Playing Maps

So you've made your map and now you'd like to play it? Unfortunately, at this time the game doesn't have a nice graphical interface for choosing maps from what's installed. So you'll have to get your elbows a little dirty and hack into config files to do it. Luckily it's not that hard.

Place Your Map
First you need to place your map. Each platform has a different place for you to put it, so you need to make a decision about it right away. The first decision to make is "Should this map be playable for all users on the system?" If the answer is "yes", then you need to install it in the game's system resources directory. If the answer is "no", then you need to install it in your user's resource directory for the game. The actual locations of these files is system-dependent and on some platforms depends on where you installed the game.

You generally want to create a new directory underneath your resource directory to hold you own special maps. This directory should be named according to the author of the maps in it. Please be careful to avoid an ambiguous nickname by checking if someone is already using that name on the resource repository. When you browse your local resource directory you may notice that there's a special directory called. You shouldn't fool with it. If you've played a server with a map you particularly liked, and you'd like to use that map for your own local game, then you should move the map from it's location in the  directory and put it immediately beneath the   directory. Examples (Linux given, others requested):


 * /home/Lucifer/.armagetronad/resource/Lucifer/crack_pipe-0.1.xml

System Resource Directory (default)

 * Linux - /usr/share/games/armagetronad/resource
 * Windows - C:\Program Files\Armagetron Advanced\resource
 * Mac OS X - Armagetron Advanced.app/Contents/Resources/resource

User's Resource Directory (default)

 * Linux - /.armagetronad/resource
 * Example: /home/Joe/.armagetronad/resource
 * Windows - \Armagetron\resource
 * Example: C:\Documents and Settings\Joe\Application Data\Armagetron\resource
 * Mac OS X - /Library/Application Support/Armagetron Advanced/resource
 * Example: /Users/Joe/Library/Application Support/Armagetron Advanced/resource

Setting the Config
The file you need to modify depends on whether or not you want the map to be available for all users of the system. If you want the map available for all users of the system, then you need to modify the file  in the appropriate directory (paths given below). If you only want you to be able to play the map on your system, or if you don't have administrative privileges on your machine, then you'll need to modify  in your home directory. You'll have to create that file, it does not exist on a fresh installation.

The modification you need to make is to add a line that looks like this, based on the example given above:


 * MAP_FILE Lucifer/crack_pipe-0.1.xml

That's it. Note that the path is relative to the  directory. The game will scan your user's resource directory, and then the system resource directory. If it doesn't find the map after scanning those places it will try to fetch the map from the resource repository. Since you're most likely working locally, this shouldn't be necessary.

System Configuration File Paths (default)

 * Linux - /usr/etc/games/armagetronad/settings.cfg
 * Windows - C:\Program Files\Armagetron Advanced\config\settings.cfg
 * Mac OS X - Armagetron Advanced.app/Contents/Resources/settings.cfg

User Configuration File Paths (default)

 * Linux - /.armagetronad/var/autoexec.cfg
 * Windows - \Armagetron\var\autoexec.cfg
 * Mac OS X - /Library/Application Support/Armagetron Advanced/autoexec.cfg

Choosing a Map Download URI
If using a location other than the official resource repository is desired (for example, for a LAN game where not all players have internet access), you can specify it using 2 different methods:


 * MAP_FILE Lucifer/crack_pipe-0.1.xml(http://www.davefancella.com/maps/crack_pipe-0.1.xml) this may not work unless you have the apropriat things
 * RESOURCE_REPOSITORY_SERVER http://aabeta.dashjr.org/resource/

Note that to use the RESOURCE_REPOSITORY variable, the website must provide the files under the regular file path. In this case, the file http://aabeta.dashjr.org/resource/Lucifer/crack_pipe-0.1.xml would need to exist.

If you don't have an own webserver to host your map or you want to make your map "official", whatever that means, submit it to our resource repository here:

http://resource.armagetronad.net/upload/

Note that while specifying a URI for the map is optional when it has been submitted to the official resource repository, you must always specify the map filepath in MAP_FILE.