FUN FACT TIME:
The game engines of Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2 are called respectively “Refractor” a “Refractor 2.0”. Hence my mod name.
What is this mod?
This mod is a barebones one, but one that I have spent well over six months creating. Calling it a mod is kind of a stretch because it’s just the most common files that are modified in Battlefield 2 that has been refactored.
What is refactoring?
“Refactoring is a disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior.”. Basically it is cleanup and reordering of the code without changing what the code does.
Why make this?
Because by being more clean and having stuff neatly organized, it makes it much easier and joyful to mod. Prime example is the mutator minimods I’ve included as examples. These minimods has multiple combinations of modifying handheld weapons to operate different. In the regular files the recoil, deviation, zoom and projectile are all defined in the weapon’s tweak file. I have separated them into individual files. The result is I can very easily and quickly change those values how I’d in separate files and tune the game how I’d like. This makes the mutator minimods I’ve included work wonders.
What are mutators?
I’ve played a bit Unreal Tournament, and what I really liked was that the game shipped with mini-mods the game called “mutators”. It is a list of mods that modifies various values like damage, gravity, velocity, headsize and much more and it made the game more fun if one was bored of the regular gameplay. It is a way to spice things up. I have made the same with .zip files that one can easily add or remove by editing the ServerArchives.con file in the mod’s main folder.
Who might be interested in this?
If you just want to play some “vanilla+”-BF2 I think this is pretty much nails it, though I’m obviously biased. Another player type is the modder. If you are an aspiring modder I think this mod would help you immensely in creating your own mod by serving as a basemod. Use this refactored object_server as a base and build new .zips on top of it like I did with the mutators. If you’re remotely interested in starting a mod project I think building something on top of this “mod” is the best way. Anyone are free to use this as a base and create something and redistribute. Just give me a heads up and I’ll check your mod out 😉
Things to note:
The game reads ServerArchives.con from bottom to top. Top .zips gets top priority. That means that If you create mutators yourself which overwrites some files in another mutator, write that mutator on the top. To add a mutator, open ServerArchives.con and remove “rem “ in front of the mutator you want to activate. To deactivate, add “rem “ in front..
No levels are included. You have to paste them there yourself.
I have worked on this for well over six months now, and there has been a lot of trial and error. I think most bugs and typos are gone, but I’m sure there still are some typos/errors left and there is certainly some combinations of mutators that doesn’t work.
Mutator list
View “Articles” to get an overview of mutators added and what they do with the game.
Articles
CS_damagemultipliers_headshots_deadly
All headshots result in kill and the soldier becomes unrevivable
OS_ai_weapon_ranges_increased
Various changes made to the AI weapons. Increased most ranges and weapon strength vs vehicles and infantry. Just changes I made in half an hour without much thought and I’ve done no testing. You might see improvements in AI. Or not.
OS_equipment_C4_doble_damage
C4 damage is doubled, while C4 inventory is reduced from 5 to 3 (resulting in net gain of +500 total C4 damage in inventory). This means that only one C4 is needed to kill APCs and tanks. I made this because it really helps the AI. If you notice, the AI only plants one C4 to vehicles before it detonates the pack. This resulted seldom in kills, now AI spec-ops are really dangerous to vehicles.
OS_equipment_grenade_amount_halved
Hand grenade inventory of all soldiers reduced from 4 to 2 grenades. Ever since I played the BF2 demo when I was 12-13 years old I disliked that there was way to much grenade spam. This is one way to solve it.
OS_equipment_grenade_explosion_radius_reduced
Grenade explosion radius reduced from 9 down to 7. Ever since I played the BF2 demo when I was 12-13 years old I disliked that there was way to much grenade spam. This is another way to solve it.
OS_equipment_smoke_grenade_buff
Smoke grenade inventory increased from 1 to 2 and smoke grenade smoke stays for double regular time. Vehicle smoke not affected.
OS_infantry_health_regen
Infantry regenerates 1 health point every second. Code snippet found on battlefieldsingleplayer.com on a Dnamro-xpack mod. Though the author is unknown.
OS_infantry_movement_speed_buff
Infantry moves 10% faster. All movements. Animation may seems strange sometimes. Helps AI somewhat as AI does not know how to effectively sprint (yes it sprints sometimes, but really inefficient)
OS_kits_bf1942_balance
This is my magnum opus of mutator minimods and what kinda started this mod. This ties back to me playing the demo as a 12 year old and thinking the kit balance was way off and that giving the medic a rifle instead of a SMG like in bf1942. IT SUCKS! THE MEDIC IS SO OP AND THE ASSAULT IS NEVER A GOOD OPTION. WHAT WAS DICE THINKING?! This beauty reverts the game back to bf1942 balance which always was the best and balanced one. The medic gets all the SMG’s, the engineer gets the rifles and the AT guys gets all the shotguns.
OS_kits_bf1942_balance_FOR_brit_equip_AND_weapon_variety
The same mutator as the above, but is made to be used with OS_kits_sas_uses_british and OS_kits_weapon_variety.
OS_kits_sas_uses_british
The SAS is a joke when it comes to using British equipment in the game. This mutator gives them the g53 (though it’s German) which they actually use/have used, the l96 which is British, the SA80 which is British and the L85 which is British…
OS_kits_m95_is_last_unlock
M95 becomes the last unlock for snipers, not L96. Primarily used to offset the buffs to the M95 some of my other mutators does.
OS_kits_weapon_variety
Switches out many weapons in different kits to make it more varied and somewhat realistic. Some weapons are too much used, others too little. Insurgents should have AK57/Type 56, not AK101. Did you know that Saudi Arabia has 55 000 FN F2000 rifles or that both their and Jordan’s special forces uses G36C? Variations makes things more interesting.
OS_vehicle_artillery_rebalance
Artillery fires 8 shots instead of 5, firerate reduced by 33%, area of effect doubled. Now artillery I feel artillery becomes somewhat realistic while still feeling fair and balanced.
OS_vehicle_realistic_firerates
Various jets, helis and land vehicles gets their real life or as close to real life as possible regarding their firerate. Beware: Balance gets thrown out the window. I haven’t tried to balance it. But it’s cool! Try to be a gunner in a Blackhawk on Mashtuur City and feel the power of 5600 (PKM-)rounds per minute!
OS_vehicles_tank_rebalance
Increases the explosion radius of tank shells from 5 to 9. Reduces the damage of coaxial machine gun from 50 to 33.4. Only 5 radius for a 120mm shell is pathetic considering a hand grenade has 9. Now they’re at least equal.
OS_weapon_150%_bullet_damage
Bullets does 50% more damage. For instance, M16A2 goes from 30 damage to 45. To put it in perspective: Now a sniper oneshot-kills a soldier without a bulletproof vest, while a bulletproof vest survives, but takes as much damage as a soldier without a vest did in the regular game (95 damage).
OS_weapon_150%_bullet_damage_balance_patch
A highly personal rebalance patch based on the 150% bulletdamage mutator. Now pistols does less damage than SMG’s. ScarH which is a 7.62 gun finally gets a respectable punch (higher than AK47, lower than G3). MP7 and P90 with their better penetrating bullets than 9mm also gets a small damage boost.
OS_weapon_accuracy_double_recoil
Recoil for all handheld weapons is doubled. This feels GREAT to combine with halved deviation. Perfect combo.
OS_weapon_accuracy_halved_deviation
Deviation for all handheld weapons is halved. This feels GREAT to combine with halved deviation. Perfect combo.
OS_weapon_explosions_150%_area
Radius of all explosions increased by 22.47%, resulting in a 50% increase of area of effect
OS_weapon_m95_double_damage
M95 gets double damage. Kills all infantry with one shot now, and can kinda be used as a anti-material rifle.
OS_weapon_m95_triple_damage
M95 gets triple damage. Kills all infantry with one shot now, and works better as a anti-material rifle.
OS_weapon_realistic_weapons
Handheld weapons gets various fixes and tweaks based on real life data. Velocity on all weapons are realistic, and changed fire rates and magsizes and stuff like that. May bring some unbalance.
OS_weapon_zoom_realistic_scopes
Weapons get zoom based on real life. For instance, L85 and Famas gets 4x zoom, like the M24 has in vanilla. SVD/Type 88 gets 6x zoom. M24 gets 8x zoom. M95 gets 10x. Please note that the base zoom it is based on is 0.67 which is like the standardized iron sights mutator.
OS_weapon_zoom_standardised_iron_sights
All iron sighted weapons gets the same zoom value, simulating what is an approximate “real” or “true” eye sight for a soldier in the game. As 16:9 1080p screens are quite small, a bf2 soldier is much more far sighted than a real human being. So this is just 1.5 zoom on all iron sight weapons, as I feel 1.5 zoom is a good base for “true” eye sight in the game.
OS_weapon_zoom_standardised_iron_sights_for_stationaries
Same as the standardized iron sights, but with stationary weapons like HMG’s, lmgs and TOW. It’s quite buggy, so have that in mind before you activate it.
Files
Refractor Refactored
Full Version 4 commentsDrop the "refactored" mod into your mods folder. To add a mutator, open ServerArchives.con and remove “rem “ in front of the mutator you want to activate...
Post a comment
Profile
X
Tags
Embed Buttons
Link to Refractor Refactored by selecting a button and using the embed code provided more...
This comment is currently awaiting admin approval, join now to view.