DMStarts and flags/ACS (Vanilla Hexen)

I'm trying to make some DM starts be flag dependent. So it will only appear in certain modes/class selections in Hexen.

DM starts are completely ignoring regular thing flags. So I was hoping I could do some circumventing with ACS to get over this hump.

One idea I had to try was to spawn the DM starts using scripts depending on the character choice/skill level.

But when I looked over the list of things for thing_spawn, there were no such items in there and I looked through the "common.acs files" and i couldn't see any thing list in there, so I don't appear to be able to modify it.

Is this correct? Does anyone got any other ideas on how to solve this?
It must be compatible with Vanilla Hexen standards BTW.

Optionally:
Can I write a vanilla Hexen script that will act upon a thing entering a sector, and then act upon said thing?

Like. An Ettin enters a sector (hitting the floor, not crossing a line) and in that exact moment it's teleported to a specific location, depending on skill/character class.

Player starts are not actors. You can't dynamically spawn them. They are written into a table upon map start and cannot be changed afterward.

kristus said:

Optionally:
Can I write a vanilla Hexen script that will act upon a thing entering a sector, and then act upon said thing?

Like. An Ettin enters a sector (hitting the floor, not crossing a line) and in that exact moment it's teleported to a specific location, depending on skill/character class.

In vanilla Hexen, no. It doesn't have any advanced trigger mechanisms.

Do live players spawned on a current of water move? Because then you'll be able to place deathmatch starts very close to a silent teleporter (which is in fact a script that tests flags). Hope it works.

Second part: if the ettins that are falling are always from a controlled drop (such as spawning), you may just use a delay as long as it takes them to fall, before teleporting them, provided you have information on the depth of the fall. I doubt you can teleport others than the activator though, so it may fail.

There's only Teleport(tid) and Teleport_NoFog(tid). Go figure. None have access to the tid of an activator.

Graf Zahl said:

Player starts are not actors. You can't dynamically spawn them. They are written into a table upon map start and cannot be changed afterward.

I figured that, but I thought it might be worth to investigate at least. :/

printz said:

Do live players spawned on a current of water move? Because then you'll be able to place deathmatch starts very close to a silent teleporter (which is in fact a script that tests flags). Hope it works.

To my knowledge, they don't. But it doesn't matter because I wasn't gonna use them for spawning players anyway.

printz said:

Second part: if the ettins that are falling are always from a controlled drop (such as spawning), you may just use a delay as long as it takes them to fall, before teleporting them, provided you have information on the depth of the fall.

I'm not sure you understood what I was after. They wouldn't be falling, they would enter a sector. And at the entry of that sector, they should trigger an action that happens to them specifically, like teleporting. But it appears (according to Graf) that isn't possible in Hexen either. :/

I suppose the only way I can do this is to use currents then.

EDIT: I don't really need the currents. But this has worked out great. There's a slight snag with monsters that a re teleported before they wake up. As they won't move. But they can easily be dealt with a crusher at the end of the map.

EDIT2: Did Hexen do away with the Wind sector specials?

kristus said:

EDIT2: Did Hexen do away with the Wind sector specials?

From a brief look at the source code, it seems Wind sector specials are still there but only apply to a handful of objects with the MF2_WINDTHRUST flag, mainly the players and object type 107 (MT_CENTAUR).

That's odd.

What about the thing thrust (72) action then? It's definable in the thing edit window.

EDIT: can I script the effect from the disc of repulsion into the map? I know you can do it with the porkalator.

Hold on a second. I know of a Skulltag invasion map set where in one of the maps the old player starts are removed and new player starts are spawned. Either that or the players are teleported to a new location upon spawn.

ThrustThing(angle,dist) and DamageThing(damage), like the teleport specials, also don't use TIDs, affecting only activators.

The Porkalator effect is just a projectile that morphs the impact object, and has the spawnid T_MORPHBLAST. You create it with Thing_Projectile(tid,type,angle,speed,vspeed) ("speed" and "vspeed" are defined per 8 tics). There's no script function in vanilla that would produce an arbitrary item effect, so as far as I know you can't produce repulsions like from the disc.

I know. but the repulsion got a visible object as well. Though I suppose it's more like the BFG tracer effect.

It is indeed like BFG tracer splashes (the visible SFX is spawned on any affected actor), except that the blast effect affects all actors within range, like an explosion, instead of there being a limited quantity of hitscan rays.

Captain Toenail said:

Hold on a second. I know of a Skulltag invasion map set...

Read the thread title, this is about Vanilla Hexen. Naturally ZDoom and its derivatives can do more stuff.