Spread the fucking gospel

https://goo.gl/UyXRUJ 

Ok so work on my map Paradise Sickness for AD continues, I've ran into a little bit of trouble however. I find the minion spawners to be extremely difficult to fight against, and I am not using respawning ammo on the map (yet) to balance this I have tried setting the "minion_maxcount" key on my wraith set to 1. This wraith spawns evil little scorpions that do a number on your health.

The problem is, even though this key is set to 1, the wraith always spawns 3 scorpions no matter what. This wraith appears on hard mode, with a wraith on normal/easy spawning 2 spiders. I thought that maybe the "minion_maxcount" was adding between the two wraiths, or overriding each other, but changing these numbers had little effect. I always get 3 scorpions. So far I've balanced this by giving the player a sh*t load of shells. Does anyone know what is going on with this key?

Second problem. My map is an archeologicl base built around Egypto-ruins. I am trying to use both base health packs and wooden health packs. I am using skin_override on the health to select the skin but it doesn't work. All the health appears as base style according to the world type. Any ideas here? Thanks,

Redfield. 

1. AD always overrides your minion_maxcount to be 3.

2. So long as worldtype is less than 2 AND you have skin_override set, you should be able to use custome skin I believe. Otherwise, you could info_notnull it. 

we are aware, a solution to fit your needs is being tested atm. 

Looks like I'll just have to give the player plenty of ammo and health around the wraiths then.

So what I'll try is setting the worldtype to medieval, change all the skins and see what happens. The I'll have to fix my keycards which are supposed to be base though, so I'll make them a custom item/skin. It's these small cosmetic things that really take up all the time... 

dont change it right now. 

Glad that you are having medieval and base mkxed together though. That's cool. 

Sock says:

it seems the skin flag on HP packs is fucked up.
I can see why he is frustrated with it.
its assuming you want the world option and the skin key.
when the skin key is suppose to support two different values.

Sock is fixing it atm.

Hold on. 

MFX, I've had too much sun today!
Yes you have! :D

I have tried setting the "minion_maxcount" key on my wraith set to 1. The problem is, even though this key is set to 1, the wraith always spawns 3 scorpions no matter what
I assumed no one would want to change the max amount of active minions, so its a hardcoded default for the scorpion spawners only. I have removed the default, so if maxcount > 0, you can spawn the number you want.

While we are on the subject of minions, that maxcount key is not an exact number! The wraith can have several eggs lying around waiting to hatch and that can end up with +1 over the max.

Wraiths typically hang out above (up to 128 units) the player and if the ceiling is detailed or very low the wraith will struggle to hit the player. Change the height key to something lower if you want the wraith to be closer to the player.

Also make sure the floor is fairly flat for the minion eggs to bounce and land, otherwise the wraiths will be useless. Once the wraith reaches its max eggs count, it will start using its range attack and that can be deadly on higher skill levels.

Second problem. I am trying to use both base health packs and wooden health packs. I am using skin_override on the health to select the skin but it doesn't work.
It does not work in a very intuitive way, you can set the world to medieval/rune and use the skin override to select base. It should work like the ammo and I have a fix for this problem.

Both fixes will be the next patch (1.62), which should hopefully be out in the next couple of weeks. If you have any other problems, let me know and I can fix them before release. 

This is great news. Much appreciated sock, I won't mess with anything until I hear more about the patch. Right now I've got lots of extra shells to deal with the wraith/scorpions. I'm pushing myself to have this finished by late August, hopefully it stays on track. 

but user-controlled volumes would be nice please, maybe not in a menu but at least in the config file. I asked a few days ago if we could tweak the sound volumes of footsteps and rain, which I'd like to be a tad louder - I feel like you reduced player footsteps volume too drastically in 1.5 (they used to be a bit loud but not that much), and I'm accustomed to rain and thunder in DP/SMC being somewhat louder.

BTW, I also have a question, Sock: what are your Quake plans post-AD? 

I've searched and experimented and tried to figure this out but having trouble suspending items in the air. It works sometimes as you will see in the test map if you walk into the center of the room and trigger the zombies. But walk under Quad or hit the button and nothing happens. The zombies and trigger_once are cut and pasted from another map. Last night in the same map I had these same issues. Weird! The func_wall with the zombies was probably made with a different version of TB2 but other than that that's the only difference. I tried this in QS and DP and changed my host_maxfps. No help. 

Are you trying to make the quad and items fall like the monsters do?

If you kill the platform that an item is sitting on it will stay floating. You'd have to do other magic like push it with an invisible func_door or something.

Monster behave differently so they do fall but I don't have the technical explanation for that. 

Yes a Quad drop is the goal. However, you'll note in the map the dog doesn't fall either. I guess it depends on the entity if what you say is true. 

Ah yes I did look at both the map and the bsp. If alerted, the dog will drop without a trigger. If it is not, then it will stay suspended until it sees you. I don't know entirely why, maybe it's too close to the wall. I know for one thing that the platform the dog is sitting on is too small for it to not fall when alerted. Try using a larger platform so the dog has some wiggle room when it starts to move.

But as for the items, they will not fall when their platform is removed. In AD you can use a FLOATING spawnflag and then target the item but I assume this is vanilla. You could try something like having the platform the quad sits on to be a func_door clip brush that has a really fast speed and goes straight down. You can then kill the func_door on delay later on.

Hope that assisted in some way. 

Yes of course that helps to know i am not going crazy. :) Yes working in vanilla. I guess maps I've see this in used func_doors to push the items or fast doors moving down. That makes a lot of sense now. 

Ledge with a func_door that pushes the item off the ledge would work. 

I guess maps I've see this in used func_doors
You should try studying them in TB if you can get your hands on the .map files. 

You should try studying them in TB if you can get your hands on the .map files.
You should try publishing the cure for cancer if you can get your hands on its formula. 

If you can get your hands on the source qc. 

And do provide the source for their maps. If they only provide .rmf, you cam open in worldcraft and export as .map.

Or you could decompile the.bsp...but only in the name of figuring out their tricks! Don't be plagiarising. 

I want to do the following:

- a trap may be activated, then runs for ~10-20secs, up to 3 times
- I have one trigger_once that's activating it
- two other trigger_once in the same location that activate it as well can be enabled (spawned) from other places

However, I need to make sure that runs of the trap are successive, i.e. if it is currently running, it's supposed to run a second time after it finishes.

What's the best way to achieve this in stock id progs? 

You should try studying them in TB if you can get your hands on the .map files.

Yep, but I'd have to remember where I saw a power-up floating like that, recall the map name, check my HD for the map source... see where I am going with this? I've played hundreds maybe thousands of maps. There's one really good example from about 2 years ago but I don't recall the name of the map. :p I experiment before posting questions for the most part. 

why 3 trigger onces and not a single trigger with two trigger relays? 

Can you explain how? Because I read trigger relay documentation several times and didn`t understand yet.