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Assault is probably the most ignored of the gametypes in Unreal Tournament, perhaps rightly so. There are a number of problems inherent in Assault mode, including a great difficulty designing levels for it. The layout in Assault maps has to be just right, providing an excellent balance between attacking and defending. Respawn points have to be carefully selected, or spawn camping will be all you need to provide a solid defense. There are also bugs in UT's implementation of Assault to be considered, as it is often possible in Assault maps to do things you shouldn't be able to do (we'll call them cheats, for lack of a better term).
Eavy's Assault Bonus Pack takes care of all of this for you, and more. Whether it's spawn protection, disallowing impact / rocket jumping and cheating, disabling Assault map bugs, fixing automatic turrets, kicking idle players, limiting the number of suicides, changing teams instantly or scaling damage for uneven teams, ABP fixes what's wrong with Assault and adds a ton of functionality.
The power of ABP is set up by both the ABP mod menu (shown above) and console/command line parameters. There are also tons of level designer tools for you to use in ABP, which we will talk a little about later. All of the basics are handled in the mod menu, allowing you to easily 'tune' your Assault match to the maps you wish to feature and the gameplay you desire. After installation, you should definitely check out the /unrealtournament/help/assaultbonuspack.html file for descriptions of each and every setting. The defaults are fine, but to really appreciate what ABP can do for you, there's no substitute for understanding this file.
One of the joys of ABP is that everything is configurable. You can enable automatic turrets or disable them, your choice. Damage Balance Teams only takes effect when the difference between Red and Blue exceeds or equals a number you select, where the damage adjustment is then calculated based on that number and applied to the unbalanced situation. You set the attacker and defender spawn times, and the amount of time spawn protection is on. You want to speed up the team change command to one second? Go ahead! You can also configure spawn protection to be area-based, rather than time. It's all up to you, which is all any gamer could ask for.
One of the newer features, added in the latest update, includes alternate scoring. While the alternate scoring doesn't change the outcome of the match, it's a key new component that encourages team play. No longer do individual players who snipe people near their spawn point get rewarded. That's right, no credit for the frag. If you frag someone close to an objective, though, you get a bonus point (both offense and defense). Nearby teammates get credit when you achieve an objective as well, encouraging team play. The 100 points you get for achieving all the objectives is divided up between teammates that destroyed objectives, and their names are displayed. This is nice stuff. There's also a new scoreboard, adding packet loss and teammate health to the mix.
Another new feature is spam protection. No, it's not protection against aimbots, funbots or lamebots (grin), but Eavy has declared war on ammo spamming. Simply put, if you have friendly fire damage in regular UT, you can steal ammo from teammates by fragging them, and picking up their weapon. Not so in ABP, as the weapon won't drop if someone kills a teammate. Eavy has halved the max ammo, and is respawning ammo twice as fast as well, in an effort to discourage ammo spamming. BTW, UT itself, since version 436, has message/chat spam protection built in. Also, and perhaps more importantly, limiting the amount of available ammo will cause spammers to run out of it faster, whereas proper players shouldn't have too much of a problem. This eliminates problems where defensive players only need sit tight and continue to collect respawning ammo, while offensive players try in vain to run the gauntlet. This is, frankly, a negative of the original Assault mode that spam protection deals with effectively.
Eavy's added a new ABP server browser, which very quickly picks up the ABP servers on the net and displays the settings they're running at. UT doesn't have to wade through all the servers to pick up on ABP servers, which speeds things up immensely. Just select the Assault Bonus Pack or Assault The Base (new game type, see below) tabs and be impressed. Frankly, there really isn't any reason a server op would not want to use the ABP to be listed faster. The functionality of ABP aside, the easier you make it for people to find you, the more people you will attract. When you add in the functionality of ABP, it's a slam-dunk - there's simply no reason to run standard Assault servers anymore.
Another bonus you get with ABP are some very cool maps. The one that really stands out for me is AS-ColdSteel2, a gorgeous Assault level by Shock Systems, as well as their AS-ColderSteel. I found AS-ColdSteel2 to be a little off balance in favor of the defenders, but hey - with ABP that was no problem to fix. I fiddled a bit with the respawn protection, providing additional protection to attackers and voila - balance was restored, at least for me. Other maps included are AS-Orbital by Graham 'Lovepump' Pritchard, AS-Ballistic by SteelHorn, AS-Asthenosphere by -=Willhaven=-, and four from 'AS-Bridge' author, Claude 'Mier' Meyer, AS-RocketCommand, AS-Manticore, AS-LavaFort][ and AS-Bridge itself. There's not a clunker in the bunch, and each demands something different from you as a player.
Level designers should love ABP, as it allows them to do things they could not do before in UnrealEd. New features available in the actor browser include AssaultPlusRandomizer (replaces UT version, works properly with bots), AssaultPlusTeleporter (same-team teleporter), AssaultPlusTrigger (allows you to change objectives on the fly), EndCamDispatcher (check out the end of AS-ColdSteel2 for a terrific example), GenericSpawner, MinigunCannonPlus (you can create auto cannons for attackers, turrets can be made destroyable), TeamCannonPlus (adds mucho configurability, including cannons switching loyalties) and FortStandardPlus, used by the mutator itself.
If that wasn't enough, you can now add Unreal monsters to your Assault maps without worrying about 'First Blood' or 'Headshot' problems, and you won't pick up frags by nailing 'em. Also, there's a nifty 'Modify Maps' feature to clean up any map, replacing almost all actors at will without incurring version mismatch errors when done. This, however, is hard-coded, so only Eavy can make those types of changes right now. Fortunately, he is open to possibly reworking popular or highly-rated maps in this manner, and would also be open to including the maps in upcoming releases of ABP (level designers, you'll have to contact Eavy directly on this). Very powerful stuff, and it will be interesting to see if he'll find a way to put that power into the hands of level designers!
There's a new gametype called 'Assault The Base' added in the latest release. Basically, it's ABP, but with new scoring that strongly encourages teamplay, rather than a rogue hero that can blow through a defense and win a match on his/her own. Assault The Base is the real gem of this entire package, fixing things and changing gameplay in ways that even ABP doesn't address at all. Assault experts and newbies alike will both find plenty of value in this new gametype. I spoke with Eavy himself, asking him to give a rundown of this new gametype, which you can view on this supplementary Assault The Base page.
As you're probably noting by now, ABP is not your run-of-the-mill mod. As you play using ABP, most of these changes are very subtle in nature - you won't even notice them after a while, and perhaps even take them for granted. You may initially find the number of options available to you a little mind-boggling. This, too, will pass, and soon enough, you'll have your Assault map rotations completely tuned in using the excellent ABP configuration menu.
Summing up, Eavy has attacked the problems with Assault mode in two ways. First, he's hooked to some very important configuration parameters that were not dealt with in the original UT and provided you with the ability to set them the way you want/need them set. He's also dealt with many of the problems level designers have in creating a fun, balanced Assault map by adding functionality and making Assault mode more robust and free from bugs and cheats. No more destroying the controls at the end of AS-Overlord without entering the room. No more blocking the gate in AS-Mazon. All that goofy stuff is taken care of.
The old and new maps contained within ABP function to elaborately showcase the insane functionality of ABP. I wouldn't be surprised for a moment if you did what I did - simply use the ABP maps as your default Assault map rotation (I added AS-Overlord and AS-Mazon as well). You'll enjoy these maps quite a bit.
Eavy's Assault Bonus Pack is simply a must for UT gamers and level designers. It's essentially a server-side-only mod at its core, and enhances Assault gameplay for everyone in this manner. If installed on the client side as well, those people will have the advantage of the enhanced scoreboard and keybindings. The included maplists feature old maps only, new maps only and all maps. Admins can even get the code-only version and add it as a mutator so all the Assault problems are eliminated. It's many of the things that should have been present in Assault mode in the first place, and I'm looking forward to see what other functionality Eavy adds as time goes on. Just get it, already!
Assault The Base Supplemental Feature
Assault Bonus Pack Website
Eavy's UT Mods Website
Download the Assault Bonus Pack
Download the Assault Bonus Pack Patch
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