A couple of UT2004 related questions...

[Paddy the wak]

Hi Guys ...
I was wondering if anyone could help with a small problem ...

I play UT2004 quite a bit with my nephew ... we play mostly CTF.
His team is always made up of Skaarj and my team is always U2Soldiers.
We really don't like the bright skins and there is of course no need for team colours as the Skaarj and the U2Soldiers are quite different.

So my question is ...
Does anyone know how to turn off "bright skins" and is it possible to set things up so that team colours are not used ?

Cheers...
Paddywak

[Marshmallowman]

Not that I know of, but I have seen plenty of skins used online that are completely neutral in colour...eg you can't tell which team(kind of a cheat), I think its up to the model designer to put enough of the team colour in the model.

The model I use has silver armour for the top half, so you can't tell my team unitl you see my legs


PS you play VCTF vehicle capture the flag?, it a lot of fun

[SitFlyer]

Not sure if this will work, but, on the machine serving the game, edit the UT2004.ini
[UnrealGame.DMMutator]
bBrightSkins=False

Don't know if you can turn off the team colors.

Your best bet is to use UTcomp

[Paddy the wak]

Hello...
Thanks very much for your replies ...
I've been trying allsorts to get what I want ...
The nearest I got is to use a shoulder lights mutator that comes with a Halo mod ... it has the ability to turn off team colours but of course it adds the shoulder lights.

@ SitFlyer ...
Your suggestion ...

[UnrealGame.DMMutator]
bBrightSkins=False

Doesn't seem to work... ... worth a try though.

I have just tried UTcomp ... according to the info it is possible to get what I want but for some reason all the players apart from me are in team colours and have extra bright skins even though I have turned these things off.... ... and all the players other than myself are all the same character ... one of the male humans ...
It may be I haven't set it up correctly and/or some of the other mutators (Monkey Matrix Moves 2004 and Tweaktool) I am using are conflicting with it ... or it could be that my UT2004 has had that many mods and muts added may be just screwed up. I think I'll try a fresh install of UT2004 on another hard drive and see if I can get it to work with just UTcomp added.

@ Marshmallowman ... I haven't tried the VCTF ... I'll check it out ... sounds fun...


Anyway guys ... thanks again ... I'll let you know how I get on....

[Paddy the wak]

Hi Guys ....
Sorry it has taken me so long to report back...

Whilst investigating I found that I was getting all sorts of other problems ...

An incorrect voltage at start-up ...
Games ... not just UT2004 crashing out ...
Then I found the motherboard chip fan was not working ...

I began to suspect something big was wrong ... !
The company I had build the machine (to save me time) have been excellent ... especially their tech support ... so after explaining the problem they said they would send out an engineer to change the PS and the MB ... I had already changed the Fan.

Well the subcontracted idiot that came to do the work was unbelievable ...

Firstly he openly admitted that he had never seen a pc like this one ...
He then mentioned that I probably had more idea than him on how to do the work he was here to do .... to right ... the alarm bells began to ring.

I suggested that I show him the alarm message at start-up and the red highlighted voltage in the BIOS ... he just didn't seem interested ... I felt I had to almost force him to look and showed him anyway as I'm sure he would have continued to replace the parts without looking.
How was he going to diagnose/check/test the machine once the parts were replaced if he hadn't seen the errors for himself ?

He tilted the PC back at a 45 degree angle leaning it against a worktop that was slightly higher that the surface it was on ... he removed the side cover and started to remove a card ... I think the TV card ... I noticed that although the PC was turned off the power was still on !
I pointed this out and he removed all the cables from the back of the PC and began to remove the cards... he had no earth/anti-static strap and as I say the power cable was now removed so no earth whatsoever !
I was trained as an electrical and electronic engineer draughtsman ... I then went on to make training videos (or at least the graphics for them). Over the years I was involved in many aimed at engineers ... several with regard to static sensitive devices. All of the cards in a PC have surface mounted technology, most if not all of which are sensitive to static and therefore at the very least the power cable should be attached (power off) just to provide an earth ... and an antistatic strap would be extremely advisable.

The alarm bells were now ringing quite loudly.

He continued ... removed the TV card and the Sound card and laid them to one side.
He asked if he could have a piece of paper to draw a diagram of the parts and cables he was removing and disconnecting so that he would be able to put it back together ... !
I gave him some paper but my confidence in his ability .. was draining fast.
He then removed the graphics cards without unplugging their power cables ....
The bottom card dangled against the edge of the case ... it slid once or twice along the edge of the case as where he was trying to rest it was off centre to where the cable was attached ... surely risking damage to the tiny surface mounted components that were against the sharp edge of the open case.
When he removed the top graphics card he also left the power cable attached and he hung this over the top of the PC in a similar way to the other one.

The alarm bells were now screaming.

I went into another room to call the company I had bought the machine from with my concerns ... I hesitated for a while pacing about thinking I don't like this what should I do ... I was half way dialling the number but then I wondered was I being to harsh on him ... he was very polite and seamed a reasonable guy ... may be I should just tell him my concerns and that way I would be happy without going behind his back ... so to speak. I went back to where he was working on the PC to express my concerns.

Shock horror ! .... he was holding the CPU still attached to the heat sink and fan in his bear hands ... no antistatic strap ... and he was trying to straighten the pins with a screwdriver !!!
I asked what he was doing and said the pins are bent I'm trying to straighten them ... he added that it just fell out with the chip still attached and that when it wouldn't go into the new motherboard he noticed that the pins were bent. At this I said I'm not sure I want a CPU with straightened pins in my PC ...
He said he thought that this was probably the cause of the problems all along ... I said I don't think so ... he said he wasn't sure may be he had done it trying to get it into the new motherboard.

Well yes ... I thought how do you get that chip into the motherboard with the heat sink still attached you wouldn't be able to reach the leaver to open the holes for the pins
I dread to think how he handled the RAM which he had put into the new motherboard whilst I was out of the room.
In my mind I was thinking ... I bought a new PC that cost me a lot of money not a PC with repaired damaged parts I don't want this !

He said he he would have to phone his company .. I let him use my phone and he told them the problem suggesting that may be it wasn't him ... may be it was already like this ... he didn't know.

It was obvious to me he had done it.

So now the PC has gone back to be rebuilt.
On inspection the manufacturing company have said that it's in such a state that they are now just going to give me a new PC ....

I'm not sure what lessons can be learned from this experience but for sure in the future I'll build my own PCs

Anyway ... when I get my PC back I'll have another look at my UT2004 queries.

Cheers ... Paddywak

[Paddy the wak]

Hello ...
Well I finally had my PC returned ... everything apart from the case and the HD's has been replaced ... ... and it's all running really sweet now ...

So ... back to my team colours - skins problem !

Solution ... here's a new mutator which turns off team skins ... ... http://www.ut2003hq.com/pafiledb2/pa...n=file&id=5669

... just what my nephew and I were looking for.

Cheers ...