Add button to allow players to change teams

[Zanieon]

This a feature not related to vanilla behavior but rather QoL in regards to the very nature of the Northstar servers, as the only way of changing teams is using mods that gives these functionalities to the server, when it actually should be bundled in Northstar itself already, imo.

ns_allow_team_change

[Zanieon]

@F1F7Y This one is specially for you due to your Server Utilities :D

[ASpoonPlaysGames]

If you made the convar replicated, you could enable and disable the UI button based on if the server has the convar enabled. I think we should try to avoid using SendHudMessage for most things if possible

[Zanieon]

If you made the convar replicated, you could enable and disable the UI button based on if the server has the convar enabled. I think we should try to avoid using SendHudMessage for most things if possible

Alright, convar replicated and button visibility bound to it, now in regards to SendHudMessage, those i'll have to probably localize them eventually because would be quite frustrating to players trying to click the button and no info will ever pop in for those two specific cases they could appear.

[F1F7Y]

Train WiFi review

[ASpoonPlaysGames]

Code looks good as far as I'm concerned

[Alystrasz]

In regards to SendHudMessage, those i'll have to probably localize them eventually because would be quite frustrating to players trying to click the button and no info will ever pop in for those two specific cases they could appear.

I agree information should be transmitted to player somehow.
A less invasive way could be to print warning message in chat (using another colour than white).

[F1F7Y]

I hate the thread thing but if it works it works

[Bobbyperson]

Might I suggest that this convar be set to zero automatically in some cases? This would mess with infection and the hidden pretty badly.

[Zanieon]

Might I suggest that this convar be set to zero automatically in some cases? This would mess with infection and the hidden pretty badly.

If the server is fixed at those gamemodes then all you need to do is just add the convar to the launch arguments, disabling it, the other method is make the gamemode initialization function disable it as well.

[Bobbyperson]

True, some people might not be running dedicated servers though so it might be worthwhile adding it to those functions like you said.

[Zanieon]

True, some people might not be running dedicated servers though so it might be worthwhile adding it to those functions like you said.

Alright i'll probably make a proper toggle function instead of fiddling with the convar for gamemodes that does custom team switching.

[Zanieon]

@Bobbyperson See if this is okay for you now.

[Bobbyperson]

Looks great, only other changes I might suggest is to also disable it on competitive gamemodes like Fastball and Live fire, since changing teams in those gamemodes could cause big problems.

It might also be worth adding a convar like ns_max_team_imbalance (default 1) that would stop specific players (trolls) from switching to prevent teams from having too many/too few players. For example, setting it to 2 would allow a 2 player difference between the teams.

[GeckoEidechse]

@Zanieon what's blocking this PR atm? Just the changes @Bobbyperson suggested?

[Zanieon]

@Zanieon what's blocking this PR atm? Just the changes @Bobbyperson suggested?

Nothing really, just pondered a bit if i should implement Bobbyperson suggestion in regards to balance of teams or not, but at that point, trolls should be punishable with either a kick or warn for doing such thing, the intention of the button is not to handle all cases of all types of players.

Fine for me to merge as is, if these cases of people joining one team way too much then it might be worth doing another PR specifically for said case.

[Bobbyperson]

AFAIK, most Northstar servers do not have active moderators. In my opinion, if we add a feature like this we should make it as troll proof as possible as to not add an extra burden for server owners/moderators to manage.

If you don't wanna do it I can make a PR for this later after merge.

[Zanieon]

AFAIK, most Northstar servers do not have active moderators. In my opinion, if we add a feature like this we should make it as troll proof as possible as to not add an extra burden for server owners/moderators to manage.

If you don't wanna do it I can make a PR for this later after merge.

I'd prefer to see how this will test itself out first without it, so far all servers that allows team switching with FSU never had much issues with that, this button will also probably not bypass the decision made by the Better Team Balance mod (which is another thing that should eventually be integrated into northstar as an option).

[Bobbyperson]

Fair point, sounds good.

[GeckoEidechse]

Aight, I'll stick it in the next minor release together with a bunch of other features soon™ o7