High Bandwidth Connection
If you want to run a TF server, you've come to the right place. The following document will describe what you need to run a TF server, how to start
it, and what commands you need to know to customize it. If you've got a TF server running already, you probably want to skip straight to the
Advanced Customization section to find further information on customizing it. If you want to know how to set your server
up for a Clan Battle, skip straight to the Clan Battles section.
What do you need to run a Team Fortress 1.5 Server?
The most important factor in how well your server will run is how fast your connection to the Internet is. When people connect to your server to play, you have to share that bandwidth with them. At the very minimum you need an ISDN connection (256 kb/s or more). Ideally a server will be running through a DSL or T1 connection. If you run a server and the bandwidth you are providing to the people that connect to you isn't enough, they are going to experience lag because your machine can't send them enough information.
Your computer is going to be doing a lot of work when people connect to it, and the amount of work that it needs to do increases dramatically as more people connect to your game. To be able to service a full game, you are going to want at least a Pentium II 266, but the more CPU power the better.
RAM is something that you really can never have enough of. Any time your machine doesn't have enough RAM it will start using a swap file, which is much slower. At the minimum you are going to want 64 MB of RAM, but 128 would be ideal.
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The requirements are very dependant on the number of players on your server. The above requirements should be fine for a 16 player server. If you're planning on running a 32 player server, you'll need to have considerably more bandwidth, CPU power, and RAM than outlined above. A 6 or 8 player server could get by with slightly less than described. |
This lets the dedicated server know that it should look for all the files that it needs in the TFC directory, and that you're allowing a maximum of 16 players on your server at any one time.hlds.exe -game tfc +maxplayers 16
You are now running a Team Fortress 1.5 server, but you need to run a map for people to join. Click on the console line at the bottom and type in 'map 2fort'. Now
you are running a server that people can connect to. Hit the status button (or type status at the command line) and you can see information on your server, such as
the map you're running, what IP address your server is running from, how many people are connected to your game, and how many people you will allow in your game.
Below is a list of the most common settings that you'll probably want to customize.
How do I change my server's name?If you want your server to have a custom name in the server list, you need to use the hostname command, followed by the name you wish, in quotes.
For example:hostname "My TF Server!"
How do I change my server's name?If you want your server to have a custom name in the server list, you need to use the hostname command, followed by the name you wish, in quotes.
For example:hostname "My TF Server!"
How do I change the amount of time each map is played for?TF servers have a setting called the timelimit. The timelimit is the amount of time a map is played before the server automatically moves onto the next one. You can alter this using the mp_timelimit command, followed by the amount of time in minutes you want the server to run each map.
For example, this setting will make your server run each map for 30 minutes:mp_timelimit 30
How do I change the maps my server is playing?Your server moves through a list of maps called the Map Cycle. It finds the list in the mapcycle.txt file that's found in your Half-Life \ TFC directory. Use Notepad to edit the file. You can add and remove maps simply by adding or deleting the map names in the file.
If you add a new map name to the list, make sure you also place the map (the .BSP file) into your Half-Life \ TFC \ maps directory. You may need to make this directory yourself.
How do I change my server to a specific map?You can use the changelevel command, followed by the name of the map, to change to a specific map.
For example, this will change your server to the Well:changelevel well
How do I prevent teammates from hurting each other?You can change the teammate damage settings using the mp_teamplay command. There's a variety of different settings you can choose. Each setting has an associated value. Add up the values of all the settings you want on, and type mp_teamplay followed by the sum of the settings. Here's the list of the settings and their associated values:
For example, this will completely prevent players from hurting their teammates with direct and explosive weaponry ( 1 + 4 + 16 = 21 ) :
Teamplay on (you should always set this) 1 Teammates take half damage from direct weaponfire 2 Teammates take no damage from direct weaponfire 4 Teammates take half damage from explosive weaponfire 8 Teammates take no damage from explosive weaponfire 16 Teammates armor takes half damage from direct weaponfire 128 Teammates armor takes no damage from direct weaponfire 256 Teammates armor takes half damage from explosive weaponfire 512 Teammates armor takes no damage from explosive weaponfire 1024 mp_teamplay 21
How do I know that others can see my server?When you start up the server it will either say WON Auth Server or just Auth Server at the server's console. If your server says WON Auth server at the console, that means that it is properly sending a heartbeat to the WON master server. As long as your server is sending heartbeats to the master server, you will be listed in the Half-Life launcher.
How are players identified by the server?The server identifies players that are connected to your server by assigning them a userid and (in the case of an Internet server) a uniqueid. To see the userid and uniqueid for the users connected to your server, type the command users at the server's console. This will display all the users connected to your server, their userid, and their uniqueid. The first number listed is the player's userid:The second number shown is the user's uniqueid:The userid number is generated by the server and increases in increments of one as more users connect to your server. For example, if you start up your server and the first client connects, they are assigned userid #1. The second client that connects will be assigned userid #2. If the first client disconnects and reconnects to your server they will be assigned userid #3 and so on.
This is the id that is unique per cd key and is assigned by WON. This is the second id ( 10 digits or so ) returned when you type the users command.
How do I kick a player off my server using their name?There are a few different ways to kick a player off your TF server. The first step is to identify the player that you want to kick off. If you know the player's name already, you can kick them off using their name. As an example, let's say that a player named 'Bob' is causing trouble on your TF server. You have warned him to curb his behavior, but he continues.
In this case you would type the following text at the dedicated server console:kick Bob
How do I kick a player by their userid?To kick a user by their userid, first type in users at the server's console. This will give you a listing of the users on your computer and their corresponding userid.
We'll use Bob as the example again. To kick Bob off your server using his userid, type this in at the server's console:1. users
2. kick # (Bob's userid)
Make sure that you have a space between the pound sign (#) and the player's userid.
How do I ban a player from my server for a specific amount of time?If a player is causing enough trouble on your server that you want to ban them for a specific amount of time, then you should use the banid command. With the banid command you can ban a player for a specific number of minutes until they cool off and start playing in a manner that makes the server more enjoyable for everyone.
To ban the player 'Bob' from your server for 5 minutes, type this in at the server's console:1. users
2. banid 5 (Bob's uniqueid)
How do I ban a player from my server permanently?Sometimes a player will cause enough trouble that you have to deny them access to your server permanently. Banning a player from your server permanently is accomplished in the same way as banning a player from your server for a specific amount of time.
To ban the player 'Bob' from your server permanently, type this at the server's console:1. users
2. banid 0 (Bob's uniqueid)
How do I ban a player from my server and kick them at the same time?To ban a player from playing on your server and kick them at the same time, simply add in the command kick in your banid line.
To ban the player 'Bob' from your server for 10 minutes and kick him off, type this at the server's console:1. users
2. banid 10 (Bob's uniqueid) kick
How do I get the list of players that are banned permanently on my server?If you have banned users permanently from your server, it's a good idea to keep a list of those uniqueids handy.
To write out a list of the users that you have banned permanently from your server, type this in at the server's console:This will write out a file called banned.cfg to the working directory of your server. In the case of a TFC server it will be written to \halflife\tfc.writeid
How do I make my server keep its banned list after I have restarted the server?If you have restarted your server and want to keep 'Bob' off your server, you will want to add a line into your server's server.cfg file. The server.cfg is located at \halflife\tfc and is run every time your server starts up or changes maps. To keep Bob off your server after the server has restarted, do this:1. Open up your server.cfg file at \halflife\tfc with notepad or another text editor.
2. Add lines at the bottom of the file that say banid 0 (Bob's uniqueid)
3. Save and close the server.cfg file.
How do I remove a user from my list of banned players?If you have a player that has changed their ways and you want to allow them back on your server after you have banned them, you can use the removeid command. To remove Bob from your banned list, type this in at the server's console:removeid (Bob's uniqueid)
How do I turn on Auto Team?If you want to have your server automatically place players into teams, you turn Auto Team on. Note that for the first 30 seconds of a game, players are allowed to join the team they want, to allow teams to reshuffle after each map. The Auto Team command is tfc_autoteam, and it simply needs to be set to 1 or 0.
For example, this turns on Auto Team:tfc_autoteam 1
How can I remotely administer my server?Remote administration makes it possible for the server administrator to control their server without sitting at the machine the server is running on. This can be very useful for server operators that play on their own servers. Remote administration is accomplished using the rcon (remote console). The first thing you need to do is set up an rcon password on the server you want to control. To set the rcon password at the server, type this in at the server's console:Now that the rcon password is set you are ready to control it remotely. Connect to the server from another machine and bring down the console. Now you have to let your server know that you are legitimate and should be able to control the server. To do this, you send the server the rcon password. To send the rcon password, type this at the client's console:rcon_password (the password you choose)
You are now recognized by your server as an administrator. Issuing rcon commands is the same as issuing commands from the server itself. For example, say you wanted to change the map to 2fort. You would type in:rcon_password (the password you typed at the server console)
You can issue virtually any command to your server using the rcon command. You can also get your user list using the rcon command, and it will be printed into your client's console. To get your user list along with the user's unique ids, type this in at your client's console:rcon changelevel 2fort
At this point you will get a 'bad rcon password' message if the password you entered was incorrect. rcon users
How do I set the amount of data the server will send?If you would like to set the amount of data that the server will send to its connected clients, you will want to use the sv_minrate and sv_maxrate commands. Say, for example, you wanted to only allow users to play with rate settings of less than 5000 on your server to conserve your server's bandwidth. To do that, you would type this at the server's console:Conversely, if you wanted to only allow users with high bandwidth connections to play on your server (rate settings of greater than 8000) you would do that this way:sv_maxrate 5000
sv_minrate 8000
How do I set a Respawn Delay?Some maps work much better if the game is slowed down a bit, and one easy way to do this (and make players appreciate their lives a little more) is to add a respawn delay. When they die, players cannot respawn for the amount of time specified by the respawn delay. Long respawn delays aren't a lot of fun, but even short ones of 5 seconds or so can change the flow of a map considerably, and make medics far more important. The command you want to use is tfc_respawndelay followed by the amount of time, in seconds, that you want the respawn delay to be.
For example, this gives all players a respawn delay of 10 seconds:tfc_respawndelay 10
How do I set up Team Equalization?TFC has subtle team equalization built in, which alters the strength of each team as the game progresses to make it slightly more even, and hence more fun. (It's great for public games, but probably not something you want for clan battles.) The way it works is this: every 10 seconds the game calculates a multiplier for each team, and then every piece of damage done by any player is multiplied by the damage multiplier of his/her team. The multiplier is calculated based upon two factors: the score of each team and the number of players on each team. If a team has a higher score and more players than their opposing team, its multiplier will be less than 1, so that all damage its team members are doing is reduced. The opposing team's multiplier would be greater than 1, so its team members are doing more damage. If the losing team starts to come back, the multipliers will reduce in strength.
You can toggle off the factors in the multiplier calculation, or turn them both off if you don't want team equalization at all. This isn't recommended, especially for public games. Team equalization is extremely subtle, and all it does is make the game slightly more fun for everyone in it.
The two commands you want to use are tfc_balance_teams, to equalize based upon number of players in each team, and tfc_balance_scores, to equalize based upon the scores of each team. Both settings can be on at once, which is recommended.
For example, this turns on equalization based upon scores and players:tfc_balance_teams 1
tfc_balance_scores 1
The other main feature of Clan Battle mode is Player Substitution. Whenever a player joins a Clan Battle server, he/she is assigned a Battle ID. This is a
unique number that identifies this player to the battle. The Battle ID is displayed throughout prematch, as well as every time the player dies. Players should
write down their Battle ID. If they are disconnected during the battle, they can use the Battle ID to reconnect onto the server, and be automatically
re-assigned their team, class, and kills. If a player is unable to continue to play, the Battle ID can be given to someone else, who can then substitute.
To connect with a Battle ID, the player needs to type, at the console, setinfo tf_id, followed by the Battle ID. The player should then connect. For example,
if you had a Battle ID of 212, and you were playing on a server with an IP of 202.166.23.24, you'd type this at the console:
setinfo tf_id 212
connect 202.166.23.24
How do I turn on Clan Battle Mode?Use the tfc_clanbattle command to set Clan Battle Mode. 1 turns it on, 0 off.
For example, this turns on Clan Battle Mode:tfc_clanbattle 1
How do I set up a prematch time?Prematch time is an amount of time in which players can run around and kill each other, but not actually achieve any mission goals. It's a good idea to run a clan battle with a few minutes of prematch time, to allow players to warm up, and ensure that all the players are in the game before it starts. You can set up a prematch time using the tfc_clanbattle_prematch command, followed by the length of time in minutes. You can alter the length of the prematch time while the game is running using the same command.
For example, this sets up a 10 minute prematch time:tfc_clanbattle_prematch 10
How do I prevent anyone else from joining our clan battle while it's running?You can use the tfc_clanbattle_locked command to lock your game. Once this is done, the server will lock itself as soon as the prematch time is over and the battle has begun. The only players allowed on will be ones with Battle IDs that match players who were disconnected. This is highly recommended for clan battles.
For example, this tells your server to lock itself after the game starts:tfc_clanbattle_locked 1