I thought I open this thread because I often find some interesting stuff in my mapping and coding work what I think is nice to know when you play this game so often.

If you know anything you think is good to know too, then share it here.


So I start with these:

-Did you ever wonder how much health a PowerCore or a PowerNode really have? I am not talking about the big 100 at the top that slowly shrinks down. That is only a relative representation of the Core's health.
In fact, a Core has 4500 HP, making one point from the scale worth 45 HP. Dealing 4500 damage to the Core won't kill it, though. You need to take one single more HP to really finish it off.
A Node has in compare 2000 HP, I must say I was surprised - I thought the Core would have much more than a Node.
Now you can calculate for each vehicle how long you need to take the Core down with it.

And remember this annoying sound that occurs when you hit a shielded Node or Core? Well, you hear it every time you would have accumulated 200 points of damage.


-Ok, it's probably known that you can unlock the three secret characters in the INI (I don't blame you because you don't want to finish the single player three times). But did you know, that there's also a 4th hidden loading screen that you can unlock in SP?

In your User.ini is the following entry:
[GUI2K4.UT2K4ServerLoading]
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen1
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen2
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen2
Backgrounds=2k4Menus.Loading.loadingscreen4

Noticed that there's twice the number 2? Change one of them to 3 and be happy with a new loading screen.


-Something about bots: They WILL hunt you down! At least if they consider you a threat. Each bot has it's own rival list. If you kill that specific bot very often, you will raise in his list and he will start to really go after you until he finally killed you often enough.


-Something about Network Replication of the Unreal Engine. Replication is necessary to save bandwidth. The server replicates you only the relevant set of data so that your client can do the same calculations as the server. These things are approximate predictions of the real gamestate. The server always has the 'true' gamestate, the clients only an approximate estimation basing on the replicated data.
An example: You shoot a rocket. Now the server could tell every player for every millisecond that the rocket exists, where it currently is and if it hit something. That would make online gaming unplayable. So the server only replicates to every client: Player X wants to shoot in this direction (vector A) with weapon Y. X's location is vector B, his rotation is rotator C.
With these few variables calculates each client for himself where the rocket would fly. Because they all know the code of the rocket, they can also tell what effects to play when the rocket hit a wall, etc.

But there comes also a problem which I ran across a few times already: It's just an approximate version of the gamestate on the server. The rockets knows that it shall explode when it hits and enemy, that there should be smoke and sparks and that the enemy should start bleeding and burning. But the client's rocket has nothing to do with dealing the damage, that's the responsibility of the server's rocket. And since your rocket is approximate, it can very rarely happen that you see all the animations of a hit and so on, but without dealing any damage to the enemy. It's just because the server calculated for itself that the rocket didn't hit actually. Live with it. :p


Oh, this are the update rates for objects in online matches btw:
* Bots: 8.0
* Movers: 7.0
* Projectiles: 6.0
* Pawns (Vehicles/Players): 4.0
* Decorative creatures (such as fish): 2.0
* Decorations: 0.5

A value of 2 means for example, that this thing will update twice as much per second as something with a value of 1.




I will tell you if I find more.

Wow, cool facts, I read them all with joy ^^

I wonder if they accidentally pressed two instead of three at the loading screens or is it unlockable "normally" somehow...
Also, I was always thinking that the screen with Tamika and Aryss was being showed frequently =P
Let's see what kind of screen is it
I'm curious.
Oh, and, I think that Unreal Tournament 2004 still holds some secrets for me, for example, I just recently discovered the secret wall with the super shield pack on Curse4.

...and, about bots:

I'm playing single player just for fun now, but I'm almost done, I'm at Convoy now. Well, actually, not just for fun, but to train myself a bit / test how much I evolved. Now I'm playing on Skilled difficulty and when I tried to play in Experienced before, I couldn't go past Antalus (team qualifying, third round), and now, I got here at Skilled hooray... Same thing in trials of course, I'm playing on Master Gamers' trial server these days (and this is also one reason why I'm rarely playing on Techcom... but I have an Invasion server: Death Warrant: Monster Mash and LDG Assault server on favorites and I'm rarely playing on those too...), and I'm kinda good at trials... I remember... when I started trialing I didn't know of the existence of dodging I could only do double jumps O_O
And... when I saw others walldodging, I started thinking how they do it, (I wasn't so good at english by the way, but I could communicate normally I think, I don't really remember, though I didn't ask them about it) I tried to double jump near walls but nothing. Then I don't remember how, once I learned dodging... I played Unreal Tournament too at an age of 8 I think (a PC repairer gave the CD to me because he liked it too). I wonder how is the dodging there, don't tell me =P I will download it and play with it. By the way I won't download Unreal Tournament 2003 nor Unreal Championship 1 and 2 becuase they're (UC1/2) for xbox only I think XD.
Oops, I kinda went off-topic, but now about bots XD!:

So, I'm playing some single player now, and if and enemy sees me with my team, then most likely it will start shooting at me. Also, bots shoot me a bit longer than needed =P (they shoot my corpse for a second or two) it's kinda good because my teammates can shoot it down by then...
Also, everybody knows that bots are cheaters in many ways.

Bots only cheat on godlike difficulty. They know everything that happens everywhere in the map on that difficulty, so whenever the U-damage respawns on the other side of the map, they will immediately know about it.

Unreal's bots are some of the most clever ones in online FPS.
Here you can see what the bots are doing on each skill level:
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:Bot_Mind


And not to forget about: The bots can hear. Even your footsteps when you are close to them, also depending on the underground (and maybe considering the effects of EAX-ZoneSound), so it might look like they cheat when they know where you are, but it's not like that. Also don't believe that just because you set 'Skilled' as difficulty level, that it will stay with that. The level will raise from round to round, the bots might even adjust their skill level during the game, depending on how good you play.
And the final fight is always on godlike difficulty, no matter what you do. It scared the hell out of me to fight a single bot with that skill.


A mapper can thoroughly test his botpathing with these commands:
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legacy:Testing_Botplay#Bot_Support_Console_Commands

non-godlike bots make cheats too, but I mean mini-cheats like:

-they shoot something before they would be facing to it
-their damage and damage reduction is also modified with skills (okay maybe this one's not a cheat )

Okay maybe the first is also not a cheat because of modified field of view

But hey, it's not fair if a bot does more damage than you, or is it?

Also, it's very annoying when sometimes when I try to kill a bot with shieldgun, I'm chasing it, he only "hears" me I guess but doesn't see me, and it suddenly moves away when I'm REALLY close, or turns around and shoots me, or turns around, shoots me a little, sees some good pickup, collects it and kills me...

By the way, just got to Xan in skilled, and the time was endless, but in instant action, deathmatch's time was... wait, oops XD just checked it, it was 0, bah I could have won with 5 minutes -.-'
But at least I got to there...

Oh, and I know that the level will raise from round to round, the bots might even adjust their skill level during the game, depending on how good I play.

Every Pawn-subclass can have a certain DamageType that only deals reduced damage, but none pawn or armor has set this property, so it's not used…

However, I found out that the Core is resistant against DamageType 'Falling' because I once tried to deal so much damage of that type to it that it would have actually been killed at once, but the Core couldn't care less.


I don't think actually that the bots are changed in a way of how much damage something deals, that should be fixed values for each weapon.



Oh, and did you ever wonder what's the use of the Miningun's alt fire?

-Normal fire
Damage: 7-8 (players), 4-5 (vehicles)
Fire rate: 16.5/s
Spread: 0.08 (that means 8 of 100 bullets don't hit where you aimed)

-Alternative fire
Damage: 14-16 (players), 9-10 (vehicles)
Fire rate: 5.5/s
Spread: 0.03

-UT3's Stringer Minigun for compare (only normal fire):
Damage: 14 (players), 8 (vehicles)
Fire rate: 11.0/s
Spread: 0.0675


Ok, actually the spread isn't "8 of 100" don't hit where you aimed, it's more a UScript-value for calculating the offset.
The 0.0675 of the Stinger are equal to 3.9° off your aim.

You said this about the minigun already

And I think that their range is also different...

PS: Nice loading screen

crusha_k_rool wrote:
vehicle how long you need to take the Core down with it.


Actually this list is incomplete..