FindEntity Not WOrking

[Darsithis]

I'm trying to set up a simple thing: when you kill both patrols in the room, the door at the end opens. I've tried about 6 different ways to do it.

First, I have a timer that is deactivated. This timer, when activated, runs a script every minute. This script has been many variations on:

Code: Select all

function CheckOperatingRoomClear()

	if findEntity("operatingRoomPatrol1") == nil and findEntity("operatingRoomPatrol2") == nil then
		operatingRoomExitDoor:open()
		operatingRoomTimer:deactivate()
	end
end

Code: Select all

function CheckOperatingRoomClear()

	if not findEntity("operatingRoomPatrol1") and not findEntity("operatingRoomPatrol2") then
		operatingRoomExitDoor:open()
		operatingRoomTimer:deactivate()
	end
end

Along with a few other tries.

I've also tried a custom monster that hooks into onDie to decrement a counter. That fails as well. So my question is, what can I do to accomplish this, and, is this all failing because I use "K" to kill the monsters (I'm testing a high level room with level 1 debug party).

[Darsithis]

Actually it appears that the skeleton_patrol type cannot be found via findEntity. This all works correctly if I use anything that isn't a patrol.

AH, fix it!

[Allanius2]

I haven't much experience with lua or Grimrock mods, but is it possible that the monsters continue to exist even if dead? Maybe you need to check for their deaths like this:

Code: Select all

if findEntity("operatingRoomPatrol1").dead and findEntity("operatingRoomPatrol2").dead then
      operatingRoomExitDoor:open()
      operatingRoomTimer:deactivate()
   end
end

Sorry I can't be of more help in that department. What I really wanted to share with you is for testing your mods with a higher leveled party. Komag has a great Grimrock remake mod http://www.nexusmods.com/grimrock/mods/230/? in which he has setup different parties to test with. Just download and check the "lua" entry in the upper left hand corner of level 1. I hope this helps.

[Darsithis]

I haven't much experience with lua or Grimrock mods, but is it possible that the monsters continue to exist even if dead? Maybe you need to check for their deaths like this:

Code: Select all

if findEntity("operatingRoomPatrol1").dead and findEntity("operatingRoomPatrol2").dead then
      operatingRoomExitDoor:open()
      operatingRoomTimer:deactivate()
   end
end

Sorry I can't be of more help in that department. What I really wanted to share with you is for testing your mods with a higher leveled party. Komag has a great Grimrock remake mod http://www.nexusmods.com/grimrock/mods/230/? in which he has setup different parties to test with. Just download and check the "lua" entry in the upper left hand corner of level 1. I hope this helps.

Well what I did to discover the bug is I added print(findEntity("operatingRoomPatrol1")) and found that returns nil at all times although finding a single skeleton's entity worked just fine. It wasn't a matter of them dying and remaining - the game considered them not to exist from the start. The moment the plate triggered my timer, the gate would open, every time.

It works now that I replaced the two patrol with 8 individual skeletons. But I will check out the Grimrock remake (which I played through!) and see what I can find.

[minmay]

Groups of multiple monsters do not retain their id when the level is played. Each monster in the group is its own entity, and regardless of the id you gave the group, each monster will be created with numerical id like you get from e.g. using "spawn("snail")". If you need to refer to a monster in a group you'll have to find it by some other means and get the id from that.

[msyblade]

You may be able to clone another skeleton, put those into a patrol, and add an OnDie hook to open the door.

[Darsithis]

Groups of multiple monsters do not retain their id when the level is played. Each monster in the group is its own entity, and regardless of the id you gave the group, each monster will be created with numerical id like you get from e.g. using "spawn("snail")". If you need to refer to a monster in a group you'll have to find it by some other means and get the id from that.

Good to know - let's say I create a skeleton patrol I called operatingRoomPatrol1. Would each one be, perhaps "operatingRoomPatrol1_1", "operatingRoomPatrol1_2" and so on?

[minmay]

Groups of multiple monsters do not retain their id when the level is played. Each monster in the group is its own entity, and regardless of the id you gave the group, each monster will be created with numerical id like you get from e.g. using "spawn("snail")". If you need to refer to a monster in a group you'll have to find it by some other means and get the id from that.

Good to know - let's say I create a skeleton patrol I called operatingRoomPatrol1. Would each one be, perhaps "operatingRoomPatrol1_1", "operatingRoomPatrol1_2" and so on?

No, they would be "37" and "38" and "39" and "40" or perhaps "5281" and "5282" and "5283" and "5284" or something similar.

[Allanius2]

Would there be a way to get those id from a collection entity such as "party.getChampion(1)"?

[Leki]

There is nothing like patrol in entities, as you can see here: http://www.grimrock.net/modding/asset-d ... reference/
Patrol is only some kind of tricky monster group manager. Try for example to write script like: for each entities in cell, if monster, setPosition to x+1, y+1. It will split the patrol into 4 skeletons, each in one cell, but they will move all in the same way. There in one "leading" monster, who has AI and collision (you can go through 3 of them freely now) and rest of the group are only puppets, until the lead monster dies etc. So no, you cannot work with patrol. It's only some kind of hack.
If you wanna open the door, when patrol is dead, you can do it in many ways. Without clone monsters and let me say easiest way is:
- you can add monster blocker in front of room with patrol and doors, to keep patrol of monsters in area (and monsters from dungeon out of the room
- on entrance into room add invisible once party trigger plate and start that one, or two or three sec timer
- timer will run script each sec or two or three, depends how intense interval you want
- in script just set local m = 4, theh do entitiesAt(level, x, y) over all cells in room (make array for x and y, where cells can be defined)
- if entity.class = "Monster", local m = m - 1
- after cell loop do if m = 0 open door and deactivate timer, else m = 4
But depends what you want to achieve and how complex your room is etc.