT fix it in Outcast.

4) As for the souce code and the like, I believe it is written in some form of C (maybe C+, or C++?) The SDK is available from most of the big public JK sites. The source code for the MODs need be retrieved from their respective authors. I know that Marcel Strik (Vulcanus Mod) was pretty good about giving out his source which has become the basis for many, many mods.

5) To date, I've found NO hacks with DC mod (not that there aren't any, but as far as our server goes, they are undiscovered). My guess is because the mod isn't as "used," people aren't spending the same kind of time trying to exploit it. My only concern is that people are noting the saber damage with a few moves to be a little "off" from the norm. The only way to really know that is to test it against the BaseJK, not Academy mod. We should do that sometime. If it proves to be off -- we should change mods. That and the non-ability to turn off public stats separate from private ones are my ONLY gripes about DC mod, otherwise I'm in favor of it over Academy. The play for me is just cleaner, better, smoother ... predictable.

6) If we had a mod that simply gave the ability to create an Admin group (in our case, all the RJ members) which bound macros to the /rcon commands of kick, ban and status -- and that's all it did -- it would be a great mod for us. No altering of the saber damage, no empower, no punish, no melt, no turn-into-a-pumpkin ... just the basics. If we wanted to create a few fun "RJ party tricks" that were only used on our server, great. But a public release from this group of anything Admin related should be simple, clean, useable and non-abuseable (no more than basic /rcon, anyway).

I hope this helps. Sorry for the confusion. There's a lot of people playing JKAcademy these days. I wish we could find the magic elixer that would push us that direction.

JB


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InfiniteWarrior
post May 15 2004, 12:38 PM
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smile.gif No problemo.

JA Reloaded

There have been no further announcements (officially) regarding development of Reloaded. Would be nice to know; the web site hasn't been updated in quite a while. Not impossible to find out, though.... Normalizing saber combat, imho, would take a complete rewrite of that aspect of the game as it should have been written in the first place and (as "this is truly the only mod you will ever need to get that doesn't alter the normal gameplay of Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy®" dry.gif) I don't get the impression Reloaded will even try. I seriously doubt anyone will ever write a mod that can effectively address those issues, although...

Duelers Mod

...outstrips Reloaded for that reason and that reason only, but is in its infancy and no longer under development by the original author. The source code has been released for others to build upon.

Still, the "solution" for dual and staff sabers overrunning the game as well as the novice feel of gameplay seems to have been addressed by taking all power away from any special moves of which those saber types are capable, which probably does not bode well with dual and staff users. A better solution would be to get rid of the force_regen tied to combat issue (if possible), improve hit detection dramatically and equalize the damage of those special moves for all saber-types. If anyone in the greater community can accomplish that, I'll be sorely amazed. As it stands, skill (still) does not seem a major factor in gameplay and so that magic elixir may prove very difficult to concoct.

QUOTE
If we had a mod that simply gave the ability to create an Admin group (in our case, all the RJ members) which bound macros to the /rcon commands of kick, ban and status -- and that's all it did -- it would be a great mod for us.... But a public release from this group of anything Admin related should be simple, clean, useable and non-abuseable (no more than basic /rcon, anyway).


Agreed. I'm seeing reference to C++, though. Bummer. I know one coder and he's not available. Anyone else?

So much for JA....
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Ruggiero
post May 18 2004, 03:57 PM
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I know I am lame, but still haven't gotten around to jumping on and trying dueler's. Are there help docs in the mod?

Rugg


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InfiniteWarrior
post May 18 2004, 05:27 PM
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Good question. I just tested out the moves. Should check that out, I suppose, but... nah. It's JA! user posted image

I've also been in contact with Orion, who released a new fix for JA 1.6 on the 16th. Should be up on JK2files soon. Anyone who wants it the meantime will find it here.

He also says that Reloaded is, indeed, still in development and that a new web site should also be arriving for it shortly.
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