"Realistic" enemy spawning. prespawned enemys, memory load etc.

[Joben]

Donno if this is obvious but here goes.

I was reading in the SE forum a post by a guy who didnt get why the enemys
spawned in full view of the player. He thought it was 'unrealistic'.
Well a bunch of ppl including me nicely explaned to him that Sam isnt intended to
be realistic but it got me thinking.

The question "what if someone did want to make a 'realistic' map?" was raised.
It was pointed out that you can set enemys to be spawed at level load.
Someone ealse pointed out that in large numbers they would bog the game down.

Well here are my thoughts about a possible solution for getting "realistic" enemy apearance.

Simply set the spawn trigger out of sight of the place were the monsters apear.

Enemys can have their spawning started by a player picking something up
or walking oven a specific place right? then just put that trigger out of sight of
the place they spawn.
(So they would spawn as you walked down the hall to a room for example
instead of normal Sam style with them teleporting in while you were IN the room)

This would simulate nicely haveing "realistic" persitant enemys.
They would seem like they were in the world before you arived.
Of course you could have one of two prespawned in each group
so you could hear them growling as you got near.

Well hope that is useful to someone. :hat:

[DiEgo]

You don't even need to prespawn them in at the beginning of the level. Just place that enemy where ever they spawn in, without the template flag checked, and it should work fine.

ALSO: make sure the spawn effect flag is unchecked! That way it won't make that sound.

[pompey]

many games that claim and appear to be realistic have spawning enemies that spawn in out of sight.

[sh0dan]

@DieGo: Placing all enemies in the enemies on the map by hand is very inefficient, since enemy entities take up much more RAM. That will not only slow single player games down, but also multiplayer games, since all entity info has to be sent to the players when connecting.

1 template + 1 spawner is much, much less than 100 seperate entities.

[DiEgo]

No no no, not ALL the enemies at once, just one or two so you can hear them before you see them and 10000 rush out... it's kind of weird to have deathly quiet, then all of the sudden alot of enemies.

[Joben]

hey...cool to see that my idea wasnt totaly stupid even if it wasnt original :)

hehe its funny if you can manage to catch an enemy spawning in a realistic game.
I have seen Hybrids spawn in a little SS like flash of light while playing System Shock 2
its pretty rare, but ocasinaly you will see it.

Im not a mapper diego im not shure exactly what all you said meant but i assume its a way
to hear enemys are you aproch before any of them are actualy spawned?
what is a template flag?

[darkstar]

The "proper" way to do monsters in SS is to place a template ememy in a inaccesable room with all the settings the right way and use that as the target for a spawner. It takes alot less memory than placing enemy entities for each one in the map. especially when some levels have literally 1000 monsters,