Feature configuration

Feature configuration #

The main purpose of Featureful SDK is being configurable without programming. This can be achieved via adding and editing several files in the mod directory.

The list of featureful configuration files:

All configuration files are optional. If something is missing the defaults are provided.

If you modify featureful_ files you must restart the game in order for these changes to take effect.

File format #

The format for featureful_client.cfg and featureful_server.cfg is basically the same.

The comments start with //. Features are defined as key-value pairs separated by spacebars. There’re boolean, integer, color and floating-point parameters.

Boolean parameters can take values true, yes, 1 and false, no, 0.

Color parameters can be either the hexadecimal number (e.g. 0xFFA000) or RGB values separated by spacebars (e.g. 255 160 0)

The format for featureful_monsters.cfg and featureful_weapons.cfg is a bit different. The comments start with // and non-empty lines specify which weapons and monsters should be enabled in the mod.

featureful_exec.cfg, unlike others, is a real configuration file, i.e. it will be executed as other .cfg files by the engine server-side. Thus it has a different format compared to other featureful file. Usually you want to put some server cvars here. But remember that that these cvars can be overriden by a user’s game.cfg or changed in console during the game. Our current philosophy regarding that is simple: if the user changes something in the console, he knows what he’s doing. Still in future we might provide an option to remove undesired cvars and set the constant values instead.

JSON files #

Some files are in JSON format used for more complex structured data.

Distributing #

The files should be put in the features/ subdirectory of your mod directory.

If a feature config file doesn’t exist the default parameters will be used in game. If some feature in the config file is omitted or commented out, the default behavior will be used.

You must disable weapons unused in your mod. Otherwise if your mod is lacking the resources for these weapons there will be a precache error.

You also should disable unused monsters. Even if you don’t use some non-standard monster on the mod maps, there can be some errors in console about missing cvars if skill cvars related to this monster are not present in skill.cfg.

Recommendations #

Some features are set by default to conform to the vanilla Half-Life behavior, so there’s less chance of breaking the existing maps. However, if your mod utilizes its own maps (I hope so!), it’s better to change some options to avoid undesired behaviors.

Here’s the list of recommendations for features/featureful_server.cfg:

  • Set corpse_player_collision_fix to true to fix the consequences of the engine bug that makes brush entities to receive player as a blocker while he stands on the corpse nearby.
  • Set monsters_spawned_named_wait_trigger to false to fix problems with unresponsiveness of the monsters who come from monstermaker and have a targetname.
  • Set doors_blocked_recheck to true so doors continue moving in case they crushed the monster (instead of returning to “open” position).
  • Set door_rotating_starts_open_fix to true to fix the bug with func_door_rotating becoming unresponsive after the first use if it has Starts Open spawnflag.
  • Set vortigaunt_squad to true so vortigaunts could form squads.
  • Set bigmomma_wait_fix to true so wait values of info_bigmomma are actually used.
  • Set bigmomma_lastnode_fix fix to true so Big Momma won’t reuse the last node more than once (the original Half-Life bug).
  • Set items_instant_drop to false to make healthkits and batteries fall from the center of the func_breakable instead of appearing on the floor right away.

Some Half-Life behavior aspects were changed from vanilla to better alternatives by default, as these changes weren’t observed to cause troubles. Still, if you’re interested, here’s the list of server features that are set to be non-vanilla by default (consult featureful_server.cfg for descriptions):

  • satchels_pickable
  • monsters_delegate_squad_leadership
  • monsters_eat_for_health
  • sentry_retract
  • Features related to new vortigaunts and bullsquid abilities.

There’re also some cvars that you might be interested in changing in featureful_exec.cfg:

  • npc_forget_enemy_time
  • npc_tridepth
  • npc_active_after_combat

Be mindful when deciding on what custom weapons and monsters should be enabled in your mod. Featureful SDK provides many new weapons and monsters, but it’s not the reason to throw all of them into your mod! First think of what actually belongs to the campaign you’re making. It’s better to utilize less to its full extent instead of turning your mod into a zoo.