Using Copper with official mission packs / custom levels?

[qop]

I'd like to use the Copper mod with the official expansions and custom levels - mostly for the co-op and difficulty changes because I want to stream on nightmare with a couple friends. I've tried loading Copper before Scourge of Armagon (-game copper -game hipnotic ) but most of Copper's changes are overridden. The reverse seems to break many doors and switches in the expansion.

Is there a proper way to do this, or is it just not possible?

[Gila]

Typically a Quake mod is something that has it's own QuakeC scripting/code compiled into file "progs.dat" which is usually put into pak_.pak file. So you can't combine two different mods in Quake. That's why like you say, the changes are overridden. I don't think the executable should even support more than one -game command parameter, really.

For custom levels it's different. Originally maps were released just as a .bsp files, so you can run those with Copper if you put them into \copper\maps\ folder. For example, Copper download page recommends some separately released maps, like Februus Depth[www.quaddicted.com] by czg. So you download februus.zip, take out the .bsp and .txt files and put them into \copper\maps\, and then start the game as -game copper +skill X +map februus OR just start your sourceport normally, then in console type game copper, then skill X, then map februus. Where X is your preferred skill level (0 to 3).

It is recommended to run only the id1 or 'vanilla' maps and of course maps made specifically for Copper mod this way. Because a lot of map packs or even single maps tend to have progs.dat included, either because the map author made some changes to the game code, or because map was made specifically for some specific mod, like Copper, progs_dump, Quoth, or whatever else.

In fact, even in the 90s a lot of the released maps and packs had their own progs.dat, even if it had minor changes, for example, "killable" Chthon in Beyond Belief (1997) and in The Castle of Koohoo (2001).

Some map packs do not have progs.dat file included, like Dimensions of the Past (2016), but this map pack has file pak0.pak, because the author decided to pack all the assets in a convenient way. These can be run with Copper too, but in here you need to do more meddling with the files.