Trouble with teleporting monsters from a conveyor belt

[Pegleg]

I'm making a map in Boom format. I'm using Doom 2, only stock textures and stock monsters. I'm mapping with Eureka. I'm having a problem with monsters on a conveyor belt not teleporting like I want them to.

 

I have several conveyor belts that are tagged as type 253, so the belts are moving from the beginning of the level. I control the scrolling of the monsters on the belts by putting up small walls that are lowered by hitting switches throughout the level. The switches are hidden behind other switches (set to pass thru). This all works. The walls lower, the monsters scroll forward, the world is happy. There are multiple monsters on each belt, ranging from 1 to 10. And this part works well, regardless of how many monsters I put on the conveyor belt.

 

The problem arises when I have more than 1 monster on the belt and I try to have them teleport by crossing a teleport line near the end of the belt. 1 monster on the belt teleports just fine. But add a second monster (or more) and sometimes they teleport at the line and sometimes they pass right through the line. To add to the confusion, if I have two teleport lines on the same belt, they may pass through the first line (in the middle of the belt) and teleport at the second line (near the end of the belt). But this isn't always the case either. When they do teleport, everything works fine; they go where they're supposed to. When they don't teleport, they just stack up and I have a few dozen monsters not actually in play.

 

Except that I have teleport lines on these conveyor belts and when the monsters reach these teleport lines, they sometimes teleport and they sometimes don't (they just pass right through the teleport line. When the monsters do teleport, that works fine; they end up just where they're supposed to go. But when they don't teleport, I end up with a few dozen monsters that don't make it into play and are stuck hanging out in 

 

I have tried tag 126 (standard Doom WR Teleport /monsters) and tag 269 (Boom WR Teleport /monsters) in case that was the problem. The behavior is the same.

 

I tried changing the timing of when the monsters reached the teleport lines, in case there was a problem with monsters teleporting at the same time. That didn't solve the problem.

 

I added several teleport lines one behind the other (separated by 16 units in this case), in case there was something odd going on with monsters not triggering a teleport line. The problem remained.

 

I have tried this in GZDoom, ZDoom, and PrBoom+. I get the same problem in all 3 ports.

 

A conveyor belt that only has 1 monster on it works fine. I would prefer not to have to make dozens of smaller conveyor belts if I can help it. Is there something that I am doing wrong or something that I am missing? Any help would be appreciated.

Edited March 30, 2018 by Pegleg
Retype part for clarity and explanation.

[traversd]

If the teleport destination is blocked (possibly by the 1st monster that teleported) the next monster(s) wont be able to teleport.

 

1 option is to use a teleport line at the end of the conveyor to send any monsters that missed the required "teleport into play area" line to keep on looping until they can teleport.

 

Another option is multiple "teleport into play area" lines along the conveyor with different, spread out, teleport destinations.

[Empyre]

Make those several teleports you have 16 units apart have a different teleport destination for each one.

 

Or, make a traditional teleport monster closet with diagonal teleport lines, a bit like this really crude ASCII drawing.

 

  /\

 /  \

|    |

|    |

-----

[Pegleg]

@traversd, @Empyre Thank you both. Those are good suggestions. Now that I think about it, the area they would teleporting into can be rather congested. I had initially wondered about monsters telefragging each other, but now I now that just won't teleport in.

 

Thank you for the suggestions!

[therektafire]

I generally don't use conveyor belts and just stick to normal monster teleport closets but I learned pretty early on to both A) put TP lines on both sides of the initial blocking wall to increase the likelihood of the enemies teleporting in and B) optionally dividing the closets into multiple areas with different sizes and destinations based on monster type corralled off by monster block lines so they have less room to move around and are of course more likely to teleport since they are walking across the teleport lines more often (and have more free spots to teleport to). If I were to make a conveyor belt I would probably just put a high speed loop point at the end with each corner having a teleport line and a different destination for each line to disperse the monsters more evenly which would make cloggage much less likely

[bonnie]

7 hours ago, Pegleg said:

I had initially wondered about monsters telefragging each other, but now I now that just won't teleport in.

super good fun fact: monsters can only telefrag each other on map30

c:

[Nine Inch Heels]

8 hours ago, Pegleg said:

Thank you both. Those are good suggestions. Now that I think about it, the area they would teleporting into can be rather congested. I had initially wondered about monsters telefragging each other, but now I now that just won't teleport in.

Best way to teleport monsters into potentially crowded areas reliably is by making sure they're not on a conveyor, and actually waking them up so that they can cross their respective teleport linedefs at the desired time on their own (join sectors for sound propagation, and block the linedef/s until you want them on the field, done).

Scrolling monsters into a teleport linedef is only ever really feasible for smaller quantities, and in areas that you know are going to allow the teleport at all times to begin with. Anything else might require "patchworking" in terms of like teleporting monsters from the end of the conveyor back to the start so they can cycle through until the "jump" can be made. Not worth the effort in most cases, however.

EDIT: Also flyers can't be scrolled like other monsters, if I'm not entirely mistaken.

EDIT2: If your monsters are supposed to teleport to the same destination, there's basically a recipe for disaster, because as soon as the first one warps, the destination is blocked until the monster has moved a bit anyway, so the second monster can't warp, obviously.

 

EDIT3: If you want to scroll monsters into teleports it's also a good idea to scroll them at a speed below that monsters own actual movementspeed because that helps with having the destination available again for the next one, assuming you have several monsters of the same type that will target the same destination, for that matter. It will still require back up plans (looping the conveyor), because it still won't be 100% reliable.

Edited March 31, 2018 by Nine Inch Heels

[Cynical]

3 hours ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

EDIT: Also flyers can't be scrolled like other monsters, if I'm not entirely mistaken.

Source port dependent.  Pr+ Complevel 9, they do; ZDoom based ports require you to use the wind currents effects.

[Grain of Salt]

4 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Source port dependent.  Pr+ Complevel 9, they do; ZDoom based ports require you to use the wind currents effects.

 

No, you can't scroll flying monsters in cl9 without making them "underwater".

[Cynical]

Just now, Grain of Salt said:

 

No, you can't scroll flying monsters in cl9 without making them "underwater".

Huh.  I thought I had remembered that being a thing when Drown Stone was first released, that it only worked in cl9 because Lupinx used Cacos and Lost Souls on conveyors, and the Secret Santa thread seems to back me up, but I guess I was wrong?

[Grain of Salt]

8 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Huh.  I thought I had remembered that being a thing when Drown Stone was first released, that it only worked in cl9 because Lupinx used Cacos and Lost Souls on conveyors, and the Secret Santa thread seems to back me up, but I guess I was wrong?

 

caco conveyor.zip

 

I know at least that when I run this in prb+ complevel 9, the imp moves and the flying monsters don't.

 

Edit: btw I'm quoting to maintain chronology in this topsy turvy world of question/answer threads.

Edited March 31, 2018 by Grain of Salt