Armagetron Cool Names

If you would like to personalise your game more, you can change the way your name displays by using Ascii characters. Alot of players use ascii character in their player names, it makes their name look really different, unusual and more unique.

Nano an Armagetron player has written a tutorial on how to change your name adding ascii characters. This guide is amazing and is a brilliant addition to armagetron.co.uk, thankyou Nano. This Guide is also available in PDF format. The Cool Text Guide explains in easy terms how to effortlessly change your name.

This guide to Çðð£ is geared towards Windows users who are comfortable with using their computer, and have an at least intermediate understanding of wtf they're doing.
If you're using a Mac, you should be able to input the 'cool chars' while in-game. Which brings me to my next point: If you're using Windows, you're not going to be able to just type em in. If you're not comfortable enough with how to use your computer, then actually learn how just ask someone for help (usually the guy wearing glasses -- try him first). You should be familiar with the basic components of your desktop, how to find your way around your computer using Windows Explorer, and using your text editor. If your skills are limited to clicking on the-little-pictures-with-words-under-them-them on the desktop, then... I'm sorry. Ain't within the scope of this guide. You're beyond my help.

QUICK METHOD

It's important to note that you must 'NOT' have Armagetron open while doing this. If you have Armagetron open while editing the user.cfg file, it will not work, and the user.cfg will be overwritten with your previous values. That's counterproductive.
We need to edit your user setting configuration file, user.cfg. Hunt it down in the \var\ Armagetron folder of your username. On most Windows XP systems, if you are using the default name 'Owner', it would be:

Naturally, if your username is set to something else, substitute your the Windows username you're signed onto for 'Owner'.
If you use Armagetron beta 0.3.0, you want to be editing the file u s e r _ 3 . 0 . c f g I don't know the location for the other Windows versions besides Win XP off-hand -- If you can't find it manually, open Search, tell it to include hidden files and folders, and search for either 'user.cfg' or 'user_3.0.cfg', depending on your version of Armagetron. With any luck, you should be able to locate your prey.

There are a few different Armagetron folders, and all the different Documents and Settings folder can be confusing- check to make sure you're in the right place. Make sure Windows Explorer is set to have hidden files and folders visible. You found the user.cfg? Good....bring up Notepad and open that mofo up!

Look for the line:
PLAYER_1 Boringname:(

Click on the image to view full size

Replace that line with:
PLAYER_1 Cðð£Náme

To get the Çðð£ characters with which to pimp your name, open up charmap (Windows' Character Map program). Simply enter 'charmap' into the "Run" prompt, which you can access either from the start menu, or by pressing [Windows Key] + R. From here, its a simple matter of copy/pasting the chars from the program into your text editor.

Don't n00b up your user.cfg by fiddling with stuff- values aren't always labeled very clearly and you don't always know what changing something might do. On that note, silly things like making the font color of your name red won't work. Anything that wouldn't work in Notepad will not work in the user.cfg (which is why I recommended using Notepad).

>> The first character of your Çðð£ name can't be anything too wacky or nothing up until the first 'normal' character will display >> for example, ¬¤¤a¯ñóób¬ would just show up as ¯ñóób¬

Now, save the file!
Open Armagetron up and check that it worked. If, for some reason, your name is not Çðð£ then make sure you:
[A] used valid characters
[B] did NOT have Armagetron open when you saved the user.cfg
[C] aren't n00b

[ADVANCED TECHNIQUES]

It's possible, however, to switch 'cool names', and even different sets of chatbinds (say, if you used a different chatbind set for an alias), all while Armagetron is open. Even better, it can be done from Armagetron in-game (although, of course, there is some prep-work to be done).
For this technique, you're going to be writing config files which'll overwrite the values in your user.cfg. In brief, we're going to be using the i n c l u d e _ _ _ _ _ command from the console to call whatever settings are in your config file; this will replace the values from the user.cfg with the shiny new values it finds. I believe this calls for an example :D

We create a new text file, containing the settings we want to change when we include it. It's not necessary to include all the same lines from the user.cfg file, just the ones you want to change! For this example, we will create a new text file with just one line :
PLAYER_1 Cðð£Náme

We'll save that as C o o l N a m e . c f g, so we can remember what file we want, after we've accumulated a large stack of .cfg files (it happens, trust me).

It's very important that this gets saved into your /var/ folder -- the same folder your user.cfg is in. Armagetron will not be able to find the file to include if it's not within that folder.
Now, when you're in the middle of a heated clan war and you want to make Sony feel lame with how Çðð£ your name is, go to the command console and type in I n c l u d e C o o l N a m e . c f g

Armagetron will switch-out the values immediately. Upon next round start, your name will have changed from Boring name to Cðð£Name! How Cðð£ is that? :D

Click on the image to view full size

You can extend this to any setting or group of settings contained in the user.cfg file, like so:

Well, I think that about covers user configuration tomfoolery, for now :o
Configuration files are also used for server administrative purposes but that's...another guide ;)

Click here to view this guide in PDF format.

Nano recommends that you download Foxit Reader 2.0 a much faster way of opening PDF files.