Test drive my new spawn engine: SAND STORM

[XXon 31]

Mercy me. An amazing number of attempts later, here is an actual spawn engine. It is not graceful and errors pop up, but it's about the best I can do. There is also a loot engine, but it is quite clumsy. II think it takes waaaay to much work to make a functional game and it would be easier with some basic blocks. Spawn engine, loot engine, quest engine for a start. Class trainers, skill trees maybe.The end goal is for anyone to be able to use templates to make a multiplayer game with quests and enemies in an hour. I would love opinions and comments. 

Copy/paste 8 game logics, pick an enemy and you are done. You can easily adjust the spawn frequency, amount, and proximity,  and also adjust the random range of each. The rest is done for you, just place the three possible spawn points where you like. Enemies will cross distance to find you and if they cannot, they despawn.

Try my game, please. You can edit and poke around. I tried to make multiplayer possible, but I'm not sure how that will go. This engine evolved over the course of making the game, so the script at the end is better.

SAND STORM

[XXon 31]

[XXon 31]

Speculating about issues. blah blah

It becomes more obvious below.

Edited March 29, 2022 by XXon
typo

[Igor Q. 519]

@XXon

Hey Xxon, if you go to your steam folder and search for .ylands in the top right of your window, you can find all recent files you made on ylands.

It's easier if you take those files, compress them using WinRAR and share them on the forums. It's difficult and unlikely someone will try your script if you share it using a picture instead of a game file.

[XXon 31]

oh, I wasn't intending that, I was posting it more for the general engine idea or maybe a proofreading for dumb mistakes.  If I get to a finished product, I can make a logic composition, yes? That's what I was thinking.

[Igor Q. 519]

19 minutes ago, XXon said:

oh, I wasn't intending that, I was posting it more for the general engine idea or maybe a proofreading for dumb mistakes.  If I get to a finished product, I can make a logic composition, yes? That's what I was thinking.

Yes, that is another way of sharing the script.

The idea of spawning mobs is interesting, but I feel there should be more to it than just Spawn X monster every Y seconds.

[XXon 31]

I have an issue and I can replicate this issue. If you start the game, you can skip to part two, then to part three. That's the goatman area. Put the armor on grab the hammer and kill goatmen, but they are tough and you will die. Now you respawn, not far away. You kill a few goatmen but then it will happen. They will all gather around you in a circle and not attack. What is happening here? Try this and it will happen to you.

 

[XXon 31]

I put some guardian armor and a mythic sword, so you can skip to part three and be a tourist. Go all the way into the cave and just hang out. Funny things start to happen.

Notice that the mobs take turns hitting you. It would seem you can't get hit by two things at once? They all stay aggressive though, they just can't always attack. So if you kill some, the remaining ones attack.

Now die. I died funny one time and it didn't happen, but every other time when you respawn and kill the first few, they encircle you and stand there. That never happens without the respawn. Nothing special about the respawn, no script on it. So, what gives? You can recreate this effect all day.

PS. Spawn engines are complex. You want spawns in waves, with breaks in between to heal, but not a big group all in the same spot or always the same number, and it has to be adjustable for different uses. If you spawn too close to the player, they can gank it while before it wakes up, plus it looks way better to have it run across the map toward you.

I also found lots of restrictions on buildings, places that hang up enemies, like stairs and doorways. There are many rules to follow to get a good flow. They love ramps though, even really skinny ones, just not close to walls.

Edited March 29, 2022 by XXon

[Mello1223 591]

it would help if you shared other scripts if you want someone to help you find the bug

[XXon 31]

I made it so you can edit the game, I think. Here is another one, WIND STORM. (EDIT: Game Deleted) This took about 15 minutes to make, its a stock island I just copy pasted the spawn engine around and stuck some random enemies in. You still get the same effect as far as the circle of mobs around you, only one is allowed to attack. I wonder if, when the respawn happens, the one who's turn it is to smack you is missing or didn't get into the circle. So nothing hits you at all.

Edited March 30, 2022 by XXon

[XXon 31]

This is all the script there is to the engine.

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2022 by XXon

[XXon 31]

[Mello1223 591]

first bug. upon entering the zone you will spawn several opponents who will attack the player with the label. after exit zone you remove label from player.then opponents(mobs) don't know who is their oponent(player). but I see a bigger problem in that I don't understand what your script should do. I understand that after entering the zone, a timer will turn on, which at random intervals creates a random number of enemies at random places, for this you need 3 maybe 4 lines of script, but what should happen next?

 

[XXon 31]

Step into the trigger zone, get a label on you. I am using that label to target you for attack. I want this to be multiplayer, so I was targeting a random player within the trigger zone. Once you leave, the label comes off and they quit spawning. Overlapping trigger zones layer the effect. I was trying to spawn twice as many enemies for twice as many players, which I realize is a lot.

Step into the jungle, get attacked by tigers. Leave the jungle the tigers slowly stop. More players, more tigers. That's the idea. The rest of it is all about where and when the tigers spawn and that part works great. I will see if I can strip it down more and still generate the issue.

[XXon 31]

Of course, you were right. In stripping it down if I figured that out, it needs nested time triggers. I fixed that.

RAIN STORM

It works better now, still throws up the targeting error. If I make a global variable PLAYER and when a player spawns, it refers to him, does that work in multiplayer. I figured it would get overwritten by the next guy to join? I need a way to target attacks to the nearest player, really. That's what I have been using the labels for (which is why i get the error)

 

Edited March 30, 2022 by XXon

[XXon 31]

It seems random. They attack, you die, then they stand there.

[XXon 31]

I think I hit solid ground and it works, after stripping every last thing off. I will try to build it back up. I was worried it would never happen. I think I got it working.

 

Oh I got it. I think I found a bug.

To be continued under bugs....

 

Now I can make it work using Move to Target, not Attack Target, which seems bugged. Go play RAIN STORM and it will demonstrate the bug.

Now that it might actually work, let's say I want to target you (and your friends) once you hit the trigger zone. What is the best way to do that in multiplayer? I am trying to target you through the entity template. Is the global variable PLAYER a way to do this or does multiplayer mess that up. Different players will be in different trigger zones sometimes. That's what the labels were for but they throw errors once you leave the zone. Maybe the errors don't really matter?

Thanks

 

Edit: SAND STORM has been modified and now works without that problem. I replaced all of the Attack scripts with Move to Target script. Now it works correctly, in a relative way. The engine is still broken, as you pointed out. I will fix that soon. But at least the enemies continue to attack, even if only one a time, which is pretty lame. Perhaps once the engine is fixed it will do better, but I don't think that one-at-a-time thing is caused by my pathetic scripting. It happens in RAIN STORM, too, which is stripped down. Whatever the cause of it, it sucks. You can't make a good game if only one thing attacks you (as you stand encircled by enemies), can you?

 

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by XXon