Everybody keeps dying - help

[chebman]

No matter how many player starts I put on my map, all the bots and me keep dying as soon as we respawn.

What should I do about this??

[Wamplet]

i think you need to rebuild the whole map.

i mean hit the button that recompiles the whole thing.

(make sure it is set to compile everything, not just lighting and geometry, but AI and pathing, etc.)

[Thriller]

Hehe, I did that misstake far to many times making maps for Unreal.
"WTF? this should work damnit"

[NutWrench]

Is everyone respawning at the same PlayerStart?

[LeJimster]

heehe, yea i remember making a map and forgetting to press build. It was nice and detailed.. but all the bots would just drop through the floor and die images/icons/grin.gif

[Wamplet]

Yeah, actually i did that just by adding a Flak Cannon. images/icons/blush.gif I figured I only had to build if lighting, playerstarts, or BSP/meshes were changed. graemlins/doh.gif

[Daedalus]

Like the others said: this is a typical effect when you haven't done a full rebuild after you changed s.th. in your map.

And even if it are minor changes like adding or moving a playerstart you HAVE to rebuild each time or else your map gets f**ked up. Especially playerstarts, pathnodes, patrol, navigation and interpolation points are very important and must be rebuilt each time, because the engine has to create the nodes for actors to navigate the map correctly and to know where to respawn. It can sometimes happen that an actor tries to respawn at an old playerstart which doesn't exist at that location anymore, because it was moved. Then the actor respawns in null space and so he dies, because the engine gets confused. Same with human players.

The only case where you don't need to do a full rebuild is when you add/remove or modify lighting only, because the lighting works seperate and independent.

And also make sure that you have more than 1 playerstart in a multiplayer map! The absolute minimum are 2-3 playerstarts. 4 playerstarts will mostly work, but best are more than 4.

[ 08-03-2003, 10:58 AM: Message edited by: Daedalus ]

[Wamplet]

I'm curious.

How does the Unreal Engine handle respawning? Does it do a check to see if someone is existingin the current spawn area, then move to the next to check if it's "free?" images/icons/confused.gif


I haven't really tested it out, although i would wager it would at the very least be random.

[Daedalus]

Originally posted by Wamplet:
How does the Unreal Engine handle respawning? Does it do a check to see if someone is existingin the current spawn area, then move to the next to check if it's "free?"<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The engine isn't that smart. When it recieves the command to respawn a player or bot then it just counts all the available playerstarts and picks one randomly.

So the less playerstarts you have in a map the more likely it is that two players or bots will telefrag each other, especially bots.

BUT adding lots of playerstars doesn't always solve the problem, because the bug will happen whenever one of the following conditions is met:

Condition 1: Two players respawn at the very same playerstart at the very same time. Not very likely when you have more than 1 playerstart and human players only.

Condition 2: A player respawns at a playerstart and doesn't move, just keeps standing and camping there like a dumb. Then another player respawns at the same playerstart and both players telefrag each other, because both occupy the same place. Not very likely when players are involved, because players tend to move immediatley after they respawn, especially in fast-paced deathmatch games. But likely when bots are involved, because bots tend to keep standing right where they respawn if they don't find any pathnodes to move to.

To avoid condition 2 when playing with bots you should add pathnodes to your map for the bots to navigate or else the bots will not move when they respawn and always cause a telefrag when another bot or player respawns at their location, regardless of how many playerstarts you put in your map.

[ 08-04-2003, 04:43 PM: Message edited by: Daedalus ]

[Daedalus]

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention:

To avoid condition 2 you can also do the following thing... put ammo or a weapon in the near of all your playerstarts. This will make sure that bots will move away from their playerstart when they respawn.

But ATTENTION! If you don't have any pathnodes then the bot will return to the playerstart location after he picked up the ammo or weapon. So the bot will then again be a potential condition 2 candidate.

So always put both near playerstars, goodies and pathnodes to make those dumb bots move out the respawn areas at all times! images/icons/smile.gif

There's only one rule to solve the problem: Move along immediately after you respawn! And make all players and bots follow this rule without exception!

[ 08-04-2003, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: Daedalus ]

[Wamplet]

Cool, thanks for the info man. I figured it was more than likely random.

My maps do a good job avoiding that problem.