[Open Assets] TagUtillities 1.7

Formerly named Stop Tag Hot Potato
Tag Utilities is the result of me developing on and off a few features I needed (or wanted) for my Tag server PikaTag. Originally a simple script to stop players from avoiding the need to tag players, now evolved into a pk3 with many more features and tweaks.

Oh right, This addon is completely open source! Let me know if you have any improvements you want me to add to this addon, If you even have your own code I'll definitely add you to the credits!
Or you could just do your own personal changes for your own servers or whatever, that's also cool! Just be sure to change the filename if you're gonna do that.

Here's what you can expect...

More Players, More Taggers
Starting at 8 player you will begin to see more than one player becoming IT. This helps avoid games where a single player is unable to catch anyone by themselves in a large lobby.
The console variable tu_enablemoretaggers on/off can toggle this feature in-game. Default is On.




Prevent Tag Hot Potato
The original purpose of this addon, you can stop players from spectating before a round starts if they are IT. It gets annoying when players abuse spectating to avoid IT status.



So that's why I stopped it by preventing team changes during hide-time, or if said player is the last IT left.




tu_intermissionteamchange on/off is a console variable that controls whether or not a player can change teams (including the spectate team) during an intermission. Default is Off, players cannot change teams on intermissions. Turning this On will allow it. The reason this is off is to prevent players from bypassing the in-game fix through intermissions.

tu_forceintermissionjoin on/off is a console variable that is very similar to the one above, but it forces all players who are spectating to join the game as soon as the intermission starts. This helps ensure every player is in the IT raffle. This is the nuclear option, default is off. Turn it on only if players frequently refuse to play to avoid being IT.


Ringslinger Tweaks
So there's two main things I've done. Reduced the weapon cool-down for Rail rings and Bomb Rings, and implemented momentum for rings.
The cool-down is self-explanatory, so lets move onto the more fun change!



Momentum Rings are something I created to solve the problem of certain addon characters being too fast for rings to catch up to them, resulting in funny situations like one Modern Sonic chasing another and shooting rings at them as both outrun the rings. Momentum rings simple take the current horizontal speed your character currently has, and adds it onto the speed of the ring your shoot. The faster you move as you shoot, the faster the ring will go.

The only two exceptions are Rail rings and Grenade rings.
Rail rings are hitscan sniper-like weapons that wouldn't benefit from any momentum, so they are untouched.
Grenade rings are special in that they have your character's x, y, and z momentum added onto their own per axis.

Moving forward will increase their speed as you shoot, but backwards will make them still.
Moving left or right will also make the grenade move left or right, so they aren't very accurate weapons. However, this different system allows for more varied traps and usage of these unique rings.


tu_maxallowedspeed <number> allows any admin to change the horizontal speed limit of all players in fracunits.
Default value is 0.
0 disables the limit, any value above 0 sets the limit to that many fracunits.

0 = no limit
1 = 1 fracunit limit (snail tag)
50 = 50 fracunit limit (normal running speed)
90 = 90 fracunit speed (fastest speed before it gets unfair)
200 = 200 fracunit speed (just use 0 at this point lmao)

Click to expand...

Also, Speed-Shoes disables the speed limit. This is an intentional feature to encourage Speed-Shoe usage.


External Addon Modifications! (Requires mentioned addons to be loaded before)
I made some cool features for StephChars, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Super Mario Bros!
First up, I made some changes to Skip's monitor prices and descriptions.
I balanced it with help from my Tag server regulars to be as fair as possible in the context of Tag.
I also put in special descriptions if Mario Bros is loaded, in case you want to help out a Bro with a power-up.

For Mario Bros, I implemented a ring drain mechanic for the Mini Mushroom and the P-Balloon due to the power they offer players in the context of Tag. You will lose a ring every second as long as you have one of those power-ups.


I also disabled the Kuribo's Shoe as it allows players to bounce on rings and become near-invincible.
Jumping in one will instead give you a standard Fire Shield (Thank you SMS Alfredo).
The Mega Mushroom has also been reduced in power, giving the player normal SpeedShoes. As cool as Mega Mushroom is, it isn't well balanced for Tag.


Miscellaneous changes
Here's a few other changes, in no particular order.

tu_removelaggyobjects on/off is a console variable that enables whether or not specific mobj objects are deleted. Default is off, turning it on will remove mobjs that have caused lag in netplay in my players' experience.



tu_removemyshields is a command any player can use to have their shields removed.

tu_disablenukes on/off is a console variable that allow for Armageddon shields to be converted to Bubble Shields. It's off by default, but if you absolutely hate nuke tags then go ahead and enable it.

If a player somehow gets a FireFlower in a map, it can prevent ring shots. Changing your skin while having a FireFlower will remove it.

Using SOC, Invincibility has been set to only last for 8 seconds.
Each ring also had its thrown speed increased by 5 fracunits, except for Rails and Grenades.

I included a script I made that converts Red and Blue ring monitors into normal ring monitors on maps that have them, allows for use of CTF maps in tag without having to edit the map in Zone Builder (only works if Tag is detected as the game mode).



That's everything, thanks for reading through all this! Hope this makes your Tag games more enjoyable!