Creating a welcome screen?

[FlyveHest]

Hi all,

I am running a homemade mutator on my server, which changes the behaviour of many of the weapons quite a bit, and because of this, I would like to inform players joining about these changes.

I am currently running the ServerAdverts mutator, but, I don't want to spam people, and that potentially makes new players wait for up to 5 minutes before they get a mid-screen message.

There are tutorials that show how to extend/create the HUD part of the display, but, I am not sure where to "hook in" and show the welcomescreen. (It should display on every map-load)

Any hints will be greatly appreciated.

[RattleSN4K3]

There are some mutators which are using sort of a welcom screen.

Take a look at BiaVote
http://code.google.com/p/ut3-sniper-game/wiki/BiaVote

[FlyveHest]

I have taken a peek at BiaVote, but couldn't really make heads or tails about the timing of the Welcome screen.

I guess i'll just have to try harder

[RattleSN4K3]

The author of BIAVote has done this quite complex. The easiest solution i could find is done by FakeTruth in his mutator RBTTNews. It's really easy. You should ask him for the sourcecode.

[FlyveHest]

Thanks for the help, greatly appreciated, I think i'll just use the mutator directly, no need to reinvent the wheel when someone else has done a great job already (and, it looks very functional)

[FlyveHest]

Well, i've been working hard on this, and have been able to get something to work (heavily inspired by RBTTNews, BUT, I have run into a problem.

RBTTnews does not work on dedicated servers, only listen, which is what i'm running. (Edit: This is me making a mistake, I think)

So, my problem now is, how do I get a players viewcontroller from a mutator, when running a dedicated server? (This might not be the correct question to ask, I can post some code, if someone asks)

[FlyveHest]

It seems like my replicationinfo is never replicated to the client .. I have inserted a `log in the ReplicatedEvent function, and its never called.

Since I spawn my welcomescreen from this function, could this be the reason for this?

[FlyveHest]

I'm going bonkers here, in my frustration I exported the scripts from RBTTNews and tried to recompile them, this works.

I've then more or less copy/pasted his code into my mutator, and I still can't get my version to work on a dedicated server (it works on a listen server)

I tried adding some `log entries to RBTTNews ReplicatedEvent call, and I can see that the function is called, but when I add the exact same `log calls to my own ReplicatedEvent function, nothing happens.

I'm beginning to think that this might not have anything to do with the UnrealScript part, but that I need to set some bit somewhere, maybe in the UIScene in the editor, or somewhere else.

Any ideas will be GREATLY appreciated, i'm pulling my hairs out here

[FlyveHest]

Ok, I got a little further, it seems like its related to the size of the variables I want to replicate.

I have a string about 1k in lenght, but if I change this to a much shorter string (I haven't yet experimented with sizes), it actually works.

I haven't been able to find anything about size restrictions on variables that are replicated, does anyone know anything about this?