A few confusing things about Valve's MvM setups

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Toomai

L3: Member
Apr 14, 2011
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I perused the decompiled MvM maps recently and noticed some stuff I find confusing.
  • Mannhattan has a large trigger_hurt that does 0 damage above the grinder. What's its purpose?
  • Most of the deathpits are filled with four triggers (in this order): func_flagdetectionzone, func_respawnflag, trigger_hurt (1,000,000dmg), and trigger_multiple (!activator.SetHealth(0)). The purpose of the first three are self-evident, but why the fourth one?
  • Why do all the bombpit explosions use !activator.SetHealth(-1000) instead of a trigger_hurt?
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
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816
[*]Mannhattan has a large trigger_hurt that does 0 damage above the grinder. What's its purpose?
Its to autocollect the money that falls into it. - to note, the barrier in rottenburg also has one on it.
[*]Most of the deathpits are filled with four triggers (in this order): func_flagdetectionzone, func_respawnflag, trigger_hurt (1,000,000dmg), and trigger_multiple (!activator.SetHealth(0)). The purpose of the first three are self-evident, but why the fourth one?
Not all players and enemies have the same activators on how they die. The trigger hurt for example could still allow dead ringers to get through (although the spy in the case of 1m damage would need like 100k hp), thats why its on top. The trigger then ensures a death. And just as crash said, it still kills ubered players.
 

Toomai

L3: Member
Apr 14, 2011
129
144
Okay so any money that falls into a trigger_hurt is auto-collected, and they decided to leverage that instead of making a new entity.

I'm not sold on the "SetHealth kills people that trigger_hurt can't" though. As koth_nucleus demonstrates, even 1000 damage will kill an übered player if it's fall damage (I think crush/telefrag/saw/etc damage does this too), and even though it might not kill a Dead Ringer instantly it still doesn't take more than a second. As a stylistic choice to kill übers when the bomb explodes without making the explosion one of these damage types? Okay. As a requirement to ensure things die when they fall in a pit? I'm not seeing it.
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
Valve being valve as usual. Move along, nothing more to see here.
 

PyroDevil

L3: Member
Sep 19, 2014
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141
Why do all the bombpit explosions use !activator.SetHealth(-1000) instead of a trigger_hurt?
That's pretty much all explosions. Even the payload maps use it for the finale. Could be because the trigger sends the ragdoll flying farther. at least that is what I noticed.
for the mine pit one, there also is the possibility that if a bot is in a trigger_hurt the may not be collected. On my mvm map, there were a few times that the train killed the bots but didn't add the cash.
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
That's pretty much all explosions. Even the payload maps use it for the finale. Could be because the trigger sends the ragdoll flying farther. at least that is what I noticed.
They use a magnet for that effect.
for the mine pit one, there also is the possibility that if a bot is in a trigger_hurt the may not be collected. On my mvm map, there were a few times that the train killed the bots but didn't add the cash.
That could be because the money that gets dropped never hitted the trigger. And that could be because the money might have to hit the ground before being collected.
 

Snowbat

L4: Comfortable Member
Apr 23, 2013
165
74
Just to note: that trigger_hurt thing above the grinder is also used for the tank-tunnel in Rottenburg. If the tank gets destroyed before it can leave the tunnel, the cash gets collected thanks to that trigger_hurt.
Just an FYI in case you wanted to make such a tank cave too.