BF2CROSSOVER - By The_Turkish_Moose

[The_Turkish_Moose]

Gamespy is going down, we all know that. This means that all Vanilla BF2 maps will no longer be playable on-line as you need to connect to your BF2 account via Gamespy.

Seeing as PR and FH2 are creating their own servers for their own mods, I thought of a way to keep these classic and awesome maps playable. I'm creating the BF2CROSSOVER - reinventing all the original BF2 maps for suitable PR styled game-play. I will not be submitting these maps for official release but will host my own server dedicated to these maps (COOP and COMPETITIVE)

Although this project is fairly new, the process of converting these maps is incredibly simple. Now the summer holidays are coming, there will be more time to work on this project. I have a friend willing to create sound tracks for the loading screens, however I need a little bit of help from others.

I will post any updates bellow and will keep everyone up-to-date with screenshots and footage. Suggestions and thoughts are welcome!

(SUPPORTED BY L|DETACHMENT)

[The_Turkish_Moose]

UPDATES PAGE
So far, I have copied over and edited two maps - Gulf of Oman and Operation Road Rage (The first American based map). I have also experimented with the lighting and fog to make it seem more atmospheric and give it a more realistic ambient. The refined PR effects also copy over so the fire and smoke in-game look more realistic!






For a skirmish layer, I thought it would be nice to emulate the same environment from the MW2 mission exodus seeing as both levels are set in America and see both the US and RU forces fighting. Here are some in-game screenshots of my version.

[waldov]

Nice! I think there are some vanilla maps that actually might work with PR, definitely worth looking into IMO.

[bren]

Thatta boy Turkish! Keep it up.

[Rhino]

Sounds cool, gl with this

Its also worth noting that you can load the client files for these maps directly out of vBF2 itself (or at least you could do, things might have changed with the mod setup that might not allow that any more) by just having the maps folder in your levels folder, the info folder in that and the maps server.zip, which would then load the client.zip out of vBF2. Worth considering if your not going to change the client files (ie, terrain textures, lightmaps etc which I would advise against doing as you will turn this project into a pretty big and hard one if you do). If you go with this aporach then the download size for these maps will be tiny and we could possibly consider integrating them into the core mode providing the GPOs have been setup well etc

Nice! I think there are some vanilla maps that actually might work with PR, definitely worth looking into IMO.

Pr was oringally only made up of vBF2 maps until v0.25 where the first custom maps made for vBF2 where integrated and then v0.3 was the first version to have PR dedicated maps in it (Muttrah City v1 and Jabal) and vBF2 maps stayed in PR till around v0.6 where they where then removed due to low popularity for most and not really working too well with PRs gameplay due to their size and style etc. That's not to say vBF2 maps can't work but we couldn't put them man power in to keep them updated with all the changes, hard enough to keep our core maps updated.

[AfterDune]

Yes, was thinking the same thing as Rhino. You should be able to leave out the client.zip entirely. Test it, it should work . If not, then there are ways to make it work anyway. That keeps filesize to a minimum.

Would love it if you could increase the combatarea, so we have more room to move around. Or remove it completely, although not all vBF2 maps look very pretty outside the vBF2 playable area.

Also, jets won't work very well anymore. Sure, you can fly outside the map, but taking off and especially landing will be a major issue . Probably best to not use jets.

[The_Turkish_Moose]

Its also worth noting that you can load the client files for these maps directly out of vBF2 itself (or at least you could do, things might have changed with the mod setup that might not allow that any more) by just having the maps folder in your levels folder, the info folder in that and the maps server.zip, which would then load the client.zip out of vBF2. Worth considering if your not going to change the client files (ie, terrain textures, lightmaps etc which I would advise against doing as you will turn this project into a pretty big and hard one if you do). If you go with this aporach then the download size for these maps will be tiny and we could possibly consider integrating them into the core mode providing the GPOs have been setup well etc

Rhino, I only changed a few settings in the client files (e.g. undergrowth.cfg). If the devs would seriously consider integrating these maps into the legitimate game, maybe I can undo these changes. All I did was increase the undergrowth view distance!

I do have a few questions and ideas which I will discuss in this post:

#1 - I had an idea for an AAS variant called "siege" mode. I will use a diagram to showcase my idea.

Similar to the Ramiel AAS layout, One team must defend flags from the opposing force. Once a flag is lost, it can not be recaptured by the defending team. The defending team have no air assets and light armour such as small APC's and armoured jeeps. The attacking team will have bigger armour and will also have heli cas and heli trans. Every flag however has an AA emplacement so any airborne vehicle is initially running a serious risk of being shot down. Foot mobiles must move in and destroy the AA emplacements either with rockets, vehicles or C4. This game mode will add a sort of "side-objective" which will mix up the game play.

#2 - When it comes to setting up the coop, I do not want enemy ai to spawn on flags such a fallelujah west as flags become hard to cap. I tried to place down temp. rally points but the AI decided not to spawn on them. Any suggestions?

#3 - Can I import the maps from special forces or is that not allowed?

[The_Turkish_Moose]

Yes, was thinking the same thing as Rhino. You should be able to leave out the client.zip entirely. Test it, it should work . If not, then there are ways to make it work anyway. That keeps filesize to a minimum.

Just tested it and didn't work automatically. Probably a way to get around it however!

Would love it if you could increase the combatarea, so we have more room to move around. Or remove it completely, although not all vBF2 maps look very pretty outside the vBF2 playable area.

Been testing this out. Works perfectly but you are correct, some maps are ugly out of the playable area. Still, to keep the PR styled game play evident, I believe that bigger playable areas are better as it encourages flanking!

Also, jets won't work very well anymore. Sure, you can fly outside the map, but taking off and especially landing will be a major issue . Probably best to not use jets.

Yeah, I know. There are no 4k vBF2 maps anyway so was never going to happen!

[Rhino]

Rhino, I only changed a few settings in the client files (e.g. undergrowth.cfg). If the devs would seriously consider integrating these maps into the legitimate game, maybe I can undo these changes. All I did was increase the undergrowth view distance!

Its possible if its only a few small files like that to put them in the server.zip and it will be read over the ones in the client.zip

I do have a few questions and ideas which I will discuss in this post:

#1 - I had an idea for an AAS variant called "siege" mode. I will use a diagram to showcase my idea.

We had a game mode a bit like that back in the day called "Counter Attack" with the main difference from yours is that after a set amount of time the defending team would have loads of units spawn and would be able to retake any lost flags. Was an ok mode but wasn't that fun. TBH the better method is to simply give the attacking team much more stuff to allow them to overrun a flag where you give the defending side mainly flags to defend with. Dose suck a bit for the defending team but can be fun.

#3 - Can I import the maps from special forces or is that not allowed?

Technically no but I very much doubt EA will complain, especially at this point but if you can get the whole loading from client files to work, then we wouldn't integrate any SF maps into the core either since it would require ppl to have SF, or to integrate the client files in which isn't worth it.


Also as for Jets on 2km maps, there is still the possibility of slow jets/planes like the Harrier or A-1H (if a Vietnam map) like the battle of ia drang which might work in a few cases with the surrounding terrain opened up for jets.

[The_Turkish_Moose]

We had a game mode a bit like that back in the day called "Counter Attack" with the main difference from yours is that after a set amount of time the defending team would have loads of units spawn and would be able to retake any lost flags. Was an ok mode but wasn't that fun. TBH the better method is to simply give the attacking team much more stuff to allow them to overrun a flag where you give the defending side mainly flags to defend with. Dose suck a bit for the defending team but can be fun.

Thanks for the feedback. I will make the layer for testing and I will see how the game play works.

If you believe that EA wouldn't care about us using the SF assets, what's the chances of me being allowed to use the BF2142 assets in PR. I was working on a huge city with huge sky scrapers but never released it because you said I would get in trouble. Could this mean that I could release the map at some point? It's very unique and I put quiet a bit of time into it, making sure not to using anything futuristic.

I know the level file itself would be a big size due to me copying over the a bunch of assets, but I think it would be worth it!

[Arab]

I love this idea! But 2142 assets aren't allowed to be ported into another game for release to the public For the special forces assets, it should be ok I think.

[The_Turkish_Moose]

ASSISTANCE NEEDED:
PR levels all have a capture order. I still have no idea how this is done and need some help please. Can anyone direct me to a tutorial because I cannot seem to find one!

[Mineral]

There you go

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-m ... -mode.html

[Rudd]

Test the armoured fury maps on dedicated, There have been issues getting them to work for COOP in PR 1.0

[The_Turkish_Moose]

Test the armoured fury maps on dedicated, There have been issues getting them to work for COOP in PR 1.0

What kind of issues Rudd? AI paths? Crashing?
If there is an unsolvable issue for these maps, then coop will be excluded!

[Rudd]

All I know is that they CTD on dedicated, it might be a COOP only issue or not.

When I have time I was planning to collate all the PRSP enabled vbf2 maps for release for the COOP community (the hard work already having been done by more talented men than I) however this issue was reported to me.

This could always work alongside your work with PRified COOP layers being integrated into your maps.

[X-Alt]

Harvest is instant (local) CTD on Co-Op 1.0, .957 works fine though.

[RazoR41]

I just saw some screenshots, looks awesome! Reminds me of when I played PR v0.973 using the vBF2 map pack, I'm really hoping this could be released as it would be awesome to play some vBF2 maps again in PR.

[The_Turkish_Moose]

Harvest is instant (local) CTD on Co-Op 1.0, .957 works fine though.

I will run the map and see if there is a crash log

I just saw some screenshots, looks awesome! Reminds me of when I played PR v0.973 using the vBF2 map pack, I'm really hoping this could be released as it would be awesome to play some vBF2 maps again in PR.

Thanks Razor, my intentions exactly!

Just need a little bit more guidance - how do I make it so that when a team captures the last flag the other team begins to bleed tickets?

[Mineral]

Code: Select all

ObjectTemplate.areaValueTeam2 x
ObjectTemplate.areaValueTeam1 x

These things in the GPO will decide that in the flag's settings. (similar name in the editor). When these values of multiple flags count up to 100 a bleed will start. If you go above 100 the bleed will go faster.

So for example picture the following:

Code: Select all

flag1
ObjectTemplate.areaValueTeam1 50
flag2
ObjectTemplate.areaValueTeam1 25 
flag3
ObjectTemplate.areaValueTeam1 25

Then when team 1 captures all 3 flags, the enemy will team will bleed. Imagine there is 4th flag with areaValueTeam1 of another 100, then the bleed will be 200, and so it will be twice as fast as normal bleed.

Haven't done it myself but I think that's at least correct

You can also change the speed of the bleed in the init.con of your map.

Code: Select all

gameLogic.setTicketLossPerMin 1 10
gameLogic.setTicketLossPerMin 2 10

But I think we generally never change those values.(might also be locked in PR, not sure).