[Installing BoomBall]
The first step to running a BoomBall server is installing the mod. Unzip the files and put BoomBall.u and BoomBall.int into your UnrealTournament/system directory. Put boomball_rules.uhtm into your UnrealTournament\Web folder. Add the line: ServerPackages=BoomBall to the bottom of the [Engine.GameEngine] section. Remember to leave a blank line before the next section. Once installed, BoomBall can and will function like a normal server mod without any further modifications.
However, BoomBall requires some changes to the UNREALTOURNAMENT.INI file in order to do some of the more server friendly features. How many changes is dependent on you. As always, please backup any files you change beforehand.
[I want to be a normal CTF Server]
BoomBall includes a special UDPServerQuery class that will fool the browser (and GameSpy) in to thinking we are a normal CTF server. But it doesn't do this automatically as it requires a change to the .INI that wasn't facilitated by Epic. This change won't hurt anything as our custom UdpServerQuery is 100% backwards compatible with all other gametypes. In the future hopefully Epic will make a better solution, but this works now.
To implement this feature, follow these steps:
Step 1: Open the file UNREALTOURNAMENT.INI in notepad. This file is located in your /SYSTEM subdirectory inside your UT directory.
Step 2: Find the section labeled
[Engine.GameEngine]. Here you should see several ServerActors= lines.Step 3: Find the line that reads "
IpServer.UdpServerQuery". This is the line that tells UT which server query system to use. We of course want to use ours.Step 4: Change the current value to"
BoomBall.BoomUdpServerQuery". This will allow BoomBall to fake out the browser.Step 5: Save your changes
and Bingo.. to the world, you look like your running a standard CTF server. Only
clients that connect can tell the difference.
[Web based Remote Access]
Step 1: If not already opened, open the file UNREALTOURNAMENT.INI in notepad. This file is located in your /SYSTEM subdirectory inside your UT directory.
Step 2: Find the section labeled [UWeb.WebServer]. You will notice that you can configure multiple applications for your server. To install BoomBall web admin support, you need to make 2 changes at the very least.
Step 3: First find an empty "Applications[x]=" entry in this section and change it to read "Applications[x]=BoomBall.BoomServerAdmin". The [x] is simply the number of the entry that's free. This will register our custom server admin class with UT. You now need to define a path for it.
Step 4: Find an empty "ApplicationPaths[x]=" entry in this section and change it to read "ApplicationPaths[x]=/BoomBall". With these changes alone you will be able to remote admin your server by opening the web page "http://server.ip.addr/BoomBall" (where server.ip.addr is the address of your server.
Step 5: Now you have 2 web admin applications. BoomBall's is 100% backwards compatible with the default. So I suggest changing the line "DefaultApplication=0" to point to the application # you just installed under. With BoomBall as the default, simply browsing to your server ip brings up the BoomBall admin menu.
Step 6: Save your changes
[BoomBall Rules]
BoomBall has added a few new options to your "Rules" menu when you start a server. All of these rules can also manually be changed from the .INI file or via web-based server admin. All of these variables can be found in the [BoomBall.BoomGame] section of your Unreal Tournament INI file. They are:
Use Black Flag
If checked the game is played with a flag instead of a rocket. This is for people who don't like blowing themselves up.
If this option is chosen then the score limit should be changed accordingly.
Ball/Flag in Center
When this is checked, the ball or flag always respawns in the same spot - somewhere near the middle of a map.
% Chance of Explosion
When playing with a rocket, you can set the probability that the rocket will explode when the rocket carrier is killed. Acceptable values are 0 - 100.