Running A Halo CE Dedicated Server
A. Installation

The Halo CE Dedicated Server is released in the self-extracting Zip file that installs the Halo Custom Edition Game:

Since most of the files for the Halo CE game are required for the dedicated server you should either run the install of the Halo CE game on the dedicated server machine or preferably use WinZip or WinRAR to extract all the files to a directory. (I recommend using \HaloCE)

B. Running Halo CE Dedicated Server

There are two ways to start your dedicated server:
1. Browse to your Halo Dedicated Server installation directory.
2. Double-click haloceded.exe.

Or

1. Create a batch file with the start up commands - see below
2. Double Click on the Batch File to start the Server.


Each Dedicated server instance requires a init.txt file so that the server knows what maps to run and in what order. There are many other commands that can be executed in the init.txt file.

C. init.txt configuration file

Halo Dedicated Server uses init.txt file (located in the installation directory) to pre-set some of the server options and setup map cycling. Any console command can be invoked in the init.txt file (see Console Commands list of available console commands).

For example, to launch a server with the following parameters:
• Name: "My HaloCE Server"
• Listed on the GameSpy Master Server list? Yes
• Maximum number players: 12
• Password: "halo"
• Timeout between maps rotations: 15 seconds

Create the following init.txt file:

sv_name "My HaloCE Server"
sv_public 1
sv_maxplayers 12
sv_password "halo"
sv_mapcycle_timeout 15

To setup map cycling, you need to create a game entries map cycling list (a game entry is a map name and a game type). To do so, simply use the sv_mapcycle_add command in the init.txt file.

For example, to have the following maps and game types cycle:
• Timberland CTF
• Danger Canyon Assault
• Gephyrophobia Slayer
• Blood Gulch Crazy King

Add the following lines to the init.txt file:

sv_mapcycle_add timberland CTF
sv_mapcycle_add dangercanyon assault
sv_mapcycle_add gephyrophobia slayer
sv_mapcycle_add bloodgulch "crazy king"

Then, to start the dedicated server, use the following command: sv_mapcycle_begin.

Every time you launch haloceded.exe, it will look for init.txt to find the initialization (unless you specify a different file using –exec. See Dedicated Server Command Line arguments for more details on –exec).

For the previous example, the final init.txt file would look like this:

sv_name Halo_DS
sv_public True
sv_maxplayers 12
sv_password halo
sv_mapcycle_timeout 15
sv_mapcycle_add timberland "CTF"
sv_mapcycle_add dangercanyon "assault"
sv_mapcycle_add gephyrophobia "slayer"
sv_mapcycle_add bloodgulch "crazy king"
sv_mapcycle_begin

The default game types available are the following:

oddball
slayer
juggernaut
king
crazy king
race
ctf
assault
team slayer
team oddball
team race

Classic game variants are also supported as default game types (check out the Client version of Halo CE for a list of all classic game variants).

You can create custom game types (using the client version of Halo CE) and include these game types on your server rotation. This would enable you, for example, to include a Rockets only game on your server rotation. To do so, follow these steps:

• Launch the client version of Halo CE.
  
• Under Multiplayer, choose Edit Game Types.
  
• Create a new game type (refer to the Halo CE documentation if you need help to do this).
  
• Save your new game type.
  
• Quit Halo CE.
  
• Open your HaloCE save games folder (by default, this would be "My Documents\My Games\HaloCE\savegames").
  
• You will see the name of the custom game type you created as a folder directory.
  
• Make sure this folder is available on your server (in the same location on disk).
  
• Use the name of your custom game type in your mapcycle.txt file.
  

1. Open Notepad (or a similar pure text editor)
   
2. On the first line enter:
   
   start {drive}:\{path}\haloceded.exe -exec {drive}:\{path}\init.txt
   
   
3. Click "File" > "Save As" and then navigate to where you want to save the file and name it "HaloCEStart.bat" - Change Save as Type to "All Files" and Encoding to "Ansi" then click "Save"