Hacker v2 - Chainsaw/Piston melee weapon (Updated 31/08/08)

[Parser]

Liandri Hacker v2

So what's this?

Designed as a reinstatement of a blade-based melee weapon for the Tournament (and replacing the Impact Hammer), the Liandri Hacker is a durable tarydium-powered mining tool that can cut through tough materials with little to no resistance, including flesh. Primary fire initialises the high-speed circular saw, whereas secondary fire engages the rubble-clearing electrical discharge, which is powerful enough to launch vehicles around and destroy them in two or three hits. The resulting recoil will also propel the user backwards, and so can be used to "hop" across great distances.

The main features of the weapon are:

* Primary fire blade attack - can slice heads off and eviscerate corpses.
* Secondary fire shock blast - very effective for destroying vehicles (and enemies on foot), can propel the player firing it backwards.
* Mutator that replaces the Impact Hammer with this Hacker weapon.
* Configurable secondary fire throwback - more details in readme!

Changelog for version 2:

* Secondary fire ragdolls enemies (tip: ragdoll opponents then chop them up with primary fire whilst they're recovering).
* Secondary fire can now knock powerups off players (like the Impact Hammer secondary).
* Primary fire sound altered - it's now a looped cue that fixes the problem with custom music (the music would restart after firing).
* Muzzle flashes added for both fire modes - more eye candy!
* More graphical detail for the hit effects (when hitting walls/players/vehicles).
* Server upk reference bug fixed (servers will now push the HackerResources.upk file as well as the code package).
* Damage values are configurable in UTHacker.ini (in the Config folder).
* Various "under the bonnet" tweaks that have no visual effect.

Screenshots









Download

hackerv2.zip (842KB) from FileWorks.

Usage

There is a mutator provided called "Hacker - Replace Impact Hammer" that will work just fine, as the Hacker was more or less designed as a replacement for the Hammer.

You can also choose to use Epic's "Weapon Replacement Mutator" to replace any weapon you want with the Hacker, if you have a certain longing for the old Hammer...

Alternatively, you can use the console command "giveweapon" - here's the correct syntax for the weapon:

giveweapon hacker.utweap_hacker - Will give you the Hacker

Who's the author behind this terrible excuse for a mod!?

Parser did the coding and messing about with models - you can find him at http://fraghouse.beyondunreal.com

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Enjoy!

[P!Ghead]

Woah! That looks great, thanks man! I have the PS3 version also, any chance of cooking this for us ?

[chilau1]

WOAH THIS IS HOT...hmm that looks like the monster from galtanators invasion nice job

[coolcat22]

this is great downloading

[LtClifff]

secondary sounds too powerful... But this looks awesome!!!

[The Chimpy]

Bloody hell, this is shaping up to be a great chainsaw alternative. It does what it does pretty damn well, though it could use a fair bit of polish;

- The weapon switch animations for it are ludicrously fast - it almost looks like the Hacker just teleports right into your hands. Keep the twitchy idle anim though, it does a good job giving the impression that you barely have control of the beast given how huge it is.

- Primary Fire's range is rather too long for it, and the Hammer ripple effect doesn't really match - looks like you're killing people with mid-range sonic vibrations rather than the massive bladed disc.

- Alt Fire could use the ripple effect to show its rough range, and the wielder knockback when it hits a solid surface is excessive - currently, Hacker-jumping completely negates the need for the Jump Boots and Translocator. Perhaps it could also be tweaked to throw enemies on foot out of your way (don't hurt them, maybe just smack them into a ragdoll when they hit a wall) when it isn't mashing vehicles into a fine paste.

Those flaws aside, you did a pretty good job with this.

[TheAgent]

holy crap that looks like alot of fun

[Chaosnight]

Hmm...interesting must give it a try, i smell mining bot lol

[Parser]

Woah! That looks great, thanks man! I have the PS3 version also, any chance of cooking this for us ?

At the moment I'm not sure, it uses custom sounds (or a custom soundcue), so it may or may not work properly on PS3..

Feedback

Thanks for those suggestions, will definitely take them into account, especially the one about ragdolling players!

Just for now, if you want to change the secondary fire's throwback, you can do so quite easily (check the readme for instructions): by default it's set to -1200, which is a good value for hitting vehicles and then flying away before the explosion can seriously hurt the player! It might be worth me making the throwback differ depending on what the weapon hits, such as vehicles/players/walls etc.

Hmm...interesting must give it a try, i smell mining bot lol

You already found the welding bot I see!

[TheAgent]

anychance of making the chainsaw from gears of war? hehe

[Bret Hart]

Nice! I really like it.

[brisingre]

Finally! A basic melee weapon that fits with the universe!

[EvilEngine]

I like this melee replacement alot. Too bad there wasn't a way to get a GOW-like cutting animation, would really make the game messy.

[HTM~Minion]

Very nice! I have an issue though, I'm trying to use this on a server and it's not pushing the "HackerResources.upk" to the clients. I only received one file into my cache that was named "Hacker" and the file size matches that of "Hacker.u". Any ideas on how to fix this? I'd love to use it online, but my clients need to receive both files.

[euchreplayer23]

Works exactly the same on the PS3 as it does on the PC, although I think the sound for the primary is a little loud. (I have a PS3 cooked file if you want one). Finally a replacement for the impact hammer. Very cool with weak other weapons and a gore mutator.

[AnubanUT2]

Since custom sounds don't work on the PS3 how is this weapon the exact same as the PC version? Is there a workaround that modders should be aware of?

[SDX]

nice, but I will stick to the regular hammer until someone makes a sexy proper chainsaw (Serious Sam anyone?) or even better a huge war Axe to chop the enemies and hach their heads off.

[Fuzz2k7]

Looks great. Can this weapon knock power-ups from enemies as well?

[Parser]

Very nice! I have an issue though, I'm trying to use this on a server and it's not pushing the "HackerResources.upk" to the clients. I only received one file into my cache that was named "Hacker" and the file size matches that of "Hacker.u". Any ideas on how to fix this? I'd love to use it online, but my clients need to receive both files.

Ah, damn! Ok, a couple of ideas:

1) Are you using a redirect? If so, is HackerResources.upk in the base directory or have you put it in a separate Hacker folder? For a redirect, I'm sure the files all need to be in the base directory.

2) If you're pushing the file directly from the server itself, try copying the upk into the CookedPC folder rather than a separate Hacker folder.

I'm afraid that's all I can think of.. let me know if either of those solve the problem!

Since custom sounds don't work on the PS3 how is this weapon the exact same as the PC version? Is there a workaround that modders should be aware of?

No, no workaround unfortunately - this may work on PS3 because I'm using a custom soundcue but not my own sounds, I'm just mixing and modifying audio clips that are UT3 stock.

Looks great. Can this weapon knock power-ups from enemies as well?

Nope, sorry! There's not much point when you can just slice them up in under a second

Cheers!

[BuffyTheSlayer]

thank you for make such fun weapon for UT3 !
yes if have Chainsaw effect with sound then more nice !

[NyghtcrawleR]

No, no workaround unfortunately - this may work on PS3 because I'm using a custom soundcue but not my own sounds, I'm just mixing and modifying audio clips that are UT3 stock.

It will work on the ps3 since its using stock assets. It when it gets to external sounds brought into the game that it wont work.

[TheAgent]

which is kinda stupid, i love making custom sounds sucks when u cant use em.

[The Demon Slick]

Blame SONY, they are the ones using a proprietary sound coding system. And yeah, it IS stupid. Parser, Great Mod and workaround, using stock sounds accelerated, sounds completely different, if a bit loud (as already mentioned) Headshots for non-snipers are the bomb! Other modders will probably start experimenting with stock sounds at varying speeds for different applications now, you're breaking "new" ground!

[HTM~Minion]

Ah, damn! Ok, a couple of ideas:

1) Are you using a redirect? If so, is HackerResources.upk in the base directory or have you put it in a separate Hacker folder? For a redirect, I'm sure the files all need to be in the base directory.

2) If you're pushing the file directly from the server itself, try copying the upk into the CookedPC folder rather than a separate Hacker folder.

I'm afraid that's all I can think of.. let me know if either of those solve the problem!

Yes, I have a private redirection for our servers and both files are present. I had this isssue with another mutator not working online and the author fixed the issue. He said it was because the file was not "directly referenced", I'm no coder so I have no real idea how to tell you to fix it. For online play it is imperative that all files be pushed, it deactivates the mut otherwise.

[Coreper]

wow
awesome!
thanks for sharing!

[BlackSharkfr]

I like the looks of that circular saw thing.
It just seems a bit overpowered just like the chimpy said.

Primary fire animation also seems a bit weird, it looks like a hammer machine gun instead of a circular saw.
I can't really say about hammer/rocket jumping since i never do it but i 'd love to see that ragdoll secondary fire.

[Parser]

Yes, I have a private redirection for our servers and both files are present. I had this isssue with another mutator not working online and the author fixed the issue. He said it was because the file was not "directly referenced", I'm no coder so I have no real idea how to tell you to fix it. For online play it is imperative that all files be pushed, it deactivates the mut otherwise.

Hi again, I did a little test to try and recreate the problem and it seemed to work fine here.

What I did was this:

1) Uploaded Hacker.u and HackerResources.u to http://www.acrophony.co.uk/redirect/ (please feel free to try this url for your server just to check there's not a problem with your own redirect!)

2) Ran a server using

ut3 server DM-Deck?mutator=Hacker.UTMutator_Hacker -useunpublished

The -useunpublished switch means that the game accesses custom content out of the Unpublished folder and ignores the Published folder. Since I was developing the weapon, all the files I needed were already in the Unpublished folder.

3) Ran a client copy of UT3 without the -useunpublished switch. My Published folder has absolutely nothing in it, so it would have to download the Hacker files from the redirect when joining the server.

4) Connected to 127.0.0.1 and both files were pushed successfully to my client copy. Ingame, the weapon worked fine.


I have no idea why it works for me - are you absolutely sure your files on the server machine are in the correct places? By this I mean:

* On your server's My Games directory, Hacker.u is in "Script" and HackerResources.upk is in a "Hacker" folder.

* On your redirect, both files are in the same base directory.

You may also want to double check the mutator class name in your server line (it's Hacker.UTMutator_Hacker) - if the server tries to load the package but can't find the mutator, it will never find the reference to HackerResources.upk (which is referred to several times in the code!).

[Ninja edit]

Another thought - did you copy UTHacker.ini into the server's Config folder? That has another reference to the upk...

Cheers
Jim

[HTM~Minion]

"HackerResources.upk" is in "/UTGame/Published/CookedPC/Hacker/" ,"Hacker.u" is in "/UTGame/Published/CookedPC/Script/" . Webadmin sees the mutator and allows me to select it, but I just don't get the file pushed (yes both are present in the base directory of my redirection folder). "UTHacker.ini" is located in "/UTGame/Config/".

I don't know what else to say, I'm pushing 6 other mutators with no issues. I don't know if possibly the dedicated server does not like the file structure provided, I'll try moving the file around tonight when I have time to experiment.

I'm looking at the "Beester" rifle I'm using on the server and the ".upk" file is in "/UTGame/CookedPC/Weapons/" and the ".u" file is in "/UTGame/CookedPC/".

[Parser]

Hmm, I'm not sure what to suggest! Are you selecting and running the other mutators through Webadmin? If not, and you're just loading the Hacker through the web interface, there might be an issue there perhaps. I don't even know if the term exists any more in UT3, but have you had to set up ServerPackages at all?

Is the Beester rifle the mutator you talked about where the author modified the code to "direct reference" the upk? At the moment I might have an inkling of what that constitutes - the only time HackerResources.upk is referenced at the moment is in the defaultproperties sections, and not in the actual code itself.

To help me support this theory, could you tell me - are you running a dedicated server from a full UT3 install or just from the dedicated server installation that you can download? I could try a fix which would involve running a new mutator instead of the normal one, and it would reference the upk in the code somehow.



[Edit] (Unless you're a server admin, ignore this bit!)

Ok, I coded this quickly, it's basically a replacement mutator for you to try out if you have the time: http://www.acrophony.co.uk/redirect/hackerserver.zip

Just extract the files (upload the .u to redirect if you want, although it's only 13KB). There's a config file so it should show up in webadmin.

To use, add ?mutator=HackerServer.UTMutator_HackerServer to your server commandline - note that you don't need to run the normal Hacker mutator, as this new version will have the same effect, it just has an extra line of code that references the upk.

Let me know how you get on!

Cheers
Jim

[HTM~Minion]

Ty Parser, I'm installing now for testing and I'll report back asap.

**EDIT** Well that fixed the no file pushing problem:

030264FE49031A4DBC23749AE4904DEB=Hacker
EBDF0B214C1B71DC84742CBD4CDA9AF0=HackerResources
C8B1441648828E4B0B3A1DB22221F410=HackerServer

But... I still have the Impact Hammer ingame.

I think I see what may be the issue though. When I loaded the "hackerserver" mut it created a new group in my webadmin. this group includes the "hacker" and "hackerserver" and I can only choose one or the other, not both for server usage.

**EDIT EDIT** I'm such a dork, when I selected the hacker mut from webadmin it works, I suppose when both muts are in the commandline it defaults to the "hackerserver" version for gameplay. I think this will work though..or will it? I need to clear my cache and rejoin to make sure it pushes the file without the "hackerserver" chosen in webadmin.

In the meantime here's a monster I ground up just for you! Thank you for your assistance on this issue.



**Triple Edit** Ok.. I dumped my cache and it indeed push all the files and worked like a dream upon entering the server. You made online players very happy with this fix, you rock man!
One question though, is there any way to combine these two so I only have to call one mutator in the commandline? As of now every server restart has to followed by a change in webadmin to switch the mutators. Doh... I just noticed you said I didn't need to run both, I'm retesting now. Yes, it appears I have to run them both at startup, then switch to the "hacker" mutator from webadmin to get this thing to work. If I run only the "HackerServer" mut in the commandline I get the Impact Hammer.

[brisingre]

The animations don't seem to be lining up for me. The saw is closed for the primary fire, open for the secondary, and the impact hammer distortion lines are on the primary. I could do without the impact hammer distortion lines entirely, actually. The secondary fire on the weapon seems to do very little. Some graphical enhancement here would be great. I also don't like being able to get headshots with it, because it pops up on screen every time and gets really irritating. Still, this is a very cool weapon.

[The Demon Slick]

I just LOVE headshots for non-sniper types, this and the Ripper are great for that. I hate to kill/be killed from far away, I want to FIGHT! But that's just me.

[Fuzz2k7]

Nope, sorry! There's not much point when you can just slice them up in under a second Cheers!

What about the Invulnerability power-up then? The coolest move of them all in DM-Fearless is to rush someone with the Impact Hammer alt fire EMP and steal the power-up from them.

[Parser]

The animations don't seem to be lining up for me. The saw is closed for the primary fire, open for the secondary, and the impact hammer distortion lines are on the primary. I could do without the impact hammer distortion lines entirely, actually. The secondary fire on the weapon seems to do very little. Some graphical enhancement here would be great. I also don't like being able to get headshots with it, because it pops up on screen every time and gets really irritating. Still, this is a very cool weapon.

For secondary fire, do you mean its functionality or the graphical element? If you're talking functionality, try using it against vehicles (that's what it was designed for), or firing it into a wall or floor to rebound your player. Check the readme for how to adjust the player throwback as well.

Lots of words!

Awesome, looks like we're getting somewhere then! Tell you what, when I get some time later on I'll combine the entire Hacker package with the fix and compile it into a completely new file - you could then run this on your server so the only files you would have to push to the client would be the new .u file and the upk. If this fixes the problem I'll release a server version with different filenames so it won't clash with the normal version! (And if I do a v2 the fix will be included anyway) - thanks for patiently testing it!

What about the Invulnerability power-up then? The coolest move of them all in DM-Fearless is to rush someone with the Impact Hammer alt fire EMP and steal the power-up from them.

You've got me there! I suppose the only counter-argument I could provide would be that if the weapon could knock that power up off a player, it would be even more unbalanced than it already is.. when I do v2 I'll look into providing that feature for the secondary though, and perhaps make it configurable as well.

Cheers,
Jim

[HTM~Minion]

Awesome, looks like we're getting somewhere then! Tell you what, when I get some time later on I'll combine the entire Hacker package with the fix and compile it into a completely new file - you could then run this on your server so the only files you would have to push to the client would be the new .u file and the upk. If this fixes the problem I'll release a server version with different filenames so it won't clash with the normal version! (And if I do a v2 the fix will be included anyway) - thanks for patiently testing it!

Cheers,
Jim

This works especially well in invasion, if the monsters corner you in a room you can whip this baby out and run for it, grinding monsters as you go. The secondary also works well for getting you the h3ll out of dodge if things get crazy outdoors.

I've been so busy just getting it to work online I haven't spent much time looking at animations and things. Now that it works I'll take a closer look.

Thanks again for the update.

[Parser]

Hi again, I've got an updated server version for you to try out Minion!

Here it is: http://www.acrophony.co.uk/redirect/hackerv2.zip

Notice it says v2 - I couldn't help but put in a few updates (more graphical features, you can ragdoll players with secondary if they're not on your team, knock powerups off players etc). I put the upk in but it's exactly the same as in v1, don't worry about that!

This includes the fix, so you can effectively delete the old versions (Hacker and HackerServer) and just push the files included in this new zip to clients.

Let me know how you get on!

Cheers,
Jim

[plague151]

ps3 pweeze

[Yongmonrathen]

I never thought those little mining bots on the Powersurge map would ever be used. Lol, you just flipped one upside down!

[HTM~Minion]

Hi again, I've got an updated server version for you to try out Minion!

Here it is: http://www.acrophony.co.uk/redirect/hackerv2.zip

Notice it says v2 - I couldn't help but put in a few updates (more graphical features, you can ragdoll players with secondary if they're not on your team, knock powerups off players etc). I put the upk in but it's exactly the same as in v1, don't worry about that!

This includes the fix, so you can effectively delete the old versions (Hacker and HackerServer) and just push the files included in this new zip to clients.

Let me know how you get on!

Cheers,
Jim

I installed this, it pushed the file great, bur when I entered the server I had the impact hammer. I looked in webadmin and the option for "Hacker - Replace Impact Hammer" was unchecked, so I checked it and reloaded map, but when I returned to server i still had imapct hammer.

You're getting closer, but sill no cigar..lol. Thanks for continuing to work on this.

[RED-FROG]

Nice, but I wish it was more of a cutting than shreddering weapon.
The feeling is not like it was a weapon with high rpm.

The idle animation doesn't really give me a feeling I'm carrying such a weapon.

Also the sound needs major change. It's way off of what it should be, it sounds like the blade is hitting the weapon all the time @ ~10rpm. :P

And well, of course its way overpowered.