How To Do Your Own Voodoo-style NOLF2 Coop

Summary:
This is a quick and dirty approach to getting the NOLF2 Single Player missions served up on a COOP internet or LAN server. Your Mileage May Vary... Please direct comments to the Nolfage and/or Voodoo forums.

Details:
This is a simple cut and paste of two posts I made on a different forum. It is likely that there is some repetition, but it is my hope that this makes some things clear about how to get this done. I should eventually edit this to provide more information about tweaking the game physics, etc.
A lot of people have asked... how did we do this?
I'm going to drop a bunch of hints here and then say "do the math" because I have been unable to write this up properly in a way that makes any sense. That is to say, nobody I have ever sent directions to has ever told me it worked, and most of them asked more questions... I will say that modifying the files that come with the game is a very bad idea unless you are willing to re-install the game to fix what you break. if your kung f00 or stomach (or both) are weak, don't do it. We've been lucky so far and not had anything break but you never know. Do this at your own risk.
Essentially these are a modestly improved form of the hints we used to have posted in the Voodoo FAQ, I hope they make more sense.
Some people have noticed that we are running a CJ server also. We're using most of the SP missions. As with Nolf2, a few have respawn issues in COOP mode because they were never intended to be used that way. Primarily the set up is the same as for custom levels for Nolf2 COOP, but I seem to recall Cainan mumbling something about one difference, I'm not sure what it was. So here is how to roll your own Voodoo for either game,or at least, my latest attempt.
You need at least:
- MISSIONS.TXT (you should have it already. if you don't, maybe it comes from dev tools)
- COOPMISSIONS.TXT (ditto)
- a backup copy of the above in case you screw it up or want to go back.
- A profile for dedicated server (any mode, for Nolf2 you can choose COOP)
- Profiles/Mine/Campaigns/default_campaign.txt
- patience and willingness to edit these files by hand
- a desire to spend a few hours getting it right without asking me
You may also need:
- the dev tools. you shouldn't need them... we think we didn't.
- a few live chickens
- a Black Magic Woman (again, do the math... y u think its called voodoo?)
Gotchas and Hints:
- when editing the txt files, use save as and choose "Text Document (.txt)"
- don't use this profile in the GUI anymore, the GUI will "fix" your "broken" profile.
- Some levels don't work. omit them from the default_campaign.txt.
- Nolf2 seems to require the same length mission file name as COOPMISSIONS.TXT.
- For internet we had to start the session from the dedicated server, not the GUI.
- CJ's GUI doesn't recognize COOP mode so create a profile & modify it by hand.
- CJ wants the firewall to honor the server's source port when natting.
- Running some SP missions smoothly takes more memory than the COOP or DM modes
- Cainan did all the hard stuff for CJ, so I may be missing something.
Remember... you don't need to do any of this if you just want to join our server. You only need to try this if you want to host your own.
So lets say you had started fresh, with a clean install of the game, and for the sake of not being accidentally wrong lets also assume you installed the dev tools.
Then, the files you need to edit are down somewhere in this directory:
C:\Program Files\...\No One Lives Forever 2\
Where "..." may vary depending on what you did and C: may be some other drive letter. If that doesn't make sense to you, find a local geek or local fellow gamer who does know what I mean and have them SHOW you... that really is the best way. I don't recommend letting anybody log in to your desktop over the internet and change things. Get someone local.
So, the directory above (... No One Lives Forever 2), there are some files:
MISSIONS.TXT
Game\Attributes\COOPMISSIONS.TXT
Profiles\Player.txt
Profiles\Player\Campaigns\default_campaign.txt
For Nolf2, assuming you first start up the game (i.e. double-click the Nolf2 icon) you can set most things right there but you have to do this before editing anything... How to do this part is covered elsewhere, and I'm not going to duplicate it here except to suggest that you want to set for coop, dedicated server, may want a password, definitely want SCMD and definitely want an SCMD password and of course... you probably want to set it for Internet play. You can do all this from the Game and don't have to edit anything. Then start up dedicated and make sure that this works. If so, yuo should have the standard COOP missions running on an internet game with dedicated server. Then shut down the dedicated server and the game (if necessary) and proceed as follows...
MAKE A BACKUP COPY of the COOPMISSIONS.TXT file (location given above) and then overwrite the original with a copy of MISSIONS.TXT. I'll admit that you may have to hunt around for MISSIONS.TXT because I may remember wrong, but searching (use the Search feature in Windows) the dir will find it. Aside from a little hunting for the file, this part really is that easy... just replace COOPMISSIONS.TXT with MISSIONS.TXT. The next (and final) step is the only time you have to edit anything by hand to just run the default SP missions.
Last step: in the default_campaign.txt (location given above), you can add lines:
Mission5=5
Mission6=6
Mission7=7
Mission8=8
Mission9=9
Mission10=10
Mission11=11
Mission12=12
Mission13=13
Mission14=14
Mission15=15
Save the file. Then start the dedicated server. In the Nolf2 directory (C:\....No One Lives Forever 2) is a Nolf2Srv.exe. Just Double-Click it. This should give you the entire Single Player game as shipped, but in a dedicated COOP server with respawn, revive, etc.
I recommend running this for a while and then deciding what you don't like about it. To tweak weapons and ammo, you'll have to read other posts in the mod forum and look carefully at your new COOPMISSIONS.TXT. To take out a particularly troublesome or buggy mission, you can remove it from default_campaign.txt.
For CJ, you will have to edit something in the Profiles\Player.txt file. Set everything up as above but when innitially setting up the dedicated mode using the Game interface, instead of a COOP game, set for DM. Then, after you've done all the other steps, just before you start the server, edit the Player.txt file in the Profiles directory. Look for a line that says "GameType = " and some number. Change the number to 1. Save the file and start the server.
I hope this helps even more...
Good luck...
-f00