MapViper v1.0 file - Ground Control II: Operation Exodus

MapViper v1.0 README
Build date: August 20, 2004
Author: Carl Lundgren

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DISCLAIMER
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LEGAL NOTICE

The MapViper application ("The Application") is provided to
the User "As Is" without warranty of any kind. Massive
Entertainment shall not be liable to User for any damages,
including but not limited to data loss, loss of goodwill,
work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any other
losses. Massive Entertainment does not provide any customer
service or technical support for the Application.

This software is not supported by Massive Entertainment, Sierra
or Vivendi Universal Games. The author takes no responsibility
for damage in any way whatsoever caused by using the software.

Use it at your own risk.

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ABOUT
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IMPORTANT: this program will CLEAR ALL OBJECT PLACEMENTS
AND SCRIPTS, which means you should use it AFTER you have
laid out a basic terrain, and BEFORE you add anything else.
It is a good idea to backup your map's *.juice files before
modifying it with MapViper.

MapViper creates fully featured multiplayer map scripts
for Ground Control II with no scripting required.

Simply define Landing Zones and Victory Locations on a new
GCII Heightmap. MapViper will re-generate your juice files
with all scripting required for multiplayer game logic.

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INSTRUCTIONS
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1. Open XEd and create a new heightmap.
2. Save the map to your "custom_maps" folder. Close XEd.
3. Open MapViper and import your map.
4. Define a playfield using the right mouse button.
5. Place Landing Zones and Victory locations.
6. Export the map back to XEd format.
7. Open the map in XEd.
8. Export the map to *.sdf format.

Your multiplayer map should now be fully playable.

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WHAT IT DOES
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MapViper does the following to your juice files:

- ADDS the following scripts, objects and settings:
LZ areas, things and "non-capturable" things
LZ camera positions (correctly placed and oriented)
LZ base positions (correctly placed)
VL areas and things
Sounds, capture times and AP awards according to GCII.
The right minimap icons for zones
Objectives-logic (displays win conditions dynamically)
Defines an AI for AI Export (means slow XEd export, but
much faster load times.

- ERASES everything except:
Heightmap
Overviewmap
Landscape type
Environment type
Map name

- TEAMS are setup like this: Landing Zones 1-4 will belong to
TEAM 1-4. Landing Zones 5-8 will belong to TEAM 1-4 etc.
Teams and LZs can be easily changed afterwards in XEd.

- CAMERAS are placed 60 units from their respective LZs,
50 units up in the air, and pointing at the absolute
center of the playfield with the LZ in plain view.

- BASE POSITIONS for the dropship are placed like this: MapViper
finds the edge of the playfield closest to an LZ, then creates
a base 550 units outside of that edge (out of view).

- AP AWARDS for Landing Zones is set to 2000 AP/min, while
Victory Locations award 400 AP/min. This too, can be easily
modified in Xed.

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HINTS & TIPS
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- Once back in XEd, you may want to move zones around.
If so, make sure that "Retain instance height" is turned
OFF in the Instances window. Then make a drag-selection
big enough to encompass all the zone's objects*.
NOTE: when moving an LZ, the camera will snap to ground,
so afterwards you will have to elevate it again.

* For VLs this means: Area and Thing.
For LZs it means: Area, Thing, UC-thing and Camera (the
camera is a small, floating blue blob).

- Make sure all LZs share an equal distance to their closest
playfield edge respectively. Otherwise, some players will
be at a disadvantage since their dropships must travel
further to return to base.

- The smaller your playfield, the faster XEd will export the
map. A maximum playfield may take half an hour to export,
but a very small one may take about a minute. Your call.

- If you wish to change your number of teams, you will have to
redistribute teams among players in XEd's "Mission Stats"
dialog. Then, make sure each LZ has the correct team in the
script called "zones_random". Every LZ has two zones, one for
dropin and one for sync start (LZ_cap).

- The zone AP-award settings for GCII can be a bit confusing.
If "myApAwardIntervalInSeconds" is 3, and "myTimedApAward"
is "100", this means the player will recieve 100 AP every 3
seconds, which means 2000 AP per minute.

- Never create subdirectories inside your map's folder. XEd
will then crash when trying to write the *.sdf file.

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KNOWN ISSUES
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- No Load/Save local to MapViper
- No Delete functionality
- Must restart before Importing again
- Sometimes zones are placed too far into the ground.

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COMPATIBILITY
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MapViper has been developed for the retail version of GCII
and the bundled XEd version. It may or may not be compatible
with other/future versions of GCII or XEd.