Me and a friend are trying to play a persistent campaign online with a mod i've created. I understand that the invasion servers carry over character data so that each match your XP, RP, and stash contents are always there, however when I try and do this for just me and my friend we get reset after each match and the online campaign seems to reject my mod.

Basically what I want is a multiplayer, modded campaign(campaign style) with the same progression as the invasion servers. The mod i've made is just a few extra items therefore it isn't something which should cause a problem trying to achieve this.

Is this physically possible, hosting the server myself.

I can't at least immediately see why it wouldn't work or why it wouldn't be possible to configure.

Just to verify: you don't use a dedicated server for this but you're hosting the server in-game, yeah?

How have you set up the mod? Is it configured as a custom campaign which you've enabled in the campaign menu before starting the campaign or are your modifications made directly on vanilla files?

Sorry for not being more explicit before.

I'm hosting the sever it using the in game function, and the mod is just new weapons and armor created from the vanilla files but added as an overlay. I don't necessarily need it to be a campaign, just rotating maps with persistent character progression.

Just to try and clarify what I said originally, reading back it seems a bit vague: The mod works on a quick match which is then turned into a server but our XP etc. gets reset. There isn't an option to add an overlay to the campaign which, obviously, does carry over the progress and i don't know how to create a campaign with my mod. I'm assuming if the two of us edit our base files and launch a campaign it'd work but that means keeping a duplicate copy and i'm sure there's got to be an easier way than that.

I can post the mod if necessary but i think my brain is just missing something?

An overlay can be made to appear in custom campaign menu by adding overlay_config.xml file in the overlay mod root folder with following contents


Note that campaign/invasion uses invasion_all_*.xml rather than all_*.xml files to find which resources to load, so there may be some adapting ahead if you choose to do it this way.

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Activating the server in quickmatch using the menu indeed makes the server function in match profiles mode, meaning your progress is lost each time the map restarts (or changes in case you're using some calls or something to make the map change without leaving quickmatch, it's possible too).

One option to continue with the quickmatch approach but make it store profiles persistently would be by activating the server with an xml command, such as

You'd create a file called e.g. start_server.xml and place it in your RWR installation folder. After starting a quickmatch, you'd enter /_execute start_server.xml in the chat to activate the server this way instead of using the menu.

Not sure if it works, but there's a good chance it might, at least it attempts to address the persistency mode.

For now i'll try the second option as it seems to be what i'm trying to achieve.

I managed to launch the server as expected but the character data didn't persist once the map reset.
Is there anyway to get the server to store character data onto my hard drive?

Just in case it matters, i tested on power junction as it can be finished quickly, with my mod enabled.
I had:

as my start_server.xml file, i'm not sure if registering the server on the serverlist made a difference, if i choose not to list it on the server list does it just require my friend to direct connect?

The data gets stored at %appdata%\Running with rifles\savegames\yoursavegame.save.

This actually brings up one question: when you change to the map as quickmatch, do you start the match using the menu where also the savegame name can be set, or do you press ESC to play the default loaded match? If the latter, it might affect this too as the location is _default.save then and it's handled in a slightly different way.


Registering on the serverlist is fine and doesn't affect how the profiles are stored on your computer.

And yes, if it's not listed, then your friend would need to connect using the manual IP menu.

I don't use the default loaded map, I change a load of the variables and start the match that way. I did notice that when listing my save games via date modified the _default.save was at the top, the most recently edited save file?

edit:
I think the _default.save changes because it creates an instance that you can play in, but you don't necessarily have to play in, but another thing i've noticed is that once the server restarts, it creates a new save file which would explain why the data isn't carrying over:


The ServerTest.save was the original save file, so i could identify it however battle4.save has identical contents and was created afterwards which would explain why the data isn't carrying over.

Would copying all of my vanilla RWR files, overwriting them with my mod and launching a multiplayer campaign that way work? assuming all the other players would have to as well.

Ah I see, so the automatic match restart in quickmatch autogenerates a new save, hm, that's not how it's supposed to work, so you've found a bug there.


It depends on which files your mod changes; with some things, campaign uses different files than quickmatch, so if your mod is targeting the files not used by campaign, your mod won't work right.

Can you list the changes (just the files) you've made or make the mod available for me to see? Chances are it's probably pretty easy to adapt for campaign usage as a proper custom campaign overlay in the end.

I'm not sure if it creates a new save when starting a server using the in game GUI, the bug may be because of starting the server with an xml command, though I honestly don't know for certain.

What I've done for now is duplicate my entire RWR game files and modify the vanilla ones to eliminate the use of an overlay which does work as long as those connecting to the server are using an identical client.

Heres a download for the mod, let me know if the download doesn't work.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/bec5n8857pcg2oi/GhillieSuitMod.rar