[Boom] Scrolling teleporter fails consistently

[ViolentBeetle]

Here's some teleport closets. The monsters are scrolling to the right, where they pass through a portal. If they fail to arrive, they get to the next green line which has action 244 and tag matching the line to the left. It always worked for me, but now it does not - and monsters successfully scroll past that line and into the right end.

What I could possibly be missing here?

 

It appears the problem goes away if i add some distance between monsters, but it's not exactly convinient. There has to be something I'm missing about scrollers.

Edited April 16, 2021 by ViolentBeetle

[Aurelius]

 I'm assuming it has to do with the monsters being too close to each other and essentially blocking each other from teleporting. Is there a specific reason you're scrolling them over the teleport line and not having them walk over it? If you can activate them beforehand by having the player shoot something, you can use a much simpler closet setup where they just walk over the lines. Something like this works nicely:

 

Spoiler

Block monster flags on the 2-sided linedefs inbetween the rows, a small dummy sector joined to the rest of the map in the corner for remota activation and four teleport lines per row acting as a buffer so the monsters have time to get out of the way. The snug fit prevents random perpendicular movement, and these closets should empty quite efficiently.

 

If however you absolutely need to scroll them over into action, just make a separate closet for each row and give them a little bit more space. The gaps between individual monsters teleporting shouldn't be too big. And of course funneling them through as many teleport destinations as there are rows significantly increases the speed and efficiency at which the closet empties.

[ViolentBeetle]

2 hours ago, Aurelius said:

 I'm assuming it has to do with the monsters being too close to each other and essentially blocking each other from teleporting. Is there a specific reason you're scrolling them over the teleport line and not having them walk over it? If you can activate them beforehand by having the player shoot something, you can use a much simpler closet setup where they just walk over the lines. Something like this works nicely:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Block monster flags on the 2-sided linedefs inbetween the rows, a small dummy sector joined to the rest of the map in the corner for remota activation and four teleport lines per row acting as a buffer so the monsters have time to get out of the way. The snug fit prevents random perpendicular movement, and these closets should empty quite efficiently.

 

If however you absolutely need to scroll them over into action, just make a separate closet for each row and give them a little bit more space. The gaps between individual monsters teleporting shouldn't be too big. And of course funneling them through as many teleport destinations as there are rows significantly increases the speed and efficiency at which the closet empties.

The main advantage of scroller is that I can scroll them in in an ambush state. I can also put them in rows and not worry about them bumping into one another and running off or builder deciding to split the sectors. Or at least I thought I could until today. Hence I am asking why is it they seem to not pass through the line retaining their formation.

[Nine Inch Heels]

You need to have several layers of spaced apart "loops" that teleport monsters back to the supposed start of the conveyor, otherwise this setup will never work reliably...

 

You scroll monsters in ambush state, so until the monster has a line of sight on the player, it will stay put and block the teleport destination, so there's your first problem already... Second problem is what Aurelius pointed out, either you need to space the monsters apart in the conveyor, or you need to provide a backup plan, for example working a teleport loop into the conveyor...

 

Alternatively, you could use something like action 247 and use an off-map crusher as a control sector.... The way this works is that when the ceiling lowers or raises, the floor in the conveyor will move backwards and forwards... All you need from there on out is appropriately spaced teleport lines, and the closet will always empty itself reliably if you build it properly...

 

One hastily constructed example: autoloop.zip

...press the switch and see what happens...
You can add more teleport lines, or split some to speed up the process, but this should get the idea across, even if the example is ramshackle..

A word of warning though... Don't use things like this for scrolling massive amounts of monsters... think like hundreds or thousands, it may cause the gamesim to stutter regardless of sourceport....

Edited April 17, 2021 by Nine Inch Heels