Version 1.1
4th July 2016
Miles Asvachin
https://mrevil.asvachin.eu/unreal/
Custom models and textures by Warby.
The ADS-3 "Sentinel" automated defence system was designed to help defend large installations when available personnel are limited in number. It comes with everything necessary to set up a barrier of formidable firepower. This includes components to create cannon, and the hand-held Sentinel Deployer. The Deployer can be loaded with components and then used to construct a cannon on-site virtually instantaneously, or to repair or upgrade an existing cannon.
The Deployer is pre-programmed to create one of two Sentinel classes:
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| Heavy Floor Cannon: Mounted with the most powerful regenerative energy weapon that Evil Corp. has ever used for a commercial automatic cannon, and covered in tough armour, the floor cannon can withstand a lot of punishment, and dish it out too. The floor cannon has a modular weapon mounting system allowing various different weapons to be fitted (such as the minigun shown above) to suit all situations. | Light Ceiling Cannon: By sacrificing power output, the size of this cannon has been reduced significantly, keeping its profile low whilst leaving enough room spare to fit extremely sensitive optical and auditory sensors. Not even the most stealthy of mice could creep past one of these. The reduced power output limits the types of weapons that can be fitted, but several options are still available. |
Extract the zip to "My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\".
There are two mutators to add Sentinels to a game: The main "Sentinel" mutator, which gives all players the Sentinel Deployer and replaces pickups with components, and the "Nightshade Sentinel" mutator, which allows Nightshades to deploy a special, improved but non-upgradeable Sentinel. Although both mutators will work together, it probably makes more sense to only use one or the other.
There is a third mutator, "Sentinel Deployer Ammo Regen", that gives a constant supply of components to every player's Sentinel Deployer.
When starting a game, add one of the mutators to the active list as you would with any other mutator.
To use the Deployer, hold primary-fire to activate the helper symbol. The symbol will indicate what action the Deployer will take when you press secondary-fire:
Additionally, if you are close enough to a Sentinel, holding secondary-fire without first holding primary will allow you to repair it if it is yours or on your team (uses ammo), or sabotage it if it is not (no cost). Sabotaging an enemy Sentinel does not cause it to attack you (unless it is already), can sometimes destroy its upgrades, and gains you some components, so it's worth doing.
To use the upgrade menu, click on an upgrade or weapon in the lists on the left. You can then read its description and see how much it costs. If you have enough components, click on "apply" to install it (double-clicking on the upgrade in the list has the same effect). In the case of weapons, installing a new one will cause the old one to be destroyed. Some upgrades are only available if other upgrades have already been installed. Some upgrades may cease to be available if another, mutually incompatible upgrade has been installed.
Some upgrades and weapons are configurable. To configure them they must be installed, then select them from the current upgrades list (or the current weapon list), then click on the "configure" button in the bottom right of the menu. The upgrade's configuration menu will then open.
You can destroy your own Sentinel from the menu by clicking on "recycle", which will also recover some components for reuse. The "lock" button prevents other players on your team from upgrading your Sentinel. The same button can be used to unlock it again, should you so wish.
You may also like to read the list of all weapons and upgrades, and descriptions thereof.
The mutators have their own configuration menus. Access a menu by clicking on the mutator in the Enabled Mutators list when you're going to start a game, then clicking on the Configure button at the bottom of the screen.
The main Sentinel mutator has many options, so they are gouped together under four tabs.
The Nightshade Sentinel mutator has only one option.
Only one option for this mutator too.
Additionally, there are some extra settings that can be configured by editing UTMutator_Sentinel.ini, which can be found where you installed the mutator, in the Config subdirectory.
This section allows you to set exactly which upgrades are available to players. You can disallow an upgrade by commenting out the corresponding line with a semi-colon in front of it, or even add new custom ones if you should ever have any. The list is replicated to clients, so custom upgrades will work without clients having to install them first, and clients cannot cheat by adding upgrades to their own local list. Don't put any weapons in this list!
The same as the upgrade list, but specifically for weapons.
If you start your server from the command line, add this: ?mutator=UTMutator_Sentinel.UTMutator_Sentinel for the main mutator, or ?mutator=UTMutator_Sentinel.UTMutator_NightshadeSentinel for the mutator that gives Sentinels to Nightshades.
First of all, for everything to be available in UEd (assuming you are running it with the -useunpublished switch) you must copy the Sentinel files that are in \My Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\UTGame\Published\ to \Unpublished\.
It is not possible to place Sentinels directly in maps (yet), but you can place the Deployer and ammo just like the standard weapon and ammo pickups. The Deployer is special like the Avril, so it should be given its own pickup base rather than being placed in weapon lockers.
To make it work even when the mutator isn't running, you must add a SentinelConfigurationActor (in the actor browser, under Info). The actor has some configurable properties the same as the ones found in the ini, and normally these settings will be used instead of the ini values so you can set sensible values for the maximum number of Sentinels in the map. Do not place more than one of these actors, or it might not work as expected.
If you are a modder and want to create new weapons etc. or otherwise modify aspects of the Sentinel, then you can. I would prefer it if you don't modify the Sentinel mutator itself, but rather compile your mods into their own packages to work with it. This makes it possible for users to mix and match different mods, and avoids possible problems with having multiple versions of the mutator floating around. You will need a copy of the source code, which you can find on my website. There is no documentation to go with it, but hopefully the comments in the code will be enough for you to be able to work it out.
To make custom weapons or other upgrades, simply create the appropriate class and add it to the appropriate list in UTMutator_Sentinel.ini. Most aspects of the Sentinels' behaviour should be modifiable via upgrades. Most things that can't, should be modifiable by creating a mutator. If you want to do something but find that it is not possible without a feature being added to the API, contact me and I'll see if I can add it.
If you find any bugs or have any suggestions or comments, feel free to e-mail them to me.