Remnantmods

Using Mystery it is possible to create a releasable mod in under 20 minutes.
It's very flexible, allowing you not only to create MPC maps, but also bog standard slayer maps.
The only thing missing currently, is objectives which I may add soon. I just haven't decided how to implement it yet.

Preparation
Before you start using Mystery there are a few things to gather together, but once you have them you can reuse them as much as you like.

Multiplayer Globals

1. Open any Multiplayer map in Entity with SP update (I like to use Coagulation).
2. Choose Recursive, Parsed and Sounds.
3. Choose the mulg tag.
4. Save to a new folder.
5. Set export name to "multiplayer\new_multiplayer_globals" or whatever you like but it cant keep its original name.

Note: Entity crashed on me when it was trying to do this, I found that nulling the vehicles dependancys which were already in the SP map, made it work, just remember to relink later if you do this.

UI Tag

1. Choose Recursive, Parsed and Sounds.
2. Choose the wgtz tag.
3. Save to a new folder.

Convert To Multiplayer

1. Open your Singleplayer map in Mystery.
2. Choose the BSP you want to use for your map.
3. Player Representations should have been automatically selected, but you have to option to change them.
   
   Netgame Equipment
4. Select Types of Spawns to Remove and/or Convert to netgame equipment
   Typically speaking if you convert it you want to remove it, but not always.
   Its also important to note that anything attached to scripting will not be removed unless "Remove Scripts" is checked.
   
   Player Spawns and more Netgame Equipment
5. Select AI Squads to Remove and and/or Convert (Press the Select Squads button)
   Even if you don't want AI, you should choose AI Squads to convert to Player Spawns, you can also generate netgame equipment from the AI vehicles.
   The AI Squad selection window is a multi-selectable list to let you quickly make your choices.
   Select one or more Squad then press Space to select/deselect for converting and press Delete to select/deselect for Removal.
   Close the selection window.
   
   Remove Cinematics from Scripts
6. You can Ignore the Remove Cinematics checkbox.
   Unless you are removing all the scripts, you will need to choose some lines of script to be removed.
   Commonly, you will want to remove calls for to start Cinematics (this is important for SLC).
   Other things you may want to remove are Checkpoints, or objective triggers.
   
   AI Difficulty
7. Select AI Difficulty
   Mystery will write the relevant values to the map for the chosen difficulty, the default is Easy.
   
   Do the Conversion
8. Press the big Convert button.

Build Multiplayer Tags into Map

1. Open your singleplayer map in Entity with SP update.
2. Choose Recursive, Parsed and Sounds.
3. Build the Mulg tags
4. Build the Wgtz tags
5. Build the tags generated by Mystery in the same folder as the map

Link Multiplayer Tags to Map

1. Open your singleplayer map in Mystery.
2. Choose the Link Multiplayer Tags option from the menu
3. The new tags should be automatically selected.
4. Press the Link button

Transfer Multiplayer String Table

1. Choose the Transfer Strings option from the menu
2. Choose the multiplayer map you took your tags from.
3. Press OK.

Tidy Up
If you had to null the vehicles in the Mulg tag, put them back in your single player map now.

Play The Game
All your standard multiplayer quick options etc will work.
(but won't work on script related objects)

So awesome! Now to put the mongoose in some of the vehicle battles. Thank you for putting this together.

Will the AI pick up the oddball? Can't remember if there is a weapon the ai will clamor for. So we can play king of the hill on system link while tartarus is trying to crush all of us?

If this really works, you have solved two big problems with modding: having anyone to play with, and essentially making every bsp convertible to MP. Bravo, sir.

CaptainPoopface wrote:So awesome! Now to put the mongoose in some of the vehicle battles. Thank you for putting this together.

Glad you like it, I'm sure you'll put it to good use =)

CaptainPoopface wrote:Will the AI pick up the oddball? Can't remember if there is a weapon the ai will clamor for. So we can play king of the hill on system link while tartarus is trying to crush all of us?

I don't think AI ever pick up weapons, but you can switch weapons with them, so that might be interesting...
I love the king of the hill idea.
Of course for both of these you will need netgame flags added to your scnr, so I'll getting working on the soon.

CaptainPoopface wrote:If this really works, you have solved two big problems with modding: having anyone to play with, and essentially making every bsp convertible to MP. Bravo, sir.

That was the aim =)

What about crea tags like the flood infection or quad wings? They are not system linkable in MP, but I don't know if they would serialize from SP.

Flood marines would be perfect for a game of swords and shotguns.

I can come up with a way for AI to win, I think. For example, limit the human player lives, and have some kind of effect that happens when an AI dies. That effect spawns ammo for a gun. When you rack up enough to fire the gun, the firing jmad launches you high in the air, so you can land on a high floating platform and arm a bomb or deliver a flag or sit on the hill for 10 seconds. Kind of a hack. Maybe I can do better.

CaptainPoopface wrote:What about crea tags like the flood infection or quad wings? They are not system linkable in MP, but I don't know if they would serialize from SP.

No idea, you'll just have to try it and see =)

CaptainPoopface wrote:Flood marines would be perfect for a game of swords and shotguns.

This would be awesome and you could team up with infection forms!

CaptainPoopface wrote:I can come up with a way for AI to win, I think. For example, limit the human player lives, and have some kind of effect that happens when an AI dies. That effect spawns ammo for a gun. When you rack up enough to fire the gun, the firing jmad launches you high in the air, so you can land on a high floating platform and arm a bomb or deliver a flag or sit on the hill for 10 seconds. Kind of a hack. Maybe I can do better.

I'm sure if anyone can come up with a way for it to work, you can.

Found a bug: it your not using converting the first bsp, it causes entity to error when you build.
I'm looking into it, but until its fixed there is a work around:

Do your conversion, to get your output tags.
Get a clean map, add the build the tags in.
Then do the conversion on the map.

This will mean you can't add more data afterwards though.

Edit: so its the result of an assumption I made when I updated Entity's build code...
It shouldnt be too difficult to fix, but I'm just going to make sure that the end goal works first

So doing this, you can have a nice AI mod without having to null the udlg? without also having to null stuff in AI Squadsm since they're already on the map and hasn't een rebuilt then I think it should work, so you can have a whole campaing-like experience

Yes, it's revolutionary! You can have AI play objectives with you, and you can play every bsp in the game now, with or without AI.

It's awesome.

I'm already working on "Cold Winder Revisited"

Also, I've always wanted to convert floodzone's BSP's to multiplayer and now I cannnnnnnn (H2Core always errors with these) fucking great work xzodia, but why version of entity you use to build the stuff?

xXF3RcHoXx wrote:I'm already working on "Cold Winder Revisited"

Also, I've always wanted to convert floodzone's BSP's to multiplayer and now I cannnnnnnn (H2Core always errors with these) fucking great work xzodia, but why version of entity you use to build the stuff?

I've already spoke to you about this but for future reference:
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2322

Firefight mods!

Is this with Mystery v7.00000001 or do i need to update?

Ogrish wrote:Is this with Mystery v7.00000001 or do i need to update?

The quick fix was just so you can build the Mistery-generated tags into your SP map without issue, so yeah, you need to update

I want to import custom tags and/or alter the tags in the output map. At what stage should I do this? Is it safe to mod the output map in ways that alter its size (i.e., clone chunks or build tags in)? Or do I need to do all the modifications in the clean SP map before the conversion process? I don't have a problem with either method; the former would be more flexible, but the latter is fine.

If your using the first bsp, you can add data after the conversion.

If your using any other bsp, you need to do the conversion to get the output tags, then get a clean map and add your data to that.
Then just before you upload your map, do the conversion on your modded map, so that it loads.

I had some difficulties doing this for 05a_deltaapproach, first bsp. I nulled the vehicle dependencies from the mulg and it exported fine, but I had several errors trying to export the wgtz. It finally exported, but it didn't seem to export everything. The import stage happened without a hitch. In the game, however, there were no AI. The announcer's voice was at double speed (kind of funny), and the start button just pulled up an empty faded blue screen with no options, leading me to believe the wgtz was busted. The scoreboard displayed when pushing the back button or dying. Weapons worked as expected, except a plasma rifle which fired covenant turret shots and had infinite ammo. I don't know if that's an easter egg or just something corrupted. The trees had no phmo, but I could fake that or just deal with it. When playing as the elite, I had no arms, chief's or otherwise. I suspect that's a marker mismatch. The 3P render of the elite was the chief, as expected. That's not a big deal either, although it does mean players have to have an elite as their profile in order to play conversions from arbiter maps. Everything else looked great. Not sure why there was no AI. And the warthog and turrets at the beginning of the level spawned, even though the dependency was nulled in the mulg tag.

Can you upload a wgtz extraction that worked for you?

There were a few confounding variables here. I tried the latest Entity (2.1.24), which presumably integrated your SP changes, although it disabled (or just un-defaulted) the Parsed option. I tried using my plugins (mostly accumulated from you) as well as JacksonCougar's latest. At least a couple of Jackson's plugins gave me some errors, but I'll explore that more later and post in that thread. I also tried using your Entity with SP update and whatever plugins are included with it, and it didn't work for the wgtz extract. The MP source map I used was dune. Was that my downfall?

Overall, the process is quick and easy. I would love to go on a conversion spree with this once I can figure out what I'm doing wrong.

BTW, what is the major AI upgrade?

CaptainPoopface wrote:I had some difficulties doing this for 05a_deltaapproach, first bsp.

I have successfully converted this bsp, so rest assured it is possible.

CaptainPoopface wrote:I nulled the vehicle dependencies from the mulg and it exported fine

Just remember to relink after you add the mulg.

CaptainPoopface wrote:I had several errors trying to export the wgtz. It finally exported, but it didn't seem to export everything.

CaptainPoopface wrote:The MP source map I used was dune. Was that my downfall?

Your source map maybe your issue, as I mentioned I used coagulation, so you could try that.
As you mentioned, plugins could be an issue, but my SP Entity doesn't come with plugins, it uses the ones linked in your registry (same as all recent versions of entity) If you don't understand how this works, it may have had an effect on you trying different plugin sets...

CaptainPoopface wrote:In the game, however, there were no AI.

This is usually due to not running a trainer? but could also be if you chose to null scripts or ai in Mystery.

CaptainPoopface wrote:The announcer's voice was at double speed (kind of funny)

This is due to a script, if you open the script selector window, you should be able to locate and disable the script causing this. (look for scripts relating to sounds) (I apologise for the poor readability of the scripts, if your unsure cross reference with script tools)

CaptainPoopface wrote:the start button just pulled up an empty faded blue screen with no options, leading me to believe the wgtz was busted. The scoreboard displayed when pushing the back button or dying.

This could be a corrupt wgtz or it could be that you didn't link the tags in Mystery, File->Link Multiplayer Tags

CaptainPoopface wrote:Weapons worked as expected, except a plasma rifle which fired covenant turret shots and had infinite ammo. I don't know if that's an easter egg or just something corrupted.

That sounds like the "big_needler" gun, not sure how you managed to find it though lol

CaptainPoopface wrote:The trees had no phmo, but I could fake that or just deal with it.

That is really odd, you shouldn't have to fake anything unless your outside the normal play area?

CaptainPoopface wrote:When playing as the elite, I had no arms, chief's or otherwise. I suspect that's a marker mismatch. The 3P render of the elite was the chief, as expected. That's not a big deal either, although it does mean players have to have an elite as their profile in order to play conversions from arbiter maps.

If you want, you can build in the tags for the elite bipd and Mystery will link them up for you.

CaptainPoopface wrote:the warthog and turrets at the beginning of the level spawned, even though the dependency was nulled in the mulg tag.

That is one of 2 things, either they are being spawned by map default itmc or by a script. The link in mulg is only for when you choose a multiplayer quick option.

CaptainPoopface wrote:Can you upload a wgtz extraction that worked for you?

I can but you will need to edit the info file manually. (fairly simple)

CaptainPoopface wrote:There were a few confounding variables here. I tried the latest Entity (2.1.24), which presumably integrated your SP changes, although it disabled (or just un-defaulted) the Parsed option.

I can't know if 2.1.24 works or not but it is meant to have the chances yes.
Just tick Parsed as you would have done normally.

CaptainPoopface wrote:I tried using my plugins (mostly accumulated from you) as well as JacksonCougar's latest. At least a couple of Jackson's plugins gave me some errors, but I'll explore that more later and post in that thread. I also tried using your Entity with SP update and whatever plugins are included with it, and it didn't work for the wgtz extract.

I've already covered this, but if you have more problems I'll upload mine.

CaptainPoopface wrote:BTW, what is the major AI upgrade?

In short, it makes the AI more difficult (they dodge more etc)

OK, at least some of my problems were caused by not having all the plugins for tags recursively linked to the mulg and wgtz. Durrrrr. I'll have another shot tonight. I did not realize I needed to manually preserve scripts for AI - I removed them all. So that was wrong, obviously. To avoid freezing problems, I just need to remove bsp loading scripts? Should be easy enough.

One thing I ran into is that if you already have a folder named "tags", Mystery will not overwrite or append to it. NP, just something for users to be aware of.

If I just move the AI around, perhaps far from their spawn location, will they still know what to do, or are they confined to certain areas of the bsp and brainless outside of those?

Do you have any advice for identifying the specific bsp where the play action goes down? In particular, I'm befuddled by space station 1b. It's huge, and there are several cool play areas I want to convert: the MAC gun room, the atrium, the elevator shaft with the buggers, the bomb room. The AI spawn in funny places (teleported by script, I presume), and my spatial orientation ain't great. I guess I could play the game with debug strings on and see when it's loading bsps, maybe.

CaptainPoopface wrote:To avoid freezing problems, I just need to remove bsp loading scripts? Should be easy enough.

Tick the Remove BSP Switch volumes box to achieve this.

CaptainPoopface wrote:One thing I ran into is that if you already have a folder named "tags", Mystery will not overwrite or append to it. NP, just something for users to be aware of.

Could you clarify this? It should overwrite existing data. Is it because its was called "tags" rather than "Tags"?

CaptainPoopface wrote:If I just move the AI around, perhaps far from their spawn location, will they still know what to do, or are they confined to certain areas of the bsp and brainless outside of those?

This is a very complicated issue, since most AI is spawned by scripts. However, if you move the related trigger volumes, it may work fine, but I think there is other stuff involved as well.

CaptainPoopface wrote:Do you have any advice for identifying the specific bsp where the play action goes down?

It depends what your trying to achieve. Theres a nice square court yard area, where one of the skulls is found, which would be good without much effort. But I really want to see something done with the start of the level, before/or including the bridge.

CaptainPoopface wrote:In particular, I'm befuddled by space station 1b. It's huge, and there are several cool play areas I want to convert: the MAC gun room, the atrium, the elevator shaft with the buggers, the bomb room. The AI spawn in funny places (teleported by script, I presume), and my spatial orientation ain't great. I guess I could play the game with debug strings on and see when it's loading bsps, maybe.

Playing through on easy, is the best way to do this I think.