Automatically Determining Gamedir Start Map

[Baker]

This works for single player in all the instances I have tried:

1) startmap_named_start = 0,
2) startmap_undergate_intro_rockgate,
3) startmap_start_in_name,
4) startmap_same_as_gamedir,
5) startmap_alphabest,

If the gamedir contains a map named "start", you have the start map.
Failing that, if the gamedir contains a map named "undergate", "intro" or "rockgate", you have the start map.
Failing that, use any map that has the name "start" in it (strstr (mapname, "start"))
Failing that, use any map that has the same name as the gamedir (gamedir lunsp1, use map lunsp1)
Failing that, due to lack of information use the highest alphabetical match.

(This is, of course, excluding health boxes and such.)

And, to my surprise, this method revealed to me that NE_RUINS has a map named start. 99% of the time I played that typing game "ne_ruins; map ne_ruins"

[szo]

[Spirit]

Curl the Quake Injector XML and choose the first <startmap>

[Baker]

[Spike]

baker, startmap_sp+startmap_dm aliases in a couple of engines will be executed by the 'new game' option if they exist in preference to using 'map start'. these are explicit and so should have the highest priority.
these should thus have the highest priority, but may additionally set other cvars so you'd need to parse it carefully if you're explicitly after the map name for some reason.

no matter what you try, there is no foolproof way. A mod might even have two (maybe).

[Baker]

[Spirit]