Cone Shaped AOE

[4page]

I'm trying to figure out a good way to do a cone shaped area of effect attack from the player, which will hit all the enemies in the area only once. I've done this in DECORATE (a VERY hacky way involving a RadiusGive, checking the position of the enemy relative to the player with the given item, then affecting the enemy based on that), but I'm updating to ZScript and want a more reliable way to do it, and hopefully learn some new things in the process. Any help is appreciated!

[Jarewill]

I recommend looking at how A_BFGSpray function works here.
That's personally what I used as a base for all my cone shaped detection functions.

[4page]

But the bfg spray doesn't hit enemies behind other enemies does it?

[Jarewill]

Right, that slipped my mind.
What you could probably do is send another LineAttack / LineTrace when it hits an enemy at the same angle with a subtracted distance with Distance2D / 3D.
I don't have any examples at hand currently, but if there's any problems I'll try to make one later today.

[4page]

I'll keep that in mind and try to puzzle it out. I'm really new to zscript and kinda just stumbling my way through it.

[4page]

Would it maybe be doable if I do kinda what the BFG spray does, but when it hits an enemy, turns off their SHOOTABLE flag, then fires the line tracer again in the same direction up to the distance? Then at the end of it set all the flags back on. Maybe have a sort of recursive function in order to store all the hit enemies. So it starts from the left side going right and instead of having a loop in the function making it increment, the top function starts a recursive function chain and each time it hits an enemy makes them not shootable, then at the end resolves everything backwards. Would that work do you think? Or would the pointers to the enemies not be stored properly?

[Jarewill]

If you store the pointer in the array it will work.
In fact, I used your idea in this example:

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Code: Select all

    Action void A_ConeAttack(int hor = 90, int ver = 90, int dist = 1024)
    {
        FLineTraceData h;
        Array<Actor> Targets;
        For(int i = 0; i < hor; i++)
        {
            double an = self.angle - (hor/2) + 1*i;
            For(int p = 0; p < ver; p++)
            {
                double pi = self.pitch - (ver/2) + 1*p;
                int hdif = 10;
                If(self.player.crouchoffset!=0){hdif=5;} //Also count player crouching
                self.LineTrace(an,dist,pi,offsetz: self.height-hdif,data: h);
                If(h.HitActor!=null&&h.HitActor.bSHOOTABLE&&Targets.Find(h.HitActor)==Targets.Size())
                {
                    //Do stuff
                    h.HitActor.bSHOOTABLE=0; //Turn off shootable flag
                    Targets.Push(h.HitActor);
                }
            }
        }
        int z;
        While(z<Targets.Size())
        {
            let act = Targets[z];
            act.bSHOOTABLE=1; //After everything turn it back on for every monster
            z++;
        }
    } 

This is an edited version of my powerup's DoEffect() override, that I tried to turn into a weapon function, because I didn't know when you will call it.
Please tell me if there are any errors.

[4page]

Your function works absolutely fine, just need to make sure to put a way to damage enemies in, maybe a lineattack() under the do stuff area. (I say this for future reference in case others wonder why it's not damaging enemies) But I guess I shouldn't really have asked for a cone shaped attack in the first place. What I really wanted was a fan shape, which I guess this would also do with a ver = 0. I decided to come up with my own, though. Here it is for future reference:

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Code: Select all

	Private action bool AxeAttack(double angle, int damage = 25, int range =  105, double AttackAngle = 90, int Count = 0, Class<Actor> pufftype = "AxePuff")
	{
		if (player == null)
		{
			return FALSE;	//Failsafe
		}
		FTranslatedLineTarget t;
		double an;
		if(Count == 0)  //This is for the first call to set everything up
		{
			an = angle - AttackAngle/2 + (AttackAngle/32)*Count;
			Count++;
			if(AxeAttack(an,damage,range,AttackAngle,Count) == False)
			{
				LineAttack (angle, range, pitch, damage, 'Melee', pufftype, true);  //This will run if the attack doesn't hit anything, to try to hit a wall
			}
			
		}
		else
		{
			an = angle + (AttackAngle/32);
			if(Count == 32)
			{
				Return FALSE;  //This is how many times the function will run
			}
			else
			{
				LineAttack (angle, range, pitch, 0, 'Melee', Null, true, t);  //Checks if there is an enemy
				if (t.linetarget != null)
				{
					LineAttack (angle, range, pitch, damage, 'Melee', pufftype, true, t);  //Actually damages the enemy
					if(t.linetarget != null)
					{
						t.linetarget.bSHOOTABLE = FALSE;  //Makes the enemy unshootable so the next attack won't hit it
						 AxeAttack(an,damage,range,AttackAngle,Count);  //Runs this function again
						t.linetarget.bSHOOTABLE = TRUE;  //Makes the unshootable enemy shootable again when the loop begins to resolve
						Return TRUE;
					}
				}
				else
				{
					Count++;
					 if(AxeAttack(an,damage,range,AttackAngle,Count)==TRUE)  //This is to keep the loop moving and iterating, also checks if at least one enemy has been hit
					{
						Return TRUE;
					}
					else
					{
						Return FALSE;
					}
				}
			}
		}
		return FALSE;
	}