Whitedragon

What is Dragonade?

Dragonade was Black-Cell.net's private server-side modification, the first ever created for Renegade, and the originator of basically every server-side mod feature in the game. And after 9 years it's finally being released to the public for all to enjoy.

The most substantial advantage over other server-side mods is the improved coding style. An event system with over 60 events, complete separation of every feature, better handling of chat commands and keyhooks, automatic player data management, systems for handling game features and game modes, player observers, and much more. See the example plugin for full details.

The settings system has also been greatly improved: each game mode has its own settings file to allow for game mode specific settings, many unnecessary settings have been removed, while in other places more have been added to allow for more customization. Settings can also be reloaded at any time via the "reload" console command.

There are, of course, plenty of new features and tweaks for the players to enjoy. See below.

History

Dragonade was originally created by Vloktboky in December 2003 for the simple purpose of relaying extra information, like building kills, to IRC. We weren't content with just that, however, and soon we were adding gameplay modifying features like weapon drops, crates, and vehicle shells, and creating entirely new game modes.

A few months later, thanks to some reverse engineering by Silent Kane and Jonwil, it became possible to link an ingame object to a player. This opened the door to much more advanced features; player kills on IRC, veteran systems, donations, vehicle ownership, more advanced weapon drops, proper deathmatch game modes, interacting with ingame objects via chat commands, team commander systems, extra radio commands, points distribution systems, and parachutes and more all became possible and were quickly added.

SSAOW was eventually created to serve as a public version of DA. A lot of the more advanced features were kept private at first, but many filtered down to it over time. In 2005 I took over as the main developer of both DA and SSSAOW, continuing to update and create new features for both. After a while I decided to merge all the public server-side mods(SSAOW, SSCTF, SSM) into one mod: SSGM. Easily the most important new feature in SSGM was the plugin system.

Truthfully, I wasn't happy with the way SSGM turned out; it was very disorganized, being based on a codebase stretching back to 2003 originally created with no planning or organization. So I started on a complete rewrite and merge of SSGM and DA with a focus on organization and modularity. This new system was mostly finished when I stopped coding for Renegade in 2008.

Fast forward to 2012 when BC is having its first Renegade reunion. After updating DA to scripts 4.0 and creating a few new features I decide to release it to the public.

Compatibility

DA is fully compatible with existing bots and SSGM plugins and should be an easy upgrade for most servers.

The following plugins are no longer needed as their functionality is included in DA:

AntiSpawnKill.dll - Spawn Protection Game Feature

CharacterRefund.dll - Character Refunds Game Feature

Mute.dll - Built in mute console command

PointsDistribution.dll - Points Distribution Game Feature

swap.dll - RTC Game Feature

InfiniteAmmo.dll - Infinite Ammo Game Feature

RemoveWeaponChatCommand.dll - Built into Drop Weapons Game Feature

SBHNoRemotePickup.dll - Per-character disable list

BetterPPAGEConsoleCommand.dll - Built in page recoloring

TeamDonate.dll - Donate Game Feature

GameSpy_Support.dll - GameSpy Q&R Game Feature

CustomKillMessages.dll - Advanced Kill Messages Game Feature

JoinNameRegulator.dll - Disallowed nicks and disallowed nick characters lists

NoReloadSnipers.dll - No Reload Game Feature

Taunts.dll - Taunts Game Feature

MapStartingCredits.dll - Per-map svrcfg.ini settings

New Features

Vehicle Purchase Queue

http://forums.black-cell.net/index.php?topic=13777

Squad System

http://forums.black-cell.net/index.php?topic=13788

Domination Game Mode

http://forums.black-cell.net/index.php?topic=13812

Advanced Kill Messages

New kill messages have been added for soldiers, vehicles, and buildings that show the character/weapon/vehicle of the killer and the victim, and the method of the kill(headshot/squish/fall/tiberium).

Extra Radio Commands

http://forums.black-cell.net/index.php?topic=5759

Points Distribution System

When an object dies its death points will be split among all the players who helped kill it, instead of just the one who got the kill.

Console Commands

RELOAD - Reload da.ini and gamemode.ini.

REMIX - Remix teams.

REBALANCE - Rebalance teams.

SWAP - Swap teams.

FORCETEAM <team> - Force all players to switch to the given team.

TEAM3 <playerid> - Swap a player's team, allowing them to keep their score, kills, deaths, and starting credits. Any credits over the starting amount are distributed to their team.

TEAM4 <playerid> - Swap a player's team, allowing them to keep their score, kills, deaths, and reseting their credits to the starting amount.

TEAM5 <playerid> - Swap a player's team, reseting their score, kills and deaths to 0, and their credits to the starting amount.

TIMEOUT - Ends the game by time limit expired.

ADDTAG <playerid> <persist on leave> <persist on map> <position> <tag> - Add a custom name tag to a player. Persist on map/leave determines if this tag should be removed when the player leaves the game or a new map loads. Position determintes the tag's position relative to the player's other tags.

REMOVETAG <playerid> <tag> - Removes the given tag from the player.

SETACCESSLEVEL <playerid> <0-6> - Sets the given player's access level.

MUTE <playerid> - Mute a player, preventing them from speaking in chat or using radio commands.

UNMUTE <playerid> - Unmute a player.

MUTETOGGLE <playerid> - Mute or unmute a player, preventing them from speaking in chat or using radio commands.

BEACONLOCK <playerid> - Prevent a player from deploying beacons.

UNBEACONLOCK <playerid> - Re-allow a player to deploy beacons.

BEACONLOCKTOGGLE <playerid> - Prevent or re-allow a player from deploying beacons.

C4LOCK <playerid> - Prevent a player from using remote and proximity C4.

UNC4LOCK <playerid> - Re-allow a player to use remote and proximity C4.

C4LOCKTOGGLE <playerid> - Prevent or re-allow a player from using remote and proximity C4.

Page Color

Pages are now light blue. This applies to pages from the host as well as pages between players.

Changes

Most features have been tweaked to some extent, the following more than others.

Vehicle Shells

Shells will no longer float if killed in mid-air or at an angle.

Revived vehicles will no longer get stuck in objects or terrain.

Revived vehicles will automatically bind to the player that repaired them the most, or their previous owner.

Added shells for flying vehicles and Nod APCs.

Vehicle Ownership

Players will now be able to get in the passenger seat of locked vehicles.

Vehicles will now unlock when their owner dies instead of unbinding.

Players on the same team can no longer damage locked vehicles.

The owner of a vehicle can enter the driver seat even if another player is already in it.

Drop Weapons

Players drop a backpack containing their weapons and ammo when they die.

The current weapon, or all weapons, can be dropped using the "!drop" command.

Can be set to only allow players that damaged the player that dropped the backpack to pick it up.

Players will only take weapons they don't have when picking up a backpack, the others will remain for other players to pickup.

Picked up weapons are retained when switching characters.

http://black-cell.net/DA1.5.zip