Recommended for CUT2 - MapMixer / BotMixer
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 9:36 pm
If you like the idea of having ulitmate control over your UT2004 sessions, then a tool like MapMixer/BotMixer can be very handy. As I'm sure many folks already know, it's been around awhile, and even won a 1st place for Tools in MSUC at one point. But for those who might not:
http://mapmixer.oceaniaut.com/
It really has too many features for me to get into now, and I probably don't even know them all yet anyway.
However, when I recently went to try using this mutator with Chaos, even though everything seemed to be 'working', there was a constant console message flashing on the HUD due to some weird conflict.
Well, the good news is that now, thanks to sinx (the 'mapmixer surgeon') I was able to try out a test build of MapMixer/BotMixer today that he kindly supplied for me, and as of his next release it looks like it will be fully compatible with Chaos - now even without the constant error messages flashing!
You can for example, as I have done today..., create one huge master map list of all your favorite game types - and play them all w/o having to even quit your game. You can even navigate the list while in-game to manually switch it to any of the game types or maps that you have on your big-arsed master list. Or just set it to shuffle your list everytime, or not, and so on.
And let's say you wanted to play Horde Hunters on a large ONS map that you happen to like, MapMixer makes that easy too. This way you don't have to rename a ONS map with a DM prefix, and so you don't have to have two copies of same map on your hardrive.
(tbh I haven't even gotten 'round to trying say a VCTF map or an AS map in Duel, but my tests with CCTF and ONS and DM and HH seem great so far)
And if you want, you can add the BotMixer part to have complete control over bot teams that you create or import from the singleplayer ladder part of UT2004. So for example...
If I'm going to play a game type like Horde Hunters, my tastes are always going to run towards the large scale games on "medieval-ish" type maps, with bots that fit the theme. So what I did was use BotMixer to import the single player teams, and then I chose Hellions to be my bot team anytime I played a single-team game type. Hellions in my opinion seem to be well suited for the Horde Hunters game type.
Then when you put all that together and start to play Chaos, I can maybe start with a game of CCTF in VCTF-Submagma, then decide that I want to play something else, and use MapMixer to navigate to the map I want, then I can even preview it with a small pic, and jump to it right away if I want.
http://chaotic.beyondunreal.com/c2_scre ... mixer1.jpg
http://chaotic.beyondunreal.com/c2_scre ... mixer2.jpg
http://chaotic.beyondunreal.com/c2_scre ... mixer3.jpg
So without even quitting the game, I've gone from ChaosCTF in VCTF-CE-Submagma, to HordeHunters in ONS-NMP2-Panalesh, and all the rules and teams I chose for each are all in place and ready to go.
MapMixer/BotMixer does quite a LOT of stuff, and at first understanding the GUI and so forth might seem daunting, but don't let that throw you. Once you get the hang of it and get it set up, you don't have to mess with it everytime you play (unless you want to of course). It'll just keep doing it's thing for you.
I haven't had the pleasure of using it online with Chaos yet, but I'd enjoy the opportunity to try if it ever comes up.
Anyway, sinx was kind enough to address the hud message issue for us, and since this can be a very useful tool for when playing Chaos, I wanted to give it a mention here.
As far as I can tell so far everything works great together, but of course that's what beta testing is all about, and I'll continue playing.
http://mapmixer.oceaniaut.com/
It really has too many features for me to get into now, and I probably don't even know them all yet anyway.
However, when I recently went to try using this mutator with Chaos, even though everything seemed to be 'working', there was a constant console message flashing on the HUD due to some weird conflict.
Well, the good news is that now, thanks to sinx (the 'mapmixer surgeon') I was able to try out a test build of MapMixer/BotMixer today that he kindly supplied for me, and as of his next release it looks like it will be fully compatible with Chaos - now even without the constant error messages flashing!
You can for example, as I have done today..., create one huge master map list of all your favorite game types - and play them all w/o having to even quit your game. You can even navigate the list while in-game to manually switch it to any of the game types or maps that you have on your big-arsed master list. Or just set it to shuffle your list everytime, or not, and so on.
And let's say you wanted to play Horde Hunters on a large ONS map that you happen to like, MapMixer makes that easy too. This way you don't have to rename a ONS map with a DM prefix, and so you don't have to have two copies of same map on your hardrive.
(tbh I haven't even gotten 'round to trying say a VCTF map or an AS map in Duel, but my tests with CCTF and ONS and DM and HH seem great so far)
And if you want, you can add the BotMixer part to have complete control over bot teams that you create or import from the singleplayer ladder part of UT2004. So for example...
If I'm going to play a game type like Horde Hunters, my tastes are always going to run towards the large scale games on "medieval-ish" type maps, with bots that fit the theme. So what I did was use BotMixer to import the single player teams, and then I chose Hellions to be my bot team anytime I played a single-team game type. Hellions in my opinion seem to be well suited for the Horde Hunters game type.
Then when you put all that together and start to play Chaos, I can maybe start with a game of CCTF in VCTF-Submagma, then decide that I want to play something else, and use MapMixer to navigate to the map I want, then I can even preview it with a small pic, and jump to it right away if I want.
http://chaotic.beyondunreal.com/c2_scre ... mixer1.jpg
http://chaotic.beyondunreal.com/c2_scre ... mixer2.jpg
http://chaotic.beyondunreal.com/c2_scre ... mixer3.jpg
So without even quitting the game, I've gone from ChaosCTF in VCTF-CE-Submagma, to HordeHunters in ONS-NMP2-Panalesh, and all the rules and teams I chose for each are all in place and ready to go.
MapMixer/BotMixer does quite a LOT of stuff, and at first understanding the GUI and so forth might seem daunting, but don't let that throw you. Once you get the hang of it and get it set up, you don't have to mess with it everytime you play (unless you want to of course). It'll just keep doing it's thing for you.
I haven't had the pleasure of using it online with Chaos yet, but I'd enjoy the opportunity to try if it ever comes up.
Anyway, sinx was kind enough to address the hud message issue for us, and since this can be a very useful tool for when playing Chaos, I wanted to give it a mention here.
As far as I can tell so far everything works great together, but of course that's what beta testing is all about, and I'll continue playing.
Seriously tho', how much ya get for sweet copy like that? 
Just the compatibility I was lookin' for. I was grateful to sinx and this is the only method I have of repayment. But it's Ok, it was cheap. This kind of "copy" spews out of me like pea soup from Linda Blair.
