Payload elevators, what I know so far (a guide, of sorts)

[Boylee]

Sorry for the triple post, thought I should continue to hijack Fr0z3n's thread.
I still don't know what on earth was causing the lifts to break but I've rebuilt everything again from scratch and I have them working fine in a prefab environment now at least. Reason I'm posting is I thought I would see if anyone wants me to upload the prefab.

 

[grazr]

Not sure how it's taken you guys 5 pages to figure this out. It pretty much just involves.

A func_door.
2-3 path tracks set to lock train movement to their angle orientation so it doesn't look up or down.
Disable/enable the trains capture area.
Set train acc-dir to ~1 so that it moves itself and then disable it at the second path track. Give it a delay of a few secs if you want the cart to roll out of a hut or off a tiny platform that can't hold any players.

There's absolutely no need to join the train and the elevator.

The only time consuming bit is syncing the train speed with the door speed as the acceleration variable for automated train movement isn't on the same scale as the door speed (which is inches). But i got it after 2-3 tries.

 

[tyler]

I guess it took 5 pages because you didn't come in to explain it before that?

 

[grazr]

If it's just the payload it's a matter of simply matching the speed of the payload with the elevator and firing them to move at the same time. No real need to parent it or the elevator to each other.

Take a look at sdk_pl_goldrush in your sdk_content/tf/maps folder and you can see that it's just a matter of putting one path track vertically rather than horizontally. The carts go down little elevators at the end of the first 2 rounds.

Because i thought i had on page 2. Looks like i was just remembering something i said 3 years ago.

 

[CaretCaret]

What booj told me to do for that is if you have single stage payload (not race) then you just set the watcher(s) of the elevator(s) to red.

Yeay! now my elevator thingy is working just as I want it!

 

[LeSwordfish]

Also, Grazr, a lot of perople want carts that move up lifts hightower-style, so only when players are moving them.

You could augument grazr's method with a trigger that changes the speed of the cart and door when players step into it or leave it, but the number of cappers would not appear on the HUD.

It MIGHT be possible to leave the trigger_capture_area enabled, to read the players and output it to the HUD, but we're now inflating the complexity again. Not to mention that matching the (IO controlled) elevator's speed with the (team_train_watcher automatically controlled) cart's speed would be fiddly.

TLR You might be able to manually replicate the cart's movement with inputs and outputs to move the elevator alongside it.

 

[Boylee]

Grazr, that isn't really what I've been trying to achieve. Like LeSwordfish said mine need people on them to move them and they recede with people off them.

I actually had a version of the logic working with the both the trigger area of the cart and the elevator simultaneously active. It didn't really provide any benefits though, and required that your trigger areas were identical in size and position.

Here's the prefab that I built last night using ABS's base logic and setup as a template: pl_lift_prefab.7z
It works well in the prefab, now I just need to transfer it to my map. Note that I have the points on the elevators as it nicely exaplains why the cart can't roll back of the elevator (which AFAIK noone has managed yet).

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

Ok, I need two elevators on this map and am now thoroughly confused after reading this post so I thought I would ask just a couple of different questions before I blow my brains out tonight on this when I get home.

It looks like I might need to use both of your set-ups Frozen/Mob's and Graz's

Elevator # 1 - is basically to be automatic functioning - Grazar's
Cart goes to point A - push zone disabled - elevator takes cart down mineshaft (point B)- gate closes - cart travels to point b, my payload changes from the empty to the full payload model - comes back to point C - gate opens and then the payload comes back up the elevator(this could be 2 different elevators named differently for easier set up) to point d where the pushzone gets re-enabled. This sounds like the on Grazar was walking about a single func_door type and a cart following paths. Is this correct? If you are just needing a basic lift with no player intervention then do it this way.

Elevator # 2 - Player Controled Capture area - Frozen/Mob's set up
This where I'm getting a little confused - can the capture zone be placed anywhere? i.e behind a wal with a window in it and can the lift go up or down and I'm not getting or understanding the concept of where this happens along the cart path. For example - let's say I'm using booj's sspl map as a test map and I want the lift between the 2nd and the third point - am I inserting all the extra stuff in there (new path_tracks) and then if I need or wanted to do a third elevator then I just duplicate the entites and then change some of the coding over?

Am I getting/understanding it right?