Knife Volleyball

[W*]

Script Name: Knife Volleyball
Original Author(s): W* (original idea by Dr.Thrax)
Core Version: 2.6.3


This is an implementation of volleyball in Soldat originally written for BombSki's MultiMode server.

 It uses knives as the ball (instead of a flag as Dr.Thrax original volley) in order to have a much faster action and to implement as much real-life rules as possible.

Rules:

• You can handle the ball for max 3 seconds (this uses Apponidle so it's actually something between 2 and 3 seconds).  If you don't throw the ball fast enough it's a foul.
• You can only serve from the serving area (where the new knife/ball spawns). If you step on your side of the court during serve, it's a foul.
• You cannot block (i.e. jump high close to the net and stop the ball) on a serve. If you do, it's a foul
• Each team has a maximum of 3 passes allowed in an action. Of course this does not apply on a serve
• You are not allowed to pass to yourself (i.e. throw the knife high and then pick it yourself). If you do, it's a foul. An exception is if you are the only player of your team
• Any foul means a point for the other team
• If the ball falls on one team's side of the court, it's a point for the other team
• If a team throws the ball so that it falls outside of the court, it's a point for the other team
• The team that gets a point gets also the subsequent serve

How to play:

• The game is ideally played by 4 or 6 players. More than 6 usually generates too much confusion - especially with unexperienced players
• A team should decide who covers what area. It should have a 'front' player and a 'back' player (and a 'mid' player if there are 3). Who's stronger in digging (catching the knife thrown by the other team) should play 'back'. The 'back' player should also serve
• Defending: on defeding a serve, 'front' player should stay closer to the midpoint of his court than to the net, and 'back' player further behind. On defending a normal action the front player must quickly choose whether to go and try a block, or stay down waiting to dig/bump. Back player chooses his position consequently
• Blocking can be effective if the other team is trying a spike (even more with a back-row spike), otherwise it's rarely worth
• Attacking: there are three main types of attack action. The first is trying to surprise the enemy by immediatly throwing the knife, after a dig/bump/block, at an empty area of the court (for example if all enemy team went to jump for spike).
• The second attack is the 'normal' one. Whoever catches the ball becomes the 'back' player; the 'front' player then goes right under the net and waits for an horizontal pass by the teammate. As soon as the front player gets the pass, he jumps and goes for a spike
• The third attack, the fast spike, is the most effective one but can be done only when the defense is very easy. The front player, seeing this is the case, goes immediately under the net and leaves the back player to bump; after the bump the front player jumps; the back player must pass the ball right before the apex of the jump, and the front player, in turn, performs a fast throw as soon as he gets the pass - when he's at the highest of the jump.
• The only feasible passes are the horizontal one (second attack type), the jump-apex one (third attack type), and an almost vertical set. Attempting anything else will likely result in a miss - and consequently losing the point

Technical considerations:
The game is NOT 100% bugs-free. There are many server-client lag issues which will result in disappearing knives, two knives present, etc. When playing remember that the SERVER decides, so don't trust your soldat client - if you see you got the knife but you don't see 'BALL', then you did NOT get the knife. The rule of thumb is: the more general lag, the more bugs. And as a corollary, the more players, the more bugs.
Anyway it is usually not much of a problem, and the game is perfectly playable and enjoyable even with the occasional bugs. This is not the case with Knife Basketball, for the inherently different gameplay that involves much more knife-exchanges (see the relevant post - when it's done) so in that script I had to implement much more checks - and generally undesirable and ugly anti-bugs stuff. Hence the proper place for a technical discussion about these things should be done in the Knife Basketball thread (again, when it's done).

Where to play:

• BombSki's MultiMode: soldat://mm.climbing-soldiers.net:25073 - there are a couple of Knife Volleyball maps (but all modes are worth a try, it's fun!)
• My own testserver (it can go down anytime and without notice): soldat://s4.ttwforums.com

edit: mappack added. As for how to do maps: charlie/delta spawn is where knife will spawn at serve, red/blue flag give x/y court boundary. It's really easy, just look at any map.

edit: added soldat.ini and mapslist.txt to archive for your convenience. Also a minor fix to the script so that it loads kv_weapons automatically at startup.

[DorkeyDear]

Its really fun, you guys should try this. Its like Dr. Thrax's, but with knives, you can throw them more accuracy, unlike flags, just at the cost of a bit more bugs.

[BombSki]

Yea, this is great. You should add the maps though, and explain how to make them (its not that hard)

[W*]

added maps and some minor stuff, see 1st post.

[NailsForLunch]

Script not starting at all?

Date Posted: October 18, 2008, 04:39:11 amNevermind... Fixed it..

[SpiltCoffee]

Fail. Includes.txt refers to a lowercase filename, which breaks on Linux. Fix it for the downloadable version, please. It has been causing Nails quite some annoyance.

[BombSki]

er, why not just fix it yourself? W* hasnt been active lately

[NailsForLunch]

Fail. Includes.txt refers to a lowercase filename, which breaks on Linux. Fix it for the downloadable version, please. It has been causing Nails quite some annoyance.

tbh, I think that was me n00bing out...

but should be okay.

Only major glitch is one map being totally stuffed...

[SpiltCoffee]

er, why not just fix it yourself? W* hasnt been active lately

I have been, and that's the problem. Nails comes to me each time he installs it, asking me what's wrong, and since he's a dumbass who doesn't understand how to open a .txt file (Notepad!), I have to make the change for him, which means I waste my time.

If W* didn't make the problem in the first place, then I wouldn't waste my time fixing Nails' problems.

[BombSki]

lol
well feel free to upload a new version with the proper file, since i doubt W* will have any time for it soon

[MetalWarrior]

Only major glitch is one map being totally stuffed...

Make sure extension is upper case (PMS).

[Mittsu]

you just need to add ; at the end of the line

btw, knife volleyball is AWESOME!

[TheOne]

The line numbers seem not to be correct in this case.
I made the script compatible with current version and cleaned unneeded variables up.

[Bydlak]

There are some lacks in this script and it's not working well. An example is when the knife falls out of the court there is no foul but players can pick the ball and play further. Other thing is there is a foul instead a point for a team.

Can anybody take a look in it? I would be very grateful

[TheOne]

Hey,

I'm very sorry for not replying earlier, I just overlooked it.
Do you still have problems with players being kicked and maps missing?

About the script bugs: I'm not familiar with the script itself yet, I just changed formalities so it would compile at all.
Those bugs are probably rather hard to spot, is there a playerbase who'd use this script? Otherwise it's probably not worth the work..

[rOy]

Hi

Complete fix for this mode
For Soldat 1.6.6 / Server 2.7.6

Tested just on Windows server: passed

- correct script
- correct soldat.ini
- correct maps

File kv_weapons.ini copy to directory soldatserver.
File soldat.ini copy to directory soldatserver.

Download files:

[Mittsu]

wuoah, gotta check this out!

[PiStAcHo]

Hi

Complete fix for this mode
For Soldat 1.6.6 / Server 2.7.6

Tested just on Windows server: passed

- correct script
- correct soldat.ini
- correct maps

File kv_weapons.ini copy to directory soldatserver.
File soldat.ini copy to directory soldatserver.

Download files:

r0y the file compiles but when i serve and "score" instead of scoring it says "foul" and "maximum serve time", i ran it on linux with soldatserver, and with soldatserver_legacy it doesnt compile

[Beowulf Agate]

Damn, this awesome script is broken in current version.  Anyone able to fix it?

[ExHunter]

If you mean by broken, that it forces wrong weapons on players (instead of knife), then wait for 1.6.9. It will fix it.