Mapping Q&A

[Bad King Urgrain]

Trouble in Terrorist Town mapping guide

Ask questions about mapping in this thread.

[Bad King Urgrain]

FAQ:

Q: An entity (e.g. a func_brush) that I parented to another entity disappears upon round restart!

A: When the map resets, interesting things happen. Check the Valve dev wiki information on CS:S round restarts. To summarize: some entities get reset, some do not, and parenting one type to the other type will not work. TTT has some stuff that tries to work around this problem by unparenting entities like func_brush before the map resets, and then re-parenting them afterwards, but this is not flawless.

Therefore, as the wiki suggests, try using logic_measure_movement instead where possible.

[Notary]

I made a door that can be opened when a traitor is standing by it while if there are only innocents around it will be locked. Every second a logic timer fires a CheckForTraitor output for ttt_traitor_check that has limited area by the door.

Everything works allright but sooner or later players will figure out this: they may all stand around the door and try opening it and figure out who is the traitor, or just ask everyone to try to open it while standing away from it (not pressing use would not work, door plays a locked sound that I can't remove).

Any ideas how to make it non-exploitable?

[Bad King Urgrain]

Perhaps link it to something that the player must do, that no one can verify. Like a button that has no visible "I was pressed" effect. Then people could ask a traitor to try opening the door, but he could simply pretend he pressed his use key while not doing so. The button/usable thing could even be the door itself, like how dm_richland has secret doors you need to use to open.

An alternative, uglier way would be an airlock type thing that only one player can enter, so no one can observe whether the traitor did or did not open the door. This is problematic however, as people will try to jump in and stuff.

[Notary]

The button way is almost perfect. I can make a tiny ttt_traitor_check in front of it so only one person could be in its "line of sight". However, there are two problems, perhaps you could do something with them:

1) Whenever you press "e" on any entity it produces short beep sound and other players can hear that too, so you can't pretend you press the button.
2) If a button has a name a crowbar can be used to press it. Unnamed buttons are not affected by crowbar.

[Bad King Urgrain]

1) There's a sound even if you successfully used the entity? I know there's a "use failed" beep thing, but I've never noticed it beeping when just pressing a button that has no sound setup. Of course I don't see people using buttons all the time in TTT so it might be there. I'll take a look, though it's likely to be hardcoded.

Workaround would be a dummy button right next to it that doesn't do anything, so you could press that instead and for all intents and purposes look like you pressed a button (because you did). Slightly confusing when first encountering the door as traitor though.

2) True. I'll disable that in the next version for maps that have crowbar button unlocking disabled in map_settings.


edit:
There does not appear to be any way to disable use sounds.

[ibor10]

I was trying to figure out a way to do this in one of my maps, i havent tested it yet but maybe if you had 2 buttons for the door (1 filtered for innocents, 1 filtered for traitors). the innocent button wouldnt do anything (i.e. the button always being locked) and make the traitor button lock when innocents get too close to the button. That way it wouldnt matter if your 'use' made a sound because the button will always seem locked around innocents. Acually the innocent but isnt necessary.. lol idk just an idea

[Tyrant T100]

1) There's a sound even if you successfully used the entity? I know there's a "use failed" beep thing, but I've never noticed it beeping when just pressing a button that has no sound setup. Of course I don't see people using buttons all the time in TTT so it might be there. I'll take a look, though it's likely to be hardcoded.

Workaround would be a dummy button right next to it that doesn't do anything, so you could press that instead and for all intents and purposes look like you pressed a button (because you did). Slightly confusing when first encountering the door as traitor though.

2) True. I'll disable that in the next version for maps that have crowbar button unlocking disabled in map_settings.


edit:
There does not appear to be any way to disable use sounds.

The sounds are chosen in hammer for buttons, I generally have a different locked and unlocked acceptance sound for buttons but both can be set as the same sound or even off if that's preferred.

[Citizen_001]

edit:
There does not appear to be any way to disable use sounds.

Any way to replace the use sounds with a blank sound file?

[Notary]

Putting buttons that do not do anything around the actual button works perfect, it plays a sound and there's no way to figure out what button was pressed - fake or actual one.

[Bad King Urgrain]

Any way to replace the use sounds with a blank sound file?

Not from my side: it would disable the sound for all of gmod. You might be able to do it by packing the sound file into the bsp. I don't know which file it is though.

[ibor10]

Putting buttons that do not do anything around the actual button works perfect, it plays a sound and there's no way to figure out what button was pressed - fake or actual one.

:D

[FF|NedStar]

Is it possible to filter traitors from innocents as an enemy filter for npc's?
I've been thinking of using a ttt_traitor_check and parent it to the npc and make it do something once the actual traitor is detected. But that will still make it go for innocents as well.

[Citizen_001]

Traitor check trigger is not working for me, I test it and it just won't send the output. It is set up EXACTLY the same as the reference map yet it does not work.

It also won't work on Notary's map which I know is functional. Anything you do to the server to make it actually work so I can test it?

Yes I am loading it with "terrortown" specified.

[FF|NedStar]

It works by default. By the sound of it, even proper working TTT maps aren't working? Assuming you didn't try to recompile them, I'd say its a problem with your gmod.
This is going to sound stupid, but have you got the latest TTT version?

[Bad King Urgrain]

Is it possible to filter traitors from innocents as an enemy filter for npc's?
I've been thinking of using a ttt_traitor_check and parent it to the npc and make it do something once the actual traitor is detected. But that will still make it go for innocents as well.

This would require a special filter_enemy it looks like. The documentation of that entity on the VDC is not very extensive. I don't think I'll work on such an entity anytime soon, as its use seems limited, and I would have to reimplement filter_enemy to do it (because I can't just add a little bit of code to an existing entity).

Traitor check trigger is not working for me, I test it and it just won't send the output. It is set up EXACTLY the same as the reference map yet it does not work.

It also won't work on Notary's map which I know is functional. Anything you do to the server to make it actually work so I can test it?

Yes I am loading it with "terrortown" specified.

Are you spawned as terrorist when you test it (ie. you have the health/ammo HUD rather than the spectator one)?

[FF|NedStar]

This would require a special filter_enemy it looks like. The documentation of that entity on the VDC is not very extensive. I don't think I'll work on such an entity anytime soon, as its use seems limited, and I would have to reimplement filter_enemy to do it (because I can't just add a little bit of code to an existing entity).

Thanks, I'll just try a ttt_traitor_check parented to a npc to get a somewhat similar effect.

[Citizen_001]

Are you spawned as terrorist when you test it (ie. you have the health/ammo HUD rather than the spectator one)?

Yes, I got that all set up, but I figured out the problem. Apparently the player either needs to be 100% inside of the trigger rather than just touching it or the player's origin is at their feet and it registers based on whether that is inside of it since my trigger did not go all the way down to the floor and rather had a small 8 in. space between the floor and the bottom of the trigger.

[FF|NedStar]

Ooh damn that could proof to be an issue with what I got in mind for my npc's. Thanks for the heads up.

[Bad King Urgrain]

That is correct, a player's origin (as in, what Source consider's the player's "position") is at their feet. I could modify it to also check the player's centre, hopefully that won't break some of the more precise setups people have made.