[TUTORIAL] Rollback (and forward) zones on hud!

[Eviltechie]

I have discovered valve's trick to making the rollback and roll forward zones appear on your hud.

If you check the developer wiki on path_track, you will notice the flags section.

* 1 : Disabled
* 2 : Fire once
* 4 : Branch Reverse
* 8 : Disable train
* 16 : Teleport to THIS path track

If you open up hammer, and check the flags section, you will notice an additional flag called Rollback zone on HUD (Payload Race). This flag's value is 32. What they don't tell you is that an additional value exists, one that makes the cart roll forward. This value is 64. You will have to set this flag manually in your vmf. Just search for your relevant path_track and change the number yourself.

The one bug that I know of right now is that you are limited to five of these zones, which sucks for me because I want seven.

Happy Mapping!

Note: This does not actually make the cart roll forward or back, you have to do that some other way, which I don't know of.

 

[Terr]

This may or may not be something that ABS has in his FGD updates, but it could certainly be fixed in the FGD so that you have a GUI tickbox.

 

[Reece202]

The one bug that I know of right now is that you are limited to five of these zones, which sucks for me because I want seven.

I have a couple of questions about this:

1. Is it 5 path_track entities or 5 contigous sections. I think I've had about 10 path_tracks strung together without issue but I'm not sure

2. it's it 5 sections per .bsp or can it be 5 per stage on a multi-stage pl map?

 

[lana]

This may or may not be something that ABS has in his FGD updates, but it could certainly be fixed in the FGD so that you have a GUI tickbox.

I am 95% certain this is included.

 

[Mick-a-nator]

I have a couple of questions about this:

1. Is it 5 path_track entities or 5 contigous sections. I think I've had about 10 path_tracks strung together without issue but I'm not sure

2. it's it 5 sections per .bsp or can it be 5 per stage on a multi-stage pl map?

I believe it is 5 roll-back/forward sections per map.

 

[Reece202]

Well, I did a little bit of research and found something interesting.

pl_thundermountain has the following "Auto Cart Movement Zones" as I call them:

Stage 1:
Roll Forward: 1
Roll Backwards: 2

Stage 2:
Roll Forward: 1
Roll Backwards: 0

Stage 3:
Roll Forward: 0
Roll Backwards: 5

This comes out to 9 rf/rb zones. Either the "5 zones per map" is wrong, or Valve uses some system to flag and deflag the path_tracks so that there is only a max of 5 at one time.

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

The flags used to say rollback zone - now they say part of uphill or downhill thing

it used to be so easy - check flags on two path tracks anf there's your rollback zone now you have to code it.

Perhaps soemone could add into this tut the coding for it.

 

[Boylee]

The flags used to say rollback zone - now they say part of uphill or downhill thing

it used to be so easy - check flags on two path tracks anf there's your rollback zone now you have to code it.

Perhaps soemone could add into this tut the coding for it.

Wait are you telling me that all the rollback zones in my map will no longer work?

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

I think so. It used to be so easy - select two nodes - check the rollback zone and bang - rollback enabled on the hud and in the game - or at least it worked perfectly for me that way in my maps. Now they've changed it to part of uphill downhill path and it seems to be broken and I'm having to recode it but it's giving me no end of headaches.

 

[Pocket]

Wait, but then... are custom payload maps all broken now?

 

[Kill_the_Bug]

No, which is the frustrating part - I just check another of my release maps (was working brilliantly before MvM) now the cart is flying around like a spastic type of kite when I hit a ramp.

I don't know what it is. When looking for rollback zones in maps I found that there aren't a whole lot out there so I can't say what it is either.

 

[henke37]

Just decompile an official map and see how it is done there? You'd think they'd notice if they broken their own stuff.