Hi. I'd like to make a rocket arena. Could anyone in the know tell me what I need to do to make the rocket launcher the default weapon?

Welcome to Faction Files!

Unfortunately, there's no way for a map to change the default player weapon. You would need to develop a mod to change it, which would severely limit the audience for your map to the point where it'd pretty much never get played in public.

The best way to approach this is to simply design the map with plenty of Rocket Launchers (and Rocket Launcher ammo packs) laying around. This was the solution used for years by mappers developing Rail-only maps as well.

On the other hand, if you're just looking to play the map with a few of your close friends, a mod could work. You'd need to make sure all the players are running the mod, and host a server with the mod for your friends to play on. If you'd like to go down this route, let me know and we can assist you with it.

I remember asking another player, who ran a server where the sniper rifle was set by default. He said something about changes that can be made in one of the files. There were a series of steps but I do recall playing it with others and having it work. It was called something like "Sniper Heaven".

Something about editing the weapons.tbl in the tables.vpp file.

Update: TrotSkie has a utility you place in your main directory to run the server (you still have to designate maps in the pure faction setup) but in theory you can launch it from the "InGame Weapon Config" then apply your preference of default weapon.

Goober is wrong, If you open tables.vpp with vpp editor and extract game.tbl and weapons.tbl, open game.tbl and find default spawn weapon. Forgot what it says exactly but should be easy to find.

It should say 12mm pistol by default, open weapons.tbl and go to where pistol is and find the line that says "12 mm pistol" and note what line its on, and go and find rocket and go on the same line you saw 12mm pistol and copy the rocket name and paste it on game.tbl now, open ui.vpp and put games.tbl and weapons.tbl into it and save it, now when you run a server the default weapon you spawn with rockets

Looks like you found solution anyway, if you need help with the stuff mentioned above or I could just make a ui.vpp for you to run server with

I was under the impression that by "make a rocket arena", he meant a rocket arena map. I said "there's no way for a map to change the default player weapon."

Glad you found a solution.