Alternative to "Not present" End Trigger?

[ocnick]

After reading some mission reviews, I noticed how displeased people are when they notice the "Not Present" End Trigger in a mission, calling it the infamous trigger and such.  What is the recommended way to end a mission?

[LCD]

qoute from tomb ;D

you could COUNT the # of enemy units at the base,
and when a certain number is left alive, the trigger could fire.


EAST CountSide ThisList <=5

or alike...

That way ya don't have to search the whole area, even though you HAVE conquered the base, but a few hostile morons are still alive - calling for help maybe?

da countside thingy goes in da condition field ;D
da triger shud b activated by da side dat shud die
nd were dere east - put da side dat shud die ;D

LCD OUT

[Noon416]

I would still use the "Not Present" trigger, but just make sure its not covering the whole map.

From what I've seen, the bad uses of the "Not Present" trigger are when the trigger covers an insane amount of area (ie: the whole island), or includes large areas that aren't relevant to the objectives.

If you make the trigger cover only the objective-relevant area (town, base, etc) then...
1. You still force the player to be thorough
2. You do so without making them work unnecessarily hard
3. The objectives of completely taking an area remain valid

I would hate to have a mission that says "you have to storm this base .... and make sure you kill most of the guys there".

The danger with ending a mission with a set number remaining (ie: 5) is that if you're in a firefight, and you hit that lower limit with other enemies in sight, its going to feel like a bug instead of an intentional design.

Hope this helps.

[ocnick]

Thanks for the input guys!  The "Not Present" trigger in this case only covers the area of the enemy base, so would this be just as good as a trigger that counts # of enemy left?

[Noon416]

Personally, I would say thats perfectly alright.

There are no bases large enough to cause "one guy left" problems.

[Burn]

I just wanted to add one thing:
Assuming you have more than one objective...
make sure it's possible for the player to complete the different objectives in any order he\she wants. So that the mission don't end when you've cleared the base and still have 3 objectives left... in other words don't make that east\west not present trigger an end trigger. Instead make the end trigger activated by an variable that is set true when all the objectives are completed... or simply type in the end triggers condition field:
"1" objStatus "done" && "2" objStatus "done" && "3" objStatus "done"
(assuming u have 3 objectives)

[edit]Spelling errors ;D[/edit]

[ocnick]

Cool, thanks for the input  ;D, I just didn't want to be one of those people who did something the completely wrong way, lol.

[Sui]

I'd imagine you're talking about me in particular slamming "Not Present" triggers, huh? ;D

Don't get me wrong, they have their uses. The issue is when you have to take an unreasonable amount of time looking for the last guy...

How I like to do it is use a < 5 trigger (as LCD/Tomb suggested) but put in the onactivation field:

"_x allowfleeing 1" foreach thislist

or even

"_x domove (getpos somethingFARaway)" foreach thislist

which simulates the remaining guys running for their lives...

There are quite a few cunning alternatives to the "find the last guy hiding under the bush" scenario... ;D

[Tomb]

Personally, I would say thats perfectly alright.

There are no bases large enough to cause "one guy left" problems.

  why, you triggerhappy sonnuvab*&¤#%   ;D


============

  A short sidenote on them "NOT PRESENT" triggers:

ppl should be careful when there are tanks/apc's inside a trigger like that, as you risk to see a near-dead tank with living/wounded crew members inside   then the trigg won't fire!

off course there are ways around this - I just thought I'd stick it here now that we talk N.P. triggers
one way around is to kill (setDammage 1) any tank with a damage >0.95 or alike, or ya can "orderGetin false" all crew d00ds if their vehicle is heavily damaged ... etc.

[Alan34]

Another point to mention is that the not present trigger is not realistic as rarely in battle does one side wipe out the other.  One alternative I've used is to have an odd shaped (or quite small) not present trigger over the objective and once it is activated, the group's leader issues a sidechat ordering his soldiers to break off contact.  They could then fall back to an extraction point, under enemy fire, or move to a new objective.  Many variations possible with this.

[Noon416]

as rarely in battle does one side wipe out the other.

Very true .... but its also extremely rare (and a very poor tactical decision) for one side to fail to ensure that *every* opposing force unit is either dead, captured or withdrawn from the area that you are fighting to secure. (<- Tomby's point comes in here, as part of the final sweep, you would ensure that APC's etc are completely destroyed)


Which is where my suggestion came from that you cover only the applicable objective area.
Use a trigger big enough to cover the base and any overlooking terrain as well.

Anything less, you're asking for wasteful casualties in a potential counterattack situation (this still needs to be considered even if the mission doesn't include a counterattack, simply to add realism).

Hope this helps clarify my point.