Spawn Times Revisited

[GrimGriz]

I'm trying to figure out how to get spawn times somewhere close to where I want them, and it seems fairly confusing. The gamerules seem capable of editing respawnwave time, and cp's can modify respawn time. That terminology leads me to believe those are separate variables...and in particular that respawnwave time is a variable used in calculating player respawn and that the cp modifier is applied after the end of the calculation.

Can anyone confirm if they are separate variables, and if so they behave the way I think they do...or let me know what's going on?

Like a good boy I searched the forums for "spawn time" and all I really found were links to this page: http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/TF2/Modifying_the_Respawn_Time

I have to think that it used to have other information...because all I'm seeing when I go there is:

Editing Spawn Times

To start off you'll need a tf_gamerules in the map. It doesn't matter it's exact location, but just to your convenience. This is the entity that controls most of how the gameplay mode in your map plays out.

Note: If you already have one of these, you won't need to place a second one!

Theres a few ways that you edit spawn times based on a Goal. Here are a few of the ways:

Capture Area

Based on a capture area, much like a Control Point, you can then edit the spawn time based on a team capturing a control point.

which doesn't really tell me anything ...and the links to the gamerules shows you what fields to edit, but doesn't indicate default values or even what range of numbers is appropriate.

The capture area is more clear, but it'd be helpful to know how things are working in order to make accurate adjustments.

 

[Acegikmo]

If you set the wave time to 8 seconds, you will spawn within 8 to 16 seconds.
So if you want an average respawn time of 9 seconds, divide it by 1.5 to get the wave time.

9/1.5 = 6 seconds wave time, ranging from 6 seconds to 12 seconds.


The minimum spawntime is the same as the wavetime.
The maximum spawntime is wavetime * 2.
The average spawntime is wavetime * 1.5.

A table for you; the first value is the wavetime you set, which is the minimum spawntime.

Minimum | Average | Maximum
2|3|4
3|4.5|6
4|6|8
6|9|12
8|12|16
10|15|20
12|18|24

 

[Icarus]

The respawn modifyers for control points adjusts the respawnwavetime, just as if you changed tf_gamerules

Valve uses a default respawnwave time of 10 (20 secs in game on full server), and they never go above it.

The shortest respawnwavetime they have is 2 (4 secs in game on full server), used in Dustbowl for BLU

... Unless you count Steel, which in some cases have waves up to 12 or as low as 0.

http://tf2wiki.net/wiki/Respawn_Times