It seems lately that each time I work on a hack, I discover incidental things which lead to another post. So hot on the heels of the past two posts, here's a hack that delivers something I'm sure was requested in the past: a trigger_hurt which isn't quite so slow

https://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2017/01/29/rapid-fire-trigger_hurt/

It's a two-for-one really, because there's a much better kill-trigger for void maps in there as well - a trigger that deals damage to everything it touches every frame. This fixes weird things where two monsters leap into the pit at once and one of them survives for a bit. 

how to break a trigger_hurt?...
easy! use a teleporter while its hurting.

the teleporter causes force_retouch, which relinks the trigger_hurt while it is solid_not, unlinking it. because its solid_not, it won't get relinked.
when the hurt_on function then gets called, its .solid field is set back to trigger, but its already unlinked, preventing anything from re-triggering it (other than by using a force_retouch somewhere, forcing it to relink).
loading a saved games should have a similar effect.
this doesn't affect all engines... 

In fairness, the hack is actually making that less likely to occur, since the trigger spends a shorter length of time in the vulnerable state.

Am I right in thinking that loading a save is another thing that can cause relinking at inopportune times? I had a vague idea for a hack based on that, but it did play on my mind that some engines would probably fix the odd behaviour it would be relying on, and I never followed up on it.

I suppose you could also set up an info_notnull hack that periodically runs teleport_use, so that every so often things which have been linked wrongly get linked back in correctly again. Or am I missing something there? 

It turns out all that stuff from the last few posts can also affect hack logic gates, because the hack makes them go non-solid, and a teleport at that point unlinks them. I can rework a simple gate to stay solid the whole time, but it was an essential part of how the OR gate worked. So the promised logic gate article is on hold until I figure out a new way to make an OR gate...

In its stead is a way to fix the rotfish kill count bug in unmodified ID1, which I think is kinda neat.

https://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/fish-fix/

PS: can you spot how to make a flying shambler? answers on a postcard... 

If you don't care about adding more entities, you can also target an info_notnull that has "use" "boss_death10" to increase the death counter by 1. 

Gravity change by map entities, or a way to reset the changelevel function after using the cvar hack without the need to reload. Or anything related to this. What's the whacky stuff we can do by hacking worldspawn... 

...will not be screening tonight. I've looked for a way and I think it's impossible. One of the things about gravity in particular is that the QuakeC is actively working against you to reset it. It's pretty much the first thing that worldspawn does.

On the other hand, your one opportunity to put something arbitrary into the console is the changelevel command, and that's equally well locked down in the engine. The function which sets the changelevel_issued command does it unconditionally, and the one place it gets reset is starting a new level. So you can't get more that one command a map, and you need to save one to restart the map.

It really is the two working against each other that sinks the plan. There is just enough wiggle room to change sv_friction in the following way: call your map "my_map_name" then create a trigger_changelevel with the key "map" "my_map_name;sv_friction 0.05". When you hit that trigger you restart the level, but with sv_friction set to 0.05 (getting the player to hit the trigger at the start of the first visit to the map, but not on the second visit, is left as an exercise).

Sadly, sv_gravity is the only cvar which this doesn't work on, because of the specific QuakeC code at the start of worldspawn preventing it. Unless you can surgically remove the worldspawn from your map, but I don't like the odds of pulling that off... 

Hi all, big article incoming!

https://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2017/02/14/logic-gates-for-2017/

It's the much hyped replacement logic gate set-up. These logic gates aren't vulnerable to being broken randomly by using teleporter at the wrong time. If that's not reason enough to start using them, they support an unlimited number of outputs which you can switch between! If you want to be able to switch a button between 8 different targets, this is the hack for you.

Thanks to Newhouse for his proofreading and feedback in writing this one up, I think the explanations have come out much clearer as a result. A follow-up with the OR gate, AND gate and XOR gate will be posted shortly. 

Seems really neat. Can the player here the LG explosion, though? 

Because it happens on the first frame of the server, I don't think the player gets a chance to hear it. In any case, you can put the boxes containing the logic gates far from the main level if it ever becomes an issue. 

Hard to imagine that anyone doesn't follow the Mapping Help thread, but just so this thread remains a complete archive, a new hack on how to create a door with a custom touch function.

https://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/masquerading-as-a-door/

I've had this masquerading idea bubbling around for a few weeks now, but I had something completely different in mind for debuting it. That may have to wait another week, this one has already bumped the logic gates follow up off schedule once! 

Preach is on a roll....I feel a maphack jam coming on! 

Another week, another article. I like to think that the production values on this week's article are above the normal standards for a map hack post. The test map looks pretty decent, the article has screenshots, flow diagrams, and tables. Plus it's the second half of the new logic gates post, this time with actual gates, the AND, the OR, and the XOR gate.

https://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/2017/03/14/further-logic-gates-for-2017/ 

very nice article! 

Above and beyond Preach, the layout is very approachable! 

I'm a bit scared 

It makes sense if you're reading posts from about a month ago in the thread. And yes, that would mitigate the issue a bit (although depending on how frequently you run the function some errors might slip by). In 1997 some might have objected that it slows down the game a bit on weak PCs, because it removes one of the optimisations in the physics engine. Doubt anyone would notice any more... 

We may have talked about this, not sure. I want to reproduce the light globe sprite in an info_notnull, because I've hit the static entity limit, but can't seem to find the correct modelindex. Air bubbles and explosions, sure, just no globe. Strangely enough, s_light.spr doesn't show up in the modellist, either. All thanks to makestatic? Surely, there must be away. 

I don't know about other engines, but fte has a 'precaches' command that should show give you the index easily enough.
note that s_light.spr will only have a modelindex if it was precached (and the order should normally be the same for any engine), so if its missing then that's because nothing precached it yet.
So make sure you have at least one light_globe entity otherwise you'll not be able to get a usable index for it.

Do be aware that any other entity changes might change the order spawn functions are called in (depending on your editor). Creation/deletion of doors/triggers/plats/etc WILL change your modelindexes too.
So you should perhaps consider knocking up some find+replace tool if you're going to be making a lot of changes.

Or just use an engine with higher limits. fte+dp shouldn't have any specific limit, while ericw bumped the static ents limit in quakespasm recently though I've no idea if there's public builds for that yet (if not, qss has a slightly higher limit). No idea about other engines.
That said, protocol 999 or dpp7 will cap out at about 2048 max static ents due to the limited sv.signon buffer size. Less if you have many non-static ents too, because baselines contribute to the same buffer. I could rant about how fte servers are immune to that issue, but I'll save that for another time...

If it insists on being invisible still, you'll probably also need to figure out some way to make sure that the entity is linked into the server's pvs nodes. I expect Preach has a tutorial for that somewhere, probably involving triggering a teleporter... I'm not sure if its actually needed though. 

Thanks, got it! 

Do you think there's a way to make zombies start off lying down and only "wake up" after certain conditions are met? Something smoother than a hurt trigger keeping them incapacitated (not least because of the pain sounds). I was just wondering considering that freak glitch where zombies sometimes don't get up again but can't be gibbed, either. Something to make use of? 

zombies use walkmove to get up, so while you could probably create some sort of crusher that squishes into them for 50 damage at a time and then stops above them, that'll both knock them down and prevent them from getting up. you can then killtarget the crusher and they'll be able to move again.

however, walkmove also includes a down-tracebox from 22qu above so you'll need your crusher to sit at least 24qu off the floor, which is also more than the player can step.
so you might need to make your crusher as a stepped-pyramid so that your player can still step over the sleeping zombie.

make it out of clip brushes and it'll be invisible. many qbsps complain at that though.
a train that moves to a single path_corner will do it (with a really long/infinite pause), there's probably some better way.

obviously it'll still keep playing zombie/z_idle.wav every 5.1 seconds... and flicker between $paine11 and $paine12 at the sameish time.
alternatively, AD has some proper feature for it... 

There's a way to make a silent zombie corpse which can be triggered to wake up using SUB_CalcMoveDone. The problem is that it's always solid, and also wakes up (without playing the animation) if you shoot it. So you'd need to build a skip brush shield around it which you killtarget, which is pretty much the same as putting a zombie inside a skip shell then hitting it for 25 damage at the start of the map. The skip shell prevents it from standing up, so you don't need to keep injuring it.

Anyway, if the marginal benefits of silence and waking up the instant you trigger it are worthwhile, the entity goes like this:

"classname" "SUB_CalcMoveDone"
"origin" "240 -64 56"

//finaldest must be the actual origin
/you want the monster to appear at
"finaldest" "240 -64 56"
"think1" "monster_zombie"
"use" "zombie_paine12"
"targetname" "reanimate"
"frame" "172"
"yaw_speed" "20"
"view_ofs" "0 0 25"
"flags" "32"
"takedamage" "2"
 

Thanks, guys.

Ineed, this only works in certain special situations due to the clipping/skip box thing, not for zombies lying around in openly accessible areas (=on the floor). For the spot I have in mind, however, the hack is just perfect.