Cooperative Multiplayer adaptation of Singleplayer maps for Halo Custom Edition
An adaptation and recreation of the campaign maps for Halo Combat Evolved, modified to work with Halo Custom Edition adding support for an online multiplayer gameplay experience.
NOTE: This is not just 2 players or splitscreen coop project, this is a fully 16 players over network project for Halo Custom Edition 1.0.10.
Get the latest version of the mod using the Mercury command:
mercury install coopevolved
And then you should be able to join any coop server you want, over LAN or Internet.
A campaign multiplayer project is not as easy as it probably sounds, it's indeed quite easy but requires setup and a reinvention of the campaign mechanisms to work in multiplayer.
This project has different tools that can help in the procedure of adapting campaign maps to multiplayer:
- Mimic - Core of all the synchronization mechanism for multiplayer
- Mimic Adapter - Tool capable of rewriting the campaign HSC scripts for compatibility with multiplayer
- Harmony SAPP - A hook DLL provider to intercept script events for synchronization purposes via Mimic
- AI/Bipeds do not hold weapons as they shoot (AI bipeds have weapons on the server side but their weapons are not syncing yet on the client side)
- AI/Bipeds appear to be "shaking" sometimes (this seems to be an issue with the Chimera FPS interpolation feature and the position of the AI being sync from the server)
- Vehicles in special pelicans, appear to shake in a similar way to AI (some vehicles like the pelicans are supossed to be in a state of levitation when no driver is inside the vehicle, this is common in campaign but the game netcode does not sync this levitation state in multiplayer)
- Low FPS depending on network ping, higher ping, less FPS (in summary this is caused due to the low rate of receiving AI data from the server, we are working on a solution for this)
You have to download a modified and preconfigured version of the Halo CE Dedicated Server, this modified version includes another mod called SAPP, it expands the legacy server functionality including the patches and modifications required for the Coop Evolved mod to work.
You can install all the server files required using this Mercury command:
mercury install sapp
NOTE: You have to install the coopevolved package as well!
Running a server with mods loaded can be difficult to configure manually but to make this easier Mercury has a command that launches a server for you with less configuration just by giving some parameters, launch the server using:
mercury serve a30_coop_evolved team_slayer -s mimic_server coop_evolved_server
Where a30_coop_evolved is the map you want to load and team_slayer is the gametype you want
to play, you can change these values to whatever you want, but make sure the map and gametype
you are using are compatible with each other.
Here is a list of all the maps available in the mod, more maps will be added in the future:
- a30_coop_evolved (Halo)
- a50_coop_evolved (The Truth and Reconciliation)
- b30_coop_evolved (The Silent Cartographer)
- b40_coop_evolved (Assault on the Control Room)
- c10_coop_evolved (343 Guilty Spark)
- c20_coop_evolved (The Library)
- d40_coop_evolved (The Maw)
After that you should be ready to go, a terminal will appear displaying some messages like these:
-- Loading SAPP settings finished --
SAPP Version 10.2.1 CE by sehé°°, originally by Termy || halo.isimaginary.com
Successfully loaded sapp.dll!
sv_name: Coop Evolved Server
sv_maxplayers: 16
sv_public_value: 0
New Game, Map: a30_coop_evolved, Mode: team_slayer
New bsp index detected: 0
halo(
Join the server using the in game menu, go to the LAN servers menu and you should see your server listed there, if you don't see it, make sure you are in the same network as the server and that your firewall is not blocking the server port (2302 by default) also launch the server after the game is running, if you launch the server first, the game might not be able to detect the server.
If you prefer to connect with the in game console, you can do it using the command:
connect <server_ip>:2302 x
Where <server_ip> is the IP of the server, you can get it using the command ipconfig in the
Windows terminal, look for the line that says IPv4 Address and copy the IP address that appears
there, if you want to join your own server using the same machine that is hosting the server, you
should use:
connect localhost:2302 x
NOTE: Server map will not change automatically when finishing a game yet... you will have to
manually change the map using the command sv_map <map_name> team_slayer in the server
terminal or launching mercury serve again with the new map name.
Share your server IP to your friends and ensure you all are on the same network, your server is not public to the internet unless you do another hard process to achieve that, try virtual local network services as Hamachi or a VPN service like RadminVPN if you want to play over the internet for free.
If you want to connect to your own server locally (in the same machine that is hosting the server)
you will have to change these in game settings located on Settings/Network Settings, set them in
the same way as in the image from below:
With this configuration you can join to your server directly from the LAN servers menu, but careful,
you will lose the ability to host or load maps in LAN mode using the in game option while your
local dedicated server is running, close your server haloceded.exe before doing that if that is
the case.
WARNING: SAPP package hosted in the Mercury repository contains a modified version of the Halo CE Dedicated Server that has a few bug fixes, is capable of loading huge maps built with a custom Invader build, also it uses different initialization files to allow installing it among other mods that rely on the same files without conflicting.
Yes! but there are a lot of parameters to set up, so I'll try to explain you the basic fields you would like to play with, if you want to take a deeper look into how to configure your server, check this documentation.
WARNING: Keep in mind that command mercury serve previously mentioned creates a server from a
set of template files, everytime you launch the server trough this command, your server files will
get replaced, files stay untouched if you launch the server trough haloceded.exe.
If you still want to keep using the mercury serve command, there are a couple of parameters you
can specify to the command to change the server configuration, check the following command for
more information:
mercury serve --help
After the server has been created at least once, you can edit the server configuration, edit
load.txt file in the root folder of your game, change the properties in there as needed,
here is a short description of properties you should edit:
sv_public 0
sv_name "Coop Evolved Server" ; Name for your server, choose whatever you want
;sv_password 1234 ; Enable a password for your server, players will have to use it to join
sv_rcon_password "1234" ; WARNING! Change this value asap, it is used to manage your server as an admin
sv_friendly_fire 1 ; (0 - default, 1 / off, 2 - shields, 3 - on)
sv_timelimit 0 ; Time limit for every play session (in minutes, 0 - no limit)
sv_motd motd.txt
sv_maxplayers 16 ; Max players allowed to connect to the server
allow_client_side_weapon_projectiles 0
game_difficulty_set impossible ; Game difficulty (easy, normal, hard, impossible)
sv_map a50_coop_evolved coop ; Map and gametype the server will run at load
set is_multiplayer true
loadNOTE: Only edit the fields that have comments on them, the other properties are set that way in purpose.
Of course! We need a lot of help to achieve this project, we have a workflow designed for contributions with support for people being added into the project development as soon as possible. You can contribute with testing on our beta sessions or directly contributing with the map content or code contributions.
Join us on our Discord server for more information: https://discord.shadowmods.net/