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Adding Mutators to Your Insurgency: Sandstorm Server

Mutators are special game rules that can be enabled on an Insurgency: Sandstorm server to change how the game works in many ways.

Mutators can change things like:

  • Limit available weapons, so that players can for example, only select pistols, or bolt action rifles when starting missions.

  • Increase or decrease starting supply points

  • Increase or decrease stats, like speed or health

  • Add entirely unique special effects, like "Vampirism" where the damage you do with weapons also heals you.

There is an entire list of stock pre-made Mutators that come with the game.

Some mods also add their own custom Mutators, and these Mutator are how the mod authors enable and controls the special content added by their mods.

Enabling Mutators in Startup Arguments

Mutators are set as "Startup Arguments" on an Insurgency: Sandstorm Server.

Where to add Startup Arguments

On the Nodecraft control panel, we have added a simple way to add these Startup Arguments to your server. You can do this on the "Game Settings" section of the Nodecraft control panel, on the "Advanced Settings" tab.

a view of the Game Settings section of the Nodecraft control panel, showing the

Scroll down the "Advanced Settings" page until you see the section labelled "Custom Server Arguments", as shown in the screenshot below.

A view of the Custom Server Arguments section of the Nodecraft control panel on an Insurgency: Sandstorm server

Add required startup arguments like Mutators to the "Startup Arguments" box on the right side, and click on the blue Save button below when you're finished.

Many settings are case sensitive! Please make sure you are entering the correct syntax for the names for the settings. All of those upper case letters matter!

Add the following setting:

-mutators=MutatorName

Simply replace "MutatorName" with the actual names of the Mutators. In the table of Mutators below, you will want to use the text in the "File Name" column. There will be no spaces in these Mutators names, and they are case sensitive! You can specify multiple different Mutators in one single setting, just by separating them with commas.

-mutators=Vampirism,HotPotato,PistolsOnly

Each separate startup argument should be in its own box

Each different and separate startup argument should be in its own box, in order for the Nodecraft control panel to be able to use them correctly. If you have already added other Startup Arguments, the Mutators should be in their own box.

Additional boxes can be created by clicking on the button shaped like a small plus sign in a circle at the right end of the topmost box. An extra box will be created below it. You can click on the "X" button at the right end of additional boxes to remove them.

A view of the Nodecraft control panel showing how to add additional startup argument boxes

Using Mutators in Travel Commands

Mutators can also be added to the end of the "Travel" command, which tells the game to switch maps and scenarios. At the end of the travel command, place:

?mutators=(mutator file name)

List of Mutators

File Name Mutator Name Description
AllYouCanEat All You Can Eat Start with 100 supply points.
AntiMaterielRiflesOnly Anti-Materiel Only Only anti-materiel rifles are available along with normal equipment and explosives.
BoltActionsOnly Bolt-Actions Only Only bolt-action rifles are available along with normal equipment and explosives.
Broke Broke Start with 0 supply points.
BulletSponge Bullet Sponge Health is increased.
Competitive Competitive Equipment is more expensive, rounds are shorter, and capturing objectives is faster.
CompetitiveLoadouts Competitive Loadouts Player classes are replaced with those from Competitive.
FastMovement Fast Movement Move Faster.
Frenzy Frenzy Fight against AI enemies who only use melee attacks. Watch out for special enemies.
Guerrillas Geurrillas Start with 5 supply points.
Hardcore Hardcore Mutator featuring slower movement speeds and longer capture times.
HeadshotOnly Headshots Only Players only take damage when shot in the head.
HotPotato Hot Potato A live fragmentation grenade is dropped on death.
LockedAim Locked Aim Weapons always point to the center of the screen.
NoAim No Aim Down Sight Aiming down sights is disabled.
PistolsOnly Pistols Only Only pistols are available along with normal equipment and explosives.
ShotgunsOnly Shotguns Only Only Shotguns are available along with normal equipment and explosives.
SlowCaptureTimes Slow Capture Times Objectives will take longer to capture.
SlowMovement Slow Movement Move slower.
SoldierOfFortune Soldier of Fortune Gain supply points as your score increases.
SpecialOperations Special Operations Start with 30 supply points.
Strapped Strapped Start with 1 supply point.
Ultralethal Ultralethal Everyone dies with one shot.
Vampirism Vampirism Receive health when dealing damage to enemies equal to the amount of damage dealt.
Warlords Warlords Start with 10 supply points.

Mutator Configs

Some of the Mutators can be configured and customized beyond their defaults. These Mutators are listed below. All Mutator settings go in Engine.ini (will be changed to Game.ini in the future for consistency).

To add these settings, you need to paste the header for the Mutator shown into the config file, and then place the settings directly underneath the header. The "INI Entry" should be followed by an equals sign, with the value following it.

For example:

[/Script/Insurgency.Mutator_HeadshotOnly]
bCheckMeleeDamage=true

This setting would allow melee attacks to count as "head shots" when using the "Head Shot Only" mutator (normally they wouldn't count).

Headshots Only

Headshots Only settings can be configured under:

Header

[/Script/Insurgency.Mutator_HeadshotOnly]

Settings

INI Entry Default Travel URL Parameter Description
bCheckMeleeDamage false N/A Should melee be checked for headshots

Hot Potato

Hot Potato settings can be configured under:

Header

[/Script/Insurgency.Mutator_HotPotato]

Settings

INI Entry Default Travel URL Parameter Description
GrenadeClass /Game/Game/Actors/Projectiles/BPProjectileM67.BPProjectileM67_C N/A The grenade type to be dropped on death.
ThrowbackWeaponClass /Game/Game/Actors/Weapons/Grenade/BPGrenadeM67.BPGrenadeM67_C N/A Weapon used for throwing back the dropped grenade.
bIgnoreHeadshots false HotPotato_bIgnoreHeadshots Don't drop a grenade if it was a headshot.
bBotsOnly false HotPotato_bBotsOnly Only drop grenades for bots.

Vampirism

Vampirism settings can be configured under:

Header

[/Script/Insurgency.Mutator_Vampirism]

Settings

INI Entry Default Travel URL Parameter Description
bCountFriendlyFire false Vampirism_bCountFriendlyFire Count friendly fire towards health gain.
MaxHealth 1000 Vampirism_MaxHealth The maximum amount of health that you can gain from damaging other players.

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