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ace
June 19th, 2006, 05:55 PM
Okay. I started the cavernous area of my map today (and already it's half done :D), and I decided I wanted a "bottomless" pit in one of the areas, where if you fall and hit the ground in that sector, you die.

Now of course, the problem lies within the activation of said event. Right now I'm using a voodoo doll and a crusher, and when the player falls far enough into the sector, he'll pass a line which triggers the crusher, and thanks to timing it right, even though the player loses health in mid-air and finally reaches 0 and dies just as he hits the bottom of the chasm.

Now here's the problem with it. This is how the chasm is shaped:
http://img226.imageshack.us/img226/9541/chasm8zv.png

On any of the four ends, the player can run from one side to another at a 45 degree angle (across an "|_" or "_|" shaped section) and activate the special, thus killing the voodoo doll without the player falling in the hole. No matter what I do, there's always a part where the player can cross over, especially at the very right side. If I move the lines further in, the player won't be able to cross them going slowly before they hit the ground, thus ruining the effect. In other words, doing it this way I am screwed, and I would very much not like just using the 20% damage or putting in some out-of-place nukage at the bottom (unless I can somehow make it work, as a very last resort).

My question is this: is there any Boom (or even Vanilla) trickery that can be done with a voodoo doll or somesuch that causes the player to die as they hit the floor, other than what I have set up? Otherwise I'll have to find some workaround, but that's most undesirable.

I know voodoo dolls means it won't work properly in Legacy, so I have a 20% damage for the sector; of course, I need that special for it to work in DM and coop anyway (I can't specify which player to kill of course). And sadly, the fix from earlier did not make a difference when the caverns were added, much to my dismay. I really hoped it wouldn't be the case, but TBH I also saw it coming, and there's not much I can do at this point to stop a segfault in Legacy; moving the dummy sectors around doesn't help and the caverns area is as close to the map as it gets. So I think (unless another miracle can happen) that once and for all, Legacy is out of the game anyway.

Otherwise, if there's no sneaky way of pulling this off properly than a nukage pit will have to do somehow. Hope that's not the case though.

PumpkinSmasher
June 19th, 2006, 10:14 PM
instead of the damaging effect, put a crusher on the voodoo doll. Then tag the inner lines to start crusher, and the outter lines to stop crusher(see pic). If the player goes too slow they still may get injured (but not killed), but you may be able to get around this by making the ceiling of the sector with the voodoo doll a little taller.
http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/5818/untitled7ct1.jpg

jetflock
June 20th, 2006, 12:12 AM
would you be opposed to using some kind of wind effect that tries to pull the player into the pit? That way the player is trying to stay away from the hole/ linedef triggers that would activate the crusher. Just a random idea.

FATAL
June 20th, 2006, 03:28 AM
You could go the cheap way and put some movement blockers too.

ace
June 20th, 2006, 04:41 AM
instead of the damaging effect, put a crusher on the voodoo doll. Then tag the inner lines to start crusher, and the outter lines to stop crusher(see pic). If the player goes too slow they still may get injured (but not killed), but you may be able to get around this by making the ceiling of the sector with the voodoo doll a little taller.

I've already got a crusher going. This actually sounds workable, the only problem is that each time the player crosses it the ceiling gets lower, plus for the timing to be right I've put it on fast damage and added a few barrels, which causes death in only a second's time. Hm...

would you be opposed to using some kind of wind effect that tries to pull the player into the pit? That way the player is trying to stay away from the hole/ linedef triggers that would activate the crusher. Just a random idea.

I'd probably be opposed. I'm not that mean. :p

You could go the cheap way and put some movement blockers too.

I was thinking about that actually. Might be worth a try...

g6672D
June 20th, 2006, 06:36 PM
If only you had FraggleScript and my falling damage script... :p

ace
June 20th, 2006, 07:00 PM
Indeed, limitations are an interesting thing to work around. In ZDoom, it's as simple as placing an "Actor hits floor" thing in the sector i want the player to die in, and then setting it's special to Thing_Damage and tag it to the player (though using coop would be a different story again). But trying to overcome what I'm given proves a very challenging task... still not sure what to do, but if I have to I may go with what either Jetflock or Fatal mentioned (or both really).

iori
June 20th, 2006, 08:13 PM
Here's what you do: You go into dehacked or whacked or whatever, and change the DEADLOSTSOUL thing to have a rocket or barrel explosion frames and codepointers, set them to loop repeatedly, make it have no collision, invisible, and silent. Then set the speed to something high and the Dead Lost Soul (which was included in doom, but never used) will constantly explode over and over again really fast. Place lots of these at the bottom of the pit. Instant Death upon contact.

ace
June 21st, 2006, 05:52 AM
Brilliant. Just need to learn DEHACKED and that sounds like it would do just the trick.

But considering we're possibly using DEHACKED for custom monsters as well, is it okay that I do this (speaking to PS mainly I suppose)? I'd think there's at least one other person who could find a death pit useful as well, and I imagine nobody will place a dead lost soul in their level, but...

PumpkinSmasher
June 21st, 2006, 06:05 AM
That sounds fine to me.

ace
June 21st, 2006, 08:05 AM
Okay then! The only problem is that I'm completely DeHackEd (using WhackEd2) illiterate and an hour of fidgeting around with it hasn't helped me do something right without messing something else up.

I've done everything so far, however the problem comes up with making the explosion loop, because I can't figure out a way to do this without messing up the explosion of the actual Doom rockets as a sacrifice towards making the dead lost soul explosion loop. On the other hand though, I still don't know practically anything so I probably messed up entirely. Any help?

g6672D
June 26th, 2006, 06:52 PM
The trouble here is that the explosion requires a frame to use. You can't use the rocket frames as looping them will affect the real explosions. We could "steal" a frame from one of the weapon sequences or monster death effects though.

ace
June 26th, 2006, 07:01 PM
The question is, which one, and how do we remove it safely from what we're taking it from?

Damn my DeHackEd cluelessness. DECORATE has warped my brain beyond saving... it's like living with automatic transmission without ever learning to drive stick. :p