Can I prevent Project Brutality changing my unique TIDs?

[crowbars82]

Hi everyone!

This is a bit of a weird one, but someone may have had a similar issue with Project Brutality or other mods that randomly change monsters.

I made an ACS script that will spawn monsters near the player using something like:

Code: Select all

SpawnForced ("ZombieMan", acx, acy, acz, UniqueTestNumber);

However, what I have found Project Brutality doing (after digging around in all it's files for references to "Thing_ChangeTID") is when I ask for a ZombieMan to be spawned, Project Brutality will change the ZombieMan into one of it's variants.

This is expected, however, it removes the Vanilla ZombieMan variant that my script spawned and by doing so loses the "UniqueTestNumber" (TID) that I gave it, resetting it to 0.

(And then if Monster Tracking is enabled in the UDV visor mod, UDV will then change that TID into -32427 or something, but I have found a way to deal with this...)

Does anyone have any idea if anything can be done to retain this assigned TID, or is it a case of having to modify/overwrite Project Brutality's code?

Many thanks!
Crow

[Graf Zahl]

Do you really expect this mod to play by the numbers?
I haven't checked the code but it most likely uses some random hack to achieve its thing and if that's the case you have no chance aside from not using the mod.
In general you cannot expect such mods to coexist with complex scripting in a map.

[crowbars82]

I have been thinking similarly, but I've been searching through the Wiki at what is available that might help.

My actor that spawns a monster is an invisible flat pancake that when stepped on by the player (bumped) it runs a script that gets the player coordinates and spawns monsters.

• If I use "A_RadiusGive" using the flag "RGF_MONSTERS" (Any monster, be it friend or foe, is eligible) and a massive radius...
• then I could give every single existing monster some kind of placeholder actor of some description...
• then spawn in my monster...
• then somehow find out which monsters don't have the placeholder in their inventory (by looping through all the monsters, which is what I'm trying to work out now)...
• then whichever monster doesn't have a placeholder must be the monster I just spawned in, so I can maybe give it a TID if there are functions to allow me to do this?

It's a very hopeful idea, but something along these lines just might do the trick!

EDIT

Okay, I have something working...

The script that governs an imp randomly bursting out of the ceiling is as follows:

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script "Crow Hole Imp Wake" (void)
{
	int UniqueImpyTID;
	Radius_Quake2 (0, 2, 40, 0, 128, "NULL");
	str monsterclass = "DoomImp";
	int x = GetActorX (0);
	int y = GetActorY (0);
	int z = GetActorZ (0) + 1000.0;
	UniqueImpyTID = UniqueTID();
	SpawnForced(monsterclass, x, y, z, UniqueImpyTID);
	SpawnForced("CrowLookAllAroundGiver", x, y, z);
	delay(1);
}

The actor "CrowLookAllAroundGiver" is spawned at the same time and has a delay of 35 tics (this allows for Project Brutality to do it's thing where it changes the DoomImp into a Brutal variant), the actor is as follows:

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ACTOR CrowLookAllAroundGiver
{
	States
	{
	Spawn:
		TNT1 D 35
		TNT1 D 0 A_RadiusGive ("CrowLookAllAroundFlag", 64.0, RGF_MONSTERS, 1)
		Stop
	}
}

It uses "A_RadiusGive" to give the following actor to the monster:

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ACTOR CrowLookAllAroundFlag : CustomInventory
{
	States
	{
	Spawn:
		TNT1 A 1
		TNT1 A -1
		Stop
	Pickup:
		TNT1 A 1 A_ChangeFlag ("LOOKALLAROUND", TRUE)
		TNT1 A 1 A_ChangeFlag ("QUICKTORETALIATE", TRUE)
		Stop
	}
}

This then changes the flag of the new monster "LOOKALLAROUND" to true, which is what I was after. Sometimes the Imp will fall down and not attack the player as he is facing the other way.

This will do for now!

[Cacodemon345]

Just in case, the next version of PB is supposed to fix the TID problem.