FPS CREATOR MULTIPLAYER GUIDE
(for BlackIceMod 1.15 multiplayer)
ENTITIES
Before making a map, I usually make a new folder in entitybank where I store most of my Multiplayer objects.
When making a map in Multiplayer mode in FPSC you don't get access to a lot of features when "right clicking"
an entity, so this is very handy!
I usually prepare these entities beforehand:
CHARACTERS
- To control what gun they spawn with / remove it
- To control their health
- To change their in-game name easier
LIGHTS
- To have custom light colors in your map
(you can copy these over from the _markers folder in entitybank)
(to learn how to customize their color, see
THIS thread)
DOORS & DOOR FRAMES
- I describe this further down, but I usually prepare a bunch of door frames and static doors for my levels.
MAP SIZE
The most important thing is to make your map not too big. Try to use space as creative and wise as you can.
If you really want to make a big map I would suggest testing it a lot. And by testing it, I mean building the game..sending
to friends / shared computers etc. and see if everything runs smooth. This allows you to not create a giant, beautiful map
- and then it can't be played at all.
MAP TIPS
WEAPONS
Weapon placements are important in MP games. I suggest placing common weapons close to the player at start, and other weapons on
specific points - so they will remember where to (for example) find the machine gun. etc
REMEMBER to right click your weapons to change how many times they spawn! You don't want to make a Mp game where a weapon only spawns once!
Changing the delay time can be nice too, more delays for rarer weapons?
CHARACTER SPAWN
I've always found that if you give a character a spawning weapon, it can act weird when it comes to MP games, especially
when it comes to ammo too.
What I do instead is to always spawn a character "on" a weapon, which respawns often with delay to make sure they pickup
a weapon at start. This is fully optional but just a small suggestion.
DOORS & WINDOWS
Manually opening doors work in MP, but they are only visible on client side only.
That means if somebody else has opened the door, it isn't visible for you.
I would suggest just placing door frames instead, and removing the entity inside. (via the .fpe)
I usually prepare this beforehand.
The same thing with windows. If you put a window down in MP it spawns static. I would suggest editing their fpe and just removing the window entity,
so you can shoot through the window hole. FPSC comes built in with static window holes already so you don't have to do this if you are using stock media.
AFTER YOU HAVE BUILT THE GAME (!! IMPORTANT !!):
After building your map you should clean up the built game folder a bit to make the game run better.
In my case, these techniques saved my maps and made them playable as I sometimes make big levels / a lot of objects..
(Thanks to Dark Lord for figuring out these tricks!)
First of all, it is suggested to build the game without imageblock mode.
(imageblockmode=0 in setup.ini)
GUIDE:
1. Delete all .bin and .dbo files of static entities in both the entitybank and meshbank folders of the built game.
2. Delete all unused scripts and sounds from the built games.
3. Delete unused huds and other images in the gamecore and languagebank folders of the built game.
4. If you have large wav files etc. (music files) , convert these to OGG format.
HOSTING
To host multiplayer games, port forward port " 2303 " for both UDP and TCP.
Make sure Windows Firewall is not blocking FPSC.
This guide might have small errors.
I will update it in the future with more tricks as I come over them.
Enjoy making MP maps!
- Nic
