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Legacy:Mapping For MCTF

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The Multi-Team CTF Mods Available

There are currently 3 multi-team CTF mods available for Unreal Tournament. These are Multi-CTF aka MCTF (CTFM maps), CTF4 (CTF4 maps), and CTF+ (CTF maps).

CTF+

This mod was originally a multi-team CTF mod which later included support for a single flag mode. Teams are selected based upon the number of FlagBase objects on the map so maps with two, three, and four teams could be used within the same map rotation. The mod contains support for up to four FlagBases, and multiple flags of the same colour. There are other options but I forget what they are now and I'm pretty certain that the later revisions of both CTF4 and MCTF contained all of the CTF+ features (with the possible exception of dynamic teams).

MCTF

This mod started out as a Last Team Standing variant of CTF with support for 4 teams. As far as I know this is the only one of the three mods that has support for additional events and triggers. The mod has a somewhat odd extra-time feature, support for one flag mode, and a massive number of variations on handling a team getting out and "crazy options" like being able to pick up your own flag or translocate with the flag.

CTF4

This mod started out as purely a mutli-team CTF mod with the ability to set the number of teams, with any flags without an owning team being removed from the game. It now supports a host of other features (like Last Team Standing etc). CTF4 also has a large variety of scoring systems including combinations of certain systems.

Multi-Team Mapping

Apart from the additional FlagBases on the map multi-team CTF is mapped in a very similar way to CTF. As far as I know CTF4 is the only one of the three mods that implements proper alternate pathing. Rather than set the AlternatePath Team property to the "owning team" it should be set to the team that the AlternatePath travels to.

The Team property of FlagBase objects on the map should be set as follows:

  • 0 - Red
  • 1 - Blue
  • 2 - Green
  • 3 - Gold

You should use the following filename prefixes for your Multi-team CTF maps:

  • CTFM - The map contains events and triggers specific to MCTF, and has two, three, or four flag bases, although four is encouraged.
  • CTF3 - The map contains no MCTF specific map features and has three flag bases.
  • CTF4 - The map contains no MCTF specific map features and has four flag bases.

^ that should be made alot clearer.

How's that? Not sure what you need adding. – EntropicLqd
I suppose that does it. The difference between "has only four bases" and "has four bases" wasn't clear. —Mychaeel
Birelli: Actually, CTFM maps can have any number of bases, as long as there is more than one (i.e. "multiple" flag bases). Check out Spoon's CTFM-Obsession for an example of a CTFM map that has three teams. MCTF has full support for different numbers of teams, and does have extra-time (it's just a tad odd because of the reverse-scoring method that MCTF has (you get a point for being scored on, so when there is only one team remaining with the least number of points they win). – I'm changing stuff above to reflect what I just said here.
EntropicLqd: That's fine. I wrote the MCTF and CTF4 stuff from memory based upon my last experiences with it. Both mods have obviously moved on. Ironically, it was these mods that really hammered home the point that more configurable features are not necessarily better. Although (possibly) more fun for the single home user – it reduces the chance of a server being started. I'll get around to removing this discussion at some point.
Birelli: Yeah, I agree. More than the competition between the mods, the fact that both mods have competed agressively to have more features, more options, more replayability in botmatches has made this entire concept go down the drains with, as far as I know, 0 players online at any one point. It'd be nice to see one combined mod in UT2003. The problem is that there are serious differences in these mods. CTF4 is very offense-oriented, you must cap to win. MultiCTF is extremely defense-oriented, you can win having never seen more than the corridors leading off of your flag room and never seeing another player, for that matter, although as you defend better other teams' bots tend to attack you more.
EntropicLqd: One of the biggest factors for me freezing the development of the CTF+ mod was the fact that there were other multi-team CTF mods and the community really didn't need an additional one. It was a sad decision to make, but as I mention elsewhere, you need a lot of players to make 4 team CTF viable. Three team works better but it was the single flag mode that really worked well - much better than I ever though it would in fact.
Birelli: Ah, I didn't realize you developed CTF+, I come from the perspective of running MultiLab with Ciggie and SpoonDog, we're kind of keeping the shattered and virtually non-existent MCTF community alive you could say ;-). I love the CTF+ idea of just making as many teams as there are colors of flag in the game, Wyzard hasn't done anything in the way of even a map update himself since February and I know Excessive was willing to here talk of merging CTF4 and MCTF, so maybe UT2003 can have one united mod :-).
EntropicLqd: In terms of merging the CTF4 and MCTF code good luck. We already tried to merge the CTF+, MCTF, and CTF4 code bases together but it never happened for a variety of reasons - the only visible result of the attempt was David Catmull's flag mutator. For UT2003 I'll be doing a single flag CTF mod only, which should leave MCTF and CTF4 as the only multi-team CTF mods around. As for the CTF+ idea of making as many teams as there are flags - you can thank the Germans for that. A group of them specifically requested support for 3 team maps, and that was the only sensible way to add support for them. Not that they ever made any maps. MCTF is more than welcome to steal the code that dynamically alters the number of teams (I could probably dig out the specifics if you wanted). But hey - maybe a feature for MCTF-UT2003. I can't help thinking that there will be less support for multiple teams in UT2003 though.

I have seen people set the DefaultGameType property of the LevelInfo object to the specific mod they used to make the map. I would discourage this practice as it restricts the portability of the map between the multi-team CTF mods. Say I've downloaded CTF4-Lucius, this has a default gametype of CTF4. If I only have CTF+ installed on my machine I will be unable to play the map - even though CTF+ will run the map without problems.

In terms of actually building multi-team CTF maps, it's worth bearing the following things in mind.

  • It's worth keeping the maps fairly small. Typically there will be fewer than 4 players on each of the teams so on large maps the action can drag a little.
  • Make sure that all bases are equidistant from each other (the same distance apart).
  • If you are building a map specifically for the single flag mode, then make sure the bases are hard to defend and the middle area reasonable clear and open. The aim is for the flag to spend more time in the middle of the map than at a team's FlagBase.

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