NS2 Combat Mode.

This mod is currently in 'limbo' until I get the chance to update it for the latest NS2 builds. This won't be happening for quite a while at my end but if anyone else is wanting to take it on please let me know and I'll be happy to hand down all my knowledge about the codebase

An attempt to make a "combat mode", a more arcade-style gameplay mod for NS2
Updated for build 169. I have been working on some prototype gameplay changes but have kept them out of the public release so far!

Download links
(Installer, EXE)
https://github.com/downloads/AlexHayton/NS2...6.9.0-Setup.exe
(ZIP, includes full source code)
https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mo...zipball/1.6.9.0

Features:
- Experience for both marines and aliens
- Get experience by killing enemies or assisting other players
- Gain ranks by killing enough enemies, and choose new skills as you level up!
- An armoury spawns instead of the commander chair at marine start. Aliens can't "use" their hive to become commander. Also there are no res nodes in use now, as all upgrades are governed by your rank. All players have infinite plasma.
- There is an upgrade menu (press the "sayings #2" key to get it). There's a slight pause if you buy one skill then another very quickly (tech tree is recalculating availability slowly).
- Marines can repair structures with the axe and both teams get XP for repairs.
- I've changed the ident at top-left so you know you're playing combat mode not vanilla!
- Servers running this mod will show up as "Combat" in the list.
- Modified version of Junction for combat mode (has power points and a minimap now).

If you want to test it locally, the best way to look at all the skills is to do "cheats 1" in the console, then "grantexperience 2000". This'll give you enough ranks to unlock everything.

To test with bots, use "om_servercommand addbots 2" to add 2 bots.

To do next sprint:
- Randomise team start locations
- Sounds

The sprint after...
- Look into alternative game modes (hold the res node?)
- Update tech tree (ONOS/MASCs?)
- More Balance!

No pun intended, but this project will evolve as the rest of the NS2 functionality is revealed...

Anyone up for helping me work on this please check out the github repository here:
https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode

I've also got a Pivotal Tracker project running now so that everyone can log and track issues:
https://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/211849#

Combat mode fractured the NS1 community and I believe greatly contributed to the sad state it is in now. It may have got more people interested in the game, but in doing so it took people away from playing the real game--the game with nigh endless re-playability due to the strong communities formed out of the intense amount of teamwork the game required

I'd much rather see a NS1 normal mode before any sort of combat mode

I was one of those who enjoyed both Combat mode and vanilla NS2 and played both regularly.

I feel that combat mode is like the "Rocket Arena" to vanilla mode's "Quake 3" - I found it very useful for honing my skills and joining games where I didn't have time to play a full 2 hour session.

Anyway I'll make a start on it and make the GitHub repository tonight - the hardest bit for is going to be writing the UI - I will have to learn Flash from scratch for this so if anyone has any pointers it'd be very useful!

I have to say the idea of creating both the old NS1-classic and combat gamemodes has interested me (I differ from the view that combat trashed the NS-community).

The way this should play out is that a fork of NS2 is made, from which the development of a NS-classic or combat mode is relatively easy. However, because NS2 is in such a premature state at the moment, now is not the time to start work on this. Just consider that only a build or 2 ago, the GUI functioned quite differently, you just can't create something meaningful under such turbulent circumstances. If you did, you'd end up doing work that the NS2-developers have already done or are planning on doing anyway, which would be an incredible waste of time.


This for example. The NS2-developers are in the process of stripping the game of most, if not all, flash components, for the sake of performance. Just imagine if you fork'd NS2 a couple of builds ago and dug into flash especially for this occasion...

The best idea at the moment, is to familiarize yourself with NS2's Lua-scripting as much as you can, and use that knowledge when the time's right...

Cheers for the advice! I played around with the pre-alpha build a bit, but haven't dipped in to see the new LUA functions that they've added since then.

I will take a look at the new LUA script interface before I go installing flash. I was thinking of adding a set of new .lua files for the additions to the UI at first (just an experience bar and a primitive interface for buying skills, once more of them become available). I should be possible to overlay this second UI on top of the existing NS2 one. The game logic can come later

I can hopefully keep merged with the main NS2 branch as I go along by adding it as a remote.

I have read a couple of the other threads about running non-vanilla versions. I will just be testing this on my own PC until the beta codebase becomes more stable (i.e. when we have tier 2/3 abilities and onos).

Oh, Combat!!...now this interests me greatly!

Maybe looking at the original extra levels Plugin could yield some interesting numbers to compare to for upgrades.

Anyways, I would be tempted to crank out a map or two or 3 for this after we see what the balance looks like.
I love combat maps because they can be multi-level adding more to level design.

If you get started i can make a generic 2 tech point map for testing the code.

I think someone should implement what combat should have been... a commander-less and res-less version of NS where you can learn the basics but not have any gameplay that is impossible in 'Classic'.

I would be interested in helping implement that, however anything that is even close to 'extra levels' version of combat, no thanks, not with a 200 foot pole.

NS2 doesn't really need combat mode because it's already action packed. THe devs did that deliberately right? They made maps smaller and focused on battles over rooms.

The whole concept of combat mode is to give it a FPS without the RTS factor. Don't get me wrong as i like the commander part that makes NS2 or for that matter NS1 what it is.

Playing NS1 or NS2 is always the same, When your team loses the first thing you think is if the comm would have givin' me ammo or if they would have had better strategy ...Combat takes that frustration away, If you suck you don't level and there is no one to blame to be blunt.

If i was hard core RTS/FPS then i would have never purchased any of the rainbow six series.

50% of my decision to purchase multiple copies of NS2 was the Mod Support and the hopes of Custom Combat even though i am pleased with the RTS side, variety is nice.


As far as content already provided and is planned, a bit to much i think and new players will be scared away,But combat is simple ...kill=bigger guns/harder hits. No need to take orders, build this,weld that,go here,do that. everyone just works together just like NS but no one is in control.

Now that that is out there, it still to this day perplexes me as to why when someone asks for help somebody else pops in to be negative. Please people stop being negative, half the post in these forums are negative and brings everyone down. No one says you have to play it.

I say to all interested lend a hand and make this happen, now that's positive.

I for one will host a CO server when this get done.

Not sure if you were @Psyke or me Mr. Wolf but I'd like to add to my comment.

I was simply saying that if combat were to be made and I were to work on it would want variable objectives given by the mod / map as a way of encouraging team work and making combat something of a training mode for classic. For the same reasons, I don't think being able to get every single upgrade all at once as you could on extra levels is helpful because it does not teach people how to play fade or onos, just teaches them how to play a super-powered one which they get back for free when they die.

If a mod team were being started with the objective of a fun FPS orientated version of NS2 which could act as a entry ramp for those unfamiliar with RTS aspects by removing some and automating others, then I'd would be interested in helping, however I wouldn't be interested in Death-Match mode of NS2 version of combat. There are very different design objectives.

I've no doubt Death-Match mode would be fun and lots of people would want to play it, I just wouldn't want to be involved in making it.

Any thoughts on this MCMLXXXIV?

Any ideas from the content already in? Maybe repairs to areas to light them (not power anything but lights). New pathways to be opened by repairing or breaking through would be a teamwork approach and with the way DI and onos are explained i could see this being feasible.

If i can trigger a cinematic with weld points i can see a power generator being welded back into operation by team 1 or destroyed by team 2. So many possibilities at this point and they are still adding content.


--And to answered your question. I was not directing at any individual, just pointing out that negativity brings everyone down. This game is going to be epic for everyone even if the particular modification doesn't suite all there will still be plenty of modifications to choose from within the first year of release and if anything we need to think positive and be thankful UWE has opened the door all the way for mods. (after thinking about that, i just purchased my 4th copy...lol..see be positive everyone!!)--

Well a simple objective might be take and hold an area to unlock the next task / challenge.

So, say first objective is to go a large set of cargo doors and the marines need for the to be only marines in a given area (say an area in front of the doors) for a total of 30 seconds, the quicker they achieve the objective the more 'experience' or points or res (or whatever the reward used to buy upgrades is) anyone that took part receives, conversely aliens might get a slow trickle of experience for as long as they hold them off.

You could have use / repair / weld points where marines would have to cover each other whilst performing the action (or maybe cover a MAC doing). It doesn't have to be one sided (or necessarily one at a time, although I would think you should keep automated objectives down to maybe two at most) you could have objectives for the aliens to take down power, or pre-placed res nodes.

Of course you wouldn't necessarily want there to be an objective to achieve at all times, might get a bit tiresome but you could always have some time where the object was simply 'hold out!' (aka don't die) or 'Cleanse the Intruders' (aka kill people).

All this would make it more of a cross been UT esque 'assault' and NS1 'combat'.

---

Something that always annoyed me about the original combat was being locked into your choices, it think would much preferable to unlock the choice of a lifeform, or a choice of a weapon but not be forced to use it for the rest of the game.

I believe that in Natural Selection 1, in "normal" NS maps, people often got frustrated by the learning curve the dependency on good commanding and high level of keeping a team focused. Therefore combat took over as a quicker/easier way to experience some of the other gameplay elements (mix of Equipment/Lifeforms/Mutations, Assymetric gameplay, etc.). Many semi-casual players like myself (at least the ones i talked to) sometimes felt they longed for something in between, taking the strengths of both CO and NS game modes (like building structures and using the resourcemodel, without being solely dependent on a commander). I present my proposed solution to this in another thread.

However, I think that any Mod recreating "Combat" in NS2 should stick to the core concept of what differed between NS and CO in NS1:

• One CC, One Hive, Cannot build any more structures.
• Players gain experience by killing enemies (possibly also damaging Hive/CC and healing teammates).
• Players convert experience towards purchases/upgrades.

If you want to create something closer to (for example) Assault in UT, or Deathmatch... why don't you call it something else than Combat?
Well, thats what I think anyways.

I love the idea of multiple objectives. Some kind of "King of the Hill" mode with a power node or two could work well - you wouldn't be able to camp as easily with no turrets!. I think the first thing is to get to work on the experience /skill system and the rest can follow.

@NeoGregorian I see what you mean, the version I was suggesting would maintain the three things you mentioned (which I agree were vital to how NS1: Combat worked). What I was going for, as I hinted in an earlier post, was a 'combat the way it should have been- that is taking the design objective of having a quick combat orientated mode (which the original did well) and also being able to act as an entry / tutorial for 'Classic' (which the original didn't do so well). Perhaps you are right though maybe that should be a different mod than the inevitable combat remake. Also your mod idea looks interesting I'll keep an I eye on it!

All that said I'll be waiting for a while yet before I start work on any NS2 Game-mode type mods, until they get a bit closer to locking down how NS2 is going to work (abilities, upgrades etc). I think starting work on a mod like that before UWE at the 'feature complete now we just need to balance' stage would involve a lot of duplication of work (which I can't afford the time for), so for now I think I'll be working on total conversation type mods (although probably heavily borrowing assets) and just getting a feel for Spark (promise to make a topic on this once I've got a working prototype).

Also king of the hill is always fun :).

changed my mind

NS2 is super moddable so saying combat mode isn't going to happen is just unrealistic.

Personally, I really enjoyed both combat mode and vanilla NS, so I'd love to see combat mode.

Because Combat is a concept familiar to players, but not (at least yet) supported by Unknown Worlds, the risk is rather that we will have so many different Combat modes with different features that the whole Combat-experience will become confusing.

Im not sure it is guaranteed to happen, but there is definitely a risk... For that very reason I urged people to use other names than 'Combat' for their mods if they bring new ideas into it.

I always considered NS to be FPS/RTS and CO to be FPS/RPG, and it was fun.

Made a remake should include some sort of questing system ;D

7/10 Skulk Teeth Forcibly removed.

PvP, not PvE

Im interested in seeing combat with extra levels and build menu eventually, even MvM (marine vs marine) and maybe AvA (alien vs alien) at some point as well.

I know some will dislike the idea of this but each to their own, options are always good and theres plenty of room for fun games that differ from the developers original design, though i do think they should include a standard combat mode on or soon after release as i know a lot of players prefer it.

I've made some progress with this now. I've put in an experience system and buying skills, I'm just working on an XP bar and a randomiser for the hive/cc placement (to make it a bit more interesting) and then I think we've got a playable version.

Would anyone like to help me "alpha" test it in early/mid Jan? I will push the source code to github once it's in a better state as well if anyone would like to help improve it.

Well that certainly sounds interesting. Did you fork NS2 or are you using event\function\method\variable-trickery to keep things build-independent?

I've forked the main lua tree - I'm using git to keep track of the mainline NS2 changes and merge them in as the builds get released (not many source files have changes at the moment - most of the work has been put into a set of new files like "Experience.lua", "GUIExperience.lua"). The main gameplay changes such as random hive/cc start allocation I have done by editing the main file so far, but I could fork most of the stuff out to seperate lua files if maintenance becomes a problem.

I will have to release a new build each time UWE do a release or things like the scoreboard and global balance overrides (e.g. stronger armouries and IPs) might break. Git makes this pretty straightforward though!

Count me in for alpha testing and to mirror each build if needed. I would love to see what it's leaning towards to start a level layout for it. :)

This.

Dont kill NS2 like you did NS1.

It's just a mod. Chill.

The difference is that this time people are buying into NS2 before they even touch this mod. I'm sure that if they can make the barriers to entry a bit lower (make a tutorial for the commander and an optional noob shield for marine start!) that you'll have a healthy vanilla crowd too.

The only reason I bought half life was to get NS1, the sole reason for purchasing NS2 was based on my interest in mods, combat especially.

Has anybody started allready to make a Combat Mod?

Yes. The person who made this thread.

Why do you want NS2 to die?

I ask you, why do you want to kill something that has yet to really live?

You're a baby killer, why do you kill babies? Are you that sick, twisted? You should be locked up for the crimes you wish to bring upon NS2.

Combat completely ruined NS1, to find a Vanilla NS1 game is damn near impossible these days, it's all Combat, and Combat is just GENERIC FPS, so I see no reason to play it over other FPS.

NS without RTS = generic FPS.

So you're saying people like Combat more than vanilla NS1, and more people play Combat, therefore it "ruined" NS1 by making it more fun and popular?

This elephant's been in the room for quite a while, so I'm just going ahead and point it out: you're trying to MAKE people play a mode they don't like. It would seem a lot of players weren't having their share of the fun in classic-mode, and with the coming of combat they saw a chance to go out play something they find more enjoyable. Consequently the classic-mode declined in terms of player-base, which is unfortunate, but trying to blame another game-mode for that is silly. In the end you're better off as you're now playing with people that have chosen classic above combat and thus are more likely to put in more of an effort to properly play the game. Forcing players back into classic just to boost the player-base isn't fun for anyone.

Im splited...first i hate combat because the classic server were less and less...but on the otherside, combat was very fun too.
But it was very short, i realy don't know, i love classic and have a hate/love with combat mode...

Hi all,

Just a quick update. Sorry for the hiatus on this - I haven't had much time to work on it since Xmas but I've got a two week sprint starting now. Current status is:

- Having trouble getting the UI working (this has sunk a few hours now)
- Common UI for marines/aliens, just a different texture/colour set at the moment. Broken right now!
- Players can get experience by shooting stuff. There are ranks, you go up a rank when you get enough xp.
- Experience for nearby teammates is implemented
- XP is showing on the scoreboard
- An armoury spawns instead of the commander chair at marine start.

To do this sprint:
- Fix UI bugs
- Implement Upgrades on a player-by-player basis rather than by team.
- Implement an upgrade menu
- Chang the ident at top-left so you know you're playing combat mode not vanilla!

To do next sprint:
- Performance tweaks (network mainly - this is where I'll need some help!)
- Randomise spawn locations

I can't get anything with a background to draw properly. For now it's just a text interface, but the game mechanics are unaffected and seem to work ok.

Performance looks good at the moment (using bots to test) but I think I'll do some optimisations once the UI is in place. The main thing I'm worried about is the number of updates (you and the people around you currently get experience every time you damage an enemy player or structure - I think I may need to move this to a kills/assists model if it struggles).

I've just merged the 161 build code in (only one collision with my code, v. nice) so at the moment I'm thinking I'll be able to do some kind of 'pre-alpha version' checkin next week, in case anyone wants to look through the code. I'll also start a pivotal tracker for my own purposes and put the link here.

Oh btw I just realised that people could start making maps for this. At the moment it's all done with the regular NS2 entities so if it works in vanilla it should work here.

At the moment I am trying to test in a crappy box room map that has basic spawn entities and a power node. It doesn't work very well so I am also using rockdown (this works alright - at the moment I haven't needed any custom entities added)

I am assuming the maps will only need 2 tech points (team start tech) and no resources. The best part of combat for maps = level over level!!

I have a project i abandoned way back from early alpha that may work well with some tweaking....well.....at least as a starter testing level.

So every bullet hit will send a packet to a bunch of ppl? That's a terrible idea. You need to switch over to an assist model. Do you have a public code repo set up anywhere?

Wouldn't it be better to record damage dealt by each player to an enemy player? Then apply experience based on the proportion of damage dealt by each player once the kill is made.

That's what I mean by an assist model. If he pushes his code to a public repo, I'll look into adding this feature (among other contributions)

Yeah, other than the performance hit, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me to gain experience based only on damage dealt, without actually necessarily killing. Mostly because that's just what I'm used to in every RPG and derivative, but also because it seems right logically.

I'd also like to have a look at the code, and possibly contribute.

Thanks for the feedback! I think you are right - we'll have to go with the kills/assists model for performance purposes.

I think the best way to do this is with a table of "damagers" on the server-side Player object. When any damage is taken, record who did it and then award experience accordingly when that player dies.

At the moment I am working on the GUI stuff so if anyone else wants to look at the exp model and/or balance that would be cool (the scoreboard does indicate exp rising and there is a crappy text-based gui at the moment).

In the NS1 combat mode, you got experience for kills, assists and also for each time you damage any buildings (power nodes/hives/armoury/ip), so I think this model can replicate that quite easily. Also in NS1 you got experience just for being nearby someone on your team who makes a kill.

I'll just tidy up my code tree then publish it on github with additional details.

Hi all,

I have committed the source code into a git tree at GitHub, so you should be able to fork, make additions etc and generally play around.
I'm keeping the "origin" branch at the moment. Also I'm using the "ns2" branch to help me merge changes as the UWE team go from build to build.
https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mode

Unfortunately, it seems that the change log got blown away when I did the merge into "origin", so you can see the detail of my changes from day to day here:
https://github.com/AlexHayton/NS2-Combat-Mo...commits/ahtest2

FYI, I've also made a pivotal tracker entry for this:

https://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/211849#

Looking forward to this! I would offer to help but i'm afraid i would just slow you down so i'm only going to offer a generic small co style map for testing.

I should have a 90% complete level by weeks end. I'll push the level file to you when your ready.

Edit: "add Image"

I plan on contributing to this but I want to wait until the game is more in its final form towards the end of the beta. They are still redoing a lot of things in both the lua code and the engine.

Level looks very cool wolf. It'll be interesting to see how the level designs differ when there's no commanders on either team. Do you have the alien egg spawn points and hive/marine start tech points on there? I think they'll still be necessary for the game to work until I sort the randomisation out.

@Camron: Yes I agree - at the moment I am concentrating on things that won't clash with changes elsewhere in the game code - I'm only putting in hooks at the moment where I'm reasonably certain there won't be structural changes. Because we've got class-based inheritance, to be honest I think most of the Combat Mode logic can be added by extending the existing classes and adding new ones. We'll see how it goes (so far still hamstrung by GUI issues).

For now my hacks seem to work fine (merged with Build 162 with only one easy-to-resolve code collision). Guess I should start a new sprint this week.

Some good progress this week. I finally solved the UI problems. Some screens:

If anyone wants to test it, I've uploaded a version you can play with. See the start of the thread for details

Armory where the comm chair should go

NS2 2011-01-28 01-08-38-87 by MCMLXXXIV1, on Flickr

Look ma, no resource towers!

NS2 2011-01-28 01-09-38-64 by MCMLXXXIV1, on Flickr

Hitting the hive and testing the XP bar

NS2 2011-01-28 01-10-49-02 by MCMLXXXIV1, on Flickr

Alien HUD

NS2 2011-01-28 01-12-07-07 by MCMLXXXIV1, on Flickr