ULTIMATE MAPPACK 3 INFO

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Ultimate Mappack 3 (UMP3)

For "Aliens vs. Predator 2"

Mappack made by Doom Guy

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## Disclaimer
These disclaimers, prohibitions, and restrictions in this section apply to anyone in possession of the Ultimate mappack.

This mappack is provided free of charge and must be distributed solely for free. Neither you nor any other person may sell the mappack to anyone or commercially exploit the Ultimate Mappack in any way, or charge anyone for using the mappack. The mappack may be exchanged at no charge among other end-users.
You agree that you use the ultimate mappack at your own risk.
The Ultimate Mappack is provided "as-is" WITHOUT ANY GUARANTEE THAT IT WILL FUNCTION OR OPERATE IN ANY DESIRED WAY
AND ANY EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS MAPPACK, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
NO SUPPORT. This mappack is provided free of charge. There will be no technical support provided.

THIS MAPPACK IS NOT MADE BY OR SUPPORTED BY Monolith Productions, or any of its affiliates and subsidiaries.

The instructions provided below are only shared for your convenience and intended as general guidelines for installation.
Your installation experience may vary. The instructions are provided as-is and you follow them at your own risk.

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Index
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1) Special thanks

2) System requirements

3) What "Ultimate Mappack 3" contains

4) The maps in "Ultimate Mappack 3"

5) The difference between "UMP1", "UMP2" and "UMP3"

6) The Making of "Ultimate Mappack 3"

7) "Ultimate Mappack 3" problems

8) A tribute to all the mappers

9) Future mappacks

10) Copyright and permissions

11) Contact information


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1) Special thanks
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See CREDITS.txt in "_UMP3 INFORMATION_" folder.

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2) System requirements
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#### System Requirements
5 GB (5000 MB) or more of free space on your hard drive.

512 MB of (memory) RAM or more. (some maps require this)

64 MB video card, or better. (some maps require this)

"Aliens vs. Predator 2" version 1.0.9.6 or Aliens vs. Predator 2: Primal Hunt 1.0.2.2F

You'll need file extraction software to get the mappack out of the .7z compression file.
7-Zip software has worked well for us, your experience may vary.

UMP3 is only tested on Windows computers. Your experience may vary.


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3) What "Ultimate Mappack 3" contains
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We did not create any of the maps or game content in the Ultimate Mappack. The mappack contains
third-party AvP2 community levels intended for multiplayer game matches. The levels have been
created over the years since the AvP2 and its tools were released in 2001.
The ultimate mappack was intended to combine all the functional published AvP2 community custom multiplayer
levels into one mappack. The mappack makes it easier for players to play in multiplayer game matches
without needing to worry about whether they've have the same levels as the server or other players.


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All the mappacks listed below have been incorporated into this mappack, thereby
making these mappacks not necessary if "Ultimate Mappack 3" is installed.
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9thcmd Mappack
=ARC= Mappack
Avp2 dm mappack
Custom mappack 1
Custom mappack 2
Custom mappack 3
Custom mappack 3.1
Custom mappack 3.2
Custom mappack 4
Custom mappack 4 mini
Fusion Remix Mappack
HHO mappack
HHO 2004 mappack
HHO 2005 mappack
KW v1 mappack
KW v2 mappack
Master Server Patch custom map extras
Multi mappack 1
Official multiplayer map update 1
RFW mappack
SC mappack
TALON mappack 1
TALON mappack 2
TALON mappack 3
Trog mappack 1
Ultimate Mappack 1
Ultimate Mappack 2
Ultimate Mappack 2 Updates 1 through 7

This mappack doesn't have every map, in fact there are almost 100 maps or so that were considered
to be exact byte-for-byte duplicate copies, unplayable/malfunctioning, obsolete, or other quality issues.
For a partial list of what has mostly been left on the cutting room floor over the years take a look at
"UMP3 Omitted Maps.log" in the "_UMP3 INFORMATION_" folder.
Also, review the "UMP3 Level Quality Guide.txt" located in the same information folder for some common reasons
why we remove maps or do not add them to the mappack.
In general, we want the levels in the pack to meet a minimum quality level of playableness.
Unplayable maps waste everyone's time and take up space and resources.


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Here's a list of how many custom maps are in each category
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588 maps in total


DEATHMATCH ------------ 516 maps

TEAM DEATHMATCH ------- 527 maps

HUNT ------------------ 516 maps

SURVIVOR -------------- 519 maps

OVERRUN --------------- 19 maps

EVAC ------------------ 39 maps


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4) The maps in "Ultimate Mappack 3"
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Take a look at the text file, "UMP3 Map List.txt" in the "_UMP3 INFORMATION_" folder for a comprehensive
list of all the levels included in this mappack. The same information is provided in a .md markdown file
in the same folder.


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5) The difference between "UMP1", "UMP2" and "UMP3"
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The main re-occurring difference between UMP 1, 2, & 3 is addition of more custom maps.
UMP1 was released in 2005, UMP2 in 2006, UMP2's 7 updates between 2006 and 2018, UMP3 in 2020.

UMP3 is a complete replacement for all ultimate mappack components that came before it e.g.
UMP2, UMP2 updates 1 through 7, & UMP1.

"Ulimate Mappack 1" (UMP1) had some problems with it that DoubleZero addressed. DoubleZero
removed a handful of extreme poor quality levels. Some levels introduced resource files that
overrided base game files in an conspicuous way e.g. base game textures changed, a base AvP2 game
generic alarm noise had been overridden by a recording of someone humming to name only a few
occurrences.

### What's new in Ultimate Mappack 3?

"Ultimate Mappack 3" (UMP3) is a merger of UMP2 and the 7 updates into a single release with
the addition of a few new maps.
UMP3 also eliminated these quality issues:
* Compressed audio files.
* Removed several byte-for-byte duplicate copies of maps.
* Removed low-quality or nonfunctional levels.
* Removed unreferenced game resource files from the mappack.
- Includes any textures, models, skins, sounds, sprites, .pcx, that were not used by any map or
.spr & .dtx file in the ultimate mappack.
* Restored missing game resource files that were distributed with the maps that were missing them.
* Base AvP2 game resource overrides completely removed - mostly introduced
by UMP2 Updates.
* Restored missing textures and sounds where they were obvious files from NOLF, AvP2 or another
map by the same creator.
- Some maps came with their own files in the wrong place e.g. wrong folder.
* Restored missing textures and sounds with adequate fill-in textures / sounds
- Once you heard one electronic buzz sound for a switch, you've heard them all, right?
- Selected textures similar to the ones near the sights of conspicuous missing textures in maps.
- The textures / sounds were not distributed with levels in these cases.
* A few maps have been patched that had flags incorrectly set that made the map unplayable before.
- This mostly includes spawn point problems where all or certain races only spawned at one spot due to
flags being set that prevented the players from spawning in at other spawnpoints available in the level.
- Tall grass with the RayHit property set so that projectiles don't pass through.
- These were fixed by hex-editing the .dat files themselves and switching those flags in way so that
the spawn points could function normally again or tall grass didn't block bullets.
* UMP3 introduced source-control to the ultimate mappack, which, has made managing this mappack a lot easier.
* UMP3 has removed any designer files from previous iterations of the mappack
- e.g. Dedit .ed files, .tga files, DIRTYPE files, Visual SourceSafe files, 3dsmax files, thumbs.db
- Basically any file that is not needed by any level in order to run in the game has been removed.
* UMP3 also re-introduced a few maps from UMP1 that were cut. Some for the reasons listed previous especially
around spawn point issues, but, the issues were able to be patched.
Some were skirmish maps that have been reintroduced for skirmish / COOP servers.
* UMP3 brought back the wooden door texture seen in GRAVEYARD and GASOLINATION that caused a technical issue
with the FK1099 server side mod.
* UMP3 removed preceding verisons of maps in favor of a completed version. The preceding versions
were removed if the differences between it and the final were barely noticable, fixes to minor issues, or
simply more details added.
- If a previous version of a level stood out well in its own right, it has been kept e.g. sUk-stronghold 1 vs.
sUk-stronghold 2, Arenamatch 1 vs. Arenamatch 2, Pilot Fortress at day vs. Pilot Fortress at night.
- An example of removal occurred with dm_backstreets, where the first version had some nuisance issues like steps that
could not be walked up. Other than those minor bug fixes, the maps are identical.
-Both versions of the same map have been kept where one version was intended to address performance issues. Just
for the sake of slower machines being used anywhere.
- E.g. The Thing v1 vs. The Thing v2.

Review the logs found in the "_UMP3 INFORMATION_" folder for more specific details on these changes
introduced in UMP3. The log files are in Markdown format for ease of viewing.

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6) The Making of "Ultimate Mappack 3"
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Ultimate Mappack 3 was directly derived from UMP1, UMP2, and the 7 UMP2 updaters. Although at
first glance it seems making a big mappack is trivial and easy, a lot of work has gone into
making UMP3, UMP2, and the UMP2 updates.
A lot of effort was put into testing the maps especially after a bunch of unused resources
had been removed and sound files had been compressed. Take a look at the logs in the
"_UMP3 INFORMATION_" folder for a long list of work that went into making UMP3.
Work began on UMP3 around 2007-2008. It's built off of DoubleZero's shoulders from the
previous Ultimate mappacks and off of HHO's UMP2 updaters. Doom Guy put a lot of work into
getting rid of resource overrides, unused resource files, detecting missing resource files,
plugging in missing textures & sounds where possible, bit-flipping a few maps to fix some major
problems with spawn points and nuisance issues. DoubleZero did some map curation.
Doom Guy and DoubleZero put together the list of maps and their attributed creators.
A lot of testing has been done by DoubleZero, Doom Guy, x-M-x, KingKenny, and The_One.




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General information
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Game : "Aliens vs. Predator 2"
Custom type : Mappack
Title : "Ultimate Mappack 3"
Version : 3
Release date : August 2020
Included files : "UMP3" folder and all its contents (this is the actual mappack)
"Installation and Help.txt" text file
"Ultimate Mappack 3 Info.txt" text file (this file you are reading right now)
"_UMP3 INFORMATION_" folder with UMP3 documentation and readmes from mappers
Authors : Doom Guy
Email address : Its in the "Contact Information" section

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Construction
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Base : Modified from "Ultimate Mappack 1", "Ultimate Mappack 2", and "UMP2 updates 1 through 7"
Construction time : Over 10 months dispersed since 2007-2008
Total combined hours : 600 hours (estimated)
Known issues : The map evac_terraform_alphaclan crashes dedicated servers after a set amount of time.
Custom sounds : Yes, over 300 custom sounds
Custom textures : Yes, over 3300 custom textures
Compression time(7z) : 6 minutes and 2 seconds


Here's a list of software used in making Ultimate Mappack 3

-- DEdit
-- Notepad
-- Photoshop 7.0
-- 7-Zip
-- IrfanView
-- Lithrez
-- JavaScript
-- Powershell
-- The_One's sound file compression software
-- The_One's .DAT file manifest reporter
-- Doom Guy's .DAT File Level Scanner
-- ModelEdit
-- git
-- git LFS
-- HxD
-- Markdown
-- Visual Studio 2019
-- DTX Viewer (From WinRez LT Studio)
-- Github
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7) "Ultimate Mappack 3" problems?
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I left UMP3 in a big folder structure to make it easier for the advanced players to add more maps
to the pack. It's the way that it's always been with ultimate mappack too - the folder structure
compared to the .rez file approach. DoubleZero also ran into problems in the past throwing it
all into one enormous .rez file.
Rez file, folder? It all works the same anyways - although the folder structure is easier
for advanced users to make their own personal changes.

There is a small issue in the host maps selection screen in the game, the blue highlight box around
the "Availble Maps" box, is elongated. That's because of maps with very long names, the blue
highlighted box has to conform around the name of the maps. This is a visual anomaly that is benign.

There may be missing textures seen outside of the levels, these textures were not released by the
mappers or the mappers didn't bother to texture them. There shouldn't be any missing textures
within the playable areas of a map. There are also missing sounds in some maps, which, were not released
by the map creators with the map.

*Please, contact us about these issues as we're confident we've solved all of these cases.*

If the missing file is one that shows up in the "MissingUMP3Resources.txt" log in this
folder: "_UMP3 INFORMATION_\Manifests", then it was decided that file was not to be patched for
a particular reason. This reason may be that it was a missing song track that the mapper did not
distribute (many map creators did this, see the list).
Other sound effect files may not be imitated easily and were more aptly cut from the map e.g.
dm_Jungle bunker switch noises, the maps play fine without these minor switch effect noises.
Sounds that could also never be played that were missing are not replaced either e.g. the 'ufo' in ufo,
is a Door object that plays a locked sound which is a file that was not distributed with the map; however,
nothing in the map ever _locks_ the ufo so the locked sound is never to be played anyways.
We only made attempts to fix missing textures that were _conspicous_ in the maps.
No attempts were made to fill in textures that could only be seen from outside the map in an
unplayable area or even on polies that may never be viewed by the player like
the bottom floor-facing poly of a column that is never seen.

Maps that had polies with the nameless 'Default' texture cannot be fixed by anyone besides the mapper themselves
with the .ed file. This simply indicates that the poly was never textured.

* Please, contact us if there is an issue with a missing resource file, texture / sound / model etc. *


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8) A tribute to all the mappers
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Being that there are so many maps, there would probably be close to one hundred mappers who have
made maps in the ultimate mappacks. It's also proven quite impossible to get a 100% completed list of
names of the map creators especially with many AvP2 community websites coming and going, where
the maps were originally published to.

We've identified and attributed most maps to their respective creators although some still elude us. We
need help in attributing names to the missing ones. Please contact us if you can to fill in
one of our blanks. We'd also prefer to have a readme or some documentation associated with that citation.

Our exhaustive list of the maps in this mappack and its creators is in the file, "UMP3 Map List.txt" in
the "_UMP3 INFORMATION_" folder.

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To all the Mappers who have made maps in this Mappack, I would like to say
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"Thanks for contributing your time and energy to this great game."
"Thanks for giving us better gaming experience."
"Thanks for keeping the multiplayer experience fresh and new with your maps."
"And a big thanks for helping to keep the "Aliens vs. Predator 2" community alive."


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If you are a mapper who has made a map in this mappack,
this information below is pertinent to you.
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I would have liked to have placed all the "read me" text files that accompanied all the
individual maps, but being that there are so many maps in this mappack there would probably be
well over 100 "read me" text files. And although that would be helpful to have them all accompany
this mappack, no one in their right mind would go through and read them all. Therefore, I only
added a few which I thought were necessary for the more complex maps.

I know I did not ask permission from any mappers if it was okay to add their maps first, but I
feel this is okay because I'm trying to do whatever it takes to keep people playing on custom
maps. Most people can only run a handful of custom maps at any time unless it's a huge mappack.
By making this mappack, this will allow people to play on every custom map, which,
is far easier and more convenient for us. Believe it or not, this should actually have
more people playing on your map(s) due to the convenience factor. If you are upset that I didn't
ask permission to add these maps then I am sorry, but I felt I had to do this to keep AVP2 alive.

Any credit I get from making this mappack should honestly go out to all you mappers because
without all your great custom maps this mappack would literally not exist.


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9) Future mappacks
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At the time of UMP3 being released, the pace of new multiplayer maps getting released has slowed.
For adding additonal maps and possibly patching existing maps and files, the mappack will be updated
at the official ultimate mappack website.

### For Map Creators
There are some preferred requirements that I'm requesting, if you make maps:

-- Follow the "Map Quality Guide" in the "_UMP3 INFORMATION_" folder. Violating the criteria will prevent
your level from being added to the mappack. We don't want to add poor-quality malfunctioning maps, as
they just waste everyone's time.

-- Give your map an original name, because believe it or not, people remember it better that way.

-- Avoid long map names. (I hate long named maps)

-- Try to use very little custom textures as possible, or if possible don't use any custom
textures and/or sounds, because you can still make a good map that way.
(for example look at a map named: "Toxic Feud")

-- If you wish to use custom textures and/or sound files, put them in a folder and give it a
unique name. This makes it much easier to add these files to a mappack.
It also helps you avoid hitting a conflict with another file or another custom texture that a mapper made.

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10) Copyright and permissions
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This text should always accompany this mappack where ever it's available for download.

This mappack is provided free of charge and must be distributed solely for free. Neither you nor any
other person may sell the mappack to anyone or commercially exploit the Ultimate Mappack in any way,
or charge anyone for using the mappack. The mappack may be exchanged at no charge among other end-users.

You are not allowed to add or remove any files of this mappack and then redistribute this mappack
for download, unless my permission is given.

You are not allowed to take any of the maps in this mappack and rename them, and distribute them
for download.

Please contact a map's author if you seek permission to use or modify their content.

As for all the textures and sound files in this mappack, they are free for anyone's usage, but
understand some of these files were custom made and much hard work and thought went into them.
So, if you plan on using any of these files, it's best to contact the author.

The Disclaimer in Disclaimer.txt that is distributed with this mappack applies. It is the same
disclaimer displayed at the top of this text file.

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11) Contact Information
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Doom Guy: [email protected]
Doom Guy (Twitter): @Stung_5