What can/can't be done with new UT2004 mod stucture?

[JamesKilton]

It's been all over the ut2004mods mailing list, so Epic knows quite a bit about it. I guess that's my problem: the maps. The gametype shows up correctly (I do make the cache), but it lists default DM maps. I've tried adding setting to default.ini, making a UaMapList class (though I don't think I've connected it anywhere. What class uses MapList?). It's quite interesting, that's for sure.

 

[NickR]

I hope they fix the hosting a server problem!

I tried to host a dedicated server using the ingame menu, after launching the game with my mod switch, and it couldn't find the map I selected because it tried to find it in the UT2004/Maps folders instead of my UT2004/DKF/Maps folder.

 

[jb]

Does anyone else have some issues when getting the mod to install on clients PC? We had an IR build over the weekend. We thought that all of the files would have to go into the ChaosUT2 dir. I only have one INT/UCL that has to set in the main dir. For my system it worked fine, I can complie, activate the mod, no issues. However we had some other folks on our team that could not see our mut/gametypes. We had to use some hack in order to get them to see it (move around Us, edit paths, ect). This is kind of bothers me as there seems to be no reason or cause to why it works on some but not others.

 

[jb]

Ok another Q for you folks, you have the mod activated...but updates to the UT2004.log file stop...any one know how to get that fixed or get a new log file created in the mods system dir (mymod.log)?

 

[JamesKilton]

Gametypes showing up is all about the cache file. If you've got your mod directory set up right, it should just work. Could you give some details as to what was wrong?

And sorry, I get logged perfectly to ut2004.log

 

[jb]

Gametypes showing up is all about the cache file. If you've got your mod directory set up right, it should just work. Could you give some details as to what was wrong?

On my system and most of the teams is fine. However on a few systems we had to have to hack to get the mod to show up after it was activated by the mod menu. One we had to hack in the paths to the main UT2004.ini before our mut or gametypes would show up. Another we had place the game .Us in their main system dir before the games would show up. Then on another system our mods UCL file was getting over-writen by UT2k4 so by setting that to ReadOnly was the fix to get our mod to show up. So for most of our testing team it went fine. But I have at least 3 people that we had to hack with no good reason why.

And for the log are you saying after you activate your mod and play you get valid updates to the log file? I just checked any my loq stops after the mod was activated....

 

[Evolution]

On my system and most of the teams is fine. However on a few systems we had to have to hack to get the mod to show up after it was activated by the mod menu. One we had to hack in the paths to the main UT2004.ini before our mut or gametypes would show up. Another we had place the game .Us in their main system dir before the games would show up. Then on another system our mods UCL file was getting over-writen by UT2k4 so by setting that to ReadOnly was the fix to get our mod to show up. So for most of our testing team it went fine. But I have at least 3 people that we had to hack with no good reason why.

And for the log are you saying after you activate your mod and play you get valid updates to the log file? I just checked any my loq stops after the mod was activated....

If you suspect a caching related issue, you can try removing the Suppress=RecordCache line from your .ini - this allows the cache manager's status logging to be written to the log, though it may or may not actually help you.

You can also try removing Suppress=DevSave to see exactly which file & sections variables are being loaded from (warning: serious log spam with this removed!!).

Additionally, you can use the console command 'dumprecords' (see ExtendedConsole for additional info) to see exactly which cache records are loaded during the game.

Notes:
CacheRecordPath is the path where .ucl files are located (i.e. where the game will look for .ucl files, and where the game will create .ucl files). The Paths array is where the caching system will look for valid packages to export. If you have modified the CacheRecordPath, but are still including the standard Paths= entries in your mod's ini file, then when your mod loads, the caching system will generate a new CacheRecords.ucl file in whichever directory is specified by CacheRecordPath...however, this CacheRecords.ucl file will only contain map entries. That is pretty inconvenient, but other than a pretty long first run startup-time for your mod, it shouldn't prevent any of your items from appearing in the GUI/webadmin lists.

 

[NickR]

Firstly, the ut2004.log is still being used as the main log file while I use the -mod switch.

Secondly, I changed the CacheRecordPath line in my mods default.ini to my mods system directory where all my .u and .ucl files go. I would like to know how to get the game to think my gametype is the official one because it lists it under custom game types.

Another thing I have found out is that the crosshairs aren't loaded properly if you change the CacheRecordPath. So ingame you get no crosshairs and you get a few error warnings in the log.

I fixed this buy simply copying the cacherecord.ucl file from the main system folder to my mods system folder so the game could find the crosshairs.
There should be a better way to handle this type of thing.

 

[Mr Evi1]

Music and Karma data files: Can these be put into the mod's directory structure? There doesn't seem to be any way to specify a Paths= for them.

 

[Evolution]

Firstly, the ut2004.log is still being used as the main log file while I use the -mod switch.

Yes I think this is a known issue that should be fixed in the next patch.

Secondly, I changed the CacheRecordPath line in my mods default.ini to my mods system directory where all my .u and .ucl files go. I would like to know how to get the game to think my gametype is the official one because it lists it under custom game types.

Only gametypes listed in the CacheManager's DefaultContent arrays will be interpreted by the game as "official". I'm not sure if this will be changed, though I can see how that might be useful in a TC.

Another thing I have found out is that the crosshairs aren't loaded properly if you change the CacheRecordPath. So ingame you get no crosshairs and you get a few error warnings in the log. I fixed this buy simply copying the cacherecord.ucl file from the main system folder to my mods system folder so the game could find the crosshairs. There should be a better way to handle this type of thing.

Yeah, essentially the problem boils down to the fact that the -mod architecture and the caching system were developed indepently of each other. When the -mod stuff was added, some subsystems seem to be have been left out (i.e. log files, caching system, exec obj lines, etc.). Hopefully these will all be resolved in the first patch.