Hang on what's stopping you using a system like the existing vehicle script system? Define the vehicle serverside in a file like an existing vehicle script, and using the same keyvalue that current vehicles use to point to the file. Even better this system would allow a server owner to change the vehicles spawned.
You don't need many key values and you don't need a bazillion input boxes in hammer to realize the system. 4 are enough: 16bit binary number for the armor: first 4 bit for armor type, 3 bit for each side of the armor. eg: 0000 110 110 110 110 standard 6 front 6 right 6 back 6 left Same game for weapons and engine and chassis. 4 input boxes total, the game can do the logic behind it. Just make a nice documentation for it. The system is not hard to understand. Just some binary math.
How? If the balance sucks people won't play on the server, it's not like a client can abuse it to make him have better vehicles than anyone else. Bad administration is not an exploit or a problem the game designers have to fix, that's like saying mapping is bad because there are shit mappers and empires should not have any mapping done for it. You'll get some shitty rebalances yes, but you'll also get some new and fun rebalances. Just as you do with maps. Furthermore it makes development easier because you can just change the script files rather than having to modify all the entities and then recompile the map and redistribute it to all the testers. And you can't tell me that that's a bad idea.
that's the same as considering changing any script modification on the server side an exploit. For example, changing the NF RPG to 105 damage instead of 85. and that would put the hijack plugin and such into the hacking the game category. I honestly think that as long as the scripts are server side, that it shouldn't be a problem.
Actually i havent played with it to its fullest extent yet but i did come damn close to an APC with nukes.
server and client scripts must agree that the light tank can take enough weight to equip nukes, and that it has enough slots. If you changed your server scripts to everything at 99999 with 2 3 slots of each weapon, the client couldn't send the info to the server to try and build the tank without the clients scripts being edited likewise.
Actually, I think they use a "battleship" philosophy. Neither client or server sees the others' cards, they just trust that the other isn't cheating. So long as the client sends a receipt for the vehicle to the server, and it fits within the server's limits for that vehicle, you're good to go. You -could- have jeeps with nukes without making it impossible for unmodified clients to build vehicles. You'd need to be a little more careful adding weapons to other vehicles, though. For the sake of consistency with the clients, if things such as weapon slots are in an order of 1,2,3 then you have to keep them that way. You can add 4 and so on, but 1,2,3 is sacred.
For the most part, Right. Servers can allow, lets say, 5000000000 weight, but the clients won't allow it because their scripts specifically say it can only have 1337 weight. If the client scripts were edited to 50000000000 weight and servers default, Client would send it, but the server would not spawn the vehicle because it's too heavy. Client scripts are only for the GUI, server is authoritative.
Kylegar said he'd look into it, but don't get your hopes up, it may require the whole vehicle system to be rewritten for it.
