What's wrong with my teleporter traps?

Hi, I wonder if someone can spend ten second looking at my map as I've been asking for help on this for several days and it's driving me insane!!

My teleporter traps aren't working - the monsters are not deaf but they do not activate unless you actually noclip into their starting rooms. The affected sectors all reference sector 1102. I have copied other maps' techniques but the monsters simply fail to activate in my map.

Upload is here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?qzn9b1c9cx3asr1

I have no idea how to make most of the monsters activate the first time the player fires a shot as in most of the original Doom maps (on the PSX at least).

Can someone PLEASE also let me know if "The nodebuilder failed to build the expected nodes" is the problem. This map has much fewer linedefs, vertices etc than some other maps in the project, and they all save the nodes. I'm using DB2 and the map is in Boom format for Doom 2.

PLEASE don't reply unless you're going to have a look at my map, I don't need guesses or a generic response, I need to know why my map is broken!!

According to ZenNode (when run from the command prompt), the map's to big to create a valid blockmap. The good news is you have a long way to go before hitting the SEGS limit.

With sector 1102, I haven't yet spotted any means for the monsters in their closets to detect the player. What I suggest you do is join the closets to sectors elsewhere in the map so they can hear the player's shots. I also noticed several unclosed sectors.

Hi GreyGhost, thanks for the reply.

What effect would the unbuilt blockmap have on this map playability-wise?

I tried to copy the monster rooms from Fiend-o-Hell's Panophobia map 12 (d/l link for the work in progress megawad is here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ch18ae9bddh93a8). The monsters all seem to activate when the first shot is fired and start beaming into the map when trip lines are crossed.

In my map, the monsters do not activate, even though the monster room linedefs reference a sector on the map where the player is fighting a Revenant.

The unclosed sectors are all monster rooms which will be rebuilt when I find out what to do to make them work.

This map will never work correctly it's simply too large for the nodebuilder to work correctly. Not only will this happen in this map format but same thing happens in other formats as well. My suggestion, split the map in two or if your up to it start scaling back areas which are enormously over scaled.

Lets just do a quick comparison beside AVMap20.

You can notice a few things

1 - Map is centered although this is not overly important it will give you a better idea of your maps scale

2 - AVMap 20 is a large map, your approximately tripling to quadrupling the area. The nodebuilder only accepts a range between architecture of 32767 units your map well exceeds this.

3 - Notice the size of linedef/sidedef count compared to the actual scale of each map. AVMap 20 encompasses a higher level of detail with shorter linedefs. I'm not saying your map has to be as detailed as that but look at this way you have 3 to 4 times the map area with less than half the sidedefs and that is a problem in its self.

4 - Compactness if your planning on building a large map compact it together as much as possible to optimize space that would otherwise be unused. Separate area like the one to the North should never be displaced so far from the main map!

Hi, thanks for the in-depth evaluation, this has taught me a hell of a lot.

I can reduce the overscaled areas, that's not a problem (although it will mean a lot of buggering about!). The player can still explore without there being so much empty space. It's a nightmare filling such a vast area with detail anyway.

In point 2, you mean the map is only "allowed" to be 32676 units wide/tall despite the editor's maximum map size being greater than this? That's fine, I can work within these limits. I sort of hate the way my map looks in the editor, it's so... untidy.

In point 4, the map is still under construction and the "?" area will be brought closer to the main map, I just haven't got around to it yet.

Take two points any in any direction angle etc shouldn't exceed a 32767 map units value. If you were to draw a circle with a radius of 16382 this would represent the valid area a map can be created within approximately.



Your actually pretty close to having it valid, you can clearly see where the problems are.

Hmm, I thought my map was worse than that. Looks like all I need to do is compress the starting area which is mostly empty anyway. Thanks for putting so much effort into this.

I don't suppose you can also tell me why my teleporter traps don't work when I basically ripped off someone else's which work perfectly? I know the sectors are not connected to the main map but they aren't in the map I copied it from?

EDIT: Revised map. Start area is shorter, no major modifications yet, but I've made some of the text bigger - namely "Nowhere" and "The Sink". The straight line at the bottom is to give me an approximate sense of the map's maximum permissible width. I am now able to save the map without getting node builder problems.

You have no sound getting to that sector.

I've tried connecting one of the monster rooms to the main map through an extremely thin (4 units wide) "corridor" but I still have to noclip into the monster room to activate the monster.

How is it that on some maps, many monsters become active as soon as the player fires a shot?

How can some maps have entire regiments of monsters deployed in sectors that do not connect to the map, yet they still wake up as soon as a shot is fired?

I am getting node builder errors again even though the map should now fit within the limits.

The monsters can hear you, as soon as you shoot even the deaf ones which will attack when your in visual range even if their back is turned. Only real way to stop sound is to use block sound flags on linedefs.

You need to join a sector that is in your map to your teleport sector this could be as simple as drawing a sector on the side of it clicking your source sector on the map then click the sound sector you drew and press J.

I tried deleting a bunch of sectors at the start to get the map in valid size range then tested with Zandronum which worked perfectly, Chocolate Doom it will load then crash as soon as you move at all it's probably because there is just too much for it handle I would think. But I had no problems with Zennode when I did that so try changing testing port.

MajorRawne said:

I tried to copy the monster rooms from Fiend-o-Hell's Panophobia map 12 (d/l link for the work in progress megawad is here: http://www.mediafire.com/?ch18ae9bddh93a8). The monsters all seem to activate when the first shot is fired and start beaming into the map when trip lines are crossed.

In my map, the monsters do not activate, even though the monster room linedefs reference a sector on the map where the player is fighting a Revenant.

If you take another look at Fiend-o-Hell's map you'll notice all of the monster closets have a sector 614, as has the main playing area. That shared sector trick is what's allowing monsters in apparently unconnected locations to hear the player.

The monsters can hear you, as soon as you shoot even the deaf ones which will attack when your in visual range even if their back is turned. Only real way to stop sound is to use block sound flags on linedefs.

Some monsters do, some don't. If I attach my monster room to the main map, the monsters don't activate. I can't get my head around the way Doom works. Maybe I'm just getting old and my brain has lost its sense of logic, but it just doesn't seem to make any sense. I don't think a single monster has the Deaf tag at present although that's about to change in the map re-build.

If you take another look at Fiend-o-Hell's map you'll notice all of the monster closets have a sector 614, as has the main playing area. That shared sector trick is what's allowing monsters in apparently unconnected locations to hear the player.

My monster rooms all share sector 1102, which is a very large sector on the main map where the player fights a Revenant. The monsters in the monster room don't activate. So my initial question remains: why do his monsters activate when mine don't?

I suspect we're stumbling over the definition of sector sharing. Open Fiend-o-Hell's map, do a Find & Replace search for Sector Index 614 and see how much of the map turns red (that's the shared sector), then do the same in your own map for Sector Index 1102 and note the difference.

Thanks mate, I'll get on it.