Could someone summarize the steps to make a a simple custom Death Match Map?

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

I want to make a simple DM map to play over a basic home LAN, so my nephew and I can play against each other in an aeriel dog fight scenario. I know I need to add player spawn points, the air units,  power ups, etc.

Could someone please briefly list what needs to be done? The map also needs to be copied to the other BZII install too right? Also, considering only 2 player spawns are needed I don't need to add more then 2 player spawn points right?

Can I just use the map editor in 1.3 as I noticed one of the options was 1.2 DM? Then use a stock map add player spawn points. Add my own ship spawns. Add my own power up spawns. Delete any Bio pools if the map has them; won't need them for DM.

Also, do I need to delete any other spawn points recycler, enemy rec. and any other unneeded stock map assets? Then afterwords how do I save the custom DM map?

Update: I selected the bridges map as the battle arena as it has some nice moutainous terrain to hide in an around. I removed the bio pools, and changed the path to deatmatch01.dll and saved the map under addon-missions-multiplayer. The map editor saved all the files okay, but when I load it the spawn points for cvtalon9, and supply don't show up when I reload the map into the editor again. I always thought that when a map is saved that all the added spawnable objects were saved as well. Why are they missing. Scripts, are enabled in the MM5 settings and the mod used is Forgotten Enemy(MM5). What am I missing? Tanks BNG.

[AHadley]

Player spawn points should be under either Powerups or Resources on the editor's objects field.

Vehicles are specified by the file "dmvehicles.txt", you can configure a map to use different vehicles if you set it to a different txt file in the .ini.

Powerups are created by a 'spawn' object set to the object. This is easy to do, but spawns can also be found under Powerups.

Adding more than two spawns allows for more bots if you want, and random spawning locations, so its a good idea.

Your method would work fine as far as I can see.

Make sure you delete any unneeded assets and spawns before you create your own.

The save button is in the top right of the editor. Save the file with ASCII formatting rather than Binary, and put it wherever you want, bearing in mind this creates several other files too. The .TRN can be edited in Notepad if you want to change some features you can't adjust in the editor.

The .INI needs to be made yourself, just copy one from another map and drop it in and rename it. Then edit the vars as you need to.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Thanks AH. My nephew is developing an interest in BZII and hopefully he'll get hooked on the game just like I am. He seems to prefer the bridges map as I ask him to help me select an decent map on which to modify it for DM use. I also had him help me select one of my models for use as the DM model to use for battling it out. He selected a cvtalon type tweaked for speed, control and dog fighting weapons. This unit is customized to use TV's air chain and the stock isdf salvo rocket. I also tweak the performance setting to make it fast, and much more stable then the original talon which was quite hard to strafe targets with due to it's rolling over sideways characteristic. I also really jacked the accel drag settings to make the unit virtully stop in place with hands off the controls. The unit handles pretty tight like a dog fighter should. Here's a render out of TS showing the base unit.

[AHadley]

Wow, pretty. Texture looks a little flat though, but that comes later

[Warfreak]

you can always have a 3DS Max'er or a Blender...er texture those up with the texture you want if push comes to shove.

Nice model none-the-less. 

[General BlackDragon]

the only things required are a properly setup map inf, the bzn file to have atleast 1? player spawns, and to point to the deathmatch01.dll (check name)

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Okay, I checked the map dll and it's saved as deathmatch01.dll. The brigde map was saved as bngairdm.bzn. I modified the odf and saved it as bngairdm.odf. I modified another dm inf file here's what it looks like:

[DESCRIPTION]
missionName = "BNG AIR DM"
mapTga = "bngairdm.bmp"
mapDesc = "bngairdm.odf"
mySide = 1

[NetVars]
// For master list of descriptions, see source\network\vars.txt
ivar0 = 0 // Kill limit, 0= unlimited
ivar1 = 0 // Time limit, 0= unlimited
ivar2 = 2 // player limit. Commenting out this line means current setting not changed
ivar3 = 0 // 1=Teamplay on, 0=Teamplay off
ivar4 = 1 // Bitfields saying which vehicles out of mpvehicles.txt are allowable. 255 = all hovercraft
ivar5 = 1 // All=0, DM=1, Strat=2, all other values undefined (used in filters)
ivar6 = 0 // Vehicle selections allowable II (if implemented)
ivar7 = 0 // Deathmatch subtype (0 = normal; 1 = KOH; 2 = CTF; add 256 for random respawn on same race, or add 512 for random respawn w/o regard to race)
ivar8 = 0 // Sync Join. 0=off, 1=on.
ivar11 = 0 // team play unlocked
// Svar0 (.bzn filename, used to look for an .inf file like this)
// *not* read in, as that would cause an infinite loop

svar1 = "Team Gorillas" // Team name for team 1
svar2 = "Team Chimps" // Team name for team 2
svar4 = "EDM_start.txt"

I also created a map pic called bngairdm.bmp with MM5 using the /shellmap option. Everything was placed in a new folder under addon-missions-multiplayer BNG DM Maps.

Did I forget anything else? Tanks BNG.

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

The map now appears on the FE mutiplayer as the first map along with the bmp map pic, but can I remove the default dm vehicles that appear with those of my own design? How is it done? BZII, use my dm vehicles if I copy the mpivehicles.txt to the folder setup for this map?

Also, considering these are air units standard pickups appear to low to pickup. Can I adjust the height setting for these pickups to 30 meters as this is the altitude that my talons fly at from ground level?

[Steeveeo]

BNG, quick side note, I must say that your models are very good, but you always use the same flat "camo" texture. Perhaps try throwing in some detail on the texture, like rivets or panels, that will make things look a ton better.

Also, how do your pilots see without a cockpit?

[bigbadbogie]

There is a cockpit, it's just hard to see cos it's yellow... but you probably knew that so just... forget I said anything. 

BNG - Very nice fighter indeed!

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Unfortunately, me stinkum at texturing models right now. I can make decent models easy enough, but I usual get lost doing the texture part shortly after painting and applying them to my models. The major problem is when I apply them to the model they always seem to paint to both the top and the bottom simultaneously which looks really wierd and the only way to get them right takes a really long time as I have to literally seperate the top half of the model from the bottom half.

Back to my original questions about the DM air map. I have it almost ready, but now I having problems with my 2 pc's not finding each other over a simple router connected ethernet cabled lan. It kills me because it worked before, but now I can't even share files let alone play a simple lan based bz2 game. Anybody got any tips for solving my little connection issue? My xp firewall settings allow bz2 and bzone in the exceptions list, but still I can't find new games that I start on one system with my other pc. Any help would most certainly help keep what little hair I still have. Calling all bz2 peeps...ali-ali-ali-all-come -free.

I made another dog fighter and I'm working on several models for the DM map once I figure out the connection issue.
 

[BNG Da BZ Fool]

Pretty much have the map done. Now I need to figure out why I still can't connect to BZII MP on my LAN? I did it before, but now can't for some odd reason. Ant tips on stuff to check under XP settings would very much be appreciated...