(from the original ReadMe.txt)
Well, I (
One day he told me he liked the game "OutLaw" and the "Kill the Chicken" gaming mode as a fun alternative from time to time to normal deathmatch against players. He thought he might like a "kill the pupae"-sort of game for Unreal, as that would be the closest to "Kill the Chicken"...
Actually I thought this can't be so difficult to achieve... LOL
Hmm... well the basic mod was done in just 3 days, and no I did not need the
rest of the 3 weeks to debug it, but to add countless details and features to
it which had not really anything to do with the mod itself
So what is this now? Well, basically, THIS IS THE ULTIMATE MONSTER SLAUGHTER FOR UNREAL.
Once active, MonsterMash will continually spawn in monsters of your choice in random locations in the map. They are very aggressive and eager to kill any player (or bot) wandering around. This is meant for players to cooperate on killing the monsters instead of shooting each other, but you have to aim very well not to do too much accidental damage to your comrades.
Since V2.10: Depending on how much time has passed in the game, difficulty will slightly increase, by giving monsters more and more a little edge, they may receive regeneration or shields for free.
(The following passage is no longer relevant)
All of you who do not like the "normal" Unreal, but play mods such as "Infiltration" or "Serpentine" should jump on to Section V right now to see how your mod is supported by MonsterMash. In brief, MonsterMash is a game-mode independent modification which theoretically allows you to play it in ANY game mode together with ANY other modification in existance. Some other mods are recognized by MonsterMash and directly supported. Not directly supported mods can still be used, though, and if you want to make MonsterMash support any special non-standard items, just turn off the dynamic features of it and enter the specifications of your items (or non-standard monsters...).
!! WARNING !!
MonsterMash is a !VERY! CPU costly modification. A P133 dedicated server is
already maxed out with 3 bots and 40 SMALL monsters!! If you run the server
on the same machine as you play, you will notice a massive decrease of
performance as soon as a certain number of monsters/bots is exceeded.
Also, playing this mod over the (inter)net requires a good connection.
MODEM is not enough, single-ISDN will hardly do, cable is recommended! It is
not a server problem, but with so many objects being created and destroyed,
the overload of net traffic will lag out modems and even some ISDN
connections. Okay, just wanted to let you know
MonsterMash was originally a stand-alone mod which was only turned into a game-mode after UTF-9b. This explains some of the remarks about compatibility or lack thereof from the original readme from which the rest of this page is taken.
The only "publicized" MonsterMash versions are...
I do not really know who came up with the first 'Monster' shooting type of DM or Teamgame on maps that are normally NOT played cooperatively on. It was DEFINITELY not Epic Megagames, their Assault-Mode in ut2k3/4 was made AFTER MonsterMash. MonsterMash itself is not the first Monster-slaying game either. I personally saw a mod called Monster Pump Shit in Unreal Tournament Tactical Operations. This did NOT inspire me to do MonsterMash, I had the idea already before, but I saw it before I began writing on it and it gave me some visual impressions.
Running is no longer like issuing the "GO" command. The mutator does it all basically, spawning monsters until the game has ended. However, if Tournament Mode is UT_Style or Real Tournament, spawning is delayed until the game starts.
During game, players get an additional stats display on their HUDs, as displayed here:
The first line informs the player, how many players currently are playing and how many bots, the 2nd shows the current number of monsters on the map and the (rough) maximum that can be there. The last line is a decimal representation of the spawn speed as percentage of the total maximum (basically the higher, the faster killed monsters will be replaced with new ones).
GOAL OF THE GAME
Kill as many monsters as fast as you can, and by all means - avoid killing friendly players or bots! If you shoot other players, your score will be reduced more or less greatly, depending on their level of upgrades when they die. If you kill a bot or player with added health and 10 or more weapon upgrades, you can easily lose 3000 points!
Upgrades? What upgrades??
Oh yes, you don't just get points for killing monsters, from time to time you will also find other special items lying around or being dropped by killed monsters.
Regeneration: This item is a special version of the normal Regeneration Item that comes with UTF and looks like green health. When you pick it up, it automatically activates and regenerates lost health slowly. You can pick up more than one and every time you do, you will notice that lost health is restored faster and you may even gain a little boost over your maximum health!
Upgrade Pickup (lower left corner): Commonly known as Blue Balls, these items are magical in nature and the effect they have on the person picking it up varies, depending on the weapon you are carrying when picking it up!
Except for the Dispersion Pistol, all normal weapons can be upgraded multiple times using blue balls. If you pick up a ball having the Dispersion Pistol or having a gun which is already maxed out and fully upgraded, you get different upgrades that are not added to the weapon you carry.
Weapon Upgrades
If you use a normal weapon picking up a ball (except Dispersion), an upgrade will be added to it, unless the weapon is already upgraded to the maximum (maxed out). The weapon will turn WHITE (greyish in UT when playing online) to indicate it is an upgraded weapon. Also, the weapon name will be changed, and plus signs will be added, one per upgrade. So, a Stinger with 2 upgrades will become a Stinger++.
Upgrades usually have 2 effects: they enhance the firepower of the weapon, either by increasing hitdamage or firing speed, and they will also increase ammo consuption of the weapon. Be warned, a fully upgraded minigun will take about one millisecond with your trigger finger and all 200 bullets are gone!
Specific upgrades:
Dispersion Pistol / Random upgrades
As already said, the Dispersion Pistol cannot be upgraded, so picking up a ball with it results (usually) in a non-weapon upgrade. These upgrades are sometimes PERMANENT as opposed to weapon upgrades that stick with the weapon and may become lost to you if you die and drop the gun. Random upgrades may be:
Some pointers on upgrade distribution:
You are strongly advised to select each and every time you come across a blue ball how to spend it! If you just keep using your favorite gun all the time and keep walking over blue balls, you will soon find the gun unusable because of outrageous ammo consumption.
The FIRST upgrade for each weapon has NO EFFECT on its ammo consumption. Every upgrade after the first, however, does! Keep that in mind and consider splitting your upgrades, and don't forget to switch to the Dispersion Pistol often when picking up a ball to get some permanent upgrades and weapon ammo consumption reductions. Without extra ammo and/or ammo consumption reduction, upgrading one weapon very high is near to pointless.
Picking up upgraded weapons lying around: If you pick up an already enhanced gun although you already have the weapon, you will get whatever upgrades the new gun has, including damage bonus, ammo cost reduction and extra ammo. So basically, you can't do yourself much harm picking one up because the gun you have in the end is whatever gun was better - or even a mixed better gun, for example if the new gun had a better ammo cost reduction but fewer damage upgrades you end up having a gun with your damage upgrades you already had in addition to the ammo cost reduction of the new gun.
The total settings has been changed over from being stand-alone over game-mode settings. Now it has become a mutator and settings are (hopefully) reduced to the minimal requirements (back to its stand-alone form).
MM Mutator Settings UTF_MM settings only, others are known standard overrides |
||
---|---|---|
Setting | Effect | Default |
AmmoTypes | This list contains all ammo types (Unreal classes) which are spawned as "extra ammo" in the game. | Classic Ammo -or- blank |
AmmoTypes_ DYNAMIC |
Dynamic Feature. If true, MM will look at the existing guns
and extract their ammo classes to build the AmmoTypes list.
Originally, this feature was looking at the class name of a weapon and then adding what ammo class belonged to it. This reduced the feature to only being able to add ammo from known weapons. However, weapons do have an ammo type setting on their own. If weapons have this set up properly, this feature will read it out and make use of it directly, rather than trying to interpret the class name. Thus, the feature should now work with ALL guns of any mods. It still has extra support for the MMAkimboMag since Multi-Ammo-Type weapons cannot be accomodated by a single ammotype class description. |
True |
AmmoTypes_ DYNAMIC_ ExtraSettings [MMAkimboSettings] |
The Multimag Akimbo has 4 different ammo types. Armor Piercing, High Explosives, Shotgun and Standard. Here you can switch every single one of them on (=true) or off (=false) should you use the MMAkimbo as custom weapon mod on your server. | All True |
AmpMultiplier | All Amplifier charges will be multiplied with this value (if not zero). | 4.0 |
BlueBallsChance | A rough chance indicator when monsters drop a blue ball when dying. Blue balls are magic upgrades... What exactly they do depends on what weapon you hold and other circumstances... go pick up lots! | 0.2 |
Debug | Well... if you turn this on you will put a lot of extra garbage into your serverlog, quite useless unless you are actually in the process of programming with the mutator. | False |
HaltSpawning | used for debugging or testing settings. If true, no monsters will be spawned, but existing monsters will remain on the map. Please note that "GiantGasBags" can spawn normal Gasbags on their own, this can of course NOT be halted... | False |
KillRewards | Some options affecting the way and extent of your reward for
killing critters (aside from score...)
|
Ammo Health Spree at 0.0 |
MonsterDifficulty | Can be set to harmless, normal and
aggressive The harmless setting often makes monsters ignore players, sometimes even when shot at. Still if you start a fight, you will get some shots back. Monster skill level is 0. This playing mode is intended for babys at the age of 3 trying to figure out where the trigger is or grannys that have lived past their glorious fighting careers... The normal setting is an "average" where monsters already go on active lookout for enemies, but their skill and motivation is not enough to pose too much trouble. One last note, in aggressive mode, monsters also do get rewards for killing players and other monsters, such as shields and regeneration abilities, which -CAN- cumulate! So a titan that keeps killing critters and people may at some point become very difficult to defeat. aggressive is what you should play really!! |
aggressive |
MonsterHealth | AllMonstersSameHealth If true, all monsters spawned receive the same amount of health, specify the option AllMonstersThisHealth to set the amount of health you want all critters to have. AllMonstersThisHealth (see above) MonsterHealthFactor If AllMonstersSameHealth is off and this is not the same as ONE (1.0), all monsters will have their health multiplied with this factor. |
all critters defaults |
MonsterMass Adjustment |
This is a new feature since version 15e and still a
bit experimental. When set to true, MonsterMash will try to
adjust the maximum amount of monsters during a running game
(if difficulty is normal or higher) depending on how players
and monsters perform. For example, if players keep the monsters below a certain number at all times, MonsterMash will assume it is too easy and spawn more monsters. Before changing the total number of allowed monsters, the spawn speed is modified only, but if it is not enough, the max number of monsters can increase or decrease (within 10 to 100 only). THIS FEATURE IS MEANT TO WORK WITH THE "DEFAULT" MIXTURE OF MONSTERS, it may work badly for other settings such as "Pupae only"... as a whole the feature is highly unpredictable! |
False |
Scoring | KillSpreeBonus will give constant scoring bonuses for
kills when keeping a killing spree over an extended period of time.
PunishPlayerKillScore is the amount of score deducted from a player when killing another player. Suicides will cost a player 25% of this amount also! |
True 200 |
SpawnArmor | The number of additional armor items to spawn on the map played. Armor items are armor, all suits and belts for classic unreal. | 6 |
SpawnArmor_ DYNAMIC |
Dynamic Feature: same as the corresponding ammo-dynamic feature - if true, MM tries to look what mods are running and spawn armor of those mods instead of original Unreal Classic armor types. The feature may be a bit buggy, but mutation will also replace any remaining original armor spawned likely if the running mods demand that... | True |
SpawnArmor_LIST | Contains the list of armor types to spawn. If you want your custom armor types to be spawned, you will have to turn the dynamic feature SpawnArmor_DYNAMIC off and put your armor classes in here. | Classic Unreal armor |
SpawnBigBoysWhenScoreExceeds | If this setting is greater than 0, MonsterMash will count the total score all players accumulate together. If this total score is LOWER than this setting, no monster will be spawned that has a default health of equal or greater than this setting. Effectively, this makes certain no big boys appear for a while unless people have killed enough and geared up a bit... | 600 |
SpawnExtraAmmo | How much extra ammo to spawn, a number of presets ONCE_[something] are static preset values (such as 10, 20, 50...) RELATIVE_[something] - On relative settings, MonsterMash tries to find out how big a map is and how much additional ammo may be needed to fit in the map for play. The mathematical functions to determine the values for maps are not very reliable though, and maps can be totally misjudged... (the tech crap at the end of the original readme is NOT included here) custom allows you to EXACTLY tell MonsterMash how many ammo pickups to spawn (see SpawnExtraAmmo_Custom_INTEGER. |
custom |
SpawnExtra Ammo_Custom_ INTEGER |
If you selected custom above, this is where to place your exact number of wanted pickups for ammo! | 12 |
SpawnExtras | The number of arbitrary "extra" items to spawn. | 5 |
SpawnExtras_ DYNAMIC |
Dynamic Feature: as for armor and ammo, MonsterMash can be
instructed to generate a list of available extra items to spawn
extra items from on its own. Again this depends on what mods are
running at the time. Extra items are such things as Voiceboxes, Dampeners, Amplifiers, JumpBoots, Flares, Searchlights etc... higher values may be in order on modded environments (e.g. Infiltration) if you like a lot of Proxy mines - although that would likely only get you a lot of teamkills... so find out yourself :P |
True |
SpawnExtras_LIST | contains all items handled as "extras" - stuff you dont't classify into categories - non-standard equipment... as always, class specifiers are used. | - |
SpawnHealth | Number of health items to spawn... | 6 |
SpawnHealth_ DYNAMIC |
Dynamic Feature: again, MM tries to look what mods are running and adjust health related items accordingly into the SpawnHealth_LIST. Health items are such things as Bandages, SuperHealth, Seeds(!) etc... | True |
SpawnHealth_LIST | Class list with health items to spawn... | - |
SpawnMaxAmount | Controls the MAXIMUM number of MONSTERS to spawn. Either pick a preset or select custom to specify the exact number of maximum monsters into SpawnMaxAmount_Custom_INTEGER (next option). | OO |
SpawnMaxAmount_ Custom_ INTEGER |
You may define an exact maximum of monsters to spawn at the same time. The total number of monsters on the map should not exceed this number... but it may happen because of bad events (such as spawn failures into walls, Critter destroyed from life expectancy resulting in number miscounts etc etc...). A cyclic monster count is done in regular intervals in ADDITION to the normal monster spawned and destroyed detection during game, however, the numbers are not always 100% accurate so both the seen number of monsters may be wrong and therefor the set maximum is only an approximation. | 30 |
SpawnMonster AwayFrom PlayerRadius |
A radius in UUnits which tells MonsterMash to NOT spawn
a monster at a location if any player is this close or closer
to that location. This avoids monsters popping right onto your
head Please note that if the number is too large, more players will make the overall space left for monsters to spawn at very limited, resulting in fewer and fewer spawns. If this happens, you will find only very few to no monsters on the map. Then it's time to get rid of some players or switch to a larger map - or decrease this value! For example. DeathFan is completely unplayable with this setting because the map is so small that 2 players alone will always be in "range" of spawn locations of that radius. One of my personal favorite maps to play MM on is "DM-Twilight". When picking MM maps, you should select in that region of map size (just a suggestion though). |
1100 |
SpawnMonsters | The monster list (class names) for MM to spawn critters
from. You can use commands (see below) to add monsters during
game. For custom monsters, you should edit these settings
manually. Make sure you are precise in your class names,
one typo will result in continuous spawn failures so check logs
after setting up and doing a testplay!! 2 new features are the singular class isntance limiter and the swarm spawner. Even though you may have different monsters in your list, you may choose to only have a certain maximum of ONE PARTICULAR TYPE. In addition, you may want to have certain types of monsters spawn only in bunches rather than a single monster at a time... Which monster actually IS spawned is picked at random out of the list. The formula is: [CLASS] [LIMIT] [SWARM] Here are some valid example entries: UnrealShare.Fly 99 15 UnrealI.SkaarjSniper 3 UnrealI.Titan 1 You probably already guessed what this does. The class descriptor must be precise with Package Name and class name delimited by a full stop - then you MAY add a space and a number which indicates the maximum INSTANCES of this monster class to be spawned. If you do NOT add a number (or a negative one which is invalid), a positive 9999 will be assumed. Generally large values over 99 are considered "no limit" although of course in theory 99 is a limit too... The second number is assumed to be 1 by default, which is the standard for all. If you specify this 2nd number, MM will always try to spawn as many monsters at once as you specifiied in the swarm size. NOTE: Swarm spawns may and likely WILL force the engine to exceed your maximum amount of allowed monsters, so you are advised to use the feature with some restraint and not on any large and extremely dangerous critters - unless you WANT to be punished These 3 particular examples would mean, that a game with these 3 entries would have LOTS of flies, a maximum of 3 SkaarjSnipers at all times and a SINGLE Titan at maximum standing around somewhere. |
Preset Default classic mix |
SpawnSpeed | This controls how fast the maximum amount of monsters should
be reached. Roughly each 3.2 seconds, MonsterMash will try to add
monsters. It looks up how many are already there and uses a percentage
of the missing ones to fill the level. So within the first 10 seconds,
a lot of monsters will spawn. The more full a level is, the slower
additional monsters come in. If the maximum is reached, no additional
monsters come (some monsters spawn monsters of their own, then max can
be exceeded... aside from counting malfunctions...). Either use one of the (static) presets, or choose custom to set a percentage yourself. |
custom |
SpawnSpeed_ Custom_ FLOAT |
If above setting is "custom", this value is used
as SpawnSpeed (SSPeed / perc). For example "0.1" would be 10%, meaning
the following: you have 50 monsters max, so the first time monsters
should enter, MonsterMash will try to spawn 5 monsters (10% of 50). If there are already 20, the number of missing ones is 30, so 10% makes 3 and that is the number of monsters which are TRIED to be spawned. If this value is 1 (one), MonsterMash will always try to spawn the full amount of missing monsters, so that you ALWAYS have the number of maximum monsters present at all times (not recommended!!!). |
0.18 |
Technical_ Settings |
TotalItemCleanse This is a powerful item destruction tool called by cleanup (if true). All items MonsterMash spawns and all existing items are registered into a list. After the cleanup intervall is reached, the map is scanned for non registered items lying around. If there are any, they are destroyed! Unless you experience LARGE discrepancies of your games, leave it off. It's mainly a debug feature anyway and will even destroy nali fruits which were planted during game by seeds! It will also destroy guns tossed by players or dropped ones, should the cleanup take place in the wrong moment. CleanUpIntervall The time to pass after which a cleanup routine will be called to check the current game for discrepancies and clean them up. You can safely enter a large amount of time (it is in seconds, btw) because nothing critical can be cleaned away at the moment. |
OO |
You can issue commands to the mod/mutator during game. Hit your console key
and type either one of these:
admin set mut_monstermash command [MM command]
mmcmd [MM command]
The first one is a more general one which can be used (without the ADMIN prefix) on the server console too if you really have to, the 2nd much easier version can only be used if you are playing as normal player inside the game.
Command | Effect |
---|---|
addammo [1] [2] | Adds ammo out of ammo groups. Use "list" command to find out ammo groups. Do not use if you are using the dynamic ammo setup feature. |
addmonster [1] [2] [3] | adds monsters to your spawnlist. [1] must be a monster group (find them out
with "list monster"). If you give a group, but no [2], the entire group
is added with quantity 9999 each, so "addmonster unreal" will add ALL Unreal
Classic Creatures to the list with no class instance limiter. "addmonster unreal 10" will only add the one monster of group Unreal registered as "10" within that group (should be a Manta) with no class limiter [3] can be a class limiter, however to issue a class limiter, you will need to specify parameters [1] and [2] also. |
clearammo | this will empty the current ammo spawning list - only use it when you are creating your own custom ammo. If dynamic ammo setting is on, don't use this command. |
clearmonster | this will wipe your entire monsterlist empty. With an empty monsterlist, you cannot start a monstermash game, so you must add new monsters in order to play... |
delmonster [1] | [1] must be a valid number within your current spawnlist. If nothing is given, 0 (zero) is assumed (ZERO IS USUALLY VALID !!). This command will then wipe a single monster entry out of the current spawnlist and shorten the list by one that way (as opposed to "clearmonster" wiping the entire list) |
lessmonsters | decreases the max monster amount by 20% immediately. The old value will be used after mapchange |
list [1] [2] | this command lists all commands in game, if [1] and [2] are not given.
[1] can be an extra parameter, such as "list", "ammo" or "monster".
[2] is dependant on [1]. First make a "list [1]" and see what choices you
get. For example, "list monster" will give you all groups of monsters.
One group of monsters is "flyer". So to list all flyers, you would type
"list monster flyer" The list command is a good place to start familiarizing yourself with the MonsterMash ingame commands! |
monsterset [1] | There are a number of preset monsterlists inside the mod. If you do not
enter anything for [1] or something illegal, a list of all valid working
preset monsterlists will be displayed. Preset lists are default Standard mixture of monsters... same as default properties critters Pupaes and Flys... more masses than classes :) flystuff Flys and (small) Mantas... pup Pupaes only (ORIGINAL KILL THE PUPAE GAME) skaarj1 lighter Skaarj war, like with Scouts skaarj2 all Skaarj types, including killer Skaarj (Sniper, Gunner) killers mostly hard to kill enemies - difficult monsters these include Skaarjgunners/Snipers, Heavy Brutes... boss boss monsters and big creatures (small amount!). Note that clients do not cope with big monsters as well as with small ones, so you MUST use a small amount of monsters or your game clients will just keep crashing!! NOTE: These presets also affect scorelimit, spawnspeed and other settings, to return back to default, just execute the "default" preset once. If you want to keep your custom setup, backup your Unreal.ini first :) |
moreammo [1] | If [1] is not given, the current maxmonster amount is used. Otherwise specify [1] as any positive number and that number of ammo pickups will be added to the map immediately |
morearmor [1] | same as "moreammo" - but for armor items, defaults to preset instead of max monsters if [1] is not given |
moreextras [1] | same as "moreammo" - but for extra items, defaults to preset instead of max monsters if [1] is not given |
morehealth [1] | same as "moreammo" - but for health items, defaults to preset if [1] is not given |
moremonsters | increases the max monster amount by 20% immediately. |
showammolist | displays the current ammo spawn list (classes) - open your console! |
showmonsterlist | displays the current monster spawn list (classes) - open your console! |