CM-SS13 Nightmare: Quick Start

Nightmare is a system used to introduce round variations. No two rounds should be same, beyond simply changing people and map. Unknowns and changes maintain the game fresh. This is primarily done by dynamically changing the game map.

The Scenario is a set of parameters that direct what Nightmare will do - for example, LV-624 fog gap location. On startup, the game will automatically generate a Scenario, which can then be edited by Admins while in the Lobby to fine-tune or for event running purposes.

Nightmare works via configuration files. Each map is setup with a folder containing them, for example maps/Nightmare/maps/LV624/. The two main files are scenario.json which is used to generate the scenario, and nightmare.json which describes the actual game setup.

Configuration contains a list of "nodes", JSON objects that describe an action to perform. The type defines what to do, chanceis probability of doing it, when adds conditions to do it. Different types of nodes will also take extra arguments to work (for example, a map_insert needs a path to the map inserted)

The primary purpose of Nightmare is to change the round by "inserting" maps, which is replacing chunks of the game map by different ones. This can be done by adding to the nightmare files.

To know where to insert map files, we use a landmark object. This means placing /obj/effect/landmark/nightmare on the main map to mark the location, with an insert_tag to identify them.

The map_sprinkle node is usually already configured on maps, with a folder such as maps/Nightmare/maps/BigRed/sprinkles. It allows to randomly insert standalone map changes, by directly using map files.

Each file will randomly be inserted depending on its name: 40.viro_open.dmm for example has 40% chance to be included at viro_open landmark. You can drop in extra files to take advantage of this.

map_variations work similarly, but only pick one file in the folder at random. For example, if you have three files:

• armory/10.cheese.dmm
• armory/10.extra.dmm
• armory/20.looted.dmm One of the map files will be inserted at armory at random, weighted by the number in their name.

Sometimes you might want to do more complicated things, in which case you can edit the configuration files. Exact usage goes beyond this quick start guide, but to take an example:

{
  "type": "map_insert",                          # Insert a map
  "landmark": "lv-rightsidepass",                # at lv-rightsidepass
  "chance": 0.7,                                 # with 70% chance
  "path": "standalone/rightsidepass.dmm",        # from file standalone/rightsidepass.dmm
  "when": { "mainpath": "right" }                # when "mainpath" is "right"
},