Having a monster spawn alerted of your presence?

[mikenet2007]

I don't want to use off map sectors to contain the spawning monsters in this case because there are way too many scripted already using thing_spawn, If there is another special I can use in ACS that will spawn alerted monsters I'll use that.

The problem im having is although I'm about to replace all my monster scripts with ""Thing_SpawnFacing"" instead of ""thing_spawn"" so that I can more easily have the monsters face the center of the battle areas where there are monster rushes increasing the chances the spawned monsters will see the player, the problem is that one of the monster battles contains about 800 monsters that enter the map though 45 mapspot markers over a series of several minutes and there are places the player could hide, and if any given set of monsters spawned at these 45 mapspots does not move from there mapspot markers before the next set is ready the next set doesn't spawn.

In theory if the player knows anything about how spawning works they could hide out and not alert the first set and prevent the entire battle from progressing. I need a way to get the monsters off their mapspots as quick as 10 seconds after they are spawned in some cases, the delays actualy range from 10 to 60 seconds between each set and each is already perfectly timed and this is my reason for not wanting to create sectors to contain spawning monsters the old school way. Any suggestions on this?

[Graf Zahl]

You can use NoiseAlert to alert the monsters.

[mikenet2007]

Ok I'll check that out, thanks

[mikenet2007]

Thats what I needed, it will come in handy, ty

[Enjay]

You can use NoiseAlert to alert the monsters.

Now why didn't I know about that? I think that makes 3 or 4 things that would have made my life easier if I'd know they existed.

[Graf Zahl]

Maybe because you didn't inform yourself? This special exists since 2.0.90 and is documented.

[Enjay]

Perhaps there should be a special I can execute on myself - Enjayalert or something.

I've found the NoiseAlert thingy in the Wiki now, thanks.

[Risen]

Code: Select all

while (1) {
  Enjayalert(changelog);
}

Let me know if that works for you.

[HotWax]

An arguably better way to make sure the monsters spawn properly would be to spawn them with TIDs and use ThingCount to verify they all spawned. If not, you can try again a few seconds later.

Alternatively, if you want the monsters to attack in "waves", you can use ThingCount to tell when the first wave is dead, delay a bit, and then spawn in the second wave.

Finally, you can also guarantee the monsters spawn facing the player (wherever he is) by using some ACS trickery.