BUMPSPECIAL + action 73 + ISMONSTER makes actor disappear?

[CaptainToenail]

Can someone explain to me why this actor will disappear after the player touches it three times when the ISMONSTER flag is present? Is there something I can do to prevent this?

The ISMONSTER flag is there so that the actors don't spawn when there's no room via A_SpawnItemEx.

Code: Select all

ACTOR Cactus1 10500
{
  Var float user_scale;
  Activation THINGSPEC_Switch

  Radius 8
  Height 64
  +SOLID
  +BUMPSPECIAL
  +ISMONSTER

  States
  {
  Spawn:
   CACN A 0 NoDelay A_ChangeFlag("SPRITEFLIP", random(0,1)) 
	CACN A 0 Thing_SetSpecial(0, 73, 1, 0, 0)
	CACN A 0 A_SetUserVarFloat("user_scale", FRandom(0.5,1.0)) 
	CACN A 0 A_SetScale (user_scale, user_scale)
	CACN A -1 
    Stop
  }
}

Thanks,
CT

[Blue Shadow]

If the main idea is to get the special to execute without the actor changing its states (active/inactive), then you don't need the Activation THINGSPEC_Switch line. So you should remove it.

To explain why the actor, while flagged as a monster, disappears after being bumped into repeatedly:

• When the actor is bumped into the first time, it is activated. Since the actor wasn't considered deactivated at the time of activation, no changes occur to it.
• The second bump deactivates the actor. If the actor had the Inactive state, it would've entered that state. Since it lacks that state, the game instead freezes it by setting the current duration of the state it is in to -1 ("infinite" duration).
• The third bump activates the actor. At the time of activation, the actor was deactivated, unlike the first bump. So the game unfreezes the actor by setting the current duration of the state it is in to 1 (1 tic). If it had the Active state, the actor would've entered that state instead of being unfrozen.

When the current duration of the state hits zero, the actor leaves the current state and attempts to enter the next. However, there isn't a state after CACN A -1, so the actor is removed from the game.

[CaptainToenail]

Interesting. Thanks for taking a look at this Blue Shadow.