FORK_CHANGES.md

This page lists the major changes of this repository compared to standard STK code, as of April 2024. Most changes (sadly, not all of them) here are implemented as options, that is, you can disable them and return to standard behaviour.

You can find more information such as explanations and minor details in wiki. It will be probably filled with even more data in the future.

Improved Grand Prix mode

• Server doesn't become private
• Players can pick karts, join or leave
• Custom scoring systems
• Custom teams (up to 9)
• Standings ingame (short) and in the lobby (longer)
• Anti-troll and team hit punishment systems, by Heuchi1
• Allows to shuffle the starting grid every race

Records, replays and stats

• Game results for racing and battle modes can be saved to the database, together with game settings and kart statistics
• Public or private record tables can be created using that information
• Ghost replays can be recorded on servers if players agree
• Players who beat server records can be notified (includes separation of times set with different config files)
• Maximum replay size is increased

Chat

• Private chat with an arbitrary set of players
• Teamchat during CTF and soccer which works both ingame and in the lobby
• Messages are never logged, even by the bots (though they pass through the server code)

Game configuration, available maps and karts, playing restrictions

• Game length can be set to a fixed value, or to a certain multiple of default lap number, or to be chosen ingame
• Game direction can be set to forward or reverse, or to be chosen ingame
• For karts and maps, the next game can be customized so that the set of karts/maps available for choice is fixed, or defined by a certain algorithm (including "you have to play this track", "select from $N$ random maps from this set", "you can choose either Adiumy, or whatever is given to you by random of Suzanne and Konqi")
• The same is true for any number of next games, and the server can be set to repeat the customization every number of games

All of the above settings can be changed arbitrarily when the server already runs, or in the config before the server starts.

• Servers can be started with other powerup.xml or kart_characteristics.xml files being specified
• It's possible for a server to force certain maps for players to join the server or to join the game, or vice versa, disable certain maps (or all but a certain set of maps). There are various commands to find out which addons you (or other players) have or don't have, to make it easy to deal with the above
• The default setting of number of playable slots (playable places on the server) can be changed with a command
• If the player is unable to play due to imposed restrictions (lacking maps, being out of playable slots), that player doesn't affect the set of available maps, and is given the hourglass icon.

Command manager

Command manager is an entity made to manipulate all existing server commands easier. It supports:

• commands with voting
• text commands / commands reading external files
• auth commands
• setting permissions for commands without recompiling the code and/or depending on server
• subcommands and different permissions for them
• fixing errors in arguments (usernames, map names)
• showing available commands depending on permissions
• documentation for all commands via /help
• huge number of new commands

All the commands and their descriptions are available in data/commands.xml. This file is also used to generate output for /commands and /help.

Moderation and permissions

• It's possible to disable kicks attempted by the crowned player
• If a player kicks another player, the fact of the kick can be stored in the database table with reports
• Inactive players can be kicked automatically from the lobby too, not only from the game
• A hammer mode is added: players having a password can get a hammer, then they can change server settings and kick players
• There are commands to ban (or unban) a player temporary from a single server by username, as opposed to standard bans which are applied to all servers using the same database, and are usually banning by online id or IP address
• Players are allowed to report something to server owner without reporting other people
• Starting the game can be allowed or forbidden using a command

Game modes and their improvements

These are not implemented as separate modes, but are rather additions to functionality of existing modes:

• Soccer tournament mode: for hosting matches of several soccer games. The rules, the number of games and their duration, allowed arenas, tournament teams can be loaded from a config file. Referees have multiple commands to control the game flow
• Gnu Elimination mode: every race, the last (or quitting) non-eliminated player gets eliminated, and eliminated players use the same kart chosen in advance. The last standing player wins

Separate changes for modes:

• Soccer games produce a log of all goals / actions that happened (originally made for tournament mode, but can be used without it too), if the score is edited using tournament commands, the game shows it as a message after each goal and at the end
• FFA and CTF scores are preserved per username during the game, so that leaving the game is not punished

Other features

• You can allow only the crowned player to play (speedrun server), or no one at all (chat server)
• Minor /spectate changes (you can invoke it ingame, game doesn't start with everyone spectating)
• For a configurable server, you can specify which exact difficulties and modes are allowed
• Players can send a message to the server owner (without reporting anyone else), and the server owner can send one-time messages to specific players
• For private servers, players can be whitelisted so that they can enter any password to join
• Different strategies to determine who scored a goal (allowing or forbidding own goals)
• max-moveable-objects is changed to 30 to allow tracks like addon_bowling to work
• Server can be customized to reset or preserve many settings like game mode, game length, ..., when everyone leaves it
• Server git version and whether it's modified is shown in /version
• Server console allows sending arbitrary messages to players
• Supported player categories aka sets of players (for now only displaying their names, and some minor usage)
• Minor additions in StringUtils used in typo fixing and string parsing