Setting up a Slender Fortress server
This tutorial will help guide you through the steps in installing the Slender Fortress gamemode files, including the SourceMod files, required extensions, and extracting the models and materials.
This tutorial will assume that you have already had at least some experience in installing files into servers.
Operating System
Currently, SF2 is only supported for Linux. As a result, game servers need to be running on a Linux based OS such as Ubuntu or Debian (recommended) in order to run the gamemode. For Windows, self gamedata maintenance is required, hence the lack of support for the time being.
Extensions
Before anything, Slender Fortress does require a fairly short number of extensions. Make sure that your server has each of these extensions updated and running, or else Slender Fortress will not run!
- TF2 Attributes
- TF2 Items
- DHooks
- SourcePawn Navmesh
- Collision Hook(Requires self gamedata maintenance)
- (Optional)SteamWorks (recommanded) OR SteamTools - Installing this extension will override the game description to "Slender Fortress" in server browser.
- (Optional)Send Proxy Manager - Installing this extension will remove the "jelly" movements if you are inside of the boss's hitbox.
Plugin files
Download the plugin files from the latest release here, then extract all the files into your gameserver folder. If you don't know where to extract it, it is the folder where the file "gameinfo.txt" is located. If asked to replace, then select Yes.
Models, materials, and sounds
Download the models, materials, and the sounds here and here. Then when it is finished downloading, open up the "gameserver" folder and extract/upload all the contents directly into your game server.
By now it should look something similar to this:
If asked to replace, select Yes.
If you have a fast download server, go back into the .zip file and this time, open up the "fastdl" folder. Then, upload the files onto your fast download server. The directory names inside the "fastdl" folder should already tell you where they need to go.
Maps
After the models, materials, and the sounds, the maps come next. Because of the large size of the majority of the maps, the "gameserver" and the "fastdl" folders of the maps have been separated into two different .zip files.
Extract the maps from here onto your game server, and extract the maps from here onto your fast download server. Download the ones that you need and extract them to their correct directories.
NOTE: IN ORDER FOR SF2 TO PROPERLY RUN YOUR MAP MUST HAVE A .NAV FILE!
When all of that is done, it's time to move on to the final step: preparing the server files themselves.
So you've installed the server plugin files and the custom content and everything, but now you have to configure your server to actually work with the plugin itself.
First of all, please read the list of commands and console variables. You can set console variables to certain values upon map change by entering them into your "cfg/server.cfg" file.
All of the plugin files should already be placed in their correct directories when you extracted them from the .zip file, so there's no need to start moving them around. In addition, all of the Slender Fortress configurations and boss profiles packed in the .zip file should already work as it is right now.
Now secondly, make sure that you have set up a map cycle specifically for Slender Fortress. If you already know how to do this, then you can skip the section below. If not, then more instructions for you.
Setting up the map cycle Create a new text document in your game server folder called "mapcycle_sf2.txt". Open up the blank text file and enter in the map file name of the first map you want on the cycle. Then make a new line and start typing in the second map you want to be in the map cycle. After some typing, it should look something like this:
Save the file, then go into your "cfg/" folder, then open up your "server.cfg" file. If there already is a line that starts with "mapcyclefile", replace it with this line, or if no such line exists, insert it on a new line at the end of the file:
#! mapcyclefile mapcycle_sf2.txt
And that should be it for the map cycle!
One more thing, make sure that your maps have their associated .nav files in the maps folder, and NOT in a folder in custom. The NavMesh plugin (which is required for SF2) can only read .nav files if extracted and placed in the maps folder.
Though, sometimes TF2 updates can actually "break" some parts of the gamemode, resulting in repeating crashes or unintentional "features." In most of these cases, you might have to update Slender Fortress's gamedata.
Gamedata maintenance
Because Slender Fortress uses its own gamedata, it is susceptible to breaking on TF2 updates that change the offsets/signatures around, rendering the offsets/signatures you have unusable. If in the case that this does happen (which will be fairly obvious), thanks to open an issue in the report section, or contact me on Steam. The mod will print you an error on the server console if one of these offsets/signatures break.
Offsets:
- CTFPlayer::WantsLagCompensationOnEntity
- CTFPlayer::EquipWearable
- CBaseEntity::ShouldTransmit
Signatures:
- CTFPlayer::PlaySpecificSequence
- CBaseTrigger::PointIsWithin
(Actually CTFPlayer::WantsLagCompensationOnEntity is used for pvp's collision so if a day it breaks just turn on off the pvp cvar collision) If you know how to do it you can update the offsets with this website . Sadly if a signature is broken, you have to open an issue or contact me on steam.
And that's all there is to it! You can add in additional plugins along with Slender Fortress if you want to spice up some fun in the BLU team, add visual enhancements, or some other things you think would be necessary. The gamemode should be playable right out of the box, so once your server is up and running, change it to a Slender Fortress map and everything else should flow from there.
Thanks for downloading!