Date: August 17th, 2009
Map Link: 4MP r13-map.7z (1MB)
Source Code Link: 4MP r13-source.7z (46MB)

This map has no ZE changes. It is a default c_con world. What is different is that there are four teams to choose from. The Conquest mode was quickly and manually coded. Consider it a 5 minute deathmatch. Below is the status of multi-team support.

One thing you must understand is that a human player is always on team 1 or team 2 (the main teams). It is only possible for us to change the team of a player's ingame unit and not that of his character. Because of this, all humans must spawn from unit classes on the main teams. Each 3+ team is linked back to a main team. Selecting a 3+ team puts a player's character on a main team and moves his ingame unit to the 3+ team each time the player respawns.

Working:
* I hid the auto-assign button so I wouldn't have to deal with randomly picking teams.
* Easy multi-team setup by modders (very similar to SetupTeams)
* When spawned, your unit is moved to the correct team
* Extra team buttons on the side selection screen

Issues/Problems - Possible solution:
* The max amount of extra teams is limited by button space, amount of local teams, and the fact that there is only a pool of 20 human spawnable units.
* Team stats are only displayed for two teams. - It is possible to rewrite the stats screen to support the extra teams, but Zerted doesn't have time to do it (school in Sept.)
* Since your character is always on teams 1 or 2, you can only select CPs from that team - Forced spawning could solve this, but then you couldn't select a CP
* Award heroes would be selectable by any 3+ team linked to the hero's main team. Thus award heroes cannot be limited to a single 3+ team.
* Killing a unit from a 3+ team linked to your 3+ team's main team is a TK. - Could manually give out double standard points to those who TK units on other teams
* Once the 999 point limited is reached, one can choose any unit/team. - Auto-kill player if spawns as a unit from a different team.
* The 3+ teams show their main team's first unit when hovering over the team button in the side select screen.
* Official swbf2 objectives are designed for two teams. Modders will have to manually do all the mode scripting.
* Things dropped are on the player's main team not his unit's team. Thus turrets and mines might attack you.
* In MP, the host can choose any unit/team. - Auto-kill player if spawns as a unit from a different team.
* Downloads don't include readmes or any instructions
* Side select buttons are not in their expected order.

Untested:
* MP play with multiple human players. I would like to test this with at least four players online. Can we come up with a time to meet online. Say 8pm EST on Tuesday?
* Amount of buttons displayable on the side select screen (ifs_sideselect.lua).

Found more issues? Have suggestions?

Great work Zerted! I'd be happy to play online if you want. I'm testing now! Once again awesome job!

Par3210 wrote:Great work Zerted! I'd be happy to play online if you want. I'm testing now! Once again awesome job!

I'm too.
I must say... GOOD work.

The layout was good although I could not spawn as any unit but the Clone Sharpshooter and the Imperial Sniper when spawned. Turrets did attack me, and I found that people on my own team were attacking me (Clone commander attacked me as a clone sniper)

That's awesome!

The only big problem seems to me the matter of your enemies counting as TK's. It's still cool though .

Mighty fine accomplishment. Good job, Zerted.

Issues/Problems
* A unit from a 3+ team can spawn at the main team's CP as well.
* A human from a 3+ team can only spawn at the main team's CP.
* For a 3+ team, the CP that appears blue is the main team's CP, though humans on a 3+ team can rightfully only enter their CP (that appears red).

What files do I need to download in order for the map to work??

Just download the map: Direct Link. It is a .7z archive so you need something that can open it. 7z or WinRAR both work. Extract it into your game's addon folder.

Is anyone interested in using 3+ teams with all of its issues? They aren't a big deal if you manually write all your scripts and do a non-standard mode, but I don't think too many maps are written that way. I'm working on the multiteam script at the expense of a generic Wave mode.

It was easier to add multi-team 'support' then I had expected. If you look at Common/multiteam.lua from the map's source code, it is only around 400 lines long including comments and white space. Most/all of my game mode scripts are longer then that.

The script injects code into a bunch of different function calls. This keeps everything cleanly inside one file instead of spread throughout some ifs_ scripts. You only need to do add multiteam to mission.req, add ScriptCB_DoFile('multiteam.lua'), create one SetupTeam like table, and add one other function call to get it working with a map.

Oh, I should mention thanks to Maveritchell for reminding me about unlock points. It has been too long since I've played swbf2.

[RDH]Zerted wrote:This keeps everything cleanly inside one file instead of spread throughout some ifs_ scripts. You only need to do add multiteam to mission.req, add ScriptCB_DoFile('multiteam.lua'), create one SetupTeam like table, and add one other function call to get it working with a map.

So any changes you made to ifs_readyselect and ifs_sideselect are obsolete?

I'm not sure what you mean. What changes are you referring to? Also, I'm not really sure what ifs_readyselect is used for. ifs_sideselect is the side/team selection screen and ifs_pc_spawnselect is the unit selection screen. Non-PC users use ifs_charselect.

The v1.3 patch isn't required, though I wasn't testing without it. I did forget to mention that v1.3's way of changing the side selection button labels won't work with multiteams. However, multiteam.lua lets you change them anyway. It won't matter unless you try to use both on the same map and even then the v1.3's custom buttons will just simply be hidden. Nothing should break.

I just remembered about v1.3's sideselect shortcut keys. Using one of those would cause problems. I'll have to fix that...