how to make an intruder alarm for invade ctf?

[Boylee]

Ok so I've been working on chicane for some time now and I'm thinking that invade is going to need something special to make it universally understood. Psy's excellent prefab is definitely a step in the right direction but I was thinking it would be nice to add something to it.

Basically I'd like to add a two tier alarm system to the team bases. Here's what I'd like it to do:

sound an alarm when an enemy enters your base with the intel (probably an announcer sound)
sound a second alarm and enable rotating lights when they reach a point further into the base
have any alarms and associated effects stop when the intel is dropped
have an alarm re-sound and any associated effects start when intel is picked up by an enemy in your base
have any alarms etc stop when the intel is capped


My best guess would be some big trigger_multiples for each alarm area, but I have no idea how to do the intel checks.

Any help is much appreciated and will be fully reimbursed with spider drawings. :)

[A Boojum Snark]

func_flag_alert, if you're going to have constant alarms you'll probably need it to enable some relays that the flag drop fires to turn it off, and stuff.

[grazr]

I would have suggested alarms like the old TFC vox alert. Constant alarms would be annoying as hell.

Until Valve fully support this game variant we'll have difficulty providing the subtle hints players need such as correct announcer cue's. As it stands we only have the Set*TeamGoalString I/O.

But as with any map players need to learn it before they can fully interact with it. I guess you could call it the "steel" affect.

[Boylee]

There's a pretty good set of announcer sounds somewhere on the forums here already. They're just edits of the originals with words removed to make them non team specific.

I wasn't thinking of having continual alarms, I was thinking of using the "intruder alert!" from the meet the spy video sound once per area and rotating lights in the deeper parts of the base.

Thanks for the heads up about func_flag_alert Booj, I didn't know that existed. I'll have a look at it tomorrow and see if I can work something out.
EDIT: just searched for func_flag_alert on the VDC and there's no hits. :facepalm:

One more thing for now, how would one make rotating lights, since func_rotating isn't working in TF2?

[alecom]

func_door_rotating
distance 36000000

[A Boojum Snark]

I'd just use the payload light particle, that's what I did in Traingrid for my built-in-sentry warning thing.

[grazr]

Yea, particle effects should be appropriate.

Alternatively, meeting your question more directly, you could use momentary_rot_button for rotary objects, see:


http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=1728 for reference.

[Exist]

On the same question, rotating lights are impossible in TF2, as the Light_Dynamic entity is disabled. So the only way to achive the effect would be particles

[Dr Forrester]

Light_dynamic is disabled? that's news to me...

[Boylee]

OK I've taken a look at func_flag_alert and it looks like it'll do the job. One query: func_flag_alert has OnTriggeredByTeam1 and OnTriggeredByTeam2 ouputs, but no untriggered outputs. If I trigger a relay that starts the lights rotating and sounds an alarm how will I stop the lights rotating?

EDIT: I just tried this out and it totally failed. I had the momentary_rot_buttons set up as described here (http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=4107), made them locked onSpawn by a logic_auto and set them to be unlocked by the func_flag_alerts when they were triggered. Nothing happened at all.

EDITEDIT: Spyder drawing as promised. :lol:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1766697/images/spyder.jpg

[Boylee]

OK I think I may have nailed it. :D

I've managed to get the m_r_b's rotating when you enter the func_flag_alert with the intel. I'm guessing the next step is to set the flag entity (or it's associates) to fire commands to lock and unlock the m_r_b onDrop and onCapture right?

[A Boojum Snark]

Yes, my point about the relay was that OnDrop triggers the relay, but it should start disabled, the f_f_a enables it. You might also have to place another f_f_a on the "outside" for disabling it if the flag leaves the area by being carried.

[Boylee]

Thanks a ton Booj it's all working and will see release in the next version of chicane.

I can release a prefab once I've ironed out the creases if anyone's interested.