UltraXL For Tribes 2

A Club Lard Production

Table of Contents

Background
Gameplay
Armors
Weapons
Items and Deployables
Vehicles
Installation
Contact

Background

The first mod in the UltraXL lineage is the StarSiege/Tribes modification, Insomniax.   This mod was the spawning point for most of ideas found in this mod.  Next came Renegades, which took the ideas from Insominax, and developed a deeper class based modification from it.  Next in line is Ultra Renegades (UR) for Tribes 1.  What this "modder" (Thrash) did was take Renegades and sped things up, strengthened and increased fire rate of weapons, give unlimited energy for jetpack-ing, etc.  Thrash along with other individual modders, went on to put out many different variations of this mod.  UR grew in the Tribes 1 community to where many clans formed and OGL hosted UR ladders were initiated. 

And now for UltraXL.  I first created UltraXL for Starsiege/Tribes using the Ultra-renegades3 mod as a base.  I added many unique rules and weapons that added to the action, plus made game play less aggravating.  These features will be moved forward to the UltraXL mod for Tribes 2 with time.  Fun gameplay is the number one goal of UltraXL.  

Now you may be wondering what the XL in UltraXL stands for.  No, it is not the logical answer of "Ultra Extra Large".  Way back when, back in the early formative time of my Ultra mod, I belonged to the on-line gaming clan, Tenth Legion  with the tag of =XL=.  Well that clan is no longer, the members have moved on to either EverQuest or CounterStrike.  I didn't do either of those games and stuck with Tribes.  The old web page, for what it's worth, is here.

 

Gameplay

The gameplay in UltraXL is fast and furious.  Below is the rule set that has created this edge of your seat action packed modification for Tribes 2.

1) Jetpack -- A players Jetpack does not use energy.  This results in unlimited flying by players.  Air to air combat is the centerpiece of UltraXL.  Also players have access to Turbo Boosts for quick burst of speed and Air Brakes to come to quick stop.

2) Most weapons fire rate and damage have been altered to make them more powerful and more useful for the Ultra style of gameplay.  See the Weapon section for details.

3) Vehicles have also been altered.  With unlimited Jetpack, vehicles have lost a little bit of their role.  UltraXL has juiced up the weapons and increased the maneuverability of the vehicles to compensate for this.

4) Items have been altered plus a few added.  The turrets are hyper sensitive and can be clustered closer together, compared to the base game.  Mines are Friend or Foe sensitive, so they can be set without fear of killing teammates.  The deployable Forcefields have been added to aid in defense of your flag or generators.  Deployable Teleport Pads can be used for rapid transport of troops to the enemy base and back again.

5) Additional rules have been added to promote confrontation and to stay away from stalemates and "turtling" of defenses.  

a) In the CTF game type, players can either "cap" the enemy flag at their flag or "cap" at the capture point (usually the flagstand).  
b) Players can't place turrets on enemy buildings.  
c) The mission area now has a vertical limit.  If you fly too high, the Leave Mission Area penalty will be applied. 
d) You can not use the Turbo Boost if you are carrying the flag.
e) Server admins can increase the capture limit using the
CTF score Limit Multiplier.  This is added because there is more scoring due to more offense and players can "cap" at the capture points.
f) Overtime is possible, see installation on configuring the overtime variables.

6) Bot support - Nope no formal bot support.  If you are interested in coding up the bots for UltraXL give me a holler.  The base bots included with the game don't know how to play UltraXL, especially the unlimited jetpack aspect.  Eventually they all fly straight up, never to be seen again.

Armor

Here is a quick rundown of the armors in UltraXL.  The armors are more role oriented compared to the base game.  What follows is a brief summary of the strengths and weaknesses of the three armors used in UltraXL.

Scout

Engineer

Spy

Weapons

Below is the list of weapons that have been altered in UltraXL.  If a weapon from the base game is not listed, that is because it remains un-altered from the base game.

1)  Laser Rifle - Converted to the IX-2000 Sniper Rifle.  This Sniper Rifle has unlimited ammo and fires high energy plasma "bullets".  This is the primary weapon for air to air combat and for taking out those nasty turrets from long range.  This weapon does not work under water.

2) Plasma Gun  - Converted to the Flamer.  A closed quarters weapon.  Not much use in the great outdoors because the flame projectiles move so slow.  If you are flying forward fast and fire this weapon, it is possible to set your self on fire.  When an opponent is hit with this, they will be on fire for 10 seconds, taking health away with each tick of the clock.  They can douse the flames by running into water.  This weapon will not work under water.

3) Grenade Launcher - Converted to the ForceField Buster (FFB).  This is the most deadly weapon in UltraXL.  This weapon produces a great deal of damage in a large range.  The only drawback is the slow firing rate, only one FFB grenade per three seconds.  The FFB is the leading cause of suicide in UltraXL, mainly  because players don't put enough distance or barrier between themselves and an exploding FFB grenade.   With practice, you will be able to take out generators and turrets with one precise shot and without dying.  Also good for blowing up that person trying to nab your flag.

4) Elf Projector - Same name, just more energy drain.  With an EMP hit from the ELF, the affected player will be without energy for four seconds.  This means no Jetpack, Energy base weapon or Pack usage during that time frame.  This guy is now a sitting duck for another weapon in your arsenal.  Nope, this weapon won't work under water.

5) Fusion Mortar - The Mortars are now rapid fire compared to the base game.  Each Mortar has slightly less damage associated with it but the reduction is not enough to offset the amount of Mortars you can toss inside of a room.

6) ChainGun - Tighter spread than the base game, as well as more damage per bullet. Enemies being hit with the Chaingun have a tough time moving, making them more of an easy target.  This will be your primary weapon under water.

7) Shocklance - Now called the Shock-Cloak Gun.  This can now be used as a cloaking gun on your teammates.  If you blast a teammate, they will be cloaked for 60 seconds.  The same ol' shock damage to enemy players that is in the base game.

8) Blaster - Now the FEB rifle.  FEB stands for Flesh Eating Bacteria.  Fans of many Tribes 1 mods will be familiar with this weapon.  Shoot someone, and their Flesh slowly becomes mush.  Also this weapons projectiles do a fair amount of damage.

9) Disc Launcher - Projectiles now reflect off surfaces at close range.  No bouncing with long range shots.  Also the fire rate has been increased considerably.   This may be useful under water if you are good at "air" disc-ing.

10) Missile Launcher - Increased the damage that it dishes out.  Otherwise no significant changes.  The Missile Launcher is very important in air to air combat.

11) Targeting Laser - The targeting laser now can be used as a tractor beam.  Shoot at a far away target and then begin moving toward this target.  Hit the trigger button again or switch to another weapon, and the tractor beam will disengage.  This tractor beam can be used as air brakes, just shoot at something behind you and you will suddenly stop and begin moving in the opposite direction.  Not really a weapon but fits into a weapon slot so that's why it is in this section.  

Items and Deployables

Here is the list of changes to the items and deployables so far.

1) Turbo Boost - Press the Beacons key (default is h) for a quick jump in speed.  The Turbo Boost will accelerate you in the direction you are heading.  If you are heading toward the ground, this will accelerate you even faster toward the ground (ouch).  Beacons can still be used.  If you are within 3 meters of a deployable surface, a beacon will be deployed instead of the Turbo kicking in.

2) Spider Clamp turret - Compared to the base game, the Clamp Turret has a faster firing rate, larger detection range and they are quicker to react.  Also, more Clamp Turrets can be clustered together, thanks to less problems with interference.  You can deploy five of these instead of just four.  You can not deploy these on enemy owned surfaces.

3) Land Spike Turrets - Same as the Clamp turret, faster firing rate, larger detection range and they are quicker to react.  The interference problems are relieved with this item also.

4) Cloak Assassin Turret - Similar to the Spider Clamp Turret, except that they can sense motion (see cloaked players) and cannot be jammed.  Each team can deploy three of these.

5) Flame Turret - Same deploy rules as the Spider and the Cloak Assassin.  These should flame projectiles that set players on fire.  Same fire damage that the Flamer dishes out.  Each team can deploy two of these.

6) WatchDog turret - No damage on enemies, just points at enemies with a laser beam.  Detects motion and cannot be jammed.  Each team can deploy two of these.  These are tough to destroy... it takes 3 FFB grenades to get rid of these.

7) Deployable Forcefields - This item has been added from the base game.  Once deployed, Forcefields provide an impermeable barrier to the enemy.  The deploy team can walk through their deployed ForceFields.  In order to destroy them, the spawning base of the Forcefield must be attacked.  Great for protecting generators and the flag.  Five for each team.

8) Mines - The Mines are now Friend or Foe sensitive.  In other words, they will not blow up you or your teammates.  They will do a fine job of blowing up the enemy, however.

9) Electron Flux Base Turret - This now does the same damage as the ELF Projector.  It will knock down a players energy for three seconds.

10) Missile Base Turret - More sensitive and quicker to reload compared to the base game.

Vehicles

1) Wildcat Grav Cycle - A touch faster compared to the base game.  The Wildcat now has a weapon, the blaster that was on the Shrike.

2) Shrike Fighter - Also a touch faster.  The Shrike now fires non-homing missiles.  Loads of fun!

3) For the other vehicles, just a slight increase in speed.  No real modification to these vehicles as of this release of UltraXL.

Installation

UltraXL is server-side mod.  This means that only the person hosting the UltraXL game, needs a copy of the mod.  If you are practicing by yourself, you are both hosting and playing so you will need a copy also. This version of the UltraXL was compiled with Tribes 2 patched to 23115 (Does not work with the BETA patch).  If you run UltraXL and it comes up as base Tribes 2, there may be a patch conflict. There may even be a conflict with the update program version.  Do not update Tribes 2, until a matching update of UltraXL has been released.

Unzip the archive into the Tribes2\GameData directory. Make sure to preserve the directory structure in the zip file. The directory UltraXL will be created within Tribes2\GameData when you unzip.

To start up UltraXL, use one of the two batch files found within the UltraXL directory. 

For an Online Server
RunXLDedicatedServer.bat  --  As the name of the file indicates, use this to start up a dedicated server.  A good source of information about administrating Tribes 2 servers can be found at http://www.t2dedserver.com .  More info on setting up a server is included below.

For Home Use and LAN Party Servers
RunXLPractice or Lan.bat  --  This will start up Tribes 2 without any of the online options.  You can use this to start up a LAN server for playing multiplayer with your friends on a local network.  This is also what you can use to practice alone.

There are a lot of variables available for server administrators to configure before starting up a server.  In the included download are 2 files that need to be configured.  The first one is:

Tribes2\GameData\UltraXL\autoexec.cs -- This file contains primarily game type related variables.  There are a few server related variables as well.  Here is the list with a brief description.

$DisableTeamDamageVote = "1";
$LimitGametype = "1";
$DisableKickVote = "1";
// $DisableBanVote = "1"; //no longer needed with patch 22460
$EnableTimeLimitVote = "0";

These are variables used to disable/enable in-game player voting.  As they are set now, all player voting is now disabled. This mod is thanks to Wolven.  The Wolven scripts are integrated into UltraXL.  The source mod and Wolven's contact information can be picked up at http://www.t2dedserver.com .  The variable $Host::allowAdminPlayerVotes = 0; is built into Tribes 2.  This variable is set in ServerDefaults.cs, described below.

$pref::Net::PacketRateToClient = "10";
$pref::Net::PacketSize = "200";

These variables are for bandwidth management.  The values above are minimums for a server.  I am running a server on cable modem with a 256 kb/s upload cap.  With the values above, I can run a 14 client server over my Cable modem.  If you have a T1 line or higher, you may be able to tweak these values higher.  Doing the math on the above variables, 10 packets per second multiplied by 200 Bytes per packet, equals 2000 Bytes per second or 2 KB/s per client.

$pref::Net::PacketRateToServer = "32";  This is the client-side variable.  If you are joining a server, with this variable set at 32... but the server-side variable is set to 10, you will get 10.

telnetsetparameters($host::telnetport,$host::telnetpw,$host::telnetro);
setlogmode(1);
$logechoenabled=1;

These are important variables for remote administration of a Tribes 2 server. An example for setting up the telnet parameters is;  telnetsetparameters(2001,FunkyDuck,FunkyChicken);
The FunkyDuck password will give you full admin permissions on your server.  The FunkyChicken password will give you Read Only permission.  These variables plus a windows program like
tricon2 or ezconsole, will allow you to admin remotely.  Setlogmode variable will start up a console.log file in your Gamedata directory.

The following 2 lines were used in Tribes 1.  I don't know if they work or not in Tribes 2.  They are here for reference.
$Host::TelnetPassword = "password";
$Host::TelnetPort = 2002;

Tribes2\GameData\UltraXL\scripts\autoexec\ServerDefaults.cs  -- This file contains the core server variables.  A lot of these can be found in your serverprefs.cs file, but it is best to leave serverprefs.cs alone and edit ServerDefaults.cs instead.  I won't go into detail about these variables, please visit http://www.t2dedserver.com instead.


MissionLoop from Tubaguy is included.  Some of Tubaguy's stuff can be found at the Tricon2 site.  It is pretty easy to set up...the format for $Host::Missionlist is "MissionNameNoSpaces\tShortMissionType\n".

Here's and example
$Host::Missionlist="IceHole\tCTF\nAirSupport\tCTF\nQuagmire_UltraXL\tCTF\nDesiccator_UltraXL\tCTF\nKatabatic\tCTF\nAirSupport\tCTF\nRauchen Verboten\tCTF\nWetWorld\tCTF\nDamnation\tCTF\nReversion_UltraXL\tCTF\nSanctuary\tCTF\nRiverdance\tCTF\nOceanFloor\tCTF\nCottonMouth\tCTF\n";

This mod contains the Enhanced CTF features.  Here is a quick rundown of the variables and what they do....

//Enhanced CTF variables, these will be included in the ServerDefaults.cs file.
$Host::CTFscoreLimitMultiplier = "1.5";
$Host::CapAtStand = 1;
$Host::OvertimeLimit = 5;
$Host::NumberOfOvertimes = 3;
$Host::SuddenDeath = 0;
$Host::ScoreFlagTouch = 1;

Here is the feature list with configuration tips:

1) Score counts down instead of up in the players GUI during the mission. The 
first team to reach zero or lower is the victor. When the mission is over, 
the final scoreboard is reverted back to total points scored by each team.

2) You can change the Cap limit using a multiplier. The variable for this is 
$Host::CTFscoreLimitMultiplier. If the value is greater than 5 or less than 0.5,
then $Host::CTFscoreLimitMultiplier is changed to 1.

3) Allow players to cap at the flag stand without their flag being home. To do this,
set $Host::CapAtStand to 1. In order for this to work, the map must have defined
FlagStand entities. Any other value other than 1 will default back to the old 
rules.

4) You can turn on/off the scoring award for touching the opposing teams flag. If 
$Host::ScoreFlagTouch = 1, then your team is awarded a point for touching
the enemy flag when it is at its base. Any other value will turn off this
feature.

5) Overtime is possible. The variable $Host::NumberOfOvertimes determines how many
overtimes will be run before giving up and declaring a tie. The variable 
$Host::OvertimeLimit is used to define how long each overtime period is in minutes.
If $Host::SuddenDeath is set to 1, then the next score of any kind in overtime wins.

6) If there are Capture and Hold Control Objects in the CTF mission, they will 
contribute to the scoring. Here is the scoring break down...

a)50 points for your team for initial touch, -50 points to the previous 
team that was in control.
b)Your team gets 1 point for each 2.5 seconds your team is in control of that 
point.
c)The game adds 200 points to the cap limit per capture point found on the 
mission.

One thing not covered by http://www.t2dedserver.com as of this writing is setting up your admin permissions for the following server variables. 
$Host::AdminList = "";
$Host::SuperAdminList = "";

The number needed is your GUID. What follows is the easiest method I know of to get your GUID. Start up a dedicated server and then join this server as a player.  Go back to the server and do a 

listplayers(); 

on the server console while connected. This gives you your temporary client ID number. Then enter 

echo(ID.guid);

where ID = your client ID number. This spits out your permanent GUID. Enter this into your admin variables like so:

$Host::AdminList = "12345";

where 12345 is your GUID.

If you get more admins, the format will be... 
$Host::superAdminList = "11111\t22222\t33333";

Note that the GUID separator is \t, not \n.

Contact

I can be reached at kmayer@planetquake.com.  For updates, go to Club Lard, or the soon to be opened, http://www.planettribes.com/ultraxl.