Creature and Thing Factories

by: HolySmoke
[email protected]

Forward:

Creature and thing factories are a great way to add a little excitment to a level. What better way to surprise someone than to have a Skaarj attack from behind when you know there was nothing there a second ago. Or to leave an empty room only to return to find a couple of Krall standing there waiting for you.

Abstract:

Factories are simple, but you have to know a couple of little secrets

Assumptions:

I assume nothing but that you have a basic knowledge of the editor

Introduction:

Creature and thing factories may be triggered by a trigger whose event equals the creature factory’s tag, or will trigger themselves if a player touches it. Since zone changes can cause an event, you could for example cause a creature factory to start producing razorfish as soon as a player enters the water. The first creature spawns instantly. Creature and thing factories use Spawnpoints ( a type of navigation point) as the locations to create actors. Up to 16 spawnpoints can be associated to a given factory. Spawnpoints and creature factories are associated by giving them the same tag. If a Spawnpoint has a tag in its event field, that event will occur when a creature is spawned from that spawnpoint. By default, creature factories are covert, which means they will only spawn actors at a spawnpoint no player can see. A creature from a factory has its event set to the factory’s tag (so its death will trigger the factory).

Tutorial:

Ok.. lets start by building two large rooms with a connecting hallway. put in some lights so you can see and add a player start in one room. Now place a creature factory in the hall where the player will be sure to walk through it.you can find it in keypoints. Make the tag anything you want. Set the prototype to the kind of creature you want it to spawn. Now place a spawnpoint where you want the creature to spawn,These are located in navagation points. Set the tag the same as that of the factory.

now rebuild and try it out. you"ve now built a creature factory

Thing factories work pretty much the same way but spawn items like wepons ,ammo health and the like. Experiment with the properties and figure out alternate ways of triggering them.

Thing and creature factory properties are:

1.AddedCoopCapacity: Extra items to produce if the game type is CoopGame.

2.AlarmTag: (Creature factory only) AlarmTag given to creatures produced by this factory.

3.Orders: (Creature factory only) Creatures from this factory will have these orders

4.OrderTag: and ordertag. By default they will attack the instigator of the factory.

5.event:anything you want

6. tag:again any name you want,(this name must be the same for both the factory and the spawnpoint.

7.bCovert: Only do hidden spawns (true by default for Creature factories, false by defaultfor thing factories).

9.bOnlyPlayerTriggered: Only a player can trigger this factory (true by default).

10.bStoppable: Stops producing when untouched.

11.Capacity: The maximum number of actors this factory can ever produce (-1 = no limit).After reaching this limit, the factory shuts down.

12.Interval: The average time interval between spawns.

13.ItemTag: Tag given to items produced by this factory.

14.Maxitems: The maximum number of active actors from this factory at any time. If it is a creature factory, new creatures will only produced either initially, or when a creature dies, to get back up to maxitems until the factory capacity is reached.

15.prototype: The class of actors produced by this factory.

16.TimeDistribution: The distribution of the interval between spawns.

DIST_Constant - constant interval (always equal to Interval).

DIST_Uniform - uniform interval (random time between 0 and 2 x interval)

DIST_Gaussian - Gaussian distribution, with mean = interval