[VinsaneOne]

I have a floor sector that lowers upon activation creating a deep hole where I want an access card to be found. In Mapster,
I've lowered the floor almost to the bottom. I have placed an access card and lowered it below the floor surface to where the floor actually lowers to. Then I raise the floor back up to it's original hight, leaving the card at the bottom. All looks good in Mapster, I save and quit.

Now I test the map and there's the card, above the floor! How do I keep that card hidden until the floor has been dropped? Everything else works just fine such as the re spawn 'R' sprites which activate when the floor hits bottom, and the SE 31 sprite that tells the sector how far down the floor drops, also stays put at the bottom. I'm running out of hair!

Hope I explained this all correctly so someone can give a little input here.
You guys never failed me yet! Thanks......

[Micky C]

I think sprites such as the keycard automatically "fall" to the ground as soon as they see the player. Why not have a time delayed spawn that creates the keycard when the platform is at or near the bottom?

[Jimmy]

I think that access cards automatically 'drop' to whatever floor level is. In this case it ruins your effect. What you can do is lower everything, then make a really really tiny sector around the access card that stays down. Then pull the other sector up.

EDIT:
Micky beat me, but I'm not sure the RESPAWN works on access cards, but I never tried it.

[Micky C]

I don't see why it wouldn't work on access cards, it works on health and ammo pickups. I think your idea of making a tiny sector is probably easier then setting up delayed respawns anyway.

[VinsaneOne]

Thanks guys. I thought of the re spawn of the card too, but then how do you set a pallet color like red (21) to a tile number? Then again, I'm already using the blue card and can change that one to red and use the blue one here.
But that tiny sector sounds very doable. And it will work just fine because when this floor sinks, I left some smaller, sloped sectors still standing at different heights as a result of a quake. In fact, the tiny sector can be quite big but just small enough so the player can't get in it.
Nice, nice idea!! Thanks again!
BTW, this map is going to completely blow away my first one. Getting help like this solves hrs of frustration and gets people that are kinda new to mapping like me to continue. Truthfully, I'm loving this shit and I can't wait to finish it.

[Micky C]

Give the respawn sprite a pal and that pal will be given to the sprite that's being spawned.

Heh I remember asking for help for all sorts of things hen I started out mapping a few years ago. One example is where I gave a long winded explanation asking why my cycloid emperor couldn't move around. Some guy just came along and said "give the sectors a lotag of 3". The problem with learning to map is that there are all sorts of little exceptions to the rules you need to figure out. However, these exceptions are also part of the reason why effects are so flexible and you can do neat tricks with them, so it pays off in the end

I actually tried starting out mapping about 2 years before I actually did, and made a few rooms, but when I put enemies in the maps, they wouldn't do anything in the game, so I got frustrated and gave up. Turns out I wasn't picking the enemy tiles with the code attached (they're the ones with the names). D'oh. I wish I contacted a forum back then. I'm sure other mappers have similar stories.

[Hendricks266]

Micky C, on 03 October 2012 - 10:57 PM, said:

Give the respawn sprite a pal and that pal will be given to the sprite that's being spawned.

Unfortunately, no. The level designers made the game maps with this in mind but the game source does not propagate a RESPAWN's pal to its target. Duke Plus will set the pal.
What you could do is hide the keycard behind a door in an alcove which opens only when you need it triggered.

[Micky C]

I remember doing it for minibosses at least and it worked, I don't think I was using DukePlus at the time.

[VinsaneOne]

The mini sector idea works like a charm! In fact, it's located next to a lift that gets you out of the deep hole. The mini sector holding the card isn't quite all the way down so you have to get on the lift, do a quick jump, grab the card and quickly leap back on the lift. It added a fun little challenge to it as well. Thanks for all the help....you won't be forgotten!