Attach emitter to Garrett?

sNeaksieGarrett on 11/7/2013 at 15:25

Didn't work, but then I'm not entirely sure I set the Receptrons/Source up properly.

Here's what I did to guard 611 and his breathspout(515):

Two Receptrons on 515, BreathStim.

First Receptron has 0 min intensity, 0 max intensity; Effect:Clone Properties; Target (515), Agent BreathSpoutDis (the "disabled" one)
Second receptron has 0 min intensity, 0 max intensity; Effect:Clone Properties; Target (515), Agent BreathSpout

Now for the guard:

Source with Prop: Radius, Intensity 0.5, Stim: BreathStim
Edit Shape with Radius 4.00
Life Cycle with Period 5000, Max Firings 1, Slope 0.80

LarryG on 11/7/2013 at 16:43

change to:

Two Receptrons on 515, BreathStim.
First Receptron has 0 min intensity, 7.50 max intensity; Effect:Clone Properties; Target (515), Agent BreathSpoutDis (the "disabled" one)
Second receptron has 7.51 min intensity, 15 max intensity; Effect:Clone Properties; Target (515), Agent BreathSpout

Now for the guard:
Source with Prop: Radius, Intensity 15, Stim: BreathStim
Edit Shape with Radius 200.00
Life Cycle with Period 500, Max Firings NONE, Slope 0.5

I think that should mean that if the breathspout is within 200 units of the guard, that it will receive a stim every half second. If the breathspout is 1 unit away, the intensity will be 7.5. So if the breath spout is 1 unit away or more, the breathspout is disabled, and if it is closer, it is enabled. After a little testing, you should fine tune this. For example, 200 units is probably overkill for how far an AI can travel away from a lost breathspout in half a second. :laff:

Edit: 1 unit may be a little too close. IIRC the distance is from centroid to centroid, and since the breathspout is up by the AI's head, you may need 2 or more units of tolerance. So you will definitely need to fine tune the intensity slope to get it where you want it. A little algebra should tell you.

sNeaksieGarrett on 11/7/2013 at 18:16

I'm worried I didn't set up the disabled breathspout properly.

Here's what disabled breathspout has on it:

Emit: Stop Tweq; AnimC [None]; MisC [NoPhysics];[none];3000;0;Breath; all 0 after this.
EmitterState: [None];[None];0;0

I have the camera start near the bow guard and when I walk around the one corner and look where guard 611 spawned from, I still see a breathspout floating where he spawned from.

You're saying change Intensity Slope to 2? I just tried that.

What if I also put a Source on Garrett as well? I think he has something to do with this mess in the first place, because as I said before, when doing game mode backup it showed Garrett was the "HostObj" of the random breathspout that was getting created. Don't really know what that means though. Firer was the existing breathspout.

LarryG on 11/7/2013 at 19:07

No, not a slope of 2. You need a slope less than 1. How much less than one depends on the distance you want to use to trigger the change. I'm saying the distance will probably need to be greater than 2 because the properly attached position is probably about 2 units away from the guard's centroid, maybe more. You can test intensities by using just a marker instead of the breathspout, and changing the response to be frob object with some two switches to be frobbed, one for disable and one for enable. The switches don't have to be hooked up to anything. That way, as you move the marker away from the stationary guard, you can see which switch flips.

And, no, don't mess with Garrett. The only way that he is involved is that when the guard is out of sight and far away, the attached breathspout doesn't move with him. That's all that G is involved in this.

Remove the TweqEmit script on the disabled one. So add Scripts: all blank with don't inherit checked. No script no emit.

sNeaksieGarrett on 11/7/2013 at 20:41

Still not working. To be honest, I don't really understand what's going on here. Didn't we already set it up at a good distance so that if it's within 200 units of the guard it won't emit? I'm not seeing that happen. I still get the random breathspout. I will note however that I don't ever seem to notice it up close to Garrett, only from a distance.

Also, perhaps it is a problem that the BreathSpoutDis is a sub-archetype of BreathSpout? I removed the Tweq>Emit from it, but wouldn't it just inherit the Emit from it's parent? There's no "don't inherit" option on this property. (And yes, I did add the blank Scripts box with Don't Inherit.) Maybe I need to create the BreathSpoutDis somewhere else in the hiearchy.

LarryG on 12/7/2013 at 01:16

Forget about the breathspout for a minute.

Put a visible marker at the guard's mouth.
Two Receptrons on it for, BreathStim.
First Receptron has 0 min intensity, 7.50 max intensity; Effect:frob object; Target = some switch you can see
Second receptron has 7.51 min intensity, 15 max intensity; Effect:frob object; Target = some other switch you can see

Go into game mode, which switch gets frobbed? it should be the second.

Move the marker about a foot away from the guard's mouth. Which switch gets frobbed? If it isn't the first, play around with the intensity slope on the guard until it is.

This is what you are doing:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]1740[/ATTACH]

sNeaksieGarrett on 12/7/2013 at 14:32

I tried this, but the levers didn't get frobbed at all. Looks like the guard's Source isn't interacting with the Marker with the receptrons. I put it by his face, even scaled the marker.

LarryG on 12/7/2013 at 15:59

So that's your problem to solve. Something about your setup is wrong, intensities, radius, slope, something. I'll try and set up a demo mission that works for you to copy. Give me a day.

LarryG on 12/7/2013 at 19:55

OK. The problem is that an AI can't be a source. Who knew? (Actually I now remember reading that somewhere.) In any event, here is a spiffy test mission for you to play around with stim settings to see what works best. Some odd things happen due to the radius setting, so I cut it down to 20 units. My theory is that an AI can't get more than 20 units away from the breathspout in half a second, so it should shut off the emitter before then. Anyhow, play with your settings to tune it the way you like.

[ATTACH]1741[/ATTACH]

sNeaksieGarrett on 12/7/2013 at 20:29

Thank you!

Ah, that explains it. I thought I was just too stupid to set it up, but it turns out the AIs just flat out can't do it.

Edit:

Okay, so I noticed you have Receptrons on the guard now instead of how I had receptrons on the breathspout itself, and you have a source on a marker. In my actual mission, would I do the same, except substitute the marker for his actual breathspout then?