Jailbreak Developer Network: Changes/Mappers

This page describes What's New for Mappers and is aimed at mappers who have previous mapping experience with Jailbreak for Unreal Tournament.

Jails and Releases

See Jail and Release for a less change-oriented, more thorough explanation of how to set up a jail and its release switches.

No distinct zone needed for jails...

You can bind any number of zones and volumes to a single JBInfoJail actor using the jail's TagAttachZones and TagAttachVolumes properties.

...but using a zoned-off area simplifies jail setup.

If you just place a JBInfoJail actor in an area that has been zoned off from the rest of the map and leave its TagAttachZones property set to its default Auto setting, it'll automatically make this zone and the PlayerStarts in it a jail.

Jails are team-independent.

A jail can hold players from either team, or even both if you desire so. Which team is sent to which jail is solely a matter of the TeamNumber of the PlayerStart actors you place in there.

Release switches can be either triggers or GameObjective actors.

You can simply use a Trigger for a release switch as you did in Jailbreak III. But since plain triggers don't support any special options to set up bot defense points, it's preferable that you use any of the GameObjective subclasses for your release switches. Just set their Event to the JBInfoJail actor's Tag as you would for a trigger. You can use the JBGameObjectiveTouchable as a trigger replacement with bot defense point support if you want. We also provide JBGameObjectiveSwitch, a "standard" Jailbreak release switch that provides a visual effect that players can instantly recognize.

Multiple release switches per team are supported.

Where Jailbreak III only allowed a single release switch per team, you can have several of them in Jailbreak 2003 maps. Bots use them all, and the HUD displays one compass dot for each release switch (and the dots' pulsing tells players which switch to attack to free their teammates).

Jail door mover events must be relayed by the JBInfoJail actor.

You shouldn't have your release switches trigger the jail door movers directly; instead, have them trigger only the JBInfoJail actor and use its EventReleaseRed or EventReleaseBlue events to trigger the release doors. The upside of this slight detour is that the jail is smart enough to keep the release switches disabled automatically long enough for the jail doors to open and close again; so you don't have to bother setting up a ReTriggerDelay for your release switches.

Arenas

See Arena for a less change-oriented and more thorough explanation of how to set up an arena.

No distinct zone needed for arenas...

In fact, you don't even need a secluded area for your arena anymore, though it may be better gameplay-wise to have one. Use the TagAttachStarts and TagAttachPickups properties of JBInfoArena to bind PlayerStarts and pickups to an arena – the game will keep track of the arena combatants regardless where they go, and will make sure that outside players cannot interfere with the arena fight even if they shoot the fighters.

...but using a zoned-off area simplifies arena setup.

You can save yourself manually binding PlayerStarts and pickups to a JBInfoArena actor by placing it in a zoned-off area of your map and leaving the TagAttachStarts and TagAttachPickups properties at their default Auto setting; that'll automatically bind all starts and pickups in that zone to the arena.

Arenas must be triggered to start a fight.

The JBInfoArena actor doesn't have any timing logic anymore. Instead, it looks for potential combatants and possibly starts a fight whenever it is triggered (and no arena fight is in progress already). You can use a JBTriggerTimed to periodically trigger the arena, or you can go fancy and have the players trigger the arena themselves – that's particularly interesting in connection with the TagRequest feature of arenas.

Other Features

Scoreboard minimap.

A proper Jailbreak 2003 map should provide a minimap display in the scoreboard. See the Scoreboard Minimap tutorial for how to create one.

Cameras and camera arrays.

The JBCamera actor allows you to set up triggered cameras in your map – when a player enters the trigger radius, they can watch the action in a different part of the map. It's a good thing to add several of those in the jails to keep the players happy – or use them tactically in your map...

Loading screens.

Like all UT2004 maps, Jailbreak maps can embed a custom Loading Screen.

Related Topics

See Maps/Guidelines for a list of guidelines for Jailbreak maps.