Catwalk Style Maps

[Maes]

scifista42 said:

Then, as I said, there will (always) be the problem that the player might trigger it without falling down, dying unfairly.

It really depends on what the rules are for falling down -e.g. is it enough that just the player's center crosses a ledge, or must his entire "diameter" (32 units, and it's actually a 32x32 square, not a circle) move past it?

Depending on that, the "magic distance" would be anything from 16 to 31-33 units. But it you place it so that a player who barely falls is "caught", the "fall" will not be very different from a walk teleportation, and if you place it further away you can always fall down harmlessly.

Of course, you could simply make the floor damaging AND add one or more death linedefs, justifying it by saying that if you fall slowly, you break your legs and die slowly in agony, while if you land further away you crash at a speed and break your neck instantly, while if you land slowly and walk towards the insta-death linedef your battered body is torn apart by the stress :-)

[scifista42]

Maes said:

It really depends on what the rules are for falling down -e.g. is it enough that just the player's center crosses a ledge, or must his entire "diameter" (32 units, and it's actually a 32x32 square, not a circle) move past it?

The latter is true, of course.

Maes said:

But it you place it so that a player who barely falls is "caught", the "fall" will not be very different from a walk teleportation, and if you place it further away you can always fall down harmlessly.

Still, the theoretical "best distance" will inevitably be error-prone for at least one (or both) possible extreme scenarios: The first scenario being that the player falls off the ledge while staying close to it, without triggering the line. And the second scenario being that the player will walk off the ledge and trigger the line, but quickly steps back up and doesn't fall, but the fatal line will already be triggered.

Maes said:

Of course, you could simply make the floor damaging AND add one or more death linedefs, justifying it by saying that if you fall slowly, you break your legs and die slowly in agony, while if you land further away you crash at a speed and break your neck instantly, while if you land slowly and walk towards the insta-death linedef your battered body is torn apart by the stress :-)

Alright, that might work. :P

[LogicDeLuxe]

Face23785 said:

Then I tried making the fall extreeeeeeeeemely long, so no matter how slow you walked off, your momentum would carry you into the line and trigger the trap no matter what.

If you're mapping for vanilla, that is a bad idea since very high sectors are error prone and are likely to crash the game.
And if you're not mapping for vanilla, just script the events you need.

[Devalaous]

Icar2015 has one.

EDIT: What the hell 40oz, no mention of The Catwalk from the Master Levels? :p

[The_MártonJános]

I have never quite tried this kind of mapstyle, or if so, only partially.
Nevertheless, I love attempting novelties, sooooooo... oh, it isn't a task. Never mind, I'll make it that to me.

[Shadow Hog]

All I know is that I hate The Chasm, but rather like Anti-Christ, The Final Frontier and The Living End. It's an interesting style of map that doesn't get much attention (probably because of The Chasm's bad rap)...

[Face23785]

scifista42 said:

Alright, that might work. :P

It would work as long as the player doesn't know anything about physics. While your horizontal velocity can affect how long it takes you to fall, you'll still experience 9.8 m/s^2 (or the gravity constant in Doom, which as I recall is different) acceleration down and hit the bottom about the same speed.

[Maes]

Well, let's pretend that falling close to the wall, means Doomguy actually tries to claw etc. at it in order to slow his descent down. Gimme some suspension of disbelief, dammit!