Checkpoints and Trigger Conditions?

[pjw]

I've always thought of checkpoints as being similar to save points in that you can always restart at a checkpoint without losing any progress that happened before you reached that checkpoint.

If your track has 10 checkpoints, and you restart at the fifth one, you don't have to go through CPs 1-4 again.

Up until tonight, I was operating under the assumption that MT triggers respected and worked with this system. In other words, if I have a trigger A at the beginning of the track between CPs 1 and 2, and I hit that trigger, and then hit CP 2 afterward, I expected that if I restart at CP2, then trigger A will still be flagged as triggered.

Apparently I am wrong (or just missing something?), since it seems like if you EVER respawn at a CP, all MT triggers in the track are immediately cleared (treated as if none of them have been hit).

That really, really sucks.

I have been working on a gigantic track with various "gates" (example: you can't go through this area that's filled with poison gas until you find the valve in the other part of the track that shuts off the gas, which the "death" trigger checks for, and if you've shut off the gas, then you're safe).

Apparently if the player shuts off the gas, goes through a CP, and then respawns at that CP, the gas shut-off trigger is flagged as untouched again, even though the "save point" (checkpoint) happened afterwards?

Please tell me I'm missing something. I see the "Global Clip" flag, which sounds like something that might fix this, but it seems that you can only flag one clip with it, and then all it does is make that clip active in a replay instead of in-game? Or something?

I realize I'm an idiot for not checking this before putting tons of work into a track, but it never even crossed my mind that Nadeo might implement a trigger system, with built-in dependencies, and then make all those dependencies get zeroed-out when the player respawns--that's just so incredibly backward and counter intuitive that it blows my mind.

That would basically mean that if you want trigger dependency to work properly, you'd always have to have dependent triggers right next to one another? And hope the player doesn't respawn for some reason?

I HAVE to be missing something...

[Golo]

unfortunately what you say is true and actually surprised me as well ( afaik this was not the case in TM1, correct me if Im wrong)
Only solution I see is to mark simply every cp afterwards witht that mt clip until you reach that gas area again (in your example). Of course that might be a problem if you have already differenct mt clips at the following cps, then you can just place them near each other if thats possible.

Im no mt expert, so lets hear what others say but I had the same issue and couldnt find any other possibility.

Edit: Ok I tried and it worked for me with that button next to the normal "mark/trigger" button (is that the global clip thing?). Also ingame for me...
but it seems to be true you can just do it once. At least I couldnt figure out a way to use it more often.
If that would be true that would be incredibly stupid by nadeo so hopefulyy there is a method but I dont see it.

[pjw]

Hmmn. Weird. The global clip didn't work at all for me. This button (with the red square around it), yes?



I had some onscreen text attached to it, and all it did was disable the text in-game and then played it during the replay?

If you were able to make it work (make that trigger "remembered" after respawn) could you upload a test map so I could look at it?

I don't remember if this happened in original TM, only because I never tried to do anything very complicated or anything that used any sort of dependencies; the rpg mod is what got me all excited about this.

Extra triggers around the CPs is a good idea...but the problem is that the original trigger does stuff that I don't want to repeat. I guess I'd have to set up double triggers in such a way that you can't hit one without hitting the other, and then just duplicate the "silent" one on top of all possible checkpoints...

...but even that wouldn't work. My track has a large central area that the player returns to multiple times, so the checkpoints would have to have triggers for multiple clip groups, and even if I do concentric circle triggers around each CP in question, the problem is that when the player respawns at CPs in that central area, there's no way to know what triggers he has or hasn't activated yet, outside of that central area.

IOW, he returns multiple times to the central area and might or might not hit that central CP the first time through.

Thanks for the response! I hope there's some solution to this.

It seems like there's basically NO way to do an rpg track that's anything other than perfectly linear, unless you don't have any conditions at all and just make the whole thing one big exploration, which...yeah...I was hoping to do more than that. Bleh.

Edit: Okay, after thinking about things for a while, I think I can make things work with a combination of:
1) removing checkpoints from the central area
2) adding a couple of CPs to certain sections, and making those sections one-way (removing ability to go back instead of through/around)
3) adding double-ring triggers around CPs heading back into the central area from one conditional switch (and making that route one-way)
and
4) some fairly heavy track redesign in a couple of spots to avoid lane-hopping/backtracking.

I'd still argue that this is the hands-down dumbest implementation of conditional triggers that I've ever seen in a game. There's no reason to make progressive, persistent CPs and not make triggers work the same way. :dash:

[gugaruz]

I can agree with you both as an addicationally own opinion

After the "cp respawn"the mt before is deleted in all kinds of operation, you can put for the trigger

And the mt in tm2 stadium is still the same as in tm1, just a little bit differences, but the main concept is completely the same

Btw:
I already have an testing mt-concept-map created with an and logic of 3 ways and there you can set some parameter and see what will happen. I can send you this test as a request. It's an easy one, so everyone can build it on your on

And this with the global button:
I don't understand this too

This what i know about mt and the other things are talked already

[Golo]

Hmmn. Weird. The global clip didn't work at all for me. This button (with the red square around it), yes?

yes thats what I meant.

I had some onscreen text attached to it, and all it did was disable the text in-game and then played it during the replay?

If you were able to make it work (make that trigger "remembered" after respawn) could you upload a test map so I could look at it?

I made a test map here:
'http://tm.mania-exchange.com/s/tr/57760'


Now the map wont show any mt ingame because the global trigger is active,
if you disable it you will notice that the text will be activated after respawning because hte trigger "forgot"

but I have to admit that it didnt work immediately for me either its a bit strange to work with... and still the problem that you can use it just once as it seems.

Edit: Okay, I realized now that its true what you said, it simply disables the trigger forever... so I thought it works but that wasnt really the case... so Ive no idea whats the use of it actually

Extra triggers around the CPs is a good idea...but the problem is that the original trigger does stuff that I don't want to repeat. I guess I'd have to set up double triggers in such a way that you can't hit one without hitting the other, and then just duplicate the "silent" one on top of all possible checkpoints...

yeah, youd definitely have to split triggers and plac the silent one (just for conditions) before the one with other effects.

..but even that wouldn't work. My track has a large central area that the player returns to multiple times, so the checkpoints would have to have triggers for multiple clip groups, and even if I do concentric circle triggers around each CP in question, the problem is that when the player respawns at CPs in that central area, there's no way to know what triggers he has or hasn't activated yet, outside of that central area.

IOW, he returns multiple times to the central area and might or might not hit that central CP the first time through.

ok, thats a bit hard to imagine for me without knowing the track. If you want to you can send me the map and Ill have a look. But well, I can imagine this method causes problems on tracks with more complex routes, Ill have to see first...

Edit: Okay, after thinking about things for a while, I think I can make things work with a combination of:
1) removing checkpoints from the central area
2) adding a couple of CPs to certain sections, and making those sections one-way (removing ability to go back instead of through/around)
3) adding double-ring triggers around CPs heading back into the central area from one conditional switch (and making that route one-way)
and
4) some fairly heavy track redesign in a couple of spots to avoid lane-hopping/backtracking.

well that would be indeed some heavy redesign so maybe wait first if theres another solution.

[pjw]

well that would be indeed some heavy redesign so maybe wait first if theres another solution.

I'll probably get started on it...I'm not going to rely on another solution...but I'll save it off as a new track first, so I can always go back to the old one if I wish.

Btw:
I already have an testing mt-concept-map created with an and logic of 3 ways and there you can set some parameter and see what will happen. I can send you this test as a request. It's an easy one, so everyone can build it on your on

I'm curious to see what you have done. Do you have a d/l link? Or else just send it to pjw -at- pjwnex.us? Thank you!