Whether or not this is a mod or a mute depends how far you go with it. The basic premise is this - UT can support many more bots and models then is used - by using the addbots command, I've heard of battles with hundreds of bots.
So here's the plan - you dont' play a single person, you play a squad of clones. You spawn as one man, normally, but with an extra weapon in your inventory, the spawner. Firing the spawner creates a clone of yourself where it hits. A clone functions just like a teammate bot, except that it is always set to "Support player" AI, it tends to use the same weapon as the player it supports (if it has it), it has the same model, skin, and name as the player, except theres something after the name to make it unique (so we have Harlin A, Harlin B, Harlin C) and it doesn't use its spawner weapon - only the intelligent player does.
The alt-fire on the spawner cycles through the members of your clonesquad - which one you control. So, if a squaddie picks up the redeemer, then you switch to him so you can control it personally. If the clone you're controlling dies, control automagically switches to the next clone, unless that was your last one.
You have a fixed number of clones - lets say 8 default, configurable in the mod menu. This means that the spawner has only 8 rounds of ammo, and you can't get more. Either reward the other player or punish you for the last member of a squad dying.
The following changes would be more work, but would make things work a little better.
Now, you're leading a large squad, each member needing its own ammo - so here's a thought - change the weapon spawning system. First, you can't pick up weapons you already have over a certain ammo count (lets say half of starting level) and weapons start at a higher default ammo count (like 2-4 x normal) - wherever ammo normally would spawn, weapons do instead, so where there should be 1 flak cannon and 2 flak ammos there's 3 flak cannons but you can only pick up 1, and that one has more ammo then normal. This allows for much more weapons available, so you don't have to worry about all the weapons in a level vanishing from the larger number of active players.
To make the levels have enough space for these larger battles, cut the speed and size of everything in half and half the jump power and gravity. This means that players can jump the same height as before and shoot their flak bombs the same range, just more slowly. The net effect is that the game is shrunk, making the battlefields much larger, accomodating the larger number of players.
In the mod menu, add a second option above starting clone number in the spawner for max clones, then switch a powerup to be extra clones - like the medpack, or if you want it less common, the megahealth. So, the player might start with himself and 5 clones in the spawner, but he can pick up a few more up to a max of 9 clones in play, or something.
The damage amp and cloaking device should definitely be applied to the whole team instead of one man. Another thought is that the jump boots should be switched over to a time-based system instead of 3 jumps, more like the damage amp (turning it into a low-gravity belt might be good) so that you can apply it to a whole squad, so you don't have to worry about losing your squaddies, they'll always be able to follow you.
Perhaps so players can keep it personal, the clone in your squad that you are controlling might be externally marked with a teambeacon style marker, so other players can know who to shoot at to really piss someone off.
The general idea of this is to make really, really big battles in UT without having to just have one giant chaotic mess, or some overcomplex RTS game (those never work out).
An alternate name could be "attack of the clones" but I'm pretty sure that's taken.
So here's the plan - you dont' play a single person, you play a squad of clones. You spawn as one man, normally, but with an extra weapon in your inventory, the spawner. Firing the spawner creates a clone of yourself where it hits. A clone functions just like a teammate bot, except that it is always set to "Support player" AI, it tends to use the same weapon as the player it supports (if it has it), it has the same model, skin, and name as the player, except theres something after the name to make it unique (so we have Harlin A, Harlin B, Harlin C) and it doesn't use its spawner weapon - only the intelligent player does.
The alt-fire on the spawner cycles through the members of your clonesquad - which one you control. So, if a squaddie picks up the redeemer, then you switch to him so you can control it personally. If the clone you're controlling dies, control automagically switches to the next clone, unless that was your last one.
You have a fixed number of clones - lets say 8 default, configurable in the mod menu. This means that the spawner has only 8 rounds of ammo, and you can't get more. Either reward the other player or punish you for the last member of a squad dying.
The following changes would be more work, but would make things work a little better.
Now, you're leading a large squad, each member needing its own ammo - so here's a thought - change the weapon spawning system. First, you can't pick up weapons you already have over a certain ammo count (lets say half of starting level) and weapons start at a higher default ammo count (like 2-4 x normal) - wherever ammo normally would spawn, weapons do instead, so where there should be 1 flak cannon and 2 flak ammos there's 3 flak cannons but you can only pick up 1, and that one has more ammo then normal. This allows for much more weapons available, so you don't have to worry about all the weapons in a level vanishing from the larger number of active players.
To make the levels have enough space for these larger battles, cut the speed and size of everything in half and half the jump power and gravity. This means that players can jump the same height as before and shoot their flak bombs the same range, just more slowly. The net effect is that the game is shrunk, making the battlefields much larger, accomodating the larger number of players.
In the mod menu, add a second option above starting clone number in the spawner for max clones, then switch a powerup to be extra clones - like the medpack, or if you want it less common, the megahealth. So, the player might start with himself and 5 clones in the spawner, but he can pick up a few more up to a max of 9 clones in play, or something.
The damage amp and cloaking device should definitely be applied to the whole team instead of one man. Another thought is that the jump boots should be switched over to a time-based system instead of 3 jumps, more like the damage amp (turning it into a low-gravity belt might be good) so that you can apply it to a whole squad, so you don't have to worry about losing your squaddies, they'll always be able to follow you.
Perhaps so players can keep it personal, the clone in your squad that you are controlling might be externally marked with a teambeacon style marker, so other players can know who to shoot at to really piss someone off.
The general idea of this is to make really, really big battles in UT without having to just have one giant chaotic mess, or some overcomplex RTS game (those never work out).
An alternate name could be "attack of the clones" but I'm pretty sure that's taken.
