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A few questions for those of you who know more than me about FPSC, which is probably everyone on here.

I was reading uman's thread about spawning entities on the fly. However in his tutorial he said that it wasn't really intended for characters. Is there a way to spwan enemies when the player is within a certain distance? I have played around with the plrwithn distances for some snipers i have in an "alley" level. I would like to avoid trigger zones to max my fps.

Also I obught the transparent room from the TGC store, My "alley" map is obviously outside. I have snipers set up on second floor balconies and the like. What I would like to know is I would like to use the transparent ceiling for the first floor ceiling( so it would be between the player and second floor snipers.) Is there a way to make the transparent segments destroyable? So the player can fire once destroy that portion of the ceiling thus allowing an unobstructed shot at the 2nd floor enemy.
I want to do this to again max my fps in an outdoor level.
I am sorry if I confused with this post.


S-second floor sniper
---------- Transparent ceiling
x-player

Point1: Yes, put a plrwithingdistance=x:activateifused or something in the main script for a nearby dynamic object, then put the snipers name in the if used box to activate them. Obviously the snipers need to be set to appear when activated.

Point2: Segments are not destroyable. An entity would be your best bet for that part.

I've not tested the first part so you might need to play around more it get it to work.

Thanks for the info. I am new to fpsc, would it be possible to get a sample of how this script would be written. I understand the concept of it just not sure where to put it in the main scriot. I notice a pretty good increase in fps when I use the transparent segments in that kind of situation. I am using a hp entertainment pc laptop. It runs test games ok but I only average about 12-20 fps once entities and the like are added. I have read that trigger zones can chew up a few fps so if Ican get rid ot the zones hopefully that will give me a few more fps. At this point I increase my players speed to copensate and it seems ok. I have used the wire frame mode in the test games but I don't quite understand what the wire frame colors mean.

I'm in a similar situation, my desktop hasn't been updated in years.

Try this, put it as a light's main script ( you'll see main script when you right click on the light) :

Then put the sniper characters name into the ''ifused'' field.


Set the sniper to ''spawn at start:no'' and then fill in the spawning options, namely number to spawn, max at anytime (there may be one more).
If lights don't have an ifused field, put that last line onto any dynamic entity's main script.



I don't think segments will work as they don't have any kind of scripts attached to them. I understand you're trying to use them as windows but a low-poly entity will work just as well.

forgive my ignorance. If i have what your saying correct. This script will spawn the enemy when the player is within 5 segments of the light, a segment being a 100. I also wonder if killing an enemy then having another spawn say behind the player, so the player has to move to a differentcovered firing position would enhance the gameplay. I would think that would save fps as well.

So again forgive my ignorance using the script you provided. I could spawn the first enemy with the light in a particular room or section of my map, then I could use the death of that entity to spawn another and so on.

That seems possible....... right?

To have one spawn behind the player it would probably be easier just to incorporate the ifused command into enemy1's destroy script.

You should be able to do that yourself, just put ''activateifused'' onto one of the lines in it's destroy script (remember to save a backup of that script!) and enemy2's name into the ifused field.

There is no reason why you cant spawn and re-spawn enemies. i.e. Load and unload them.

When I originally started doing it I said it was not designed in my instance specifically for enemies as that was the case. I was more concerned with loading and unloading many of the detail entities and such in a level. Things like metal work, girders, staircases, barrels, crates and anything else one could conceivably move from being segments to entities especially in areas far away or out of sight of the player and only load them just before the player gets to see them. No point in them existing if they are not a necessity.

The original idea was to do this so that one could remove many of the unecessary polygons in a level that have nothing to do with the immediate visible scene in a situation where FPSC had the habit of drawing polygons of segments in particular which were completely at the opposite side of the level to where the player was. Added to that FPSC had the habit of drawing (or calculating)large numbers of world object polygons that should not even exist as far as we mere mortals would logically think - for example if one was close to the world boundary looking towards nothing in the opposite direction to the main level build - even when close up facing a wall with nothing else in the camera view FPSC would still calculate massive numbers of Polygons in the view, or when for example one would look at the level in wireframe mode one could view that FPSC was drawing polygons around corners, in rooms far away with no direct line of sight and as said even parts of a level completly at the opposite side of a level to where the play was situated which in theory and logically FPSC should not be drawing. The ploygon counts were simply and commpletely erratic.

All thats thats simply an unecessary evil. Thus in wireframe mode I was able to see many polygons some far away from the player being drawn that I could consider exhanging the objects segments that they were composed of and instead making entities for them and loading them and unloading them as and when they came into player view and were needed. This I could do for all kinds of things as said. I even did it so I could add things like an underground area where hundreds of entities were used to create a rock faced tunneled area and placed the entities on all four sides left, right, top and bottom. Despite what you might think these work perfectly and load and unload into correct placement to build the tunneled area. They fit and cover the walls of segments existing under them and are no more than detail shaped as I wanted it. This is as opposed to loading things like barrels which if you want them dynamic so you can push them around - being dynamic tend to kind of bounce around a bit when they load (spawn) and you can sometinmes hear their sound before you get to see them as they spawn and fall into place. As they are dynamic things like this cannot be guaranteed to load in the same place each time they spawn which is OK for such items and makes the levels more interesting each time you play it as you never know quite exactly where an item might be. To control this you can play with the physics settings if you have a mind for a lot of work and testing. Obviously the heavier they are then the less they are likely to bounce on spawning - or is it the other way around? cant remember off hand.

Anyway you can load and unload any Characters enemies or not if you wish too.

Having said that I have not with this as with many other things I once worked on in depth looked to updated any of it as FPSC has been far les stable than in the earlier days constantly being in some kind of development and never having the stability to make it worth progressing with such things. In order to be able to evaluate such things effectively one must have a constant and stable benchmark to work from and FPSC has never had that and is never likely to as far as I can see. Same goes for the AI I worked on. Currently as far as I can see the AI influenced by many other things is a mess and who knows how long any of it will be held in any one state for when each new update brings more issues and or bugs to contend with.

I am not even sure at the moment if the load and unload files I use or posted here work correctly in many instances because much of FPSC has been updated and changed for better or for worse and those changes will impact on many things which constantly need updating or re-adressing. From what I can tellthe files still work OK in the main but like many things FPSC they work for five minutes in one version and then not in another. Its a job to know whats its doing half of the time.

The AI is a very similar problem where characters often behave differently between versions and if you attempt to change things to the better often with no success along comes the next version where more or new issues crop up or they dont work again and you have to start again and go back to what you used previously.

In the current situation much like with this Shader issue which seems to have been introduced you never know whether or not all of your hard work could be wiped out as quick as you can blink.

Such instabilities are the killer of indie developers as by the nature of things they require a relatively long development period where they can be assured that they can apart from anything else they can rely upon stability and backwards compatibility so they can carry their work forward successfully almost indefinately and not have to lose their work and start again - as indefinately is about as long as it will take you to make that killer title I know you are thinking about.



Load and unload enemies Yes - go for it. Not sure that works correctly currently either as I have had all kinds of things not working and erratic behaviours in this latest 118 update series beta 10. I have three different kinds of AI in play and in test both standard and some custom versions. Vanilla, Dark AI and MP 53 and they all are unstable as opposed to previously the case.

Having said that they are by and large currently being tested in outdoor levels where terrains exist and at this moment in time these latest version of FPSC have also taken a dislike for my terrain too.

I have not yet downloaded beta 12 so cant comment on that. I guess I might as well give it a go as I really dont have much to lose and who knows it might just be an improvement.

Main things I look for are AI and fps. If you dont have a reasonably acceptable level of stability in fps and gameplay speeds then loading and unloading anything no matter how much of the world you apply that too - is not going to cut the ice for you. It just simply wont be enough to help or to justify the workload for the return. It has a cut of point and falls within the realms of the laws of diminishing returns. A balance has to be struck and within that balance you need to be able to build your game successully. You can work hard as hard as you like but you need a stable and helpful base to start from. You need to be able to build your basic game and keep 30fps constantly. Then you can start to optimise so you can save a little - (not a lot because you just wont have it) and add that icing on the cake and develop the game beyond the basics until you can do no more.