MapMixer's main purpose is to take control over the current session's map list and provide a flexible way to invoke maps. There are two methods of using MapMixer in a game.
If you start a session by adding MapMixer to the UT Mutator's List, it will only be able to take over Map List administration after the first match in the session starts. This is because MapMixer is a Mutator by design and cannot run until it is started in a match. This means that the user has to manually select the first map to start a session. However, MapMixer provides two important controls to determine what happens at this point. You can use the First Map and Reload First Map in Map List options to decide whether this first map is added to the map list. It also enables you to reload the first map in the map list which may or may not be the map that you manually chose to start the game with.
If you look in the first page of the MapMixer Configuration (ie Setup Page) you will see three buttons at the bottom left of the screen: Dedicated, Listen and Play. These buttons allow you to start the whole game session from within the MapMixer Configuration. This has the main advantage of allowing MapMixer full control over the Map List from the very beginning and therefore the First Map and Reload First Map in Map List options become unnecessary. This is the easiest way to start a MapMixer managed session.
Manually Choosing the First Map
When using this new method of starting a game session, you may also manually cue up the first map in a session in the MapMixer Map List Editor by right-clicking on a map from either the Custom Map or Available Map Lists and then selecting Cue as First Map. This map will then be inserted at the beginning of the session's map list after it is initialised and then becomes the first map you play. If you chose a map from the Left list (ie Custom Map List) then it will contain any edits you made to that map, eg game rules, mutators...
Note: If you are starting the game session from MapMixer then it is recommended that you enable game type switching and select a Game Rules list.
You may also find it useful to enable the shortcut to the MapMixer Configuration that appears in the Main UT2004 Menu.